:-;^'V::..:/ ii/ifllP!!|ifff/((ffff;"./« FRANCIS FOLGER FRANKLIN. f^- -w FRANKLIN AT TWENTY. PiUNTED IN LCNDOIT i? LIFE AI^D TIMES Off BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, BY JAMES PAETON, AUTHOR OP "LIFE AND TIMES OF AARON BURR," " L,IFB OF ANDREW JACKSON,' " GENERAL BUTLER IN NEW ORLEANS," ETC. "I will follow the right cause even to the stake: but without the stake if I can." — Montaigne. VOL. I. JTEW YOEK: xMASON BROTHERS, NO. 7 MERCER ST. Boston.: Mason & Hamlin; Philadelphia: J. B. Lippinoott & Co. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. LONDON: TRUBNER & CO., 60 PATERNOSTER ROW. 1864. ^a A Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, By mason BEOTHEES, In the ClerkV Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. C. A. ALVORI), 8TKRE0TYPKR AKD PRINTER. TO '^u$snt\ntUs, WITH HEARTFELT GRATITUDE VENEJiATION. ^4^S PREFACE In the year 1771, the sixty-fifth of Franklin's life, when he was spending some pleasant weeks of the summer at the coimtry house of his friend, the good Bishop of St. Asaphs, he began to write an account of his early life, in the form of a letter to his son, the Gov- ernor of N'ew Jersey. When he had written twenty-three sheets, which brought down the narrative to the time of his marriage, in his twenty-sixth year, his holiday ended, and he was drawn agaia into the whirlpool of politics. Thirteen years passed before he was able to continue the work. At Passy, in 1784, the independence of his country having been secured, he was urged by friends who had read or heard of the unfinished Autobiography, to go on with it. He wrote one more chapter at Passy. Resuming the narrative, four years later, at Philadelphia, he continued it to his fifty-first year, when he had arrived in England as agent for Pennsylvania. He had both leisure and strength to complete the work, but, as he approached the time of his more conspicuous public life, his modesty took the alarm, and he could not prevail upon himself to relate occurrences which, if they were related truly, would obHge him to present himself as the central figure in important public scenes. He ceased to write when he had just related his entrance upon the European part of his career. He sent a copy of what he had written to his old and valued friend, M. Le Veillard, of Passy, who, a year or two after the death of Franklin, permitted part of the manuscript to be translated into French and published in Paris. It was translated back into Eng- lish, and published in London in the year 1793, and continued to circulate in this form, in England and America, for twenty y«ars. This portion of the Autobiography was even retranslated into rr.i^FACE. French, and published ia one of the French editions of Dr. Frank- lin's works. The original manuscript, which remained in the family of M. Le Veillard, was an object of curiosity for several years. Sir Samuel Romilly, who was in Paris in 1802, was favored with a perusal of it. " Madame Gautier," he wrote in his diary, " pro- cured me the reading of the original manuscript of Dr. Fr.-mklin's Life. There are only two copies — this, and the one which Dr. F. took with a machine for copying letters, and which is in the pos- session of his grandson. Franklin gave the manuscript to M. Veillard, of Passy, who was guillotined during the revolution. Upon his death it came into the hands of his daughter or grand- daughter, Mdlle. Veillard, who is the present possessor of it. It appears evidently to be the first draught written by Franklin ; for, in a great many places, the word oiiginally written is erased with a pen, and a word nearly synonymous substituted in its place, not over the other, but further on ; so as manifestly to show that the correction was made at the time of the original composition. The manuscript contains a great many additions, made upon a very wide margin; but I did not find that a single passage was anywhere struck out. Part of the work, but not quite half of it, has been translated, into French, and from the French retranslated into EngUsh." Not until 181 7, when Dr. Franklin had been dead twenty-seven years, was his Autobiography given to the world in his own lan- guage and without abridgment. It was published, then, in the edition of his works edited by his grandson; who had delayed the issue, as it is supposed, from a regard to the interests of his aged father, a pensioner of the English government, who died in 1813. Of this fragment of Autobiography I have sometimes been im- jDudent enough to say, that it is the only piece of writing yet produced on the continent of America which is likely to be gen- erally known two centuries hence. One of the arguments urged by the friends of Franklin to over- come his reluctance to write the history of his public life was, that if he did not do it, some one else would. The publication of the Autobiography has had the efiect contemplated by these friends : it has hitherto deterred every one from attempting a biography of Dr. Franklin. Several gentlemen have essayed to complete Frank- lin's own work, by continuing the narrative from 1757 to the end PEEFACE. 7 of his life. But the whole story of his career, as it presents itself to the investigations of another^ remains to this day untold ; and one who would know it, in all its fullness of interest and beauty, — one who would see Franklin as others saw him, which is biography, — must read ten volumes and consult two hundred. Ill the composition of the present work, the Autobiography has been regarded only in the light of " material." Autobiography is one of the most interesting and valuable kinds of composition ; but autobiography can never be accepted in lieu of biography, because to no man is the giftie given of seeing himself as others see him. Rousseau's Confessions are a miracle of candor ; they reveal much concerning a certain weak, wander- ing, diseased, miserable, wicked Jean Jacques ; but of that marvel- ous Rousseau whose writings thrilled Europe, they contain how much ? Not one word. Madame D'Arblay's Diary relates a thou- sand pleasant things, but it does not tell us what manner of person Mndame D'Arblay was. Franklin's Autobiography gives agreeable information respecting a sagacious shopkeeper of Philadelphia, but has little to impart to us respecting the grand Frankhn, the world's Franklin, the philosopher, the statesman, the philanthropist. A man cannot reveal his best self, nor, unless he is a Rousseau, his worst. Perhaps, he never knows either. Dr. Franklin, moreover, assures us, that, as he wrote his Auto- biography for the instruction of youth, he omitted " all facts and transactions that may not have a tendency to benefit the young reader." The sources of information respecting Dr. Franklin and his career are so numerous that I have been obliged to omit the cata- logue of them, merely because I have not thirty pages to spare for the purpose. He appears, in some form, in almost all the leading books, periodicals, and transactions of his time ; and if we include the works which influenced him with the works which he influenced, it may be said that the entire literature of the last two hundred years must be exhausted before his complete biography can exist. Xew York now afibrds such easy access to the greater part of this literature, that, I trust, nothing very important or interesting has escaped my search. After all, however. Dr. Jared Sparks's excel- lent edition of the Life and Works of Franklin is the source of the greater part of all the information we possess respecting him. PREFACE. The most important addition which I have been able to make to our knowledge of Franklin is the pamphlet on Liberty and Neces- sity, written and printed by him in his nineteenth year, when he was a journeyman printer in London. The pamphlet is given en- tire as an appendix to this volume. The object of this biography is, simply, to render a knowledge of the benign and noble life of Dr. Franklin more accessible to his countrymen. Various circumstances have conspired to vail his great merits from the present generation. He is by some mis- understood and undervalued ; and some of the most remarkable events of his life are only known to those who have made it an object of special research. I have indulged the hope that these volumes may bring him home to the hearts of many who have been estranged from him, and render his wisdom and goodness more available as a means of influence upon the character of the Ameri- can people. 4 iCi , CONTENTS OF VOL I. ]P^RT I. CHAPTER I. vx&a Ancestors of Franklin 18 CHAPTER II. Franklin's father and mother 25 CHAPTER IIL Uncle Benjamin and his acrostics 82 CHAPTER IV. First books 44 CHAPTER V. Apprenticed 51 CHAPTER VI. He reads Shaftesbury and Collins 60 CHAPTER VII. The first sensation newspaper , 72 CHAPTER VIII. A runaAvay apprentice 96 CHAPTER IX. The stranger finds friends , 105 CHAPTER X. The perfidy of Sir William Keith 118 CHAPTER XI. Journeyman printer in London 128 CHAPTER XIL The voyage home 148 CHAPTER XIII. f The Junto 154 CHAPTER XIV. ^ Regeneration 167 :E* J^TIT II. CHAPTER I. The firm of Franklin and Meredith 181 CHAPTER II. He founds the library , . 197 CHAPTER III. Old Philadelphia 204 CHAPTER IV. Franklin as editor 218 CHAPTER V. Poor Richard, imd other publications 227 CHAPTER VI. Self-Education continued 240 CHAPTER VIL i^ The thriring and publio-spirited citizen 257 1* 10 CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER Yin. Electricity before Franklin 271 CHAPTER IX. Franklin and electricity 27T CHAPTER X. Other events about 1750 802 I> Jk R T III. CHAPTER I. The public lay hold of Franklin 825 CHAPTER II. The Seven Tears' "War 835 CHAPTER III. General Franklin takes the field 857 CHAPTER IV. The old dispute reaches a crisis 867 CHAPTER Y. To England 881 CHAPTER VI. In England again 888 CHAPTER VII. Result of the appeal to the King 408 CHAPTER VIII. Studies and publications in England 417 CHAPTER IX. Return to Philadelphia 429 CHAPTER X. A year of intestine commotion 486 I>^ R T I ^. CHAPTER L The Stamp Act passed 459 CHAPTER IL The Stamp Act repealed 467 CHAPTER III. Reaction after the repeal 483 CHAPTER IV. Official labors from 1,766 to 1773 492 ^ " CHAPTER V. Official labors continued 501 CHAPTER VI. Private life and studies 519 CHAPTER VII. Franklin's English friends 538 CHAPTER VIII. The Hutchinson letters 560 CHAPTER IX. The privy council outrage 582 APPENDIX. I. First proceedings against James Franklin 601 II. Franklin's pamphlet 604 III. The story of Franklin and his mother 618 IV. The Craven Street Gazette 622 V. Franklin and WhitefioM 626 PART I. APPRENTICESHIP TO LIFE. LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. CHAPTER I. ANCESTORS OP FRANKLUf. The ancestors of the two men who were most influential upon the early fortunes of the United States lived, for several genera- tions, in the same county, Northamptonshire, the central county of England. But though the two families lived within a few miles of each other, they were separated by a social interval that was impas- sable. Washington, as Mr. Irving, with such fond minuteness, re- lates, was of gentle lineage. Knights, abbots, lords of the manor, valiant defenders of cities and partakers of the spoils of conquest, bore the name of Washington, whose deeds and honors are recorded in ancient parchment, upon memorial brass and monumental stone. Franklin, on the contrary, came of a long line of village black- smiths. A Franklin may have tightened a rivet in the armor, or re- placed a shoe upon the horse, of a Washington, or doffed his cap to a Washington riding past the ancestral forge ; but, until Post- master Franklin met Colonel Washington in the camp of General Braddock, in 1755, the two races had run their several ways with- out communion. The Franklins lived at Ecton, a small parish on the great north- ern turnpike, sixty-six miles from London. The little village, we are told by one of its parish priests, lies upon a gentle, verdant slope, which overlooks an English rural paradise. A quarter of a mile from the village, in both directions, the turnpike becomes an avenue of venerable elms, which shade not the road only, but a wide grassy plain as well, that serves the villagers for promenade 14 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN EEANKLIN. and play-ground.* Picturesque glimpses of the tall tower of the ancient church are caught through the branches of the trees, and the village is gradually disclosed. Along this shaded road crept the huge eight-horse wains that were three weeks in going from London to Edinburgh, stopping at the shop of the village smith to have their wheels greased — a work which only the blacksmiths of the olden time were capable of performing, and which, as it had to be frequently repeated, was an important source of their income.f Persons still living remember the time when the inventions which enable a vehicle to go all day without stopping at the blacksmith's shop for that purpose, caused a general alarm in the trade. " The blacksmiths will all be ruined !" was the cry. But this was long after the Franklins had ceased to ply their hereditary vocation at the roadside in Ecton. In other particulars, the blacksmiths of two hundred years ago must have differed from those of the present time. Sheffield, Bir- mingham, and a few other manufacturing towns now make the greater part of the iron utensils used in the world. When the ancestors of Franklin wielded the hammer, the village smith must have supplied his neighborhood with most of the iron-work required in it, and the trade must have had a rank and importance among mechanical employments which it does not now enjoy. The smith must have been very frequently called upon to invent as well as execute. He was probably the first mechanic in his parish ; his shop a centre of parish gossip. Hugh Miller, writing of the Scot- land of his childhood, where old customs lingered long after their extinction in England, draws a picture of a country blacksmith which might stand for a veritable portrait of one of those silent, sagacious, brawny Franklins from whom our great printer de- scended. " A village smith," he says, " hears well-nigh as much gossip as a village barber; but he develops into quite a different sort of man. He is not bound to please his customers by his talk ; nor does his profession leave his breath free enough to talk fluently or much ; and so he listens in grim and swarthy independence — strikes his iron while it is hot — and when, after thrusting it into the fire, he * "History and Antiquities of Ecton," by Eev. John Cole, p. 2. t The established charge for greasing the wheels of a large wagon or coach was 3s. 6d. AKCESTOES OF FRANKLIN. 15 bends himself to the bellows, he drops, in rude phrase, a brief, judi- cial remark, and again falls steadily to work." * Was it so that Dr. Franklin gained his unequaled power of holding his tongue? Was it from his grimy progenitors that he inherited that mastery over himself which led Mr. Bancroft to re- mark, that he never spoke a word too soon, nor a word too late, nor a word too much, nor failed to speak the right word at the right season ? On the lower outskirt of sequestered, umbrageous Ecton, the Franklins possessed, for three hundred years or more, a farm of thirty acres, a small stone dwelling-house, and a forge, all of which the eldest son regularly inherited, as far back as we have any knowl- edge of the family. The little farm not sufficing for the support of a household, it was a custom in the family for the heir of the estate to learn the trade of a blacksmith, and to take his youngest brother as an apprentice. All the other sons were apprenticed to trades ; the daughters married tradesmen or farmers ; and, during the whole period of three centuries, only one of the family raised him- self above the rank in which he was born. A conjecture has been made respecting the remoter origin of the family, which deserves mention only because it derives probability from Benjamin Franklin's peculiar cast of character. The word Franklin, as we learn from Chaucer and Spenser, meant freeholder, and was frequently used in the sense of country gentleman. f The name, besides being of French origin, was a common one in France as well as in England, and particularly common in Picardy, whence, during the times of persecution, many Protestants fled to England. From one of these refugees, it is thought, the Franklins may have descended; and there came a time when several Fran- * Hugh Miller's " My Schools and Schoolmasters," chap. ix. t " This worthy Franklin bore a purse of silk, Fixed to his girdle, white as morning milk. Knight of the Shire, first Justice at th' Assize, To help the poor, the doubtful to advise. In all employments, generous, just, he proved ; Eenowned for courtesy, by all beloved." Chaucee. " A spacious court they see. Both plain and pleasant to bo walked in, Where them does meet a Franklin fair and free." Spenser. 16 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. quelins of France were eager in claiming relationship with the most eminent name in Europe. Franklin certainly exhibited French traits of character. That sprightliness of mind which he possessed, that mixture of gayety and prudence, of fancy and good sense, has frequently resulted from the union of the two races. The mother of Sydney Smith was the daughter of a French refugee ; and who so like FrankUn as Sydney Smith ? The grandfather of Garrick was a Frenchman ; and in Garrick were curiously blended extreme vivacity and extreme caution. Gayety of mind and brilliancy of utterance are not English qualities ; somewhere in the pedigree of the Englishman who has them, may generally be found a French or Irish ancestor. It has not been often remarked, but it is true, that the Frenchman, with all his liveliness, and dash, is a very pru- dent person, excelled by no man in the art of making the most of small means. Our Franklin, then, may have inherited with his solid English traits, an infusion of vivifying Celtic blood. Be that as it may, these Franklins of Northamptonshire were a strong-armed, long-Hved, prolific, steadfast, and cheerful race. There was also a lurking talent in the family, which seemed to gain force in the later generations. Our Benjamin Franklin, himself a youngest son, was descended from a line of four youngest sons, respecting each of whom we have a little trustworthy information, derived principally from a letter written, in his old age, by Josiah Franklin to his son Benja- min, and partly from Benjamin's autobiography and letters. All of them were blacksmiths, except his father, Josiah, who learned the trade of a dyer. We have one glimpse of an ancient FrankUn, the great-great-great-grandfather of Benjamin, who wielded the sledge- hammer in the reign of Henry VIII., when Lawrence Washington was Mayor of Northampton. This ancient personage, when he was a well- grown lad, left his lather's house at Ecton, and, according to a custom of that age, went forth to seek his fortune, i. e., to learn a trade. He stopped first at the house of " a tailor," with whom he engaged to stay " upon liking." But this tailor, wrote Josiah Franklin, " kept such a stingy house that the boy left him and traveled farther.'' Next, he came to the house of a smith ; " and coming on a fasting day, being in popish times, he did not like it there the first day ; the next morning, the servant was called up at five, but after a little time came a good toast and good beer, and he found good house- ANCESTORS OF FKANKLIN. 17 keeping there ; he staid and learned the trade of a smith." And there ends the history of this adventurous youth. Of his youngest son (Benjamin's great-great-grandfather), we know only that, in the days of Bloody Mary, he was a Protestant ; which is not an insignificant fact. For, as it is only the best races that have the force of intelligence requisite to throw off ancient su- perstition, so it is the best specimens of the best races that are able to do so first. This worthy Franklin was he who kept his Bible tied open with tape under the lid of a stool. When he read it to his family, one of the children was stationed at the door to give notice of the approach of the official spy. When the alarm was given, the forbidden book was concealed by closing the lid and put- ting the stool in its place. Like Montaigne, he would "follow the right cause to the fire, but without the fire if he could." There was a tradition in the family, that a daughter of this wary Protest- ant slily stole the commission of one of the violent persecutors from his saddle-bags, and put a pack of cards in its tin case ; upon pro- ducing which, to justify and announce his proceedings, the savage priest was discomfited. The youngest son of this dextrous Bible-reader (the great-grand- father of Benjamin) lived in less perilous times, but, being less wary than his father, got into trouble. Of him we are told that he was imprisoned for a year and a day, " on suspicion of his being the author of some poetry that touched the character of some great man." Thomas, the son of this imprisoned Franklin, and the grandfather of our Benjamin, was a man of peculiar worth, happy in his circumstances and in his children, as they were in their pa- rents. "There were nine children of us," writes his son Josiah, " who were very happy in our parents, who took great care by their instructions and pious example to breed us in a religious way." Another of his sons (our Benjamin's good Uncle Benjamin, of whom more anon), when he was an old man in Boston, wrote in one of his poetry books, still in existence, three entries respecting his father, which I will here transcribe : 1. " My Father's Birth-place Age & Death. " Tho: Franklin was born at Ecton in Northamptonshire on 8 day of Oct, 1598. He married Mrs. Jane White Neece to Coll: White 18 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. of Banbury, and had by her Nine children. He dyed at his son John's in Banbury on the 21 March 1681, in the 84 year of his Age." 2. "Memokand. " On the wall of my Father's parlour, at Ecton in Northampton- shire, Was written in Church-Text, Round about the Room, near the floor above it, the 16 and 17 verses of 3 John. God soe loved the world yt He gave his onley begotten Son that whosoever be- leeveth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. " For God sent not his son into this world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved/' 3. "Expressions used by my Father In prayer. "31 ps 5. Holy Father into thy Hand we commit our spirits for thou hast redeemed them O Lord God of truth. " Command thine Angel to Encamp round about our Habitation. 24 psal. 1. " Give thine angels charge over us that noe Evil may come Nigh our Dwelling. 91 ps. 10. 11. " Thou Knowest our Down lying and riseing up. Thou art Ac- quainted with all our Wayes and knowest our Tho'ts affar off. 139 ps. 2. 3. " We Thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth Tho' thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent yet thou hast revealed them unto babes. Even so. Holy Father for soe it seemed Good in thy sight. 11 Mat. 25. 26. " Holy Father keep through thine own Name all those that are thine that none of them be lost. 17 Joh. 11. 12. "For We know that in us, that is in our flesh there dweleth noe Good thing. 7 Rom. 18. " 2 Cor. 3. 5. We are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but all our sufliciency is of thee. " We beleeve O Lord that thou art not slack concerning thy promise, but Long suflering to us-ward Not willing that we should perish. We are Looking for and hasting unto the day of God, for we know that day will come as a Thiefe in the Night. ANCESTOBS OF FRANKLIN. 19 What maner of persons therefore ought We to be in all holy conver- ! ution and Godlines. 2 Pet. 3. 9. 10. 11. 12. "And 83 ps part 1. 2. 3. and the whole T ver." We have further glimpses of this good man in the old Tithes- Book sent by Thomas Carlyle to Edward Everett, a fev/ years ago and deposited by Mr. Everett in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. " A strange old brown manuscript," wrote Mr. Carlyle, " which never thought of traveling out of its native parish, but which now, so curious are the vicissitude and growth of things, finds its real home on your side of the Atlantic, and in your hands first of alL^?he poor manuscript is an old Tithes-Book of the parish of Ectb^^ftT^orthamptonshire, from about 1640 to 1700, and contains, I perceive, various scattered faint indications of the civil war time, which are not without interest ; but the thing which should raise it above all tithes-books yet heard of is, that it contains actual notices, in that fiishion, of the ancestors of Benjamin Franklin — blacksmiths in that parish ! Here they are — -their forge- hammers yet going — renting so many *yard lands' of Northampton- shire church-soil — keeping so many sheep, etc., etc. — little con- scious that one of the demigods was about to proceed out of them. I flatter myself these old plaster-cast representations of the very form and pressure of the primeval (or at least prior-eYal) Frank- lins will be interesting in America ; there is the very stamp, as it were, of the black knuckles, of their hob-nailed shoes, strongly pre- served to us, in hardened day^ and now indestructible, if we take care of it !" An examination of this strange brown manuscript is somewhat disappointing to an anxious seeker after information. It is the pri- vate record of a clergyman of the parish, in which he was accus- tomed to enter the sums received for tithes and the rent of his glebe-lands; the sums being usually expressed in algebraic lan- guage. The name Franklin occurs nearly two hundred times in it; but Nicholas Franklin, Thomas Franklin, and Thomas Franklin the younger, are the only Franklins mentioned. If we cannot perceive the stamp of their black knuckles, nor of their hob-nailed shoes, we can discover that those Franklins rented portions of the parson's glebe, and usually paid their rent and their tithes with the regu- larity of respectable householders; that Thomas Franklin kept 20 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. sheep, cows, and bees, the tithe of the increase of which went to the parson; that Thomas Franklin, the younger, frequently received tithes and rents for the parson, who then sometimes styled him " Mr. Franklin," and apparently held him in high estimation as one of the pillars of the church ; and that both Thomas Franklins occa- sionally had a bill to present to the parson for " smith's work." The following are a few of the entries : "Thomas Feanklin. " 1646. Holdeth ^ yardland in fee. it is said this i of , Th. Franklin & the 3^ of John Hensman are but 3| in raeesure of the Hide but comon for 4 yardl & holdeth 1 yl of Mr Jones wintered sheep 18. lambes 9 " Dec. 16. R for landgrass J5 vjc? for milk iiijs Yjd for wool & lamb iiijs .... ^s " paid his bill the same day xjs " Euen with him hitherto. "1647. Sept. 21. R of him for small tithes . . vs iijd & paid his bill the same day xxvJ5. xd. he had a tithe lamb this yeer which he hath to succle me another next year if it fall " 1648. Nov. 22. R for 4 cowes & grass . . yjs YJd & I paid his bill iiJ5 & ijs remaining due upo' a former bill in Sept. & what is in that bill aboue xxijs I ow him still. Dec. 4. 1648 I paid him ^ the rest of the bill aforesaid being xvdb for w" I gaue him xvjdf " 1649. Febr. 8. R for 5 cowes & 2 yardland gross ixs vjd and paid him his bill this day xxjs iiijc? " 1650. Dec. 6. paid his bill xxijs jc? R for 4 cowes & and ryland grass ...... viiJ5 " 1651. Febr 20. R for small tithes of last yeer ' . xvjs paid his bill 11. 03 "1652. July 10. his bill lis. OSd. setts off iJ5 for rie straw & ixs ujd for small tithes of this yeer there remaines due for small tithes vjs ixd ANCESTORS OF FBANKLIN. 21 "1665. March 25. "The Glebe thus letten " The. Franklin holdeth one yl till Michaelmas next, except fallowes medowes & comons w*" he now leaveth. is in arrere for rent due at Mich £ last & his rent now due 4. 00. 00 " Tho. Corbet holdeth 1 yl rent now due . 4. 00. 00 & 5 lands at the gate he entreth now on the fallowes medowes & comons of half the yl w" Tho. Franklin is leaving Tho. Webster entreth on the other halfe "For 1673. R March 30. 1673. of Tho. Fr. the yonger for smaU tithes iiijs " 1674. Aug. 28. Tho. Franklin sen. brought us a pot of Tithe honey & ijs vjd for hives sold of which I gaue him back xviijd "For 1674. RMay. 1 1675 of Tho. Franklin jun. for small tithes of half yl iiiJ5 "For 1675. R for the same iiiJ5 " For 1676. R. Apr. 28 1677 for small tithes of half yl. iiiJ5 & for offerings at Eastor last ijd waxshot ^db njdb "1675. March 26. The same day sent to my brother Rushworth, at his request, by Tho : Franklin, going to take seisin at Gillesborough 45s so rests in my hands 60£. "1677. May. Tho. Franklin gave John fro me a Guiny, & May ult. he received of the Carrier w* I sent iiij£ 4.00.00. "Me. Freeman. " 1675. March 6. paid in his name to Tho. Franklin for Mr. Catesbyes use for w' bond is to be given xx£. "1678. Dec. 19. Tho. Franklin brought from Mr. Catesby a bag of 50.00.00 " 1679. March 26. Mat. Linwood int by Th. Fr. . 1.00.00 Mem^""" that for the 400£ w' I owe Mr. Freeman 22 LIFE AKD TIMES OF BENJAMIJT FRANKLIN. upon a bond which lies in Tho : Franklins hand he is content to accept the securitys w" I haue of Barth. Coles by mortg. for 200£ Mr. Dods mort- gage for 100 & Mr. Gardners bond for 100£. In witness hereoff I have sett my hand this Tth day of Aug : 16V8. Sam: ffeeeman. " 1678. March 10. Paid Tho. Franklins bill for Deeds of Conveyance, Copyes & his proportion of charg of Fine &c 4.03.02 "1689. Tho. Lark. N. B. Hee pays all his Tiths to Mr. Franklyn y* were behind. Touching this Thomas Franklin, the younger, who received tithes, and carried bags of money, and brought in a bill for drawing deeds of conveyance, we must say a few words, for he was the only Franklin of Ecton who ever rose to social importance in his county. Thomas Franklin, the elder, had four sons : Thomas, John, Benja- min, and Josiah. There lived at Ecton, during the boyhood of these four sons, a Mr. John Palmer, the squire of the parish and lord of an adjacent manor ; who, attracted by their intelligence and spirit, lent them books, assisted them to lessons in drawing and music, and, in various ways, encouraged them to improve their minds. All the boys appear to have been greatly profited by Squire Palmer's friendly aid ; but none of them so much as Thomas, the eldest, inheritor of the family forge and farm. In families destined at length to give birth to an illustrious indi- vidual, nature seems sometimes to make an essay of her powers with that material, before producing the consummate specimen. There was a remarkable Mr. Pitt before Lord Chatham ; there was an extraordinary Mr. Fox before the day of the ablest debater in Europe; there was a witty Sheridan before Richard Brinsley; there was a Mirabeau before the Mirabeau of the French Revolu- tion. And, to cite a higher instance : Shakspeare's father was, at least, extraordinarily fo?id of dramatic entertainments, if we may infer anything certain from the brief records of his mayoralty of Stratford ; for he appears to have given the players the kind of welcome that Hamlet admonished Polonius to bestow upon them. Thomas Franklin, the eldest uncle of our Benjamin, learned the ANCESTORS OP FRANKLIN. 23 blacksmith's trade in his father's shop, but, aided by Squire Palmer and his own natural aptitude for affairs, became, as his nephew tells us, a conveyancer, " something of a lawyer, clerk of the county court, and clerk to the archdeacon,* a very leading man in all county affairs, and much employed in public business." He was a man of great public spirit, set on foot a subscription for a chime of bells, and devised a method of saving the meadows from being overflowed. Such an opinion of his skill and wisdom pre- vailed in the county, that his advice was sought on all occasions by all sorts of people, and many looked upon him as a conjurer.f He left a fortune of fifteen hundred pounds. Sixty years after his death, when the son of Benjamin Franklin heard the history of his Uncle Thomas, and saw in the county the evidences of his ingenuity and public spirit, he was struck with the resemblance to the char- acter and career of his father. If Uncle Thomas, said he, had died on the day of my father's birth, one might have supposed a trans- migration. J John, the second of the four sons of Thomas the elder, became a dyer at Banbury in Oxfordshire. Into his house, at Banbury, he received his aged sire when he could wield the hammer no longer, and there the old man died. Benjamin, the third son, also a dyer, was the scholar of the family, a pure, earnest, shy, ^nd gentle spirit, greatly beloved all the days of his life, author of many a pious acrostic and homely psalm. In one of his poetry books he pasted the hand-bill of his trade. It is headed by an exceedingly rude wood-cut, which represents an Indian lady walking, one servant * "This archdeacon, as I learn from the inscription on his monument in Ecton church, was also named John Palmer. He was archdeacon of Northampton and rector of the parish of Ecton. His eldest son, who was also named John, succeeded him in the rectorship of Ecton ; and this son was succeeded by a second son named Thomas. All of these have monuments in Ecton church." — History and Antiquities of Ecton. t Franklin to his wife. — Sparks, vii., 179. X Thomas Franklin and his wife Eleanor lie buried in Ecton churchyard. The following are the inscriptions on their tombstones : Here lyeth • Here The body of Lyeth the body of Thomas Franklin Eleanor Franklin who departed this The wife of Thomas Life January the 6 Franklin who departed Anno Domini 1702 This life the 14th of In the sixty -fifth March 1711 yeare of his age. In the 77 yearo of her a.^e. 2^ LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. liolding an umbrella over her head, and another carrying her train, Underneath are the following words : WRought Things, Printed Englijli or India Calico's ; Cloth, Silk, and StufF, Scoured ; Linen, Cloth, Silk, and StufF, Dyed, Printed, or Watred ; AND iBlack oriotf), Silk, ani 0tuff, Dyed into Colours ; BY Benjamin Franklin, At the Indian ^een in Princes- Street near Leicester-Fields.'^ * To Dr. Nathaniel B. ShurtleflF, of Boston, I was indebted for a sight of Uncle Benjamin's poetry book, and for the extracts which I wished from it. franklin's father and mother. 25 CHAPTER n. franklin's father and mother. The prosperity of Thomas Franklin, by raising the family above its hereditary rank, was probably the cause of its extinction in Ecton. It is not certain that any smith of the family succeeded to the an- cient forge, though a son of Thomas appears to have inherited the little estate of thirty acres and the stone dwelling-house. The rec- ords of Ecton show that tl^e house and land were sold in 1740 to the lord of the manor, and that the house was then used for a village school. In 1766, when Dr. Franklin visited the home of his forefathers, he found a Thomas Franklin living in Leicestershire in impoverish- ed circumstances, to whose maintenance he contributed for some years, and, in eifect, adopted his only child, Sally. The old home- stead was standing as late as the time of the American Revolution, but no trace of it now remains, and no Franklin dwells in the parish. The site of the house, however, is shown to inquiiing strangers, and Ecton, we are told, values itself upon having been the residence of Dr. Franklin's ancestors.* The Tithes Book informs us that, two hundred years ago, there was a public house at Ecton culled the World's End. There is still in the parish, a public house of that name. The village is, to this day, a quiet, sequestered nook, con- taining about 700 inhabitants. John Franklin, dyer, of Banbury, was probably as thriving a man, in his way, as his brother Thomas ; for, besides entertaining his aged father in his house, he drew away, first, his brother Benja- min, and afterward, his brother Josiah, to learn his trade. Josiah Franklin, father of Dr. Franklin, was born at Ecton, in 1655. Having learned the trade of dyer, he established himself in that business at Banbury, and was married there, about his twenty- ♦ " History and Antiquities of Ecton." 2 26 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FllANKLIN. first year. His brother Benjamin married, at the same town, " the daughter of a clergyman." These two brothers, apprenticed and wedded in Banbury, were brothers indeed; they cherished for each other an affection which time and distance never cooled. Three children were born to Josiah in Banbury : Elizabeth, born March 2, 1678; Samuel, born May 16, 1681 ; and Hannah, born May 25, 1783.* Charles H. was king of England then ; the mean and profligate corrupter of his realm ; promoter of false priests and persecutor of honest ones. Josiah Franklin and Benjamin, his well-beloved, and they alone, as it appears, of all their family, espoused the cause of the expelled pastors, abandoned the Church of England, and attend- ed the Conventicles. The Conventicles were forbidden by law, were often disturbed, and to attend them placed a tradesman under the ban of the class whose good-will was most advantageous to him. About the year 1685, the year of the dissolute tyrant's death, Jo- siah Franklin bade farewell to his brother Benjamin, and to Eng- land ; and, with wife and three little children, emigrated to Bos- ton, accompanied by a number of his neighbors and fellow-dis- senters. Upon reaching Boston, then in the fifty-sixth year of its existence, and containing but five or six thousand inhabitants, Josiah Franklin, finding little encouragement to practice his trade of dyer, set up in the business of tallow-chandler and soap-boiler. The name of Jo- siah Franklin occurs once in the town records of Boston, under the date of April 27, 1691, when the town granted him liberty to erect a building eight feet square, near the South Meeting-House. Tradesmen were accustomed then to designate their places of busi- ness by objects, as well as by lettered signs. Thus, we learn from ancient advertisements, that clothing was sold at the sign of the Anchor, beer at the sign of the Mermaid, bread at the sign of the Golden Sheaf, and books at the sign of the Bible ; but, generally, there was no similarity between the sign and the articles which it invited the public to purchase. To mark where he sold his soap and candles, Josiah Franklin fixed upon the sign of the Blue Ball ; and the identical ball, of the size of a cocoa-nut, which once hung over his little shop, blue no longer, but bearing the name Josiah ♦ Savage's " G-enealogical Dictionary of New England," ii, 200. feanklin's father and mother. 27 Franklin, and the date 1G98, both legible, still hangs from the corner of Hanover and Union Streets, in Boston. A moderate prosperity rewarded his diligence and skill in Bos- ton. His family, too, rapidly increased. August 23, 1685, was born that son, Josiah, who grieved his father so keenly by running away to sea, and was heard of no more for many years, and almost lured away, by his example, his youngest brother, Benjamin. Ann fol- lowed, born January 5, 1687. Then, Joseph, born February 6, 1688, who died in infancy. Next, another Joseph, born June 30, 1689. 'Soon after the birth of their seventh child, when Josiah Franklin was thirty-five years old, his wife died, leaving to his care six children, the eldest being eleven years of age. A young man, in such circumstances, with nothing but his own industry to depend upon for the support of his little brood, must make haste to find another mother for them. Josiah Franklin did so. He could not wait the customary year, but married so soon after the death of his wife, that the first child of his second spouse was born eighteen months after the birth of the first wife's last. His choice fell upon Abiah, youngest daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of the Island of Nantucket. Abiah Folger was twen- ty-two years of age wEen"sEe"gave lier hand to the tallow-chandler of the Blue Ball. Of Peter Folger we may truly say, that he was worthy to be the grandfather of Benjamin Franklin. He is described by a contem- porary as " a learned and godly Englishman," who acquired some of the Indian langunges, and was much employed in teaching the Indian youth to read and write ; well skilled also in surveying, and thus of great use to the colony in marking boundaries and Inying out settlements. But he was still more honorably distinguished. He was one of the few of the early settlers of Massachusetts who felt the iniquity of persecuting the Baptists and Quakers for opinion's sake ; and he lifted his voice against that vulgar heathenism. It was in the dark era of 1676, when Quakers and Baptists were still in peril of being pubficly whipped, pilloried and branded, and ban- ished into the wilderness, that honest Peter Folger wrote his rude doggerel poem, " A Looking-Glass for the Times," in which those outrages were pronounced to be the sin of New England, for wliich a just God was visiting her with Indian wars and massacres. Saith Peter : 28 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. " Let US then search what is the sin that God doth punish for ? - And when found out, cast it away, and ever it abhor. " Sure, 'tis not chiefly for those sins that magistrates do name. And make good laws for to suppress, and execute the same. " But 'tis for that same crying sin, that rulers will not own, And that whereby much cruelty to brethren hath been shown. " The sin of persecution such laws estabHshed, By which laws they have gone so far as blood hath touched blood. " It is now forty years ago since some of them were made. Which was the ground and rise of all the persecuting trade. " Then many worthy persons were banished to the woods. Where they among the natives did lose their most precious bloods. " And since that many godly men have been to prison sent. They have been fined and whipped also, and suffered banishment. " The cause of all this suffering ^ was not for any sin, But for the witness that they bare against babe sprinlding." This persecution he attributes to the influence of " the tribe of min- franklin's father and mother 29 isters," who, he says, are " the eyes" through which " our magis- trates" see. He then addresses this persecuting tribe of ministers : " I see you write yourselves in print, the Balm of Gilead ; Then do not act as if you were like men that are half mad. " If you can heal the land, what is the cause things are so bad ? I think, instead of that, you make the hearts of people sad. " Is this a time for you to press, to draw the blood of those That are your neighbors and your friends ? as if you had no foes. " Yea, some there are, as I have heard, have lately found out tricks To put the cause of all the war upon the heretics. " Or rather on some officers, that now begin to slack The execution of those laws, whose consequence is black. " I do affirm to you, if that be really your mind. You must go turn another leaf, before that peace you find." But, then, the prudent Peter would not be misunderstood. Ho was much in favor of law and order : " I would not have you for to think, tho' I have wrote so much, That I hereby do tlirow a stone • at magistrates, as such. '80 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. " The rulers in the country, I do own them in the Lord ; And such as are for government, with them I do accord. " But that which I intend hereby, is, that they would keep bounds, And meddle not with God's worship, for which they have no ground. " There's work enough to do besides, to judge in mine and thine ; To succor poor and fatherless, that is the work in fine."* These liberal and just sentiments, expressed in the homely man- ner of the time, were years in advance of public opinion, though Peter assures us that " hundreds" of the people of Massachusetts were of the same mind as himself Dr. Franklin was proud to reckon among his progenitors a man capable of thus rebuking his generation, and he quoted some of Peter Folger's roughest verses, with approbation. A tallow-chandler of thirty-four, with six young children, would have been an ill match for a young lady of twenty-two, the daugh- ter of an honored scholar, if that tallow-chandler had not been a man to make it worth a woman's while to undergo, for his sake, unusual care and toil. Josiah Franklin was handsome, agreeable, accomplished, and wise. He was of medium stature, well formed, very strong, agile, and expert. His " limbs were made in Eng- land." He could draw prettily, had some skill in playing the vio- lin, and his voice in singing was sonorous, and pleasing. At the close of the day, when his labor was done, he would take his violin and accompany himself while he sang to his family the homely songs and hymns of his native land. The melody of his voice and violin sounded pleasantly through all the long life of his son, who recalled those evening scenes at home to the last of his days. He * The whole of this poem, numbering more than a hundred stanzas, is printed ia " Duyckinck''s Cyclopedia of American Literature," i, 53. * 31 had an active, inquiring, genial mind, loved to see intelligent friends at his tabic, and took great pleasure in conversation. Known to be a prudent, sincere, and friendly man, his advice was much sought by his neighbors, as well as by leading men concerned in the aftairs of tlie town and the church. He was a genuine Franklin, blithe, prudent, and steadfast. So Abiah Folger took him and her share of the responsibilities of the Blue Ball. The daughter of Peter Folger, we may imagine, would be attracted rather than deterred, by the prospect of honorable labor. She proved a helpmeet to her husband, a mother to his children, and lent, I doubt not, a dex- trous female hand in the shop on " melting days." Ten children were the fruit of their union : John, born in Decem- ber, 1690; Peter, born November 22, 1692; Mary, born Septem- ber 22, 1694 ; James, born February 4, 1697 ; Sarah, born July 9, 1699; Ebenezer, born September 20, 1701, who died in infancy; Thomas, born December 7, 1 703 ; Benjamin, born January 6 (old style), 1706; Lydia, born August 3, 1706; Jane, born March 27, 1712, the pet and beauty of the family, Benjamin's favorite sister, his correspondent for sixty years.* It is probable that Benjamin Franklin derived from his mother the fashion xjfJiis body and the cast of his countenance. There are lineal descendants of Peter Folger whio strikingly resemble Frank- lin in these particulars ; one of whom, a banker of New Orleans, looks like a portrait of Dr. Franklin stepped out of its frame. But there the resemblance ends ; for that poor rich old man, unmindful of his noble ancestry, is a bigot of slavery, having established a newspaper in 1862 solely to defend it. 1 706, the year of Benjamin Franklin's birth, was the fourth of the reign of Queen Anne, and the year of Marlborough's victory at Ramillies. Pope was then a sickly dwarf, four feet high and nineteen years of age, writing, at his father's cottage in Windsor Forest, the Pastorals which, in 1709, gave him his first celebrity. Voltaire was a boy of ten, in his native village near Paris. Boling- broke was a rising young member of the House of Commons, noted, like Fox at a later day, for his dissipation and his oratory. Addi- son, aged thirty-four, had written his Italian travels, but not the " Spectator," and was a thriving politician. Newton, at sixty-four, * "Savage's Genealogical Dictionary of New England," ii. 200. 32 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l706. his great work all done, was roaster of the Mint ; had been knighted the year before, and elected President of the Royal Society in 1703. The grandfather of Goethe had just ceased to be a Frankfort tailor, and become a Frankfort innkeeper. Louis XIY. was King of France, and the first Kmg of Prussia was reigning. The father of George Washington was a Virginia boy of ten ; the father of John Adams was just entering Harvard College; and the father of Thomas Jeflferson was not yet born. CHAPTER m. UNCLE BENJAMIN AND HIS ACROSTICS. Franklin was born on a Sunday. The family lived then in Milk Street, opposite the Old South Church, within twenty yards of the church door. So the thankful father carried his new-born son across the street the same day, and had hira baptized by the pastor. Dr. Willard; perhaps, even then, dedicating the tithe of his sons to the service of the Church. He named him Benjamin, in honor of his brother over the sea, the dyer of Leicester Fields. The record of his birth in the town register, and that of his baptism on the books of the Old South Church, are still shown. Soon after the birth of Benjamin, his father removed to a house at the corner of Hanover and Union Streets, where he lived the rest of his life. It was a small, but decent and comfortable, dwell- ing of wood. It is an advantage to a child to be reared in a numerous family. There is less danger of his being spoiled. There are more to love him, and he has more to love. He learns early to consider himself as only one joerson among manyf and he is constantly reminded that others, as well as himself, have feelings, desires, and rights. Benja- min Franklin could recollect seeing twelve brothers and sisters at his father's table, all of whom grew to maturity and became pa- rents. Both he and his sister Jane bore testimony to the happiness of their early home. " It was, indeed, a lowly dwelling," wrote she, " we were brought up in, but we were fed plentifully, made comfortable with fire and clothing, had seldom any contention 1706] U?^CLE BE>fJAMIX AND HIS ACROSTICS. 33 among us ; but all was harmony, especially between the heads, and they were universally respected."* Benjamin tells us, that his father, full as his table was, liked to have in the circle of yoiuig faces a sensible friend, with whom he could converse on some in- genious or useful topic, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. Neither father nor mother, he adds, ever had any sickness until many years after all their children were settled in life. In many passages in his letters he testifies to the cheerfulness and freedom that prevailed in the home of his childhood. Indeed, most men who have been noted for a disposition to see things in a favorable light, a turn of mind which Hume says it is more happy to possess than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year, were the offspring of parents who were happy in one another, and who, therefore, receiYed their children with welcome, and reared them with cheery fbndness. Such men are more likely than others to have the gift of life in its completeness ; and all unimpaired life is joyous. While Josiah Franklin had been prospering in Boston, these twenty-five years, his brother Benjamin had been enduring heavy sorrows and sore misfortunes in London. He had had ten children, but all of them had died but one son, Samuel, and he Avas leaving him for the land of promise, New England. His wife, too, died, and he had not prospered in business. But he kept a stout and cheerful heart through all ; finding solace, hke Cicero and Livy, in such literature as was within his grasp. He was a great collector of pamphlets, which he preserved in bound volumes, and took down in short-hand the sermons of his favorite preachers, Avhich he pre- served in the same manner. He was much addicted to singing the events of his time and family in rhyme, of about the quality of Peter Folger s " Looking-Glass." A man he was of many homely gifts and graces, abounding in love for his relatives and friends ; but wanting in those traits which enable a dissenter, in troublous times, to avoid the consequences of holding unpopular opinions. He was too much of a politician for his own good, thought his great namesake. Bereaved thus of wife and children, the lonely old man heard, with great satisfaction, that there was a httle Benjamin Franklin, * " Letters to Benjamin Franklin from his Family and Friends," p. 160. 9* 34 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1710. on the other side of the ocean, so named after himself. He took great interest in the boy, and was one of his first instructors. Young Benjamin, as we shall see, derived only a very insignificant part of his education from schools. He was educated by his pure and happy Home, by Boston, by the events of his time, by his father's few books, and, especially in his earliest years, by this good old uncle. We catch our first glimpses of the boy in the rude poetry of Uncle Benjamin. There were frequent movements of troops, ar- rivals of armed fleets, and erection of defensive works, at Boston during the childhood of Franklin ; England and France being at war, and Canada a French province. Benjamin, it seems, took the interest in such proceedings which boys always do, and this being duly reported to Uncle Benjamin, caused him to indite a few lines for his nephew's warning, which he inclosed in his next letter to America. Benjamin was four years and a half old when his father read the lines, " Sent to him," so Uncle Benjamin wrote, " upon a report of his inclination to martial affairs" : " Believe me, Ben, it is a dangerous trade, The sword has many marred as well as made ; By it do many fall, not many rise — Makes many poor, few rich, and fewer wise; Fills towns with ruin, fields with blood ; beside 'Tis sloth's maintainer, and the shield of pride. Fair cities, rich to-day in plenty flow, War fills with want to-morrow, and with woe. Ruined estates, the nurse of vice, broke limbs and scars, Are the effects of desolating wars." A very compact epitome of the evils of war. Dr. Franklin him- self, who inherited the family propensity for rhyming, and the family inability to rhyme well, could hardly have done it better. Only eight days after writing these lines, Uncle Benjamin, who probably sent something, in prose or verse, to his little nephew by every ship, wrote an acrostic on his name, which consisted of the good advice which uncles of that age were accustomed to give their nephews : 1711. J franklin's father and mother. 35 " Be to thy parents an obedient son ; ■ Each day let duty constantly be done : Never give way to sloth, or lust, or pride, If free you'd be from thousand ills beside ; Above all ills be sure avoid the shelf Man's danger lies in, Satan, sin, and self. In virtue, learning, wisdom, progress make ; Ne'er shrink at suffering for thy Saviour's sake. " Fraud and all falsehood in thy dealings flee, Religious always in thy station be ; Adore the Maker of thy inward part, Now's the accepted time, give him thy heart ; Keep a good conscience, 'tis a constant friend, Like judge and witness this thy acts attend, In heart with bended knee, alone, adore None but the Three in One for evermore." When the boy was five years old occurred the great fire of Bos- ton, which laid the heart of the town in ruins, deprived of shelter, at the beginning of winter, a hundred and ten families, and caused the death of seven or eight persons ; " the occasion of which," says an old chronicler, " is said to have been by the careless sottishness of a woman who suffered a flame which took the oakum, the pull- ing whereof was her business, to gain too far before it could be mastered." No harm befell the home of the Franklins, and their happy escape furnished a theme for Uncle Benjamin's muse. A year after the dread event, a ship from Europe brought to Josiah Franklin an acrostic on his name, in which his brother celebrated the escape of him and his from the fire. Imagine the father read- ing this pious ditty to his family at tea-time, rosy Ben, aged six, listening with open mouth, in his high chair : AN ACROSTIC HYMN OF PRAISE. Sent 071 the 22 d September, 1712. " I come. Dear Lord before thy Throne, A Grateful Monument to raise ; LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l7l2. And There upon my thankful stone, To Write thy Love and sing thy Praise. " O, may it Ne'er Forgotten be, That all along, I've been thy care, And Now my God did Think on me. And mine from Flames preserved are. , " Sons, Daughters, Brother, Sisters all, Joyne With us in this Great Address ; And on one kind preserver call, Who saved us when in Great Distress. " In unrelenting Flames for sin, God's much provoked Anger Rose, But Tender Mercy stept between Us, and his Justice did oppose. " Ah ! hateful. Thy promis'd sweet, To Colaquintida is Turn'd ; Thy Sad Effects in every street. We see to heaps of Rubbish Burn'd. " Had not the Lord, Now may we say. Had not the Lord Great pitty shown ; Like Sodom on that Dreadful Day, We'ed been Destroyed and overthrown. " Fear seized upon us and a Flame, Our minds and Dwellins did Surprise: Resistless, Giant-like it came. Wealth wing'd away toward the skyes. " Rouze up my Soule, Take Wing, too, Fly ; Leave here Thy Dust that turns to smoke, With Swifter speed surmount the Sky, Earth only serves to blind and choak. " Awake my Glory and my Heart, Shake off Dull Sloth, my better powers, 1713.] franklin's FATHER AND MOTHER. 87 And every member doe your part In praising this Great God of ours. " None in the spacious Regions High, With his perfections may compare ; Nor any Works beneath the Sky, That Like our Great Creator's are. " King's Haughty pride He Does Abase, And Levels Cities with the Ground ; And Earthly Glory Does Deface, And Worldly Wisdom Quite Confound. " Let all both High and Low Revere, This Higher Majesty, and own Him Sovereign Ruler Ev'ry where, With Low prostrations at his Throne. " I am a Brand pluck'd out imharm'd ; And for this Favour Now in part : I with my Tongue here in my Song, Doe offer up a Flameing Heart. " Not unto me, Lord, Not to us, But to thy Holy Name always : For Great Salvation Wrought out Thus, Accept an Ardent Love and praise." These frequent arrivals of verse from Uncle Benjamin which, doubtless, were duly extolled in the family and handed ,about among friends, inspired the boy, at length, to attempt a return in kind. At the age of seven, he wrote something, perhaps a letter, with a few lines of doggerel, which called forth a joyful response from his uncle : " 'T is time for me to throw aside my pen. When hanging sleeves read, write, and rhyme like men, This forward spring foretells a plenteous crop ; For, if the bud bear grain, what will the top ! If plenty in the verdant blade appear. What may we not soon hope for in the ear ! 8B LIFE AND TIMES OP BEN^JAMIISr FRANKLIN. [1713. When flowers are beautiful before they 're blown, What rarities will afterward be shown. If trees good fruit un'noculated bear, You may be sure 't will afterward be rare. If fruits are sweet before they've time to yellow, How luscious will they be when they are mellow ! If first years' shoots such noble clusters send. What laden boughs, Engedi-like, may we expect in end !"* The quickening and educating effect upon a boy of such a corre- spondence as this, continued until he was nine years old, would be noticeable if the boy were a blockhead ; hovv^ great its value to a young Franklin, large-brained, inquisitive, humorous ! It was much for him even to know that there was a good old man in old England who cared for him. If an abstract proposition were allow- able here, we might venture the remark, that a good uncle is a capital thing for a boy to have. Not less useful, but often more so, is a good aunt. Such relations can do some services for chil- dren better than their parents can, and their peculiar influence is essential to perfect breeding. One incident of Franklin's childhood is familiar to all the world. "When I was a child of seven years old," he wrote, sixty-six years after the event, " my friends, on a hoHday, filled my pockets with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for chil- dren ; and being charmed with the sound of a whistle^ that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle^ but disturbing all the family. My brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth ; put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money ; and laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation ; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure. " This, however, was afterward of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind ; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, DonH give too much * Sparks, i., 640. AGED 1.] franklin's FATHER AND MOTHER. 39 for the whistle ; and I saved my money." With other reflections printed in numberless school books. An anecdote is preserved of Benjamin's minnow-fishing days. Tiiere was a marsh in the outskirts of Boston, on the edge of which the boy and his friends used to fish at high tide for min. nows. By much trampling the spot having been made a mere quagmire, Benjamin proposed to construct a wharf for the boys to stand upon, and pointed out a large heap of stones, intended for a new house near by, which, he said, would answer their purpose per- fectly. Accordingly, in the evening, when the workmen were gone home, he assembled his playfellows, and very soon the wharf was completed. Complaints, detection, and punishment quickly follow- ed. In vain did Benjamin demonstrate to his father the utility of the measure. His father, he says, convinced him, that that which is not honest cannot be truly useful. Perhaps the idea of this structure was suggested to the youngster's mind by the building of the Long Wharf of Boston, which, after being talked of for some years, was ordered to be built in 1710. Benjamin, besides being the tithe of his father's sons, showed from his earliest childhood a remarkable fondness for reading ; and these two considerations induced his father to dedicate him to the service of the Church ; a resolution which had the hearty concur- rence of Uncle Benjamin, who offered to set him up with his vol- umes of short-hand sermons. His brothers were all put to trades, except Josiah, who ran away to sea when Benjamin was an infant, and had never been heard of since. At the age of eight years, Benjamin was placed at the Boston Grammar School. In less than a year, he rose to the head of his class, and was promised other promotion, but before the year came to a close, his father dis- covered that he had undertaken too much for one with his narrow means and large family. He was of opinion, too, that young men educated for the ministry were poorly compensated for their labor in America ; but he may have made this observation in the hearing of the boy, to reconcile him to his removal from the Latin school. Benjamin was next sent to a school kept by Mr. George Brownwell, noted for his skill in teaching writing and arithmetic. He lenutined at this school about a year, learned to write a good hand, but failed entirely in arithmetic. At ten his school life was over for- ever, and be was taken by his father to assist him in his business, 40 LIFE AND TIMES OF- BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l7l8. to cut candle-wicks, fill candle-molds, attend the shop, and run errands. He disliked the occupation, and, perhaps, was not too in- dustrious, for he tells us that his father often repeated to him the maxim of Solomon: "Seest thou a man diligent in his calhng, he shall stand before kings ; he shall not stand before mean men." Dr. Franklin used to recall these words of his father when, half a century later, he was in the habit of standing before kings. Josiah Franklin was an indulgent father, however, and Benjamin still found time to lead the sports of his comrades, and to pore over his books. A New England boy who lives near the coast takes to the water as naturally as a Newfoundland dog. Benjamin became an adept in the management of boats, and was usually allowed, he tells us, to take the command, particularly in cases of difficulty. But his great accomplishment, that in which he excelled all the boys of his time, if not of all times, was swimming. He was a wonderful swimmer ; and he retained a peculiar fondness for this exercise, as well as his boyish skill in it, to old age. The swimming of the Hellespont would have been no very arduous task for Franklin at any time from his twelfth to his sixtieth year. Besides performing all the established feats, he invented two of his own, which he de- scribed in a letter to one of his philosophic friends, late in life. " When I was a boy," he wrote, " I made two oval pallets, each about ten inches long and six broad, with a hole for the thumb, in order to retain it fast in the palm of ray hand. They much resem- bled a painter's pallets. In swimming I pushed the edges of these forward, and I struck the water with their flat surfaces as I drew them back. I remember I swam faster by means of these pallets, but they fatigued my wrists. I also fitted to the soles of my feet a kind of sandals ; but I was not satisfied with them, because I ob- served that the stroke is partly given by the inside of the feet and ankles, and not entirely with the soles of the feet." Another experiment was more successful: "I amused myself one day with flying a paper kite ; and approaching the bank of a pond, which was near a mile broad, I tied the string to a stake, and tlic kite ascended to a very considerable height above the pond, while I was swimming. In a little time, being desirous of amusing my- self with my kite, and enjoy at the same time the pleasure of swim- ming, I returned ; and, loosing from the stake the string with the AGED 12.] FRAXKLIN's FATHER AJS^D MOTHER. 41 little stick which \^'as fastened to it, went again into the water, where I found, that, lying on my back and holding the stick in my hands, I was drawn along the surface of the water in a very agree- able manner. Having then engaged another boy to carry my clothes roimd the pond, to a place which I pointed out to him on the other side, I began to cross the pond with my kite, which car- ried me quite over without the least fatigue, and with the greatest pleasure imaginable. I was only obliged occasionally to halt a lit- tle in my course, and resist its progress, when it appeared that, by following too quick, I lowered the kite too much : by doing which occasionally I made it rise again. I have never since that time practiced this singular mode of swimming, though I think it not impossible to cross in this manner from Dover to Calais. The packet-boat, however, is still preferable."* This mastery of the water, together with his dislike of his father's business, gave him a hankering for the sea, of which all healthy boys in New England have one attack. ^His iixther, who had al- ready lost one son from that cause, was earnest in dissuading him. But about this time the long-lost Josiah, from whom in nine years no tidings had been received, suddenly returned home, to the inex- pressible joy of the whole family. The fatted calf was killed. Brothers and sisters, to the number of twelve, assembled at their father's house to welcome the sailor, and hear the tale of his adven- lures in India, and partake of the welcoming feast. Besides, another elder brother, James, had gone across the ocfean recently, and was then learning the trade of a prir\,ter in London — great and wonderful London If A sister, too, had married the captain of a coasting sloop. K these events tended to strengthen the boy's yearning for the sea, there wa^ now another influence at home which aided his father to dissuade him from a sailor's life. Uncle Benjamin, in 1715, had come from England to spend his last years with his brother and with his own son Samuel. He was an inmate of Josiah Franklin's house, and appears to have been one of the company assembled at the feast of welcome to the truant sailor. At least, we read in one of his volumes of rhyme, the following lines: "The Third part of the 107 psalm. Which Follows Next, I * Fraukliu to M. Dubourg. Sparks, vi., 291. t Thomas's " History of Printing," p. 307. 42 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [I7l8, composed to sing at First meeting witli my Nephew Josiah Frank. lin. But being unaffected with Gods Great Goodn' : In his many preservations and Deliverances, It was coldly Entertaia'd " : part 107 ps. Those Who in Forreign Lands converse By Ships for Traffick and Commerce, Behold great Wonders in the Deep Which God's prescribed bounds doe keep. His Mighty Works They there Discern And There his Care and Kindness Learn ; When Stormy Winds Great Waves Aloft Doe Raise, He calms and stills them oft To Top of Mountaine Waves they creep Then Down Descend the Dreadfull Deep, Th' Amazing Terrours they sustaine, Disolves their very Soule with paine They stagger Like a Drunkard Who Bereav'd of sence keels fro' and Too Brought Almost to Distraction They To God With fervent cryes doe pray. Then when from their Distress he saves Comands and calms Tempestuous Waves, He Stills the storm and does Asswage Proud Dreadfull seas Death-Threatning Rage Then they Rejoyce the Tempest's past And saffe He brings them all at Last, To Their Soe much Desired Shore Which They Despaired of Before O Let men praise this mighty Lord, And all his Wondrous Works Record ; Let all the Sons of men, before Whose Eyes those Works are Done, Adore. AGED 12.] franklin's FATHER AND MOTHER. 43 Adore this God who did us Save From the much feared Watery Grave And softly Set thee on thy Land O Bless his kind and pow'rfull Hand. The wild sailor "coldly entertained" his uncle's simple piety; but over the younger Benjamin he would naturally have had greater influence. He brought with him from England his volumes of poetry and his short-hand sermon books ; but not, as we shall dis- cover by and by, his collection of pamphlets, which, probably, he sold to help defray the expenses of- his voyage. He brought his intelligent, inquiring, suggestive mind, his quaint humor, his guile- less heart. He imparted whatever he had of knowledge and ac- complishment to his young namesake ; taught him his system ot short-hand, strengthened in him all his tendencies toward good, and, doubtless, placed a firm and kindly veto upon the boy's sea-going scheme. Uncle Benjamin lived four years in the house of his brother Josiah ; and then, his son Samuel having married and established a home, he went to live with him. He died in 1727 ; aged seventy-seven. In an obituary notice in a Boston newspaper, be is spoken of as " a person who was justly esteemed and beloved as a rare and exemplary Christian ;" '' one who loved the people and ministers of Christ ;" whose " presence in the House of God, was always solemn and affecting ;" " who courted not the observ- ation of men ; yet there were many who could not but take notice of and admire the peculiar excellences that vividly adorned him."* The poetry books of Uncle Benjamin, which are still in perfect preservation, though it is a hundred and eighty years ago since he bought the first of them, are neatly written and carefully indexed. Many of the pieces are acrostics, and several are curiously shaped on the page — dwindling or expanding in various forms, according to the quaint fancy of the poet. Uncle Benjamin lies in the Granary Burial Ground in Boston, near the grave of his brother Josiah. The stone that marks his last resting-place is still legible ; but perhaps some good Bostonians, mindful of what he did for his nephew, will one day renew the stone, as has been done with that which covered the remains of Franklin's parents. * Drake's " History of Boston," p. 5T4. 44 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l7l8,| CHAPTER ly. FIRST BOOKS. The boy, as we have remarked, was a devouring reader. There are those who read from infancy to old age, and, so far as their friends can discover, learn nothing. There are those in whose fer- tile minds every chance seed of knowledge, or suggestion, takes root and bears fruit. Young Franklin was one of these. He had also, the knack of getting from a book the one thing to which it owes its value. ^ His first love, as well as his first possession, was Bunyan's *' Pil- grim's Progress," from which he learned the charm that is given to narrative by mingling dialogue with it ; a method which, he long afterward said, is very engaging to the reader, who, in the most interesting parts, finds himself, as it were, admitted- into the com- pany and present at the conversation. Of this mode of composition, frequently practiced by Franklin, he considered Bunyan the origin- ator — Defoe and Richardson being imitators of Bunyan. He sold his "Pilgrim's Progress" in order to buy Burton's "His- torical Collections," in forty little volumes, famous in their day, and ex- tensively sold, both in America and England, by peddlers. These books contained history, travels, adventures, fiction, natural history, biography, and every thing curious and marvelous which the com- piler could discover. "He has melted down," says Dunbar, "the best of our English histories into twelve-penny books, which are filled with wonders, rarities, and curiosities." Dr. Johnson alludes to these books in one of his letters : " There is in the world a set of books which used to be sold by the booksellers on the bridge, and which I must entreat you to procure me. They are called Burton's Books. The title of one is 'Admirable Curiosities, Rar- ities and Wonders in England.' They seem very proper to allure backward readers."* The library of Josiah Franklin contained few works that were not theological ; but even these the boy contrived to read. Plu- ♦ Allibone's " Dictionary of Authors," p. 807. AGED 12.] FIKST BOOKS. 45 t;irch's Lives, so popular once among young people, he read over and over again. Robinson Crusoe he just missed — for it was not published till 1719, when it appeared in a London periodical. But Defoe's Essay upon Projects, a household book at that time, he read with lasting pleasure and benefit. Defoe's Essay upon Projects tieats of matters beyond most boys of twelve ; but the racy earn- estness of Defoe's style would have rendered the abstruseat sub- jects interesting to a young Franklin. The projects for the public advantage proposed by Defoe, were of three kinds : political, com- ^ iiiercial, and philanthropic. Among the particular schemes and / improvements suggested by the author, and original with him, were a better system of private and national banking ; better roads ; improved bankrupt laws ; friendly societies, for the relief of mem- bers in distress ; an asylum for idiots, who ought to be, he says, " a perpetual rent-charge on the great family of mankind ;" academies for giving instruction in single branches of knowledge, and for edu- cating youth for special professions. Among his suggestions of the kind last named, are military academies, and colleges for girls. Most of Defoe's leading suggestions have since been carried out in all the civilized nations of the New and Old World. It is ques- tionable if there is any other book that has so much benefited mankind in the practical manner as this little essay by the author of Robinson Crusoe. - • Sir James Mackintosh says : " Defoe produced Richardson, who has copied him in those minute strokes which give to fiction such an air of reality. Defoe, and perhaps also Swift, produced Frank- lin, who applied their familiar eloquence to moral and prudential purposes. Paine was the follower of Franklin ; but the calm famil- iarity, and almost sly pleasantry of the American Socrates were, in his disciple, exchanged for those bold speculations and fierce invec- tives which indicate the approach of civil confusion." * But Frank- lin learned from Defoe far more than the artifices of his style. There was another little book, read by Franklin in boyhood, con- cerning which he has left a remarkable testimony. " When I was a boy," he wrote to Mr. Samuel Mather, in his eightieth year, " I met with a book entitled 'Essays to do Good,' which I think was writ- ten by your father (Cotton Mather). It had been so little regarded * " Life of Sir .Tames Mackintosh," by his son, xi., 92. 46 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1718. by a former possessor, that several leaves of it were torn out ; but the remainder gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influ- ence on my conduct through Ufe ; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than on any other kind of reputation ; and, if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citi- zen, the public owe the advantage of it to that book." These words induced the Sunday School Society of Massachusetts to re- publish the little volume in 1845 ; so that every one can now easily gratify his curiosity concerning it. It consists of twenty-two short essays, which, besides extolling benevolence in general, give direc- tions to particular classes of men, how to turn their private occupa- tions to the public advantage. There are suggestions of this kind for magistrates, ministers, doctors, lawyers, schoolmasters, gentle- men, deacons, captains of ships, ladies, husbands, wives, mechanics, and, indeed, all sorts and conditions of men. The advancement of religion, the author maintains, is the object to be chiefly sought by all of these ; but there are many quaint, strong passages in the book, pointing out benevolent labors of another kind. Cotton Mather was as earnest in this matter of doing good as he had been in hanging the Salem witches. "My friend," he says, "place thy- self in dying circumstances ; apprehend and realize thy approaching death. Suppose thy last hour come; the decretory hour; thy breath failing, thy throat rattling, thy hands with a cold sweat upon them, only the turn of the tide expected for thy expiration. In this condition, what wouldst thou wish to have done more than thou hast already done, for thy own soul, for thy family, or for the people of God ?" His last Essay ends thus : " Were a man able to write in seven languages; could he converse daily with the sweets of all the lib- eral sciences, that more polite men ordinarily pretend unto ; did he entertain himself with all ancient and modern histories ; and could he feast continually on the curiosities which all sorts of learning may bring unto him ; none of all this would aflTord the ravishing satisfaction, much less would any grosser delights of the senses do it, which he might find in relieving the distresses of a poor, mean, miserable neighbor; and which he might much more find in doing any extensive service for the kingdom of our great Saviour in the world ; or any thing to redress the miseiies under which mankind is generally languishing." AGED 12.] FIRST BOOKS. 47 Elsewhere, he exclaims : " Protestants, why will you be outdone by Popish idolaters ? Oh ! the vast pains which those bigots have taken to carry on the Romish merchandise and idolatries t No less than six hundred clergymen, in that one order of the Jesuits, did, within a few years, at several times embark themselves for China, to win over that mighty nation unto their bastard Christianity. No less than five hundred of them lost their lives in the difficulties of their enterprise, and yet the survivors go on Avith it, expressing a sort of trouble that it fell not unto their share to make a sacrifice of their lives in enterprising the propagation of religion. ' O my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face unto thee, my God !' " The humor, the familiar learning, the impetuous earnestness, the yearning tenderness, of this little book were well calculated to im- press the mind of such a boy, at such a time. How exceedingly strange, that such a work as this should have been written by the man who, in 1692, at Salem, when nineteen people were hanged, and one was pressed to death for witchcraft, appeared among the crowd, openly exulting in the spectacle ! Probably his zeal against the witches was as much the offspring of his benevolence as his "Essays to do Good." Concede his theory of witches, and it had been cruelty to man not to hang them. Were they not in league with Satan, the arch enemy of God and man ? Had they not bound themselves by solemn covenant to aid the devil in destroying human souls and afflicting the elect ? Cotton Mather had not the slightest doubt of it. Mather powerfully influenced the boy in other ways. Samuel, the son of Cotton, tells us, in his life of his fiither, that Cotton Mather was the originator of a kind of Neighborhood Benefit Societies, one of which he endeavored to form in each church, and to twenty of which Cotton himself belonged. "He drew up," says his biographer, " certain ' Points of Consideration,' to be, with due Pauses, read in the Societies every time they met, for ajuy to offer what Proposal he pleased upon any of the points at the Reading of it." These " Points of Consideration" were the following : 1. Is there any remarkable disorder in the place, that requires our endeavor for the suppression of it ; and in what fair, likely way may we endeavor it ? 2. Is there any particular Person whose disorderly Behavior may 48 LIFE AND TIMES OF BEXJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l7l8. be so scandalous and so notorious, that we may do well to send unto the said person our charitable Admonitions ? Or are there any con- tending persons whom we should admonish, to quench their Con- tentions ? 3. Is there any special Service to the Interests of Religion, which we may conveniently desire our Ministers to take notice of? 4. Is there any thing we may do well to mention unto the justices for the further promoting good Order? 5. Is there any sort of officers among us to such a Degree un- mindful of their Duty, that we may do well to mind them of it ? 6. Can any further Methods be devised, that Ignorance and Wickedness may be chased fi-om our People in general, and that Household Piety in particular may flourish among them ? 1. Does there appear any Instance of Oppression or Fraudulence in the Dealings of any sort of people, that may call for our Essays to get it rectified ? 8. Is there any matter to be humbly moved unto the Legislative Power, to be enacted into a Law for public Benefit ? 9. Do we know of any Person languishing under sore and sad Affliction ; and is there any thing we may do for the Succor of such an afflicted Neighbour ? 10. Has any Person any Proposal to make for our own further Advantage and Assistance, that we ourselves may be in a probable and regular Capacity to pursue the Intention before us ?* Here we see the origin of the Junto, the famous club founded by Franklin in Philadelphia in 1730. These benefit societies, of which Boston contained several, were sure to enlist such a man as Josiah Franklin, and we may be certain that his son Benjamin often attended the meetings, listened to the questions, and waited, breath- less, during the due pause between each, for tjhe interesting replies- Such a boy takes note of every thing, forgets nothing, and brings into play, in after-life, the unconscious gath(>rings of his childhood. The childhood of a thoughtful man never ceases to instruct him. The " Boston Newsletter," established two years before Franklin's bh'tl), the only newspaper in America till he was thirteen years old, could not have been overlooked by an eager and intelligent boy. It was a coarse, dingy sheet, about as large as a sheet of the fools- * "Life of (Jotton Mather," by his son, Samuel Mather; Boston, 1729 ; p. 56. _. 49 AGED 12.] - ™S-^ ^0<"^^- cap TV-ritin^ paper now in common use. The European news was Zlt mes^thirteen months in arrears; yet some famt echo of the Tat events of the time found its way to the ears of our young ? Uowlandler. The later victories of Marlborough ; the peace of mrecht : the wild career of Charles XII. ; the fonndmg of &t. Pe- tersbml ; the South Sea Bubble; the death of Queen Anne; the ^TaceM 'accession of George I.; the ^oj^moil^o^B^rn,- broke • the attempts of the Pretender ; the death of ^o^ /^^^- - were among the paragraphed events of Franklin's boyhood. The Tents which occuLd°at Boston needed no "cler °r o^^^^^^^^^ friend. The town had grown then to a population of pe.haps ten "Land, contained nine or ten churches had an a-va Krom ^ rope about once a week, sent to sea some kmd of craft nearly eve. y day and the Long Wharf was out eight hundred feet mto the har- bor.' No doubt the boy was upon the wharf when Admiral Walter nchored in the bay his great fleet of fifteen ---^ J- -J/£ transports, with five thousand troops «^^°^';f ' '^?3,t " conquest of Canada, but destined to wreck and miserable failure. Pei-haps the boy wa; bold enough to go down to the shore m April ni6, and see the hanging of the six pirates who had s^iwed unde. Cap in Bellamy. If he did, he heard one of the raost ten-ifie prayers ever utLed by a clergyman in the hearmg of a gang of criminals. The hanging of pirates was a frequent event in that age ofTe world, when th; highways of land and sea were infested :ith Jobbers.' The Pirates' Own Book wasin course of transacUon when Franklin was a boy. He took it piece-meal, by hand-bd. Newsletter, fireside narrative, and otherwise. It was m o„e of his early years that three or four Boston sailors, who had been taken by pirates, rose upon their captors, threw the captam ">to he sea, clove the skulls of mate and boatswain, bound he crew of six men and took them to Boston, where they were all hanged The man who clove the skull of the boatswain was John Fillmore, great grandfather of ex-President Millard Fillmore.* _ Young Franklin heard, probably, all about the founding inBo.tx.n of a spinning school for girls, and of the erection of a building for the purpose This scheme was one of the results of the arrival of a colony of Unen spinners from Londonderry, who brought to Amer- * Drake's '• History of Boston.,'' p. 570. 60 LIFE AND TIMES' OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l7l8. lea the spinning-wheel, the potato, and the ancestors of Horace Greeley. Boston was an entirely English town then. If it had its days of fast and thanksgiving, it kept also the king's birthday and Guy Fawkes' Day, and had two great fairs every year. Whatever occurred in Boston, we may be sure that this open- eyed, inquiring boy knew it, considered it, and remembered it. Sixty-five years after he had ceased to be a boy, he quoted his boyish recollections to illustrate a point in science. " I remember," he wrote in 1786, "there was a general discourse in Boston, when I was a boy, of a complaint from N orth Carolina against New Eng- land rum, that it poisoned their people, giving them the dry belly- ache, with a loss of the use of their limbs. The distilleries being examined on the occasion, it was found that several of them used leaden still-heads and worms, and the physicians were of opinion that the mischief was occasioned by that use of lead. The legisla- ture of Massachusetts thereupon passed an act, prohibiting, under severe penalties, the use of such still-heads and worms thereafter." Let us not omit to add that the boy was brought up religiously. Regular attendance at the Old South Church Avas required of him, and of all his brothers and sisters. There, he once heard preach, old Increase Mather, the father of Cotton, and heard him, in the course of his sermon, refer to the death " of that wicked old perse- cutor of God's people, Louis XIY." There, too, he frequently heard Cotton Mather, in the vigor of his powers. Josiah Frank- lin was too good-humored and intelligent a man to be an ascetic or a bigot. Such genial natures as his are apt to eat the kernel of their chestnut creed, throw the shells away, and leave the fierce and bristling hurr upon the ground ; ^. e., they practice the virtues, and let alone the dogmas, of their religion. The anecdote of Franklin and his father, told by the grandson of Franklin, permits us to infer that Josiah and his children lived on easy terms with one another, and that he did not embitter and cramp their young lives with the exactions and terrors of the ancient Puritanism. The boy, we are told, found the long graces used by his fiither, before and after meals, very tedious. One day, after the winter's provisions had been salted, " I think, father," said Benjamin, " if you were to say grace over the whole cask, once for all, it would be a vast sav- ing of time."* * " Works of Dr. Franklin," by W. Temple Franklin, i., 447. AGED 12.] APPRENTICED. 51 Dr. Joseph Sewall was an associate pastor of the Old South Church from Benjamin's seventh year. Dr. Sewall is described as a Calvinist of the straightest sect, very zealous in his calling, but abundant in alms-giving and all other practical generosity. He was a vigorous, healthy, modest man, who declined the proffered Presidency of Harvard College, and preached a sermon in the evening of his eightieth birthday. Franklin, upon the whole, spent a very happy boyhood, and his heart yearned toward Boston as long as he lived. When he was eighty-two years old, he spoke of it as " that beloved place." He said, in the same letter, that he would dearly like to ramble again over the scene of so many innocent pleasures ; and as that could not be, he had a singular pleasure in the company and conversation of its inhabitants. " The Boston manner," he touchingly added, " the turn of phrase, and even tone of voice and accent in pronun- ciation, all please, and seem to revive and refresh me."^' Tf Franklin could now revisit the scenes of his boyhood, there is still there one object which he would recognize, besides the beautiful harbor and its emerald isles. The great elm on Boston Common was "the Great Elm" when Benjamin Franklin played under it in boyhood, and drove home, at sunset, his father's cow from the Commons around Beacon Hill.f CHAPTER V. APPRENTICED. Benjaisiin continued to assist his father for two years, notwith- standing his discontent, and his longing for the sea. Toward the end of the second year, John Franklin, an elder brother of Benja- min, who had, like himself, been taken to assist his father when he was a boy, married and removed to Rhode Island, where he set up for himself as a soap and candle maker. This event rendered the aid of Benjamin more important to his fither than before, and * "Franklin to John Lathrop," Sparks, x., 848. f "Atlantic Monthly," June, 1868, p. 692. 52 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FBANKLIN. [l7l8. seemed forever to close the door of his escape from a business which he loathed. The prospect so inflamed the discontent of the boy, that his father, fearing that he would break loose, as Jo- siah had done, and go to sea, resolved to apprentice him to a more agreeable trade. Father and son now visited together the work- shops of carpenters, turners, braziers, and others ; the flither ob- serving the inclinations of his boy, anxious, chiefly, to fix upon a trade that would keep him from the sea. The lad watched the labor of the workmen with interest ; it was ever after, he tells us, a pleasure to him to see a good mechanic handle his tools ; and lie obtained from these wanderings among the shops a little insight into the leading trades, that was of use to him all his life, particu- larly when experimenting in natural philosophy. Uncle Benjamin's son, Samuel, was then established in Boston as a cutler. It was decided, at length, that Benjamin should try this trade, and he went for a few days to the shop of his cousin Samuel, " upon liking." The boy, it appears, was not displeased with the occupation, but his father and his cousin could not agree upon the premium to be paid, and so Benjamin returned to his candle-mak- ing. Some readers may need to be informed, that, at that day (as in Europe to this day), apprentices paid a premium to their masters for the privilege of learning a business. The premium required in such trades as cutlery was then about twenty pounds sterling. James Franklin, that elder brother of Benjamin, who learned the trade of a printer in London, returned to Boston, with types and a press of his own, when Benjamin was eleven years old. He set up in business, in Boston, as a printer both of paper and of cali- co. An advertisement of his, in the JBoston Gazette for April 25, 1760, reads thus: "The printer hereof, prints linens, callicoes, silks, etc., in good figures, very lively and durable colors, and without the offensive smell which commonly attends the linens printed here." For a year or more he appears to have done little business. He printed a few pamphlets for booksellers, and, possibly, a few linens, silks, and calicoes for the ladies. When Benjamin and his father went the rounds of the work- shops, the trade of printer does not appear to have occurred to either of them. There was a printer in the family already, and the time had not really gone by when one small printing-office was enough for Boston. Brighter prospects, however, opened for I AGED 12.] APPRENTICED. 53 James Franklin during the second year after his return home ; and the extreme fondness Benjamin had for reading had its effect upon the minds of his parents. They proposed that the boy should be apprenticed to his brother James. Pining still for adventures upon the sea, and for a sight of the foreign marvels he had read of in his books, Benjamin shrank from being bound to his brother, but to the persuasions of his friends he yielded at last, and signed his in- dentures when he was twelve years of age. He bound himself to serve his brother as an apprentice till he was twenty-one, a period of nine years, but during the last year he was to be allowed the wages of a journeyman.* He liked his new occupation not too well, but it was better than cutting candle-wicks and ladling melted grease. With the ardor that belonged to his nature, he applied himself to learn the business, and he soon became useful to his brother. The printing oiSce stood on the spot which is now the corner of Franklin Avenue and Court Street. When a great personage retires from an employment, the public are curious to know something of his successor. An advertisement in a Boston newspaper enables us to gratify their curiosity with re- gard to the successor of Benjamin Franklin in the office of tallow- * The following was the form of an indenture of apprenticeship used in the reign of George I. "This INDENTUEE witnesseth, that Benjamin Franklin, son of Josiah Franklin and of Abiah, his wife, of Boston, in the colony of Massachusetts Bay, with the consent of his parents, doth put himself apprentice to his brother, James Franklin, printer, to learn his art, and with him, after the manner of an apprentice, to serve, from the day of , in the year of our Lord, 1718, until he shall have fully completed the twenty-first year of his age. During which term the said apprentice his master faithfully shall or will serve, his secrets keep, his lawful commands every- •where gladly do. He shall do no damage to his said master nor see it to be done of others ; but to his power shall let, or forthwith give notice to his said master of the same. The goods of his said master he shall not waste, nor the same without license of him to any give or lend. Hurt to his said master he shall not do, cause, nor procure to be done. He shall neither buy nor sell without his master's license. Taverns, inns, or alehouses he shall not haunt. At cards, dice, tables, or any other unlawful game he shall not pla3\ Matrimony he shall not contract; nor from the service of his said master day nor night absent himself; but in all things as an honest and fivithful apprentice shall and will demean and behave himself towards his said master and all his during the said term. And the said James Franklin, the master, for and in consideration of the sum often pounds of lawful British money to him in hand paid by the said Josiah Franklin, the father, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, the said apprentice in the art of a printer which he now useth, shall teach and instruct or cause to be taught and instructed the best way and manner that he can, finding and allowing unto the said apprentice meat, drink, washing, lodging, and all other necessaries during the said term. And for the true performance of all and every the covenants and agreements aforesaid, either of the said parties bindeth himself unto the other firmly by these presents. In witness whereof, the parties aforesaid to these indentures in- terchangeably have set their hands and seals this day of , in the fifth year of our Sove- reign Lord, George the First, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, and in the year of our Lord, 1718." 64 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1*718. chandler's assistant, the first place he ever filled. The following advertisement appeared in the New Eng Courantm July, 1722 : " Ran away from his Master, Mr. Josiah Franklin, of Boston, Tallow-Chandler, on the first of this instant July, an Irish Man- servant, named William Tinsley, about 20 Years of Age, of a middle Stature, black Hair, lately cut oif, somewhat fresh-colored Counte- nance, a large lower Lip, of a mean Aspect, large Legs, and heavy in his Going. He had on, when he went away, a felt Hat, a white knit Cap, striped with red and blue, white Shirt, and neck-cloth, a brown coloured Jacket, almost new, a frieze Coat, of a dark Colour, grey yarn Stockings, leather Breeches, trimmed with black, and round to'd Shoes. Whoever shall apprehend the said runaway Servant, and him safely convey to his above said Master, at the blue Ball, in Union street, Boston, shall have forty Shillings Re- ward, and all necessary Charges paid." As this advertisement was continued for three successive weeks, we are at liberty to conclude that William Tinsley was not " appre- hended." Of the next three years in the history of our apprentice, we have little more to record than the books he read. But in tracing the growth of every vivid and influencing intellect, we perceive that no events are so important as the reading of the few forming books. The mind destined to exert a powerful influence, is itself exceed- ingly susceptible of influence. Constantly, as though moved by instinct, or impelled by irresistible fate, such a lad as Franklin stretches toward the most advanced expressions of truth. Oceans and continents, ignorance and poverty, the narrowness of the conventicle and the restraints of lowly birth, cannot keep from such a large and craving soul the mental nourishment it needs. : Accordingly, we find that this printer's boy, with scarcely any money at command, working at his trade in remote, colonial Bos- ton, came in contact with the best literature of his day, as well as with the thought that was most novel and audacious. Boston, we may remark, was a bookish place, from the earliest period of its history. Twenty years before Franklin was born, there were already five booksellers in the town, one of whom, we are expressly informed, was " very rich," " and got his estate by bookselling." Another is spoken of, as "being thriving;" another, as a man "versed in the knowledge of all sorts of books," and one AGED 12.] ■ APPRENTICED. 65 " who may well be styled a complete bookseller ;" and another, as " a bookseller from London."* It is probable that there were as many as ten booksellers in Boston when* Franklin was an appren- tice. Their stock was chiefly imported from England, but they published a large number of sermons, controversial tracts, pam- phlets, ballads, almanacs, and such small ware. Divinity was, of course, the main reliance of the bookseller ; but we have abundant proof that whatever printed thing obtained currency among thinkers in the old country, was immediately transported to the colonies, and read by the little circle of liberal minds in each of the large towns. While bears were still shot from the Long Wharf of Boston as they swam in the bay, and twenty in a \veek were sometimes killed within two miles of the town, a few of the people were enjoying the rarest fruits of the oldest civilization, the books of brave men. Benjamin, unable to buy the treasures of the Boston bookstores, could noAV occasionally borrow a book through his acquaintance with th6 booksellers' apprentices. Often, he tells us, he sat up in his bedroom reading the greatest part of the night, when the book borrow^ed in the evening had to be returned in the morning, lest the master of the shop should miss it. And there was a mer- chant of Boston, Matthew Adams, who, coming often to the print- ing office, noticed the reading apprentice, invited him to see his library, and lent him books. Mr. Adams was himself a writer, one of a knot of liberals who afterward astonished Boston by their audacious satire in the Neio England Courant. The example of Uncle Benjamin and the poems which his new friends placed in his way gave the apprentice a strong inclination for poetry, and induced him to compose several pieces in rhyme. His brother, James, conceived the idea of turning the lad's rhyming propensity to account. At that time, as now, there was a great trade in street ballads, both in the colonies and the mother country. The exploits of pirates, the execution of murderers, the gallantry of highwaymen, terrible shipw^recks, horrible crimes, and all events of great note, were chronicled in doleful doggerel ballads, which were hawked about in town and country. So extensive was this trade in Boston, during the boyhood of Franklin, that one pubhsh- er, Thomas Fleet by nnme, though otherwise unfortunate, printed * Dunton's " Life and Errors." 56 LIFE AIS-D TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1721. and sold so many ballads, that the profit upon them alone " was sufficient to support his family respectably."* At the suggestion of his brother, Benjamin tried his hand at this profitable and popu- lar kind of composition. He wrote two ballads ; one, called " The Light-House Tragedy," was a narrative of the shipwreck of Captain Worthilake, in which perished the captain and his two daughters ; the other was designed for sailors, and related the capture of Blackbeard,f a famous pirate. Of the first named of these ditties no trace has been discovered, but of thf, second, one stanza was re- membered by Mr. Weems, the^nventiye early biography- of Washington and Franldin. Even if '"fhe ingenious Weems bor- rowed from another author the stanza which he attributes to Franklin, it is a perfect specimen of the ancient ballad style. " Come all you jolly sailors, You all so stout and brave ; Come hearken and I'll tell you What happen'd on the wave. Oh ! 'tis of that bloody Blackboard I'm going now for to tell ; And as how by gallant Maynard * Thomas's " History of Priating," i., 294. t " Edward Teach (Blackbeard), v.'as born in Bristol, England. At one time he came off Charleston, S. C, with his fellow-pirate, Richards, and one or two other vessels. There they re- mained some days without the bar, capturing vessels, and causing much terror to the inhabit- ants, and stopping all trade from the port. While there, Teach sent in Captain Eichards, with one of his prisoners, to demand of the governor medicines, on pain of his destroying his prisoners. It was granted, and Eichards and his men actually walked the town, audaciously and unmolested. After this he ran ashore upon North Carolina, and made his terms of surrender to the governor. 'The gold of Blackbeard (it is said) rendered him comely in the governor's eye, and, through his aid, he obtained a legal right to the great ship. The Eevenge' — 'the governor condemning her at Bath Town Court, as a lawful prize to the captor T While in North Carolina, Blackbeard married a young woman of good family, the governor being present at the ceremonies ! She was said to have been his fourteenth wife — twelve of whom were still living. He Avent otf again to his piracies, and brought his captures into North Carolina, and had them again condemned — the governor and he sharing spoils! Blackbeard ' passed several months in the river, giving rnd receiving visits from the planters,' etc. — thej', probably, not knowing his real character. In time they began to knov/ it — and they and sundry captains of vessels, made their representation to the Governor of Virginia, as too much distrusting their own governor. The Governor of Virginia hired two small vessels, and gave the command to Lieutenant Maynard, who, on the 17th Novem- ber, 1717, sailed from James Eiver in quest, and found Blackbeard on the 21st, with but few of his men on board. A fierce fight ensued — Maynard and Blackbeard hand to hand — the latter received twenty cuts, and as many shots, before he fell dead. He struck otf his head, and hung it on the end of his bowsprit, on his return to Virginia. They found on board the prize letters and papers, which criminated the Governor of North Carolina, and his Secretary. The prisoners taken were tried and executed in Virginia."— Watson's " Annals of Philadelphia," ii. 222. AGED 15.] APPRENTICED. 67 He soon was sent to hell — With a down, down, down, deny down."* Franklin himself says that his ballads were " wretched stuiF;" and, indeed, though ho wrote verses occasionally all his life, he never produced any that were much better than the best of his Uncle Benjamin's. As soon as the ballads were printed, his brother sent him about the town to sell them. The " Light-House Tragedy," the event being recent and aifecting, sold prodigiously, which greatly elated the young author. His father, however, came to the rescue of his good sense, pointed out the faults of the performance, and told him that verse-makers were generally beggars ; not aware that Pope, in that very year, had pocketed five thousand pounds for his translation of the Iliad. The old gentleman's remark, however, was correct, and he succeeded in dissuading his son from attempting a pursuit in which he could never have excelled. To the criticisms of his father Franklin also attributes his early, strong desire to attain an elegant prose style. The comrade and crony of the lad, during his apprenticeship, was John Collins, a youth fond of books, gifted with a fluent tongue and much addicted to argument. Franklin, too, from reading the books of polemic divinity in his father's little collection, had become exceedingly disputatious ; a turn of mind which he afterward outgrew and disliked. An argument once arose be- tween the friends with regard to the utility of educating women in the abstruse sciences. Collins thought women incapable of ac- quiring knowledge of that nature. Franklin maintained the con- trary opinion. He, probably, derived his impressions on that sub- ject from his early favorite, Defoe, who was earnest for the educa- tion of girls. *' We reproach the sex every day," says Defoe, in the Essay on Projects, " with folly and impertinence, while, I am confident, had they advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves." The early Puritans did not encourage the education of girls. Mrs. John Adams wrote, in IV 78: "In this country, you need not be told how much female education is neglected, nor how fashionable it has been to ridicule female learning." The wives of most of the revolutionary fathers were extremely illiterate. Now, Franklin was never a fluent talker, and he was frequently * Wcems's " Franklin," p. 21. 5^ LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l721. silenced, as he thought, more by the eloquence than the arguments of his friend. They parted, on this occasion, without settling the controversy ; and, as they were not to meet for some time, Franklin wrote out his argument, copied it, and sent the copy to Collins; who returned an ample reply. When three or four letters on each side had passed between them, the whole correspondence chanced to fall under the eye of Benjamin's father. He said nothing to his son on the subject in dispute, but pointed out to him what an ad- vantage his antagonist had in the eloquence and correctness of his style. In spelling and punctuation, the old gentleman admitted that his son, owing to his trade, was superior to Collins ; but in elegance and perspicuity, he showed him, by many examples, that he was far behind his antagonist. Benjamin perceived the justice of his father's remarks, and became, from that time, more attentive to his style, and, indeed, took unusual pains to improve it. >^ An odd volume of the Spectator, the only one that he had ever seen, fell opportunely in his way. Besides reading it over and over again with delight and admiration, he soon attempted to imitate its easily imitated style. Sometimes he made memoranda of the purport of each sentence of one of the papers, laid them by for a few days, then rewrote the paper and corrected his own composition by comparing it with the original. Sometimes he turned one of the stories into verse, and when he had partly for- gotten the prose, turned it back a^ain. He found that rhyming, even if one could never be a poet, had its uses ; the struggle for the rhyming word, the search for words of the requisite length and accent, tended, he thought, to give the student a mastery of language. Sometimes, he would make a sketch of the meaning of each sentence of an essay on separate pieces of paper, tumble them into confusion, lay them aside till he had quite forgotten the piece, «ind then try and reconstruct it. This he did as a lesson in the art of arrangmg the matter of an essay. On comparing his work with the original, he found many faults, which he corrected ; but, occa- sionally, he had the pleasure of fancying that in some particulars of minor consequence he had improved either the method or the style. When this occurred, he was encouraged to think that he might in time becoriie a tolerable English writer, a distinction of which, he tells us, he was extremely ambitious. About the same time he went through some of the common AGED 15.] APPRENTICED. 59 school-books of the day. Cocker's Arithmetic, the Cocker of the proverb and the farce, which puzzled four generations of school- boys, he had twice tried and failed to master. But now, having on some occasion been made ashamed of his ignorance of figures, he took up the book in earnest, and went through it with ease. In the same way he mastered a treatise on English Grammar and another on ISTavigation. He also read Locke on " Human Under- standing," " The Art of Thinking," by Messrs. de Port Royal, and Xenophon's "Memorabilia of Socrates." The Memorabilia gave the young disputant peculiar pleasure. The Socratic method of arguing he adopted at once, discarding his former practice of flat contra- diction and positive assertion, assuming the tone of the modest inquirer after truth, and involving his antagonist in a maze by a series of questions. Smollett endows Peregrine Pickle with the same mode of bothering his tutor : " Sometimes, when the conver- sation turned upon intricate subjects, he practiced upon him the Socratic method of confutation, and under pretense of being informed, by an artful train of puzzling questions, insensibly betrayed him into self-contradiction." Franklin practiced his newly-discovered art incessantly, and grew so expert as to draw people far superior to himself into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, and which gave victories to the young disputant that neither he nor his cause deserved. He came, in time, to see the emptiness of such triumphs, and gave up the method. But he permanently learned from Socrates the power there is in a modest and courteous demeanor, and the advantage a disputant has who refrains from wounding, alarming, or irritating an opponent's self-love. But how did our apprentice find time for such various studies ? The evenings were probably his own, and if they were not, he made evenings out of the early hours of the night. He gained the greater part of the dinner hour by a curious expedient. There were Vege- tarians, it appears, even at that early time. The little book of one of them fell in Franklin's way and made an easy convert of him ; easy, because the youth was indifferent to food, and because the vegetarian theory is captivating to young and generous minds. His refusal to eat flesh occasioned, sometimes, an inconvenience at the house where he boarded, and he was often reproved for his singularity. Having made hhnself acquainted with the manner of 60 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l722. preparing the viands recommended in his Vegetarian treatise, he told his brother that, if he would give him half the money paid for his board, he would board himself. His brother consented. Upon trying the experiment, Benjamin found that he could save half of the half; a precious addition to his means of buying books. But the great advantage v/as, that he could eat his noontide biscuit, his potatoes, rice, or hasty pudding, at the printing office, and thus get nearly the whole hour for reading. His dinner, he says, con- sisted often of a slice of bread or a biscuit, a handful of raisins, and a glass of water. Rising early in the morning, he had an hour for study before work began. He studied much on Sundays. While he was under his father's roof he was obliged to go to church, and he still considered it liis duty to do so. Nor does it appear that the law of 1632, imposing on those who neglected to attend church a fine of ten shillings, had yet been repealed. Such were the charms of study, however, that, as often as possible, he now avoided the church, and stole away to the printing house on Sundays, and spent delicious hours over his books and his exercises. And this leads us to the mention of cer- tain other books which the lad read before he was sixteen ; books which made upon him an impression that proved to be indelible, and of which this neglect of church-going was a result. CHAPTER YI. HE READS SHAFTESBURY AND COLLINS. Dr. Franklin remarks, in his humorous way, that, in all his life, he met with but one sect who did not assume that they possessed all religious truth which man was destined ever to arrive at. This was the sect of Tankers, or Dunkers, of Pennsylvania, who forbore to publish a creed because they expected further discoveries of truth, of which the existence of a creed, they thought, might hin- der the free acceptance. If history shows any thing more certainly than another, it is that AGED 16.] HE BEADS SHAFTESBURY AND COLLINS. 61 religious truth is progressive. All denominations admit this with regard to the past, but we perceive that it requires a superior de- gree of enlightenment to accept it as a fact of the future. Hence, as nothing can stay the progress of human intelligence, there is generally a conflict between the advanced minds of a generation and its theology; or, as Herbert Spencer expresses it, between theology and science. The same author shows that between these two forces there is no necessary conflict ; only theology is always tardy and reluctant to give new expression to the truths which science corrects.* It was well enough, in a certain state of knowl- edge, to call thunder the voice of God, but there comes a time when discoveries in electricity necessitate a more exactly descriptive name, and theologians hesitate to adopt the change. Or, to take •an extreme case, the doctrine of election, which is the theological expression of a great scientific truth. It would be now possible to state that doctrine in such a manner, that no intelligent person could refuse to assent to it, unless he were a theologian of the old school. Some theologians now, all theologians formerly, evince a repugnance to the discoveries which modify the language of a creed, which demand a new expression of religious truths, in their essence unchangeable. Copernicus, Gahleo, Kepler, Newton, Franklin, all experienced the aversion of theologians to scientific discovery, and / each of them felt himself called upon to show that the progress of science was not incompatible with the preservation of faith. One of the most distressing consequences of hardening benign religion down into an orthodoxy, is, that it is apt, for a time, to re- pel the very intellects which are naturally most inclined to virtue, and v/hich could do most for its advancement. Religion's self has never had, has not and never will have, formidable or numerous enemies. But an orthodoxy is likely to find in every young, fear- less and ingenuous soul, a questioner, who is thus drawn away from the serious pursuit of goodness to a painful and needless con. fiict of opinions. Such souls cannot be made to believe that there can be such a thing as a wicked opinion ; they must and will think freely ; and in their resentment against the odium excited against them for heterodoxy, they are apt, for a while, to disregard the regenerating truths which the orthodoxy does really contain, * Herbert Spencer's "First Principles." 62 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l722. though it may express them in a manner that has become unsuit- able.. rBi such a place as Boston was a hundred and fifty years ago, to such a lad as Franklin was in his sixteenth year, there is no escape from the conflict. He must take into consideration the tremen- dous claims of his native doxy, and that consideration will be con- tinued till it results either in humble assent, or complete dissent. Boston, it is true, had been constantly growing less intolerant. Ninety years had passed since the last pair of ears had been cut off, the last nose slit, the last tongue bored, the last face branded, for words spoken or opinions held. It was eighty years since a man was banished for disbelieving in the doctrine of original sin. It was seventy years since the Quaker women were imprisoned three days without food, then " whipped with a threefold knotted whip, tearing off their flesh," then banished, and doomed to die if they returned. Forty years had passed since twenty-seven Quakers, of whom six were women, were publicly whipped within eight days. For thirty years the service of the Church of England had been permitted to be performed in the town. When Franklin was born, fourteen years had elapsed since the great execution of witches at Salem. Men and women were, however, still obliged to confess before the congregation ; no man could hold office who was not a member of the established church; it was a criminal offense for people to ride or children to play on Sundays ; and to worship ac- cording to the rites of the Catholic Church was a capital offense. For any one openly to call in question any of the leading doctrines of the prevailing sect required such a degree of courage, that we know not whether to style it rashness or heroism.* Still, in every neighborhood of New England, from a very early period, there was a little circle of secret dissenters. Secret they were obliged to be. One Mr. Blackstone, in 1640, dared to say that he had left England because he did not like the Lord Bishops, and he would not join the church in Boston because ]ie would not be under the Lord Brethren. The Lord Brethren did not slit the nose of this honest man, but they made Boston so uncomfortable to him that he was glad at last to move into the wilderness.f In * See Drakc^s "History of Boston," pp. 127, 252, 308, 33T, 343, 351, 352, 355, 3T9, 428, 429, 467, 495, 504, 546, etc. t Snowe's "History of Boston." ACiED 16.] HE READS SHAFTESBURY AND COLLINS. 63 later days, though the Lord Brethren had their lists of forbidden books, it is known that the English deists produced nothing, how- ever audaciously heterodox, that did not immediately find its way to a coterie of disciples in Boston. By the time John Adams was a young man, that is, about 1750, these writers, Anthony Collins, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Bolingbroke, and others, appear to have made half a conquest of the intellect of New England.* It was not the books of these authors that first made young Franklin a doubter. Several years before he was born, Robert Boyle, the youngest son of an Irish earl, a man of good estate and extremely religious, founded, at Oxford, the " Boyle lecture," which was " designed to prove the truth of the Christian religion among infidels."f The sermons delivered in consequence of this founda- tion were published from time to time in separate tracts, some of which found their way to the shelves of Josiah Franklin, and so reached the hands of Benjamin, his son. These discourses the lad read when he was scarcely fifteen, and they produced upon his mind an effect the contrary of that intended, by the pious authors. The arguments of the deists, which were quoted in order to be re- futed, seemed to the daring mind of this young printer to be stronger than the refutations. William Pitt is said to have remarked that even Butler's "Analogy" "raises more doubts than it solves." It is also a fact, that the men most noted, in modern times, for their repugnance to established creeds, such as Gibbon, Hume, Shelley, and many others, were in their boyhood made > acquainted with controversial writings. From the Boyle refutations to the works refuted, was a natural transition. Shaftesbury and Collins were the deistical authors who were most influential upon the mind of the youth. Anthony Collins was the Colenso of his day. A famous and ter- rible name when Franklin was a boy, though now nearly forgotten. A writer in "Essays and Reviews" counts thirty-five answers to one of the works of Collins. He was of ancient family and compe- tent fortune, educated at Eton and Cambridge, a man of extensive reading rather than great and exact knowledge, endowed with ex- cellent talents and an amiable disposition. He wrote essays and dissertations upon the Use of Reason, upon Priestcraft, upon Free- * "Life and Works of John Adams," i., 87 to 42. t Allibone's " Dictionary of Authors," i., 232. 64 JAFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l'722. thinking, upon Liberty and I^ecessity, upon the Grounds and Rea- sons of the Christian Religion, and upon the Prophecies ; his object in all being to purge the Christian religion from what he conceived to be the errors of a barbarous antiquity. The popular belief in miracles, and particularly the doctrine of the miraculous production of the works composing the Bible, were the objects of his constant attack. Dr. A. Carlyle speaks of him as " the author of one of the shrewdest books against revealed religion," and he quotes approv- ingly the remark of Sir James Dalrymple, who said that Anthony Collins was one of the best men he had ever known, and practiced every Christian virtue without believing in the Gospel.* Dr. Priestley said that he had learned from Collins " the doctrine of ne- cessity," which "greatly improved his disposition to piety, and freed it from that rigor with which it had been tinctured."! He must have been a man of extraordinary worth to have been so ten- derly and so long beloved as he was by Locke. Some of the leading positions of Collins were these : 1. The Old Testament alone is claimed by Christ and his Apos- tles to be authoritative or canonical. 2. The New Testament has, therefore, no authority ; it is merely a record of facts, to be judged by ordinary rules. 3. The New Testament is claimed to be the fulfillment of prophe- cies in the Old. But the prophecies in the Old Testament apply to other events quite as well as to those recorded in the New Testament. As an example of his manner of treating this subject, the follow- ing passage will suffice : "Matthew says, Jesus came a7id chcelt at Nazareth, that it might be fulfill'd, which was spoken by the Prophets saying, ' He shall be called a Nazarene.' Which Citation does not expressly occur in any Place of the Old Testament, and therefore cannot be hterally fulfill'd. " Jesus says of John the Baptist, ' This is the Elias that was for to come.' Wherein he is supposed to refer to these words of Malachi, 'Behold 1 will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible Day of the Lord ;' which, according to their literal sense, is a Prophecy that Elijah or Elias was to come in Per- son, and therefore were not literally but mystically fulfill'd in John the Baptist. * "Autobiography of Dr. A. Cariyle," p. 171. t " Lifo of Dr. Priestley," i., 19. AGED 16.] HE READS SHAFTESBURY AND COLLINS. 65 " Again Jesus cites this Prophecy of Isaiah, ' By hearing, ye shall hear and shall not understand ;' and he assures us, that it was ful- fill'd in his Time in those to whom he spoke in Parables ; tho' it is manifest, that, according to the literal Sense, it relates to the obsti- nate Jews, who lived in the Time of Isaiah. " In fine, the Prophecies, cited from the Old Testament by the Au- thors of the New, do plainly relate, in their obvious and primary Sense, to other Matters than those which they are produced to prove."* • Much might be said respecting the kind of argument employed by Collins ; but it only concerns us here to note, that for Franklin to read this ingenious author was equivalent to his being convinced by him ; for there never lived a boy of sixteen capable of refuting Anthony Collins. Doubtless the amiable character of the man, his evident sincerity and earnestness, his perfect courtesy toward oppo- nents, and the brutal abuse heaped upon him by the ferocious Bent- ley and other hirelings of the hierarchy, all tended to strengthen his hold upon the generous mind of our printer's apprentice. Col- lins, too, was an eloquent pleader for liberty of utterance, of which the grandson of Peter Folger could not have failed to be an advo- cate. I know not whether Ave have yet lived up to the sentiments of Anthony Collins on this subject : " Would not," he asks, " every Man of Understanding and Honesty be glad to know the most intimate Thoughts of such Men as Hooker, Hales, Cpiil- LiNGWORTH, Mede, Wilkins, Wiiitchcot, More, Cudworth, Spencer, Tillotson, Bacon, Falkland, Selden, Milton, Marsh- am, Boyle, Temple and Locke, (for Example) and be sorry that such like Men ever have been, or are, under any Pestraints from speaking their Minds, and wish that they might speak their Minds on all important Questions in Philosophy and Theology ? " The question is as applicable and as interesting to-day as it was a hundred and forty years ago. Instead of those names, insert eighteen names of the men of the present age, and the question comes home to us with power. Men, continues Collins, have nothing whatever to fear from per- fect freedom of debate, but every thing to hope. He asks : "Would Tran substantiation pass in France \Vithout an Attack * " Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion," p. 42. 66 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l722. upon it, if Men cou\di freely write against it ? Would Truth suffer there, if that Doctrine were allowed to be a Subject of Debate ? Could that Doctrine keep the Ground it now has there, under free Debate ? Would its Falsehood, set forth in the utmost Light, have no Effect on the Understandings of the polite and ingenious French Nation^ Nay, is there any Thing, that keeps up that Absurdity, and stifles the Light of Truth, but Authority? And are not the Popish Ecclesiasticks so sensible of the Force of Truth, and so particularly fearful of losing the Pearl of great Price, the darling Doctrine of Transubstantiation, that no Man can with Safety, where they have Influence, to his Person, Fortune, and Reputation, call it in Question ? , -r m i, -d "Did Popery get any Ground in England, by the Liberty the Pa- pists had in the Reign of King James the second, to publish what- ever they pleased in Behalf of their Religion? On the contrary, was not Popery more exposed to Scorn and Contempt by bemg the Subject of Debate, than if nothing had been wrote in Behalf ol it i "Does Protestantism decay in Holland, where not only the Pa- pists themselves print what Apologies and controversial Treatxses thev please, but where the Booksellers print all manner of Popish Books, for which there is any Demand, and by Consequence chuse such Books chiefly, which the Papists themselves deem most strenu. ously written. -For if Debates are free. That is, if no Man gets or loses hyi maintaining particular Opinions, the grand Motives which make^ Men disturb one another about Opinions, will cease; and they will insensibly fall into a due Temper of Mind, (which Force can never procure) and be no more angry with one another on Account of 1 different Sentiments, than for different Features of their Faces, or, for different Proportions of their Bodies." ,, ., , ,;,,„ "Into what Feuds did the City of Hamburg run (to omit a thou- sand other Instances) on Occasion of a Dispute between fo Mn- Iters, whether in the Lord^s Prayer the first W-- -t •+ The word « deist" has long ago got out of general use,famihar as it- was to our great-grandfathers, and not less awful than familiar. Per- haps, a representative deist of a hundred and fifty years ago might- have defined the word thus: A deist is a Christian who has become in- capable of believing in a miracle. Probably, aU of this zealous sect would have assented to Humboldt's well-known summary : "All pos- itive religions," says Humboldt, "contain three distinct parts: first, a code of morals, very pure, and nearly the same in all ; next, a ge- oloo-ical dream; and, thirdly, a myth or historical novelette, which! last becomes the most important of all."* Collins, Shaftesbury, Gibbon, Hume, Voltaire, Bolingbroke, Jefferson, and Franklm m his sixteenth year, would all doubtless have smiled approvmgly ifl they had heard these words. Franklin, for one, found his now belief, or rather, his new un- / belief, lamentably inadequate to the moral wear and tear of life. It made him conceited, and left him an easy prey to temptation.. For some years, he wandered in heathenish darkness. He forsool^ * " Letters of Humboldt to V. Von Ense." Letter 60th. AGED 16.] HE READS SHAFTESBURY AND COLLINS. 71 the safe and good, though narrow ways of his forefathers, and of his father and mother, and his gentle Uncle Benjamin, without finding better and larger ways of his own. He was in danger of becoming a castaway, or a commonplace successful man of the world. He found, in due time, after many trials, and much suffer- ing, and many grievous errors, that the soul of man does not thrive upon negations, and that, in very truth, a man must believe in order to be saved. On the other hand, he escaped the theology of ter- ror, and became forever incapable of worshiping a jealous, re- vengeful, and vindictive Gpd-^the God of the Lord Brethren of Boston* Ai in ^>H4vOM*1(^ I Situated as her was, and being the lad he was, there was no escape from this painful and perilous experience. It was not his fault, that his elders supported immortal truths on ^(nwtenabLe grounds, and demanded that he should save his soul by ^efi^dag. his understanding. It was nobody's fault. It is human to 'be blind and weak, ignorant and fearful; and it is only by the re- bellion of bolder and keener spirits that our horizon is enlarged and our fear allayed. But rebellion, in itself considered, is an evil. 'We see, in the ancient writings, that the revolters against the mythology of Greece and Rome experienced moral injury, as well as social inconveniences, similar to those which attend a questioning of modern creeds. Nor have the American people recovered from all the moral damage incurred in their most just and necessary re- bellion against George the Third. • t^ How Franklin emerged at length from the shades of denial into thedight of belief; and from wandering in the wilderness, aimless, unto the Canaan of orderly, noble endeavor, we shall see, at the proper time. For the present he remains a thorough deist, exces- sively fond of perplexing the unwary believer by involving him in*' self-contradictions, after the manner of Socrates. His friend, John Collins, was brought over to deism. There are reasons for believing that James Franklin was something of a deist also — at least, no friend to the Lord Brethren. Their father, we may infer from one of his later letters, had no suspicion then of the change that had occurred in Benjamin's opinions. While the apprentice was thus reveling in his books, extracting from each all its honey and some of its poison, his brother's business was expanding, and events were occurring which influenced the 72 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1722. destinies of both. These audacious young printers, while the younger of the two was only sixteen, found themselves, as might have beeii anticipated, in collision with the Lord Brethren. CHAPTER VII. THE FIRST SENSATION NEWSPAPER. There was talk of a second newspaper in Boston when Benja- min had served a year of his apprenticeship, and James Frankhn had hopes of being employed to print it. , . ^ . i Nothing made slower progress in Colonial America than journal- ism The date of the first London newspaper is 1622 : of the hrst French newspaper, 1632;* of the first Scotch newspaper, 1654; of the first L-ish newspaper, 1685. The first American newspaper appeared at Boston, on Thursday, the twenty-fifth of September, 1690. It was a sheet of four pages, each page seven mches wide and eleven long; two columns on a page, and the last page blank At the top of the first page were printed, in large letters, the word. "Publick Occurrences, both Foreign and Domestic. It was dc^ signed to be published once a month, or oftener, - if any glut of occurrences happens. "f * Hunt's " Fourth Estate," i., 10, 20. + Tlip f.illowino- is a copy of the Prospectus : + The following ^^ py ^^^^ occuekexcks, fokeigk akd bomestick. our JSTotice. . ^ ^ ^^ oMain a Faithful PwClationJ In order here urUo, the Pubhsher w^ll taU ^^f .^^^^^^^^ 'f^n to sneli Persons in Boston. of all .uch things ; and ^ill particularly ^-^^;.;^ll%^^^^^ Llu>rnhe Mows to ha.e ^^^-f<>;:f^2''mrrT^^^^^^ '^ ^^^^ ^^"^^^^^^"^^ That which is herem proposed, *«' J^^. ' f^^^^^^^. Secondly, that people everywhere r^raynot he negUcted or forgoUen, a ^^^ J Jf^^J^^^l^fjii,^,, Jtk abroad and at ho^no, ISl^^l^S'^r^^--^^ Lf^ntai^M our Infor^aUon. A.. AGED 16.J THE FIKST SENSATION NEWSPAPER. 73 The first number contains-SfSvc'v well digested paragraphs of news, of which thh'teen relate to domestic intelligence, and seven to foreign. There is no advertisement, and nothing of the nature of an editorial, except the prospectus. One paragraph arrests the eye of every one that glances over the contents of this sheet : " We have News here that K. William is safe arrived in Ireland, and is marched with one hundred and forty thousand Foot and Horse. Himself leads the body, Duke Scomburgh the right Wing, and the Earl of Oxford the left Wing. Duke Hamilton of Scotland leads the forlorn Hope, with ten thousand men under him. Great victory they daily have, and much people daily come into him with submission ; He has 200 Shipping with him of one sort or other, above one hundred Sail daily run between Ireland and England, with meat for Man and Beast ; His Majesty being unv^dlling to trust lake Ireland for it." In another paragraph, which relates the failure of the expedition led by Sir William Phipps against Canada, the editor mentions- - 07ily mentions — that a misunderstanding had arisen between Gen. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, and the Lieutenant-Governor of New York. He also ventures to intimate that the employment of Indians in such expeditious may be unwise. *' And if," he adds, " Almighty God will have Canada to be subdued without the assistance of those miserable Salvages, in whom we have too much confided, we shall be glad that there will be no sacrifice ofiered up to the Devil upon this occasion ; God alone will have all the glory." Rash man ! Four days after the appearance of this harmless and intei-esting paper, the authorities of the colony declared that it had come out contrary to law, and " contained reflections of a very high nature." They caused its suppression, and forbade the appearance of any thing in print, unless it had been first licensed. Of the Pub- lic Occurrences^ therefore, but this one number was published. Of that number, only one copy is known to exist, which is in the Colo- ifhtn there, appeam any material mistake in any thing that is collected, it shall be corrected 171 the next. Moreover, t?i6 Publisher of these Occurrences is willing to engas:e, tJuii whereas, there are many False Reports, malieiou.^.ly made, and spread amtrng u.% if any well ')ninded person will be at theijaina to trace any auch false Report, so far as to find out and Convict the First Raiser of it, he will in thit Paper {u7iless just Advice be given tg the contrary') expose tlis Name of such Persoji as A malicious Raiser of a False Report. It is supposed that none will dislike this Proposal, bateueh as intend to he guilty of so villanoits a Crim^e.'" 4 V4 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMINT FRANKLIN. [l722. nial State Paper Office, in London, where it was discovered, a few years ago, by Dr. J. B. Felt, author of the " Annals of Salem."* The offense of the editor of this paper appears to have been, not that he had printed any thing false or injurious, but that he, a mere printer, had presumed to discourse at all of such high matters as warlike expeditions, and such high personages as kings, governors, and generals. Whoever and whatever is destined to attain supreme power in the world passes through its period of martyrdom. It is necessary for the reader of these pages to understand, that the probation of the press by blood and torture was not half over in 1690. Only twenty- seven years had elapsed since the following scene had occurred in London : The place was a court-room in the Old Bailey, Chief Justice Hyde presiding. The prisoner at the bar was a printer, named John Gwyn, a poor man, with a wife and three children. Gwyn was accused of printing a piece which criticised the conduct of the gov- ernment, and which contained these words, and others similar : " If the magistrates pervert judgment, the people are bound by the law of God, to execute judgment without them, and upon them.'^'' This was a kind of justification of the execution of Charles L, as well as a threat against Charles II., then King of England, The poor man protested he had never read the offensive matter ; it was brought to him by a maid-servant ; he had earned forty shillings by printing it. When he was pronounced guilty, he humbly begged for mercy, pleading his poverty, his young children, and his ignorance of the contents of the paper. " I'll tell you what you shall do," roared the brutal sycophant who sat on the bench, "ask mercy of them that can give it — tliat is, of God and the King." The prisoner said : " I humbly beseech you to intercede with his majesty for mercy." "Tie him up, executioner," began the judge in reply. "I speak it from my soul, I think we have the greatest happiness in the world in enjoying what we do under so good and gracious a king; yet you, Gwyn, in the rancor of your heart, thus to abuse him, deserve no mercy." After some further expressions of the same nature, he passed upon the prisoner this sentence : He was * " Annals of Salem," p. 14 ; " N. Y. Ilistcrical Mivgazine," vol. i., No. 8 ; Buckingham's " Sped mens of Newspaper Literature," 1. The "N. Y. Historical ALigazine," vol, i., No. 8, contains a copy of the entire contents of the Public Oceurrcnccs, AGED IC.J THE FIRST SENSATION NEWSPAPER. YS to be drawn to the place of execution upon a hurdle. He was to be hanged by the neck. While still alive, he was to be cut down, cas- trated, and disemboweled. "And you still living," concluded Hyde, — " your entrails are to be burnt before your eyes ; your head to be cut off, and your head and quarters to be disposed of at the pleasure of the king's majesty." Again the wretch, in his great horror and agony, cried to the judge to intercede for him. " I would not intercede," replied the ermined fiend, " for my own father in this case." The prisoner was removed. The senteace was executed. His head and limbs were set up over the gates of the city.* It was in 1663 that this deed was done. N"o printer afterward suffered as Gwyn suffered ; but for sixty years after his execu- tion, it was common in England to crop the ears of printers and editors, to put them into the stocks and pillory, to flog them at the cart's tail, and to hang them with malefactors at Tyburn. In 1719> when Benjamin Franklin had served one year in his brother's print- ing house, John Mathews, a youth aged nineteen, was executed at Tyburn, for publishing a tract in favor of hereditary right, ^. e., in favor of the expelled Stuarts. He appears to have been a vain, harmless boy, who had written his pamphlet from the conceit, com- mon to young men, of differing from the majority. We cannot wonder, then, that in ]!^ew England the printing press, from the beginning, should have been regarded by governors and councils in the light of a spiritual powder-magazine — as something useful, but dangerous ; to be held in honor ; to be walled about and watched. In 1640, the Council of Massachusetts voted " Stee- ven Day" three hundred acres of land, because he was the first who " sett upon printing" in the colony ; but a hundred years and more elapsed before the press was exempt from censorship.f Fourteen years after the suppression of Public Occurrences^ John Campbell, postmaster of Boston, a dull, ignorant Scotch bookseller, began the publication of a weekly paper, called the Boston JVews Letter.^ which was for many years the only newspaper in America. The News Letter was published " by authority," and was conducted with clumsy and cringing prudence ; containing little more than a digest of the European news. The advertisements, of * Hunrs "Fonrth Estnte," i., 140. Mr. Hunt copied from the "State Trials." t Drake's "History of Boston," p. 242. 76 IJFK AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l722. which there were seldom more than two or three in a number, re- lated chiefly to the catching of runaway apprentices and the sale of negroes. The N'eics Letter was not a source of profit to the postmaster ; he was continually complaining of the indifterence of the public and the smallness of his circulation. After a struggle of fifteen years, he was still obliged to confess that he coald not "vend three hundred at an impression, though some ignorantly concludes he sells upward of a thousand." He boasted, however, on this occasion, that the European news, which was formerly '' thirteen months in arrear, was then only five months ; so that we have retrieved about eight months since January last." There was certainly little encouragement to start another paper in Boston. But, from 1704, when the JSfeios Letter began, until the Revolution, the business of publishing newspapers in America was carried on almost exclusively by postmasters; and in 1719, John Campbell, postmaster of Boston, lost his place. Newspapers, it should be mentioned, went free of postage in the colonies as late as 1758, when one Benjamin Franklin, Deputy Postmaster-General, put upon them a charge of nine pence a year for each fifty miles of carriage. Until that time, the postmasters had not only the privilege of sending papers through the mail free, but the still more valuable right of excluding from the mail papers published by others. Accordingly, we find that nearly all the pioneers of the press, in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were postmasters. When a postmaster lost his office he generally sold out his newspaper, and a new postmaster soon bought or established one. John Camp- bell, however, feeling himself aggrieved by his removal, did not dispose of the News Letter : which induced his successor, William Brocker, to set up a paper of his own, the Boston Gazette, which appeared in December, 1719. Mr. Brocker expressly says, in his prospectus, that he started the new paper at the request of several merchants, and others, who "have been prevented from having their newspaper sent them by the post, ever since Mr. Campbell was removed from being postmaster." James Franklin was employed to print the Boston Gazette^ an im- portant addition to his little business. Before Brocker had enjoyed the office of postmaster many months, news came from England that the postmaster-general, who had repeatedly requested the re- moval of the incfficieiit Campbell, hud appointed to his office Philip AGED 16.] 33IE FIRST SEXSATION NEWSPAPER. 77 Masgrave. Thus, two persons were appointed to the same office ; one by the colonial postmaster ; another, by the postmaster-general. Masgrave, deriving his r.ppointment from the central authority, took the office, and, as a consequence, bought of the superseded Brocker the new newspaper. Masgrave chose to employ another printer. It is probable that James Franklin had incurred expense in preparing to print the Gazette^ which a continuance of the work would have reimbursed. He appears to have resented, as well as lamented, the transfer of the prmting to another office. To this feeling of resentment is at- tributed his determination to start a third newspaper, in a town which had not shown itself willing to give a fair support to one. Besides, who that has ever been concerned in the conduct of a periodical, can quite recover from the hankering to be again occu- pied in getting out '* great numbers," the most fascinating of human employments? His friends advised him strongly against the un- dertaking. But on Monday, August 17, 1721, appeared the first number of the N'ew JEngland Courant^ owned, printed, and con- ducted by James Franklin. Tlie paper was named after the London Daily Courant^ a journal renowned in those years for its boldness in maintaining the liberty of the press, and for the prose- cutions it underwent in consequence. A new task devolved upon Benjamin after the starting of the Gourant. Besides assisting to set it in type, and to work it off upon the press, he carried the paper around the city to the subscri- bers. As he was the carrier for a year or tw^o, he, probaV)ly, ex- ercised his poetical talents in producing the Carrier's New Year Address ; for this custom, we know% prevailed from the earliest period of the colonial press. A Carrier's Address, dated 1720, writ- ten by the Philadelphia printer, Samuel Keimer, whose acquaintance the reader will soon have the pleasure of making, has been preserved. It bears the following superscription : " Piece wrote by Samuel Keimer, for the boys who carried out the weekly newspaper to their Master's customers in Philadelphia ; to whom commonly, every New Year's Day, they present verses of this kind."* Thirty-eight lines of doggerel follow this ample prelude: "Full fifty times have roU'd these changes on. And all the year's transactions now are done ; * Duyckinck's " Cyclopedia of American Literature," {., 99. Is LIFE AND TIMES OF BEIS^JAMIN FRANKLIX. [l722. Full fifty times I've trod with eager haste, To bring you weekly news of all things past ; Some grateful thing is due for such a task, Tho' modesty itself forbids to ask ; A silver thought expressed in ill-shaped ore, Is all I wish ; nor would I ask for more." And so forth. The carriers of that day expressed the object of their New Year's call more plainly than is the custom now. The JVeic England Courant * was a most extraordinary sheet. Of all the colonial newspapers it was the most spirited, witty, and daring. The Bostonians, accustomed to the monotonous dullness of the JSfews Letter and the monotonous respectability of the Ga- zette, received, some with delight, more with horror, all with amaze- ment, this weekly budget of impudence and fun. A knot of liberals gathered round James Franklin, physicians most of them, able, audacious men, who kept him well supplied with squibs, essays, and every variety of sense and nonsense known in that age. The Courant was, indeed, to borrow the slang of the present day, a " sen- sation newspaper." Such a tempest did it stir up in i^oston, that the noise thereof was heard in the remote colony of Pennsylvania. Couranto — for thus the paper was personalized by the club of contributors — ^first set upon the N'ews Letter and the Gazette, alleg- ing that they were " very, very dull," so dull, as to render a third newspaper more than excusable. Campbell, in his dull, clumsy way, like an elephant gamboling, essayed to ridicule the pretensions of " our new gentleman." Couranto replied in verse. Campbell re- sponded in his dullest and most involved manner. The Gazette joined in the fray, and there was war between the three papers as long as the Courant existed. This, however, was a matter of little consequence. Before three numbers of the Courant had appeared, it was involved in a contro- versy with the very Lords of the Lord Brethren ; in which the Brethren were on the right and liberal side, and the Courant stood forth as the defender of antiquated and cowardly prejudice. When the Courant was started, the small-pox, that scourge of the olden time, was raging fearfully in Boston, as it had done many times * For information respecting the New Enerland Coufant, see the file in the Library of the Mas- B.'ichusetts Historical Society; Buckingham's "Specimens of Newspaper Literature;" Thomas's "• History of Prinnng;" Drake's "History of Boston." AGED 16.] THE FIRST SENSATION NEWSPAPER. Id before. The present generation can scarcely conceive the horrors of this disease in the olden times. When Boston was a town of five or six thousand inhabitants, seven hundred persons died of small-pox in half a year. In 1690, three hundred and ninety died of it. In 1'721, when the population was twelve thousand, the number of deatlis from this disease was eight hundred and fifty ; and such virulence had the mysterious poison, that people died in three or four days after being attacked. The small-pox was, to the people of that age, more terrible than any terror can be to moderns ; for the progres s of civiUzation is the gradual delivera nca-of man fromhis_Jears, byj esseningi his dan gers, and Jby^ enlightening hi s mind. The past ages were a long reign of terror. Small-pox without inoculation ; fires without insurance ; witchcraft ; " Sinners in the hands of an angry God ;" how strange that any one could have laughed in Boston, a hundred and fifty years ago. Note these sen- tences from a sermon preached at Boston, in 1766, by Dr. May- hew : " We have known seasons of drought, death, and spreading mortal diseases. We have seen wide devastations made by fires, and amazing tempests, the heavens on flames, the winds and waves warring. We have known repeated earthquakes threatening us with destruction. We have been under great apprehensions by reason of formidable fleets of an enemy on our coasts, menacing fire and sword to all our maritime towns. We have knowm times when the French and savage armies made terrible havoc on our frontiers, carrying all before them for a while. Such times as these have we known ; at some of which, almost every face gathered paleness, and the knees of all but the good and brave waxed feeble." About the time that Benjamin Franklin first donned the apron of the printer's boy, Lady Mary Wortley Montague came home from Turkey with the secret of inoculation for the small-pox. Cotton Mather read all about it, theory and practice, in the Trans- actions of the Royal Society, which he received regularly, and to which he sent contributions. He warmly welcomed the perilous invention, and so did his venerable father, Increase Mather. Through their great influence, a trial of inoculation was made in 1721, and with such success, that out of two hundred and eighty- six persons inoculated in Massachusetts, only six died. Neverthe- less, a great clamor arose against inoculation ; as there does against 30 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1722. every valuable idea or scheme when it is first promulgated. The witty correspondents of the Courant^ moved thereto by their dis- like of the clergy, led the attack upon the new remedy, and kept up a weekly fire of ridicule and sarcasm upon it and its clerical advocates. Unfortunately, no copies exist of the first seventeen numbers of the Couranty' and we are obliged to learn their contents from the files of the News Letter, which essayed to reply to its assaults upon inoculation. We perceive that the wrath of Cotton Mather burned against the new journal. When but two numbers of the Gourant had appeared, a communication, supposed to have been the work of Cotton Mather, was published in the News Letter^ de- nouncing the Coiirant in unmeasured language. The reverend vituperator compared the writers for the Gourant to the Hell Fire Club of London, the members of which were popularly supposed to assume "the tremendous names of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, John the Baptist, and the twelve Apostles," and to assemble regularly for the formal worship of the Devil, whose health was their common toast, and to whom they had erected an altar. "Notwithstanding God's hand is against us," continued the irate Mather, " in his visitation of the small-pox, and the threat- ening aspect of the wet weather, we find a notorious, scandalous paper, called the Gourant^ full freighted with nonsense, unmanli- ness, railery, prophaneness, immorality, arrogance, calumnies, lies, contradictions, and what not, all tending to quarrels and divisions, and to debauch and corrupt the minds and manners of New Eng- land." It likewise troubled him, he added, to hear it frequently said in Boston, that " the authors of that flagitious and wicked paper," were certain respectable " practitioners of physic, several of whom, we know to be gentlemen by birth, education, probity, and good manners." The reverend writer warned these gentlemen to desist, " lest their bands be made strong, and a worse thing be- fall them." Increase Mather publicly, and over his own signature, denounced the Gourant as a " wicked libel," in that it had represented him as one of its supporters. "I do hereby declare," said he, "that al- tho' I had paid for two or three of them, I then sent him word I was extremely offended with it. In special, because in one of his 1^76 Gourants he insinuates, that if the Ministers of God approve AGED 16.] THE FIRST SENS ATI OX NEWSPAPER. 