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+Project Gutenberg's The True Benjamin Franklin, by Sydney George Fisher
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The True Benjamin Franklin
+
+Author: Sydney George Fisher
+
+Release Date: November 2, 2010 [EBook #34193]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRUE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Louise Pattison and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                  The True Benjamin Franklin
+
+
+        [Illustration: THE DUPLESSIS PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN]
+
+
+
+
+                          The True
+                      Benjamin Franklin
+
+                             By
+                    Sydney George Fisher
+
+         Author of "Men, Women, and Manners in Colonial
+         Times," "The Making of Pennsylvania," "The
+         Evolution of the Constitution," etc.
+
+         "If rigid moral analysis be not the purpose of
+         historical writing, there is no more value in
+         it than in the fictions of mythological
+         antiquity."--CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, SR.
+
+                       FIFTH EDITION
+
+                      WITH AN APPENDIX
+
+                        Philadelphia
+                   J. B. Lippincott Company
+                            1903
+
+
+                      COPYRIGHT, 1898
+
+                             BY
+
+                   J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+Preface to the Third Edition
+
+
+Since the appearance of the first edition there has been some discussion
+of the question whether Mrs. Foxcroft was really Franklin's daughter. In
+the present edition I have added an appendix going fully into this
+question.
+
+Franklin's plain language about love and marriage and his very frank
+descriptions of his own shortcomings in these matters seem to have
+surprised many people. I might have explained this more fully in the
+first edition, but to any one who knows the age in which Franklin lived
+there is nothing that need cause surprise.
+
+It was an age of frank autobiographies and plain, detailed,
+introspective statements about love affairs. Rousseau flourished in
+those days, also Gozzi and Madame Roland; and Casanova began writing his
+most extraordinary memoirs just about the time of Franklin's death.
+Anyone who is at all familiar with these authors will readily understand
+why Franklin wrote his "Advice on the Choice of a Mistress." His "Speech
+of Polly Baker" was of the same sort. It had a most extraordinary
+circulation because people were then looking at these matters from that
+point of view. The philosophic thought of that age was somewhat
+inclining to the opinion, since then much developed by German theorists
+like Nietzche, that religion had made love impure. Franklin, as at page
+106, was also inclining that way.
+
+Such things must be mentioned and given their proper position and
+importance in a book calling itself "The True Benjamin Franklin." There
+are many books describing the false Franklin, the impossible Franklin,
+the Franklin that never existed, and could not in the nature of things
+exist, and to these books those who do not like the truth are referred.
+
+
+
+
+Preface
+
+
+This analysis of the life and character of Franklin has in view a
+similar object to that of the volume entitled "The True George
+Washington," which was prepared for the publishers by Mr. Paul Leicester
+Ford and issued a year or two ago.
+
+Washington sadly needed to be humanized, to be rescued from the
+myth-making process which had been destroying all that was lovable in
+his character and turning him into a mere bundle of abstract qualities
+which it was piously supposed would be wholesome examples for the
+American people. This assumption that our people are children who must
+not be told the eternal truths of human nature, but deceived into
+goodness by wooden heroes and lay figures, seems, fortunately, to be
+passing away, and in a few years it will be a strange phase to look back
+upon.
+
+So thorough and systematic has been the expurgating during the last
+century that some of its details are very curious. It is astonishing how
+easily an otherwise respectable editor or biographer can get himself
+into a state of complete intellectual dishonesty. It is interesting to
+follow one of these literary criminals and see the minute care with
+which he manufactures an entirely new and imaginary being out of the
+real man who has been placed in his hands. He will not allow his victim
+to say even a single word which he considers unbecoming. The story is
+told that Washington wrote in one of his letters that a certain movement
+of the enemy would not amount to a flea-bite; but one of his editors
+struck out the passage as unfit to be printed. He thought, I suppose,
+that Washington could not take care of his own dignity.
+
+Franklin in his Autobiography tells us that when working as a journeyman
+printer in London he drank nothing but water, and his fellow-workmen, in
+consequence, called him the "Water-American;" but Weems in his version
+of the Autobiography makes him say that they called him the "American
+Aquatic," an expression which the vile taste of that time was pleased to
+consider elegant diction. In the same way Temple Franklin made
+alterations in his grandfather's writings, changing their vigorous
+Anglo-Saxon into stilted Latin phrases.
+
+It is curious that American myth-making is so unlike the ancient
+myth-making which as time went on made its gods and goddesses more and
+more human with mortal loves and passions. Our process is just the
+reverse. Out of a man who actually lived among us and of whose life we
+have many truthful details we make an impossible abstraction of
+idealized virtues. It may be said that this could never happen among a
+people of strong artistic instincts, and we have certainly in our
+conceptions of art been theatrical and imitative rather than dramatic
+and real. Possibly the check which is being given to our peculiar
+myth-making is a favorable sign for our art.
+
+The myth-makers could not work with Franklin in quite the same way that
+they worked with Washington. With Washington they ignored his personal
+traits and habits, building him up into a cold military and political
+wonder. But Franklin's human side would not down so easily. The human in
+him was so interlaced with the divine that the one dragged the other
+into light. His dramatic and artistic sense was very strong, far
+stronger than in most distinguished Americans; and he made so many plain
+statements about his own shortcomings, and followed pleasure and natural
+instincts so sympathetically, broadly, and openly, that the efforts to
+prepare him for exhibition are usually ludicrous failures.
+
+But the eulogists soon found an effective way to handle him. Although
+they could ignore certain phases of his character only so far as the
+genial old fellow would let them, they could exaggerate the other phases
+to an almost unlimited extent; for his career was in many ways
+peculiarly open to exaggeration. It was longer, more varied, and more
+full of controversy than Washington's. Washington was twenty-six years
+younger than Franklin and died at the age of sixty-seven, while Franklin
+lived to be eighty-four. Washington's important public life was all
+covered by the twenty-two years from 1775 to 1797, and during more than
+three of those years he was in retirement at Mount Vernon. But Franklin
+was an active politician, philosopher, man of science, author,
+philanthropist, reformer, and diplomat for the forty-odd years from 1745
+to 1788.
+
+Almost every event of his life has been distorted until, from the great
+and accomplished man he really was, he has been magnified into an
+impossible prodigy. Almost everything he wrote about in science has been
+put down as a discovery. His wonderful ability in expressing himself has
+assisted in this; for if ten men wrote on a subject and Franklin was one
+of them, his statement is the one most likely to be preserved, because
+the others, being inferior in language, are soon forgotten and lost.
+
+Every scrap of paper he wrote upon is now considered a precious relic
+and a great deal of it is printed, so that statements which were but
+memoranda or merely his way of formulating other men's knowledge for his
+own convenience or for the sake of writing a pleasant letter to a
+friend, are given undue importance. Indeed, when we read one of these
+letters or memoranda it is so clearly and beautifully expressed and put
+in such a captivating form that, as the editor craftily forbears to
+comment on it, we instinctively conclude that it must have been a gift
+of new knowledge to mankind.
+
+The persistency with which people have tried to magnify Franklin is
+curiously shown in the peculiar way in which James Logan's translation
+of Cicero's essay on old age was attributed to him. This translation
+with notes and a preface was made by Logan and printed in 1744 by
+Franklin in his Philadelphia printing-office, and at the foot of the
+title-page Franklin's name appeared as the printer. In 1778 the book was
+reprinted in London, with Franklin's name on the title-page as the
+translator. In 1809 one of his editors, William Duane, actually had this
+translation printed in his edition of Franklin's works. The editor was
+afterwards accused of having done this with full knowledge that the
+translation had not been made by Franklin; but, under the code of
+literary morals which has so long prevailed, I suppose he would be held
+excusable.
+
+One of Franklin's claims to renown is that he was a self-made man, the
+first distinguished American who was created in that way; and it would
+seem, therefore, all the more necessary that he should be allowed to
+remain as he made himself. I have endeavored to act upon this principle
+and so far as possible to let Franklin speak for himself. The analytical
+method of writing a man's life is well suited to this purpose. There are
+already chronological biographies of Franklin in two volumes or more
+giving the events in order with very full details from his birth to his
+death. The present single volume is more in the way of an estimate of
+his position, worth, and work, and yet gives, I believe, every essential
+fact of his career with enough detail to enable the reader to appreciate
+it. At the same time the chapters have been arranged with such regard to
+chronological order as to show the development of character and
+achievement from youth to age.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                        PAGE
+
+  I.--PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS                    17
+
+  II.--EDUCATION                                  41
+
+  III.--RELIGION AND MORALS                       78
+
+  IV.--BUSINESS AND LITERATURE                   132
+
+  V.--SCIENCE                                    167
+
+  VI.--THE PENNSYLVANIA POLITICIAN               192
+
+  VII.--DIFFICULTIES AND FAILURE IN ENGLAND      231
+
+  VIII.--AT HOME AGAIN                           265
+
+  IX.--THE EMBASSY TO FRANCE AND ITS SCANDALS    270
+
+  X.--PLEASURES AND DIPLOMACY IN FRANCE          314
+
+  XI.--THE CONSTITUTION-MAKER                    349
+
+
+  APPENDIX
+
+  FRANKLIN'S DAUGHTER, MRS. FOXCROFT             365
+
+
+
+
+List of Illustrations with Notes
+
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+  THE DUPLESSIS PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN                     _Frontispiece._
+
+      Painted from life by Duplessis in Paris in 1778, and believed to
+      be the best likeness of Franklin. The reproduction is from the
+      original in the Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, by
+      permission of the owner. Duplessis also made a pastel drawing of
+      Franklin in 1783, which has often been reproduced.
+
+  FRANKLIN TOWED BY HIS KITE                                          19
+
+      This picture is copied from an engraving on the title-page of
+      the old English edition of Franklin's Works, published in 1806
+      by J. Johnson & Co., London.
+
+  THE SUMNER PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN                                     29
+
+      Painted, as is supposed, in London in 1726, when he was twenty
+      years old, and now in the possession of Harvard University. Its
+      history and the doubts as to its authenticity are given in the
+      text.
+
+  THE MARTIN PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN                                     32
+
+      Painted by Martin in England in 1765, at the request of Mr.
+      Robert Alexander, for whom Franklin had performed a service in
+      examining some documents and giving his opinion.
+
+  THE GRUNDMANN IDEAL PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN                            34
+
+      Painted by Otto Grundmann, a German artist in America, after a
+      careful study of Franklin's career and of the portraits of him
+      taken from life. The original is now in the Boston Art Museum.
+
+  HOUSE IN WHICH FRANKLIN WAS BORN                                    42
+
+      Franklin's parents lived in this house, which stood on Milk
+      Street, Boston, until 1810, when it was destroyed by fire.
+
+  PRINTING-PRESS AT WHICH FRANKLIN WORKED WHEN A BOY IN BOSTON        45
+
+      From a photograph kindly furnished by the Mechanics' Institute
+      of Boston, in whose rooms the press is exhibited.
+
+  THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER AS ABRIDGED BY LORD DESPENCER AND
+  FRANKLIN                                                           101
+
+      The changes in the Venite on the left-hand page are by Franklin,
+      and perhaps also those in the Te Deum. The changes in the
+      rubrics are by Lord Despencer, and possibly he also made the
+      changes in the Te Deum. The copy of the prayer-book from which
+      this reproduction is made is in the collection of Mr. Howard
+      Edwards, of Philadelphia.
+
+  JOHN FOXCROFT                                                      105
+
+      Reproduced by permission of the Historical Society of
+      Pennsylvania from the painting in their possession. It has been
+      supposed by some to be a portrait of Franklin; but it has not
+      the slightest resemblance to his other portraits, and the letter
+      held in the hand is addressed to John Foxcroft.
+
+  WILLIAM FRANKLIN, ROYAL GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY                     108
+
+      Born 1730, died 1813; son of Benjamin Franklin; was Governor of
+      New Jersey from 1762 to 1776, when he became a Tory. The
+      reproduction is from an etching by Albert Rosenthal of the
+      portrait once temporarily in the Philadelphia Library and owned
+      by Dr. T. Hewson Bache, of Philadelphia.
+
+  WILLIAM TEMPLE FRANKLIN                                            113
+
+      Born 1760, died 1823, son of William Franklin, Governor of New
+      Jersey. He was brought up principally by his grandfather, for
+      whom he acted as secretary in Paris, during the Revolution, and
+      by whom he was saved from following his father to Toryism. The
+      reproduction is from an etching by Albert Rosenthal of the
+      portrait in the Trumbull Collection, Yale School of Art.
+
+  MRS. FRANKLIN                                                      116
+
+      This reproduction is from the portrait painted by Matthew Pratt,
+      and now in the possession of Rev. F. B. Hodge, of Wilkesbarre,
+      Pennsylvania.
+
+  MRS. SARAH BACHE                                                   119
+
+      This picture is copied from an engraved reproduction which has
+      often appeared in books relating to Franklin; but none of these
+      reproductions are faithful copies of the original painting,
+      which represents an older and less handsome woman, with more
+      rugged features and more resemblance to Franklin. Permission to
+      reproduce the painting could not be secured.
+
+  FRONT PAGE OF THE FIRST NUMBER OF THE "PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE"       135
+
+      Reproduced by permission from the collection of the Historical
+      Society of Pennsylvania.
+
+  TITLE-PAGE OF POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC FOR 1733                      144
+
+      Reproduced by permission from the collection of the Historical
+      Society of Pennsylvania.
+
+  FRANKLIN'S MARITIME SUGGESTIONS                                    188
+
+      These figures accompanied Franklin's letter to Alphonsus Le Roy
+      on maritime improvements.
+
+  FRANKLIN'S LETTER TO STRAHAN                                       267
+
+      William Strahan was Franklin's intimate friend, although they
+      differed on the subject of the Revolution. The letter was half
+      jest, half earnest, and in this tone Franklin always wrote to
+      him on political subjects. In 1784 he wrote him an affectionate,
+      but teasing and sarcastic letter on the success of the
+      Revolution.
+
+  FRANKLIN CANNOT DIE                                                275
+
+      From an old French engraving in the collection of Mr. Clarence
+      S. Bement, of Philadelphia. Death has seized Franklin and is
+      dragging him to the lower world. The figure half kneeling is
+      America, with her bow and arrows and the skin of a wild beast,
+      imploring Death to spare her deliverer. Fame is flying in the
+      air, with a crape on her arm and a trumpet, announcing that _le
+      grand_ Franklin has saved his country and given her liberty in
+      spite of tyrants. The spirit of Philosophy and a warrior are
+      weeping at the foot of the monument, on which is a
+      lightning-rod; while France, a fair, soft woman, seizes Franklin
+      in her arms to bear him to the sky.
+
+  AMERICA SET FREE BY FRANKLIN                                       309
+
+      From an old French engraving in the collection of Mr. Clarence
+      S. Bement, of Philadelphia. Like the preceding one, from the
+      same collection, it represents America as a savage, in
+      accordance with the French ideas of that time.
+
+  FRANKLIN TEARS THE LIGHTNING FROM THE SKY AND THE SCEPTRE FROM THE
+  TYRANTS                                                            312
+
+      From an old French engraving in the collection of Mr. Clarence
+      S. Bement, of Philadelphia. The figure with her arm on
+      Franklin's lap is America.
+
+  FRANKLIN RELICS IN THE POSSESSION OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF
+  PENNSYLVANIA                                                       330
+
+      The cups and saucers are Dresden china, given him by Madame
+      Helvetius. The china punch-barrel was given him by Count
+      d'Artois; the wine-glass is one of the heavy kind then in use;
+      the picture-frame contains a printed dinner invitation sent by
+      him to the members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
+
+  PORTRAIT OF LOUIS XVI.                                             346
+
+      The kings of France at that time usually gave their portrait to
+      a foreign ambassador on his return to his country. This one, by
+      Sicardi, which was given to Franklin, was formerly surrounded by
+      two rows of four hundred and eight diamonds, and was probably
+      worth from ten to fifteen thousand dollars. It is now in the
+      possession of Mr. J. May Duane, of Philadelphia, by whose
+      permission it is reproduced.
+
+  FRANKLIN PORTRAIT IN WEST COLLECTION                               350
+
+      A pencil drawing with Benjamin West's name on the back, now the
+      property of Hon. S. W. Pennypacker, of Philadelphia. It is
+      supposed by some authorities to be merely a copy of the bust by
+      Ceracchi; others believe it to be a drawing from life by West.
+
+  FRANKLIN'S GRAVE IN CHRIST CHURCH GRAVEYARD, PHILADELPHIA          360
+
+      The flat stone marks the grave of Franklin and his wife. The
+      larger upright stone is in memory of John Read, Mrs. Franklin's
+      father, and the smaller one is in memory of Franklin's son,
+      Francis, who died in infancy.
+
+
+
+
+The True Benjamin Franklin
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
+
+
+Franklin was a rather large man, and is supposed to have been about five
+feet ten inches in height. In his youth he was stout, and in old age
+corpulent and heavy, with rounded shoulders. The portraits of him reveal
+a very vigorous-looking man, with a thick upper arm and a figure which,
+even in old age, was full and rounded. In fact, this rounded contour is
+his most striking characteristic, as the angular outline is the
+characteristic of Lincoln. Franklin's figure was a series of harmonious
+curves, which make pictures of him always pleasing. These curves
+extended over his head and even to the lines of his face, softening the
+expression, slightly veiling the iron resolution, and entirely
+consistent with the wide sympathies, varied powers, infinite shrewdness,
+and vast experience which we know he possessed.
+
+In his earliest portrait as a youth of twenty he looks as if his bones
+were large; but in later portraits this largeness of bone which he might
+have had from his Massachusetts origin is not so evident. He was,
+however, very muscular, and prided himself on it. When he was a young
+printer, as he tells us in his Autobiography, he could carry with ease a
+large form of letters in each hand up and down stairs. In his old age,
+when past eighty, he is described as insisting on lifting unaided heavy
+books and dictionaries to show the strength he still retained.
+
+He was not brought up on fox-hunting and other sports, like Washington,
+and there are no amusements of this sort to record of him, except his
+swimming, in which he took great delight and continued until long after
+he had ceased to be a youth. He appears, when a boy, to have been fond
+of sailing in Boston Harbor, but has told us little about it. In
+swimming he excelled. He could perform all the ordinary feats in the
+water which were described in the swimming-books of his day, and on one
+occasion tied himself to the string of his kite and was towed by it
+across a pond a mile wide. In after-years he believed that he could in
+this way cross the English Channel from Dover to Calais, but he admitted
+that the packet-boat was preferable.
+
+His natural fondness for experiment led him to try the effect of
+fastening oval paddles to his hands, which gave him greater speed in
+swimming, but were too fatiguing to his wrists. Paddles or large sandals
+fastened to his feet he soon found altered the stroke, which the
+observant boy had discovered was made with the inside of the feet and
+ankles as well as with the flat part of the foot.
+
+[Illustration: FRANKLIN TOWED BY HIS KITE]
+
+While in London, as a wandering young journeyman printer, he taught an
+acquaintance, Wygate, to swim in two lessons. Returning from Chelsea
+with a party of Wygate's friends, he gave them an exhibition of his
+skill, going through all the usual tricks in the water, to their great
+amazement and admiration, and swimming from near Chelsea to Blackfriars,
+a distance of four miles. Wygate proposed that they should travel
+through Europe, maintaining themselves by giving swimming-lessons, and
+Franklin was at first inclined to adopt the suggestion.
+
+Just as he was on the eve of returning to Pennsylvania, Sir William
+Wyndham, at one time Chancellor of the Exchequer, having heard of his
+swimming feats, wanted to engage him to teach his sons; but his ship
+being about to sail, Franklin was obliged to decline. If he had remained
+in England, he tells us, he would probably have started a
+swimming-school.
+
+When forty-three years old, retired from active business, and deep in
+scientific researches, he lived in a house at Second and Race Streets,
+Philadelphia. His garden is supposed to have extended to the river,
+where every warm summer evening he used to spend an hour or two swimming
+and sporting in the water.
+
+This skill in swimming and the agility and grace which Franklin
+displayed in performing feats in the water are good tests of general
+strength of muscles, lungs, and heart. So far as can be discovered, only
+one instance is recorded of his using his physical power to do violence
+to his fellow-man.