81 of a thing ^ it is a Sign it is of the Devil ; which is a horrid thing to be related ! And he doth frequently abuse the Ministers of Religion, and many other worthy Persons in a manner, which is intolerable. For these and such like Reasons I signified to the Printer, that I would have no more of their Wicked Courants. I that have known what New England was from the Beginnmg, can- not but be troubled to see the Degeneracy of this Place. I can well remember when the Civil Government would have taken an effectual Course to suppress such a Cursed Libel! which if it be not done I am afraid that some Awful Judgment will come up'on this Land, and the Wrath of God loill arise, and there will he no Remedy. I cannot but pity poor Franklin, who tho' but a Young Man it may be Speedily he must appear before the Judgment Seat of God, and what answer will he give for printing things so vile and abominable ?" Ere long a pamphlet appeared, the chief object of which was to attack the Courant. In the hight of the controversy, a diabolical attempt was made to silence forever the chief of the inoculators. He related the particulars himself in tie Wews Letter: "At the House of the Reverend Dr. Cotton Mather, there lodged his Kins- man, a worthy Minister under the Small-Pox, received and man- aged in the w^ay oi Inoculation. Towards Three of the Clock in the Night, as it grew towards the Morning of Tuesday the Four- teenth of the Instant November, some unknown Hands threw a Fired Granado into the Chamber of the Sick Gentleman: The weight whereof alone, if it had fallen upon the Head of the Patient (which it seemed aimed at) would have been enough to have done part of the Business designed. But the Granado was charged with Combustible matter, and in such a manner, that upon its going off, it must probably have killed the Persons in the Room, and would have certainly fired the Chamber & soon have laid the House in Ashes, which has appear'd Incontestible to them that have since Examined it. But the Merciful Providence of GOD so ordered it, that the Granado passing through the Window, had by the Iron in the Middle of the Casement, such a Turn given to it, that in falling on the Floor, the Fired Wild-Fire in the Fuse was silently shaken out some Distance from the Shell, and burned out upon the Floor, without firing the Granado." It appeared from a paper attached to the grenade, that this at- 4* 82 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAJ^IIN FEANKLIN. fl722. tempt to destroy the worthy and credulous Mather, was the work of a revengeful private enemy. "I was one of your meeting," ran the paper, "but the cursed lye you told of, you know who, made me leave you, you dog. And damn you, I will inoculate you with this, with a pox to you." 1^0 the attacks of the clergy, the pamphleteer, and the JVews Letter, James Franklin replied with moderation and ingenuity. While speaking of Increase Mather as became a young man, he yet proved to him that his charges against the Gourant were founded on quotations garbled or incomplete. The sentence referred to by Mather as containing something " horrid to be related," was inno- cent enough when quoted entire : " Most of the ministers are for it, and that induces me to think it is from the Devil ; for he often makes use of good men as instruments to obtrude his delusions on the world." The editor also contrived to let the public know, that his reverend opponent, though no longer a subscriber to the Cour- ant^ yet sent his grandson every week to buy it ; and, paying in this way a higher price, he was more a supporter of the paper than ever. " I would likewise," said the printer, " advise the enemies of the Courant not to publish any thing more against it, unless they are willing to have it continued. What they have already done has been resented by the Town so much to my advantage, that above forty persons have subscribed for the Courant since the first of January, many of whom were before subscribers to the other papers : And, by one Advertisement more, the Anti-Couranters will be in great danger of adding forty more to my list before the first of March." Even in the streets, the young printer was not safe from the re- monstrances of the indignant brethren. While the inoculation controversy was in progress, a certain gentleman stopped him in the streets and addressed him in the following words : " Young man, you entertain, and no doubt you think you edify, the public with a weekly paper called the Gourant. The plain design of your paper is to banter and abuse the ministers of God, and, if you can, to defeat all the good effects of their ministry on the minds of the people. You may do well to remember that it is a passage, in the blessing on the tribe of Levi, Smite through the loins of them that rise agahist him, and of them that hate him. I would have you to know that the f iithful ministers of Christ in this place, are as hon- I AGED 16.] THE FIRST SENSATION NEWSPAPER. 83 est and useful men as the ancient Levites were ; and, if you resolve to go on in serving their great adversary as you do, you must ex- pect the consequences." Having said these words, he turned upon his heel and walked away. James Franklin retorted in the Courant. The assailant replied in the News Letter^ justifying his conduct. "The reason," said he, " of this faithful admonition was, because the practice of supporting and publishing every week a libel, on purpose to lessen and blacken and burlesque the virtuous and principal ministers of religion in a country, and render all the services of their ministry despicable, and even detestable to the people, is a wickedness thai, was never known before^ in any country, Christian, Turkish, or Pagan, on the face of the earth, and some good men are afraid it may provoke Heaven to deal with this place, in some regards, as never any place has yet been dealt withal, and a charity to this young man and his accomphces might render such a warning proper for them." And so the wordy warfare went on, week after week, for several months ; subsiding, as wars generally do, when both parties were exhausted. The apprentice, meanwhile, set the types, worked at the press,* and carried about the paper, never presuming to take part in the controversy, keenly as it must have interested him. There w^as not a cordial feeling between Benjamin and his brother James. The lad saw with resentment that he was treated in all respects as an apprentice, nothing whatever being conceded to the relationship between himself and his master. Often high words passed be- tween the brothers ; often the master inflicted blows upon the ap- prentice ; often their father was called upon to settle their differ- ences, and, generally, he decided that Benjamin w^as in the right. It was owing, doubtless, to this ill feeling, that James Franklin * "The old press at which Franklin worked in Boston, on the ITew England Courant in 1720, has been preserved for more than a century in the office of the Newport Mercury. The Mercury was established by James Franklin, brother of the philosopher, who then owned and used the press. It has recently been sold, and is now the property of John B. Murray, Esq., of the firm of John B. Murray & Co., bankers, Xew York City. Mr. Murray is already the owner of one press at which Benjamin Franklin worked in Watts's printing house, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, in 1725-0. This old press Mr. Murray procured in London in 1841, and deposited for safe keeping in the United States Patent Office at Washington in 1842, where it still remains. The only two presses identified with the name of Benjamin Franklin are now under one ownership, and will be kept together during the lifetime of the owner." — BostonTranscript, Sept. 15, 1859. 84 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [lV22. knew little of the lad's studies and aspirations ; least of all, sus- pected that his apprentice, before he was sixteen, had so completely- caught the Addisonian manner as to be able to produce passages, if not whole essays, scarcely inferior to Addison, either in spirit or in style. Moved, at length, to try his hand at an article for the Courant^ the apprentice executed his purpose in secret, disguised his hand, and thrust the piece under the door of the printing-house at night — just as Charles Dickens dropped, one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, that first magazine article of his, " into a dark letter- box, in a dark office, up a dark court in Fleet Street." The next morning, when the contributors assembled for their daily chat and consultation, the apprentice as he stood at the case heard his piece read and commented on. He tells us that he had the exquisite pleasure of finding that it was approved, and that, in their guesses at the author, they mentioned none but men noted for learning and talents. Life knows no moment of deeper joy than the one which reveals to the young genius that he actually has something of the power to move and charm which he has so long admired and coveted. When Dickens saw his piece "in all the glory of print," he had to turn into Westminster Hall, he says, to hide his tears of joy and pride. Franklin's experience must have been similar for him to have spoken of it, fifty-five years after, as an exquisite pleasure. The piece was printed in the Courant. The incomplete file of m that paper, preserved in the Library of the Historical Society of * Massachusetts, has often been scanned, with a view to find or guess at this first printed production of Benjamin Franklin. Conjecluie points, with much confidence, to a series of articles signed " Silence Dogood," which began to appear when the interest in the inocula- tion controversy was beginning to flag. These articles are of such unequal merit as to justify the conclusion that they were the production of different authors. It is beheved, however, that the signature, the plan of the series, and most of the articles, were the work of the apprentice, and that the first of the series was the article thrust by him, at night, under the door of the printing- house. The words, " Silence Dogood^" describe the lad's ideal of character, and they describe the character he himself attained ; for be was taciturn in general company, and he vahied, above all other AGED 16.] THE FIKST SENSATION NEWSPAPER. 85 fame, he tells us, that of a doer of good. There is another reason for attributing some of these articles to him, beside the internal evidence. A boy of talent, who has been prevented by poverty from going to college, is apt to criticise colleges and graduates of colleges, in the spirit of the fox that pronounced the grapes sour which he could not reach. No sooner has " Silence Dogood" told the story of her childhood, marriage, and widowhood, and thus in- troduced herself to the public, than she falls to ridiculing Harvard College. Her fourth number is a " Dream," in the manner of the "Spectator," in which precisely the view of a college is taken, which our disappointed printer's boy was likely to take. I seem to hear the young carrier of genius in every sentence of this amus- ing performance. " I fancied," the Dream began, " I was traveling over pleasant and delightful fields and meadows, and through many small country towns and villages ; and, as I passed along, all places resounded with the fame of the Temple of Learning: Every peas- ant, Avho had wherewithal, was proposing to send one of his chil- dren, at least, to this famous place ; and, in this case, most of them consulted their own purses instead of their children's capacities. So that I observed a great many, yea, the most part of those who were traveling thither, were little better than blockheads and dunces. Alas ! alas !" The dreamer visits the temple of learning, gives a satirical de- scription of its inmates and customs ; and relates the career of those who leave it, i. e., the graduates of Harvard. " Some, I perceived, took to merchandising, others to traveling, some to one thing, some to another, and some to nothing; and many of these, henceforth, for want of patrimony, lived as poor as church mice, being unable to dig, and ashamed to beg, and to live by their wits it was impos- sible. But the most part of the crowd went along a large beaten path, which led to a temple at the further end of the plain, called The Temple of Theology. The business of those, who were em- ployed in this temple, being laborious and painful, I wondered ex- ceedingly to see so many go toward it ; but while I was pondering this matter in my mind, I spied Pecuhia behind a curtain, beck- oning to them with her hand, which sight immediately satisfied me for whose sake it was, that a great part of them (I will not say all), traveled that road. In this temple I saw nothing worth mention- ing, except the ambitious and fraudulent contrivances of Plagius, 86 LIFE AND TIMES OF EKNJAMIX FRANKLIN. [1722. vrho (notwithstanding he had been severely reprehended for such practices before) was diligently transcribing some eloquent para- graphs out of Tillotson's works, to embellish his own." This passage illustrates the spirit of the Courant^ as well as the style and opinions of the author. Mrs. Silence Dogood con- tinued to send in her humorous essays for more than a year. She was extremely fond of ridiculing the grave-3''ard doggerel of the time, and gave many a hit at the character and manners of the Lord Brethren. Benjamin tells us, in his autobiography, that encouraged by the success of his first piece, he continued to thrust contribu- tions under the office door until his stock of ideas was exhausted. He then revealed himself as the unknown author, and was thence- forth held in more respect by his brother and the corps of writers. There is yet another reason for attributing some of the essays of Mrs. Dogood to the apprentice. Some of her jokes we find revived and elaborated in Franklin's Philadelphia newspaper many years after. The following remarks of Mrs. Dogood are an example : " And as the effects of liquor are various, so are the characters given to its devourers. It argues some shame in the drunkards themselves, in that they have invented numberless words and phrjMes to cover their folly, whose proper significations are harm- less, or have no signification at all. They are seldom known to be drunk, though they are very often Boozey, Cozey, Tipsy, Fox^d, Merry, Mellow, Fuddled, Groatahle, Confoundedly cut. See two moons. Are ainong the Philestines, In a very good humor, See the sun, or IVie sun has shone upon them ; they Clip the king's En- glish, are Almost froze. Feverish, In their Attitudes, Pretty well entered, etc. In short, every day produces some new word or phrase, which might be added to the vocabulary of the tipplers ; but I have chose to mention these few, because if, at any time, a man of sobriety and temperance happens to cut him.self confoundedly , or is almost froze, or feverish, or accidentally sees the su?i, etc., he may escape the imputation of being drunk, when his misfortune comes to be related." The leading 4deas of this passage are repeated in tlie Peyinsyl- vanict Gazette, and the catalogue of words meaning drunk is greatly extended, and arranged in columns, in alphabetical order, after the manner of Rabelais. For nearly a year, the saucy Courant continued to amuse the AGED 16.] THE FIRST SENSATION NEWSPAPER. 87 sinners and exasperate the saints of Boston, without molestation. This single fact is sufficient to show that the ruling powers of Mas- sachusetts had grown far more tolerant than those of the old coun- try. The publication of a newspaper in London half as offensive . to the government and bishops of England, as the Gourant was to the magistrates and clergy of New England, would certainly have cost the printer his ears, and some of the writers their lives, at any time from 1700 to 1750. It was as late as 1812, that Leigh Hunt and his brother were sentenced to pay a fine of five hundred pounds, and to suffer two years' imprisonment, for printing a little harmless nonsense about the Prince Regent. Yet, for eleven months, the governing power of Boston, as early in the history of toleration as 1722, permitted the Courant to make merry with their measures and their manners, their dogmas and their dignity. But their patience was exhausted at length, and they proceeded against the offensive journal, on a pretext of the most frivolous character. The Courant^ for June 11, 1722, contained a fictitious letter from Newport, which stated that a pirate vessel had been seen off Block Island, and that the authorities of the colony were fitting out two vessels to go in pursuit of her. The article con- cluded with these words : " We are advised from Boston, tha^he government of the Massachusetts are fitting out a ship, (the Fly- ing Horse,) to go~ after the pirates, to be commanded by Captain Peter Papillon, and 'tis thought he will sail some time this month, wind and weather permitting." This reflection upon the tardiness of the government was seized upon as the pretext for mo^t arbitrary proceedings. The Council summoned James Franklin before them. After being questioned, he owned that he was the publisher of the paper, but refused to reveal the name of the author of the offensive letter. He appears to have borne himself haughtily in the presence of the Council. Benjamin was examined, and he, too, refused to name the author ; a contumacy which was excused in him on the ground that an apprentice was bound not to betray his master's secrets. The Council decided that the paragraph was " a higll^^ffront to the government," and ordered the sheriff to commit J«mies Franklin to the Boston jail. A week's confinement in the cell of a stinking prison had such an effect upon the spirits of the unlucky printer, that he sent to the 88 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1722. Council a petition, couched in the humblest terms. He said that '' he was truly sensible and heartily sorry for the offence he had given to this court in the late Gourant, relating to the fitting out of a ship by the government, and truly acknowledges his inadvertency and folly therein in affronting the government, as also his indiscre- tion and indecency when before the court ; for all which he intreats the court's forgiveness, and praying a discharge from the stone prison, where he is confined by order of the court, and that he may have the liberty of the yard, he being much indisposed, and suffering in his health by the said confinement." The petition was granted. But he had been confined a whole month before he was released. While his brotlier was in prison, Benjamin managed the printing office and conducted the Courant. So far was he and the knot of writers from being intimidated by the prosecution, that, from this time forward, the Courant redoubled both the number and the severity of its attacks upon the administration. Even while James Franklin lay in prison, the proceedings of the Council were assailed by argument, eloquence, and satire, in prose and verse, in squib and essay. One number, issued just after James Franklin's release, w^ nearly filled with passages fi'om Magna Charta, and com- ments upon the same, showing the unconstitutionality of the treat- ment to which he had been subjected. It is evident that a consid- erable number of the people of Boston most heartily sympathized with the Courant in its gallant contest for the liberty of the press, and that the issue of the number was, to these and to others, the most interesting event of the week. The authoiities bore these assaults for six months after the expiration of the printer's term of incarceration. But the num- ber of the Courant for January 14, 1723, was so variously and stingingly offensive to them, that they could endure it no longer. Besides many little hits at the governor, and other dignitaries, it contained a long and telling article on the vices and follies of church members. A few sentences from this piece will suffice to show its quality. It was preceded by some lines from Hudibras : " — ^In the wicked there's no vice, Of which the saints have not a spice ; AGED 16,] THE FIRST SENSATION NEWSPAPER. 89 And yet that thing that's pious in The one, in t'other is a sin. Is't not ridiculous and nonsense, A saint should be a slave to conscience ?" The writer then proceeded thus : " It is an observation no less true than sorrowful, which some have made, that there are many persons who seem to be more than ordinary religious^ but yet are on several accounts worse, by far, than those who pretend to no religion at all. * * * " If we observe them on the Sabbath, they are wonderful strict and zealous in the sanctification of that ; and it may be, are exact observers of the evening before and after it ; or, trace them to the solemn assemblies, and who is there so devout and attentive as they ? Nay, sometimes they discover such distorted faces and awk- ward gestures, as rendered them ridiculous. But yet, these very men are often found to be the greatest cheats imaginable ; they will di'xssemUe and lie^ snuffle and whiffle; and, if it be possible, they will overreach and defraud all w^ho deal with them. * * * " Thus, sometimes when they have made a firm bargain for some commodity or other, and the money to be paid on receiving it, if the buyer delay his coming for it for a day or two, and they have y a prospect of getting more, they will advance ten or twenty shil- lings on the price, and exact it of him. Or when accounts (perhaps of laborers) are carried into them, they will cut off a considerable part, which is as justly due as the rest. Or, if they have made a bargain with any, which proves very hard, and he apply himself to them for abatement and relief, none can be obtained : The law cannot help him, and if he put it to their consceince, why they have none, or one that is seared with hot iron. Dovbt tell me (they say), a bargain is a bargain; You should have looked to that be- fore ; I can't help it now. ****** " For my own part, when I lind a man full of religious cant and peilavar, I presently suspect him to be a knave. Religion is, in- deed, the principal thing; but too much of it is worse than none at all. The world abounds with knaves and villains ; but of all knaves, the religious knave is the worst; and villanies acted under the cloak of religion are the most execrable. Moral honesty, though it will not of itself, carry a man to heaven, yet I am sure 90 LIFE AXD TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [lY22. there is no going tliither icithout it. And however such men, of whom 1 have been speaking, may palliate their wickedness, they will find that publicans and ha.lts will enter the kingdom of heaveti before themselves.^'' And a great deal more to s'.m lar effect. Indeed, the whole of this number of the Gourant^ exc pt a very few short paragraphs, was offensive, and meant to be offensive, to the clergy, or the magis- trates, or both. The very day on which this defiantly exasperating number ap- peared, the Council ordered that, whereas, the Courant of that date contained " many passages in which the Holy Scriptures were perverted, and the civil government, ministers, and people of this province highly reflected on, a committee of three persons be ap- pointed to consider and report what is proper for this court to do thereon." In two days, the Committee had considered the matter and were ready to report. They " were humbly of opinion that the tendency of the said paper is to mock religion, and bring it into contempt, that the Holy Scriptures are therein profanely abused, that the re- vered and faithful ministers of the Gospel are injuriously reflected on. His Majesty's Government affronted, and the peace and good order of His Majesty's subjects of this Province disturbed, by the said Courant ; and for precaution of the like offence for the future, the Committee humbly propose., That James Franklin, the printer and publisher thereof, be strictly forbidden by this Court to print or' publish the New England Courant^ or any other pamphlet or paper of the like nature, except it be first supervised by the Secre- tary of this Province." This report was approved and an order was issued in accordance therewith. What effect this proceeding had upon the minds of the people of Boston, we can only infer, as there is no record on the subject. The Philadelphia Mercury commented upon it with humor and severity ; descanting on the injustice of punishing Mr. Franklin with- out giving him a hearing. " An indifferent person," said the Mer- cury., " would judge, from this conduct, that the Assembly of Massachusetts were oppressors and bigots, ' who made religion only an engine of destruction to the people.' " The Mercury pitied the people who were compelled to submit to the tyranny of priest- AGED 16.] THE FIRST SEiq"SATION NEWSPAPER. 91 craft and hypocrisy, and concluded its comments with a witty P. S. : "By private letters from Boston, we are informed, that the bakers were mider great apprehensions of being forbid baking any more bread, unless they will submit it to the Secretary as supervi- sor-general and weigher of the dough, before it is baked into bread and oiFered to sale." All this must have been consoling when it reached Boston, about two months after the event. The persecuted printer, liowever, was obhged to act immediately, or lose his newspaper. The contribu- tors assembled at the office as soon as the decision of the Council was known, to devise a scheme for safely evading the arbitrary mandate. It was resolved, after other plans had been considered and rejected, that the paper should be issued thenceforth in the name of Benjamin Franklin ; to obviate the charge of continuing to print the Courant by his apprentice, James Franklin canceled the youth's indentures, and returned them to him, to be shown if there should be occasion. At the same time, to secure the lad's valuable services for the four remaining years of his apprenticeship, he caused him to sign new indentures, which were to be kept secret. The next number of the Courant announced that " the late pub- lisher of this paper, finding so many inconveniencies would arise by his carrying the manuscripts and public news to be supervised by the Secretray as to render his carrying it on unprofitable, has entirely dropt the undertaking." Then followed a long and humorous prospectus, written as though the New England Courant were then presenting itself to the public for the first time. There are passages in this article so Franklinenn that we cannot hesitate to attribute the greater part of it to the person in whose name it was published. It began thus: "Long has the press groaned in bringing forth an hateful brood of pamphlets, malicious scribbles, and billingsgate-ribaldry. The rancor and bitterness it has unhappily infused into men's minds, and to what a degree it has soured and leavened the tempers of persons formerly esteemed some of the most sweet and afiiible, is too well known here to need any further proof or representation of the matter. No generous and impartial person, then, can blame the present undertaking, which is designed purely for the diversion and merriment of the reader. Pieces of pleasancy and mirth have a secret charm in them to allay the heats and tumors of our spirits, 92 LIFE AND TIMES OF BEXJAMIN" FRA-NXLTN-. [1723. and to make a man forget his restless resentments. Thej have a strange power in them to hush disorders of the soul, and reduce us to a serene and placid state of mind. " The main design of this weekly paper will be to entertain the town with the most comical and diverting incidents of human life which, in so large a place as Boston, will not fail of a universal ex- emplification : Nor shall we be wanting to fill up these papers with a grateful interspersion of more serious morals, which maybe drawn from the most ludicrous and odd parts of life." The reader familiar with the writings of our laughing philosopher, wall say of this passage : 'tis Franklin's voice, if Franklin ever spoke. The sentences beginning " Pieces of Pleasantry," are Franklin's.^ essence. There was nothing he more believed in than laughter ; his power of provoking Avhich served him for eloquence, as it did I his diplomacy, and rendered him the most delightful of companions^ and colleagues. It does not appear that Couranto mended his manners under the new regime. The paper contimied to be humorous and satirical, and refrained not from bantering the clergy and the brethren. "Oldi Janus" was now the presiding genius of the Courant. We findi communications addressed to this mysterious personage, as "ven- erable old Janus," "good Master Janus," "the ancient and ven- erable Doctor Janus," "Master Janus," "Doctor Janus," "Father; Janus," " honest Doctor Janus," and " the most excellent Janus." The number issued immediately after the action of the Council may have been a little more guarded in manner than before, buti the" spirit and object of the paper were unchanged. One of the first numbers issued in the name of the ex-apprentice contained a communication giving satirical advice to the editor, how he should conduct his paper so as to avoid offense. But this very piece was, doubtless, as offensive to the clergy as it was amusing to their op- ponents. "Take great care," observed the writer, "that you do not cast! injurious Reflections on the Reverend and Faithful 3Iinisters of the Gospel^ or any of them. We think New-England may boast' of almost an unparalleled Happiness in its Mia^isters ; take them in general, there is scarce a more Candid^ Learned^ Pious and Lor horious Set of Men under Heaven. But tho' they are the Best of 3Ien^ yet they are but Men at the best, and by consequence subjecti AGED 17.] THE FIRST SENSATION NEV/SPAPER. 93 to like Finalities and Passions as other Men ; And when we hear of the Imprudencies of any of them, we should cover them with the mantle of Love and Charity, and not profanely expose and Ag- gravate them. Charity covers a multittcde of Sins. Besides, when you abuse the Clergy you do not consult your own Interest, for you may be sure they will improve their influence to the utter- most to suppress your paper." ISTo doubt, the sinners of Boston chuckled over this covert, but very transparent, satire. The following piece we may almost certainly conclude to be the work of Benjamin. It must have been as shocking to the clergy of that time as any of the articles published before the prosecution of the paper : ••'At the last Meeting of our Club, one of the Company read to us some Passages from a zealous Author against Hat-Honour^ Titular 7?espec^5, &c., which we- will communicate to the Reader for the Diversion of this Week, if he is dispos'd to be merry with the Folly of his Fellow-Creature. ''^'- Honour^ Friend, says Jie^ properly ascends, & not descends; ' yet the Hat, w^hen the Head is uncover'd, descends, and therefore ' there can be no Honour in it. Besides, Honour was from the ^e- ^ ginning, but Hats are an invention of a late Time, and conse- ' quently true Honour standeth not therein. '"In old Time it was no disrespect for Men and Women to be ' cail'd by their own Names : Adam, was never called Master ' Adam ; we never read of Noah Esquire, Lot Knight and Baronet, ' nor the Might Honourable Abraham, Viscount Mesopotamia, ' Baron of Canaan ; no, no, they were plain Men, honest Country ' Grasiers, that took care of their Families and their Flocks. Moses ' was a great Prophet, and Aaro7i a priest of the Lord ; but we * never read of the lieverend Moses, nor the Bight Bever end Father ' in God, Aaron, by Divine Providence, Lord Arch-Bishop of ' Israel : Thou neveji- sawest Madain Rebecca in the Bible, my ' Lady Rachel : nor Mary, tho' a Princess of the Blood after the ' Death of Joseph, cail'd the Princess Dowager of Nazareth ; no, ' plain Bebecca, Bachel, Mary, or the Widow Mary, or the like : ' It was no Incivility then to mention their naked Names as they ' were expressed.' " If common civility, and a generous Deportment among Mankind, 94 LIFE AI^D TIMES OF BENJAMlN^ FRANKLIN. [l723. | be not put out of Countenance by the profound Reasoning of this < Author, we hope they will continue to treat one another handsomely to the end of the World. We will not pretend an Answer to these Arguments against Modern Decency and Titles of Honour : yet ono of our Club will undertake to prove, that tho' Abraham was not styl'd Right Honourable^ yet he had the Title of Lord given him by his Wife Sarah, which he thinks entitles her to the Honour of Mi/ 1 Lady Sarah ; and Rachel being married into the same Family, he concludes she may deserve the Title of My Lady Rachel. But this is but the Opinion of one Man ; it was never put to Vote in the ' Society." The following, too, is quite in the spirit of Franklin : " Upon tlie whole. Friend Janus, we may conclude, that the Anti-Couranteers are a sort of Precisians, who, mistaking Religion for the peculiar Whims of their own distemper'd Brain, are for cut- ting or stretching all men to their own Standard of Thinking. I wish Mr. Symmes's Character may secure him from the Woes and Curses they are so free of dispensing among their dissenting Neigh- bours, who are so unfortunate as to discover a Chearfulness becom- ing Christianity. Sir Thomas Hope Blount in his Essays, has said enough to convince us of the Unreasonableness of this sour Temper among Christians ; and with his Words I shall conclude : '"Certainly {says he) of all sorts of men, none do more mistake 'the Divine Nature, and by consequence do greater mischief to 'Religion, than those who would persuade us, That to be truly ' Religious, is to renounce all the Pleasures of Humane Life ; As if ' Religion were a Caput Mortuum, a heavy, dull, insipid thing : ' that has neither Heat, Life, nor motion in it ; Or were intended for ' a Medusa'^s Head to transform Men into Monuments of Stone. 'Whereas (really) Religion is of an Active Principle, it not only ' elevates the Mind, and invigorates the Fancy ; but it admits of ' Mirth, and pleasantness of Conversation, and indulges us in our 'Christian Liberties; and for this reason, says .the Lord Bacon, It ' is no less impious to shut where God Almighty has open\l, than to ' OY)en where God Almighty has shut. But, I say, if Men will suf- ' fer themselves to be thus impos'd upon, as to Believe That Religion 'requires any such unnecessary Rigours and Austerities, all that can ' be said is. The fault does not lye in Religion, but in their Under- ' standings ; Nor is this to paint Religion like her self, but rather AGED 17.] THE FIRST SEXSATION NEWSPAPER. 96 ' like one of the Furies with nothing but Whips and Snakes about ' her. And so, thej Worship God just as the Indians do the Devil^ ' not as they love him, but because they are afraid of him.' " Thus our merry youth and his jovial friends strive to amuse and startle the Boston of 1723. He spoke the truth, but not all the truth. The brethren at whom he aimed his ridicule were seriously striving, with the best light they had, to become good and better men. To that end, they were making weekly and daily efforts. For that purpose, they went to church on Sundays, and, on week days went apart from the converse of men, to meditate on their ways and on their duty. They were on the watch against rising j passions and turbulent desij-es ; they were warring Avith the world, Sthe flesh, and the devil. This was the advantage they had over i their witty adversaries; and this was the reason why they at L length prevailed. The brethren may have been going toward I Jerusalem m a painful, roundabout, and irrational manner, but they j were going. The young Couranters had not made up their minds ! whether or not there was a Jerusalem. To use Franklin's own simile, they Avere knocking out the bung of the beer-barrel, before I providing the cask of wine. This was the course pursued by all I the wits of that scoffing century, from Voltaire, downward ; and I that was the reason why, with all their genius and knowledge, ! they produced a merely transitory effect. The poor peasants who i went to mass in Voltaire's village were doing their best to be good men. Voltaire was chiefly striving to show Europe what a witty man Voltaire was ; and hence, the poor peasants were wiser in their j generation than the children of light. \ As a set-off to the heresies of the Courant,it should be mentioned that it was through th:it journal that the colonists first became ac- quainted with the sacred poems of Dr. Isaac Watts, who was then a poor and unknown English curate, with an income of a hundred pounds a year, of which he gave away one-third. The Courant published his psalms and hymns, from time to time, with warm com- \ mendation. To a generation accustomed to sing the doggerel of ' Sternhold and Hopkins, they must have seemed sublime indeed. I Watts was always a favorite with Franklin, Avho, on his death-bed, heard him read with pleasure and emotion. The Courant appears to have prospered under its young pub- lisher. A month after James Franklin fell under the ban of the 96 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [lV23, council, we read in the Oourant : " This Paper having met with so general an Acceptance in Town and Country, as to require a far greater number of them to be printed, than there is of the other publick Papers ; and it being besides more generally read by a Vast Number of Borrowers, who do not take it in, the Publisher thinks proper to give this publick Notice for the Incouragement of those who would have Advertisements inserted in the publick Prints, which they may have printed in this Paper at a moderate price." Three months later, the price of the paper was raised from three pence to four pence, and from ten shillings a year to twelve shillings. CHAPTER VIII. A RUNAWAY APPRENTICE. As the gay Couranters commented so freely upon the ways of the brethren, their own conduct ought to have been most exem- plary. It was not. Cotton Mather, who had all the stock classical allusions at his tongue's end, might have turned upon the con- ductors of the Coiirant^ if he had had access to its sanctum, and said, " Young physicians, heal yourselves." James and Benjamin, brothers though they were, had not virtue enough between them to live together in tolerable peace. The elder was jealous of the younger's reputation. He was harsh and unjust to him; and Ben- jamin owns, in his autobiography, that "perhaps, he was too saucy\ and provoking." James did not know that he had the most valu-i able apprentice in the world, and the apprentice knew it too well. Benjamin, however, had thrown himself most heartily into his brother's contest with the Council, had defended hiin ably in the Courant^ and exerted all his talents in covering the persecutors with ridicule. Benjamin, I think, had a hand in getting up that article of six columns in the Coiirant of May 8, 1723, in which the illegality and unconstitutionality of the prosecution were demon- strated. We have a right to conclude, for many reasons, that the elder brother was the one most in fault. The canceling of his indentures had set the apprentice free; AGED 17.] A RUNAWAY APPRENTICE. 97 since his brother would not dare to appeal to the secret document which still bound him. But, neither this circumstance, nor the lad's increased age and usefulness, had the effect of rendering his brother less exacting or better tempered. A quarrel, more violent than any previous one, occurred between the brothers, a few months after the second attempt to silence the Gourant. From words James Franklin proceeded to blows, though his brother was then seventeen years of age. The youth, burning with indigna- tion, asserted his right to be free, and declared his intention to leave his brother's service. It is an evidence how changed our feelings have become with regard to the sanctity of engagements, that this resolve of the apprentice to leave his brother, which few persons of the present day would be inclined to censure, Franklin regarded as " one of the first errata" of his life. His father, also, urged him to remain and fulfill his contract with his brother. Benjamin adhered to his resolve. His brother went round to all the printers in Boston, giving them his own version of the differ- ence between himself and his apprentice. When Benjamin applied to them for employment, they all made common cause with his master, and refused him. The youth would not yield. His fancy wandered to other scenes. Boston was not all the world. Be- sides, he already shared the odium of the Gourant^ and his Socratic disputations upon religion had rendered him, in the eyes of many worthy people, an object of horror. He was pointed at as an infi- del and an atheist. From what he had seen of the treatment of his brother, he inferred that he should be in great danger of getting into scrapes himself, if he established himself in Boston as a printer. Revolving such thoughts in his anxious mind, he was soon prepared for that bold step, through which Boston lost a troublesome prin- ter, and the world gained a Benjamin Franklin. Running away must have been a familiar idea to this angry and resolute youth, since he had a hundred times read in the Wews Ijetter, and very often set in type in the Courant, advertisements offering four pounds reward for catching runaway apprentices. The extraordinary number of such advertisements in the colonial newspapers, is some confirmation of Adam Smith's argument against binding boys for a term of years to learn a trade. Run- away negroes and runaway apprentices made the staple of adver- tising in the colonies for many years. 98 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1723. Benjamin had resolved to run away. There were then but three towns in the colonies which could boast a printing office : Boston, i!^ew York, and Philadelphia. To New York, only because it was nearer than Philadelphia, he determined to go. His old friend, John Collins, with whom he had discussed the education of women, .ind v/hom he had converted to deism, undertook to manage his flight, and engaged a passage for him in a ISTew York sloop. To account for his coming on board secretly and keeping himself con- cealed, Collins told the Captain, that his friend had had an intrigue with a girl of bad character, whose parents were determined to make him marry her. To raise the passage money the runaway was obliged to sell some of his precious books. Franklin has not given us the date of his departure; but I notice. a little advertisement in the Neio England Oourant for Septembei* SO, 1723, w^hich enables us to infer about what time the event oc- curred: "James Franklin, printer in Queens Street, wants a likely lad for an apprentice." Even the voyage from Boston to New York was not safe at that time from the highwaymen of the sea. • July 19, 1723, twenty-six pirates were hanged at Newport, Rhode Island. It was in 1723, that two pirate vessels came in near Sandy Hook, and engaged the British man-of-war. Greyhound. After a hard fight, the Grey- hound managed to capture one of the pirate vessels, with her crew of forty-two men, all of whom were executed, soon after, on Long Island. Benjamin Franklin may have seen their bodies hanging in chains as the sloop glided past. The piratical craft that escaped sailed away northward and made twenty French prizes, and was the terror of the sea until 1725, when the government was aroused at length, and nearly suppressed piracy on the American coast.* Our young friend, however, had a safe, swift, and pleasant pas- sage, of which one incident only is know^n to us. When the sloop was becalmed one day oif Block Island, the sailors amused them- selves by fishing for cod, as becalmed sailors and yachtmeu do to this day off that coast. Benjamin, who still adhered to his vegetarian theory, regarded the taking of life for the sake of procuring food as murder. Fishing, in particular, w^as murder unprovoked ; for no one could contend that these cod, which the sailors kept hauling up * Watson's '^Annals of Philadelphia," ii., 226. AGED 17.] A RUNAWAY APPRENTICE. 99 over the sloop's bulwarks and slapping down upon the deck, had wrought any harm to their captors. This argument, so long as the mere catching continued, seemed unanswerable; but when, by and by the cod began to send forth a most alluring odor from the fiVing-pan, the tempted vegetarian, who had formerly been ex- tremely fond of fish, found it necessary to go over his reasomng a-ain, to see if there was not a flaw in it. He was so unhappy as not to be able to find one, and fur some minutes there was a strug- de between principle and inclination. It occurred to him, at length, that when the fish were opened he had seen smaller fish m their stomachs. "If you eat one another," said he to himself, "I don't see why we may not eat you." So he dined upon cod very heartily, and continued afterwards to eat what other people ate. After telling this story he makes an observation which is otten at- tributed to Talleyrand and others, but which was a familiar joke with Franklin when Talleyrand was a boy. " So convenient a thing it is " says Franklin, " to be a reasonable creature, since it enables . one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do." In the beautiful month of October, 1723, after a passage of three days from Boston, Benjamin Franklin, then nearly eighteen years W, stood in the streets of New York. He had not an acquamt- ance in the town; he had no letter of recommendation; he had very little money. -, • . t v New York was then a town of seven or eight thousand inhabit- ants, where most objects that met the eye and most sounds that caught the ear were Dutch. The houses had their gable-ends to- ward the street; the sidewalks were cobble-stoned; the streets were those narrow, crooked lanes which we still find at the ex- tremity of Down-Town. It was a clean, compact, tidy, country place. A Philadclphian wrote, some years after: "the rough stones which formed the pavement of New York were so thor- oughly swept that the stones stand up sharp and promment, to the great inconvenience of those who are not accustomed to so rou^h a path. But habit reconciles every thing. It is diverting enough to see a Philadclphian at New York; he walks the streets with as much painful caution as if his toes were covered with corns, or his feet lamed with the gout: while a New Yorker, as little ap- proving the plain masonry of Philadelphia, shuffles along the pave- ment like a parrot on a mahogany table." 100 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l723. As the people were chiefly Dutch, there was little encouragement in 'New York for English printers. Boston had established a newspaper in 1704 ; Philadelphia had one in 1719 ; but New York, not until 1725. When young Franklin arrived here in 1723, there was not a bookstore in the town, and only one printing-office, that of old William Bradford, formerly of Philadelphia, progenitor of a line of American printers. It was he who fell under the reproof of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, for styling the founder of that province in an Almanac, " Ye Lord Penn."* Afterward he came into more serious conflict with the Assembly, and removed to New York ; where he had then exercised his vocation for thirty years. He was soon to found the first New York newspaper and the first American paper mill.f His son, Andrew Bradford, had been estab- lished in Philadelphia as a printer since 1712, and had started there, in 1719, the first newspaper of that city, the American Weekly Mercury. To William Bradford the runaway at once applied for employ- ment. Bradford could give him none, as he had little to do, and had already as many hands as he could employ. He told him, how- ever, that his son, in Philadelphia, had just lost, by death, his prin- cipal journeyman, Aquila Rose. " If you go there," added Brad- ford, " he may employ you." As the young man had, by this time, outlived his passion for the sea, he had but the alternatives to go home, or to go on in pursuit of work. He appears to have de- cided upon the bolder course, without a moment's hesitation. Leaving his chest and other effects to go round by sea, he took passage for Amboy, in a crazy old boat, with rotten sails, managed by one boatman. Besides himself, there was another passenger, a * Janney's "Life of William Penn," p. 545. t The tombstone over the grave of William Bradford in Trinity churchyard, New York, bears this inscription : "Here lies the body of Mr. William Bradford, printer, who departed this life May 23, 1752, aged 92 years. He was born in Leicestershire, in old England, in 1670, and came over to America in 16S2, before the city of Philadelphia was laid out. He was printer to this Government for up- ward of fifty years, and being quite worn ottt with old age and labor, he left this mortal stito in the Kvely hope of a blessed immortality, "Reader, reflect how soon you'll quit this stage; You'll find but few attain to such an age. Life's full of pain : lo ! here's a place of rest. Prepare to meet your God : then you are blest. "Here also lies the body of Elizabeth, wife of the said William Bradford, who departed this life July 3, 1781, aged 68 years." AGED 17.] A RUNAWAY APPEEJiTTICE. 101 drunken Dutchman. Soon after passing tlie island which is now called Governor's Island, then uninhabited, covered with the pri- meval forest, and gorgeous with autumnal hues, the boat was struck by a squall, which tore the sails to pieces, drove the boat over to- ward Long Island, and pitched the Dutchman overboard. As he was sinking, young Franklin caught him by his hair, and drew him up, so that he was got aboard again. Partly sobered by his duck- ing, he took a book out of his pocket, and asked his preserver to dry it for him, after which he lay down and fell asleep. The book proved to be a fine copy, in. Dutch, with engravings on copper, of the first favorite of the runaway's childhood, " Pilgrim's Progress." He had never before seen it in so elegant a dress. The boat con- tinued to drive before the wind until it was near the Long Island shore, on which the surf was breaking so violently as to threaten the boat with destruction. They cast their anchor, and swung round toward the land. They saw some people come down to the shore ; but so loud was the roar of the surf, that they could neither make themselves heard, nor hear the shouts of the men on the beach. Hungry as they were, for they had no provisions on board but a bottle of bad rum, there was no resource but to wait for the lulling of the wind. All night long, Franklin, the boatman, and the wet Dutchman, lay crowded together under the hatches, the spray break- ing over the bows, and leaking upon them through the deck, till they were all drenched. They passed a sleepless and miserable night. In the morning, the wind having abated, they managed to get the old boat before the wind, and, late in the afternoon, reached Amboy. For thirty hours, they had tasted neither food nor water ; so soli- tary and resourceless were then those channels which now are crowded with vessels, lined with villages, and paved with oysters. Every one who has been accustomed to sail about New York bay will readily understand this disagreeable adventure. The writer of these pages has been caught by just such squalls, in just that squally spot beyond Governor's Island, and driven over to- ward Greenwood Cemetery, as young Franklin was in 1723. What boating boy of New York has not ? The youth found himself feverish that evening, after his long ab- stinence and exposure. When he had got into bed, he remembered having read that drinking plentifully of cold water was good for a fever. He followed the prescription, perspired profusely, and rose 10^ li^E ASTD TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l723. the next morning quite free from fever. The water-curists practice the same simple remedy at the present day. -"'^ A walk of fifty miles, from Amboy across the province of New- Jersey to Burlington, on the Delaware River, was next to be un- dertaken by our traveler. Thirty-three years were yet to elapse before the establishment of the first line of stages across New Jer- sey ; and if there had been stages in 1723, this traveler had not twelve shillings with which to pay his fare. It rained hard the morning after his arrival at Amboy, but he could not afibrd to wait. Soaked with rain, he trudged along till noon, when he was a good deal tired, and coming to a poor inn by the road-side, he resolved to stay till the next morning. And now, for the first time, his heart began to fail him. He began to wish he had not left home ; and the more, as he saw he was suspected of being a runaway, and was in some danger of being taken up. He was, indeed, by this time, a sorry figure. He had started from Boston in his working clothes, which, by exposure to rain, and the wear and tear of travel, had become shabby and dilapidated in the extreme. Well formed and well grown as he was, with a handsome, open face, and a fresh, ruddy complexion, he looked as little like the destined father of one of New Jersey's future governors as can be imagined. The next day he took to the road again, and made such good pro- gress as to sleep that night within ten miles of Burlington, which he reached the next morning, the day being Saturday. Burlington is seventeen miles above Philadelphia. As he passed through the town to get to the river side, he bought some ginger-bread of an old woman, who, as it proved, saw something in this young man besides his worn and travel-stained clothes. On reaching the river, he v/as sadly disappointed to find that the regular Saturday boat had gone, and that no other was expected to leave before the next Tuesday. There was no road between Burlington and a point opposite Philadelphia, else he could have walked to it, and trusted to fortune to get him over the broad Delaware. He had, therefore, to consider how a young fellow, with a keen appetite, a perfect digestion, and five shillings, could live at Burlington three days, pay his.'jpassage down the river, and not arrive at Philadelphia penniless. He went back to the old woman, of whom he had bought the ginger- bread, and asked her advice. The good soul invited him to lodge in her house until Tuesday. Tired as he was with his long jour- AGED 17.] A EUNAWAY APPBENTICE. 103 ney, he gladly accepted her invitation. The hospitable old lady gave him a dinner of ox cheek, to which the guest contributed a pot of beer. He supposed himself fixed in Burlington till Tuesday should come round. The old lady, on being told that her guest was a printer, amused him by urging him to stay in the town and follow his trade, having no notion of the requirements of a printing office. In the evening, as he was walking on the bank of the river, a chance boat came along, having on board several passengers, bound for Philadelphia. They agreed to take him in, and he was soon on board, moving slowly down toward his destination. As there was no wind, they were obliged to row. About midnight, the city not yet being in sight, some of the passengers protested they must have passed it, and would row no more ; and as the others Iqicw not where they were, it was agreed to land, and wait for daylight. Finding a little creek, they put into it, landed, made a fire of the rails of an old fence, and there remained till the dawn of day. One of tiio company then recognizing the place as Cooper's Creek, which he knew to be a short distance above the city, they re-em- barked, and had no sooner got into the Delaware again, than Phila- delphia came into view. Between eight and nine o'clock on Sun- day morning, the boat was made fast at Market Street Wharf, and Franklin went on shore. He had one silver dollar, and a shilling in coppers. The boatmen refused to take any thing for his passage, as he had helped them row the boat ; but he insisted on their taking all his copper coin. " Man," he remarks, after relating this incident, "is sometimes more generous when lie has little money, than when he has plenty ; perhaps, to prevent his being thought to have but little." The events of his first day in Philadelphia all the world knows by heart. He stepped upon the wharf, worn out with hunger, fatigue, exposure, and want of sleep. His clothes and his person were dirty ; his pockets were stuffed out Vvith shirts and stockings. He wore, doubtless, the knee-breeches of buckskin, the woolen stockings, the voluminous and long coat, the long and ample waist- coat, the low large shoes, and the broad-brimmed hat of the period ; a dress imposing in the highest degree when it is new and hand- some, but susceptible of most woful and draggled shabbiness. Vast were the pockets of that generation ; the pockets of the coat were at the sides, instead of behind ; and it was these side-pockets, 104 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FEANKXTN. [l723. no doubt, which the runaway had stuffed with shirts and stockings. As he walked np into the town, gazing about hira, he met a boy with bread. Often, in Boston, he had made a meal of dry bread ; and so, after learning from the boy where he had bought it, he went to the shop, and asked for biscuits, meaning a kind of bread made by the Boston bakers. It was not known in Philadelphia. He then asked for a three-penny loaf, but the baker had none. He asked for three pence worth of bread of any kind, and was sur- prised to receive three puffy rolls, of a magnitude that seemed to him out of all proportion to the price. Fertile Pennsylvania was a wheat country from the beginning, which sterile Massachusetts never was. Having no room in his pockets, he walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating a third. As he went up Market Street, he passed by the house of Mr. Read, w^hose blooming daughter Deborah, a lass of eighteen, stood at the door, and won- dered at his strange and ridicnlous appearance. Unconscious of the figure he was making in the eyes of his future wife, he walked on as far ns Fourth Street, beyond which the town w^as not closely built, for Philadelphia w^as then only a spread-out, grassy, gardened village, of seven thousand inhabitants, with plenty of the trees still standing of the tangled forest that had covered the site only forty- one years before. Wolves, bears, and deer were shot within four miles of the town for ten years after Franklin first saw it, and In- dians often swarmed in the streets. Still eating his roll, the stranger walked along Fourth Street to Chestnut Street, down Chestnut Street a little way, then turned into Walnut Street, down Walnut Street to the river, and along the river to Market Street Wharf again. By that time he had finished his roll, and then completed his breakfast with a draught of water from the river. The other two rolls he gave to a poor woman and her child, who had been passengers in the boat and were waiting at the wharf to continue their voyage down the river. Refreshed with his breakfast, he went again into Market Street, which was then alive with neatly dressed people all going in one direction. Jobiing the throng, he was led to what was then called the '' Great Meeting House" of the Quakers, which stood at the corner of Second Street and Market Street, on ground given for the purpose by the founder of the colony. This building was the fore- runner of that vast range of ancient, dark, barrack-looking houses AGED 17.] THE STRANGER FINDS FRIENDS. 105 ill Arch Street, wherein still assembles the largest congregation of Friends in the world, and which may be regarded as the head- quarters of Quakerism in America — if a military term may be used in speaking of that nn-militant sect. Into the " Great Meeting House," the young stranger followed the crowd, and sat down. He looked around upon the congregation for a while, expecting the exercises to begin. The silence remaining unbroken, drowsiness fell upon the tired traveler, and he was soon fast asleep. He slept soundly till the meeting broke up, and would still have slept if some one had not been obliging enough to wake him. As he walked down toward the river looking into the faces of the passers-by, he accosted a young Quaker, whose countenance pleased him, and asked him where a stranger could find a lodging. *' Here," said the Quaker, pointing to the Three Mariners, " is a house where they receive strangers, but it is not a respectable one ; if thee will walk with me, I'll show thee a better." He conducted him along the wharves to a tavern, called The Crooked Billet^ at the end of the first alley above Chestnut Street^. It was an old tavern then, and it continued to exist until it wai, probal^'y, the oldest house of entertainment in America. It was not m^6ntinued till about 1825. While the stranger was eating his dinn^dt the Crooked Billet, he again observed, from the questions askea him, that he was suspect- ed of being a runaway. After dinner he lay down and slept till he was called to supper, and soon after supper went to bed, and slept soundly until the morning. H^ had then been eleven days from home. ' r CHAPTER IX. THE STRANGER FINDS FRIENDS. Early in the morning, having dressed himself as neatly as he could in his old and travel-worn clothes, for his chest had not yet arrived, he went to the house of the printer, Andrew Bradford. At the printing office, he was surprised to find old WilUam Bradford, the father of Andrew, whom he had seen in New York a few days before, and who, by traveling on horseback, had reached Philadel- 5* 106 XIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1723. pliia before him. Andrew Bradford coming in, the old man intro- duced young Franklin to him. The Philadelphian received the stranger with civility, and invited him in to breakfast, and told him he was already supplied with a hand ; but added that one Samuel Keimer had recently set up in the town. If Keimer should have no work, Bradford kindly offered the youth a home and a little em- ployment now and then, till he could do better. The old gentleman offering to go with him to Keimer's office, they both went thither without loss of time. In a small o:ffice, fur- nished with an old damaged press and an incomplete, wOrn-out font of types, they found the new printer, standing at- the case at v/ork ; a slight, peculiar-looking man, with a long and untrimmed beard. His beard was itself a most marked peculiarity in an age which close shaved the countenance, and over.whelmed the head with purchased hair. "Neighbor," said Bradford, "I have brought to see you, a young man of your business; perhaps, you may want such a one." Keimer asked a few questions of the stranger, and put a composing-stick into his hands to see how he worked. The examination being satisfactory, he said he had no work for him then, but would employ him soon. Then, turning to old Bradford, whom be had never before seen, and Avhose relation- ship to the rival printer he was far from suspecting, he began to enlarge upon his plans and prospects, saying that he expected soon to get the greater part of the printing business of the province into his own hands. Old Bradford drew him on by artful questions to reveal the details of his scheme and the influences upon which he re- lied. Young Franklin, who stood silently by and heard the conver- sation, saw that Bradford was a " crafty old sophister," and Keimer a " true novice." The old gentleman left Franklin alone with Keimer, who was extremely astonished when he learned with whom he had been talking. Franklin soon had further insight into the character of this absurd and eccentric printer. He found that when interrupt- ed by the entrance of the two visitors that morning, he had been engaged in composing an elegy upon the death of Aquila Rose, a young English journeyman of Andrew Bradford's, who had died a few months before, lamented by the whole town. Besides being an excellent printer, Aquila Rose was Secretary to the Assembly, and a tolerable poet. A little volume of his verses was published AGED 17.] THE STRANGER FINDS FRIENDS. 107 many years after his death, by his son, Joseph Rose, an apprentice of Franklin's. Keimer was setting the elegy in type as he com- posed it, not employing pen or paper. The whole of this production has been preserved, and even one copy of the very hand-bill, " price, two-pence," upon which it was originally printed by Franklin's own hand.* As the new comer looked over the incomplete work of Keimer that morning, and read it, perhaps, as it lay in type, it was these words that he looked upon : "AN ELEGY On the much lamented death of the ingenious and well beloved Aquila Rose, Clerk to the Honorable Assembly at Philadelphia, who died the twenty-fourth of the fourth month, 1723. Aged 28. *'• What mournful accents thus accost mine ear, What doleful echoes hourly thus appear ! What sighs from melting hearts proclaim aloud The solemn mourning of this numerous crowd. In sable characters the news is read, Our Kose is withered, and our Eagle's fled, In that our dear Aquila Rose is dead." The elegy proceeds, for a hundred lines or more, to descant upon the birth, education, emigration, courtship, accomplishments, death, funeral, funeral sermon, and happy destiny of the departed printer. Keimer resuming his task, in which no one could assist him, Frank- lin made himself useful by getting into order the damaged old print- ing press, of which Keimer knew nothing ; that done, he returned to Bradford's hospitable house, promising Keimer to come and print off the elegy as soon as it should be completed. For several days he continued to live at Bradford's, doing a little work also, in his office. Sent foi', at length, to print the labored effusion of Keimer's brain, he found that that eccentric person had both increased his stock of material and obtained a pamphlet to reprint. Franklin struck off the requisite number of copies of the elegy ; then began upon the pamphlet, and thenceforth worked regularly in Keimer's * Watson'a " Annals of Philadelphia," ii., 4S0. Duycklnck's " Cyclopedifv of American Literii- ture," L, 100. 108 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1724. office. His employer objecting to his boarding at the house of a rival printer, yet having no establishment of his own, he procured for him a lodging at the house of Mr. Read, whose daughter had seen the uncouth apparition pass, on that memorable Sunday morn- ing, devouring a roll. But his chest had arrived from New York. Pic was able then to present himself to the young lady in a cos- tume more becoming. Weeks passed. He earned good wages. He had a pleasant home. He found friends who were fond of reading, wath whom he spent pleasant evenings. Boston he tried not to think of, and he wrote to no one but to John Collins, who kept his secret faith- fully. Indeed, the arbitrary conduct of his brother had made upon his mind an indelible impression, which, for a time, rendered the thought of Boston unpleasing to him. His brother's tyranny was one of the causes, he afterward thought, that gave him his peculiar and unconquerable aversion to arbitrary power, and rendered him, as a parent and master, somewhat too indulgent. He was always a stickler for children's rights ; their right to be gratified, as well as their right to be coerced. It was a lovely trait in Frankhn's char- acter that he was especially careful not to inflict the injuries from which he himself had suffered ; one of the signs of a noble nature. At length, he heard from home. One of his sisters had married Robert Holmes, captain of a sloop that traded between Boston and Delaware. Captain Holmes being at ISTewcastle, a town on the Delaware river, forty miles below Philadelphia, heard of the run- away and wrote to him. He told him of the grief of his parents and friends at his abrupt departure, and assured him that if he would return he should have no cause to complain in future. Benjamin wrote him a civil and elaborate reply, in which he narrated the cir- cumstances that led to his leaving Boston. The narrative con- vinced his brother-in-law that he was not so much in the wrong as he had supposed. The runaway declared his intention to remain in Philadelphia. This letter had a decisive effect upon the fortunes of the writer of it. When Captain Holmes received it, he chanced to be in com- pany with Sir William Keith, the Governor of Pennsylvania. We may remark, in passing, that the captain of a sea-going sloop, in those piratical times, was far from being an insignificant person. Struck with the composition of the letter, he showed it to the Gov- AGED 18.] THE STRANGER FINDS FRIENDS. 109 ernor, who read it with admiration, and admired it the more when told the age of the writer. The Philadelphia printers, he said, were wretched ones, which was true, for Bradford was both igno- rant and unskillful, and Keimer was a compound of fool and rogue. But this young man, he added, Avas evidently one of promising parts, and ought to be encouraged ; and if he would set up at Phil- adelphia he should have all the public printing. Captain Holmes, for some reason, did not reply to Benjamin's long epistle ; so that the young man's astonishment at what followed was extreme ; nor was he able to account for it, until he met Captain Holmes some months after. Franklin and his master were working together, one day, when they spied two finely dressed gentlemen crossing the street, with the evident intention of entering the printing-house. One of these Keimer recognized as Sir William Keith, and the other proved to be Colonel French, of Delaware. Keimer supposed of course that the visit was to him, and ran down-stairs to receive them. The Gov- ernor, however, inquired for Franklin, and learning that he was in the printhig-office, went up to see him. He greeted the young printer with a degree of politeness and condescension to which he had not been accustomed ; paid him many compliments ; expressed a desire to become acquainted with him ; blamed him for not having called upon him on his arrival at Philadelphia, and ended by invi- ting him to a tavern, where Colonel French and himself were theij going to try some Madeira. Keimer stared with astonishment. Fi-anklin himself was not less amazed. However, he went out with them to the tavern, and the three sat down to discuss, at once, their bottle and the future career of the young stranger. The Governor repeated what he had already said to Captain Holmes. He proposed that Franklin should immediately, by the aid of his father, establish himself in business as a printer in Phil- adelphia, and enlarged upon the probabilities of his success. Both the Governor and Colonel French engaged to use all their influence to procure for him the public printing of Pennsylvania and Delaware, which was then considerable. The young man replied, that he doubted whether his father would advance him the requisite sum. Sir William said, that he would himself write a letter to his father, sotting forth the advantages of the scheme, and he felt sure he could induce him to comply. Before they rose from their wine it 110 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1724. had been concluded, tliat Franklin should return to Boston by the first vessel, taking with him the Governor's letter, and endeavor to bring over his father to their plans. In the mean time the scheme was to be kept secret, and he v/as to go on working for the uncon- scious Keimer as before. The party broke up. The Governor sent now and then for his protege to dine at his house, and on those occasions conversed with him in the most agreeable, friendly, and familiar manner ; which the young printer considered a great honor. Perhaps, the reader should be reminded, that for a century or more after the invention of printing, printers ranked above mechan- ics in the social scale. Printing was originally regarded as a kind of sacred art, partly because it was almost exclusively employed in the multiplication of sacred books. Several of the early printers, too, were scholars. It was long before the art was so far perfected as to he mechanical, and still longer before it was thought so. As late as Franklin's day, printers were expected to be men of con- siderable education, and iisually were such. The printer's art was looked upon by the uneducated as something wonderful and mys- terious, as telegraphing now is by those who seldom see its opera- tions. Thus one of the rhyming eulogists of Aquila Rose describes him at work, in these lines : " His novel skill spectators thronging drew, Who haste the swift compositor to view ; Not men alone, but maids of softer air And nicer fancies to the room repair. Pleased with such mild impediments, he frame3. As they request, their dear enchanting names. To grace a book or feast a lover's eye, Or tell companions of their fancied joy." In Keimer's Elegy we read of the lamented Rose, that " Of different learned tongues he somewhat knew, The French, the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew too." Consider, also, the fimeral of Aquila Rose as described by the rhyming Keimer : his body borne to the grave by "master-prin- I AGED 18.] THE STRANGER FINDS FRIENDS. Ill ters;" the widow conducted by "a worthy merchant;" "both mounted on a stately steed." " His Corps attended was by Friends so soon From Seven at Morn, till One a-clock at jN'oon, By Master-Printers carried towards his Grave, Our City Printer such an Honour gave. A Worthy Merchant did the Widow lead, And then both mounted on a stately steed ; Next Preachers^ Common Council^ Aldermen, A Judge and Sheriff grac'd the solemn Train, Nor fail'd our Treasurer, in respect to come, Nor staid the Keeper of the ROLLS at home. Our aged Post Master here now appears, Who had not walked so far for twice Twelve Years. With Merchants, Shopkeepers, the Young and Old, A numerous Throng, not very easy told. The Keeper of the SEAL did on Him wait, Thus was he carry'd like a King, in State, And what still adds a further Lustre to't, Some rode well mounted, others walked afoot. Church-Folks, Dissenters, here with one Accord, Their kind Attendance readily afford. To shew their Love, each differing Sect agree To grace his Fun'ral with their Company, And what was yet more grateful. People cry'd Beloved he liv'd^ See how belov'd he d%fdP Aquila Rose, too, was clerk to the Assembly of Pennsylvania, while still a journeyman printer. He was the worthy predecessor of Franklin in the province. Observe, also, that as late as the revolutionary war, there was no , distinction between editor and printer in the colonies. There were no editors v/ho were not printers ; and no such thing known as paying for editorial labor. Contributors, too, addressed " Mr. Prin- ter," not Mr. Editor. Perhaps Thomas Paine was the first man in America who was paid for labor merely editorial. Toward the end of April, 1724, a small vessel offering for Boston, Fr mklin took passage in her, giving out that he was going home for 112 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMII^- FEANKLIN^. [l'724. a time to see his friends. The Governor gave him a long letter to his father, in which the young man was highly extolled, and which declared that he had but to set up a printing office in Philadelphia, to make his fortune. After a tempestuous voyage of two weeks, during which passengers and crew were at the pump almost contin- ually, he arrived safely in Boston, having been absent from home seven months. Captain Holmes had not yet arrived, nor had tidings of the runaway been received at Boston from any other source. His return was, therefore, a surprise to all his relations, and to all but his brother James a joyful one. He went round to his brother's printing house dressed and equip- ped far better than he had ever been while in his service. His clothes were new and handsome ; he was the possessor of a watch ; he had in his pocket nearly five pounds sterling in silver. Perhaps his success in Philadelphia, of which these were the visible proofs, gave to his manner an elation that was offensive to his brother. James Franklin received the injured youth coldly, eyed him from head to foot, and turned to his work again. The journeymen, how- ever, gathered round their former companion, plying him with ques- tions about Philadelphia, and how he liked it. He praised his new country warmly, described the happy life he had led there, and de- clared his intention of returning thither. One of the men chanced to ask him what kind of money they had in Pennsylvania. Frank- lin immediately drew from his pocket a handful of silver coin, much to the amazement of the group; for Massachusetts, gen- erous and patriotic then, as now and ever, had spent vast sums in expeditions against Canada, and had long suffered the consequent evils of profuse and depreciated paper money. The vain-glorious youth, nettled, too, by seeing his brother still stand apart, grim and sullen, made an opportunity of exhibiting his watch ; and, as he took his leave, gave the men a dollar for drink. His brother was deeply offended at his conduct on this occasion; and their mother tried in vain to reconcile them. The elder told her that he had never been so insulted before, and that he would neither forgive nor forget it. James Franklin, it is but just to his memory to state, was then struggling with difficulties. He could not hope to prosper in Boston after what had occurred to exasperate the largest and the wealthiest portion of the people. The New England Gouran% which began AGED 18.] THE STEANGER FINDS FRIENDS. 113 to flag when it lost Benjamin Franklin's lively pen, lingered two or three years after he left it, and then went the way that all news- papers go which do not, upon the whole, express the feeling of the community that supports them. James Franklin removed to New- port, and started there the first newspaper that appeared in Rhode Island. He is the father of the Rhode Island press. Benjamin's old friend, Collins, who was then a clerk in the post- office, was so pleased with Franklin's description of Pennsylvania, that he determined to remove thither. He set out by land forthwith, leaving his books to be brought round by sea to New York, where he agreed to wait for Franklin. Clerk in the post-office ! Another evidence of the early intellectuality of New England. Thirty-three years later, when Franklin was in New York, he wrote: "Mr. C olden (postmaster) could not spare his daughter, as she helps him in the post-office, he having no clerk."* Meanwhile, wary and sagacious Josiah Franklin was considering the proposition contained: in the letter of Sir WilHam Keith. For some time, he said little of it to his son. Captain Holmes arriving from Delaware, the old gentleman showed him the letter, asked him if he knew what kind of man Sir William Keith was, adding that, for his own part, he thought the Governor must be a man of little discretion, to think of setting up in business for himself a lad of eighteen. Captain Holmes espoused the cause of his brother-in-law, and said all he could in favor of the project. The result, however, of the old man's cogitations was a flat refusal to advance the neces- sary sum. Benjamin was too young, he said. He was glad his son had been so highly approved by the Governor of the colony in which he had lived, and that he had been so industrious and so prudent as to provide for himself so handsomely in so short a time. He gave his consent to the youth's returning to Philadelphia, and promised that if, by the time he was twenty-one, he had saved nearly enough to set himself up in business, he would help him out with the rest. To this promise, he added some good advice. He urged him to behave respectfully to the people of Philadelphia, to endeavor to stand well with them, and to repress his fondness for lampooning and satire. To Sir William Keith the prudent father wrote a polite letter, thanking him for the interest he had taken in '^ Sparks, vii., 185. 114 LIFE AND TIMES OF BEISTJAMTN FRANKLIN. [l724. his son, and giving his reasons for declining, at present, to assist the youth in the ma,nner proposed. One pleasing incident of this visit home, was related by Franklin, sixty years after, in a letter to the son of Cotton Mather. " The last time I saw your father," he wrote, " was in the beginning of 1724, when I visited him, after my first trip to Pennsylvania. He received me in his library, and on my taking leave, showed me a shorter way out of the house, through a narrow passage, which was crossed by a beam overhead. We were still talking as I Avith- drew, he accompanying me behind, and I, turning partly toward him, when he said, hastily, /Stoop, stoop/ I did not understand liim till I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man that never missed any occasion of giving instruction, and upon this he said to me. You are young, and have the world hefore you ; stoop as you go through it, and you vnll miss ma^iy hard thumps. This advice, thus beat into my liead, has frequently been of use to me ; and I often think of it when I see pride mortified, and misfortunes brought upon people, by their carrying their heads too high."* With the blessing and approbation of his parents, and some small gifts, as tokens of their affection, he left his native place a second time. The sloop in which he sailed touched at Newport, where then lived his brother John, who had been his shop-mate, while he had helped his father at candle-making, six or seven years before. His brother, who had always loved him, received him very aftectionately ; yet this stay at Newport had unpleasant con- sequences. A Mr. Yernon, a friend of his brother John, who had seven or eight pounds sterling due to him in Pennsylvania, gave the young man an order to receive the money, requesting him to keep it, till he should receive directions from Newport what to do with it. Benjamin undertook the trust, not doubting his ability to dis- charge it. Among the passengers who were taken on board the sloop at Newport, were two showy young women, traveling together, and a matronly Quaker lady, with her servants. Our comely and spir- ited young printer, always fond of the society of ladies, was not slow in becoming intimate with these girls ; who, on their part, were far from discouraging his attentions. To the Quaker lady, * " Franklin to Samuel Mather," IT&i. Sparks, s., 88. AGED 18.] THE STRAXGEE FIIs^DS FRIENDS. llo also, he rendered some little services, with his usual obligingness. She saw, with pain, his growing familiarity with the two women, and, one day, took him aside, and addressed him thus : "Young man, I am concerned for thee, as thou hast no friend with thee, and. seemest not to know much of the world, or of the snares youth is exposed to : depend upon it, these are very bad. women. I can see it by all their actions ; and if thou art not upon thy guard, they will draw thee into some danger : they are strangers to thee, and I advise thee, in a friendly concern for thy welfare, to have no acquaintance with them." He was incredulous. She proceeded, to mention some circum- stances which had escaped his notice, and convinced him, at length, that they were girls of b;id character. He thanked her for her motherly advice, and promised to follow it. On reaching New York, they told him where they lived, and invited him to visit them. He kept his word, however, and avoided their house. The day after, the captain of the sloop missed a silver spoon (then rarely seen, and highly prized), as well as some other articles, from the cabin. The theft was brought home to the girls, who were arrested and punished for it — probably whipped in the market-place. This anecdote has a certain importance, inasmuch as it tends to Si'iow that, at the age of eighteen, Benjamin Franklin, despite his deism, was still chaste. Usually, at that early day, a young man, who discovered some flaws in his father's creed, broke away, for a time, from the moral resti'aints which gave to that creed its value. Exulting in his new-found negatives, the foolish youth strove to differ, in every respect, from his elders, whose narrowness and big- try made virtue itself disgusting. And this is another and inva- iable effect of perverting religion into orthodoxy : it renders virtue dious, and vice captivating. It causes virtue to seem the exclusive roperty of dismal cowards, and makes vice appear synonymous with courage, wit, and spirit. Franklin, with all his great under- standing and good heart, was not able long to preserve that in- conceivably precious treasure of man and woman, as precious to man as to woman, sexual integrity. But we are permitted to infer that at eighteen he was still virtuous. Not so his friend Collins, whom he found at New York awaiting his arrival. These two young men had been intimate from child- hood. They had read the same books together. Collins bad had ]16 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l724. more time for study than his friend, and possessed also a remark- able talent for mathematics ; one of the surest signs, as Mr. Carlyle thinks, of a superior understanding. During the apprenticeship of Franklin, it was with Collins that he spent his leisure hours, and to ■■ Collins that he read his essays. At that time Collins was a sober ' and industrious youth, esteemed even by several of the clergy, as w^ell as by other men of note, for his learning* and talents. But during the absence of Franklin in Philadelphia, he had fallen into habits of intemperance, and when Franklin met him in New York, . he found that he had been drunk every day since his arrival, had I gambled away all his money, and had behaved " in a very extrava- gant manner." Franklin was obliged to pay his expenses in New York and during the rest of their journey ; which proved a sore calamity to him, and the cause of bitter regret for some years. Franklin's stay in New York on this occasion was marked by one very agreeable and unexpected incident. An interest in books, we may premise, was in itself a bond of union between the early colonists. Books were extremely expen- sive ; public libraries were unknown ; private collections were few and small ; and the lovers of literature, other than divinity, were not numerous. Women, who are now the chief support of whole de- partments of literature, read little in those days, and that little was seldom literature. To be a reader of books or to possess a collec- tion of fifty volumes was a distinction in the colonies when Frank- lin was a young man. The bookish people formed a kind of free- mason-like society, who recognized one another, regardless in some degree of the circumstances which usually divided men into ranks and classes. And scholarship, we may add, was deeply honored in i the colonies, from the earliest period of their existence. The Governor of New York, in 1724, was that witty, genial,, testy, downright William Burnet (son of the famous bishop of that name), who was wont to " act first and think afterv/ards," as he himself confessed, and therefore wasted his life and fine abilities in an endless jangle with the colonial magnates. He had one of the very few good libraries in the new world, and was extremely fond of books and of men who loved them. Learning, from the captain of the sloop, that one of his passengers from Boston had a great many books on board. Governor Burnet asked the captain to bring young Franklin to him. "I waited on him," Franklin too AGED 18.] THE STRANGER FINDS FRIENDS. Ill briefly records, " and should have taken Collins with me had he been sober. The Governor received me with great civility, showed nie his library, which was a considerable one, and we had a good deal of conversation relative to books and authors. This was the second governor who had done me the honor to take notice of me: and, for a poor boy like me, was very pleasing." Resuming their journey, the two young men proceeded together to Philadelphia. On the way, Franklin received the money due to Mr. Vernon of Newport ; and such had been the extravagance of Collins, that he was obliged to spend part of the sum for the travel- ing expenses of himself and his drunken companion. Fifty-six years after, he related to Dr. Priestley an anecdote of his descending the Delaware at this time. He told the story to illus- trate the truth, that all situations in life have their inconveniences, and that while men feel acutely the evils of their present lot, they neither feel nor know the evils of that for which they long. " In ray youth," said the aged philosopher, " I was passenger in a little sloop descending the river Delaware. There being no wind, we were obhged, when the ebb was spent, to cast anchor and wait for the next. The heat of the sun on the vessel was excessive, the company strangers to me, and not very agreeable. Near the river side I saw what I took to be a pleasant green meadow, in the mid- dle of which was a large shady tree, where, it struck my fancy, I could sit and read (having a book in my pocket), and pass the time agreeably till the tide turned ; I therefore prevailed with the cap- tain to put me ashore. Being landed, I found the greatest part of my meadow was really a marsh, in crossing which, to come at my tree, I was up to my knees in mire : and I had not placed myself under its shade five minutes before the mosquitoes in swarms found me out, attacked my legs, hands, and face, and made my reading and my rest impossible ; so that I returned to the beach, and called for the boat to come and take me on board again, where I was obliged to bear the heat I had strove to quit, and also the laugh of the company. Similar cases in the affairs of life have since fre- quently fallen under my observation."* Sir William Keith, on reading the letter of Franklin's father, wa? not in the least disposed to give up the scheme of establishing his * Frauklin to Dr. Priestley, 1780. Sparks, viii., 419. 118 LIFE a:>jd times of benjamin feanklin. [1724. protege. "Your father/' said he, "is too prudent. There is a great diiference in persons. Discretion does not always accompany years, nor is youth always without it. But since he will not set you up, I will do it myself. Give me an inventory of the things necessary to be had from England, and I will send for them. You shall repay me when you are able ; I am resolved to have a good printer here, and I am sure you must succeed." Enchanted with this offer, and believing Sir William Keith to be " one of the best men in the world," the young man hastened to draw up a list of the articles required, amounting to about a hundred pounds. On re- ceiving the inventory, the Governor asked whether it would not be an advantage for the young printer to go to England and select the materials himself. " Besides," said the Governor, " when there, you may make acquaintances and establish correspondence with book- sellers and stationers." The elated youth agreed that this 7/iight be advantageous. "Then," said the Governor, "get yourself ready to go with Annis," the captain of the single ship that then plied regularly between London and Philadelphia, sailing from each port once a year. Some months elapsed before the ship sailed, during which Frank- lin worked for the eccentric Keimer, and kept secret all that had i passed between himself and the Governor of Pennsylvania. Hence, , no one told him what a vain, false, gasconading, popularity-hunter i this Sir WiUiam Keith was.* Relying implicitly upon his prom- ises, Franklin spent many months of happy anticipation. CHAPTER X. THE PERFIDY OF SIR WILLIAM KEITH. One of the most joyous half-years of Franklin's life was thatt which passed while he was waiting for the departure of the annual ship. Youth, hoj^e, prosperity, congenial friends, and reciprocated * " Sir William Keith appears manifestly, not only in his administration, but also in his gen- eral conduct, to have been a great solicitor of popularity, and ho both possessed and practiced those arts which seldom fail to please the populace."— Proud's History of Pennsylvania 11, 177. AGED 18.] THE PERFIDY OF SIR WILLIAM KEITH. 119 love, combined to render his working days serene, and Ms holidays memorably happy. The gayety that afterwards charmed the society of three capitals, and enlivened the literature of two countries, made him, at this period, the chief of a set of merry blades, whose Sunday excursions rendered vocal the forests that then overhung the enchanting Schuylkill. Nevertheless, such is human life, even this happy time had its : anguish and its bitterness. John Collins, for some weeks after he had reached Philadelphia, was the plague and shame of Franklin's life. He had become the helpless and unresisting slave of his ap- petite for drink. Besides living at Franklin's own lodgings and at his expense, he kept borrowing money from him, promising to re- pay it as soon as he should get employment. But he could not get employment. Franklin saw with dismay the money of Mr. Vernon vanishing before the importunities of his thirsty friend, until so much of it was gone that he lived in dread of its being called for before he could earn enough to replace it. In his cups Collins was very irritable. Franklin, too, was tormented with re- morse and dread by the violation of his trust. His indignant re- monstrances with Collins provoked angry replies from the young drunkard, and quarrels occurred between them. The breaking in upon Vernon's money, Franklin deliberately pronounced the fii*st great error of his life, and one which proved his father correct in deciding that he was too young to conduct business. It chanced that the money was not required till Frank- lin was able to pay it ; yet he was long in terror of its being called for, and, still longer, carried about in his breast the dull pang of self-reproach. His old friendship for John Collins was worn out at last. Frank- lin, Collins, and a party of Philadelphia lads were in a boat on the Delaware, one day, when Collins refused to take his turn at the- oar, saying that he meant to be rowed home. " Yf e will not row you," TDaid Franklin. "You must," replied Collins, "or stay all night on the water." The others said, " Let us row, what does it signify ?" But Franklin, embittered against him by his previous misconduct, persisted in refusing. Collins swore he would make him row or throw him overboard, and went toward him, stepping on the seats of the boat, to execute his threat. On getting near enough, the maddened youth struck at his old friend. But Frank- 120 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l'724. lin was too quick for him. " I clapped my head under his thighs," he tells us, " and rising, pitched him head foremost into the river." Knowing Collins to be a good swimmer, he gave himself no con- cern for his safety. On the contrary, when Collins had turned, and was about to catch hold of the boat, they pulled it beyond his reach, asking him whether he would do his share of rowing, a maneuver that was several times repeated. Choking with rage, he would not promise to row, and persisted so long that he began to tire ; when his companions relented, drew him in, and brought him home drip- ping wet. After this event the two Bostonians scarcely exchanged a civil word. Collins, at length, accepted the oifer of a tutorship at Barbadoes, and left Philadelphia for that island, promising Frank- lin to remit what he owed him out of his first quarter's salary. He was never heard of in the colonies again. The eccentricities of Samuel Keimer were a source of amusement to Franklin, as long as they were novel. Keimer had formerly be- longed to a sect of religious enthusiasts^ whose antics he could still perform; but, at this time, his religion was reduced to these two arti- cles : to wear the beard long, and to keep Saturday instead of Sunday. These were essential with him ; but, upon occasion, he could affect the usages and tone of any sect. As the man was a fool more than he was a rogue, his hypocrisy was so transparent as to deceive no one. The records of the Friends' Monthly Meeting of Philadelphia, for the very year of Franklin's arrival, contain a proof of this, in an entry which sets forth, that one Samuel Keimer, printer, lately come to the city, had printed divers papers, particularly one styled the Parable, in which he had used the style and language of Friends ; wherefore, the Monthly Meeting certified that he was not of their persuasion, nor countenanced by them.* Keimer, nevertheless, continued to call the months by their numbers instead of their names, as long as he lived in Philadelphia. Having no suspicion of the designs of his journeyman, Keimer lived on terms of familiarity with him, and conceived a high opinion of his talents. Franklin was still fond of practicing the Socratic trick of argumentation ; and Keimer being also of a disputatious turn, it was inevitable that the two should often argue together. Poor Keimer would have been no match for Franklin in any kind * Wflt6on''8 Annals of Philadelphia, 1., 557. AGED 18.] THE PERFIDY OF SIR WILLIAM KEITH. 121 of contest ; but to the Socratic method he fell an easy prey indeed. " I used to work him so with my Socratic method," says Franklin, " and had trepanned him so often by questions apparently distant from any point we had yet in hand, yet by degrees leading to the point, and bringing him into difficulties and contradictions, that at last he grew ridiculously cautious, and would hardly answer me the most common question without asking first, ' What do you in- tend to infer from that ?' " Like many other semi-rogues, Keimer had a project of forming a new religious sect ; and, perceiving Franklin's talent for argument, he invited him to be his colleague. The master was to expound the doctrines, and the man to confound objectors. Franklin affected to entertain the proposition seriously; and, at length, agreed to accept Keimer's doctrines respecting the wearing of the beard and the observance of Saturday, provided Keimer would practice Franklin's old system of abstaining from animal food. Keimer, who was a great eater, thought his constitution would not bear the change, but agreed to try it, provided Franklin would keep him company. Franklin, besides being indifferent as to the kind of food he ate, wished to economize, and was not indisposed to enjoy the sufferings of a flesh-loving prophet. He consented. A woman of the neighborhood was employed to cook and bring to Keimer's house the vegetarian viands, forty varieties of which Franklin taught her to prepare. They reduced the cost of their food to eighteen pence a week each. The abstinence from flesh cost Franklin no self-denial. He says, that several times in the course of his life, he changed abruptly from the ordinary to a vegetable diet and back again, " without the least inconvenience ;" a proof of the soundness of his digestion. But Keimer suffered grievously, ever longing for the flesh-pots of Egypt. At the end of three months he gave it up, ordered a roast pig, and invited Franklin and two female friends to dine with him. The pig was brought too 50on upon the table, and Keimer, powerless to resist the sa- vory temptation, devoured the whole pig before either of his guests arrived. Nothing more was said of the proposed new sect. A friendly and genial soul like Franklin cannot be long in a place without finding companions. His intimates, at this period, were three young men of his own rank and condition, dissimilar in char- acter, but bound together by a common love of books. Charles 6 122 LIFE AND TmES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1724. Osborne and Joseph Watson were clerks to a conveyancer, and James Ralph was clerk to a merchant. " Watson," says Franklin, "was a pious, sensible young man of great integrity." But the others, he adds, were lax in their principles, particularly Ralph, to whom Franklin had imparted his own deistical opinions. Osborne had good sense and sincerity, was friendly and affectionate, but, in literary matters, exceedingly critical. Osborne, Ralph, and Frank- lin were all fond of poetry, and were in the habit of producing little pieces for the amusement of the circle. " Many pleasant walks," says Franklin, " we had together on Sundays, on the banks of the Schuylkill, where we read to one another, and conferred on what we had read." It was the age of verse making. Dryden, who hved till the year 1700, was an illustrious name. His errors were forgotten, but his fame was recent, and most stimulating to young ambition. Pope, then but thirty-six, had written his best works, and had reached the hight of his celebrity. His prodigious renown, and the seem- ing easiness of his method, made every young fellow of spirit and talent a versifier, and caused that growth of inferior poets which the great master of rhyme afterwards mowed down in the Dun- ciad.* The versifying mania had so powerfully seized James Ralph, a predestined victim of Pope's annihilating satire, that, married man as he was and a father, he was inclined to devote his life to poetry, believing that he could acquire in that pursuit, not fame only, but fortune also. He owned that his productions were faulty, but maintained that the greatest poets, when they began to write, must have committed as great faults as he then did. His friend Osborne strongly advised him to discard the preposterous scheme ; and Franklin, too, though he approved of verse-making as an exercise in language, agreed with Osborne. Happy had it been for poor * The follo-Nv-ing is an advertisement from the Boston Weekly Journal, of April 8, 1728 : "*^* T/iere is notv preparing for the Press, and may vpon suitable Encouragement he com- municated to the PiibUck, A Miscellany of Poems, hy several IIand>,9, and upon several Occa- sions ; some ofichich have already been Published, and received the Approbation of the best Judges, loith many more very late Performances, of equal if not superior Beauty, which have never yet seen the Light : Jf therefore any ingenious Gentlemem, are disposed to contribute to- wards the erecting a Poetical Monument for the Ilonoxbr of this Country, either by their gen- erous Subscriptions, or Composures, they are desired to convey them to Mr. Daniel Ilenchinan, or the Publisher of thit; Paper,by tchmn they sJiall be received with Candor and Thankfal- AGED 18.] THE PERFIDY OF SIR WILLIAM KEITH. 123 Ralph, if he had taken the advice of his friends ; but it so chanced, tliat FrankHn's commendation of writing poetry as a means of ac- quiring facility in the use of words, was the means of confirming the young man in his infatuation. Franklin tells the story in his sprightliest manner. "It was proposed," he says, in his Autobiography, "that we should each of us, at our next meeting, produce a piece of our own com- posing, in order to improve by our mutual observations, criticisms, and corrections. As language and expression were what we had in view, we excluded all considerations of invention by agreeing that the task should be aversion of the eighteenth Psalm, which describes the descent of a deity. When the time of our meeting drew nigh, Ralph called on me first, and let me know his piece was ready : I told him I had been busy, and, having little inclination, had done nothing. He then showed me his piece for my opinion, and I much approved it, as it appeared to me to have great merit. ' i»row,' said he, ' Osborne never will allow the least merit in any thing of mine, but makes a thousand criticisms out of mere envy : he is not so jeal- ous of you ; I wish, therefore, you would take this piece and produce it as yours. I will pretend not to have had time, and so produce nothing ; we shall then hear what he will say to it.' It was agreed, and I immediately transcribed it, that it might appear in my own hand. We met : Watson's performance was read ; there were some beauties in it but many defects. Osborne's was read ; it was much better. Ralph did it justice, remarked some faults, but applauded the beauties. He himself had nothing to produce. I was backward, seemed desirous of being excused, had not had sufficient time to correct, &c., but no excuse could be admitted ; produce I must. It was read and repeated : Watson and Osborne gave up the contest, and joined in applauding it. Ralph only made some criticisms, and proposed some amendments ; but I defended my text. Osborne was severe against Ralph, and told me he was no better able to crit- icise than to compose verses. As these two Avere returning home, Osborne expressed himself still more strongly in favor of what he thought my production ; having before refrained, as he said, lest I should think he meant to flatter me. ' But who would have im- agined,' said he, ' that Franklin was capable of such a performance ; such painting, such force, such fire ! He has even improved on the original. In common conversation he seems to have no choice of 124 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1724. words ; he hesitates and blunders ; and yet, good God, how he writes !' " The friends separated, Ralph secretly exulting in his triumph. When next they met, he disclosed the trick — to the discomfiture of the critical Osborne. But this event, trifling as it was, fixed Ralph in his determination to devote himself to poetry ; with what results to himself and others, will appear from time to time as we proceed. The virtuous Watson whom Franklin thought, the best of the set, died in Franklin's arms a few years later, much lamented. Osborne became an eminent lawyer in the West Indies, where he gained a fortune, and died young. Before his departure for the West Indies, he entered into a serious agreement with Franklin, that whichever of them died first should, if possible, appear to the other and reveal the secrets of the other world. " He never fulfilled his promise," observes the survivor. In that age of eager questioning respecting the "Unknowable," such compacts were not uncommon between friends. Dr. A. Carlyle mentions that, while he was a student, he was for some time in the habit of walking in the fields every eve- ning for hours, to meet the spirit of a deceased young friend, with whom he had exchanged the same promise.* During these months, Franklin formed an attachment for Miss Deborah Read, which he had reason to think Avas returned. '"At that day, the right of parents to give their daughters in marriage, and to put an absolute veto upon a rising passion, was not seriously disputed. A portion or dowry was regarded as essential to an honorable marriage, even in the lowlier walks of life ; and when that is the case, marriage will partake of the nature of a bargain ; the contracting parties being the parents who have a son to advance and the parents who have a daughter to estabhsh.'iFrom his tomb- stone in Christ Church burying-ground, Philadelphia, I learn that Mr. John Read died September 12th, 1724, about two months be- fore Franklin sailed for London. His remains lie at the head of the tomb of his daughter and her husband. It was therefore to the mother of Miss Read that young Franklin told his love, and revealed the prospect he had of being a master printer. The prudent lady, without disapproving the match, reminded the enamored youth that neither himself nor the young lady were yet nineteen years old, * Autobiography of Dr. A. Carlyle, p. 39. See, also, Washington Irving's Life and Letters, ii., p. 869. AGED 18.] THE PERFIDY OF SIR WILLIAM KEITH. 125 and that a marriage then, as he was on the eve of a long voyage, and about to engage in an uncertain enterprise, would be unwise. He was to wait until he had returned and was established in busi- ness. Having thus arranged it with the mother, he addressed the daughter. She avowed her affection for him, and they were engaged. The summer passed away ; the autumn was nearly at an end, and the day for the sailing of the London-Hope, Captain Annis, which had been several times postponed, was at hand. Sir William Keith had continued to invite the young printer to his house, when he always spoke of setting him up in business as a settled purpose. He promised to give him letters of introduction to his friends in London, as well as the letter of credit with which to buy types, paper, and a press. A day was even named when the young man should call and receive the letters. At the time appointed, the Governor said he had not been able to get them ready, and fixed another time. Franklin called again, and received the same answer. Again and again he called, with no other result. At length, the vessel was at the point of dropping down the Delaware, and Frank- lin went to take leave of the Governor, expecting confidently to I'eceive the important letters. The secretary of Sir William came out to see him on this occasion, — told him the Governor was ex- tremely busy in writing, but would meet him at Newcastle, where the ship was to anchor, and there the letters should be delivered to him. He went on board ; the ship weighed anchor, and glided down past the low banks of the broad and tranquil Delaware, the woods brown ^nd sere after the late October frosts. The young voyager was not companionless. James Ralph, giving out that he was going abroad to establish a business correspondence, had in reality resolved to abandon his wife and child, and to try for fame and fortune in London. This purpose he did not impart to Franklin until they had reached England, and then gave as excuse for his crime, that he had been treated ill by his wife's relatives. At Newcastle, thirty-two miles below Philadelphia, Franklin called again upon the Governor for the letters ; and again the secretary appeared, to make excuses. He said Sir William Keith regretted deeply that he could not see his young friend ; but he really could nc t, as he was engaged in business of the utmost impor- 126 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1724. tance. The letters, however, should be sent on board in time, and the Governor heartily wished him a good voyage and a speedy return. Puzzled, but not suspecting harm, the young man returned to the ship ; and ere long a bag of letters and dispatches from the Governor was brought on board by Colonel French, and delivered to the captain. Franklin asked for those that were directed to him. The captain replied, that all the letters were in the bag together, and he was then too busy to pick them out ; but before the ship reached England, Franklin should himself overhaul the bag and take from it the letters that belonged to him. No one had yet noticed the two young men amid the mighty bustle of the departure. Strangers to all on board, there was no room found for them in the chief cabin, and they were obliged to make shift with a berth in the steerage. It chanced that a great man of the colony had taken passage in the ship, Andrew Hamil- ton, late Attorney-General of Pennsylvania. His departure from Philadelphia was a great event. I read in the A77ierican Weekly Mercury for November 5th, 1724 : " On Monday the 2d of this In- stant Andrew Hamilton, Esq., our late Attorney General for this Province, set out from this Town, in order to Imbark on board Capt. Annis for London, and was Accompanied so far as the Ferry, with some of the Chief of our Town, with about 70 Horse." He did not sail in the ship, however. Induced by a great fee, he re- turned to Philadelphia to conduct a cause, and went to London by the next ship. The berths secured for himself and his son were thus left vacant. When Colonel French came on board he recognized Franklin, and treated him with a great show of respect, which in- duced the passengers to invite the two friends to take the vacant berths. They lost no time in changing their quarters. On the voyage they fared luxuriously upon Mr. Hamilton's superabun- dant stores, which he had been unable to remove, and Franklin found among the passengers a most valuable friend. He was always lucky, this Ben. Franklin. The happy results of the recall of Mr. Hamilton to Philadelphia upon the fortunes of the young printer were not exhausted in a quarter of a century. The good ship London-Hope, Annis master, got to sea about the 10th of November. The passage was long and rough. It was late in December before the ship was fairly in the channel. Toward AGED IS.] THE PERFIDY OF SIE WILLIAM KEITH. 127 the end of the passage, Captain Annis gave Franklin an opportu- nity, as he had promised, to examine the contents of the letter- bag. He found six or seven letters upon which his name was writ- ten, for the purpose of denoting that they were under his care. As one of these Avas addressed to the King's prniter, and another to a stationer, he thought they might be the letters so often promised. The two friends reached London, December 24th. Franklin called forthwith upon the stationer at his shop, and handing him the letter, said it was from Governor Keith. " I don't know such a person !" said the man. He opened the letter, however, and glanced over it. "Oh!" he cried, "this is from Riddlesden. I have lately found him to be a complete rascal, and I will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any letters from him." Hav- ing said these words, he put the letter back into Franklin's hand, turned on his heel, and proceeded to serve a customer. The rest of the letters, he found, were not written by Keith. Beginning now to doubt the Governor's sinicerity, he gave a state- ment of the whole affair to Mr. Denham, the friend whom he had won on the voyage. Mr. Denham, who comprehended the matter in a moment, assured him there was not the slightest probability that Keith had either written him any letters, or had ever meant to do so. No one who knew Keith, he added, placed the least depend- ence on any thing he said ; and as to the letter of credit, the idea was ridiculous, for he had no credit to give. Franklin heard this with amazement and alarm, for he and Ralph were alone in the wilderness of London, and their whole stock of money, all of which belonged to Franklin, was fifteen pistoles, equal to little more than ten pounds sterling. Franklin revealed his uneasiness to Mr. Den- ham, who advised him to seek employment in the way of his trade. " Among the printers here," said he, " you will improve yourself, and when you return to America, you will set up to greater advan- tage." To add to his dismay, he now learned that his comrade intended to remain in London. He also knew that Ralph, having spent all the money he could raise in paying his passage, was absolutely penniless, and had not a friend in England, except himself, who could help him with a guinea. Franklin's comments on the atrocious duplicity of Keith have often been admired, and justly, both for their charity and wisdom ; 128 LIFE AXD TIMES OP BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1725. if, indeed, there is any difference between charity and wisdom. To one who has never chanced to know a Keith, they may be incom- prehensible. "What shall we think," he asks, "of a governor playing such pitiful tricks, and imposing so grossly upon a poor ignorant boy ? It was a habit he had acquired ; he wished to please everybody, and having little to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good ^vritcr, and a good governor for the people, though not for his constituents, the proprietaries, whose instructions he sometimes disregarded : several of our best laws were of his planning, and passed during his administration." The unresentful character of these remarks may have been due, in some degree, to the fact that they were writ- ten after Keith had bitterly expiated his errors. Upon reading the letter which the stationer had thrust back into his hand, the youth found that a scheme of villany had been formed against Mr. Andrew Hamilton, upon whose arrival soon after, in London, Franklin sought him out, and revealed what he had dis- covered. This revelation, which proved to be of great advantage to the lawyer, made him Franklin's friend and helper, as long as he lived. CHAPTER XL JOURNEYMAN PRINTER IN LONDON. The two young Americans took lodgings together in the street called Little Britain, at three and sixpence a week. They were in- separable companions. Ralph was dependent upon Franklin, and Franklin loved Ralph as men often love their inferiors who are also their opposites. Ralph was so eloquent in conversa- tion, that fifty years later, when Franklin had associated with the ablest men in Europe and America, he could still think that he had " never known a prettier talker." Ralph's manners also were engaging, and he really possessed talent. His misfortune was, that having talent, he had not talent enough. At this period, too, he exhibited many amiable and endearing traits, which AGED 19.] JOURNEYMAN PRINTER IN LONDON. 129 compelled his friend to love him, after he had shown himself un- worthy. One who had known these two young men at this time — Franklin, slow and hesitating in speech, solid and often grave in aspect, intent chiefly on getting forward in the world as a man of business ; and Ralph, handsome, well-mannered, eloquent, and ambitious — would surely have said that it was Ralph, if either, who was destined to greatness. Franklin, however, had over his brilliant companion two advan- tages, which were commonplace indeed, but, just then, of the first importance, namely : ten pounds in his pocket, and a trade at his finger ends that would bring him in thirty shillings a week ; for Franklin was one of the swiftest of compositors. Without difficulty or delay, he obtained work at the great printing-house of Palmer, in Bartholomew Close, wherein fifty men were employed. But Ralph sought employment in vain. His first thought was the stage ; but a noted comedian to whom he applied assuring him that he could not excel as an actor, he proposed to a publisher to write for him a weekly paper, on the plan of the Spectator. The publisher declined the proposal, and Ralph was fain to seek for copying from the lawyers. But not even copying could he get. Meanwhile he remained dependent upon Franklin, whose pistoles, one after an- other, he was obliged to borrow. James Thomson came to London this year, with little in his pocket, save thepoemof Winter, the first of the " Seasons ;" and, next year, came Voltaire from France, bringing with him, in crude form, the Henriade.' Both of them had the pleasure of waking one morn- ing, very soon after their arrival, and finding themselves famous ; and Voltaire acquired such a capital in English guineas as enabled him to lay a broad foundation for the largest fortune ever gained by the pen. Pope, too, had made a fortune by his verses. Ralph's enterprise, therefore, was not so entirely chimerical as it seemed ; only, he was not quite a Thomson, nor a Voltaire, nor a Pope. These young men, inhabitants hitherto of plain and serious Bos- ton and Philadelphia, where even a dancing-master was scarcely permitted yet to ply his useful vocation, were in London ; the gay London of the Spectator. What wonder that they should hasten to enjoy the pleasures of the town? Franklin was diligent in his vocation, but, in the evenings, he and Ralph were very frequently at the theater, the darling delight of unsophisticated youth of 6* 130 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1^725. talent. Other public amusements they enjoyed in turn, as well as excursions on Sundays. Next door to their lodgings, in Little Britain, was a second-hand book-store, containing a vast collection of books? Circulating libraries being then unknown, Franklin agreed to pay the shop-keeper a certain sum for the privilege of taking away and reading any of his books. Absorbed in these various pleasures, uncertain when he should return to America, or whether he could ever return, his prospects totally changed by the perfidy of Keith, he thought less and less of Miss Read. He wrote to her, a short time after his arrival in London, telling her that he was not likely to return soon. As time passed, his money diminished, until even the possibility of a speedy return was no longer his. Her im- age insensibly faded from his heart, and he wrote to her no more. " This," he says, " was another of the great errata of my life, which I could wish to correct if I were to live it over again." For nearly a year, Franklin continued to work at Palmer's print- ing-house ; earning good wages and spending them. Two anec- dotes of his printing-house life during this year are preserved. The less interesting incident he remembered for sixty-one years, and then brought it forward to illustrate a scientific inquiry. In Pal- mer's printing-house, he wrote, " I found a, practice, I had never seen before, of drying a case of types (which are wet in distribution) by placing it sloping before the fire. I found this had the additional advantage, when the types were not only dried but heated, of being comfortable to the hands working over them in cold weather. I therefore sometimes heated my case when the types did not want drying. But an old workman, observing it, advised me not to do so, telling me I might lose the use of my hands by it, as two of our companions had nearly done, one of whom, that used to earn his guinea a week, could not then make more than ten shillings, and the other, who had the dangles, but seven and sixpence. This, with a kind of obscure pain, that I had sometimes felt, as it were in the bones of my hand when working over the types made very hot, in- duced me to omit the practice. But talking, afterwards, with Mr. James, a letter-founder in the same Close, and asking him if his people, who worked over the little furnaces of melted metal, were not subject to that disorder ; he made light of any danger from the effluvia, but ascribed it to particles of the metal swallowed with their food by slovenly workmen, who went to their meals after AGED 19.] JOUEXEYMAN PRINTER IN LONDON. 131 handling the metal, without well washing their fingers ; so that some of the metallic particles were taken off by their bread and eaten with it. This appeared to have some reason in it. But the pain I had experienced made me still afraid of these effluvia."* A circumstance of the highest interest remains to be related of this year. One of the works upon which our young compositor was employed at Palmer's was Wollaston's Religion of Nature Deline- ated, an exceedingly popular book in the last century. It was pub- lished in 1725, but I have now open before me a copy of the seventh edition, dated 1750 ; which contains a note by the learned Dr. John Clarke, to the effect, that the book was " in great esteem with her late Majesty Queen Caroline," who commanded him to translate the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew notes for her own use. Wollaston was a wealthy, unbeneficed clergyman of the Church of England, a learned and estimable man, who devoted the leisure of many years to the production of religious literature, all of which he destroyed, except The Religion of Nature Delineated. This work may be de- scribed as an attempt to educe the Church of England from " the depths of the author's own consciousness." His aim was to show that such crimes as murder, theft, and adultery would have been wrong, even though they had not been forbidden, and that all the virtues would have been obligatory, though they had not been com- manded. He finds, in nature, reasons for not worshiping graven images, arguments for church-going, and proofs of the immortality of the soul. The work is written in the style of Euclid's Geometry, and contains such a profusion of learned notes, that the task devolv- ed upon Dr. Clarke by Queen Caroline, was by no means a trivial one. It is immeasurably inferior to Butler's Analogy, and Paley's Natural Theology, yet both of those works might have been sug- gested by it. The object of all of them was to show, that even if the Deists could succeed in destroying the doctrines of the miraculous production and divine authority of the Bible, still the essential truths of religion would remain unshaken. This most harmless and most amiable of books excited such an- tagonistic thoughts in the active mind of our compositor, that ho wrote and printed a pamphlet of thirty-two pages to refute it. Mr. Wollaston began his treatise in these words : " The foundation of * Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan, 178R. Sparks, vi., 565. 132 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1*725. religion lies in that difference between the acts of men which distin- guishes them into good^ evil^ indifferent. For if there is such a dif- ference, there must be religion, and contraP It was upon this asser- tion that Franklin threw himself with all his youthful power. His pamphlet was entitled " A Dissertation on Liberty and N'ecessity, Pleasure and Pain," and bore upon the title-page these lines of Dryden : " Whatever is, is right. But purblind man Sees but a part of the chain, the nearest links ; His eyes not carrying to that equal beam That poises all above." As WoUaston addressed his treatise to "A. F., Esq.," Franklin addressed his dissertation to "Mr. J. R.," Mr. James Ralph. Wol- laston apologizes for his work by saying that his friend " A. F.,Esq.," had once asked him, " Is there any such thing as natural religion, and if there is, what is it ?" Franklin begins with this observation : "I have here, according to your request, given you my present thoughts on the general state of things in the universe." But I need not describe this ingenious and daring production, fori have been so fortunate as to obtain a copy,* and the reader will find the pamphlet entire, in an appendix to this volume. Until about five years ago, it was supposed to be irrecoverably lost. Sir James Mackintosh searched for it in vain ; and Dr. Sparks had no better fortune. Franklin printed but a hundred copies, most of which he afterward destroyed with his own hands, when he had begun to sus- pect the conclusions at which he had arrived. Within these few years, however, two copies have come to light, one of the original edition in thirty-two pages, and one of a later date, in eighteen pages, showing that the pamphlet was reprinted. The reader will perceive, that, in this production, Franklin car- ; ries negation to the extreme. We learn from it, that he had noNV I lost the hope of retaining his personal identity beyond the grave ; Land he does not appear to have regretted the loss. After reading this pamphlet, we are no longer surprised to learn, that it greatly enhanced the consequence of the young compositor in * Obtained through the kindaess of its po3se3sor, John Stoyons, Esq., of Londou. AGED 19.] JOURNEYMAN PKINTEE IN LONDON. 133 the printiDg-office ; though his employer expostulated with him up- on the principles of his dissertation, which he thought abominable. A copy fell into the hands of Mr. Lyons, a surgeon, author of a book entitled " The Infallibility of Human Judgment ;" a gentle- man who was intimate with the noted skeptics of the day. Lyons sought out the young author, and showed him marked attention. He took him to an ale-house called the Horns, where a club of free- thinkers assembled, the soul and head of which was Dr. Mandeville, author of the Fable of the Bees, a work much in harmony with Frank- lin's dissertation. Lyons introduced Franklin to this jovial Dutch- man, then well advanced in years, but still the merriest, the most "clubbable" of men. Lyons also introduced the young man to Dr. Pemberton, physician, natural philosopher, mathematician, member of the Royal Society, and a friend of Sir Isaac Newton. He was at that very time editing the third and final edition of the Principia, which appeared in 1726. Dr. Pemberton promised to give Franklin an opportunity of seeing Sir Isaac, which Franklin extremely desired. But the great philosopher, then past eighty- two, was sinking under the infirmities of age, and the opportunity never occurred. About the same time, Franklin became acquainted with another person of great celebrity. Sir Hans Sloane, founder of the British Museum, and already the possessor of an unparalleled private col- lection of curiosities. Franklin had brought to London, among other curious articles, a purse made of asbestos, a great rarity then. "Sir Hans Sloane," Franklin says in his Autobiography, " Aear{?of it," but he does not tell how it was that Sir Hans Sloane came to hear of it. Some years after the death of Sir Hans, a note addressed to him by Franklin, dated June 2, 1725, was published in the Gentleman^ a Magazine^ which explains the mystery : " Sir : Having lately been in the northern parts of America, I have brought from thence a purse made of the asbestos^ a piece of the stone and a piece of the wood, the pithy part of which is of the same nature, and called by the inhabitants salamander cotton. As you are noted to be a lover of curiosities, I have informed you of these ; and if you have any inclination to purchase or see them, let me know your pleasure by a line for me at the Golden Inn, Little Britain, and I will wait upon you with them. I am. Sir, your m.ost humble servant, B. Franklin. 134 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l725. " P. S. I expect to be out of town in two or three days, and therefore beg an immediate answer/'* Sir Hans Sloane, keen on the scent of a novelty, went in person to the lodgings of the young man from the northern parts of America, paid him handsomely for his asbestos, and had him at his house in Bloomsbury Square, where he showed him all his mar- velous store of curiosities. The reason of Franklin's willingness to sell his purse, doubtless, was, that Ralph had consumed all his pistoles, and was still a fre- quent borrower of the surplus of his wages. They were soon rub- bing along, as Franklin says, from hand to mouth. And when, at length, the industrious printer was relieved of the heavy burden of his comrade's support, it was only to be involved through him in worse complications. A young milliner, who had a shop near by, lodged in their house ; a lively, sensible, and agreeable person. By reading to her in the evenings, Ralph became intimate with her, and when she removed to another house, he followed her, lived with her, and was supported by her. Her income proving insuffi- cient for the maintenance of herself, her paramour and their child, Ralph went into the country and obtained the mastership of a vil- lage school, the most honorable employment he ever exercised in his life. Deeming this situation totally unworthy of his talents, and confident of one day emerging from obscurity into the bright- ness of a great renown, he assumed the name of his friend Frank- lin. It is gratifying to know that he did not succeed in concealing this part of his career. In relating the quarrel he afterwards had with Gar rick, Mr. Davies takes care to mention that Ralph began life as a schoolmaster.f For the time, however, his object was attained. He wrote to his friend, telling him that he was teaching a dozen boys reading and writing, at sixpence a week each, recom- mending his mistress to his care, and requesting him when he wrote to direct his letters to Mr. Franklin. Ralph now began to write an epic poem; perhaps the ver}^ work which, a few years later, provoked the satire of Pope. Sheets of this epic came by every post to Franklin for his remarks and cor- rections. He sent whole letters of criticism in return, endeavoring, but without eifect, to dissuade the poet from going on. He copied from one of Young's Satires, which had just appeared, a long pas- * Sparks, vii., 1. t Davies's Life of Garrick, i., 283. AGED 19.] JOUKJfETMAN PBINTEE IN LONDOliT. 135 sage on the folly of pursuing the Muses, and sent it to his infatuated friend. But installments of the epic poem continued to arrive. Meanwhile the mistress of Ralph, having lost business and friends through her connection with him, used often to send for Franklin in her distress, and borrow money of him. The borrowing con- tinued until Ralph and his affairs had cost the journeyman printer twenty-seven pounds, about half the wages of the year. But this was not the worst that befell him. Growing fond of the society of this unfortunate woman, he became very intimate with her, and, at length,, presuming on her dependent condition, attempted to take liberties with her. "Another erratum," he candidly confesses; the worst erratum of his life, perhaps he might with truth have added. She repulsed him with becoming resentment, and informed Ralf)h of what had occurred. On his return, soon after, to London, the poet gave Franklin to understand that he considered all his obliga- tions to him annulled, and their friendship at an end. They sepa- rated, not to meet again for nearly thirty years. Ralph pushed his literary career with extraordinary resolution and perseverance. He pubhshed soon a poem, entitled Night, which brought him neither profit nor reputation. He wrote plays, some of which failed, and others were never acted. He was a part- ner in the management of a theater, and prospered not. He wrote satirical verses, which made him hated, and caused Pope to insert in one of the later editions of the Dunciad the well-known couplet : " Silence, ye wolves, while Ralph to Cynthia howls, And makes night hideous! answer him, ye owls !" To these lines Pope appended a note, surcharged with venom : " James Ralph, a name inserted after the first editions, not known to our author till he wrote a swearing piece called ' Sawney,' very abusive of Dr. Swift, Mr. Gay, and himself These lines allude to a thing of his entitled ' Mght,' a poem. This low writer attended his own works with panegyrics in the journals, and once, in par- ticular, praised himself highly above Mr. Addison, in wretched remarks on that author's account of Enghsh poets, printed in a London journal, September, 1728. He was wholly illitei-ate,* and * Ealph's work on the " Use and Abuse of Parliaments," published in 1744, abounds in Latin quotations. 136 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAJtllN FEANKXIN. [1725. knew no language, not even French. Being advised to read the rules of dramatic poetry before he began a play, he smiled, and replied : ' Shakspeare wrote without rules.' He ended, at last, in a political newspaper, to which he was recommended by his friend Cunall, and received a small pittance for pay ; and being detected in writing on both sides, on one and the same day, he publicly jus- tified the morality of his conduct."* Part of the sting of these words lies in the fact that, although written as early as 1729, they speak of poor Ralph in the past tense^ as though the " political newspaper" were a tomb of infamy, into which he had sunk, and disappeared forever. "Pope's coup- lets," says Dr. A. Carlyle, " stamped character in those days ;" and Franklin tells us that Ralph wrote poetry " till Pope cured him." Dr. Johnson, also, mentions, in his "Life of Pope," that Ralph said Pope's couplet almost reduced him to starvation, for no bookseller could be induced to believe in his capacity. But as a political writer, pamphleteer, and compiler of booksellers' history, he flourished long. Four ministers thought his pen worth pur- chasing : Sir Robert Walpole, Mr. Pelham, Lord Bute, and the Duke of Bedford. The nobleman last named evidently held him in high esteem, and furnished the money for one of Ralph's polit- ical periodicals.! Lord Bute, it is said, settled upon him an annuity of six hundred pounds. J Fox praises the fairness, and Hallam the diligence, displayed in his two huge folios of the " History of Wil- liam ni." His works may be examined by the curious, in the library of Harvard University, and in the Philadelphia City Library. In estimating the career of this erring man, we should not forget that many of the noblemen and statesmen with whom he associated, and for whose advancement he toiled, had less principle ttian he, and had not his excuse. Relieved of supporting Ralph, whom, however, he still loved, Franklin bestirred himself to mend his fortunes. Li expectation of more profitable work, he left Palmer's, and obtained a place at Watt's printing-house, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, an establishment still more extensive than Palmer's. We have some pleasing inci- dents of the time spent by him at Watt's. Little Britain, where he had lodged during his stay in London, * "Dunciad," Book iii., line 1C5. t "Bedford Correspondence," ii., 127, 135, 186. ijrDavies'b "Lifoof Garrick," i,, 283, AGED 19.] JOUETTEYMAN PRINTER IN LONDON. 137 is a ]j.ttle ancient street, only a few steps from Bartholomew's Close, in which was situated Palmer's printing-house. The consequent Yv^ant of exercise beginning to tell upon his system, he preferred to work in the press-room of his new place of employment. Press- work appears, then, to have been the superior part of the trade. Franklin, at least, in speaking of Keimer's incompetency as a printer, calls him a mere compositor ; and, really, a man must have I possessed unusual talent for taking pains to get good impressions f from the presses in use a hundred and thirty years ago. At this ■ period of his life Franklin drank only water. His fellow-pressmen, ' nearly fifty in number, were great drinkers of beer. Nevertheless, the Water- American, as they nicknamed him, carried up and down stairs a form on each hand, while the beer-drinkers carried but one on both hands. They wondered that he, who, they supposed, de- j rived no strength from his drink, should be stronger than them- selves who drank strong beer. "My companion at the press," i says Franklin, " drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner ; a pint in the afternoon about six o'clock, I and another when he had done his day's work. I thought it a de- I testable custom ; but it was necessary, he supposed, to drink strong beer, that he might be strong to labor. I endeavored to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in pro- portion to the grain or flour of the barley, dissolved in the water of which it was made ; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread, and, therefore, if he could eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Siturday night for that vile liquor : an expense I was free from ; and thus these poor devils keep themselves always under." When he had worked for some weeks among the pressmen, he was transferred, by the desire of his employer, to the composing- room. The compositors demanded an entrance-fee of five shillings, the sum expected of all new-comers. As he had already paid a fee on entering the establishment, he considered the new demand an imposition ; and Mr. Watt being of the same opinion, he refused to pay it. He held out two or three weeks, but so many annoying little practical jokes were played upon him and his work, that be was glad to pay the money at last ; convinced, as he records, of the 138 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l'726. folly of being on ill terms with people with whom one has to live continually. Being then on a friendly footing with his new com- panions, he acquired over tliem the influence due to his superior talents and knowledge. A talent for repartee goes a great way in any workshop, and is nowhere more enjoyed than in a printing-office. Franklin's readi- ness in this respect made him popular, and aided to give weight, perhaps, to his opinions and hi^ example. Great, indeed, must have been the force of an example, and admirable the tact of an understanding, capable of convincing Englishmen that water-gruel is better than beer ! But even this triumph of reason over habit was vouchsafed to the young philosopher. " From my example," he says, " a great many of them left their muddling breakfast of beer, bread, and cheese, finding they could with me be supplied from a neighboring house with a large porringer of hot water-gruel, sprinkled with pepper, crumbled with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the price of a pint of beer, viz., three halfpence. This was a more comfortable as well as a cheaper breakfast, and kept their heads clearer. Those who continued sotting with their .beer all day, were often, by not paying, out of credit at the alehouse, and used to make interest with me to get beer, their lights as they phrased it, heing out. I watched the pay-table on Saturday night, and collected what I stood engaged for them, having to pay some- times near thirty shillings a week on their accounts." Besides this triumph, he carried, against much opposition, some valuable changes in their printing-house laws. His extreme quick- ness at composition, and his regularity of attendance, recommended him to the master, and procured him a large share of the work at which the best wages could be earned. His steady industry and improved habits enabled him to replenish his purse, and he went on for several months without interruption or drawback. His eagerness to save money led him to practice one piece of economy that cannot be admired. Removing to lodgings in Duke Street, in order to be nearer the printing-house, he agreed, at first, to pay three and sixpence a week ; and the landlady was induced to accept so moderate a remuneration by her desire to have the pro- ' tection of a man in her house. He heard, soon after, of a lodging which he could have for two shillings a week, and proposed to re- move to it. His landlady, however, was so pleased with her lodger, AGED 20.] JOIJBNEYMAN PKINTEE IN LONDON". 139 ind so much enjoyed his conversation in the evenings, that she offered to throw off two shillings a weet if he would remain. ' So," he says, "I remained with her at one shilling and sixpence IS long as I stayed in London." This economy was the less com- ueudable because the landlady was as agreeable to the lodger as :]ie lodger was to the landlady. She was an extremely entertain- ng old lady, full of anecdote and kindness. She was so lame that ;ho could seldom leave her room, and often invited Franklin to spend an evening with her. Her company, he admits, was so liglily amusing to him, that he never wished to decline her invita- ion. At supper-time, the old lady would spread a most frugal •epast ; half an anchovy for each, on a very thin slice of bread and )utter, and half a pint of ale between them. But her thousand mecdotes of the last four reigns, derived from personal inter- soiirse with leading families, were an exhaustless entertainment to lini. In the garret of this house had lodged, for many years, one of Lose living relics of Catholic England, of whom many still lingered t that day in the nooks of London. This was a CathoHc maiden )f ^^oventy, who had retained of a considerable fortune only twelve )oiuids a year for her own subsistence, and spent part of that in ihnrity. In early life she had entered a nunnery on the contment, )ut, the climate not agreeing with her, she returned to England, nd endeavored in her London garret to live as nun-like a Kfe as vas possible in a country where nunneries were unlawful. She ived on water-gruel only, and used no fire except to cook it. The JathoUc tenants had for many years refused to take rent fi'ora her, is they deemed it a blessing to have her in their house. Daily a )iicst visited her apartment to receive her confession. Franklin's andlady once asked her how she, living as she did, could possibly ind so much employment for a confessor. " Oh," replied the re- hise, " it is impossible to avoid vain thoughts." Franklin himself v^as once permitted to visit this aged saint. "She was cheerfu]," e records, " and polite, and conversed pleasantly. The room was lean, but had no other furniture than a mattress, a table with a rucifix and a book, a stool v/hich she gave me to sit on, and a pic- ure over the chimney of /Si. Veronica displaying her handkerchief, ,^vith the miraculous figure of Christ's bleeding face on it, whicli he explained to me with great seriousness. She looked pale, but (he explai 140 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1726 was never sick, and I give it as another instance on how small ai income life and health may be supported." He met with another religious eccentric, a printer's widow, Mrs Hive, who believed that this present world is liell^ and its inhabit ants spirits w^ho are expiating sins committed in a previous stat of existence, of which they retain no recollection. After death she thought, the knowledge of our former state returned to us and the recollection of the punishment we had endured in hell, ha* the two-fold eifect of keeping us virtuous and deterring others froc vice. The good lady attached so much importance to her singula creed, that she bound her son to deliver, in a public hall, a solemi discourse in which the doctrine should be set forth and vindicated The discourse was delivered ; and Franklin, years after, saw a cop^ of it in print, abounding in citations from the Bible. During the latter part of Franklin's stay in London, he is said but not on the best authority,* to have formed the acquaintance c Peter CoHinson, a young man of fortune, devoted to natural sc: ence. Collinson may have heard of the young American tlu'ougl Sir Hans Sloane, whose collection he was in the habit of visiting. He is said to have sought out Franklin at Watt's printing-house and to have become warmly attached to him. Be that as it maj Franklin and Collinson, as we know, were correspondents an( friends from 1730 to the death of Collinson, in 1768. One of Franklin's fellow-workmen at Watt's printing-house, wa David Hall, who was afterwards his partner in Philadelphia fo: many years. Another named Wygate, a man of considerable edi cation, was his frequent companion. He taught Wygate and friend of his to swim in two lessons, an incident that came nea diverting him from his proper career. Joining a party of Wygate' friends from the country, who were going to visit Chelsea, he wa entreated, as they were returning by water, to give the company a exhibition of his feats in swimming. Chelsea, which has now ru: into huge London, was then a pretty country village, four miles an( a half from St. Paul's. Franklin, seldom reluctant to take to th water, stripped, leaped in, performed all the tricks he knew, au( swam without resting from near Chelsea to Blackfriars, a distance o four miles. He had long ago exhausted the science of swimming • Wecms's Life of Franklin, chap. xxxv. + Encyclopsedia Britannica, vii, 134. clGED 20.] JOURNEYMAN PRINTEE IN LONDON. 141 tie could do all that was possible both on the water and under the water. The company were amazed at his skill and endurance, and Wygate conceived such a fondness for bim, that he proposed they jhonld make the tour of Europe together, supporting themselves everywhere by their trade. Bayard Taylor anticipated. At first he was inclined to embrace the proposition, and mention- d it to Mr. Denham, with whom he had maintained an acquaint- mce ever since they had landed from the London-Hope together. Mr. Denham did more than dissuade him. He urged him to think )nly of returning to Pennsylvania, which he was himself about to io, with a great cargo of merchandise. This Mr. Denham was one )f those merchants whose scrupulous honesty first rescued the name >f merchant from opprobrium, and gradually made it honorable hroughout Christendom. After failing in business at Bristol, he emigrated to America, where, in a few years, he gained a large fortune. He returned to England, as we have seen, and on reaching Bristol, invited all his old creditors to dinner. Before going to the table, he made them a little address, in which he thanked them for the easy composition with which they had favored him after his bankruptcy. At the end of the first course, when the plates were removed, every man found before him a check for the amount still due him, with interest added. He was now about to resume his business in America. He offered Franklin the place of clerk and book-keeper in the extensive store which he proposed to open in Philadelphia. The salary of the place, fifty pounds a year, was less than the wages Franklin was then earning as a compositor. But Denham engaged, as soon as the young man should have become acquainted with mercantile business, to send him with a cargo to the West Indies, and procure him commissions from other merchants and in other ways assist him to get into business for himself. Franklin was tired of London and dissatisfied with the life he had led there. Often had he recalled with pleasure the innocent and happy months he had passed in Philadelphia, and had often longed to revisit those pleasant scenes. He accepted Mr. Denham's offer. He took leave of the printing-house, as he supposed, forever, and was occupied, day after day, in packing and forwarding mei- cbandise. When all had been stowed on board the ship, some days still remained before the time fixed for her departure. On one of these days, he was surprised to receive a request to 142 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLTN. [I726.t visit Sir William Wyndhnra, a man of great celebrity at that time' from his having been Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Bolingbroke administration, and a sharer in the persecutions of his brilliant chief He waited upon the great man. Sir William told him that he had heard of his swimming from Chelsea to Blackfriars, and also of his having taught the two young men to swim in a few hours. He said that he had two sons about to set out on their travels, who, he wished, should be taught to swim before starting, and if Franklin would teach them, he would pay him liberally for his trouble. Greatly to his regret, he was compelled to decline the offer, as the young men had not yet come to town, and his own stay was uncer- tain. He was so struck with the incident, that he thought if the proposal had been made to him before he had engaged himself to Mr. Denham, he should have remained in England and opened a swimming school. It thus appears, that he had not, at this time, a preference for any particular career. He was perfectly aware that saving money is the mode by which journeymen become masters, and his scheme of life was simply to get on and be a prosperous citizen. And it is to be observed of all the men who have rendered signal and immeasur- able services to mankind — such men, for example, as Shakspeare, Newton, Handel, James Watt, Robert Fulton, and John Walter — have never indulged the flattering delusion of having a grand aim. They have taken hold of their tasks in the most simple and ordi- nary fashion, and been actuated by the most simple and ordinary motives. Shakspeare appears to have cared chiefly to fill the Globe Theater ; Newton, to do his duty as professor of mathematics, and keep out of controversies ; Watt, to establish a great machine factory; Walter, to sell the Times newspaper by thousands, instead of hundreds ; Handel, to gain an honest living by com- posing music and playing the organ, fit really appears to be only second-rate men who have great aims. Tlie truly able and Avise person seems only to do, in a superior and original manner, the duties that/a/^ in his way^ or that belong to his vocation. He glorifies the common lot. He does sublime things merely in the way of earning his livelihood, or by way of recreation after he has done work. , And when we consider what life may be to a man, and is to all men Avho haA^e learned how to live, we are inclined to ques- tion Avhether a motive more truly lofty is possible than this : to AGED 20.] THE VOYAGE HOME. 143 cam one's living. Who can do more than requite the universe for tl I a gift of life ? No man. ILxjDpy he who does not bring in the universe a loser ! July 21 St, 1726, Frankhn embarked on board the ship Berkshire, Henry Clark, master, bound for Philadelphia. In London he had lived for a year and a half He had not improved his fortune, but ic had acquired skill in his trade, and had increased his knowledge, Ijoth of books and of the world. He had met some distinguished, :i:id several ingenious men, whose conversation had been beneficial to him, as well as pleasing. A journeyman printer in populous London, a stranger, too, in a strange land, we still see that he tended strongly upward, by a law which we must not say is as sure as gravitation, because it is gravitation. If he had stayed in London, he would have been a leading publisher and member of Parliament before he was forty-five, hke his friend William Strahan, who also began as a journeyman printer. Franklin was on the direct road to l;oth those distinctions when he joined Mr. Denham. His valued acquaintance, Peter Collinson, accompanied him on board the ship, we are told. At parting, they are said to have ex- changed walking sticks, and promises to correspond.* CHAPTER Xn. THE VOYAGE HOME. The Berkshire was eighty-two days in getting from London to Philadelphia. The passage was called a long one, but it was not long enough to excite particular remark at that day. What with the slowness of the ship, the delays in the channel, the danger of being blown down across the Bay of Biscay, the liability of being chased by pirates in time of peace, and by privateers in time of war, and the frequent necessity of running into a port for repairs, it was not very uncommon for vessels to be three, five, seven months in making the passage from Europe to America. There is one passage of eleven months on record, five of which were spent in a Spanish port repairing damages. The Berkshire appears to have been a * Vv^ecms's Life of Franklin, chap. xxsv. 144 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1*726. small ship, or, in other words, to have been a ship of about two hundred tons, instead of three hundred and fifty or four hundred. If we may judge from the pictures of ships that have been preserved from that period in the Philadelphia Library, we may condude that the good ship Berkshire bore a much closer resemblance to a Chinese junk than to a Philadelphia packet of the present time. Captain, passengers, and crew, numbered twenty-one men. A sea-voyage was, indeed, a most formidable affair, a hundred and thirty years ago. I have stumbled upon a few particulars, which may be interesting to some readers. The familiar distinc- tion between cabin passengers and steerage passengers dates only from the time when poor people and bought servants began to emi- grate to America ; say, about the year 1700. The Pilgrim Fathers, William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, and the great host of respect- able passengers, from 1620 to 1775, appear to have paid about five pounds each as passage-money, which entitled a passenger to sail-i ors' fare of salt beef and biscuit. All other stores were either pro-' vided by the passengers, or furnished by the captain, at a price agreed upon. But Franklin, in his well-known article on the sub- ject,* warns the inexperienced voyager to put no trust in captains ; but to lay in a supply of bottled water, tea, coffee, wine, sugar, raisins, eggs, rum, biscuit, and cooking utensils. The passengers were sometimes divided into messes of four each, who clubbed their stores, and made common cause against the ravages of the cook, who was always the worst sailor in the ship, and had been transferred from the forecastle to the galley for that sole reason. As late as 1784, Mrs. Adams could still describe her sea-cook as a " great, dirty, lazy negro, with no more knowledge of cooking than a savage." " On came the dishes," she adds, " higgledy-pig- gledy, with a leg of pork all bristly ; a quarter of an hour after, a pudding, or, perhaps, a pair of roast fowls ; when dinner is nearly completed, a plate of potatoes."f Dr. Johnson's abhorrence of ship-board, which has been often set down as one of his mad pre- judices, was not so very unreasonable. " A ship," he would say, " is worse than a jail : there is in a jail better air, better company, better conveniences of every kind, and a ship has the additional * " Precautions to be used by those who are about to undertake a sea-voyage." — Sparks, ii., 106. t Letters of Mrs. John Adams, ii., 14. AGED 20.] THE VOYAGE HOME. 145 disadvantage of being in danger." This remained a true descrip- tion of life on board ship until after the year 1800. The diary* punctually kept by Franklin during his long passage home, is a most pleasing picture of a young, large, and inquisitive soul. Some trait of the man is revealed in every entry. We see a strong masculine understanding united with sensitive and tender feelings ; sound, practical sense joined to a sentimental reflectiveness that reminds the Shakspearean reader of his much loved Jaques; a mind ahve to the beauties, but also most curious as to the processes of nature ; and here and there a touch of worldly wisdom, indicating a youth destined to win a liberal portion of what the world hastens to bestow upon those who serve it as it wishes to be served. There ' are men who are said to value themselves upon being pilgrims and strangers on earth. .Franklin, from early life to old age, gives us assiirance that he was aiJ home upon the pTaifet that had the Honor oTpi'oducing him, and knew instinctively how to adjust himself to itsjvays. The ship dropped down to Gravesend in the afternoon of July 21st, anchored there late in the same evening, and remained two days. Franklin, who was much ashore during these two days, re- cords his opinion of the people of Gravesend in the language of a man who has been cheated : " This Gravesend is a cursed biting place ; the chief dependence of the people being the advantage they make of imposing upon strangers. If you buy any thing of them, and give half what they ask, you pay twice as much as the thing is worth. Thank God, we shall leave it to-morrow." And so they did. After beating about in the channel for four days, they anchored off Portsmouth, and the captain, Mr. Denham, and Mr. Denham's clerk went on shore to view the wonders of the dockyard. Franklin records his astonishment at the naval power of his country, as displayed in the fact, that while England had three great fleets at sea, he could count thirty large men-of-war lying in Portsmouth harbor. But the gem of the passages in his diary relating to Portsmouth is a sage reflection respecting pun- ishment, which anticipates the theory of punishment expounded by Horace Mann, and exhausts the subject. " The people of Portsmouth," wrote the young philosopher, " tell * Published in Sparks, i., 547. 