+
+He had a friend named Collins, rather inclined to drink, who, being in a
+boat with Franklin and some other youths, on the Delaware, refused to
+take his turn at rowing. He announced that the others should row him
+home. Franklin, already much provoked at him for not returning money
+which he had lent him, and for other misconduct, insisted that he row
+his share. Collins replied that Franklin should row or he would throw
+him overboard, and, as he was approaching him for that purpose, Franklin
+seized him by the collar and breeches and threw him into the river,
+where they kept him till his strength was exhausted and his temper
+cooled.
+
+Until he was forty years old Franklin worked on his own account or for
+others as a printer, which included hard manual labor; for, even when in
+business for himself, he did everything,--made his own ink, engraved
+wooden cuts and ornaments, set the type, and worked the heavy
+hand-presses. His pleasures were books, the theatre, and love-affairs.
+Except swimming, he had no taste for out-door amusements. Sport, either
+with rod, gun, horse, or hound, was altogether out of his line. As he
+became prosperous and retired from the active business of money-getting,
+he led an entirely sedentary life to the end of his long career.
+
+Although he did a vast amount of work in his time, was fond of early
+rising, and had the greatest endurance and capacity for labor, there
+was, nevertheless, a touch of indolence about him. He did the things
+which he loved and which came easy to him, cultivated his tastes and
+followed their bent in a way rather unusual in self-made men. It has
+been said of him that he never had the patience to write a book. His
+writings have exerted great influence, are now considered of inestimable
+value, and fill ten large volumes, but they are all occasional pieces,
+letters, and pamphlets written to satisfy some need of the hour.
+
+His indolence was more in his manner than in his character. It was the
+confident indolence of genius. He was never in a hurry, and this was
+perhaps one of the secrets of his success. His portraits all show this
+trait. In nearly every one of them the whole attitude, the droop of the
+shoulders and arms, and the quietude of the face are reposeful.
+
+He seems to have been totally without either irritability or
+excitability. In this he was the reverse of Washington, who was subject
+to violent outbursts of anger, could swear "like an angel of God," as
+one of his officers said, and had a fiery temper to control. Perhaps
+Franklin's strong sense of humor saved him from oaths; there are no
+swearing stories recorded of him; instead of them we have innumerable
+jokes and witticisms. His anger when aroused was most deliberate,
+calculating, and judicious. His enemies and opponents he always
+ridiculed, often, however, with so little malice or sting that I have no
+doubt they were sometimes compelled to join in the laugh. He never
+attacked or abused.
+
+Contentment was a natural consequence of these qualities, and
+contributed largely to maintain his vigor through eighty-four years of a
+very stormy life. It was a family trait. Many of his relations possessed
+it; and he describes some of them whom he looked up in England as living
+in happiness and enjoyment, in spite of the greatest poverty. Some able
+men struggle with violence, bitterness, and heart-ache for the great
+prizes of life, but all these prizes tumbled in on Franklin, who seems
+to have had a fairy that brought them to him in obedience to his
+slightest wish.
+
+His easy-going sedentary life, of course, told on him in time. After
+middle life he had both the gout and the stone, but his natural vitality
+fortified him against them. He was as temperate as it was possible to be
+in that age, and he studied his constitution and its requirements very
+closely. He was so much interested in science that he not infrequently
+observed, reasoned, and to some extent experimented in the domain which
+properly belongs to physicians.
+
+When only fifteen years old, and apprenticed in the printing-office of
+his brother in Boston, in the year 1721, he became a vegetarian. A book
+written by one of the people who have for many centuries been advocating
+that plan of living fell in his way and converted him. It appealed to
+his natural economy and to his desire for spare money with which to buy
+books. He learned from the book the various ways of cooking vegetables,
+and told his brother that if he would give him half the money paid for
+his board he would board himself. He found very soon that he could pay
+for his vegetable diet and still save half the money allowed him, and
+that he could also very quickly eat his rice, potatoes, and pudding at
+the printing-office and have most of the dinner-hour for reading the
+books his spare money procured.
+
+This was calculating very closely for a boy of fifteen, and shows
+unusual ability as well as willingness to observe and master small
+details. Such ability usually comes later in life with strengthened
+intellect, but Franklin seems to have had this sort of mature strength
+very early.
+
+He did not remain an entire convert to the vegetarians, but he often
+practised their methods and apparently found no inconvenience in it. He
+could eat almost anything, and change from one diet to another without
+difficulty. Two years after his first experiment with vegetarianism he
+ran away from his brother at Boston, and found work at Philadelphia with
+a rough, ignorant old printer named Keimer, who wanted, among other
+projects, to form a religious sect, and to have Franklin help him.
+Franklin played with his ideas for a while, and finally said that he
+would agree to wear a long beard and observe Saturday instead of Sunday,
+like Keimer, if Keimer would join him in a vegetable diet.
+
+He found a woman in the neighborhood to cook for them, and taught her
+how to prepare forty kinds of vegetable food, which reduced their cost
+of living to eighteen pence a week for each. But Keimer, who was a heavy
+meat-eater, could stand it only three months, and then ordered a
+roast-pig dinner, to be enjoyed by the two vegetarians and a couple of
+women. Keimer, however, arrived first at the feast, and before any of
+his guests appeared had eaten the whole pig.
+
+While working in the printing-office in London, Franklin drank water, to
+the great astonishment and disgust of the beer-guzzling Englishmen who
+were his fellow-laborers. They could not understand how the
+water-American, as they called him, could go without strength-giving
+beer and yet be able to carry a large form of letters in each hand up
+and down stairs, while they could carry only one with both hands.
+
+The man who worked one of the presses with Franklin drank a pint before
+breakfast, a pint with bread and cheese for breakfast, one between
+breakfast and dinner, one at dinner, another at six o'clock, and another
+after he had finished his day's work. The American boy, with his early
+mastery of details, reasoned with him that the strength furnished by the
+beer could come only from the barley dissolved in the water of which the
+beer was composed; that there was a larger portion of flour in a penny
+loaf, and if he ate a loaf and drank a pint of water with it he would
+derive more strength than from a pint of beer. But the man would not be
+convinced, and continued to spend a large part of his weekly wages for
+what Franklin calls the cursed beverage which kept him in poverty and
+wretchedness.
+
+Franklin was, however, never a teetotaler. He loved, as he tells us, a
+glass and a song. Like other people of that time, he could drink without
+inconvenience a quantity which nowadays, especially in America, seems
+surprising. Some of the chief-justices of England are described by their
+biographer, Campbell, as two- or four-bottle men, according to the
+quantity they could consume at a sitting. Washington, Mr. Ford tells us,
+drank habitually from half a pint to a pint of Madeira, besides punch
+and beer, which would now be thought a great deal. But Franklin
+considered himself a very temperate man. When writing his Autobiography,
+in his old age, he reminds his descendants that to temperance their
+ancestor "ascribes his long-continued health and what is still left to
+him of a good constitution."
+
+Like most of those who live to a great age, he was the child of
+long-lived parents. "My mother," he says, "had likewise an excellent
+constitution; she suckled all her ten children. I never knew either my
+father or mother to have any sickness but that of which they died,--he
+at eighty-nine and she at eighty-five years of age."
+
+He was fond of air-baths, which he seems to have thought hardened his
+skin and helped it to perform its functions, and when in London in 1768
+he wrote one of his pretty letters about them to Dr. Dubourg in Paris.
+
+    "You know the cold bath has long been in vogue here as a tonic;
+    but the shock of the cold water has always appeared to me,
+    generally speaking, as too violent, and I have found it much
+    more agreeable to my constitution to bathe in another element, I
+    mean cold air. With this view I rise almost every morning and
+    sit in my chamber, without any clothes whatever, half an hour or
+    an hour, according to the season, either reading or writing.
+    This practice is not in the least painful, but, on the contrary,
+    agreeable; and if I return to bed afterwards, before I dress
+    myself, as sometimes happens, I make a supplement to my night's
+    rest of one or two hours of the most pleasing sleep that can be
+    imagined. I find no ill consequences whatever resulting from it,
+    and that at least it does not injure my health, if it does not
+    in fact contribute much to its preservation. I shall therefore
+    call it for the future a _bracing_ or _tonic_ bath." (Bigelow's
+    Works of Franklin, vol. iv. p. 193.)
+
+Some years afterwards, while in Paris and suffering severely from gout
+in his foot, he used to expose the foot naked out of bed, which he
+found relieved the pain, because, as he supposed, the skin was given
+more freedom to act in a natural way. His remarks on air-baths were
+published in the early editions of his works and induced many people to
+try them. Davis, in his "Travels in America," says that they must have
+been suggested to him by a passage in Aubrey's "Miscellanies;" but,
+after searching all through that old volume, I cannot find it. Franklin,
+however, made no claim to a discovery. Such baths have been used by
+physicians to strengthen delicate persons, but in a more guarded and
+careful manner than that in which Franklin applied them.
+
+It was characteristic of his genial temperament that he loved to dream
+in his sleep and to recollect his dreams. "I am often," he says, "as
+agreeably entertained by them as by the scenery of an opera." He wrote a
+pleasant little essay, addressed to an unknown young lady, on "The Art
+of Procuring Pleasant Dreams," which may be said to belong among his
+medical writings. Fresh air and ventilation are the important
+dream-persuaders, and bad dreams and restlessness in bed are caused by
+excess of perspirable matter which is not allowed to get away from the
+skin. Eat less, have thinner and more porous bedclothes, and if you are
+restless, get up, beat and turn your pillows, shake all the sheets
+twenty times, and walk about naked for a while. Then, when you return,
+the lovely dreams will come.
+
+Closely connected with his faith in air-baths was his opinion that
+people seldom caught cold from exposure to air or even to dampness. He
+wrote letters on the subject and prepared notes of his observations.
+These notes are particularly interesting and full of curious
+suggestions. The diseases usually classed as colds, he said, are not
+known by that name in any other language, and the name is misleading,
+for very few of them arise from cold or dampness. Indians and sailors,
+who are continually wet, do not catch cold; nor is cold taken by
+swimming. And he went on enumerating the instances of people who lived
+in the woods, in barns, or with open windows, and, instead of catching
+cold, found their health improved. Cold, he thought, was caused in most
+cases by impure air, want of exercise, or over-eating.
+
+    "I have long been satisfied from observation, that besides the
+    general colds now termed influenzas (which may possibly spread
+    by contagion, as well as by a particular quality of the air),
+    people often catch cold from one another when shut up together
+    in close rooms and coaches, and when sitting near and conversing
+    so as to breathe in each other's transpiration; the disorder
+    being in a certain state. I think, too, that it is the frouzy,
+    corrupt air from animal substances, and the perspired matter
+    from our bodies, which being long confined in beds not lately
+    used, and clothes not lately worn, and books long shut up in
+    close rooms, obtains that kind of putridity which occasions the
+    colds observed upon sleeping in, wearing, and turning over such
+    bedclothes or books, and not their coldness or dampness. From
+    these causes, but more from too full living, with too little
+    exercise, proceed, in my opinion, most of the disorders which,
+    for about one hundred and fifty years past, the English have
+    called _colds_."
+
+Much of this is true in a general way, for medical practitioners have
+long held that all colds do not arise from exposure or draughts; but
+they do not admit that colds can be taken from turning over old books
+and clothes, although the dust from these might make one sneeze.
+
+John Adams and Franklin while travelling together through New Jersey to
+meet Lord Howe, in 1776, discussed the question of colds, and the former
+has left an amusing account of it. The taverns were so full at Brunswick
+that they had to sleep in the same bed. Franklin insisted on leaving the
+window wide open, and discoursed on the causes of colds until they both
+fell asleep.
+
+    "I have often asked him whether a person heated with exercise
+    going suddenly into cold air, or standing still in a current of
+    it, might not have his pores suddenly contracted, his
+    perspiration stopped, and that matter thrown into the
+    circulation, or cast upon the lungs, which he acknowledged was
+    the cause of colds. To this he never could give me a
+    satisfactory answer, and I have heard that in the opinion of his
+    own able physician, Dr. Jones, he fell a sacrifice at last, not
+    to the stone, but to his own theory, having caught the violent
+    cold which finally choked him, by sitting for some hours at a
+    window, with the cool air blowing upon him." (Adams's Works,
+    vol. iii. p. 75.)
+
+In some of his letters Franklin denied positively that colds could be
+taken by exposure. He got a young physician to experiment on the effect
+of nakedness in increasing perspiration, and when he found, or thought
+he had found, that the perspiration was greater than when the body was
+clothed, he jumped to the conclusion that exposure could not check
+perspiration. In a passage in his notes, however, he seems to admit that
+a sudden cold air or a draught might check it.
+
+[Illustration: THE SUMNER PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN]
+
+He wrote so well and so prettily on colds that people began to think he
+was the discoverer of their causes, and his biographer, Parton, goes
+so far as to say so. But upon inquiry among learned physicians I cannot
+find that they recognize him as a discoverer, or that he has any
+standing on this question in medical history. It would seem that he
+merely collected and expressed the observations of others as well as his
+own; none of them were entirely new, and many of them are now considered
+unsound.
+
+Nearer to the truth is Parton's statement that "he was the first
+effective preacher of the blessed gospel of ventilation." He certainly
+studied that subject very carefully, and was an authority on it, being
+appointed while in England to prepare a plan for ventilating the Houses
+of Parliament. It would, however, be better to say that he was one of
+the most prominent advocates of ventilation rather than the first
+effective preacher of it; for in Bigelow's edition of his works[1] will
+be found an excellent essay on the subject in which the other advocates
+are mentioned. But Parton goes on to say, "He spoke, and the windows of
+hospitals were lowered; consumption ceased to gasp and fever to inhale
+poison;" which is an extravagant statement that he would find
+difficulty, I think, in supporting.
+
+In Franklin's published works there is a short essay called "A
+Conjecture as to the Cause of the Heat of the Blood in Health and of the
+Cold and Hot Fits of Some Fevers." The blood is heated, he says, by
+friction in the action of the heart, by the distention and contraction
+of the arteries, and by being forced through minute vessels. This essay
+is very ingenious and well written, and the position given to it in his
+works might lead one to suppose that it was of importance; but I am
+informed by physicians that it was merely the revamping of an ancient
+theory held long before his time, and quite without foundation.
+
+Franklin's excursions into the domain of medicine are not, therefore, to
+be considered among his valuable contributions to the welfare of man,
+except so far as they encouraged him to advocate fresh air and
+ventilation, though they may have assisted him to take better care of
+his own health.
+
+Of the numerous portraits of him of varying merit, nearly all of which
+have been reproduced over and over again, only a few deserve
+consideration for the light they throw on his appearance and character.
+The Sumner portrait, as it used to be called, is supposed to have been
+painted in London in 1726, when he was there as a young journeyman
+printer, twenty years old, and was brought by him to America and given
+to his brother John, of Rhode Island. He evidently dressed himself for
+this picture in clothes he was not in the habit of wearing at his work;
+for he appears in a large wig, a long, decorated coat and waistcoat,
+with a mass of white ruffles on his bosom and conspicuous wrist-bands.
+The rotund and strongly developed figure is well displayed. Great
+firmness and determination are shown in the mouth and lower part of the
+face. The animal forces are evidently strong. The face is somewhat
+frank, and at the same time very shrewd. The eyes are larger than in
+the later portraits, which is not surprising, for eyes are apt to grow
+smaller in appearance with age.
+
+This portrait, which is now in Memorial Hall at Harvard University, has
+been supposed by some critics not to be a portrait of Franklin at all.
+How, they ask, could Franklin, who was barely able to earn his living at
+that time, and whose companions were borrowing a large part of his spare
+money, afford to have an oil-painting made of himself in such expensive
+costume? and why is there no mention of this portrait in any of his
+writings? But, on the other hand, the portrait has the peculiar set
+expression of the mouth and the long chin which were so characteristic
+of Franklin; and it would have been entirely possible for him to have
+borrowed the clothes and had the picture painted cheaply or as a
+kindness. It is not well painted, need not have been expensive, and, as
+there were no photographs then, paintings were the only way by which
+people could give their likenesses to relatives.
+
+The Martin portrait, painted when he was about sixty years old,
+represents him seated, his elbows resting on a table, and holding a
+document, which he is reading with deep but composed and serene
+attention. It was no doubt intended to represent him in a characteristic
+attitude. As showing the calm philosopher and diplomat reading and
+thinking, somewhat idealized and yet a more or less true likeness, it is
+in many respects the best picture we have of him. But we cannot see the
+eyes, and it does not reveal as much character as we could wish.
+
+The Grundmann portrait, an excellent photograph of which hangs in the
+Philadelphia Library, was painted by a German artist, after a careful
+study of Franklin's career and of all the portraits of him which had
+been painted from life. As an attempt to reproduce his characteristics
+and idealize them it is a distinct success and very interesting. He is
+seated in a chair, in his court-dress, with long stockings and
+knee-breeches, leaning back, his head and shoulders bent forward, while
+his gaze is downward. He is musing over something, and there is that
+characteristic shrewd smile on the lower part of the rugged face. It is
+the smile of a most masterful and cunning intellect; but no one fears
+it: it seems as harmless as your mother's. You try to imagine which one
+of his thousand clever strokes and sayings was passing through his mind
+that day; and the strong, intensely individualized figure, which
+resembles that of an old athlete, is wonderfully suggestive of life,
+experience, and contest.
+
+But the Duplessis portrait, which was painted from life in Paris in
+1778, when he was seventy-two, reveals more than any of them. The Sumner
+portrait is Franklin the youth; the Martin and the Grundmann portraits
+are Franklin the philosopher and statesman; the Duplessis portrait is
+Franklin the man.
+
+[Illustration: THE MARTIN PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN]
+
+Unfortunately, it is impossible to get a good reproduction of the
+Duplessis portrait, because there is so much detail in it and the
+coloring and lights and shadows cannot be successfully copied. But any
+one who will examine the original or any good replicas of it in oil
+will, I am convinced, see Franklin as he really was. The care in
+details, the wrinkles, and the color of the skin give us confidence in
+it as a likeness. The round, strong, but crude form of the boy of twenty
+has been beaten and changed by time into a hundred qualities and
+accomplishments, yet the original form is still discernible, and the
+face looks straight at us: we see the eyes and every line close at hand.
+
+In this, the best portrait for studying Franklin's eye, we see at once
+that it is the eye of a very sensuous man, and we also see many details
+which mark the self-made man, the man who never had been and never
+pretended to be an aristocrat. This is in strong contrast to
+Washington's portraits, which all disclose a man distinctly of the upper
+class and conscious of it.
+
+But, in spite of this homeliness in the Duplessis portrait and the easy,
+careless manner in which the clothes are worn, there are no signs of
+what might be called vulgarity. The wonderful and many-sided
+accomplishments of the man carried him well above this. Brought up as a
+boy at candle- and soap-making, he nevertheless, when prosperous, turned
+instinctively to higher things and refined accomplishments and was
+comparatively indifferent to material wealth. Nor do we find in him any
+of that bitter hostility and jealousy of the established and successful
+which more modern experience might lead us to expect.
+
+The Duplessis portrait conforms to what we read of Franklin in
+representing him as hale and vigorous at seventy-two. The face is full
+of lines, but they are the lines of thought, and of thought that has
+come easily and cheerfully; there are no traces of anxiety, gnawing
+care, or bitterness. In Paris, at the time the Duplessis portrait was
+painted, Franklin was regarded as a rather unusual example of vigor and
+good health in old age. John Adams in his Diary uses him as a standard,
+and speaks of other old men in France as being equal or almost equal to
+him in health.
+
+Although not so free from disease as were his parents, he was not much
+troubled with it until late in life. When a young man of about
+twenty-one he had a bad attack of pleurisy, of which he nearly died. It
+terminated in an abscess of the left lung, and when this broke, he was
+almost suffocated by the quantity and suddenness of the discharge. A few
+years afterwards he had a similar attack of pleurisy, ending in the same
+way; and it was an abscess in his lung which finally caused his death.
+The two abscesses which he had when a young man seem to have left no ill
+effects; and after his two attacks of pleurisy he was free from serious
+sickness for many years, until at the age of fifty-one he went to
+England to represent the Province of Pennsylvania. Soon after landing he
+was attacked by an obscure fever, of which he does not give the name,
+and which disabled him for eight weeks. He was delirious, and they
+cupped him and gave him enormous quantities of bark.
+
+[Illustration: THE GRUNDMANN IDEAL PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN]
+
+After he had passed middle life he found that he could not remain
+entirely well unless he took a journey every year. During the nine
+years of his residence in Paris as minister to France he was unable to
+take these journeys, and as a consequence his health rapidly
+deteriorated. He had violent attacks which incapacitated him for weeks,
+sometimes for months, and at the close of the nine years he could
+scarcely walk and could not bear the jolting of a carriage.