146 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1720. strange stories of the severity of one Gibson, who was governor of this place in the Queen's time, to his soldiers, and show you a mis- erable dungeon by the town gate, which they call Johnny Gibson^s Hole^ where, for trifling misdemeanors, he used to confine his sol- diers till they were almost starved to death. It is a common maxim, that, without severe discipline, it is impossible to govern the licen- tious rabble of soldiery. I own, indeed, that if a commander finds he has not those qualities in him that will make him beloved by his people, he ought, by all means, to make use of such methods as will make them fear him, since one or the other (or both) is absolutely necessary ; but Alexander and Caesar, those renowned generals, re- ceived more faithful service, and performed greater actions, by means of the love their soldiers bore them, than they could possibly have done, if, instead of being beloved and respected, they had been hated and feared by those they commanded." The ship lay between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight for some days, during which Franklin made incursions into the island, visit- ing Cowes and Carisbrook Castle, which he describes. But here again it is the thoughtful remark that arrests the reader's attention. This is one : " All this afternoon I spent agreeably enough at the draft-board. It is a game I much delight in ; but it requires a clear head, and un- disturbed ; and the persons playing, if they would play well, ought not much to regard the consequences of the game, for that diverts and withdraws the attention of the mind from the game itself, and makes the player liable to make many false open moves ; and I will venture to lay it down for an infallible rule, that, if two pei;sons equal in judgment, play for a considerable sum, he that loves money most shall lose ; his anxiety for the success of the game confounds him. Courage is almost as requisite for the good conduct of this game as in a real battle ; for, if the player imagines himself opposed by one that is much his superior in skill, his mind is so intent on the defensive part, that an advantage passes unobserved." Another sapient observation was called forth by the account which the keeper of Carisbrook Castle gave him of a former governor of the Isle of Wight : " At the death of this governor," says young Wisdom, " it ap- peared he was a great villain, and a great politician ; there was no crime so damnable which he would stick at in the execution of his AGED 20.] THE VOYAGE HOME. 147 designs, and yet lie had the art of covering all so thick, that with almost all men in general, while he lived, he passed for a saint. What surprised me was, that the silly old fellow, the keeper of the castle, who remembered him governor, should have so true a notion of his character as I perceived he had. In short, I believe it is im- possible for a man, though he has all the cunning of a devil, to live and die a villain, and yet conceal it so well as to carry the name of an honest fellow to the grave with him, but someone, by some acci- dent or other, shall discover him. Truth and sincerity have a cer- tain distinguishing native luster about them, which cannot be per- fectly counterfeited ; they are like fire and flame, that cannot be painted." For many days longer the ship was near the Isle of Wight, weighing anchor, casting anchor, tacking across the Solent, at- tempting to get to sea, and being blov/n back again to Spithead. One sorry adventure which befell a party of the passengers at the little town of Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight, Franklin relates at some length. Returning to Yarmouth after dark, from a long walk into the island, they found themselves on the wrong side of the harbor ; they had headed and crossed the creek, the expansion of which forms the harbor. They were directed to a ferry near the mouth of the creek, where a boy would rovf them over to the town. " But," says Franklin, " when we came to the house the lazy whelp was in bed, and refused to rise and put us over ; upon which we went down to the water-side, with a design to take his boat, and go over by ourselves. We found it very difficult to get the boat, it being fastened to a stake, and the tide risen near fifty yards beyond it ; I stripped all to my shirt to wade up to it ; but missing the causeway, which was imder water, I got up to my middle in mud. At last I came to the stake ; but to my great disappoint- ment, found she was locked and chained. I endeavored to draw the staple with one of the thole-pins, but in vain ; I tiled to pull up the stake, but to no purpose ; so that, after an hour's fatigue and trouble in the wet and mud, I was forced to return without the boat. " We had no money in our pockets, and therefore began to con- clude to pass the night in some haystack, though the wind blew very cold and very hard. In the midst of these troubles one of us 148 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l726. recollected that he had a horse-shoe in his pocket, which he found in his walk, and asked me if I could not wrench the staple out witli i that. I took it, went, tried, and succeeded, and brought the boat ashore to them. Now we rejoiced, and all got in, and, when I had dressed myself, we put oiF. But the worst of all our troubles was to come yet ; for, it being high water and the tide over all the banks, though it was moonlight we could not discern the channel of the creek ; but rowing heedlessly straight forward, when we were got about half way over, we found ourselves aground on a mud bank ; and, striving to row her off by putting our oars in the mud, we broke one, and there stuck fast, not having four inches water. We were now in the utmost perplexity, not knowing what in the world to do ; we could not tell whether the tide was rising or falling ; but at length we plainly perceived it was ebb, and we could feel no deeper water within the reach of our oar. " It was hard to lie in an open boat all night, exposed to the wind and Aveather ; but it was worse to think how foolish we should look in the morning, when the owner of the boat should catch us in that condition where we must be exposed to the view of all the town. After we had strove and struggled for half an hour and more, we gave all over, and sat down with our hands before us, despairing to get off; for, if the tide had left us we had been never the nearer ; we must have sat in the boat, as the mud was too deep for us to walk ashore through it, being up to our necks. At last we bethought ourselves of some means of escaping, and two of us stripped and got out, and thereby lightening the boat, we drew her upon our knees near fifty yards into deeper water ; and then with much ado, having but one oar, we got safe ashore under the fort ; and, having dressed ourselves and tied the man's boat, we went with great joy to the Queen's Head, where we left our compan- ions, whom w^e found waiting for us, though it was very late. Our boat being gone on board, we were obliged to lie ashore all night ; and thus ended our walk." After beating about in the channel for nearly three weeks, the Berkshire lost the laud, and stood out into the Atlantic. The voy- age was as monotonous as it was long. Scarcely an incident occur- red which was not usual or trivial ; yet our young voyager abounded in most sage reflections. One of the passengers, for example, was accused of marking the AGED 20.] THE VOYAGE HOME. 149 cards, with a design to cheat. A formal cotirt of justice was organized for his trial, at which the principal witness was a Dutch- man, who could speak but a few words of English. The Dutch- man testified that, while the vest of the passengers were ashore, he saw the accused mark the court cards on the back with a pen. Franklin mused within himself, why the rascal should have dared to perpetrate the offense in the Dutchman's presence. He achieved, at length, the following solution: " I have sometimes observed, that we are apt to fancy the person that cannot speak intelligibly to us, proportionably stupid in under- standing, and, when we speak two or three words of English to a foreigner, it is louder than ordinary, as if we thought him deaf, and that he had lost the use of his ears as well as his tongue. Some- thing like this I imagine might be the case of Mr. G ^n ; he fan- cied the Dutchman could not see what he was about, because he could not understand English, and therefore boldly did it before his face." But this was not the end of his deep meditations on this case. The evidence against the prisoner being conclusive, the jury brought him in guilty, and the court sentenced him " to be carried up to the round top, and made fast there, in view of all the ship's company, during the space of three hours, that being the place where the act was committed, and to pay a fine of two bottles of brandy." The prisoner refusing to submit to the sentence of the court, " one of the sailors stepped up aloft and let down a rope to us, which we, with much struggling, made fast about his middle, and hoisted him up into the air, sprawling, by main force. We let him hang, cursing and swearing, for near a quarter of an hour ; but, at length, he cry- ing out murder, and looking black in the face, the rope being over- taut about his middle, we thought it proper to let him down again, and our mess have excommunicated him till he pay his fine, refusing either to play, eat, drink, or converse with him." For five days the man held out, but on the sixth day he paid his fine, and was admitted again to the fellowship of the mess. Upon this event, the youthful sage largely descants. " Man," he observes, " is a sociable being, and it is, for aught I know, one of the worst of punishments to be excluded from society. I have read abundance of fine things on the subject of solitude, and I know 'tis a common boast in the mouths of those that affect to be thought 160 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKUN. [l726. wise, that they are never less alone than when alone. I acknowledge solitude an agreeable refreshment to a busy mind ; but, were these thinking people obliged to be always alone, I am apt to think they would quickly find their very being insupportable to them. I have heard of a gentleman, who underwent seven years' close confinement in the Bastile, at Paris. He was a man of sense; he was a thinking man ; but, being deprived of all conversation, to what purpose should he think? for he was denied even the instruments of expres- sing his thoughts in wn*iting. There is no burden so grievous to man as time that he knows not how to dispose of. He was forced at last to have recourse to this invention ; he daily scattered pieces of paper about the floor of his little room, and then employed him- self in picking them up and sticking them in rows and figures on the arm of his elbow-chair ; and he used to tell his friends, after his release, that he verily believed, that if he had not taken this method he should have lost his senses. One of the philosophers, I think it was Plato, used to say, that he had rather be the veriest stupid block in nature, than the possessor of all knowledge without some intelligent being to communicate it to." Pursuing this train of reflection, he discovers the reason, as he thinks, of the intolerable tedium of a sea-voyage, which ,is solitude aggravated by the close proximity of uncongenial persons. " Our company," he continues, " is, in general, very unsuitably mixed, to keep up the pleasure and spirit of conversation ; and if there are one or two pair of us that can sometimes entertain one another for half an hour agreeably, yet perhaps we are seldom in the humor for it together. I rise in the morning and read for an hour or two, perhaps, and then reading grows tiresome. Want of exercise occa- sions want of appetite, so that eating and drinking afford but httle pleasure. I tire myself with playing at drafts, then I go to cards ; nay, there is no play so trifling or childish, but we fly to it for enter- tainment. A contrary wind, I know not how, puts us all out of good humor ; we grow sullen, silent, and reserved, and fret at each other upon every little occasion. 'Tis a common opinion among the ladies, that, if a man is ill-natured, he infallibly discov- ers it when he is in liquor. But I, who have known many instances to the contrary, will teach them a more effectual method to discover the natural temper and disposition of their humble servants. Let the ladies make one long sea-voyage with them, and, if they have AGED 20.] THE VOYAGE HOME. 151 the least spark of ill-nature in them, and conceal it to the end of the voyage, I will forfeit all my pretensions to their favor." The remarks of the voyager upon the dolphins, flying-fish, birds, sliarks, pilot-fish, sea-weed, eclipses, and whatever other natural phenomena attracted his attention, show that, at the earliest period of his life, as to his life's end, he was one of those who, in this world J^f wonders, live with their eyes open. One example: he picked up out of the sea, as the ship was nearing the American coast, some branches of sea-weed, one of which attracted his particular atten- tion. " It had a leaf," he says, " about three-quarters of an inch long, indented like a saw, and a small yellow berry, filled with nothing but wind ; besides which it bore a fruit of the animal kind, very sur- prising to see. It was a small shell-fish like a heart, the stalk by which it proceeded from the branch being partly of a gristly kind. Upon this one branch of the weed, there were near forty of these vegetable animals ; the smallest of them, near the end, contained a substance somewhat like an oyster, but the larger were visibly ani- mated, opening their shells every moment, and thrusting out a set of unformed claws, not unlike those of a crab ; but the inner part was still a kind of soft jelly. Observing the weed more narrowly, I spied a very small crab crawling among it, about as big as the head of a ten- penny nail, and of a yellowish color, like the weed itself. This gave me some reason to think, that he was a native of the branch ; that he had not long since been in the same condition with the rest of those little embryos that appeared in the shells, this being the method of their generation ; and that, consequently, all the rest of this odd kind of fruit might be crabs in due time." He kept the weed in salt water, changing the water every day, and drew in from the ocean more of the crab-producing branches ; on one of which, he found " three living perfect crabs, each less than the nail of my little finger." He adds : " One of them had some- thing particularly observable, to wit, a thin piece of the white shell which I before noticed as their covering while they remained in the condition of embryos, sticking close to his natural shell upon his back. This sufficiently confirms me in my opinion of the manner of their generation. I have put this remarkable crab with a piece of gulf-weed, shells, etc., into a glass phial filled with salt water (for want of spirits of wine), in hopes to preserve the curiositj;^ till 162 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1726. I come on shore." " It is likely," he says in another part of his diary, " Nature has provided this hard shell to secure them till their own proper shell has acquired a sufficient hardness, which, once perfected, they quit their old habitation and venture abroad safe in their own strength. The various changes that the silk- w^orms, butterflies, and several other insects go through, make such alterations and metamorphoses not improbable." How like all this is to young Jonathan Edwards's " wondrous way of the working of the spider,* Different as they were in other particulars, these two ablest of colonial Americans were alike in pos- sessing a magnificent talent for the observation of nature. Edwards ! what a career had been his, what discoveries had he made, if he had obeyed God, instead of Calvin ! Who can read his early writings upon science without admiration and sorrow ? Edwards was three years older than Franklin, and doubtless deriv- ed his youthful impulse toward the study of nature, as Franklin did his, from the newly awakened interest in science that prevailed in Europe. On the voyage, Franklin reflected much upon the errors of his past life, and drew up a plan for the regulation of his future con- duct. This plan was long supposed to be lost, but there are reasons for concluding that a set of rules published in a Philadelphia Maga- zine, many years ago, is the missing document ; or, at least, a part of it. They were copied from a paper in Franklin's hand. The rules are prefaced by a remark quite in the manner of our wise young voyager. " Those who write of the art of poetry," says Franklin, " teach us, that, if we would write what may be worth reading, we ought always, before we begin, to form a regular plan and design of our piece ; otherwise we shall be in danger of incongruity. I am apt to think it is the same as to life. I have never fixed a regular design in life, by which means it has been a confused variety of different scenes. I am now entering upon a new one ; let me, therefore, make some resolutions, and form some scheme of action, that henceforth I may live in all respects like a rational creature. "1. It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal for some time, till I have paid what I owe. " 2. To endeavor to speak truth in every instance, to give no- * Dvviglit's "Life of Jonathan F^wfvrd!^," p. 23. 4GED 20. j THE VOYAGE HOME. 153 body expectations that are not likely to be answered, but aim at sincerity in every word and action ; the most amiable excellence in a rational being. " 3. To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand, and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish pro^ ject of growing suddenly rich ; for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty. " 4. I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a mat- ter of truth ; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and, upon proper occasions, speak all the good I know of everybody." He did not stop here. The conduct of his life was frequently the subject of his meditations from this time ; with what results we shall see ere long. The Atlantic Ocean, at that day, was indeed a waste of waters. The Berkshire had been at sea fifty days before her passengers saw another vessel. The whole company were thrilled with delight when, at length, they not only saw a friendly ship, but came near enough to speak to her. Fi-anklin himself was deeply moved at the sight. " She was the Snow from Dublin," he wrote, " bound to Ncav York, having upwards of fifty servants on board, of both sexes ; they all appeared upon deck, and seemed very much pleased at the sight of us. There is really something strangely cheering to the spirits in the meeting of a ship at sea, containing a society of crea- tures of the same species and in the same circumstances with our- selves, after we had been long separated and excommunicated, as it were, from the rest of mankind. My heart fluttered in my breast with joy, when I saw so many human countenances, and I could scarce refrain from that kind of laughter, which proceeds from some degree of inward pleasure. * * * ^e reckon ourselves in a kind of paradise, when we consider how they live, confined and stifled up with such a lousy, stinking rabble, in this sultry latitude." Sixteen days after, to the still greater joy of all on board, the look out at the Berkshire mast-head shouted. Land ! " I could not discern it as soon as the rest," Franklin writes ; " my eyes were dimmed with the suffusion of two small drops of joy." Two days later, at eight in the evening, the ship cast anchor in the Delaware, six miles below Philadelphia. Franklin concludes his journal with these words : " Some young Philadelphians happening to be out 7" 154 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FBANKLIN. [l72G. upon their pleasure in a boat, came on board, and offered to take us up with them. We accepted of their kind proposal, and about ten o'clock landed at Philadelphia, heartily congratulating each other upon our having happily completed so tedious and dangerous a voyage. Thank God !" The Philadelphia newspaper chronicled the arrival of the ship in a single line : "Entered inwards, ship Barkshire^ Henry Clark^ from Lon- don." * There is no subsequent allusion either to the ship, her passengers, or her news. The editors then published the foreign news in the order in which the events occurred. The news by former ships had to be all printed and got out of the way before the intelligence brought by later arrivals was taken in hand. CHAPTER Xm. THE JUNTO. Soon after landing, Franklin met, in the streets of Philadelphia, Sir William Keith, who had been recently deposed from office. Keith had just virtue enough to look a little ashamed at seeing tlie youth he had so shamefully wronged, and passed by without speaking. For nearly a quarter of a century longer, this man lagged superflu- ous on the scene, poor and neglected, striving to earn a little money by writing histories of the colonies. He died in London, in 1749, aged eighty. His wife remained in Philadelphia, and lived many years, secluded and destitute, in a little wooden tenement in the outskirts of the town.f Unfaithful as Franklin had been to Miss Read, he had not for- gotten her. Toward the close of his stay in London, when he had escaped the fascinating Ralph, and Franklin began to be himself again, his affection appears to have revived ; for he wrote, long * " American Weekly Mercury," Oct. 13, 1726. t Watson's Annals of Philadelphia," ii., 274. AGED 20.] THE JUNTO. 155 after, that it was " the cords of love" that had " drawn him back from England to Philadelphia." He retm-ned to find the lady mar- ried and miserable ; and both through his fault. Despairing of his return, her mother and her other relations had persuaded her to marry " one Rogers, a potter," to use Franklin's own language. He was an excellent potfer ; which was the inducement to Mrs. Read. But he proved to be a worthless fellow, and it was soon suspected that he had another wife. Deborah Read, who had never lived happily with him, returned to her mother, and resumed her maiden name, a sorrowful woman. The potter ran away from his creditors in the following year, and went to the West Indies, whence came, not long after, a rumor of his death. Keimer appeared to have greatly thriven during the absence of his journeyman. He had removed to a better house ; his shop was well supplied with stationery, and his printing-office with new type, He employed several hands, and seemed to have a great deal of business. Our young friend was soon at work. Mr. Denham took a store in Water Street, and opened for sale his large stock of goods. His clerk, entering upon his new vocation with all his old ardor and dili- gence, soon became an adept in book-keeping, and an expert sales- man. He loved and respected his employer, who, in turn, had a sincere affection for his clerk, and treated him with paternal kind- ness. They lived in the same house, and went on together so hap- pily that Franklin seemed destined to pass his days as a Philadel- phia merchant. There was every probability of his becoming, ere long, a partner in the concern, and of finally succeeding to Mr. Denham's place at its head. Well content with his employment, his employer, and his prospects, his only unhappiness sprang from the recollection of his still unpaid debt to Mr. Vernon, and from reflecting upon his infidelity to Miss Read, and its bitter conse- quences. A quaint, old-fashioned, but very kind letter, which he wrote to his youngest and favorite sister Jane, soon- after his return to Philadelphia, is the earliest of his letters that has been preserved, if we except the short note to Sir Hans Sloane, of 1725. Jane Franklin was then fifteen. A captain of a Boston vessel had given him a glowing account of her virtues and her charms, and he re- solved to send her back a present. He tells her that he was puz- 16^ LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l727. zled to select a suitable gift, as he had heard she had grown a cele- brated beauty. " I had almost," he wrote, " determined on a tea- table ; but when I considered, that the character of a good house- wife was far preferable to that of being only a pretty gentlewoman, I concluded to send you a spinning-wheel^ which I hope you will accept as a small token of my sincere love and aftection." His letter consists of two short paragraphs : the first of which relates to the present, the second gives the young beauty a little brotherly advice, characteristic of the period : " Sister, farewell, and remem- ber that modesty, as it makes the most homely virgin amiable and charming, so the want of it infalhbly renders the most perfect beauty disagreeable and odious. But, when that brightest of female virtues shines among other perfections of body and mind in the same person, it makes the woman more lovely than an angel. Excuse this freedom, and use the same with me. I am, dear Jenny, your loving brother." Among the very last efforts of his pen, were generous, sprightly, and consoling letters to this same sister. Promising as were the prospects of Franklin during the first few months after his return, his mercantile career was destined to a speedy and abrupt termination. Early in February, 1727, four months after the opening of the store, Mr. Denham and himself were both taken seriously ill. Franklin's disease, the pleurisy, brought him to the verge of the grave. " I suffered a good deal," he records, " gave up the point in my own mind, and was at the time rather disappointed when I found myself recovering ; regret- ting, in some degree, that I must now, some time or other, have all that disagreeable work to go over again." Mr. Denham struggled long with his complaint, but sunk under it at last. On his death-bed ho signified his desire to bequeath his young friend a small legacy as a token of his good-will. The store was taken in charge by the executors, and Franklin was without employment. His first thought was to find another clerkship. Not succeeding in this, he reluctantly accepted an offer of large wages from Keimer, who wished him to superintend the printing-office, while himself took charge of the stationery-shop. In London, where Keimer had formerly lived, and where he had a wife then living, Franklin had heard so bad a character of the man, that he was unwilling to have any thing more to do with him. But necessity AGED 21.] THE JUNTO. 157 knows no law, and he found himself again in Keimer's chaotic printing-office, striving to reduce it to order. Keimer had engaged five hands, at very low wages, who were unacquainted with the trade, and whom the new foreman was expected to convert into effi- cient printers. One of these was John, " a wild Irishman," brought up to no business, whose services, for four years, Keimer had bought of the captain who had brought him over. John saved the new foreman a world of trouble by running away, a practice to which bought servants were much addicted. Another of Keimer's men was Hugh Meredith, an honest countryman, a man of sense, experience, and reading, but given to drinking, and not fond of his new trade. Another was Stephen Potts, also a countryman, witty, capable, but not too industrious. Another was George Webb, a young scapegrace from Oxford University, who having spent all his money in London, had procured a passage to America, by binding himself to serve for four years. Keimer had bought his time of the captain of the ship. He was full of wit and good nature, but extremely idle and thoughtless. To this catalogue must be added David Harry, an apprentice from the country, who served the rest in the capacity of devil. Franklin, who had the art of being always cheerful, was soon at home among Keimer's merry men ; and teaching them something new in their vocation every day, he stood high in their esteem. He even managed to cast type, from his London recollections of the process. He cut small engravings, made the ink, assisted in book- binding, served as warehouse-man, and was of Keimer's establish- ment the vital principle. The green hands became less and less in- expert ; order emerged from chaos, and Keimer was in a fair way of founding a profitable business. The foreman prevailed upon Hugh Meredith to forego his dram-drinking for a time : to the great joy of his father, a man of some consideration in the colony. Frank- lin was especially fortunate in having two days in every week for study, as Keimer still persisted in keeping holy the last day of the week. About this time it was, that he formed his fellow-workmen, and a few of his young friends in the town, into that celebrated club. The Junto, which, for forty years, was a means of happiness and benefit to all who belonged to it. Its first members were eleven in number : the four printers, Benjamin Franklin, Hugh Meredith, 158 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1727. Stephen Potts, and George Webb, all very " clubbable men ;" Joseph Breintnal, an engrosser of deeds, ingenious, good-natured, exces- Bively fond of poetry, himself a tolerable versifier ; Thomas God- frey, a self-taught mathematician, of real ability, but too precise and argumentative for a club ; Nicholas Scull, a surveyor, who loved books and wrote verses ; William Parsons, a shoemaker by trade, a well-read man, afterwards surveyor-general of Pennsyl- vania ; William Maugridge, a carpenter, extremely skillful in his trade, a solid, sensible man ; Robert Grace, a young gentleman of some fortune, whom Franklin loved, generous, witty, " a lover of punning and of his friends ;" William Coleman, then a merchant's clerk, afterwards a leading merchant, and judge, of whom Franklin says, " he had the coolest, clearest head, the best heart, and the exactest morals, of almost any man I ever met with." These were the original Junto, long known in Philadelphia as The LEATHEESf Apeon Club, from the number of journeymen mechanics that be- longed to it. The last century was the era of clubs. But of all the clubs whose peculiarities have been recorded, this Junto of Phila- delphia mechanics, was one of the most sensible, polite, and im- proving. It is evident from the rules and usages of the Junto, that Frank- lin derived the plan of it from his boyish recollections of Cotton Mather's Benefit Societies.* The purpose of the Junto was similar to that proposed by Mather — the improvement of its members and their fellow-citizens in virtue, knowledge, and practical wisdom. But Franklin's mode of eflfecting these results difiered from Math- er's as much as the two men difl^ered in character and opinion. A candidate for admission to the Junto was obliged to declare, stand- ing, with one hand laid upon his breast, that he had " no particular disrespect" for any member of the Junto ; that he loved mankind in general, of whatsoever profession or religion ; that he thought no person ought to be harmed in his body, name, or goods for mere speculative opinion, or for his external way of worship ; that he loved the truth for the truth's sake, and would endeavor impar- tially to find and receive it, and communicate it to others. The club met every Friday evening, when twenty-four queries were read, " a pause between each while one might fill and drink a glass of wine." These questions were the following : * Soe page 47 of tliis volume. AGED 21.] THE JUNTO. 159 "Have you read over these queries this morning, in order to consider what you might have to offer the Junto touching any one of them ? viz. : " 1. Have you met with any thing in the author you last read remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto, particu- larly in history, morality, poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge ? " 2. What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation ? " 3. Hath any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause ? " 4. Have you lately heard of any citizen's thriving well, and by what means ? " 5. Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate? " 6. Do you know of a fellow-citizen, who has lately done a wor- thy action, deserving praise and imitation ; or who has lately com- mitted an error, proper for us to be warned against and avoid ? " 7. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately ob- served or heard ; of imprudence, of passion, or of any other vice or folly? " 8. What happy effects of temperance, of prudence, of modera- tion, or of any other virtue ? " 9. Have you or any of your acquaintance been lately sick or wounded ? If so, what remedies were used, and what were their effects ? " 10. Whom do you know that are shortly going voyages or journeys, if one should have occasion to send by them ? "11. Do you think of any thing at present, in which the Junto may be serviceable to mankind^ to their country, to their friends, or to themselves ? "12. Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting, that you have heard of? And what have you heard or observed of his character or merits ? And whether, think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves? " 13. Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to encourage ? / " 14. Have you lately observed any defect in the laws of your 180 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKXIN. [l727. country, of which it would be proper to move the legislature for an amendment ? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting ? y "15. Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people ? "16. Hath any body attacked your reputation lately? And what can the Junto do towards securing it ? " 1 7. Is there any man whose friendship you want, and which •the Junto, or any of them, can procure for you? " 18. Have you lately heard any member's character attacked, and how have you defended it ? " 19. Hath any man injured you, from whom it is in the power of the Junto to procure redress. " 20. In what manner can the Junto, or any of them, assist you in any of your honorable designs ? "21. Have you any weighty affair on hand, in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service ? "22. What benefits have you lately received from any man not present ? " 23. Is there any difiiculty in matters of opinion, of justice, and injustice, which you would gladly have discussed at this time ?" Besides conversing on the topics suggested by these queries, questions in science and morals were discussed, as in a debating society. Declamation was also one of the exercises, and an essay was expected to be read every night. In the pleasant season of the year, the Junto met once a month at " some proper place across the river for bodily exercise." As the several societies founded by Cotton Mather were accustomed to assemble, once a year, in a church, for the purpose of praying and exchanging information and good will, so the Junto, on one of the pleasant days of every sum- mer, held high festival, dined together, and sang the jovial songs of that jovial time. Franklin himself sung many a good song at the anniversary of the Junto. The man was esteemed a dull-dog in those days who could not sing a song. As to the regular Fri- day evening debates, Franklin insisted that they should be wholly free from heat and acrimony. " They were to be conducted," says Franklin, " in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fond- ness for dispute, or desire of victory ; and, to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were, after some time, made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties." AGED 2].] THE JUNTO. 161 In this happily constituted club Franklin took the greatest de- light for many years. In the possession of one of liis grandchildren is still preserved a manuscript book of Franklin's, filled with me- moranda for the Junto, sketches of essays, replies to questions, topics for debate, and suggested rules. Many of the questions proposed by him for discussion were very suggestive of beneficial conversation, as well as characteristic of his own mind. I select a few as specimens : " Is self-interest the rudder that steers man- kind?" *' Can any one particular form of government suit all man- kind ?" " Which is least criminal, a bad action joined with a good intention, or a good action with a bad intention ?" " How may the possession of the lakes be improved to our advantage ?" " Why does the flame of a candle tend upward in a spire ?" " Should it be the aim of philosophy to eradicate the passions ?" " How shall we judge of the goodness of a writing ?" " Can a man arrive at perfection in this life ?" " Wherein consists the happiness of a ra- tional creature ?" " What general conduct of life is most suitable for men in such circumstances as most of the members of the Junto are ? Or, of the many schemes of living which are in our power to pursue, which will be most probably conducive to our happiness ?" " Which is best, to make a friend of a wise and good man that is poor, or of a rich man that is neither wise nor good ?" " Which of the two is the greatest loss to a country if they both die?" " Which of the two is happiest in life ?" " Does it not, in a general way, require great study and intense application for a poor man to become rich and powerful, if he would do it without the forfeiture of his honesty V " Does it not require as much pains, study, and application, to become truly wise and strictly virtuous, as to be- come rich ?" " Can a man of common capacity pursue both views with success at the same time?" "If not, which of the two is it best for him to make his whole application to ?" " Whence comes the dew, that stands on the outside of a tankard that has cold water in it in the summer time ?" " Does the importation of servants in- crease or advance the wealth of our country?" " Would not an office of insurance for servants be of service, and what methods are proper for the erecting such an office ?" In some of these questions we again perceive the daring intellect formed to investigate, and incapable of taking any thing for granted. The Junto was never permitted to have more than twelve mem- 162 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l727. bers at the same time. The proceedings, for recording which the secretary was allowed one shilling a week, were designed to be kept secret. Alluring whispers, however, escaped, which caused frequent applications for admission into the charmed circle of Leather-aproned philosophers. The founder of the club at length proposed that each member of the Junto should form a subordinate club (another idea from Cotton Mather), which should report its proceedings to the parent society, and thus extend the area of its influence. Five or six of these subordinate clubs were formed, which were called by such names as the Vine, the Union, and the Band. In this way, as in other ways to be noticed hereafter, the Junto became the source of great good to Philadelphia, to the Col- onies, and to the United States. The Junto was no sooner organized than it came near losing its founder. Six months of Franklin's connection with Mr. Keimer passed happily away. He then began to perceive a disagreeable change in the demeanor of his employer, from which he inferred that he had been engaged merely to train the raw hands, whose daily improvement daily rendered the services of the foreman less indispensable. At the end of the second quarter Keimer hinted, as he paid him his wages, that he felt the charge too heavy, and that a reduction of the salary would be no more than proper. He was more and more disposed to find fault, assumed the airs of a master, and was evidently but too willing to give offense to his foreman. Franklin endured this with the more patience, because, knowing that Keimer was deeply in debt for his materials and stationery, he attribu- ted his petulance in part to his anxiety. Ere long, however, their con- nection was violently severed. Attracted by a noise in the street one day, Franklin put his head out of the window to see what was the matter, and many of the neighbors did the same. The fated Keimer, incapable of perceiving that the retention of his foreman was his one chance to escape ruin, conceived that the opportunity to rid himself of that foreman had come. In a loud and angry manner he ordered him to return to his business, and added many reproachful words, hard for a young man to bear in the presence of his acquaint- ances. The fool immediately came up into the printing-office, where he continued his senseless vituperation. Franklin replying to his abuse with becoming spirit, Keimer retorted by giving Franklin the quarter's warning for which both had stipulated, and said he m AGED 22.] THE JUNTO. 163 wished he were not obliged to endure his presence even so long. " The wish is unnecessary," said the wrathful foreman : who in- stantly took his hat and walked out of the office, asking his friend Meredith to bring to his lodgings, in the evening, the few articles that he left behind. He went home, and Avhen his anger cooled, reflected upon his situation. He had some thoughts of returning to Boston. He had been four years away from home,, and, upon the whole, had not, he thought, behaved very well, or done very well. He was not, natu- rally, of an economical turn. If he had occasionally saved a little money, he had contrived soon to get rid of it again. It was his own experience of the inconveniences that result from extravagance that caused him to dwell upon economy so frequently in his wri- tings ; for a spendthrift adores economy as much as a drunkard does temperance. There he was, after four years of adventure, a jour- neyman printer still, still in debt to Mr. Yernon, with no great sum ill his purse, out of employment, and two weeks' journey from his father^s house. But Franklin was one of those of whom Mr. Emerson says, that planted upon a marble slab they will take root. In the evening Hugh Meredith came, and they talked over the events of the day. Meredith, who was warmly Franklin's friend, would not hear of his going back to Boston. Keimer, he said, was in debt for his entire stock, and his creditors were already alarmed. Moreover, he was totally devoid of capacity for business; he sold for cash without profit, and on credit without keeping accounts. Sooner or later he must fail, and create a vacancy for some one to fill. To this Mere- dith added an intimation far more interesting. He said he felt sure that his father, from conversations he had had with him, would advance the sum necessary to set them both up in business, pro- vided Franklin would consent to burden himself with so incompe- tent a partner. It was late in the autumn of 1727 when this con- versation occurred. "My time," added Meredith, "will be out with Keimer in the spring ; by that time we may have our press and types in from Loudon. I am sensible I am no workman ; if you like it, your skill in the business shall be set against the stock I furnish, and we will share the profits equally." All this being highly agreeable to our disheartened young printer, he consented to Meredith's proposal. The father, who happened to 164 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l728 be in town at the time, came into his son's plans with alacrity, say- ing, that as Franklin had great influence with his son, and had already prevailed upon him to abstain t>om dram-drinking for long period?, he would probably be able, when they were so closely united, to break him of that fatal habit entirely. Franklin drew up an inven- tory of the articles required, which Mr. Meredith gave to a mer- chant, who sent to London for them by the next ship. It was agreed that the secret should be kept until the materials arri\'ed, and in the mean time that Franklin should endeavor to get work at the printing-house of Andrew Bradford. It was soon ascertained, however, that Bradford had no vacancy, and Franklin passed some days in idleness. Soon came a message to him from Keimer, to the eflect that old friends ought not to part for a few words spoken in a passion, and that Mr. Keimer would be glad if his late foreman would return to his employment. This message being interpreted, signified, that the adjacent province of JN"ew Jersey being about to make a new issue of paper-money, Samuel Keimer had hopes of being employed to print the same, and Benjamin Franklin was the only person at hand who was capable of making the requisite cuts. Meredith also en- treated him to return, and he had the good sense to do so. Keimer obtained the printing of the paper-money. Franklin engraved the cuts and ornaments for the bills, contrived a copper-plate press for printing them, and, when all was ready, he and Keimer went to Burlington to execute the printing under the eye of the Legislature. There they remained three months. The printing was performed to the satisfaction of the government, and Keimer received so large a sum for it that his downfall was deferred for two or three years. Franklin found valuable friends among the members of the Legisla- ture, one of whom was required by law constantly to overlook the printers. " My mind," he modestly says, " having been much more improved by reading than Keimer's, I suppose it was for that reason that my conversation seemed to be more valued. They had me to their houses, introduced me to their friends, and showed me much civility; while he, though the master, was a little neglected. In truth, he was an odd creature ; ignorant of common life, fond of rudely opposing received opinions ; slovenly to extreme dirtiness ; enthusiastic in some points of religion, and a little knavish withal." A sagacious old Jerseyman, who, from wheeling clay for brick- ArtED 22.] THE JUNTO. 165 makers, had come to be a man of fortune and surveyor-general of the province, said to Franklin one day at Burlington : " I foresee you will soon work this man out of his business and make a fortune In it at Philadelphia." This he said without knowing any thing of the secret designs of Franklin and Meredith. These Jersey friends brought many a good job to Franklin's printing-office in later years. In the spring of 1728, soon after his return to Philadelphia from Burlington, the types and press arrived from London, and the young men prepared to begin business. Franklin made an amicable settlement with Keimer, and left him without breathing a word of the printing-house about to be established by Franklin and Meredith. It was about this time that Franklin wrote the famous epitaph, which has been so often printed. The narrow escape he had had from death by the pleurisy may have suggested it to his mind. The correct version, as given by William Temple Franklin from the original in his grandfather's own hand, bearing date 1729, is as follows : " The Body Of Benjamin Franklin, Pi-inter, (Like the cover of an old book, Its contents torn out. And stript of its lettering and gildirg,) Lies here, food for worms. Yet the work itself shall not be lost, For it will, as he believed, appear once more, In a new ^ And more beautiful edition, Corrected and amended By The Author." This epitaph was frequently imitated during the last century, both in England and in the colonies. Smollett, in Peregrine Pickle (published in 1750), inscribes upon the imaginary tombstone of his boisterous Commodore Trunnion an epitaph that was probably sug- gested by Franklin's : 166 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEAtSTKLIN. [l728. " Here lies, Foundered in a fathom and a-half, The shell Of Hawser Trunnion, Esq., Formerly Commander of a squadron In his Majesty's service ; Who broached to, at 5 p.m., Oct. X., In the year of his age Three-score and nineteen. He kept his guns always loaded, And his tackle ready manned, And never showed his poop to the enemy, Except when he took her in tow ; But, His shot being expended. His match burnt out, And his upper works decayed, He was sunk By Death's superior weight of metal. Nevertheless, He will be weighed agnin At the Great Day, His rigging re-fittod, And his timbers repaired ; And with one broadside Make his adversary Strike in his turn.'' To which may be added a colonial tribute to Franklin's wit of the same kind. The following had a great run in American news- papers, and continued to be occasionally printed as late as 1787 : — " EPITAPH ON A WATCHMAKER. Here lies, in an horizontal position, The Outside Case of Peter Pendulum, Watchmaker, Whose abilities in that line were an honor To his Profession. Integrity was his main-spring. AGED 22.] REGENERATION. 167 And prudence the regulator Of all the actions of his life. Humane, generous and liberal, His hand never stopped Till he had reheved distress. So nicely regulated were all his motions, That he never went wrong, Except when set going By people Who did not know His key. Even then he was easily Set right again. He had the art of disposing his time So well, That his hours glided away In one continued round Of pleasure and delight. Till an unlucky minute put a period to His existence. He departed this life, Wound up, In hopes of being taken in hand By his Maker, And of being thoroughly cleaned, repaired. And set a-going In the World to Come." CHAPTER XIV. REGENERATION. Franklin, as we have related, became a freethinker at fifteen. / Before he was twenty-one, he began, at times, to suspect, not the 'j correctness, but the sufficiency, of his opinions respecting religion. It became clear to him at length, as it has since to so many brave 168 TIMES ASTD TIMES OF BEISTJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1728. young spirits, that negative beliefs, however indisputable, are powerless to enable men to attain self-control. He found that the saul cannot thrive on negatives. He perceived that if a man was on a wrong road, his discovery of the fact was useless unless it prompted him to seek a right road. His old friend Collins, he re- membered, was a freethinker ; and Collins had gone astray. Ralph was a freethinker; and Ralph was a great sinner. Keith was a freethinker ; and Keith was the greatest liar in Pennsylvania. Benjamin Franklin was a freethinker ; and how shamefully he had behaved to Ralph, to Ralph's mistress, to Mr. Vernon, and to Miss Read, whose young life had been blighted through him. Pondering these things, he reached the conclusion, about the time that he became of age, that positive truths alone are nutritive ; and that specific, stated exertions, designed solely to strengthen the soul's grasp of essential truth, are necessary to its growth in virj- tue. In a word, he felt the need of a religion. He proceeded to form a rehgion of his own. It consisted of a creed and a liturgy, both of which he recorded, with the utmost care and elegance, in a little pocket prayer-book, which still exists, and attests by the beauty of the penmanship how much his heart was in the matter. This most interesting relic, which is the prop- erty of an American citizen resident in London, ha3 recently been shown about in the city wherein it was written in the year 1728. The book was entitled, "Articles of Belief and Acts of Re- ligion,"* and bore this motto from Addison's Cato : " Here will I hold. If there's a power above us, (And that there is, all nature cries aloud Through all her works), He must delight in virtue 5* And that which he delights in must be happy." He began by making a formal statement of his belief, or what he calls " First Principles." The follow^ing sentences contain the substance of this curious series of conjectures : " There is one Supreme, most perfect Being, Author and Father of the gods themselves." He is infinite and incomprehensible; he does not expect nor desire the worship of man ; he is above it. * Published in Sparks, ii., 1. AGED 22.] BEGENEEATION. 169 But as there is something in man which inclines him to devotion, it is reasonable to conclude that it is his duty to pay divine regards to SOMETHING. "I conceivc, then, that the Infinite has created many beings or gods, vastly superior to man, who can better con- ceive his perfections than we, and return him a more rational and glorious praise ; as, among men, the praise of the ignorant or of children is not regarded by the ingenious painter or architect, who is rather honored and pleased with thie approbation of wise men and artists. It may be these created gods are immortal ; or it may be, that, after many ages, they are changed, and others supply their places. Howbeit, I conceive that each of these is exceeding wise and good, and very powerful ; and that, each has made for himself one glorious sun, attended with a beautiful and admirable system of planets. It is that particular wise and good God, who is the author and owner of our system, that I propose for the object of my praise and adoration." He proceeds to state his conception of the character of this par- ticular God. As man is formed capable of observing his wisdom in the creation, it is to be inferred that this God " is not above caring for us," is " pleased with our praise, and offended when we slight him." This Being evidently wishes the happiness of his subjects, — and as man is happy only so far as he is virtuous, it is certain that the God delights in virtue. "And since he has created many things which seem purely designed for the delight of man, I be-' lieve he is not offended when he sees his children solace themselves in any manner of pleasant exercises and innocent delights ; and I think no pleasure innocent that is to man hurtful." " Let me not fail, then, to praise my God continually, for it is his due." After this statement of his creed comes the liturgy, or scheme of worship, designed for his own use in solitude. The Prelude is as follows : " Being mindful that before I address the Deity, my soul ought to be calm and serene, free from passion and perturba- tion, or otherwise elevated with rational joy and pleasure, I ought to use a countenance that expresses a filial respect, mixed with a kind of smiling, that signifies inward joy, and satisfaction, and admira- tion." An Invocation follows, resembling in style some of the Psalms of David : " O Creator, O Father I I believe that thou art good, and tha{ 8 IVO LIFE AND TiaiES OF BENJAMIN FRANKXIN. [1728. thou art pleased with the pleasure of thy children. — Praised be thy name forever ! " By thy power hast thou made the glorious sun, with his attend- ing worlds ; from the energy of thy mighty will, they first received their prodigious motion, and by thy wisdom hast thou prescribed the wondrous laws, by which they move. — ^Praised be thy name for- ever ! " By thy wisdom hast thou formed all things ; thou hast created man, bestowing life and reason, and placed him in dignity superior to thy other earthly creatures. — Praised be thy name forever! "Thy wisdom, thy power, and thy goodness are everywhere clearly seen ; in the air and in the water, in the heavens and on the earth ; thou providest for the various winged fowl, and the innumer- able inhabitants of the water; thou givest cold and heat, rain and sunshine, in their season, and to the fruits of the earth their increase. — Praised be thy name forever ! " Thou abhorrest in thy creatures treachery and deceit, malice, revenge, intemperance, and every other hurtful vice ; but thou art a lover of justice and sincerity, of friendship and benevolence, and every virtue ; thou art ray friend, my father, and my benefactor. — Praised be thy name, O God, forever ! Amen." These and similar other sentences having been solemnly pro- nounced, the worshiper was next to read a passage from Ray's Wisdom of God in the Creation, or Blackmore on the Creation, or Cambray's Demonstration of the Being of a God ; or, if he pre- ferred it, to spend some minutes in a serious silence contemplating on those subjects. Then, he should sing MUton's Hymn to the Creator, beginning, " These are thy glorious works, Parent of good ! Almighty! thine this universal frame. Thus wondrous fair ; thyself how wondrous then ! Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens, To us invisible, or dimly seen In these thy lowest works ; yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine."* After which should be read a part of a book " discoursing on and exciting to moral virtue." * Paradise Lost, Book V. * AGED 22.] REGENEKATION. l7l Then followed a litany, in the manner of the Litany of the Episco- pal Prayer Book. It began with the following Prelude : " Inasmuch as by reason of our ignorance we cannot be certain that many things, which we often hear mentioned in the petitions of men to the Deity, would prove real goods, if they were in our possession, and as I have reason to hope and believe that the good- ness of my heavenly Father will not withhold from me a suitable share of temporal blessings, if by a virtuous and holy life I concil- iate his favor and kindness ; therefore I presume not to ask such things ; but rather, humbly, and with a sincere heart, express my earnest desire that he would graciously assist my continual en- deavors and resolutions of eschewing vice and embracing virtue ; which kind of supplications will at the same time remind me in a solemn manner of my extensive duty." The litany, expressing as it does the innermost desires of this noble-minded youth, is of the highest interest. These were the longings of Franklin's heart at the age of twenty-two : " That I may be preserved from atheism, impiety, and profane- ness ; and, in my addresses to Thee, carefully avoid irreverence and ostentation, formality and odious hypocrisy, — Help me, O Father ! " That I may be loyal to my prince, and faithful to my coun- try, careful for its good, valiant in its defense, and obedient to its laws, abhorring treason as much as tyranny, — Help me, O Father ! " That I may to those above me be dutiful, humble, and sub- missive ; avoiding pride, disrespect, and contumacy, — Help me, O Father !— " That I may to those below me be gracious, condescending, and forgiving, using clemency, protecting innocent distress, avoiding cruelty, harshness, and oppression, insolence, and unreasonable severity, — Help me, O Father ! " That I may refrain from calumny and detraction ; that I may abhor and avoid deceit and envy, fraud, flattery, and hatred, malice, lying, and ingratitude, — Help me, O Father ! " That I may be sincere in friendship, faithful in trust, and im- partial in judgment, watchful against pride, and against anger (that momentary madness) , — Help me, O Father ! " That I may be just in all my dealings, temperate in my plea- 172 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1728. sures, full of candor and ingenuousness, humanity and benevolence, — Help me, O Father ! " That I may be grateful to my benefactors, and generous to my friends, exercising charity and liberality to the poor, and pity to the miserable, — Help me, O Father ! " That I may possess integrity and evenness of mind, resolution in difficulties, and fortitude under affliction ; that I may be punc- tual in performing my promises, peaceable and. prudent in my be- havior, — Help me, O Father ! "That I may have tenderness for the v;reak, and reverent respect for the ancient; that I may be kind to my neighbors, good- natured to my companions, and hospitable to strangers, — Help me, Father ! " That I may be averse to craft and over-reaching, abhor ex- tortion, perjury, and every kind of wickedness, — Help me, O Father ! " That I may be honest and open-hearted, gentle, merciful, and good, cheerful in spirit, rejoicing in the good of others, — Help me, 6 Father ! " That I may have a constant regard to honor and probity, that 1 may possess a perfect innocence and a good conscience, and at length become truly virtuous and magnanimous, — Help me, good God ; help me, O Father !" The service concluded with a thanksgiving, for peace and liberty ; for food and raiment ; for corn and wine and milk, and every kind of healthful nourishment ; for the common benefits of air and light ; for useful fire and delicious water ; for knowledge and literature and every useful art ; for friends and their prosperity ; for the few- ness of his enemies ; for life and reason and the use of speech ; for health and joy, and every pleasant hour. This liturgy, there is reason to believe, he continued to use for twenty years. He wrote much upon religion at this time ; among other things, a new version of the Lord's Prayer with extensive notes ; a refutation of his London pamphlet ; and a lecture on Providence and Predestination. Toward the various sects he maintained through Hfe a good-humored tolerance, and assisted all of them with money, believing that the object of each was the promotion of virtue, and that all of them did actually contribute both to the happiness and to the virtue of their members. AGED 22.] REGENERATION. 173 What he chiefly objected to in the churches was, that they in- sisted so strongly upon orthodoxy of opinion, instead of exerting all their force to promote good feelings and good conduct. / "Though I seldom," he says, "attended any public worship, I had still an opinion of its propriety and of its utility when rightly conducted, and I regularly paid my annual subscription for the support of the only Presbyterian minister or meeting we had in Philadelphia. He used to visit me sometimes as a friend, and ad- monish me to attend his administrations ; and I was now and then prevailed on to do so ; once for five Sundays successively. Had he been in my opinion a good preacher, perhaps I might have con- tinued, notwithstanding the occasion I had for the Sunday's leisure in my course of study : but his discourses were chiefly either po- lemic arguments, or explications of the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforced ; their aim seeming to be to make us Presbyterians, rather than good citi- zens. At length, he took for his text that verse of the fourth chap- ter to the Philippians, ' Finally^ brethren, v^hatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there he any vir- tue, or any praise, think on these things.'' And I imagined, in a sermon on such a text, we could not miss of having some morality. But he confined himself to five points only, as meant by the apos- tle : 1. Keeping holy the Sabbath Day. 2. Being diligent in read- ing the holy Scriptures. 3. Attending duly the public worship. 4. Partaking of the Sacrament. 5. Paying a due respect to God's ministers. These might be all good things ; but, as they were not the kind of good things that I expected from that text, I despaired of ever meeting with them from any other, was disgusted, and attended his preaching no more." He adds, that he returned to the use of 'his own liturgy. The reader may be reminded here of Goethe's similar feeling with regard to attending church. " If," he would say, " Protestants sought to define more clearly what ought to be done, lived, and taught ; if they imposed an inviolable, reverential silence on the mysteries of religion, without compelling any man to assent to dogmas, * * * I should myself be the first to visit the church of my brethren in religion, with sincere heart, and to submit myself with willing edification to the general practical 174 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEAJ^^XIN. [l728. confession of a faith which connected itself so immediately with action."* The good old father of Franklin, though he appears to have known nothing of his son's early freethinking, yet heard rumors of these new heresies, and wrote to him on the subject, in some alarm. Franklin's reply was extremely considerate and reassuring. He said that if it were in his power to change his opinions at pleasure, there was no one whom he ought more willingly to oblige in that way than his father. But a man could no more think than look like another. "All that should be expected from me is, to keep my mind open to conviction, to hear patiently, and examine attentive- ly, whatever is offered me for that end ; and if, after all, I continue in the same errors, I believe your usual charity will induce you to rather pity and excuse, than blame me. In the mean time, your care and concern for me is what I am very thankful for. My mother grieves, that one of her sons is an Arian, another an Ar- minian. What an Arminian or an Arian is, I cannot say that I very well know. The truth is, I make such distinctions very little my study. I think vital religion has always suffered when ortho- doxy is more regarded than virtue ; and the Scriptures assure me, that at the last day we shall not be examined what we thought^ but what we did^ To his sister Jane, on the same subject : " You express yourself as if you thought I was against the worshiping of God, and doubt that good works would merit heaven ; which are both fancies of your own, I think, without foundation. I am so far from thinking that God is not to be worshiped, that I have composed and wrote a whole book of devotions for my own use ; and I imagine there are few if any in the world so weak as to imagine, that the little good we can do here can merit so vast a reward hereafter. There are some things in your New England doctrine and Avorship which I do not agree with ; but I do not therefore condemn them, or de- sire to shake your belief or practice of them. We may dislike things that are nevertheless right in themselves." Whence did this young American printer derive his idea of the f^ subordinate gods ? Probably from Sir Isaac Newton. I can only indicate, very briefly, the grounds of this rather bold conjecture. ♦ " Characteristics of Goethe," by Sarah Austin, i. 77. J AGED 22.] REGENERATION. l75 Every reader of Sir David Brewster's '' Life of Newton," must have been struck with the report published therein of "A Remarkable and Curious Conversation between Sir Isaac ISTewton and Mr. Con- duit," which occurred on Sunday evening, March 7, 1725, while Franklin was in London. One sentence of this conversation is the following : " He (Sir Isaac) seemed to doubt whether there were not intelligent beings superior to us who superintended those revo- lutions of the heavenly bodies by the direction of the Supreme Be- ing." Now, at this very period, from 1722 to 1726, Sir Isaac was in the habit of associating, on terms of peculiar cordiality, with Dr. Pemberton, who was then editing the third edition of the " Prin- cipia." For Dr. Pemberton Sir Isaac Newton felt that grateful and warm affection which great men are apt to feel for disciples who defend and illustrate, but never oppose them. It is highly proba- ble, that Dr. Pemberton heard Sir Isaac give utterance to this con- jecture ; or, if not him, Mr. Conduit, his nephew, who recorded the conversation quoted above, and who lived in Sir Isaac Newton's house. When the youthful Franklin became acquainted with Dr. Pemberton in London, and talked with him of the august philoso- pher, it is safe to say with positiveness, knowing what we know of the state of his mind, that he inquired of Dr. Pemberton what the sublimest genius living thought upon the subjects in which he took so constant an interest himself. Newton's conjecture, which to modern minds is void of interest, must have been interesting, in a high degree, to the inquisitive and newly-awakened intellects of that day ; and it is, therefore, extremely probable that Dr. Pem- berton conveyed the notion to the eager mind of the young Ameri- can. Goethe, I may add, indulged a similar dream in his old age.* So, also, did Kepler. As Franklin grew older, he abandoned the fantastical part of his creed, and settled down into the belief of these six articles : There is one God, the Creator of all things. God governs the world by His providence. God Ought to be worshiped. Doing good to men is the service most acceptable to God. Man is im- mortal. In the future world, the disembodied souls of men will be dealt with justly. He held fast to this simple creed to the end of his life, avoiding, * Miss Austin's "Characteristics of Goethe," vol. i., chap. iv. 176 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1728. i as far as possible, all conversation, and even all consideration of the subjects summed up in the word Theology. It was a principle with him to say nothing, and to write nothing, calculated to dis- turb the religious belief of any man. He felt, that religion was essential to the welfare, virtue, and peace of mankind, and that even its rudest form, and, perhaps, its corruptest organization, pre- vents more harm than it causes. This principle, however, did not prevent him from giving a sly hit occasionally at the ancient rancor of the sects. One of the most exquisite of these occurs in connection with an anecdote related by him of a new sect called the Dunkers, of whom mention has already been made in these pages. Many scandals being related of the Dunkers, Franklin advised the leader of them to set the public right by publishing an authoritative statement of their opinions and observances. To this the chief Dunker objected, saying, that they hoped to enjoy still further disclosures of truth, and if they should print their confession of faith, they might feel themselves bound and confined by it. " This modesty in a sect," adds Franklin, " is perhaps a singular instance in the history of mankind ; every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and that those who diifer are so far in the wrong; like a man traveling in foggy weather ; those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side ; but near him all appear clear ; though in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them." Another stroke of the same kind occurs in the opening paragraph of his lecture on Providence, — a performance which was probably read to the Junto, but was not published until many years after his death. He began his lecture in the usual style of self-disparage- ment. *'But," he added, "I am especially discouraged when I reflect, that you are all my intimate pot-companions, who have heard me say a thousand silly things in conversation, and therefore have not that laudable partiality and veneration for whatever I shall deliver, that good people commonly have for their spiritual guides ; that you have no reverence for my habit, nor for the sanctity of my countenance ; that you do not believe me inspired or divinely as- sisted, and therefore will think yourselves at liberty to assert or dissert, approve or disapprove of any thing I advance, canvassing and sifting it, as the private opinion of one of your acqnaintance. AGED 22.] EEGENERATIOX. lV7 These are great disadvantages and discouragements ; but I am en- tered and must proceed, humbly requesting your patience and attention." Having thus returned to the practice of religion, and being in the weekly habit of reflecting upon his duties as a man and a citizen, it might have been expected that his life would thenceforth be pure and regular. We are obliged to confess that, in one most impor- tant particular, such was not the case. It was of the period imme- diately succeeding the production of his liturgy, that he uses the well-known words : " That hard to be governed passion of youth had hurried me frequently into intrigues with low women that fell in my way, which were attended with some expense and great in- convenience, besides a continual risk to my health by a distemper, which, of all things, I dreaded, though by great good luck I es- caped it." It was, perhaps, owing to his frequent delinquencies in this way, that his liturgy contains no allusion to a vice which is, of all others, the most alluring to a youth of Franklin's temperament. He was too sincere and logical a man to go before his God and ask ^assistance against a fault which he had not fully resolved to over- come, and that immediately. About a year after the date of his liturgy, was born his illegitimate son, William Franklin, who be- came governor of New Jersey. If laws were as easily executed as enacted, Benjamin Franklin would have received, upon this occar sion, twenty-one lashes at the public whipping-post of Philadel- phia.* There is every reason to beUeve, and there is no reason to doubt, that from this period, onward to the end of his life, Franklin lived purely. Lenient toward the errors of others, he was exacting and rigorous in his demands upon himself He became a strictly moral man, without being a moral bigot. His apprenticeship to life was at an end. He had found his re- ligion and his work ; or, in other words, he had found his work and i learned how to do it. He had deliberately chosen the better part. He had set himself to become a good man and a good citizen. He had outlived the foUies of his youth, and had become a man, thought- ful, earnest, and sincere. " Blessed is he," says Mr. Carlyle, " who has found his work." Even so. But then Carlyle adds, " Let him * Watson's " Annals of Philadelphia," i., 80G. 8* 178 LIFE AJn) TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1728. ask no other blessedness." Not so. Much other blessedness is attain- able by an honest man. But it is the faithful performance of his work which alone gives him a just title to that other blessedness, and by which alone he can fairly acquire the means of procuring it. Franklin's task was to be the chief printer of Pennsylvania; which, to such a man, meant chief instructor, stimulator, and cheerer. To that task he now addressed himself with all the energy and talents which nature and education had bestowed upon him. PART 11. MAN OF BUSINESS. PART II CHAPTER L THE FIEM OF FEANKLIN" AND MEEEDITH. The young printers began very prudently. They hired a house in the lower part of Market Street at twenty-four pounds a year, and re-let the greater part of it to Thomas Godfrey, glazier and mathematician, that member of the Junto whose craving for mathe- matical exactness rendered his company disagreeable. When they had opened their types, set up their press, and bought the other appurtenances of a printing-office, their stock of cash was exhausted. Thus, they began business without money, and in debt for nearly all their implements and materials. In the nick of time, when, indeed, they were scarcely ready for customers, George House, an acquaintance of Franklin, brought to the office a countryman whom he had found in the street looking for a printer. They executed for him a five-shilling job. "This man's five shillings," says Franklin, " being our first fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any crown I have since earned ; and, from the gratitude I felt towards House, has made me often more ready than perhaps I otherwise should have been to assist young beginners." This encouragement they needed the more, because there were not wanting dismal prophets to remind them that Philadelphia had not a great deal of printing to do, and that there were already two established printers to do it. The Junto was of essential use to the young firm. Every mem- ber of it exerted himself to procure work for them, and Joseph Breintnal had interest enough to get them the printing of forty sheets of a voluminous work, in which the Quakers were then deeply interested. It was a London translation of a Dutch " History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People called 182 LIFE AND TIMES Or BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1728. Quakers ;" one of those huge folios under which the shelves (and librarians) of ancient libraries groan.* The price given for this work was so low, that Franklin felt it necessary to compose one sheet every day, which Meredith worked off upon the press. Even when interrupted by other work, he would finish his sheet before going to bed, though to do this he was obliged often to work till eleven at night. One night, when he had finished his prescribed task, one- half of it was accidentally thrown into pi. He set to work again immediately, distributed the disordered type, and composed the pages anew before he left the office. Besides the ordinary work of a printer, he occasionally cast types, cut ornaments for title-pages, made his own ink, and lamp-black for the ink. The industry and energy of Franklin could not long escape atten- tion. He heard afterwards, that mention was made of the new printing-office at the Merchants' Every Night Club, when the opin- ion prevailed that the attempt to establish a third printing-house in Philadelphia could not but result in failure. One gentleman present who lived near the office expressed a contrary opinion, saying, " The industry of that Franklin is superior to any thing I ever saw of the kind. I see him still at work when I go home from the club, and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed." This remark made such an impression upon one of the merchants who heard it, that he offered to supply the young men with stationery on credit ; but they were not yet prepared for business of that kind. Meanwhile they contrived to live by their printing, and to slowly extend their small and precarious business. To establish a newspaper was a darling project with Franklin from the first ; and before he had been in business a year, he had nearly completed his plan for beginning one. Franklin had a rare faculty for keeping a secret, but on this occasion it failed him. George Webb, the young runaway from Oxford, came into the office of Franklin and Meredith one day, and asked for employment as a jour- neyman, as he had bought the remainder of his time from Keimer. Franklin replied that they could not employ him then, but expected to have work for him soon. In strict confidence, he imparted to Webb the secret of the projected paper ; telling him that, as there was then but one newspaper in Philadelphia, and that one was very profit- * " The History of the Eise, Increase, & Progress of the Christian People called Quakers, Intermixt with several Remarkable Oocurrences,''' by William Sewel. AGED 22.] THE riRM OF FEANKLIX AND MEEEDITH. 183 able though wretchedly dull, a paper well conducted could scarcely fail to be liberally encouraged. Webb immediately revealed the project to Keimer, who clutched at the idea,* issued proposals for a paper of his own, and engaged the treacherous Webb to assist in printing it. December 24th, 1728, appeared the first number of Keimer's preposterous journal, entitled "27ie Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences^ and Pennsylvania Gazette.^"* Price, ten shiUings a year ; advertisements three shillings each. Mr. Keimer's opening address was absurd enough to be amusing. Thus spake Keimer : " As he that intends to erect a noble and magnificent Structure, is obliged to make Use of the meanest and most contemptible Materials, in Order to begin, carry on, and per- fect his Undertaking ; so no Person whatever can make any true Judgement what Sort of Building it will be by only beholding the preparing of the Mortar, the digging of the Stones, the squaring the Marble, or the mixing of the Colours. The same may justly be observ'd of our Universal Instructor ; for as Great Things are compounded of Small, we think it necessary, in Order to fur- nish our Paper with proper Materials deserving that Character, to introduce it with an Exposition on the Letter A, the first in the Alphabet ; and as Letters were before Words, and Words only serve as so many Messengers to declare the Nature and Property of Things, it cannot be thought impertinent to begin at the lowest End first, and advance by Degrees to the highest Pitch of Knowl- edge we aim to arrive at." The exposition of the letter A followed, and was succeeded by a great number of short, learned paragraphs, the headings of which all began with the same letter. The explanation of this curious proceeding was, that Mr. Keimer possessed a copy of Ephraim Chambers's Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, a work that had just appeared in London, from which he extracted the articles in the order in which they occurred. This simple and easy way of filling his columns he continued as long as he conducted the paper. The first number contained two columns of Dictionary, * Keimer had recently tried a lottery, to save himself from ruin ; as we learn from the Min- utes of the Philadelphia City Council, May 16th, 1728: " The Board having heard that a Lottery was intended to be erected by Samuel Keimer in this city during this present Fair, he having set forth several printed papers for that purpose, the Board sent for the sd. Keimer, who came, and having heard what he had to say in behalf of sd. Lottery : Ordered, that no Lottery be kept during the sd. Fair." 184 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN" FRANKLIN. [l'/29. two columns of Kews paragraphs, an Address of the Legislature of New Jersey to their Governor, and his Reply, and three advertise- ments, of which two were Keimer's own. One paragraph informed the public that Samuel Keimer had presented a petition to the legislature of New Jersey, "representing the charge he had been at in making their money, and to prevent its being easily counter- feited." So, it appears, the province of New Jersey did not pay very promptly : for the work had been done nine months before. To do Keimer justice, his paper was better than Bradford's Mercury. There was, at least, something to read in it besides items of European news six months old. The j)aper was a com- pound of three ingredients, namely, Keimer's own bungling stu- pidity, George Webb's recollection of Franklin's ideas as to what a paper ought to be, and tales of English life verging upon the ob- scene, which Webb may himself have furnished, or selected. When the stock of matter began to run low, Keimer gave in each number a long extract from Daniel Defoe's Religious Courtship. Franklin witnessed these proceedings of the blabbing Webb and the foolish Keimer with indignation and contempt. When the TTniver sal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences had been in existence a month, he hit upon an expedient to draw away the attention of the public from its weekly issues. He began, in Bradford's Mer- cury^ a series of extremely entertaining essays, in the manner of the Spectator^ and fully equal in quality to all but the best of Addison's own. He signed his first paper "Busy-Body," and afterwards adopted that name as the heading of his department of the paper : under which he gave a great variety of amusing mat- ter, composed by himself and his friends of the Junto, particularly by that worthy gentleman, Joseph Breintnal. The first number of the Busy-Body was perfectly adapted to its purpose, since, besides being itself witty and satirical, it gave vague and tempting promises of sharp things to come. " It is probable," said the Busy- Body, " that I may displease a great number of your readers, who will not very well like to pay ten shillings a year for being told of their faults. But, as most people delight in censure when they themselves are not the object of it, if any are oiFended at my pub- licly exposing their private vices, I promise they shall have the sat- isfaction, in a very little time, of seeing their good friends and neighbors in the same circumstances." He also announced, that AGED 23.] THE FIRM OF FRANKLIlSr AND MEREDITH. 185 he should now and then devote a chapter to the service of the fair sex, whom, however, he engaged always to treat with " the utmost decency and respect." It is evident that these contributions made a great and pleasant stir in the province ; as well they might, for few colonies have been favored with such essays. Keimer soon took fire at one of them, which he imagined contained some covert reflections upon himself. He replied to Franklin's delicate and piercing raillery by coarse and obscene abuse, both in prose and rhyme. He also compli- mented the Busy-Body by publishing essays as nearly resembling his as he could procure. In one of his pieces Franklin gave a long and good-humored reply to the attacks of his old employer. In some of these early essays, Franklin's natural benevolence and public spirit are plainly manifest. He has an ingenious piece upon the practice that long prevailed in the colonies, of digging for the treasure supposed to be buried along the coast by pirates. The following is quite in the style of Poor Richard : " Let honest Peter Buckram, who has long, without success, been a searcher after hidden money, consider, that every stitch he takes, when he is on his shop-board, is picking up part of a grain of gold, that will in a few days' time amount to a pistole ; and let Faber think the same of every nail he drives, or every stroke with his plane. * * * I shall conclude with the words of my discreet friend Agricola, of Chester county, when he gave his son a good plantation. ' My son,' said he, * I give thee now a valuable parcel of land ; I assure thee I have found a considerable quantity of gold by digging there ; thee mayst do the same ; but thee must carefully observe this : Never to dig more than ploic-deep.'' " After writing a few numbers of the Busy-Body, Franklin's at- tention was so strongly drawn to another class of subjects, that he abandoned that entertainment to his excellent friend Breintnal, who continued the series for several months. For a year or more, Pennsylvania had been agitated by the dis- cussion of that perplexing subject, paper-money. The paper cur- rency of the province, issued in 1723 for a limited period, amounted to but fifteen thousand pounds, and it was about to be called in. The people clamored for a new and larger issue, to which capitalists objected, pointing to New England and South Carolina, where the paper money had wofully depreciated. This subject, like all others 186 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l729. that stirred the public mind, was amply debated in the Junto, where Franklin sided with those who favored a reissue. "I was per- suaded," he says, "that the first small sum, struck in 1'723, had done much good by increasing the trade, employment, and number of inhabitants in the province ; since I now saw all the old houses inhabited, and many new ones building; whereas I remembered well, when I first walked about the streets of Philadelphia (eating my roll), I saw many of the houses in Walnut Street, between Sec- ond and Front Streets, with bills on their doors ^Ho be let y" and many, Hkewise, in Chestnut Street and other streets, which made me think the inhabitants of the city were one after another desert- ing it." It is possible, too (human nature being always human nature), that he was prepossessed in favor of paper-money by the display he had recently made at Burlington of his skill in manufacturing the article. His convictions upon the subject, however, were clear and strong. Having the whole subject at command through the incessant de- bates of the Junto, he devoted his leisure during the month of March, 1Y29, to the composition of an extensive pamphlet, which was published anonymously soon after, entitled, " A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency." To give it a learned air, he contrived to pick up for the title-page a Latin motto from Persius, to the eifect, that plenty of new money ought to be given to country and to kindred. Much of the reasoning of this pamphlet will not bear the light since thrown upon political econo- my, and there are several passages in it that savor of special plead- ing. Nevertheless, for a self-instructed young man of twenty- three, in the year 1729, in the remote colony of Pennsylvania, it must be considered an extraordinary production. Adam Smith was then an urchin, six years old ; and forty-seven years were to elapse before the publication of the "Wealth of Nations." In Franklin's pamphlet, not only were some of Adam Smith's doc- trines anticipated, but its spirit and method are Adam-Smithian.* The young printer began by laying down a proposition, from which he deduced his conclusions. That proposition was : " There is a certain proportionate quantity of money requisite to carry on the ♦ With Franklin's pamphlet, as given in Sparks, ii., 253, compare Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," vol, i., chap, iv.. Of the Origin and Use of Money; and chap, v.. Of the Eeal and Nominal Price of Commodities. AGED 23.] THE FIRM OF FRANKLIN AND MEREDITH. 187 trade of a country freely and currently ; more than which would be of no advantage in trade, and less, if much less, exceedingly detri- mental to it." The main conclusion, of course, was, that Pennsyl- vania, without the proposed issue of paper money, had less money than was needful for carrying on its trade freely and currently. But there is a great deal of ingenious argument and clear statement in the pamphlet, much of which must have struck the Pennsyl- vanians of that day with the force of novelty. Some of the remarks upon the nature of money, upon the principle of self-adjustment in- herent in affairs, if the operation of that principle is not obstructed by unwise legislation, and upon labor as the standard of value, are quite in the modern spirit. He concludes by saying that his essay was " wrote and published in haste," and he shall esteem it a favor if gentlemen will point out the errors into which he may have fallen, as he sincerely desired " to be acquainted with the truth." " It would be highly commendable," he adds, " in every one of us, more fully to bend our minds to the study of what is the true inte- rest of Pennsylvania ; whereby we may be enabled, not only to reason pertinently with one another ; but, if occasion requires, to transmit home such clear representations, as must inevitably con- vince our superiors of the reasonableness and integrity of our de- signs." This pamphlet, it is said, had considerable effect in overcoming the opposition to the new issue; which, in due time, was made, with happy effects, as Franklin always thought, upon the pros- perity of the province. He never wavered in his opinion, that paper money, fully secured against depreciation, and not excessive in quantity, is advantageous to a state. With regard to the striking similarity of his pamphlet, in tone and method, to some passages of the " Wealth of Nations," we are to remember, that Adam Smith, Hke all other writers of the first rank, inherited vast accumulations of truth, as well as vast accumulations of error. The great work of Adam Smith is as original as New- ton's " Principia," or Buckle's "History of Civilization in England;" but it, nevertheless, like them, contained the result of all the best thought upon its subject that had ever been recorded. Man is great only by accumulation. A single mind can no more produce a book of the first order than a single architect, in the infancy of the race, could have built St. Peter's. It is much if a man in his 188 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [ll29. lifetime has one thought that is both original and valuable. The greatest men have had but two or three.. There is no reason to suppose that Adam Smith ever saw Franklin's pamphlet. The similarity that has excited so much surprise, is owing simply to the fact, that Franklin had read Locke's essays upon Interest and the Value of Money, Defoe's works, and other writings of that day, which made approaches to the great truths afterwards systematized and demonstrated by Smith. Commercial science made surprising advances from 1650 to 1700. The new commerce with India and America, and the new coinage in the reign of William III. , called forth a great number of pamphlets and essays on the class of sub- jects treated by Franklin in his essay upon Paper Money.* That essay shows, not that he was an originator in the science of com- merce, but that he was an intelligent reader of the more abstruse literature of his time. Franklin's fundamental proposition, quoted above, is to be found, for example, in a pamphlet published in Lon- don in 1691, written by Sir Dudley North. One of the positions of that author is : " That money is a merchandise, whereof there may be a glut, as well as a scarcity, and that even to an incon- venience." To return to the sly and eccentric Keimer. In spite of the Busy- Body's ingenious efforts to divert the town, Keimer succeeded in issuing twenty-six numbers of the Universal Instructor^ without interruption ; boasting occasionally, as is the custom of failing edi- tors, of the great encouragement he had met with. But Number Twenty-seven came not forth on the day it was due. A whole week elapsed before the province was again favored with its In^ structor. In accounting for the week's delay, Mr. Keimer surpassed all his previous and all his later writings. " It certainly must be allowed somewhat strange," he remarked, "that a Person of strict Sincerity, refin'd Justice, and universal Love to the whole Creation, should for a Series of near twenty Years, be the constant But of Slander, as to be three Times ruin'd as a Master-Printer, to be Nine Times in Prison, one of which was Six Years together, and often reduced to the most wretched Cir- cumstances, hunted as a Partridge upon the Mountains, and perse- cuted with the most abominable Lies the Devil himself could in- * See "Encyclopaedia Britannica," vol. xviii., p. 215 to 220. AGED 23.] THE FIRM OF FRANKLIN AND MEREDITH. 189 vent, or Malice utter ; and yet all this while never any wise, good or even honest Man has been his Enemy, or knew any Evil of him, bating for the little Mistakes or Peccadilloes of human Nature. But so it is and has been, that the Publisher hereof has been the Subject of the most uncommon Treatment, that without Hyperbole, he may truly say, no History can parallel, or private or publick Person ever underwent the like." After this explosion, he proceeded to state the particular calam- ity which had prevented him from issuing last week's paper: "Fame, that common Strumpet, who long has been my avowed Enemy, to my Loss (as I may truly say, of several Thousand Pounds), has so far debauched my Enemies, that by their late Attacks I was awak'd when fast asleep in Bed, about Eleven at Night, over-tir'd with the Labour of the Day, and taken away from my Dwelling, by a Writ and Summons, it being basely and confi- dently given out, that I was that very Night about to run away, tho' there was not the least Colour or Ground for such a vile Report." He adds an inventory of his possessions, as follows: "I had at that Juncture, a real Estate well tenanted in this City that brought me in £5 per Annum, at least 160 Persons in my Debt, some of whom were for no small Sums ; at the same Time I ow'd but to about 30 Persons, but 3 of whom exceeded £20 and but 4 more exceeded £10 and the rest generally but trifling Sums. I had at least at the rate of £120 per Annum clear of all Charges secur'd to me by my Newspaper, and Leed's Almanack ; was industrious, frugal and temperate even to a Fault, seldom spending above a Groat a Day for my Diet, and many times not above Two-pence, that I might if possible, in this Scarcity of Money, be able to fulfil that Command, Owe no Man any thiyig hut Love; yet notwithstand- ing all this, so great was the Villianous Contrivance, Malice and Baseness of my Enemies, that I had Writ upon Writ laid upon me, and had it not been for the exceeding Humanity, Generosity, Gen- tleman-like and truly Christian Treatment of the Honorable High- Sheriffs 'twas very likely I should have been torn all to pieces, as I have formerly been, and made a Sacrifice to the Rage and malice of the most abandoned Miscreants." And he concludes by saying that " Several of my Creditors quickly saw their Mistake, and per- ceived how I had been wronged, generously withdrew their Suits, 190 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1729. and most of my other Creditors have promised to allow me Time to get in my Debts." So the Universal Instructor in all Arts and Scienc€.s^ and Penn- sylvania Gazette was permitted to live. Keimer struggled on with it till the Thirty-ninth Number, and then gladly sold it for an insig- nificant sum to Franklin and Meredith. The paper then had ninety subscribers. Poor Keimer soon came to naught, and moved away to Barbadoes, where the same ill luck pursued him, I have ex- pended more space upon this man than was strictly necessary, be- cause I observe that some persons have derived the impression that he was an amiable little fly who was enmeshed and devoured by the great and crafty spider, Franklin. A man of the Keimer species always flatters himself that he is beset by enemies ; never suspecting that he has but one enemy, dire and implacable — himself. October 2d, 1729, was the date of Number Forty, the first num- ber of the paper edited by Franklin. Marvelous was the change that came over the spirit of this journal in a single week. All its nonsensical features were abolished at one glorious swoop. It be- came immediately a sensible, well-arranged, handsomely-printed, straight-forward, business-like sheet. Its preposterous name was reduced to Pennsylvania Gazette^ to which was added below in smaller type, " containing the freshest advices, foreign and domes- tic." Keimer had sought to flatter the Quakers by adopting their mode of numbering the months ; but Number Forty came out with honest October on its face instead of sycophantic " Tenth Month." The publication of the Dictionary and the Religious Courtship was stopped, and the paper was filled with matter proper for a news- paper. There was the extraordinary number of seven advertise- ments in Number Forty, one of which informed the public that Franklin and Meredith had for sale the Psalms of Isaac Watts, a new work then, that was having a great sale on both sides of the ocean. The paper was printed in a style so superior that some of the early numbers issued by Franklin and Meredith could scarcely be improved upon at this day. Indeed, no newspaper of the United States, in the year 1861, is printed so legibly or so ele- gantly as the Pennsylvania Gazette of 1729. The principal article in Number Forty, of an editorial nature, was the Address to the Subscribers, announcing the change of proprietors, and apologizing for the omission of the Dictionary and the novel. With regard to AGED 23.] THE FIRM OF FRA.NKLIN AND MEEEDITH. 191 the Dictionary, Franklin said it would take fifty years to print it all in the newspaper, and not unfrequently a reference was made in an article under the letter A, to one so far down the alphabet that it would not be reached in ten years. And as to the novel, copies would soon be for sale in Philadelphia. These matters disposed of, the address concluded thus : " There are many who have long desired to see a good News-Paper in Pennsylvania ; and we hope those Gentlemen who are able, will contribute towards the making This such. We ask Assistance, because we are fully sensible, that to publish a good News-Paper is not so easy an Undertaking as many People imagine it to be. The Author of a Gazette (in the Opinion of the Learned) ought to be qualified with an extensive Acquaintance with Languages, a great Easiness and Command of Writing and Relating Things clearly and intelligibly, and in few Words ; he should be able to speak of War both by Land and Sea ; be well acquainted with Geography, Avith the History of the Time, with the several Interests of Princes and States, the Secrets of Courts, and the Manners and Customs of all Nations. Men thus accomplished are very rare in this remote Part of the World ; and it would be well if the Writer of these Papers could make up among his Friends what is wanting in him- self. Upon the Whole, we may assure the Publick, that as far as the Encouragement we meet with will enable us, no Care and Pains shall be omitted, that may make the Pennsylvania Gazette as agreeable and useful an Entertainment as the Nature of the Thing will allow." Franklin had not forgotten his boyish adventures in the New England Gourant^ and he profited by the disastrous experience of his brother James. The Pennsylvania Gazette was conducted with prudence; not the mean prudence of a crafty coward, but with that noble prudence which comes of modesty, respect for the feelings of others, a desire to do real service, and an ability, rarely possessed by a young man, of looking at a subject in all its bear- ings, and of giving due weight to all. For example : — His first editorial related to the long-standing dis- pute between the Governor and the Legislature of New York, with regard to the salary of the Governor. Governor Burnet had been instructed to demand a settled salary for himself and his suc- cessors of a thousand pounds a-year. The legislature constantly re- fused ; adhering to the ancient practice of voting the Governor's 192 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1*729. salary every year. Franklin's comments upon this alFair contain so many distinct 'prudences that it would require a long chapter to enable the modern reader to understand them. He had to consider the recentness of the revolution of 1688, and the need there was of still strengthening *'the present establishment." He could not forget the favor which the Governor of New York had shown him when he was a runaway apprentice. Above all, he had to stand by the people, by the principles of English liberty, by Magna Charta, at which the demand for a settled salary aimed a blow that would be fatal. He had also to bear in mind that he was a poor printer of twenty-three, just started in business ; that he was discoursing of high matters and great personages ; and that this New York dis- pute had a peculiar bearing upon the politics of Pennsylvania, as his italics indicate. Of all these things the young editor was mindful ; and he produced an article that brought over to the support of his Gazette a large number of the most influential persons in the prov- ince.* He was no less wise upon that most difficult and dangerous of all subjects — religion. Generally avoiding the topic altogether, he oc- casionally selected an article which treated religion itself with re- spect, but gave no support to the exclusive claims of some of the sects. The following are sentences from an article in Number Eighty-two : " Religion has three great Adversaries, Atheism, Superstition, and Enthusiasm : The first may be shown to be Non- sense, the second Folly, and the third Madness. * * * I shall begin with Superstition and Enthusiasm; because as they are generally confounded with Religion, they give it a vast Disadvantage, when * The article gives first a history of the controversy. Then follow the comments, which are these : " Much deserved praise has the deceased governor received for his steady integrity in ad- hering to his instructions, notwithstanding the great difficulty and opposition he met with, and the strong temptations offered from time to time to induce him to give up the point. And yet per- haps, something is due to the Assembly (as the love and zeal of that country for the present establishment is too well known to suffer any suspicion of want of loyalty), who continue thus resolutely to abide by what they think their right and that of the people they represent ; maugre all the arts and menaces of a governor famed for his cunning and politics, backed with instructions from home, and powerfully aided by the great advantage such an officer always has of engaging the principal men of a place in his party, by conferring where he pleases so many posts of profit and honor. Their happy mother country will perhaps observe with pleasure, that though her gallant cocks and matchless dogs abate their natural fire and intrepidity, when transported to a foreign clime (as this nation is), yet her sons in the remotest part of the earth, and even to the third and fourth descent, still retain that ardent spirit of liberty, and that undaunted courage which have in every age so gloriously distinguished Britons and Englishmen from the rest of mankind." AGED 23.] THE FIEM OF FEANKLIN AND MEBEDITH. 193 it is at any Time compared with Atheism, or Irreligion (its proper Opposite) by discolouring it with all the Absurdities which belong only to them. But Superstition being the more prevailing Extrav- agance of the two, I shall first take that Folly to task, and enquire into its principal Causes and Effects. * * * * j dismiss my Reader with this summary Remark upon what has been said : That as the Christian Religion is the Best of all Religions, so Christian Super- stition, which is the Corruption of it, is the Worst of all Supersti- tions." The people of Philadelphia approved the Pennsylvania Gazette^ as conducted by its new proprietors. When but three numbers had appeared under their auspices, they announced that they had met with sufficient encouragement to induce them to continue the paper, and to increase their facilities for obtaining news. " We shall from time to time have all the noted Publick Prints from Great Britain, New-England, New York, Maryland and Jamaica, besides what News may be collected from private Letters and Informations ; and we doubt not of continuing to give our Customers all the Satisfac- tion they expect from a Performance of this Nature." Nevertheless, their business was still upon a very small scale. Franklin and Meredith were still poor printers, doing all their work themselves, having not even a boy to assist them. Nay, the greater part of the work was done by Franklin's own hands, for Meredith, besides being a poor workman, had fallen again into his habit of drinking, and was seldom sober. A debt that ought not to have been incurred, or that ought to have been paid long ago, is apt to be at last presented for payment at the most inconvenient of all possible moments. A gentle re- minder from Mr. Vernon reached our young friend, just when he was straining every nerve and devoting every penny to strengthen his still uncertain business. He wrote to his creditor, frankly con- fessing his fault and asking a little longer forbearance. His request was freely granted, and before many months more had elapsed, he had the delight of paying both principal and interest of a debt that had weighed heavily upon his conscience for more than seven years. Tlie new firm contrived very soon to get a share of the public printing, previously done by Bradford. Bradford printed the Gov- ernor's Address this year so inelegantly and incorrectly, that Franl. 9 194 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1730. lin, quick to seize an opportunity, struck off an edition, executed in his best manner, and sent a copy to each member of the assem- bly, who then numbered about thirty. The difference between the two versions was noted and remembered. Andrew Hamilton, whom Franklin had served in London, was then in the House, wherein Franklin had other zealous friends, to say nothing of thoso who wished to stand well with a young, printer, who, to use that young printer's own w^ords, " had learned to scribble a little." The result was, that to Franklin and Meredith was assigned the print- ing for the assembly for the next year. It was not great in amount, but it was a lift to beginners, gave them standing, and prepared the way for other and better public work. Before long, the new paper money was to be printed. Franklin's friends in the House, urging his claims as author of the pamphlet, procured for him this profitable job, which was a great and timely help. "This was an- other advantage," he says, " gained by my being able to write." But his footing in the world was still so far from being secure, that, after a severe struggle of two years, he seemed in danger of losing the little headway he had gained. Their materials had cost two hundred pounds, which sura the elder Meredith had agreed to advance. Owing to some misfortunes, he was able to raise but one- half of that sum, leaving a hundred pounds to be paid by a firm that could not spare from their business a hundred shillings. The merchant, who had imported the articles, became impatient, sued all the parties concerned, and threatened the young printers with ruin. They obtained bail, which secured them a brief respite — but only a respite. How real the peril was, and how acutely Franklin felt it, we still discern in the fervor with which, after the lapse of forty happy years, he pours forth his gratitude to the friends who generously came to his rescue. " In this distress," he says, " two true friends, whose kindness I have never forgotten, nor ever shall forget while I can remember any thing, came to me separately, unknown to each other, and without any application from me, offered each of them to advance me all the money that should be necessary to enable me to take the whole business upon myself, if that should be practicable; but they did not like my continuing the partnership with Meredith, who, as they said, was often seen drunk in the street, playing at low games in alehouses, much to our dis- credit." AGED 24.] THE FIEM OF FRANKLIN AND MEREDITH. 195 These two friends were William Coleman and Robert Grace, members of the Junto, and extremely dear to Franklin as long as they lived. He told them he felt grateful to the Merediths for what they had done, and he could not propose a separation as long as there was any prospect of their fulfilling their agreement. If, however, they should finally fail to do so, the partnership would be dissolved of course, and then he should think himself at liberty to accept the proffered assistance. Soon after, Franklin said to his partner: "Perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the part you have undertaken in this aflTair of ours, and is unwilling to advance for you and me, what he would for you. If that is the case, tell me, and I will resign the Avhole to you, and go about my business." To this Meredith replied : " No ; my father has really been disap- pointed, and is really unable ; and I am unwilling to distress him further. I see this is a business I am not fit for. I was bred a far- mer, and it was folly in me to come to town, and put myself, at thirty years of age, an apprentice to learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh people are going to settle in North Carolina, where land is cheap. I am inclined to go with them, and follow my old em- ployment ; you may find friends to assist you. If you will take the debts of the company upon you, return to my father the hundred pounds he has advanced, pay my little personal debts, and give me thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will relinquish the partnership and leave the whole in your hands." Franklin accepted the proposal on the instant, borrowed a hun- dred pounds from each of his two generous friends, paid ofi'both the Merediths, and went on with the business alone. The partner- ship was dissolved July 14th, 1730, but was not announced in the newspaper until May 11th, 1732, which was about the time when he had paid all his debts, and felt himself a free man. From this time his progress was uninterrupted, though not yet rapid. His powerful patron, Andrew Hamilton, procured for him, soon after, the printing of the paper money and laws of Dela- ware, which he retained as long as he continued in business. He opened a small stationer's shop, as the custom of printers then was, in which he sold blanks of all kinds, corrected with great care by Joseph Breintnal, paper, parchment, ink, lamp-black, and ped- dlers' books. He now engaged a journeyman, one whom he had known in London, and took an apprentice, the son of the poet 196 LIFE AND TIMES OIT BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1730. Aquila Rose. At this period he says he not only was industrious, but took care to let his neighbors see that he was so. He dressed plainly, attended no places of public diversion, never went fishing or shooting ; and to show that he was not above his business, some- times brought home the paper he had purchased through the streets in a wheelbarrow. His credit constantly improved, and his business steadily increased. Nevertheless, he did not vat feel himself quite safe. David Harry, formerly an apprentice of Keimer's, had bought the business of that unfortunate person on his removal to Barbadoes, and now threatened to become a powerful rival to Franklin. Harry had rich friends who could influence a great amount of business. Frank- lin proposed a partnership to him, which the young gentleman re- jected with scorn. Soon he, too, went the way of fools. He dressed and lived expensively, neglected his business, got into debt, lost his customers, and, at last, was obliged to follow his old mas- ter to Barbadoes.* The coast was then clear for Franklin, Andrew Bradford being old, rich, careless, and in no way formidable. Brad- ford, however, had one great advantage in being postmaster, since the postmaster had it in his power to prevent the post-riders from carrying all newspapers but his own. Franklin did, indeed, both send and receive newspapers by the post, but it was only by bri- bing the riders ; and the public, not being aware of the fact, long supposed that Bradford's Mercury was a better sheet for adverti- sing than Franklin's Gazette^ and gave their patronage accordingly. Bradford's conduct in forbidding the riders to carry the Gazette excited the disgust of Franklin. "I thought so meanly of the practice," he says, "that when I afterwards came into his situation, I took care never to imitate it," — a golden sentence, a magnificent revenge. * We have a trace of David Harry ia a curious advertisement of a book in the Pennsylvania Gazette, for February 3d, 1T30 : " An Elegy on the Death of that Ancient, Renowned and Useful Matron and Midwife, Mrs. Mary Broadwell, who rested from her Labors, Jan. 2d, 1730, aged one hundred years and one day. Sold by David Harry, Printer, in Philadelphia." AGED 24.] HE FOUNDS THE LIBBAKY. 197 CHAPTER II. HE FOUNDS THE LIBRARY. Seeing his way clear to the gradual formation of a safe and profitable business, it was natural his thoughts should be turned to marriage. It must be confessed that Franklin's relation of the events which led to his marriage is calculated to shock a novel- reading generation ; and I approach it myself with a slight shud- der. Similar things occur, perhaps, in these days, but they are not told in such a blunt, unconscious way. Mrs. Godfrey, with whom he still boarded, projected a match for him with a Miss Godfrey, the daughter of one of her relations. "She took opportunities," says Franklin, "of bringing us often together, till a serious courtship on my part ensued, the girl being in herself very deserving. The old folks encouraged me by con- tinual invitations to supper, and by leaving us together, till at lent^-th it was time to explain. Mrs. Godfrey managed our little treaty. I let her know that I expected as much money with their daughter as would pay off my remaining debt for the printing- house; which I believe was not then above a hundred pounds. She brought me word they had no such sum to spare : I said they might mortgage their house in the loan office. The answer to this after some days was, that they did not approve the match ; that, on inquiry of Bradford, they had been informed the printing busi- ness was not a profitable one ; the types would soon be worn out, and more wanted ; that Keimer and David Harry had failed one after the other, and I should probably soon follow them; and, therefore, I was forbidden the house, and the daughter shut up. Whether this was a real change of sentiment, or only artifice on a supposition of our being too far engaged in affection to retract, and therefore that we should steal a marriage, which would leave them at liberty to give or withhold Avhat they pleased, I know not. But I suspected the motive, resented it, and went no more. Mrs. God- frey brought me afterward some more favorable accounts of their disposition, and would have drawn me on again ; but I declared absolutely my resolution to have nothing more to do with that family. Tiiis was resented by the Godfreys; we differed, and 198 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l730. they removed, leaving me the whole house, and I resolved to take no more inmates." Cool, for a swain of twenty-four. Rather exacting, too, consider- ing that the swain had a little incumbrance somewhere in Philadel- phia, not many months old. We must fall back upon the indispu- table fact, that all marriages, at that day, partook of the nature of a business compact. It does not appear that marriages were less happy because the excessive prudence of parents was permitted to check the excessive ardor of youth. Let us consider, also, that, before modern commerce, emigration, and the steam-engine had given such amazing extension to the business of the world, and had created so many opportunities of rapid gain, and had given the prize of success to brains rather than to plodding, property was accumulated with exceeding slowness, and carried with it a weight which it does not now possess. Frugality and industry were the only ways to wealth known to our forefathers ; and a man did well who by the exercise of those virtues during a long life gained a decent provision for his old age. A hundred pounds was a hun- dred pounds when poor Richard went courting. It actually repre- sented a thousand acts of self-denial, and placed the man who had it a very long way in advance of one who had it not. We must read Franklin's account of his courtship, as well as the prudential maxims of poor Richard, by " the light of other days." Deborah Read, meanwhile, was dejected and solitary. It was believed, but was not known, that the runaway potter whom she had married, had had a wife living at the time. It was rumored, but not ascertained, that the potter had since died in the West Indies. Franklin was still intimate in the family, who often consulted him upon their aifairs. He lamented the lady's unhappy state, and attributed it to his own "giddiness and inconstancy when in Lon- don." The mother, however, blamed herself, because she had urged on the unfortunate marriage in the absence of Franklin, who, if he had found the young lady unmarried on his return from Lon- don, would doubtless have renewed his suit. Pitying her forlorn condition and reproaching himself as its cause, his fondness for her revived; and, at length, he proposed that they should risk the possible consequences of marriage. The match was not unequal, since his child was an ample set oif against the disadvantages under which she labored. He would, perhaps, have mentioned the AGED 24.] HE FOUNDS THE LIBRARY. 199 equalizing circumstance in his Autobiography, but that his Auto- biography was addressed to the only individual in the world who could never be spoken to upon the subject.* September 1st, 1730, Benjamin Franklin and Deborah Read were married. £ '^^ '/iv*^ Rogers, the potter, never appeared to disturb their tranquillity, for he was really dead ; nor was Franklin ever sued for his nume- rous debts, as he had feared he might be. The child was taken home, and reared as if he had been born to them in wedlock. Of its mother nothing whatever is known. Mrs. Franklin was an industrious, thrifty, capable, kind woman. She attended her husband's little shop, bought the rags for the new pa])er.-mill, stitched pamphlets, folded newspapers, taught her husband to be economical, tenderly nurtured his child, and proved herself, in all ways, a generous and faithful helpmeet. Long after- wards, he wrote to her, when far away : " It was a comfort to me to recollect that I had once been clothed from head to foot in woolen and linen of my wife's manufacture, and that I never was prouder of any dress in my life." She was a cheerful, tolerant soul, freely allowing for the foibles and faults of human nature. A remark of hers which Franklin quotes in one of his letters, about people who are punctilious and exacting in trifles, does her much honor: "If people can be pleased with small matters, it is a pity but they should have them." To say that she was an illiterate woman, is only to say that she lived in the last century. Her letters are as full of bad spelling as they are of homely sense and loving kindness. She was a finely formed, handsome woman, with a fair and pleasant countenance. Her children and even her grand- children were celebrated for their beauty throughout the colonies. And let us say of him, that though he had not been an ardent lover, like the lovers we like to read of in fiction, he was a fiithfal, tender, and considerate husband ; of whom his wife was proud, in whom his wife was happy. " We throve together," says Frank- lin, " and ever endeavored to make each other happy." It were well if all lovers of the ardent description could say the same after a married life of forty years. Their home, at first, was plain and frugal in the extreme. "We kept no idle servants," says Frank- lin ; " our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheap- * The first part of the Autobiography was addressed to this son, Gov. William Franklin, of New Jersey. 200 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FHANKLIN. [l731. est. For instance, my breakfast was, for a long time, bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon: but mark how luxury will enter fjimilies, and make a progress in spite of principle ; being called one morn- ing to breakflist, I found it in a china bowl, with a spoon of silver. They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of three-and -twenty shillings ; for which she had no other excuse or apology to make, but that she thought Aer husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and china in our house, which afterward, in a course of years, as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value." It was but a few months after his marriage, while still living in tbis lowly and frugal manner, still wearing his leathern apron, still wheeling home his purchases of stationery, still making his lamp- black and mixing his ink, still battling with the difficulties attend- ing the establishment of a new business, that he set on foot the measures which resulted in the founding of what may be truly styled the most useful library that ever existed. When the Junto was first formed, its meetings were held (as the custom of clubs was in that clubbing age) in a tavern ; and in a tavern of such humble pretensions as to be called by Franklin an ale-house. But the leathern-aproned philosophers soon removed to a room of their own, lent them by one of their members, Robert Grace. It often happened that a member would bring a book or two to the Junto, for the purpose of illustrating the subject of debate, and this led Franklin to propose that all the members should keep their books in the Junto room, as well for reference while debating as for the use of members during the week. The suggestion being approved, one end of their little apartment was soon filled with books ; and there they remained for the common benefit a year. But some books having been injured, their own- ers became dissatisfied, and the books were all taken home. Books were then scarce, high-priced, and of great bulk. Folios were still common, and a book of less magnitude than quarto was deemed insignificant. If any Philadelphian of the present day should venture to take from the library James Ralph's two folios on the reign of William III., he could scarcely carry them home AGED 25.] HE FOUNDS THE LIBEABT. 201 without assistance. Few books of much importance were pub- lished at less than two guineas. Such prices as four guineas, five guineas, and six guineas were not uncommon. Deprived of the advantage of the Junto collection, Franklin con- ceived the idea of a subscription library. Early in 1731 he drew up a plan, the substance of which was, that each subscriber should contribute two pounds sterling for the first purchase of books, and ten shillings a year for the increase of the library. As few of the inhabitants of Philadelphia had money to spare, and still fewer cared for reading, he found very great difficulty in procuring a sufficient number of subscribers. He says : " I put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a numher of friends^ who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affairs went on more smoothly, and I ever after practiced it on such occasions, and from my frequent successes can heartily recommend it." Yet it was not until N'ovember, 1731, at least five months after the project was started, that fifty names were obtained ; and not till March, 1732, that the money was collected. After consulting James Logan, " the best judge of books in these parts," the first list of books was made out, a draft upon London of forty-five pounds was purchased, and both were placed in the hands of one of the directors who was going to England. Peter CoUinson undertook the purchase, and added to it presents of Newton's "Principia," and " Gardener's Dictionary." All the business of the library Mr. Collinson continued to transact for thirty years, and always swelled the annual parcel of books by gifts of valuable works. In those days getting a parcel from London was a tedious affair indeed. All the summer of 1732, the subscribers were waiting for the coming of the books, as for an event of the greatest interest. Among Franklin's Junto memoranda at this time the following sentence occurs, which was probably presented to the Junto as a resolution : " When the books of the library come, every member shall undertake some author, that he may not be without observations to communicate." In October the books arrived, and were placed, at first, in the room of the Junto. A librarian was appointed, and the library was opened once a week for givmg out the books. The second year Franklin himself served as librarian. For many years the secre- 9* J 202 LIFS AND TIMES OP BENJAISHN FRANKLIN. [l732. tary to the directors was Joseph Breintnal, by whose zeal and dili- gence the interests of the library were greatly promoted. Frank- lin printed a catalogue soon after the arrival of the books, for which, and for other printing, he was exempted fi-om paying his annual ten shillings for two years. The success of this library, thus begun by a few mechanics and clerks, was great in every sense of the word. Valuable donations of books, money, and curiosities were frequently made to it. The number of subscribers slowly, but steadily increased. Libraries of similar character sprung up all over the country, and many were started even in Philadelphia. Kalm, who was in Philadelphia in 1748, says that then the parent library had given rise to "many little libraries," on the same plan as itself. He also says that non- subscribers were then allowed to take books out of the library, by leaving a pledge for the value of the book, and paying for a folio eight pence a week, for a quarto six pence, and for all others four pence. " The subscribers," he says, " were so kind to me as to order the librarian, during my stay here, to lend me every book I should want, without requiring any payment of me." In 1764, the shares had risen in value to nearly twenty pounds, and the collec- tion was considered to be worth seventeen hundred pounds. In 1785, the number of volumes was 5,487 ; in 1807, 14,457 ; in 1861, 70,000. The institution is one of the few in America that has held on its way, unchanged in any essential principle, for a century and a quarter, always on the increase, always faithfully administered, always doing well its appointed work. There is every reason to believe that it will do so for centuries to come. The prosperity of the Philadelphia Library was owing to the original excellence of the plan, the good sense embodied in the rules, the care with which its afiairs were conducted, and the vigi- lance of Franklin and his friends in turning to account passing events. Thomas Penn, for example, visited Philadelphia a year or two after the library was founded ; when the directors of the library waited upon him with a dutiful address, and received, in re-, turn, a gift of books and apparatus. It were difficult to over-estimate the value to the colonies of the libraries that grew out of FrankUn's original conception. They were among the chief means of educating the colonies up to Inde- pendence. "Reading became fashionable," says Franklin; "and AGED 26.] HE FOUNDS THE LIBRARY. 203 our people having no public amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observed by strangers, to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries." Mrs. John Adams, in one of her letters from England, in 1785, says : "You can scarcely form an idea how much superior our common people, as they are termed, are to those of the same rank in this country."* The entire mass of revolutionary docu- ments and correspondence is an eternal record of the genuine cul- ture and elevation of mind that prevailed among the leading men of colonial America. What the Philadelphia Library did for Franklin himself, the libraries, doubtless, did for many others. It made him a daily student for twenty years. He set apart an hour or two every day for study, and thus acquired the substance of all the most valuable knowledge then possessed by mankmd. Whether Franklin was the originator of subscription libraries, and of the idea of permitting books to be taken to the homes of subscribers, I cannot positively assert. But I can discover no trace of either of those two fruitful conceptions before his time. Libra- ries are nearly as ancient as books, but all the old libraries appear to have been like the old-fashioned wells, to which every one had to go who wanted water : a lending library is a Croton Aqueduct, with pipes laid in every house that chooses to pay for them. The universal diffusion of knowledge, for which civilization waits, had been forever impossible without permanent, self-sustaining town A and village libraries, on a plan similar to that of the library founded in Philadelphia, in 1732. Before resuming our narrative of Franklin's career as a man of business, it may conduce to the better understanding of the subject if we give a few particulars respecting the importance and resources of Philadelphia at the time when he was making his fortune there. Perhaps, too, a few words respecting the appearance of the place, and the ways of its inhabitants, may not be unacceptable to some readers. ♦•"Letters of Mrs. John Adams," 11., 108. 204 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJA]VIIN FEANKLIN. [1732. CHAPTER III. OLD PHILADELPHIA. " O, Pennsylvania," Avrote "William Penn, in 1704, sixteen years after the settlement of the province, " what hast thou not cost me ! Above thirty thousand pounds more than I ever got by it; two hazardous and most Hitiguing , voyages, and my son's soul almost."* He was actually detained in London at one time for lack of money with which to pay his passage to Philadelphia. William Penn died in 1718. Twenty-five years after his death, when Franklin was in the midst of his business career, Pennsyl- vania contained a population of a hundred thousand ; Philadelphia was a city of ten thousand inhabitants ; the sons of William Penn drew from the province an annual revenue of twenty thousand pounds, and valued their American estate at ten millions sterling. The nearest large town to Philadelphia being Kew York (Balti- more, founded in 1729, contained but fifty houses in 1765), the capital of Pennsylvania served as chief city and market-town to a great part of 'New Jersey, and to the settlements in Delaware. Perhaps, in 1750, Philadelphia was the business center for a popu- lation of one hundred and fifty thousand. There were then living persons who remembered when the site of the city was a forest ; the first-born of Philadelphia was a man of sixty-two ; bears, wolves, and wild turkeys were shot within eight miles of the State- House. The chief cause of Pennsylvania's rapid growth was not the pleasantness of the climate, nor the fertility of the soil, nor the con- venience of the situation, though these were causes of its pros- perity. Pennsylvania throve because William Penn had been just. He placed all the religious sects upon an equality before the law, claiming for his own no exclusive advantage, dearly as he loved it. It was this that made Philadelphia the desire of persecuted Protest- ants in Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. The perfect peace with the Indians, which the colony enjoyed for more than fifty * A son of William Penn became exceedingly dissipated while his father was absent in Am.enca,.—Jaimey's IJ/eof WilliamPenn, p. 471. AGED 26.] OLD PHILADELPHIA. 205 years, because William Penn had considered the rights and the feelings of the Indians,* was the crowning inducement that lured so many emigrants to Pennsylvania. Wars w^th the Indians deso- lated the other provinces of Korth America, but Pennsylvania knew scarcely an alarm till Braddock's defeat. For a century, Philadelphia was the central point of the emigration to America. For a century, Pennsylvania advanced more rapidly in population and wealth, and in the civilization that comes of population and wealth, than any other of the British provinces. In the summer of 1749, for example, twelve thousand Germans, twenty-five ship- loads, landed at Philadelphia, and made their way to settlements in the interior ; nor was this number above the average of other years. f Philadelphia was then what its founder wished it always to remain, " a green, country place." It extended a mile along the Delaware, and half a mile into the country. The houses, even then, were mostly of brick and stone, and each house stood apart from the rest, and was surrounded by gardens and trees. Every family kept its cows, which grazed on the common lands in the outskirts of the town. Professor Kalm mentions that there were fine orchards all about the city in 1748, and that peaches were so abundant that pigs were fed uj)on them. "The country people in Sweden and Finland," he adds, "guard their turnips more carefully than the people here do the most exquisite fruits." Any one who chose could get over the fence and help himself A Philadelphian, says Kalm, has so much liberty and abundance, that he lives in his house like a king. J; A large, very plain, spread-out, shady village, was the Philadelphia of that period. Stores were then undistinguished from other houses by projecting windows. A store was simply a dwelling-house, with a room full of goods on the ground-floor, and a wooden bee-hive, anchor, Bible, ship, basket, or crown hung over the door. A narrow flagging was laid in the middle of the side- walks of the principal streets, along which also were placed rows of nicely painted posts. * "No other British colony admits of the evidence of an Indian against a white man ; nor are the complaints of Indians against M'hite men duly regarded in other colonies; whereby these poor people endure the most cruel treatment, from the very worst of our own people, without hope of redress ! And all the Indian wars, in our colonies, were occasioned by such means." — Importance of the British Plantations in America to these Kingdoms. London, 1731. t Proud's History of Pennsylvania, ii,, 273. I Travels into Xorth America, by Professor Peter Kalm, 1748 to 1751. 206 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l732. Philadelphia, without any great staple, like tobacco, rice, or cod fish, and without extensive manufactures, enjoyed, from an early period, a profitable, though complicated and circuitous commerce. The province could not otherwise have outstripped Massachusetts, Virginia, and the Carolinas ; for it imported from Great Britain about ten times more than it exported to Great Britain. When Pennsylvania bought in England half a million pounds' worth of manufactures every year, it sent to England less than fifty thousand pounds' worth of its own products. Such a commerce had been im- possible, but for the great trade which the province enjoyed wdth the West Indies, Portugal, and Spain, by which money or bills were obtained to pay for the articles purchased in England. A writer of 1731 states that Pennsylvania then exported " wheat, flour, bisket, barrelled beef and pork, bacon, hams, butter, cheese, cyder, apples, soap, myrtle, wax candles, starch, hair powder, tanned leather, bees- wax, tallow candles, strong beer, linseed oil, strong waters, deer skins and other peltry, hemp (which they have encouraged by an additional bounty of three half-pence per pound weight over and above what is allowed by act of parliament), some little tobacco, lumber [^. e., sawed boards, and timber for building of houses, cypress wood, shingles, cask staves and headings, masts, and other ship timber], also drugs, of various sorts (as sassafras, calamus aro- maticus, and snake-root)." Our author adds, that the Pennsylvanians " build about two thou- sand tons of shipping a year for sale, over and above what they em- ploy in their own trade ; which may be about six thousand tons more." Besides all this, they " send great quantities of corn to Portugal and Spain, frequently selling their ships as well as cargo ; and the produce of both is sent thence to England ; where it is always laid out in goods, and sent home to Pennsylvania. They receive no less than from 4,000 to 6,000 pistoles from the Dutch Isle of Curayoa alone for provisions and liquors. And they trade to Surinam in the like manner, and to the French part of Hispaniola, as also to the other French sugar islands ; from whence they bring back Molasses and also some money. From Jamaica they sometimes return with all money and no goods ; because their rum and Molasses are so dear there. And all the money they can get, from all parts . as also sugar, rice, tar, and pitch, is brought to England to pay for AGED 26.] OLD PHILADELPHIA. 201 the manufactures they carry home from us ; which has not for many years past been less than £150,000 per annum. They trade to our provinces of New England, Virginia, Maryland and Carolina, and to all the islands in the West Indies (excepting the Spanish ones), as also the Canaries, Madeira and the Azores ; likewise to Newfound- land for fish : which they carry to Spain, Portugal, and up the Medi- terranean ; and remit the money to England."* Franklin himself gives a similar account of this circuitous com- nieixje : " Britain, acting on the selfish and perhaps mistaken prin- ciple of receiving nothing from' abroad that could be produced at liome, would take no articles of our produce that interfered with any of her own ; and what did not interfere, she loaded with heavy duties. We had no mines of gold or silver. We "were therefore obliged to run the world over, in search of something that would be received in England. We sent our provisions and lumber to the West Indies, where exchange was made for sugars, cotton, &c., to remit. We brought molasses from thence, distilled it into rum, with which we traded in Africa, and remitted the gold dust to England. We employed ourselves in the fisheries, and sent the fish we caught, together with quantities of wheat flour and rice to Spain and Portugal, from whence the amount was remitted to Eng- land in cash or bills of exchange. Great quantities of our rice, too, went to Holland, Hamburgh, &c., and the value of that was also sent to Britain. Add to this, that contenting ourselves with paper, all the hard money we could possibly pick up among the foreign West India Islands, was continually sent off to Britain, not a ship going thither from America without some chests of those precious metals."f Chancellor Livingston mentions that Philadelphia, before the Kevolution, exported to the West Indies alone three hundred thou- sand pounds of produce annually, and ISTew York almost as much.J We have in these valuable passages§ an explanation of the few great fortunes gained in Philadelphia before the Revolution. We see also that for a pushing tradesman like Franklin, Philadelphia afforded * " Importance of the British Plantations in America to these Kingdoms." London, 1781. . Quoted in Proud's History of Pennsylvania, ii., 202. t Sparks, ii., 499. X " Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Kevolution," viii., 120. § The great value of this commerce to Great Britain, and, particularly, to Scotland, has been ehown by Mr, Buckle, in the second volume of his " History of Ci%ilization in England." 208 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1732. a sphere not unworthy of his enterprise. The chain of causes was the following : Toleration' attracted emigrants ; peace with the Indians enabled them to produce a superabundance of commodities ; this triangular commerce converted that superabundance into wealth. Benjamin Franklin was thus enabled to win, at an early age, the prize of leisure, and thus to lead the civilization of the town, to be- come its servant, instructor, and champion. In Boston he would scarcely have found room enough. It was fortunate that he was early transplanted from a place where he could have grown only to be a superb " stick of timber," to a scene that admitted of his expanding into a great umbrageous tree. It is as a nursery that New England is so admirable. A great Yankee is apt to be dwarfed unless he is transplanted young to a place where there are fewer of his kind, and where the influences that make men afraid to think are less powerful. The wealth gained by the roundabout commerce of Pennsylvania benefited all the people, but enriched few of them. Most of the colonists had a little more than enough, but their afiairs were gene- rally on a small scale. If a mechanic kept an apprentice and one journeyman, if a merchant employed more than one clerk, if a storekeeper required the attendance of any one besides his own family, he was doing an unusually large business. So few were the fortunes of Philadelphia, that, as late as 1790, "Society" consisted, as Mrs. John Adams records, of a single set, and that set was so limited that the parties usually consisted of the same persons. The Governor, two or three other official persons, a great lawyer or two, a doctor or two, half a dozen families retired from business, a dozen merchants, and a few other persons, constituted the entire circle of those who had leisure enough for the elegant enjoyment of life. In all the colonial towns life was still slow, frugal, and limited. It was life without the steam-engine, without banks, without cotton, without the daily newspaper, without carpets, and without the fuss and flurry that these, for the moment, have caused in the world. I can hear of but one steam-engine in all the colonies before the Revo- lution. John Fitch, when he conceived the idea of propelling vessels by steam in 1785, had never heard that there was such a thing as a steam-engine. He expected to make the first steam-engine himself In 1750, Franklin visited the Jersey Copper Mine near the falls of the Passaic, and wrote of it : " The water is grown too hard for AGED 26.] OLD THILADELPHIA. 209 them, and they wait for a fire-engine from England to drain their pits ;" which fire-engine, he adds, " is to cost a thousand pounds." A steam-pumping engine was probably the article waited for. It was the fewness of the aristocratic families, and the moderate- ness of their fortunes, that rendered it so easy for a man like Frank- lin, who wore leather breeches in his youth, and a leather apron after he was thirty, to get welcome admittance to their circle. To these causes must be added another. By the time Benjamin Franklin was ready to lay aside his leathern apron, several of the wealthier Philadelphians had acquired an amount of knowledge and a love of literature that are incompatible with snobbery. If a Philadelphian, in 1728, had been asked to name the business by which, in Philadelphia, a stranger could make a fortune in twenty years, the business of a printer would have been among the very last to occur to him. There was no good book-store south of Boston, it is true : but, also, there was no general regard for books south of Boston. Except Mr. James Logan, who had a superb library, and, perhaps, three or four persons besides, there was no one in Philadelphia who had the true passion for books, until our young printer infused it into them. Franklin, like the poets that Wordsworth speaks of, had to create the taste by gratifying which he was to thrive. Almanacs, hymn-books, low-priced books of re- ligious controversy, and very rudimental school-books, were the staple commodities of the Philadelphia book-store in the olden time. It was not safe to publish any book higher priced than eighteen pence, except by subscription. Of the books published in the colo- nies before the Revolution, nine-tenths, at least, appear to have been sold at less than eighteen pence. The whole business of printing was trivial, and could be made profitable only by prosecuting suc- cessfully a great number of petty projects. Philadelphia being a less intellectual place than Boston, its ortho- doxy was milder. The Quakers have no clergymen ; the Germans are naturally good-humored ; the Episcopal Church was more than tolerated ; the means of living were abundant ; the aspects of nature were seldom terrible ; and, consequently, the people were lesa fearful and better tempered. Even their violence was noisy, boyish, and shallow. Professor Kalm relates, that in 1756, there was ii contest in the Old German Reformed Church of Philadelphia, whicli was certainly violent enough, but it was merely a struggle between 210 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l732. two preachers for the possession of the pulpit. The Church sent to Gennany for a clergyman, and the "Rev. Mr. Slaughter" came. ^N'ext year arrived another from Holland, who " by his artful beha- vior so insinuated himself into the favor of the Rev. Mr. Slaughter's congregation, that the latter lost almost half his audience. The two clergymen then disputed for several Sundays about the pulpit ; nay, people relate that the new-comer mounted the pulpit on a Satur- day, and stayed in it all night. The other being thus excluded, the two parties in the audience made themselves the subject both of the laughter and the scorn of the whole town, by beating each other, and committing other excesses."* The following is an advertisement from the Pennsylvania Gazette, April 12, 1745 : " Whereas the Nossels of most of the Pumps in Market Street and several other streets in this City, were taken out and carried away, on Saturday, the 24th of November last, and at several times before and since, by some evil-minded, dissolute Per- sons ; which might have been of most pernicious consequence, if Fire had happened to break out before they could have been renewed ; the Union Fire Company of Philadelphia, hereby offer a Reward of Five Pounds to him or her who shall discover (so that they may be convicted at the Mayor's Court) any of the Persons concerned in re- moving the said Nossels, or doing any other Damage to Pumps in the Streets, whereby they may be rendered incapable of discharging water. By Order of the Company. John Bard, Clerh?^ Tills is very different from the deep, soul-rending controversies, and soul-crushing terrors, of the religion of the Mathers. Whitefield, a man endowed with a singular talent for exciting terror, threw a horrid gloom over Philadelphia, for a time, putting a stop to the dancing-schools, the assemblies, and every pleasant thing ; but the reign of terror was short, and Philadelphia soon resumed its habits of innocent enjoyment. Franklin, who could scarcely have lived a true life in Boston without coming into conflict with the Brethren, and being injured in the conflict, and perhaps spoiled for any good purpose, had no trouble of the kind in mild Philadelphia, which hon- ored itself by tolerating all sects, as well as honest men of no sect. The very variety of sects in Philadelphia was an excuse for not be- longing to any, and gave to each a kind of property in a good man ♦ Kalm, i.,41. AGED 26.] OLD PHILADELPHIA. 211 who respected all and could be claimed by none. As in New York completely, so in Philadelphia sufficiently, a man was permitted to strive after virtue in his own way ; a privilege that, to this day, New England has not quite conceded. In Philadelphia, about 1740, the Quakers were a third of the pop- ulation ; in Pennsylvania, one-half. This denomination gave great promise in the earlier years of its history. It was far more tolerant than the age ; it discovered that a paid priesthood is not indispen- sable ; it perceived the utter stupidity of such wars as were then waged in Europe ; it discerned the meanness, the turpitude, the coarse and bungling impolicy of slavery. From 1712, we find traces in the old records of their abhorrence of that thing accursed. How strange that a people who began with such magnificent conceptions, who began by striding on in advance of the time, should have made no further advances ! But it concerns us only to know that to them^ j Philadelphia owed much of its early thrift, its sedateness and uni- ^ formity, its toleration of opinions and observances, its cleanliness and decorum. To them chiefly is owing the fact, that modern Philadel- phia is the most comfortable and least interesting large city in the world. Philadelphia is Quakerism mitigated by Franklin. / A town of* a hundred and twenty years ago, who can" conceive it ? We have outgrown so many things, and altered so many, that the student stops often in his inquiries to ask, whether it can be only of the last century that he is reading, and not of twenty centuries ago. It was a rage in old Philadelphia, not merely to dig for pirate's gold, but to find the buried treasure by means of an enchanted wand. What stable safe without a horse-shoe nailed over the door ? There were charms of the most idiotic nature against witchcraft, and against diseases. Scarcely a criminal could be hanged without some mother bringing an infant to have its sore or its wen stroked by the hand of the dead man before he was cut down. Some degree of belief in dreams, trances, ghosts, prodigies, and special providences was almost universal. In the market-place of Pliiladelphia, near Franklin's shop, stood the whipping-post, the pillory, and the stocks, all in frequent use. The salary of the " pub- lic whipper" was ten pounds a year. It was common for women to be publicly whipped in Philadelphia, as late as 1760; during the business career of Franklin, it occurred, perhaps, as often as twice a month. If a husband murdered his wife, he was hanged ; if a 212 LIFE AXD TIMES OF BEXJAMIX FRANKLIN. [l732. ■woman killed her husband, she was burned ; if she had an accom- plice he was hanged, but she was burned. Slaves who killed their masters were burned. The woman seduced was frequently whip- ped, down to the time of the Revolution ; the man seducer never was, I believe, after the year 1700. Slaves were ruled then as now, partly by the lash, and chiefly by the terror of being sold South. The white servants who had sold their service for a term of years to pay for their passage from Europe,* were so much in the habit of running away, that the printers derived an important part of their revenue from advertising them. Franklin once suggested a Bought- Servant's Insurance Company, to mitigate this evil. Probably, it was the extreme difficulty of inducing the servants of this description to serve out their time, that led to the discontinuance of the system. Before 1750, nearly the whole internal commerce of Pennsylvania was performed by means of pack-horses. In 1775, there were only a score or two of pleasure vehicles in all the province, and every one of them was recognized as an acquaintance as soon as it ap- peared in the streets. It was the age of wigs and comedy costume. People dressed as the actors of our theatres try to dress when they play an old Eng- lish comedy. Tight knee-breeches, fine stockings, low shoes, and silver buckles; long, large, stifi", and highly decorated coats, three- cornered hats, ruffled shirts and wristbands, and wigs dangling with cmis were worn by persons of respectable rank. The earliest por- trait we have of Franklin exhibits him attired in the extr(3rae of the fashion of that day, except that he wears no sword at his side. It was taken in London in 1726, when he was working there as a journeyman printer ; and, on his return to America, he gave it to his brother John, of Rhode Island, the companion of his candle-making days. The fair, full, smiling face of Franklin is surrounded in this picture by a vast and stiif horse-hair wig, and his well-developed figure shows imposingly in a voluminous and decorated coat, that reaches nearly to his heels ; under his left arm he carries his cocked hat. His manly bosom heaves under snowy ruffles, and his exten- * Such advertisements as the following were very common, in the Philadelphia newspapers, from 1720 to 1750 : "LATELY IMPORTED, "A Parcel of likely Men and Women Servants, and are to be sold by Samuel Ferguson, at the Widow Fox's, in Walnut Street, Philadelphia, on reasonable Terms, either for ready Money, Country Produce, or Credit."' —Permsylvania Gazette^ December, 1728. AGED 26.] OLD PHILADELPHIA. 213 sive wristbands are exposed to view by the shortness of his coat- sleeves. With regard to w^igs, everybody wore them, except convicts and slaves ; boys wore them, servants wore them, Quakers wore them, paupers wore them. One of the tricks of the time was to bring over from England a ship-load of convicts, and pass them off upon the innocent Pennsylvanians for " respectable servants," by the simple expedient of putting upon each a cheap wig. The making of wigs was an important branch of the industry of Great Britain. Poor Richard says : " Three things are men most likely to be cheat- ed in, a horse, a wig, and a wife." They were made in great va- riety, and called by many names, the signification of which has been forgotten. We read of tyes, bobs, majors, spencers, fox-tails, twists, t6tes, scratches, full-bottomed, dress-bobs, cues, cut wigs, and perukes. The reign of wigs was unquestioned, until George III., about 1765, appalled the great wig interest by wearing his own hair. The fashion spread, only to be succeeded by an attempt to make the natural hair resemble a wig as closely as possible. The peruke-makers, in their alarm, approached the throne, humbly beseeching his majesty, in consideration of their distressed condi- tion, occasioned by so many people wearing their own hair, and employing foreigners to cut and dress it, or when they employ na- tives obliging them to work on the Lord's day, to the neglect of their duty to God, that he would be pleased to grant them relief, submitting to his majesty's goodness and wisdom, whether his own example was not the only means of relieving them from their dis- tress, so far as it was occasioned by people wearing their own hair.* It was of no avail. Wigs were doomed. The king gave an evasive reply, and resumed not his Avig. Some of the wig-makers, who wore their own hair in the very presence of the king, were seized by the mob as they left the palace, and shorn of their inconsistent locks. Wigs went out — hair-dressing came in, with all its well-known tortures. Some American peculiarities, which we are accustomed to regard as of recent origin, began to be observed at a very early day. Pro- fessor Kalm noticed, in 1748, both the precocity and premature old - * "Annual Register for 1765," p. 64. 