+
+In France his diseases were first the gout and afterwards the stone. He
+was one of those stout, full-blooded men who the doctors say are
+peculiarly liable to gout, and his tendency to it was evidently
+increased by his very sedentary habits. He confesses this in part of
+that clever dialogue which he wrote to amuse the Parisians:
+
+    "MIDNIGHT, October 22, 1780.
+
+    "_Franklin._--Eh! Oh! Eh! What have I done to merit these cruel
+    sufferings?
+
+    "_Gout._--Many things; you have ate and drank too freely, and
+    too much indulged those legs of yours in their indolence.
+
+    "_Franklin._--Who is it that accuses me?
+
+    "_Gout._--It is I, even I, the Gout.
+
+    "_Franklin._--What! my enemy in person?
+
+    "_Gout._--No, not your enemy.
+
+    "_Franklin._--I repeat it; my enemy; for you would not only
+    torment my body to death, but ruin my good name; you reproach me
+    as a glutton and a tippler; now all the world, that knows me,
+    will allow that I am neither the one nor the other.
+
+    "_Gout._--The world may think as it pleases; it is always very
+    complaisant to itself, and sometimes to its friends; but I very
+    well know that the quantity of meat and drink proper for a man,
+    who takes a reasonable degree of exercise, would be too much for
+    another, who never takes any.
+
+    "_Franklin._--I take--Eh! Oh!--as much exercise--Eh!--as I can,
+    Madam Gout. You know my sedentary state, and on that account, it
+    would seem, Madam Gout, as if you might spare me a little,
+    seeing it is not altogether my own fault.
+
+    "_Gout._--Not a jot; your rhetoric and your politeness are
+    thrown away; your apology avails nothing. If your situation in
+    life is a sedentary one, your amusements, your recreations, at
+    least, should be active. You ought to walk or ride; or, if the
+    weather prevents that, play at billiards. But let us examine
+    your course of life. While the mornings are long, and you have
+    leisure to go abroad, what do you do? Why, instead of gaining an
+    appetite for breakfast, by salutary exercise, you amuse yourself
+    with books, pamphlets, or newspapers, which commonly are not
+    worth the reading. Yet you eat an inordinate breakfast, four
+    dishes of tea, with cream, and one or two buttered toasts, with
+    slices of hung beef, which I fancy are not things the most
+    easily digested. Immediately afterward you sit down to write at
+    your desk, or converse with persons who apply to you on
+    business. Thus the time passes till one, without any kind of
+    bodily exercise. But all this I could pardon, in regard, as you
+    say, to your sedentary condition. But what is your practice
+    after dinner? Walking in the beautiful garden of those friends,
+    with whom you have dined, would be the choice of men of sense;
+    yours is to be fixed down to chess, where you are found engaged
+    for two or three hours!... Wrapt in the speculations of this
+    wretched game, you destroy your constitution. What can be
+    expected from such a course of living, but a body replete with
+    stagnant humors, ready to fall a prey to all kinds of dangerous
+    maladies, if I, the Gout, did not occasionally bring you relief
+    by agitating those humors, and so purifying or dissipating
+    them?... But amidst my instructions, I had almost forgot to
+    administer my wholesome corrections; so take that twinge,--and
+    that...."
+
+He tried to give himself exercise by walking up and down his room. In
+that humorous essay, "The Craven Street Gazette," in which he describes
+the doings of Mrs. Stevenson's household, where he lived in London,
+there is a passage evidently referring to himself: "Dr. Fatsides made
+four hundred and sixty turns in his dining-room as the exact distance of
+a visit to the lovely Lady Barwell, whom he did not find at home; so
+there was no struggle for and against a kiss, and he sat down to dream
+in the easy-chair that he had it without any trouble."
+
+Some years afterwards, when he was in Paris, John Adams upbraided him
+for not taking more exercise; but he replied, "Yes, I walk a league
+every day in my chamber. I walk quick, and for an hour, so that I go a
+league; I make a point of religion of it." This was not a very good
+substitute for out-of-door exertion. In fact, Franklin's opinions on the
+subject of exercise were not wise. The test of exercise was, he thought,
+the amount of warmth it added to the body, and he inferred, therefore,
+that walking must be better than riding on horseback, and he even
+recommended walking up and down stairs. Walking, being monotonous and
+having very little effect on the trunk and upper portions of the body,
+is generally admitted to be insufficient for those who require much
+exercise; while running up and down stairs would now be considered
+positively injurious. But it is, perhaps, hardly in order to criticise
+the methods of a man who succeeded in living to be eighty-four and who
+served the public until the last year of his life.
+
+Even when he was at his worst in Paris and unable to walk, his mind was
+as vigorous as ever, and he looked well. Adams, who was determined to
+comment on his neglect of exercise, says of him when in his crippled
+condition, in 1785, "but he is strong and eats freely, so that he will
+soon have other complaints besides the stone if he continues to live as
+entirely without exercise as he does at present." Adams also said that
+his only chance for life was a sea-voyage.
+
+Soon afterwards Franklin was carried in a litter by easy journeys from
+Paris to the sea-coast, and crossed to Southampton, England, to wait for
+the vessel that was to take him to Philadelphia. While at Southampton he
+says,--
+
+    "I went at noon to bathe in the Martin salt water hot bath, and
+    floating on my back, fell asleep, and slept near an hour by my
+    watch without sinking or turning! a thing I never did before and
+    should hardly have thought possible. Water is the easiest bed
+    that can be."
+
+It was certainly odd that in his seventy-ninth year and enfeebled by
+disease he should renew his youthful skill as a swimmer and justify to
+himself his favorite theory that nakedness and water are not the causes
+of colds.
+
+His opinion that occasional journeys were essential to his health and
+Adams's opinion of the necessity of a sea-voyage were both justified;
+for when he reached Philadelphia, September 14, 1785, he could walk the
+streets and bear the motion of an easy carriage. He was almost
+immediately elected Governor of Pennsylvania, and held the office by
+successive annual elections for three years. The public, he said, have
+"engrossed the prime of my life. They have eaten my flesh, and seem
+resolved now to pick my bones." During the summer of 1787 he served as a
+member of the convention which framed the national Constitution,
+although unable to stand up long enough to make a speech, all his
+speeches being read by his colleague, James Wilson; and yet it was in
+that convention, as we shall see, that he performed the most important
+act of his political career.
+
+In December, 1787, he had a fall down the stone steps of his garden,
+spraining his right wrist and bringing on another attack of the stone.
+But he recovered in the spring; and at this period, and indeed to the
+end of his life, his wonderful vitality bore up so well against severe
+disease that his mental faculties were unimpaired, his spirits buoyant,
+and his face fresh and serene.
+
+But towards the end he had to take to his bed, and the last two or three
+years of his life were passed in terrible pain, with occasional respites
+of a few weeks, during which he would return to some of his old
+avocations, writing letters or essays of extraordinary brightness and
+gayety. He wrote a long letter on his religious belief to President
+Stiles about five weeks before his death, his humorous protest against
+slavery two weeks later, and an important letter to Thomas Jefferson on
+the Northeast Boundary question nine days before his death.
+
+His grandchildren played around his bedside; friends and distinguished
+men called to see him, and went away to write notes of what they
+recollected of his remarkable conversation and cheerfulness. One of his
+grandchildren, afterwards Mrs. William J. Duane, was eight years old
+during the last year of his life, and she has related that every evening
+after tea he insisted that she should bring her Webster's spelling-book
+and say her lesson to him.
+
+    "A few days before he died, he rose from his bed and begged that
+    it might be made up for him so that he might die in a decent
+    manner. His daughter told him that she hoped he would recover
+    and live many years longer. He calmly replied, 'I hope not.'
+    Upon being advised to change his position in bed, that he might
+    breathe easy, he said, 'A dying man can do nothing easy.'"
+    (Bigelow's Franklin from his own Writings, vol. iii. p. 464.)
+
+His physician, Dr. Jones, has described his last illness,--
+
+    "About sixteen days before his death he was seized with a
+    feverish indisposition, without any particular symptoms
+    attending it, till the third or fourth day, when he complained
+    of a pain in the left breast, which increased till it became
+    extremely acute, attended with a cough and laborious breathing.
+    During this state when the severity of his pains drew forth a
+    groan of complaint, he would observe--that he was afraid he did
+    not bear them as he ought--acknowledged his grateful sense of
+    the many blessings he had received from that Supreme Being, who
+    had raised him from small and low beginnings to such high rank
+    and consideration among men--and made no doubt but his present
+    afflictions were kindly intended to wean him from a world, in
+    which he was no longer fit to act the part assigned him. In this
+    frame of body and mind he continued till five days before his
+    death, when his pain and difficulty of breathing entirely left
+    him, and his family were flattering themselves with the hopes of
+    his recovery, when an imposthumation, [abscess] which had formed
+    itself in his lungs suddenly burst, and discharged a great
+    quantity of matter, which he continued to throw up while he had
+    sufficient strength to do it; but, as that failed, the organs of
+    respiration became gradually oppressed--a calm lethargic state
+    succeeded--and, on the 17th of April, 1790, about eleven o'clock
+    at night, he quietly expired, closing a long and useful life of
+    eighty-four years and three months."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Vol. iv. p. 271.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+EDUCATION
+
+
+Self-made men of eminence have been quite numerous in America for a
+hundred years. Franklin was our first hero of this kind, and I am
+inclined to think our greatest. The others have achieved wealth or
+political importance; sometimes both. But Franklin achieved not only
+wealth and the reputation of a diplomatist and a statesman, but made
+himself a most accomplished scholar, a man of letters of world-wide
+fame, a philosopher of no small importance, and as an investigator and
+discoverer in science he certainly enlarged the domain of human
+knowledge.
+
+His father, Josiah Franklin, an industrious candle-maker in Boston,
+intended that his youngest son, Benjamin, should enter the ministry of
+the Puritan Church. With this end in view he sent him, when eight years
+old, to the Boston Grammar-School; but before a year had expired he
+found that the cost of even this slight schooling was too much for the
+slender means with which he had to provide for a large family of
+children. So Franklin went to another school, kept by one George
+Brownell, where he stayed for about a year, and then his school-days
+were ended forever. He entered his father's shop to cut wicks and melt
+tallow. During his two years of schooling he had learned to read and
+write, but was not very good at arithmetic.
+
+His associations were all humble, but they cannot be said to have been
+those of either extreme poverty or ignorance. At Ecton,
+Northamptonshire, England, whence his father came, the family had lived
+for at least three hundred years, and how much longer is not known.
+Several of those in the lineal line of Benjamin had been blacksmiths.
+They were plain people who, having been always respectable and lived
+long in one neighborhood, could trace their ancestry back for several
+centuries.
+
+They were unambitious, contented with their condition, and none of them
+except Benjamin ever rose much above it, or even seriously tried to
+rise. This may not have been from any lack of mental ability. Franklin's
+father was a strong, active man, as was to be expected of the descendant
+of a line of blacksmiths. He was intelligent and inquiring, conversed
+well on general subjects, could draw well, played the violin and sang in
+his home when the day's work was done, and was respected by his
+neighbors as a prudent, sensible citizen whose advice was worth
+obtaining. It does not appear that he was studious. But his brother
+Benjamin, after whom our Franklin was named, was interested in politics,
+collected pamphlets, made short-hand notes of the sermons he heard, and
+was continually writing verses.
+
+This Uncle Benjamin, while in England, took a great interest in the
+nephew in America who was named after him, and he sent verses to him on
+all sorts of subjects. He was unsuccessful in business, lost his wife
+and all his children, save one, and finally came out to America to join
+the family at Boston.
+
+[Illustration: HOUSE IN WHICH FRANKLIN WAS BORN]
+
+Franklin's mother was Abiah Folger, the second wife of his father. She
+was the daughter of Peter Folger, of Nantucket, a surveyor, who is
+described by Cotton Mather as a somewhat learned man. He made himself
+familiar with some of the Indian languages, and taught the Indians to
+read and write. He wrote verses of about the same quality as those of
+Uncle Benjamin. One of these, called "A Looking Glass for the Times,"
+while it is mere doggerel, shows that its author was interested in
+literature. He was a man of liberal views and opposed to the persecution
+of the Quakers and Baptists in Massachusetts.
+
+From this grandfather on his mother's side Franklin no doubt inherited
+his fondness for books, a fondness that was reinforced by a similar
+tendency which, though not very strong in his father, evidently existed
+in his father's family, as Uncle Benjamin's verses show. These verses
+sent to the boy Franklin and his efforts at times to answer them were an
+encouragement towards reading and knowledge. Franklin's extremely
+liberal views may possibly have had their origin in his maternal
+grandfather, Peter Folger.
+
+But independently of these suppositions as regards heredity, we find
+Franklin at twelve years of age reading everything he could lay his
+hands on. His first book was Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," which would
+not interest boys nowadays, and scarcely interests mature people any
+more; but there were no novels then and no story-books for boys.
+"Pilgrim's Progress" is a prose story with dialogues between the
+characters, the first instance of this sort of writing in English, and
+sufficient to fascinate a boy when there was nothing better in the
+world.
+
+He liked it so well that he bought the rest of Bunyan's works, but soon
+sold them to procure Burton's Historical Collections, which were forty
+small chapmen's books, full of travels, adventures, history, and
+descriptions of animals, well calculated to stimulate the interest of a
+bright lad. Among his father's theological books was Plutarch's "Lives,"
+which young Franklin read eagerly, also De Foe's "Essay upon Projects,"
+and Cotton Mather's "Essays to do Good," which he said had an important
+influence on his character.
+
+He so hated cutting wicks and melting tallow that, like many other boys
+of his time, he wanted to run away to sea; and his father, to check this
+inclination and settle him, compelled him to sign articles of
+apprenticeship with his brother James, who was a printer. The child's
+taste for books, the father thought, fitted him to be a printer, which
+would be a more profitable occupation than the ministry, for which he
+was at first intended.
+
+So Franklin was bound by law to serve his brother until he was
+twenty-one. He learned the business quickly, stealing time to read
+books, which he sometimes persuaded booksellers' apprentices to take
+from their masters' shops in the evening. He would sit up nearly all
+night to read them, so that they might be returned early in the morning
+before they were missed.
+
+[Illustration: PRINTING-PRESS AT WHICH FRANKLIN WORKED WHEN A BOY IN
+BOSTON]
+
+He wrote ballads, like his uncle Benjamin and his grandfather Peter
+Folger, on popular events,--the drowning of a Captain Worthilake, and
+the pirate Blackbeard,--and, after his brother had printed them, sold
+them in the streets. His biographer, Weems, quotes one of these verses,
+which he declares he had seen and remembered, and I give it with the
+qualification that it comes from Weems:
+
+    "Come all you jolly sailors,
+      You all, so stout and brave;
+    Come hearken and I'll tell you
+      What happened on the wave.
+
+    "Oh! 'tis of that bloody Blackbeard
+      I'm going now for to tell;
+    And as how by gallant Maynard
+      He soon was sent to hell--
+        With a down, down, down, derry down."
+
+His father ridiculed these verses, in spite of their successful sale,
+and dissuaded him from any more attempts; but Franklin remained more or
+less of a verse-writer to the end of his life. Verse-writing trained him
+to write good prose, and this accomplishment contributed, he thought,
+more than anything else to his advancement.
+
+He had an intimate friend, John Collins, likewise inclined to books, and
+the two argued and disputed with each other. Franklin was fond of wordy
+contention at that time, and it was possibly a good mental training for
+him. He had caught it, he says, from reading his father's books of
+religious controversy. But in after-years he became convinced that this
+disputatious turn was a very bad habit, which made one extremely
+disagreeable and alienated friends; he therefore adopted during most of
+his life a method of cautious modesty.
+
+He once disputed with Collins on the propriety of educating women and on
+their ability for study. He took the side of the women, and, feeling
+himself worsted by Collins, who had a more fluent tongue, he reduced his
+arguments to writing and sent them to him. A correspondence followed,
+and Franklin's father, happening to find the papers, pointed out to his
+son the great advantage Collins had in clearness and elegance of
+expression. A hint is all that genius requires, and Franklin went
+resolutely to work to improve himself.
+
+    "About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It
+    was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it,
+    read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought
+    the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it.
+    With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short
+    hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few
+    days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat
+    the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length,
+    and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable
+    words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator
+    with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected
+    them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in
+    recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have
+    acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since
+    the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of
+    different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for
+    the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of
+    searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety
+    in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of
+    the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I
+    had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I
+    also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion,
+    and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best
+    order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat
+    the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of
+    thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I
+    discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the
+    pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small
+    import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the
+    language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in
+    time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was
+    extremely ambitious."
+
+In some respects this is the most interesting passage in all of
+Franklin's writings. It was this severe training of himself which gave
+him that wonderful facility in the use of English that made him a great
+man. Without it he would have been second-rate or ordinary. His method
+of improving his style served also as a discipline in thought and logic
+such as is seldom, if ever, given nowadays in any school or college.
+
+Many of those who have reflected deeply on the subject of college
+education have declared that its ultimate object should be to give in
+the highest degree the power of expression. Some have said that a sense
+of honor and the power of expression should be its objects. But there
+are few who will dispute the proposition that a collegian who receives
+his diploma without receiving with it more of the art of expression than
+most men possess has spent his time and his money in vain.
+
+During the last thirty years we have been trying every conceivable
+experiment in college education, many of them mere imitations from
+abroad and many of them mere suggestions, suppositions, or Utopian
+theories. When we began these experiments it was taken for granted that
+the old methods, which had produced in this country such scholars,
+writers, and thinkers as Lowell, Longfellow, Holmes, Hawthorne,
+Webster, Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, Everett, Phillips, Channing,
+Parker, and Parkman, and in England a host too numerous to name, must
+necessarily be wrong. We began to imitate Germany. It was assumed that
+if we transplanted the German system we should begin to grind out
+Mommsens and Bunsens by the yard, like a cotton-mill; and that if we
+added to the German system every plausible suggestion of our own for
+making things easy, the result would be a stupendous success.
+
+But how many men have we produced who can be compared with the men of
+the old system? Not one. The experiment, except so far as it has given a
+large number of people a great deal of pretty information about history
+and the fine arts, is a vast failure. After thirty years of effort we
+have just discovered that the boys whose nerves and eyesight are being
+worn out under our wonderful system cannot write a decent letter in the
+English language; and a committee of Harvard University have spent
+months of labor and issued a voluminous report of hundreds of pages on
+this mortifying discovery, leaving it as perplexing and humiliating as
+they found it.
+
+Remedies are proposed. We have made a mistake, say some, and they
+suggest that for a change we adopt the English University system. After
+partially abolishing Latin and Greek we were to have in place of them a
+great deal of history and mathematics, which were more practical, it was
+said; but now we are informed that this also was a mistake, and a
+movement is on foot to abolish history and algebra. Others suggest the
+French system, and one individual writes a long article for the
+newspapers proving beyond the possibility of a doubt that French
+education is just the thing we need. Always imitating something; always
+trying to bring in the foreign and distant. And until we stop this
+vulgar provincial snobbery and believe in ourselves and learn to do our
+own work with our own people in our own way, we shall continue to
+flounder and fail.
+
+Let us distinguish clearly between information and education. If it is
+necessary, especially in these times, to give people information on
+various subjects,--on science, history, art, bric-a-brac, or mud
+pies,--very good; let it be done by all means, for it seems to have a
+refining influence on the masses. But do not call it education.
+Education is teaching a person to do something with his mind or his
+muscles or with both. It involves training, discipline, drill; things
+which, as a rule, are very unpleasant to young people, and which, unless
+they are geniuses, like Franklin, they will not take up of their own
+accord.
+
+You can never teach a boy to write good English by having him read
+elegant extracts from distinguished authors, or by making him wade
+through endless text-books of anatomy, physics, botany, history, and
+philosophy, or by giving him a glib knowledge of French or German, or by
+perfunctory translations of Latin and Greek prepared in the
+new-fashioned, easy way, without a grammar.