214 LIFE AND TIMES OE BENJAMIN EKANKLIN. [1732. age of Americans. It was not nncomraon, he said, to see "little children giving sprightly and ready answers to questions that are proposed to them, so that they seem to have as much understand- ing as old men, but they do not attain to such an age as the Euro- peans." But what puzzled him most was the early decay of teeth in the colonies. America now, as all the world knows, is the para- dise of dentists ; but few are aware how early America caught her chronic toothache. " Girls, not above twenty years old, have fre- quently lost half their teeth," wrote the Swedish observer in 1748. He enters into an investigation of the cause of this effect defective. Could it be the climate ? No ; for the Indians have perfect teeth. Was it the general practice, peculiar then to America, of drinking tea every day ? Probably not ; for the evil began before tea was introduced, aifected some who drank no tea, and spared others who drank tea. Could it be fruits and sweetmeats, of which the colonists were as fond as their great-grandchildren are ? No ; for the same reasons. He reached, or nearly reached, the correct explanation, which is, the general use of food that is both soft and warm. In other words, American teeth decay, because they are not used. Poor Richard says : " Maids of America, who gave you bad teeth ? " Answer — Hot soupings and frozen apples." In the hurry of settling a new country, too, the art of cookery is lost, and the frying-pan bears sway for three generations, causing at length universal indigestion, and raising dentistry to the rank of one of the fine arts. Nevertheless, the early inhabitants of Pennsylvania enjoyed ex- cellent health ; and those of them who escaped the domination of terrific ideas led cheerful and happy lives. What is now under- stood by public amusements, in which the amused are passive and the amusers are paid, w^ere little known and less valued.* But there was in Philadelphia, before 1740, a dancing school, a public ball-room, a pack of hounds, a race-ground, and numberless social clubs. The two weekly market-days were themselves a kind of holiday, and the semi-annual fair an hilarious festival. There was * From the Pennsylvania Gazette, October 25, 1744: "To be seen, at the Indian King, in Market Street, Price Is. for men and women, and &d. for children. " A Beautiful Creature, but surprisingly fierce, called a Leopard ; his Extraction half a Lion and half a Pardeal; his native Place of Abode is in Africa, and Arabia. As he will not stay long in this place, those who have a Mind to see him are desired to be speedy." AGED 26.] OLD PHILADELPHIA. 215 a good deal of unpretending but very pleasant festivity. The young ladies sang with less science but more heartiness and expression than they now do, and every man had at least his single song. *' Ballads were in constant requisition," observes the annalist, Wat- son ; " I knew a tradesman of my age who told me it was his pride to say he could sing a song for every day in the year, and all com- mitted to memory."* From the same diligent collector we learn that the Negro Minstrel was a familiar person in the streets of Philadelphia a hundred years ago. " The boys and musical people of former days gave great countenance to negroes from the Slave States, who used to visit the town to gather pence from the street passengers. Their fine voices, assisted by their home-made guitars made from their home-grown gourds, then held the rank and place of the present street organs." This passage was written before the late revival of Negro Minstrelsy. What a debt do we owe to the jollyj amiable, irrepressible, indispensable negro! All but the tra- clition of innocent jollity would have fled the land, long ago, but for him. He is a broad grin on the face of the country. Americans who visited Europe from 1740 to 1775 generally felt that they had left a happy land, and had come to a miserable one. At home, there was little luxury, less grandeur, no magnificence ; but universal plenty and comfort, as well as general virtue and considerably difl'ased knowledge. Abroad, a few of the people had too much of every good thing, and the many could barely prolong a mean and sordid existence. What Franklin himself says on this subject is very striking: "Had I never been in the American colo- nies," he wrote in 1772, after a tour in Great Britain, "but were to form my judgment of civil society by what I have lately seen, I should never advise a nation of savages to admit of civilization ; for, I assure you, that in the possession and enjoyment of the various comforts of fife, compared Avith these people, every Indian is a gen- tleman ; and the efiect of this kind of civil society seems to be, the depressing multitudes below the savage state, that a few may be raised above it." But let no one suppose that the colonies presented a scene of Arcadian simpUcity and innocence. Politics, at least, were tainted with corruption, as they are necessarily in all times and countries. * Watson's " Annals of Philadelphia," i., 220. 216 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKXIN. [l732. As early as 1704, William Penn remarked the unman ageableness of Anaerican politicians ; men, he says, who were modest enough w^hile they were lost in the crowd of England, but in America " think nothing taller than themselves but the trees." John Adams, in one of his early essays, cautions his readers to distrust even the liberality of politicians. " When they give you one hundred pounds, lawful money, towards building a new meeting-house, and one hundred, old tenor, towards repairing one, or fifty dollars towards repairing highways, or ten dollars to the treasury towards the support of the poor of the town, or when they are very liberal of their drams of brandy and lumps of sugar, and of their punch on May meeting days : these largesses aim at something farther than your votes; these persons aim at being justices, sheriffs, judges, colonels ; and when they get to court" (^. e. the legislature), " they will be hired, and sell their votes as you sold yours to them." And there were seekers worse than these in the colonies, adds Mr. Adams; such as seek to be governors, lieutenant-governors, cus- tom-house officers, and other officers of the crown. "These seekers are actuated by a more ravenous sort of ambition and avarice."* Many passages could be quoted to show that the office-seeker, under all governments and in all times, is precisely the same crea- ture. In Mr. Tudor's life of the illustrious colonial orator and pa- triot, James Otis, there is recorded an amusing conversation that throws a gleam of light into the politics of the colonies. " They talk of sending me to the general court," said Otis to a friend. " You will never succeed in the general court," the friend remarked. "Not succeed? and why not, pray?" "Why, Mr. Otis, you have ten times the learning, and much greater abilities than I have, but you know nothing of human nature." "Indeed ! I wish you would give me some lessons." " Be patient, and I will do so with pleas- ure. In the first place, what meeting do you go to ?" " Dr. Sew- all's." "Yery well; you must stand up in sermon-time; you must look devout and deeply attentive. Do you have family pray- ers ?" "No," "It were well if you did. What does your family consist of?" " Why, only four or five commonly ; but at this time, I have in addition one of Dr. SewalPs saints, who is a nurse of my wife." " Ah ! that is the very thing. You must talk religion with * Life and Works of John Adams, ii., 165. AGED 26.] OLD PHILADELPHIA. 217 her in a very serious manner ; you must have family prayers at least once while she is in your house. That woman can do you more harm or more good than any other person ; she will spread your fame throughout the congregation. I can also tell you, by way of example, some of the steps I take. Two or three weeks, before an election comes on, I send to the cooper, and get all my casks put in order ; I say nothing about the number of hoops. I send to the mason and have some jobs done to the hearths or the chimneys. I have the carpenter to make some repairs on the roof of the wood- house. I often go down to the shipyards, about eleven o'clock, when they break off to take their drink, and enter into conversation with them. They all vote for me."* Mr. Tudor adds an anecdote of this wise person. After his elec- tion to the legislature, a long time elapsed before he again visited the shipyards. When he did so, one of the journeymen remarked that he did not come, to see them so often since the House had elected him a member of the Council. " Oh, yes," he replied ; " that is true ; but my time is so much taken up. And then, you know, it is the House of Representatives that chooses the Council." Let us not omit to add, that James Otis, who was infinitely inca- pable of these cunning tricks, was unanimously elected. In Philadelphia, if we may believe the old books, elections were as hotly contested, and, sometimes, as corruptly managed, as in England. The most aggravated instance, says Proud, occurred in 1742, when "a large number of sailors from the shipping in the River Delaware, armed with clubs, suddenly appeared in a tumul- tuous manner, and formed a riot at the place of election ; knocking down a great number of the people, magistrates, constables, and others, worthy and reputable inhabitants, who opposed them ; and by violence having cleared the ground, several of the people were carried off as dead ! This was repeatedly done upon the return of the electors ; till, at last, many of the inhabitants being enraged, took measures to force them into their ships, and near fifty of them into prison ; but they were soon discharged, for it afterwards appeared that they had been privately employed in this work by some party leaders."f These glimpses are valuable to us as showing that purity of elec- * Tudor's "Life of Otie," p. 91. t "Proud'6 History of Pennsylvania," vol. ii., p. 229. 10 218 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l733- tions is not secured by limiting the suffrage to men of property. Probably, the purest elections ever held in the world have been those of the United States, out of the two or three largest seaport towns. And even in those towns, the simple and just expedient of excluding from the polls men unable to read, would keep out the few thousand bar-room votes, by the skillful use of which a scoun- drel can, now and then, control municipal affairs. But it is time to resume our narrative. CHAPTER IV. FKANKLIN AS EDITOE. Fkanklin was an active-business-man in Philadelphia for just twenty years — from 1728 to 1748. He was printer, editor, com- piler, publisher, bookseller, bookbinder, and stationer. He made lampblack and ink ; he dealt in rags ; he sold soap and live-geese feathers. One of his advertisements of 1735, offers "very good sack at 6 shillings a gallon ;" and he frequently announces, that he has coffee for sale and other household articles. His shop was the source of news, and the favorite haunt of the inquisitive and pub- lic-spirited. If there was a scheme on foot for a course of lectures, or any project to promote the public good, the subscription-papers were to be found " at the new printing-office near the market." For the moment, we pass by his studies and his exertions for tha good of the town, in order to review his career as a man of busi- ness. Having shown how he earned his leisure. At will then be in order to tell how he employed it. The Pennsylvania Gazette throve apace. It was incomparably the best newspaper published in the colonies. At first, not more than one number in five contained an article of a literary character ; but after a few months had elapsed, every number had something of the kind — a piece from the " Spectator," an article from an Eng- lish newspaper, or an essay by Franklin, which had first been read to the Junto. Franklin's own contributions have been collected, and are well known to be among the sprigbtliest of his efforts. AGED 27.] FRAJSXLIN AS EDITOE. 219 His selections were of a liberal cast, well calculated to serve as a corrective of the colonial and sectarian spirit. The paper contained scarcely any thing of a controversial nature, and nothing ill-hu- inored. In all the colonies there was no better preacher of good M'ill and brotherly love than the Pennsylvania Gazette. Two of the more elaborate of Franklin's jokes in the Gazette., liave escaped the vigilance of editors hitherto. The Speech of Polly Baker is one of these ; which is not only humorous, but well rebukes the cruel immorality which sent a poor miserable drab to the whipping-post, and invited her seducer to dinner. This speech was a current joke in the colonial press for thirty years, and con- tinued to be occasionally reprinted after the Revolution. It was inserted in the Gazette^ Franklin telk us, to amuse the town at a time when there was little news stirring : "The Speech of Miss Polly Baker before a Court of Judicatory, in New England, where she was prosecuted for a fifth time, for having a Bastard Child ; which influenced the Court to dispense with her punishment, and which induced one of her Judges to marry her the next Day — by whom she had fifteen children. " May it please the honourable bench to indulge me in a fe\v^ words : I am a poor unhappy woman, who have no money to fee lawyers to plead for me, being hard put to it to get a living. I shall not trouble your honours with long speeches ; for I have not the presumption to expect, that you may, by any means, be pre- vailed on to deviate in your sentence from the law in my favour. All I humbly hope is, that your honours would charitably move the governor's goodness on my behalf, that my fine may be remitted. This is the fifth time, gentlemen, that I have been dragged before your court on the same account ; twice have paid heavy fines, and twice have been brought to public j^unishment, for want of money to pay those fines. This may have been agreeable to the laws, and I don't dispute it ; but since the laws are sometimes unreasonable in themselves, and therefore repealed, and others bear too hard on the subject in particular instances ; and therefore there is left a power somewhere to dispense with the execution of them ; I take the liberty to say, that I think this law, by which I am punished, both unreasonable in itself, and particularly severe with regard to me, who have always lived an inofifensive life, in the neighbour- hood where I was born, and defy my enemies (if I have any) to say 220 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN EEANKLIN. [1733. I have ever wronged any man, woman, or child. Abstracted from the law, I cannot conceive (may it please your honours) what the nature of my offence is. I liave brought five children into the Avorld, at the risque of my life ; I have maintained them well by my own industry, without burthening the township, and would have done it better, if it had not been for the heavy charges and fines I have paid. Can it be a crime (in the nature of things, I mean) to add to the King's subjects, in a new country that really wants people ? I own it, I should think it rather a praiseworthy than a punishable action. I have debauched no other woman's husband, nor enticed any youth ; these things I never was charged with ; nor has any one the least cause of complaint against me, un- less, perhaps, the ministers 6f justice, because I have had children without being married, by which they have missed a wedding fee. But can this be a fault of mine ? I appeal to your honours. You are pleased to allow I don't want sense ; but I must be stupefied to the last degree, not to prefer the honourable state of wedlock to the condition I have lived in. I always was, and still am willing, to enter into it ; and doubt not my behaving well in it, having all the industry, frugality, fertility, and skill in economy, appertaining to a good wife's character. I defy any one to say I ever refused an offer of that sort; on the contrary, I readily consented to the only proposal of marriage that ever was made me, which was when I was a virgin, but too easily confiding in the person's sincerity that made it, I unhappily lost my own honour by trusting to his ; for he got me with child, and then forsook me. " That very person, you all know, he is now become a magistrate of this country ; and I had hopes he would have appeared this day on the bench, and have endeavoured to moderate the Court in my favour ; then I should have scorned to have mentioned it ; but I must now complain of it, as unjust and unequal, that my betrayer and undoer, the first cause of all my faults and miscarriages (if they must be deem- ed such), should be advanced to honor and power in the government that punishes my misfortunes with stripes and infamy. I should be told, 'tis like, that were there no act of assembly in the case, the pre- cepts of religion are violated by my transgressions. If mine is a reli- gious transgression, leave it to religious punishments. You have already excluded me from the comforts of your church communion. Is not that sufiicient? What need is there then, of your additional AGED 27.] FRANKLIN AS EDITOR. 221 fines and whipping ? You believe I have oflended heaven, and must suffer eternal fire ; will not that be sufficient ? I own I do not think as you do, for, if I thought what you call a sin was really such, I could not presumptuously commit it. But how can it be believed that Heaven is angry at my having children, when to the little done by me to- wards it, God has been pleased to add his divine skill and admirable workmanship in the formation of their bodies, and crowned the whole by furnishing them with rational and immortal souls ? For- give me, gentlemen, if I talk a little extravagantly on these matters : I am no divine, but if you, gentlemen, must be making laws, do not turn natural and useful actions into crimes by your prohibitions. But take into your wise consideration the great and growing num- ber of bachelors in the country, many of whom, from the mean fear of the expenses of a family, have never sincerely and honourably courted a woman in their lives ; and by their manner of living leave unproduced (which is little better than murder) hundreds of their posterity to the thousandth generation. Is not this a greater offence against the public good than mine ? Compel them then, by law, either to marriage, or to pay double the fine of fornication every year. What must poor young women do, whom customs and nature forbid to solicit the men, and who cannot force themselves upon husbands, when the laws take no care to provide them any ; and yet severely punish them if they do their duty without them ; the duty of the first and great command of nature and of nature's God, increase and multiply; a duty, from the steady performance of which nothing has been able to deter me, but for its sake I have hazarded the loss of the public esteem, and have frequently endured public disgrace and punishment ; and therefore ought, in my hum- ble opinion, instead of a whipping, to have a statue erected to my memory." Another of his jocular efforts was an expansion of the catalogue of slang words signifying intoxicated^ which had appeared in the New England Courant. By this time, he had read Rabelais ; as we see from the extensive borrowing from that author in Poor Richard. Rabelais gives a dozen or more of these elaborate lists of slang words, frequently arranging them in alphabetical order. From Rabelais, doubtless, he obtained the hint of the following curious catalogue : 222 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1733. THE DRINKER'S DICTIONARY. He is addled. He's casting up his accounts. afflicted. in his airs. B. He's Biggy. Bewitched. Block and Block. Boozy. Bowz'd. Been at Barbadoes. Drunk as a Wheelbarrow. Burdock' d. Busky. Buzzey. Has stole a Manchet out of the Brewer's Basket. His head is full of Bees. Has been in the Bibbing Plot. drank more than he has bled. He's Bungey. As drunk as a Beggar. He sees the Bears. He's kiss'd Black Betty. had a thump over the head with Sampson's Jawbone. Bridgey. C. He 's Cat. Cagrin'd. Capable. Cramp' d. He's Cherubimical. Cherry Merry. Wamble Crop'd. Crack'd. Concern'd. Half way to Concord. Has taken a Chirriping-Glass. Got Corns in his head. A Cup too much. Coguy. Copey. He's heat his Copper. Crocus. Catch'd. He cuts his Capers. He's been in the Cellar. in his Cups. Non Compos- Cock'd. Curv'd. Cut. Chipper. Chickery. Loaded his Cart. Been too free with the Creature. Sir Richard has taken off his Considering Cap. He's Chap-fallen. I>. He's Disguiz'd. Got a Dish. Killed his Dog. Took his Drops. AGED 27.] FRANKLIN AS EDITOR. 223 It is a Dark Day with him. He's a Dead Man. Has Dipp'd his Bill. He's DaggM. seen the Devil. He's Prince Eugene. Enter'd. Wet both Eyes. Cock Ey'd. Got the Pole Evil. Got a brass Eye. Made an Example. Eat a Load & a half for breakfast. In his Element. He's Fishey. Fox'd. Fuddled. Sore Footed. Frozen. Well in for't. Owes no man a Farthing. Fears no Man. Crump Footed. Been to France. Flush'd. Froze his Mouth. Fetter'd. Been to a Funeral. His Flag is out. He's Fuzl'd. Spoke with his friend. Been at an Indian Feast. He's Glad. He's Groatable. Gold-headed. Glaiz'd. Generous. Booz'd the Gage. As Dizzy as a Goose. Been before George, Got the Gout. Had a Kick in the Guts. Been with Sir John Goa, Been at Geneva. Globular. Got the Glanders. H. He's Half and Half. Hardy. Top Heavy. Got by the Head. Hiddey. Got on his little Hat. Hammerish. Loose in the Hilts. Knows not the way Home. Got the Hornson. Haunted with Evil Spirits. Has taken Hippocrates' Grand Elixir. I. He's Intoxicated. Jolly. Jagg'd. Jambl'd. Going to Jerusalem. Jocular. Been to Jerico. Juicy. K. He's a King. 224 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1Y33. Clips the King's English. Seen the French King. The King is his Cousin. Got Kib'd Heels. Knapt. Het his Kettle. He's in Liquor. Lordly. He makes Indentures with his Leggs. Well to Live. Light. Lappy. Limber. M. He sees two Moons, Merry. Middling. Moon-eyed. Muddled. Seen a Flock of Moons. Maudlin. Mountous. Muddy. Rais'd his Monuments. Mellow. He's Eat the Cocoa Nut. Nimptopsical. Got the Night Mare. O. He's Oil'd Eat Opium. Smelt of an Onion. Oxycrocium. He's Overset. F. He drank till he gave up his Half Penny. Pidgeon Ey'd. Pungey. Priddy. As good conditioned as a Puppy. Has Scalt his Head Pan. Been among the Philistines. In his Prosperity. He's been among the Philippi- ans. contending with Pharaoh. Wasted his Paunch. Polite. Eat a Pudding Bag. He's Quarrelsome. R. He's Rocky. Raddled. Rich. Religious. Lost his Rudder. Ragged. Rais'd. Been too free with Sir Richard. Like a Rat in Trouble. S. He's Stitch'd. Seafaring. In the Sudds. Strong. Been in the Sun, AGED 27.] FRANKLIN AS EDITOR. 225 He's as Drunk as David's Sow. T. Swampt. His Skin is full. He's Top'd. Tongue-ty'd. He's Steady. He's Stiff. He's burnt his Shoulder. Tann'd. Tipium Grove. Double Tongu'd. He's got his Top Gallant Sails out. Seen the yellow Star. Topsy-Turvey. Tipsey. He's swallowed a Tavern Token As Stiff as a Ringbolt. Half Seas over. He's Thaw'd. He's in a Trance. His Shoe pinches him. He's Trammel'd. Stagger ish. It is Star-light with him. He carries too much Sail. Stew'd. Stubb'd. V. He makes Virginia Fence. Valiant. Got the Indian Vapours. Soak'd. W. Soft. The Malt is above the Water. Been too free with Sir John He's Wise. Strawberry. He's right before the wind with He's Wet. He's been to the Salt Water. all his Studding Sails He's Water Soaken. out. Has sold his Senses. He's very Weary. Out of the'Way. It needs but a slight acquaintance with the habits of the time to know that this dictionary must have been keenly relished by the Philadelphians, with all their sobriety of demeanor. Franklin was ingenious, also, in writing short communications for his paper, cal- culated to call forth amusing answers, and to make the public eager to see the next number. It is evident that he frequently wrote, not only the provocative communication, but also most of the replies supposed to have been called forth by it — sometimes all of them. Few numbers of the Gazette appeared, in which there was not some little innocent mystery or joke, designed to render the paper a topic of table-talk. I think we must admit, also, that it was Franklin who originated the modern system of business-advertising. It is certain that he 10* 226 lilFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FBANKUN. [l733. "was the first man who used this mighty engine of publicity, as we now use it. The advertisements in the papers, before his time, were few and brief, consisting almost exclusively of notices of run- away servants, and sales of houses, lands, and cargoes. Franklin advertised his wares profusely, skillfully, and constantly. Some of his advertisements give the titles of seventy publications ; others, the entire stock in trade of a stationer ; and, besides these, he kept always ready advertisements of one or two lines, which served the double purpose of filling out a short column and of keeping the public in mind that B. Franklin had constantly on hand a very good article of lamp black, or that he paid ready money for old rags.* He also invented the plan of distinguishing advertisements by means of little pictures, which he cut with his own hands. His own example was soon followed by other tradesmen, and the adver- tising business of the Gazette increased with astonishing rapidity, until it amounted to four or five pages a week, a quantity unprece- dented in the colonies, and, probably, in the old country. The Pennsylvania Gazette flourished exceedingly. In the Phila- delphia City Library, a complete file of it is preserved in excellent condition, wherein can be discerned the whole business career of Franklin, and the gradual growth of the commerce of Philadelphia. It is by far the most valuable and interesting collection of the kind in the country. * Frankltn advertised every thing. The following are three of his advertisements: "Taken out of a pew in the Church, some months since, a Common Prayer Book, bound in red, gilt, and lettered D. F. [Deborah Franklin], on each cover. The person who took it is desired to open it, and read the Eighth Commandment, and afterwards return it into the same pew again ; upon which no further notice will be taken." " Lent at different times (and forgot to whom), the following Books, viz. : Whiston's Astro- nomical Principles of Religion ; Croxairs Esop; Watts's Lyric Poems, sacred to Piety, Virtue, and Friendship; SteeFs Dramatick Works; Discourse of Free-Thinking: The Persons that bor- rowed them are desired to return them to the Printer of this Paper. " He has in his Hands the 2d vol. of Cowley's Works, in Octavo, of which he does not know the Owner." "Stolen or stray'd on the 5th Instant at Night, out oi Benjamin Fra^iklin's Pasture near Philadelphia City, a likely young Sorrel Horse, about 14 Hands high, with Silver Mane and Tail, four white feet, a blaze in his Face, no Brand, a large Belly, and is in good case. Paces well, but Trots sometimes, very small ears, and is shod all round- Also a small bay Horse, without shoes, low in Flesh, long dark Tail and Mane. Whoever brings them to the subscriber, shall have Forty Shil- linga Reward for the first, and Ten Shillings for the other. If stolen, and the Thief detected, go that he may be brought to Justice, Five Pounds, Avith reasonable Charges, paid by "B. Franklin." AGED 27.] POOR EICHAKD AI^D OTHEK PUBLICATIONS. 227 CHAPTER Y. POOR KICHARD, AND OTHEE PUBLICATIONS. Every printer in the colonies appears to have published an almanac. In December, 1732, Franklin gave the Pennsylvanians the first number of that most renowned of all almanacs. Poor Richard^ price five pence. It was a rare success. Three editions were sold in a month. The average sale for twenty-five years was ten tliousand copies a year. And now, after the lapse of a hundred and thirty years, we find persons willing to give twenty dollars for a single number, and several hundreds of dollars for a complete set. Nay, the reading matter of several of the numbers has been repub- lished within these few years, and that republication already begins to command the price of a rarity. Most of the colonial writers, after 1733, quote Poor Richard^ all of whose choice utterances were re- printed over and over again, in the colonial press, from Boston to Charleston. Mrs. John Adams quotes him in one of her admirable letters of 1777. " That saying of Poor Richard," she says, "often occurs to my mind : ' God helps them who help themselves.' " Poor Richard was the comic almanac of its day. Many serious maxims appear in it, but the comic element is the prevailing one. The reason why Poor Richard's economical maxims (an insignifi- cant portion of its contents) acquired such celebrity, can be easily explained. In 1757, the taxes caused by the French war pressing heavily upon the colonists, Franklin wrote a long article for the preface of his almanac, the object of which was to show that the taxes could easily be paid, if the people would only be a little less extravagant. Beginning with the remark, that nothing pleases an author more than to hear himself quoted, Poor Richard thus pro- ceeds : " I stopped my horse lately where a great number of people were collected at an auction of merchants' goods. The hour of the sale not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the limes ; and one of the company called to a plain, clean old man, with white locks, ' Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the times ? Will not these heavy taxes quite ruin the country ? How shall we ever be able to pay them? What would you advise us to do?' / 228 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAJIIN FRANKLIN. [1733. Father Abraham stood up and replied, ' If you would have my ad- vice, I will give it you in short ; for A word to the wise is enough, as Poor Richard says.' They joined in desiring him to speak his mind ; and, gathering round him, he proceeded as follows." The old man then goes on to quote, one after another, with con- necting remarks, all the prudential and economical maxims that Poor Richard had published in twenty-five years. The " clean old man" harangued the crowd at great length, and displayed much ingenuity in stringing the quaint proverbs smoothly together. " The people heard it," says Poor Richard, " and approved the doctrine ; and im- mediately practiced the contrary, just as if it had been a common sermon ; for the auction opened, and they began to buy extrava- gantly." This amusing preface made a brilliant hit. Besides being imme- diately copied into all the colonial newspapers, it was reprinted in England on a large sheet, designed to be hung up in cottages. It was translated into Spanish, mto modern Greek, and three times into French, since it was well adapted to reconcile the unhappy people of Europe to the withering taxation to which they were sub- jected in the last century. But the worst eifect of the piece has been to perpetuate the opinion, that the large and liberal Franklin was a mere devotee of penny-saving prudence. I^oor Richard, I repeat, was a comic almanac. The advertise- ments which announced its publication were comic ; most of the prefaces were comic ; the accounts of the eclipses and other natural phenomena were generally comic ; the greater part of the verses and proverbs were comic ; and those which were not comic, were uaint. Some of the best fun Franklin ever wrote, occurs in the prefaces to Poor Richard. Year after year, they play upon Titan Leeds, in whose name, a rival almanac, once published by Keimer, an- nually appeared. Mr. Richard Saunders (Poor Richard) begins his first preface, by avowing that his motive in publishing an almanac is not at all a disinterested one. " The plain truth of the matter is," said Richard, " I am excessive poor, and my wife, good woman, is, I tell her, excessive proud ; she cannot bear, she says, to sit spin- ning in her shift of tow, while I do nothing but gaze at the stars ; and has threatned more than once to burn all my books and rat- tling-traps, (as she calls my instruments,) if I do not make some AGED 27.] TOOK RICHARD AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS. 229 profitable use of them for the good of my family. The printer has offer'd me some considerable share of the profits, and I have thus began to comply with my dame's desire." Long ago, he continues, he would have given the world an almanac, but for the fear of injuring his friend and fellow-student. Titan Leeds. " But this ob- stacle (I am far from speaking it with pleasure) is soon to be re- moved, since inexorable death, who was never known to respect merit, has already prepared the mortal dart, the fatal sister has al- ready extended her destroying shears, and that ingenious man must soon be taken from us. He dies, by my calculation, made at his re- quest, on October 17, 1733, 3 ho., 29 ra., P. M., at the very instant of the 6 of O and ^ . By his own calculation, he will survive till the 26th of the same month. This small difference between us, we have disputed whenever we have met these nine years past ; but at length he is inclined to agree with my judgment. Which of us is most exact, a little time will now determine. As, therefore, these Provhices may not longer expect to see any of his performances after this year, I think myself free to take up the task." The next year, he joyfully acknowledged the success of his almanac, through which his wife had been able to buy a pot of her own, instead of being obliged to borrow one; and they had got something to put into it. " She has also got a pair of shoes, two now shifts, and a new warm petticoat; and for my part I have bought a second-hand coat, so good that I am not now ashamed to go to town or be seen there. These things have rendered her tem- per so much more pacifick than it us'd to be, that I may say, I have slept more, and more quietly, within this last year, than in the three foregoing years put together." Returning to Titan Leeds, he says he cannot positively say whether he is dead or alive, since he was unable to be present at the closing scene. " The stars," he observes, " only show to the skilful what will happen in the natural and uni- versal chain of causes and effects; but 'tis well known, that the events which would otherwise certainly happen, at certain times, in the course of nature, are sometimes set aside or postpon'd, for wise and good reasons, by the immediate particular dispositions of Provi- dence ; which particular dispositions the stars can by no means dis- cover or foreshow. There is, however (and I cannot speak it with- out sorrow), there is the strongest probability that my dear friend is no more ; for there appears in his name, as I am assured, an 230 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l733. Almanack for tlie year 1734, in which I am treated in a very gross and unhandsome manner ; in which I am called a false predicter, an ignorant, a conceited scribbler, a fool, and a lyar. Mr. Leeds was too well bred to use any man so indecently and so scurrilously, and moreover, his esteem and aifection for me was extraordinary : so that it is to be feared that pamphlet may be only a contrivance of somebody or other, who hopes, perhaps, to sell two or three years' Almanacks still, by the sole force and virtue of Mr. Leeds's name." In next year's preface, the fooling is still more exquisite : " Hav- ing received much abuse from Titan Leeds deceased (Titan Leeds, when living, would not have used rae so:) I say, having received' much abuse from the ghost of Titan Leeds, who pretends to be- still living, and to write almanacks in spight of me and my predictions, 1' cannot help saying, that tho' I take it patiently, I take it very un^ kindly. And whatever he may pretend, 'tis undoubtedly true that he is really defunct and dead. First, because the stars are seldom- disappointed ; never but in the case of wise men, sapiens domma- hitur astris, and they foreshowed his death at the time I predicted it. Secondly, 'twas requisite and necessary he should die punc- tually at that time for the honor of astrology, the art professed both by him and his father before him. Thirdly, 'tis plain to every one that reads his two last almanacks (for 1734 and '35) that they are not written with that life his performances used to be written with : the wit is low and flat ; the little hints dull and spiritless ; nothing smart in them but Hudibras's verses against astrology at the heads of the months in the last, which no astrologer but a dead one would have inserted, and no man living would or could write such stuff as the rest." Titan Leeds retorted by saying that there was not, and never had been, such a person as Richard Saunders ; to which, next year, Franklin humorously replied. One preface purported to be writ- ten by Bridget Saunders, the wife of Poor Richard, and another contained a long letter from the departed spirit of Titan Leeds, as- suring his old friend that he did die at the time predicted by him. V The ninth preface descants upon the rivals, Poor Will and Poor Robin, which the success of Poor Richard had called into being, and ridicules the rage of his enemies ; but all in the most perfect good humor. " My last adversary," said Poor Richard, " is J. J- n^ A.GED 27.] POOK RICHAKD AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS. 231 Philomat.^ who declares and protests {in his preface, 7141), that the false prophecy put in my Almanac, concern big him^ the year before^ is altogether M^Q and untrue, aoid that I am one of BaaVs false prophets. This false, false prophecy he speaks of, related to his reconciliation with the church of Rome ; which, notwithstanding his declaring and protesting, is, I fear, too true. Two things in his elegiac verses confirm me in this suspicion. He calls the first of ISTovember All-Hallows Day. Reader, does not this smell of Popery? Does it in the least savour of the pure language of Friends ? But the plainest thing is his adoration of saints, which he confesses to be his practice, in these words, p. 4, " When any trouble did me befall, To my dear Mary then I would call." Did he think the whole world were so stupid as not to take notice of this ? So ignorant as not to know, that all Catholics pay the highest regard to the Virgin Mary f Ah, friend John., we must allow you to be a poet, but you are certainly no Protestant. I could heartily wish your religion were as good as your verses." From the numbers of Poor Richard that are accessible, I select, as specimens of its proverbial philosophy, the following : " Love well, whip well." " The proof of gold is fire ; the proof of a woman, gold ; the proof of man, a woman." " There is no little enemy." '' A new truth is a truth ; an old error is an error." Drink water ; put the money in your pocket, and leave the dry belly-ache in the punch-bowl." "Necessity never made a good bargain." " Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." " Deny self for self's sake." *' Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee." " Opportunity is the great bawd." '* Here comes the orator with his flood of words, and his drop of reason." " Sal laughs at every thing you say ; why ? because she has fine teeth." " An old young man will be a young old man." '^ He is no clown that drives the plough, but he that does clownish things." " Fore- warned, forearmed." "Fish and visitors smell in three days." " Diligence is the mother of good luck." " Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it," " Let thy maid- servant be faithful, strong, and homely." " He that can have patience can have what he will." "Don't throw stones at your neighbors, if your own windows are glass." " Good wives and good plantations are made 282 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1733. by good husbands." " God heals, the doctor takes the fee." " The noblest question in the world is, what good may I do in it ?" " There are three faithful friends, an old wife, an old dog, and ready money." "Who has deceived thee so oft as thyself?" "Fly pleasures and they'll follow you." " Hast thou virtue ? acquire also the graces and beauties of virtue." " He that would have a short lent, let him borrow money to be repaid at Easter." " Keep your eyes wide open before marriage; half shut afterwards." "As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence." " Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices." " Grace thou thy house, and let not that grace thee." " Let thy child's first lesson be obedience, and the second will be what thou wilt." "Let thy discontents be thy secrets." " Industry need not wish." " Happy that nation, fortunate that age, whose history is not diverting." "To bear other people's afflictions, every one has courage enough and to spare." " There are lazy minds as well as lazy bodies." " Ti'icks and treachery are the practice of fools, that have not wit enough to be honest." " Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, no example sway thee, no persua- sion move thee, to do any thing which thou knowest to be evil ; so shalt thou always live jollily, for a good conscience is a continual Christmas." These wise saws, selected from a dozen numbers of Poor Mich- ard^ give, I think, a fair idea of the general spirit of this part of their contents. A few of the maxims are taken from Lord Bacon's essays, some from Rochefoucauld, and many from other writers, but upon most, Franklin put his stamp before inserting them. A large part of the contents of Poor Richard is rhyme, and rhyme of very poor quality. The following specimens are much above the average : Altho' thy teacher act not as he preaches. Yet ne'ertheless, if good, do what he teaches ; Good counsel, failing men may give, for why ? He that's aground knows where the shoal doth lie. My old friend Berryman oft, when alive. Taught others thrift, himself could never thrive . Thus like the whetstone, many men are wont To sharpen others while themselves are blunt. AGED 27.] POOR RICHARD AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS. 233 Syl. dreamt that bury'd in his fellow clay, Close by a common beggar's side he lay : And, as so mean a neighbom* shock'd his pride, Thus, like a corpse of consequence, he cry'd ; Scoundrel, begone ; and henceforth touch me not : More manners learn ; and, at a distance, rot. How ! scoundrel ! in a haughtier tone cry'd he ; Proud lump of dirt, I scorn thy words and thee : Here all are equal ; now thy case is mine ; This is my rotting place, and that is thine. When Robin now three days had married been, And all his friends and neighbours gave him joy, This question of his wife he asked then, Why till her marriage day she proved so coy ? Indeed said he, 'twas well thou didst not yield. For doubtless then my purpose was to leave thee : O, sir, I once before was so beguil'd. And was resolved the next should not deceive me. POETRY FOR DECEMBER, 1733. She that will eat her breakfast in her bed, And spend the morn in dressing of her head. And sit at dinner hke a maiden bride. And talk of nothing all day but of pride ; God in his mercy may do much to save her, But what a case is he in that shall have her. POETRY FOR DECEMBER, 1734. By Mrs. Bridget Saunders, my Dutchess, in answer to the December verses of last year. He that for the sake of drink neglects his trade, And spends each night in taverns till 'tis late. And rises when the sun is four hours high, And ne'er regards his starving family, God in his mercy may do much to save him, But, woe to the poor wife, whose lot it is to have him. The astronomical notices of Poor Richard have in them a strong spice of the comic, and he has many paragraphs in ridicule of the 234 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l733. predictions which the almanac-makers of that day were accustomed to insert. Readers of Rabelais will perceive that several of the sentences in the following paragraph are taken entire from the con> mon translation of that humorist : * " During the first visible ecUpse Saturn is retrograde : For whioH reason the crabs will go sidelong, and the ropemakers backwar4. Mercury will have his share in these affairs, and so confound the speech of the people, that when a Pennsylvanian would say pan* THEE he shall say painter. — When a New Yorker thinks to say this he shall say diss, and the people in New England and Cape May wiU not be able to say cow for their lives, but will be forc'd to say KEOW by a certain involuntary twist in the root of their tongues. No Connecticut man^ nor Marylander will be able to open his mouth this year, but sir shall be the first or last syllable he pro- nounces, and sometimes both. — Brutes shall speak in many places, and there will be above seven and twenty irregular verbs made this year, if Grammar don't interpose. — Who can help these misfor- tunes ? This year the stone-blind shall see but very little ; the deaf shall hear but poorly ; and the dumb shan't speak very plain. And it's much, if my Dame Bridget talks at all this year. Whole flocks, herds, and droves of sheep, swine and oxen, cocks and hens, ducks and drakes, geese and ganders shall go to pot ; but the mortality will not be altogether so great among cats, dogs and horses. As to old age 'twill be incurable this year, because of the years past. And towards the fiiU some people will be seiz'd with an unaccount- able inclination to roast and eat their own ears : Should this be call'd madness, Doctors ? I think not. But the worst disease of all will be a certain most horrid, dreadful, malignant, catching, perverse and odious malady, almost epidemical, insomuch that many shall run mad upon it ; I quake for very fear when I think on't ; for I assure you very few will escape this disease; which is called by the learned Albromazar Lackd'Tnony!''' Poor Pichard^ at this day, would be reckoned an indecent pro- duction. All great humorists were more or less indecent before Charles Dickens ; ^. 6., they used certain words which are now never pronounced by polite persons, and are never printed by re- spectable printers; and they referred freely to certain subjects which are familiar to every living creature, but which, it is now * See Bohn's edition of Rabelais, ii., 545. AGED 27.] POOR RICHAKD AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS. 235 agreed among civilized beings, shall not be topics of conversation. In this respect, Poor Richard was no worse, and not much better, than other colonial periodicals, some of which contained things incredibly obscene ; as much so as the broadest passages of Sterne, Smollett, Fielding, and Defoe. It has been remarked and by several authors, that the present de- cency of humorous and all popular literature is owing to the admis- sion of women to the circle of readers. This does not appear to be the true explanation. It would be easy to show that when men are indecorous, w^omen are rather more so ; and that the writings and conversation of women in the age of Lady Mary Wortley Mon- tague and the Countess Temple were quite as gross as those of the other sex. In all times and countries the sexes are morally equal ; they improve and retrograde together. Hannah More tells us, that when she was a girl, books were read aloud in the family circle without exciting the slightest remark for their grossness, which, when she was an old woman, would not be allowed to be brought into any respectable house in England. Popular literature is purer ""^^^ than it was, I suppose, because the men and women that read it j are purer than their forefathers, who saw nothing objectionable in / Tom Jones, Humphrey Chnker, and Moll Flanders. .,--^ The great sale of the first number of Poor Richard placed at command of the printer thereof a little superfluous capital, which he invested wisely. One of his journeymen he sent to Charleston, where there was no printer, and furnished him with a press and type, on condition of receiving one-third of the profits of the busi- ness. The scheme succeeded, and he afterwards promoted many of his best workmen in the same manner. " Most of them," he re- marks, " did well, being enabled at the end of our term (six years), to purchase the types of me, and go on working for themselves, by which means several families were raised. Partnerships often finish in quarrels ; but I was happy in this, that mine were all carried on and ended amicably ; owing, I think, a good deal to the precaution of having very exj^licitly settled in our articles every thing to be done by, or expected from, each partner, so that there was nothing to dispute, which precaution I would therefore recommend to all who enter into partnership." Poor Richard, too, enabled him, in this year, 1733, to revisit his native Boston, after an absence of nearly ten years. To the end of SJ86 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FBANKLIN. [l733. his life he visited Boston every ten years, except when prevented by war, absence from the country, or disease. He left it first in 1723, returned in 1724; went again in 1733, in 1743, 1753, and 1763.* On his return from Boston, he stopped at Newport, where lived his brother James, from whom he had parted on ill terms. All past differences were forgotten, and they passed some time to- gether with the utmost cordiality. James Franklin, who was in declining health, asked his brother to take home with him to Philar delphia, and bring up to the printing business his son, then ten years of age, in case the boy should be left fatherless. Franklin promised to do so, and kept his promise. He sent the boy to school, taught him his trade, and sent him home to his mother, who had carried on the business at Newport after her husband's death, with a new assortment of type. " Thus it was that I made my brother ample amends," says Franklin. In Thomas's " History of Printing," we have a pleasing notice of Mrs. James Franklin, of Newport, and her diligent daughters. "She was aided," says Mr. Thomas, "by her two daughters, and afterwards by her son, when he attained competent age. Her daughters were quick and correct composi- tors at case ; they were instructed by their father, whom they as- sisted. A gentleman, who was acquainted with Anne Franklin and her family, informed me that he had often seen her daughters at work in the printing-house, and that they were sensible and amia- ble women."f It thus appears that the employment of women as compositors is not a recent idea. Returning to Philadelphia, Franklin prosecuted his affairs with renewed energy. He began to import books from England, occa- sionally published a small work on his own account, and became the favorite printer for the clergy. One who looks over the book advertisements in the colonial newspapers, is astonished to observe what a large proportion of the publications were religious — not less than nine-tenths, I think. Nearly every book that Franklin ever printed was religious. Noth- ing stayed the torrent of sectarian tracts but the old French war, and the agitation that resulted from the stamp-act. In 1729, which we may consider their first year, Franklin and Meredith printed, besides the pamphlet on Paper Money, one work * Franklin to Samuel Mather, 1T84. Sparks, vol. x., p. 84. t Thomas's History of Printing, i., p. 420. AGED 27.] POOR KICHAED AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS. 237 only, entitled " A Short Discourse, proving that the Jewish or Seventh Day Sabbath is abrogated or repealed. By John Mere- dith — sixpence." In 1730, they printed "The Spirit's Teaching Man's Sure Guide;" a short tract. In 1731, Franklin printed " Some Considerations relating to the Present State of the Christian Religion." In 1732, "The Minister of Christ and his Flock;" a sermon. In 1733, " The Temporal Interest of North America, by a Lover of his Country." In 1734, "The Indian Tale Interpreted jind told in English Verse" — sixpence ; the " Constitutions of the Free Masons;" a reprint — 2s. 6d. stitched, 4s. bound;" "The Gen- tlemen's Pocket Farrier"* — Is. ; " Every Man his Own Doctor, or the Poor Planter's Physician."f When Franklin had been in business ten or twelve years, both the number and the importance of his publications increased. In 1739, he printed only "The Art of Preaching, in Imitation of Horace ;" " Art of Painting — sixpence ;" " A Poem on the History of Joseph — price Is." But in 1740, his list is much longer : "Whit- iield's Sermons and Journals — two volumes ;" " A Letter from Rev. Mr. Whitfield to the Religious Societies lately formed in England and Wales ;" " A Letter from the Rev. Mr. Whitfield to a friend in London, showing the fundamental errors of the book entitled, " The Whole Duty of Man ;" " The Danger of an Unconverted Min- istry Considered by Gilbert Tennent — sixpence ;" " Sir Matthew Hale's Sum of Religion ;" " The Character, Preaching, etc., of the Rev. George Whitfield, impartially represented and supported in a Sermon preached at Charleston, S. C. — fourpence ;" " A new and complete Guide to the English Tongue. Collected by an ingenious hand, for the use of Schools — two shillings ;" " A Continuation of Whitfield's Journal after his arrival at Georgia, and his return thither from Pennsylvania." In 1741, Franklin printed the following works : " Free Grace, a ♦ "Just published, and sold by the Printer, "The Qentleman's Pocket Farrier, shewing how to use your Horse on a Journey, and what Remedies are proper for common misfortunes that may beftil him on the road. By Captain William Burdon. London Printed — Reprinted by B. Frank- lin in Philadelphia, 1735. (Price stitcht, Is.) "N. B. This little Book was so esteemed by the Gentlemen of the Army, in England, that it Boon sold for half a Guinea and a Guinea, altho' its original price was but half a Crown." t -'Just Published, Every man his own Doctor: or the Poor Planter's Physician. Prescribing plain and easy means for Per.sous to cure themselves of all, or most of the Distempers incident to this Climate, and with very little Charge, the Medicines being chiefly of the Growth and Pro- duction of this Country. Sold by the Printer hereof, pr. Is. with Allowance to those who take a Quantity to sell, or give away in charity." 238 LIFE ANI) TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1733. Sermon by Rev. John Wesley — sixpence ;" " Free Orace Indeed I A Letter to Rev. John Wesley — sixpence ;" *' Free Grace in Truth. By Rev. John Dylander, minister of the Swedish church — three- pence ;" "A Particular Consideration of a piece entitled, 'The Querists ;' " " A Short Reply to Rev. Mr. Whitfield's Letter, which he wrote in answer to ' The Querists' — eightpence ;" " A Sermon on Justification. By the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, A. M. — sixpence ;" " Daily Conversation with God, exemplified in the Holy Life of Ar- melle Nicholas : done out of the French — threepence ;" " Poems on Several Occasions, by Aquila Rose, collected by his son, Joseph Rose ;" " The Psalms of David imitated, by Isaac Watts." Reprint- ed by Franklin — 3s. ; " Mr, Whitfield's Journal, from his leaving Stanford, K E., to his arrival at Falmouth, Eng., March 11, 1741 — eightpence." In 1741, Franklin started a Monthly Magazine, one of the very few of his enterprises that did not succeed. It stopped at the sixth number. In 1744, he had the pleasure of publishing a translation of Cicero's Essay upon Old Age, by his valued friend and patron, James Logan, which was reprinted three times in Great Britain, and highly praised by English critics. In the same year he re- printed that beloved novel of the last century, " Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded," a six-shilling book. " Bolingbroke's Idea of a Patriot King" was another of his reprints, an amazingly popular tract in its day. Nevertheless, as long as he remained in business, the vast majority of his publications were ephemeral pamphlets on points of doctrine, books of devotion, and sermons preached on special oc- casions by favorite clergymen. He imported from England, how- ever, every important work that appeared, even the most expensive. In the course of time, he established a German printing-ofiice. Many of the smaller publications of that day were published in both languages, and were advertised in both. There were then exten- sive districts in Pennsylvania where the German was the only language spoken. That Franklin had grown in the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens, is shown by many trifling incidents of this part of his life. He was one of those men who are often selected as arbi- trators, and whose advice is asked. " Friend Franklin," said a noted Quaker lawyer of Philadelphia, " thou knowest everything. Canst thou tell me how I am to preserve my small beer in the back AGED 27.J POOK lilCHAED AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS. 239 yard? My neighbors, I find, are tapping it for me." Franklin's reply was : " Put a barrel of old Maderia by the side of it." A man who frequently makes replies of that kind, need not have Franklin's merit to be admired in a country town. Nevertheless, in 1736, when he had been several years in busi- ness, and had given proof upon proof that he had the best head in Pennsylvania, he was thought worthy to serve the public in no higher capacity than clerk to the General Assembly, the legislature ®f the colony, an office of little emolument and no great honor. The place, however, was advantageous to him, as it secured to him the public printing. The first year, he tells us, he was elected unanimously, but the second, his election was opposed by an influ- ential member who had another candidate in view. Franklin, nevertheless, was chosen. " I did not like," says Franklin, " the opposition of this new member, who was a gentleman of fortune and education, with tal- ents that were likely to give him, in time, great influence in the house, which, indeed, afterward happened. I did not, however, aim at gaining his favour by paying any servile respect to him, but after some time took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and re- questing that he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately ; and I returned it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favour. When we next met in the house, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility ; and he ever after mani- fested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, ' He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged.'* And it shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to resent, return, and continue inimical proceedings." This is one of the few passages in the writings of Franklin which justly stirs the repugnance of an ingenuous reader. In this single case, Frankhn's method may have been justifiable, for his opponent may have been a very great fool, not to be won fairly, but to be easily won by a harmless trick. Yet we must say of all that class j 240 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1736. of maneuvers, and of all actions, the real motive of which is diiferent from the apparent one, that way lies perdition ! This incident does not reveal the genuine Franklin, — the Franklin who " grew convinced that truth, sincerity^ and integrity, in dealings between man and man, were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life." But, perhaps, I make too much of this small aifair. Franklin held the post of clerk to the Assembly for more than fourteen years. The year after his first election, he was appointed postmaster of Philadelphia, an office that was valuable to him only as affording better facilities for procuring news and distributing his Gazette. These two offices gave him advantages over all other printers and editors. Thenceforward, he had nothing to do but hold on the even tenor of his way, and wisely use what he easily gained. We turn now to his inner life during these busy years, a topic far more interesting. CHAPTER VI. SELF-EDUCATION CONTINUED. Fbanklin read the books of the new library assiduously. " In times of old," wrote Coleridge, " books were as religious oracles ; as literature advanced, they next became venerable preceptors ; they then descended to the rank of instructive friends ; and, as their numbers increased, they sunk still lower, to that of entertaining companions ; " which is but another way of saying that books have, in part, accomplished their purpose of raising the standard of general intelligence. Books have not " sunk" to the rank of entertaining companions, but the public has risen to the hight of companionship with its instructors. When Franklin read the first books imported for the Philadelphia Library, books had not attained the rank last named, if they had even that of instructive friends. Science, His- tory, Travels and Voyages, all in folio or quarto, weighty works in every sense, constituted the bulk of the books imported for the library during the first twenty years of its existence. To this hour, the mass of the books in this library b^'long to the class of instruc- tive friends. AGED 30.] SELF-EDUCATION CONTINUED. 241 Our young printer appears to have tackled the historical works first ; for we have an early paper of his, entitled " Observations on my reading history in the Library." Some of these observations are such as might have been expected from a philosophic diplo- matist of fifty years' standing in European courts, not from a young printer in a young colony. They were to the following effect : " That the great affairs of the world, the wars, revolutions, &c., are carried on and effected by parties. Tliat the view of these parties is their general present interest ; or what they take to be such. That the different views of these different parties occasion all confusion. That while a party is carrying on a general design, each man has his particular private interest in view. That, as soon as a party has gained its general point, each member becomes intent upon his particular interest, which, thwarting others, breaks that party into divisions, and occasions more confusion. That few in public affairs act from a mere view of the good of their country, whatever they may pretend; and though their actings bring real good to their country, yet men primarily considered that their own and their country's interest were united, and so did not act from a principle of benevolence. That fewer still, in public affairs, act with a view to the good of mankind. There seems to me at present to be great occasion for raising a United Party for Virtue^ by forming the virtuous and good men of all nations into a regular body, to be governed by suitable good and wise rules, which good and wise men may probably be more unanimous in their obedience to than common people are to common laws. I at present think, that whoever attempts this aright, and is well qualified, cannot fail of pleasing God and of meeting with success." This curious production, signed with the initials of the author, lay among his papers many years, and bore no fruit. He tells us, how- ever, that he thought much upon his project of uniting the virtuous, drew up a creed for the members of the proposed Order, and com- municated the scheme to one or two friends, who evidently approved it. The name of the organization was to have been the Society of the Free and Easy : that is, as he himself explains. Free from the dominion of vice and debt, and consequently Easy in mind and cir- cumstances. While he was revolving this scheme, half formed, in his mind, certain experiences of his own quickened his interest in it, and suggested some important details. He conceived the project 11 242 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1736. of beooming himself morally perfect. " I wished," he explains, " to live without committing any fault at any time, and to conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined: while my attention was taken up, and care employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another ; habit took the advantage of inattention ; inclination was sometimes too strong for reason." He therefore resolved to attend to one of the virtues at a time, and having made a little progress in that, to pro- ceed to another. His list of virtues w^as the following : Temper- ance, Silence, Ordei", Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquillity, Chastity, Humility, He made a little book, in which he allotted to each of these virtues one page, so ruled with red and black ink and that he could easily record his daily delinquencies. Thus provided, he gave one week's particular attention to each virtue: and as his virtues were thirteen in number, he was able to go through his book four times a year. The success of this singular plan was at first not very flattering. "I was surprised," he says, "to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. To avoid the trouble of renewing now and then my little book, which, by scraping out the marks on the paper of old faults to make room for new ones in a new course, became full of holes, I transferred my tables and precepts to the ivory leaves of a memo- randum book, on which the lines were drawn with red ink, that made a durable stain ; and on those lines I marked my faults with a black lead pencil ; which marks I could easily wipe out with a . wet sponge. After a while I went through one course only in a year ; and afterward only one in several years ; till at length I omitted them entirely, being employed in voyages and business abroad, with a multiplicity of affairs that interfered ; but I always carried my little book with me." Two of the virtues, he adds, he never could acquire : Order and Humility. The appearance of humility, he says, he contrived to attain, but not the reality of it; so inveterate is pride in the heart of man, that if he had acquired this virtue he should doubtless have been proud of his humility. To promote habits of order, he drew AGED 30.] SELF-EDUCATION CONTINUED. 243 up a scheme of the day, and endeavored to conduct his life in accordance therewith. He rose at five, washed himself, and said his prayer, beginning, Powerful Goodness. Then he laid out the business of the day, and thought of the particular virtue of that week. Then he studied an hour and a half, which brought him to breakfast-time. From eight to twelve, work ; then dinner and rest till one. From one to six, work again. From six to ten, supper, music, company, diversion, self-examination. At ten, to bed. This scheme he could practice without much interruption, but he never quite learned to have a place for every thing, and to put every thing in its place. The reader may be inclined to smile at some of these details. It nevertheless remains true, that no one has ever acquired uncommon virtue without having made the acquirement of virtue an object of specific and systematic exertion. Whatever else comes to us by nature, self-control does not : it has to be acquired. Franklin's method was the method suited to him in his time, circumstances, and sphere. If the ingenious reader knows a better, let him rejoice, and practice it. Franklin declares, in serious and earnest sentences written in his seventy-ninth year, that his plan was beneficial to him in the highest degree. These are his words : " It may be well my posterity should be informed, that to this little artifice, with the blessing of God, their ancestor owed the constant felicity of his life down to the YQth year, in which this is written. What reverses may attend the remainder is in the hand of Providence : but if they arrive, the reflection on past happiness enjoyed ought to help his bearing them with more resigna- tion. To temperance he ascribes his long-continued health, and what is still left to him of a good constitution. To industry and frugality^ the early easiness of his circumstances and acquisition of his fortune, with all that knowledge that enabled him to be a useful citizen, and obtained for him some degree of reputation among the learned. To sincerity and justice^ the confidence of his country, and the honour- able employs it conferred upon him : and to the joint influence of the whole mass of the virtues, even in the imperfect state he was able to acquire them, all that evenness of temper and that cheerful- ness in conversation which makes his company still sought for, and agreeable even to his young acquaintance." Learning thus how diflicult it is to become virtuous, he designed to make it one of the rules of the Society of the Free and Easy, r 244 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l736. that candidates for initiation should be first exercised in his system of self-examination for, at least, one course of thirteen weeks. But the society was never formed. Increasing business and public offices absorbed his time until it was too late to attempt it. Late in life, however, he expressed his conviction that the scheme was a practi-^ cable one. We may go farther, and say, that it will certainly be realized ; for what he proposed was nothing but this : A Church which should concern itself with the feelings, the principles, and the conduct of its members, but not with their opinions. Some of the recently founded Orders are a partial carrying out of Franklin's idea. His whole heart was in this " great and extensive project," as he styles it, and he proposed, when it was undertaken, to devote all his time and strength to it. When, at last, he was compelled to relinquish the scheme, he formed a design of writing a little treatise on the Art of Virtue, in which his own method of cultivating virtue should be explained and recommended. But this project, also, though fondly dwelt upon for sixty years, he never found leisure to execute. Nor does it ap- pear that the world has lost much by his neglect, for he proposed to appeal chiefly to the reader's sense of his own interest ; a consid- eration that never yet made a man virtuous. " It was my design," says Franklin, " to explain and enforce this doctrine, that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden^ hut forbidden becatcse they are hurtftil ; the nature of man alone considered : that it was, therefore, every one's interest to be virtuous, who wished to be happy even in this world : and I should, from this circumstance (there being always in the world a number of rich merchants, no- bility, states, and princes who have need of honest instruments for the management of their affairs, and such being so rare), have en- deavoured to convince young persons, that no qualities are so likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of probity and integrity,''^ This is another passage that gives pause to the generous reader ; who will discover, ere long, if he has not already, that it does not reveal to us the true Franklin. He really loved virtue for its own sakej and at the spectacle of meanness or iniquity glowed with a noble, uncalculating wrath. But in this passage, writing with a view to influence the young, he permitted himself to use an argument which he thought adapted to their moral capacity. No one knew better than Franklin came to know, what kind of men princes, at that day, AGED 30.] SELF-EDUCATION CONTINUED. 245 vv ere accustomed to advance ; and no one knew better than he, that a man's prosperity depends, not at all upon his virtue, but upon his ability to render the public a service which the public wants ren- dered. The man most destitute of moral worth whom this land has ever known is he whose prosperity is, this day, the most rooted and immutable, for the simple reason that no one will give his pub- lic a three cents' worth which is, at once, better and more agreeable than that which he gives. It was not Franklin's virtue that made him a prosperous citizen : it was his skill, his energy, his knowledge. His virtue it was that made him beloved, and enabled him to love. It was his virtue that rendered his prosperity a blessing to him and to others. It was his virtue that made him that happy an4 glori- ous Franklin whom three generations have justly revered. \ To return to his studies. When a man spends twelve Hours a week at his books, he soon ceases to be satisfied with mere reading. In 1733, Franklin began the study of languages, and soon learned to read French, Italian, and Spanish. His progress in Italian was promoted by his love of the game of chess. A friend, who was also learning the Italian, often lured him from his books by challenging him to play at this game. At length, he refused to play any more except upon condition the victor should impose a task upon the vanquished, such as learning a verb or writing a translation, which task should be performed before the next meeting. As they played about equally, they beat one another into the acquisition of the Italian language. Having become tolerably proficient in French, Italian, and Spanish, he was led by an accident to undertake the Latin. His experience with this language is worthy the most serious consideration of all persons who are interested in teaching languages, or who contem- plate learning them. Looking over a Latin testament, one day, he was surprised to find that his knowledge of the three modern lan- guages, together with his dim recollection of his year's study of Latin at the Boston Grammar-School, enabled him to read the Latin testament with considerable facility. Encouraged by this, he re- sumed the study of Latin, a language he had always been fond of quoting. If we may judge from the long quotations from various authors in his writings of this period, we must conclude that he read a good deal of Latin. He became convinced that the true order of acquiring languages 24G LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1136. is, the modern first, and the ancient afterwards. " We are told," he says, " that it is proper to begin first with the Latin, and, having acquired that, it will be more easy to attain those modern languages which are derived from it ; and yet we do not begin with the Greek in order more easily to acquire the Latin." " I would, therefore," he adds, " oflfer it to the consideration of those who superintend the education of our youth, whether — since many of those who begin with the Latin, quit the same after spending some years with- out having made any great proficiency, and what they have learned becomes almost useless, so that their time has been lost — it would not have been better to have begun with the French, proceeding to the Italian and Latin. For though, after spending the same time, they should quit the study of languages and never arrive at the Latin, they would, however, have acquired another tongue or two, that, being in modern use, might be serviceable to them in common life." This is one of the most valuable of the many valuable suggestions in the writings of Franklin. It may end the controversy between those who say that the ancient languages, and those who think that the modern languages, should be the chief means of educating the young. Music is mentioned by Franklin as a diversion, but he pursued it with more than the devotion of an ordinary amateur. He appears to have played on several instruments, and to have studied their nature and powers. The harp, the guitar, the violin, and the vio- loncello, appear to have been the instruments he most affected, until, later in life, he improved the armonica. Leigh Hunt, whose pa- rents once lived at Philadelphia, mentions that Franklin offered to teach his mother the guitar.'^' We have seen that Franklin was not well pleased with the preach- ers of his day. In 1734, came to Philadelphia a young Presbyterian preacher, named Hemphill, who won his decided approval, since he had little to say of dogmas, but eloquently inculcated the practice of virtue. So satisfied was Franklin with his preaching, and so convinced of its utility, that he even became himself one of his reg- ular hearers. The orthodox clergy, disapproving the doctrines of the young stranger, arraigned him before the synod in order to * Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, i., 130. AGED 30.] SELF-EDUCATION CONTINUED. 247 silence him, and, of course, the community was immediately rent into factions, one for and the other against Mr. Hemphill. Franklin became his active partisan, wrote and published two pamphlets in his fsiVOXs and defended him in his Gazette. While the contest was raging, an event most unlucky for the young preacher occurred. One of his enemies heard him deliver a sermon, one day, which was greatly admired, but which this enemy thought he had read somewhere. On searching, he found the principal passage quoted in an English review from a late volume of sermons by Dr. James Fostei- the most popular London preacher of that generation, who was praised by Pope, and quoted by Bolingbroke, " This detec- tion," says Franklin, "gave many of our party disgust, who accord- ingly abandoned his cause, and occasioned our more speedy discom- fiture in the synod. I stuck by him, however; I rather approved his giving us good sermons composed by others, than bad ones of his own manufacture ; though the latter was the practice of our common teachers." The Philadelphians thought otherwise, and poor Hemphill had to go elsewhere in search of a congregation. He confessed to Franklin that all his sermons were stolen. The home of Franklin in these years of activity was enlivened by the presence of children and apprentices. The flower of his little flock was his second son, Francis Folger FrankUn, born a year after his marriage ; one of the loveliest and most promising of chil- dren. Franklin's children were all of noble proportions, and gave great promise of intelligence and worth, which promise was fulfilled in only one of them. This little " Franky Franklin" was a most engaging child, of singular beauty and wonderful knowingness. Franklin perhaps never loved a living creature as he loved this only son of his marriage. In the Gazette of December, 1734, when Wil- liam Franklin was four years old, and Francis more than two, the following advertisement appeared, which, probably, concerned the boys : " Any Person who has a Servant to dispose of that is a scholar and can teach Children Reading, Writing and Arithmetick, may hear of a Purchaser by enquiring of the Printer hereof." So tenderly did Franklin love his boy that he could not bear the thought of exposing him even to the slight peril of inoculation, though he had long been one of the champions of the system. Ho had seen such fearful havoc made by the smallpox, both in Boston 248 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l736. and Philadelphia, that we can only wonder at this omission. A year before the boy was born, he had written to his sister Jane : " We- have had the smallpox here lately, which raged violently while it lasted. There have been about fifty persons inoculated, who all recovered except a child of the doctor's, upon whom the smallpox appeared within a day or two after the operation, and who is there- fore thought to have been certainly infected before. In one family in my neighborhood there appeared a great mortality. Mr. George Claypoole (a descendant of Oliver Cromwell), had, by industry, ac- quired a great estate, and being in excellent business, a merchant, would probably have doubled it, had he lived according to the common course of years. He died first, suddenly ; within a short time died his best negro ; then one of his children ; then a negro woman ; then two children more, buried at the same time ; then two more ; so that I saw two double buryings come out of the house in one week. N^one were left in the family, but the mother and one child, and both their lives till lately despaired of" And yet he did not have his darling inoculated. In November, 1736, the boy being then four years old, the smallpox was again raging in Philadelphia, and this beautiful child was one of its vic- tims. " I long regretted him bitterly," his father wrote, " and stiU regret that I had not given him the disease by inoculation." Again, to his sister Jane : " My grandson often brings afresh to my mind the idea of my son Franky, though now dead thirty-six years, whom I have seldom since seen equaled in every respect, and whom to this day I cannot think of without a sigh." Those who have visited the grave of Franklin, in that well-known corner of Christ Church burying-ground, in Philadelphia, may have observed a very small, gray, defaced, and much broken head-stone, close to the principal tomb. It is not as high as the June grass, but when the grass is brushed aside, the little stone is found to bear these words : " Francis F. Son of Benjamin and Deborah Franklin, ' Deceased, Nov. 21, 1736, Aged 4 years, 1 month, and 1 day. The delight of all that knew him." AGED 33.] SELF-EDUCATION CONTINUED. 249 It was only within these few years that the little tomb-stone was discovered under a heap of rubbish, near the grave of his parents. When the tomb of Franklin was repaired a few years ago, and an aperture made in the wall of the burial ground, to render it visi- ble to the passers-by, the tomb-stone of the boy was set up in its proper place. A portrait of the child, in oil, life size, has been pre- served to this day, and hangs now (1861) in the house of one of Franklin's grand-daughters. In 1739 George Whitefield arrived in Philadelphia, heralded by a prodigious celebrity, which his preaching soon justified. White- field, a man of ardent feeling, fluent tongue, thrilling voice, and very limited understanding, was the complete opposite of Franklin, who listened to his paroxysms of eloquence with curious placidity. Yet, between these two men a cordial friendship sprang up, which never ceased but with Whitefield's life. Indeed, we shall find, as we go on, that the greater number of the men whom Franklin loved were clergymen, which is another proof, that people who agree morally, agree^ no matter what their diiFerences in other respects. Now, this unreflecting, terror-inspiring Whitefield was a ^simple-hearted, honest gentleman, who wished the good of mankind, and really believed that the best service he could do his fellow- men was to " shake them over the pit of hell," and lay prostrate their souls in wild alarm. Franklin also was an honest man, that loved his brethren, and wished to do them good. It was only in the method that he and Whitefield diflered. Franklin relates some capital anecdotes of his intercourse with Whitefield. On the return of the orator from Georgia, with the project of founding an orphan house in that new colony, he con- sulted his friend Franklin on the subject. Franklin approved the scheme, but strongly advised that the asylum should be placed in Philadelphia, and the orphans brought to it, since Georgia was then destitute of workmen and supplies. His advice being rejected, he determined not to subscribe. " I happened soon after," says Frank- lin, " to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I per- ceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me ; I had in my pocket a handful of copper-money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold ; a;^ he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the cop- per. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and 11* 250 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [I'^'^O. determined me to give the silver ; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all !" Upon another occasion, when Whitefield was preaching in Market Street, close to Franklin's shop, Franklin behaved more like a philosopher. " I had the curiosity," he says, " to learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backward down the street towards the river, and I found his voice distinct till I came near Front Street, when some noise in that street obscured it. Imagin- ing then a semicircle, of which my distance should be the radius, and that it was filled with auditors, to each of whom I allowed two square feet, I computed that he might well be heard by more than thirty thousand. This reconciled me to the newspaper accounts of his having preached to 25,000 people in the fields, and to the his- tory of generals haranguing whole armies, of which I had some- times doubted." Upon his second arrival in America, Whitefield wrote from Bos- ton to Franklin, asking hira to secure lodgings for him in Philadel- phia. Franklin replied : " You know my house; if you can make ' shift with its scanty accommodations, you will be most heartily welcome." Whitefield answered : " If you make that offer for Christ's sake, you will not miss of a reward." Franklin rejoined : " Don't let me be mistaken ; it was not for Christ's sake, but for your sake." Franklin mused upon the strange respect felt by the people for a man who, to their faces, called them " half beasts and half devils." "It was wonderful," he adds, *' to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street. And it being found inconvenient to assemble in the open air, subject to its inclemencies, the building of a house to meet in was no sooner pro- posed, and persons appointed to receive contributions, than suffi- cient sums were received to procure the ground and erect the building, which was one hundred feet long and seventy broad ; and the work was carried with such spirit as to be finished in a much shorter time than could have been expected. Both house and ground were vested in trustees, expressly for the use oi any preacher AGED 33.] SELF-EDUCATION CONTrNTrED. 251 of any religious persuasion who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia ; the design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect, but the inhabitants in general. So that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a mis- sionary to preach Mahomedanism, he would find a pulpit at liis service." In the midst of the excitement Franklin announced for publica- tion four volumes of Whitefield's Sermons and Journals, which he brought out in May, 1740. The advertisement shows that Frank- lin knew how to do business : " The whole number of names sub- scribed far exceeds the number of books printed. Tliose sub- scribers who have paid, or who bring the money in their hands, will have the preference." This publication, Franklin thought, was most damaging to the reputation of Whitefield, since it was his matchless delivery which alone gave effect to his sermons. Wonderful indeed must that delivery have been. It is scarcely possible for a reader of the present day to conceive the stir created throughout the country by this skillful preacher. A single paragraph from Franklin's newspa- per may serve to give some further idea of it : " On Thursday last,* the Reverend Mr. Whitefield left this city, and was accompanied to Chester by about one hundred and fifty horse, and preached there to about seven thousand people. On Friday he preached twice at Willing's Town to about five thousand ; on Saturday at Newcastle to about two thousand five hundred ; and the same evening at Christiana Bridge to about three thousand ; on Sunday at White Clay Creek, he preached twice, resting about half an hour between the sermons, to about eight thousand, of whom three thousand it is computed came on horseback. It rained most of the time, and yet they stood in the open air." Meanwhile, the studies of Franklin were never intermitted. He was a constant observer of nature. He educed grand truths from phenomena which are esteemed the most simple and commonplace. Ordinary household events suggested to his fertile mind magnifi- cent conceptions. The acquirement of other knowledge may have assumed something of the nature of a task, but not so his researches in science ; these were the irresistible bent of his mind. He was, as before remarked, a genuine son of the earth. He lived close to nature. He would be bathing in the river, an hour or two at a 262 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l740. time, nearly every evening for several weeks of the summer. When in closest contact with natural objects he seemed most at home ; and it is to such lovers of nature that nature loves to disclose her secrets. There is something infinitely pleasing in the homeliness of some of Franklin's first observations in science. Like the new professors of legerdemain, he required " no apparatus." Professor Kalm, who was sent out by the Swedish government to botanize in America, was much with Franklin in 1748, and has left some slight record of their conversations. It was Professor Kalm who first told the story of Franklin and the ants, that once had even a school-book celebrity. "Mr. Franklin," wrote the learned Swede, "was inclined to be- lieve that these little insects could by some means communicate their thoughts to each other, and he confirmed his opinion by some examples. When an ant finds some sugar, it runs immediately under ground to its hole, where having stayed a httle while, a whole army comes out, unites and marches to the place where the sugar is, and carries it off by pieces : or, if an ant meets with a dead fly, which it cannot carry alone, it immediately hastens home, and soon after more come out, creep to the fly and carry it away. Some time ago Mr. Franklin put a little earthen-pot with treacle into a closet. A number of ants got into the pot and devoured the treacle very quietly. But when he observed it he shook them out, and tied the pot with a thin string to a nail in the ceiling; so that the pot hung down by the string. A single ant by chance remained in the pot ; and this ant ate till it was satisfied. But when it wanted to get off, it was under great concern to find its way out ; it ran about the bottom of the pot, in vain ; but at last, it found, after many attempts, the way to get to tlie ceiling by the string. After it had reached the ceiling, it ran to the wall, and from thence to the ground. It had hardly been away for half an hour, when a great swarm of ants came out, got up to the ceiling, and crept along the string into the pot, and began to eat again. This they continued till the treacle was all eaten ; in the mean time, one swarm running down the string and the other up."* We find Franklin, on another occasion, contriving a little tin wind-mill in a hole of his kitchen wall, for the purpose of turning a * Kalni's Travels in America, vol. i., p. 808. AGED 34,] SELF-EDUCATION CONTINUED. 253 jack, an ancient machine for roasting meat. In making this wind- mill, he not merely displayed mechanical ingenuity, but drew from its operation important inferences respecting the resistance of the air, and the arrangement of the sails of ships. In 1743, one of those happy accidents which occur to observant men, led Franklin to his famous discovery respecting the course of storms. Poor Richard having announced that on a certain evening at nine o'clock, an eclipse of the moon would occur, Franklin intended to observe it. But before the time arrived, a violent northeast storm of wind and rain arose, which continued all night and all the next day. It was a great and famous storm, which did much damage on sea and land, and was noticed in all the newspa- pers of the colonies. When Franklin received his Boston exchanges, he was astonished to find in them, besides accounts of the storm, descriptions of the eclipse ; which showed that in Boston the storm began after the eclipse was over. He wrote to his brother in Bos- ton, who replied, that the eclipse was over, there, one hour before the storm began. On pursuing his inquiries, he made the surpris- ing discovery, that all those fierce northeast storms that swept our Atlantic coast move backward, i. e., from southwest to northeast, and diminish in violence as they go. Franklin's conjectural expla- nation of this fact is refined and ingenious: " Suppose a great tract of country, land and sea, to wit, Florida and the Bay of Mexico, to have clear weather for several days, and to be heated by the sun, and its air thereby exceedingly rarefied. Suppose the country northeastward, as Pennsylvania, New Eng- land, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, to be at the same time cov- ered with clouds, and its air chilled and condensed. The rarefied air being lighter must rise, and the denser air next to it will press into its place ; that will be followed by the next denser air, that by the next, and so on. Thus when I have a fire in my chimney, there is a current of air constantly flowing from the door to the chimney ; but the beginning of the motion was at the chimney, where the air being rarefied by the fire rising, its place was supplied by the cooler air that was next to it, and the place of that by the next, and so on to the door. So the water in a long sluice or mill-race, being stop- ped by a gate, is at rest like the air in a calm ; but as soon as you open the gate at one end to let it out, the water which is next the gate begins first to move, that which is next to it follows ; and so, 254 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIX FEATfKUJSr. [1740. though the water proceeds forward to the gate, the motion which began there runs backward, if one may so speak, to the upper end of the race, where the water is last in motion." About the same time, Franklin invented that pleasant fire-place, the Franklin stove, Avhich warmed one generation of colonial Americans, and another generation of American citizens, and began what we may call the American stove system, one of the wonders of the industrial world. In many country nooks, the Franklin stove is still used, particularly in tlie South ; and most of us can at least remember its cheerful fire. It was the wastefulness of the old fire-places, the growing scarcity of wood, and the time-honored nui- sance of smoking chimneys, that set Franklin at work upon this simple and elegant invention. Coal, then, was not known to exist in the colonies, and wood was fast receding from the large towns. To promote the introduction of his stoves, the inventor wrote an exten- sive and very ingenious pamphlet, in which he expounded the entire philosophy of house-warming, and explained the working of the new apparatus, Franklin, however, had not the least pecuniary interest in the invention, and never derived profit fi-om it. " I made a present of the model," he says, " to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who, having an iron furnace, found the casting of the plates for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were grow- ing in demand." Thus, the members of the Junto played into each other's hands and pockets. The Governor of Pennsylvania, Franklin adds, "was BO pleased with the construction of this stove, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years ; but I declined it, from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz. : Tliat as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours ; and this we should do freely and generously. An ironmonger in London, however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, and making some small change in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it." Which shows how wise is the patent system, that secures the control and the profit of an invention to the inventor. But Frank- lin was all liis life haunted with the noble fallacy, that he who AGED 34.] SELF-EDUCATION CONTINUED. 255 serves his country, should serve it for nothing. It became, at a later day, one of his most fixed and cherished maxims of policy, that the holders of public office should not be paid any thing but honor ; the work of the state being done by men who had earned leisure by a successful conduct of private business. The activity of Franklin's mind was shown in his trifling amuse- ments. During the sessions of the Assembly, he had to endure many dull hours, perched in his seat as clerk, listening to debates in which he could take no part. His friend Logan showed him one day a French book of " Magical Squares," an idle game of the last century. Franklin, who had made these squares in his youth, now beguiled the tedium of the daily session by producing squares of extreme intricacy, surpassing all that had ever been done in that way. The following, for example, is one of his magical squares : 5S 64 i 43 SO 29 36 45 44. 3 6^ 54 46 35 30 49 53 60 5 4S S4 S§ 37 44 // 6 59 54 43 3i S7 22 55 5i 7 40 S3 26 39 42 9 i 57 56 44 40 25 24 50 63 S 45 4^ 34 34 47 a / 6. 49 4i 33 32 47 This square, as explained by its contriver, contains astonishing properties: every straight row (horizontal or vertical) added to- gether makes 260, and each half row half 200. The bent row of eight numbers ascending and descending diagonally, viz., from 16 ascending to 10, and from 23 descending to 17, and every one of its parallel bent rows of eight numbers, makes 260. Also, the bent row 256 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1743. from 52 descending to 54, and from 43 ascending to 45, and every one of its parallel bent rows of eight numbers, makes 260. Also, the bent row from 45 to 43, descending to the left, and from 23 to 17, descending to the right, and every one of its parallel bent rows of eight numbers, makes 260. Also, the bent row from 52 to 54, de- scending to the right, and from 10 to 16, descending to the left, and every one of its parallel bent rows of eight numbers, makes 260. Also, the parallel bent rows next to the above-mentioned, which are shortened to three numbers ascending and three descending, &c., as from 53 to 4 ascending, and from 29 to 44 descending, make, with the two corner numbers, 260. Also, the two numbers, 14, 61, ascending, and 36, 19, descending, with the lower four numbers situated like them, viz. 50, 1, descending, and 32, 47, ascending, make 260. And, lastly, the four corner numbers, with the four middle numbers, make 260. But even these are not all the properties of this marvelous square. Its contriver declared that it has " five other curious ones," which he does not explain ; but which the ingenious reader may discover if he can. Nor was this the most wonderful of Franklin's magical squares. He made one of 16 cells in each row, which besides pos- sessing the properties of the square given above (the amount, however added, being always 2056), had also this most remarkable peculiarity : a square hole being cut in a piece of paper of such a size as to take in and show through it just sixteen of the little squares, when laid on the greater square, the sum of the sixteen numbers, so appearing through the hole, wherever it was placed on the greater square, should likewise make 2056. This square was executed in a single evening. It excited the boundless wonder of Mr. Logan, to whom Franklin sent it, and who styled it a " most stupendous piece." Franklin himself jocularly said it was the "most" magically magical of any magic square ever made by any magician." Mr. Logan alludes to these squares in one of his letters to Peter Collinson of London : " Our Benjamin Franklin is certainly an extraordinary man, one of a singular good judgment, but of equal modesty. He is clerk of our Assembly, and there, for want of other employment, while he sat idle, he took it into his head to think of magical squares, in which he outdid Frenicle himself, who published above eighty pages in folio on that subject alone." * * Sparks, vi., 100. Where other specimenB of Franklin's magical squares may be found. AGED 34.] THE THRIVING AND PUBLIC-SPIEITED CITIZEN. 257 zoo 217 233 2A9 S 3S iO J& \ 89 ±Oi 13X 136 153 168 lai C8 3'J 2G 9 QSO 231 2^ V \ 154. X3S 133 U03 90 .1 .198 219 230 2SX e / / / \ \ Jj02 X23 134. 155 166 137 GO 37 2S S y 2P9 / / \ \ V \ X2i lOX 93 69 SOL 210 233 y / / / / \ \ H \ \ 152 169 1S4: SS ^U2 / / /' 2si / 24 \ \ \ i^^ \i0 87 64. - y 23i 2^ / / / / \ \ \ \ \ \ \ 183 K / ./ y 2t3 20ir \ H H \ \ ^«* \ \ / ./ 2/7 ./ / / / / \ \ \ \ \ \ \ V / / / / 2/3 y /' 20c X79 ^4 \ \ \ \ \ \ / / y / / / 47 SO 79 82 \ \ H H \ \ / y / / y 3AO 209 20S ±77 X70 14.5 \ \ \ \ \ Xffe y. 2/a / i 29 33 OL 68 93 xoo 125 \ \ H \ / / / 3 254. 237 233 X9S 190 XG3 X58 X3X 136 \ \ \ / 23f3 220 35X S 3X 3X 03 GO 95 98 X37 130 159 H \ /. 33 33 1. sse 32S 33i X93 192 101 XGO 139 „, 128 9Y 06 \ CHAPTER Vn. THE THRIVING AND PUBLIC-SPIRITED CITIZEN. It does a good man good to prosper in his business. It expands, cheers, softens, frees, and humbles him. Inherited wealth is a doubtful good. To convert it into a blessing requires in the recij)- ient uncommon virtue and good sense : it generally proves too much for the weakness of human nature, and prevents a man from becoiu- 258 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1744. ing a serviceable citizen. But the moderate, gradual, and safe prosperity which results from the skillful, thoughtful, and diligent prosecution of a legitimate business or trade, is a vast and lasting benefit, and bestows upon its possessor the means of noble gratifications. Franklin still prospered. His Gazette became the leading news- paper of all the region between New York and Charleston. Poor Richard continued to amuse the whole country, to the great profit of its printer, who was obliged to put it to press early in October, in order to get a supply of copies to the remote colonies by the beginning of the new year. All the best jobs of printing given out by the provinces of New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Deleware, fell to the ofiice of Franklin; who, by means of his partnerships, had a share also in the good things of Virginia, New York, the Carolinas, and Georgia. His school-books, his hand-books of farriery, agriculture, and medicine, his numberless small pamphlets, his considerable importations from England, all contributed to swell his gains. The great number of German emigrants gave new im- portance every summer to his German printing office. His two places of postmaster and clerk to the Assembly brought in a little money and much profitable work. He had a small and inexpensive family, an industrious and saving wife ; and his own habits were such as enable a man to get out of life the maximum of enjoyment with the minimum of expenditure. His luxuries were a book, a long bathe in the river, the Junto, music, conversation, minute observations of nature, and rural excursions. He lived, moreover, in a place which in the course of his business career became the chief town of the colonies. Did he become a millionaire, then ? By no means. There was, I believe, but one fortune of a million dollars made in the thirteen colonies. Franklin was in a way to acquire, ia time, a modest com- petence : for, in the colonies, the gains of business were moderate, even when conducted with the tact, the energy, and the prudence of a Franklin. Probably his business, in the most prosperous years, did not yield a profit of more than two thousand pounds sterling. But there was not, probably, another printer in the colonies whose annual profits exceeded five hundred pounds. As he throve in business, he grew in the esteem of his towns- men, and began to take the lead in their affairs. He tried first to AGED 38.] THE THKIVING AKD PUBLIC-SPIRITED CITIZEN. 259 reform, the city watch, which was conducted on the ancient British system, which Shakspeare burlesqued in the Dogberry scenes of "Much Ado about Nothing." Franklin's account of the old Phila- delphia watch, is valuable for the light it throws upon those very scenes. "It was managed, "he says, "by the constables of the respective wards in turn; the constable summoned a number of housekeepers to attend him for the night. Those who chose never to attend, paid him six shilhngs a year to be excused, which was supposed to go to hiring substitutes, but was, in reality, more than was necessary for that purpose, and made the constableship a place of profit ; and the constable, for a little drink, often got such raga- muffins about him as a Avatch that respectable housekeepers did not choose to mix with. Walking the rounds, too, was often neglected, and most of the nights were spent in tippHng." To reform this absurd system, Franklin proceeded in his usual way ; first reading an article on the subject to the Junto, then com- municating the plan of reform to the clubs in correspondence with the Junto, and finally treating the subject in the Gazette. It re- quired some years of agitation, however, to get Dogberry sup- pressed, and his band of ragamuffins dispersed. In the same way FrankUn founded the flourishing fire system of Philadelphia. When he was a boy of eleven, cutting his father's candle-wicks, the first fire company of Boston was formed :* an event not likely to be overlooked by a young candle-maker of Franklin's metal. By the Junto's aid, he now formed the Union Fire Com- pany, the first of the kind in Philadelphia, of which he was himself a member for fifty years. Their first articles of agreement bound each member to keep in good order a certain number of leathern buckets, and strong baskets and bags for transporting goods, which were to be brought to every fire. In accordance with the social habits of that age, they agreed to spend an evening together once a month, and " communicate such ideas as occurred to us upon the subject of fires." In course of years the fines exacted for non-attendance provided the Union Fire Company with a complete apparatus of engines, hooks and ladders. It was, indeed, a very social age. Any thing served as a pretext for the assembling together of men for conversation, jollity, and * Drake's History of Boston, p. 557. 260 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FUANKLIN. [1744. good cheer. JSTo man ever enjoyed these jovial gatherings more heartily than FrankHu, and he was always ready to do his part with jest, anecdote, and song. Three songs that he used to sing are known to us. One was the " The Old Man's "Wish," which he says he sang " a thousand times" in his singing days. In separate stanzas of this song, the Old Man wishes for a warm house in a country town, an easy horse, some good books, ingenious and cheerful companions, a pudding on Sundays, with stout ale, and a bottle of Burgundy ; each stanza ending thus : " May I govern my passions with absolute sway, Grow wiser and better as my strength wears away, Without gout or stone, by gentle decay !" The old man concludes his song with these lines : " With a courage undaunted may I face the last day, And when I am gone may the better sort say — In the morning when sober, in the evening when mellow, He's gone, and has not left behind him his fellow. For he governed his passions," etc. Another of his songs was "My Plain Country Joan," a long ditty, written by himself in praise of his own wife. One evening, we are told, when a number of Franklin's convivial friends were assembled, and many songs had been sung, some one declared that married men ought not to be allowed to sing songs written to cel- ebrate the sweethearts of the poets. The next morning, while one of the company. Dr. Bard (afterwards the physician of Washing- ton), was seated at breakfast, he received from Franklin " My Plain Country Joan."* " Of their Chloes and Phyllises poets may prate, I sing my plain country Joan, These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life, Blest day that I made her my own. " Not a word of her face, of her shape, or her air, Or of flames, or of darts, you shall hear; * Lifo of Samuel Bard, by Kcv. S. McVickar, p. la AGED 38.] THE THRIVUfG AND PTJBLIC-SPrRITED CITIZEN. 261 I beauty admire, but virtue I prize, That fades not in seventy year. " Am I loaded with care, she takes off a large share, That the burden ne'er makes me to reel ; Does good fortune arrive, the joy of my wife Quite doubles the pleasure I feel. " She defends my good name, even when I'm to blame, Firm friend as to man e'er was given ; Her compassionate breast feels for all the distressed, Which draws down more blessings from heaven." And so, in a similar strain, for several stanzas more. This homely song appears to have been known beyond Franklin's own circle, for one of his relations wrote, many years after, to Mrs. Franklin : " My uncle's writing in praise of his lovely Joan has made him the spiritual father of many children born in honest wedlock."* Another song, written by Franklin in these jolly Junto days, and often sung by him at the Junto room, the entire club joining in the chorus, is in a different strain. To the innocent it is innocent enough. " Fair Venus calls ; her voice obey. In beauty's arms spend night and day. The joys of love all joys excel, And loving's certainly doing well. Chorus. Oh! no! Not so ! For honest souls know, Friends and a bottle still bear the bell. " Then let us get money, like bees lay up honey ; We'll build us new hives, and store each cell. - The sight of our treasure shall yield us great pleasure ; We'll count it, and chink it, and jingle it well. Chortcs. Oh ! no ! etc. Lettore to Beiyamin Franklin, p. 184. 262 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1744. " If this does not fit ye, let's govern the city, In power is pleasure no tongue can tell ; By crowds though you're teased, your pride shall be pleased, And this can make Lucifer happy in hell ! Chorus. Oh! no! etc. " Then toss off your glasses, and scorn the dull asses, Who, missing the kernel, still gnaw the shell; What's love, rule or riches ? Wise Solomon teaches, They're vanity, vanity, vanity still." Chorus. That's true ; He knew ; He'd tried them all through ; Friends and a bottle still bore the bell." It is well for us, in these days, to consider the spectacle of this large, robust soul sporting in this simple, homely way. Perhaps some of us need to be reminded, that in order not to be a sot it is not necessary to be a bigot, and that it is possible to be virtuous without making virtue odious by a grim and terrible decorum. This superb Franklin of ours, who spent some evenings in mere jol- lity, passed nearly all his days in labor most fruitful of benefit to his country. Theodore Parker wrote, in his forty-seventh year : " I have grown very old within the last three years ; too much work and too many cares have done this for me. * * If I had at twenty-five joined some club of good fellows, and met with them to talk, laugh, dance, bowl, or play billiards once a fortnight ever since, I should be a wiser and a happier man. But let me mend for the future."* Alas ! he did not mend. Else, he had not left us at the moment .when we needed him most. ' Continuing the record of his public-spirited labors, we come to his proposal, in May, 1743, of an American Philosophical Society. He wrote a circular letter to his learned friends in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, New York, and New England, suggesting * Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, by John Weiss, i., 330. AGED 38.] THU THEIVING AND PUBLIC-SPIRITED CITIZEX. 263 that they form themselves into a society, for the purpose of con- versino- and corresponding upon such subjects as the following : Newly discovered plants, herbs, trees, roots, their virtues, uses, methods of propagating them, and making such as are useful, but particular to some plantations, more general ; improvements of ve- getable juices, as ciders, wines ; new methods of curing or prevent- ing diseases ; all new-discovered fossils in different countries, as mines, minerals, and quarries ; new and useful improvements in any branch of mathematics ; new discoveries in chemistry, such as improvements in distillation, brewing, and assaying of ores ; new mechanical inventions for saving labor, as mills and carriages, and for raising and conveying of water, draining of meadows ; all new arts, trades, and manufactures, that may be proposed or thought of; surveys, maps, and charts of particular parts of the sea-coasts or inland countries ; course and junction of rivers and great roads, situation of lakes and moimtains, nature of the soil and productions : new methods of improving the breed of useful animals ; introdu- cing other sorts from foreign countries ; new improvements in plant- ing, gardening, and clearing land; and all philosophical experi- , ments that let light into the nature of things, tend to increase the power of man over matter, and multiply the conveniences or plea- sures of life." He concluded his circular with these words • "Benjamin Frank- lin, the writer of this Proposal, offers himsehF to serve the Society as their secretary, till they shall be provided with one more capa- ble." The Society was formed, and continued in existence for some years. Nevertheless, its success was neither great nor permanent, for, at that day, the circle of men capable of taking much interest in science, was too limited for the proper support of such an organi- zation. And a great part of what intellectual culture there was in the colonies was diverted from the study of nature. From 1740 to the close of 1748, several of the great powers of Europe were at war; France and Spain, against England, Hol- land and Hungary ; of which one incident was the descent of the Pretender upon Scotland in 1 745, and another, the gallant capture by New England of Louisburg, a strong fortress in the island of Cape Breton. Until 1744, the colonies do not appear to have felt much alarm, but, from that time to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 264 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMm FEANKLIN. [l745. 1748, they were always in apprehension, and making vigorous pre- parations both to defend and to assail. The splendid liberality of Massachusetts in fitting out the expedition against Louisburg, and the promptness with which it moved, show us that the Massachu- setts of 1745 differed from the Massachusetts of 1861 in the number, not in the quality, of its inhabitants. The Southern colonies, too, made a show of preparation. The Southern colonists, from the be- ginning, affected a fondness for the profession of arms. A writer of 1740 says: "Wherever you travel in Maryland, Virginia, or Carolina, you are astonished at the number of colonels, majors, and captains. The whole country, seems, at first, a retreat of heroes."* Pennsylvania alone was utterly defenseless. The banks of the Delaware had not a fort, not a battery, not a gun ; and Philadel- phia lay a tempting prize that even a well-armed privateer could seize and sack. There was not so much as a volunteer company, if there were muskets enough to arm one. John Penn and Thomas. Penn, the proprietors of the province, were not Quakers, as their father had been, and the governors who ruled in their stead were not Quakers ; yet, in the legislative assembly, the Quaker influence so greatly preponderated, that nothing could induce that body to vote money for the purchase of the means of defense. Not the actual presence of a privateer in the river could move them ; with such tenacity do we cling to eccentric beliefs. The Philadelphians, however, watched the warlike proceedings of the New Englanders with intense interest. Franklin seems for a time to have felt no great alarm. In a letter which he wrote to his brother John, after the Cape Breton expedition had sailed, he treats the affair in a jocular manner. " Our people," he wrote, *' are extremely impatient to hear of your success at Cape Breton. My shop is filled with thirty inquiries at the coming in of every post. Some wonder the place is not yet taken. I tell them I shall be glad to hear that news three months hence. Fortified towns are hard nuts to crack ; and your teeth have not been accustomed to it. •3f * * Yqjj jj^yg ^ f^g^ ^^^ prayer day for that purpose ; in which I compute five hundred thousand petitions were offered up to the same effect in New England, which added to the petitions of every family, morning and evening, multiplied by the number of days * "Sketches in America in 1740." Literary Magazine, Philadelphia, December, 1S06. AGED 39.] THE THEIYING AND PUBLIC-SPIRITED CITIZEN. 265 since January 25th, make forty-five millions of prayers ; which, set against the prayers of a few priests in the garrison to the Virgin Mary, give a vast balance in your favor. If you do not succeed, I fear I shall have but an indifferent opinion of Presbyterian prayers in such cases, as long as I live. Indeed, in attacking strong towns I should have more dependence on worJcs^ than on faith ; for, like the kingdom of heaven, they are to be taken by force and violence ; and in a French garrison, I suppose, there are devils of that kind, that they are not to be cast out by prayers and fasting, unless it be by their own fasting for want of provisions." But in 1746, Franklin visited Boston ; a memorable event in the history of science, as we shall see ere long. All that year pugna- cious little Boston was in a military ferment, frequently expecting an attack from the enemy's fleet, and constantly preparing to resist. The gloiy of the Cape Breton expedition still shone in the countenances of the people, and their very Sundays were noisy with the tread of armed men, and the trundle of guns. Franklin caught their spirit, and bacame seriously alarmed for the safety of Philadelphia. On his return home, finding it still impossible to move the Assembly, lie resolved to attempt the defense of the city by the voluntary labors of the people. He wrote a consummately artful pamphlet of twenty-two pages, called " Plain Truth," in which he employed every argument that could have weight with any class of the inhabitants. He appealed to their pride as Britons, and to their interests as Pennsylvanians. He dwelt upon the example of the other colonies. For the non- resistent Quakers, he inserted a biblical argument to show the rightfulness of defensive war. He enlarged upon the wealth of Philadelphia, and showed how probable it was that the enemy would discover its defenseless state, and what an easy capture it would be. The power of the great Indian tribes, and the influence of the French over some of them, furnished him with powerful arguments. He pointed out the ruin that would come upon the trade of the province if ships of the enemy should even obstruct the navigation of the river. The party divisions of the province, the proprietary party, the Quakers, the gentlemen, the tradesmen, all the attachments and all the antipathies of the town, were skillfully referred to and turned to account. And lest any class should escape him, he inserted one tremendous passage that appealed to a 12 266 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1747. feeling that was universal— /e«r. The passage shows the frightful cruelty with which war was formerly carried on. " On the first alarm, terror will spread over all ; and, as no man can with certainty depend that another will stand by him, beyond doubt very many will seek safety by a speedy flight. Those that are reputed rich, will flee, through fear of torture, to make them ])roduce more than they are able. The man that has a wife and children will find them hanging on his neck, beseeching him with tears to quit the city and save his life, to guide and protect them in that time of general desolation and ruin. All will run into con- fusion, amidst cries and lamentations, and the hurry and disorder of departers, carrying away their efiects. The few that remain will be unable to resist. Sacking the city will be the first, and burning it, in all probability, the last act of the enemy. This, I believe, will be the case, if you have timely notice. But what must be your condition, if suddenly surprised, without previous alarm, perhaps in the night ! Confined to your houses, you will have nothing to trust to but the enemy's mercy. Your best fortune will be, to fall under the power of commanders of kings' ships, able to control the mariners, and not into the hands of licentious privateers. Who can, without the utmost horror, conceive the miseries of the latter, when your persons, fortunes, wives, and daughters shall be subject to the wanton and unbridled rage, rapine, and lust of negroes, mulattoes, and others, the vilest and most abandoned of mankind. A dreadful scene! which some may represent as ex- aggerated. I think it my duty to warn you ; judge for your- selves." The eflect of this pamphlet was all that Franklin could have wished. A few days after its appearance, he called a meeting of the citizens in the large building that had been erected during the visit of Whitefield. He harangued the multitude, urged them to form themselves into an Association for Defense, and invited all pres- ent to enroll themselves, that very night, by signing the papers which he had previously placed about the room. Twelve hundred names were immediately subscribed ; ten thousand in a few days ; and, before many days had passed, nearly every man in the province who was not a Quaker, had joined a military organization, had procured some kind of weapon, and was learning the exercise. Eighty companies were soon ready to march to any threatened AGED 41.] THE THKIYING AND PUBLIC-SPIRITED CITIZEN. 267 point. In Philadelphia, the companies united to form a regiment, and elected Franklin their colonel. " Conceiving myself unfit," he says, " I declined that station, and recommended Mr. Lawrence, a fine person and a man of influence, who was accordingly appointed." The ladies were busy in providing silk colors for the various corps, Franklin inventing the devices. A system of signals and alarms was established all over the province. But, as yet, there was not a serviceable cannon in all Pennsylvania, and, I believe, never had been. To procure a battery for the defense of the town against ascending vessels, Franklin proposed a lottery, the usual expedient for raising money at that time. The lottery was successful. A battery of logs and earth was thrown up below the town, and some old cannon, bought at Boston, were mounted upon it. More cannon were sent for from London, but before these could arrive, all might be lost ; and so Colonel Lawrence, Benjamin Frank- lin, and two others were sent to New York to borrow cannon of Gov. Clinton. " He, at first," says Franklin, " refused us peremptorily ; \ but at a dinner with his council, where there was great drinking of Jkjadeira wine, as the custom of that place then was, he softened by degrees, and said he would lend us six. After a few more bumpers he advanced to ten ; and at length he very good-naturedly conceded eighteen. They were fine cannon, 18-pounders, with their carriages, w^hich were soon transported and mounted on our batteries, where the associators kept a nightly guard while the war lasted ; and among the\ rest, I regularly took my turn of duty there as a com- mon soldief." To give the clergy an opportunity to bring their influence to bear upon the minds of the people, he induced the Governor and Council to appoint a fast day. Franklin himself drew up the proclamation in th& form to which he had been accustomed in New England. — ^^hese warlike events could not fail in the province of Pennsylvania to excite opposition. " Plain Truth " called forth a reply, entitled " Necessary Truth," and that, in turn, elicited sermons and disserta- tions in support of the defensive measures. The pamphlets that ap- peared in consequence of the publication of " Plain Truth" form a considerable volume, which is the larger because the more import- ant essays were published both in English and German. All the pamphlets in favor of defense were printed by Franklin at his own expense. The Rev. Gilbert Tennent, a renov^^ncd Presbyterian 268 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [I'^'^V. minister of that day, was a sturdy champion of the defensive meas- ures, and published three sermons in support of them. Some of Franklin's friends feared that his warlike zeal would destroy his influence in the Assembly, wherein the Quaker influ- ence was supreme. One young man, who had his eye upon the clerkship, went so far as to advise him to resign in order to avoid the disgrace of being dismissed. Franklin told him, in reply, that he had heard of a public man who made it a rule never to seek and never to decline office. " I," said Franklin, " approve of this rule, and shall practice it with a smnll addition : I shall never ask, never refuse, and never resign an office." At the next election, he was again chosen clerk by a unanimous vote. The truth was, that most of the young Quakers, and many of their elders, secretly rejoiced in the preparations for defense. In proof of this, Franklin relates an amusing anecdote. It was pro- posed in the Union Fire Company, which consisted of twenty-two Quakers and eight of other persuasions, that the sixty pounds in tlieir treasury should be expended in buying tickets in the lottery for the purchase of cannon. By the rules, no money could be ex- pended until the next meeting after the proposal had been made. "The eight," says Franklin, "punctually attended the meeting. Only one Quaker, Mr. James Morris, appeared to oppose the meas- ^j.g^ * * * While we were disputing, a waiter came to tell me, that two gentlemen below desired to speak with me. I went down, and found there two of our Quaker members. They told me, there were eight of them assembled at a tavern just by ; that they were determined to come and vote with us if there should be occasion, which they hoped would not be the case, and desired we would not call their assistance, if we could do without it ; as their voting for such a measure might embroil them with their elders and friends. Being thus secure of a majority, I went up, and, after a little seem- ing hesitation, agreed to a delay of another hour. This Mr. Morris allowed to be extremely fair. Not one of his opposing friends appeared, at which he expressed great surprise ; and, at the expira- tion of the hour, we carried the resolution eight to one." If this resolution had failed, Franklin was ready with another expedient. "If we fail," he said, to one of the eight, "let us move the purchase of a fire engine with the money ; the Quakers can have no objection to that : and then if you nominate me and I AGED 41.] THE THEIVING AND PUBLIC-SPIRITED CITIZEN. 269 you as a committee for that purpose, we will buy a great gun, which is certainly 2ifire engine^ Mr. James Logan, who was a Quaker, but in favor of defensive war, told Franklin an anecdote which shows that William Penn was not averse to defense while danger was imminent. Logan came over with William Penn as his private secretary. The ship being chased by an armed vessel, the captain and crew prepared to defend themselves. All the Quakers went below except Logan, who being more a man than a Quaker, stood at one of the guns to aid in beating off the foe. The armed ship, however, proved to be a friend, and Logan went into the cabin to communicate the intelligence. William Penn being thus relieved of apprehension, reprimanded Logan for being willing to take part in defending the ship, contrary to the principles of his sect. Whereupon Logan said : " I being thy servant, Avhy did not thee order me to come down ? But thee was willing enough that I should stay and help fight the ship, when thee thought there was danger." In later years, when the Quakers feared to offend the government by voting against all army appropriations, the money asked for was said to be " for the king's use ;" or, when provisions and ammuni- tions were to be bought, the appropriation was " for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat, and other grain^^ i. e., gunpowder. To such pitiful expedients are men reduced who hold fantastical opinions ; or, holding such, are not prepared to venture their all upon them. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, signed by the British Commission- ers, October Yth, 1748, put an end to the apprehensions of the colo- nies. The part played by Franklin during the period of alarm, enhanced his influence in Pennsylvania, brought him into confiden- tial relations with the Governor, the Council, and the circle of lead- ing men ; and accustomed the people of Philadelphia to regard him as their leader and refuge in time of trouble. Interesting events, meanwhile, had occurred in the home of Frank- lin, and in households connected with his. In 1744, he was made happy by the birth of another child, a daughter, who was named Sarah. About this time, he took as an apprentice, Benjamin Me- com, a son of his sister Jane, and placed him in New York with Mr. James Parker, a partner of his own. His son William was then a stout, handsome boy, not very studious or tractable. He ran away early in the war, and enlisted on board a privateer in the 270 LIFJE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1747. Delaware, from which his father brought him away home again. Being active in military affairs, he was permitted by his father, in 1746, when he was but sixteen, to join an expedition which was designed to invade Canada, but which, I believe, never advanced beyond Albany. This running away to join privateers seems to have been the besetting sin of boys during the wars of that period. Young Me- com ran away from his master in New York for that purpose, and Franklin wrote a long letter to his mother to prove to her that it was not ill-usage that made him do it. "When boys see prizes brought in," he wrote, " and quantities of money shared among the men, and their gay living, it fills their heads with notions, that half distract them, and put them quite out of conceit with trades, and the dull ways of getting money by working. This, I suppose, was Ben's case, the Catherine being just before arrived with three rich prizes ; and that the glory of having taken a privateer of the enemy, for which both officers and men were highly extolled, treat- ed, and presented, worked strongly upon his imagination. My only son, before I permitted him to go to Albany, left my house unknown to us all, and got on board a privateer from whence I fetched him. No one imagined it was hard usage at home, that made him do this. Every one that knows me, thinks I am too indulgent a pa- rent, as well as master." The parents of Franklin were still living when the war began. They were both very old, and had begun to sink under the infirmi- ties to which the aged are subject. He wrote to them tenderly and thoughtfully respecting their complaints, suggesting remedies in his usual modest way. " I apprehend I am too busy," he wrote on one occasion, "in prescribing and meddling in the doctor's sphere, when any of you complain of ails in your letters. But as I always employ a physician myself when any disorder arises in my family, and sub- mit implicitly to his orders in every thing, so I hope you consider my advice, when I give any, only as a mark of my good will, and put no more of it in practice than happens to agree with what your doctor directs." Then follows a considerable essay on their dis- ease. In 1744, at the great age of eighty-nine years, his father died. Franklin concluded his next letter to his sister Jane with these words : " Dear sister, I love you tenderly for your care of our father in his sickness." AGED 41.] ELECTRICITY BEFORE FRANKLIN. 271 Tn the Boston News Letter^ of January 17th, 1745, the death of Josiah Franklin was noticed thus : " Last night died Mr. Josiah Franklin, tallow chandler and soap maker. By the force of a steady temperance, he had made a constitution, none of the strongest, last with comfort to the age of eighty-seven years ; and by an entire dependence on his Redeemer, and a constant course of the strictest piety and virtue, he was enabled to die as he lived, with cheerfulness and peace, leaving a numerous posterity the honor of being descended from a person who through a long life supported the character of an honest man.''^ From what we have seen hitherto of Benjamin Franklin, it might with certainty be inferred, that if any particular description of nat- ural phenomena should chance strongly to excite his curiosity, and leisure were his at the same time, he would go far in its investiga- tion. During the last few years of the war, he was nmch relieved from the details of business by his excellent foreman, David Hall. But the war itself, one would think, gave him work enough. It was, however, amid the stir and excitement of putting Pennsyl- vania into a state of defense, that he entered upon that course of investigation which made his name familiar to all the world, and raised the colonics themselves in the estimation of mankind. CHAPTER VHI. ELECTRICITY BEFORE FRANKLIN. In November, 1745, at the Dutch city of Leyden, a discovery was made, partly by accident, which may be said, in the literal sense of the expression, to have electrified the scientific world. Before that time, indeed, no one had ever been strongly electrified, except the few luckless individuals who had been in the way when nature was discharging one of her own tremendous Leyden jars. The Greeks, three centuries before the Christian era, had observed that amber and tourmaline when rubbed attract light bodies. Aris- totle and Pliny both descant upon the torpedo, tlic electricity of which was used to cure rheumatic complaints in the reign of Tibe- 272 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l'747. rius. The sparks emitted from clothing, and from the fur of animals, were also observed by the ancients. But not another fact respect- ing electricity was added to the stock of knowledge until the year 1600, when Dr. Gilbert, of England, discovered that besides amber and tourmaline, several other substances possess the electric power, such as jet, diamond, glass, sealing wax, sulphur, sapphire, and car- buncle. He also discovered that many substances cannot be elec- trically excited ; for example, metals, ivory, hard wood, flint, em- erald, pearls, alabaster, and natural magnets. Lastly, he observed that in dry cool air the electrical power is excited easily and quickly ; in moist warm air, with difficulty or not at all. At that point the subject remained until Otto Yon Guericke, the inventor of the air pump, constructed about 1650, a rude electrical machine, which was merely a ball of sulphur mounted on a revolving axis, like a grind- stone. By the aid of this instrument he produced powerful sparks and flashes of electric light. He discovered that bodies excited by friction communicate their electricity to other bodies by contact, and that electrified substances repel as well as attract. Sir Isaac Newton made an electrical machine of glass, and invented some amusing experiments, but drew no new inferences from them. Francis Hawksbee (who wrote in 1705), besides inventing a great number of brilliant experiments, noticed and remarked upon the sim- ilarity between the electric flash and lightning. Stephen Gray (1720), of the Royal Society, added numberless experiments, many of which were extremely ingenious. He also expressed a hope that a method would at length be discovered of collecting a great quantity of electricity, " which," he added, " seems to be of the same nature with thunder and lightning, if we may compare great things with small." Add to these, the detection by M. Dufay, of Paris, of the two kinds of electricity, which he called vitreous and resinous ; and we have arrived at the Leyden discovery of 1745. Thus we find that, for a century and a half, electricity had been studied in Europe by here and there an ardent votary, but without making much more than a show of progress. A thousand entertain- ing experiments had been performed and described. Spirits had been fired and gunpowder exploded by a spark fioin a lady's finger. Children had been insulated by hanging them to the ceiling by silk cords ; men, by placing them upon cakes of resin, and both had felt the electric prick, and their hair to stand on end. A tolerable AGED 41.] ELECTKICITY KEFOllE FKANKXIN. 273 machine had been constructed for exciting electricity, though most experimenters still used only a glass tube. Several volumes of electrical observations and experiments had appeared from the press. ISTevertheless, what had been done was little more than a repetition, on a great scale and with better means, of the original experiment of rubbing a piece of amber on the sleeve of a philosopher's coat. Experimenters in 1745 could procure a more powerful spark, and play a greater variety of tricks with it than Dr. Gilbert could in 1600, but that w^as nearly all the advantage they had over him. A vague expectation seems occasionally to have flitted across the mands of electricians, that the observation of electrical phenomena would, in the progress of knowledge, furnish some plausible answer to the question addressed by mad Lear, in the forest, to poor Tom . " Let me talk with this philosopher. What is the cause of thun- der ?" To our ancestors this question was a complete baffler. It is sometimes amusing, and sometimes aifecting, to read of their ineffectual struggles with it ; which struggles, however, seemed to them by no means ineffectual. A hundred and fifty years ago, peo- ple spoke of the ignorance of past ages just as we now do, and often hid their ignorance from themselves, as we do, by giving a new name to an old thing. Doubtless, Pliny thought he had explained, thunder, when he said it was only an earthquake in the air. Dr. Lister, we may be sure, was well pleased with his theory of light- ning, which he said was caused by the sudden taking fire of im- mense quantities of fine floating sulphur. He also thought, tha,t the only diflerence between thunder and earthquakes was, that the one took place in the nir, and the other under ground. Franklin, in 1737, quoted these opinions in his Gazette^ and evidently thought favorably of them ; certainly he had no thought of disputing them. Young Jonathan Edwards's explanation of lightning, as recorded in his diary about 1722, affords a fair and' curious specimen of the ancient way of thinking on this subject. "Lightning," he says, "seems to be an almost infinitely fine, combustible matter, that floats in the air, that takes fire by a sudden and mighty fermentation, that is some way promoted by the cool and moisture, and perhaps attraction, of the clouds. By this sud- den agitation, this fine, floating matter is driven forth with a mighty force one way or other, whichever wav it is directed, by the cir- 12* 274 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1747. cumstances an-d temperature of the circumjacent air ; for cold and heat, density and rarity, moisture and dryness, have almost an infi- nitely strong influence upon the fine particles of matter. This fluid matter, thus projected, still fermenting to the same degree, divides the air as it goes, and every moment receives a new impulse by the continued fermentation ; and as its motion received its direction, at first, from the different temperature of the air, on different sides, so its direction is changed, according to the temperature of the air it meets with, which renders the path of the lightning so crooked. The parts are so fine, and are so vehemently urged on, that they in- stantaneously make their way into the pores of earthly bodies, still burning with a prodigious heat, and so instantly rarefying the rare- fiable parts. Sometimes these bodies are somewhat bruised ; which is chiefly by the beating of the air that is, with great violence, driven every way by the inflamed matter."* And even this was an advance upon the general way of thinking in the colonies. To attempt any explanation of what was popularly regarded as the literal voice of an infuriated deity, burning for re- venge against the insects he had created, indicated in Jonathan Edwards a bold as well as inquisitive genius. The popular mode of thinking on this subject, is shown in a paragraph published in the Boston News Letter of June 12th, 1704. It was part of a letter to a " Person of Quality," respecting a storm that had lately raged on the English Coast. " Terrible was it beyond any thing in that kind in memory or record. For, not to enlarge upon the lamentable wrecks and ruins, were we not almost swept into a chaos ? Did not Nature seem t-o be in her last agony, and the world ready to expire ? And if we go on still in such sins of defiance, may we not be afraid of the punishment of Sodom, and that God should destroy us with fire and brimstone ? What impression this late calamity has made upon the play-house, we may guess by their acting Macbeth, with all its thunder and tempest, the same day : where, at the mention of the chimneys being blown down (Macbeth, p. 20), the audience were pleased to clap, at an unusual length of pleasure and approbation. And is not the meaning of all this too intelligible ? Does it not look as if they had a mind to outbrave judgment, and make us be- lieve the storm was nothing but an eruption of Epicm'us's atoms, a * Dwighf s " Life of Edwards," p. 748. AGED 41.j ELECTRICITY BEFORE FRANKLIN. 275 spring- tide of matter and motion, and a blind sally of chance? This throwing Providence out of the scheme, is an admirable opiate for the conscience !" etc. How true the late remark of Mr. Herbert Spencer : " It is de- monstrable that every step by Avhich Religion has progressed from its first low conception to the comparatively high one it has now reached, Science has helped it, or rather forced it, to take." And again : " The beliefs which science has forced upon religion have been intrinsically more religious than those which they supplant- ed." * The Ley den discovery of 1 745 was a stride toward the nobler, the "more religious" behef, respecting the dread electricity of the clouds : namely, that it is remedial and beneficent ; the manifesta- tion of a Power that is benign always, mahgn never. At Leyden, three persons were experimenting in electricity: Professor Muschenbroeck and Professor Allamand of the famous Leyden University, and Mr. C uncus, who seems to have been an amateur in science and a friend of the two professors just named. These gentlemen were aware that the great obstacle to progress in the knowledge of electricity, was the difficulty of accumulating and retaining it. They used, for a prime conductor, a small iron cannon, suspended by silk threads. This cannon they could powerfully charge with electricity, but in a few seconds after ceasing to turn the handle of the machine, the electricity had escaped. The idea occurred to Professor Muschenbroeck that, perhaps, an electrified * " First Principles," by Herbert Spencer, pp. 102 and 104. Another illustration of Mr. Spencer'8 remark is found in the following passage from a sermon by Dr. Byles, preached in Boston a hundrel years ago: "If an Earthquake be caus'd by imprison'd Wind, which wanting Vent, rushes with a bellowing Koar under the Earth, and heaves up the Ground into Trembles, it must give us an amaz- ing Horror to think this Subterranean Vapour must break out somewhere or other, and that we don't know but it may rush out under our Feet, and bury us all in one prodigious Chasm. If it be caused by Fires, which burn under us, and run in Elvers of Flame, which threaten to blaze out in the most dreadful Eruptions; it must fearfully surprise to think how the outward Convex Earth which is our present Foundation, is only an Arch, which as it woro hangs over a fiery Sea; and that if it should once cave in, we should fall into a Boiling and Sulphurious Lake. It is the Senti- ment of the best modern Philosophers, that the Earth is continually sapt and undermined by Fire ; and its Vitals burnt with an hectick Fever, so that it is gradually preparing for the final Confla- gration, when its extreme Surface will at last share the Fate that is now sufi'ered by its Entrails. Doubtless those burning Mountains which throw out of their Caverns perpetual Flames and Cin- der, and sometimes Vomit Rivers of melted materials, have numerous Sources from all parts of this Globe, which still supply them with fresh and eternal Recruits. So that an Earthquake must needs give us some natural Expectation and Image of those last tremendous Convulsions when this large and spacious Arch which is stretch'd over the Hollow that is under it, shall descend dow7i with a mighty noise, and the Waves of Fire breaking out. sliall boil over it."' 278 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [^'^^7. body might be so surrounded by a non-conducting substance that the electricity could not escape : it might be imprisoned like Ariel in an oak tree. Glass being a non-conductor, and water a conductor, he tried the experiment, many times, with a glass bottle half full of water, with a wire hanging from his cannon into the water. Noth- ing remarkable resulted from this experiment, for some time. One day, however, Mr. Cuneus chanced to touch the prime conductor with one hand while holding in the other the electrified bottle of water. The result was an electric shock, the first ever given to mortal man by artificial means. Amazement and terror overcame the soul of Mr. Cuneus, slight as the shock must have been. We talk of " new sensations," but no sensation of recent times has produced an effect equal to that of the electric shock upon the imagination of the Dutch and German professors who first experienced it. Professor Muschenbroeck, who immediately repeated the experiment with a small glass bowl, de- clared to his friend Reaumur, that he felt himself struck in his arms, shoulders, and chest, with such force that he lost his breath for some moments, and then felt so intense a pain along his right arm that he began to be seriously alarmed, and it was two days before he re- covered from the efiects of the blow and the terror. " I v/ould not," he added, " take a second shock for the kingdom of France." Professor Allamand took a shock from a beer glass, and he gave a similar account of its efiects. He said that he lost his breath for some minutes, and felt a pain so acute that he could scarcely bear it. Professor Winkler, of Leipsic, hearing of the new experiment, had the courage to brave its terrors. So violent, he said, were the convulsions into which he was thrown, and such the agitation of his blood, that he was afraid he was about to be seized with a danger- ous fever, and had recourse to the usual cooling medicines. He also felt a heaviness in his head, as though a stone lay upon it. Twice his nose bled, a malady before unknown to his experience. His w4fe, not dismayed by these dire consequences, and having the combined curiosity of a woman and of a professor's wife, received two shocks, and found herself almost deprived of the power to walk, and remained in a limp and feeble condition for a week.* Thus the Leyden Jar was invented ; which was the most impor- * Priestley's History of Electricity, p. 81. AGED 41.] FRANKLIN AND ELECTRICITY. 277 tant single contribution to electrical science that has been made since the electric properties of amber were first observed. Sir William Watson, of London, a retired apothecary and man of learning, soon completed the invention, as we now have it, by coating the jar within and without with tin foil. The fame of this experiment spread with great rapidity. Perhaps it may be said that no scientific discovery ever made such a noise in the world as this. So universal was the desire to experience the naw sensation, that large numbers of persons, during the year 1746, went about in England j Germany, France, Holland, and Italy, giving shocks for money. Every one acquainted with the current literature of that period, will be able to call to mind proofs of the universal interest then felt in all that related to electricity. Dr. A. Carlyle, who was in London this year, bestows one of his matter-of-fact sen- tences upon the prevailing topic : " Experiments in electricity were then but new in England, and I saw them well exhibited at Baker's, whose wife, by the by, was a daughter of the celebrated Daniel Defoe." At the same time, a coterie of the Royal Society, with the ardent and ingenious Sir William Watson at their head, were en- gaged in a course of magnificent experiments to determine the ve- locity of electricity ; while in Spain, the Abbe Nollet was giving shocks to whole regiments of guards at once. Everybody in Eu- rope, that had in him the least tincture of science, provided himself with a long electrical tube, Avhich he rubbed with assiduity. To use the modern slang, electricity was the rage. CHAPTER IX. FRANKLIN AND ELECTRICITY. Mr. Peter Collinson, the London agent for the Library Com- pany of Philadelphia, was still accustomed to send, with the annual parcel of books, any work or curious object, as a gift, which chanced to be in vogue at the time, and had escaped the attention of the directors. What more natural than that he should send, in 1746, one of the electrical tubes, with a paper of directions for using it ? 278 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIIS FRANKLIN. [1747. The tubes then commonly used were two feet and a half long, and as thick as a man could conveniently grasp. They were rubbed with a piece of cloth or buckskin, and held in contact with the object designed to be charged. It so chanced that a few weeks before the arrival of Peter CoUin- son's tube, Franklin liad seen a similar one in Boston, the property of Dr. Spence, who had recently brought it from Scotland. The usual electrical experiments were performed by Dr. Spence in the presence of Franklin, whom they astonished and entertained, for the subject was absolutely new to him. No sooner, therefore, was the tube unpacked at the Philadelphia Library, than he eagerly seized the opportunity to repeat the experiments, which he had witnessed in Boston, as well as those described by Mr. Colhnson, who had sent an account of Professor Muschenbroeck's miraculous bottle, as it was then frequently styled. The subject completely fascinated him. He gave himself wholly up to it. Procuring other tubes at the Philadelphia Glass-works, he distributed them among his friends, and set the whole Junto rubbing. " I never," he wrote, early in 1747, "was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time as this has lately done ; for, what with making experiments when I can be alone, and repeating them to my friends and acquaintance, who, from the novelty of the thing, come continually in crowds to see them, I have, during some months ])ast, had little leisure for any thing else." To the greater number, of course, the electrical tube was a new toy only, which amused them for a time, and was then laid aside. Three Philadelphians, however, besides Franklin, continued to make the new science a subject of constant study and laborious experi- ment for many years : Ebenezer Kinnersley, Thomas Hopkinson, and Philip Syng. The four experimenters pursued their subject both separately and together, each animated by a pare desire to know more of this wonderful and mysterious element, which seemed to pervade all things, and yet had remained so long unknown; the" investigation of which promised to bring the inquirer a step nearer to nature's innermost secret. Each of Franklin's three co-operators imparted to him valuable suggestions and discoveries, which he acknowledged and applauded. Mr. Syng, for example, contrived an electrical machine, similar to those used in Europe, of which he had never heard. The power of points to throw off electricity was first 4^1 AGED 41.] FRANKLIN AND ELECTRICITY. 279 observed by Mr. Hopkiiison : Franklin having only noticed their power to draAV it off. Mr. Kinnersley contributed several highly interesting observations, and contrived experiments of singular ingenuity, some of which are still performed in our lecture rooms. Let us also remark, that, in the universal enthusiasm with which electricity was then studied, some valuable discoveries were made by several persons almost simultaneously ; which has led to much pitiful contention with regard to the " credit " due to the several investigators. We should be modest for a modest man, said Charles Lamb. Franklin claimed no credit for what he achieved in electri- city; and no man will ever do much in science who cares much for the credit of what he may do. The true discoverer knows too well, and laments too deeply the limitedness of his powers, to plume himself upon his one or two half-chance detections of nature's way. His eyes are fixed, not upon the few pebbles in his hand, but upon the boundless ocean of truth, of which he can know nothing, except that it exists. We may, therefore, spare ourselves the disgust of meddling with those silly disputes as to who happened first to observe this or that electrical law. If the whole of the little that we now hnoio of electricity had been discovered by one man, he, if no one else, would have been aware that it was not much to boast of. During the whole of the winter of 1^4 6-' 7, Franklin and his friends were devoted to electricity. They experimented frequently with points, the power of which to draw off electricity from an excited body had early engaged their attention. Electrical attrac- tion and repulsion were observed with the utmost care. That electricity is not created, but only collected by friction, was one of their first conjectures ; the correctness of which they soon demon- strated by a great number of experiments. Franklin's theory of plus and minus, or positive and negative electricity, was reached in this first season of his experimenting, since we find it imperfectly stated in a letter dated in July, 1747. Before having heard of the coating of the Loyden jar with tin-foil, the Philadelphia experi- menters substituted granulated lead for the water employed by Prof. Maschenbroeck. They fired spirits, and lighted candles with the electrical spark ; they improved the electrical kiss, so that a shock was given, instead of a mere spark at the moment of contact. They performed rare tricks with a spider made of burnt cork; to the 280 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l747. wonder and delight of young Philadelphia. It was in this f rst winter, too, that Philip Syng mounted one of the tubes upon a crnnk, and employed a cannon ball as a prime conductor, probably one of the very balls procured for the defense of the province against the French and Spanish. Before the construction of this machine, the rubbing of the tube had been a great fatigue, and a serious drawback to the pleasure of the experimenters. Most of these things had been done or suggested before; but most of them, too, were original discoveries of the Philadelphians, who had heard nothing of them. The plus and minus theory, although two English observers had approached it, was the unassisted conclusion of these Pennsylvanian Philosophers. In his first letter to Mr. Collinson on electricity, Franklin said that the experiments and observations made by himself and his friends, though new in the new world, had probably been anticipated and in Europe by one or more of the many persons daily employed there on electrical experiments. The summer of 1 747 was devoted, as we have seen, to preparing the provinse for defense. But during the fall and winter following, the four Philadelphians resumed their electrical experiments, the results of which Franklin detailed in other letters to Mr. Collinson. The wondrous Leyden jar was the object of Franklin's incessant obser- vation. He was never weary of experimenting with it. Having applied to it his plus and minus theory, he exhausted even his in- genuity in devising experiments to place his explanation beyond the possibility of question. That the electric shock was only the sudden restoration of the electrical equilibrium, he not only proved, but shoioed^ by making the rush of electricity visible along the gilding of a book. As a specimen of his mode of investigating, take a single passage, descriptive of one of the discoveries of this second electrical winter. The Leyden phial used in these masterly experiments, was Maschenbroeck's original invention, a mere bottle of water, with a v/ire piercing the cork. "Purposing," wrote Frankhn, "to analyze the electrified bottle, in order to find wherein its strength lay, we placed it on glass, and drev/ out the cork and wire, which for that purpose had been loosely put in. Then taking the bottle in one hand, and bringing a finger of the other near its mouth, a strong spark came from the AGED 41.] FRAXKLIN AND ELECTRICITY. 