+
+The old English method, by which boys were compelled to write Latin
+verses, was simply another form of Franklin's method, but rather more
+severe in some respects, because the boy was compelled to discipline
+his versifying power and hunt for and use words in two languages at
+once. The result was some of the greatest masters of language that the
+world has ever known, and the ordinary boy, though perhaps not a wonder
+in all the sciences, did not have a learned committee of a university
+investigating his disgraceful failure to use his native tongue. His
+mind, moreover, had been so disciplined by the severe training in the
+use of language--which is only another name for thought--that he was
+capable of taking up and mastering with ease any subject in science or
+philosophy, and could make as good mud pies and judge as well of
+bric-a-brac as those who had never done anything else.
+
+In this country people object to compelling boys to write verse,
+because, as they say, it is an endeavor to force them to become poets
+whether they have talent for it or not. Any one who reflects, however,
+knows that there is no question of poetry in the matter. It is merely a
+question of technical versifying and use of language. Franklin never
+wrote a line of poetry in his life, but he wrote hundreds of lines of
+verse, to the great improvement of the faculty which made him the man he
+was.
+
+When he voluntarily subjected himself to a mental discipline which
+modern parents would consider cruel he was only fifteen years old;
+certainly a rather unusual precocity, from which some people would
+prophesy a dwarfed career or an early death. But he did some of his best
+work after he was eighty, and died at the age of eighty-four.
+
+He lived in the little village of Boston nearly two hundred years ago,
+the wholesome wilderness on one side of him and the wholesome ocean on
+the other. He worked with his strong arms and hands all day, and the
+mental discipline and reading were stolen sweets at the dinner-hour, at
+night, and on Sunday,--for he neglected church-going for the sake of his
+studies. Could he have budded and grown amid our distraction, dust, and
+disquietude? and have we any more of the elements of happiness than he?
+
+Ashamed of his failure to learn arithmetic during his two short years at
+school, he procured a book on the subject and studied it by himself. In
+the same way he studied navigation and a little geometry. When scarcely
+seventeen he read Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding" and "The
+Art of Thinking," by Messieurs du Port-Royal.
+
+    "While I was intent on improving my language I met with an
+    English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's) at the end of which
+    there were two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and
+    logic, the latter finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the
+    Socratic method; and soon after I procured Xenophon's memorable
+    things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same
+    method. I was charmed with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt
+    contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble
+    inquirer and doubter."
+
+It was very shrewd of the boy to see so quickly the strategic advantage
+of the humbler method. It was also significant of genius that he should
+of his own accord not only train and discipline himself, but feed his
+mind on the great masters of literature instead of on trash. He could
+hardly have done any better at school, for he was gifted with unusual
+power of self-education. Boys are occasionally met with who have by
+their own efforts acquired a sufficient education to obtain a good
+livelihood or even to become rich; but it would be difficult to find
+another instance of a boy with only two years' schooling self-educating
+himself up to the ability not only of making a fortune, but of becoming
+a man of letters, a man of science, a philosopher, a diplomat, and a
+statesman of such very distinguished rank.
+
+There was no danger of his inclination for the higher departments of
+learning making him visionary or impractical, as is so often the case
+with the modern collegian. He was of necessity always in close contact
+with actual life. His brother, in whose printing-office he worked as an
+apprentice, was continually beating him; perhaps not without reason, for
+Franklin himself admits that he was rather saucy and provoking. He was,
+it seems, at this period not a little vain of his learning and his skill
+as a workman. He had been writing important articles for his brother's
+newspaper, and he thought that his brother failed to appreciate his
+importance. They soon quarrelled, and Franklin ran away to New York.
+
+He went secretly on board a sloop at Boston, having sold some of his
+books to raise the passage-money; and after a three days' voyage, which
+completely cured his desire for the sea, he found himself in a strange
+town, several hundred miles from home. He applied for work to old Mr.
+William Bradford, the famous printer of the colonies, who had recently
+removed from Philadelphia. But he had no position to give the boy, and
+recommended him to go to Philadelphia, where his son kept a
+printing-office and needed a hand.
+
+Franklin started for Amboy, New Jersey, in a sloop; but in crossing the
+bay they were struck by a squall, which tore their rotten sails to
+pieces and drove them on Long Island. They saved themselves from wreck
+on the beach by anchoring just in time, and lay thus the rest of the day
+and the following night, soaked to the skin and without food or sleep.
+They reached Amboy the next day, having had nothing to eat for thirty
+hours, and in the evening Franklin found himself in a fever.
+
+He had heard that drinking plentifully of cold water was a good remedy;
+so he tried it, went to bed, and woke up well the next morning. But it
+was probably his boyish elasticity that cured him, and not the cold
+water, as he would have us believe.
+
+He started on foot for Burlington, a distance of fifty miles, and
+tramped till noon through a hard rain, when he halted at an inn, and
+wished that he had never left home. He was a sorry figure, and people
+began to suspect him to be a runaway servant, which in truth he was. But
+the next day he got within eight miles of Burlington, and stopped at a
+tavern kept by a Dr. Brown, an eccentric man, who, finding that the boy
+had read serious books, was very friendly with him, and the two
+continued their acquaintance as long as the tavern-keeper lived.
+
+Reaching Burlington on Saturday, he lodged with an old woman, who sold
+him some gingerbread and gave him a dinner of ox-cheek, to which he
+added a pot of ale. His intention had been to stay until the following
+Tuesday, but he found a boat going down the river that evening, which
+brought him to Philadelphia on Sunday morning.
+
+He walked up Market Street from the wharf, dirty, his pockets stuffed
+with shirts and stockings, and carrying three great puffy rolls, one
+under each arm and eating the third. Passing by the house of a Mrs.
+Read, her daughter, standing at the door, saw the ridiculous,
+awkward-looking boy, and was much amused. But he continued strolling
+along the streets, eating his roll and calmly surveying the town where
+he was to become so eminent. One roll was enough for his appetite, and
+the other two, with a boy's sincere generosity, he gave to a woman and
+her child. He had insisted on paying for his passage, although the
+boatman was willing to let him off because he had assisted to row. A
+man, Franklin sagely remarks, is sometimes more generous when he has but
+little money through fear of being thought to have but little.
+
+He wandered into a Quaker meeting-house and, as it was a silent meeting,
+fell fast asleep. Aroused by some one when the meeting broke up, he
+sought the river again, and was shown the Crooked Billet Inn, where he
+spent the afternoon sleeping, and immediately after supper went sound
+asleep again, and never woke till morning.
+
+The next day he succeeded in obtaining work with a printer named Keimer,
+a man who had been a religious fanatic and was a good deal of a knave;
+and this Keimer obtained lodging for him at the house of Mrs. Read,
+whose daughter had seen him walking up Market Street eating his roll.
+Well lodged, at work, and with a little money to spend, he lived
+agreeably, he tells us, in Philadelphia, made the acquaintance of young
+men who were fond of reading, and very soon his brother-in-law, Robert
+Holmes, master of a sloop that traded between Boston and the Delaware
+River, heard that the runaway was in Philadelphia.
+
+Holmes wrote from New Castle, Delaware, to the boy, assuring him of the
+regret of his family at his absconding, of their continued good will,
+and urging him to return. Franklin replied, giving his side of the
+story, and Holmes showed the letter to Sir William Keith, Governor of
+Pennsylvania and Delaware, who happened to be at New Castle.
+
+Keith was one of the most popular colonial governors that Pennsylvania
+ever had, and enjoyed a successful administration of ten years, which
+might have lasted much longer but for his reckless ambition. He had
+allowed himself to fall into habits of extravagance and debt, and had a
+way of building up his popularity by making profuse promises, most of
+which he could not keep. Chicanery finally became an habitual vice which
+he was totally unable to restrain, and he would indulge in it without
+the slightest reason or excuse.
+
+He was surprised at the ability shown in Franklin's letter, declared
+that he must be set up in the printing business in Philadelphia, where a
+good printer was sadly needed, and promised to procure for him the
+public printing. A few days afterwards Franklin and Keimer, working near
+the window, were very much surprised to see the governor and Colonel
+French, of New Castle, dressed in all the finery of the time, walking
+across the street to their shop. Keimer thought that the visit was to
+him, and "stared like a poisoned pig," Franklin tells us, when he saw
+the governor addressing his workman with all the blandishments of
+courtly flattery. "Why," exclaimed the unscrupulous Keith, "did you not
+come to me immediately on your arrival in the town? It was unkind not to
+do so." He insisted that the boy should accompany him to the tavern,
+where he and Colonel French were going to try some excellent Madeira.
+
+At the tavern the boy's future life was laid out for him. The governor
+and Colonel French would give him the public printing of both
+Pennsylvania and Delaware. Meantime he was to go back to Boston, see his
+father, and procure his assistance in starting in business. The father
+would not refuse, for Sir William would write him a letter which would
+put everything right. So Franklin, completely deceived, agreed, and,
+until a ship could be found that was going to Boston, he dined
+occasionally with the governor, and became very much inflated with a
+sense of his own importance.
+
+Arrived at Boston, he strolled into his brother's printing-office,
+dressed in beautiful clothes, with a watch, and jingling five pounds
+sterling in silver in his pockets. He drew out a handful of the silver
+and spread it before the workmen, to their great surprise, for at that
+time Massachusetts was afflicted with a paper currency. Then, with
+consummate impudence and in his brother's presence, he gave the men a
+piece of eight to buy drink, and, after telling them what a good place
+Philadelphia was, swaggered out of the shop. It is not surprising that
+his brother turned away from him and refused to forgive or forget his
+conduct.
+
+His father, being a man of sense, flatly refused to furnish money to
+start a boy of eighteen in an expensive business, and was curious to
+know what sort of man Governor Keith was, to recommend such a thing. So
+Franklin, with his conceit only slightly reduced, returned to
+Philadelphia, but this time with the blessing and consent of his
+parents.
+
+He stopped in Rhode Island on his way, to visit his brother John, who
+had quite an affection for him, and while there was asked by a Mr.
+Vernon to collect thirty-five pounds due him in Pennsylvania, and was
+given an order for the money. On the vessel from Newport to New York
+were two women of the town, with whom Franklin, in his ignorance of the
+world, talked familiarly, until warned by a matronly Quaker lady. When
+the vessel reached New York, the women robbed the captain and were
+arrested.
+
+His education in worldly matters was now to begin in earnest. His friend
+Collins accompanied him to Philadelphia; but Collins had taken to drink
+and gambling, and from this time on was continually borrowing money of
+Franklin. The Governor of New York, son of the famous Bishop Burnet,
+hearing from the captain that a plain young man who was fond of books
+had arrived, sent for him, flattered him, and added to his increasing
+conceit. The boy who within a year had been made so much of by two
+governors was on the brink of ruin.
+
+On his journey to Philadelphia he collected the money due Mr. Vernon,
+and used part of it to pay the expenses of Collins and himself. Collins
+kept borrowing Mr. Vernon's money from him, and Franklin was soon in the
+position of an embezzler.
+
+Governor Keith laughed at the prudence of his father in refusing to set
+up in business such a promising young man. "I will do it myself," he
+said. "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."
+
+Thinking him the best man that had ever lived, Franklin brought him the
+inventory.
+
+"But now," said Keith, "if you were on the spot in England to choose the
+types and see that everything was good, might not that be of some
+advantage? And then you may make acquaintances there and establish
+correspondences in the bookselling and stationery way."
+
+Of course that was delightful.
+
+"Then," said Keith, "get yourself ready to go with Annis," who was
+captain of a vessel that traded annually between Philadelphia and
+London.
+
+Meantime, Franklin made love to Miss Read, who had seen him parading up
+Market Street with his rolls, and, if we may trust a man's account of
+such matters, he succeeded in winning her affections. He had lost all
+faith in religion, and his example unsettled those friends who
+associated and read books with him. He was at times invited to dine with
+the governor, who promised to give him letters of credit for money and
+also letters recommending him to his friends in England.
+
+He called at different times for these letters, but they were not ready.
+The day of the ship's sailing came, and he called to take leave of his
+great and good friend and to get the letters. The governor's secretary
+said that his master was extremely busy, but would meet the ship at New
+Castle, and the letters would be delivered.
+
+The ship sailed from Philadelphia with Franklin and one of his friends,
+Ralph, who was going to England, ostensibly on business, but really to
+desert his wife and child, whom he left in Philadelphia. While the
+vessel was anchored off New Castle, Franklin went ashore to see Keith,
+and was again informed that he was very busy, but that the letters would
+be sent on board.
+
+The despatches of the governor were brought on board in due form by
+Colonel French, and Franklin asked for those which were to be under his
+care. But the captain said that they were all in the bag together, and
+before he reached England he would have an opportunity to pick them out.
+Arrived in London after a long, tempestuous voyage, Franklin found that
+there were no letters for him and no money. On consulting with a Quaker
+merchant, Mr. Denham, who had been friendly to him on the ship, he was
+told that there was not the slightest probability of Keith's having
+written such letters; and Denham laughed at Keith's giving a letter of
+credit, having, as he said, no credit to give.
+
+Franklin was stranded, alone and almost penniless, in London. When seven
+years old he had been given pennies on a holiday and foolishly gave them
+all to another boy in exchange for a whistle which pleased his fancy.
+Mortified by the ridicule of his brothers and sisters, he afterwards
+made a motto for himself, "Don't give too much for the whistle." More
+than fifty years afterwards, when minister to France, he turned the
+whistle story into a little essay which delighted all Paris, and "Don't
+give too much for the whistle" became a cant saying in both Europe and
+America. He seldom forgot a lesson of experience; and, though he says
+but little about it, the Keith episode, like the expensive whistle, must
+have made a deep impression on him and sharpened his wits.
+
+His life in London may be said to have been a rather evil one. He forgot
+Miss Read; his companion, Ralph, forgot the wife and child he had left
+in Philadelphia, and kept borrowing money from him, as Collins had done.
+Franklin wrote a small pamphlet about this time, which he printed for
+himself and called "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure
+and Pain." It was an argument in favor of fatalism, and while
+acknowledging the existence of God, it denied the immortality of the
+soul; suggesting, however, as a possibility, that there might be a
+transmigration of souls. It was a clever performance in its way, with
+much of the power of expression and brightness which were afterwards so
+characteristic of him; but in later years he regretted having published
+such notions.
+
+He sums up his argument on Liberty and Necessity as follows:
+
+    "When the Creator first designed the universe, either it was his
+    will and intention that all things should exist and be in the
+    manner they are at this time; or it was his will they should be
+    otherwise, i.e. in a different manner: To say it was his will
+    things should be otherwise than they are is to say somewhat hath
+    contracted his will and broken his measures, which is impossible
+    because inconsistent with his power; therefore we must allow
+    that all things exist now in a manner agreeable to his will, and
+    in consequence of that are all equally good, and therefore
+    equally esteemed by him."
+
+His argument, though shorter, is almost precisely the same as that with
+which Jonathan Edwards afterwards began his famous essay against the
+freedom of the will, and it is strange that Franklin's biographers have
+not claimed that he anticipated Edwards. But, so far as Franklin is
+concerned, it is probable that he was only using ideas that were afloat
+in the philosophy of the time; the two men were merely elaborating an
+argument and dealing with a metaphysical problem as old as the human
+mind. But Edwards carried the train of thought far beyond Franklin, and
+added the doctrine of election, while Franklin contented himself with
+establishing to his own satisfaction the very ancient proposition that
+there can be no freedom of the will, and that God must be the author of
+evil as well as of good.
+
+In the second part of his pamphlet, "Pleasure and Pain," he argues that
+pleasure and pain are exactly equal, because pain or uneasiness produces
+a desire to be freed from it, and the accomplishment of this desire
+produces a corresponding pleasure. His argument on this, as well as on
+the first half of his subject, when we consider that he was a mere boy,
+is very interesting. He had picked up by reading and conversation a
+large part of the philosophy that permeated the mental atmosphere of the
+time, and his keen observation of life and of his own consciousness
+supplied the rest.
+
+    "It will possibly be objected here, that even common Experience
+    shows us, there is not in Fact this Equality: Some we see
+    hearty, brisk and cheerful perpetually, while others are
+    constantly burden'd with a heavy 'Load of Maladies and
+    Misfortunes, remaining for Years perhaps in Poverty, Disgrace,
+    or Pain, and die at last without any Appearance of
+    Recompence.'... And here let it be observed, that we cannot be
+    proper Judges of the good or bad Fortune of Others; we are apt
+    to imagine, that what would give us a great Uneasiness or a
+    great Satisfaction, has the same Effect upon others; we think,
+    for instance, those unhappy, who must depend upon Charity for a
+    mean Subsistence, who go in Rags, fare hardly, and are despis'd
+    and scorn'd by all; not considering that Custom renders all
+    these Things easy, familiar, and even pleasant. When we see
+    Riches, Grandeur and a chearful Countenance, we easily imagine
+    Happiness accompanies them, when often times 'tis quite
+    otherwise: Nor is a constantly sorrowful Look, attended with
+    continual Complaints, an infallible Indication of
+    Unhappiness.... Besides some take a Satisfaction in being
+    thought unhappy, (as others take a Pride in being thought
+    humble,) these will paint their Misfortunes to others in the
+    strongest Colours, and leave no Means unus'd to make you think
+    them thoroughly miserable; so great a Pleasure it is to them to
+    be pitied; Others retain the form and outside Shew or Sorrow,
+    long after the thing itself, with its Cause, is remov'd from the
+    Mind; it is a Habit they have acquired and cannot leave."
+
+A very sharp insight into human nature is shown in this passage, and it
+is not surprising that the boy who wrote it afterwards became a mover of
+men. His mind was led to the subject by being employed to print a book
+which was very famous in its day, called "The Religion of Nature
+Delineated." He disliked its arguments, and must needs refute them by
+his pamphlet "Liberty and Necessity," which was certainly a most
+vigorous mental discipline for him, although he was afterwards
+dissatisfied with its negative conclusions.
+
+Obscure and poor as he was, he instinctively seized on everything that
+would contribute to his education and enlargement of mind. He made the
+acquaintance of a bookseller, who agreed for a small compensation to
+lend him books. His pamphlet on Liberty and Necessity brought him to the
+notice of Dr. Lyons, author of "The Infallibility of Human Judgment,"
+who took him to an ale-house called The Horns, where a sort of club of
+free-thinkers assembled. There he met Dr. Mandeville, who wrote "The
+Fable of the Bees." Lyons also introduced him to Dr. Pemberton, who
+promised to give him an opportunity of seeing Sir Isaac Newton; but this
+was never fulfilled.
+
+The conversation of these men, if not edifying in a religious way, was
+no doubt stimulating to his intelligence. He had brought over with him a
+purse made of asbestos, and this he succeeded in selling to Sir Hans
+Sloane, who invited him to his house and showed him his museum of
+curiosities.
+
+He says of the asbestos purse in his Autobiography that Sir Hans
+"persuaded me to let him add it to his collection, for which he paid me
+handsomely." But the persuasion was the other way, for the letter which
+he wrote to Sir Hans, offering to sell him the purse, has been
+discovered and printed.
+
+Even the woman he lodged with contributed to his education. She was a
+clergyman's daughter, had lived much among people of distinction, and
+knew a thousand anecdotes of them as far back as the time of Charles II.
+She was lame with the gout, and, seldom going out of her room, liked to
+have company. Her conversation was so amusing and instructive that he
+often spent an evening with her; and she, on her part, found the young
+man so agreeable that after he had engaged a lodging near by for two
+shillings a week she would not let him go, and agreed to keep him for
+one and sixpence. So the future economist of two continents enlarged his
+knowledge and at the same time reduced his board to thirty-seven cents a
+week.
+
+He certainly needed all the money he could get, for he was helping to
+support Ralph, who was trying to become a literary man and gradually
+degenerating into a political hack. Ralph made the acquaintance of a
+young milliner who lodged in the same house with them. She had known
+better days and was genteelly bred, but before long she became Ralph's
+mistress.
+
+Ralph went into the country to look for employment at school-teaching,
+and left his mistress in Franklin's care. As she had lost friends and
+employment by her association with Ralph, she was soon in need of money,
+and borrowed from Franklin. Presuming on her dependent position, he
+attempted liberties with her, and was repulsed with indignation. Ralph
+hearing of it on his return, informed him that their friendship was at
+an end and all obligations cancelled. This precluded Franklin's hope of
+being repaid the money he had lent, but it had the advantage of putting
+a stop to further lending.
+
+For a year and a half he lived in London, still keeping up his reading,
+but also going to the theatres and meeting many odd characters and a few
+distinguished ones. It was an experience which at least enlarged his
+mind if it did not improve his morals. He eventually became very tired
+of London, longing for the simple pleasures and happy days he had
+enjoyed in Pennsylvania, and he seized the first opportunity to return.
+Mr. Denham, the Quaker merchant who had come over in the same ship with
+him, was about to return, and offered to employ him as clerk. He eagerly
+accepted the offer, helped his benefactor to buy and pack his supply of
+goods, and landed again in Philadelphia in the autumn of 1726.
+
+Keith was no longer governor. Miss Read, despairing of Franklin's
+return, had yielded to the persuasions of her family and married a
+potter named Rogers, and Keimer seemed to be prospering. But the young
+printer was in a business that he liked. He was devoted to Mr. Denham,
+with whom his prospects were excellent, and he thought himself settled
+at last. In a few months, however, both he and Mr. Denham were taken
+with the pleurisy. Mr. Denham died, and Franklin, fully expecting to
+die, made up his mind to it like a philosopher who believed that there
+was nothing beyond the grave. He was rather disappointed, he tells us,
+when he got well, for all the troublesome business of resignation would
+some day have to be done over again.
+
+Finding himself on his recovery without employment, he went back again
+to work at his old trade with Keimer, and before long was in business
+for himself with a partner. He had never paid Mr. Vernon the money he
+had collected for him; but, fortunately, Mr. Vernon was easy with him,
+and, except for worrying over this very serious debt and the loss of
+Miss Read, Franklin began to do fairly well, and his self-education was
+continued in earnest.
+
+It was about this time that he founded the club called the Junto, which
+he has described as "the best school of philosophy, morality, and
+politics that then existed in the province."
+
+This description was true enough, but was not very high praise, for at
+that time Pennsylvania had no college, and the schools for children were
+mostly of an elementary kind. Franklin, in making this very sweeping
+assertion, may have intended one of his deep, sly jokes. It was the only
+school of philosophy in the province, and in that sense undoubtedly the
+best.
+
+It was a sort of small debating club, in which the members educated one
+another by discussion; and Franklin's biographer, Parton, supposes that
+it was in part suggested by Cotton Mather's benefit societies, which
+were well known in Boston when Franklin was a boy.
+
+The first members of the Junto were eleven in number, young workmen like
+Franklin, four of them being printers. The others were Joseph
+Brientnal, a copier of deeds; Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught
+mathematician, inventor of the quadrant now known as Hadley's; Nicholas
+Scull; William Parsons, a shoemaker; William Maugridge, a carpenter;
+William Coleman, a merchant's clerk; and Robert Grace, a witty, generous
+young gentleman of some fortune. The Junto was popularly known as the
+Leather-Apron Club, and Franklin has told us in his Autobiography of its
+methods and rules:
+
+    "We met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required
+    that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more
+    queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy,
+    to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce
+    and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased.
+    Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and
+    to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth,
+    without fondness 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."
+
+From other sources we learn that when a new member was initiated he
+stood up and, with his hand on his breast, was asked the following
+questions:
+
+    "1. Have you any particular disrespect to any present member?
+    Answer: I have not.
+
+    "2. Do you sincerely declare that you love mankind in general of
+    what profession or religion soever? Answer: I do.
+
+    "3. Do you think any person ought to be harmed in his body,
+    name, or goods for mere speculative opinions or his external way
+    of worship? Answer: No.
+
+    "4. Do you love truth for truth's sake, and will you endeavor
+    impartially to find and receive it yourself and communicate it
+    to others? Answer: Yes."
+
+At every meeting certain questions were read, with a pause after each
+one; and these questions might very well have been suggested by those of
+the Mather benefit societies. The first six are sufficient to give an
+idea of them all:
+
+    "1. Have you met with anything in the author you last read,
+    remarkable or suitable to be communicated to the Junto,
+    particularly 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
+    worthy action, deserving praise and imitation; or who has lately
+    committed an error, proper for us to be warned against and
+    avoid?"
+
+The number of members was limited to twelve, and Franklin always opposed
+an increase. Instead of adding to the membership, he suggested that each
+member form a similar club, and five or six were thus organized, with
+such names as The Vine, The Union, The Band. The original club is said
+to have continued for forty years. But it did not keep up its old
+character. Its original purpose had been to educate its members, to
+supply the place of the modern academy or college; but when the members
+became older and their education more complete, they cared no longer for
+self-imposed tasks of essay-writing and formal debate on set questions.
+They turned it into a social club, or, rather, they dropped its
+educational and continued its social side,--for it had always been
+social, and even convivial, which was one of the means adopted for
+keeping the members together and rendering their studies easy and
+pleasant.
+
+A list of some of the questions discussed by the Junto has been
+preserved, from which a few are given as specimens:
+
+    "Is sound an entity or body?
+
+    "How may the phenomena of vapors be explained?
+
+    "Is self-interest the rudder that steers mankind?
+
+    "Which is the best form of government, and what was that form
+    which first prevailed among mankind?
+
+    "Can any one particular form of government suit all mankind?
+
+    "What is the reason that the tides rise higher in the Bay of
+    Fundy than in the Bay of Delaware?"
+
+The young men who every Friday evening debated such questions as these
+were certainly acquiring an education which was not altogether an
+inferior substitute for that furnished by our modern institutions
+endowed with millions of dollars and officered by plodding professors
+prepared by years of exhaustive study. But the plodding professors and
+the modern institutions are necessary, because young men, as a rule,
+cannot educate themselves. The Junto could not have existed without
+Franklin. He inspired and controlled it. His personality and energy
+pervaded it, and the eleven other members were but clay in his hands.
+His rare precocity and enthusiasm inspired a love for and an interest in
+study which money, apparatus, and professors often fail to arouse.
+
+The Junto debated the question of paper money, which was then agitating
+the Province of Pennsylvania, and Franklin was led to write and publish
+a pamphlet called "A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a
+Paper Currency," a very crude performance, showing the deficiencies of
+his self-education. The use of the word modest in the title was in
+pursuance of the shrewd plan he had adopted of affecting great humility
+in the expression of his opinions. But his description in his
+Autobiography of the effect of this pamphlet is by no means either
+modest or humble:
+
+    "It was well received by the common people in general; but the
+    rich men disliked it, for it increased and strengthened the
+    clamor for more money, and they happening to have no writers
+    among them that were able to answer it their opposition
+    slackened, and the point was carried by a majority in the
+    House."
+
+In other words, he implies that the boyish debate of twelve young
+workingmen, resulting in the publication of a pamphlet by one of them,
+was the means of passing the Pennsylvania paper-money act of 1729. His
+biographers have echoed his pleasant delusion, and this pamphlet, which
+in reality contains some of the most atrocious fallacies in finance and
+political economy, has been lauded as a wonder, the beginning of modern
+political economy, and the source from which Adam Smith stole the
+material for his "Wealth of Nations."[2]
+
+In spite of all his natural brightness and laudable efforts for his own
+improvement, he was but half educated and full of crude enthusiasm. He
+was only twenty-three, and nothing more could be expected.
+
+Fifteen or twenty years afterwards, with added experience, Franklin
+became a very different sort of person. The man of forty, laboriously
+investigating science, discovering the secrets of electricity, and
+rejecting everything that had not been subjected to the most rigid
+proof, bore but little resemblance to the precocious youth of
+twenty-three, the victim of any specious sophism that promised a
+millennium. But he never fully apologized to the world for his
+paper-money delusion, contenting himself with saying in his
+Autobiography, "I now think there are limits beyond which the quantity
+may be hurtful."
+
+Three years after the publication of his pamphlet on paper money he
+began to study modern languages, and soon learned to read French,
+Italian, and Spanish. An acquaintance who was also studying Italian
+often tempted him to play chess. As this interfered with the Italian
+studies, Franklin arranged with him that the victor in any game should
+have the right to impose a task, either in grammar or translation; and
+as they played equally, they beat each other into a knowledge of the
+language.
+
+After he had become tolerably well acquainted with these modern
+languages he happened one day to look into a Latin Testament, and found
+that he could read it more easily than he had supposed. The modern
+languages had, he thought, smoothed the way for him, and he immediately
+began to study Latin, which had been dropped ever since, as a little
+boy, he had spent a year in the Boston Grammar School.
+
+From this circumstance he jumped to the conclusion that the usual method
+pursued in schools of studying Latin before the modern languages was all
+wrong. It would be better, he said, to begin with the French, proceed to
+the Italian, and finally reach the Latin. This would be beginning with
+the easiest first, and would also have the advantage that if the pupils
+should quit the study of languages, and never arrive at the Latin, they
+would have acquired another tongue or two which, being in modern use,
+might be serviceable to them in after-life.
+
+This suggestion, though extravagantly praised, has never been adopted,
+for the modern languages are now taught contemporaneously with Latin. It
+was an idea founded exclusively on a single and very unusual experience,
+without any test as to its general applicability. But all Franklin's
+notions of education were extremely radical, because based on his own
+circumstances, which were not those of the ordinary youth, to whom all
+systems of education have to be adapted.
+
+He wished to entirely abolish Latin and Greek. They had been useful, he
+said, only in the past, when they were the languages of the learned and
+when all books of science and important knowledge were written in them.
+At that time there had been a reason for learning them, but that reason
+had now passed away. English should be substituted for them, and its
+systematic study would give the same knowledge of language-structure and
+the same mental training that were supposed to be attainable only
+through Latin and Greek. His own self-education had been begun in
+English. He had analyzed and rewritten the essays in Addison's
+_Spectator_, and, believing that in this way he had acquired his own
+most important mental training, he concluded that the same method should
+be imposed on every one. He wished to set up the study of that author
+and of Pope, Milton, and Shakespeare as against Cicero, Virgil, and
+Homer.
+
+One of our most peculiar American habits is that every one who has a pet
+fancy or experience immediately wants it adopted into the public school
+system. We not uncommonly close our explanation of something that
+strikes us as very important by declaring, "and I would have it taught
+in the public schools." It has even been suggested that the game of
+poker should be taught as tending to develop shrewdness and observation.
+
+Franklin's foundation for all education was English. He would have also
+French, German, or Italian, and practical subjects,--natural science,
+astronomy, history, government, athletic sports, good manners, good
+morals, and other topics; for when one is drawing up these ideal schemes
+without a particle of practical experience in teaching it is so easy to
+throw in one thing after another which seems noble or beautiful for boys
+and girls to know. But English he naturally thought from his own
+experience was the gate-way to everything.
+
+In the course of his life Franklin received the honorary degree of
+doctor of laws from Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Edinburgh, and St Andrew's,
+and he founded a college. It has been said in support of his peculiar
+theories of education that when, in 1776, the Continental Congress,
+which was composed largely of college graduates, was considering who
+should be sent as commissioner to France, the only member who knew
+enough of the language to be thoroughly eligible was the one who had
+never been near a college except to receive honorary degrees for public
+services he had performed without the assistance of a college training.
+
+This is, of course, an interesting statement; but as an argument it is
+of no value. Franklin could read French, but could not speak it, and he
+had to learn to do so after he reached France. By his own confession he
+never was able to speak it well, and disregarded the grammar
+altogether,--a natural consequence of being self-taught. John Adams and
+other members of the Congress could read French as well as Franklin; and
+when, in their turn, they went to France, they learned to speak it as
+fluently as he.
+
+In 1743 Franklin attempted to establish an academy in Philadelphia. The
+higher education was very much neglected at that time in the middle
+colonies. The nearest colleges were Harvard and Yale, far to the north
+in New England, and William and Mary, far to the south in Virginia. The
+Presbyterians had a few good schools in Pennsylvania of almost the grade
+of academies, but none in Philadelphia. The Quakers, as a class, were
+not interested in colleges or universities, and confined their efforts
+to elementary schools. People were alarmed at the ignorance in which not
+only the masses but even the sons of the best citizens were growing up,
+and it was the general opinion that those born in the colony were
+inferior in intelligence to their fathers who had emigrated from
+England.
+
+Franklin's efforts failed in 1743 because there was much political
+agitation in the province and because of the preparations for the war
+with Spain in which England was about to engage; but in 1749 he renewed
+his attempt, and was successful. He was then a man of forty-three, had
+been married thirteen years, and had children, legitimate and
+illegitimate, to be educated. The Junto supported him, and in aid of his
+plan he wrote a pamphlet called "Proposals relating to the Education of
+Youth in Pennsylvania."
+
+In this pamphlet he could not set forth his extreme views of education
+because even the most liberal people in the town were not in favor of
+them. Philadelphia was at that time the home of liberal ideas in the
+colonies. Many people were in favor of altering the old system of
+education and teaching science and other practical subjects in addition
+to Latin and Greek; but they did not favor abolishing the study of these
+languages, and they could not see the necessity of making English so
+all-important as Franklin wished. He was compelled, therefore, to
+conform his arguments to the opinions of those from whom he expected
+subscriptions, and he did this with his usual discretion, making,
+however, the English branches as important as was possible under the
+circumstances.
+
+The result of the pamphlet was that five thousand pounds were
+subscribed, and the academy started within a year, occupying a large
+building on Fourth Street, south of Arch, which had been built for the
+use of George Whitefield, the famous English preacher. It supplied a
+real need of the community and had plenty of pupils. Within six years it
+obtained a charter from the proprietors of the province, and became a
+college, with an academy and a charitable school annexed.
+
+A young Scotchman, the Rev. William Smith, was appointed to govern the
+institution, and was called the provost. He had very advanced opinions
+on education, holding much the same views as were expressed in
+Franklin's proposals; but he was not in accord with Franklin's extreme
+ideas.[3] Those who intended to become lawyers, doctors, or clergymen
+should be taught to walk in the old paths and to study Latin and Greek;
+but the rest were to be deluged with a knowledge of accounts,
+mathematics, oratory, poetry, chronology, history, natural and mechanic
+philosophy, agriculture, ethics, physics, chemistry, anatomy, modern
+languages, fencing, dancing, religion, and everything else that by any
+chance might be useful.
+
+Thus the academy founded by Franklin became the College of
+Philadelphia, and as managed by Provost Smith it was a very good one and
+played a most interesting part in the life and politics of the colony.
+Its charter was revoked and its property confiscated during the
+Revolution, and another college was created, called the University of
+the State of Pennsylvania, which was worthless. Eleven years afterwards
+the old college was restored to its rights, and soon after that it was
+combined with the State University, and the union of the two produced
+the present University of Pennsylvania.[4] It should, however, have been
+called Franklin University, which would have been in every way a better
+name.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, p. 80.
+
+[3] Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, p. 141.
+
+[4] Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, pp. 374-377, 381.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+RELIGION AND MORALS
+
+
+Franklin's father and mother were Massachusetts Puritans who, while not
+conspicuously religious, attended steadily to their religious duties.
+They lived in Milk Street, Boston, near the Old South Church, and little
+Benjamin was carried across the street the day he was born and baptized
+in that venerable building.
+
+He was born on Sunday, January 6, 1706 (Old Style), and if it had
+occurred in one of the Massachusetts towns where the minister was very
+strict, baptism might have been refused, for some of the Puritans were
+so severe in their views of Sabbath-keeping that they said a child born
+on the Sabbath must have been conceived on the Sabbath, and was
+therefore hopelessly unregenerate.[5]
+
+These good men would have found their theory fully justified in
+Franklin, for he became a terrible example of the results of Sabbath
+birth and begetting. As soon as opportunity offered he became a most
+persistent Sabbath-breaker. While he lived with his parents he was
+compelled to go to church; but when apprenticed to his elder brother,
+and living away from home, he devoted Sunday to reading and study. He
+would slip off to the printing-office and spend nearly the whole day
+there alone with his books; and during a large part of his life Sunday
+was to him a day precious for its opportunities for study rather than
+for its opportunities for worship.
+
+His persistence in Sabbath-breaking was fortified by his entire loss of
+faith in the prevailing religion.
+
+    "I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and tho'
+    some of the dogmas of that persuasion, such as _the eternal
+    decrees of God_, _election_, _reprobation_, etc., appeared to me
+    unintelligible, others doubtful, and I early absented myself
+    from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being my studying
+    day, I never was without some religious principles. I never
+    doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made
+    the world and governed it by his Providence; that the most
+    acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our
+    souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished and
+    virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter." (Bigelow's Works of
+    Franklin, vol. i. p. 172.)
+
+It will be observed that he speaks of himself as having been educated a
+Presbyterian, a term which in his time was applied to the Puritans of
+Massachusetts. We find Thomas Jefferson also describing the New
+Englanders as Presbyterians, and in colonial times the Quakers in
+Pennsylvania used the same term when speaking of them. But they were not
+Presbyterians in the sense in which the word is now used, and their
+religion is usually described as Congregationalism.
+
+In the earlier part of his Autobiography Franklin describes more
+particularly how he was led away from the faith of his parents. Among
+his father's books were some sermons delivered on the Boyle foundation,
+which was a fund established at Oxford, England, by Robert Boyle for
+the purpose of having discourses delivered to prove the truth of
+Christianity. Franklin read some of these sermons when he was only
+fifteen years old, and was very much interested in the attacks made in
+them on the deists, the forerunners of the modern Unitarians. He thought
+that the arguments of the deists which were quoted to be refuted were
+much stronger than the attempts to refute them.
+
+Shaftesbury and Collins were the most famous deistical writers of that
+time. Their books were in effect a denial of the miraculous part of
+Christianity, and whoever accepted their arguments was left with a
+belief only in God and the immortality of the soul, with Christianity a
+code of morals and beautiful sentiments instead of a revealed religion.
+From reading quotations from these authors Franklin was soon led to read
+their works entire, and they profoundly interested him. Like their
+successors, the Unitarians, they were full of religious liberty and
+liberal, broad ideas on all subjects, and Franklin's mind tended by
+nature in that direction.
+
+It seems that Franklin's brother James was also a liberal. He had been
+employed to print a little newspaper, called the _Boston Gazette_, and
+when this work was taken from him, he started a newspaper of his own,
+called the _New England Courant_. His apprentice, Benjamin, delivered
+copies of it to the subscribers, and before long began to write for it.
+
+The _Courant_, under the guidance of James Franklin and his friends,
+devoted itself to ridiculing the government and religion of
+Massachusetts. A description of it, supposed to have been written by
+Cotton Mather, tells us that it was "full-freighted with nonsense,
+unmanliness, raillery, profaneness, 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
+England." Among other things, the _Courant_, as Increase Mather informs
+us, was guilty of saying that "if the ministers of God approve of a
+thing, it is a sign it is of the devil; which is a horrid thing to be
+related." Its printer and editor was warned that he would soon, though a
+young man, have to appear before the judgment-seat of God to answer for
+things so vile and abominable.
+
+Some of the Puritan ministers, under the lead of Cotton Mather, were at
+that time trying to introduce inoculation as a preventive of small-pox,
+and for this the _Courant_ attacked them. It attempted to make a
+sensation out of everything. Increase Mather boasted that he had ceased
+to take it. To which the _Courant_ replied that it was true he was no
+longer a subscriber, but that he sent his grandson every week to buy it.
+It was a sensational journal, and probably the first of its kind in this
+country. People bought and read it for the sake of its audacity. It was
+an instance of liberalism gone mad and degenerated into mere radicalism
+and negation.
+
+Some of the articles attributed to Franklin, and which were in all
+probability written by him, were violent attacks on Harvard College,
+setting forth the worthlessness of its stupid graduates, nearly all of
+whom went into the Church, which is described as a temple of ambition
+and fraud controlled by money. There is a touch of what would now be
+called Socialism or Populism in these articles, and it is not surprising
+to find the author of them afterwards writing a pamphlet in favor of an
+inflated paper currency.
+
+The government of Massachusetts allowed the _Courant_ to run its wicked
+course for about a year, and then fell upon it, imprisoning James
+Franklin for a month in the common jail. Benjamin conducted the journal
+during the imprisonment of his brother, who was not released until he
+had humbly apologized. The _Courant_ then went on, and was worse than
+ever, until an order of council was issued forbidding its publication,
+because it had mocked religion, brought the Holy Scriptures into
+contempt, and profanely abused the faithful ministers of God, as well as
+His Majesty's government and the government of the province.
+
+The friends of James Franklin met and decided that they would evade the
+order of council. James would no longer print the paper, but it should
+be issued in the name of Benjamin. So Benjamin's papers of
+apprenticeship were cancelled, lest it should be said that James was
+still publishing the paper through his apprentice. And, in order to
+retain Benjamin's services, James secured from him secret articles of
+apprenticeship. A little essay on "Hat Honor" which appeared in the
+_Courant_ soon afterwards is supposed to have been written by Benjamin
+and is certainly in his style.