281 water, and the shock was as violent as if the wire had reniained in it^ which showed that the force did not lie in the wire. Then, to find if it resided in the water, being crowded into and condensed in it, as confined by the glass, which had been our former opinion, we electrified the bottle again, and, placing it on glass, drew out the wire and cork as before ; then, taking up the bottle, we de- canted all its water into an empty bottle, which likewise stood on glass ; and taking up that other bottle, we expected, if the force resided in the water, to find a shock from it ; but there was none. We judged then that it must either be lost in decanting, or remain in the first bottle. The latter we found to be true ; for that bottle on trial gave the shock, though filled up as it stood with fresh un- electrified water from a tea-pot. To find, then, whether glass had this property merely as glass, or whether the form contributed any thing to it, we took a pane of sash-glass, and, laying it on the hand, placed a plate of lead on its upper surface ; then electrified that plate, and bringing a finger to it, there was a spark and shock. We then took two plates of lead of equal dimensions, but less than the glass by two inches every way, and electrified the glass between them, by electrifying the uppermost lead ; then separated the glass from the lead, in doing which, what little fire might be in the lead was taken out, and the glass being touched in the electrified parts with a finger, afibrded only very small pricking sparks, but a great number of them might be taken from different places'. Then dex- terously placing it again between the leaden plates, and completing a circle between the two surfaces, a violent shock ensued : which demonstrated the power to reside in glass as glass, and that the non-electrics in contact served only, like the armature of a loadstone, to unite the force of the several parts, and bring them at once to any point desired ; it being the property of a non-electric, that the whole body instantly receives or gives what electrical fire is given to, or taken from, any one of its parts. " Upon this we made what we called an electrical battery^ consist- ing of eleven panes of large sash-glass, armed with thin leaden plates, pasted on each side, placed vertically, and supported at two inches distance on silk cords, with thick hooks of leaden wire, one from each side, standing upright, distant from each other, and con- venient communications of wire and chain, from the giving side of one pane to the receiving side of the other- that so the whole 282 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l748. might be charged together, and with the same labor as one single pane." This battery was soon superseded by one consisting of a series of Leyden jars, which was found more convenient, and the power of which many a too eager electrician besides Franklin has experi- enced. Mr. Kinnersley, this winter, contrived the amusing experiment of the magical picture. A figure of his majesty. King George II., (" God preserve him," says the loyal Franklin, in a parenthesis, when telling the story,) was so arranged that any one who attempted to take his crown from his head, received a tremendous shock. Franklin contrived an electric wheel, which revolved with consider- able force, and by the aid of his battery of jars, he gave shocks powerful enough to kill a hen. The main result, however, of this winter's experimenting was the explanation of the Leyden jar ; an explanation to which subsequent inquirers have been able to add nothing of importance. Indeed, we may say, that the essentials of the theory of electricity, as now taught in our schools, were estab- lished by Franklin during this season. As the spring drew on, the experimenters slackened their diligence, and Franklin summed up their winter's work in a long letter to Mr. Collinson, which con- cluded with these words : " Chagrined a little that we have been hitherto able to produce nothing in this way of use to mankind, and the hot weather com- ing on, when electrical experiments are not so agreeable, it is pro- posed to put an end to them for this season, somewhat humorously, in a party of pleasure on the banks of the Schuylkill. Spirits, at the same time, are to be fired by a spark sent from side to side through the river, without any other conductor than the water ; an experiment which we some time since performed, to the amazement of many. A turkey is to be killed for our dinner by the electrical shocks and roasted by the electrical jack^ before a fire kindled by the electrified bottle ; when the healths of all the famous electri- cians in England, Holland, France, and Germany are to be drank in electrified bumpers, under the discharge of guns from the elec- triccd battery.'''' The summer of 1748 brought with it a prospect of peace, which the autumn fulfilled. Franklin again looked forward to a winter of electrical studies. AGED 42.] FRANKLIN AND ELECTRICITY. 283 And now this man, whose name throughout Christendom is an- other word for the undue love of money, gave a striking proof that he^ knew the exact worth of money, and vahied it for what it is vvorth, and for no more. He had been twenty years in business. He jvas forty-two years of age. He had acquired an estate, which, as I conjecture, yielded about seven hundred pounds sterling a year, which was then esteemed a handsome income for a retiring trades- man. In a colonial town, a hundred and ten years ago, an income of seven hundred pounds a year would buy every.thing that a man of sense ever wants, either for himself or for his family. It was equivalent to an income of six or seven thousand dollars in the Pliiladelphia of 1860. Besides this independence, Franklin was the holder of two offices worth together, perhaps, one hundred and fifty pounds a year. His business, then more flourishing than ever, produced an annual profit, as before computed, of two thousand pounds, bringing up his income to the troublesome and absurd amount of nearly three thousand pounds ; three times the revenue of a colonial governor. Yearning to devote the rest of his life to science, Franklin, in September, 1748, offered to dispose of his pi-intiug business to his foreman, David Hall, who had then been jti his employment some years, and had proved himself to be a man of ability and worth. The terms of the sale, as reported by tradi- tion to Mr. Isaiah Thomas,* and others, were these : Hall to have the control of the business as though it were wholly his own ; to pay Franklin a thousand pounds a year for eighteen years ; then to become the sole proprietor without further consideration ; the busi- ness, meanwhile, to be carried on in the names of Franklin and Hall, and Franklin to assist in editing the Gazette and J*oor Rich- ard. On these or similar terms, the partnership was formed, in the autumn of 1748, and Franklin was free to pursue his darling science with little hindrance. 7 ^o T5adwallader Golden, of New York, September 20th of this year, he communicates his purpose to retire, and adds : " I have re- moved to a more quiet part of the town, where I am settling my old accounts, and hope soon to be quite master of my own time, and no longer, as the song has it, at every one's call hut my own. If health continue, I hope to be able in another year to visit the * Anthi^r of the " History of Printing;." 284 LIFE AND TIMES OF BEXJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l749. most distant friend I have, without inconvenience. With the same views I have refused engaging further in public aiFairs. The share I had in the late Association (for defense) having given me a little present run of popularity, there was a pretty general intention of choosing me a representative of the city at the next election of Assemblymen ; but I have desired all ray friends, who spoke to me about it, to discourage it, declaring that I should not serve if chosen. Thus you see I am in a fair way of having no other tasks, than such as I shall like to give myself, and of enjoying what I look upon as a great happiness, leisure to read, study, make experiments, and con- verse at large with such ingenious and wortliy men, as are pleased to honor me with their friendship or- acquaintance, on such points as may produce something for the common benefit of mankind, unin- terrupted by the little cares and fatigues of business." Soon after. Dr. Spence brought from England a considerable electrical apparatus, intending to lecture in the colonies. Upon his arrival in Philadelphia, Franklin bought his apparatus, and, ere long, Mr, Penn, the proprietary, sent over as a present to the Library Company a complete set of electrical implements ; so that the Phil- adelphians had then abundant means of pursuing their investiga- tions. The retired part of the town of which Franklin speaks in the letter just quoted, was the southeast corner of Race and Second Streets,* then on the very outskirts of the city. His garden prob- ably extended to the Delaware, distant not more than one-eighth of a mile. It was not difficult for him to indulge his passion for the water, in which, he tells us, he used to sport an hour or two every fine summer evening. On resuming his electrical studies, he confined his observations no longer to the electricity gathered by the machine, but essayed to discover the part played in nature by this wonderful element. The patience Avith which he observed the electrical phenomena of the heavens, the acuteness displayed by him in drawing from his ob- servations plausible inferences, and the rapidity with which he arrived at all that we now know of thunder and lightning, still ex- cite the astonishment of those who read the graphic narratives he has left us of his proceedings. All the winter of 1748-'9, and all the summer following, he was feeling his way to his final conclu- * Watson-s Annuls of Philadelphia, i,, 533, AGED 43.] FEAN-KLI2N" AND ELECTRICITY. 285 sions on this subject. He drew up early in 1 749 a series of fifty- six observations, entitled " Observations and Suppositions towards forming a new Hypothesis for explaining the several Phenomena of Thunder-gusts." Nearly all tliat he afterwards demonstrated on this subject is anticipated in this truly remarkable paper, which was the product of a great understanding grappling with a subject worthy of its powers. He followed it soon with the most elabo- rate nnd celebrated of all his electrical writings, entitled " Opinions and Conjectures concerning the Properties and Effects of the Electrical Matter, and the means of preserving Buildings, Ships, &c., fi'om Lightning, arising from Experiments and Observations made at Philadelphia, 1749." The two grand topics of this masterly paper, are the power of poijits to draw off electricity, and the similarity of electricity and lightning. It is this treatise which contains the two suggestions which gave to the name of Franklin its first celebrity, and which we may safely style immortal. Both these suggestions are con- tained in one brief passage, which follows the description of a splendid experiment, in which a miniature lightning-rod had conducted harmlessly away the electricity of an artificial thunder- storm. " If these things are so," continued the philosopher, after stating the results of his superb experiment, " may not the knowledge of this power of points be of use to mankind, in preserving houses, churches, ships, etc., from the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix, on the highest part of those edifices, upright rods of iron made sharp as a needle, and gilt to prevent rusting, and from the foot of those rods, a wire down the outside of the building into the ground, or down round one of the shrouds of a ship, and down her side till it reaches the water ? Would not these pointed rods prob- ably draw the electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible mischief?" In such simple, and in such few words, does Genius reveal its conceptions. And Franklin introduces this topic with a sort of humorous half-apology. He confesses that he cannot tell why points possess this curious power; nor is it necessary, he adds, that we should understand it. " It is of real use to know that china left in the air unsupported will fall and break ; but how it comes to 286 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FBANKLIN. [1750. fall, and why it breaks, are matters of speculation. It is a pleasure indeed to know them, but we can preserve our china without it." The second of these immortal suggestions was the one that im- mediately arrested the attention of European electricians when at last the paper was published. It was given in these words : " To determine the question, whether the clouds that contain- lightning are electrified or not, I would propose an experiment to be tried where it may be done conveniently. On the top of some high tower or steeple, place a kind of sentry box, big enough to contain a man and an electric stand. From the middle of the stand let an iron rod rise and pass bending out of the door, and then upright twenty or thirty feet, pointed very sharp at the end. If the elec- trical stand be kept clean and dry, a man standing on it, when such clouds are passing low, might be electrified and aff'ord sparks, the rod drawing fire to him from a cloud. If any danger to the man should be apprehended (though I think there would be none), let him stand on the floor of his box, and now and then bring near to the rod the loop of a wire that has one end fastened to the leads, he holding it by a wax handle ; so the sparks, if the rod is electri- fied, will strike from the rod to the wire, and not affect Mm." . The reader may be interested to know by what steps Franklin arrived at his lightning hypothesis. A friend in South Carolina once asked him how he came to hit upoi> such an " out-of-the-way" idea. His reply was : " I cannot answer your question better than by giving you an extract from the minutes I used to keep of the experiments I made. * * By this extract you will see that the thought was not so much an out-of-the-way one but that it might have occurred to an electrican." The extract,* dated No- vember 7th, 1749, was as follows: "Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these particulars : 1 . Giving light. 2. Color of the light. 3. Crooked direction. 4. Swift motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. Crack or noise in exploding. 7. Subsisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies it passes through. 9. Destroying animals. 10. Melting metals. 11. Firing inflammable substances. 12. Sul- phureous smell. The electric fluid is attracted by points. We do not know whether this property is in lightning. But since they agree in all the particulars wherein we can already compare them, * Frankliii to John Lining, 1755. Sparks, v., 351. AGED 44.] FRANKLIN AND ELECTRICITY. 287 is it not probable they agree likewise in this ? Let the experiment be made." In this discovery, therefore, there was nothing of chance ; it was a legitimatQ deduction from patiently accumulated facts. In this respect it resembled Newton's detection of the law of gravitation, 'Mt'^wGlTtEis ctifference : Newton inherited from Galileo, KepleF, and others, all but the oiie sublime inference that makes him im- mortal ; while Franklin accumulated his facts, originated his infer- ence, and finally established its truth by an irresistible experiment. Kot that the two discoveries were of equal importance. By no means. Newton's discovery was, beyond doubt, the most sublime and most beneficial act ever done by a human mind. The paper containing the passages just quoted, and a world of other electric matter only less interesting than these, was sent to Mr. Collinson in July, 1750, with a request that he would communi- cate its contents to "our honorable Proprietary," whose "generous present of a complete electrical apparatus, has enabled us to carry those experhnents to a greater height." "If it happens," said Franklin, " to bring you nothing new (which may well be, consid- ering the number of ingenious men in Europe, continually engaged in the same researches), at least it will show, that the instruments put into our hands are not neglected ; and that, if no valuable dis- coveries are made by us, whatever the cause may be, it is not want of industry and application." The fourth season of Franklin's electrical experiments was marked by nothing more interesting than an accident which has since be- fallen many careless operators. He was about to kill a turkey by an electric shock, one day, for the amusement of some friends, and, for that purpose, had charged two jars, each holding six gallons. Inadvertently, while talking with the company, he took the shock himself. " The flash," he wrote, " was very great, and the crack as loud as a pistol ; yet, my senses being instantly gone, I neither saw the one nor heard the other ; nor did I feel the stroke on my hand, though I afterwards found it raised a round swelling where the fire entered, as big as half a pistol-bullet ; by which you may judge of the quickness of the electrical fire, which by this instance seems to be greater than that of sound, light, or animal sensation. * * * I tlien felt what I know not how well to describe, a universal blow 288 LIFE AND lULES OF BENJAMIN FKANKXIN. [1*752. throughout my whole body from head to foot, which seemed within as well as without ; after which the lirst thing I took notice of was a violent quick shaking of my body, A\^hich gradually remitting, my sense as gradually returned, and then I thought the bottles must be discharged, but could not conceive how, till at last I perceived the chain in my hand, and recollected what I had been about to do. That part of my hand and fingers which held the chain, was left white, as though the blood had been driven out, and remained so eight or ten minutes after, feeling like dead flesh ; and I had a numb- ness in my arms and the back of my neck, which continued till the next morning, but wore off. Nothing remains now of this shock but a soreness in my breast-bone, which feels as if it had been bruised. I did not fall, but suppose I should have been knocked down if I had received the stroke in my head. The whole was over in less than a minute." He cautions his correspondent not to make public " so notorious a blunder," which he compares with that of the Irishman who, being about to steal gunpowder, made a hole in the cask with a red-hot poker. Afterwards he knocked down six men by an elec- tric shock, the men submitting themselves to the experiment for the sake of science. On another occasion, while preparing to give a shock to a paralytic patient, he accidentally received an immense charge through his own head. He neither saw the flash, heard the report, nor felt the stroke. " When my senses returned," he says, *' I found myself on the floor. I got up, not knowing how that had happened. I then again attempted to discharge the jars ; but one of the company told me they were already discharged, which I could not at first believe, but on trial found it true. They told me they had not felt it, but they saw I was knocked down by it, which had greatly surprised them. On recollecting myself, and examin- ing my situation, I found the case clear. A small swelling rose on the top of my head, which continued sore for some days ; but I do not retnember any other effect, good or bad." Such accidents as these came to be regarded by the enthusiastic electricians of that day as soldiers regard wounds received in bat- tle. Even the moderate Dr. Priestley alludes to a professor, wiio lost his life in an electrical experiment, as " the justly envied Rich- man."* * Priestley's "History of Electricity^' p. 83. AGED 46.] FEANKLIN AND ELECTKICITY. 289 And SO these busy, honorable years passed on. When the spring of 1752 came, six years had elapsed since Franklin first rubbed an electrical tube. The leisure of six winters had been devoted to electrical experiments. Nearly three years had rolled away since he had suggested, in his private diary, a mode of ascertaining whether lightning and electricity were really the same ; and yet such an experiment had never been attempted. The country about Philadelphia presents no eminence which he then thought high enough for the purpose ; for he was not aware till afterwards, that the roof of any common dwelling-house would have answered as well as the Peak of TenerifFe. At that time, not a steeple pierced the sky in all the extent of the Quaker City, and probably there was not one in Pennsylvania. The vestry of Christ Church, now the venerable relic of the olden time in Philadelphia, were then contem- plating the erection of a steeple ; but the project had been hindered by the war, and it was not begun till 1753. The bell of this church had been originally hung from the branch of a tree near the first rude edifice constructed by Episcopalians in Pennsylvania. For tlie erection of Christ Church steeple Franklin had been impatiently waiting, hoping to be able on its summit to bring his bold hypothe- sis to the test of a decisive experiment. But the steeple rose not.* And if it had, could there then have been found, anywhere in the world, a vestry that would have lent their steeple to a philosopher bent on drawing down the very lightning from heaven, that he might try conclusions with it ? It was in the spring of 1752 that Franklin thought of trying the experiment with a kite ; and it was during one of the June thun- der-storms of that year, that the immortal kite was flown. Who does not know the story ? How he made his kite of a large silk handkerchief, and fastened to the top of the perpendicular stick a piece of sharpened iron-wire. How he stole away, upon the ap- proacii of a storm, into the commons not far from his own house, * "Lotteries, which are uow in such deservedly bad odor, were often resorted to in the olden times for very worthy purposes; and even the first Episcopal church established upon the soil of Pennsylvania, availed itself of this mode of procuring the needful funds. The lottery estab- lished by Christ Church, in 1752, was for finishing the steeple and furnishing a set of bells. The managers of this lottery were, Thomas Lawrence, sen., Abraham Taylor, Benjamin Franklin, Charles Stedman, John Kearsley, sen., Henry Harrison, James Humphreys, Joseph Eedman, Evan Morgan, Thomas Leech, Henry Elwes, John Banyton, and Jacob Duche. The amount raised by lotteries and subscriptions was £3,162 9s. lid. The last Christ Church Lottery drew, June, 1753." — 27. Y. HiHtorical Magazine. 13 290 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1752. say about tba corner of Race and Eighth streets, near a spot where there wa^ an old cow-shed. How, wishing to avoid the ridicule of possible failure, he told no one what he was going to do, except his son, who accompanied him, and who was then not the small boy he is represented in a hundred pictures, but a braw lad of twenty-two, one of the beaux of Philadelphia. How the kite was raised in time for the coming gust, the string being hempen, except the part held in the hand, which was silk. How, at the termination of the hempen string a common key w^as fastened ; and in the shed was deposited a Leyden bottle, in which to collect from the clouds, if the clouds should prove to contain it, the material requisite for an electric shock. How father and son stood for some time under the shed, presenting the spectacle, if there had been any one to behold it, of two escaped lunatics flying a kite in the rain ; the young gentleman, no doubt, feeling a little foolish. How, at last, w^hen a thunder-cloud appeared to pass directly over the kite, and yet no sign of electricity appeared, the hopes of the father, too, began to grow faint. How, when both were ready to despair of success, Franklin's heart stood still, as he suddenly observed the fibres of the hempen string to rise, as a boy's hair rises when he stands on the insulating stool. How, with eager, trembling hand, he applied his knuckle to the key and drew therefrom an unmis- takable spark, and another and another, and as many as he chose. How the Leyden phial was charged, and both received the most thrilling shock ever experienced by man ; a shock that might have been figuratively styled electric, if electric it had not really been. How, the wet kite being drawn in, and the apparatus packed, the philosopher went home exulting — the happiest philosopher in Christendom. And this was only the beginning of triumph. The next ships that arrived from the old world, brought him the news that the same experiment, in the mode originally suggested by him of erect- ing an iron rod upon an eminence, had been successfully performed in France, so that his name had suddenly become one of the most famous in Europe. How this came to pass we must now briefly relate. Just that fate befell Franklin's letters which has befallen nearly all of the tnost successful publications that have appeared from the press. Mr. Peter CoUinson caused them to be read, from time to AGED 46.] FRANKLIN AND ELECTRICITY. 291 time, to the Royal Society, of which he was a member. That learned body did not think them worthy of being published in their transactions, and a letter of Franklin's, containing the substance of his opinions and conjectures respecting lighting, was laughed at. So the letters accumulated in Mr. Collinson's hands for the space of four years, from 1747 to 1751, and Franklin only heard of them that Watson, and other English experimenters, dis- sented from some of his positions. At length, in the autumn of 1750, arrived Franklin's great paper, containing a complete state- ment of his opinions and conjectures respecting the identity of lightning with the electricity excited by artificial means. Mr. Col- linson, being moved thereto by that man of blessed memory, the good Dr. Fotheigill, then resolved that writings so remarkable should not be lost to mankind. Cave — Johnson's Cave, Sylvanus Urban — was then flourishing in London, and to him the letters were offered for publication in the Gentlemen's Magazine. Cave saw their value. He declined them for his darling Magazine, but issued them in a large pamphlet, to which Dr. Fothergill contributed a preface. The pamphlet was entitled "New Experiments and Ob- servations in Electricity, made at Philadelphia, in America." It appeared in May, 1751. It is scarcely true to say, as has been often said, that this pamph- let attracted little attention in England, until it had attained a con- tinental celebrity. A copy being presented to the Royal Society, Sir William Watson was requested to prepare an abstract of its contents ; which he performed, giving generous praise to the trans- Atlantic philosopher. He spoke of Franklin as an able and ingen- ious man, who had a head to conceive and a hand to execute, and who knew as much of electricity as any one in the world. Nevertheless, it was France that first appreciated all the greatness of Franklin's electrical observations, and French philosophers who first attempted the experiment of drawing electricity from the clouds. By a most happy chance, a copy of Cave's publication fell into the hands of the Count de Buffon, whose early familiarity with the English language enabled him, at once, to perceive that he was reading the work of a master. He induced M. Dubourg to translate the letters into French, and they appeared in the course of the summer in Paris. The work, published under such auspices, the Count de Buffon being then one of the most renowned, as well as the most socially 292 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1752. influential, of European philosophers, had every kind of success that a publication can have. It had a great sale. It was translated soon into German, Italian, and Latin. King Louis XV., hearing of these new marvels, ordered a course of the electrical experiments described by Franklin to be performed in his presence, and directed a letter to be written to the Royal Society of London, expressing the king's admiration of Mr. Franklin's ingenuity and learning. The Abbe Nollet, preceptor in Natural Philosophy to the Royal Family, gave the work additional eclat, by attempting to confute Franklin's theory of electricity. At first, the worthy Abbe could not be made to believe that there was such a person as Mr. Frank- lin of Philadelphia^ assuming that the letters were written by some of his enemies in Paris, for the purpose of robbing him of his elec- trical reputation. Being convinced, at length, that such an indi- vidual as Franklin really existed, he addressed to him a series of letters, in which he sought to show that the electrical phenomena ought to be interpreted according to NoUet, and not according to Franklin ; that is, according to the afflux-and-efflux theory, instead of the positive-and-negative system. The French Savans sided, however, with the Philadelphian, and the Abbe ]N"ollet lived to see his followers reduced to a single disciple. But what raised the reputation of Franklin to the highest point, was the verification in France of his conjecture respecting the sameness of lightning and electricity. Three French philosophers, the Count de Buffon, M. Dalibard, and M. de Lor, erected upon difierent heights the apparatus suggested by Franklin for drawing electricity from the clouds. M. Dalibard was first successful. On the tenth of May, 1752, a month before Franklin flew his kite, the pointed rod erected by M. Dalibard drew from a thunder-cloud electricity enough to afford a complete demonstration of the correct- ness of Franklin's hypothesis. M. de Lor succeeded a few days later ; the Count de Buffon ere long ; and before the summer was ended, the philosophers of every country in Europe were employed in repeating the experiment. At St. Petersburg, Professor Richman, the "justly envied," entered upon a course of splendid and daring investigation, and brought from the clouds, at length, such quantities of the electric fluid, that a chance shock struck him dead, and his body was found in the midst of his apparatus, like an artilleryman dead under the wreck of his gun. AGED 40.] FEAXBXrsr AND ELECTRICITY. ' 293 The naniG of Franklin became at once familiar to every reading person in Europe, and his letters were universally admired for their fullness of matter, their clearness of style, their modesty of tone. There was something in the conception of drawing down, for mere experiment, the dread electricity of heaven, that appealed not less powerfully to the understanding of the learned than to the imagin- ation of the ignorant ; and the marvel was the greater that the bold idea should have originated in a place so remote and so little known as Philadelphia. The Royal Society soon learned the worth of Franklin's electrical writings, now that all mankind knew it. By a unanimous vote he was elected a member of that distinguished body, who also remitted, in his case, the usual initiation fee of five guineas, as well as the regular annual charge of two guineas and a half. The next year they bestowed upon hira, with every honor- able circumstance, the Copley medal. Yale College first, then Har- vard, conferred upon him the honorary degree of master of arts. It is a proof of the progress that had been made by man and truth in 1V52, that Franklin's audacious playing with the lightnings, and his proposal to render harmless the " thunderbolt," excited so little opposition from those who held erroneous opinions respecting re- ligion, which opinions are felt to be in new peril whenever the sum of scientific knowledge is increased by a great discovery. The opposition was considerable, it is true, but unimportant compared with that which the ancient heroes of science had to encounter ; nor much more serious than recent discoveries in geology have provoked. Always there have been persons who have derived from religion vast revenues, who, at the same time, have had no faith in religion. Such were they who silenced Galileo, and accused Newton, and denounced lightning-rods, and sought to prevent Sir Charles Lyell from lecturing on geology, and prosecuted the writers of Essays and Reviews. These ignorant and dismal persons are ever afraid that advancing science may render some item of their creed less tenable than it was before. Franklin's partial explanation of lightning, too, lessened their means of exciting terror, and terror is the sole source and secret of their influence. And here is just the difference be- tween the false priest and the true minister : the one relying on fear, the other on truth; the one being truth's natural foe, tlie other truth's first and fastest friend. iS'ot one step forward has science ever been permitted to make 294 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l752. without opposition from those who had an interest in some obstruct- ing orthodoxy. We all know how the last years of Sir Isaac N'ew- ton were perplexed by the charge that his philosophy of gravitation tended to " materialize" religion, and how the Princess of Wales asked him to reply to the accusation. Insuring houses against fire was denounced as an interference with the prerogatives of Deity. The establishment of the Royal Society (perhaps the most useful organization of modern times) was opposed on the ground that accustoming the mind to rely on experimental evidence tended to weaken the force of evidence not founded on experiment ; and this objection was deemed important enough to call for a reply from the pen of a bishop.* Could the new electrical theories, then, escape animadversion ? Impossible. Accordingly we find that the ques- tion respecting the impiety of lightning-rods was discussed in all countries, and occasionally with much acrimony. John Adams, in the diary kept by him when he was a young schoolmaster and law- student, mentions a doctor who was wont to " preach upon the pre- sumption of philosophy in erecting iron-rods to draw the lightmng from the clouds ;" and who would even " rail and foam against them" as an impious attempt " to control the artilleiy of Heaven." And Mr. Ebenezer Kinnersley, I notice, who spent several years in lecturing upon electricity, when advertising the outline of his lectures, always announced his intention to show that the erection of lightning-rods was "not chargeable with presumption, nor in- consistent with any of the principles either of natural or revealed religion." Mr. Quilicy tells us, in his History of Harvard College, that in No- vember, 1 755, a shock of an earthquake was felt in New England, and that a Boston clergyman preached a sermon on the subject, in which he contended that the lightning-rods, by accumulating the electricity in the earth, had caused the earthquake. Professor Winthrop, of Harvard, thought it well to refute this position and to defend Franklin. In 1770, Mr. Quincy adds, another Boston clergyman opposed the use of the rods on the ground that, as the lightning was one of the means of punishing the sins of mankind, and of warn- ing them from the commission of sin, it wns impious " to prevent its full execution." To this, also, Professor Winthrop deemed it worth v/hile to reply. f * ''Encyclopedia Britannica," xiv., 461. + "History of Harvard College," ii., 219. AGED 46.] FRANKLIN AND ELECTRICITY. 295 But, happily, these irreligious objections were not serious obsta- cles to the spread of scientific truth in Franklin's day ; and he found himself the object of nearly universal applause. Franklin himself says in one of his letters : " It is well Ave are not, as poor Galileo was, subjected to the inquisition for philosophical heresy." It is pleasing to observe how he bore his sudden celebrity. He took it quietly enough. It was in June that he and his son had gone out on the common and flown their electrical kite. Not many days after, arrived tidings of the success of M. Dalibard in France. But it was not until October that Franklin sent to Mr. Collinson any account whatever of the electrical kite, and even then he de- scribed the manner of making and flying the kite, without so much as alhiding to his own brilliant exploit with one. This reticence was in accordance with his custom of not transmitting to London any experiment or observation which he had reason to believe was not nev/. The identity of lightning and electricity having been established by M. Dalibard, he deemed it unnecessary to forward the narration of an experiment which, however brilliant, had been rendered unnecessary. Accordingly, we have no narrative of the flying of the kite by Franklin himself. We owe our knowledge of what occurred on that memorable afternoon, to two persons who heard Franklin tell the story, namely, Dr. Stuber, of Philadelphia, and the English Dr. Priestley. Franklin prefaces his description of the electrical kite with these simple words : " As frequent mention is made in public papers from Europe, of the success of the Phila- delphia experiment for drawing the electric fire from clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on high buildings, it may be agreeable to the curious to be informed, that the same experiment has succeeded in Philadelphia, though made in a different and more easy manner, which is as follows." Then follows the description of the kite ; and the letter concludes without a reference to what he had himself done with the kite. Franklin, however, was too healthy-minded and too modest a man not to take pleasure in his new fame. " The Tatler,'''' he wrote in 1753, to one of his Boston friends, "tells us of a girl who was observed to grow suddenly proud, and none could guess the reason, till it came to be known that she had got on a pair of new silk gar- ters. Lest you should be puzzled to guess the cause, when you observe any thing of the kind in me, I think I will not hide my 296 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l752. new garters under my petticoats, but take the freedom to show them to you, in a paragrapli of our friend Collinson's last letter, viz. But I ought to mortify, and not indulge, tliis vanity ; I will not transcribe the paragraph, yet I cannot forbear." He then quotes the paragraph, which alludes to the honor done him by the King of France, and the attention bestowed on his discoveries in the Royal Society. He continued his electrical studies; no longer pausing during the summer heats, but using then, for his own purposes, the ex- haustless electricity of the clouds. He grew familiar with the lightning, and brought it down into his library for constant ex- amination. "In September, 1752," he wrote to Peter Collinson, " I erected an iron rod to draw the lightning down into my house, in order to make some experiments on it, with two bells to give notice when the rod should be electrified ; a contrivance obvious to every electrician. I found the bells rang sometimes when there was no lightning or thunder, but only a dark cloud over the rod ; that sometimes, after a flash of lightning, they would suddenly stop; and at other times, when they had not rung before, they would, after a flash, suddenly begin to ring ; that the electricity was sometimes very faint, so that when a small spark was obtained, another could not be got for some time after ; at other times the sparks would follow extremely quick, and once I had a continual stream from bell to bell, the size of a crow-quill ; even during the same gust there were considerable variations. In the winter fol- lowing I conceived an experiment, to try whether the clouds were electrified positively or negatively T And after a long series of experiments, he had the delight of es- tablishing the unexpected truth, that thunder-clouds are usually in a negative state of electricity; and that, consequently, it is the earth that strikes into the clouds, not the clouds the earth. But we cannot continue these details. For twenty years Frank- lin was an ardent electrician, and the leisure of seven of those years was devoted nlmost exclusively to the subject. He subjected electricity to every test and every influence that the most fertile brain in the world could suggest. He tried it upon magnets. He tried it in vacuo. He tried it upon the sick and upon the well; upon animals and men. The electricity excited by friction, the electricity drawn from the clouds, the electricity generated in the AGED 46.] FEANKUN AND ELECTEICITY. 297 cold and glittering winter nights, the electricity of the electric eel, were all observed and compared. He became the acknowledged head of the electricians of the world. He had electrical corre- spondents in many countries. Masters of ships, who encounter- ed remarkable thunder-storms, would send narratives of what they had seen to Mr. Franklin, of Philadelphia. By very slow de- grees lightning-rods made their way :* it was ten years before their use became general in the colonies, and twenty years before they w^ere common in England. Franklin's house was a museum of electrical apparatus, and ladies who visited him, it is said, were sometimes terribly frightened at the sudden, and apparently cause- less, ringing of his electric bells. Mr. D'Israeli picked up an an- ecdote of Franklin and electricity, for his Curiosities of Literature, which is, doubtless, as true as many other narratives in that amus- ing collection : " Franklin, finding that the idlers of the street were too fond of coming to a halt under one of his windows, charged the railing with his newly-discovered electric fire." Remarkable inci- dents occurred, adds the author, which at a former period would have lodged 'the great discoverer of electricity' in the Inquisi- tion, f Franklin had the happiness to escape those bitter contentions with rivals, which have so often destroyed the peace of discoverers. Indeed, how could any one quarrel with a man who claimed noth- ing, who mentioned with honor everybody's achievements but his own, and who recorded his most brilliant observations in the first person plural, as though he were but one of a crowd of phi- losophic Philadelphians ? Nor was the harmony of the circle of * The following (written apparently hy Franklin) appeared in Poor Richard's Almanac, for 1753: '■'■ Bow to secure Houses, <£;c.,from Lightning. — It has pleased God in his Goodness to Man- kind, at length to discover to them the Means of securing their Habitations and other Buildings from Mischief by Thunder and Lightning. The Method is this : Provide a small Iron Eod (it may be made of the Rod-iron used by Nailers), but of such a length, that one End being three or four Feet in the moist Ground, the other may be six or eight Feet above the highest part of the Building. To the upper End of the Rod fasten about a foot of Brass Wire, the size of a common Knitting-needle, Sharpened to a fine Point ; the Eod m&f be secured in the House by a few small Staples. If the House or Barn be long, there may be a Rod and Point at each End, and a mid- dling Wire along the Ridge from one to the other. A House thus furnished will not be damaged by Lightning, it being attracted by the Points, and passing through the Metal into the Ground without hurting any Thing. Vessels also having a sharp pointed Rod flx'd on the top of their Masts, with a Wire from the Foot of the Eod reaching down, roimd one of the Shrouds, to the Water, will not be hurt by Lightning." t Curiosities of Literature, iv., IFk 13* 298 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l752. his own co-operators ever disturbed. Observe the manner in which the amiable Kinnersley writes to his Master in Science, after four- teen years of electrical fellowsliip. He sent Franklin the drawing of a piece of lightning-conductor melted by a flash, which, he says : " I lo77(/ for the pleasure of showing you ;" inasmuch as he deemed it a proof that the rod had saved the house from being struck. Then the generous disciple breaks forth : " And now, sir, I most heartily congratulate you on the pleasure you must have, in finding your great and well-grounded expectations so far fulfilled. May this method of security from the destructive violence of one of the most awful powers of nature, meet with such further success, as to induce every good and grateful heart to bless God for the impor- tant discovery ! May the benefit thereof be diffused over the whole globe ! May it extend to the latest posterity of mankind, and make the name of Franklin, like that of Kewton, immortal.''' Time, I believe, has not diminished the importance of Franklin's electrical writings, since he struck the right path and went in the right direction, as far as he went at all. Recent electricians are of opinion that the lightning-rod has either been overvalued, or has not yet been arranged in the best manner. But the lightning-rod was a daring and sublime application of truth, which would com- mand our admiration, if it should prove to be of little utility. Franklin was the man of all others then alive who possessed, iu the greatest perfection, the four grand requisites for the successful observation of nature or the pursuit of literature : a sound and great understanding; patience; dexterity; and an independent income. Having these qualities and advantages, living too in an age that delighted to bestow honor upon men of science, and his attention having been drawn to a branch in which every thing was still to be explained, and many things discovered, he achieved as much for the advancement of science as the most favored individuals, in the nar- row compass of a lifetime, can be expected to accomplish. And if he had not been drawn away from the study of nature into politics, he would, doubtless, have arrived at many truths, which, in his time, were only conjectures, or were not yet conjectured. If ha had had but a hint of magnetic electricity, he was the man to have darted straight to the conception of the telegraph. But as there is a i^rovision in nature for preventing the trees from growing up into the sky, so it is arranged that no man shall be able, during his AGED 46.] FKANKLIN A:ST> ELECTEICITY. 299 residence on the earth, to make more than two or three discoveries. How necessary it is for the preservation of the species that the progress of knowledge should be very slow, is shown by the pro- digious turmoil created in the world by the little advance that a single century can make. "Retarding" persons and classes are, doubtless, as necessary in a country as the intelligent portion of its population. The great merit of Franklin in his investigation of nature was the soundness of his method, which was this: He collected his facts diligently; he reflected upon them patiently until he had formed his theory ; then he subjected his theory to every test that he could contrive ; and, finally, he recorded the whole process with clearness and modesty. This method, when it is employed by a competent person who seeks truth for truth's sake, will lead always to respectable, and sometimes to great results. It is Franklin who is entitled to the principal share of the honor bestowed on the early electricians by Goethe, who said in 1809: "The chapter of Electricity is that which in modern times has, ac- cording to my judgment, been handled the best."* Kant, also, in 1755, styled Franklin the modern Prometheus, who had brought down the fire from heaven. Among the many tributes paid to Franklin's genius at this time, several were in rhyme. As a specimen of these, and of the poetry of colonial America, the following lines, by a lady, which came to him from South Carolina, may interest some readers. To JSenjamin Franklin^ Esq.^ of Philadelphia^ on his Experi. ments and Discoveries in Electricity. Let others muse on sublunary things. The rise of empires and the fall of kings ; Thine is the praise, with bolder flight to soar, And airy regions yet untracked explore ; To dictate science with imperial nod, And save, not ruin, by an iron rod. If for thy birth, when latest times draw nigh, As now for Homer's, rival cities vie : This spot, perhaps, unmov'd may hear the strife, * Characteristics of Goethe, by Miss Austin, vol. L, chap, iii. 300 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l752. Content to claim the vigor of thy life ; To show thy tomb, like Yirgil's shown before, With laurel, proof to lightning, covered o'er. Happy that here we boast the guardian friend, Where most the hostile elements contend : This hour tremendous thunders strike my ear, Keen lightnings dart, and threatening clouds appear : Now fly the negroes from the impending storm ; The air, how cold ! this moment mild and warm. Now down it pours ! the tempest shakes the skies : On flashes, flashes : clouds on clouds arise. The noxious rattle-snake with fear deprest, Now creeps for safety to his poisonous nest : Bears, foxes, lynxes, seek the thicket brake. Wolves, tigers, panthers, in their caverns quake ; Now alligators, diving, quit the strand, And birds, unknown, in flocks, repair to land ; Small rivulets swell to streams, and streams to floods, Loud whirlwinds rush impetuous through the woods, Huge oaks midst foaming torrents fiercely burn, And tall pines blasted, from their roots are torn ; The bolt descends and harrows up the ground, And stones and sand are widely scattered round ; How near the welkin breaks ! how nearer still ! But now askance, it drives o'er yonder hill ; The rain abates, the gloomy clouds retreat, And all is light, serenity, and heat. The change how sudden ! but, how frequent too ! The change, at length, without one fear I view : Sedate, compos'd, I hear the tempest roll. Which once with terror shook my boding soul ! No fire I fear my dwelling should invade ; No bolt transfix me in the dreadful shade ; No falling steeple trembles from on high, No shiver'd organs now in fragments fly ;* The guardian point erected high in air, * The steeple and organ of 8L Philip's church at Charleston, had been twice damaged by lightning. AGED 46.J FEANKLIN AND ELECTRICITY. 301 Nature disarms, and teaches storms to spare. So through the sultry deep unmov'd I sail When the waves whiten with a boding gale : A fire-ball strikes the mast, a silent blow, Then thunder speaks — no further shalt thou go. Quick it descends the wire around the shrouds, Which guides the fury of the flaming clouds. With haliow'd wands strange cu'cles once were made, To gull an ignorant crowd, the juggler's trade. Within the line no blue infernal fire Could pierce, but hence malignant powers retire. What these pretended, Franklin, thou hast wrought. And truth is owned what once was fiction thought. Within thy magic circle calm I sit, Kor friends, nor business in confusion quit ; Whate'er explosions dreadful break around, Or fiery meteors, crackling, sweep the ground. Oh ! friend, at once to science and to man, Pursue each noble and each generous plan ; With all the bliss beneficence obtains. Be thine those honors that are virtue's meed, Whate'er to genius wisdom has decreed ! Accept this oflTering of a humble mind, By sickness weaken'd, long to cares confin'd : Though yet untasted the Pierian spring. In lonely woods she thus attempts to sing. Where seldom muse before e'er tuned a lay, Where yet the graces slowly find their way : Wild as the fragrant shrubs or blooming flowers, Which nature scatters round, o'er artless bowers. More soft and sweet will be her future strain. Should this rude note thy approbation gain. c. w. Cooper River, S. C, September, 17 58. 302 LIFE AXD TIMES OF BEXJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1753. CHAPTER X. OTHER EVENTS ABOUT 1750. While adding to the sum of knowledge, Franklin engaged in a scheme for diffusing it. In 1743, when his son was thirteen years old, and his own circumstances had become such as to entitle the^ hoy to a liberal education, he awoke to the fact, that neither in Pennsylvania nor in New York was there a college or a high school. He made some slight attempt to found an academy in Philadelphia at that time, but circumstances were not propitious, and the war intervening, the project was laid aside for six years. In 1749, the country being at peace, and himself at leisure, he re- newed his endeavors, though his son was then grown past the need of an academy : " nineteen years of age, a tall, proper youth, and much of a beau," wrote his father. According to his custom, he had recourse, first of all, to the Jun- to, who had then shed their leathern aprons, and become prosperous gentlemen in broadcloth. Several members of the club entered warmly into the scheme, which found friends also in other clubs and circles of Philadelphia. The next step was to propitiate the pubhc ; which he accomplished by wi'iting a pamphlet, entitled, " Proposals relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania," a copy of which he caused to be delivered to each of the subscribers to the Gazette. This pamphlet of Proposals must have been ex- tremely taking to the good people of Philadelphia ; and, indeed, it contained several admirable paragraphs. Every one, it is said, thinks he could edit a newspaper or keep a school. Franklin's pamphlet is an intelligent man's dream of an academy, the realiza- tion of which would demand ideal teachers, impossible pupils, and a commonwealth of philosophers. When a man who has never cut off a limb; is able to discourse usefully of amputation, then it will be possible for a man who has never been a schoolmaster, to draw up a practicable scheme of a school. Nevertheless, the pamphlet is very entertaining. He began, of course, by eulogizing education in general. "Many of the first settlers of these provinces," he continued, " were men who had re- ceived a good education in Europe ; and to their wisdom and good AGED 46.] OTHER EVENTS ABOUT 1750. 303 management we owe much of our present prosperity. But their hands were full, and they could not do all things. The present race are not thought to be generally of equal ability ; for, though the American youth are allowed not to want capacity, yet the best ca- pacities require cultivation ; it being truly with them as with the best ground, which, unless well tilled, and sowed with profitable seed, produces only ranker weeds." Then he proceeded to set forth his scheme in detail. ' Trustees should be appointed, subscriptions made, a house provided, and grounds planted ;' the house to be " not far from a river, having a garden, orchard, meadow, and a field or two." The students should be fed plainly and frugally, and often exercised in running, leaping, wrestling and swimming; they should wear a uniform dress, that their behavior might be the better observed. As to their studies, since they could not learn every thing useful and every thing ornamental, they should learn what was most useful and most ornamental; such as a fair, swift hand-writing, arithmetic, book- keeping, the rudiments of geometry and astronomy, the English language, geography, history, logic, natural science, good morals, and good manners. He dwelt particularly upon the importance of a thorough knowledge of the English language and English au- thors. But, at the same time, " all intended for divinity should be taught Latin and Greek ; for physic, the Latin, Greek, and French ; for law, the Latin and French; merchants, the French, German, and Spanish ; and, though all should not be compelled to learn Latin, Greek, or the modern foreign languages, yet none that have an ardent desire to learn them should be refused ; their English, arithmetic, and other studies, absolutely necessary, being at the same time not neglected." And " with the v/hole should be con- stantly inculcated and cultivated, that henigyiity of mind^ which shows itself in searching for and seizing every opportunity to serve and to oblige ; and is the foundation of what is called good breed- ing ; highly useful to the possessor, and most agreeable to all. The idea of what is true merit should also be often presented to youth, explained and impressed on their minds, as consisting in an inclination^ joined with an ability, to serve mankind, one's country, friends, and family ; which abihty is, with the blessing of God, to be acquired or greatly increased by true learning ; and should, indeed, be the great aim and end of all learning." 304 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1752. The passage relating to tlie study of languages was not the dic- tate of Franklin's own mind. It was his strong conviction that the academy should at first attempt an English course only ; using the English as a means of imparting that knowledge of language which was supposed to be attainable only through the study of Latin and Greek. He wished Addison, Tillotson, Pope, Milton, and Shaks- peare to be studied as Cicero, Sallust, Virgil, Homer, and Thucydides are supposed to be studied in classical schools ; and he was of opinion with Goethe, that all in the ancient writings which makes them immortal, can be learned through translations. He knew what he had acquired from an odd volume of the Spectator when he was a printer's apprentice in Boston, and he desired that the same experiment might be tried on other minds. If any languages were learned besides the English, he thought they should be the French, German, Spanish, and Italian. Many members of the Junto, and the great mass of the people, concurred with him in these opinions, but a few wealthy and influential gentlemen could not be brought to believe in any system of education not founded on the ancient languages. Their subscriptions and their influence could not be spared, and, therefore, Franklin conceded the point, insisting, how- ever, that the academy should have in connection with it an English school as well as a Latin. "I submitted my judgment," he says, " retaining, however, a strong prepossession in favor of my first plan, and resolving to preserve as much of it as I could, and to nourish the English school by every means in my power." He wrote an additional paper, entitled " A Sketch of an English School," designed to aid the English part of the scheme. Such were Franklin's influence and good management, that no less a sum than five thousand pounds was almost immediately sub- scribed, to be paid in five annual installments, and, before the year ended, the school w^as opened. Pupils flocked in in such numbers that it was soon necessary to procure a larger building. It so happened that the church built during the stay of Whitefield for the purpose of afibrding a pulpit to any minister who might w^ish to address the people of Philadelphia, had become available for the purpose. The religious enthusiasm having abated, the ground rent of the edifice had not been punctually paid, and other debts had accumulated. Franklin, being a trustee both of the church and of the academy, negotiated a transfer of the property to the trustees of the latter, AGED 40.] OTHER EVENTS ABOUT l750. 305 who agreed to pay tlie debts, and forever preserve in the building a large hall for occasional preachers. The building was soon adapted to its new purpose, Franklin engaging the workmen, buying the materials, and superintending the work. And thus was founded the institution that became, in 1779, the "University of Penn- sylvania," and which still flourishes under the same name, the chief of the institutions of learning of which Philadelphia boasts. We have a pleasing glimpse of the eager Franklin pushing on this great enterprise, m one of the letters written in 1749 by Mr. Peters, secretary of the province of Pennsylvania. " Our academy," he wrote, " cuts a figure in print. * * I asked Mr. Franklin, who is the soul of the whole, whether they would not find it difii- cu1t to collect masters. He said, with an air of firmness, that money would buy learning of all sorts ; he was under no apprehensions about masters ; but, for all his sanguine expectations, it is my oj^in- ion that they have undertaken what is too high for them, and will not be able to carry it on ; not but that I heartily wish they may, and shall do all in my power to aid and spirit them up, but I find the matter is not understood."* And, indeed, there was delay in settling a competent principal. Franklin much desired to procure the services of the Rev. Samuel Johnson, who was afterwards President of King's College, in New York. The trustees invited Mr. Johnson to accept the post, and offered to promote the building of a new Episcopal church in Phila- delphia, the rectorship of which should be conferred upon him. The reply of the clergyman to this offer gave Franklin an oppor- tunity to employ a most happy illustration, which has been a thou- sand times quoted to be admired. "Your tenderness of the church's peace," wrote Franklin, "is truly laudable ; but, methinks, to build a new church in a growing place is not properly dividing, but nmltiplying. * * * I had for several years nailed against the wall of my house a pigeon-box, that would hold six pair ; and, though they bred as fast as my neighbors' pigeons, I never had more than six pair, the old and strong driving out the young and weak, and obliging them to seek new habitations. At length, I put up an additional box with apartments for entertaining twelve pair more ; and it was soon filled with inhabitants by the overflowing ♦ Sparks, i., 5T0. 306 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1752. of my first box, and of others in the neighborhood. This I take to be a parallel case with the building a new church here." Mr. Johnson still declined, however, 'and Dr. William Smith, in 1754, was appointed; under whom the academy attained such celebrity as to have at one time fifty-three students from other colonies. Nor did the trustees overlook the poor and lowly. Wo read in t\iQ Pennsylvania Gazette^ Oct. 26th, 1752, that " the charity- school opened by the trustees of the academy now teaches reading, writing, and arithmetic, to a hundred poor children, most of whom, though from eight to thirteen years of ago, had never been sent to any school before, nor did it seem likely many of them would ever have been sent to any school, if it had not been for this institution."* A few years later, we read of Dr. Smith's collecting in England for the two infant colleges of New York and Philadelphia the sum of thirteen thousand pounds, to which nearly the whole bench of bishops contributed. Upon the whole, Franklin was well pleased with the results of his exertions to found the college. He says in his Autobiography : " I have been continued one of its trustees from the beginning (now near forty years), and have had the very great pleasure of seeing a number of the youth who have received their education in it distin- guished by their improved abilities, serviceable in public stations, and ornaments to their country ;" and yet in one particular, which he deemed of great importance, his expectations were completely disappointed, and he regretted the failure to his dying day. Every one who has had much to do with schools knows very well what generally happens when an attempt is made, in the same school, to educate some of the pupils by means of Latin and Greek, and others by means of modern languages. The learned, sagacious Dog- berry assures us, that if two ride the same horse, one must ride behind. The Latin and Greek generally encroach upon their ofi"- spring, usurping all the honors, absorbing the main strength and force of the school, both of pupils and teachers. The two systems cannot go on fairly together. Teachers capable of giving out fifty * Boston, the leader in every good work then, as noAV, was beforehand -vvith Philadelphia in this kind of benevolence. In the Kew England Weekly Jotirnal of April 8tb, 172S, the following advertisement appeared : " Mr. N^ath. Pigott intends to open a School on Monday next, for the instruction of Negro's in Beading, Catechizing, & Writing if required: if any are so well inclined as to send their Servants to said School near Mr. CheckUrfs Meeting-IIouse, care will be taken for their Instruction as aforesaid." AGED 46.] OTHER EVENTS ABOUT 1750. 307 lines of Virgil, and hearing boys hobble through a translation thereof, abound in every country. The routine of the Latin school is estab- lished, the path is beaten flat and hard, and nothing is easier than to keep the mill going. It is far otherwise with the system based upon modern languages, mathematics, natural science, drill, military and gymnastic. To work that system with eifect demands, in the teacher, knowledge^ exact, full, special, difficult to acquire : to say nothing of such essentials as ardor, tact, sympathy, dexterity, and grace. Even at this late day, if some brave and great-souled man, with an odd million or so to spare, were to found a college in which the Prattle of infant Man (^. e., the Latin and Greek authors) should not be employed as a means of education at all, but, instead thereof, four or six modern languages, abounding in the masterpieces of Man Mature, the difficulty would be to fonii a corps of teachers ; for they could not he found. The good Franklin abounded in knowledge, but was ignorant of schools, an*d the wealthy members of the board of trustees were eager to carry out their own ideas. His scheme of an English school would not prosper. It had been his secret purpose to foster the English school, hoping it would at last overshadow or absorb the Latin school. But the exact contrary happened ; the Latin school swallowed the English. First, the Latin master was honored with the title of Rector, while the English master was merely styled the English Master. Next, the Rector's salary was fixed at two hundred pounds, and the English master's at one hundred : and this at a time when the Latin school had twenty pupils and the English forty. Next, a hundred pounds was voted for the purchase of Latin books and maps, but not a penny for English books. The small salary of the English master made it difficult to procure, and impossible to keep, a competent man. For these and other reasons, the English school dwindled, and after a precarious existence of forty years, ceased to exist. This failure had the effect of deepening Franklin's conviction, that the time had for ever gone by when the Latin and Greek should be a principal means of educating youth. One of the last acts of his life w^as to write, in the intervals of acute pain, an elaborate and most able protest against that system. When the Latin and Greek were the gates through which men were obliged to pass in order to reach the treasures of thought, knowledge, and imagination, 308 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN PEANKXIN. [l'/52. their acquisition, he admitted, had been in the highest degree desirable. Not so, when translation had laid low the ancient walls, and when other gates invited to richer treasures. He concluded his protest with one of those homely, humorous illustrations by which he so often flashed light upon a dark subject, and softened obstinacy itself into smiling acquiescence. " At what time," said he, " hats were first introduced, we know not ; but in the last century they were universally worn throughout Europe. Gradually, however, as the wearing of wigs, and hair nicely dressed prevailed, the putting on of hats was disused by genteel people, lest the curious arrangements of the curls and pow- deiing should be disordered ; and umbrellas began to supply their place ; yet still our considering the hat as a part of dress continues so far to prevail, that a man of fashion is not thought dressed with- out having one, or something like one, about him, which he carries under his arm. So that there are a multitude of the politer people in all the courts and capital cities of Europe, who have never, nor their fathers before them, worn a hat otherwise than as a chapeait bras, though the utility of such a mode of wearing it is by no means apparent, and it is attended not only with some expense, but with a degree of constant trouble. The still prevailing custom of having schools for teaching generally our children, in these days, the Latin and Greek languages, I consider therefore, in no other hght than as the c/ia2peau bras of modern literature."* This production had no practical effect, and Franklin's conception of a OTeat school, free from the obstructino; nuisance of Latin and Greek, seems as far from realization as ever. No sooner was the academy well started than Franklin was drawn into another worthy enterprise, that of founding a hospital in Philadelphia ; a project conceived by an intimate friend of his. Dr. Thomas Bond. Sick immigrants had hitherto been lodged in unoccupied houses, and upon the islands in the Delaware, often to their own and the city'v«5 detriment. Dr. Bond, finding the people reluctant to subscribe, the scheme being a novel one in the colonies, went to Franklin to consult him on the subject. " There is no such thing," said the doctor to Franklin, " as carrying through a public- spirited project without you are concerned in it ; for I am often * Sparks, ii., 158. AGED 46. J OTHEK EVENTS ABOUT 1750. 309 asked by those to whom I propose subscribing, Have you consulted Franklin on this business f And what does he think of it ? And when I tell them that I have not (supposing it rather out of your line), they do not subscribe, but say, they will co7isider it.'''' Franklin entered heartily into the enterprise, wrote in favor of it ill the Gazette, subscribed liberally himself, and obtained subscrip- tions from others. Nevertheless, it soon appeared that money enough could not be obtained by voluntary subscriptions, and Franklin sought help from the Legislative Assembly. The country members, however, objected, saying that since the hospital was de- signed for the benefit of the city, the city should bear the whole expense. In these circumstances Franklin played off upon the Assembly one of those harmless tricks by which he occasionally carried important points. He asked from the Assembly a grant of two thousand pounds, not to be paid until it should be shown that the public had voluntarily contributed two thousand pounds. " This condition," says Franklin, " carried the bill through ; for the mem- bers who had opposed the grant, and now conceived that they might have the credit of being charitable without the expense, agreed to its passage ; and then, in soliciting subscriptions among the people, we urged the conditional promise of the law, as an additional mo- tive to give, since every man's donation would be doubled : thus the clause worked both ways." A year or two later, a wing of the Pennsylvania Hospital was erected on its present well-known site. The corner-stone was laid by the first-born of the city, amid a mighty concourse of people. The noble inscription on the corner-stone was written by Franklin : " In the year of Christ MDCCLV., George the Second happily reigning (for he sought the happiness of his people), Philadelphia flourishing (for its inhabitants were public-spirited), this building, by the bounty of the government, and of many private persons, was piously founded for the relief of the sick and miserable. May the God op Mercies bless the undertaking." It is hardly necessary to say, that the Pennsylvania Hospital, from that time to this, has never ceased to relieve the sick and miserable. It has grown with the growth of the city, until it ranks now among the most extensive and well conducted establishments of the kind in Christendom. Franklin might well say : " I do not remember any of my political maneuvers, the success of which, at the time, gave me 810 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l752. more pleasure, or wherein, after thinking of it, I more easily ex- cused myself for having made some use of cunning." With regard to the candid, unreserved manner in which Franklin often confessed his good deeds, the reader should be informed that he did it on principle. It was his belief that people ought not to indulge the intense vanity of concealing their virtuous actions, but should speak of them fully and freely, as though it Avere not such a very extraordinary thing that a man should do a good deed. He admired the modest manner in which ^neas begins his story to Dido in Virgil : " I am the dutiful ^neas whose fame has pierced the skies ;" which was merely his way of saying, " I am that JEneas of whom you have doubtless heard, who carried his father on his shoulders from burning Troy ; an act, Madame, let me tell yoxx, which was not unobserved even by the gods." Who should know better than JEneas, that the rescue of his poor old father was a meri- torious action, and who had a better right than he to tell the story ? Besides, urges Franklin, if people are forbidden to praise themselves, they learn to gratify their self-love by censuring others, which is a kind of indirect self-praise. Wounded self-love, not natural malevo- lence, is the principal ingredient in man's wrath against man ; as every one knows who has ever hated, and lived to recover from that folly and think calmly over it. And again : If people make it a dead secret what they think of themselves, how are they ever to be set right if their opinions are erroneous. If a young gentleman addicted to showing off in the Park should openly and frequentl)^ say to his friends, " I sit a horse superbly, do I not ?" there would at last be found one individual polite enough to answer the question truly, and say " No ; you stoop, and turn out your toes." " Upon the whole," concludes Franklin, "I wish the out-of-fashion practice of praising ourselves would, like other old fashions, come round into fashion again." Franklin being now regarded as a master in the modern art of raising subscriptions, was applied to by that eccentric preacher, Gilbert Tennent, for advice and assistance in raising money for a new church. Franklin refused his aid, but gave his advice. " In the first place," said Franklin, " I advise you to apply to all those, who you know will give something ; next, to those who you are un- certain whether they will give any thing or not, and show them the list of those who have given ; and lastly, do not neglect those who AGED 46.] OTHER EVENTS ABOUT 1750. 311 you are sure will give nothing ; for in some of them you may be mistaken." The i3reacher laughed, thanked his counselor, and fol- lowed his advice by asking everybody. He raised more than the requisite sum, and built a handsome church in Arch street. This Mr. Tennent w^as one of Whitefield's friends and defenders, and v/as thought by some to surpass even him m the po^^'er of exciting con- sternation. It w^as he who used to preach in long hair, with a leathern girdle round his waist. " Never before heard I such a searching sermon," said Whitefield, after hearing him preach in New York ; "he is a son of thunder, and does not regard the face of man." Philadelphia was an unpaved city nearly as late as 1760, and the soil being of clay, the streets were scarcely passable in the rainy season. It is astonishing how much inconvenience of this kind the inhabitants of a thriving town will endure before making a serious attempt to remedy it. Franklin, w^ho lived for twenty years in sight of the principal market, had seen with pain the cleanly people wading in mud to the stalls. The ground in and around the market was paved, at length, through Franklin's exertions, and nothing remained but to keep the pavement clean. " I found," says Frank- lin, " a poor industrious man who was wdlling to undertake keeping the pavement clean, by sweeping it twice a week, carrying oif the dirt from before all the neighbors' doors, for the sum of sixpence per month, to be paid by each house. I then wrote and printed a paper, setting forth the advantages to the neighborhood that might be obtained from this small expense ; the greater ease in keeping our houses clean, so much dirt not being brought in by people's feet ; the benefit to the shops by more custom, as buyers could more easily get at them ; and by not having, in windy weather, the dust blown in upon their goods. I sent one of these papers to each house, and in a day or two went round to see who would subscribe to an agreement to pay these sixpences ; it was unani- mously signed, and, for a time, well executed. All the inhabi- tants of the city were delighted with the cleanliness of the pavement that surroimded the market, it being a convenience to all, and this raised a general desire to have all the streets paved, and made the people more willing to submit to a tax for that purpose." It was ten years later, however, before Philadelphia (or '• Filthj - 31ii LIFE AXD TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l752. dirty," as the fanners' wives of that day were accustomed to call it) was generally paved. About 1752, we find Franklin a trustee of a society for the ben- efit of poor Germans; a society which had influential members in England, Holland, and Prussia, as well as in the colonies. At that time, the Germans came over in such numbers as to excite serious apprehensions of their outnumbering the English, and converting Pennsylvania into a German province. "I remember," wrote Franklin, in 1753, "when they modestly declined intermeddling in our electioDS, but now they come in droves, and carry all before them. Of the six printing-houses in the province, two are entirely German, two half-German half-English, and but two entirely Eng- lish. They have one German newspaper, and one half-German. Advertisements, intended to be general, are now printed in Dutch and English. The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages, and in some places only German. They begin of late to make all their bonds and other legal instruments in their own lan- guage, which (though I think it ought not to be) are allowed good in our courts, where the German business so increases, that there is continued need of interpreters ; and I suppose in a few years they will also be necessary in the Assembly, to tell one-half of our legis- lators what the other half say." To this day, there are extensive districts in Pennsylvania, in which the German is the prevailing language. The objects of the society just referred to, were the establishment of English schools among the Germans, the support of missionaries, and the relief of the indigent. In 1755, Franklin and Hall printed a tract, entitled " A brief History of the Rise and Progress of the Charitable Scheme, carrying on by a Society of Noblemen and Gentlemen in London, for the Relief and Instruction of poor Germans and their descend- ants in Pennsylvania and the adjacent Colonies of North America, pubhshed by order of the Trustees appointed for the Management of the said Charitable Scheme." It was patriotism, not less than humanity, to aid such an enterprise as this ; for, during the war, the Germans in the back counties of the province had shown no great zeal for the interests of Great Britain, and some sHght leanings toward the French. Tradition reports that it is to Franklin's quick eye and mind that we owe the intioduction into America of the yellow willow. A AGED 46.] OTHER EVENTS ABOUT 1750. 313 basket, in which some foreign commodity had been imported, hav- ing been thrown into a creek, was observed by Franklin to be put- ting forth sprouts, several of which he caused to be planted on the ground now occupied by the Philadelphia Custom-House. They took root and proved to be the yellow willow, now so common and so useful.* We derive also from tradition a pretty story respecting the in- troduction of Plaster of Paris as a fertilizer. The Pennsylvania farmers, being slow to perceive the utility of powdering the sur- face of their meadows, Franklin wrote with plaster, in afield on the high road, in large letters: — "This has been Plastered." The white letters quickly vanished, but soon reappeared in emerald, showing in brilliant contrast to the grass of the general surface. The lesson, we are assured, was not lost upon the passing farmers.f Broom-corn, also, it is said, we owe to the accident of Franklin's discovering in an imported whisk one grain still adhering to its pa- rent stalk. This grain he is said to have planted, and distributed about the country the seeds resulting. The story is not true, how- ever, though we find it related by Watson in his Annals. Franklin obtained some seed of the broom-corn in Virginia, and, besides planting it in Pennsylvania, sent little packages of it to friends in Boston. And yet another agricultural anecdote, which was related by Mr. John Adams in his diary, when he was a young man of twenty- four, deep in the study of law, little thinking he should one day be the colleague of Franklin in affairs of the first importance, and write of him only to disparage. The impetuous student spent the evening of May 26th, 1760, at Mr. Edmund Quincy's, near Boston, " with Mr. Wibird and my cousin Zeb ;" and, on returning home, recorded " a remarkable instance of Mr. Benjamin Franklin's activ- ity and resolution," which he had heard related by Mr. Quincy. Mr. Franklin, during one of his visits to Massachusetts, had atten- ded Mr. Wibird's church, and after church had gone home with Mr. Quincy to tea, according to the social custom of the times. At the table, Mr. Franklin mentioned that the Rhenish grape-vines had been lately planted at Philadelphia, and succeeded very well. Whereupon, Mr. Quincy said, " I wish I could get some into my * Watson's ^innals of Philadelphia, ii., 487, t ChaptaPs Agricultural Chemistry, p. 7o. u 314 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN PEANKLIN. [1752. garden : I doubt not they would do very well in this province.'' Mr. Franklin replied : " Sir, if I can supply you with some of the cuttings I should be glad to." " Thank you," returned Quincy, " I don't know but that some time or other I shall presume to trouble you." And no more was said upon the subject. A few weeks after, Mr. Quincy was surprised by a letter from one of Franklin's Boston correspondents, saying that a bundle of the Rhenish slips, sent to him by Mr. Franklin, had arrived by sloop from Philadel- phia, and awaited his orders. Soon after, came a second package by post. Two years later, Franklin was again at Boston, and the obliged Mr. Quincy called upon him to express bis gratitude. " I am sorry, Sir, to have given you so much trouble," said Quincy. " O," cried Franklin, " the trouble is nothing to me, if the vines do but succeed in your province. However, I was obliged to take more pains than I expected, when I saw you. I had been told the vines were in the city, but I found none, and was obliged to send up to a village seventy miles from the city for them." The student-at-law was amazed at this anecdote, and knew not whether to attribute Mr. Franklin's conduct to his love of his na- tive province, or "to an unheard of stretch of benevolence to a stranger." Let us hope the early New Englanders were more obliging and neighborly than we should naturally infer from the astonishment of the ardent Adams. "Thus," he comments, "Mr. Franklin took the trouble to hunt over the city, and not finding vines there, he sends seventy miles into the country, and then sends one bundle by water, and, lest they should miscarry, another by land, to a gentleman to whom he owed nothing, and was but little acquainted with, purely for the sake of doing good in the world by propagating the Rhenish vines through these provinces. And Mr. Quincy has some of them now growing in his garden. This is an instance, too, of his amazing capacity for business, his memory and resolution : amidst so much business as counselor, postmaster, printer, so many private studies, and so many public avocations too, to remember such a transient hint and exert himself so in answer to it, is surprising."* It cannot be said of Franklin, as of many other popular men, that he was admired abroad, and detested at home. He was beloved * Life and Works of John Adams, ii., 81. AGED 46.] OTHER EVENTS ABOUT 1750. 315 most by those who knew him best. He was most gracious, con- siderate, and polite to those by whom contrary behavior would have been least resented. Many writings of Franklin exhibit him in a light extremely favorable, but his letters to his mother, his sisters, his brothers, and other relations, are incomparably sweet and engaging. His mother, in these his prosperous years, was sinking slowly to the grave, with little pain, by the natural decay of her powers. He wrote to her frequently, and she to him, when she was past eighty-four. Oct. loth, 1749, he wrote : " I send you inclosed one of our new almanacs. We print them early, because we send them to many places far distant. I send you also a moidore inclosed, which please to accept towards chaise hire, that you may ride warm to meetings this winter." Oct. 1st, 1751, she wrote to him : " I am glad to hear you are so well respected in your town for them to choose you an Alder- man, although I don't know what it means, or what the better you will be of it besides the honor of it. I hope you will look up to God, and thank Him for all His good providences towards you. He has granted you much in that place, and I am very thankful for it. I hope that you will carry well, so that you may be liked in all your posts. I am very weak and short-breathed, so that I can't sit up to write much, although I sleep well at nights, and my cough is better, and I have a pretty good stomach to my victuals. Pray excuse my bad writing and inditing, for all tell me I am too old to write letters. I can hardly see, and am grown so deaf that I can hardly hear any thing that is said in the house."* To this letter, his sister, Jane Mecom, adds a loving postscript : " Mother says she ain't able, and so I must tell you myself, that I rejoice with you in all your prosperity, and doubt not but you will be greater blessings to the world as he bestows upon you greater honors." He reassures his mother in regard to her hand-writing : *' We read your writing very easily. I never met with a word in your letters but what I could easily understand ; for, though the hand is not always the best, the sense makes every thing plain." Then he tells her about his two children : how Will had grown to be a tall, proper youth, and much of a beau, whom his soldiering during the ♦ Letters to Benjamin Franklin from his fkmily and friends. 316 LIFE AND TIMES OF BEXJAMIN FBANKLIN. [1752. war had made a little lazy, but he was then beginning to take to business again. " Sally grows a fine girl, and is extremely industrious with her needle, and delights in her work. She is of a most affec- tionate temper, and perfectly dutiful and obliging to her parents, and to all. Perhaps I flatter myself too much, but I have hopes that she will prove an ingenious, sensible, notable, and worthy woman, like her Aunt Jenny. She goes now to the dancing-school." And we can fancy how Aunt Jenny's eyes danced and glistened as she read out to her mother that delightful compliment to herself. The good old lady slept the sleep that knows no waking, in May, 1752. To Mr. and Mrs. Mecom, Franklin wrote: ''I received yours with the affecting news of our dear good mother's death. I thank you for your long continued care of her in her old age and sickness. Our distance made it impracticable for us to attend her, but you have supplied all. She has lived a good life, as well as a long one, and is happy." Her remains were laid beside those of her husband, in the Granary Burial Ground in Boston ; and over the grave, their son Benjamin, soon after, placed a stone, bearing the well-known in- scription : JosiAH Franklin and Abiah his wife lie here interred. They lived lovingly together in wedlock fifty-five years ; and without an estate or any gainful employment, by constant labour, and honest industry, (with God's blessing,) maintained a large family comfortably ; and brought up thirteen children and seven grand- children reputably. From this instance, reader, be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, and distrust not Providence. He was a pious and prudent man, she a discreet and virtuous woman. Their youngest son, in filial regard to their memory, places this stone. J. F. born 1655— died 1744,— JE. 89. A. F. born 1667— died 1752,—^. 86. AGED 46.] OTHER EVENTS ABOUT 1750. 317 Franklin's letters to his sister Jane continued to be most affec- tionate and pleasing. Once, after the birth of a child, he wrote to her: "My compliments to my new niece, Miss Abiah, and pray her to accept the inclosed piece of gold, to cut her teeth ; it may after- wards buy nuts for them to crack." Again, when she had lost a child : " The longer we live we are exposed to more of these strokes of Providence ; but, though we consider them as such, and know it is our duty to submit to the Divine will, yet, when it comes to our turn to bear what so many millions before us have borne, and so many millions after us must bear, we are apt to think our case par- ticularly hard. Consolations, however kindly administered, seldom afford us any relief Natural affections will have their course, and time proves our best comforter. This I have experienced myself; and, as I know your good sense has suggested to you, long before this time, every argument, motive, and circumstance, that can tend in any degree to relieve your grief, I will not by repeating them renew it. I am pleased to find, that, in your troubles, you do not over- look the mercies of God, and that you consider as such the child- ren that are still spared to you. This is a right temper of mind, and must be acceptable to that beneficent Being, who is in various ways continually showering down his blessings upon many, that receive them as things of course, and feel no grateful sentiments arising in their hearts on the enjoyment of them." And again, when death had once more invaded their circle : " As our number diminishes, let our affection to each other rather increase ; for, besides its being our duty, it is our interest ; since the more affectionate relations are to each other, the more they are respected by the rest of the world." Franklin always spoke cheerfully of death. He felt all the false- ness of the common saying, that man has a soul. Man, he would say, is a soul, and has a body lent to him for a while. He keeps it as long as it answers its purpose, and then lays it aside. When his brother John died, the companion of his candle-making days, he wrote to one who mourned him : " He who plucks out a tooth, parts with it freely, since the pain goes with it ; and he who quits the whole body parts at once with all pains, and possibilities of pains and diseases, which it was liable to or capable of making him suf- fer. Our friend and we were invited abroad on a party of pleasure, which is to last forever. His chair was ready first, and he is gone 318 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1752. before us. We could not all conveniently start together ; and why- should you and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow, and know where to find him." Benjamin Mecom, the son of his sister Jane, continued to share his bounty after the young man had learned his trade of a printer in the office of Parker and Franklin at New York. And trouble enough Franklin had with him. He helped him to set up in busi- ness in the island of Antigua, where he had good prospects. Soon the young gentleman removed to Boston, where he was for many years a printer, and often had help from his uncle. The numerous allusions in Franklin's letters to "Benny's" eccentric proceedings are confirmed by a glimpse we get of him in Thomas's History of Printing, the respectable author of which saw the young printer in all his glory. " Benjamin Mecom," says Mr. Thomas, " was in Bos- ton several months before the arrival of his press and types from Antigua, and had much leisure. During this interval he frequently came to the house where I was an apprentice. He was handsomely dressed, wore a powdered bob-wig, ruffles, and gloves : gentleman- like appendages, which the printers of that day did not assume — and thus appareled, he would often assist for an hour at the press. * * * I viewed him at the press with admiration. He indeed put on an apron to save his clothes from blacking, and guarded his ruffles. * * * jje gQ^ ^j^e nickname of ' Queer N^otions' among the printers."* This erratic young dandy, for his mother's sake, Franklin was never weary of advising, aiding, and excusing. Before accompanying Franklin into public life, we must not omit to observe that, whatever his avocations were, the interests of science were never long forgotten by him. Nor did he confine his studies to electricity. It was at his suggestion that the merchants of Philadelphia, in 1753, and again in 1754, dispatched the ship Argo to the Polar Seas, for the purpose of discovering a North- west Passage. It was he who welcomed to the New World Pro- fessor Kalm, the Swedish Botanist, and carried him out to German- town to visit Mr. Logan, and introduced him to every man in the colonies who could forward his views. It was he who discovered the poisonous properties of air exhaled from the lungs, and he who * i., 851. AGED 46.] OTHER EVENTS AEOUT 1750. 319 first wrote effectively upon ventilation. He was ever a devourer of books. Several notes of his to Mr. Logan have been preserved, which show that he was continually borrowing books from the library of that gentleman, and returning them with brief com- ments. To Mr. Logan, too, who was old and infirm, he conveyed part of his electrical apparatus, both for the purpose of tiying upon his " disordered side " the effect of electricity, and to exhibit to him the new experiments.* I should add, that he brought up his beautiful daughter to attend the Episcopal Church, which Mrs. Franklin also attended, not un- frequently accompanied by her husband. He never changed, in- deed, his religious opinions ; but the conviction grew upon him, that religion was an essential part of human affairs, and that reUgiou could be purified from superstition, not so much by direct attacks upon superstition, as by the loving promulgation of truth, which, being believed, would inevitably expel from the mind supersti- tious opinions and terrors. In conversation with familiar friends, he called himself a Deist, or Theist, and he resented a sentence in Mr. Whitefield's Journal, which seemed to imply that between a * The following are passages from Franklin's notes, of 1748 and 1749, to Mr. Logan : '' I send you herewith the late Voyage for the Discovery of the Northwest Passage, which I hope may afford you some entertainment If you have the Journiil of the French Academicians to Lapland, I should be glad to see it." " I send you the third and fourth volumes of the Harleian Miscellany, and also what I have of Mattaire's Classics. I think I promised to send you something else, but have forgotten what it was. You complain of the decay of your memory, but mine is a miserable one, and never was good. I thank you for your favor in lending me Marchetti's Lucrezio and Smith's Travels, which I shall take care duly to return." "For the reason you mention, I am of the same opinion, that Dr. Free has not considered the Picts' language as you have done, but imagines with other writers that the Piet nation was totally destroyed, and its language with it." " I. send you herewith a new French piece on electricity, in which you will find a journal of ex- periments on a paralytic person. I also send Neal on Electricity, and the last Philosophical Transactions, in which you will find some other pieces on the same subject. If you should desire to Bee any of the experiments mentioned in those pieces repeated, or if any new ones should occur to you to propose, which you cannot well try yourself, when I come to fetch the apparatus they may be tried. I shall be glad to hear that the shocks had some good eflfect on your disor- dered side." " I send the Dialogues on Education, which I ascribed to Ilutcheson, but am since informed were wrote by Mr. Forbes, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Aberdeen; the same who wrote the Inquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer. I also send Milton." "I seaid Whiston's Life. He seems to me to have been a man of great industry and little pru- dence. I have been lame these two weeks past, but am now so much better, that I think I shall be able to wait on you next week with Mr. Kalm. We had a very bright appearance of the Aurora Borealis last night. When I have the pleasure of seeing you, I shall give you a full ac- count of the affairs of the Academy, which go on with all the success which could be expected."— Sparks, vii., 39 i 320 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l752. Deist and an Atheist, there was little difference. Whitefield wrote : " M. B. is a Deist, I had almost said an Atheist." " That is," said Franklin, " chalk, I had almost said cliarcoaV He was accustom- ed to amuse himself at the expense of the " Scripturians," as he called the sticklers for orthodoxy, by opening the Bible, and pre- tending to read therefrom his own version of an ancient parable, which represented Abraham as turning a heretic out of his tent into the wilderness. God, according to the parable, rebuked Abra- ham sharply for this conduct, saying : " Have / borne with him these ninety and eight years, and nourished him, and clothed him, notwithstanding his rebellion .against me ; and couldst not thou, that art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night ?" The remarks of the Scripturians upon this parable were ^ometimes very divert- ing, says Franklin. ■ ; ,,. ,0 ^ %^tAxP^"t^^y^~ No man felt the moral superiority of the Christian Religion more truly than Franklin, but lie was devoid of that quality of mind sometimes called reygrence, which attaches sanctity to build- ings, places, garments, offices, relics, or other inanimate objects. He felt, that the long and bitter quarrel between " believers" and " unbelievers," had been a dispute respecting things non-essential \ and trivial ; and that what the great Deists of his century de- \ nounced and ridiculed, was not Christianity, but certain heathen superstitions and barbarous rites which had assumed its name. Franklin himself, however, has' told us, with all his own vivid- ness and wit, what he thought respecting religion at this very I , period. In 1753, he wrote thus to Mr. Whitefield : 1/ " For ray own part, when I am employed in serving others, I do I not look upon myself as conferring favors, but as paying debts. In my travels, and since my settlement, I have received much kind- ness from men, to whom I shall never have any opportunity of making the least direct return ; and numberless mercies from God, who is infinitely above being benefited by our services. Those kindnesses from men, I can therefore only return to their fellow- men, and I can only show my gratitude for these mercies from God, by a readiness to help his other children and my brethren. For I do not think, that thanks and compliments, though repeated weekly, can discharge our real obligations to each other, and much less those to our Creator. You will see in this my notion of good works that I am far from expecting to merit heaven by them. By \ \ AGED 46.] OTHER EVENTS ABOUT 1750. 321 heaven we understand a state of happiness, infinite in degree, and eternal in duration. I do nothing to deserve such reward. He that, for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person, should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands compared with those who think they deserve heaven for the little good they do on earth. Even the mixed, imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world, are rather from God's goodness than our merit ; how much more such happiness of heaven ! For my part I have not the vanity to think I deserve it, the folly to expect it, nor the ambi- tion to desire it ; but content myself in submitting to the will and disposal of that God, who made me, who has hitherto preserved and blessed me, and in whose fatherly goodness I may well confide, that he will never make me miserable ; and that even the afflictions I may at any time suffer shall tend to my benefit. "The faith you mention has certainly its use in the world. I do not desire to see it diminished, nor would I endeavor to lessen it in any man. But I wish it were more productive of good works than I have generally seen it ; I mean real good works ; works of kindness, charity, mercy, and public spirit; not holiday-keeping, sermon-reading or hearing ; performing church ceremonies, or mak- ing long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments, despised even by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity. The worship of God is a duty ; the hearing and reading of sermons may be useful ; but, if men rest in hearing and praying, as too many do, it is as if a tree should value itself on being watered and putting forth leaves, though it never produced any fruit. " Your great Master thought much less of these outward appear- ances and professions, than many of his modern disciples. He pre- ferred the doers of the word, to the mere hearers ; the son that seemingly refused to obey his father, and yet performed his com- mands, to him that professed his readiness, but neglected the work ; the heretical but charitable Samaritan, to the uncharitable though orthodox priest and sanctified Levite ; and those who gave food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, raiment to the naked, entertain- ment to the stranger, and relief to the sick, though they never heard of his name, he declares shall in the last day be accepted ; when those who cry. Lord ! Lord ! who value themselves upon their faith, though great enough to perform miracles, but have neg- lected good works, shall be rejected. He professed, that he came 14* 322 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1*752. not to call tlie righteous, but sinners to repentance ; which implied his modest opinion, that there were some in his time so good, that they need not hear even him for improvement ; but now-a-days we have scarce a little parson, that does not think it the duty of every man within his reach to sit under his petty ministrations ; and that whoever omits them oiFends God." PART III. m THE SERVICE OF PEMSTLVMIA. PART III. CHAPTER I. THE PUBLIC LAY HOLD OF FRANKLIN. i^ Feanklin was not permitted long to devote his well- won leisure to reading, study, and conversation. Not long did he resist the im- portunities of those who wished to see him employed in the service of the public. His exertions to place the province of Pennsylvania in a condition to defend itself, had given particular delight, not only to the citizens in general, but to each class and party of the citizens, and to every branch of the administration. The Governor, who was wont to regard non-resistant Quakers as his natural enemies, was pleased to see them for once overcome and frustrated. The Governor's masters in England, the brothers Penn, were glad enough to have their province defended at small expense to them- selves. The anti-Quaker minority in the Assembly were happy in beholding the broad-brimmed majority discomfited. The Quakers themselves were willing to have their property protected by can- nons, provided their still more precious sectarian consistency was preserved intact. As to the people, Franklin had given them a triumph for which they had striven vainly for years, and which came home with equal effect to the prudent German and the pug- nacious Briton. And so far as these events in remote Pennsylva-. nia were known to the members of the home government, Frank- lin's part in them could not but have been approved. It so chanced, as we have before related, that the peace of Aix- la-Chapelle, which delivered the colonies from apprehension, and Franklin's partnership with Hall, which gave leisure to the senior partner of that eminent firm, took place about the same time in the autumn of 1748. Despite his resolution to decline office, Franklin found himself, before many months had passed, immersed in pulv 326 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMTN" FRANKLIN. [l752. lie business. " The public," he says, " now considering me as a man of leisure, laid hold of me for their purposes ; every part of our civil government, and almost at the same time, imposing some duty upon me." The Governor appointed him a justice of the peace. The corporation of the city chose him, first, a member of the Com- mon Council, and, soon after, alderman. The citizens elected him to represent them in the Assembly, and he did not decline the seat. We find him also a member of the commission to select a proper place for a bridge over the Schuylkill, which commission named the site of the present Market Street bridge, and there the bridge was built. Roman colonists did not more exactly reproduce in Gaul and Britain the institutions of Rome, than the English colonists in America the institutions of England. Philadelphia was, munici- pally speaking, a little London, with its Mayor, and Mayor's ban- quet, and Board of Aldermen, from whom and by whom the Mayor was annually elected. The defects of the London govern- ment were, of course, most scrupulously copied. In the Minutes of the City Council of that period, we frequently find entries stating that persons were fined for refusing to serve as Mayor. In October, 1745, Alderman Taylor was elected Mayor, and, refusing to serve, was fined thirty pounds. The Board then chose Alder- man Turner, who also refused, and was fined thirty pounds. At length, Alderman James Hamilton was elected, who made a propo- sal which reveals the reason why the office of Mayor was so little desired. He announced his intention of giving one hundred and fifty pounds toward building the Exchange, in lieu of the banquet which it was customary for the Mayor to give to the corporation upon going out of office. The next year, the Alderman who was elected Mayor, ran away out of town, and could not be found by the Committee appointed to notify him of his election, and so he escaped both the fine and the office.* And this occurred just after it had been agreed to allow the Mayor a hundred pounds a year toward the support of his dignity. As the city was a little London, so the Assembly was a little Parliament ; very little, for it consisted of less than forty members. This Assembly had once been an exceedingly simple and primitive * Wfvtaon'8 Annals of Philadelphia, 1., 68. AGED 4 O.J THE PUBLIC LAY HOLD OF FRANKLIN. 327 body. The early Minutes show that the members, in William Penn's time, used to take their dinners with them to the House (the House being a school-room liired for twenty shillings the ses- sion), and adjourn sometimes for an hour to warm themselves ; paid their Clerk four shiUings a day ; and fined absentees ten pence ; often sat in silence for a while meditating, as at a Quaker meeting ; and passed laws forbidding the drinking of healths and the spreading of false news. But in 1750, the Assembly had become in a high degree parhamentary. We read of writs being issued for the elec- tion of members ; of riotous elections ; of the Assembly being rent into parties for and against the Governor ; of warm debates and dull debates ; of party maneuverings to circumvent an administra- tion which could not be defeated ; and all the other parliamentary features, even to the exclusion of spectators and reporters. Not a legislative body in the world admitted the public to hear its debates until 1766, when James Otis caused a visitors' gallery to be opened in the Assembly of Massachusetts.* The Governor of Pennsylvania was appointed in England by the proprietaries, and was removable only by them. The Assembly, therefore, could only bother, torment, and frustrate that most uncomfortable of Governors since Sancho Panza. It is as a member of this small parliament that we have now to do with Franklin. Oblivion covers his aldermanic career. The office of justice of the peace he soon relinquished, because he found that the performance of its duties required more knowledge of the common law than he possessed. But his public services in connection with the Assembly were numerous and important. Of his election to the Assembly and his other public employments, he thus speaks : " A seat in the Assembly was the more agreeable to me, as I grew at length tired with sitting there to hear the debates, in which, as clerk, I could take no part, and which were often so uninteresting that I was induced to amuse myself with making magic squares or circles, or any thing to avoid weariness ; and I conceived ray becoming a member would enlarge my power of doing good. I would not, however, insinuate that my ambition was not flattered by all these promotions; it certainly was; for, considermg my low beginning, they were great things to me : and * Tudor's " Life of Otis," p. 258. 328 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIX FKANKLIN. [1752. they were still more pleasing, as being so many spontaneous testi- monies of the public good opinion, and by me entirely unsolicited." Upon his taking his seat as a member of the House, the place of Clerk became vacant, and was bestowed on Franklin's son, Wil- liam. And I may here remark, that Franklin was not one of those austere patriots who think, with Mr. Jefferson, that a public man ought not to appoint to office, or cause to be appointed, his own relations. Franklin took excellent care of his kindred in this re- spect. If there was a good thing in his gift, he gave it to a Frank- lin or a Folger, to a son, grandson, nephew, or cousin, provided he had a son, grandson, nephew, or cousin, fit to discharge the duties of the place. Not to have done so would then have been thought unnatural and barbarous. We know little of what passed in the Assembly of Pennsylvania ; and if its debates had been reported, Franklin's share in them would have been small. He was no orator. He spoke rarely, briefly, and with hesitation. No great thinker has ever been, or can ever be, a great speaker ; for great oratory is a kind of frenzy. Franklin's speeches, like his essays, derived their effect from his in- imitable talent for homely illustration, and from the weight of his character. " I was a bad speaker," he remarks ; " never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in the choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my point." Elsewhere he at- tributes his powers of persuasion to the constant pains he took not to wound the self-love of those whom he addressed. " I retained," he says, " the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffi- dence, never using, when I advanced any thing that might possibly be disputed, the words certairily^ undoubtedly^ or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion ; but rather, / conceive, or apprehend^ a thing to be so and so ; It appears to 7ne^ or I shoidd not think it so or so, for such and such reasons ; or, I imagine it to he so / or. It is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me, when I have had occasion to incul- cate my opinions and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged in promoting." With regard to his hesitation in the choice of words, I may ob- serve, that the descendants of Franklin possess some rough draughts of his earliest Junto essays and Gazette editorials, the erasures and interlineations of which show that the fluency of his written style AGED 46.] THE PUBLIC LAY HOLD OF FKA?^:KXIN. 329 was not acquired early or easily. I have no doubt that some of his lightest and most graceful essays were written with labor; such absolute perfection being unattainable without labor. Indeed, it may be stated as a rule, that the lighter the writing, the harder has the author worked over it. For what is the difference between light writing and heavy writing, but this ? In light writing, the author takes all the trouble, and leaves the reader all the pleasure ; in heavy writing, the author has all the pleasure, and shares the trouble with the reader. During the second session of Franklin's service in the Legislature, the Speaker and himself were appointed to represent the House at a conference about to be held with the Indians of Ohio, with a view to the conclusion of a new treaty. The French had then begun those encroachments and negotiations which preceded the old French War ; and the object of the Pennsylvania Commissioners was to cement the alliance between the English colonists and the Western Indians. The conference was held at Carlisle, and a treaty was negotiated. Some Franklinian management was employed by the Commissioners on this occasion. " W^e strictly," says Franklin, " forbade the selling any liquor to them ; and, when they complained of this restriction, we told them, that, if they would continue sober during the treaty, we would give them plenty of rum when the business was over. * * They claim- ed and received the rum. * * In the evening, hearing a great noise among them, the commissioners walked to see what was the matter. We found they had made a great bonfire in the middle of the square; they were all drunk, men and women, quarreling and fighting. Their dark-colored bodies, half naked, seen only by the gloomy light of the bonfire, running after and beating one another with firebrands, accompanied by their horrid yellings, formed a scene the most resembling our ideas of hell that could well be im- agined ; there was no appeasing the tumult, and we retired to our lodging. At midnight a number of them came thundering at our door, demanding more rum, of which we took no notice. The next day, sensible they had misbehaved in giving us that disturbance, they sent three of their old counselors to make their apology. The orator acknowledged the fault, but laid it upon the rum ; and then endeavored to excuse the rum by saying, " The Great Spirit, who made all things, made everything for some use, and whatever use he 330 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l753. designed any thing for, that use it should always be put to : now, when he made rum, he said, ' Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with ;' and it must be so.' And, indeed, if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages, in order to make room for the cultivators of the earth, it seems not impossible that rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited the seacoast." Frankhn observed the Indians with a philosopher's eye, regarding them as curious products of nature, complete and harmonious until marred by contact with a civilization which they could not appro- priate. He wrote few better things than his witty and satirical paper, entitled "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North Amer- ica ;"* a piece written with such art, that the reader is not quite sure, at last, whether its real object was to defend the Indian or ridicule the white man. It will remain, however, to vindicate the Indian when the last of his race has passed away, and to show that it is the intelligent judgment which is ever the most favorable one. Franklin was still the postmaster of Philadelphia, having held the place sixteen years. In 1753, upon the death of the post- master-general for America, Benjamin Franklin and Willian Hun- ter of Virginia were commissioned by the home government to succeed him. The post-office in America had never yielded a sur- plus. The new deputies were generously allovv'ed three hundred pounds a year each, provided they could make the office yield the requisite amount of profit. To secure that object, as well as to im- prove a branch of the public service, the importance and defects of which he knew better than any other man, Franklin addressed himself, in the year 1753. At this period, the profits of the post- office department of the whole British empire were a little less than a hundred thousand pounds a year, and its gross receipts a little more than twice that sum. As yet, mail-coaches were not; the carriers of the mail rode on horseback. But the service had been so far improved that a Londoner could send a letter to Edinburgh and receive an answer in ten days, weather and highwaymen permit- ting. It was not uncommon then for a rider to leave London with only five or six letters for Edinburgh in his bag : on one occasion, it is said, he carried but one letter. * Sparks, ii., 458. AGED 47.] THE PUBLIC LAY HOLD OP FEANKLIN. 331 la the American colonies, the postal service began thus : Letters arriving from beyond the sea were usually delivered, on board the ship, into the hands of the persons to whom they were addressed ; every family sending a member on board for the purpose of receiving letters. Letters not called for were taken by the captain to a coffee-house near the wharf, where they lay spread out on a table, awaiting the coming of their owners. Persons coming from adjacent settlements called at the coffee-house and carried away, not only their own letters, but all the letters belonging to people in their neighborhood : which they either delivered in person, or deposited at the house of the minister or magistrate, or some rela- tive of the individual to whom the letter was addressed. Hence, the custom grew up of depositing at the Ship Coffee-house letters written in the town and destined to a place in the interior, as well as letters brought from the country and directed to an inhabitant of the town. As the settlements grew in numbers and magnitude, it became usual to leave letters directed to one of them at the inn most frequented by the inhabitants of that settlement. Thus, sev- eral years before there was a post-office or a post-rider in the colo- nies, a rude slow, unsafe, but neighborly system of letter delivery had sprung up ; and long after the establishment of a post-office, this neighborly method continued to be the main dependence of the people for the transportation of letters for short distances. The first step towards the formation of a postal system was taken when, in 1639, the General Court of Massachusetts issued the fol- lowing decree : "It is ordered, that notice be given that Richard Fairbanks his house in Boston is the place appointed for all letters which are brought from beyond the seas, or are to be sent thither, to be left with him ; and he is to take care that they are to be de- livered or sent according to the directions ; and he is allowed for every letter a penny, and he must answer all miscarriages through his own neglect in this kind." In Philadelphia, the old Coffee- house system prevailed for many years. In Virginia, the mail-bag was passed along from planter to planter ; each being required by law (passed in 1757) to send a messenger with it to his next neigh- bor, under penalty of a hogshead of tobacco. Every man took out of the bag his own letters, and sent on the remainder. In 1672, the enterprising government of New York established a monthly mail to Boston, advertising " those that bee disposed to send letterti 332 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1753. to bring them to the Secretary's office, where, in a lockt box, they shall be preserved till the messenger calls for them; all persons paying the post before the bagg be seeled up." In 1692, the office of postmaster-general for North America was created ; but, as late as 1704, no post-rider went farther north than Boston or farther' south than Philadelphia. When Franklin was appointed postmas- ter-general, in 1753, the line of posts still began at Boston, and went no farther south than Charleston. And even twenty years after- wards, there was no post into the interior of the country. As soon as Franklin was appointed, he named his son control- ler of the post-office, and the details of the department were man- aged by that fortunate young gentleman for several years. Frank- lin gave the postmastership of Philadelphia, first, to his son, then to a relative of his wife, and, afterwards, to one of his own brothers. In the summer of 1753, he set out upon a tour of inspection, and visited every post-office in the country except that of Charleston ; infusing new vigor into the service, and putting the whole upon an improved footing. For four years he toiled and schemed without reward ; nay, at the end of four years the department owed its chiefs nine hundred pounds. But by that time, the new system > began to tell, and the American post-office soon yielded the salary of the postmasters and a small revenue besides ; " three times as much clear revenue to the crown as the post-office of Ireland," says Franklin. But that could not have been much, for, as late as 1801,, the Irish post-office yielded only twenty thousand pounds a year profit. Some of the improvements introduced into the colonial post-office by Franklin, have remained part ofthe postal system of the country to this day. It was he who made the carrying of newspapers,, which before were carried free, a source of revenue. He charged I each subscriber who received his newspaper by mail, ninepence ai year for fifty miles, and eighteen pence a year for a hundred miles. And what was a still greater improvement, he compelled his riders > to take all the newspapers offered, instead of carrying only those • issued by a postmaster. Thus an unjust and injurious monopoly,, from which he himself had suffered, was aboUshed. Again : it was . he who first advertised in the newspapers the list of letters remain- ing in the post-office, and he who first established in the colonial towns the penny-post, which originated in London in the reign of AGED 4:1.] THE PUBLIC LAY HOLD OF FEANKLIN. 333 Charles II. Besides these improvements, he quickened the pace of the post-riders and increased their number. Instead of a mail between Philadelphia and New York once a week in summer and twice a month in winter, he soon started a mail from each of the two cities three times a week in summer and once a week in win- ter. To get an answer from Boston, a Philadelphian had been obliged to wait six weeks; Franklin reduced the time to three weeks. He reduced the rates of postage very judiciously. ^ The postage upon a letter across the ocean was fixed at one shilhng — precisely what it now is. Letters carried along the coast in ves- sels any distance, short or long, paid four pence. Letters carried by land paid for sixty miles, four pence ; a hundred miles, six penc« ; two hundred miles, eight pence; and every additional hundred miles, two pence. Most of the post-roads were then mere bridle- paths through the forest ; several of these Franklin caused to be straightened, and otherwise improved. Even between Amboy and Trenton, the very road along which Franklin, the runaway appren- tice, had wearily trudged in the rain, in 1723, had, as late as 1755, a stake set up every two miles to keep the traveler from going astray.* Thus, by the end of 1753, Franklin was fairly launched into public life, being employed by his king, by the governor, by the corpora- tion of the city, and by his fellow-citizens. The reputation derived from his discoveries in electricity had by this time enhanced his consequence in America, and his office of deputy postmaster-gene- ral made his name a household word from Boston to Charleston. He was now a man who was asked to head subscriptions, and re- specting whom anecdotes were told. Only two American names were then extensively known in Europe— Jonathan Edwards in the religious world, and Benjamin Franklin in the circles of sci- ence. An anecdote of this period is related by Franklin's grandson : " The merchants of Philadelphia," he says, " set up an assembly for dancing, and desiring to assume a rank above the mechanics, they at first proposed, among the rules for regulating the assembly, ' that no mechanic or mechanic's wife or daughter, should be ad- ♦ See "Encyclopedia Britannica," xviii., 406; Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," ii., 393; Whitehead's " History of East Jersey," p. 376; Drake's "History of Boston," p. 430 ; Sparks, yu., 185, etc. 334 LIFE AND TniES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [ll5d. mitted on any terms.' Those rules being shown by a manager to Franklin for his opinion, he remarked that one of them excluded God Almighty. ' How so ?' said the manager. ' Because,' replied Franklin, ' He is notoriously the greatest mechanic in the uni- verse ; having, as the Scripture testifies, made all things, and that by weight and measure.' The gentlemen became ashamed of their rule, and struck it out."* Another little story, related by Franklin himself, gives us a glimpse of the simple old ways of the colonists at this time. "The skipper of a shallop, employed between Cape May and Philadel- phia, had done us some small service, for which he refused to be paid. My wife, understanding that he had a daughter, sent her a present of a new-fashioned cap. Three years after, this skipper being at my house with an old farmer of Cape May, his passenger, he mentioned the cap, and how much his daughter had been pleased with it. ' But,' said he, ' it proved a dear cap to our con- gregation.' 'How so?' 'When my daughter appeared with it at meeting, it was so much admired, that all the girls resolved to get such caps from Philadelphia ; and my wife and I computed, that the whole could not have cost less than a hundred pounds.' ' True,' said the farmer, ' but you do not tell all the story. I think the cap was nevertheless an advantage to us, for it was the first thing that put our girls upon knitting worsted mittens for sale at Philadelphia, that they might have wherewithal to buy caps and ribbons there ; and you know that that industry has continued, and is likely to continue and increase to a much greater value, and answer better purposes.' Upon the whole, I was more reconciled to this little piece of luxury, since not only the girls were made happier by having fine caps, but the Philadelphians by the supply of warm mittens, "f It was well for the colonies that Franklin put the post-oflSce in order just when he did; for, before another year rolled round, its best facilities were put into constant requisition for organizing defense against the combined forces of a savage and a civilized foe. The colonies were on the eve of that Seven Years' War, in the course of which it was decided, among other things, which should possess * Wm. Temple Franklin's "Memoirs of Franklin," vol. i., p. 448. i- Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan, 1784. Sparks, ii., 440. AGED 47.] THE SEVEN YEAEs' WAR. 335 the continent of North America, the Briton or the Gaul. Franklin bore his part in that momentous contest, serving his country both in the council and in the field. CHAPTER II. Tn± SEVEN years' WAR. To expel the French from North America was, for seventy-five years, the darling desire of the colonists, particularly those of New England. The French interfered with their fisheries. The French estranged their Indians. The French threatened the Western coun- try. The French were the natural enemies of Britons. The French were Roman Catholics. And, to conclude the list of grievances, the French, by the middle of the last century, had grown to be for- midable. They held all Canada, claimed the Valley of the Missis- sippi, and were preparing to hem in the English by a line of forts from Niagara to the Gulf of Mexico. Three times in North America, already, the French and English had measured their strength in arms. In the reign of William III., during the eight years' war of that sovereign with Louis XIV. of France, the New Englanders made a gallant attempt against Can- ada. Two thousand men under Sir William Phipps sailed from Boston in thirty or forty transports. The expedition, which was a most prodigious effort for those infant colonies, ended in frustra- tion, wreck, small-pox, and chronic paper-money. This war, which was called by the colonists King William's War, ended in 1697. After five years of peace. Queen Anne's War began — that long con- test in which Marlborough won his most brilliant victories, and which ended with the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713. Again, New England, or we might rather say, Massachusetts, put forth exer- tions gloriously disproportioned to her wealth and numbers. Bos- ton was fortified ; Yankee privateers scoured the ocean. Four regiments of New Englanders accompanied the mighty expedition of fifteen men-of-war and forty transports, that was designed to make a complete conquest of Canada. A storm scattered and 336 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l754. shattered this great fleet, and many other disasters befell the valiant and generous sons of Massachusetts. But the treaty of Utrecht recognized their patriotic, their unexampled sacrifices, by ceding Nova Scotia to the dominion of Britain. Then there were thirty years of peace, during which Queen Anne died, George I. reigned, and George 11. succeeded him. From 1744 to 1748, war again raged on both Continents, and again from Boston sailed a powerful armament against the possessions of the French. The fortress of Louisburg, in the Island of Cape Breton, surrendered to the brave 'New Englanders under their own Sir William Pepperell and Commodore Tyng, an event which was celebrated throughout the colonies with fire-works, illuminations, and thanksgivings. The fortress was given up at the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ; the valor and conduct of New England thus atoning for the failures and blunders of Old England's generals on the continent of Europe. This war was called by the colonists King George's War. When powerful States make peace, not because either of them is satisfied, but because both are exhausted, the peace generally proves to be little more than a truce. Accordingly, the peace of Aix-la- Chapelle, which was made because France was tired, and England tired out, because France had lost every thing at sea, and England was in danger of losing every thing on land, was of such short dura- tion, that as early as 1753, the colonies began to prepare for their greatest, their final struggle with the French. The war which en- sued was called in Europe the Seven Years' War, but it began in America two years before hostilities were commenced in iiurope. It was in this war that Frederick II., of Prussia, performed that startling series of exploits which caused him to be called " the Great :" in this war that young Colonel Washington first heard the whistling of hostile bullets, which he said was music in his ears : in this war that William Pitt doubled the consequence, and trebled the arrogance of England by winning Canada and India, after a series of intoxicating victories by sea and land. Assuming that the reader is familiar with the important events of this war, we have only to relate the useful and not unimportant part played in it by the unwarlike Franklin. In Jvme, 1754, we find him at the old Dutch town of Albany, in the province of New York, a conspicuous figure in a scene that was animated and j^icturesque. Twenty-five of the leading men of AGED 48.] THE SEVEN YBAES' WAR. 337 the seven Northern colonies were there assembled by the orders of the home government, for the purpose of meeting the chiefs of the Six Nations, and concerting measures with them for the defense of the country. The four Commissioners sent to this Conference by the Governor of Pennsylvania were John Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Richard Peters, and Isaac Norris. One of the members from Mas- sachusetts was that Thomas Hutchinson, afterwards Governor of Massachusetts, with whom Franklin was destined in later years to have much to do. James De Lancey, Lieutenant-Governor of New York, whose name survives in that of one of the streets of the city in which he lived, was chosen to preside over this Assembly. The town was filled with a concourse of Indians, the hereditary allies of the English, and the hereditary enemies of the French. All the Commissioners brought presents for the tribes, and many days were passed in disti-ibuting these, and in holding those solemn and tedi- ous Talks in which Indians delight. The Indian business, however, does not concern us, nor was that the chief object of the gathering. No sooner had it become clear to Franklin that the French meant war, than his mind darted to the best means of resisting the attack. The French power in North America was wielded by a single hand, and all their measures were parts of one scheme. The power of England, on the contrary, was dissipated among many governments, always independent of one another, often a little jealous, and never too cordial or neighborly. We must unite^ or he overcome^ said Franklin. In May, 1754, just before leaving home to attend the Congress at Albany, he published an article to this effect in the Gazette^ and appended to it one of those allegorical wood-cuts of which he was so fond. It was the picture of a snake cut into as many pieces as there were colonies, each piece having upon it the first letter of the name of a colony, and under the whole, in capital letters, appeared the words. Join or Die. On his way from Phila- delphia to New York, he drew up a plan for the union of the colonies, which, being approved by several of his friends, he deter- mined to offer to the consideration of the Congress. Upon arriving at Albany, he found that the necessity of union was felt by all tlie members, several of whom had even prepared plans of union. A committee of seven was appointed to consider the subject, one from each province ; Franklin representing Pennsyl- vania, and Ilutchhison, Massachusetts. Franklin exhibited his plan, 15 338 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1754. which was duly considered, and compared with those drawn up by other members. His was preferred, amended, reported, and after twelve days' debate, approved by the Congress, and commended to the favorable consideration of Parliament and the king, without whose authority, it was agreed, nothing could be done. Franklin's scheme of union was remarkably similar to that by which these States were afterwards made one nation. Each prov- ince was to preserve its independence, except so far as might be necessary to enable the colonies to present to an enemy a united front, and fight him with one plan, one purse, and one head. A President-General, appointed and supported by the king, was to administer the affairs of the general government. A Grand Council of forty-eight members, chosen by the several Assemblies, should constitute the parliament of the confederation ; to meet once a year, and the members to serve three years. Philadelphia, the most central large town, should be the place of meeting, until otherwise appointed. The President-General, and seven members of the Grand Council, should have the power to summon the Grand Council on any emergency. The Grand Council should choose their own speaker, and neither be dissolved, nor prorogued, nor detained longer than six weeks, without their own consent, or the king's command. The members of the Grand Council should be paid ten shillings a day, and ten shillings for every twenty miles of travel. No act of the Grand Council to be valid without the assent of the President-General. The President-General, with the advice and consent of the Grand Council, to make all Indian treaties ; to regu- late the Indian trade ; to declare, conduct, and terminate Indian wars ; to purchase Indian lands ; to make and govern new settle- ments beyond the boundaries of the old colonies ; to raise, pay, and direct soldiers ; to build ships of war and forts ; to levy taxes for the support of the general government, and for the defense of the country. All the acts of the Grand Council were to accord with the laws of England, and to be submitted to the king in council for approbation. The President-General to nominate all officers for the military and naval service of the colonies, but none to be commis- sioned until approved by the Grand Council. The Grand Council to nominate all civil officers, but none to be employed until approved by the President-General. In cases of sudden emergency, each colony could adopt any requisite measure of defense, the expense AGED 48.] THE SEVEX YEAKS' WAR. 339 of which, if just and reasonable, should be discharged by the general government. Such is an outline of Franklin's plan of union. With the excep- tion of the Commissioners from Connecticut, the Conference at Albany approved it most heartily, and the people generally seem to have thought well of it. On his return to New York, Franklin was the object of unusual attentions, which, I think, we must attrib- ute, in part, to the popularity of his plan of union. An old letter written at New York, July iVth, 1754, contains this sentence: "Gentlemen have been this hour past going in and coming out from paying their comphments to Mr. Franklin."* And there are not wanting other indications that his scheme met with great approval, particularly in New York and Massachusetts. Neverthe- less, it came to naught. The home government thought it danger- ously democratic, and calculated to make the colonies too formidable. Some of the colonial governors, placemen, and legislators perceived that a great central government would dwarf their consequence and diminish their power. Many of the colonists, too, thought the scheme conceded too much to the prerogative of the King. The Lords of Trade, to whom it was transmitted, did not deem it worth while to lay it before the administration, but concocted a plan of their own, designed merely to help the colonies over this one crisis ; of w'hich more anon. Another favorite project of Franklin's was much discussed among the members of the Albany Conference. He was of opinion that nothing would more effectually resist the encroachments of the French than to plant in the western country, beyond the Alle- ghanies, one, two, or three powerful colonies ; the enterprise to be undertaken by a company, and the first expense to be borne by subscription. Single families dared not penetrate those fertile regions of the West, which swarmed Avith Indians more or less under tlie influence of the French. But a hundred families, Frank- lin thought, setting out together, settling in one neighborhood, and ;H-companied by a body of adventurous young men, would be un- molested, and, at the same time, form a living, impassable barrier to the inroads of the Indians and the encroachments of the French. "The new colonies," said he, "would soon be full of people, and * Bancroffs " History of the United States," Iv., 125 — note. 34a LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l755. from the advantage of tlieir situation, become much more terrible to the French settlements, than those are now to us." One sen- tence in Franklin's paper on thi. subject contains a favorite conceit of his. The French, said he, as soon as war breaks out, set on the Indians to kill and scalp our Western settlers, which has the effect of discouraging marriages ; " thus killing thousands of our children before they are born." This scheme, wise as it was, found small favor in England ; and, indeed, the war itself soon absorbed all minds on both sides of the Atlantic. Franklin drops a remark in his autobiography which is extremely simple, but also very wise: "Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects, t The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from pre- ^ vious wisdom, but forced by the occasion." Besides, at that time, there was an incredible ignorance in Eng- land, and even in the government offices, respecting America. That was the period when a man could be colonial minister without knowing the names of England's colonies. That was the • time when a government official could advise a colonial governor to cut down the forests behind all the settlements, in order to prevent the stealthy approach of hostile Indians. That was the time when many Englishmen and most English women thought that Ameri- cans were black. Lord Stirling mentions in one of his letters, that on being introduced to a lady in London, as a " native American," she could not conceal her amazement that he was a white man. Late in the autumn of 1754, Franklin left his home, once more, setting his face northward, toward his native city. At Boston, where he w^as then held in high and general esteem, he spent many happy days of the winter, conversing with old friends and making new ones. His visit was signalized by a remarkable event. The English plan for the union of the colonies reached Boston during his stay, and Governor Shirley show^ed it to him, and asked his opinion of it. The plan was, that the governors of all the colonies, each attended by one or two members of his council, should assem- ble at some central town, and there concert measures of defense, raise troops, order the construction of forts, and draw on the Brit- ish treasury for the whole expense ; the treasury to be afterwards reimbursed by a tax laid on the colonics by a,n act of Parliament. AGED 49.] THE SEYEK YEARS' WAR. 341 Franklin returned the draught of this scheme to the GoYcrnor, with his objections to it in writing. He perceiYed, at once, all the latent mischief of the scheme. In his letters to the Governor upon it, he anticipated the whole of the argument, used a few years later, in opposing the stamp act. His long catalogue of objections maybe summed up in the words that became afterwards so familiar to the colonists : '* 'No taxation Avithout representation." The colonists, he contended, are English- men ! The accident of our living in a colony, deprives us of no right secured to Englishmen by Magna Charta. " The people in the colonies," he wrote, " who are to feel the immediate mischiefs of invasion and conquest by an enemy, in the loss of their estates, lives, and liberties, are likely to be better judges of the quantity of forces necessary to be raised and maintained, forts to be built and supported, and of their own abilities to bear the expense, than the Parliament of England, at so great a distance." Again : " Compel- ling the colonies to pay money without their consent, would be rather like raising contributions in an enemy's country, than taxing of Englishmen for their own public benefit ; it would be treating them as a conquered people, and not as true British subjects." Again : " The governors often come to the colonies merely to make fortunes, with which they intend to return to Britain ; are not al- ways men of the best abilities or integrity ; have many of them no estates here, nor any natural connection with us, that should make them heartily concerned for our welfare ; and might jDOssibly be fond of raising and keeping up more forces than necessary, from the profits accruing to themselves." Finally, he declared all the English laws which made the slight- est difierence between Englishmen living in England and English- men living abroad, to be both unjust and unwise : " Could the Goodwin Sands be laid dry by banks, and land equal to a large county thereby gained to England, and presently filled with Eng- lish inhabitants, would it be right to deprive such inhabitants of the common privileges enjoyed by otiier Englishmen, the right of vend- ing their produce in the same ]3orts, or of making their own shoes, because a merchant or a shoemaker, living on the old land, might fancy it more for his advantage to trade or make shoes for them ? "Would this be right, even if the land were gained at the expense of the State ? And would it not seem less right, if the charge and 842 LIFE AND Ti:\rES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l755. labor of gaining the additional territory to Britain had been borne by the settlers themselves ? And would not the hardship appear yet greater, if the people of the new country should be allowed no representatives in the Parliament enacting such impositions ?" In truth, there is not an argument, nor an idea in all the subse- quent stamp-act debates which is not to be found in Franklin's letters to Governor Shirley, written in 1755. He touched the sub- ject only to exhaust it. For a long time, however, both the minis- terial scheme, and his commentary upon it, slept together in the escritoir of Governor Shirley. The war was blundered through without concert, without vigor, and with grievous losses and calam- ities ; most of which would have been avoided if the ministry had trusted more to colonial patriotism, knowledge, and ability, and less to the incompetent Braddocks and Loudouns of their own se- lection. " I conquered America in Germany," William Pitt used to boast. At far less expense than he incurred in subsidizing Fred- erick of Prussia, he could have conquered America in America, by Americans, j He should have trusted the noblest, fondest, most loyal, and generous colonists a nation ever had. Franklin appears to have had a peculiar enjoyment of this visit to his native province. " I left New England slowly," he wrote soon after his return home, to a young lady, the daughter of an old New England friend, "and with great reluctance. Short day's journeys, and loitering visits on the road, for three or four weeks, manifested my unwillingness to quit a country in which I drew my first breath, spent my earliest and most pleasant days, and had now- received so many fresh marks of the people's goodness and benevo- lence, in the kind and aifectionate treatment I had everywhere met with. I almost forgot I had a Aome, till I was more than half way tow^ards it ; till I had, one by one, parted with all my New England friends, and was got into the western borders of Connecticut, among mere strangers. Then, like an old man, who having buried all he loved in this world, begins to think of heaven, I began to think of and wish for home; and, as I drew nearer, I found the attraction stronger and stronger. My diligence and speed increased with my impatience. I drove on violently, and made such long stretches, that a very few days brought me to my own house, and to the arms of my good old wife and children, where I remain, thanks to God, at present well and happy." AGED 49.] THE SEYEN YEAEs' WAR. 343 Ilis letters to this young lady, and to all ladies, had much in them of the warmth and gallantry that were then allowed. In this same letter he says : " Persons subject to the hyp complain of the northeast wind, as increasing their malady. But since you prom- ised to send me kisses in that wind, and I find you as good as your word, it is to me the gayest wind that blows, and gives me the best spirits. I write this during a northeast storm of snow, the greatest we have had this winter. Your favors come mixed with the snowy fleeces, which are pure as your virgin innocence, white as your lovely bosom, and — as cold. But let it warm towards some worthy young man, and may Heaven bless you both with every kind of happiness."* In the spring of 1755, Franklin was drawn into the very vortex of colonial afikirs. We have before spoken of the Governor of Pennsylvania, as an official whose place was not enviable. He was always, and una- voidably, embroiled with the legislature ; often with the people, and occasionally with his masters in England. Few men had ever held the office long, and, of late years, it had been constantly becom- ing more unmanageable. The Governor's difficulties were these tv/o : First, The Quakers, for a long time, could not be induced to vote money for any warlike purpose ; and Secondly, The Governor was strictly enjoined to veto every tax-bill, which did not expressly exempt from taxation the immense and productive estates of the Penns. The scruples of the Quakers were at length overcome or evaded. But the Proprietaries, with " incredible meanness," as Franklin thought, insisted on the exemption of their estates from taxation, even in times of imminent public peril, and though they had a larger stake in the safety of the country than any hundred of its inhabitants. This was the great and constant cause of differ- ence between the governors of Pennsylvania and their little parlia- ment. The Governor could not yield without losing more than his place ; for the Proprietaries had recently compelled their governors to give bonds for their adherence to this offensive article of their instructions. The Assembly could not yield without base compli- ance with a most unjust demand, and without being abhorred by every public-spirited and right-minded man in the province. ♦ Franklin to Catherine Ray, 1755.— Sparks, vii., 85. 344 LIFE AND IIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1755. In these years of rumored and impending war, wlien all the colo- nies were called upon to make greater exertions and support heav- ier burdens than ever before, the quarrel had become intense. Governor James Hamilton, worn out with the irreconcilable dis- pute, threw up his office in June, 1754, and the Proprietaries com- missioned Robert Hunter Morris in his stead ; who chanced to reach New York when Frankhn was passing through that city, on his way to Boston, late in the autumn of the same year. Franklin and the new Governor being old acquaintances, had an interview on this occasion, during which Morris asked Franklin whether he must expect an uncomfortable administration ? " No," said the postmaster ; " you may, on the contrary, have a very com- fortable one, if you will only take care not to enter into any dis- pute with the Assembly." " My dear friend," said the Governor, " how can you advise my avoiding disputes ? You know I love disputing ; it is one of my greatest pleasures ; however, to show the regard I have for your coujasel, I promise you I will, if possible, avoid them." Franklin continued his journey, and, after a few weeks' absence, was again at New York, on his way home. " There," he wrote, " I met with the votes of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, by which it appeared that, notwithstanding his promise to me, he and the house were already in high contention ; and it was a continual battle be- tween them as long as he retained the government. I had my share of it ; for, as soon as I got back to my seat in the Assembly, I was put on every committee for answering his speeches and mes- sages, and by the committees always desired to make the draughts. Our answers, as well as his messages, were often tart, and some- times indecently abusive." Franklin, with his usual charity, finds an excuse for this disputa- tious Governor : " He had some reason for loving to dispute, being eloquent, an acute sophister, and, therefore, generally successful in argumentative conversation. He had been brought up to it from a boy ; his father, as I have heard, accustoming his children to dis- pute with one another for his diversion, while sitting at table after dinner ; but I think the practice was not wise ; for, in the course of my observation, those disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their afiairs." On one occasion, I perceive, Franklin deliberately and openly dis- AGED 49.] THE SEVEN" YEARS' WAR. 345 ^ obeyed the Governor's express commands. Certain letters had come out from Sir Thomas Robinson, a member of the Home Government, which ftivored the claims of the Assembly, and had been read and considered by that body. The letters rebuked the Governor for his inattention to the defense of the frontiers, and conveyed to him " the express commands of the king," that he " should act vigorously," both in repelling attacks upon his own province, and in assisting the governors of other colonies to defend their borders. These epistles from a British Secretary of State were, of course, a great triumph to the popular party in the House, and, consequently, the Governor ordered Franklin & Hall, printers to the Assembly, to omit those letters from their printed report of the proceedings. Messrs. Franklin & Hall, in a letter written with Franklin's inimitable audacity and adroitness, refused to obey their order ; and after consulting the House, printed the letters in the >^ proceedings.* Amid all this contention, Franklin and the Governor were on ex- cellent terms with one another ; the Governor frequently asking his advice, and inviting him to dinner. Franklin relates an anecdote of their intercourse : " One afternoon, in the hight of this public quar- rel, we met in the street ; ' Franklin,' said he, ' you must go home with me and spend the evening ; I am to have some company that you will like ;' and, taking me by the arm, led me to his house. In gay conversation over our wine after supper, he told us jokingly that he much admired the idea of Sancho Panza, who, when it was proposed to give him a government, requested it might be a govern- * Feanklin & Hall to Gov. Moreis. March 20, 1T55. Sib: — We should, with great readiness and submission, have obeyed your Honour's Com- mands, in forbearing to publish the two letters from Sir Thomas Eobinson , of July the 5th, and October tho 26th, were it only a concern of our own, or a matter in our disposition. But as those letters are contained in the votes and proceedings of the Assembly, and inserted therein by their order, we could not omit thcra without obtaining the directions of the House. To that end wo laid the commands received from your Honour before the Assembly, but the House has expressly ordered us to proceed directly in publishing the votes containing those letters; and we being, as their printer, the immediate servants of the House, are obliged in this manner to obey their orders. We therefore hope your Honour will excuse us, and believe us to be, with all possible respect, Your Honour's most obedient and most humble servants, Franklin & Hall. To the Honble. Governor Morris. Pennsylvania Archives, 1748-56, p. 274. [A note states that the above letter was in Franklin's handwritinc:.] 