+
+    "In old Time it was no disrespect for Men and Women to be called
+    by their own Names: _Adam_ was never called _Master_ Adam; we
+    never read of Noah _Esquire_, Lot _Knight_ and _Baronet_, nor
+    the _Right Honourable_ Abraham, Viscount of Mesopotamia, _Baron_
+    of Canaan; no, no, they were plain Men, honest Country Grasiers,
+    that took care of their Families and Flocks. Moses was a great
+    Prophet, and _Aaron_ a priest of the Lord; but we never read of
+    the _Reverend_ Moses, nor the Right Reverend Father in God
+    Aaron, by Divine Providence, _Lord Arch-Bishop_ of Israel; Thou
+    never sawest _Madam_ Rebecca in the Bible, my _Lady_ Rachel: nor
+    Mary, tho' a Princess of the Blood after the death of _Joseph_,
+    called the Princess Dowager of Nazareth."
+
+This was funny, irreverent, and reckless, and shows a mind entirely out
+of sympathy with its surroundings. In after-years Franklin wrote several
+humorous parodies on the Scriptures, but none that was quite so shocking
+to religious people as this one.
+
+The _Courant_, however, was not again molested; but Franklin quarrelled
+with his brother James, and was severely beaten by him. Feeling that
+James dare not make public the secret articles of apprenticeship, he
+resolved to leave him, and was soon on his way to Philadelphia, as has
+been already related.
+
+He had been at war with the religion of his native province, and, though
+not yet eighteen years old, had written most violent attacks upon it. It
+is not likely that he would have prospered if he had remained in Boston,
+for the majority of the people were against him and he was entirely out
+of sympathy with the prevailing tone of thought. He would have become a
+social outcast devoted to mere abuse and negation. A hundred years
+afterwards the little party of deists who gave support to the _Courant_
+increased so rapidly that their opinions, under the name of
+Unitarianism, became the most influential religion of Massachusetts.[6]
+If Franklin had been born in that later time he would doubtless have
+grown and flourished on his native soil along with Emerson and Channing,
+Lowell and Holmes, and with them have risen to greatness. But previous
+to the Revolution his superb faculties, which required the utmost
+liberty for their expansion, would have been starved and stunted in the
+atmosphere of intolerance and repression which prevailed in
+Massachusetts.
+
+After he left Boston, his dislike for the religion of that place, and,
+indeed, for all revealed religion, seems to have increased. In London we
+find him writing the pamphlet "Liberty and Necessity," described in the
+previous chapter, and adopting what was in effect the position of
+Voltaire,--namely, an admission of the existence of some sort of God,
+but a denial of the immortality of the soul. He went even beyond
+Voltaire in holding that, inasmuch as God was omnipotent and all-wise,
+and had created the universe, whatever existed must be right, and vice
+and virtue were empty distinctions.
+
+I have already told how this pamphlet brought him to the notice of a
+certain Dr. Lyons, who had himself written a sceptical book, and who
+introduced Franklin to other philosophers of the same sort who met at
+an inn called The Horns. But, in spite of their influence, Franklin
+began to doubt the principles he had laid down in his pamphlet. He had
+gone so far in negation that a reaction was started in his mind. He tore
+up most of the hundred copies of "Liberty and Necessity," believing it
+to be of an evil tendency. Like most of his writings, however, it
+possessed a vital force of its own, and some one printed a second
+edition of it.
+
+His morals at this time were, according to his own account, fairly good.
+He asserts that he was neither dishonest nor unjust, and we can readily
+believe him, for these were not faults of his character. In his
+Autobiography he says that he passed through this dangerous period of
+his life "without any willful gross immorality or injustice that might
+have been expected from my want of religion." In the first draft of the
+Autobiography he added, "some foolish intrigues with low women excepted,
+which from the expense were rather more prejudicial to me than to them."
+But in the revision these words were crossed out.[7]
+
+On the voyage from London to Philadelphia he kept a journal, and in it
+entered a plan which he had formed for regulating his future conduct, no
+doubt after much reflection while at sea. Towards the close of his life
+he said of it, "It is the more remarkable as being formed when I was so
+young and yet being pretty faithfully adhered to quite thro' to old
+age." This plan was not found in the journal, but a paper which is
+supposed to contain it was discovered and printed by Parton in his "Life
+of Franklin." It recommends extreme frugality until he can pay his
+debts, truth-telling, sincerity, devotion to business, avoidance of all
+projects for becoming suddenly rich, with a resolve to speak ill of no
+man, but rather to excuse faults. Revealed religion had, he says, no
+weight with him; but he had become convinced that "truth, sincerity, and
+integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance
+to the felicity of life."
+
+Although revealed religion seemed of no importance to him, he had begun
+to think that, "though certain actions might not be bad because they
+were forbidden by it, or good because it commanded them, yet probably
+those actions might be forbidden because they were bad for us or
+commanded because they were beneficial to us in their own natures, all
+the circumstances of things considered."
+
+It was in this way that he avoided and confuted his own argument in the
+pamphlet "Liberty and Necessity." He had maintained in it that God must
+necessarily have created both good and evil. And as he had created evil,
+it could not be considered as something contrary to his will, and
+therefore forbidden and wrong in the sense in which it is usually
+described. If it was contrary to his will it could not exist, for it was
+impossible to conceive of an omnipotent being allowing anything to exist
+contrary to his will, and least of all anything which was evil as well
+as contrary to his will. What we call evil, therefore, must be no worse
+than good, because both are created by an all-wise, omnipotent being.
+
+This argument has puzzled many serious and earnest minds in all ages,
+and Franklin could never entirely give it up. But he avoided it by
+saying that "probably" certain actions "might be forbidden," because,
+"all the circumstances of things considered," they were bad for us, or
+they might be commanded because they were beneficial to us. In other
+words, God created evil as well as good; but for some reason which we do
+not understand he has forbidden us to do evil and has commanded us to do
+good. Or, he has so arranged things that what we call evil is injurious
+to us and what we call good is beneficial to us.
+
+This was his eminently practical way of solving the great problem of the
+existence of evil. It will be said, of course, that it was simply
+exchanging one mystery for another, and that one was as incomprehensible
+as the other. To which he would probably have replied that his mystery
+was the pleasanter one, and, being less of an empty, dry negation and
+giving less encouragement to vice, was more comforting to live under,
+"all the circumstances of things considered."
+
+He says that he felt himself the more confirmed in this course because
+his old friends Collins and Ralph, whom he had perverted to his first
+way of thinking, went wrong, and injured him greatly without the least
+compunction. He also recollected the contemptible conduct of Governor
+Keith towards him, and Keith was another free-thinker. His own conduct
+while under the influence of arguments like those in "Liberty and
+Necessity" had been by no means above reproach. He had wronged Miss
+Read, whose affections he had won, and he had embezzled Mr. Vernon's
+money. So he began to suspect, he tells us, that his early doctrine,
+"tho' it might be true, was not very useful."
+
+When back again in Philadelphia and beginning to prosper a little, he
+set himself more seriously to the task of working out some form of
+religion that would suit him. He must needs go to the bottom of the
+subject; and in this, as in other matters, nothing satisfied him unless
+he had made it himself. In the year 1728, when he was twenty-two years
+old, he framed a creed, a most curious compound, which can be given no
+other name than Franklin's creed.
+
+Having rejected his former negative belief as not sufficiently practical
+for his purposes, and having once started creed-building, he was led on
+into all sorts of ideas, which it must be confessed were no better than
+those of older creed-makers, and as difficult to believe as anything in
+revealed religion. But he would have none but his own, and its
+preparation was, of course, part of that mental training which,
+consciously or unconsciously, was going on all the time.
+
+He began by saying that he believed in one Supreme Being, the author and
+father of the gods,--for in his system there were beings superior to
+man, though inferior to God. These gods, he thought, were probably
+immortal, or possibly were changed and others put in their places. Each
+of them had a glorious sun, attended by a beautiful and admirable system
+of planets. God the Infinite Father, required no praise or worship from
+man, being infinitely above it; but as there was a natural principle in
+man which inclined him to devotion, it seemed right that he should
+worship something.
+
+He went on to say that God had in him some of the human passions, and
+was "not above caring for us, being pleased with our praise and offended
+when we slight him or neglect his glory;" which was a direct
+contradiction of what he had previously said about the Creator being
+infinitely above praise or worship. "As I should be happy," says this
+bumptious youth of twenty-two, "to have so wise, good, and powerful a
+Being my friend, let me consider in what manner I shall make myself most
+acceptable to him."
+
+This good and powerful Being would, he thought, be delighted to see him
+virtuous, because virtue makes men happy, and the great Being would be
+pleased to see him happy. So he constructed a sort of liturgy, prefacing
+it with the suggestion that he ought to begin it with "a countenance
+that expresses a filial respect, mixed with a kind of smiling that
+signifies inward joy and satisfaction and admiration,"--a piece of
+formalism which was rather worse than anything that has been invented by
+the ecclesiastics he so much despised. At one point in the liturgy he
+was to sing Milton's hymn to the Creator; at another point "to read part
+of some such book as Ray's Wisdom of God in the Creation, or Blackmore
+on the Creation." Then followed his prayers, of which the following are
+specimens:
+
+    "O Creator, O Father, I believe that thou art Good, and that
+    thou art pleased with the pleasure of thy children.
+
+    "Praised be thy name for ever."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "That I may be preserved from Atheism, and Infidelity, Impiety
+    and Profaneness, and in my Addresses to thee carefully avoid
+    Irreverence and Ostentation, Formality and odious Hypocrisy.
+
+    "Help me, O Father.
+
+    "That I may be just in all my Dealings and temperate in my
+    pleasures, full of Candour and Ingenuity, Humanity and
+    Benevolence.
+
+    "Help me, O Father."
+
+He was doing the best he could, poor boy! but as a writer of liturgies
+he was not a success. His own liturgy, however, seems to have suited
+him, and it is generally supposed that he used it for a great many
+years, probably until he was forty years old. He had it all written out
+in a little volume, which was, in truth, Franklin's prayer-book in the
+fullest sense of the word.
+
+Later in life he appears to have dropped the eccentric parts of it and
+confined himself to a more simple statement. At exactly what period he
+made this change is not known. But when he was eighty-four years old,
+and within a few weeks of his death, Ezra Stiles, the President of Yale
+College, in a letter asking him to sit for his portrait for the college,
+requested his opinion on religion. In his reply Franklin said, that as
+to the portrait he was willing it should be painted, but the artist
+should waste no time, or the man of eighty-four might slip through his
+fingers. He then gave his creed, which was that there was one God, who
+governed the world, who should be worshipped, to whom the most
+acceptable service was doing good to man, and who would deal justly with
+the immortal souls of men.
+
+    "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly
+    desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he
+    left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is like to see;
+    but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and
+    I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some
+    doubts as to his Divinity; though it is a question I do not
+    dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless
+    to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of
+    knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in
+    its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as
+    probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more
+    observed; especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes
+    it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of
+    the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure.
+
+    "I shall only add, respecting myself, having experienced the
+    goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously through a
+    long life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next,
+    though without the smallest conceit of meriting such goodness.
+
+    "P. S. I confide, that you will not expose me to criticisms and
+    censures by publishing any part of this communication to you. I
+    have ever let others enjoy their religious sentiments, without
+    reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsupportable
+    or even absurd. All sects here, and we have a great variety,
+    have experienced my good will in assisting them with
+    subscriptions for the building their new places of worship; and,
+    as I have never opposed any of their doctrines, I hope to go out
+    of the world in peace with them all."
+
+So Franklin's belief at the close of his life was deism, which was the
+same faith that he had professed when a boy. From boyish deism he had
+passed to youthful negation, and from negation returned to deism again.
+He also in his old age argued out his belief in immortality from the
+operations he had observed in nature, where nothing is lost; why then
+should the soul not live?
+
+In the convention that framed the National Constitution in 1787, when
+there was great conflict of opinion among the members and it seemed
+doubtful whether an agreement could be reached, he moved that prayers be
+said by some clergyman every morning, but the motion was lost. In a
+general way he professed to favor all religions. A false religion, he
+said, was better than none; for if men were so bad with religion, what
+would they be without it?
+
+Commenting on the death of his brother John, he said,--
+
+    "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 suffer. 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 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?"
+
+He not infrequently expressed his views on the future life in a light
+vein:
+
+    "With regard to future bliss, I cannot help imagining that
+    multitudes of the zealously orthodox of different sects who at
+    the last day may flock together in hopes of seeing each other
+    damned, will be disappointed and obliged to rest content with
+    their own salvation."
+
+His wife was an Episcopalian, a member of Christ Church in Philadelphia,
+and he always encouraged her, as well as his daughter, to attend the
+services of that church.
+
+    "Go constantly to church," he wrote to his daughter after he had
+    started on one of his missions to England, "whoever preaches.
+    The act of devotion in the common prayer book is your principal
+    business there, and if properly attended to, will do more
+    towards mending the heart than sermons generally can do. For
+    they were composed by men of much greater piety and wisdom 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 that 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."
+
+It does not appear that he himself attended the services of Christ
+Church, for to the end of his life he was always inclined to use Sunday
+as a day for study, as he had done when a boy. At one time, soon after
+he had adopted his curious creed, he was prevailed upon to attend the
+preaching of a Presbyterian minister for five Sundays successively. But
+finding that this preacher devoted himself entirely to the explanation
+of doctrine instead of morals, he left him, and returned, he says, to
+his own little liturgy.
+
+Not long afterwards another Presbyterian preacher, a young man named
+Hemphill, came to Philadelphia, and as he was very eloquent and
+expounded morality rather than doctrine, Franklin was completely
+captivated, and became one of his regular hearers. We would naturally
+suppose that a Presbyterian minister able to secure the attention of
+Franklin was not altogether orthodox, and such proved to be the case. He
+was soon tried by the synod for wandering from the faith. Franklin
+supported him, wrote pamphlets in his favor, and secured for him the
+support of others. But it was soon discovered that the sermons of the
+eloquent young man had all been stolen from a volume published in
+England. This was, of course, the end of him, and he lost all his
+adherents except Franklin, who humorously insisted that he "rather
+approved of his giving us sermons composed by others, than bad ones of
+his own manufacture; though the latter was the practice of our common
+teachers."
+
+Whitefield, the great preacher who towards the middle of the eighteenth
+century started such a revival of religion in all the colonies, was, of
+course, a man of too much ability to escape the serious regard of
+Franklin, who relates that he attended one of his sermons, fully
+resolved not to contribute to the collection at the close of it. "I had
+in my pocket," he says, "a handful of copper money, three or four silver
+dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded, I began to soften
+and concluded to give him the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made
+me ashamed of that, and 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."
+
+This seems to have been the only time that Franklin was carried away by
+preaching. On another occasion, when Whitefield was preaching in Market
+Street, Philadelphia, Franklin, instead of listening to the sermon,
+employed himself in estimating the size of the crowd and the power of
+the orator's voice. He had often doubted what he had read of generals
+haranguing whole armies, but when he found that Whitefield could easily
+preach to thirty thousand people and be heard by them all, he was less
+inclined to be incredulous.
+
+He and Whitefield became fast friends, and Whitefield stayed at his
+house. In replying to his invitation to visit him, Whitefield answered,
+"If you make that offer for Christ's sake, you will not miss of the
+reward." To which the philosopher replied, "Don't let me be mistaken; it
+was not for Christ's sake, but for your sake." Whitefield often prayed
+for his host's conversion, but "never," says Franklin, "had the
+satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard."
+
+He admitted that Whitefield had an enormous influence, and that the
+light-minded and indifferent became religious as the result of his
+revivals. Whether the religion thus acquired was really lasting he has
+not told us. He was the publisher of Whitefield's sermons and journals,
+of which great numbers were sold; but he thought that their publication
+was an injury to their author's reputation, which depended principally
+upon his wonderful voice and delivery. He commented in his bright way on
+a sentence in the journal which said that there was no difference
+between a deist and an atheist. "M. B. is a deist," Whitefield said, "I
+had almost said an atheist." "He might as well have written," said
+Franklin, "chalk, I had almost said charcoal."
+
+In spite of his deism and his jokes about sacred things, he enjoyed most
+friendly and even influential relations with religious people, who might
+have been supposed to have a horror of him. His conciliatory manner,
+dislike of disputes, and general philanthropy led each sect to suppose
+that he was on its side, and he made a practice of giving money to them
+all without distinction. John Adams said of him,--
+
+    "The Catholics thought him almost a Catholic. The Church of
+    England claimed him as one of them. The Presbyterians thought
+    him half a Presbyterian, and the Friends believed him a wet
+    Quaker."
+
+When in England he was the intimate friend of the Bishop of St. Asaph,
+stayed at his house, and corresponded in the most affectionate way with
+the bishop's daughters. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was sent to
+Canada in company with the Rev. John Carroll, of Maryland, in the hope
+of winning over that country to the side of the revolted colonies. His
+tendency to form strong attachments for religious people again showed
+itself, and he and Carroll, who was a Roman Catholic priest, became
+life-long friends. Eight years afterwards, in 1784, when he was minister
+to France, finding that the papal nuncio was reorganizing the Catholic
+Church in America, he urged him to make Carroll a bishop. The suggestion
+was adopted, and the first Roman Catholic bishop of the United States
+owed his elevation to the influence of a deist.
+
+At the same time the members of the Church of England in the
+successfully revolted colonies were adapting themselves to the new order
+of things; but, having no bishops, their clergy were obliged to apply to
+the English bishops for ordination. They were, of course, refused, and
+two of them applied to Franklin, who was then in Paris, for advice. It
+was strange that they should have consulted the philosopher, who
+regarded bishops and ordinations as mere harmless delusions. But he was
+a very famous man, the popular representative of their country, and of
+proverbial shrewdness.
+
+He suggested--doubtless with a sly smile--that the Pope's nuncio should
+ordain them. The nuncio, though their theological enemy, believed in the
+pretty delusion as well as they, and his ordination would be as valid as
+that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He asked the nuncio, with whom he
+was no doubt on terms of jovial intimacy, if he would do it; but that
+functionary was of course obliged to say that such a thing was
+impossible, unless the gentlemen should first become Roman Catholics. So
+the philosopher had another laugh over the vain controversies of man.
+
+He carried on the joke by telling them to try the Irish bishops, and, if
+unsuccessful, the Danish and Swedish. If they were refused, which was
+likely, for human folly was without end, let them imitate the ancient
+clergy of Scotland, who, having built their Cathedral of St. Andrew,
+wanted to borrow some bishops from the King of Northumberland to ordain
+them a bishop for themselves. The king would lend them none. So they
+laid the mitre, crosier, and robes of a bishop on the altar, and, after
+earnest prayers for guidance, elected one of their own members. "Arise,"
+they said to him, "go to the altar and receive your office at the hand
+of God," And thus he became the first bishop of Scotland. "If the
+British isles," said Franklin, "were sunk in the sea (and the surface of
+this globe has suffered greater changes) you would probably take some
+such method as this." And so he went on enlarging on the topic until he
+had a capital story to tell Madame Helvetius the next time they flirted
+and dined together in their learned way.
+
+But his most notable escapade in religion, and one in which his sense of
+humor seems to have failed him, was his abridgment of the Church of
+England's "Book of Common Prayer." It seems that in the year 1772, while
+in England as a representative of the colonies, he visited the
+country-seat of Sir Francis Dashwood, Lord le Despencer, a reformed rake
+who had turned deist and was taking a gentlemanly interest in religion.
+He had been, it is said, a companion of John Wilkes, Bubb Doddington,
+Paul Whitehead, the Earl of Sandwich, and other reckless characters who
+established themselves as an order of monks at Medmenham Abbey, where
+they held mock religious ceremonies, and where the trial of the
+celebrated Chevalier D'Eon was held to prove his disputed sex. An old
+book, called "Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea," professes to
+describe the doings of these lively blades.
+
+Lord Despencer and Franklin decided that the prayer-book was entirely
+too long. Its prolixity kept people from going to church. The aged and
+infirm did not like to sit so long in cold churches in winter, and even
+the young and sinful might attend more willingly if the service were
+shorter.
+
+Franklin was already a dabster at liturgies. Had he not, when only
+twenty-two, written his own creed and liturgy, compounded of mythology
+and Christianity? and had he not afterwards, as is supposed, assisted
+David Williams to prepare the "Apology for Professing the Religion of
+Nature," with a most reasonable and sensible liturgy annexed? Lord
+Despencer had also had a little practice in such matters in his mock
+religious rites at the old abbey. Franklin, who was very fond of him,
+tells of the delightful days he spent at his country-seat, and adds,
+"But a pleasanter thing is the kind countenance, the facetious and very
+intelligent conversation of mine host, who having been for many years
+engaged in public affairs, seen all parts of Europe, and kept the best
+company in the world, is himself the best existing."[8] I have no doubt
+that his lordship's experience had been a varied one; but it is a
+question whether it was of such a character as to fit him for
+prayer-book revision. He, however, went seriously to work, and revised
+all of the book except the catechism and the reading and singing psalms,
+which he requested Franklin to abridge for him.
+
+The copy which this precious pair went over and marked with a pen is now
+in the possession of Mr. Howard Edwards, of Philadelphia, and is a most
+interesting relic. From this copy Lord Despencer had the abridgment
+printed at his own expense; but it attracted no attention in England.
+All references to the sacraments and to the divinity of the Saviour
+were, of course, stricken out and short work made of the Athanasian and
+the Apostles' Creed. Even the commandments in the catechism had the pen
+drawn through them, which was rather inconsistent with the importance
+that Franklin attached to morals as against dogma. But both editors, no
+doubt, had painful recollections on this subject; and as Franklin would
+have been somewhat embarrassed by the seventh, he settled the question
+by disposing of them all.
+
+The most curious mutilation, however, was in the Te Deum, most of which
+was struck out, presumably by Lord Despencer. The Venite was treated in
+a similar way by Franklin. The beautiful canticle, "All ye Works of the
+Lord," which is sometimes used in place of the Te Deum, was entirely
+marked out. As this canticle is the nearest approach in the prayer-book
+to anything like the religion of nature, it is strange that it should
+have suffered. But Franklin, though of picturesque life and character,
+interested in music as a theory, a writer of verse as an exercise, and a
+lover of the harmony of a delicately balanced prose sentence, had,
+nevertheless, not the faintest trace of poetry in his nature.
+
+[Illustration: THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER AS ABRIDGED BY LORD DESPENCER
+AND FRANKLIN]
+
+The book, which is now a very rare and costly relic, a single copy
+selling for over a thousand dollars, was known in America as "Franklin's
+Prayer-Book," and he was usually credited with the whole revision,
+although he expressly declared in a letter on the subject that he had
+abridged only the catechism and the reading and singing psalms. But he
+seems to have approved of the whole work, for he wrote the preface
+which explains the alterations. A few years after the Revolution, when
+the American Church was reorganizing itself, the "Book of Common Prayer"
+was revised and abbreviated by competent hands; and from a letter
+written by Bishop White it would seem that he had examined the "Franklin
+Prayer-Book," and was willing to adopt its arrangement of the calendar
+of holy days.[9]
+
+The preface which Franklin wrote for the abridgment was an exquisitely
+pious little essay. It was written as though coming from Lord Despencer,
+"a Protestant of the Church of England," and a "sincere lover of social
+worship." His lordship also held "in the highest veneration the
+doctrines of Jesus Christ," which was a gratifying assurance.
+
+When Franklin was about twenty-two or twenty-three and wrote his curious
+creed and liturgy, he seems to have been in that not altogether
+desirable state of mind which is sometimes vulgarly described as
+"getting religion." He was not the sort of man to be carried away by one
+of those religious revival excitements of which we have seen so many in
+our time, but he was as near that state as a person of his intellect
+could be.
+
+Preaching to him and direct effort at his conversion would, of course,
+have had no effect on such an original disposition. The revival which he
+experienced was one which he started for himself, and, besides his creed
+and liturgy, it consisted of an attempt to arrive at moral perfection.
+
+    "I wished to live," he says, "without committing any fault at
+    any time; I would 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."
+
+So he prepared his moral code of all the virtues he thought necessary,
+with his comments thereon, and it speaks for itself:
+
+    "1. TEMPERANCE.--Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
+
+    "2. SILENCE.--Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself;
+    avoid trifling conversation.
+
+    "3. ORDER.--Let all your things have their places; let each part
+    of your business have its time.
+
+    "4. RESOLUTION.--Resolve to perform what you ought; perform
+    without fail what you resolve.
+
+    "5. FRUGALITY.--Make no expense but to do good to others or
+    yourself; i. e. waste nothing.
+
+    "6. INDUSTRY.--Lose no time; be always employed in something
+    useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
+
+    "7. SINCERITY.--Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and
+    justly; and if you speak, speak accordingly.
+
+    "8. JUSTICE.--Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the
+    benefits that are your duty.
+
+    "9. MODERATION.--Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so
+    much as you think they deserve.
+
+    "10. CLEANLINESS.--Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes,
+    or habitation.
+
+    "11. TRANQUILLITY.--Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents
+    common or unavoidable.
+
+    "12. CHASTITY.--Rarely use venery but for health or offspring,
+    never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or
+    another's peace or reputation.
+
+    "13. HUMILITY.--Imitate Jesus and Socrates."
+
+He thought that he could gradually acquire the habit of keeping all
+these virtues, and instead of attempting the whole at once, he fixed his
+attention on one at a time, and when he thought he was master of that,
+proceeded to the next, and so on. He had arranged them in the order he
+thought would most facilitate their gradual acquisition, beginning with
+temperance and proceeding to silence; for the mastery of those which
+were easiest would help him to attain the more difficult. He has,
+therefore, left us at liberty to judge which were his most persistent
+sins.
+
+He had a little book with a page for each virtue, and columns arranged
+for the days of the week, so that he could give himself marks for
+failure or success. He began by devoting a week to each virtue, by which
+arrangement he could go through the complete course in thirteen weeks,
+or four courses in a year.
+
+His intense moral earnestness and introspection were doubtless inherited
+from his New England origin. But when he was in the midst of all this
+creed- and code-making, he records of himself:
+
+    "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 inconvenience,
+    besides a continual risk to my health by a distemper, which of
+    all things I dreaded, though by great good luck I escaped it."
+
+His biographer, Parton, reminds us that his liturgy has no prayer
+against this vice, and that about a year after the date of the liturgy
+his illegitimate son William was born. The biographer then goes on to
+say that Franklin 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 overcome." There is, however, a prayer in the liturgy against
+lasciviousness. He had not yet paid Mr. Vernon the money he had
+embezzled, although he was the author of a prayer asking to be delivered
+from deceit and fraud, and another against unfaithfulness in trust.[10]
+
+It is obvious that this inconsistency is very like human nature,
+especially youthful human nature. There is nothing wonderful in it. It
+was simply the struggle which often takes place in boys who are both
+physically and mentally strong. The only thing unusual is that the
+person concerned has made a complete revelation of it. Such things are
+generally deeply concealed from the public. But that curious frankness
+which was mingled with Franklin's astuteness has in his own case opened
+wide the doors.
+
+It has been commonly stated in his biographies that he had but one
+illegitimate child, a son; but from a manuscript letter in the
+possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, written by John
+Foxcroft, February 2, 1772, and never heretofore printed, it appears
+that he had also an illegitimate daughter, married to John Foxcroft:
+
+    "PHILAD^A  Feby 2d, 1772.
+
+    "DEAR SIR
+
+    "I have the happiness to acquaint you that your Daughter was
+    safely brot to Bed the 20^th ulto and presented me with a sweet
+    little girl, they are both in good spirits and are likely to do
+    very well.
+
+    "I was seized with a Giddyness in my head the Day before
+    yesterday wch alarms me a good deal as I had 20 oz of blood
+    taken from me and took physick wch does not seem in the least
+    to have relieved me.
+
+[Illustration: JOHN FOXCROFT]
+
+    "I am hardly able to write this. Mrs F joins me in best
+    affections to yourself and compts to Mrs Stevenson and Mr and
+    Mrs Huson.
+
+    "I am D^r Sir
+    "Yrs. affectionately
+    "JOHN FOXCROFT.
+
+    "Mrs Franklin, Mrs Bache, little Ben & Family at Burlington are
+    all well. I had a letter from ye Gov^r yesterday
+
+    J. F."
+
+Among the Franklin papers in the State Department at Washington there
+are copies of a number of letters which Franklin wrote to Foxcroft, and
+in three of them--October 7, 1772, November 3, 1772, and March 3,
+1773--he sends "love to my daughter." There is also in Bigelow's edition
+of his works[11] a letter in which he refers to Mrs. Foxcroft as his
+daughter. The letter I have quoted above was written while Franklin was
+in England as the representative of some of the colonies, and is
+addressed to him at his Craven Street lodgings. Foxcroft, who was
+postmaster of Philadelphia, seems to have been on friendly terms with
+the rest of Franklin's family.
+
+Mrs. Bache, whom Foxcroft mentions in the letter, was Franklin's
+legitimate daughter, Sarah, who was married. The family at Burlington
+was the family of the illegitimate son, William, who was the royal
+governor of New Jersey. This extraordinarily mixed family of legitimates
+and illegitimates seems to have maintained a certain kind of harmony.
+The son William, the governor, continued the line through an
+illegitimate son, William Temple Franklin, usually known as Temple
+Franklin. This condition of affairs enables us to understand the odium
+in which Franklin was held by many of the upper classes of Philadelphia,
+even when he was well received by the best people in England and France.
+
+In his writings we constantly find him encouraging early marriages; and
+he complains of the great number of bachelors and old maids in England.
+"The accounts you give me," he writes to his wife, "of the marriages of
+our friends are very agreeable. I love to hear of everything that tends
+to increase the number of good people." He certainly lived up to his
+doctrine, and more.
+
+    "Men I find to be a sort of beings very badly constructed, as
+    they are generally more easily provoked than reconciled, more
+    disposed to do mischief to each other than to make reparation,
+    much more easily deceived than undeceived, and having more pride
+    and even pleasure in killing than in begetting one another; for
+    without a blush they assemble in great armies at noonday to
+    destroy, and when they have killed as many as they can they
+    exaggerate the number to augment the fancied glory; but they
+    creep into corners or cover themselves with the darkness of
+    night when they mean to beget, as being ashamed of a virtuous
+    action." (Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. vii. p. 464.)
+
+There has always been much speculation as to who was the mother of
+Franklin's son, William, the governor of New Jersey; but as the gossips
+of Philadelphia were never able to solve the mystery, it is hardly
+possible that the antiquarians can succeed. Theodore Parker assumed that
+he must have been the son of a girl whom Franklin would have married if
+her parents had consented. Her name is unknown, for Franklin merely
+describes her as a relative of Mrs. Godfrey, who tried to make the
+match. Parker had no evidence whatever for his supposition. He merely
+thought it likely; and, as a Christian minister, it would perhaps have
+been more to his credit if he had abstained from attacking in this way
+the reputation of even an unnamed young woman. An English clergyman,
+Rev. Bennet Allen, writing in the London _Morning Post_, June 1, 1779,
+when the ill feeling of the Revolution was at its height, says that
+William's mother was an oyster wench, whom Franklin left to die of
+disease and hunger in the streets. The gossips, indeed, seem to have
+always agreed that the woman must have been of very humble origin.
+
+The nearest approach to a discovery has, however, been made by Mr. Paul
+Leicester Ford, in his essay entitled "Who was the Mother of Franklin's
+Son?" He found an old pamphlet written during Franklin's very heated
+controversy with the proprietary party in Pennsylvania when the attempt
+was made to abolish the proprietorship of the Penn family and make the
+colony a royal province. The pamphlet, entitled "What is Sauce for a
+Goose is also Sauce for a Gander," after some general abuse of Franklin,
+says that the mother of his son was a woman named Barbara, who worked in
+his house as a servant for ten pounds a year; that he kept her in that
+position until her death, when he stole her to the grave in silence
+without a pall, tomb, or monument. This is, of course, a partisan
+statement only, and reiterates what was probably the current gossip of
+the time among Franklin's political opponents.
+
+There have also been speculations in Philadelphia as to who was the
+mother of Franklin's daughter, the wife of John Foxcroft; but they are
+mere guesses unsupported by evidence.
+
+From what Franklin has told us of the advice given him when a young man
+by a Quaker friend, he was at that time exceedingly proud, and also
+occasionally overbearing and insolent, and this is confirmed by various
+passages in his early life. But in after-years he seems to have
+completely conquered these faults. He complains, however, that he never
+could acquire the virtue of order in his business, having a place for
+everything and everything in its place. This failing seems to have
+followed him to the end of his life, and was one of the serious
+complaints made against him when he was ambassador to France.
+
+But he believed himself immensely benefited by his moral code and his
+method of drilling himself in it.
+
+    "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 his 79th year in
+    which this is written.... 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
+    honorable 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 then, all that evenness
+    of temper and that cheerfulness in conversation, which makes his
+    company still sought for and agreeable even to his younger
+    acquaintances."
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM FRANKLIN, ROYAL GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY]
+
+At the same time that he was trying to put into practice his moral code,
+he conceived the idea of writing a book called "The Art of Virtue," in
+which he was to make comments on all the virtues, and show how each
+could be acquired. Most treatises of this sort, he had observed, were
+mere exhortations to be good; but "The Art of Virtue" would point out
+the means. He collected notes and hints for this volume during many
+years, intending that it should be the most important work of his life;
+"a great and extensive project," he calls it, into which he would throw
+the whole force of his being, and he expected great results from it. He
+looked forward to the time when he could drop everything else and devote
+himself to this mighty project, and he received grandiloquent letters of
+encouragement from eminent men. His vast experience of life would have
+made it a fascinating volume, and it is to be regretted that public
+employments continually called him to other tasks.
+
+A young man such as he was is not infrequently able to improve his
+morals more effectually by marrying than by writing liturgies and codes.
+He decided to marry about two years after he had begun to discipline
+himself in his creed and moral precepts. The step seems to have been
+first suggested to him by Mrs. Godfrey, to whom, with her husband, he
+rented part of his house and shop. She had a relative who, she thought,
+would make a good match for him, and she took opportunities of bringing
+them often together. The girl was deserving, and Franklin began to court
+her. But he has described the affair so well himself that it would be
+useless to try to abbreviate it.
+
+    "The old folks encouraged me by continual invitations to supper,
+    and by leaving us together, till at length 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 business was not a
+    profitable one; the types would soon be worn out, and more
+    wanted; that S. Keimer and D. 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."
+
+This the young printer thought was a mere artifice, the parents thinking
+that the pair were too fond of each other to separate, and that they
+would steal a marriage, in which event the parents could give or
+withhold what they pleased. He resented this attempt to force his hand,
+dropped the whole matter, and as a consequence quarrelled with Mrs.
+Godfrey, who with her husband and children left his house.
+
+The passage which follows in Franklin's Autobiography implies that his
+utter inability at this period to restrain his passions directed his
+thoughts more seriously than ever to marriage, and he was determined to
+have a wife. It may be well here to comment again on his remarkable
+frankness. There have been distinguished men, like Rousseau, who were at
+times morbidly frank. Their frankness, however, usually took the form of
+a confession which did not add to their dignity. But Franklin never
+confessed anything; he told it. His dignity was as natural and as
+instinctive as Washington's, though of a different kind. His supreme
+intellect easily avoided all positions in which he would have to confess
+or make admissions; and, as there was nothing morbid in his character,
+so there was nothing morbid in his frankness.
+
+The frankness seems to have been closely connected with his serenity and
+courage. There never was a man so little disturbed by consequences or
+possibilities. He was quick to take advantage of popular whims, and he
+would not expose himself unnecessarily to public censure. His letter to
+President Stiles, of Yale, is an example. Being asked for his religious
+opinion, he states it fully and without reserve, although knowing that
+it would be extremely distasteful to the man to whom it was addressed,
+and, if made public, would bring upon him the enmity of the most
+respectable people in the country, whose good opinion every one wishes
+to secure. The only precaution he takes is to ask the president not to
+publish what he says, and he gives his reasons as frankly as he gives
+the religious opinion. But if the letter had been published before his
+death, he would have lost neither sleep nor appetite, and doubtless, by
+some jest or appeal to human sympathy, would have turned it to good
+account.
+
+Since his time there have been self-made men in this country who have
+advanced themselves by professing fulsome devotion to the most popular
+forms of religion, and they have found this method very useful in their
+designs on financial institutions or public office. We would prefer them
+to take Franklin for their model; and they may have all his failings if
+they will only be half as honest.
+
+But to return to his designs for a wife, which were by no means
+romantic. Miss Read, for whom he had a partiality, had married one
+Rogers during Franklin's absence in London. Rogers ill treated and
+deserted her, and, dejected and melancholy, she was now living at home
+with her mother. She and Franklin had been inclined to marry before he
+went to London, but her mother prevented it. According to his account,
+she had been in love with him; but, although he liked her, we do not
+understand that he was in love. He never seems to have been in love with
+any woman in the sense of a romantic or exalted affection, although he
+flirted with many, both young and old, almost to the close of his life.
+
+But now, on renewing his attentions, he found that her mother had no
+objections. There was, however, one serious difficulty, for Mr. Rogers,
+although he had deserted her, was not known to be dead, and divorces
+were but little thought of at that time. Franklin naturally did not want
+to add bigamy to his other youthful offences, and it would also have
+required a revision of his liturgy and code. Rogers had, moreover, left
+debts which Franklin feared he might be expected to pay, and he had had
+enough of that sort of thing. "We ventured, however," he says, "over all
+these difficulties, and I took her to wife September 1, 1730." None of
+the inconveniences happened, for neither Rogers nor his debts ever
+turned up.
+
+[Illustration: WILLIAM TEMPLE FRANKLIN]
+
+Franklin's detractors have always insisted that no marriage ceremony was
+performed and that he was never legally married. There is no record of
+such a marriage in Christ Church, of which Mrs. Rogers was a member, and
+the phrase used, "took her to wife," is supposed to show that they
+simply lived together, fearing a regular ceremony, which, if Rogers was
+alive, would convict them of bigamy. The absence of any record of a
+ceremony is, however, not necessarily conclusive that there was no
+ceremony of any kind; and the question is not now of serious importance,
+for they intended marriage, always regarded themselves as man and wife,
+and, in any event, it was a common-law marriage. Their children were
+baptized in Christ Church as legitimate children, and in a deed executed
+three or four years after 1730 they are spoken of as husband and wife.
+
+A few months after the marriage his illegitimate son William was born,
+and Mr. Bigelow has made the extraordinary statement, "William may
+therefore be said to have been born in wedlock, though he was not
+reputed to be the son of Mrs. Franklin."[12] This is certainly an
+enlarged idea of the possibilities of wedlock, and on such a principle
+marriage to one woman would legitimatize the man's illegitimate
+offspring by all others. It is difficult to understand the meaning of
+such a statement, unless it is an indirect way of suggesting that
+William was the son of Mrs. Franklin; but of this there is no evidence.
+
+Franklin always considered his neglect of Miss Read after he had
+observed her affection for him one of the errors of his life. He had
+almost forgotten her while in London, and after he returned appears to
+have shown her no attention, until, by the failure of the match Mrs.
+Godfrey had arranged for him, he was driven to the determination to
+marry some one. He believed that he had largely corrected this error by
+marrying her. "She proved a good and faithful helpmate," he says;
+"assisted me much by attending the shop; we throve together, and have
+ever mutually endeavored to make each other happy." She died in 1774,
+while Franklin was in England.
+
+There is nothing in anything he ever said to show that they did not get
+on well together. On the contrary, their letters seem to show a most
+friendly companionship. He addressed her in his letters as "my dear
+child," and sometimes closed by calling her "dear Debby," and she also
+addressed him as "dear child." During his absence in England they
+corresponded a great deal. Her letters to him were so frequent that he
+complained that he could not keep up with them; and his letters to her
+were written in his best vein, beautiful specimens of his delicate
+mastery of language, as the large collection of them in the possession
+of the American Philosophical Society abundantly shows.
+
+In writing to Miss Catharine Ray, afterwards the wife of Governor
+Greene, of Rhode Island, who had sent him a cheese, he said,--
+
+    "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 the 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 I hope she will live these hundred 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, & 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 all,
+                My dear friends,
+      I scarcely can see them at all.'
+
+    "Indeed I begin to think she has none, as I think of you. And
+    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 one."