16* 346 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l755. menfc of blacks ; as then, if he could not agree with his people, he might sell them. One of his friends, who sat next to me, said, ' Franklin, why do you continue to side with those Quakers ? had you not better sell them ? the proprietor would give you a good price.' ' The Governor,' said I, ' has not yet blacked them enough.' He, indeed, had labored hard to blacken the Assembly in all his messages." The Quakers, be it remarked, objected to the appropriation of money for warlike objects, but were i\\x more resolutely opposed to the exemption of the Penn estate from taxation. Probably, too, the Quakers had never quite forgiven the sons of their revered founder for not adhering to the sect he had so loved. Franklin Avas with the Quakers on the exemption question, though against them on that of military appropriations. In one signal instance he was enabled to defeat the governor, or rather, to get at the public money without his concurrence. Mas- sachusetts, that has borne the brunt of all American wars, except__ the two that ought not to have been waged, was prompt on this ,^^^ occasion also, and plMhed an expedrtidn against Crown Point. Edmund Quincy came to Philadelphia to solicit from the Assembly of Pennsylvania a grant of money in aid of the gallant enterprise. Kemembering, doubtless, the incident of the grape-vines, before re- lated, he called upon Franklin for advice how to proceed. Frank- lin, entering heartily into the business, dictated Mr. Quincy's petition, and advocated it in the Assembly, who speedily voted a grant of ten thousand pounds. The same bill contained other clauses, granting various sums for the service of the king; for Gen. Braddock had now arrived in Virginia with his fated army, and all the colonies resounded with warlike preparation. The Governor of Pennsylvania, however, being bound by his inexorable instruc- tions, was obliged to refuse his assent to the bill, unless the hateful clause were inserted, exempting the proprietary estate. In this extremity, Franklin resorted to management. There was a Loan Office in the province, upon the trustees of which the As- sembly had a legal right to draw without the authorization of the governor. There was little money at the time in the custody of the trustees, but Franklin proposed to raise the sum required by orders payable in a year, bearing interest at five per cent. The security being ample and the interest liberal, the orders were AGED 49.] THE SEVEN YEAES' WAE. 347 eagerly bought, and Mr. Qnincy soon departed, rejoicing to have succeeded in his mission. " He ever after," says Franklin, " bore me the most cordial and affectionate friendship ;" a friendship, we shall find, that was shared by others of the ancient and honorable name of Quincy. The loyal Pennsylvanians, meanwhile, had heard that the refusal of the Assembly to vote money for the king's service had been mis- understood by General Braddock, who was then at Fredericktown, in Maryland, preparing to march against Fort Duquesne. That fiery man of war had been informed by some intermeddling liars, that the Pennsylvanians, while refusing to supply the army of the king, had been selling provisions to the French, had refused aid in open- ing a road to the western country, and withheld horses and wagons from the British camp. General Braddock, it was said, was more intent to ravage Pennsylvania than to defeat the French. In these circumstances, the Assembly requested Franklin to go to the Gen- eral's camp, and explain their conduct. He was to go, not as com- missioned by them, but as postmaster-general, to arrange a plan by which General Braddock could communicate quickly and safely with the colonial governors. Franklin accepted the mission, mount- ed his horse, and set out for the camp early in April. Frederick- town is distant from Philadelphia about one hundred and twenty miles. The postmaster-general was accompanied by the Governor of New York, the Governor of Massachusetts, and by his son William ; the governors having been summoned to confer with the general. Tlie four gentlemen and their servants, all well mounted we may be sure, rode southward through the woods in the pleasant April days, a^ot in a hurry, as we should be ; but with a certain leisure and dignity becoming royal governors and famous philosophers. At night, they slept in some hospitable mansion by the way, the mas- ter of which, duly notified of their coming, would ride a few miles to meet them and give them respectful escort to his home. One most pleasing glimpse we catch of this brave company as they rode through Maryland. The narrative occurs in one of Franklin's letters of this year to his old correspondent, Peter Collinson, to whom, in the midst of war, he wrote occasionally a letter upon some scientific topic. " Being in Maryland," wrote the watchful philosopher, " riding 348 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMII^^ FRANKLIN. [1755. with Colonel Tasker, and some other gentlemen, to his country-seat, where I and my son were entertained by that amiable and worthy man with great hospitality and kindness, we saw, in the vale below us, a small whirlwind beginning in the road, and showing itself by the dust it raised and contained. It appeared in the form of a sugar-loaf spinning on its point, moving up the hill towards us, en- larging as it came forward. When it passed by us, its smaller part near the ground appeared no bigger than a common barrel ; but, widening upwards, it seemed, at forty or fifty feet high, to be twenty or thirty feet in diameter. The rest of the company stood looking after it ; but, my curiosity being stronger, I followed it, riding close by its side, and observed its licking up, in its progress all the dust that was under its smaller part. As it is a common opinion that a shot fired through a water-spout will break it, I tiied to break this little whirlwind by striking my whip frequently through it, but without any effect. Soon after, it quitted the road and took into the woods, growing every moment larger and stronger, raising, instead of dust, the old dry leaves with which the ground was thickly covered, and making a great noise with them and the branches of the trees, bending some tall trees round in a circle swiftly and very surprisingly, though the progressive motion of the whirl was not so swift but that a man on foot might have kept pace with it ; but the circular motion was amazingly rapid. By the leaves it was now filled with, I could plainly perceive, that the current of air they were driven by, moved upwards in a spiral line ; and when I saw the passing whirl continue entire, after leaving the trunks and bodies of large trees which it had enveloped, I no longer wondered that my whip had no effect on it in its smaller state. I accompa- nied it about three quarters of a mile, till some limbs of dead trees, broken off by the whirl, flying about and falling near me, made me more apprehensive of danger ; and then I stopped, looking at the top of it as it went on, which was visible, by means of the leaves contained in it, for a very great hight above the trees. Many of the leaves, as they got loose from the upper and widest part, were scattered in the wind ; but so great was their hight in the air, that they appeared no bigger than flies. My son, who was by this time come up with me, followed the whirlwind till it left the woods, and crossed an old tobacco-field, where, finding neither dust nor leaves to take up, it gradually became invisible below, as it AGED 49.] THE SEVEN TEAEs' WAE. 349 went away over that field. The course of the general wind then blowing was along with us as we traveled, and the progressive motion of the whirlwind was in a direction nearly opposite, though it did not keep a straight line, nor was its progressive motion uniform, it making little sallies on either hand as it went, proceeding sometimes faster and sometimes slower, and seeming sometimes for a few seconds almost stationary, then starting forward pretty fast again. When we rejoined the company, they were admiring the vast hight of the leaves non^ brought by the common wind over our heads. These leaves accompanied us as we traveled, some falling now and then round about us, and some not reaching the ground till we had gone near three miles from the place where we first saw the whirlwind begin. Upon my asking Colonel Tasker if such whirlwinds were common in Maryland, he answered pleasant- ly, * No, not at all common ; but we got this on purpose to treat Mr. Franklin.' And a very high treat it was."* Arrived in camp, Franklin found himself in a novel and stirring scene. Mr. Thackeray, in his novel of the Virginians, untrameled by the commonplace necessity of adhering to truth, has gi\'en free play to his imagination in describing General Braddock's head-quar- ters, where were now assembled the most noted men of the colo- nies, governors, lieutenant-governors, members of councils. Colonel Washington, a host of Virginians, and several English ofiicers known to fame. According to the novel, " the little postmaster of Philadelphia," (who stood five feet ten in his shoes), and who had not been in England '' more than once," plays an insignificant though a somewhat useful part in that showy gathering. He figures as a learned and sagacious butler might figure in some Castle Rackrent of the last century — a wonderful creature considering his opportu- nities. Indeed, General Braddock is made to say to Mr. Franklin, that it was extraordinary " a person of such humble origin should have acquired such a variety of learning, and such politeness of breeding ;" which precious compliment the little postmaster is repre- sented as accepting with seeming meekness. We, being obliged to content ourselves with unromantic fact, must needs give a difierent account of Mr. Franklin's position and conduct while at head- quarters. * Sparks, vi., 201. 350 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIK FRANKLIN. [l'/55. His first duty was to remove from General Braddock's mind the ill opinion he had imbibed of Pennsylvania. Dining with the Gen- eral every day, he had abundant opportunity to converse with him, and soon made it clear that the king had no subjects more loyal, and the French no enemies more decided, than the people of Penn- sylvania. After a stay of a week or more, as Franklin was about to leave, the officers returned to camp who had been scouring Vir- ginia and Maryland in search of wagons for the army. At that time, wagons had not yet become universal among farmers ; it was only in the best farming counties of the northern provinces that a farmer had a wagon as a matter of course. Twenty years before this time, a wagon was a curiosity in most parts of the continent-. In 1755, when General Braddock wanted wagons to transport his baggage to Fort Duquesne, his officers could hire but twenty-five in the two provinces of Virginia and Maryland. There were, prob- ably, many hundreds of people in the southern colonies who had never seen a four-wheeled vehicle. In vain did General Braddock bluster, threaten and entice ; the wagons could not be had, because the wagons in that region did not exist. He denounced the minis- try for sending an army into a country where the means of trans- portation could not be procurer!. He declared the expedition impossible, since the army could not move inland without two hun- dred wagons and a great train of pack horses. Franklin, who was present when the irate General was thus re- lieving his mind, chanced to say, he thought it was a pity the army had not landed in Pennsylvania, where every farmer had a wagon. The General turned eagerly to him and said : " Then you. Sir, who are a man of interest there, can probably procure them for us, and I beg you will undertake it." Franklin asked what terms were to be ofifered to the owners of the wagons. He was told to put on paper the tenns he thought necessary. His schedule being approved, he accepted the commission, received the requisite papers and a sum of money, mounted his horse, and, accompanied by his son, rode away to Lancaster in Pennsylvania, sixty miles distant. Franklin managed the affiiir with admirable tact. He selected three centers of operation, Lancaster, York, and Carlisle, each the chief town of a well populated county. He remained himself in Lancaster and York counties, and sent his son to Carlisle in Cumberland. He published an advertisement to the farmers, in which he artfully ap- AGED 49.] THE SEVEN YEAES' WaE. 351 pealed to each of the great motives that induce men to depart from the routine of their lives — self-interest, fear, pride, and generosity. First, he states with exactness the terms upon which the wagons and horses were to be hired : for a wagon, four good horses and a driver, fifteen shillings a day; a pack-horse with a saddle, two shillings ; pack-horse without a saddle, eighteen pence ; pay to be- gin on joining the army, w^hich must be done within twenty-four days : all v,^agons or horses lost or injured, to be paid for by the government, the amount to be fixed by three disinterested persons ; seven days' pay to be advanced by Franklin ; no driver to be requir- ed to fight. To the statement of terms, he appended an Address, in which he wrought upon the fears and the loyalty of the farmers. There was a terrible Quartermaster-General, St. Clair, belonging to Gen. Braddoek's army, who was held in dread among the people of these counties, and who had threatened to send parties of sol- diers through the country, and seize wagons and horses. So, after expatiating upon the liberality of the terms ofiered by the govern- ment, he wound up his address in these words : " If you do not this service to your king and country voluntarily, when such good pay and reasonable terms are ofiered to you, your loyalty Avill be strongly suspected. The king's business must be done ; so many brave troops, come so far for your defense, must not stand idle through your backwardness to do what may be rea- sonably expected from you ; wagons and horses must be had ; vio- lent measures will probably be used ; and you will be left to seek for a recompense where you can find it, and your case perhaps be little pitied or regarded. I have no particular interest in this affair, as, except the satisfaction of endeavoring to do good, I shall have only my labor for my pains. If this method of obtaining the wagons and horses is not likely to succeed, I am obhged to send word to the general in fourteen days ; and I suppose Sir John St. Clair, the hussar, with a body of soldiers, will immediately enter the province for the purpose ; which I shall be sorry to hear, because I am very sincerely and truly your friend and w^ell-wisher." But all this would not quite do. The cunning farmers of Lan- caster, York and Cumberland, readers of Poor Richard^ were not satisfied with the security oflfered. They did not know General Braddock, nor what authority he had to pledge the king's money chest. To remove all hesitation, Franklin gave his own bonds for 352 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAISHN FEANKLIN. [l755. the faithful performance of the contracts, and, besides paying out the seven hundred pounds he had received from Braddock, he ad- vanced two hundred pounds more from his own pocket. He re- turned to camp, having spent two hundred pounds in money, and given bonds for the safe return of twenty thousand pounds' worth of horses and wagons. His success was triumphant. In twenty days from the date of his accepting the commission, he had in camp one hundred and fifty four-horse wagons, two hundred and fifty-nine pack horses, and a considerable quantity of hay and oats for their subsistence. The General thanked him over and over again, repaid the sum he had advanced, entreated him to aid in forwarding supplies after he should have marched, and mentioned him with warm commenda- tion in his dispatches home.* Franklin undertook the superintend- ence of the supplies, and was employed in that business for several weeks. Who now so welcome at the regimental mess, or at the general's head-quarters as Mr. Franklin, the most efficient of co-operators, the most entertaining of companions ? Supping one evening with the officers of a regiment, the colonel told him that most of the subalterns, having little more than their pay, were unable to lay in the stores necessary for so long a march through the wilderness, and he feared they would suffer much for the want of them. Frank- lin said nothing, but resolved to make an attempt to supply them. With the aid of his son, who had had a little experience of camp life, he drew up a list of the stores required, and enclosing it in a letter to the proper committee of the Pennsylvania Assembly, hur- ried off his son with it to Philadelphia. At that day, as in 1861, no people knew better how to do a handsome deed handsomely than the Philadelphians. The committee responded to Franklin's suggestion with such celerity, that a few days after, William Frank- lin returned to camp at the head of a train of twenty pack-horses, * General Braddock to the Secretary of State, June 5, 1755 :— " Before I left Williamsburg, the Quartermaster-General told me that I might depend upon twenty-five hundred horses and two hundred wagons from Virginia and Maryland; but I had great reason to doubt it, having experi- enced the false dealings of all in this country with whom I had been concerned. Hence, before my departure from Frederic, I agreed with Mr. Benjamin Franklin, postmaster in Pennsylvania, who has great credit in that province, to have one hundred and fifty wagons, and the necessary number uf horses. This he accomplished with promptitude and fidelity, and it is almost the only instance of address and fidelity which I have seen in all these provinces."— /i§?arA;s''s Wrii- ings qf WaHldngton^ ii., 78. AGED 49.] THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 353 each laden with a parcel of stores, and each horse with its burthen being sent as a free gift from Pennsylvania to one of the subalterns. Every officer below the rank of captain, was provided for. Each parcel, we are told, contained twelve pounds of sugar, two pounds of tea, six pounds each of coffee and chocolate, a quantity of white biscuit, six pounds each of rice and raisins, two hams, six tongues, two dozen of Madeira, two gallons of rum, twenty pounds of butter, a Gloucester cheese, and the proper proportion of pepper, vinegar, and mustard. Before the army marched. General Braddock talked freely with Franklin of Jiis plans. " After taking Fort Duquesne," said the general, *'I am to proceed to Niagara; and having taken that, to Frontenac, if the season will allow time, and I suppose it will ; for Duquesne can hardly detain me above three or four days ; and then I see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara." Franklin was not so confident. "Having before," he says, "re- solved in my mind the long line his army must make in their march by a very narrow road, to be cut for them through the woods and bushes ; and also what I had read of a former defeat of fifteen hun- dred French who invaded the Illinois country, I had conceived some doubts and some fears for the event of the campaign. But I ventured only to say, ' To be sure, sir, if you arrive well before Duquesne, with these fine troops so well provided with artillery, the fort, though completely fortified, and assisted with a very strong garrison, can probably make but a short resistance. The only dan- ger I apprehend of obstruction to your march, is from the ambus- cades of the Indians, who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and executing them ; and the slender line, near four miles long, which your army must make, may expose it to be attacked by surprise in its flanks, and to be cut like a thread into several pieces, which, from their distance, cannot come up in time to sup- port each other.' He smiled at my ignorance, and replied : ' These savages may, indeed, be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia ; but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any impression.' I was conscious of an impropriety in ray disputing with a military man in matters of his profession, and said no more." Perhaps young Colonel Washington stood by and heard this con- versation. It is certain that he pursued the same argument with 364 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l756. the general, and induced him at length to shorten his line of march, and take some precautions against surprise. Colonel Washington, I may add, regarded Franklin's hundred and fifty wagons in the light of a hundred and fifty nuisances, since he knew enough of the f )rest and the Alleghanies to be aware that they would certainly delay, and possibly defeat the expedition. Even the twenty horses laden with subalterns' stores, he viewed with no friendly eye. He required no such dainties. On the march, he besought the general repeatedly to lessen the number of pack-horses, and at length he prevailed so far as to get the number reduced from two hundred and twelve to two hundred : a result which gave his practical mind great disgust.* The army marched, at length. Franklin continued to send pro- visions forward until news came of the defeat and massacre. He advanced a large sum of his own money, nearly thirteen hundred pounds, to facilitate and quicken the procuring of supplies. By mere good luck, as Franklin always thought. General Braddock, a few days before the fatal day, sent him back an order on the pay- master for a thousand pounds, leaving the remainder to the next account; but that remainder he never received. Franklin was in Philadelphia when the terrible news came. Not a soul in the colonies seems to have seriously doubted the success of the expedition ; such an opinion then prevailed of the invincible prowess of British troops. Franklin himself was probably only less confident than others. " Before we had news," he says, " of this defeat, the two Doctors Bond came to me with a subscription paper for raising money to defray the expense of a grand firework, which it was intended to exhibit at a rejoicing on receiving the news of our taking Fort Duquesne. I looked grave, and said, ' It would, I thought, be time enough to prepare the rejoicing when we knew we should have occasion to rejoice.' They seemed sur- prised that I did not immediately comply with their proposal. ' Why the d — 1,' said one of them, * you surely don't suppose that the fort will not be taken !' 'I don't know that it will not be taken ; but I know that the events of war are subject to great uncertainty.' I gave them the reasons of my doubting : the subscription was dropped, and the projectors thereby missed the mortification they * See Sparks's Writings of Washington, ii., 78. AGED 49.] THE SEVEN YEAES' WAR. 355 would have undergone if the firework had been prepared. Dr. Bond, on some other occasion afterward, said that he did not like Franklin's forebodings." Braddock's defeat is familiar to all readers, because, amid the liorrors of the scene, the alert and youthful figure of Colonel Washington moves conspicuous. Of that long romantic war, peo- ple in general have a vivid recollection of nothing except Wolfe's he- roic clamber up the hights of Quebec, and the cool daring and re- jected wisdom of Braddock's provincial aid-de-camp. Here, it con- cerns us only to know that, during the panic, the teamsters of Brad- dock's army did what teamsters always do in a panic, cut the traces, mounted each his swiftest horse, and made all speed for home. In that summer of hurry and consternation, it was impossible to pro- cure the settlement of accounts so numerous and complicated as those of the owners of the lost wagons. Franklin being personally bound for them, several of the owners sued him for the amount of their loss, and he saw before him a world of trouble, and possible ruin. Late in October, however, more than three months after the defeat, commissioners were appointed to settle the claims, and Franklin was relieved. He acquired great credit by his services to Braddock's army. The Assembly of Pennsylvania, without a dissentient voice, gave him a vote of thanks. When Thomas Penn went to the Secretary of State, in London, to represent Franklin as a factious and trouble- some person, he found that General Braddock had been beforehand with him. " I think with you," wrote Thomas Penn, to Governor Morris, in September, 1*755, "that Mr. Franklin's having signed that vile Report upon our answer to the Address of the Assembly, and printed the Secretary of State's letter contrary to your order, shows plainly he is not to be depended upon to assist in promoting the public service, in a way the most agreeable to the Government. I make no doubt he differs from the Quakers about the Militia Law, but believe he has no great desire to lessen the power of the As- sembly. I have mentioned what you say about him to the Secre- tary of State, who told me General Braddock had represented him as having done considerable services."* On this occasion, as was usual with him, Franklin enjoyed the * Pennsylvania Archives, 1748-56, p. 420. 35G LIPE AND tiMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1755. favor of his fellow-citizens without overvaluing that favor, or being deceived by it. His sprightly and beautiful friend, Catherine Ray, asked him in one of her letters of September, 1Y55 : How do you do ? What are you doing ? Does every body still love you ? And how do you make them do so? He replied: "In regard to the first question, I can say, thanks to God, I do not remember I was ever better. I still relish all the pleasures of life that a temperate man can in reason desire, and through favor I have them all in my power. This happy situation shall continue as long as God pleases, who knows what is best for his creatures, and I hope will enable me to bear with patience and dutiful submission any change he may think fit to make that is less agreeable. As to the second ques- tion, I must confess (but don't you be jealous), that many more people love me now than ever did before ; for, since I saw you, I have been enabled to do some general services to the country and to the army, for which both have thanked and praised me, and say they love me. They say so, as you used to do ; and if I were to ask any favors of them, they would, perhaps, as readily refuse me ; so that I find little real advantage in being beloved, but it pleases my humor." In the same letter he thanks the young lady for the gift of a cheese : " All our friends have tasted it, and all agree that it exceeds any English cheese they ever tasted. Mrs. Franklin was very proud that a young lady should have so much regard for her old husband as to send him such a present. We talk of you every time it comes to table. She is sure you are a sensible girl, and a notable housewife, and talks of bequeathing me to you as a legacy ; but I ought to wish you a better, and hope she will live these hun- dred years ; for we are grown old together, and if she has any faults, I am so used to them that I don't perceive them ; as the song says, " Some faults we have all, and so has my Joan, But then they're exceedingly small ; And, now I'm grown used to them, so like my own, I scarcely can see them at aU, My dear friends, I scarcely can see them at all.* " Indeed, I begin to think she has none, as I think of you. And * A stanza of his own song. AGED 49.] GENERAL FRANKLIN TAKES THE FIELD. 357 since she is willing I should love you, as much as you are willing to be loved by me, let us join in wishing the old lady a long life and a happy." CHAPTER m. GENERAL FRANKLIN TAKES THE FIELD. And now the fair province of Pennsylvania, after eighty years of peaceful growth, fell upon evil days. Having enjoyed the fruits of Penn's justice and good sense, she was to endure some of the consequences of his errors : dissension at the capital, fire and mas- sacre on the border. As soon as the tidings of Braddock's defeat reached Philadelphia, Governor Morris sent in haste to Franklin and asked his advice. Franklin advised him to write to Colonel Dunbar, then command- ing the remnant of Braddock's army, and beg him to post his troops on the frontiers, and keep the enemy in check until re-enforcements could be raised in the colonies, and then march once more upon Fort Duquesne. But nothing could stay the flight of Dunbar and his panic-stricken men, who seem never to have felt themselves quite safe until they had reached Philadelphia. Even at the hight of the first alarm, the Assembly of Penn- sylvania stood firm against the degrading demands of their Gov- ernor. The Governor was equally immovable. " The shocking news of the strange, unprecedented, and ignominious defeat of General Braddock," wrote William Franklin, "had no more effect upon Governor Morris than the miracles of Moses had on the heart of Pharaoh."* The Assembly differed from the Governor, as Frank- lin observed, only upon one word, and that a very little one. The Assembly voted the most liberal sums, but decreed that aU estates, real and personal, were to be taxed, " those of the proprietaries not excepted." The Governor insisted on changing the word not into OTily. The Assembly would not consent ; and, consequently, not * Historical T^cviow. Sparkr, iii., 3GC. 35S LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1755. one of the supply bills conld be passed. The news of Braddock's defeat reached Philadelphia about the middle of July, but the whole summer passed, and two months of the autumn, before any thing effectual was done to protect the border counties of the province. On the part of the Assembly this ill-timed dispute was conducted with an ability, spirit, temper, and resolution, v^^hich have only once been equaled in America. There were adjournments and reassem- blings ; there were messages, replies, rejoinders and surrejoinders. Franklin's pen was always busy, for he wrote nearly all the sharp and dignified replies of the Assembly. One day, his son relates, while the House was discussing the great subject, "a pompous messacre was sent down from the Governor containino* an offer on the part of the proprietaries of one thousand acres of land west of the Alleghany mountains, without purchase-money, and for fifteen years clear of quit-rents, to every colonel who should serve on an expedition from that or the neighboring provinces against the French on the Ohio ; seven hundred and fifty to each lieutenant- colonel and major ; five hundred to each captain ; four hundred to each lieutenant and ensign, and two hundred to every common soldier; and requiring the House to afford some assistance to such as should accept the same."* But the House spurned the unworthy compro- mise; ever bearing in mind Franklin's favorite battle-cry in this long contest: "Those who would give up essential liberty for the sake of a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." On another occasion, the Assembly received a message from a number of gentlemen of the city, offering to pay the amount of the proprietaries' tax for them, if the Assembly would promptly pass the supply bills with the exempting clause. The sum subscribed for this purpose was five hundred pounds, and it was computed to be sufficient. This offer also the Assembly deemed it best to decline, and so the dispute raged on through the summer, through Sep- tember and October, calling forth from Franklin's eager pen hun- dreds of pages of composition that to this day may be read with interest. In July and August the foe did not threaten the settled counties of Pennsylvania, and the panic subsided. It was during this ]u\] in the general alarm that Franklin penned the gay letter to his yovuig frie:i'] in New England, from which we have jtist quoted * Historical Eoview, Sparks, iii., 869. AGED 49.] GENERAL FRANKLIN TAKES THE FIELD. 359 a jovial parngraph or two. But September and October were months of terror, conflagration, and blood. Not in the far western counties merely, but in Berks, ISTorthampton, and the country around the site of Hariisburg, the present capital of the State. Families were scalped within eighty miles of Philadelphia. The Moravian villages less than a hundred miles north of the city were threatened. Lancaster and Easton were not considered safe, and there were timid persons wlio trembled for Philadelphia itself. Horrible tales of households surprised, of men killed, of women and children carried aw^ay captive into the wilderness, were brought to the city by every one that came in from the back country. On one occasion, to rebuke the contending authorities and the non-resisting Quakers, the bodies of a murdered family v/ere brought to Phila- delphia, drawn round the city in an open wagon, and then laid out in the street before the State House, a ghastly argument for union and promptitude. Nay, it was said, that Berks County was raising an army of two thousand men for the purpose of marching to Phila- delphia, and compelling the Governor and the Assembly to unite for the defense of the province.* ]\Ieanwhile, Franklin and his friends havhom he had, in the year iVoS, a very curious conversation, long afterwards related by Franklin to his young friend, Josiah Quincy. The lawyer was Mr. Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden. Said the lawyer, '' For all that you Americans say of your loyalty, and all that, I know you will one day throw off your dependence on this country ; and, notwith- standing your boasted affection for it, you will set up for independ- ence." Franklin replied: "No such idea was ever entertained by the Americans, nor will any such ever enter their heads, unless you grossly abuse them." " Very true," said Mr. Pratt, " that is one of the main causes I see will happen, and will produce the event." How heartily he enjoyed the society of literary and learned men, his letters still pleasantly reveal to us. The Franklin of 1759, we must note, was, in some particulars, a very different person from the Franklin of 1724, or even the Franklin of 1744. His figure had become that of a thriving Englishman of fifty-three years, portly, though far from corpulent. He was fonder of his ease than for- merly, not disinclined to sit after dinner, and perfectly capable of finishing his second bottle of claret, though better pleased with his usual very moderate allowance. In general society, not talkative, often taciturn ; among his intimates, the very gayest, wittiest, hap- 400 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l759. piest, simplest, wisest of men, always ready with sense, fact, badin- age, song, or repartee, as the moment demanded. " I find," he wrote about this time, " that I love company, chat, a laugh, a glass, and even a song, as well as ever ; and at the same time relish better than I used to do the grave observations and wise sentences of old men's conversation." The leading traits of his character never changed ; least of all, his instinct to effect improvements. He wanted terribly to improve the smoky street lamps of dismal London, and he actually did draw up a plan for having the streets of the city swept before busi- ness hours in the morning. " An accidental occurrence," he relates, " had instructed me how much sweeping might be done in a little time. I found at my door in Craven Street, one morning, a poor woman sweeping my pavement with a birch broom ; she appeared very pale and feeble, as just come out of a fit of sickness. I asked who employed her to sweep there ; she said, ' Nobody, but I am poor and in distress, and I sweeps before gentlefolkeses doors, and hopes they will give ,me something.' I bid her sweep the whole street clean, and I would give her a shilling ; this was at nine o'clock ; at noon she came for the shilling. From the slowness I saw at first in her working, I could scarce believe that the work was done so soon, and sent my servant to examine it, who reported that the whole street was swept perfectly clean, and all the dust placed in the gutter, which was in the middle ; and the next rain washed it quite away, so that the pavement and even the kennel were perfectly clean." His plan was submitted to Dr. Fothergill, but had no immediate results. People at that day submitted to the ten thousand nui- sances of a city as to the inevitable decrees of fate. Sir John Fielding demonstrated to Mr. Grenville, when he was prime minis- ter, that a mounted night police, twenty-four in number, would clear London and its environs of highwaymen ; but, thirty years after, ladies continued to be robbed on their return from the opera ; to say nothing of Holborn Hill and Hounslow Heath. Franklin felt it necessary to apologize, as it were, to posterity, for troubling himself about such a trifle as the health and comfort of half a mil- lion human beings. " Some," he writes, " may think these trifling matters not worth minding or relating ; but, when they consider, that though dust blown into the eyes of a single person, or into a AGED 53.] IN ENGLAND AGAIN. 401 single shop in a windy day, is of but small importance, yet that the great number of instances in a populous city, and its frequent repe- tition, gives it weight and consequence, perhaps they will not censure very severely those who bestow some attention to affairs of this seemingly low nature. Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. Thus, if you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas." Every summer during his stay in England, FrankHn, accompanied by his son, spent a few weeks in traveling. A most agreeable tour was that of 1758, when he visited the University of Cambridge, and received the most flattering attention from the chancellor, the vice-chancellor, and the heads of colleges. Dining every day in their halls, he had much pleasant discourse with the professors upon new points in natural philosophy. The reducing of temperature by evaporation was a novelty then, which Franklin communicated, as a piece of intelligence, to Dr. lladley, the professor of chemistry. This led to an interesting scene. "Dr. Hadley," writes Franklin, "proposed repeating the experi- ments with ether, instead of common spirits, as the ether is much quicker in evaporation. We accordingly went to his chamber, where he had both ether and a thermometer. * * * * When the thermometer was taken out of the ether, and the ether, with which the ball was wet, began to evaporate, the mercury sunk several degrees. The wetting was then repeated with a feather that had been dipped into the ether, when the mercury sunk still lower. We continued this operation, one of us wetting the ball, and another of the company blowing on it with the bellows to quicken the evaporation, the mercury sinking all the time, till it came down to 7, which is 25 degrees below the freezing point, when we left off. Soon after it passed the freezing point, a thin coat of ice began to cover the ball. Whether this was water collected and condensed by the coldness of the ball, from the moisture in the air, or from our breath ; or whether the feather, when dipped into the ether, might not sometimes go through it, and bring up some of the water that was under it, I am not certain ; perhaps all might con- tribute. The ice continued increasing till we ended the experi- 402 LIFE AND IIMES OF BENJAMIN FBANKLIN. [1759. ment, when it appeared near a quarter of an inch thick all over the ball, with a number of small spicula, pointing outwards. From this experiment one may see the possibility of freezing a man to death on a warm summer's day, if he were to stand in a passage through which the wind blew briskly, and to be wet frequently with ether, a spirit that is more inflammable than brandy or common spirits of wine." From Cambridge he went to the counties where his ancestors had lived, and sought out living relations of his own, and of his wife. He found at Wellingborough a female cousin so aged that she could distinctly remember bis father's leaving England for America seventy-three years before. She received her American relative with hearty welcome, old as she was. He discovered another cousin, a happy and venerable old maid ; " a good, clever woman," he wrote, " but poor, though vastly contented with her situation, and very cheerful ;" a genuine Franklin, evidently. She gave him some of his uncle Benjamin's old letters to read, witli their pious rhymings and acrostics, in which occurred allusions to himself and his sister Jane when they were children. Continuing their journey, father and son reached Ecton, where so many successive Franklins had plied the blacksmith's hammer. They found that the farm of thirty acres had been sold to strangers. The old stone cottage of their ancestors was used for a school, but was still called the Frank- lin House. Many relations and connections they hunted up, most of them old and poor, but endowed with the inestimable Franklin- ian gift of making the best of their lot. They copied tombstones ; they examined the parish register ; they heard the chime of bells play which Uncle Thomas had caused to be purchased for the quaint old Ecton church seventy years before; and examined other evi- dences of his worth and public spirit. Having paid due honor to the memorials of their race, not neglecting to visit many lowly con- nections of Mrs. Franldin, they returned to London. Pleasures of another kind filled their next vacation, when they spent six weeks in Scotland. In the spring of 1759, Franklin ac- quired the title by which he has ever since been called, that of doctor, conferred upon him by the University of St. Andrews. Perhaps it Avas in acknowledgment of this compliment that he set his face northward in the summtjr of the same year. Scotland did him great honor on this occasion. Her universities received him AGED 53.] IN ENGLAND AGAIN. 403 with distinction, the corporation of Edinburgh gave him the free- dom of their city, society opened its drawing-rooms to him, and men of letters sought his acquaintance. Hume, Robertson, and Lord Kames were his chief associates, and he long enjoyed their in- timate friendship. A trifling remark, which he once chanced to make to Dr. Robertson, is supposed by some to have suggested the well-known Macaulayan image of the New Zealander sitting upon an arch of London bridge contemplating the ruins of St. Paul's. "Dr. Robertson, the histoiian, told me," says Horace Walpole, " that he knew Franklin well, who had been thrice in Scotland sev- eral years ago. Being once at Scone, and told it was there the old Scottish kings had used to be crowned, Franklin said : ' Who knows but St. James's may, some time or other, lie in ruins as Scone does now V " Dr. Alexander Carlyle gives the readers of his Autobiography an imperfect account of a supper at Dr. Robertson's house in Edin- burgh, where he met Dr. Franklin and his son. Hume and Adam Smith were of the company. But, of a supper attended by Hume, Dr. CuUen, Adam Smith, Robertson, and Franklin, the dull Carlyle records little worth repeating. Franklin, he says, listened in silence to the silly prate of one who affected a knowledge of chemistry, and seemed averse to conversation. But " the son was more open and communicative, and pleased the company better than his father : and some of us observed indications of that decided difference of opinion between father and son, which, in the American war, alien- ated them altogether." A few days of most agreeable sojourn at the country house of Lord Kames, concluded their visit to Scotland. Lord and Lady Kames rode with them several miles on their journey southward: the whole party being on horseback, for there was then scarcely a chaise north of the city of Durham. " Our conversation, till we came to York," wrote Franklin to Lord Kames, on reaching Lon- don, " was chiefly a recollection of what we had seen and heard, the pleasure we had enjoyed, and the kindnesses we had received, in Scotland, and how far that country had exceeded our expecta- tions. On the whole, I must say, I think the time we spent there was six weeks of the densest happiness I have met with in any part of my life ; and the agreeable and instructive society we found there in such plenty has left so pleasing an impression on my mem- 404 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l759. ory, that, did not strong connections draw me elsewhere, I believe Scotland would be the country I should choose to spend the re- mainder of my days in." Scotland was then a pleasant land to an Englishman whose claim to distinction was other than rank and wealth. That overshad- owing aristocracy which in London reduced every kind of merit to the second place, was not so absolutely supreme in Edinburgh. Probably there were few Scotchmen who, in the actual presence of a duke or marquis, could have felt the possibly superior rank in the scale of being of a Glasgow professor. But there were not many dukes or marquises in Scotland, and in the absence of those crushing titles, such men as Hume an-d Adam Smith enjoyed very considerable honor. Indeed, rank itself in Scotland paid practical homage to the magnates of the mind. The guardian of the duke of Buccleugh, happily for mankind, thought proper to purchase for his ward the company and conversation of Adam Smith for three years, at the price of a competent income for the remainder of the philosopher's life; and to the leisure thus earned, we owe the Wealth of Nations, the fruit of nine years' meditation and research. Nowhere in Europe was there more activity of mind, a more gen- eral interest in the affairs of the intellect, than in Scotland during the latter half of the last century. Edinburgh was also noted at that time for the informal heartiness and jollity of its social entertain- ments. Its clubs were not unlike the Philadelphia Junto — a blend- ing of the learned and the jovial, the merry and the wise. Amid this holiday life, Franklin's heart was, after all, at his Phil- adelphia home. " The regard and friendship," he wrote to his wife, "I meet with from persons of worth, and the conversation of in- genious men, give me no small pleasure ; but, at this time of life, domestic comforts afford the most solid satisfaction, and my uneasi- ness at being absent from my family, and longing desire to be with them, make me often sigh in the midst of cheerful company." Gifts in great number he sent out to embellish his house and adorn his wife and daughter. One catalogue of presents sent by a friendly captain, has a certain historical as well as biographical value ; it both illustrates Franklin's thoughtful goodness, and shows the kind of articles which liberal husbands, a hundred years ago, were ac- customed to send to their wives from " home." The catalogue v, ill interest ladies, at least : " I send you some AGED 53.] IN ENGLAND AGAIN. 405 English china : viz., melons and leaves for a dessert of fruit and cream, or the like ; a bowl remarkable for the neatness of the figures, made at Bow, near this city ; some coffee cups of the same ; a Wor- cester bowl, ordinary. To show the difference of workmanship, there is something from all the china works in England ; and one old true china bason mended, of an odd color. The same box contains four silver salt ladles, newest, but ugliest fashion ; a little instru- ment to core apples ; another to make little turnips out of great ones ; six coarse diaper breakfast cloths ; they are to spread on the tea table, for nobody breakfasts here on the naked table, but on the cloth they set a large tea board with the cups. There is also a little basket, a present from Mrs. Stevenson to Sally, and a pair of garters for you, which were knit by the young lady, her daughter, who favored me with a pair of the same kind, the only ones I have been able to wear, as they need not be bound tight, the ridges in them preventing their slipping. We send them therefore as a curiosity for the form, more than for the value. Goody Smith may, if she pleases, make such for me hereafter. My love to her. " In the great case, besides the little box, is contained some car- peting for the best room floor. There is enough for one large or two small ones ; it is to be sewed together, the edges being first felled down, and care taken to make the figures meet exactly ; there is bordering for the same. This was my fancy. Also two large fine Flanders bedticks, and two pair of large superfine blankets, two fine damask tablecloths and napkins, and forty-three ells of Ghentish sheeting Holland. These you ordered. There are also fifty-six yards of cotton, printed curiously from copper plates, a new invention, to make bed and window curtains ; and seven yards of chair bottoms, printed in the same way, very neat. These were my fancy ; but Mrs. Stevenson tells me I did wrong not to buy both of the same color. Also seven yards of printed cotton, blue ground, to make you a gown. I bought it by candlelight, and liked it then, but not so well afterwards. If you do not fancy it, send it as a present from me to sister Jenny. There is a better gown for you, of flowered tissue, sixteen yards, of Mrs. Stevenson's fancy, cost nine guineas ; and I think it a great beauty. There was no more of the sort, or you should have had enough for a negligee or suit. " There are also snuffers, a snuffstand, and extinguisher, of steel, which I send for the beauty of the work. The extinguisher is for 406 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1759. spermaceti candles only, and is of a new contrivance, to preserve the snuff upon the candle. There is some music Billy bought for his sister, and some pamphlets for the Speaker and for Susy Wright. A mahogany and a little shagreen box, with microscopes and other optical instruments loose, are for Mr. Alison, if he likes them ; if not, put them in my room till I return. I send the invoice of them, and I wrote to him formerly the reason of my exceeding his orders. There are also two sets of books, a present from me to Sally, The World and The Connoisseur. My love to her. "I forgot to mention another of my fancyings, viz., a pair of silk blankets, very fine. They are of a new kind, were just taken in a French prize, and such were never seen in England before. They are called blankets, but I think they will be very neat to cover a summer bed, instead of a quilt or counterpane. I had no choice, so you will excuse the soil on some of the folds; your neighbor Foster can get it off. I also forgot, among the china, to mention a large fine jug for beer, to stand in the cooler. I fell in love with it at first sight ; for I thought it looked like a fat jolly dame, clean and tidy, with a neat blue and white calico gown on, good natured and lovely, and put me in mind of — somebody. It has the coffee cups in it, packed in best crystal salt, of a peculiar nice flavor, for the table, not to be powdered." This is all pleasantly old-fashioned and kind. Heading it is like going over a house of the last century, preserved, by chance, un- changed. In the same letter he says : " Mrs. Stevenson is very diligent when I am in any way indisposed ; but yet I have a thou sand times wished you with me, and my little Sally, with her ready hands and feet, to do, and go, and come, and get what I wanted." And he tells his little Sally to be diligent with her French, to amend her spelling, to go regularly to church, to read over again the Whole Duty of Man, and the Lady's Library. In another let- ter to his wife, he writes : " I have ordered two large print Com- mon Prayer Books to be bound, on purpose for you and Goody Smith : and, that the largeness of the print may not make them too bulky, the christenings, matrimonies, and every thing else that you and she have not immediate and constant occasion for, are to be omitted. So you will both of you be reprieved from the upe of sp -Ctacles in church a little longer." >^ Mrs. Franklin, on her part, wrote so frequently, that Franklin AGED 53.] IN ENGLAND AGAIN. 407 declared no man before was ever blessed with so punctual a corre- spondent, and it was of no use for him to try to keep even with her. She sent him over a curious piece of intelligence in 1758 : that a rumor was spread all over the colonies of his having been made a Baronet, and Governor of Pennsylvania. Jane Mecom, of Boston, having heard the bewildering news, wrote a distracted let- ter of congratulation to Mrs. Franklin, beginning thus : " Dear Sister : For so I must call you, come what will, and if I do not ex- press myself proper, you must excuse it, seeing I have not been accustomed to pay my compliments to Governor and Baronets' ladies. I am in the midst of a great wash, and Sarah still sick, and would gladly be excused writing this post, but my husband says I must write, and give you joy, which we heartily join in."* The good soul ends by declaring herself " your ladyship's affection- ate sister, and obedient humble servant." Though this rumor proved false, Mrs. Franklin had proof enough that her husband was well esteemed in England. Mr. Strahan wrote to her, entreating her to join her husband, that both might end their days in London, and he enjoy still the charm of her hus- band's conversation. He said he had formed a high opinion of Mr. Franklin from his letters and his reputation, but the man himself far surpassed his expectation. " For my own part," he added, "I never saw a man who was, in every respect, so perfectly agreeable to me. Some are amiable in one view, some in another, he in all." JVIr. Strahan had other hopes, which he delicately hinted. " Your son," he continued, " I really think one of the prettiest young gen- tlemen I ever knew from America. He seems to me to have a so- lidity of judgment, not very often to be met with in one of his years. This, with the daily opportunities he has of improving him- self in the company of his father, who is at the same time his friend, his brother, his intimate and easy companion, affords an agreeable prospect that your husband's virtues and usefulness to his country, may be prolonged beyond the date of his own life. Your daughter (I wish I could call her mine) I find by the reports of all who know her, is a very amiable girl in all respects ; but of her I shall say nothing, till I have the pleasure of seeing her. Only I must observe to you, that being the mistress of such a family is a * Letters to Franklin, p. 188. 408 LIFE AXD TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1760. degree of happiness, perhaps, the greatest that falls to the lot of humanity." In a later epistle, Mr. Strahan made a formal request of the hand of Miss Franklni for his son. Mrs. Franklin was unmoved by these letters, as her husband told Mr. Strahan she would be. " Mr. Strahan," he wrote, " has offered to lay me a considerable wager, that a letter he has wrote to you, will bring you immediately over hither ; but I tell him I will not j)ick his pocket; for I am sure there is no inducement strong enough to prevail with you to cross the seas." So passed three years of Franklin's residence in England, the tedium of delay being alleviated by congenial society, experiments in natural philosophy, music, the theater, and annual excursions into the country. In the summer of 1760 the cause he had come to promote was ripe for adjudication. CHAPTER Vn. EESULT OF THE APPEAL TO THE KING. Franklin's success in London was only partial. The project, half-formed, of inducing the king to convert Pennsylvania into a royal province, like Virginia or New York, was abandoned for the time. Franklin was assured that such a change, without the con- sent of the proprietaries, would be extremely difficult, and, prob- ably, impossible. He confined his attention, therefore, to the gain- ing of two points, the equal taxation of the proprietary estates, .and the deliverance of the Assembly from the tyranny of proprie- tary instructions. His work was all up hill. The appeal lay to men who owed their consequence in the world to the prevalence of principles similar to those upon wliich the brothers Penn founded their claim to misgovern Pennsylvania. Thomas and Richard Penn were fighting the battle of prerogative, which was the king's cause as well as their own. So, at least, their counsel took care to insinuate, in ihelr papers and pleadings. Lord Stirling, an American, who happened to be in London, in AGED 54.] KESULT OF THE APPEAL TO THE KING. 409 the spring of 1V58, probably expressed the general feeling with re- gard to the controversy when he wrote : " As to the affairs of Pennsylvania, the Assembly have, for many years, been demand- ing unreasonable concessions from the proprietaries. They, on the other hand, have as constantly refused them." Result — excitement and confusion. " The Assembly, on their part, have sent home Mr. Franklin to represent what they call their grievances."* If a na- tive American could take this view of a dispute with which he had had the opportunity to become acquainted, we cannot be surprised that similar impressions should prevail in England, where few per- sons knew any thing of the matter. After the departure of Franklin from Philadelphia in 1757, the strife between Governor Denny and the Assembly became more violent than ever ; the assuaging influence of Franklin's good sense and good temper being no longer exerted. The same Lord Stirling tells us : " While the proprietaries had men of sense and virtue for their governors, and while Franklin was at the head of the Assem- bly, they were kept within bounds ; but since they have had a gov- ernor who is worse than a fool, and since Franklin has been on this side of the water, they are grown frantic." Governor Denny, like so many governors before him, was soon tired of the struggle, and gave his consent, early in 1758, to certain laws which were contrary to his instructions ; laws which taxed equally the entire landed j)roperty of the province, and laws which assumed that the Assembly was the proper judge of the needs and requirements of the people it represented. The instant this intelli- gence reached London the proprietaries resolved to remove the governor. They proceeded with the secrecy congenial to men of their calibre. Franklin discovered the secret, however, and took a most effectual method to give it currency in Pennsylvania. He wrote to his wife : " It was to have been kept a secret from me that the proprietors were looking out for a new governor; because they would not have Mr. Denny know any thing about it till the appointment was actually made, and the gentleman ready to em- bark. So you may make a secret of it too, if you please, and oblige all your friends with it.'"* A ncAV governor was appointed, Mr. James Hamilton, a native of Philadelphia, who was less trammeled with instructions than * Duer's Life of Lord Stirling, p. 16. 18 410 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FliANKUN. [l760. any of his predecessors. With regard to the great question of taxing the Penn estate, Governor Hamilton was thus instructed : " We recommend to you to use the most prudent means in your power to avoid and prevent the Assembly from including any part of our estate in the said province in any tax to be by them raised. But, in case the exigency of the times, the king's immediate ser- vice, and the defense of the province cannot be provided for, unless our estate shall be included in any bill for raising taxes for such services ; then we do, notwithstanding our general dislike of the. same, permit you to give your assent to such a bill as shall impose a tax on our rents and quit- rents only, but not on our vacant lands, whether appropriated or not, nor on any fines or purchase money pretended or supposed to be due to us, which, we are well advised, are not in their nature liable to taxation; always provided, that our rents and quit-rents are clear and certain in their amount, that proper and reasonable clauses be inserted in every such bill for rendering as clear and certain as possible the true value of all other persons' estates, that we may not be taxed beyond our true pro- portion with respect to others. And provided also, that our respec- tive tenants be obliged to pay the same, and to deduct the same out of our rents, when they account to us or our receiver, and not to pretend to authorize the sale of any of our lands for non-pay- ment of taxes." Such men offend by their very concessions, and disgust by their generosity. These instructions, besides revealing a begrudging, suspicious spirit, still claimed exemption for countless millions of acres, surveyed and unsurveyed, but all yielding the annual revenue of an increased value. Both Governor Hamilton and Governor Denny gave their signor ture to laws to which the proprietaries were opposed, and which they determined, if possible, to have repealed by the king. The royal charter, be it observed, required that all laws passed by the Assembly and signed by the Governor, should be sent to England for the royal approval. In the spring of 1760, nineteen acts of the Pennsylvania legisla- ture, passed in 1758 and 1759, had accumulated on the table of the King's Council Chamber. To several of these acts no objection was urged by either side. Eleven of them were opposed by the proprietaries ; but, as is usual in such cases, there was one leading AGED 54.] RESULT OF THE APPEAL TO THE KIJ7G. 411 or representative act, which was the true bone of contention. This act was entitled, " An Act for granting to his Majesty the sum of £100,000, and for striking the same in Bills of Credit in the manner therein directed, and for providing a Fund for Sinking the said Bill of Credit hy a tax on all estates^ real and personal, and all taxables within this Province." The Messrs. Penn, aided by counsel, strove for the repeal of this act. Franklin, who was also assisted by coun- sel, maintained its justice and accordance with the Constitution. The subject was referred to a body styled *' The Right Honora- ble the Lords of Committee of his Majesty's most honorable Privy Council for Plantation Affairs." The Lords of Committee weie the Earl of Halifax, Soame Jenkins, W. H. Hamilton, W. Sloper, and Edward Eliot. After hearing counsel on both sides, these gentlemen prepared a report of inmaense length, and written with a degree of care and perspicuity, which shows that at least the af- fair had been most attentively considered. The report was adverse to Franklin and the Assembly. The bill for granting £100,000, and taxing all estates equally, was pronounced by the Committee to be " manifestly offensive to natural justice, to the laws of England, and to the royal prerogative," and " one of the most proper objects for the exercise of his majesty's [)Ower of repeal which has at any time been referred to our consideration." The Committee added the ominous words, *' and we humbly recommend it to be repealed ac- cordingly."* The other money bills, on various pretenses, were thrown out. And as if this were not enough, the Lords of Com- mittee concluded their report with a remark, that the Assembly of Pennsylvania claimed powers that were extraordinary and unpre- cedented, and it was, therefore, "particularly necessary, by the constitutional interposition of the crown, to restrain the power 'of the Assembly from becoming exorbitant beyond measure." Nay, more ; the Committee actually censured the proprietaries for not having kept the Assembly more in check, and taken better care of their own and the king's authority.f ♦ Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, viii., 524. t Thomas Penn commented upon this undeserved reproach: "The Lords of Trade have been pleased, in a manner I do not well like, to censure us for not attending so closely to the proceed- ings of the Assembly as to prevent their encroachments on the prerogative, and say we look xipon ourselves as landholders only, which I think is not to be accounted for, when they knov,- wo have been disputing with the Assembly for twenty years past in support of the prerogative of the crown. However, as they have reported against these laws, we must put up with that, an(i the more readily, as it shows their disapprobation of the encroachments and claims of the Ks&eixnblyy— Thomas Penn to Governor Hamilton, June 27th, 1760. 412 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [lY60. This was a terrible blow; for the £100,000 had been ah*eady emitted. The repeal of the bill would have caused extreme finan- cial embarrassment, and given the proprietaries a triumph that would have made them little less than the absolute lords of Pennsylvania. It seems, also, that the Assembly had guaranteed the late Govern- or against loss in case the bill should be repealed. The Assembly, indeed, had relied too much upon Franklin and the justice of their cause, and, too late, perceived their error. " We are, at present," wrote the Speaker to Franklin about this time, " among rocks and sands, in a stormy season, and it depends on you to do every thing in your power in the present crisis ; for it is too late for us to give you any assistance. Had it been in my power, you should not have had so many difficulties to struggle with ; but the House were of another mind, as well in our re-emitting act, as the bargain and en- gagements with Governor Denny, for which there was no necessity. But possibly all may, under Providence, end better than expecta- tion." The good Speaker would have been alarmed, indeed, if he had read the Report of the Lords of Committee, dated June, 1760. Most colonial diplomatists would have given up the struggle after perusing a Report so emphatically against their cause. Not so Franklin. He contrived to snatch from the teeth of defeat that modern conveniency, which we call a Compromise: and a com- promise, too, that proved to be equivalent to a victory. What secret arts or artifices he employed on this occasion, or whether any such were employed, no existing record informs us. I can re- late little more than what appears in the documents that were de- signed for the public eye. Upon reading this crushing Report in the pleasant month of June, just as he was setting off for a tour in Ireland, Franklin had his portmanteaus and saddle-bags unpacked, and addressed him- self to the task of getting the Report set aside, and a better one substituted. He ofiered to enter into an engagement, in the name and on behalf of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, to have the ob- noxious Act so amended as to remove from it all the objectionable features enumerated in the Report of the Lords of Coinmittee. That is to say, he engaged that an Act to amend the Act should be passed, which should exempt from taxation the unsurveyed waste- lands of the Penn estate ; secure the asses^^ment of the surveyed AGED 54.] . RESULT OF THE APPEAL TO THE KING. 418 waste-lands of the same estate at the rate at which all other prop- erty of the same description was assessed ; give the Governor a veto upon all grants of money raised by the Act ; institute a Board of Commissioners to decide between the tax-gatherer and the proprietaries ; and leave the contracts between the proprie- taries and their tenants intact. He also pointed out to the Lords of Committee the calamitous consequences to the province, of a repeal of an Act that had already been carried into execution : the bills being emitted and in circulation. The Lords of Committee were won by his offer and his explanations, and, on the 28th of August, drew up a second report, which was extremely different from that of the previous June. This new report declared the act " to be fundamentally wrong and unjust, and ought to be repealed, unless''' it should be amended in the manner just explained. The requisite amendments, said the report, the agent of the Assembly had engaged to procure. The proprietaries, " for the sake of peace, and to avoid farther contest," had agreed to consent t-o the proposed amendments, as great inconveniences would arise from the repeal of the original act. Therefore, '' the Lords of Committee are humbly of opinion" that it would be a great deal better to let the act " stand unrepealed." What a remarkable change of opinion ! This Report was decisive. On the second of September the subject was brought before the Privy Council ; present, the king's Most Excellent Majesty (George II., then within a few weeks of his sudden death) ; the Archbishop of Canterbury ; the Lord Presi- dent ; the Duke of Newcastle ; the Earl of Cholmondoly ; the Earl of Halifax ; Viscount Falmouth, Viscount Burrington, Lord Berkly, of Stratton, and Lord Mansfield. The Report was read, which in all probability soothed the aged king to slumber. We are, however, assured by the members of the Council, that " His Majesty took the said Report into his royal consideration, and was pleased, with the advice of his Privy Council, to approve of all that is therein pro- posed to be done." And thus, as Franklin wrote to Lord Kames, " the cause is at length ended, and, in a great degree, to our satisfaction."* * Lord Mansfield is supposed to liave been tlie eiFective ally of Franklin in this affair. The following passage of a letter from Edmund Burke to the Marquis of Eockinghara, written in Sep- tember, 1773, contains some errors, but throws light upon Lord Mansfield's reasons for consenting to let the bill pass : " I remember," wrote Mr. Burke, " with great clearness, a report of the board of trade, so long ago as the year 1769, strongly recommending the disallowance of a money bill of 414 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1760. Having been detained in London all the summer by this business, he hastened, as soon it was finished, into the country, visiting the great tOAvns in the west of Enghmd, Bristol, Bath, Liverpool, and others, and making an excursion into Wales. His anticipated tour in Ireland he was compelled by the lateness of the season to postpone. The news of his compromise must have been received at Phila- delphia with something like a chuckle ; the acute persons among the popular party perceiving their advantage. The Assembly, when it met in December, received the Report of their agent's success, and of the engagement by which that success was procured. Per- haps the reader will not be astonished to learn that this body exhibited no alacrity to perform what Franklin had promised in their name. It is not unlikely that Franklin conveyed a hint to the liberal side of the House that no haste was necessary. Many weeks of the session passed without any motion on the subject. The Governor, as the session was drawing to a close, sent a special message to the House, reminding them of their neglect. Still nothing was done. Governor Hamilton sent a second and more urgent message ; on the receipt of which the House appointed a committee to consider the matter and report to the House. The committee took plenty of time for consideration, and then presented to the House a very short Report, in five sections, to the following effect: 1. No unsurveyed waste-lands of the Penn estate have ever been taxed ; 2. Ko surveyed waste-lands of the Penn estate have ever been assessed at a higher rate than other people's ; 3. All the proprietary lands are rated fairly; 4. The annual tax upon the Penn estate is five hundred and sixty-six pounds four shillings and the province of Pennsylvania, as being made in direct opposition to all the colony instructions, to the prerogatives of the crown, and to the dependence of the province. By disallowing this Mil goverment would have lod.for sorm time, a loan o/about 100,000 currency. When this report came to be heard before the council, your lordship's very learned friend (Lord Mansfield) approved exceedingly of the arguments of the attorney-general (Sir Charles Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden) pressing the rejection of the bill. However, rather than government should be disappointed in this small supply, he allowed the bill with all its imperfections on its head. All that he did was, in the face of the world, to attempt a negotiation with Mr. Franklin, agent for the colony, that another bill should be passed in the following year, but free from the objectionable parts, to the same purpose. Franklin said he had no authority to make such terms. He only promised to transmit his lordship's recommendation. The act p.assed, and nothing further was ever heard of the terms proposed. From these and many other instances, I conclude that this able man is more anxious in general for the temporary accommodation than the permanent credit of govera- ment."— FbTifcs and Corresjiondenoe of the Bi. Hon. Edmvnd Burke, i., 220. AGED 54.] RESULT OF THE APPEAL TO THE KING. 415 tenpence, about one-fiftieth of the whole sum raised by taxation ; 5. No injustice of any kind has been done the proprietaries in the matter of taxation. These five propositions having been stated, the Report abruptly closed, without so much as suggesting the natural inference, which was this : — These things being true, there is nothing to amend in the Act, and the engagement of our agent was a royally sanctioned ruse to save the province from the calamity of its repeal. The House received the Report, we may presume, with becoming gravity; it is certain they adjourned without further troubling themselves about the matter. At the next session, Governor Hamilton, in a message of unusual length, informed the House that he had been ordered by tlie proprietaries to urge upon them the duty of fulfilling the sol- emn stipulations of their agent. Still, the House never found time to frame the act required. Time passed ; the Governor sent other messages ; but the House could never be prevailed upon to amend an act which required no amendment, or to concern themselves with stipulations which were fulfilled by the ordinary and inevitable working of the original act. Franklin's stipulations gave those distrustful Penns nothing which the assessors had not given them ever since their estates had been taxed. And thus it was that Franklin's compromise was equivalent to a victory. Besides saving Pennsylvania from the financial embar- rassments which would have resulted from the repeal of a money bill that had been a year in operation, he established the principle that the proprietary estates were to contribute their just proportion of the public revenue. His success also notified the Messrs. Penn that their instructions were not the supreme law of Pennsylvania, and that even in the council chamber of the king other rights than those of prerogative could sometimes find protection. The Penns continued to vex the province down to the time of the revolution, and then made a very good bargain by the sale of their chartered rights. ISTevertheless, there was a hmit to their misgovernment after the decision of the Privy Council in 1760. It must not be supposed that Franklin's conduct in England was universally approved in Pennsylvania. It was heartily approved by his own party, which was a majority of the people of the province. But there are reasons for concluding that the proprietary party 416 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1760. gained both in numbers and in confidence during his absence from home. He was assailed, it seems, in many a paragraph and pam- phlet ; so that Mrs. Franklin, being accustomed to hearing her hus- band praised, was amazed and pained, and wrote *to him in some alarm. He reassured her in his simple, homely way : " I am con- cerned that so much trouble should be given you by idle reports concerning me. Be satisfied, my dear, that while I have my senses, and God vouchsafes me his protection, I shall do nothing unworthy the character of an honest man, and one that loves his family." And, in another letter : " Let no one make you uneasy with their idle or malicious scribblings, but enjoy yourself and friends, and the comforts of life, that God has bestowed on you, with a cheerful heart. I am glad their pamphlets give you so little concern. I make no other answer to them at present, than what appears in the seal of this letter ;" — a dove on a coiled serpent, with the motto, Innocence sumiont tout. These words were, doubtless, consoling to the lady, who was much cast down at her husband's long absence. The chief object of his mission having been attained, she expected him home before the year ended. Other Pennsylvanian business, however, detained him in London till the winter set in, and in winter no one, at that period, put to sea who could conveniently remain on shore. The year following, public and private business still kept him busy i^n England ; so that two more years were to elapse before the family was reunited. The affairs of his agency need not, I think, occupy the reader's further attention ; for, though not unimportant at the time, they have no interest for us now. But, during the last years of his residence in England, Franklin did some things for the Brit- ish empire, and for mankind, which must not be passed by without notice. AGED 54.] STUDIES AND PUBLICATIONS IN ENGLAND. 417 CHAPTER VIII. STUDIES AND PUBLICATIONS IN ENGLAND. The dividing year between old England and modern England is 1760. On the twenty-fifth of October, of that year, old George II. fell dying in his closet, and his grandson, George III., with unpre- cedented eclat, ascended the throne. This ignorant, moody, well- intentioned young man was to be " the retarding person" in the history of the time. Directly through him the British empire was to be dismembered, the national expenditures increased seven- fold, and a national debt created that remains the wonder of the world. But the gods, if I may use that heathen word, love Eng- land, though man loves her not. So, in this very year, a poor mathematical instrument maker in Edinburgh, Watt by name, be- gan to experiment upon the steam engine, and Arkwright forsook his barber's shop and entered upon a wandering way of life (buying up hair for the wigmakers), which led him ere long to become the improver of cotton spinning machinery. And these two men pro- vided for the English exchequer the countless millions which were squandered in consequence of the ignorance of George III. There is a provision in nature, says Goethe, for preventing trees from growing up into the sky. George III. performed this office for that brave old oak, the realm of Britain. The student of this period cannot but amuse himself sometimes by fancying what might have been, if this unhappy young king had chanced to be an able and enlightened person. Suppose, for example, that Benjamin I., with his massive understanding, his great knowledge, his noble prudence, his openness to conviction, his good heart, his gracious presence, had come to the throne of England in October, 1760! He would not have exchanged a Pitt for a Bute, I think. There had been no George Grenville at the head of the cabinet ; no stamp act; no American Revolution, probably, in that century ; no French Revolution ; and, perhaps, no need of one. From Manhattan Island, instead of the banks of the Thames, Englishmen might at this moment be ruling half the world. But there is a provision in na- ture for preventing trees from growing up into the sky. And, there- fore, appeared George III, at the nick of time, to call off Mr. Pitt, 18* 418 tlPE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1760. just as he had it in his power to permanently humble the House of Bourbon, and make England and her protestant allies supreme in Europe. King though he was not, nor minister, we can now perceive that Benjamin Franklin was the man then living who had the clearest comprehension of the state of things, and the most correct view of the true policy of England. He had the prodigious advantage of being an Englishman without being an Islander. His mind had something of the breadth, fertility, and clear atmosphere of his na- tive continent, without having lost the practical sense of the British man of detail. He considered well the questions of the day, and in the decision of some of them he exerted an influence that, perhaps, was preponderating. In the Annual Register for this year, I find part of Franklin's essay on the Peopling of Countries, which was written before he left America. It was, probably, inserted in the Register by Ed- mund Burke, the editor of that work, who headed it, "Extract from a Piece written in Pennsylvania." The object of this essay — incredible to relate ! — was to remove the prevalent impression that the growth of the American colonies tended to impoverish England. Most Englishmen at that day appear to have believed, that the people and the wealth of the colonies were so much drawn from the mother country ; and, as a too vigorous progeny some- times exhausts a mother, so, it was feared, these hungry young colo- nies would at last drain their aged parent ; reducing her, at once, to decrepitude and poverty. Franklin combated this astonishing delusion by arguments which Adam Smith has since made familiar to the Avorld. Indeed, there can be no doubt that the author of the Wealth of Nations read this pamphlet before he wrote the first book of his great work, which contains very numerous allusions to the North American colonies. " There is," said Franklin, " no bound to the prolific nature of plants or animals, but what is made by their crowding and inter- fering with each other's means of subsistence. Were the face of the earth vacant of other plants, it might be gradually sowed and overspread with one kind only, as, for instance, with fennel ; and, were it empty of other inhabitants, it might in a few ages be re- plenished from one nation only, as, for instance, with Englishmen. Thus, there are supposed to be now upwards of one million English AGED 54.] STUDIES AND PUBLICATION'S IN ENGLAND. 419 souls in North America (though it is thought scarce' eighty thou- sand has been brought over sea), and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather many more, on account of the em- ployment the colonies afford to manufacturers at home. This mil- lion doubling, suppose but once in twenty-five years, will, in an- other century, be more than the people of England, and the great- est number of Englishmen will be on this side the water. What an accession of power to the British empire by sea as well as land !" Franklin's conjecture that the population of the colonies would double every twenty-five years, was very happy, for it has held true down to the census of 1860. Adam Smith adopts the conjecture.* The passages of this pamphlet which arrest the eye of the recent reader, are those in which the author, in a few sentences, exhausts the argument against African slavery. A hundred years of discus- sion have added little to his summary of the withering eflects of that hideous crime against nature. He saw in 1760, as clearly as we see in 1860, that the true victim of slavery is the master, whom it enervates, diminishes, and savagizes — not the slave, whom it tortures, but holds for final deliverance and civilization. The black man appears slowly to improve under slavery. The white master seems generally to lose, in three or four generations, every redeeming trait of human nature. After the accession of the young monarch, a clamor arose in the kingdom for peace ; a clamor not unpleasing to the new courtiers. Franklin was a Pittite. He was for a vigorous prosecution of the war until the enemy should be disposed to make a peace that could be reasonably expected to last. To impair the effect of the pam- phlets, sermons, and articles which favored an immediate peace at almost any price, he wrote what purported to be a chapter from an old book, which he said was written by a Spanish Jesuit, and addressed to an ancient king of Spain. The chapter was entitled, " On the Means of Disposing the Enemy to Peace." The imagin- ary Jesuit advises his king to spend a few doubloons in changing the minds of his enemies by corrupting their authors, editors, and preachers. The English people, he intimates, "though bardie of * " In Great Britain, and most other European countries, the inhabitants are not supposed to double in less than five hundred years. In the British colonies in North America, it has been found, that they double in twenty or five and twenty years."— IFeaZ^A ofJSFations^ book 1, chap- ter viii. 420 IJIFB AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l761. bodie, and bold in fight, be nevertheless, through over much eating and other intemperance, slow of wit, and dull in understanding," and therefore easily deceived. " In England," he continues, "there are not wanting Menne of Learning, ingenious Speakers and Writers, who are nevertheless in lowe Estate, and pinched by Fortune. These, being privately gained by proper Meanes, must be instructed in their Sermons, Discourses, Writings, Poems, and Songs, to handle and specially inculcate Points like these which folio we. Let them magnifie the Blessings of Peace, and enlarge mightilie thereon, which is not unbecoming grave Divines and other Christian Menne. Let them expatiate on the Miseries of Warre, the Waste of Christian Blood, the growing Scarcitie of Labourers and Workmen, the Dearness of all foreign Wares and Merchandise, the Interruption of Commerce, the Captures of Ships, the Increase and great Burthen of Taxes." He proceeds to state all the arguments used by the writers of the day who opposed the continuance of the war. " The result will be," concludes the Jesuit, " that all those who be timerous by Nature, amongste whom be reckoned Menne of Learning that lead sedentarie Lives, doing little Exercise of Bodie, and thence obtain- ing but few and weake Spirits; great Statesmen, whose natural Spirits be exhausted by much Thinking, or depressed by overmuch Feasting ; together with all Women, whose Power, weake as they are, is not a little amongste the Menne; these shall incessantly speake for Peace. And finally, all Courtiers, who suppose they conforme thereby to the Inclinations of the Prince ; all who are in Places, fear to lose them, or hope for better ; all who are out of Places, and hope to obtaine them ; with all the worldly-minded Clergy, who seeke Preferment ; these, with all the Weighte of their Character and Influence, shall join the crie for Peace ; till it becomes one universal Clamor, and no Sound but that of Peace, Peace, Peace, shall be heard from every Quarter." This ingenious production was published in the Morning Chron- icle^ and was signed " A Briton." Nothing could be better adapted to its purpose. And though there are weighty objections to this mode of political warfare, we must bear in mind that it was then a universal opinion that the enemies of England did expend gold in corrupting influential persons. In this very chapter, the Jesuit remarks : " I shall say little of the Power of Money secretly dis- AGED 55.] STUDIES AND PUBLICATIOXS IN ENGLAND. 421 tributed among Grandees, or their Friends or Paramours ; that Method being in all Ages known and practised." It is possible that some pamphleteers and editors may really have been hired to advocate peace by French gold, and many of them certninly were by English. A political writer who wrote from disinterested con- victions, was a rarity at that period : and, therefore, I suppose we must accept Franklin's Chapter as a fair hit. A work more extensive, and worthier of his powers, was pub- lished by Dr. Franklin soon after the capture of Quebec. It be- came a question which of the late acquisitions should be retained, at the conclusion of peace, Canada, or the Sugar Islands of Guada- loupe ; those two islands having an area of five hundred and thirty- four square miles, and producing annually three hundred thousand pounds' worth of sugar. In this controversy the Earl of Bath and one of the Burkes ("William) took part ; the Earl arguing for Can- ada, and Mr. Burke for Guadaloupe. Franklin wrote a voluminous pamphlet on the subject, entitled " The Interests of Great Britain Considered, with regard to her Colonies, and the acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe." He showed, that while Canada remain- ed French, the English colonies of North America could never be safe, nor peace in Europe permanent. His arguments will occur to every reader, and need not be repeated. We moderns, who know the value and magnificent capabilities of Canada, can only marvel that it could ever have been put into comparison with any sugar island, or all the sugar islands. There is, however, a point or two in this pamphlet, which will reward the reader's attention for a moment. To appreciate its courteous opening paragraph, one must have been immersed, for some time, in the acrimonious controversies of the first years of George IH. It will sufiice, if the reader turns over a volume of that shallow and brutal calumniator, "Junius." Franklin began his pamphlet thus : " I have perused, with no small pleasure, the Letter Addressed to Two Great Men'''' (by the Earl of Bath), and the '' BemarJcs on that letter" (by Mr. W. Burke). " It is not merely from the beauty, the force, and perspicuity of ex- pression, or the general elegance of manner, conspicuous in both pamphlets, that my pleasure chiefly arises ; it is rather from this, that I have lived to see subjects of the greatest importance to this nation, publicly discussed without party views or party heat, with decency and politeness, and with no other warmth than what a zeal b 42^ LIFE AXD TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1761. for the honor and happiness of our king and country may inspire ; and this by writers, whose understanding, however they may differ from each other, appears not unequal to their candor and the up- rightness of their intention. * * ^' Light often arises from a col- lision of opinion?, as fire from flint and steel ; and if we can obtain the benefit of the lights without danger from the heat sometimes produced by controversy, why should we discourage it ?" In this production, he again expended a vast amount of reason- ing, .to prove that the American Colonies were not injurious nor dangerous to the mother country. "England," he said, "might quiet her fears that the colonies should take to manufacturing. Manufactures are founded in poverty. It is the multitude of poor without land in a country, and who must work for others at low wages or starve, that enables undertakers to carry on a manufac- ture, and afford it cheap enough to prevent the importation of the same kind from abroad, and to bear the expense of its own export- ation. But no man who can have a piece of land of his own suf- ficient by his labor to subsist his family in plenty, is poor enough to be a manufacturer and work for a master. Hence, while there is land enough in America for our people, there can never be manu- factures to any amount or value." And with regard to the alleged danger of the colonies uniting to rebel against the mother country, he declared such a union to be impossible. But he added : " When I say such a union is impos- sible, I mean, without the most grievous tyranny and oppression. People who have property in a country, which they may lose, and privileges which they may endanger, are generally disposed to be quiet, and even to bear much rather than hazard all. While the government is mild and just, while important civ;l and religious rights are secure, such subjects will be dutiful and obedient. The waves do not rise hut when the winds blow. What such an admin- istration as the Duke of Alva's in the Netherlands might produce, I know not ; but this, I think, I have a right to deem impossible." The highest praise can justly be awarded to this pamphlet. It is courteous, spirited, and right, and contains political truths much in advance of the time. Tradition reports that it influenced the min- istry in deciding to keep Canada. Some have gone so far as to say, that England owes that inestimable possession to Franklin, who first advocated its conquest, and then urged its retention. Mr. AGED 55.] STUDIES AND PUBLICATIONS IN ENGLAND. 423 Burke, in his reply, was not less courteous to his anonymous oppo- nent, than Franklin had been to him. " He is clearly," said Burke, "the ablest, the most ingenious, the most dexterous writer on that side, and we may therefore conclude that he has said every thing, and every thing in the best manner, that the cause could bear." It was one of Franklin's most cherished opinions, that the great- ness of England and the happiness of America depended chiefly upon their being cordially united. The " country" which Franklin loved was not England, nor x^merrca^lSut the great and glorious Empire which these two united to form. "I have long been or~oprhion," he wrote to Lord Kames, "that the foundatio7is of the future grandeur and stability of the British empire lie i7i America y and though, like other foundations, they are low and little now, they are, nevertheless, broad and strong enough to sup- port the greatest political structure that human wisdom ever yet erected. I am, therefore, by no means for restoring Canada. If we keep it, all the country from the St. Lawrence to the Missis- sippi will in another century be filled with British people. Britain itself will become vastly more populous by the immense increase of its commerce ; the Atlantic sea will be covered with your tra- ding ships ; arid your naval power, thence continually increasing, will extend your influence round the whole globe, and awe the world." These were not cold convictions of the understanding. Franklia reveled in the anticipations of the future glories and happiness of his England, and her mighty progeny. He repelled with indigna- Hon the English insinuations, that the zeal of the colonies in the prosecution of the war was the result of interested calculation. The colonists had fought, he maintained, more as Englishmen than as colonists ; more for king and country than for the safety of their own homes, and the enlargement of their own borders. " Those,'' said he, " who would be thought deeply skilled in human nature affect to discover self-interested views everywhere, at the bottom of the fairest, the most generous conduct. Suspicions and charges of this kind meet with ready reception and belief in the minds even of the multitude, and therefore less acuteness and address than the remarker is possessed of would be sufiicient to persuade the nation generally, that all the zeal and spirit manifested and exerted by "the colonies in this war, was only in ' their own cause,' to ' make con- 424 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [lV61. quest for themselves,' to engage us to make more for them, to gratify their own ' vain ambition.' " From which we may infer that England interpreted America as unworthily inl761asinl861. A work more important than the pamphlet upon Canada was projected by Franklin, was never so much as begun. He gave a particular account of his plan and design in one of his letters to Lord Karnes. " I purpose," he wrote, *' a little work for the benefit of youth, to be called The Art of Yirtue. From the title I think you will hardly conjecture what the nature of such a book may be. I must therefore explain it a little. Many people lead bad lives that would gladly lead good ones, but do not know how to make the change. They have frequently resolved and endeavored it ; but in vain, be- cause their endeavors have not been properly conducted. To expect people to be good, to be just, to be temperate, without showing them how they should become so, seems like the ineffectual charity mentioned by the Apostle, which consisted in saying to the hungry, the cold, and the naked, ' Be ye fed, be ye warmed, be ye clothed,' without showing them how they should get food, fire, or clothing. " Most people have naturally some virtues, but none have naturally all the virtues. To acquire those that are wanting, and secure what we acquire, as well as those we have naturally, is the subject of an art. It is as properly an art as painting, navigation, or ar- chitecture. If a man would become a painter, navigator, or ar- chitect, it is not enough that he is advised to be one, that he is coiv- vi7iced by the arguments of his adviser that it would be for his ad- vantage to be one, and that he resolves to be one, but he must also be taught the principles of the art, be shown all the methods of working, and how to acquire the habits of using properly all the instruments ; and thus regularly and gradually he arrives, by practice, at some perfection in the art. If he does not proceed thus, he is apt to meet with difficulties that discourage him, and make him drop the pursuit. '■''Islj Artof "RV^z^e has also its instruments, and teaches the man- ner of using them. Christians are directed to have faith in Christ, as the effectual means of obtaining the change they desire. It may, when sufficiently strong, be effectual with many ; for a full opinion that a teacher is infinitely wise, good, and powerful, and that he AGED 55.] STUDIES AND PUBLICATIONS IN ENGLAND. 425 will certainly reward and punish the obedient and disobedient, must give great weight to his precepts, and make them much more at- tended to by his disciples. But many have this faith in so weak a degree, that it does not produce the effect. Our Art of Virtue may, therefore, be of great service to those whose faith is unhappily not so strong, and may come in aid of its weakness. Such as are naturally Avell disposed, and have been so carefully educated, as that good habits have been early established, and bad ones prevented, have less need of this art ; but all may be more or less benefited by it. It is, in short, to be adapted for universal use." It was the intention of Dr. Franklin to proceed immediately to the execution of this treatise. But this had been his intention ever since the year 1732, and it continued to be his intention almost down to 1790. Public business, and a growing aversion to the use of that instrument of torture, the pen, kept him from sitting down to so arduous a task. He was the occasion, however, of a much more voluminous work than his Art of Virtue would have been. Dr. Priestley, then a schoolmaster at Warrington, fond of natural science, had recently entertained his pupils with the new wonders of the electrical ma- chine. He was in the habit of coming to London once a year, and spending a month there among his learned friends. In 1761 he sought the acquaintance of Dr. Franklin, with whom he soon be- came intimate, and remained his warm friend for thirty years. Priestley, who had already had some success in the trade of book- making, conceived the idea of turning to account the universal in- terest then felt in electricity. He offered to write a history of elec- tricity, if Dr. Franklin would supply him with the requisite books and information. Franklin agreed to the proposal, and within twelve months received from his industrious friend a printed copy in quarto of the work, in which for the first time was published the story of the kite experiment.* It was an unusually successful pub- lication for that period — three editions in nine years, boasts the author's son and biographer. Politician as Franklin had become, science was then, and al- ways, his beloved pursuit. His letters of this period show the in- terest he felt, not in electricity only, but in all scientific inquiries. He made, at this time, many experiments with heat and the con- * Life of Joseph Priestley, i, 50. 420 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l761. ductors of heat; reflecting much upon the cause and laws of animal heat, and why woolen clothes are warmer than those of hnen, and Avhat is the cause and office of perspiration. Many of his experi- ments and conclusions on this class of subjects, novel as they were then, are now familiar to schoolboys. At that time, the reader must know, to possess a thermometer was itself a distinction ; and much which the thermometer has revealed to us was unknown or new. A hundred years ago, there were not, I suppose, twelve thermometers on the whole continent of America.. The instrument had been invented about the year 1600, but it was not until about 1730 that Fahrenheit and Reaumur improved it into something like its present utility. It was an invention of the first importance, and no one used it more diligently in those early years of its exist- ence than Franklin. One of his heat experiments was thus described by himself in a letter to his young and lovely friend. Miss Stevenson : " I took a number of little square pieces of broad cloth from a tailor's pattern- card, of various colors. There were black, deep blue, lighter blue, green, purple, red, yellow, white, and other colors, or shades of colors. I laid them all out upon the snow in a bright sunshiny morning. In a few hours (I cannot now be exact as to t?ie time), the black, being warmed most by the sun, was sunk so low as to be below the stroke of the sun's rays ; the dark blue almost as low, the lighter blue not quite so much as the dark, the other colors less as they w^ere lighter ; and the quite white remained on the surface of the snow, not having entered it at all. What signifies philos- ophy that does not apply to some use? May we not learn from hence, that black clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot, sunny climate or season, as white ones?" He drawls from this ingenious experiment many more practical inferences, which were discoveries then, but are now universally acted upon. The white cap covering, called the " Havelock," was suggested in this letter, but only adopted in the East Indies a very few years ago. That soldiers in the Indies should wear white uni- forms, that all summer hats should be white, and garden-fruit walls black, were suggestions of the same epistle. Into the chaos of geology Franklin cast some penetrating glances. His conjecture as to the origin of salt-mines has been admired. "I rather think," he wrote to his brother Peter, " that all the water AGED 55.] STUDIES AND PUBLICATIONS IN ENGLAND. 427 on this globe was originally salt, and that the fresh water we find in springs and rivers, is the produce of distillation. * * * We know from their effects, that there are deep fiery caverns under the earth, and even under the sea ; if at any time the sea leaks into any of them, the fluid j)art of the water must evaporate from that heat, and pass off through some volcano, while the salt remains, and by degrees, and continual accretion, becomes a great mass. Thus the cavern may at length be filled, and the volcano connected with it cease burning, as many it is said have done ; and future miners, penetrating such cavern, find what we call a salt-mine. This is a fancy I had on visiting the salt-mines at Norwich with my son." What renders these scientific writings the more pleasing is, that they are not " Papers" addressed to learned societies, but familiar letters to brothers and friends. Most of them, indeed, were com- posed for the instruction of Miss Stevenson, who lived in the country a few miles off. A sweet and noble friendship existed between Franklin and this intelligent girl. There was a time, as he hints in one of his letters, when he more than hoped to call her his child. His son, it seems, had paid her the attentions which usually lead to marriage, and the young lady, we may infer, was, at one time, far from being averse to the match. Whether the young gentleman abandoned her, or she dismissed him, is not known. We can only see, in the letters of the period, that the en- gagement, to Dr. Franklin's deep regret, was broken off, and the young man paid successful court to another lady. Perhaps Miss Stevenson discovered, that Mr. William Franklin, Hke his father before him, was a parent without having been a husband, and shrunk from rearing a child who would always remind her of what she could only be happy by forgetting. The infant to which reference is here made was that William Temple Franklin, whose acquaintance the reader will have the pleasure of making by and by. He was born of a mother unknown, about 1760. For Miss Stevenson, however, Dr. Frankhn always cherished a regard which was fatherly without wanting a little of such gallant feeling as that which Colonel ISTewcome felt for Ethel.* Thus he concludes one of his letters to her : " After writing six folio pages of philosophy to a young girl, is it necessary to finish such a letter * 1 may surely presume the intelligent reader to bo familiar •with the greatest novel in exist- ence, Mr. Thackeray's "Newcomes." 428 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l761. with a compliment ? Is not such a letter of itself a compliment ? Does it not say, she has a mind thirsty after knowledge, and capa- ble of receiving it ; and that the most agreeable things one can write to her are those that tend to the improvement of her under- standing ? It does indeed say all this, but then it is still no com- pliment ; it is no more than plain honest truth, which is not the character of a compliment. So if I would finish my letter in the mode^ I should yet add something that means nothing, and is merely civil and polite. But, being naturally awkward at every circum- stance of ceremony, I shall not attempt it. I had rather conclude abruptly with what pleases me more than any compliment can please you, that I am allowed to subscribe myself your affectionate friend." She began her reply ; " Such a letter is indeed the highest com- pliment. What you concluded it with I should think too far strained to be sincere, if I did not flatter myself it proceeded from the w^armth of your affection, which makes you see merit in me that I do not possess. It would be too great vanity to think I de- serve the encomiums you give me, and it would be ingratitude to doubt your sincerity. Continue, my indulgent friend, your favor- able opinion of me, and I will endeavor to be what you imagine me."* In the summer of 1761, Franklin and his son crossed to Holland, and made the tour of the low countries : France being still closed against English travelers. Of this tour we have no record, except that they learned much in Holland which would be useful to Amer- ica. They returned to London in September, in time to witness the coronation of the young king. It Avas their intention to set sail for America as early in the spring of 1762 as they could pro- cure safe convoy. Franklin was much besought to take up his abode in England, particularly by Mi-. Strahan, who seems to have been long unable to give up his scheme of uniting the two families by the marriage of his son to the daughter of his American friend. Keenly as Franklin enjoyed the society and advantages of London, he never indulged the thought of forsaking his native land. To his wife he wrote on this subject : " Mr. Strahan's family is a very agreeable * "Letters to Frankliu," p. 11. AGED 55.] EEtUBN TO PHILADELPHIA. 429 one ; Mrs. Strahan a sensible and good woman, the children of amiable characters, and particularly the young man, who is sober, ingenious, and industrious, and a desirable person. In point of circumstances there can be no objection ; Mr. Strahan being in such a way as to lay up a thousand pounds every year from the profits of his business, after maintaining his family and paying all charges. I gave him, however, two reasons why I could not think of remov- ing hither ; one, my affection to Pennsylvania, and long established friendships and other connections there ; the other, your invincible aversion to crossing the seas. And without removing hither, I could not think of parting with my daughter to such a distance." One other domestic event we must notice. Mrs. Read, the aged mother of his wife, his own early friend, for thirty years the honored inmate of his abode, died near the end of the year 1761. Upon hearing the news, he wrote to his wife a letter of tender condo- lence, in which occurred this passage : "Your comfort will be, that no care was wanting on your part towards her, and that she had lived as long as this life could afford her any rational enjoyment. It is, I am sure, a satisfaction to me, that I cannot charge myself with having ever failed in one instance of duty and respect to her during the many years that she called me son." It is only just to give prominence to whatever shows the substantial and lasting suc- cess of a marriage which began in a manner the opposite of ro- mantic. CHAPTER IX. RETURN TO PHILADELPHIA. The greater part of the year 1762 was spent by Dr. Frankhn in merely getting home. He began to get ready to leave London early in the spring. He reached Philadelphia late in the autumn. Some pleasing events, however, occurred to alleviate the tedium of delay, and to show him that his friends and the friends of science, in the old world, were as sorry to let him go, as those in the new world were glad to get hnn back. 430 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIK FRANKLIN. [l762. Oxford paid him a parting compliment. According to the rec- ords of that university, it was " agreed, nem con. (February 22d, 1762), at a meeting of the Heads of the Houses, that Mr. Franklin, whenever he shall please to visit the university, shall be offered the compliment of the degree of D. C. L., honoris causcV^ A month later, Mr. Franklin, accompanied by his son, visited the university, when he received the offered degree, and thus became twice a doc- tor. On the same occasion, the university conferred upon his son the degree of Master of Arts. Honors more substantial awaited Mr. WiUiam Franklin, who had completed his legal studies and been admitted to the bar. This fortunate young gentleman enjoyed considerable celebrity in Eng- land. It was known that he had assisted his father in his electrical studies, and he was himself a dexterous experimenter. His abili- ties were respectable ; his manners and presence were pleasing ; and he had caught from his father a facetious habit that rendered him an entertaining companion. Always the associate of his father, both at home and on his journeys, he had gained a large number of friends, both among the learned and in the circles of fashion. Among the magnates of the land who favored the young Ameri- can, was Lord Bute, the prime favorite of the King. Lord Bute always affected literature and science. He was a diligent collector of books, pictures, and curiosities. He was fond of chemistry, and printed, for private distribution, several volumes of Natural His- tory.* The worthy Peter Collinson f was for many years a friend of the Scottish favorite, and through Collinson, Franklin and his son were brought into acquaintance with him. Between Lord Bute and Dr. Franklin a considerable intimacy appears to have ex- isted. Mr. John Adams mentions that " Dr. Franklin once gaA^e Lord Bute his reasons in writing for believing De Fuente's Voyage genuine ;"J; a point much disputed at that day. That Lord Bute had an inclination to provide for men of letters is well known ; it was he who procured Dr. Johnson his pension, and Home his place. And now, in this summer of 1762, he embraced an oppor- tunity to confer upon Dr. Franklin the great favor of making the fortune of his son. The govei'norship of New Jersey fell vacant. Perhaps it was made vacant ; for the incumbent resigned, after * Works of John Adams, iii., 179. t Lettsom's " Memoirs of Peter Collindon." $ " Life and Works of John Adams,'' iii,, 381. AGED 56.] KETUKN TO PHILADELPHIA. 431 liolding the office only a few months, and was soon provided for by being appointed consul at Cadiz.* That this governor expected to remain in America is indicated by his taking with him to America " his wife and family." He resigned, however, for causes unknown, and Lord Bute urged the Earl of Halifax to bestow the place upon Mr. William Franklin, and thus make father and son neighbors for life. Dr. Franklin, we are expressly assured, did not sohcit the favor, nor take any measures to secure it.f It would have required a bold secretary of state to disregard, in 1762, a recon:imendation of the Earl of Bute. The young gentleman was soon closeted with Lord Halifax, and was soon after appointed Governor of New Jersey. He was then thirty-two years of age. The reader may suppose that the governorship of such a province as New Jersey then was would not be considered very desirable, or be much sought after. On the contrary, when it was vacant, in 1746, we find among the applicants for it, Governor Belcher, once governor of Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Governor Clark, of New York, Lord Hawley, and Admiral Warren. The Duke of Bedford wrote to the Duke of Newcastle, in whose gift it was, entreating him to make no appointment until he had heard farther from him.J; The emoluments of the office were six hundred pounds sterling a year, I believe, and in point of rank and consideration the govern- or was the first man in his province. The governorships of the American colonies were usually bestowed upon the needy friends of ministers ; men of some rank who had either squandered their fortunes, or had inherited only the fortune of a younger son. This appointment remained a secret for several days. Not a whis- per of it seems to have escaped until the afternoon of September 2d, when the Lo7idon Chronicle published the following paragraph : "This morning was married at St. George's Church, Hanover Square, William Franklin, Esq., the new appointed Governor of New Jersey, to Miss Elizabeth Downes, of St. James's Street." The astonishment of the Penn family was extreme, and they held up their hands in pious horror. The fact of the illegitimacy of the new governor, though not generally known in England, was exceed- ingly familiar to the proprietaries and their adherents. The day * Whitehead's "History of East Jersey," p,lS3. t "Memoirs of Dr. Franklin," by his Grandson, vol. i. X Correspondence of John, fourth Duke of Bedford,!., 122. 432 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN :^RANKLIN. [l762. after the announcement, Mr. John Penn, son of one of the proprie- taries, and soon to become governor of Pennsylvania, relieved his mind on the subject in one of his letters to Lord Stirling '. " It is no less amazing than true, that Mr. William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia, is appointed to be governor of the province of New Jersey ! The warrant for his commission was ordered to be made out last Wednesday. The whole of thir, business has been transacted in so private a manner that not a tittle of it escaped until it was seen in the public papers ; so that there was no opportunity of counteracting, or, indeed, doing one single thing that might put a stop to this shameful affair. I make no doubt but the people of Kew Jersey will make some remonstrance upon this indignity put upon them. You are full as well acquainted with the character and principles of this person as myself, and are as able to judge of the impropriety of such an appointment. What a dis- honor and a disgrace it must be to a country to have such a man at the head of it, and to sit down contented ! Surely that will not be the case — at least, I should hope that some effort would be made, before our Jersey friends would put up with such an insult. If any gentle- man had been appointed, it would have been a different case — but I cannot look upon the person in question in that light, by any means. * * I may, perhaps, be too strong in my expressions, but I am so extremely astonished and enraged at it, that I am hardly able to contain myself at the thought of it."* Lord Stilling, also, spoke sneeringly of the young governor, as " the high and mighty William Franklin." The good people of New Jersey, however, received the tidings of the appointment with equanimity, and gave the new governor a distinguished reception. He was escorted to Perth Amboy, we are told, by " numbers of the gentry in sleighs, and by the Middlesex troop of horse," and the corporations of New Brunswick, Perth Amboy, the trustees of the College, and a deputation of the clergy, greeted him with congratulatory addresses.f He afterwards fixed his residence at Burlington, where his father, forty years before, made friends with a hospitable old woman, and took a chance boat for Philadelphia. To return to Dr. Franklin. May, June, July, and the greater part * Duer'8 " Life of Lord Stirling," p. 70. t Whitehearre History of East Jersey, p, 183. AGED 56.] RETURN TO PHILADELPHIA. 433 of August passed, and he was still waiting for the departure of the fleet, in a vessel of which he was to sail for America. His farewell letters to his friends were elegant and aifecting. Mr. Hume had written to him, in his humorous manner, that America had sent England many good things, but only one philosopher, and him she could not retain, though holding fast every ounce of American gold. Franklin replied that in England philosophers were numerous, and therefore he had better carry away the little knowledge he had to a land where, from its scarcity, it would be valued. To Lord Kames he wrote an affectionate farewell. To Miss Stevenson : " I fancy I feel a little like dying saints, who, in parting with those they love in this world, are only comforted with the hope of more perfect hap- piness in the next. I have, in America, connections of the most engaging kind ; and, happy as I have been in the friendships here contracted, those promise me greater and more lasting felicity. But God only knows whether these promises shall be fulfilled. Adieu, my dear good girl." On one of the last days of August he left a miserable little inn at Portsmouth, and rowed off to Spithead, where lay at anchor a fleet of the American merchantmen, and the man-of-war that was to be their convoy. The fleet sailed, and Dr. Franklin bade farewell to the land of his forefathers. They had a pleasant run to the island of Madeira, where they remained several days, and obtained a great supply of fruits and fresh provisions. Leaving the island, they were wafted toward the American coast by the trade winds in the most agreeable manner. "The weather was so favorable," he wrote, " that there were few days in which we could not visit from ship to ship, dining with each other, and on board of the man-of-war ; which made the time pass agreeably, much more so than when one goes in a single ship ; for this was like travehng in a moving village, with all one's neighbors about one." Various philosophical experiments, and the observation of the thousand mysterious phenomena of the sea, wiled away the time. During the voyage he had the pleasure of reading his friend Lord Kames's new work, " The Elements of Criticism," which is still one of our college text-books. The reading of this work called forth the letter to the author, in which occurs Franklin's most ingenious discourse upon the ancient Scotch melodies, and the reason why they are so pleasing. Lord Kames remarks, that "melody and 19 434 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l762. harmony are separately agreeable, and in union ddiglitfuV^ Frank- lin observed, that that ^v^as the reason why the Scotch tunes had lived so long, and would live for ever, if they were not stifled in modern ornaments. He explained his meaning thus : " An agree- able succession of sounds is called melody^ and only the co-existe7ice of agreeable sounds, harmony. But, since the memory is capable of retaining for some moments a perfect idea of the pitch of a past sound, so as to compare with it the pitch of a succeeding sound, and judge truly of their agreement or disagreement, there may and does arise from thence a sense of harmony between the present and past sounds^ equally pleasing with that between two present sounds. * * * ^\^Q Scotch melodies were composed by the minstrels of those days, to be played on the harp accompanied by the voice. The harp was strung with wire, which gives a sound of long continuance, and had no contrivance like that in the modern harpsichord, by which the sound of the preceding could be stopped, the moment a succeeding note began. To avoid actual discord, it was therefore necessary that the succeeding emphatic note should he a chord with the preceding^ as their sounds must exist at the same time. Hence arose that beauty in those tunes that has so long pleased, and will please for ever, though men scarce know why." This theory he illustrates very happily and at much length, but we have only space for the mere idea ; the ingenuity of which has been frequently remarked. One of his philosophical experiments, which showed his dexterity of hand, as well as the darting activity of his mind, requires brief notice. " During our passage to Madeira," he wrote to one of his Scotch friends, " the weather being warm, and the cabin windows constantly open for the benefit of the air, the candles at night flared and run very much, which was an inconvenience. At Madeira we got oil to burn, and with a common glass tumbler or beaker, slung in wire and suspended to the ceiling of the cabin, and a little wire hoop for the wic'x, furnished with corks to float on the oil, I made an Italian lamp, that gave us very good light all over the table. The glass at bottom contained water to about one third of its height ; another third was taken up with oil ; the rest was left empty that the sides of the glass might protect the flame from the wind. There is nothing remarkable in all this ; but what follows is particular. At supper, looking on the lamp, I remarked, that AGED 56.] RETURN TO PHILADELPHIA. 435 though the surface of the oil was perfectly tranquil, and duly pre- served its position and distance with regard to the brim of the glass, the water under the oil was in great commotion, rising and falling in irregular waves, which continued during the whole evening. The lamp was kept burning as a watch-light all night, till the oil was spent, and the water only remained. In the morning I ob- served, that though the motion of the ship continued the same, the water was now quiet, and its surface as tranquil as that of the oil had been the evening before. At night again, when oil was put upon it, the water resumed its irregular motions, rising in high waves almost to the surface of the oil, but without disturbing the smooth level of that surface. And this was repeated every day during the voyage." He afterwards repeated the experiment with other implements, but was unable to give an explanation of the result which satisfied his own mind. In the ninth week after leaving Portsmouth, he trod once more his native land. His return home was joyous and triumphant. To Lord Kames he writes : " On the first of November I arrived safe and well at my own home, after an absence of near six years, found my wife and daughter well; the latter grown quite a woman, with many amiable accomplishments acquired in my absence ; and my friends as hearty and affectionate as ever, with whom my house was filled for many days, to congratulate me on my return. I had been chosen yearly during my absence to represent the city of Philadel- phia in our provincial Assembly ; and, on my appearance in the House, they voted me three thousand pounds sterling for my ser- vices in England, and their thanks, delivered by the Speaker. In February following my son arrived with my new daughter ; for, with my consent and approbation, he married soon after I left England a very agreeable West India lady, with whom he is very happy. I accompanied him to his government, where he met with the kindest reception from the people of all ranks, and has lived with them ever since in the greatest harmony. A river only parts that province and ours, and his residence is within seventeen miles of me, so that we frequently see each other." He soon fell into the old routine. In the early summer of the; following year he completed the reunion with his friends and coun- try, by making a post-office tour of sixteen hundred miles. He was 436 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1763. accompanied by his daughter, then a blooming lass of eighteen, grandly beautiful, and all vivacity and good humor. " Sally kept to her horse the greatest part of the journey :" her father records. One sweet touch we must also notice, which occurs in one of his letters to his wife, written on the journey : " I approve of your opening all my English letters, as it must give you pleasure to see that peo- ple who knew me there so long and so intimately, retain so sincere a regard for me." And now. Dr. Franklin having served the public for fifteen years, and reached the ease-loving age of fifty-seven, was well inclined to enter upon the life of studious leisure which he had promised himself on retiring from business in 1748. He meant to build a house more spacious and convenient than any he had yet inhabited, in which he would entertain his friends, make philosophical experi- ments, compose his Art of Virtue, and spend the evening of his life in tranquillity. It was a dream never to be realized. Again he was caught in the rush of unexpected events, and borne far enough from the way of life he had proposed. CHAPTER X. A YEAR OP INTESTINE COMMOTION. The peace of Paris, which terminated the Seven Years' War, was signed on the tenth of February, 1763. England gained, during that tremendous contest, twelve pitched battles, reduced nine fortified cities and forty forts, captured or destroyed one hun- dred ships of war, conquered Canada, India, and twenty-five im- portant islands, and took ten millions sterling in plunaer.* When the flatterers of George HI. told him that no king of England had ever before concluded a peace so glorious, they meant to utter a party cry, but, perhaps, they spoke the truth ; for England relin- quished at this peace more conquests than she had won in any pre- vious war. In that catalogue of successes we see one chief cause * Encycloptedia Britannica, v., 406. AGED 57.] A YEAR OF INTESTINE COMMOTION. 437 of the abounding arrogance which enabled George III. to carry the English people with him in his subsequent measures against America. Once more, then, there was peace in Europe, and safety on the ocean. But not in America. In making the peace of Paris, one of the belligerent powers had not been consulted, namely, the North American Indians. Both English and French had been try- ing, for several years, to inflame the animosities of the red man ; and yet both English and French seem to have expected that when the Duke of Bedford put his name to the treaty of peace in the city of Paris, the Indians would perceive the significance of the act, and perform the similar rite of burying the tomahawk. The Indi- ans, alas ! knew nothing of the Duke of Bedford, nor of his magic pen. Blood and plunder were as alluring to them after the peace as before ; and all along the back settlements of the colonies, from Niagara to Florida, villages were still burned, families murdered, farms laid waste, and women and children carried into captivity. Pennsylvania suflfered most. In 1763, from early spring to early winter, the western parts of this province were ravaged by hostile Indians. All the churches in Philadelphia made collections for the relief of the families driven from their homes. Christ Church, as we learn from the minutes of the vestry, raised £662 for this pur- pose in 1763, and sent out a missionary to expend it to the best advantage. He reported seven hundred and fifty abandoned farms, and two hundred women and children fled to Fort Pitt. The same liberal church sent for distribution in the western counties, besides the money, two chests of arms, half a barrel of powder, four hun- dred pounds of lead, two hundred bullets, and a hundred flints. All the Pennsylvanian records of this year, whether of church or state, are filled with evidences of the terror and desolation which came upon the province immediately after the conclusion of the » peace of Paris. In October of this bloody year there was another change of governors in Pennsylvania. Governor Hamilton resigned, and Mr. John Penn arrived from England to take his place. As usual, the new governor was received with joyful welcome, and with more joy than usual, for the appointment of a Penn was regarded as a peace-offering from the proprietaries. It was, also, presumed that they would not think it necessary to tie the hands of so near a 438 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l763. relative with ligid instructions. Governor Penn summoned the Assembly. His first address was as conciliatory as could be de- sired. The House responded with words equally jDolite, and with a grant of six hundred pounds towards his first year's support. A bill was passed for raising and equipping a thousand men to go against the murderous Indians in the western counties. The House then adjourned to meet again in regular session a few weeks later. The Indian ravages continued until every white man in Pennsyl- vania loathed the name of Indian. Among some of the religious sects, particularly the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the western counties, the fatal opinion arose, that the Quaker policy toward the Indians had been impiously wrong, and that these late murders and burnings were the vengeance of an angry deity for the ofiense of not utterly destroying a heathen race. The example of the ancient Israelites was adduced by some of these perplexed and terror- blinded enthusiasts. This terrible opinion, once started at such a time, among such a people, could not but spread and bear fruit. We find, accordingly, that in December of this year, a deed was done in Pennsylvania, by a party of white Christians, so bloody and savage, that the tale still astonishes those who read it as much as it shocks them. Near Lancaster there lived the poor remnant of a once powerful tribe, one of those tribes which had made the original treaty with WiUiarn Penn, and had lived in perfect peace with the white man ever since. They were now reduced to twenty persons — seven men, five women, and eight children. One of the old men had shaken the hand of William Penn. All of the twenty were harmless, virtuous people, bore English names, and lived in harmony with their white neighbors. December 14th, a party of horsemen from the Scotch-Irish district of Paxton, well-mounted, heavily armed, surrounded the little village of huts at dawn of day, killed and scalped every creature in it, and burned the village to the ground. It happened that but six of the inhabitants of the village were at home that morning. The other fourteen were col- lected by the magistrates of the vicinity, and placed for safety in the Lancaster work-house : that being the strongest building in the town. Two weeks after, the same party of horsemen surrounded the work-house, forced an entrance, and proceeded to the comple- tion of their bloody task. A scene shocking beyond description ensued. "When the poor wretches saw they had no protection AGED 57.] A YEAR OF INTESTINE COMMOTION. 439 nigli, nor could possibly escape, and being without the least weap- on for defense, they divided into their little families, the children clinging to the parents ; they fell on their knees, protested their innocence, declared their love to the English, and that in their whole lives they had never done them injury ; and in this posture they all received the hatchet !"* Susanna Wright, one of the nearest white neighbors of these murdered Indians, testified strongly to their inoffensive character, and their friendliness to the whites. " The cruel murder of these poor Indians," she wrote, "has affected and discomposed my mind beyond what I can express. We had known the greater part of them from children ; had been always intimate with them. Three or four of the women were sensible and civiHzed, and the Indians' children used to play with ours, and oblige them all they could. We had many endearing recollections of them, and the manner of effecting the brutal enormity so affected us, that we had to beg visitors to forbear to speak of it. But it was still the subject with everybody."! The worst of the Paxton massacre remains to be told. That Kobespierre should have guillotined fifty Frenchmen a day was ter- rible ; but the true horror was that France was then such a France that it could permit and applaud the slaughter. And how far more awful than all the other circumstances of an inquisitorial Auto-da-fo Avas the dreadful fact, that the people, tens of thousands of them, look- ed upon the scene with sincere and entire approval. This massacre of inoffensive Indians — so morbid had the public opinion of Penn- sylvania become, through terror and irreligious conceptions of the Creator — was but coldly disapproved by the people of the prov- ince ; while a powerful party applauded it as a deed acceptable to their God. Consequently, the efforts of the magistrates to discover the perpetrators were fruitless. The proclamation of Governor Penn produced no effect, and the feeling seemed general to excuse the murderers, as men who had been maddened by the murder of their neighbors and relatives. Ashamed that his Pennsylvania should seem to permit so foul an act, Franklin wrote a generous, eloquent pamphlet, designed to bring the people to a sense of its mean atrocity. He told the * " Franklin's Narrative," Sparks, iv., 69. t Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, ii., 169. 440 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN" FEANKLlN. [l763. story of the murder in plain, cool language, describing the harmless character of the poor Indians, an'd giving their names and ages. He pictured the horrid scene of the second massacre. He touched upon the deep impiety of seeking to justify such an act by the pretended sanction of a beneficent God. From history, from heroic romance and poetry, he selected examples of the magnani- mous forgiveness of a submissive foe, of noble hospitality bestowed upon the helpless, of good deeds done to those who had not de- served, and who could never requite them. He finished his pamphlet by an appeal to the better feelings of his countrymen, that was earnest almost to passion. This production, its author mentions, " produced a good effect," but it did not touch the murderers, nor their irreligious abettors. A hundred and forty friendly Indians, converts of the good Mora- vians, fearing to share the fate of their countrymen, sought refuge in Philadelphia, where they were sheltered and provided for. Their pastor, a Moravian missionary, accompanied them to the city, and lived with them there, holding daily religious services in the Moravian manner. The Paxton fanatics, to the number of several hundreds, armed with hatchets and rifles, clad in hunting shirts, and prating of Joshua and an avenging God, set out in two bodies for Philadelphia, avowing and proclaiming their purpose to kill these Indians. Philadelphia was in consternation. Governor Penn was at his wits' end. Like many previous Governors of Pennsylvania, his first thought in time of trouble was to fly for help to Franklin. On this occasion he made the house of Dr. Franklin his head-quarters, and concerted measures with him from hour to hour. Once more, Franklin formed an Association for the defense of the city ; and again he figured as the non-commissioned colonel of an extemporized regiment of a thousand men. " Gov- ernor Penn," he humorously says, " did every thing by my advice ; so that, for about forty-eight hours, I was a very great man ; as I had been once some years before, in a time of public danger." The Paxton band, meanwhile, had reached Germantown, only seven miles from the city. At the request of the Governor and Council, Dr. Franklin and three other gentlemen rode out to Germantown to confer with the insurgents. The new regiment of volunteers remained under arms in the city, and a body of king's troops had been marched in to aid them. The barracks, in which AGED 57.] A YEAR OP INTESTINE COMMOTION. 441 the poor Indians were sheltered, with their Moravian pastor, were surrounded with intrenchments, at which young Quakers who would not bear arms still worked, as they had been working night and day. The city was in extreme terror. Dr. Franklin, however, suc- ceeded in convincing the Paxton leaders that the Indians were too well defended to be taken. Or, to use his own language, "the fighting face we put on, and the reasonings we used with the insur- gents, having turned them back and restored quiet to the city, I became a less man than ever ; for I had, by this transaction, made myself many enemies among the populace." Governor Penn went back to his own house. The Paxtons marched rioting through the country, to the terror of all peaceable in- habitants, and were received by the people of their own district with open arms. And now this Governor John Penn began to show the quality of his metal. Franklin had rescued him from a danger from which he ought to have rescued himself. The Governor resented the humili- ating obligation. He truckled to the Paxton men and their partisans. He openly favored the party who excused and justified them, and set at naught the advice of Franklin and his friends, who urged him to prosecute and bring to punishment the ringleaders of the mur- dering band. Pamphlets were sold about the streets applauding the massacre, and denouncing those who had protected the Mora- vian Indians. A few weeks after the events just related, John Penn put his hand to a proclamation the most infamous ever signed by an American Governor, designed to flatter and gratify the Paxton party. This proclamation offered the following bounties : For every captive male Indian of any hostile tribe, one hundred and fifty dollars ; for every female captive, one hundred and thirty-eight dollars ; for the scalp of a male Indian, one hundred and thirty-four dollars ; for the scalp of a female Indian^ fif^V dollars I How it was to be ascertained whether the scalps brought in had covered friendly or hostile heads, does not appear. A grandson of William Penn signed this document ! Thus, in the beginning of 1 764, there was formed a strange coalition against Franklin ; the aristocratic partisans of the Penn family, and the ignorant fanatics who approved the massacre of the friendly In- dians. A coalition of this kind is always to be feared ; for all civilized communities formerly consisted of three classes, namely. Governing 19* 442 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l764. Persons, Middle Class, and Multitude ; and any two of these are stronger than any one of them. We shall soon see what this ominous conjunction was able to effect against our philosopher. Many months passed before it was considered safe to let the Moravian Indians leave the city ; a fact which shows the power of the "hip and thigh party" in the rural counties. The small-pox, we are told, broke out among them. Fifty-six of them died in the barracks, whose bodies form part of the great assemblage of human bones that lie under the gravel paths, under the green grass and beautiful trees of Washington Square.* The rational hope which the Assembly had indulged that the new Governor w^ould refrain from that interference with legislation w^hich had kept the province in a broil for twenty years, was soon dissipated. Fruitless of the results expected was Fi-anklin's partial triumph at the English court. At the regular session of the As- sembly, early in 1764, Governor Penn refused his assent to two bills most essential to the peace of the province. One was a militia bill drawn up by Franklin, which contained a provision for giving the members of each company a voice in the election of its officers, and the subalterns a voice in the electing of the major, lieutenant-col- onel, and colonel. Governor Penn refused to sign the bill unless this clause were stricken out, and himself invested with the power of appointing aU the officers. He demanded, also, that the fines im- posed by the bill for military offenses should be trebled in amount, and the offenders tried by court-martial, instead of by a court and jury, as the bill provided. The second bill vetoed by this exas- perating official w^as an act for raising fifty thousand pounds to defray the expense of the coming campaign against the Indians. In accordance with the decision of the king in council, this act laid an equal tax upon aU the located lands of the province, making no distinction whatever between the estate of the Penns and the lands of resident owners. The Governor refused to sign this bill unless a distinction was made in favor of the Penn estate, rating its best uncultivated lands at the rate paid by other owners for their worst. It was a mere quibble designed as a set-off to Franklui's harmless and beneficial ruse before the Privy Council. Indignation and despair filled the hearts of the libeial majority * Watson's " Annals of Philadelphia," ii., 169. AGED 58.] A YEAH OF INTESTINE COMMOTION. 443 of the Assembly. The struggle of a generation was still to be renewed. All their past labors, sacrifices, expenditures in the assertion of their rights, proved fruitless. At a moment when the province was wasted by a savage foe and rent by intestine feuds, when government had just been openly defied, and murdering hordes threatened th^ metropolis itself, even then, the measures most obviously and most immediately necessary for the safety of the province and the maintenance of government, were frustrated by "the insolent, tribunitial veto" (to use Franklin's wrathful words) of an arrogant, ignorant young man, an alien and a stran- ger in their midst. What followed these vetoes has been related by Franklin with peculiar force. " Never," he says, " did any administration open with a more promising prospect than this of Governor Penn. * * But when it was found that those mischievous instructions still subsisted, and Avere even further extended; when the governor began, improvoked, to send the House affronting messages, seizing every imaginary occasion of reflecting on their conduct; when every other symptom appeared of fixed, deep-rooted, family malice, which could but a little while bear the unnatural covering that had been thrown over it; what wonder is it, if all the old wounds broke out and bled afresh; if all the old grievances, still unre- dressed, were recollected ; if despair succeeded of seeing any peace with a family that could make such returns to all their overtures of kindness. And when, in the very proprietary council, com- posed of staunch friends of the family, and chosen for their attach- ment to it, it was observed, that the old men (1 Kings, chap, xii.) withdrew themselves, finding their opinion slighted, and that all measures were taken by the advice of two or three young men (one of whom too denies his share in them) ; is it any wonder, since like causes produce like effects, if the Assembly, notwithstanding all their veneration for the first proprietor, should say, with the children of Israel under the same circumstances, ' What portion have we in David, or inheritance in the son of Jesse ? To your tents, O Israel.' * * * "They, therefore, after a thorough debate, and making no less than twenty-five unanimous resolves, expressing the many griev- ances this province had long labored under through the proprietary government, came to the following resolution, viz.; '"Resolved, 444 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1764. nemine contradicente, that this House will adjourn, in order to con- sult their constituents, whether an humble address should be drawn up and transmitted to his Majesty ; praying that he would be graciously pleased to take the people of this province under his immediate protection and government, by completing the agree- ment heretofore made with the first proprietary for the sale of the government to the crown, or otherwise, as to his wisdom and goodness shall seem meet.' " This adjournment occurred on the 20th of March. There w^as an interval of seven weeks before the Assembly again came to- gether; during which, I need scarcely say, the two parties be- stirred themselves mightily. Franklin published a vigorous pam- phlet, entitled, "Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of our Public Affairs, addressed to a Friend in the Country ;" in w^hich the most was made of the argument against the proprietary gov- ernment. Meetings were held in many townships, and there w^as a great signing of petitions in all parts of the province. When the legislature reassembled on the 14th of May, three thousand names were found appended to the various petitions for a change of gov- ernment, and not three hundred to those of a contrary tenor. There could be no mistaking the desire of the people. After a long and warm debate, the resolution to petition the king to con- vert Pennsylvania into a royal province, was carried by a large majority. Mr. Isaac Norris, the venerable speaker of the House, was one of those who shrunk, at the last moment, from a change so radical, and, rather than sign the petition, resigned the speakership. Dr. Franklin, who w^as immediately elected speaker, had no such scruples, and the petition was duly signed by him. The document briefly set forth : " That the proprietary government is weak, unable to support its own authority and maintain the common internal peace of the province; great riots have lately arisen therein, armed mobs marching from place to place, and committing violent outrages and insults on the government with impunity, to the great terror of your Majesty's subjects. And these evils are not likely to receive any remedy here, the continual disputes between the proprietaries and people, and their mutual jealousies and dislikes, preventing. We do, therefore, most humbly pray, that your Majesty would be graciously pleased to resume the government of this province, AGED 58.] A YEAR OF INTESTINE COMMOTION. 445 making such compensation to the proprietaries for the same as to your Majesty's wisdom and goodness shall appear just and equi- table." At this exciting session of the Pennsylvania Legislature, another subject received attention ; a subject destined soon to swallow up all other colonial topics. Early in the year 1764, Mr. George Grenville, prime minister of England, called together the agents of the American colonies resident in London, and told them that the war had left upon England a debt of seventy-three millions sterling, and that he meant to ask parliament to lay a portion of this burthen upon the young shoulders of America. America ! that had made such prodigious sacrifices already, and was herself staggering under mountains of debt. America! still battling with a savage foe. The minister further said, that the mode in which he had thought to tax the colonies was a stamp duty ; but that if any other tax, equally productive, would be more agreeable or convenient to the colonies, he should be glad to know it before bringing the matter before parliament. He concluded by directing the agents to write to their several Assemblies for instructions on this point. They wrote as directed. No American reader needs to be in- formed of the effect produced in America by the announcement of Mr. Grenville's purpose. Mr. Bancroft's recent volumes tell the story of the stamp act with such fullness of detail, and in so agree- able a manner, that it is now a disgrace to any American citizen not to be familiar with it. Nothing remains to us but to relate Dr. Franklin's part, first, in holding together, and, then, in rending asunder, England and her American colonies. No legislature behaved, on this occasion, with more firmness and moderation than the loyal little parliament of Pennsylvania. Dr. Franklin has himself recorded the substance of the opinions upon the subject which were expressed by members at this session, and the conclusion at which they arrived. To tax the colonies at all they thought cruel, for they were already taxed beyond their strength ; but to tax them by act of parliament, wherein they were not represented, was adding indignity to cruelty. Nevertheless, to the requisition of a gracious king they could never be deaf. If the king needed their assistance, let him but signify his need in the usual manner, and the Assembly would do all that in them lay to afford him aid. All of which was summed up in a resolve to this 446 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l764. effect : " That, as the Assembly always had, so they always should, think it their duty to grant aid to the crown, according to their abilities, whenever required of them in the usual constitutional manner." The subject then dropped, as the stamp act was not introduced into parliament until fifteen months after the meeting of the agents at Mr. Grenville's office. The Assembly adjourned early in the summer, not to reassemble until after the fall elections. Franklin occupied the Speaker's chair but a few days. The members of the Assembly being elected annually, the speaker held his office only until the end of the session. Election day was the first of October. Now came the tug of war. All parties seemed to feel that the issue of the next election would either terminate the proprietary government, or give it a new lease of power ; for the impression prevailed that the Home administration were more than willing to add the Pennsylvania offices to the patronage of the crown. Th-e letters of that summer written by leading Philadelphians contain amazing evidences of the power of party spirit to blind and pervert the understandings of good men. We find Dr. John Ewing, a clergyman of renown, provost of the college, justifying the slaughter of the friendly Indians, applauding the Paxton insurgents, blaming Franklin for protecting the Moravian Indians, and denouncing the British ministry for sending out an order for the prosecution of the rioters. Hear this reverend apologist for massacre and tyranny : " Our province is greatly involved in intestine feuds. * * * A few designing men, having engrossed too much power into their hands, are pushing matters beyond all bounds. There are twenty- two Quakers in our Assembly at present, who, although they won't absolutely refuse to grant money for the king's use, yet never fail to contrive matters in such a manner as to afford little or no assist- ance to the poor distressed frontiers ; while our public money is lavishly squandered away in supporting a number of savages, who have been murdering and scalping us for many years past. This (murdering and scalping) has enraged some desperate young men, who had lost their nearest relations by these very Indians, to cut off about twenty Indians that lived near Lancaster, who had, dur- ing the war, carried on a constant intercourse with our other ene- mies ; and they came down to Germantown to inquire why In- dians, known to be enemies, were supported, even in luxury, with AGED 58.] A TEAK OF INTESTINE COMMOTION". 447 the best that our markets afforded, at the public expense, while they were left in the utmost distress on the frontiers, in want of the necessaries of life. * * * However this matter may be looked upon in Britain, where you know very little of the matter, you may be assured that ninety-nine in a hundred of the province are firmly persuaded that they are maintaining our enemies, while our friends back are suffering the greatest extremities, neglected ; and that few but Quakers think that the Lancaster Indians have suf- fered any thing but their just deserts."* I should add, by way of palKating the iniquity of this perversion, that the college was peculiarly under the patronage of the pro- prietary interest ; while the liberal party made it a point of cher- ishing the hospital. There was actually, for many years, a party rivalry with regard to the support of these two institutions, in con- sequence of which both obtained a development more rapid than unstimulated generosity would have given them. Dr. Ewing, as provisional head of the college, was necessarily a champion of the proprietary party. During the heat of this contest, even the placid Franklin grew warm. His sharpest satire was aimed this summer at the unworthy conduct of the Penns. Mr. John Dickinson, a gentleman of great wealth, worth, and mfluence, a member of the late Assembly, was opposed to a change of government, and published, soon after the adjournment, the speech he had delivered in the Assembly against the petition to the king. To this speech a friend of the orator pre- fixed a preface. Mr. Joseph Galloway, a member who favored a change, and who was a city candidate for re-election, published a speech in support of the petition, which his brother candidate. Dr. Franklin, prefaced with a withering review of the policy of the proprietaries. This preface is that composition of Dr. Franklin's in which his satire approaches nearest to sarcasm. He lays about him, in some passages of this extensive preface, with splendid wrath, his eyes flashing fire, and his rapier gleaming with its rapid flights. Soon, however, he relapses into good humor again, and falls to poking his adversary in the ribs. The hardest hit of all is the passage in which he replies to that part of the preface of Mr. Dickinson's speech, in which a party ♦ Life of Joseph Reed, i., 34. 448 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1764. advantage was sought under cover of an extravagant eulogy of William Penn. The Dickinson prefacer had drawn up an inscrip- tion for an imaginary monument to the founder of Pennsylvania, in which the usual lapidary adjectives were most lavishly employed. Franklin replied to this passage in the manner following : " Utterly to confound the Assembly, and show the excellence of proprietary government, the Prefacer has extracted from their own votes, the praises they have from time to time bestowed on the first proprietor, in their addresses to his sons. And, though addresses are not generally the best repositories of historical truth, we must not in this instance deny their authority. " That these encomiums on the father, though sincere, have occur- red so frequently, was owing, however, to two causes : first, a vain hope the assemblies entertained, that the father's example, and the honors done his character, might influence the conduct of the sons ; secondly, for that, in attempting to compliment the sons on their own merits, there was always found an extreme scarcity of matter. Hence, the father^ the honored and honorable father^ was so often repeated, that the sons themselves grew sick of it, and have been heard to say to each other with disgust, when told that A, B, and C were come to wait upon them with addresses on some public oc- casion, ''Then I suppose we shall hear more about our father. "* So that, let me tell the Prefacer, who perhaps was unacquainted with this anecdote, that if he hoped to curry more favor with the family, by the inscription he has framed for that great man's monu- ment, he may find himself mistaken ; for there is too much in it of our father. " If, therefore, he would erect a monument to the sons, the votes of the Assembly, which are of such credit with him, will furnish him with ample materials for his inspection. To save him trouble, I will essay a sketch for him, in the lapidary style, though mostly in the expressions, and everywhere in the sense and spirit, of the Assembly's resolves and messages. " Be this a Memorial Of T andR P , P of P ,* Who, with estates immense, * That is, Thomas and Eichard Penn, Proprietors of Pennsylvania. AGED 58.] ' A YEAR OP INTESTINE COMMOTION. 449 Almost beyond computation, When their own province, And the whole British empire, Were engaged in a bloody and most expensive war, Begun for the defense of those estates, Could yet meanly desire To have those very estates Totally or partially Exempted from taxation. While their fellow-subjects all around them, Groaned Under the universal burden. To gain this point. They refused the necessary laws For the defense of their people. And suffered their colony to welter in its blood, Rather than abate in the least Of these their dishonest pretensions. The privileges granted by their father, Wisely and benevolently To encourage the first settlers to the province, They, Foolishly and cruelly, Taking advantage of public distress, Have extorted from the posterity of those settlers ; And are daily endeavoring to reduce them To the most abject slavery; Though to the virtue and industry of those people In improving their country, They owe all that they possess and enjoy. A striking instance Of human depravity and ingratitude ; And an irrefragable proof, That wisdom and goodness Do not descend with an inheritance ; But that ineffable meanness May be connected with unbounded fortune." The proprietary brothers had not long to wait for their revenge. 450 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAJillN FEANKLIX. [l^G4. October was at hand. Franklin and Galloway were candidates for the representation of the city. These gentlemen headed what was called " The Old Ticket," against which were arrayed the Power, the Ignorance, and the Conservative Timidity of the province. We chance to have an account of this election, written at the time by an Old Ticket man, which transports the reader back to the very scene and period. Colonial times have handed down to us few memorials of so much interest as this gossiping letter from Mr. Pettit of Philadelphia, to his young friend Reed, then a law- student in London : "Our late election, which was really a hard-fought one, was managed with more decency and good manners than would have been expected from such irritated partisans as appeared as the champions on each side. The Dutch Calvinists and the Presbyte- rians of both Houses, I believe, to a man assisted the new ticket. The Church were divided and so were the Dutch Lutherans. The Moravians and most of the Quakers were the grand supporters of the old ; the McClenaghanites were divided, though chiefly of the old side. The poll was opened about 9 in the morning, the 1st of October, and the steps so crowded, till between 11 and 12 at night, that at no time a person could get up in less than a quarter of an hour from his entrance at the bottom, for they could go no faster than the whole column moved. About 3 in the morning, the advo- cates for the new ticket moved for a close, but (O ! fatal mistake !) the old hands kept it open, as they had a reserve of the aged and lame, which could not come in the crowd, and were called up and brought out in chairs and litters, and some who needed no help, between 3 and 6 o'clock, about 200 voters. As both sides took care to have spies all night, the alarm was given to the new ticket men ; horsemen and footmen were immediately dispatched to Ger- mantown, and elsewhere; and by 9 or 10 o'clock they began to pour in, so that after the move for a close, 7 or 800 votes were pro- cured ; about 500 or near it of which were for the new ticket, and they did not close till 3 in the afternoon, and it took tliem till 1 next day to count them ofi". " The new ticket carried all but Harrison and Antis, and Fox and Hughes came in their room ; but it is surprising that from upwards of 3,900 votes, they should be so near each other. Mr. Willing and Mr. Bryan were elected Burgesses by a majority of upwards of AGED 58.] A YEAR OF INTESTI^TE COMMOTION. 451 100 votes, though the whole number was but about 1,300. Mr. Franklin died like a philosopher. But Mr. Galloway agonized in Deaths like a Mortal Deist, who has no Hopes of a Future Exist- ence. The other Counties returned nearly the same members who had served them before, so that the old faction have still consider- able majority in the House. * * A number of squibs, quarters, and half sheets, were thrown among the populace on the day of elec- tion, some so copious as to aim at the general dispute, and others, more confined, to Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Galloway, with now and tlien a skit at the Doctor, but these had little or no effect."* So Franklin and Galloway were defeated. In a vote of nearly four thousand, there was a majority against Dr. Franklin of twenty- five. The new Assembly met a few days after the election. The strife was instantly renewed. The liberal party, as Mr. Pettit has told us, were still in a majority in the House, and that majority was not disposed to permit its champion to be crushed. The appointment of Dr. Franklin to the ofiSce of agent of the Assembly was propos- ed, that he rriight himself manage the affair of the petition to the king, and convey to the ministry in England the sense of the As- sembly with regard to the proposed stamp act. The proprietary party in the Assembly strove to prevent his appointment, and Mr. Dickinson declaimed against it with much energy. " N'o measure," said Mr. Dickinson, *' which this House can pur- sue, will be so likely to inflame the resentments, increase the divisions, and embitter the discontents of the people we represent. * * I appeal to the heart of every member for the truth of this assertion, that no man in Pennsylvania is at this time so much the object of the pubhc dislike, as he that has been mentioned. To what a sur- prising height this dislike is carried among vast numbers I do not choose to repeat. The well-known fact sufiSciently supports the present objection against him. Though but a few hours have elaps- ed since he was first proposed as an agent in the House, yet already we see remonstrances against his appointment from several hundreds of our most reputable constituents laid on the table, and we are afraid, that, if a little time was allowed, thousands would crowd to present the like testimony against him. Why then should a raa- * "Life of Joseph Pweed," i., 87. 452 LIFE AND naiES OP BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1764. jority of this House single out from the whole world the man most obnoxious to his country, to represent his country, though he was at the last election turned out of the Assembly, where he had sat for fourteen years? Why should they exert their power in the most disgusting manner, and throw pain, terror, and displeasure into the breasts of their fellow-citizens ? * * Since the zeal of his friends will not suffer them to regard her tranquillity, more worthy of the trust intended him would he appear, in the eyes of many good men, should he voluntarily decline an office, which he cannot accept, without alarming, offending, and disturbing his country. * * Aristides submitted to the voice of Athens, and contented himself with wishing that she might never repent her sentence against him. When Roman virtue was swiftly waning, the dissolute Otho still retained so large a share as voluntarily to resign a life and an empire, that could not be preserved without misfortunes to Rome. Much are they mistaken, who think no man can serve a state, but in the glare of office. * * How many men have greatly promoted the public interests by their counsels and writings ! The gentleman proposed has been called here to-day * a great luminary of the learned world.' I acknowledge his abili- ties. Far be it from me to detract from the merit I admire. Let him still shine, but without wrapping his country in flames. Let him, from a private station, from a smaller sphere, diffuse, as I think he may, a beneficial light ; but let him not be made to move and blaze like a comet to terrify and to distress." Mr. Dickinson's eloquence was ineffectual. Dr. Franklin was elected agent, and he accepted the trust. The proprietary party drew up a protest against the act of the majority, and asked that it might be inserted in the minutes. The House rejected the proposal. The protest having been printed in the newspapers, Dr. Franklin published some " remarks" on that production, which were exceed- ingly spirited. A few of his leading points I will transcribe. The protesters accused him of being the chief author of the recent measures of the Assembly, " which have occasioned such uneasiness and distraction among the good people of this province." No, re- plied Franklin ; it was the uneasiness and distraction among the people, which occasioned the measures ; and proprietary injustice was the cause of that uneasiness and distraction. The protesters said that Dr. Franklin was ill esteemed by sev- AGED 58.] A YEAR OF INTESTINE COMMOTION. 453 eral of his Majesty's ministers, and therefore not likely to procure from them concessions to the province. " I apprehend," he replied, "that your informer is mistaken. * * If, indeed, I had, by speeches and writing, endeavored to make his Majesty's government universally odious in the province ; if I had harangued by the week, to all comers and goers, on the pretended injustice and oppressions of royal government, and the slavery of the people under it ; if I had written traitorous papers to this purpose, and got them trans- lated into other languages, to give his Majesty's foreign subjects here those horrible ideas of it ; if I had declared, written, and print- ed, that ' the king's little finger we should find heavier than the proprietor's whole loins,' with regard to our liberties ; then, indeed, might the ministers be supposed to think unfavorably of me. But these are not exploits for a man who holds a profitable ofiice under the crown, and can expect to hold it no longer than he behaves with the fidelity and duty that becomes every good subject. They are only for officers of proprietary appointment, who hold their commissions during his, and not the king's, pleasure." The protesters further observed, that the proposal of Dr. Frank- lin for agent, " was extremely disagreeable to a very great number of the most serious and reputable inhabitants of the province ; and the proof was, his having been rejected at the last election, though he had represented the city in Assembly for fourteen years." To this he made a very energetic reply : " And do you, gentlemen, reproach me with this, who, among near four thousand voters, had scarcely a score more than I had ? * * It is known to the persons who proposed me, that I was first chosen against my inclination, and against my entreaties that I might be suffered to remain a private man. In none of the fourteen elections you mention, did I ever appear as a candidate. I never did, directly or indirectly, solicit any man's votes. For six of the years in which I Avas annually chosen, I was absent, residing in England ; during all which time your secret and open attacks upon my character and reputation were incessant ; and yet you gained no ground. And can you re- ally, gentlemen, find matter of triumph in this rejection, as you call it ? A moment's reffection on the means by which it was obtained, must make you ashamed of it. " Not only my duty to the crown, in carrying the post-office act more duly into execution, was made use of to exasperate the igno- 454 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1764. rant, as if I was increasing my own profits by picking their pock- ets ; but my very zeal in opposing the murderers, and supporting the authority of government, and even my humanity with regard to the innocent Indians under our protection, were mustered among my offenses, to stir up against me those religious bigots, who are, of all savages, the most brutish. Add to this, the numberless false- hoods propagated as truths; and the many perjuries procured among the wretched rabble, brought to swear themselves entitled to a vote ; and yet so poor a superiority obtained at all this expense of honor and conscience ! Can this, gentlemen, be matter of tri- umph ? Enjoy it, then. Your exultation, however, was short. "Your artifices did not prevail everywhere; nor your double tickets, and whole boxes of forged votes. A great majority of the new-chosen Assembly were of the old members, and remain uncor- rupted. They still stood firm for the people, and will obtain justice from the proprietaries. But what does that avail to you, who are in the proprietary interest ? And what comfort can it afford you, when, by the Assembly's choice of an agent, it appears that the same, to you obnoxious, man (notwithstanding all your venomous invectives against him) still retains so great a share of the public confidence ?" The protesters accused him, also, of having " a fixed enmity to the proprietaries." He denied the charge. " Why do you think," he asked, " that I have a fixed enmity to the proprietaries ? I have never had any personal difference with them. I am no land-jobber, and, therefore, have never had any thing to do with their land of- fice or ofiicers ; if I had, probably, like others, I might have been obliged to truckle to their measures, or have had like causes of com- plaint. But our private interests never clashed ; and all their re- sentment against me, and mine to them, has been on the public ac- count. Let them do justice to the people of Pennsylvania, act hon- orably by the citizens of Philadelphia, and become honest men; my enmity, if that's of any consequence, ceases from the *very moment,' and, as soon as I possibly can, I promise to love, honor, and respect them." And so he proceeded, in many a glowing page, to refute the calumnies of his political enemies. " I am now," he concluded, " to take leave (perhaps a last leave) of the country I love, and in which I have spent the greatest part of my life. Esto perpetua. I wish AGED 58.] A YEAR OP INTESTINE COM^IOTION. 455 every kind of prosperity to my friends ; and I forgive my ene- mies." He began immediately to prepare for his departure, and was the sooner ready that he expected to be at home again at the end of the following summer. The colonial treasury being empty, a loan was authorized for the purpose of raising money for his expenses ; and the capitalists of the city, in a few hours, subscribed eleven hundred pounds ; of which, however, he would take but five hun- dred. On the seventh of ISTovember, 1764, twelve days after his election as agent, he bade farewell to his family, and left Philadel- phia. The ship in which he was to embark lying at Chester, fifteen miles below the city, he was escorted thither by three hun- dred citizens on horseback. He sent back to his daughter, from the lower Delaware, a touching letter of advice and farewell, com- mending her mother to her care and tenderness, and warning her to be circumspect in her behavior, because his enemies would watch her closely, and judge her harshly. " Go constantly to church," he added, " whoever preaches ;" a piece of advice which was neces- sary, as the rector of Christ Church was such an intense partisan of the proprietaries, and so bitter a foe of Franklin, that his daugh- ter had expressed an unwillingness to frequent the church. " The act of devotion," he continued, " in the Common Prayer Book, is your principal business there, and, if properly attended to, will do more towards amending the heart than sermons generally can do. For they were composed by men of much greater piety and wis- dom than our common composers of sermons can pretend to be ; and, therefore, I wish you would never miss the prayer days ; yet I do not mean you should despise sermons, even of the preachers you dislike ; for the discourse is often much better than the man, as sweet and clear waters come through very dirty earth." A rough passage of thirty days brought him again in sight of the white cliffs of Albion. On reaching London, he was at once estab- hshed, to the delight of Mrs. Stevenson and her daughter, in his old lodgings in Craven Street. One of the first letters he received in England from Philadelphia, contained this passage : " A vessel from Ireland to I^ew York brought us the most agreeable news of your arrival in London, which occasioned a great and general joy in Pennsylvania among those whose esteem an honest man would value most. The bells rang on that account till near midnight, and 45 G LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1764. libations were poured out for your health, success, and every other happiness. Even your old friend Hugh Roberts stayed with us till eleven o'clock, which you know was a little out of his common road, and gave us many curious anecdotes within the compass of your forty years' acquaintance."* * Cadwalader Evans to Dr. Franklin. Sparks, vii., 288. PART IV. REPRESENTATIVE OF THE THIRTEEN COLONIES AT LONDON. PART IV CHAPTER I. THE STAMP ACT PASSED. It was in the evening of the tenth of December, 1764, that the agent of Pennsylvania arrived in London. The impending, the in. evitable. Stamp Act, he soon found, was the absorbing topic with the colonial agents ; with whom he was often in consultation dur- ing the next few weeks. By every means his ingenuity could suggest. Dr. Franklin sought to prevent the introduction of a meas- ure, which proved, to use his own language, " the mother of mischiefs." He was powerless. The conferring agents could devise nothing, except to ask an interview with Mr. George Grenville, the head of the administration, who had pledged his word to parliament to bring in a bill for taxing the colonies. The minister consented to see them, and on the second of February, 1765, the agents, four in number, met at his office. Mr. Grenville received them with official, with Grenvillian polite ness. He was an able man of business, an honest statesman, and singularly devoted to the duties of his place. " He took public duty," remarks Mr. Burke, " not as a duty which he was to fulfill, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy." " But with no small study of de- tail, he did not seem to have his view carried to the total circuit oi our affairs." It has been remarked of his family, even in recent generations, that they are, at once, guileless and reserved, and both in an uncommon degree. Mr, Grenville listened patiently on this occa- sion to the arguments of the American agents, who urged their well-worn plea, that if the colonies were to be taxed, the tax should be imposed by their own parliaments, not the parliament of Great Britain, in which they were not represented, and which knew not their ability nor their burdens. Mr. Grenville said, as he had said in substance a year before : 460 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l'765. " I take no pleasure in bringing upon myself colonial resentments. It is the duty of my office to manage the revenue. I have really been made to believe that, considering the whole circumstances of the mother country and the colonies, the latter can and ought to pay something to the common cause. I know of no better way than that now pursuing to lay such a tax. If you can tell me of a better, I will adopt it." Dr. Franklin spoke. He reminded the minister of the ancient mode of raising supplies in the colonies for the service of the king, a mode which had always proved effectual. He placed in Mr. Gren- ville's hands the resolution unanimously passed by the Assembly of Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1764, pledging that province to do all that it could to aid the king whenever the king should ask aid in the usual and constitutional manner. Mr. Grenville then asked a question which shovred that he did not, or would not, understand Dr. Franklin. His question, how- ever, seems for a moment to have nonplused the agents. " Can you agree," he asked, " on the proportion each colony should raise ?" They were obliged to admit that they could not. The minister pursuing his advantage said, that the stamp duty would adjust itself both to the present wealth and future increase of the colonies. It would be, he thought, at all times and in all places, a fair and equal tax. Upon this, the Americans returned to their main position, and pointed out the danger to the liberties of the colonies which would arise from their being taxed by a distant body in which they had no representative to explain their circum- stances, or plead tlieir cause. If parliament could impose taxes upon them, they feared that the colonial assemblies would decline in importance and soon cease to be called together. " No such thing is intended," replied Mr. Grenville. " I have pledged my word for offering the stamp bill to the House, and I cannot forego it : they will hear all objections, and do as they please. I wish you may preserve moderation in America. Resent- ments indecently expressed on one side of the water will naturally produce resentments on the other. You cannot hope to get any good by a controversy with the mother country. With respect to this bill, her ears will always be open to every remonstrance express- ed in a becoming manner."* * Bancroft's " History of the United States," v., 230. AGED 59.] THE STAMP ACT PASSED. 461 The Americans then withdrew. The bill was introduced into parliament, and passed by a very great majority a few weeks after. In the House of Commons there were only fifty voices against it, and in the House of Lords there appears to have been no division on the question. The king scrawled his signatm-e to the bill when he was suffering under his first attack of insanity. Not a man in England, not Franklin, foresaw either the immediate or the remote consequences of the act. Englishmen were deceived by the smallness of the amount proposed to be raised by the stamp duty. Englishmen have made sublime sacrifices to principle, but they appear slow to believe that any other people can. The sum expected to result from the stamp duty was a hundred thousand pounds a year, which it was supposed America would grumble at for a while, but never think of resisting. Franklin evidently shared this opinion. He wrote to a friend in Philadelphia a few weeks after the passage of the act : "" I took every step in my power to prevent the passing of the Stamp Act. But the tide was too strong against us. The nation was provoked by American claims of legislative independence, and all parties joined in resolving by this act to settle the point. We might as well have hindered the sun's setting. That we could not do. But since it is down, my friend, and it maybe long before it rises again, let us make as good anight of it as we can. We may still light candles. Frugality and in- dustry will go a great way towards indemnifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments." This plainly shows that Franklin did not anticipate nor desire the resistance of his countrymen to the act. If his advice had been asked, he might have urged an agitation for repeal, but he certainly Avould have counseled strict submission. Soon after the passage of the act, Dr. Franklin, in taking leave of an American friend, said, " Go home and tell your countrymen to get children as fast as they can." We are not yet strong enough to resist. From our earliest childhood we have all been in the habit of hearing and reading about this terrible stamp act, but, probably, few of the readers of these pages have ever seen it, or are ac- quainted with its provisions. The act was curiously adapted to puzzle and disgust a people accustomed to simple modes of proce- dure. It contained fifty-five articles, and imposed taxes on fifty-foui- classes of objects. It laid a tax of threepence upon every piece oi 462 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1765. parchment or paper on which should be printed or written a legal declaration, plea, replication, rejoinder, demurrer, or other pleading usual in any common court of the colonies. Upon a special bail bond, the duty was two shillings. Upon any chancery pleading, one shilling and sixpence. Upon each copy of the same, threepenco. Upon every document relating to proceedings in ecclesiastical courts, one shilling. Copy of the same, sixpence. Upon every presentment to a benefice, two pounds. Upon a college degree, two pounds. Upon admiralty court documents, one shilling. Copies, sixpence. Upon appeals, writs of error, and similar papers, ten shillings. Upon various other writs, no longer in use, five shillings. Upon judgments and decrees of court, four shillings. Upon a common affidavit, summons, or subpoena, one shilling. Bill of lading, fourpence. Letters of marque, one pound. Upon an appointment to an office worth twenty pounds a year, ten shil- lings; if worth more than twenty pounds a year, four pounds. Upon every grant or privilege bearing the seal or sign manual of a governor, six pounds. Liquor licenses, four pounds. Wine licenses, four pounds. A license to sell both wine and liquor, three pounds. Letters of administration, five shillings. Bond to secure payment of ten pounds or less, sixpence ; twenty pounds, one shilling ; forty pounds, one shilling and sixpence. Warrant for surveying one hundred acres of land, sixpence ; two hundred acres, one shilling ; three hundred and twenty acres, one shilling and six pence. Deeds and conveyances, from one shilling and six pence to five shillings. Leases, contracts and covenants, two shillings and sixpence. Warrant for auditing a public account, five shillings. Mortgage, two shillings and threepence. Pack of cards, one shil- ling. Pair of dice, ten shillings. Newspaper on half a sheet of paper, one half penny ; whole sheet, one penny. Pamphlets equal to six sheets octavo, one shilling. Advertisements, two shillings each. Almanacs, twopence. Translations of any document, twice the duty charged upon the original. Upon premiums paid by apprentices for learning their trade, sixpence in the pound, if the premium did not exceed fifty pounds ; if more than fifty pounds, one shining in the pound. The act concluded with a novel and vague provision as follows : " Finally, the produce of all the above-mentioned duties shall be paid into his Majesty's treasury ; and there held in reserve to be AGED 59.] THE STAMP ACT PASSED. 463 used from time to time by the parliament, for the purpose of do- fraying the expense necessary for the defense, protection, and secu- rity of the said colonies and plantations." Such was the nature of the wedge that rent an empire asunder. A few days after the passage of the Stamp Act, the colonial agents were summoned to Mr. Grenville's office by a circular note from the minister's protege and secretary, Mr. William Whately. The great man did not appear on this occasion ; his desires being made known to the agents by his secretary. "What transpired at this meeting, has been made the occasion of calumnies against Dr. Franklin, which, to this day, are sometimes repeated in print. He has himself related the particulars of the interview : " Mr. Whately acquainted us that Mr. Grenville was desirous to make the execution of the act as little inconvenient and disagree- able to America as possible ; and therefoi-e did not think of sending stamp officers from this country, but wished to have discreet and reputable persons appointed in each province from among the in- habitants, such as would be acceptable to them ; for, as they were to pay the tax, he thought strangers should not have the emolu- ment. Mr. Whately therefore wished us to name for our respective colonies, informing us that Mr. Grenville would be obliged to us for pointing out to him honest and responsible men, and would pay great regard to our nominations. By this plausible and apparently candid declaration, w^e were drawn in to nominate; and I named for our province, Mr. (John) Hughes, saying, at the same time, that I knew not whether he would accept it, but if he did, I was sure he would execute the office faithfully. I soon after had notice of his appointment. We none of us, I believe, foresaw or imagined that this compliance with the request of the minister would or could have been called an application of ours, and adduced as a proof of our approbation of the act we had been opposing ; other- wise I think few of us would have named at all ; I am sure I should not."* Mr. John Hughes, thus recommended to ministerial favor, was an old friend of Dr. Franklin's, a respectable merchant of Philadelphia, and a member of the Assembly. The affair of the Stamp Act over. Dr. Franklin had leisure to at- * Franklin to Dean Tucker, 1774. Sparks, iv., 122. 464 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l765. tend to the other business of his agency, the deliverance of Pennsyl- vania from the incubus of the Penns. In order to remove a trouble- some topic from the path of our narrative, we may as well state at once, that the petition to the king for a change of government in Pennsylvania came to nothing. Franklin presented it, and the As- sembly six times renewed their efforts to get it acted upon. The Penns opposed it with all their power and all their art. But from 1765, when the petition was presented, to 1775, when the revolu- tion began, there was never an interval of tranquillity long enough to bring so difficult an affair to a conclusion. When the final dis- ruption occurred, the Penns, being still in possession of the prov- ince, contrived to sell what they could no longer retain. The State of Pennsylvania voted them one hundred and thirty thousand pounds sterling, and the British government settled upon the head of the family a pension of four thousand pounds a year. They deemed the price much too small, but they, nevertheless, deigned to accept it, and Pennsylvania was rid of them forever. Soon after midsummer, the news of the effect upon America of the passage of the Stamp Act began to arrive in England. Every ship brought new proofs of the extent and intensity of the opposi- tion to it. And yet, at first, there was a method in the general mad- ness. The resolves passed unanimously, at every meeting, to con- sume no more British manufactures until the hateful act was re- pealed, to wear homespun, to eat no lamb, to suppress the ostentatious mourning at funerals, to live with the ancient frugal- ity, were moderate and legitimate modes of agitation. But when, later in the summer, the commissions arrived from England for the persons appointed in each colony to distribute the stamped paper, then the popular fury had personal objects upon which to concentrate and expend itself. Mr. John Hughes became instantly the most odious man in Pennsylvania. Those bells that had lately rung out a joyful peal to celebrate Dr. Franklin's safe arrival in England were muffled, and heavily tolled, to express the popular execration of one of the first of his official acts. The house of the innocent and luckless Hughes, being threatened with attack, was guarded night and day, and before the time came for the act to take effect, he was forced to resign his office. The political enemies of Dr. Franklin saw their opportunity, and improved it. Among other adverse publications, a rude caricature AGED 59.] THE STAMP ACT PASSED. 465 appeared, representing the Devil whispering in Franklin's ear, " Thee shall be agent, Ben, for all my dominions," and bearing this stanza : " All his designs concenter in himself. For building castles and amassing pelf. The public 'tis his wit to sell for gain, Whom private property did ne'er maintain." At one time, the new house which Mrs. Franklin had built in her husband's absence, and into which she had just removed, was sup- posed to be in danger from the mob. Governor Franklin hurried from his province to Philadelphia, and entreated the inmates of his father's house to take refuge in his own at Burlington. The brave Mrs. Franklin would not budge, though she permitted her daugh- ter to go. " I was for nine days," she wrote to her husband, " kept in a continual hurry by people to remove, and Sally was persuaded to go to Burlington for safety. Cousin Davenport came and told me that more than twenty people had told him it was his duty to be with me. I said I was pleased to receive civility from anybody, so he staid with me some time ; towards night I said he should fetch a gun or two, as we had none. I sent to ask my brother to come and bring his gun also, so we turned one room into a maga- zine ; I ordered some sort of defense up stairs, such as I could man- age myself I said, when I was advised to remove, that I was very sure you had done nothing to hurt anybody, nor had I given any offense to any person at all, nor would I be made uneasy by any- body, nor would I stir or show the least uneasiness, but if any one came to disturb me I would show a proper resentment. I was told that there were eight hundred men ready to assist any one that should be molested." When the excitement subsided, "Cousin Davenport," it seems, gave a report of the tumult to Jane Mecom, which "amazed" that good lady " beyond measure." She had just received from her brother in England a box of clothing, containing " a printed cot- ton gown, a quilted coat, a bonnet, a cap, and some ribbons," for herself and each of her daughters ; a black and purple gown for herself, but light-colored ones for the girls. " I am amazed beyond measure," she wrote to Mrs. Franklin, " that your house was 20* 466 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l765. threatened in the tumult. I thought there had been none among you would proceed to such a length to persecute a man merely for being the best of characters, and really deserving good from the hand and tongue of all his fellow-creatures. I knew there was a party that did not approve his prosecuting the business he is gone to England upon, and that some had used him with some scurrilous language in some printed papers, but I was in hopes it had so far subsided as not to give you any disturbance. When I think what you must have suffered at the time, how I pity you ! but I think your indignation must have exceeded your fear. What a wretch- ed world would this be if the vile of mankind had no laws to re- strain them !"* By the first of November, the day on which the Stamp Act was to go into execution, it was known in England that the colonies, with one voice, had refused obedience to it. Orders for manufac- tured goods ceased to arrive from America, and all trades lan- guished. The act passed so carelessly had become the dividing topic between the two political parties. The Grenville administra- tion, to the joy of all America, had fallen, though the Stamp Act had had nothing to do with its fall. A more liberal ministry, with the Marquis of Rockingham at its head, and General Conway the leader of the House of Commons, had come in. In December, Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son : " The late imposed stamp duty our colonies absolutely refuse to pay. The administration are for some indulgence and forbearance to these froward children of their mother-country ; the opposition are for taking vigorous, as they call them, but I call them violent measures ; and to have the tax collected by the troops we have there. For my part, I never saw a froward child mended by whipping ; and I would not have the mother-country become a step-mother." With this new ministry came into parliament a new member, Mr. Edmund Burke, private Secretary to Lord Rockingham. Mr. Burke was an old friend of Dr. Franklin, and peculiarly the friend of America. His first publication of importance was an account of the American colonies. The first letter he wrote in London (1750) spoke of the towers and turrets of the hospitals as piercing the skies " like so many electrical conductors, averting the wrath of * Letters to Franklin from his Family, pp. 16, 20, 18T. AGED 59.] THE STAMP ACT REPEALED. 46V heaven ;" a novel figure at a time when Dr. Franklin's discoveries in electricity were only known in England to the inquisitive few. For years he was only prevented from emigrating to America by the unconquerable opposition of his parents. Now, at the age of thirty-seven, he found himself in parliament, and the confidential factotum of the prime minister, with a subject before the nation upon which he was, probably, the best informed man in England, excepting only the agent for Pennsylvania. CHAPTER n. THE STAMP ACT KEPEALED. All unsuspicious of the coming thunder, Dr. Franklin, in May of this memorable year, amused the London coffee-house gossips with one of his most humorous effusions. England, it appears, could then, as England can now, believe any thing of America if it were only absurd and disparaging enough. During the late session of parliament, the newspapers had abounded in the wildest fictions respecting the state of things in the colonies. A writer having taken to task the concoctors of these ridiculous paragraphs, Dr. Franklin wrote a very comical defense of them. " Englishmen," he wrote, " are too apt to be silent when they have nothing to say, and too apt to be sullen when they are silent ; and, when they are sullen, to hang themselves. But, by these we hears, we are supplied with abundant funds for discourse. * * * And here, give me leave to instance the various accounts the news- writers have given us, with so much honest zeal for the welfare of J^oor Old England, of the establishing manufactures in the colonies to the prejudice of those of the kingdom. It is objected by super- ficial readers, who yet pretend to some knowledge of those coun- tries, that such establishments are not only improbable, but impos- sible, for that their sheep have but little wool, not in the whole suf- ficient for a pair of stockings a year to each inhabitant ; that, from the universal deamess of labor among them, the workr^g of iron 468 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l765. and other materials, except in a few coarse instances, is impractica- ble to any advantage. " Dear sir, do not let us suffer ourselves to be amused with such groundless objections. The very tails of the American sheep are so laden with wool, that each has a little car or wagon on four lit- tle wheels, to support and keep it from trailing on the ground.* Would they calk their ships, would they even litter their horses v/ith wool, if it were not both plenty and cheap ? And what signi- fies the dearness of labor, when an English shilling passes for five and twenty ? Their engaging three hundred silk throwsters here in one week for New York was treated as a fable, because, for- sooth, they have ' no silk there to throw.' Those who make this objection, perhaps do not know, that, at the same time the agents from the king of Spain were at Quebec to contract for one thou- sand pieces of cannon to be made there for the fortification of Mexico, and at New York engaging the usual supply of woolen floor-carpets for their West India houses, other agents from the emperor of China were at Boston treating about an exchange of raw- silk for wool, to be carried in Chinese junks through the Straits of Magellan. "And yet all this is as certainly true as the account said to be from Quebec, in all the papers of last week, that the inhabitants of Canada are making preparations for a cod and whale fishery this ' summer in the upper lakes.' Ignorant people may object, that the upper lakes are fresh, and that cod and whales are salt water fish ; but let them know, sir, that cod, like other fish, when attacked by their enemies fly into any water where they can be safest; that whales, when they have a mind to eat cod, pursue them wherever they fly ; and that the grand lea,p of the whale in the chase up the Falls of Niagara is esteemed, by all who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature. Really, sir, the world is grown too incredulous. * * * *'Thus much I thought it necessary to say in favor of an honest * This joke is borrowed from Herodotus, who, however, states it as a fact. " The Arabians," says Herodotus (see Thalia, 113), "have two kinds of sheep worthy of admiration, which are seen nowhere else. One kind has large tails, not less than three cubits in length, which, if suffered to trail, would ulcerate by the tails rubbing on the ground. But every shepherd knows enough of the carpenter's art to prevent this, for they make little carts, and fasten them under the tails, binding the tail of each sejiarate sheep to a separate cart. The other kind of sheep have broad tails even to a cubit in breatith." AGED 59.] THE STAMP ACT REPEALED. 469 set of writers, whose comfortable living depends on collecting and supplying the printers with news at the small price of sixpence an article, and who always show their regard to truth, by contradict- ing in a subsequent article such as are wrong, for another six- pence, to the great satisfaction and improvement of us coifee-house students in history and politics, and all future Livys, Rapins, Rob- ertsons, Humes, and Macaulays, who may be sincerely inclined to furnish the world with that vara avis^ a true history." This is excellent " fooling," better for its purpose than ponderous refutation. The muttering storm from America soon changed his note. From midsummer until Parliament met in December, and during the spring, Franklin was chiefly occupied in effecting one object, the repeal of the Stamp Act. " I was extremely busy," he wrote to Lord Kames, " attending members of both houses, informing, ex- plaining, consulting, disputing, in a continual hurry from morning till night." Mr. Burke was the Intelligence of the Administration, and Dr. Franklin was the intimate, I may say the revered, friend of Mr. Burke. " Ignorance of American affairs," said Mr. Burke in reviewing this period, " had misled parlinment. Knowledge alone could bring it into the right road." Accordingly, six weeks of the session were employed in hearing testimony at the bar in Committee of the Whole House. " Every denomination of men," continues Mr. Burke, " either of America, or connected with it by office, by residence, by commerce, by interest, even by injury ; men of civil and military capacity, officers of the revenue, merchants, manufac- turers of every species, and from every town in England, attended at the bar. Such evidence was never laid before Parliament."* One of these witnesses, as every reader knows, was Dr. Franklin. His examination, and the magnificent debut of Mr. Burke as a parliamentary orator, are the events of this session which have most interested posterity. Mr. Burke's two speeches for the re- peal. Dr. Johnson said, "filled the town with wonder." Dr. Franklin's examination instructed England, and thrilled America. This celebrated Examination was by no means the impromptu' affair which it seemed to be. Among the liberal members of Par- liament Dr. Franklin had a large number of friends, with whom, * Works and correspondence of the Eight Hon. Edmund Burke, iii., 87. 470 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1766. as we know, he had many times conversed upon all the subjects in dispute between the colonies and the ministry. These gentlemen, knowing precisely what Franklin had to offer on every topic, kept proposing to him the very questions which they were aware would bring him out in his greatest force. All their leading questions, moreover, he expected, and was prepared for. The questions are, therefore, to be divided into two classes, those put by the opponents of the Stamp Act, and those proposed by its advocates. The object of one party was to give the American philosopher the best op- portunity to serve his cause ; the object of the other, to puzzle, en- trap, and confound him. One set of questions enabled him to dis- play his knowledge, and the other set his acuteness. The first thirteen questions, all proposed by two of Dr. Franklin's friends, were designed to elicit certain facts, generally unknown in England, which being known the whole argument for the Stamp Act was untenable. These facts were, first, that the colonies were then struggling under a load of debt and taxation caused by the very war which it was alleged Britain had waged solely for their defense and aggrandizement ; and, secondly, that the enforcement of the Stamp Act, owing to the vast extent of the country, the thin- ness of the population, and the poverty of the frontier inhabitants, was impossible. A man in the back country, said Franklin, who happened to want a stamp for a deed or a receipt, would have to take a month's journey to get it, " spending perhaps three or four pounds that the crown might get sixpence." When these points had been brought out with the utmost clear- ness (Franklin citing his knowledge of the country gained by his connection with the post-office), the concerted game between him- self and his friends was stopped for a moment by three questions from an adversary. Are not the colonies able to pay the stamp duty? asked this gentleman. Their mere ability could not be denied, and the question was, therefore, answered thus: "In my opinion, there is not gold and silver enough in the colonies to pay the stamp duty for one year." This ingenious evasion did not throw the enemy off the scent. "Don't you know," continued the member, " that all the money arising from the stamps is to be laid out in America ?" True, replied the witness, but it is to be spent in the conquered colonies, in Canada, where the soldiers are ; not in the colonies that pay it. The member then asked if there was AGED 60.] THE STAMP ACT REPEALED. 47 1 not a balance of trade against Canada that would bring the money back to the old colonies. Franklin thought not. The money, he said, would go to England for goods, as colonial money was only too apt to do. At this point the enemy desisted, and a friend of Dr. Franklin succeeded in getting in nine questions, which drew from the witness a statement of the population and resources of the colonies, designed to show the folly of estranging them. He told Parliament, that Korth America contained three hundred thousand men capable of taking the field, and that the colonies imported every year from Great Britain five hundred thousand pounds' worth of goods. This information was brought out with great force. The friendly questioner then tried to get Dr. Franklin to repeat before the High Court of Parliament a little joke with which he had amused a tory member a few days before. They were talking over the various plans that had been suggested for making the Stamp Act palatable to the Americans. The tory, who was a most strenuous advocate of the Stamp Act, told Dr. Franklin that if he would but assist the ministry a little the act could easily be amended so as to make it, at least, tolerable to the colonists. " I must confess," the doctor gravely replied, " I have thought of one amendment. K you will make it, the act may remain, and yet the Americans will be quieted. It is a very small amendment too; it is only the change of a single word." The tory was all attention. " It is in that clause," continued Franklin, " where it is said that ' from and after the first day of November, one thousand seven hundred and sixty-five, there shall be paid, etc' The amendment I would propose is for one, read tico^ and then all the rest of the act may stand as it does." The examining member endeavored to bring out this piece of nonsense by asking the witness whether he could not propose "a small amendment" that would make the act acceptable. The witness, however, evaded the question, and ex- plained afterwards, that he thought the answer expected of him " too light and ludicrous for the House." Mr. George Grenville, the proposer of the Stamp Act, now re- curred to his fixed idea. " Do you think it right," he asked, " that America should be protected by this country and pay no part of the expense ?" To this Franklin replied, that the colonies during the last war had raised, clothed, and sent to the field twenty-five 4Y2 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1766. thousand men, and spent millions of pounds. " Were you not re- imbursed by Parliament ?" asked Grenville. Franklin explained, that the colonies were reimbursed only to the amount which Par- liament thought they had exceeded their just proportion of the ex- pense! Pennsylvania, for example, had expended five hundred thousand pounds, and received back sixty thousand. The advocates of the Act continued the examination. One asked if the Americans would pay the Stamp Act if the rate of duty was reduced. " No," replied the American ; " never^ unless compelled by force of arms." Another asked : Does not the Assembly of Pennsylvania, the majority of whom are land owners, lay the taxes so as to impose the heaviest burden upon trade, and spare the land? Franklin's reply to this was very ingenious and Adam- Smithian : " If unequal burdens are laid on trade, the tradesman puts an additional price on his goods ; and the consumers, who are chiefly land owners, finally pay the greatest part, if not the whole." Besides this, he denied that the Assembly did impose unequal bur- dens. The enemy plied him with a dozen questions more, but ex- tracted small comfort from him. Then his friends had an inning, and gave him several opportu- nities, which he improved in the most telling manner. Nothing that he said produced such an impression, either in the House or out of doors, as his next few rephes. " What," asked a friendly member, " was the temper of America towards Great Britain be- fore the year 1763 ?" ^'The best in the world," said the witness. " They submitted willingly to the government of the crown, and paid in their courts obedience to acts of Parliament. Numerous as the people are in the several old provinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons, or armies, to keep them in subjection. They were governed by this country at the expense only of a little pen, ink, and paper : they were led by a thread. They had not only a respect, but an affection for Great Britain ; for its laws, its cus- toms, and manners ; and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard ; to be an Old England man was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us." " What is their temper now ?" asked the same friend. " O, very much altered," was the reply. "In what light," continued the friendly member, "did the people of America use to consider the AGED 60.] THE STAMP ACT REPEAT.ED. 473 Parliament of Great Britain ?" Franklin replied : " They considered the Parliament as the great bulwark and security of their liberties and privileges, and always spoke of it with the utmost respect and veneration. Arbitrary ministers, they thought, might possibly, at times, attempt to oppress them ; but they relied on it that the Par- liament, on application, would always give redress." He added, in reply to another question, that this feeling was greatly lessened by the recent measures. The Stamp Act men then asked several questions, which were in- tended to draw forth an admission that the colonies were abundant- ly able to pay an additional tax. One question was, why the people in America increased faster than the Enghsh at home. "Be- cause they marry younger, and because more of them marry," re- plied this unrelenting political economist. Why so ? " Because any young couple, if they are industrious, can get land and support a fVimily." Then are not the lower ranks of peopl^ more at their ease in America than in England ? " They may be so if they are sober and diligent, as they are better paid for their labor." How would the Americans receive a future tax, imposed on the same principle as the Stamp Act ? " Just as they do the Stamp Act ; they would not pay it^"* The friends of the act then tried to corner the acute American, by asking him whether, in case an Assembly should refuse to vote the supplies necessary to the support of colonial government, Parlia- ment would not be justified in taxing the people. He thought not ; for, " if an Assembly could possibly be so absurd," the disorders that would arise in the province would soon bring them to reason. But, persisted the questioner, suppose they should not, ought there not to be a remedy in the power of the home government ? Frank- lin said he would not object to the interference of Parliament in such a case, provided its interference was merely for the good of the people. " But who is the judge of that, Britain or the colony ?" This was rather a home thrust. The witness parried it thus : '* Those that feel can best judge." The tory members affected to be incapable of perceiving any dif- ference in principle between the duties laid upon imports from for- eign countries, which the colonists paid without a murmur, and the Stamp Act, which with one voice they resisted. "The difference is very great," said Dr. Franklin ; " the duty is added to the first cost 474 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1766. and other charges on the commodity, and, when it is offered for sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do not like it at that price, they refuse it ; they are not obliged to pay it. But an inter- 7ialtiix is forced from the people without their consent, if not laid by their own representatives." "But," asked a member, "suppos- ing the external tax to be laid on the necessaries of life ?" Franklin astonished Parliament by replying, that the colonists imported no article which they could not dispense with or supply the place of. Cloth ? asked one. " Yes, they could make all their cloth." But would it not take long to establish the manufacture ? " Before their old clothes are worn out, they will have new ones of their own making." But is there wool enough in America ? " The people have taken measures to increase their supply of wool. They combined to eat no lamb last year, and very few lambs were killed. In three years we shall have wool in abundance." But is not the American wool very inferior in quality, a kind of hair merely? " No ; it is very fine and good." A liberal member asked whether any thing less than a military force could carry the Stamp Act into execution. Franklin said that a military force could not do it. " Suppose," said he, " a military force sent into America, they will find nobody in arms ; what are they then to do ? They cannot force a man to take stamps who chooses to do without them. They will not find a rebellion : they may indeed make one." " If the act is not repealed," asked one of Dr. Franklin's particular friends, " what do you think will be the consequence?" He replied: " A total loss of the respect and af- fection the people of America bear to this country, and of all the commerce that depends on that respect and afiection." How can the commerce be afiected ? " The goods," said Franklin, " which the Americans take from Britain are either necessaries, mere con- veniences, or superfluities. The first, as cloth, w^ith a little industry they can make at home ; the second they can do without till they are able to provide them among themselves ; and the last, which are much the greatest part, they will strike off" immediately. They are mere articles of fashion, purchased and consumed because the fashion in a respected country ; but will now be detested and re- jected. The people have already struck off, by general agreement, the use of all goods fashionable in mournings, and many thousand pounds' worth are sent back as unsalable." AGED 60.] THE STAMP ACT REPEALED. 475 Mr. Grenville returned to the charge. He asked whether ^os^- age^ to which the Americans did not object, was not a tax. No, replied the deputy postmaster-general; it is payment for service rendered ; nor is it even compulsory, since no man is obliged by law to employ the post-office. Having thus displayed his incapa- city, Mr. Grenville next proceeded to exhibit his ignorance. *'Do not the Americans," he asked, " consider the regulations of the post-office, by the act of last year, as a tax ?" Franklin informed him that the act of last year redticed the rate of postage thirty per cent, throughout America ; which abatement, he added, the Amer- icans certainly did not regard in the light of a tax. Mr. Grenville was silent for a while. In reply to other tory questioners. Dr. Franklin gave another point of diffiirence between an external and an internal tax. " The sea is yours," he said ; " you maintain, by your fleets, the safety of navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates : you may have, there- fore, a natural and equitable right to some toll or duty on mer- chandise carried through that, part of your dominions, towards defraying the expense you are at in ships to maintain the safety of that carriage." To the questions of friends he gave answer after answer, demonstrating the impossibility of enforcing the odious act in America. When asked if the colonists would prefer to forego the collection of debts by legal process rather than use stamped paper, he replied : "I can only judge what other people will think and how they will act by what I feel within myself. I have a great many debts due to me in America, and I had rather they should re- main unrecoverable by any law, than submit to the Stamp Act. They will be debts of honor." The leading advocates of the Stamp Act tried by a variety of questions to extort from Dr. Franklin an intimation, that, in case the act were repealed, the colonists would not object to pay a small internal tax, imposed merely to assert the right to tax. The tory members would not understand that the opposition to the Stamp Act was an opposition to the principle involved in it. They kept insinuating that it was merely a mean begrudging of the sixpence. They supposed that if the amount of the tax were reduced, the warmth of the opposition would be abated. To one of the ques- tions founded upon this opinion. Dr. Franklin made a reply that was long enough for a speech. Reviewing the history of the two 476 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1766 French wars, he showed that the colonies, so far from being parsi- monious, had lavished both men and treasure in aiding the Home Government to execute its projects. They had done far more than their part. They had involved themselves so deeply, that twenty years of peace and prosperity would be necessary to set them free from debt. He quoted from a king's speech in which the zeal and liberahty of the colonists had been handsomely acknowledged. He reminded Parliament that the wars of which the colonies had borne the burden and suffered the calamities, had not been waged chiefly for their own sake ; it was for the honor and advancement of the British empire that they had spent their substance and shed their blood. And all they had done for their country, they had done with eager willingness, and asked no reward but the appro- bation of their king and of that House. When he had finished this long harangue, a friend asked him whether the colonies would help the mother country in a war purely European. This question gave him an opportunity to ex- patiate further on the same theme. He answered that they would do so beyond question. They considered themselves part of the British empire. Its honor was thejr honor ; its welfare their wel- fare. He took occasion, also, to show that such expeditions as that of General Braddock were not a benefit to the colonies ; for it was not until Braddock had been defeated that the Indians had been troublesome. To show the willingness of the colonies to grant money to the crown, he said he had been specially instructed to assure the ministry that they were ready to vote all the aid they could afford whenever their aid was solicited in a constitutional manner. The Stamp Act members appeared still to find great difficulty in discerning the difference between an external and an internal tax, and seemed to think that, to be consistent, the Americans ought to object equally to both. Dr. Franklin gave an exquisite reply to one who insinuated such an opinion. '* Many arguments," said he, " have been used to show the Americans that there is no difference between an internal and an external tax." " At present, they do not reason so ; but in time, they may possibly be convinced by these arguments." A rattling fire of short questions and answers brought to a con- clusion this long Examination. A friend asked at length, " What AGED 60.] THE STAMP ACT EEPEALED. 477 used to be the pride of the Americans ?" " To indulge," said the witness, "in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain." " What is now their pride ?" " To wear their old clothes over -again, till they can make new ones." Dr. Franklin withdrew, and the committee rose. The next day, as Dr. Franklin records, one of the tory members made a violent Fpeech upon the Examination, in the course of which he said: " We have often experienced Austrian ingratitude, and yet we as- sisted Portugal ; we experienced Portuguese ingratitude, and yet we assisted America. But what is Austrian ingratitude, what is the ingratitude of Portugal, compared to this of America ? We have fought, bled, and ruined ourselves, to conquer for them ; and now they come and tell us to our noses, even at the bar of this House, that they were not obliged to us." His clamor, remarks Franklin, was " very little minded." The Examination, indeed, was almost unanimously approved, for even tories could scarcely censure a man for so ably pleading the cause of his country. " The ministry," says Franklin, " were ready to hug me for the assistance I had given them." Burke said the scene always reminded him of a master examined by a parcel of school-boys. Dr. Fothergill, who was present, wrote to a friend in Philadelphia: "He gave such distinct, clear, and satisfactory answers to every interrogatory, and besides spoke his sentiments on the subject with such perspicuity and firmness, as did him the highest honor, and was of the greatest service to the American cause." Franklin's old friend. Rev. George Whitefield, wrote: " Our worthy friend. Dr. Franklin, has gained immortal honor by his behavior at the bar of the House. The answer was always found equal if not superior to the questioner. He stood unappalled, gave pleasure to his friends, and did honor to his country." An imperfect outline of the Examination soon found its way into American newspapers, and made the name of Franklin dear to every patriotic heart. It is pleasing to observe some of the most ravenous of the proprietary party in Philadelphia congratulating one another, that their opposition to Dr. FrankHn's appointment as agent, had been "providentially defeated." But let us not omit to notice that, in this matter of the Stamp Act, the philosopher was impelled and inspired by the people. In May, 1705, Dr. Franklin contemplated submission — would have 478 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRAXKLIX. [1766. advised submission. In February, 1766, he told Parliament that he preferred to lose his debts rather than give a receipt for them on stamped paper. Democrats will know how to draw the proper inference, and also how to limit it properly. A few days after the Examination of Dr. Franklin, the great question was decided, amid an excitement both within and without the House that has seldom been equaled. The king and court w^ere known to be set against Repeal, and the king permitted the fact to be so plainly made known to the leaders of the opposition in both Houses, that the Marquis of Rockingham remonstrated in the royal closet against the unconstitutional procedure. The debates, splendid as they were (Pitt rivaling his old renown, and Burke win- ning the great Commoner's public applause), have perished, except a few brilliant fragments. To the end of his life, Mr. Burke looked upon those days of his dawning glory with peculiar fondness and pride. So far as the conduct of Parliament toward the colonies was concerned, this was the lucid week in twenty years of madness. In one of his later speeches, delivered when he had ceased to hope that England would ever be just to America, Mr. Burke described in his noblest flight of narrative the closing night of the Stamp Act Debate in the House of Commons. " The question of the Repeal," said he, " was brought on by the ministry in the very instant when it was known that more than one court negotiation was carrying on with the heads of the opposition. Every thing upon every side was full of traps and mines. Earth below shook ; heaven above menaced ; all the elements of minis- terial safety were dissolved. It was in the midst of this chaos of plots and counter-plots ; it was in the midst of this compHcated warfare against public opposition and private treachery, that the firmness of that noble person (the Marquis of Rockingham) w^as put to the proof. He never stirred from his ground ; no, not an inch. He remained fixed and determined in principle, in measure, and in conduct. He practiced no managements. He secured no retreat. He sought no apology." The orator then broke into an eulogium of General Conway, who, as leader of the House, moved the Repeal : " He acted his part with alacrity and resolution. We all felt inspired by the ex- ample he gave us, down even to myself, the weakest in that phalanx. I declare, for one, I knew well enough (it could not be AGED 60.] THE STAMP ACT REPEALED. 479 concealed from anybody) the true state of things ; but in my life I never came with so much spirits into this House. It was a time for a man to act in. We had powerful enemies, but we had faithful and determined friends, and a glorious cause. We had a great battle to fight, but we had the means of fighting ; not as now, when our arms are tied behind us. We did fight that day, and conquered. " I remember with a melancholy pleasure the situation of the hon- orable gentleman who made the motion for the repeal : in that crisis when the whole trading interest of this empire, crammed into your lobbies, with a trembling and anxious expectation waited, almost to a winter's return of light, their fate from your resolutions. When, at length, you had determined in their favor, and your doors thrown open, shoAved them the figure of their deliverer in the well- earned triumph of his important victory, from the whole of that grave multitude there arose an involuntary burst of gratitude and trans- port. They jumped upon him like cliildren on a long- absent father. They clung about him as captives about their redeemer. All Eng- land, all America joined to his applause. Nor did he seem insen- sible to the best of all earthly rewards, the love and admiration of his fellow-citizens. Hope elevated and joy brightened his crest. . I stood near him, and his face, to use the expression of the Scrip- ture of the first martyr, his face was as if it had been the face of an angel. I do not know how others feel, but if I had stood in that situation, I never would have exchanged it for all that kings in their profusion could bestow."* Horace Walpole's matter-of-fact and cynical memoirs furnish a passage that completes Mr. Burke's fervid and generous narration : " Though Lord Rockingham, with childish arrogance and indis- cretion, vaunted in the palace itself that he carried the repeal against the king, queen, princess dowager, Duke of York, Lord Bute, the Tories, the Scotch, and the Opposition (and it was true he had), yet in reality it was the clamor of trade, of the merchants, and of the manufacturing towns, that had borne down all oppo- sition. A general insurrection was apprehended as the imme- diate consequence of upholding the bill : the revolt of America, and the destruction of trade, was the prospect in future. A nod * Burke's Speech on American Taxation, 1774. — Works and Correspondence^ iii., 208. 480 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [17G6. from the ministers would have let loose all the manufacturers of Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, and such populous and discontented towns, who threatened to send hosts to Westminster to back their demand of repeal. As it was, the lobby of the House, the Court of Requests, and the avenues w^ere beset with American merchants. As Mr. Conway went away, they huzzaed him thrice, stopped him to tliank and compliment him, and made a lane for his passage. When Mr. Pitt appeared, the whole crowd pulled off their hats, huzzaed, and many followed his chair home with shouts and benedictions. The scene changed on the sight of Grenville. The crowd pressed on him with scorn and hisses. He, swelling with rage and mortification, seized the nearest man to him by the collar. Providentially, the fel- low had more humor than spleen. ' Well, if I may not hiss,' said he, Sat least I may laugh,' and laughed in his face. The jest caught. Had the fellow been surly and resisted, a tragedy had possibly ensued."* Mr. Grenville was a diarist also. On reaching home on that important morning, he made this entry in his journal : " Friday, February 21st, 1766. The Repeal of the Stamp Act was moved by Mr. Conway, and seconded by Mr. Grey Cooper. The House sat till four in the morning. The question for the Repeal was car- ried by a majority of 108 voices."f Not a word more. Franklin's joy at the Repeal was deep and fervent, but he has- tened to write to friends in Boston and Philadelphia, cautioning them to express their gladness in such a way that the enemies of America might derive neither aid nor comfort from it. For his own part, he celebrated the joyful event by sending his wife a new gown. " As the Stamp Act," he wrote to her, " is at length re- pealed, I am willing you should have a new gown, which you may suppose I did not send sooner, as I knew you would not like to be finer than your neighbors, unless in a gown of your own spinning. Had the trade between the two countries totally ceased, it was a comfort to me to recollect, that I had once been clothed, from head to foot, in woolen and linen of my wife's manufacture, that I never was prouder of any dress in my life, and that she and her daughter might do it again, if it was necessary. I told the Parliament that it was my opinion, before the old clothes of the Americans were * " Memoirs of the Eeign of George III.," by Horace Walpole, 1., t Grenville Papers, iii., 373. AGED 60.J THE STAMP ACT REPEALED. 481 worn out, they might have new ones of their own making. I have sent you a fine piece of Pompadour satin, fourteen yards, cost eleven shillings a yard ; a silk negligee and petticoat of brocaded lutestring, for my dear Sally, with two dozen gloves, four bottles of lavender water, and two little reels. The reels are to screw on the edge of the table, when she would wind silk or thread." He now asked permission of the Assembly to return home ; and, while waiting their reply, made the tour of Hanover and Holland. The only answer the Assembly made to his request, was to elect him agent for another year. Meanwhile the news of the Repeal had filled America with de- light. ]^ever did any other people so abandon themselves to rap- turous exultation, as the colonists on this occasion. In Boston, the very debtors were brought out of jail, that there might, at such a moment, be no one unhappy in the town. When the glad tidings reached Philadelphia, the frequenters of the principal coffee-house sent for the captain of the ship to make one of their company, pre- sented him with a gold-laced hat, and gave presents to every man and boy of his crew. They kept a punch-bowl replenished all day, free to every one who would drink the health of the king. At night the city was illuminated, and the people were regaled with unlimited beer. " I never heard so much noise in my life," wrote Sally Frankhn to her * honored papa' ; " the very children seemed distracted." The next day Governor Penn and the Mayor enter- tained three hundred gentlemen at the State-house, who drank the health of Dr. Franklin, with all the honors, and resolved to clothe themselves, on the next birthday of the king, in complete suits of English manufacture, and give their homespun to the poor. On the birthday there was a grand banquet in a grove on the banks of the Schuylkill, and a procession, of which the sublime feature was a barge, forty feet long, named Franklin, from which salutes were fired, as it passed along the streets.* One of Franklin's nieces wrote to him that a good lady of their acquaintance, who was lying at the point of death, just before the good news arrived, had ex- pressed a longing desire to hear from England before she died, that she might carry the news of the Repeal to her father, who, in his life, had been " a good old whig." * Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," ii., 270. 21 432 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1*766. At the October election in Philadelphia, the " old ticket" was once more triumphant, and that, too, in the absence of its chief. Chance has preserved a little note, dashed off" by Sally Franklin, to her brother, the Governor of New Jersey, dated October 3d, I'zee : " Dear Brother : — ' The Old Ticket forever ! We have it by 34 votes ! God bless our icorthy and noble agent ^ and all his family P were the joyful words we were waked with at 2 or 3 o'clock this morning, by the White Oaks. They then gave us three huzzas and a blessing, then marched off. How strong is the cause of truth ! We have beat three parties : the Proprietary, the Presbyterians, and the Half-and-Half. As we knew you would be glad to hear, mamma has sent George, and Mr. Wharton will write also."* Dr. Franklin was too modest a man not to enjoy, and keenly too, his complete reinstatement in the good-will of his countrymen. Amid the applause that rushed upon him like a torrent, there was a long letter from his sister, Mrs. Mecom, who told him that his " Answers were thought, by the best judges, to exceed all that had been wrote on the subject, and being given in the manner they were, they were a proof that they proceeded from principle, and suf- ficient to stop the mouths of all gainsay ers." The good lady had a favor to ask of her generous brother : " It is to procure me some fine old linen or cambric (as a very old shirt or cambric handker- chief), dyed into bright colors, such as red and green, a little blue, but chiefly red ; for, with all my own art, and good old Uncle Ben- jamin's memorandums, I can't make them good colors ; and my daughter Jenny, with a little of my assistance, has taken to making flowers for the ladies' heads and bosoms, with pretty good accept- ance ; and if I can procure those colors, I am in hopes we shall get something by it worth our pains, if we live till spring." Indorsed on the back of this letter, in the hand- writing of Dr. Franklin, are these words: "Sister Mecom, Nov. 8, 1766. Answered by Cap- tain Freeman, and sent a box of millinery."f * Letters to Franklin, p. 191. t Idem, p. 81. AGED 60.] REACTION AFTER THE REPEAL. 483 CHAPTER III. REACTION AFTER THE REPEAL. Moralists do not usually warn mankind of the danger of being too good. Nevertheless, history shows us, that bodies of men, in- fluenced by extraordinary eloquence or peculiar circumstances, may perform actions more virtuous than they are capable of sustaining, and consequently repent of their noblest deeds. Polonius might have added to the other admonitions bestowed upon the departing Laertes a caution not to attempt a flight of magnanimity beyond his strength, lest he should afterwards droop, fatigued, below his natural and proper elevation. In repealing the Stamp Act, the government of Great Britain, under the combined influence of Franklin's array of facts, Burke's new eloquence, Rockingham's great parliamentary connection, the mighty name of Pitt, the distress of trade, and the clamor of tlie people, had been brought to do a deed in advance of its intelli- gence and opposed to its instincts. " If I had been prime minis- ter," said Dr. Johnson to Bishop White,, of Pennsylvania, " during the recent controversy respecting the Stamp Act, I would have sent a ship-of-war and leveled one of your principal cities to the ground."* Then spoke all that was narrow, bigoted, and brutal in upper England. George Grenville, too, was America-mad, after the Repeal. " He behaves," wrote Franklin, " as if a little out of his head on the article of America, which he brings into every debate without rhyme or reason, when the matter has not the least connection with it." The violence of a fallen minister Avould have merely fatigued and emptied an un corrupt House of Commons. The House of Com- mons was not uncorrupt. It was known, nay, it was industriously whispered about that the king felt himself personally aggrieved by the Repeal. To pro- pitiate the king and court, the Declaratory Act, as it was called, bad been announced a few days before the Repeal; w^hich act merely delared the absolute supremacy of Parliament over the colo- * Wilson's " Life of Bishop White," p. 89. 484 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIlf FRANKLIN. [l766. nies. This, it was supposed, was necessary to secure the consent of the king and the king's friends to the greater measure that was to follow. But even with this sugaring the pill was bitter in the extreme to the court party, and thirty-three lords joined in protest- ing against its passage. Nevertheless, it passed in the lords by a majority of thirty-four, and the king felt himself compelled to affix his signature. George III. was so constituted, and had been so educated, that nothing so deeply offended him as to be obliged, for constitutional reasons, to assent to a measure of which he disap- proved. George III. sat upon a constitutional throne, but he had an unconstitutional mind. He entertained the erroneous opinion, that the government of Great Britain was a limited monarchy, instead of a Hmited democracy. He could not bring himself to be the Splendid Nothing which an hereditary, constitutional sovereign must be ; his only business in the state being to keep the Supreme Honor out of competition ; or, as we should say, to save the enor- mous cost, in money and morals, of presidential elections. At that day, the king of England had vast means of corrupting members of Parliament. A large proportion of both Houses appear to have been expectants of good things which were not to be had unless with the king's consent. A member of the House of Com- mons is reported to have once praised with enthusiasm a speech from one of the party opposed to his own. " Beautiful, beautiful," he exclaimed ; " it absolutely brought the tears into my eyes." " But," said a bystander, " your vote was against the speaker's bill." " My vote ! Oh, yes ; feelings are feelings ; but my vote ! that's quite another matter !" The published papers and corre- spondence of that period throw abundant light upon the meaning of this honorable member. For example : among the papers of Mr. George Grenville were found, not only lists of the sums of money given to members of parliament, but the following brief, significant epistle from Lord Say and Sele, dated in 1763 : " Honored Sir : — I am very much obliged to you for that free- dom of converse you this morning indulged me in, which I prize more than the lucrative advantage I then received. To show the sincerity of my words (pardon, sir, the perhaps over niceness of my disposition), I return inclosed the bill for £300 you favored me with, as good manners would not permit my refusal of it when tendered by you. Yours, etc., Say and Sele. — ^P. S. As a free AGED 60.] REACTION AFTER THE REPEAL. 485 horse wants no spur, so I stand in need of no inducement or dou- ceur to lend my small assistance to the king or his friends in the present administration."* It was probably the astonishing and unique circumstance of the refusal of the bribe that induced the minister to preserve this note, Sir James Mackintosh remarks, in commenting upon one of Plunk- ett's speeches : " It is, I believe, the only speech which is certainly known to have determined the votes of several individuals." And Lord Erskine declared, that nothing but the corruption of Parlia- ment could have neutralized the effect of Burke's immortal orations in behalf of America. We have testimony upon this subject much more explicit and exact in the Memoirs of Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who sat in Parlia- ment during a great part of the period when America was the con- stant topic of debate. Few works have been more bitterly attacked than this. Its faults are obvious enough ; but the general trust- worthiness of the narrative every subsequent publication of letters and papers of the period has strikingly confirmed. Wraxall derived his curious knowledge of the systematic corruption of Parliament from the men who were the medium of corruption. One of these persons, a member of Parliament named Roberts, who was the par- liamentary paymaster under the Pelham administration, gave this testimony toward the close of his life : " Roberts," says Wraxall, " avowed without reserve, that while he remained at the treasury, there were a number of members who regularly received from him their payment or stipend, at the end of every session, in bank notes. The sums, which varied according to the merits, ability, and attendance of the respective individuals, amounted usually from five hundred pounds to eight hundred pounds per annum. ' This largess I distributed,' added Roberts, ' in the Court of Requests, on the day of the prorogation of ParHa- ment. I took my stand there ; and as the gentlemen passed me, in going to, or returning from the House, I conveyed the money in a squeeze of the hand. Whatever person received the ministerial bounty in the manner thus related, I entered his name in a book, which was preserved in the deepest secrecy; it being never in- spected by any human being, except the king and Mr. Pelham. * Grenyille Papers, iii., 145. 486 LIFE A^D TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1*766. On the decease of that minister in 1754, his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, and others of the cabinet, who succeeded to power, anxious to obtain an accurate knowledge of the private state of the House of Commons, and par- ticularly to ascertain the names of all the individuals who received money during Mr. Pelham's life, applied to me for information. They farther demanded of me to surrender the book, in which, as they knew, I was accustomed to enter the above particulars. Con- ceiving a compliance to be dishonorable, I peremptorily refused to deliver it up, except by the king's express command, and to his majesty in person. In consequence of my refusal, they acquainted the king wdth the circumstance, who sent for me to St. James's, where I was introduced into the closet, more than one of the above-mentioned ministers being present. George the Second ordered me to return him the book in question, with which injunc- tion I immediately complied. At the same time taking the poker in his hand, he put it into the fire, made it red hot, and then, w^hile we stood round him, he thrust the book into the flames, where it was immediately reduced to ashes.' " The Duke of Newcastle, though he did not get the book, kept a similar one of his own. Under Lord Bute, in 1763, the corrupter- general was Ross Mackay, who, in 1790, imparted to Wraxall pre- cise information of his proceedings. " Lord Besborough having called after dinner for a bottle of ex- cellent champagne, a wine to w^hich Mackay was partial, and the conversation accidentally turning on the means of governing the House of Commons, Mackay said that 'Money formed, after all, the only effectual and certain method.' 'The peace of 1763,' con- tinued he, ' was carried through and approved by a jDecuniary dis- tribution. Nothing else could have surmounted the difficulty. I was myself the channel through which the money passed. With my own hand I secured above one hundred and twenty votes on that most important question to ministers. Eighty thousand pounds were set apart for the purpose. Forty members of the House of Commons received from me a thousand pounds each. To eighty others I paid five hundred pounds apiece.' Mackay afterwards confirmed more than once this fact to the gentleman above-mentioned, who related it to me. What attestation so strong of the truth of this anecdote can be produced as the testimony of AGED 60.] REACTION AFTER THE REPEAL. 487 the late Bishop of Llandaff! He expressly informs us, in the 'Anecdotes' of his life, just published, that the Earl of Shelburne, then first minister, assured him on the lYth of February, 1783, that Mie,' Lord Shelburne, 'well knew, that above sixty thousand pounds had been expended (among the members of the House of Commons), in procuring an approbation of the peace of 1763.'" Wraxall further shows, that the Duke -of Grafton and Lord North both employed the same means of securing majorities. Tow- ard the end of Lord North's administration, he thinks the system had become more " refined," the bribes having assumed the form of contracts, jobs, shares of loans, and lottery tickets ; by which, adds the author, he kept his majority, little diminished, to the end of the American revolution. "Lord North," he says, "was sup- posed to command full one hundred and seventy votes at his abso- lute disposal, who were prepared to vote with him upon every question." Paid members of Parliament would naturally be the stipendiaries of the minister, rather than of the king. But, unhappily, as we have intimated, George HL was bent upon aboHshing the distinc- tion between king and minister. The flatterers of his unstudious youth had not imparted to him the notion of being a constitutional king. Such a king, they truly told him, was "a king in shackles." No king at all, an ornamental figure-head ; the minister being the real captain of the ship. This idea it was over which the unhappy monarch brooded, and which his creatures would never let him forget. " If your majesty consents, you are ' a king in shackles,' " seems to have been their famihar mode of setting him against a measure. He was jealous of his own ministers ; he changed them frequently ; he kept the government and kingdom in a perpetual broil. Few men in history present so many non-essential dissimilar- ities of character as Andi-ew Jackson and George HI. ; but botli agree in this : they strove to conduct a constitutional governnient on despotic principles. The result in both cases was confusion, corruption, and disaster. In the first ten years of the reign of George III. there was a change of ministers about as often as once in a year and a half, and it was said at the time, a thousand removals from places in the gift of ministers. This is but one of many point s of resemblance between the systems of Jackson and George III. The final catastrophe, too, was similar in both cases. From the 488 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l767. fourth of March, 1829, until the fourth of March, 1861, with short intervals of partial interruption, Andrew Jackson ruled the govern- ment of the United States ; and as twenty-five years of George III. lost England her colonies, so thirty years of Jackson brought the United States to the slaveholders' rebellion. The most terrible combination in the universe is power, ignorance, will, and good in- tentions. Both of these men loved their country, and both did all that men could do to ruin it. Besides the vulgar corruption of Parliament, the king, we repeat, had various things to bestow upon those who pleased, and to with- hold from those who crossed him, which many of the ruling classes sought as the only objects of desire left to their pursuit. Ribbons, garters, places, and favor for themselves ; livings, deaneries, bishop- rics, pensions, employment, commissions, promotion, for their rela- tions, proteges, and dependents. These things corrupted men whom bank notes could not reach. " I know the map of England," said Burke once, in the House of Commons, "and I know that the way I take is not the road to preferment ;" glancing, as he spoke, at men young in years, but old in office, who had gained from subserviency to the king, what devotion to country and constitution could not hope to win. Four months after the Repeal, court influence ousted the Rock- ingham cabinet, and brought in that ministry which is noted as being the last to which Lord Chatham belonged. This was that ad- ministration which Burke afterwards described as being " so check- ered and speckled, so put together a piece of joinery, so crossly in- dented and whimsically dovetailed ; a cabinet so variously inlaid ; such a piece of diversified mosaic; such a tesselated pavement without cement ; here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white ; patriots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans ; whigs and tories ; treacherous friends and open enemies ; that it was indeed a very curious show ; but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand on." " When the face of the chief," adds Mr. Burke, " was hidden but for a moment, his whole system was liable to be set aside." Often and long was the face of Lord Chatham hidden from his colleagues. He was a martyr to the gout. During his periods of seclusion, meas- ures were introduced and carried, the most diametrically opposed to the principles with which his name was identified. One year AGED 61.] EEACTION AFTER THE REPEAL. 489 after the repeal of the Stamp Act, Mr. Charles Townsend, the witty and unstable Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom Burke styled " the delight and ornament of the House of Commons," and Hume, " the cleverest fellow in England," renewed the attempt to raise an American revenue. Inimitably has Burke sketched the man and his schemes. Townsend, in 1765, had been an advocate of the Stamp Act, and in 1766, trimming his sails to the prevailing wind, had taken a leading part in its repeal. " The very next session," says Mr. Burke, in one of his most cel- ebrated passages, " as the fashion of this world passeth away, the repeal began to be in as bad an odor in this House as the Stamp Act had been in the session before. To conform to the temper which began to prevail, and to prevail most amongst those most in power, he declared, very early in the winter, that a revenue must he had out of America. Instantly he was tied down to his engagements by some who had no objection to such experiments when made at the cost of persons for whom they had no particular regard. The whole body of courtiers drove him onward. They always talked as if the king stood in a sort of humiliated state until so7nething of the kind should be done, " Here this extraordinary man found himself in great straits. To please universally was the object of his life; but to tax and to please, no more than to love and be wise, is not given to men. However, he attempted it. To render the tax palatable to the par- tisans of American revenue, he made a preamble, stating the neces- sity of such a revenue. To close with the American distinction, this revenue was external or port duty ; but again, to soften it to the other party, it was a duty of supply. To gratify the colonists, it was laid on British manufactures ; to satisfy the merchants of JBritain, the duty was trivial, and (except that on tea, which touch- ed only the devoted East India Company) on none of the grand objects of commerce. To counterwork the American contraband, the duty on tea was reduced from a shilling to threepence. But to secure the favor of those who would tax America, the scene of col- lection was changed, and, with the rest, it was levied in the colo- nies. What need I say more ? This fine-spun scheme had the usual fate of all exquisite policy. But the original plan of the du- ties, and the mode of executing that plan, both arose singly and solely from a love of our applause. He was truly the child of the 21* 490 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l767. House. He never thought, did, or said any thing but with a view to you. He every day adapted himself to your disposition ; and adjusted himself before it, as at a looking-glass." It thus appears, that while the freak of a parliamentary pet was the immediate occasion of the renewal of this bitter and fatal strife, the influence of the king and the king's patronage was the true source of the mischief. The proposed duties on paper, paints, glass and tea, being designed to produce only forty thousand pounds a year, observes Horace Walpole, were little considered and lightly How instantly the colonies resented this new attempt, and how resolutely they continued their opposition to it, every reader of Mr. Bancroft's complete and sympathetic narrative knows. They ob- jected to the new system in all its parts : to the duties themselves, to the new mode of collecting the duties, and particularly to the scheme of making the colonial governors and judges the mere crea- tures of the crown by appropriating part of the new revenues to the payment of their salaries. The news of the resistance in the colonies to Mr. Townsend's system appears to have roused in England resentment only. The court party insisted that these measures had nothing in common with the Stamp Act, except that they were designed to raise reve- nue. All the objections urged against the Stamp Act, they said, had been skillfully avoided in framing the new laws, and it was plain the Americans were resolved on resisting all authority, and obeying only such laws as chanced to be perfectly agreeable to all classes and conditions of men. An amusing scene in the House of Commons, which occurred soon after the tidings reached England of the new commotions in America, shows something of the temper of the Grenvillians. Franklin himself tells the story in one of his letters of 1767 : " Mr. Grenville had been raving against America as traitorous and rebellious, when Colonel Onslow, who has always been our firm friend, stood up and gravely said, that in reading the Roman history he found it was a custom among that wise and magnani- mous people, whenever the senate was informed of any discontent in the provinces, to send two or three of their body into the dis contented provinces, to inquire into the grievances complained of, and report to the senate, that mild measures might be used to AGED 61.] REACTION AFTER THE REPEAL. , 491 remedy what was amiss, before any severe steps were taken to en- force obedience. This example he thought worthy of our imitation in the present state of our colonies, for he did so far agree witli the honorable gentleman that spoke just before him, as to allow there was great discontents among them. He should therefore beg leave to move, that two or three members of Parliament be ap- pointed to go over to New England on this service. And that it might not be supposed he was for imposing burdens on others which he would not be willing to bear himself, he did at the same time declare his own willingness, if the House should think fit to appoint them, to go over thither with that honorable gentleman. Upon this there was a great laugh, which continued some time, and was rather increased by Mr. Grenville's asking, ' Will the gen- tleman engage that I shall be safe there ? Can I be assured that I shall be allowed to come back again to make the report?' As soon as the laugh was so far subsided as that Mr. Onslow could be heard again, he added, ' I cannot absolutely engage for the honor- able gentleman's safe return ; but, if he goes thither upon this ser- vice, I am strongly of the opinion the eve^it will contribute greatly to the future quiet of both countries.' On which the laugh was renewed and redoubled." Mr. Burke, in one of his letters to the Marquis of Rockingham, mentions that he had just sent a jockey to a racing friend in Vir- ginia, and adds, that George Grenville, if he could have helped it, would not have suffered even a jockey "to be entered outwards without bond and certificate ; or, at least, he would have had them stamped, or excised, or circumcised ; or something should be done to them to bear the burden of this poor, oppressed country, and relieve the landed interest."* Out of doors the clamor was loud against America, as the newspapers and pamphlets still testify. England has always un- derstood America too late. On this occasion, as on so many others, the majority of the people of England attributed to faction and avarice, conduct which, when truly informed, they applauded as just, spirited, and patriotic. * Works and Correspondence of Et Hon. Edmund Burke, 1., 215. 492 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1767. CHAPTER IV. OFFICIAL LABORS FROM l766 TO 1773. Dr. Franklin was late in penetrating the secret of English poli- tics ; he knew not the intellect of the king. Not till the middle of 1773 did he begin to suspect that the bad influence which prevented the adoption of the true colonial policy emanated from the royal closet. Fox knew this in 1775, and may have communicated it then to his friend Franklin, as he did, with ingenious audacity, to Parliament. All the world knows it now ; for by the publication of the papers, diaries, and correspondence of Grenville, Chatham, Bedford, Wilkes, Grafton, Walpole, North, and others, the first half of the reign of George III. has been laid open to the scrutiny of every one who subscribes to a library. Yet we are not to wonder that Dr. Franklin was long in finding it out. George III. was a gentleman. He was a brave, honest gen- tleman, a fond father, a faithful and tender husband ; abstemious, diligent, liberal; a bountiful and considerate friend. Unlike his predecessor, he encouraged the arts and science. He was the patron of Franklin's friend and countryman, Benjamin West. He had a nightly concert at Windsor Castle of Handel's music. He sought an interview with Johnson. He enabled Herschel to construct his great telescope. To the timorous Miss Burney he was, indeed, a most gracious king. Such acts and traits as these won the warm regard of Franklin, who constantly attended the court on birthdays and other occasions of ceremony, and to whom the king was personally kind. The queen's physician at this time was Sir John Pringle, who was one of Dr. Franklin's most intimate companions; and it is probable that he learned from Sir John how simply and naturally the royal family hved, and how attached to each other were the young king and queen, and how fond both were of their infant children. It must have delighted Franklin to hear of his king hunting twelve hours, and refreshing himself at the end of the hunt with a draught of barley water. Moreover, it had now become Franklin's opinion, that the king, not Parliament, was the tie which bound the colonies to the mother AGED 61.] OFFIClAIi LABOES FROM 1766 TO 1773. 493 country. England had its parliament ; Ireland had its parliament ; Scotland had had its parliament ; Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the other colonies had their parliaments ; but the king was king in England, Ireland, Scotland, and America ; and hence these countiies formed one empire. Canada and India were con- quered provinces, and were, therefore, ruled as the conqueror chose. The colonies, on the contrary, were parts of the empire, equal in honor, in law, in privilege, in every thing, to the mother country. And as Scotland had merged her parliament in the Parliament of Great Britain, so it were well if the American colonies should send representatives to the same body. But, as this was not desired, the king, and the king only, had authority to interfere in the govern- ment of America. This doctrine (which at once found favor in America, and was afterward warmly espoused in Ireland) had the effect of increasing in Dr. Franklin the sentiment of loyalty to the sovereign, and, in the same proportion, to strengthen his opposition to the new measures. Those measures, however, he was powerless to prevent or delay. Retaining his former intimacy with General Conway and Lord Shelburne, he endeavored to engage them in his old scheme of set- tling the western country, and thus providing a living defense to the Atlantic colonies, and lessening the expense of forts and troops. In his constant intercourse with society j he circulated correct knowl- edge and correct opinions respecting the colonies. But such mild influences as these could not stay the tide of reaction. In the summer of 1767, after the session of Parliament, and before the effect in America of the new duties was known in England, Dr. Franklin made his first visit to Paris, accompanied by his friend Sir John Pringle. The two philosophers appear to have had a merry holiday, gazing at Parisian novelties with the eager joy of schoolboys in a vacation. We may return to their excursion if time and space permit. At present, let us adhere to politics. Returning to town and to business, after a month's holiday, is dull work at all times. On this occasion our gay excursionist was met by ill news and hard tasks. America was once more in a fer- ment. The people of New England were again resolving to forego the use of British manufactures, and, what was more important, were bent upon establishing manufactures of their own — a project 494 LIFE AXD TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1767. terrible to British ears. The people and politicians of England were indignant at those proceedings, conceiving it an enormous im- pertinence that colonists should even meditate the making of their own cloth and cutlery. " The newspapers," Franklin wrote, " are in full cry against America. Colonel Onslow told me at court last Sunday, that I could not conceive how much the friends of America were run upon and hurt, and how much the Grenvillians triumph- ed." Besides urging his scheme of settling the Blinois country, Franklin, on resuming his duties in London, attempted to set the people of England right with regard to the new excitement in America. Reflection upon the whole subject of the connection between England and America had sharpened both his perceptions and his feelings. He was heart and soul with his countrymen. " I have some little property in America," he wrote, upon hearing that cer- tain lords had protested against the repeal of the Stamp Act ; " I will freely spend nineteen shillings in the pound to defend my right of giving or refusing the other shilling ; and, after all, if I cannot defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my little family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and subsistence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." In the spirit of this passage he acted thenceforward to the glorious end of the struggle in 1783. At the height of the clamor against America in 1767, he wrote an extensive article for the London Chronicle^ vindicating and explain- ing the conduct of his countrymen. Soon after, he stirred up Dr. Priestley to publish an " Address to Dissenters," upon the same subject.* Early in 1768 he received from Philadelphia a copy of twelve letters, which had appeared in the American newspapers over the signature of " Farmer," which well expressed the feelings of the colonists with regard to the new system. The author of these letters was Mr. John Dickinson, of Philadelphia, Frankhn's former opponent in the Assembly. All provincial differences were now forgotten, and Franklin published the Farmer's Letters in London, with a commendatory preface. A year later, the Farmer's Letters, owing to their London celebrity, were translated into French and pubUshed at Paris. Dr. Franklin published in the * Lffe of Dr. Priestley, i., 60. AGED 61.] OFFICIAL LABOIlS FROM 176GT0 1'7'73. 495 newspapers of these years, a considerable number of homely, hu- morous, short essays upon American topics, appending to them such signatures as Atticus, Pacificus, Secundus, Amicus; or such as Homespun and the like. These articles appear in the American newspapers of the time under this heading : " Dr. Franklin's Pieces, in Answer to the Writers against North America, extracted from English newspapers." Some of these pieces are so fall of wit, sense, and information, and are so evidently Franklin's, that they might properly have had a place in his collected works. In his publications upon the points of dispute between the mother country and the colonies, he employed a good deal of art. His Chronicle piece, for example, to which allusion has just been made, was extremely ingenious. Writing anonymously, and as an English- man, he did not attempt to controvert the universal opinion, that the Americ^ms were afflicted with political lunacy. On the contra- ry, he affected to take their lunacy for granted, and only sought to show by what strange process of reasoning they had been brought to such a deplorable pass. To the mad Americans, he said, such preposterous notions as these had occurred : " Iron is to be found everywhere in America, and the beaver furs are the natural products of that country. Hats, and nails, and steel are wanted there as well as here. It is of no importance to the common welfare of the empire, whether a subject of the king obtains his living by making hats on this or on that side of the water. Yet the hatters of England have prevailed to obtain an act in their own favor, restraining that manufacture in America ; in order to oblige the Americans to send their beaver to England to be manufactured, and purchase back the hats, loaded with the charges of a double transportation. In the same manner have a few nail-makers, and a still smaller body of steel-makers (perhaps there are not half a dozen of these in England), prevailed totally to forbid by an act of Parliament the erecting of slitting-mills, or steel- furnaces in America." And again : " The whole American people were forbidden the advantage of a direct importation of wine, oil, and fruit, from Portugal, but must take them loaded with all the expense of a voyage one thousand leagues round about, being to be landed first in England, to be reshipped for America; expenses amounting, in war time at least, to thirty pounds per cent, more than otherwise they would have been charged with ; and all this, 496 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [lYSS. merely that a few Portugal merchants in London may gain a com- mission on those goods passing through their hands." Having given a dozen paragraphs of this nature, containing a most powerful and unanswerable statement of American griev- ances, he slily concluded with these words : " These are the wild ravings of the, at present, half distracted Americans. To be sure, no reasonable man in England can approve of such sentiments, and, as I said before, I do not pretend to support or justify them ; but I sincerely wish, for the sake of the manufactures and commerce of Great Britain, and for the sake of the strength which a firm union with our growing colonies would give us, that these people had never been thus needlessly driven out of their senses." There were various reasons for the employment of these artifices. Franklin was a humorist by nature ; practice had made him an artist in humor. If he had lived in London in these times he would, perhaps, have been a satirical novelist and contributor to Punch. This fine gift of humor, which was the specialty of his mind, led him to clothe his thoughts with fanciful, transparent disguises, and play games of bo-peep with his readers. But there were also con- siderations of prudence which he, a deputy postmaster-general, the father of a colonial governor, and the relative of a dozen employes under both, could not disregard. Benjamin Franklin was a man capable of risking every thing he had for a principle, and did so more than once ; but he was never disposed to risk any important interest wantonly. Like Montaigne, he would follow the right cause to the stake, but he would avoid the stake if he could. His employment under the crown had become a matter of consequence to him. The thousand pounds a year which he had received from his partner, David Hall, for eighteen years, ceased in 1766, and having two households to maintain, he was in real need of his post- office income. At this time, too, the political interests of himself and his son were supposed to be the same ; as the son had been ap- pointed for the father's sake, so he might be removed for the father's offense. Early in 1768, along with other changes in the ministry, and all for the worse, came in Lord Sandwich as postmaster-general ; who, being of the Bedford, reactionary party, was of opinion that Dr. Franklin was " too much of an American" to hold an office under the crown. At the same time, another minister, the Duke of Graf- A(5ED 62.] OFFICIAL LABOES FROM l766 TO 1773. 497 ton, a man of liberal tendencies, appears to have entertained the project of giving him a better office, and one which would have brought him into confidential relations with ministers. Between these two factions in the same cabinet, Franklin had a difficult part to play ; since Grafton's favor tended to provoke Sandwich's en- mity, and if Grafton's benevolence was frustrated, Sandwich's enmi- ty might prevail. There were messages and replies, appointments and disappointments, interviews that led to nothing, and all the usual circumstances of a negotiation in which one party is powerful, the other indifferent, and each desirous to know what the other expects. Franklin's real feelings during this negotiation were revealed in a confidential letter to Ms son. " I did not think fit," he wrote, " to decline any favor so great a man had expressed an inclination to do me, because at court, if one shows an unwillingness to be obliged, it is often construed as a mark of mental hostility, and one makes an enemy ; yet, so great is my inclination to be at home and at rest, that I shall not be sorry if this business falls through, and I am suffered to retire with my old post ; nor indeed very sorry if they take that from me too on account of my zeal for America, in which some of my friends have hinted to me that I have been too open. * * We have lost Lord Clare from the Board of Trade. He took me home from court the Sunday before his remov- al, that I might dine with him as he said alone, and talk over American affairs. He seemed as attentive to them as if he was to continue ever so long. He gave me a great deal of flummery ; say- ing that, though at my examination I answered some of his ques- tions a little pertly, yet he liked me, from that day, for the spirit I showed in defense of my country ; and at parting, after we had drunk a bottle and a half of claret each, he hugged and kissed me, protesting he never in his life met with a man he was so much in love with. This I write for your amusement." He concludes this letter by saying that if George Grenville should return to power, which seemed not unlikely, he would refuse every ministerial office ; for, in that case, he apprehended " a breach between the two countries." "So you see," he adds, "a turn of a die may make a great difference in our affairs. We may be either promoted or discarded ; one or the other seems likely soon to bo the case, but it is hard to divine which. I am myself grown so old 498 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIJf FRAIfKLIIir. [1768. as to feel much less than formerly the spur of ambition ; and, if it were not for the flattering expectation, that by being fixed here I might more effectually serve my country, I should certainly deter- mine for retirement without a moment's hesitation." The ill design of Lord Sandwich, and the good wishes of the Duke of Grafton, were equally fruitless. Franklin retained his post- mastership. " My enemies," he wrote to his sister, " were forced to content themselves with abusing me plentifully in the newspapers? and endeavoring to provoke me to resign. In this they are not likely to succeed, I being deficient in that Christian virtue of resig- nation. If they would have my ofiice, they must take it." The efforts of Dr. Franklin to set the people of England right with regard to America produced not the smallest perceptible effect. This year, 176 8, was the year in which the Wilkes-and-liberty madness raged in England with its utmost violence ; a madness wholly due to the ignorance and infatuation of the king. Extrava- gant, dissolute, and base, deeply in debt, and without powerful connections or genuine talent, Wilkes needed only to be let alone to vanish soon from the public scene. Precipitate and unlawful arrest, virulent and groundless prosecutions, made him for many years the idol of both continents ; for Wilkes and Liberty was as familiar a cry in Philadelphia and Boston as in London. Returning irom exile in the spring of this year, he was ag.dn elected to Par- liament, from which the king had caused him to be expelled. The popular rejoicing on this occasion exceeded every thing of the kind on record. " London," writes Franklin, " was illuminated two nights running, at the command of the mob, for the success of Wilkes, in the Middlesex election. The second night exceeded any thing of the kind ever seen here on the greatest occasions of rejoicing, as even the small cross-streets, lanes, courts, and other out-of-the-way places were all in a blaze with lights, and the principal streets all night long, as the mobs went round again after two o'clock, and obliged people who had extinguished their candles to light them again. Those who refused had all their windows destroyed. The damage done, and expense of candles, have been computed at fifty thousand pounds." The mob, he adds, went about roaring and singing, '' requiring gentlemen and ladies of all ranks, as they passed in their carriages, to shout for Wilkes and Liberty, marking the same words on all their coaches with chalk, and No. 45 on every door ' AGED G2.] OFFICIAL LABORS FEOM 1766 TO l773. 490 which extends a vast way along the roads into the country. I went last week to Winchester, and observed, that for fifteen miles out of town there was scarce a door or window shutter next the road un- marked ; and. this continued, here and there, quite to Winchester, which is sixty-four miles." Forty-five was the number of the North Briton upon which the original prosecution for libel and sedition was founded. I may add, that the law expenses attending and following this prosecution, which amounted, as Lord North confessed, to more than one hun- dred thousand pounds, were voluntarily assumed and defrayed by the king. * At such a time as this, in such a country, what could be effected by the calm voice of reason and good humor, pleading the cause of a distant and unknown people, of whom, as Franklin said, every man in England felt himself to be a fraction of a sovereign ? In Eng- land, too. Dr. Franklin, eminent as a philosopher, and enjoying much social distinction, was a political cipher ; i. e., he had neither power nor patronage, and no influence with those who had power and patronage. His countrymen, however, appreciated his exertions in their behalf; not yet suspecting that those exertions could in the end be unavailing. In the spring of 1768, while the Duke of Graf- ton was luring him with the prospect of a place, and while he was preparing for the third time to return to America, came news that the young colony of Georgia had appointed him its London agent. He had not an acquaintance in that colony. It is not improbable that he owed this unexpected honor to his early friendship with Whitefield, who had great influence in Georgia, and would natu- rally have spoken much there of his Pennsylvanian friend and publisher. This appointment induced him to postpone his departure for a time. Next year New Jersey selected him for her agent, and the year following, his native province of Massachusetts. These appointments, together with the threatening aspect of colonial affairs, and the urgent entreaties of liberal men in England and patriotic men in America, detained him still at his post in London. For ten years he was always on the point of returning ; for ten years events were continually frustrating his design. His new appointments had the effect of placing him at ease in hi 3 * Correspondence of John Wilkes, i.. 134. 500 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1768. circumstances. Pennsylvania paid her agent five hundred pounds a year ; Massachusetts, four hundred ; Georgia, two hundred ; New Jersey, one hundred. His election as agent for the important prov- ince of Massachusetts was not unanimous. On the contrary, there was a vigorous opposition to it headed by no less eminent a per- son than Samuel Adams. The objections to him were his heteredox creed, and the moderation of his political system. As in England Dr. Franklin was denounced by the ministry as too much of an American, so in America the more ardent patriots thought him too much an Englishman. In England he spoke and wrote of his countrymen only to justify, commend, or excuse them ; to friends in America he wrote by every ship counseling moderation and for- bearance, beseeching them to give the enemies of America no handle against her. His entire influence and all the resources of his mind were employed from the beginning of the controversy in 1765 to the first conflict in 1775, to the one object of healing the breach and preventing the separation. This line of conduct it was which gave to such men as Samuel Adams the impression that Franklin's love of liberty and justice was tempered by his possession of an office under government, and made them prefer such a representative as Arthur Lee. Some influence adverse to Franklin was exerted by proprietary leaders in Philadelphia, whose advice was sought by members of the Massachusetts Assembly. However, after consider- able debate, Franklin received the votes of two-thirds of the House, and Arthur Lee, of Virginia, the candidate of the opposition, was elected his substitute, to take the place of agent in case of Dr. Franklin's return to America or absence from London. The ministry regarded these new honors with no friendly eye. Wisdom had now departed from the counsels of the king. Chat- ham, Conway, and Shelburne had long ago resigned. The fools and sycophants had it all their own way. It is the unhappiness of such rulers as George III. that they are served, not by ministers but by creatures ; creatures who win the highest honors of the state by deserving its deepest contempt. Hence, during these years, we find in the high places of England only third-rate men in point of under- standing, or infamous men in point of character ; while statesmen of talent and independence gave up, at length, even the remote expec- tation of office. A stupid man takes to a stupid man. A man of understanding loves a man of understanding. George III. had an AGED 62.] OFFICIAL LABOKS CONTINUED. 501 instinctive antipathy to able men ; which antipathy, upon very slight provocation, could degenerate into rooted abhorrence. Burke, Chatham, Fox, Barre', Conway, Shelburne, all enjoyed the honor of his aversion while they were faithful to their country and its constitution ; the king softening towards Burke only when, scared by the horrors of the French Revolution, that illustrious man threw himself headlong into the ranks of reaction. And thus it was that the conduct of the mother country toward the colonies grew more and more exasperating. Even when the government conceded something to the Americans, the concession being either inade- quate or too late, was felt to be insult added to injury. CHAPTER V. OFFICIAL LABORS CONTINTrED. British troops had been landed in Boston, amid the silent rage of the people. Fourteen men-of-war, one memorable day in Sep- tember, 1768, had lain with their broadsides toward the town, with springs on their cables and shot in their guns, while the two regiments were conveyed to the shore. " With muskets charged, bayonets fixed, drums beating, fifes playing, and a complete train of artillery, the troops took possession of the Common, the State- house, the Court-house, and Faneuil Hall. The main guard, with two pieces of artillery, was stationed at the State-house with their guns pointed toward it. The town wore the aspect of a garrison. Counselors as they entered the council-chamber, citizens as they passed and repassed on their private errands, were challenged by sentinels."* Two years later occurred the affray called the Boston Massacre, the trial of Captain Preston, and the election of Franklin as the London Agent of the province. The minister who then had charge of American affairs was the * " Memoirs of Josiah Quincy." 602 LIFE AND TIM'ES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l770. Earl of Hillsborough, an Irish nobleman of moderate ability and vacillating mind. To him Di-. Franklin repaired to announce his election as agent for Massachusetts. Of the interview which fol- lowed he drew up a particular account, that his constituents in Massachusetts might know precisely how their representative was j-egarded by a maternal government. At the door of the minister's residence, Dr. Franklin was told Lord Hillsborough was not at home. He therefore left his name, and drove away. Before the coach had gone many yards, the por- ter of Lord Hillsborough came running after it, calling out to the driver to stop. " His lordship will see you, sir," said the porter on reaching the door of the vehicle. On being shown into the usual apartment, who should the agent find there but Sir Francis Ber- nard, governor of Massachusetts, recently home from his prov- ince, just baroneted for his superserviceable toryism in America. Franklin, who had been accustomed to wait " three or four hours" in that ante-room before being admitted to the presence of the minister, was pleased on this occasion at being summoned imme- diately. He relates the conversation : " Being pleased (with the prompt admission) I could more easily put on the open, cheerful countenance that my friends advised me to wear. His Lordship came towards me and said, 'I was dressing in order to go to court ; but, hearing that you were at the door, who are a man of business, I determined to see you immediately.' I thanked his Lordship, and said that ray business at present was not much ; it was only to pay my respects to his Lordship, and to acquaint him with my appointment by the House of Representa- tives of Massachusetts Bay to be their agent here, in which station if I could be of any service — (I was going on to say — ' to the pub- lic, I should be very happy ;' but his Lordship, whose countenance changed at my naming that province, cut me short by saying, with something between a smile and a sneer), '''' Hillsborough. I must set you right there, Mr. Franklin; you are not agent. " Franklin. Why, my Lord ? " JSillsborough. You are not appointed. " Franklin. I do not understand your Lordship ; I have the ap- poinment in my pocket. '-'- HilUhorowjh. You are mistaken ; I have later and better ad- AGED 64.] OFFICIAI. LABORS CONTINUED. 603 vices. I have a letter from Governor Hutchinson ;* he would not give his assent to the bill. " Franklin. There was no bill, my Lord ; it was a vote of the House. " Hillsborough. There was a bill presented to the governor for the purpose of appointing you and another, one Dr. Lee, I think he is called, to which the governor refused his assent. " Franklin. I cannot understand this, my Lord ; I think there must be some mistake in it. Is your Lordship quite sure that you have such a letter ? '•^ Hillsborough. I will convince you of it directly. (Hifigs the bell.) Mr. Pownall will come in and satisfy you. " Franklin. It is not necessary that I should now detain your Lordship from dressing. You are going to court. I will wait on your Lordship another time. ^^Hillsborough. No, stay; he will come immediately. {To the servant.) Tell Mr. Pownall I want him. {3fr. Pownall\ comes i?i.) ^'Hillsborough. Have not you at hand Governor Hutchinson's letter, mentioning his refusing his assent to the bill for appointing Dr. Franklin agent ? " Pownall. My Lord ! " Hillsborough. Is there not such a letter ? " Pownall. No, my Lord ; there is a letter relating to some bill for the payment of a salary to Mr. De Berdt, and I think to some other agent, to which the governor had refused his assent. " Hillsborough. And is there nothing in the letter to the purpose I mention ? " Poimiall. No, my Lord. '•''Franklin. I thought it could not well be, my Lord ; as my let- ters are by the last ships, and they mention no such thing. Here is the authentic copy of the vote of the House appointing me, in. which there is no mention of any act intended. Will your Lord- ship please to look at it ? ( With seeming tinwillingness he takes it., but does not look into it.) '•'■Hillsborough. An information of this kind is not properly * Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts. 1 Private Secretary to Hillsborongli. 504 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l770. brought to me as Secretary of State. The Board of Trade is the proper place. '-'•Franklin. I will leave the paper then with Mr. Pownall to be '•'' Sillsborough. {Hastily.) To what end would you leave it with hiin? '-''Franklin. To be entered on the minutes of that Board, as usual. '•'- HillsboTougli. {Angrily^ It shall not be entered there. No such paper shall be entered there, while I have any thing to do with the business of that Board.. The House of Representatives has no right to appoint an agent. We shall take no notice of any agents but such as are appointed by acts of Assembly to which the governor gives his assent. We have had confusion enough already. Here is one agent appointed by the Council, another by the House of Representatives. Which of these is agent for the province ? Who are we to hear in provincial affairs ? An agent appointed by act of Assembly we can understand. No other will be attended to for the future, I can assure you. *' Franklin. I cannot conceive, my Lord, why the consent of the governor should be thought necessary to the appointment of an agent for the people. It seems to me that " Hillsborough. ( With a mixed look of anger and contempt.) I shall not enter into a dispute with you, sir, upon this subject. " Franklin. I beg your Lordship's pardon ; I do not presume to dispute with your Lordship ; I would only say, that it seems to me that every body of men who cannot appear in person, where busi- ness relating to them may be transacted, should have a right to ap- pear by an agent. The concurrence of the governor does not seem to me necessary. It is the business of the people that is to be done; he is not one of them; he is himself an agent. " Hillsborough. {Hastily.) Whose agent is he ? " Frankli7i. The king's, my Lord. " Hillsborough. No such matter. He is one of the corporation by the province charter. No agent can be appointed but by an act, nor any act pass without his assent. Besides, this proceeding is directly contrary to express instructions. " Fra7iklin^ I did not know there had been such instructions. I am not concerned in any offense against them, and " HiUsborough. Yes, your offering such a paper to be entered is AGED 64.] OFFICIAX- LABOES CONTINUED. 505 an offense against them. (^Folding it up again without having read a word of it.) No such appointment shall be entered. "When I came into the administration of American affairs, I found them in great disorder. By my firmness they are now something mended ; and, while I have the honor to hold the seals, I shall continue the same conduct, the ^2iV£iQ firm,ness. I think my duty to the master I serve, and to the government of this nation, requires it of me. K that conduct is not approved, they may take my office from me when they please. I shall make them a bow, and thank them; I shall resign with pleasure. That gentleman knows it i^pointing to Mr. Pownall)^ but, while I continue in it, I shall resolutely perse- vere in the same firmness. {SpoJcen with great warmth^ and turn- ing pale in his discourse^ as if he was angry at something or some- body besides the agent, and of more consequence to himself) " Franklin. {Beaching out his hand for the paper ^ which his Lordship returned to him.) I beg your Lordship's pardon for tak- ing up so much of your time. It is, I believe, of no great impor- tance whether the appointment is acknowledged or not, for I have not the least conception that an agent can at present be of any use to any of the colonies. I shall, therefore, give your Lordship no further trouble." Dr. Franklin then withdrew, leaving the minister in a rage. " I have since heard," wrote Franklin, a few days after, "that his lordship took great offense at some of my last words, which he calls extremely rude and abusive. He assured a friend of mine that they were equivalent to telling him to his face that the colo- nies could expect neither favor nor justice during his administra- tion. I find he did not mistake me." His character, in Franklin's opinion, was composed of " conceit, wrong-headedness, obstinacy, and passion." It is instructive to note that, at this very time, there was a calumny current in Massachusetts, that Dr. Franklin was a hired tool of Lord Hillsborough. Thenceforth, the agent could do little more for his constituents than employ his pen in the endeavor to open the eyes of the Eng- lish people to the consequences of the system in vogue, and keep his own countrymen well advised of the state of things in Eng- land. After this interview with Lord Hillsborough, he began to foresee the coming disruption. Such pride in the people, such ignorance in the ministry, he thought, would prevent that radical 22 606 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FBANKLIN. [l17l. change in measures which alone could close the ever-widening breach. In one of his official letters to the Assembly of Massachu- setts, written in May, 1771, he predicts the severance of the tie which bound the colonies to Great Britain, and sketches an outline of the process by which it would be (and was) effected. Yet, down to this time, and after it, he had not discovered the cause of this mysterious and fatal persistence in error. Still he praised the king. "I can scarcely conceive," he wrote, " a king of better dispositions, of more exemplary virtues, or more truly desir- ous of promoting the welfare of his subjects." He spoke fondly, too, of the young princes, and of the nation in general : " The good temper of our young princes, so far as yet can be discovered, promise us a continuance of felicity. The body of this people, too, is of a noble and generous nature, loving and honoring the spirit of liberty, and hating arbitrary power of all sorts. We have many, very many, friends among them." The king, on his part, was well affected towards the American philosopher at a late period of the controversy. He treated him with respect, and spoke well of him to others. Franklin found means (probably through Sir John Pringle) to forward to the king such papers and documents as tended to show how loyal to his person and his throne were the vast majority of the American colonists. A gleam of hope cheered the Americans and their friends in July, 1772, when the haughty and incapable Hillsborough resigned his place in the cabinet. Franklin had the pleasure of knowing that he was directly instrumental in causing the fall of this minister. For more than twenty years, as we have before mentioned, Dr. Frank- lin had been urging upon the British government the policy of founding colonies in the wilderness, west of the Alleghany moun- tains. Such colonies, he maintained, would open new markets for manufactures, protect the fur trade, keep at a safe distance the French and Spanish smugglers, defend the Atlantic colonies against hostile Indians, lessen the expense of provisioning the western forts, and render safe the few and daring settlers already in that country. A company was formed at length to establish a colony in Illinois, the directors of which were Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton. These gentlemen having petitioned the government for the requisite grant of lands, their petition was referred to the Lords of Trade, of whom the Earl of AGED 65.] OFFICIAL LABOES CONTINUED. 507 Hillsborough was the official chief. Lord Hillsborough chose to draw up the Report upon this petition. On grounds the most frivo- lous and illusory, he advised the rejection of the petition. As a specimen of the political economy which a British Secretary of State could adopt one hundred years ago, take this passage from Lord Hillsborough's Report : " If a vast territory be granted to any set of gentlemen, who really mean to people it, and actually do so, it must draw and carry out a great number of people from Great Britain ; and I apprehend they will soon become a kind of separate and independent people, and who will set up for themselves ; that they will soon have manu- factures of their own ; that they will neither take supplies from the mother country, nor from the provinces at the back of which they are settled ; that, being at a distance from the seat of government, courts and magistrates, they will be out of the reach and control of law and government ; that it will become a receptacle and kind of asylum for offenders, who will fly from justice to such new coun- try or colony." Such stuff as this was allowed to weigh against Franklin's unan- swerable sense ; and the Report of the Secretary was adopted by the Board of Trade. Franklin instantly set about writing a reply. Point by point he refuted the shallow Hillsborough, extending his reply almost to the bulk of a volume. In July, 1772, the subject was brought before a Privy Council, to whom Franklin's reply was read. The result was that the Earl of Hillsborough's Report was set aside, and the petition of Mr. Walpole and his associates was granted. The Earl of Hillsborough immediately resigned his office. Not expecting such success, Franklin had had his reply published ; but on the very morning when the pamphlet was first offered for sale, he received news of Hillsborough's discomfiture, and imme- diately stopped the sale, when only five copies had been sold. This affair is not to be regarded as a pure triumph of reason and sound policy. The colleagues of Hillsborough, it seems, were glad enough of a pretext for offending him. " I believe," wrote Frank- lin, " that when he offered his resignation, he had such an opinion of his importance, that he did not think it would be accepted; and that it would be thought prudent rather to set our grant aside than to part with him. His colleagues in the ministry were all glad to gel rid of him, and perhaps for this reason joined more readily in 608 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [l77l. giving him that mortification. Lord Dartmouth succeeds him, who has much more favorable dispositions towards the colonies." Nor does this quite complete the explanation of Frankhn's triumph. He had induced, it appears, three members of the privy council to become shareholders in the company. So far as the interests of the shareholders were concerned, their triumph was a barren one ; since the formalities requisite to give validity to the grant were never permitted to be completed. This may have been Hillsborough's work after all. When Franklin first applied for a grant of land, he had asked only two and a half millions of acres. " Ask enough for a province," said Hillsborough, thinking it would tend to defeat the application. Franklin then enlarged the company, and asked for twenty-three millions of acres ; which may, at least, have delayed the sealing of the patent until circumstances occurred which induced the ministry to throw it aside. Joyful events to the patriotic colonists were the fall of the odious Hillsborough and the accession to power of the amiable and popular Dartmouth ; the one identified with the late oppressive measures, and the other an original opponent of the Stamp Act, and known to be a man of liberal opinions and conciliatory disposition. Lord Dart- mouth was a friend of Dr. Franklin ; who had, indeed, suggested his appointment. He at once rescinded the order of his predeces- sor, which excluded from official recognition in England all the colonial agents whose election a royal governor had not sanctioned. He received the agents on their old footing, and with more respect than any late minister had shown them. He even courted both their company and their advice. Dr. Franklin and his colleagues attended his levees, and gave him evidence of the profound and umversal joy with which the news of his appointment had been re- ceived in America. The minister, in his turn, assured the agents that he valued the approval of the American colonists, and begged them to inform their constituents of his perfect good-will toward them. He intimated that a new system was to be pursued toward Am.erica, or rather, that the old system was to be insensibly re- stored. Let but the Americans keep quiet, raise no new issues, submit to the laws, and suppress every thing of the nature of popu- lar violence, and they would soon find all their grievances redressed. The map of the United States is strown thick with the names of AGED 65.] OFFICIAL LABORS CONTINUED. 609 the ministers of George III. Even Hillsborough has his three counties and twenty towns. There are Chathams in every State, and Pittsburg recalls the greatness of the minister who conquered America in Germany. Shelburne, Camden, Fox, Burke, Grafton, Bedford, Bute, Newcastle, all had their names many times appro- priated. And now a new college in New England, in the general joy, took to itself the name of Dartmouth. The change of ministers came too late. Governor Hutchinson, of Massachusetts, avaricious of money and of the king's favor, thinking to become a baronet and a courtier, as Governor Barnard had before him, and not suspecting a change in the ministerial policy, had embroiled himself with the legislature of Massachusetts, and revived, by his rash proceedings, both the issues and the pas- sions which Lord Dartmouth wished to allay. One of the recent devices of tyranny had been to render the American governors and judges dependent upon the crown for their salaries. Massachusetts resented the innovation, and petitioned the king against it. Hutch- inson, in his speeches to the House, justified the measure, and went out of his way to declare again the absolute supremacy of Parliament over the colonies. The House retorted with spirit and dignity. While expressing the most profound veneration for the Parliament of Great Britain, they yet maintained the Franklinian doctrine of their absolute independence of Parliament in all matters relating to taxation. The enunciation of this offensive theory in- duced the zealous Hutchinson to reaffirm the most obnoxious posi- tions of the most extravagant school of tories ; cherishing the de- lusion, meanwhile, that he was doing the most acceptable service to his English masters. In truth, his proceedings perplexed the ministry almost as much as they disgusted the men of Massachu- setts. " The ministry," wrote Franklin, " are embarrassed by his proceedings." If they submitted his dispatches to Parliament, they feared retaliatory measures, which would widen the breach ; and this, in view of some symptoms of a European war, would be " particularly inconvenient at this time." If they suppressed the dispatches, they would lay themselves open to a charge of criminal neglect, which might cost them their places. Franklin had an interview with Lord Dartmouth while the min- istry were in this perplexity. He relates the conversation that passed between them : 610 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [I'^'^l- " On my saying, that I had no late advices from Boston, and ask- ing if his Lordship had any, he said, ' None since the governor's second speech. But what difficulties that gentleman has brought us all into by his imprudence ! Though I suppose he meant well ; yet what can now be done ? It is impossible that Parliament can suifer such a declaration of the General Assembly, asserting its in- dependency, to pass unnoticed.' " * In my opinion,' said I, ' it would be better and more prudent to take no notice of it. It is words only. Acts of Parliament are still submitted to there. No force is used to obstruct their execu- tion. And, while that is the case. Parliament would do well to turn a deaf ear, and seem not to know that such declarations had ever been made. Violent measures against the province will not change the opinion of the people. Force could do no good.' " ' I do not know,' said he, 'that force would be thought of; but perhaps an act may pass to lay them under some inconveniences till they rescind that declaration. Can they not withdraw it ? I wish they could be persuaded to reconsider the matter, and do it of themselves, voluntarily, and thus leave things between us on the old footing, the points undiscussed. Don't you think,' continued his Lordship, * such a thing possible ?' " * No, my Lord,' said I, ' I think it is impossible. If they were even to wish matters back in the situation before the governor's speech, and the dispute obliterated, they cannot withdraw their answers till he first withdraws his speech, which methinks would be. an awkward operation, that perhaps he will hardly be directed to perform. As to an act of Parliament laying that country under inconveniences, it is likely that it will only put them as heretofore on some method of incommoding this country till the act is re- pealed ; and so we shall go on injuring and provoking each other, instead of cultivating that good will and harmony so necessary to the general welfare.' " He said that might be, and he was sensible our divisions must weaken the whole ; ' for we are yet one empire^ said he, * whatever maybe the sentiments of the Massachusetts Assembly;' but he did not see how that could be avoided. He wondered, as the dispute was now of public notoriety. Parliament had not already called for the dispatches ; and he thought he could not omit much longer the communicating them, however unwilling he was to do it, from his AGED 65.] OFFICIAL LABORS CONnNUED. 511 apprehension of the consequences. ' But what,' his Lordship was pleased to say, ' if you were in my place, would or could you do ? Would you hazard the being called to account in some future session of Parliament, for keeping back the communication of dis- patches of such importance?' " I said, ' his Lordship could best judge what, in his situation, was fittest for him to do ; I could only give my poor opinion with regard to Parliament, that, supposing the dispatches laid before them, they would act most prudently in ordering them to lie on the table, and take no further notice of them. For, were I as much an Englishman as I am an American, and ever so desirous of establish- ing the authority of Parliament, I protest to your Lordship I can- not conceive of a single step the Parliament can take to increase it, that will not tend to diminish it ; and after abundance of mischief they must finally lose it. The loss in itself perhaps would not be of much consequence, because it is an authority they can never well exercise for want of due information and knowledge, and therefore it is not worth hazarding the mischief to preserve it.' " Then adding my wishes that I could be of any service in healing our differences, his Lordship said, ' I do not see any thing of more service than prevailing on the General Assembly, if you can do it, to witlidraw their answers to the governor's speech.' " 'Thei-e is not,' says I, 'the least probability they will ever do that; for the country is all of one mind upon the subject. Perhaps the governor may have represented to your Lordship that these are the opinions of a party only, and that great numbers are of different sentiments, which may in time prevail. But if he does not deceive himself, he deceives your Lordship ; for in both Houses, notwithstanding the influence appertaining to his office, there was not, in sending up those answers, a single dissenting voice.' " ' I do not recollect,' says his Lordship, ' that the governor has written any thing of that kind. I am told, however, by gentlemen from that country who pretend to know it, that there are many of the governor's opinion, but they dare not show their sentiments.' *' ' I never heard,' said I, ' that any one has suffered violence for siding with the governor.' " ' Not violence, perhaps,' said his Lordship, ' but they are reviled and held in contempt, and people do not care to incur the disesteem and displeasure of their neighbors.' 512 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [17*71. " As I knew Governor Bernard had been in with his Lordship just before me, I thought he was probably one of these gentleman informants, and therefore said, 'People who are engaged in any party or have advised any measures, are apt to magnify the num- bers of those they w^ould have understood as approving their measures.' " His Lordship said that was natural to suppose might be the present case; for whoever observed the conduct of parties here must have seen it a constant practice ; and he agreed with me that though a nemine contradicente did not prove the absolute agree- ment of every man in the opinion voted, it at least demonstrated the great prevalence of that opinion. Thus ended our conference." This interview occurred in May, 1773. The rest of the story of Hutchinson, Franklin, and the Assembly of Massachusetts, shall be related in due time. The danger of European war having passed away, the government took a different view of the proceedings of Governor Hutchinson, transferring their wrath to another person, for there was that in the speeches of this Governor which was most pleasing to the narrow and morbid mind of the king. It was oiot Bute that did the mischief; there was "wo power behind the throne greater than the throne itself;" the king, the king always, the king only, was the secret influence that warped and vitiated the Government of England. Franklin's political writings, in these later years of the strife, were numerous, but they need slight notice from us here. Com- positions better adapted to the purpose for which they were writ- ten, it would be difficult to name ; and perhaps, if convincing the reading people of England had been sufficient to change the policy of their representatives, they might, in time, have effected their purpose. Some of these pieces, more elaborate or more striking than the rest, enjoy still a certain celebrity. Dr. Franklin was well aware, as his writings show, that a human motive is generally a composite force ; that man can seldom afford, and is seldom re- quired, to be quite disinterested ; and yet, that there is in all vir- tuous persons a love of fair play for its own sake. Consequently, we find him invariably appealing, in the same article, both to the generosity and to the selfishness of his readers; to their fears and to their sympathies ; to their love of gain and their love of country ; to their judgrment and to their enthusiasm. It Is interest- AGED (^5.~\ OFFICIAL LABORS CONTINTJED. 613 ing to look over these pieces, and see how he contrives, in a few paragraphs, to touch all the chords whose united action constitutes what may be styled an average motive. Thus, for example, in his preface to a pamphlet, containing the history of the "Proceedings in Boston," he begins by descanting upon the affection formerly felt by the colonists for the mother country ; but he concludes by saying, that a million Americans drink tea twice a day, at an expense of half a guinea each per annum, and that all this great trade has been lost to England since the imposition of the odious tea duty, to the imminent ruin of the East India Company, and to the en- riching of thousands of foreign smugglers. Two of Dr. Franklin's newspaper effusions, at this time, were great and famous hits. One was entitled, " Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small one. Presented to a late Minister (Lord Hillsborough) when he entered upon his administration." These Rules, which were twenty in number, were nothing more than a satirical history of the entire controversy between England and her colonies ; the satirist gravely recommending the minister to do pre- cisely what the government had done. " An ancient sage," the burlesque begins, " valued himself upon this, that, though he could not fiddle, he knew how to make a great city of a little one. The science that I, a modern simpleton, am. about to communicate, is the very reverse." The Rules, which follow, are illustrated with a great deal of humorous detail, but their substance may be briefly given : 1. " A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges. Turn your attention, therefore, first to your remotest provinces ; that, as you get rid of them, the next may follow in order." 2. " Take special care the provinces are never incorpora- ted vnth the mother country / that they do not enjoy the same com- mon rights, the same privileges in commerce ; and that they are governed by severer laws, all of your enacting, without allowing them any share in the choice of the legislators. By carefully mak- ing and preserving such distinctions, you will (to keep to my simile of the cake) act like a wise gingerbread-baker, who, to facilitate a division, cuts his dough half through in those places where, when baked, he would have it broken to pieces." 3. "If they happen to be zealous whigs, friends of liberty, nurtured in revolution prin- ciples, remember all that to their prejudice, and contrive to punish 22* 514 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [lllS. it ; for sucli principles, after a revolution is thoroughly established, are of no more use ; they are even odious and abominable." 4. *' Quarter troops among them, who, by their insolence, may provoke the rising of mobs, and by their bullets and bayonets suppress them. By this means, like the husband who uses his wife ill from suspi- cion, you may in time convert your suspicions into realities." 5. '' Be careful whom you recommend to colonial offices. If you can find prodigals who have ruined their fortunes, broken gamesters or stock-jobbers, these may do well as governors ; for they will, prob- ably, be rapacious, and provoke the people by their extortions. Wrangling proctors and pettifogging lawyers, too, are not amiss ; for they will be forever disputing and quarreling with their little parliaments." 6. " Whenever the injured come to the capital with complaints of mal-administration, oppression, or injustice, />w7^^sA such suitors with long delay, enormous expense, and a final judg- ment in favor of the oppressor." 7. " When such governors have crammed their coffers, and made themselves so odious to the people that they can no longer remain among them with safety to their persons, recall and reward them with pensions. You may make them baronets, too, if that respectable order should not think fit to resent it." 8. " When you are engaged in war, if your colonies should vie in liberal aids of men and money against the common enemy, upon your simple requisition, and give far beyond their abihties ; reflect that a penny taken from them by your power is more honorable to you than a pound presented by their benevo- lence ; despise^ there/ore, their 'voluntary grants^ and resolve to harass them with novel taxes.'''' 9. " In laying these taxes, never regard the heavy burdens those remote people already undergo in defending their own frontiers, supporting their own provincial gov- ernment, making new roads, building bridges, churches, and other public edifices ; which, in old countries, have been done to your hands by your ancestors." 10. " Perplex their commerce with infinite regulations, impossible to be remembered and observed; ordain seizures of their property for every failure ; take away the trial of such property by jury, and give it to arbitrary judges of your own appointing, and of the lowest characters in the country, whose salaries and emoluments are to arise out of the duties or condemnations, and whose appointments are during pleasure. Then let there be a formal declaration of both Houses, that op- AGED G7.] OFFICIAL LABORS CONTINXrED. 615 position to your edicts is treason, and that persons suspected of treason in the provinces may, according to some obsolete law, be seized, and sent to the metropolis of the empire for trial." 11. "To make your taxes more odious, and more Hkely to procure resistance, send from the capital a hoard of officers to superintend the collection, composed of the most indiscreet, ill-bred, and insolent you can find. Let these have large salaries out of the extorted revenue, and live in open, grating luxury upon the sweat and blood of the industrious; whom they are to worry continually with groundless and expensive prosecutions." 12. " Another way to make your tax odious, is to misapply the produce of it. If it was ori- ginally appropriate for the defense of the provinces, and the better support of government, and the administration of justice, where it may be necessary ; then apply none of it to that defense ; but be- stow it where it is not necessary, in augmenting salaries or pensions to every governor who has distinguished himself by his enmity to the people, and by calumniating them to their sovereign." 13. "If the people of any province have been accustomed to support their 0W71 governors and judges to satisfaction, you are to apprehend that such governors and judges may be thereby influenced to treat the people kindly, nnd to do them justice. This is another reason for applying part of that revenue in larger salaries to such govern- ors and judges, given, as their commissions are, during your pleas- ure only ; forbidding them to take any salaries from their provinces." 14. " If the Parliaments of your provinces should dare to claim rights, or complain of your administration, order them to be harassed with repeated dissolutions. If the same men are continually returned by new elections, adjourn their meetings to some country village, where they cannot be accommodated, and there keep them during pleasure." 15. "Scour with armed boats every bay, harbor, river, creek, cove, or nook throughout the coast of your colonies ; stop and detain every coaster, every wood-boat, every fisherman ; tum- ble their cargoes and even their ballast inside out and upside down ; and, if a pennyworth of pins is found unentered, let the whole be seized and confiscated. Then let these boats' crews land upon every farm in their way, rob their orchards, steal their pigs and poultry, and insult the inhabitants. If the injured and exasperated farmers, unable to procure other justice, should attack the aggressors, drub them, and burn their boats ; you are to call this high treason and 616 LLPE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [17V3. rehellion, order fleets and armies into their country, and threaten to carry all the ofienders three thousand miles to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. O ! this will Avork admirably !" 16. "Take all your informations of the state of the colonies from your governors and officers in enmity with them. Encourage and reward these leasing- makers ; secrete their lying accusations, lest they should be con- futed ; but act upon them as the clearest evidence ; and believe nothing you hear from the friends of the people. Suppose all their complaints to be invented and promoted by a few factious dema- gogues, whom if you could catch and hang, all would be quiet. Catch and hang a few of them accordingly ; and the blood of the martyrs shall work miracles in favor of your purpose." 1 7. " If you ^QQ rival 7iatio7is YQ^oiGmg at the prospect of your disunion with your provinces, and endeavoring to promote it ; if they translate, publish, and applaud all the complaints of your discontented colo- nists, at the same time privately stimulating you to severer measures, let not that offend you. Why should it, since you all mean the same thing ?" 18. " If any colony should at their own charge erect a fortress (Boston Castle), to secure their ^or^ against the fleets of a foreign enemy, get your governor to betray that fortress into your hands. Never think of paying what it cost the country, for that would look, at least, like some regard for justice ; but turn it into a citadel to awe the inhabitants and curb their commerce." 19. " Send armies into their country under pretence of protecting the inhabi- tants ; but, instead of garrisoning the forts on their frontiers with those troops to prevent incursions, demolish those forts, and order the troops into the heart of the country, that the savages may be encouraged to attack the frontiers, and that the troops may be pro- tected by the inhabitants." 20. " Lastly, invest the general of your army in the provinces with great and unconstitutional powers, and free him from the control of even your own civil governors. Let him have troops enough under his command, with all the fortresses in his possession ; and who knows but (like some provincial gener- als in the Roman empire, and encouraged by the universal discon- tent you have produced) he may take it into bis head to set up for himself? If he should, and you have carefully practiced the ^qw excellent rules of mine, take my word for it all the provinces will immediately join him ; and you will that day (if you have not done it sooner) get rid of the trouble of governing tliem, and all the AGED 67.] OFFICIAL LABORS CONTINUED. 517 plagues attending their commerce and connexion, from thenceforth and for ever." This ingenious production had a great run at the time of its pub- lication. It was copied into the Gentleman's Magazirie^ as well as into many newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic ; and yet such was the demand for copies, that the editor who first gave it to the world, reprinted it in his own paper a few weeks after its original appearance. As late as 1797, twenty-six years after its first publi- cation, it was again reprinted in London as a pamphlet, in aid of some political purpose of the day. Franklin himself thought well of the piece, so he told his son, for the quantity and variety of matter it contained, and a kind of spirited ending of each para- graph. The other piece to which we have referred, was one of slighter texture and smaller caliber than this ; but, for a week, it was even more popular. It was a squib, entitled, ** An Edict of the King of Prussia." This edict, after the usual flourish of trumpets, " Frederick, by the Grace of God," etc., proceeded to set forth that : " Whereas, it is well known to all the world, that the first Ger- man settlements made in the Island of Britain were by colonies of people subject to our renowned ducal ancestors, and drawn from their dominions, under the conduct of Hengist, Horsa, Hella, Uffa, Cerdi- cus, Ida, and others ; and that the said colonies have flourished under the protection of our august house for ages past ; have never been emancipated therefrom ; and yet have hitherto yielded little profit to the same ; and whereas we ourself have in the last war fought for and defended the said colonies against the power of France, and thereby enabled them to make conquests from the said power in America, for which we have not yet received adequate compensation ; and whereas it is just and expedient that a revenue should be raised from the said colonies in Britain, toward our indem- nification ; and that those who are descendants of our ancient sub- jects, and thence still owe us due obedience, should contribute to the replenishing of our royal coflfers (as they must have done, had their ancestors remained in the territories now to us appertaining) ; we do therefore hereby ordain and command," — just what the govern- ment of Great Britain had ordained and commanded with regard to her American colonies ; a statement of which, in proper form, fol- lows this swelling prologue. Among other things ordained and 518 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANBXIN. [l773. commanded in this Edict, was this : " That all the thieves^ highway and street robbers, housebreakers, forgerers, murderers, s — d — tes, and villains of every denomination, who have forfeited their lives to the law in Prussia, but whom we in our great clemency do not think fit here to hang, shall be emptied out of our gaols into the said Island of Great Britain, for the better peopling of that country." This capital burlesque was the nine-days' talk of the kingdom. The edition of the newspaper in which it appeared was so quickly bought up, that the author could not get a copy to send to his son until it was reprinted in other papers. Some people, Franklin re- lates, were really taken in by the joke. He wrote to his son : " I was down at Lord Le Despencer's, when the post brought that day's papers. Paul Whitehead was there, too, who runs early through all the papers, and tells the company what he finds remark- able. He had them in another room, and we were chatting in the breakfast parlor, when he came running into us, out of breath, with the paper in his hand. ' Here !' says he, ' here's news for ye ! Here's the King of Prussia claiming a right to this kingdom !' All stared, and I as much as anybody ; and he went on to read it. When he had read two or three paragraphs a gentleman present said, ' Damn his impudence ; I dare say we shall hear by next post that he is upon his march with one hundred thousand men to back this.' Whitehead, who is very shrewd, soon after began to smoke it, and looking in my face, said, ' I'll be hanged if this is not some of your American jokes upon us.' The reading went on, and ended with abundance of laughing, and a general verdict that it was a fair hit ; and the piece was cut out of the paper and preserved in my Lord's collection." There were those in England who did not relish such joking. That notorious creature of the King, Lord Mansfield, a Scottish Jacobite by birth and a tory by nature, flatterer of the king, and flattered by him, the Eldon of his time, was heard by one of Dr. Franklin's friends to say, that this Edict was an able and an artful piece, which " would do mischief by giving in England a bad im- pression of the measures of government, and, in the colonies, by encouraging their contumacy." All the court party who read the piece were, doubtless, of the same opinion. Nor could the author- ship of compositions which gave one party so much delight, and AGED 67.] PEIVATE LIFE AND STUDIES. 519 another party so much disgust, long remain concealed from those who would make it their business to discover it. We cannot doubt, that the subsequent course of the government toward Dr. Franklin was influenced, in some degree, by the natural abhorrence which tory courtiers entertained for a person capable of writing such sprightly and damaging satire. Solemn and ponderous replies to these effusions appeared, one of which was writtten by Governor Bernard ; but they seem to have attracted little notice. This battle, indeed, was not to be fought out on paper. If it had been, Franklin and Franklin's cause would have won the day before the year 1783. CHAPTER VI. PRIVATE LIFE AND STUDIES. "Fkanklik, Benjamin, Esq., agent for Philadelphia, Craven Street, Strand." Such is the account of our philosopher given in the thin London Directory for 1770; an entry which shows that the compiler con- sidered him a person of some consequence, but had only a vague notion from what that consequence was derived. In Craven Street, at the house of Mrs. Stevenson, he continued to live during the whole period of his residence in London, and enjoyed there a tran- quil satisfaction which could only have been surpassed at his own Philadelphia home. " It is to all our honors," he once wrote to the daughter of Mrs. Stevenson, " that in all that time we never had among us the smallest misunderstanding ; our friendship has been all clear sunshine, without the least cloud in its hemisphere." With him lived William Temple Franklin, his son's son, a prom- ising boy, who, it appears, had never seen his father since he had been old enough to know the meaning of the word. He grew up under the eye and training of his grandfather, to whom he proved a help and solace when he stood in need of both. At this time, a lively, intelligent lad, he cheered the leisure hours of Dr. Franklin, and imbibed his political opinions ; while the governor of New 520 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1773. Jersey was becoming more and more a government man. Dr. Franklin had communicated his opinions upon the points in dispute between the old country and the new with freedom and fullness to his son, and there appeared for several years no divergence between them. But as the controversy grew sharp and bitter, the royal governor sided with his masters. Franklin not yet believing that the disruption would occur in their time, left his son free to follow his own opinions, expressly refusing to make any attempt to pros- elyte him. " I only wish you," Ixe wrote in 1773, " to act uprightly and steadily, avoiding that duplicity which, in Hutchinson, adds contempt to indignation. If you can promote the prosperity of your people, and leave them happier than you found them, whatever your political principles are, your memory will be honored." Besides little Temple, there lived with him Sally Franklin, the daughter of one of his English relatives, whom he adopted and educated, and who was happily married, in 1773, to a thriving English farmer. About the same time his domestic circle was further enlarged by the marriage of Miss Stevenson to Dr. Hewson, a London physician of promise. The young couple and their children were exceedingly beloved by him. His good wife, always longing for her husband's return, kept him well advised respecting the occurrences at his other home over the sea ; describing with curious minuteness the progress of the new house and the furniture of each of the apartments. Information still more interesting she had to communicate a year after his arrival in London. A young merchant of Philadelphia, of English birth, Mr. Richard Bache, had proposed for the hand of his daughter. The young lady was nothing loath ; the mother did not disapprove ; would the father object ? He replied (it was before his American appointments had made up for the discontinuance of his thousand a year from Mr. Hall) : " I know very little of the gentleman or his character, nor can I at this distance. I hope his expectations are not great of any fortune to be had with our daughter before our death. I can only say, that if he proves a good husband to her, and a good son to me, he shall find me as good a father as I can be ; but at present I suppose you would agree with me, that we cannot do more than fit her out handsomely in clothes and furniture, not exceeding in the whole five hundred pounds of value. For the rest, they must depend, as you and I did, on their own industry and AGED 67.] PRIVATE LIFE AND STUDIES. 621 care, as what remains in our hands will be barely sufficient for our support, and not enough for them when it comes to be divided at our decease." Soon after came intelligence that Mr. Bache had been unfor- tunate in business. This misfortune, wrote Dr. Franklin, " though it may not lessen his character as an honest or a prudent man, will probably induce him to forbear entering hastily into a state, that must require a great addition to his expense, when he will be less able to supply it. If you think that, in the mean time, it will be some amusement to Sally to visit her friends here, and return with me, I should have no objection to her coming over with Captain Falconer, provided Mrs. Falconer comes at the same time, as is talked of. I think, too, it might be some improvement to her." But she came not. October 29th, 1767, Mr. Richard Bache and Miss Sarah Franklin were married at Philadelphia. The lady was then twenty-three years of age, and, as her portrait testifies, a woman superbly beautiful. Dr. Franklin did not see his son-in-law until 1771, when he came to England in the^hope of procuring through Franklin's influence, a government appointment. Dr. Franklin could not then ask a favor of the ministry, and advised Mr. Bache to embark his capital in a stock of merchandise, return to Philadelphia, and open a store. This advice was taken, and Franklin gave his son-in-law two hun- dred pounds with which to augment his supply. " I am of opinion," wrote Franklin to his daughter on this occasion, "that almost any profession a man has been educated in is preferable to an office held at pleasure, as rendering him more independent, more a free man, and less subject to the caprices of superiors ; and I think that, in keeping a store, if it be where you dwell, you can be serviceable to him, as your mother was to me ; for you are not deficient in capa- city, and I hope you are not too proud. You might easily learn accounts, and you can copy letters, or write them -very well upon occasion. By industry and frugality you may get forward in the world, being both of you yet young; and then what we may leave you at our death, will be a pretty addition, though of itself far from sufficient to maintain and bring up a family." The young couple lived with Mrs. Franklin during the first eight years of their union. Their son, Benjamin Franklin Bache, after- 522 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [Ill3. wards so noted in the political strifes of Jefferson's day, and the father of sons still distinguished, was the solace of Mrs. Frank- lin's life in her husband's absence. She filled her letters with his prattle. Her husband commended her for not spoiling the child, as fond grandmothers sometimes do. "I see," he once wrote to her, " that your happiness is wrapped up in his ; since your whole long letter is made up of the history of his pretty actions. It was very prudently done of you not to interfere when his mother thought fit to correct him ; which pleased me the more, as I feared, from your fondness of him, that he would be too much humored, and perhaps spoiled. There is a story of two little boys in the street; one was crying bitterly ; the other came to him to ask what was the matter ; ' I have been,' says he, ' for a pennyworth of vinegar, and I have broke the glass and spilled the vinegar, and my mother will whip me.' ' No, she won't whip you,' says the other. ' Indeed slie will,' says he. * What,' says the other, ' have you then got ne'er a grandmother ?'" Other children were born to them, all of whom were noted in Philadelphia for their robust beauty. One of them still (in 1862) survives. The descendants of Richard Bache and Sarah Franklin now number one hundred and ten, of whom ten' are serving in the Union army, not one in the ranks of treason. Let me by no means forget to mention that Mrs. Franklin kept her husband supplied with American dainties, such as Indian meal, cranberries, apples, dried peaches, dried fish, hickory nuts, and the raw material of buckwheat cakes. "Since I cannot be in America," he would write " every thing that comes from thence comforts me a little, as being something like home." Few captains sailed from Philadelphia for England who were not charged with parcels and hampers of home products, to be delivered at No. 7 Craven Street, Strand. A neat little note found among Franklin's papers, shows that the supply sometimes exceeded the Craven Street demand : " Dr. Franklin presents his respectful compliments to Lord Bath- urst, with some American nuts ; and to Lady Bathurst, with some American apples ; which he prays they will accept as a tribute from that country, small indeed, but voluntary P A strange occurrence brought to the mind of Franklin, in IVVl, a vivid recollection of his childhood. A dealer in old books, whose shop he sometimes visited, called his attention one day to a coUec- AGED 6Y.] PRIVATE LIFE ANT) STUDIES. 623 tion of pamphlets, bound in thirty volumes, dating from the Resto- ration to 1715. The dealer offered them to Franklin, as he said, be- cause many of the subjects of the pamphlets were such as usually interested him. Upon examining the collection, he found that one of the blank leaves of each volume contained a catalogue of its contents, and the price each pamphlet had cost ; there were notes and com- ments also in the margin of several of the pieces. A closer scru- tiny revealed that the handwriting was that of his Uncle Benjamin, the rhyming friend and counselor of his childhood. (Jther circum- stances combined with this surprising fact to prove that the collec- tion had been made by his uncle, who had probably sold it when he emigrated t6 America, fifty- six years before. Franklin bought the volumes, and gave an account of the circumstance to his Uncle Benjamin's son, who still lived and flourished in Boston. "The oddity is," he wrote, " that the bookseller, who could suspect noth- ing of any relation between me and the collector, should happen to make me the offer of them." During this ten years' exile in England, we find Franklin still exerting his talents in the way of practical philanthropy and patri- otism. If he visited a hospital, he thought of the hospital in Phila- delphia, which he had helped to found, and sent over to the mana- gers any rules, papers, or suggestions which he thought they might find useful. When one of the managers sent him word that they had resolved to begin the formation of a medical library in the hos- pital, he sent them the only medical book he possessed, and solicited donations of similar works from his medical friends. The silk cul- ture he labored to promote in Pennsylvania, by sending over masses of information on the subject, and urging it as a branch of industry, profitable in itself, and not offensive to the English government, since silk was not an article produced in England. A company of silk growers was formed in the province, and Franklin had soon the pleasure of presenting to the queen, through Sir John Pringle, a sample of American silk, which she not only accepted, but wore in the form of a dress. He acknowledged the obligation in his politest manner, in a note to Sir John Pringle : " Dr. Franklin is very happy to learn that the Queen has graciously condescended to accept the silk with the purpose of wearing it. Her Majesty's countenance so afforded to the raisers of silk in Pennsylvania, where her charac- ter is highly revered, will give them great encouragement to pro- 524 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l778. ceed in a measure, which the British Parliament seems to have had much at heart, the procuring a supply of that valuable article from our colonies, for which at present large sums are paid to France, Spain, Italy, and the Indies." For Harvard College he procured, in 1769, a telescope, at the re- quest of the trustees, as well as other instruments for the use of the astronomical professor. The acquisition of the telescope, which cost one hundred guineas, was a considerable event in the history of the college. To the library of Harvard he sent an occasional parcel of books, his own gift, or presented by some of his friends to the rising college of the New World. For his friend and corre- spondent, the Rev. Samuel Cooper, a distinguished clergyman of Boston, and a steadfast patriot, he procured from the university of Edinburgh the honorary title of doctor of divinity ; a great dis- tinction in those simple old days, particularly in the colonies. Young gentlemen from America who came to England for episco- pal ordination, or to study law, or on other errands of duty or pleasure, usually brought letters of introduction to Dr. Franklin, who gave them hearty welcome and hospitality. It is pleasing to note in his letters how careful he was to bestow upon the parents of such youths the sweet cordial of a laudatory or hopeful mention of their sons. In 1771 a noble dream of benevolence was originated in the cir- cle frequented by Dr. Franklin. Lieutenant Cook, in June of that year, returned to England in the ship Endeavor, from his first voyage round the world. His discoveries, which opened the won- drous realm of the Pacific to the contemplation of Euro23e, were the theme of every tongue. Prompt promotion, liberal appoint- ments, and universal celebrity rewarded the adventurous son of a ^Torkshire farm laborer. Captain Cook and New Zealand becom- ing the topic of discourse, one evening, at a learned club to which Dr. Franklin belonged, the conversation took, at length, a practical turn, which led to the scheme just referred to. The Pacific islands, said one gentleman, were inhabited by a brave and generous race who were destitute of corn, fowls, and all quadrupeds except dogs ; was it not incumbent on such a nation as England to send to them the seeds, the domestic animals, the metals, the inventions, the con- veniences, most of which England herself had derived from otlier lands, and which had become so essential to her welfare ? Capti- AGED 67.] PRIVATE LIFE AND STUDIES. 525 vated with the idea, Franklin said, " With all my heart I would sub- scribe to a voyage intended to communicate, in general, those bene- fits which we enjoy to countries destitute of them in the remote parts of the globe." The company took up the project with enthu- siasm. A naval officer present, Mr. Alexander Dalrymple, offered to undertake the command of the ship proposed, and he was re- quested to draw up an outline of the scheme for the considera- tion of the benevolent. He complied with the request, and showed that the expense of a three years' voyage, with the requisite cargo of seeds and animals, would amount to about fifteen thousand pounds. To Mr. Dalrymple's statement Dr. Franklin prefixed some introductory observations, in his best manner, and the whole was printed in the form of a circular. "Britain," wrote Franklin, "is said to have produced originally' nothing but sloes. What vast advantages have been communicated to her by the fruits, seeds, roots, herbage, animals, and arts of other countries! We are, by their means, become a wealthy and a mighty nation, abounding in all good things. Does not some duty hence arise from us towards other countries, still remaining in our former state ? * * Ceres is said to have made a journey through many countries to teach the use of corn, and the art of raising it. For this single benefit the grateful nations deified her. How much more may Englishmen deserve such honor, by communicating the knowledge and use, not of corn only, but of all the other enjoy- ments the earth can produce, and which they are now in possession of. Comniuniter bona profundere^ DeUm est. Many voyages have been undertaken with views of profit or of plunder, or to gratify re- sentment ; to procure some advantage to ourselves, or do some mis- chief to others. But a voyage is now proposed, to visit a distant people on the other side the globe ; not to cheat them, not to rob them, not to seize their lands, or enslave their persons ; but merely to do them good, and make them, as far as in our power lies, to live as comfortably as ourselves." Then, as was his wont, he added a few sentences designed to show that a commercial nation like Great Britain had an interest in extending the area of civilization ; because civilization creates the wants which England was enriched by supplying. This amiable and novel project was not carried out in the man- ner contemplated by the subscribers to the fund. The object pro- 526 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1773. posed was accomplished, in part, by incorporating the scheme with that of discovery. Captain Cook himself was charged with the duty of leaving pairs of animals upon the islands of the Pacific, and other navigators continued the work, to the advantage of the natives and to European mariners. Other parts of the scheme have been executed, in later times, by missionaries. It was, indeed, a sublime conception, worthy of a success more complete than has yet been found possible. The defective (^. e., the savage) races were not then understood. All men appear to have supposed, a hundred years ago, that the civilization of one race was capable of being communicated to another. I wonder that Franklin should have thought so, who had had opportunities of observing closely the North American Indians, and had seen, in his own Penn- sylvania, how the white man's civilization touched them only to destroy. Perhaps he supposed the Pacific savages to be of differ- ent and nobler quality. The irregular spelling of the English language had often been the subject of Dr. Franklin's jocular complaint. He used to say that they alone spelt well who spelt ill, since the bad speller, so called, used the letters according to their nature. The illiterate girl who wrote of her 5o, was a more correct speller, he thought, than the young lady who would not for the world omit a superfluous vowel. What was the use of the final letter in mujjt] and why take the trouble to write tough when tuf would answer the purpose? There can be no doubt, that if he had lived to the time when Dr. Noah "Webster published his dictionary, he would have heartily welcomed the abbreviated and simplified spelling which formerly excited so much clamor against that great work. He would have supported the lexicographer in innovations far more radical and ex- tensive than those upon which he dared venture. During one of the lulls in the storm of politics, he amused him- self in framing a Reformed Alphabet, and forming a new system of spelling, similar to that which has since received the name of the phonetic. Some of our letters he omitted from his alphabet ; he invented some new ones ; and changed the order, making o the first letter and m the last. The following specimen will give the reader an idea of this Reformed Alphabet, but will not, probably, inS'^. Jainei Chronicle^ defending the new tragedy of the Earl of Warwick against the attack of a critic. Tlie tragedy, he says, *' though not without faults, is generally allowed to be the best written tragedy which has appeared for some years. I have twice seen it already with great pleasure, and when it is acted next, shall certainly again pay my respects to the inimitable Mrs. Yates, who is, without doubt, and above all in Margaret of Anjou, the finest actress now in Europe."* He continued his practice of spending a part of every summer in traveling. We have already alluded to his first visit to Paris in 1767, accompanied by Sir John Pringle. To Miss Stevenson he transmitted from the gay capital an entertaining account of his ad- ventures : " All the way to Dover," he wrote, " we were furnished with post-chaises, hung so as to lean forward, the top coming down over one's eyes, like a hoop, as if to prevent one's seeing the country ; which being one of my great pleasures, I was engaged in perpetual disputes with the innkeepers, ostlers, and postillions, about getting the straps taken up a hole or two before, and let down as much be- hind, they insisting that the chaise leaning forward was an ease to the horses, and that the contrary would kill them. I suppose the chaise leaning forward looks to them like a willingness to go for- ward, and that its hanging back shows reluctance. They added other reasons, that were no reasons at all, and made me, as upon a hundred other occasions, almost wish that mankind had never been endowed with a reasoning faculty, since they know so little how to make use of it, and so often mislead themselves by it, and that they bad been furnished with a good sensible instinct instead of it. * Garrick Correspondence, i., 218, AGED 67.] franklin's ENGLISH FRIENDS. 563 " At Dover, the next morning, we embarked for Calais with a number of passengers, who had never before been at sea. They would previously make a hearty breakfast, because, if the wind should fail, we might not get over till supper time. Doubtless they thought, that when they had paid for their breakfast, they had a right to it, and that when they had swallowed it, they were sure of it. But they had scarce been out half an hour, before the sea laid claim to it, and they were obliged to deliver it up. So that it seems there are uncertainties, even beyond those between the cup and the lip. If ever you go to sea, take my advice, and live spar- ingly a day or two beforehand. The sickness, if any, will be lighter and sooner over. We got to Calais that evening. " Various impositions we suffered from boatmen, porters, and the like, on both sides the water. I know not which are most rapa- cious, the English or French, but the latter have, with their kna- very, most politeness. " The roads we found equally good with ours in England, in some places paved with smooth stones, like our new streets, for many miles together, and rows of trees on each side, and yet there are no turnpikes. But then the poor peasants complained to us grievously, that they were obliged to work upon the roads full two months in the year, without being paid for their labor. Whether this is truth, or whether, like Englishmen, they grumble, cause or no cause, I have not yet been able fully to inform myself. " The women we saw at Calais, on the road, at Boulogne, and in the inns and villages, were generally of dark complexions ; but ar- riving at Abbeville we found a sudden change, a multitude of both women and men in that place appearing remarkably fair. Whether this is owing to a small colony of spinners, wool combers, and weavers, brought hither from Holland with the woolen manufactory about sixty years ago, or to their being less exposed to the sun than in other places, their business keeping them much within doors, I know not. Perhaps, as in some other cases, different causes may club in producing the effect, but the effect itself is certain. Never was I in a place of greater industry, wheels and looms going in every house. " As soon as we left Abbeville, the swarthiness returned. I speak generally; for here are some fair women at Paris, who, I think, are not whitened by art. As to rouge, they didn't pretend 24 554 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKXIN. [1773. to imitate nature in laying it on. There is no gradual diminution of the color, from the full bloom in the middle of the cheek to the faint tint near the sides, nor does it show itself differently in differ- ent faces. I have not had the honor of being at any lady's toilet to see how it is laid on, but I fancy I can tell you how it is or may be done. Cut a hole of three inches diameter in a piece of paper ; place it on the side of your face in such a manner, as that the top of the hole may be just under the eye ; then, with a brush dipped in the color, paint face and paper together ; so when the paper is taken off, there will remain a round patch of red exactly the form of the hole. This is the mode, from the actresses on the stage up- wards through all ranks of ladies to the princesses of the blood ; but it stops there, the queen not using it, having in the serenity, complacence, and benignity that shine so eminently in, or rather through her countenance, sufficient beauty, though now an old wo- man, to do extremely well without it. " You see I speak of the queen as if I had seen her ; and so I have, for you must know I have been at court. We went to Ver- sailles last Sunday, and had the honor of being presented to the king, Louis XY. ; he spoke to both of us very graciously and very cheerfully, is a handsome man, has a very lively look, and appears younger than he is.* In the evening we were at the Gra7id Gou- vert, where the family sup in public. .The table was half a hollow square, the service gold. When either made a sign for drink, the word was given by one of the waiters : A. boire pour le JRoi, or, A. boirepour la Heine. Then two persons came from within, the one with wine and the other with water in carafes ; each drank a little glass of what he brought, and then put both the carafes with a glass on a salver, and then presented it. Their distance from each other was such, as that other chairs might have been placed between any two of them. An officer of the court brought us up through the crowd of spectators, and placed Sir John so as to stand between the queen and Madame Yictoire. The king talked a good deal to Sir John, asking many questions about our royal family ; and did me too the honor of taking some notice of me ; that is saying enough, for I would not have you think me so much pleased with this king and queen, as to have a whit less regard than I used to have for * He was 57. A.GED 67.] FRANICLIN'S ENGLISH FRIEIHJS. 555 ours. No Frenchman shall go beyond me in thinking my own king and queen the very best in the world, and the most amiable. •' Versailles has had infinite sums laid out in building it and supply- ing it with water. Some say the expenses exceeded eighty miUions sterling. The range of buildings is immense; the garden-front most magnificent, all of hewn stone ; the number of statues, figures, urns, &c., in marble and bronze of exquisite workmanship, is beyond conception. But the water-works are out of repair, and so is great part of the front next the town, looking, with its shabby, half- brick walls, and broken windows, not much better than the houses in Durham Yard. There is, in short, both at Versailles and Paris, a prodigious mixture of magnificence and negligence, with every kind of elegance except that of cleanliness, and what we call tidiness. Tliough I must do Paris the justice to say, that in two points of cleanliness they exceed us. The water they drink, though from the river, they render as pure as that of the best spring, by filtering it through cisterns filled with sand ; and the streets with constant sweeping are fit to walk in, though there is no paved footpath. Accordingly, many well-dressed people are constantly seen walking in them. The crowd of coaches and chairs for this reason is not so great. Men, as well as women, carry umbrellas in their hands, which they extend in case of rain or too much sun ; and a man with an umbrella not taking up more than three foot square, or nine square feet of the street, when, if in a coach, he would take up two hundred and forty square feet, you can easily conceive that, though the streets here are narrow, they may be much less encumbered. They are extremely well paved, and the stones, being generally cubes, when worn on one side may be turned and become new. " The civilities we everywhere receive give us the strongest im- pressions of the French politeness. It seems to be a point settled here universally, that strangers are to be treated with respect; and one has just the same deference shown one here by being a stranger, as in England by being a lady. The custom-house officers at Port St. Denis, as we entered Paris, were about to seize two dozen of excellent Bordeaux wine given us at Boulogne, and which we brought with us ; but, as soon as they found we were strangers, it was immediately remitted on that account. At the Church of Notre Dame, where we went to see a magnificent illumination, with figures, for the deceased Dauphiness, we found an immense crowd, 556 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1773. who were kept out by guards ; but, the officer being told that wee were strangers from England, he immediately admitted us, accom-. panied and showed us every thing. Why don't we practice thiss urbanity to Frenchmen ? Why should they be allowed to outdo us in any thing ? " Here is an exhibition of painting, like ours in London, to which multitudes flock daily. I am not connoisseur enough to judge which has most merit. Every night, Sundays not excepted, here are plays or operas ; and, though the weather has been hot, and the houses full, one is not incommoded by the heat so much as with us in winter. They must have some way of changing the air that we are not acquainted with. I shall inquire into it. " Traveling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance. It is but about a fortnight since we left London, but the variety of scenes we have gone through makes it seem equal to six months living in one place. Perhaps I have suifered a greater change, too, in my own person, than I could have done in six years at home. I had not been here six days, before my tailor and perruquier had transformed me into a Frenchman. Only think what a figure I make in a little bag-wig and with naked ears ! They told me I was become twenty years younger, and looked very gallant.* " This letter shall cost you a shilling, and you may consider it cheap when you reflect that it has cost me at least fifty guineas to get into the situation that enables me to write it. Besides, I might, if I had stayed at home, have won perhaps two shillings of you at cribbage. By the way, now I mention cards, let me tell you that quadrille is now out of fashion here, and English whist all the mode at Paris and the court. And pray look upon it as no small matter, that, surrounded as I am by the glories of the world, and amusements of all sorts, I remember you, and Dolly, and all the dear good folks at Bromley. It is true I cannot help it, but must and ever shall remember you all with pleasure." He visited Paris a second time in 1769, and spent several weeks there. In 1772 he made his long ago meditated tour in Ireland, where he dined with the Lord-lieutenant, supped with the leading patriots, was caressed and entertained by Lord Hillsborough, and admitted to the floor of the Irish Parliament by a unanimous vote. * In London he wore a long curling wig. AGED 67.] franklin's ENGLISH FRIENDS. 557 lie was puzzled at Lord Hillsborough's hospitable conduct; not sufficiently reflecting upon the infinite difference between an Irish nobleman doing the honors of his country to a distinguished stran- ger, and an Irish Secretary of State striving for a place in the British peerage. " Lord Hillsborough," he observes, " seemed at- tentive to every thing that might make my stay in his house agree- able to me, and put his eldest son, Lord Killwarling, into his phaeton with me, to drive me a round of forty miles, that I might see the country, the seats, and manufactures, covering me with his own greatcoat lest I should take cold." The awful poverty of the Irish peasantry struck him with as- tonishment and dismay. "I thought often," he wrote, "of the happiness of New England, where every man is a freeholder, has a vote in public affairs, lives in a tidy, warm house, has plenty of good food and fuel, with whole clothes from head to foot, the manu- facture, perhaps, of his own family. Long may they continue in this situation !" Continuing his journey into Scotland, where he remarked that most of the peasantry still went barefoot, he spent several weeks among his old friends in that country, returning to London after an absence of three months. Calling upon Lord Hillsborough, soon after his return, he was refused admittance. His summer tour of 1773 was signalized by an event deserving more notice than it has received. While staying at the country house of his friend Lord Despencer, he joined that nobleman in a worthyj^tte^pt to abbreviate the services of the Church of England. They reduced the catechism to two questions : " What is your duty to God ?" and " What is your duty to your neighbor ?" Of the psalms, all the repetitions and all the imprecations were omitted. The first lesson, being taken from the Old Testament, was left out. The Nicene creed and that of St. Athanasius were abolished, and the Apostles' creed shortened. The communion service, that of baptism, confirmation, burial, and visitation of the sick, were all abbreviated. The morning service was cut down about one-half An edition of the prayer-book thus abridged was published anony- mously in 1773 by a London bookseller, but attracted so little at- tention that scarcely any copies were sold. The preface of the work, which was composed entirely by Dr. Franklin, is extremely modest and judicious. The editor professed himself to be " a prot- 558 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1773. estant of the Church of England," and one who held " in the highest veneration the doctrines of Jesus Christ." " He is a sin- cere lover of social worship, deeply sensible of its usefulness to society; and he aims at doing some service to religion, by propo- sing such abbreviations and omissions in the forms of our Liturgy (retaining every thing he thinks essential) as might, if adopted, procure a more general attendance." * * Many pious and devout persons, whose age or infirmities will not suffer them to remain for hours in a cold church, especially in the winter season, are obliged to forego the comfort and edification they would receive by their attendance on divine service. These, by shortening the time, would be reHeved ; and the younger sort, who have had some principles of religion instilled into them, and who have been educated in a belief of the necessity of adoring their Maker, would probably more frequently, as well as cheerfully, attend divine service, if they were not detained so long at any one time. Also, many well-disposed tradesmen, shopkeepers, artificers, and others, whose habitations are not remote from churches, could, and would, more frequently at least, find time to attend divine service on other than Sundays, if the prayers were reduced into a much narrower compass." He argues his cause at great length, explaining his reasons for each omission with clearness and decorum. The effort was pre- mature. It was made at one of those bad periods when the old men being bigots and reactionists, the young men were, of course, radicals and roues; when the educated being indifferent to ele- vated considerations, the ignorant were an unprotected prey of fanatics and pretenders. There was no class who could be inter- ested in such an attempt. The time may come, however, when this neglected and forgotten volume may be sought out, and some of its suggestions adopted in the country for which they were de- signed ; the Church of England being now the only church in Christendom strong enough to admit those great changes which are necessary to end the long strife between Intelligence and Orthodoxy. Franklin's great object was to extinguish theology, which he thought divided and distracted mankind to no purpose ; and to restore Religion, which, he believed, tended to exalt, refine, unite, assure, and calm the anxious sons of men. In view of the events about to be related, a few words may be added here with regard to the reputation of Dr. Franklin at this AGED 67.] franklin's ENGLISH FRIENDS. 659 time. It was very great and very extensive. A member of every important learned body in Europe, he was also a manager of the Royal Society, president of the American Philosophical Society, and one of the eight foreign members of the Royal Academy of Sciences of France. Three editions of his philosophical works had appeared in Paris, and a new edition, much enlarged, was published in 'London in 1773. "As to my situation here," he wrote to his son, just after the appointment of Lord Dartmouth, "nothing can be more agreeable. * * * Learned and ingenious foreigners that come to England almost all make a point of visiting me ; for my reputation is still higher abroad than here. Several of the foreign embassadors have assiduously cultivated my acquaintance, treating me as one of their eorps^ partly, I believe, from the desire they have, from time to time, of hearing something of American affairs, an object become of importance in foreign courts, who be- gin to hope Britain's alarming power will be diminished by the defection of her colonies ; and partly that they may have an op- portunity of introducing me to the gentlemen of their country who desire it. The king, too, has lately been heard to speak of me with great regard." Yet we should always bear in mind, in estimating the importance of persons in feudal England, that society in that great country ex- ists in chronic dislocation. The natural aristocracy of England is kept out of its place by an artificial aristocracy. The natural aris- tocracy of a civilized country are the leading men in the leading pursuits ; great merchants, great mechanics, great engineers, great statesmen, great soldiers, great preachers, teachers, doctors, and lawyers, great capitalists and improvers, great farmers and navi- gators, great inventors and discoverers, great authors, editors, ac- tors, and artists. These are the men who naturally take the first place, and to whom we all most willingly and proudly concede it. But in England such men were nothing in the social scale compared with persons of feudal " rank." If Franklin had been styled Lord Boston, or Duke of Pennsylvania, or even Viscount Germantown, every one in the England of that day would have regarded him as one of the Great. That he really was, to some extent, lord* of Boston ; that he was, to a very considerable extent, duke of Pennsylve- * "Law- ward." — T. Carlyle. 560 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [lllS. nia, were facts of no importance whatever, in enhancing his personal consequence at the Court-end of London. By the more barbarous portion of the people of that quarter of the town, the fact so honor- able to Franklin, that his father had been a candle-maker, and him- self a journeyman printer, were actually supposed to diminish his claims to respect ! CHAPTER VIII. THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. One day, in the latter part of 1772, Dr. Franklin was conversing with a member of Parliament upon the violent proceedings of the ministry against Boston, particularly the attempt to compel obedi- ence to hateful measures by quartering troops in the town. He spoke with warmth, for Boston was his native place, and Massa- chusetts had conferred upon him an honorable trust. Those arro- gant and vindictive proceedings, he said, were the more to be de- plored, because in America they would be regarded as the acts of the nation, whereas they were merely ministerial and partisan ex- pedients. They gave rise also to tumults and rash publications in America, which equally deceived the people of England ; giving them the impression that the colonists were factious and disloyal. The member of Parliament replied, that on one most material point Dr. Franklin was mistaken. The offensive measures, he said, did not originate with the ministry, nor in England at all. He de- clared that not only the sending out of the troops, but all the other colonial grievances, had been suggested and solicited by some of the most respectable among the Americans themselves, who had repeatedly written to the ministry that the employment of force was necessary for the welfare of their country. Franklin expressed doubts of the probability of this statement. The gentleman then said that he would undertake to furnish such proof of his assertions as would convince Dr. Franklin and Dr. Franklin's countrymen of their truth. Some days after this interview the member called again, and AGED 67.] THE HUTCHIN^SON LETTERS. 561 brought with him a packet of letters, written by persons of consid- eration in New England for the evident purpose of influencing the measures of the home government. The address of the letters had been removed, but Dr. Franklin was informed that they had been w^ritten to Mr. William Whately, a placeman and member of Par- liament, recently deceased. William Whately had been brought forward in public life by Mr. George Grenville, whom he had served in the capacity of private secretary, and by whom he was afterwards appointed secretary to the lords of the treasury. To Grenville and the Grenvillians, whether in or out of office, Whately was, for several years, what Jenkinson was to Lord Bute and to the "King's Friends;" what Rigby was to the Duke of Bedford and his followers ; what Amos Kendall was to Andrew Jackson and his party; what Thurlow Weed has been to Mr. Seward and the Republicans ; though much inferior to the least able of those active gentlemen. That Junius, the common scold of his time, should speak of Whately with con- temptuous ridicule, is nothing ; his letters, which appear in great numbers among the Grenville Papers, show him to have been a busy gossip-collector and go-between, happy if he could be the first to communicate to his patron the newest rumor from court or the last whisper from Downing Street. He maintained an extensive correspondence with persons in distant parts of the empire ; for he was known to be the channel through which information could be brought to the notice of the Grenvilles that could not properly be imparted to them in official letters. Every minister needs such a confident — half colleague, half protege. Nor is it a dishonorable office. It merely happened that, in this instance, the confidential person was a man of small endowments and narrow mind. After the fall of the Grenville ministry in 1765, Whately, besides remaining in Parliament, obtained the places of Under Secretary of State, Director of Royal Progresses, and, I believe, another little office of some emolument ; paying diligent court, it was said, to the reactionary faction in the ministry, particularly to Lord North. This last seems to be true, though the lying Junius says it. Six of the letters placed in Dr. Franklin's hands were written by Thomas Hutchinson, when he was chief justice and lieutenant-gov- ernor of Massachusetts. He had since become governor of the province. Unlike most of the other royal governors, this man was 24* 562 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1773. a native of the colony which he governed ; a graduate of Harvard ; once an honored and popular servant of the commonwealth. He had the great political advantage of not being a member of the Church of England ; he was a puritan, and even a " Sabbatarian ;" *' a promoter," says Mr. Tudor, " of all those irksome and irritating restraints on the most innocent movements of the citizens, which the narrow bigotry of the Sabbatists were eager to impose, and which, in former times, produced a species of oppression that was hateful in some cases, in others ridiculous."* Nevertheless, when the British regiments paraded on Sunday, to the sore annoyance of the great majority of the people, he said the Sunday parade dis- turbed nobody but " some of our grave people, who did not like the noise of drums on Sunday." With his advantages of birth and connections, he began his public life with general approval ; but, at length, abandoned himself to the side of the ministry. Four of the letters were written by Andrew Oliver, who suc- ceeded Hutchinson in the office of lieutenant-governor. He, also, was a native of Massachusetts. The rest of the letters were written by officers of the customs and other servants of the crown. These letters, before they reached Franklin's custody, had been handed about among official persons and others. They w^ere written for the purpose of being handed about. The whole series contained but two or three allusions to matters that could be considered private, and those of no importance to any one. In no proper sense of the word could they be called private letters. They were written by public men to a public man, for the information of public men, upon public topics. They were addressed to Mr. Whately, but were designed to influence Mr. Grcnville and the party of which he was a chief; some of whom were again in power, and others hoped to be. In 17V2, when William Whately died, the letters had not been returned to him; they never fell into the hands of his executors. It is probable, but far from certain, that, when Whately died, they were in one of the public offices among a mass of other colonial correspondence. The sacredness of letters, sealed or unsealed, was not universally recognized a hundred years ago. In the post-office letters were never safe from lawless, prying eyes, until they were protected by * Life of James Otis, p. 42T. i AGED 67.] THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 563 their mere multitude. No public man, at that day, dared trust im- portant letters to the mails, and no public man's letters uniformly reached him with whole seals. Franklin frequently mentions the dilapidated condition of the seals of his letters, even those written by his sister Jane, which treated of little but town gossip, millinery, and family news. His public letters, he hnew^ had repeatedly found their way to the hands of Governor Hutchinson, and had been by him transmitted to political persons in England for the purpose of injuring their author. Hutchinson had even quoted, and misquoted, Franklin's letters in his own writings. Several of Franklin's letters had been in circulation in London for three or four years, and had been seen by ministers ; letters in which his favorite doctrine was set forth that the king, not parliament, was the tie that bound together the colonies and the mother country. Other loyal Americans besides himself had sufiered from the cal- umnies sent from America by officers of the crown to ministers. In the Boston Gazette for September 4th, 1769, appeared an ad- vertisement inserted by the celebrated James Otis, and signed by him, to this efiect : " Whereas, I have full evidence that Henry Hutton, Charles Paxton, William Burch, and John Robinson, Esquires" (Commissioners of the Customs), *' have frequently and lately treated the characters of all true Americans in a manner that is not to be endured, by privately and publicly representing them as traitors and rebels, * * and me by name, * * for all which general, as well as personal abuse and insults, satisfaction has been personally demanded, due warning given, but no sufficient answer obtained, these are humbly to desire the lords commission- ers of his majesty's treasury, his principal secretaries of state, par- ticularly my Lord Hillsborough, * * to pay no kind of regard to any of the abusive representations of me or my country by the said Henry, Charles, William, and John, or their confederates ; for they are no more worthy of credit than those of Sir Francis Bernard, of Nettleham, Bart., or any of his cabal," etc. This advertisement led to a coffee-house encounter between the fiery Otis and a number of king's officers, from which Mr. Otis was led home wounded and bleeding. To return to the packet of letters brought by the member of Par- liament to Dr. Frankhn in November, 1772. The following is a brief outline of their contents : 564 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1773. Lettek 1. — From Thomas Hutchinson, Chief Justice of Massa- chusetts, to William Whately, M. P., Boston, Juiie 18th, 1768. Narrates the seizure of a " sloop belonging to Mr. Hancock, a representative for Boston and a wealthy merchant, of great influence over the populace." The sloop was seized by the collectors and comptroller for a very notorious breach of the act of trade, and, after seizure, was taken into custody by the officer of the Romney, man-of-war, and removed under command of her guns. A mob, continues the writer, was immediately raised, who insulted the offi- cers, bruised and hurt them, broke some of the Avindows of their houses, and burnt in triumph one of the collector's boats. Four of the commissioners of the customs took refuge on board the Romney with their families. Town-meetings at Boston, repeatedly convened, had voted the commissioners and their officers a nuisance, instructed their representatives to inquire whether any person, by writing or in any other way, had encouraged the sending of troops to Boston, there being alarming reports of the coming of troops, and appoint- ed a committee to wait on the governor to desire him to order the man-of-war out of the harbor. " Ignorant as they be," wrote the Chief Justice, " yet the heads of a Boston town-meeting influence all public measures." " It is not possible," he added, " that this anarchy should last always." The council of the province, though pressed by the governor to assist him with their advice in this con- juncture, had declined and evaded the demand, calhng the mob a small disturbance of boys and negroes, and " not considering how much it will be resented in England," that the officers of the crown should be obliged to seek safety on board a king's ship, and the authorities of the province " take no notice of it." Letter 2. — From Thomas Hutchinson to William Whately, Boston, August, 1768. Contains a long detail, showing that the commissioners of the customs were more odious than ever, through the wicked and industrious misrepresentations of" our incendiaries." Justifies and extols the conduct of the commissioners, and declares that the new system brought upon the fair trader no new burden. The ofiense of this letter consisted chiefly in the following sentences : " With all the aid you can give to the officers of the crown, they will have enough to do to maintain the authority of government, and carry the laws into execution. If they are discountenanced, neglected, or fail of support from you, they must submit to every AGED 67.] THE HUTCHINSON LETTEKS. 565 thing the present opposers of government think fit to require of them." Letter 3. — From Thomas Hutchinson to William Whately, Boston, October ^th^ 1768. An artful letter, calculated equally to inflame the wrath of English tories and of American patriots. The writer, in commenting upon a letter received from his correspond- ent, says : " It is not strange that measures should be immediately taken to reduce the colonies to their former state of government and order ;" but he wonders the national funds should be affected by the disturbances in America. It is true, he adds, that the ab- surdest principles of government have been propagated ; that many of the common people, wrought up to a frenzy, have talked of dying in defense of their liberties ; that there has been continual danger of mobs ; that the legislature is in accord with the populace, and the executive has wholly lost its force ; yet, says he, " I cannot think that, in any colony, people of any consideration have ever been so mad as to think of a revolt." Great disturbances might have arisen, but they would have spent all their force within the colony. " The officers of the crown and some of the few friends who dared to stand by them, might have been knocked on the head, and some such fatal event would probably have brought the people to their senses." He himself had received letters warning him of his danger (one of which he inclosed), and he had, consequently, abandon- ed his post, and ceased to hold his court. " For four or five weeks past the distemper has been growing." He then proceeds to relate the well-known landing, in Boston, of two regiments of British troops from fourteen men-of-war, lying off the town with their broadsides toward it, with springs on their cables, their guns load- ed, and their decks cleared for action. This event and the attending circumstances, he related as the creature of George III. might have been expected to relate them. The votes of the Boston town- meeting he denounced as weak and criminal, and the conduct of the assembly as ridiculous. He concluded by saying that the govern- ment of the province had been so long in the hands of the populace, that it would be a work of time to " bring back the people to just notions of the nature of government." Letter 4. — Robert Auchmuty to Thomas Hutchinson, Septem- her lUh, 1768. Inclosed in the foregoing, to prove the perils that beset a faithful servant of the crown. The information furnished 5oQ LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMTST FKANKLIN. flV'ZS. by Mr. Auchmuty was of the vaguest possible character. " Last night I was informed by a gentleman of my acquaintance, who had his information from one intimate with and knowing to the infernal purposes of the sons of liberty, as they falsely call themselves, that he verily believed, from the terrible threats and menaces by those Catilines against you, that your life is greatly in danger." That is the whole purport of Mr. Auchmuty's awful message. Letter 5. — From Thomas Hutchinson to William Whately, Boston, December lOth^ 1768. This letter was written for the sole and avowed purpose of neutralizing the eifect of a petition about to be sent to Parliament by the council of Massachusetts. Hutch- inson tells his correspondent that the petition, though apparently sent " by order of council," was not signed by all the members thereof, and that, even if it had been, the document was null in consequence of the council having convened without being sum- moned by the governor. He adds, that it is " very necessary the circumstances of this proceeding should be known," but he thinks it best " it should not be known the intelligence conies from me." Leti^er 6. — From Thomas Hutchinson to William Whately, Boston, Jan. 20th, 1769. This was the most exasperating letter of the series. He begins by saying that he has taken great pains to spread, throughout the colony, the information received from his English correspondent, that the home government was still resolved to compel the colonies to obedience. He expresses the opinion that the leaders of the popular movement ought to be punished, and the supporters of the crown rewarded. He hopes that no more severity will be shown than may be necessary to secure the dependence^ which a colony ought to have upon a parent state, but if no measures are adopted but " declaratory acts, or resolves, it is all over with us." '•''There must he an abridgment ofichat are called English liberties^ '''•I doubt whether it is possible to project a sys- tem of government in which a colony^ 3,000 miles distant from the parent state^ shall enjoy all the liberty of the parent stated'' He declared that he wished well to the colony ; and therefore it was that he desired to see some further restraint of its liberty. He maintained that, in the most perfect of all conceivable governments, " there must be a great restraint of natural liberty." Letter 7. — From Thomas Hutchinson to WiUiam Whately, Boston, Oct. 201 h, 1769. This letter urges anew the necessity of AGED 67.] THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 567 punishing the colonists, particularly those who had agreed not to consume the taxed articles. One sentence of particular atrocity occurs in this letter. He first intimates an opinion that, unless the (penal) duties, imposed in the last act, are repealed, it will be im- possible to keep the people's minds quiet. " They deserve punish- ment, you will say ; but laying or continuing taxes upon all cannot be thought equal, seeing many will be punished who are not offend- ers. Penalties of another hind see)n better adapted^ Letter 8. — From Andrew Oliver, Secretary of Massachusetts, to William Whately, Boston, May 7th, 1767. This is the vile, petty, mischief-making letter of a sycophant short of material, the perusal of which must have put the good humor of Franklin to tlie severest test. The events that had recently occurred in the colony, all of them unimportant, he recounts at great length, and with most manifest falsehood. He gives to the most trifling cir- cumstances a turn designed to rouse the jealousy and apprehension of the court. He tells his correspondent, among other trivial things, that at a late festive gathering of the people. General Paoli, the hero of Corsica, was toasted, as well as " the spark of liberty just kindled in Spain." He has much to say of the alleged efforts of the Assembly "to lessen the officers of the crown in the eyes of the people," suggests that the salary of the governor (£1,000) has become insufficient ; and recommends that the " officers of the crown he made, in some measui'e, independent of the people/^ for, he adds, "it is difficult to serve two masters." It might be well enough, he thought, for the people to be permitted to pay part of the governor's salary ; but a sum sufficient for his maintenance should be secured to him by the home government ; and " such provision I look upon as necessary to the restoration and support of the king's government." With regard to the combinations to discontinue the consumption of taxed articles, let the government but persevere a year or two, and the " game would be over." An injunction to keep secret the name of the writer concludes the letter. Letter 9. — From Andrew Oliver to William Whately, Bos- ton, May 11th, 1768. He had heard from his correspondent, that the ministry intended to increase his salary, as a reward for his de- votion. He doubts, however, whether he could safely accept it, as it had " been given out, that any one who should receive a stipend 568 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [HIS. from the government at home should not live in the country." " Government here," he significantly adds, " needs some effectual support." The letter teems with abuse and misrepresentation of the patriots, and expresses the opinion that if the last petition to the king should fail of success, " some people will be mad enough to go to extremities." Again and again he declares the necessity of " eff'ectual support." Letter 10. — From Andrew Oliver to William Whately, Boston, Feb. 13th, 1769. This letter unfolds a complete plan for annihila- ting popular liberty in the colony. Before entering upon this sub- ject, the writer states it as his settled opinion, that " if there be no way to take off the original incendiaries^ they will continue to in- still their poison into the minds of the people, through the vehicle of the Boston Gazette.^'' He proposes the formation of a Colonial Aristocracy, who should be exempt from service in the lower of- fices, and monopolists of the higher. The Legislative Council, he thinks, should consist of men possessing a landed estate of one hun- dred pounds a year, who should hold their seats during good be- havior, and be elected from an Order of Patricians, all men of landed estates, and appointed members of the Order by the Royal Governor. This Order of Patricians should elect members of the legislative council from their own body, as Scotch peers elect mem- bers to represent them in the House of Lords ; and the members so elected " might bear a title one degree above that of Esquire," i. e.. Knight. Other suggestions of a similar nature, all designed to make the government powerful and the people powerless, are set forth in this epistle. Letter 11. — From Andrew Oliver to William Whately, New York, Aug. 12th, 1769. Still urges vigorous measures, and endeav- ors to show their necessity by misrepresenting the temper of the colonists. He says that New York is even worse than Massachu- setts, since in Massachusetts the king's government still had some disinterested friends, but in New York not one. The New Yorkers " universally approve of the combination against importing goods from Great Britain unless the revenue acts are repealed ; which appears to me little less than assuming a negative on all acts of Parliament which they do not like." Nay ; the contumacious New Yorkers go so far as to say, that the Bill of Rights and the Habeas Corpus Act, are not boons bestowed on them by a gracious mother AGED 67.] THE HUTCHINSON LETTEES. 569 country, but " are only declaratory of the common law which we Jyrought with us." Letter 12. — From Charles Paxton, Commissioner of the Cus- toms, Boston Harbor, Jime 20th, 1768. Paxton was one of the gentlemen wlio took refuge on board the Romney, as before related, and this short note was written on board. The substance of it was contained in its last sentence : " Unless we have immediately two or three regiments, 'tis tl;e opinion of all the friends of government, that Boston will be in open rebellion." Letter 13. — From Nathaniel Rogers, Boston, December 12th, 1768. This is a letter of no importance, and has no right to a place in the series. Rogers wished to succeed to Oliver's place as secre- tary of the province, provided Oliver should be advanced to the lieu- tenant-governorship, which was expected. Governor Bernard was going to England ; Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson would succeed him, and leave the expected vacancy. Rogers asks the aid and in- terest of his correspondent. He says that when he was in England he mentioned his views to Governor Pownall, Mr. John Pownall, and Dr. Franklin, who approved them. "I am considered here," he adds, " on government side, for which I have been often traduced both publicly and privately, and very lately have had two or three slaps."* Such were the letters. After reading them Franklin admitted that his informant -had proved his case. The quartering of troops in Boston and the dependence of the Governor and judges upon the home government for their salaries, the two measures most offensive to the people of Massachusetts, were shown to have been suggested and urged by those very natives of Massachusetts who were the most bound to transmit correct intelligence and good advice, and from whom the ministry were justified in expecting such. The letters teemed with misrepresentations so gross as to be worse than downright falsehood ; since nothing can give such force and currency to a lie as a slight infusion of truth. The longest-lived lies which history records owed their long life to the little truth * I liave prepared this abstract of the letters from what appears to be a copy of the orif?inal Boston edition of 1773, a little dingy pamjjhlet of forty-nine pages, without title-page, date, head- ing, note, or comment. There is not one word in or on the pamphlet except those which compose the thirteen epistles. It was obligingly lent me by Mr. Frank Moore, of New York ; to whose valuable collection of historical curiosities the reader is otherwise indebted. 570 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1773. mixed with them. The spirit of the letters, too, was deeply ob- noxious. Tliey spoke the souls of men eager to betray their native laud for wealth and place. Hutchinson, as Franklin learned after- wards, enjoyed already part of the price of his treason in the form of a secret pension of two hundred pounds a year from Lord Hills- borough ; to say nothing of his advancement to the governorship of the province, and his well-founded hopes of a baronetcy. The effect of the letters upon Dr. Franklin's mind, after the first burst of indignant contempt had subsided, was to allay the warmth of his resentment against the British government. How could he blame ministers for adopting a policy which men in high office, natives of America, reared and educated in America, had solemnly and repeatedly declared was the policy which alone could save their country from anarchy and ruin ? Wise and independent ministers would, of course, have heard the patriots' version of the story, and decided upon measures after weighing both. But no man knew better than Franklin that the ministers of George IH. could be any thing except wise and independent. They could be dissolute ; they could be stupid ; they could be idle ; they could be ignorant ; they could be corrupt. "Wise and independent they could not be. The letters from America had given such men as Hillsborough and Sand- wich, not an excuse merely for their violent measures, but complete conviction that those measures were unavoidable. The gentleman who had furnished the letters desired, as he said, not only' to convince Dr. Franklin, but also Dr. Franklin's coun- trymen. Yet he could not permit copies of the letters to be taken. Franklin was of opinion that a mere description of their contents would not have the effect desired, and asked to be allowed to send the letters themselves to Boston, where the handwriting would be recognized. After some delay, he obtained permission to do so on condition that the letters should be neither printed nor copied, and, after being shown to the chosen few, should be returned to London. On the second of December, 1772, he inclosed them, in his regular, official letter, to Thomas Gushing, Ghairman of the Gommittee of Gorrespondence of the Massachusetts Assembly. " I am not at liberty," he wrote, "to make the letters pubUc. I can only allow them to be seen by yourself, by the other gentlemen of the Gommittee of Gorrespondence, by Messrs. Bowdoin and Pitts of the Gouncil, and Drs. Chauncy, Gooper, and Winthrop, with a AGED G7.J THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 571 few such other gentlemen as you may think fit to show them to. After being some months in your possession, you are requested to return them to me." The letters reached the Committee of Correspondence, and were shown by them to the leading patriots. The recent passage of ad- dresses between the Assembly and the governor had so fully re- vealed the opinions of that personage, that his letters created far less astonishment than disgust. But the disgust was most pro- found. John Adams, then practicing at the bar, carried the letters round his circuit, showing them to friends, male and female. As his custom was, he relieved his feelings in his diary. " Cool, think- ing, deliberate villain," he wrote March 22d, 1773, "malicious and vindictive." A few days after : " Bone of our bone, born and educated among us ! Mr. Hancock is deeply affected ; is deter- mined, in conjunction with Major Hawley, to watch the vile ser- pent, and his deputy serpent. Brattle. The subtlety of this serpent is equal to that of the old one. Aunt is let into the secret, and is full of her interjections." For two months the letters continued to circulate in Massachusetts, imtil many persons of influence had either read them or had been informed of their contents. Hutch- inson himself was soon let into the great secret (so he says) by a person " who detested the whole proceeding as iniquitous in every part." This general circulation of the letters was afterwards sanc- tioned by Dr. Franklin ; who, when the Committee urged the necessity of their being allowed to retain copies, replied : "I have permission to let the originals remain with you as long as you may think it of any use," and " I am allowed to say that they may be shown and read to whom and as many as you think proper." Copying them was still strictly forbidden. In June the Assembly convened. There was much secret whis- pering about the letters. Curiosity was on tip-toe. The country members were eager for complete disclosure, and the more radical members desired to strengthen their side by making it. It being determined, at length, that the letters should be read to the House in secret session, Mr. Hancock informed the House that within two days a discovery would be made which, if rightly improved, would put the province into a happier state than it had knoAvn for fourteen years. On the appointed day the galleries were cleared, the doors closed, and, amid breathless silence, the letters were 572 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [lYYS. read. Soon after, printed copies of the letters made their appear- ance, said to have been printed from " copies just received from England." The pamphlet found its way to all the colonies, and some copies were sent to England. The proceedings of the Assembly, after the disclosure, are too well known to require restatement here. The result of their de- liberations was the resolve to petition the king to remove from office the two chief offenders, Hutchinson and Oliver. A pe- tition was accordingly prepared, couched in language the most respectful. Its concluding words were these : . " We do, with all due submission to your majesty, beg leave to " represent that " Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver have been among the chief instruments in introducing a fleet and army into this prov- ince to establish and perpetuate their plans, whereby they have been, not only greatly instrumental in disturbing the peace and harmony of the government, and causing unnatural and hateful discords and animosities between the several parts of your majes- ty's extensive dominions, but are justly chargeable with all that corruption of morals, and all that confusion, misery, and bloodshed, which have been the natural effects of posting an army in a popu- lous town. Wherefoke, we most humbly pray, that your majes- ty would be pleased to remove from their posts," the said function- aries, " and place such good and faithful men in their stead, as your wisdom shall think fit." The petition, I should add, expressly stated, that the Assembly had derived their new information re- specting Hutchinson and Oliver from "certain papers," which they had " very lately had before them." The petition was forwarded to Dr. Franklin, who, on the 21st of August, lY'ZS, sent it to Lord Dartmouth, then at his country-seat, "^ith the following letter: " My Lord : I have just received, from the House of Represent- atives of the Massachusetts Bay, their address to the king, which I now enclose and send to your Lordship, with my humble request in their behalf, that you would be pleased to present it to his ma- jesty the first convenient opportunity. I have the pleasure of hear- ing from that province by my late letters, that a sincere disposition prevails in the people there to be on good terms with the mother country ; that the Assembly have declared their desire only to be put into the situation they were in before the Stamp Act. They AGED 67.] TH-E HTJTCHINSON LETTERS. 673 aim at no novelties. And it is said, that, having lately discovered, as they think, the authors of their grievances to be some of their own people, their resentment against Britain is thence much abated. This good disposition of theirs (will your Lordship permit me to say ?) may be cultivated by a favorable answer to this address, which I therefore hope your goodness will endeavor to obtain." To which, by return of post, Lord Dartmouth sent this re- ply : "Sir — I have received your letter of the 21st instant, to- gether with an address of the House of Representatives of the Massachusetts Bay, which I shall not fail to lay before the king the next time I shall have the honor of being admitted into his pres- ence. I cannot help expressing to you the pleasure it gives me to hear that a sincere disposition prevails in the people of that prov- ince to be on good terms with the mother country, and my earnest hope that the time is at no great distance when every ground of uneasiness will cease, and the most perfect tranquillity and happiness be restored to the breasts of that people." This seemed an auspicious beginning, but only seemed. Not another word from the government respecting the petition reached him for five months. The year 1773 passed away, and the peti- tion still lay in the colonial office, neither granted nor rejected. It was, probably, the intention of the ministry to let it lie there unno- ticed, till the affair should be forgotten. The letters, meanwhile, reached London, and were published in all the principal newspapers, exciting universal inquiry how the letters were obtained. Suspicion fell upon Mr. Thomas Whately, brother and executor of the deceased, to whom his letters and papers had been bequeathed, and in whose custody they had been since the death of his brother. Thomas Whately, who was neces- sarily innocent of the charge, the letters in question never having been in his possession, was restive under the accusation, and anxious to prove his innocence ; the more anxious from his being a banker employed by the government in the payment of pensions. Dr. Johnson received his semi-annual hundred and fifty pounds from the banking house of Thomas Whately. The person suspected by Whately of having abstracted the letters was Mr. John Temple, an officer of the customs, formerly lieutenant-governor of New Hamp- shire. There were strong grounds for this suspicion : First, Mr. Temple, in writing to his confidants in America, had announced 574 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEAXKLIN. [1773. the coming of the letters before they had reached the colony. Secondly, in October, 1772, he had sought and obtained access to the papers of the deceased for the purpose of taking therefrom certain letters of his own and of his brother's. It was, therefore, natural to suspect that he had taken the other letters at the same time, which he could have done with a fair prospect of impunity, since the executor, who had permitted him to select his own and his brother's letters, had not yet examined the great mass of papers left to his care. The suspicions entertained of Mr. Temple found their way into print. On the eighth of December, 1772, a letter appeared in the Public Advertiser^ signed " Anterior," charging him with having taken the letters dishonorably, and suiDporting the charge by inti- mating that the information was derived from Mr. Thomas Whately. Temple instantly called upon Whately, denied the charge in terms the most explicit, and asked a public statement from Whately ex- onerating him. In the paper of the day following, Whately pub- lished a narrative, to this effect : Mr. Temple having applied for permission to select from the corre- spondence of the deceased certain letters, " I made no scruple to lay before him, and occasionally during his visit to leave with him, several parcels of letters from my late brother's correspondents in America, in the exact state in which they had come into my pos- session; some regularly sorted, and some promiscuously tied to- gether ; and some of them were from Mr. Temple himself, and his brother, and from Governor Hutchinson, Mr. Oliver, and others ; and, during the intervals that I was in the room with Mr. Temple, we did together cast our eyes on one or two letters of Governor Hutchinson, and I believe one or two other correspondents of my late brother. In July last I received information from Mr. Oliver of Boston, that several letters to my late brother had been laid be- fore the Assembly of the province ; upon which I waited upon Mr- Temple and told him I thought myself entitled to call upon him to join his name with mine in asserting the integrity and honor of both of us ; that he, and he only, had ever had access to any of the letters of my brother's correspondents in America, and that I was called upon to account for the appearance of the letters in question. Mr. Temple assured me, in terms the most proci^o. that, (except some letters froni himself and his brother, which he had from me AGED 67.J THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 676 by ray permission) he had not taken a single letter, or an extract from any, I had communicated to him. I saw him twice afterwards OH the same subject, and the same assurances were invariably re- peated by him, and confirmed by him in the most solemn manner." Dr. Franklin, at this time, was in the country. Three persons in England, and three in America, knew that lie had sent the letters. In all the discussions and publications to which they had given rise, his name had not been mentioned ; which is the more remarkable because he had not suggested nor designed that his agency in the matter should be concealed. He had inclosed the letters in one of his regular official dispatches to the Committee of Correspondence, without stipulation with regard to himself. To Mr. John Temple, the narrative of Whately was in the high- est degree unsatisfactory. " He omitted to state," wrote Temple, a few days later, " what was solely essential, that he did not know the letters in question were among those he put into my hands, and that none of those he had intrusted to me appeared to be missing ; but related tlie matter in such a manner as strongly to corroborate the anonymous charge, and gave me, to my understanding, the lie direct." In short, Mr. Temple sent a challenge to Mr. Whately. The challenge was borne by Mr. Ralph Izard, of South Carolina, then residing in London, who offered to serve as Mr. Temple's second, if Whately would also name a "friend." The doughty banker ac- cepted the challenge, but refused to have a second, and agreed to meet his antagonist in the Ring of Hyde Park, at four o'clock the next morning, December the 11th. At the time appointed both gentlemen appeared in the field, unaccompanied, Mr. Temple be- ing armed with sword and pistols, and Mr. Whately with a sword only. Temple, presuming that he was about to encounter a skillful swordsman, proposed beginning the encounter with pistols, and offered one of his own to Mr. Whately, who accepted it. They fired without result. Both then drew their swords; they ap- proached each other, and began the game of parry and thrust. Temple, who was not unskilled in the use of his weapon, discover- ing, at once, that Whately was completely at his mercy, endeavored to wound his sword arm, and thus end the combat. Whately, however, inexpert as he was, made a vigorous defense, laying about him with a wild energy that baffled the scientific thrusts of 576 LIFE ATHJ TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIX. [1773. his antagonist. It became a tumultuous and even ridiculous strug- gle, during which Whately, in his furious contortions, repeatedly exposed himself to a fatal hnige. Temple, kindling at length, aimed a thrust which would have transfixed the banker if it had taken effect. Whately, however, caught at the blade with his left hand, and so diverted the stroke that it pierced his side without touching a vital part. The wound was somewhat severe, though not dan- gerous, and Whately uttered words indicating a desire to end the fight. But Temple, who was extremely deaf, did not hear him, and snatching away the sword, thrust again. Whately slipped, fell forward, and received the point of the sword in the back part of one of his shoulders. The combat then terminated ; Whately be- ing twice wounded, Temple unhurt, and neither satisfied. Ralph Izard and Arthur Lee were approaching the field in a carriage, when they heard the discharge of the pistols. Ahghting, they walked toward the scene of the encounter, and met the wounded man returning from it. Mr. Izard placed him in his carriage and accompanied him home, while Arthur Lee sought Mr. Temple, and walked with him to Izard's house.* Such an affair could not but become the town talk ; could not but be related with a hundred variations from the truth. The true version of a tale like this is, usually, the last one to find currency or belief. It was said, among other things, that the wound in the back of Whately's shoulder, was given, and could only have been given, when that gentleman had fallen down ; that Temple, thirst- ing for blood, had continued the combat after Whately had cried to him to desist ; and that Whately only waited for the healing of his wound to challenge his antagonist to another encounter. Temple published a long narrative of the duel in the Public Ad- vertiser of December 18th, in which he denied these charges, -and mentioned his deafness. He concluded his statement with these words : " As Mr. Whately's narrative tends to confirm the suspi- cion of my having taken from him the letters which were sent to Boston, I do again most solemnly afiirm, that I neither took from him those, nor any other letters, but such as were written by my brother and myself to the late Mr. Whately, and that with his knowledge and consent; nor had I any concern, directly or in- Life of Arthur Lee, i., 270. — Public Advertiser, December, 1773. I AGED 67.] THE HUTCHINSON LETTEES. 611 directly, in procuring or transmitting the letters which were sent to Boston." Dr. Franklin returned to London. Hearing that a second duel between the still irate gentlemen was probable, and regretting that he had not heard of the first challenge in time to prevent the meet- ing, he now determined to interfere. On Christmas day, 1773, he sent to the Public Advertiser the following note, which was imme- diately published : " Finding that two gentlemen have been unfortunately engaged in a duel, about a transaction and its circumstances, of which both of them are totally ignorant and innocent ; I think it incumbent upon me to declare (for the prevention of further mischief, as far as such a declaration may contribute to prevent it), that I alone am the person who obtained and transmitted to Boston the letters in question. Mr. W. could not communicate them, because they were never in his possession ; and, for the same reason, they could not be taken from him by Mr. T. They were not of the nature of ^:)rz- vate letters between friends. They were written by public officers to persons in public stations, on public affairs, and intended to pro- cure public measures ; they were therefore handed to other public persons, who might be influenced by them to produce those meas- ures. Their tendency was to incense the mother country against her colonies, and by the steps recommended to widen the breach ; which they effected. The chief caution expressed with regard to privacy was, to keep their contents from the colony agents, who, the writers apprehended, might return them, or copies of them, to America. That apprehension was, it seems, well founded ; for the first agent who laid his hands on them thought it his duty to trans- mit them to his constituents." This letter delivered the gentlemen from a situation which to both was disagreeable, and to Whately dangerous. The friends of Dr. Franklin applauded his frankness and courage. He himself, for a short time, indulged the belief that his letter had ended the affair. He was never more mistaken. The court party, long deterred by his great character, often baffled by his great prudence, perceived that their opportunity had come, and hastened to turn it to account. On Sati^rdny^ .Tnnnnry ftt.h^ fnnrtf>pn day| after the date of the letter given above, he wasastomshed to "receive official notice that the lords of the Committee for Plantation Affairs would meet on the 51 S LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [l773. Tuesday following, at noon, to take into consideration the petition for the removal of the governor and lieutenant-governor of Massa- chusetts, referred to them by the king, and that the attendance of the agent for the Assembly of that province was required. He suspected immediately that the Lords of the Committee meant mischief The revival of the petition was too sudden, the notice too short, the message too peremptory, not to awaken such a sus- picion. He sent for Mr. Arthur Lee, his substitute, then a student at one of the inns at court, not yet called to the bar. Mr. Lee was at Bath. The next morning he called upon Mr. Bollan, a barrister, who was employed by the Council of Massachusetts as their Lon- don agent. He, too, had received notice to attend the Lords of the Committee. The question arose between them whether other counsel should be employed. Mr. Bollan advised not, since emi- nent lawyers were unwilling to offend the court, upon whose favor their promotion depended. He engaged to ask a hearing, and to support the petition himself. Late on Monday afternoon, Mr. Israel Manduit, agent and friend of Hutchinson and Oliver^ sent notice that he had obtained leave to be heard by counsel before the Lords of the Committee. This notice was a mockery, for the lords were to meet at noon on the day following. The counsel employed by Mr. Manduit was Alex- ander Wedderburn, the king's soHcitor-general, a sharp, unprin- cipled Scotch barrister, destined to scale all the heights of prefer- ment which shameless subserviency could reach. The council met at the appointed time. It was attended by four of the ministers, and a number of other lords of the Privy Council. The proceedings began by the reading of the petition, and Dr. Franklin's letter presenting the same. The Lord President then asked Dr. Franklin what he had to offer in support of the petition. He replied that Mr. Bollan, in accordance with the notice sent him by the clerk of the council, was present, and would speak upon the petition. That gentleman coming forward and beginning to speak, several lords objected, saying that he was the agent of the Council of Massachusetts, not of the Assembly, and had no right to a hearing on behalf of the Assembly. He attempted, however, to address the lords, but, after many interruptions, he was forbidden to proceed. Dr. Franklin then said that he had brought with him the Res- olutions of the Assembly, which had preceded the petition, and AGED G7.] THE HUTCHINSON LETTEES. 579 the letters upon which those Resolutions were founded ; and these he would offer in support of the petition. The Resolutions were immediately read. Wedderburn then asked what the " certain pa- pers" were, upon which the Assembly founded their proceedings. " The letters of Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Oliver," replied Franklin. The following conversation ensued ; Chief Justice De Grey. — " Have you brought the letters ?" Franklin. — " No ; but here are attested copies." JLord President. — " Do you mean to found a charge upon them ? If you do, you must produce the letters." Franklin. — " These copies are attested by several gentlemen at Boston, and a notary public." A Lord. — " What is the nature of the letters V Franklin. — " That will appear when they are read, and I pray your lordship to hear them." Chief Justice. — " To whom were the letters directed ? There is no address upon any of them." Franklin. — " Though it does not appear to whom they were di- rected, it is plain enough who wrote them ; their names are sub- scribed, and the originals have been shown to the gentlemen them- selves, and they have not denied their handwriting." Wedderburn. — " My lords, we shall not take advantage of any imperfection in the proof. We admit that the letters are Mr. Hutchinson's and Mr. Oliver's handwriting ; reserving to ourselves the right of inquiring how they were obtained." Franklin. — " It is some surprise to me, my lords, to find coun- sel employed against the petition." Chief Justice. — " Had you not notice sent you of Mr. Manduit's having petitioned to be heard by counsel, on behalf of the governor and lieutenant-governor ?" Franklin. — " I did receive notice, but not till late yesterday al- ternoon. It was not my purpose to trouble your lordships with the hearing of counsel, because I did not conceive that any thing could possibly arise out of the petition, any point of law or of right, that might require the discussion of lawyers. I apprehend that this matter before your lordships is rather a question of civil or polit- ical prudence, whether, on the state of the fact that the governors have lost all trust and confidence with the people, and become uni- versally obnoxious, it will be for the interest of his Majesty's ser- 580 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FBANKLIN. [l773. vice to continue them in those stations in that province. I conceive this to be a question of which your lordships are already perfect judges, and can receive no assistance in it from the arguments of counsel ; but if counsel is to be heard on the other side, I must then request leave to bring counsel in behalf of the Assembly, and that your lordships will be pleased to appoint a further day for the hear- ing, to give time for preparing the counsel." Chief Justice. — " Where a charge is brought the parties have a right to be heard by counsel, or not, as they choose." Franklin. — " Will Mr. Manduit waive his right to be heard by counsel, in order that your lordship may proceed immediately to consider the petition ?" Manduit. — " My lords, I am not a native of that country, as these gentlemen are. I know well Dr. Franklin's abilities, and wish to put the defense of my friends upon a parity with the attack ; he will not therefore wonder that I choose to appear before your lordships with the assistance of counsel. My friends, in their letters to me, have desired (if any proceedings, as they say, should be had upon this Address) that they may have a hearing in their own justifica- tion, that their innocence may be fully cleared, and their honor vin- dicated ; and have made provision accordingly. I do not think my- self at liberty, therefore, to give up the assistance of my counsel in defending them against this unjust accusation." Chief Justice. — " Dr. Franklin may have the assistance of coun- sel, or go on without it, as he shall choose." Franklin. — " I desire to have counsel." Chief Justice. — " What time do you want ?" Franklin. — " Three weeks." Chief Justice. — " Further proceedings, then, are postponed until Saturday, the 29th of the month." Wedderburn. — " Although, to save your lordship's time, I have admitted these to be true copies of the original letters, I give no- tice that when the matter comes on again, I shall exercise the right to ask certain questions, as how the Assembly came into possession of them, through what hands, and by what means they were pro- cured." Chief Justice. — "Certainly; and to whom they were directed; for the perfect understanding of the passages may depend on that and other such circumstances. We can receive no charge against a AGED 67.] THE HUTCHINSON LETTEKS. 581 man founded on letters directed to nobody, and perhaps received by nobody. The laws of this country have no such practice." Dr. Franklin then prepared to withdraw. As he was putting up his papers, a lord near whom he stood asked him if he intended to answer such questions. To this impertinence Franklin replied : " In that I shall take counsel." He began at once to prepare for the next meeting of the coun- cil. While he was busy with documents and consultations, he received an unpleasant reminder from Mr. Thomas Whately.^ who, on recovering from his wounds, hastened to join in the fray. This man had been twice served by Franklin. A valuable tract of land in Pennsylvania, belonging to Whately, Dr. Franklin had assisted him to recover from the Penn family, who claimed it as their own. To Franklin he owed, also, his exoneration from the charge of giv- ing up his brother's letters, and his deliverance from the peril of a second encounter with Temple. " The return this worthy gentleman made me for both favors," said Franklin, " was without the small- est previous notice, warning, complaint, or request to me, directly, or indirectly, to clap upon my back a chancery suit." He had the impudence to sue his benefactor for the profits alleged to have ac- crued from the sale of his brother's letters. His bill of complaint was curiously compact with falsehood. It stated, as Franklin re- cords, that " the letters had been in the custody of his brother at the time of his death, or had been by him delivered to some other person for perusal, and to be by such person safely kept and return- ed to said Thomas Whately ; that the same had by some means come into my hands ; that, to prevent a discovery, I, or some per- son by my order, had erased the address of the letters to the said Thomas Whately ; that, carrying on the trade of a printer, I had, by my agents or confederates, printed and published the same letters in America, and disposed of great numbers ; that I threatened to print and sell the same in England ; and that he had applied to me to deliver up to him the said letters, and all copies thereof, and desist from printing and publishing the same, and account with him for the profits thereof; and he was in hopes I vvould have complied with such request, but so it was that I had refused, contrary to equity and good conscience, and to the manifest injury and oppres- sion of him the complainant ; and praying my Lord Chancellor, that I might be obliged to discover how I came by the letters, what 682 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. [1773. number of copies I had printed and sold, and to account with him for the profits." All of which Franklin, on oath, denied. The suit was not continued, as other means were found for wreaking the vengeance of the court. The town was filled with rumors respecting the late meeting of the Privy Council. It was reported that the solicitor-general had soundly berated Franklin for the part he had taken in procuring and sending the letters. All the courtiers, Franklin was told, were enraged against him, and clamored for his punishment and disgrace. He diligently prepared to meet the coming storm. CHAPTER IX. THE PBIVY COUNCIL OXgrUAGE. Dk. Feanklin was still willing to trust his cause to Mr. BoUan. That gentleman, however, now shrank from the encounter, and urged the employment of the most eminent counsel whose services could be obtained. Franklin, yielding to his opinion, placed the afiair, in the usual manner, in the hands of a solicitor, who drew up a brief of formidable proportions, as though Hutchinson and Oliver were to be put on trial for ofienses committed against the Assembly of Massachusetts. Passages from their letters were the only evi- dence to which he could direct the attention of counsel. The case seemed to admit of no other evidence that was procurable in England, and to obtain further testimony from America there was not time. The brief being prepared, the next business was the selection of counsel. Sergeant Glynn, whose various defenses of John Wilkes had made him the most famous barrister in the world, and, in Eng- land, a popular idol, would have been promptly retained, had not an attack of the gout rendered it uncertain whether he would be able to attend on the appointed day. He was a particular friend of Arthur Lee, whom Dr. Franklin regarded more as a colleague than a successor. Lee was a frequenter of the Wilkes coterie ; he was one of the company at the celebrated dinner when Dr. Johnson was entrapped into sitting at table with " Jack Wilkes ;" who won AGED 68.] THE PRIYY COUNCIL OUTRAGE. 683 the heart of the old toiy by his roast veal and ready wit.* Glynn being out of the question, Franklin's choice fell upon John Dun- ning, afterward Lord Ashburton, a man of liberal politics, and of the first eminence in his profession. He was considered the ugliest man then practicing at the English bar. Wraxall says of him : *' Never, perliaps, did nature inclose a more illuminated mind in a body of meaner and more abject appearance. It is difficult to do justice to the peculiar species of ugliness which characterized his person and figure, although he did not labor under any absolute deformity of shape or limb. A degree of infirmity, and almost of debility or decay in his organs, augmented the efiect of his other bodily misfortunes. Even his voice was so husky and choked with phlegm, that it refused utterance to the sentiments which were dic- tated by his superior intelligence. In consequence of this physical impediment, he lay always under the necessity of involuntarily an- nouncing his intention to address the house some time before he actually rose, by the repeated attempts which he made to clear his throat. But all these imperfections and defects of configuration were obliterated by the ability which he displayed. In spite of the monotony of his tones and his total want of animation, as well as grace, yet so powerful was reason when flowing from his lips, that every murmur became hushed, and every ear attentive." Dunning, too, was the original hero of an anecdote which has since been related of almost every great pleader. Lord Eldon wrote, in his Anecdote Book : " I had, very early after I was called to the bar, a brief as junior to Mr. Dunning. He began the argu- ment, and appeared to me to be reasoning very powerfully against our client. Waiting till I was quite convinced that he had mistaken for what party he was retained, I then touched his arm, and, upon his turning his head toward me, I whispered to him that he must have misunderstood by whom he was employed, as he was reason- ing against our client. He gave me a very rough and rude repri- mand for not having sooner set him right, and then proceeded to state, that what he had addressed to the court was all that could be stated against his client, and that he had put the case as unfavor- ably as possible against him, in order that the court might see how very satisfactorily the case against him could be answered, and, * Correspondence of John Wilkes, ir., S&l. iJ84 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l774. accordingly, very powerfully answered what he had before stated."* It was Dunning also, who, when asked how he got through so much business, replied : " I do one-third of it, another third does itself, and the remaining third remains undone." As junior to Mr. Dunning, was employed that jovial barrister whom his companions styled " Jack Lee," and his clients " honest John Lee," a dissenter and a whig, afterwards solicitor-general under Mr. Fox. He was not the most profound of lawyers, but possessed a vigorous understanding, an admirable temper, and con- siderable eloquence. He was a favorite of bar, bench, and clients, and was noted for his friendly zeal in aiding and encouraging the younger members of his profession. This amiable character is assigned him even by Lord Eldon, the most unflinching of tories. Dr. Franklin had the advantage of his opponents both in the standing and the talents of his counsel. "Wedderburn, young in years, new to the London bar, of little learning and small ability, owed his rapid advancement in his profession to the favor of Lord North, of whose party he was a zealous and unscrupulous supporter in Parliament. He had what is called " a talent for invective." To say that a man has a talent for invective is to say that he has very little talent. Greediness and ill-nature sometimes enable a man of ordinary ability to startle and amaze an audience by the force of his malignant rhetoric ; and this the easier, when he addresses those who are already inflamed against the object of his attack. Such a speaker has not the honorable scruples, not the sympathetic understanding, not the power to comprehend a character in its wholeness, not the self-knowledge, not the knowledge of mankind and of human life, which compel all men of minds truly superior to censure, if they censure at all, with charitable moderation. Wed- derburn, like many other tories of that bad time, was subjected to a temptation too powerful for average human nature to resist. The real sinner was the System which kept a man like George HL at the head of a nation like England. Given such a man in such a place, and there will always be found Mansfields, Wedderburns, Germains, Jenkinsons, Addingtons, and Eldons to do his work and take his wages. Mr. Dunning, upon one important point, set Dr. Franklin's mind * Life of Lord Eldon, vol. i., Chap. t. AGED G8.] THE PRIVY COUNCIL OUTRAGE. 585 at rest. Before receiving the famous letters, he had bound himself not to divulge the name of the friend who brought them to him ; and this promise it was now more important than ever to keep. Political ruin, and worse, awaited the man who should be known to have been instrumental in placing the letters in the hands of the agent of the Massachusetts Assembly. Mr. Dunning informed Dr. Franklin that he could not be lawfully compelled to answer the questions which Wedderburn had threatened to ask, and he would himself object to such questions being proposed. He said, how- ever, that the evidence detailed in the brief would be of little use, because the opposing counsel would claim that the quoted passages described the condition of the province truly, and the agent of the Assembly was not prepared to disprove the assertion. Moreover, the sentiments contained in the letters which the colonists thought so atrocious, would be regarded by the Privy Council as highly judicious and praiseworthy. He advised, therefore, that the quoted passages should not be brought forward, but that counsel should confine themselves to proving that the governor and lieutenant- governor had become odious to the people; so odious, that it was for the interest of Government to remove them. This plan of pro- cedure was finally adopted, and the brief set aside. — A building called the Cockpit was the place at which the Privy Council were then accustomed to meet. The apartment assigned them was not larger than an ordinary drawing-room in a great house, and was built in draw^ing-room style. There was an open fire-place at one end, with the usual recess on each side of the chimney. A long table extended from a point near the fire to the opposite end of the room ; at which the members of the Council sat, with the Lord President at the head. All other persons present stood during their sessions, no matter how protracted they might be. Petitioners, clients, counsel, old men, young men, women, all re- mained standing in the presence of a body which was supposed to represent the authority and majesty of the king. On the morning of the appointed day the official world at the west end of London was all astir. Never before had there beeu such a concourse of lords in the chamber. Thirty-five members of the Privy Council attended, a number which Mr. Burke said was vdthout precedent in his recollection. The Lord President Gower was in his place. Lord North, the Premier, was there, with most 25* 686 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FEANKXIN. [l774. of his colleagues. The Archbishop of Canterbury attended. Americans and members of the Opposition were present in con- siderable numbers : Lord Shelburne, Mr. Burke, Arthur Lee, Ralph Izard, Dr. Bancroft, and the barristers Mr. Dunning and John Lee. Israel Manduit attended on behalf of his friends, Hutch- inson and Oliver. Jeremy Bentham, not yet the absent, short- sighted, shambling old man we read of, but young, alert, and eager, contrived to get into the room. Chance procured admission for Dr. Priestley also. He happened to meet Mr. Burke that morning in Parliament Street, when Mr. Burke asked him where he was going. " I can tell you where I wish to go," said Priestley ; " to the Privy Council ; but I am afraid I cannot get admission." Burke offering his assistance, they went together to the Cockpit. " When we got to the ante-room," records Dr. Priestley, " we found it quite filled with persons as desirous of getting admission as our- selves. Seeing this, I said we should never get through the crowd. He said, " Give me your arm ;' and, locking it fast in his, he soon made his way to the door of the Privy Council. I then said, ' Mr. Burke, you are an excellent leader.' He replied, ' I wish other persons thought so too.' After waiting a short time the door of the Privy Council opened, and we entered the fi,rst ; when Mr. Burke took his stand behiud the first chair next the ^^J'resident, and I behind that next to his." Dr. Franklin stood in one of the recesses formed by the chimney, where he remained during the session, motionless and silent. He wore the flowing wig, which was still the mode among elderly gentlemen. His dress was a uniform suit of the material then called Manchester velvet, spotted. " He stood," says an eye-wit- ness, " conspicuously erect, without the smallest movement of any part of his body. The muscles of his face had been previously composed, so as to afford a placid, tranquil expression of counte- nance, and he did not suffer the slightest alteration of it to appear." The proceedings began. First, the attending clerk read Dr. Franklin's letter to Lord Dartmouth, inclosing the Assembly's petition ; next, the petition itself; then, the resolutions of the As- sembly ; and lastly, the letters upon which those resolutions were founded. Wedderburn, who stood in a place of honor near the right hand of the Lord President, interposed no objection, and asked none of the questions he had announced. Mr. Dunning then AGED 68.] THE PEIVY COUNCIL OUTRAGE. 587 spoke. He was not well, and his voice was more than usually husky and feeble, but he spoke ably and impressively. No cause, said he, has been instituted, no prosecution was intended. The petition charged no crime, and brought no accusation. The Assembly did not come before the throne demanding justice ; they appealed to the wisdom and goodness of their sovereign ; they asked a favor, which the king could grant or refuse. As the Assembly had no impeachment to make, so they had no evidence to offer. Mr. John Lee followed in a similar strain. " Both gentlemen," says Franklin, " acquitted themselves very handsomely," and Mr. Burke told the Marquis of Rockingham that Mr. Dunning's point was " well and ably put." Wedderburn then addressed the council. He spoke at great length, and with the energy of a bold, bad man who saw a coronet glittering in the eager eyes of the magnates whom he addressed. He began, as advocates generally begin, by magnifying the im- portance of his case. The question involved, he said, was no less than this : Whether the Crown should ever have it in its power to employ a faithful and steady servant in the administration of a colony ; a question well worthy the attendance and the attention of so great a number of lords and of so large an audience. He proceed- ed, next, to declare that Governor Hutchinson had shown himself eminently faithful and steady. In appointing him to the governor- ship of Massachusetts, "his majesty's choice followed the wishes of his people ; and no other man could have been named whom so many favorable circumstances ^concurred to recommend. A native of the country, whose ancestors were among its first settlers. A gentleman, who had for many years presided in their Law Courts ; of tried integrity ; of confessed abilities ; and who had long employed those abilities, in the study of their history apd original constitution." The orator then sketched the history of Governor Hutchinson's administration, and averred that his conduct, so far from being cen- surable, was praiseworthy in a high degree ; he had been moderate, patient, and patriotic. Nay, the petition of the Assembly itself contained no charge against him. There was in truth no cause to try, there was no accusation, no accuser, no proof. The members of the Assembly simply say that they dislike the governor and lieu- tenant-governor, who ought to be dismissed " because they have lost the confidence of those who complain against them." " My lords," said Wedderburn, " if such a man, without their attempting to allegxi 688 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [1774. one single act of misconduct during the four years in which he has been governor, is to be borne down by the mere surmises of this Ad- dress, it must then become a case of still greater magnitude, and ever be a matter of doubt whether the colony shall henceforward pay re- spect to any authority derived from this country." The speaker continued to laud and magnify the immaculate Hutchinson for about a quarter of an hour. He then turned upon Dr. FraokUn, and devoted three quarters of an hour to the main object of his oration ; which was to render the name of Franklin infamous throughout the world. His leading points were: 1. That the whole of the misunderstanding between Hutchinson and the Assembly was caused by Dr. Franklin's officious interference ; 2. That the letters were, in the fullest sense of the word, private letters ; 3d. That they must have been stolen by Dr. Franklin ; 4. That Dr. Franklin's motive was to become himself governor of Massachu- setts. " The whole of this address," said Wedderburn, " rests upon the foundation of these letters, written before the time when either of these gentlemen were possessed of the offices from which the As- sembly now ask their removal. They owe, therefore, all the ill will which has been raised against them, and the loss of that confidence which the Assembly themselves acknowledge they had heretofore enjoyed, to Dr. Franklin's good office in sending back these letters to Boston. Dr. Franklin, therefore, stands in the light of the first mover and prime conductor of this whole contrivance against his majesty's two governors; and having, by the help of his own special confidents and party leaders, first made the Assembly his agents in carrying on his own secret designs, he now appears before your lordships to give the finishing stroke to the work of his own hands." Wedderburn dwelt much upon the alleged private character of the letters, and made the most of the few lines in one or two of them which did contain an allusion to private matters. Those pas- sages related merely to the hospitality shown by Whately to certain friends of the writers, and thanked him for that hospitality. But it was in elucidating his third point, the alleged stealing of the letters, that the speaker was most savage. '' How these letters,'* said he, " came into the possession of any one but the right owners, is a mystery for D;*. Franklin to explain. They who know the AGED 68.] THE PKIVY COUNCIL OUTRAGE. 589 affectionate regard which the Whatelys had for each other, and the tender concern they felt for the honor of their brother's memory, as well as their own, can witness the distress which this occasioned. My lords, the late Mr. Whately was most scrupulously cautious about his letters. We lived for many years in the strictest in- timacy ; and in all those years I never saw a single letter written to him. These letters, I believe, were in his custody at his death ; and I as firmly believe, that without fraud they could not have been got out of the custody of the pei'son whose hands they fell into. His brothers little wanted this additional aggravation to the loss of him. The letters, I say, could not have come to Dr. Frank- lin by fair means. The writers did not give them to him ; nor yet did the deceased correspondent, who from our intimacy would otherwise have told me of it. Nothing, then, will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining them by fraudulent or corrupt means for the most malignant purposes, unless he stole them from the person who stole them. This argument is irrefragable. I hope, my lords, you will mark and brand the man, for the honor of this country, of Europe, and of mankind. Private correspondence has hitherto been held sacred in times of the greatest party rage, not only in politics but religion. He has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity of virtue ? Men will watch him with a jealous eye; they will hide their pa- pers from him, and lock up their escritoirs. He will henceforth esteem it a Hbel to be called a man of letters ; this man of three letters.* "Your lordships know the train of mischiefs which followed. Wherein had my late worthy friend or his family offended Dr. Franklin, that he should first do so great an injury to the memory of the dead brother, by secreting and sending away his letters : and then, conscious of what he had done, should keep himself concealed, till he had nearly, very nearly, occasioned the murder of the other? After the mischiefs of this concealment had been left for five months to have their full operation, at length comes out a letter, which it is impossible to read without horror, expressive of the coolest and * Wedderburn alludes here to the old Koman play upon the word/«r, a thief. Plautas speaka of a thief as "trium littcrarum homo" a man of three letters. 590 LIFE AI^^D TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l7V4. most deliberate malevolence. My lords, what poetic fiction only had penned for the breast of a cruel African, Dr. Franklin has realized, and transcribed from his own. His, too, is the language of a Zanga : " ' Know then 'twas 1. Zforg'd the letter — i'dispos'd the picture — T hated, i"despis'd, and Z destroy.' " Turning from this branch of the subject, the speaker descanted upon the corrupt motives, the ambition, the pride, of Dr. Franklin. He spoke sneeringly of the usual mention in the newspapers of Franklin's arrivals and departures, as though he were a great diplo- matic character. His mind, said Wedderburn, seemed to be so full of the idea of a Great American Republic, that he slid easily into the language of a minister of an independent power. "A for- eign embassador," he continued, "when residing here, just before the breaking out of a war, or upon particular occasions, may bribe a villain to steal or betray any state papers ; he is under the com- mand of another state, and is not amenable to the laws of the coun- try where he resides ; and the secure exemption from punishment may induce a laxer morality. But Dr. FrankUn, whatever he may teach the people at Boston, while he is Acre, at least, is a subject; and if a subject injure a subject, he is answerable to the law. And the Court of Chancery will not much attend to his new self-created importance." Again : " The letters from Boston for two years past have inti- mated that Dr. Franklin was aiming at Mr. Hutchinson's govern- ment. It was not easy before this to give credit to such surmises. But nothing surely but a too eager attention to an ambition of this sort, could have betrayed a wise man into such conduct as we have now seen. Whether these surmises are true or not, your lordships are much the best judges. If they should be true, I hope that Mr. Hutchinson will not meet with the less countenance from your lord- ships for his rivaVs being his accuser. Nor will your lordships, I trust, from what you have heard, advise the having Mr. Hutchin- son displaced, in order to make room for Dr. Franklin as a suc- cessor." From Dr. Franklin the speaker turned to the constituents of Dr. AGED 68.] THE PRIVY COUNCIL OUTRAGE. 591 Franklin, the patriots of Massachusetts. His remarks upon thena were considered very witty and amusing at the time. " Was it," he asked, '' to prevent the pernicious effect of the letters, that the good men of Boston have lately held their meetings, appointed their Committees, and with their usual moderation destroyed the cargo of three British ships ? If an English Consul, in any part of France or Spain, or rather Algiers or Tripoli (for European powers respect the law of nations), had not called this an outrage on his country, he would have deserved punishment. But if a Governor at Boston should presume to whisper to a friend, that he thinks it somewhat more than a moderate exertion of English lib- erty, to destroy the ships of England, to attack her officers, to plunder their goods, to pull down their houses, or even to burn the king's ships of war, he ought to be removed ; because such con- duct in him has a natural and efficacious tendency to interrupt the harmony between Great Britain and the Colony^ which these good subjects are striving by such means to establish." Wedderburn concluded his harangue with a passage which ex- cited in the minds of his American hearers the profoundest disgust. " On the part of Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Oliver," he said, " I am instructed to assure your lordships, that they feel no spark of re- sentment, even at the individuals who have done them this injus- tice. Their private letters breathe nothing but moderation. They are convinced that the people, though misled, are innocent. If the conduct of a few should provoke a just indignation, they would be the most forward, and, I trust, the most efficacious solicitors to avert its effects, and to excuse the men. They love the soil, the constitution, the people of New England ; they look with reverence to this country, and with affection to that. For the sake of the people they wish some faults corrected, anarchy abolished, and government re-established. But these salutary ends they wish to promote by the gentlest means, and the abridging of no liberties which a people can possibly use to its own advantage. A restraint from self-destruction is the only restraint they desire to be imposed upon New England." Such was the speech of the king's solicitor-general on this mem- orable occasion. At least, this is as correct an abstract of it as can now be obtained, for the printed copy, published a few days after its delivery, from which these extracts are taken, was far less inde- 592 LIFE AND TIMES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [17*74. cent than the speech as delivered. The government shrank from exhibiting to the world its worst passages. The manner of the orator, we are told, was as outrageous as the language which he uttered. "I was not more astonished," says Jeremy Bentham, "at the brilliancy of his lightning, than as- tounded by the thunder that accompanied it. As he stood, the cushion lay on the council table before him ; his station was be- tween the seats of two of the members, on the side of the right hand of the Lord President. I would, not for double the greatest fee the orator could on that occasion have received, been in the place of that cushion; the ear was stunned at every blow; he had been reading perhaps in that book in which the prince of Roman orators and rhetoric professors instructs his pupils how to make impression. * * * 'j«l^^ table groaned under the assault." " Alone, in the recess on the left hand of the president, stood Ben- jamin Fi-anklin, in such position as not to be visible from the situa- tion of the president, remaining the whole time like a rock, in the same posture, his head resting on his left hand ; and in that atti- tude abiding the pelting of the pitiless storm." Dr. Priestley has recorded the demeanor of the auditors : " At the sallies of his sarcastic wit, all the members of the council, the president himself not excepted, frequently laughed outright. No person belonging to the council behaved with decent gravity, ex- cept Lord North, who, coming late, took his stand behind the chair opposite to me." And Franklin himself says : " Not a single lord adverted to the impropriety and indecency of treating a public messenger in so ignominious a manner, who was present only as the person delivering your petition, with the consideration of which no part of his conduct had any concern. If he had done a wrong in obtaining and transmitting the letters, that was not the tribunal where he was to be accused and tried. The cause was already be- fore the Chancellor. Not one of their lordships checked and re- called the orator to the business before him, but, on the contrary, a very few excepted, they seemed to enjoy highly the entertain- ment, and frequently burst out in loud applauses." The Americans and their friends were deeply moved at the out- rage. Burke speaks of Wedderburn as " laying on, beyond all bounds and decency," upon " poor Dr. Franklin." Lord Shelburne wrote to the Earl of Chatham that the solicitor-general's "most AGED 68.] THE PKIVT COUNCIL OUTKAGE. 593 scurrilous invective" was encouraged by the judges, "the inde- cency of whose behavior exceeded, as is agreed on all hands, that of any committee of elections." That hot-blooded Carolinian, Ralph Izard, afterwards said : " When Dr. Franklin was so un- mercifully bespattered by Wedderburn, I sat upon thorns; and had it been me that was so grossly insulted, I should instantly have repelled the attack, in defiance of every consequence." Arthur Lee wrote: "The insult was oifered to the people through their agent ; and the indecent countenance given to the scurrilous solici- tor by the members of the Privy Council, was at once a proof of the malignity and meanness of their resentment." The mild Dr. Priestley was so much oifended, that when Wedderburn advanced to speak to him, he turned his back upon him and hurried out of the room. >^<^ Having concluded his speech, Wedderburn announced his readi- ness to examine Dr. Franklin as a witness. Mr. Dunning said that Dr. Franklin declined being questioned. He proceeded in a scarce- ly audible tone, for he was exhausted with standing three hours, to reply to the speech of the solicitor-general. His remarks were totally ineffective, and John Lee, who followed, was equally un- able to stem the tide of ill feeling which had set against their client. Wedderburn's triumph was complete. o The report of the Committee of the Council, dated on the very day of this sitting, and probably prepared before, declared, that the resolutions of the Assembly were " inflammatory and precipitate ;" that the letters, private and confidential, had been " surreptitiously obtained ;" that they contained " nothing reprehensible" or un- worthy of the writers. "The Lords of the Committee do agree humbly to report, as their opinion, to your majesty, that the said petition is founded upon resolutions formed upon false and errone- ous allegations ; and that the same is groundless, vexatious, and scandalous; and calculated only for the seditious purposes of keep- ing up a spirit of clamor and discontent in the said province. And the Lords of the Committee do further humbly report to your majesty, that nothing has been laid before them which does or can, in their opinion, in any manner, or in any degree, impeach the honor, integrity, or conduct of the said governor or lieutenant-gov- ernor; and their lordships are humbly of opinion that the said petition ought to be dismissed." Whereupon, " his majesty, taking 594 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. [1774. the said report into consideration, was pleased, with the advice of his Privy Council, to approve thereof; and to order, that the said petition of the House of Representatives of the Province of Massa- chusetts Bay be dismissed the Board, ' as groundless, vexatious, and scandalous ; and calculated only for the seditious purpose of keeping up a spirit of clamor and discontent in the said province.' " The council rose. Dr. Franklin, his countenance still unruffled, , left the apartment. As he passed Dr. Priestley he took him by the hand, as ^hough he would say, I am silent, but you know what I must feel. Wedderburn, as they went by him, was surrounded by a crowd of applauding friends. Franklin went home alone. The next morning, which was Sunday, Dr. Priestley breakfasted with him at Craven Street, where Dr. Franklin said, " that he had never before been so sensible of the power of a good conscience ; for that, . if he had not considered the thing for which he had been so much > insulted, as one of the best actions of his life, and what he should I certainly do again in the same circumstances, he could not have supported it." On Monday morning Dr. Bancroft was with him at an early hour. Franklin handed him a letter, which he said he had just received. It was from the Postmaster-general, informing' him in brief, official language, that the king had "found it neces- sary" to dismiss him from the office of deputy postmaster-general in America. In transmitting an account of these violent proceedings to his constituents in Massachusetts, he commented upon them with mod- eration and good temper. He admitted that he had felt some re- sentment at the public outrage. *' But," he added, *' what I feel om my own account is half lost in what I feel for the public. When II see that all petitions and complaints of grievances are so odious to government, that even the mere pipe which conveys them becomes- obnoxious, I am at a loss to know how peace and union are to be maintained and restored between the different parts of the empire. Grievances cannot be redressed unless they are known ; and they cannot be known but through complaints and petitions. If these are deemed affronts, and the messengers punished as offenders, who' will henceforth send petitions ? And who will deliver them ? It has been thought a dangerous thing in any state to stop up the vent of griefs. Wise governments have therefore generally received pe- titions with some indulgence, even when but slightly founde 1 iGED 68.] THE PEIVT COrNCIL OUTEAGE. 696 Those who think themselves injured by their rulers, are sometimes, 3y a mild and prudent answer, convinced of their error. But where jomplaining is a crime, hope becomes despair." Narratives of the affair soon appeared in the American newspa- 3ers, and portions of the speech of Wedderburn. Letters from London informed the people that the Lords of tlie Council went to heir chamber as to a bull-baiting, and hounded on the solicitor-gen- iral with loud applause and laughter. It was also said, and said with truth, that the dismissal of Dr. Franklin was equivalent to a seizure of the American post-office ; that only creatures of the min- istry were to be appointed postmasters ; and that it was no longer safe to trust the letters of patriotic Americans to the mails. So generally were private arrangements made for carrying letters, that the American post-office, which, under Dr. Franklin's management, had yielded three thousand pounds a year to the British treasury, never again contributed to it one farthing. In the streets of Phila- delphia, Wedderburn and Hutchinson were carried about in effigy, followed by a great concourse of people, and at night were burnt, as Mr. Reed records, " with the usual ceremonies, amidst the accla- mations of the multitude." " Nothing can exceed^" he adds, "the veneration in which Dr. FrankHn is now held, but the detestation we have of his enemies." Governor Hutchinson found it impossi- ble to endure the abhorrence of his countrymen. He soon resigned his office and retired to England, where he danced attendance at court for a while, and then subsided into obscurity. A pension was granted him, barely sufficient for his decent maintenance, upon which he lived a few unhappy years, and died forgotten in Eng- land, in America execrated. Wedderburn acquired great glory by his oration. It was the talk of the clubs ; it was the applause of all the tory world. Mr. Fox said that " all men tossed up their hats and clapped their hands i in boundless delight" at it. A few years later we find this pertj and shallow Scotchman a peer and a judge, and, finally, an earl and lord chancellor. But he fares ill in the books relating to that period; no author so poor to do him reverence. Lord Brougham dismisses him thus : " Wedderburn's professional and political life, which rolled on in an uninterrupted tide of worldly gain and worldly hon- ors, was advanced only by shining and superficial talents, supported by no fixed principle, illustrated by no sacrifices to pubhc virtue, 596 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [l774. embellished by no feats of patriotism, nor made memorable by any monuments of national utility ; and, being at length closed in the disappointment of mean, unworthy desires, ended amidst universal neglect, and left behind it no claim to the respect or the gratitude of mankind, though it may have excited the admiration or envy of the contemporary vulgar." The king despised him at last, and refused him audience. " When he died," says Lord Brougham, " after a few hours' illness, the in- telligence was brought to the king, who, with a circumspection abundantly characteristic, asked the bearer of it if he was quite sure of the fact, as Lord Rosslyn had not been ailing before ; and, upon being assured that a sudden attack of gout in the stomach had really ended the days of his late servant and once assiduous courtier, his majesty was graciously ])leased to exclaim, * Then he has not left a worse man behind him.' " In other words. Lord Ross- lyn had gone over to the Fox party, and obtained the woolsack through their irresistible nomination. The packet of letters which caused so much excitement and tribulation, were returned to London in June, 1773. Samuel Adams inclosed them in a letter to Arthur Lee, through whom they reached Dr. Franklin. The name of the person from whom they had been originally obtained remains a secret to this day. It was probably never known but to Dr. Franklin ; and no man could keep a secret better than he. Conjecture has frequently pointed to David Hartley, a liberal member of parliament, a warm friend of Franklin and the American cause from 1765 to the end of the revolution. The other rumors, traditions, assertions, and guesses relating to this matter, with which the newspapers and pamphlets of that day abound, need not be revived, for they are all false or extremely improbable. Mr. Temple succeeded in convincing the ministry of his innocence; he reappears in the history of the time, in a lucrative employment, as Sir John Temple. The reader, I presume, does not doubt that the conduct of Dr. Franklin in this affair, in every part of it, was precisely what it should have been. It is to be regretted that so fair-minded a per- son as Earl Russell should have inconsiderately said that it is " im- possible to justify the conduct of Franklin."* His conduct needs * "Memoirs of Charles James Fox," by Earl Eussell, vol. i., book HI. &-GED 68.] THE PRIVY COUNCIL OUTEAGE. 597 10 justification. The simple statement of the facts justifies him. The remark of Mr. Bancroft upon this subject is fine and suflicient : '* Had the conspiracy which was thus laid bare, aimed at the life jf a minister or the king, any honest man must have immediately communicated the discovery to the Secretary of State ; to conspire to introduce into America a military government, and abridge American liberty, was a more heinous crime, of which irrefragable evidence had now come to light."* History will record, in due time, one event similar in character, in motive, and in consequences, to the outrage upon Dr. Franklin and his constituents, in the Privy Council of King George HI. I re- fer to the assault upon Charles Sumner in the Senate Chamber of the United States, by the South Carolinian Brooks, with the frantic applause of the slavery-debauched portion of his fellow-citizens. Southern boys called their favorite dogs by the name of Brooks ; I have heard them doing it in South Carolina. He was received at home as a conqueror coming from a campaign which had saved his country. A costly monument covers his remains. Charles Sumner, j when he became the victim of this man's drunken fury, was the representative of principles which alone were capable of preventing the barbarizing or the disruption of his country. He was a pure and honest patriot, in accord with his country's, best instincts and convictions, which he was accustomed to express with dignity and moderation. Different as the two characters are in themselves, it is nevertheless true that Charles Sumner, in some important particu- lar, was to the United States, in 1857, what Benjamin Franklin was to the British empire of 1774 ; both being radical in re, but constitu- tional in modo ; Franklin too loyal for Samuel Adams ; Sumner too moderate for Wendell Philips. A like outrage having fallen upon both these representative men, we see all that was bigoted and mercenary in England applauding the insult to Franklin, and all that was brutal and savage in America exulting over the assault upon Sumner. Let the world, then, take note of what befalls those nations which assign to their Socrates hemlock, to their Jeremiahs miry pits, to their Franklins a Wedderburn, to their Sumners a bludgeon, to theii* Turgots dismission and obscurity. Such nations may ♦ History of the United States, vi., 486. 698 LIFE AND TIMES OP BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [ill 4. escape destruction, escape dismemberment, escape revolution, be- cause there may be in the people a vast sum of renovating virtue ; but they escape only by means of disasters the most prodigious and humiliating. The American revolution followed quick upon this scene in the Privy Council ; quicker even than the slaveholders' rebellion upon that of the Senate Chamber. At this time, April, 1862, it is not yet decided whether the United States is to be saved by being dismembered, or saved without it. Horace Walpole's epigram upon Wedderburn and Franklin, well- known as it is, may serve to conclude this chapter : " Sarcastic Sawney, swol'n with spite and prate, On silent Franklin poured his venal hate. The calm philosopher, without reply. Withdrew, and gave his country liberty." APPENDIX APPENDIX I FIRST PROCEEDINGS AGAINST JAMES FRANKLIN. Me. Edwaed Eveeett appends to his well-known Address upon the Boyhood and Youth of Franklin, a valuable note in relation to the prose- cution of James Franklin. He derived his information from the manuscript records of the General Court of Massachusetts for June, 1722. "In the month of May, 1722," says Mr. Everett, "a piratical vessel ap- peared off Block Island, and made some captures. Information of this event was sent by the governor of Rhode Island to Governor Shute at Boston, and by him communicated to the Council on the 7th of June. The report was that a pirate brigantine of two great guns and four swivel guns, and of fifty men, was off the coast, and had captured several vessels. In the defense- less state of the American coasts and waters, this was an event well calcu- lated to cause alarm, though not one of infrequent occurrence. " The news from Rhode Island was immediately referred to a joint com- mittee of the Council and House of Representatives, who reported on the same day, ' that it would be of service to the government, and of security to trade, that a large sloop of seventy or eighty tons, or some other suita- ble vessel, should he immediately impressed and manned with one hundred men, and suitable officers to command the same, to be equipped with six great guns, and a sufiicient quantity of all warlike stores, offensive and defensive, with provisions suitable for the said number of men for one month, cruise between the capes or elsewhere, where the captain-general shall see cause to go in quest of a pirate brigantine expected to be on our coast, or any other vessel that they shall suspicion of.' " This report was forthwith adopted ; the same committee was instructed to carry its recommendations into effect ; and the tr^surer was ordered to furnish the necessary supplies. " No time seems to have been lost in executing these measures, for we find from the records of the court, that on the next day (8th June, 1722) the House of Representatives passed the following resolve : " ' Whereas this Court has resolved that a suitable vessel manned with a hundred men, to be well furnished and equipped with all warlike stores, offensive and defensive, shall be dispatched and sent out with all possible 602 APPENDIX. expedition, to reduce and suppress a piratical brigantine now infesting our coast, — for the encouragement of that expedition under Peter Papillon, " ' Voted,, That the captors shall be entitled to the piratical vessel thej shall tsike, and all the goods, wares, and merchandises that shall be found on board, belonging to the pirates, so far as is consistent with the acts of Parliament in such case made and provided. " ' And for further encouragement, that they be paid out of the public treasury the sum of ten pounds per head for every pirate killed, or that shall be taken, by them, convicted of piracy, and shall also be entitled to the common wages of the port ; and in case any man on board shall be maimed or wounded in engaging, fighting, or repelling the pirates, he shall be entitled to a bounty suitable to the wounds he or they shall receive, to be allowed and paid out of the public treasury of this province.' "It seems from these resolutions that a certain Captain Peter Papillon, at that time outward bound for Barbadoes, had been immediately engaged to command the vessel sent out against the pirates, which was named, as appears from subsequent proceedings, the 'Plying Horse.' " On the 9th of June the sum of one hundred pounds was ordered to be advanced to Captain Papillon, to be paid to his men on account of their wages. On the same day a petition was presented to the General Court by Philip Bunker and others, praying ' that they may be allowed to pro- ceed on their fishing, and call at Nantucket as they go along, to give intel- ligence of the pirate ; notwithstanding tlie embargo.'' " As it does not appear from the records of the court that any embargo was laid ; as no notice of any embargo appears in the Courant for this week, but, on the contrary, vessels appear to have cleared out as usual at the custom-house, this petition of Philip Bunker needs further explanation. "On Monday, June 11th, in the Courant which appeared that day, there was an article dated Newport, Rhode Island, June 7th, containing an ac- count of the appearance of the pirate oif Block Island, and of the prompt steps taken at Newport to send out two vessels to cruise against him. The article then concludes with this remark : " ' We are advised from Boston, that the government of Massachusetts are fitting out a ship to go after the pirates, to be commanded by Captain Peter Papillon, and it is thought he will sail sometime this month, wind and weather permitting.^ " The same paper, under the Boston head, announced that above a hun- dred men had been enlisted, and that the vessel would probably sail that day. "But the insinuation of tardiness in the conclusion of the pretended arti- cle from Rhode Island, seems to have been taken in very ill part. On the 12th of June the following singular proceedings were had in the General Court : APPENDIX. 603 "Tuesday, 12th June, 1772. " ' Present in Council, His Excellency Samuel Shute, Esq., Governor. William Tayloe, Samuel Sewall, Penn Townsend, Nathaniel Norden, Add. Davenpokt, Thomas Hutchinson, Thomas Fitch, Edmund Quincy, Adam Winthkop, JoNA. Belcheb, Esqrs. Isaac Winslow, Edwaed Bromfield, John Gushing, Benjamin Lynde, Jonathan Dowse, Paul Dudley, Samuel Thaxtee, Charles Frost, Spenoee Phips, ' Esqrs. " ' In Council, the Board having before them a paper called the ITew Eng- land Courant, of the date of June 11th, 1772, and apprehending that a paragraph therein, said to be written from Ehode Island, contains matter of reflection on this Government, " ' Ordered, That the publisher of said paper be forthwith sent for to answer for the same, and accordingly James Franklyn, of Boston, Printer, was sent for, examined, and owned he had published the said paper. " ' In Council, the Board having had consideration of a paragraph in a paper called the New England Courant, published on Monday last, rela- ting to the fitting out a ship here to proceed against the pyrates, and having examined James Franklyn, printer, who acknowledged himself the publisher thereof, and finding the said paragraph to be founded on a letter, pretended by the said Franklyn to be received from Ehode Island, " * Resolved, That the said paragraph is a high affiront to this govern- ment. " ' In the House of Representatives, read and concurred, and " ^Resolved, That the Sheriff of the county of Suffolk do forthwith com- mit to the goal in Boston the body of James Franklyn, printer, for the gross affront offered to this government in the Courant of Monday last. " ' In Council, read and concurred ; consented to [by the governor.]' *'In virtue of this resolution James Franklyn was arrested under a speaker's warrant, and confined in the stone jail. " This summary power of punishing persons deemed guilty of contempts, though perhaps now exercised for the first time in America in a matter per- taining to the liberty of the press, was borrowed from the parliamentary law of England, where it is not obsolete. Pending these proceedings against Franklin, three ' Bridgewater men' were imprisoned in the same way, for obstructing the surveyors appointed to run a boundary line under an order of the General Court. "The records of the General Court contain the following entry the next week : 604 APPENDIX. <"Iii Oonncil, 20tli June, 1772, a petition of James Frankljn, printer, humbly shewing, that he is truly sensible and heartily sorry for the offence he has given to this court in the late Gourant^ relating to the fitting out of a ship by the government, and truly acknowledges his inadvertency and folly therein in affronting the government, as also his indiscretion and in- decency when before the court, for all which he intreats the court's forgive- ness, and praying a discharge from the stone prison where he is confined by order of the court, and that he may have the liberty of the yard, he being much indisposed and suffering in his health by the said confinement, a certificate of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston being offered with the said petition. " ' In the House of Representatives, read, and " ' Yoted^ That James Franklyn, now a prisoner in the stone goal, may have the liberty of the prison house and yard, upon his giving security for his abiding there. " ' In Council, read and concurred, consented to, " Samuel Shtite." " An attempt was made in the Council to follow up their blow by an order which passed that body, providing that ' no such weekly paper [as the Oourant] be hereafter printed or published, without the same be first perused and allowed by the Secretary, as has leen usuaV This order, how- ever, was not at this time concurred in by the House."* A few months later, as the reader is aware, an order of this nature was issued ; but as it was limited in its operation to James Franklin, he con- trived, with the assistance of his apprentice, to evade it. APPEl^DIX 11. FRAN"KLIN'S PAMPHLET. The following is a copy of the pamphlet written and printed by Benjamin Franklin, in his nineteenth year, w^hen he was a journeyman printer, in London. The original (of which a fac simile has been placed by me in the library of the New York Historical Society) is an excellent specimen of the printing of that day. The reader will, perhaps, conclude that, at nineteen, Franklin was a better printer than philosopher. * Orations and Speeches, ii., p. 43. DISSERTATION LIBERTY AND NECESSITY, PLEASUEE AND PAIN. "Whatever is, is in its Causes just, Since all Things fire by Fate ; but purblind Man Sees but a part o' th' Chain, the nearest Link, His Eyes not carrying to the equal Beam That poises all above." Dbtd. LONDON: PRINTED IN THE YEAR MDCCXXV. APPENDIX. 60/ A DISSERTATION ON LIBERTY AND NECESSITY, ETC. TO MR. J. R. SiE : I have here, according to your Eequest, given you my present Thoughts of the general State of Things in the Universe. Such as they are, you have them, and are welcome to 'em ; and if they yield you any Pleasure or Satisfaction, I shall think my Trouble sufficiently compensated. I know ray Scheme will be liable to many Objections from a less discerning Eeader than yourself; but it is not design'd for those who can't understand it. I need not give you any Caution to distinguish hypothetical Parts of the Ar- gument from the conclusive. You will easily perceive w^hat I design for Demonstration, and what for Probability only. The whole I leave entirely to you, and shall value myself more or less on this account, in proportion to your Esteem and Approbation. Section I. — Of Libekty and Neoessitt. I. There is said to le a First Mover^ who is called God, MaTcer qf the Universe. II. He is said to ie all-wise, all-good, all-powerful. These two Pi opositions being allow'd and asserted by People of almost every Sect and Opinion ; I have here suppos'd them granted, and laid them down, as the Foundation of my Argument. What follows then, being a Chain of Consequences truly drawn from them, will stand or fall as they are true or false. III. If He is all-good, whatsoever He doth mimt le good. IV. If He is all-wise, whatsoever He doth must he wise. The Truth of these Propositions, with relation to the two first, I think may be justly call'd evident; since, either that infinite Goodness will act what is ill, or infinite Wisdom what is not wise, is too glaring a Contradic- tion not to be perceiv'd by any Man of common sense, and deney'd as soon as understood. 608 APPENDIX. Y. If He is all-powerful, there can he nothing either existing or acting under the Universe against or without his Consent; and what He consents to must he good, hecause He is good, therefore Evil doth not exist. Unde Malum f has been long a Question, and many of the Learned have perplex'd themselves and Readers to little Purpose in Answer to it. That there are both Things and Actions to which we give the Name of Evil, is not to be deney'd, as Pain, Sickness, Want, Theft, Murder, &c., but that these and the like are not in reality Evils, Ills, or Defects in the Order of the Universe, is demonstrated in the next Section, as well as by this and the following Proposition. Indeed, to suppose any Thing to exist or to be done, contrary to the Will of the Almighty, is to suppose him not Al- mighty ; or that Something (the Cause of Evil) is more mighty than the Almighty ; an Inconsistence that I think no one will defend ; And to deny any Thing or Action, which he consents to the existence of, to be good, is entirely to destroy his two Attributes of Wisdom and Goodness. There is nothing done in the Universe, say the Philosophers, hut what God either does, or permits to he done. This, as He is Almighty, is certainly true. But what need of this Distinction between doing and permitting ? Why, first they take it for granted that many Things in the Universe exist in such a Manner as is not for the best, and that many Actions are done which ought not to be done, or would be better undone ; these Things or Actions they cannot ascribe to God as His, because they have already at- tributed to Him infinite Wisdom and Goodness ; Here then is the Use of the Word Permit; 'Rq permits ihava to be done, say they. But we will reason thus : If God permits an Action to be done, it is because He wants either Power or Inclination to hinder it ; in saying he wants Power, we deny him to be Almighty ; and if we say He wants Inclination or Will, it must be either because He is not Good, or the Action is not evil, (for all Evil is contrary to the Essence of infinite Goodness.) The former is incon- sistent with his before-given Attribute of Goodness, therefore the latter must be true. It will be said, perhaps, that God permits evil Actions to he done, for wise Ends and Purposes. But this objection destroys itself; for whatever an infinitely good God hath wise ends in suff'ering to he must be good, is thereby made good, and cannot be otherwise. VI. If a Grea.ture is made hy God, it must depend upon God, and receive all its Power from him ; icith ichich power the Creature can do nothing i contrary to the will of God, hecause God is Almighty ; what is not con- trary to His will, must he agreeahle to it, must he good, hecause He is Good ; therefore a creature can do nothing hut what is good. This proposition is much to the same purpose with the former, but more particular ; and its conclusion is as just and evident. Tho' a creature may APPENDIX. 609 do many Actions which by his Fellow Creatures will be nam'd Evil^ and which will naturally and necessarily cause or bring upon the Doer, certain Paim (which will likewise be call'd Punishments,) yet this Proposition proves, that he cannot act what will be in itself 111 or displeasing to God. And that the painful consequences of his evil Actions (so call'd) are not as indeed they ought not to be, Punishments or Unhappinesses, will be shewn hereafter. Nevertheless, the late learned Author of The Religion of Nature, (which I send you herewith) has given a rule or Scheme, whereby to discover which of our Actions ought to be esteemed and denominated good, and which Bvil : It is in short this, " Every Action which is done according to " Truth, is good ; and every Action contrary to Truth is evil. To act accord- "ing to truth is to use and esteem everything as what it is, &c. Thus if A " steals a Horse from B and rides away upon him, he uses him not as what "he is in Truth, viz., the Property of another, but as his own, which is " contrary to Truth, and therefore Bvil.^^ i3ut as this Gentleman himself says, (Sect. I. Prop. VI.) " In order to judge rightly what any Thing is, " it must be considered, not only what it is in one Respect but also what it "may be in any other Respect; and the whole Description of the Thing " ought to be taken in." So in this case it ought to be consider'd that A is naturally a covetous Being, feeling an Uneasiness in the want of J5's Horse, which produces an Inclination for stealing him, stronger than his Fear of Punishment for so doing. This is Truth likewise, and A acts ac- cording to it when he steals the Horse. Besides, if it is prov'd to be a Truth, that A has not Power over his own Actions, it will be indisputable that he acts according to Truth, and impossible he should do otherwise. I would not be understood by this to encourage or defend Theft ; 'tis only for the sake of the Argument, and will certainly have no ill Effect. The Order and Course of Things will not be affected by Reasoning of this Kind ; and 'tis as just and necessary, and as much according to Truth, for B to dislike and punish the Theft of his Horse, as it is for A to steal him. VII. If the Creature is thus limited in his Actions, being able to do only such Things as God would hate him do, and not being able to refuse doing what God would have done ; then he can have no such Thing a« lAherty^ Free-will or Power to do or refrain an Action. By Liberty is sometimes understood the Absence of Opposition ; and in this sense, indeed, all our Actions may be said to be the Effects of our Liberty. But it is a Liberty of the same Nature with the Fall of a heavy Body to the Ground; it has Liberty to fall, that is, it meets with nothing to hinder its fall, but at the same time it is necessitated to fall, and has no Power or Liberty to remain suspended. But let us take the Argument in another View, and suppose ourselves to 610 APPEXDIX. be, in the common sense of the word, Free Agents, As Man is a Part of this great Machine, the Universe, his regular Acting is requisite to the regu- lar moving of the whole. Among the many things which lie before him to be done, he may, as he is at Libertr and his Choice influenced by nothing, (for so it must be, or he is not at Liberty) chuse any one. and refuse the rest. Now there is every Moment something best to be done, which alone Is goodf and with respect to which, every Thing else is at that Time etil. In order to Know which is best to be done, and which not, it is requisite that we should have at one view all the intricate Consequences of every Action with respect to the general Order and Scheme of the Universe, both present and. fiitare ; but they are innumerable and incomprehensible by any thing but Omniscience. As we cannot know these, we have but as one chance to ten thousand, to hit on the right Action ; we should then be perpetaally blundering about in the Dark, and putting the Scheme in Disorder ; for every wrong Action of a Part, is a Defect or Blemish in the Order of the Whole. Is it not necessary then, that our Actions should be overruled and govem'd by an all- wise Providence ? How exact and regu- lar is every thing in the natural "World I How wisely is every Part con- trived. We cannot here find the least Defect ! Those who have study'd the mere animal and vegetable Creation, demonstrate that nothing can be more harmonious and beautiful ! All the heavenly Bodies, the Stars and Planets are r^ulated with the utmost wisdom 1 And can we suppose less Care to be taken in the Order of the moral than in the natural system? It is as if an ingenious Artificer, liaving formed a curious Machine or Clock, and put its many intricate Wheels and Powers in such a Dependance on one another, that the whole might move in the most exact Order and Regu- larity, had nevertheless placed in it several other Wheels endu'd with an independent S^-Motum, but ignorant of the general Interest of the Clock ; and these would every now and then be moving wrong, disordering the true Movement, and making Continual Work for the Mender ; which might be prevented by depriving them of that Power of Self-Motion, and placing them in a Dependance on the regular Part of the Clock. VnL If there is no such thing as Free- Will in Creatures, there can he neither Merit nor Demerit in Creatures. IX. And therefore every Creature must he equally esteemed hy the Creator. These Propositions appear to be the necessary Consequences of the former. And Certainly no Reason can be given, why the Creator should prefer in His Esteem one Part of His Works to another, if with equal Wis- dom and Goodness He design'd and created them all, since all 111 or Defect, as contrary to His Xature, is excluded by His Power. We wiU sum up the APFKSDIX. CU Argament tbns, Wlm fiie Obeator fint deogn'd the VnirenR, eilhar it Tras His Will and intentkHi that all Things should exist and he in the Man- ner thej are at this Tune; or it was His Win^iej should be oth^vise^ i. e^ in a different Kanner: To aaj it was His WHl Things should he otherwise than thej are, is to saj Somewhat halh eontradirted His Will, andhroken His Measmes, whidi is impossible because ineoosistfait wiih IGs Power; th^irfore we most allow that all Things existnow in a Manner agreeable to His Win, and in consequence of that are all equaDj Good, and therdore eqoallv este^n'd by TTim I proceed now to shew, that as all the Worics of the Oreator are equaify esteem'd by Him, so thej are, as in Justice thej ought to be, equally iM^d. Sbctiox n. — Of Plkasuse axd 'Pats. When, a Creature it f&rm'damd auh^d with Life, His nppaidr U reeaee a Capacity of ike SemmUen of^Svaaimm or Pain. Matt^. ToKnoworbeaeBsiUeofsnffieringorheingaetednpaaislvfiM/ and whatsoever is not so, amoi^ created ThingB is propeKly and trafy dead. An P