+
+While absent at an Indian conference on the frontier, he wrote
+reprovingly to his wife for not sending him a letter:
+
+    "I had a good mind not to write to you by this opportunity; but
+    I never can be ill natured enough even when there is the most
+    occasion. I think I won't tell you that we are well, nor that we
+    expect to return about the middle of the week, nor will I send
+    you a word of news; that's poz. My duty to mother, love to the
+    children, and to Miss Betsey and Gracy. I am your loving
+    husband.
+
+    "P. S. I have _scratched out the loving words_; being writ in
+    haste by mistake when I forgot I was angry."
+
+Mrs. Franklin was a stout, handsome woman. We have a description of her
+by her husband in a letter he wrote from London telling her of the
+various presents and supplies he had sent home:
+
+    "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."
+
+This letter is full of interesting details. He tells her of the regard
+and friendship he meets with from persons of worth, and of his longing
+desire to be home again. A full description of the articles sent would
+be too long to quote entire, but some of it may be given as a glimpse of
+their domestic life:
+
+    "I send you some English china; viz, melons and hams for a
+    dessert of fruit 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 Worcester 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 instrument 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."
+
+At the time of the Stamp Act, in 1765, when the Philadelphians were much
+incensed against Franklin for not having, as they thought, sufficiently
+resisted, as their agent in England, the passage of the act, the mob
+threatened Mrs. Franklin's house, and she wrote to her husband:
+
+[Illustration: MRS. FRANKLIN]
+
+    "I was for nine days 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 magazine; I ordered some sort of
+    defense up stairs such as I could manage 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 anybody, 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 anyone that should be molested."
+
+This letter is certainly written in a homely and pleasant way, not
+unlike the style of her husband, and other letters of hers have been
+published at different times possessing the same merit; but they have
+all been more or less corrected, and in some instances rewritten, before
+they appeared in print, for she was a very illiterate woman. I have not
+access to the original manuscript of the letter I have quoted, but I
+will give another, which is to be found in the collection of the
+American Philosophical Society, exactly as she wrote it:
+
+    October ye 29, 1773.
+
+    "MY DEAR CHILD
+
+    "I have bin very much distrest a boute as I did not oney letter
+    nor one word from you nor did I hear one word from oney bodey
+    that you wrote to So I must submit and indever to submit to what
+    I ame to bair I did write by Capt Folkner to you but he is gone
+    doun and when I read it over I did not like it and so if this
+    dont send it I shante like it as I donte send you oney news nor
+    I donte go abrode.
+
+    "I shall tell you what consernes myself our yonegest Grandson is
+    the finest child as alive he has had the small Pox and had it
+    very fine and got abrod agen Capt All will tell you a boute him
+    Benj Franklin Beache but as it is so deficall to writ I have
+    desered him to tell you I have sente a squerel for your friend
+    and wish her better luck it is a very fine one I have had very
+    bad luck with two they one killed and another run a way allthou
+    they was bred up tame I have not a caige as I donte know where
+    the man lives that makes them my love to Sally Franklin--my
+    love to all our cousins as thou menthond remember me to Mr and
+    Mrs Weste due you ever hear aney thing of Ninely Evers as was.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "I cante write any mor I am your afeckthone wife
+
+    "D. FRANKLIN"
+
+She was not a congenial companion for Franklin in most of his tastes and
+pursuits, in his studies in science and history, or in his political and
+diplomatic career. He never appears to have written to her on any of
+these subjects. But she helped him, as he has himself said, in the early
+days in the printing-office, buying rags for the paper and stitching
+pamphlets. It was her homely, housewifely virtues, handsome figure, good
+health, and wholesome common sense which appealed to him; and it was a
+strong appeal, for he enjoyed these earthly comforts fully as much as he
+did the high walks of learning in which his fame was won. He once wrote
+to her, "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 bore him two children. The first was a son, Francis Folger Franklin,
+an unusually bright, handsome boy, the delight of all that knew him.
+Franklin had many friends, and seems to have been very much attached to
+his wife, but this child was the one human being whom he loved with
+extravagance and devotion. Although believing in inoculation as a remedy
+for the small-pox, he seems to have been unable to bear the thought of
+protecting in this way his favorite son; at any rate, he neglected to
+take the precaution, and the boy died of the disease when only four
+years old. The father mourned for him long and bitterly, and nearly
+forty years afterwards, when an old man, could not think of him without
+a sigh.
+
+[Illustration: MRS. SARAH BACHE]
+
+The other child was a daughter, Sarah, also very handsome, who married
+Richard Bache and has left numerous descendants. His illegitimate son,
+William, was brought home when he was a year old and cared for along
+with his other children; and William's illegitimate son, Temple
+Franklin, was the companion and secretary of his grandfather in England
+and France. The illegitimate daughter was apparently never brought home,
+and is not referred to in his writings, except in those occasional
+letters in which he sends her his love. According to the letter already
+mentioned as in the collection of the Pennsylvania Historical Society,
+she was married to John Foxcroft, who was deputy colonial postmaster in
+Philadelphia. It was well that she was kept away from Franklin's house,
+for the presence of William appears to have given trouble enough. A
+household composed of legitimate and illegitimate children is apt to be
+inharmonious at times, especially when the mother of the legitimate
+children is the mistress of the house.
+
+Franklin's biographies tell us that Mrs. Franklin tenderly nurtured
+William. This may be true, and, judging from expressions in her printed
+letters, she seems to have been friendly enough with him. But from other
+sources we find that as William grew up she learned to hate him, and
+this, with some other secrets of the Franklin household, has been
+described in the diary of Daniel Fisher:
+
+    "As I was coming down from my chamber this afternoon a
+    gentlewoman was sitting on one of the lowest stairs which were
+    but narrow, and there not being room enough to pass, she rose up
+    & threw herself upon the floor and sat there. Mr. Soumien & his
+    Wife greatly entreated her to arise and take a chair, but in
+    vain, she would keep her seat, and kept it, I think, the longer
+    for their entreaty. This gentlewoman, whom though I had seen
+    before I did not know, appeared to be Mrs. Franklin. She assumed
+    the airs of extraordinary freedom and great Humility, Lamented
+    heavily the misfortunes of those who are unhappily infected with
+    a too tender or benevolent disposition, said she believed all
+    the world claimed a privilege of troubling her Pappy (so she
+    usually calls Mr. Franklin) with their calamities and
+    distresses, giving us a general history of many such wretches
+    and their impertinent applications to him." (Pennsylvania
+    Magazine of History, vol. xvii. p. 271.)
+
+In the pamphlet called "What is Sauce for a Goose is also Sauce for a
+Gander," already alluded to, Franklin is spoken of as "Pappy" in a way
+which seems to show that the Philadelphians knew his wife's nickname for
+him and were fond of using it to ridicule him.
+
+Afterwards, Daniel Fisher lived in Franklin's house as his clerk, and
+thus obtained a still more intimate knowledge of his domestic affairs.
+
+    "Mr. Soumien had often informed me of great uneasiness and
+    dissatisfaction in Mr. Franklin's family in a manner no way
+    pleasing to me, and which in truth I was unwilling to credit,
+    but as Mrs. Franklin and I of late began to be Friendly and
+    sociable I discerned too great grounds for Mr. Soumien's
+    Reflections, arising solely from the turbulence and jealousy and
+    pride of her disposition. She suspecting Mr. Franklin for having
+    too great an esteem for his son in prejudice of herself and
+    daughter, a young woman of about 12 or 13 years of age, for whom
+    it was visible Mr. Franklin had no less esteem than for his son
+    young Mr. Franklin. I have often seen him pass to and from his
+    father's apartment upon Business (for he does not eat, drink, or
+    sleep in the House) without the least compliment between Mrs.
+    Franklin and him or any sort of notice taken of each other, till
+    one Day as I was sitting with her in the passage when the young
+    Gentleman came by she exclaimed to me (he not hearing):--
+
+    "'Mr. Fisher there goes the greatest Villain upon Earth.'
+
+    "This greatly confounded & perplexed me, but did not hinder her
+    from pursuing her Invectives in the foulest terms I ever heard
+    from a Gentlewoman." (Pennsylvania Magazine of History, vol.
+    xvii. p. 276.)
+
+Fisher's descriptions confirm the gossip which has descended by
+tradition in many Philadelphia families. He found Mrs. Franklin to be a
+woman of such "turbulent temper" that this and other unpleasant
+circumstances forced him to leave. Possibly these were some of the
+faults which her husband speaks of as so exceedingly small and so like
+his own that he scarcely could see them at all. The presence of her
+husband's illegitimate son must have been very trying, and goes a long
+way to excuse her.
+
+All that Franklin has written about himself is so full of a serene
+philosophic spirit, and his biographers have echoed it so faithfully,
+that, in spite of his frankness, things are made to appear a little
+easier than they really were. His life was full of contests, but they
+have not all been noted, and the sharpness of many of them has been worn
+off by time. In Philadelphia, where he was engaged in the most bitter
+partisan struggles, where the details of his life were fully known,--his
+humble origin, his slow rise, his indelicate jokes, and his illegitimate
+children,--there were not a few people who cherished a most relentless
+antipathy towards him which neither his philanthropy nor his
+philosophic and scientific mind could soften. This bitter feeling
+against the "old rogue," as they called him, still survives among some
+of the descendants of the people of his time, and fifty or sixty years
+ago there were virtuous old ladies living in Philadelphia who would
+flame into indignation at the mention of his name.
+
+Chief-Justice Allen, who was his contemporary and opponent in politics,
+described him as a man of "wicked heart," and declared that he had often
+been a witness of his "envenomed malice." In H. W. Smith's "Life of Rev.
+William Smith" a great deal of this abuse can be found. Provost Smith
+and Franklin quarrelled over the management of the College of
+Philadelphia, and on a benevolent pamphlet by the provost Franklin wrote
+a verse from the poet Whitehead:[13]
+
+    "Full many a peevish, envious, slanderous elf
+    Is in his works, Benevolence itself
+    For all mankind, unknown his bosom heaves,
+    He only injures those with whom he lives.
+    Read then the man. Does truth his actions guide?
+    Exempt from petulance, exempt from pride?
+    To social duties does his heart attend--As
+    son, as father, husband, brother, friend?
+    Do those who know him love him? If they do
+    You have my permission--you may love him too."
+
+    (Smith's Life of Rev. William Smith, vol. i. p. 341.)
+
+Provost Smith's biographer resents this attack by giving contemporary
+opinions of Franklin; and a paragraph omitted in the regular edition
+(page 347 of volume i.), but printed on an extra leaf and circulated
+among the author's friends, may be quoted as an example. It was,
+however, not original with Smith's biographer, but was copied with a few
+changes from Cobbett's attack on Franklin:
+
+    "Dr. Benjamin Franklin has told the world in poetry what, in his
+    judgment, my ancestor was. His venerable shade will excuse me,
+    if I tell in prose what, in the judgment of men who lived near a
+    century ago, Dr. Smith was not: He was no almanack maker, nor
+    quack, nor chimney-doctor, nor soap boiler, nor printer's devil,
+    neither was he a deist; and all his children were born in
+    wedlock. He bequeathed no old and irrecoverable debts to a
+    hospital. He never cheated the poor during his life nor mocked
+    them in his death. If his descendants cannot point to his statue
+    over a library, they have not the mortification of hearing him
+    daily accused of having been a fornicator, a hypocrite, and an
+    infidel."
+
+Some of the charges in this venomous statement are in a sense true, but
+are exaggerated by the manner in which they are presented, an art in
+which Cobbett excelled. I have in the preceding chapters given
+sufficient details to throw light on many of them. Franklin was an
+almanac-maker, a chimney-doctor, and a soap-boiler, but in none of these
+is there anything to his discredit. As to his irrecoverable debts, it is
+true that he left them to the Pennsylvania Hospital, saying in his will
+that, as the persons who owed them were unwilling to pay them to him,
+they might be willing to pay them to the hospital as charity. They were
+a source of great annoyance to the managers, and were finally returned
+to his executors. The statement that he cheated the poor during his life
+and mocked them in his death is entirely unjustified. He was often
+generous with his money to people in misfortune, and several such
+instances can be found in his letters. It is also going too far to say
+that he was a quack and a hypocrite.
+
+While in England he associated on the most intimate terms with eminent
+literary and scientific men. Distinguished travellers from the Continent
+called on him to pay their respects. He stayed at noblemen's
+country-seats and with the Bishop of St. Asaph. He corresponded with all
+these people in the most friendly and easy manner; they were delighted
+with his conversation and could never see enough of him. In France
+everybody worshipped him, and the court circles received him with
+enthusiasm. But in Philadelphia the colonial aristocracy were not on
+friendly terms with him. He had, of course, numerous friends, including
+some members of aristocratic families; but we find few, if any,
+evidences of that close intimacy and affection which he enjoyed among
+the best people of Europe.
+
+This hostility was not altogether due to his humble origin or to the
+little printing-office and stationery store where he sold goose-feathers
+as well as writing material and bought old rags. These disadvantages
+would not have been sufficient, for his accomplishments and wit raised
+him far above his early surroundings, and the colonial society of
+Philadelphia was not illiberal in such matters. The principal cause of
+the hostility towards him was his violent opposition to the proprietary
+party, to which most of the upper classes belonged, and, having this
+ground of dislike, it was easy for them to strengthen and excuse it by
+the gossip about his illegitimate son and the son's mother kept as a
+servant in his house. They ridiculed the small economies he practised,
+and branded his religious and moral theorizing as hypocrisy.
+
+He was very fond of broad jokes, which have always been tolerated in
+America under certain circumstances; but the man who writes them,
+especially if he also writes and talks a great deal about religion and
+undertakes to improve prayer-books, gives a handle to his enemies and an
+opportunity for unfavorable comment. The _Portfolio_, a Philadelphia
+journal, of May 23, 1801, representing more particularly the upper
+classes of the city, prints one of his broad letters, and takes the
+opportunity to assail him for "hypocrisy, hackneyed deism, muck-worn
+economy," and other characteristics of what it considers humbug and
+deceit. It has been suggested that far back in the past one of
+Franklin's ancestors might have been French, for his name in the form
+Franquelin was at one time not uncommon in France. This might account
+for his easy brightness and vivacity, and also, it may be added, for
+such letters as he sometimes wrote:
+
+    "TO Mr. JAMES READ
+
+    "Saturday morning Aug 17 '45.
+
+    "DEAR J.
+
+    "I have been reading your letter over again, and since you
+    desire an answer I sit me down to write you; yet as I write in
+    the market, will I believe be but a short one, tho' I may be
+    long about it. I approve of your method of writing one's mind
+    when one is too warm to speak it with temper: but being myself
+    quite cool in this affair I might as well speak as write, if I
+    had opportunity. Your copy of Kempis must be a corrupt one if
+    it has that passage as you quote it, _in omnibus requiem
+    quaesivi, sed non inveni, nisi in angulo cum libello_. The good
+    father understood pleasure (_requiem_) better, and wrote _in
+    angulo cum puella_. Correct it thus without hesitation."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    (Portfolio, vol. i. p. 165.)
+
+The letter continues the jest in a way that I do not care to quote; but
+the last half of it is full of sage and saintly advice. It is perhaps
+the only letter which gives at the same time both sides of Franklin's
+character. But Sparks and Bigelow in their editions of his works give
+the last half only, with no indication that the first half has been
+omitted.
+
+In the same year that he wrote this letter he also wrote his letter of
+advice to a young man on the choice of a mistress, a copy of which is
+now in the State Department at Washington, while numerous copies taken
+from it have been circulated secretly all over the country. This year
+(1745) seems to have been his reckless period, for it was about that
+time that he published "Polly Baker's Speech," which will be given in
+another chapter. In the State Department at Washington is also preserved
+his letter on Perfumes to the Royal Academy of Brussels, which cannot be
+published under the rules of modern taste, and, in fact, Franklin
+himself speaks of it as having "too much _grossierete_" to be borne by
+polite readers.[14] I shall, however, give as much of the letter on the
+choice of a mistress as is proper to publish.
+
+    "June 25th, 1745.
+
+    "MY DEAR FRIEND:
+
+    "I know of no medicine fit to diminish the violent natural
+    inclinations you mention, and if I did, I think I should not
+    communicate it to you. Marriage is the _proper_ remedy. It is
+    the most natural state of man, and, therefore, the state in
+    which you are most likely to find solid happiness. Your reasons
+    against entering it at present appear to me not well founded.
+    The circumstantial advantages you have in view of postponing it
+    are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with
+    that of the thing itself.
+
+    "It is the man and woman united that make the complete human
+    being. Separate she wants his force of body and strength of
+    reason. He her softness, sensibility, and acute discernment.
+    Together they are more likely to succeed in the world. A single
+    man has not nearly the value he would have in a state of union.
+    He is an incomplete animal. He resembles the odd half of a pair
+    of scissors. If you get a prudent, healthy wife, your industry
+    in your profession, with her good economy will be a fortune
+    sufficient.
+
+    "But if you will not take this counsel, and persist in thinking
+    a commerce with the sex inevitable, then I repeat my former
+    advice, that in all your amours you should _prefer old women to
+    young ones_. You call this a paradox and demand my reasons. They
+    are these:
+
+    "1st. Because they have more knowledge of the world, and their
+    minds are better stored with observations; their conversation is
+    more improving and more lastingly agreeable.
+
+    "2d. Because when women cease to be handsome, they study to be
+    good. To maintain their influence over men, they supply the
+    diminution of beauty by an augmentation of utility. They learn
+    to do a thousand services, small and great, and are the most
+    tender and useful of all friends when you are sick. Thus they
+    continue amiable, and hence there is scarcely such a thing to be
+    found as an old woman who is not a good woman.
+
+    "3d. Because there is no hazard of children, which, irregularly
+    produced, may be attended with much inconvenience.
+
+    "4th. Because, through more experience, they are more prudent
+    and discreet in conducting an intrigue to prevent suspicion. The
+    commerce with them is therefore safe with regard to your
+    reputation and with regard to theirs. If the affair should
+    happen to be known, considerate people might be rather inclined
+    to excuse an old woman who would kindly take care of a young
+    man, form his manners by her good counsels, and prevent his
+    ruining his health and fortunes among mercenary prostitutes.
+
+    "5th....
+
+    "6th....
+
+    "7th. Because the compunction is less. The having made a young
+    girl miserable may give you frequent bitter reflections, none of
+    which can attend the making an _old_ woman _happy_.
+
+    "8th and lastly....
+
+    "Thus much for my paradox, but I still advise you to marry
+    directly, being sincerely,
+
+    "Your Affectionate Friend,
+    "B. F."
+
+Franklin, however, was capable of the most courteous gallantry to
+ladies. In France he delighted the most distinguished women of the court
+by his compliments and witticisms. When about fifty years old he wrote
+some letters to Miss Catharine Ray, of Rhode Island, which, as coming
+from an elderly man to a bright young girl who was friendly with him and
+told him her love-affairs, are extremely interesting. One of them about
+his wife we have already quoted. In a letter to him Miss Ray had asked,
+"How do you do and what are you doing? Does everybody still love you,
+and how do you make them do so?" After telling her about his health, he
+said,--
+
+    "As to the second question, 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 able 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."
+
+On another occasion he wrote to her,--
+
+    "Persons subject to the _hyp_ complain of the northeast wind as
+    increasing their malady. But since you promised 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."
+
+He had another young friend to whom he wrote pretty letters, Miss Mary
+Stevenson, daughter of the Mrs. Stevenson in whose house he lived in
+London when on his diplomatic missions to England. He encouraged her in
+scientific study, and some of his most famous explanations of the
+operations of nature are to be found in letters written to her. He had
+hoped that she would marry his son William, but William's fancy strayed
+elsewhere.
+
+    "PORTSMOUTH, 11 August, 1762.
+
+    "MY DEAR POLLY
+
+    "This is the best paper I can get at this wretched inn, but it
+    will convey what is intrusted to it as faithfully as the finest.
+    It will tell my Polly how much her friend is afflicted that he
+    must perhaps never again see one for whom he has so sincere an
+    affection, joined to so perfect an esteem; who he once flattered
+    himself might become his own, in the tender relation of a child,
+    but can now entertain such pleasing hopes no more. Will it tell
+    _how much_ he is afflicted? No, it cannot.
+
+    "Adieu, my dearest child. I will call you so. Why should I not
+    call you so, since I love you with all the tenderness of a
+    father? Adieu. May the God of all goodness shower down his
+    choicest blessings upon you, and make you infinitely happier
+    than that event would have made you...."
+
+    (Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. iii. p. 209.)
+
+This correspondence with Miss Stevenson continued for a great many
+years, and there are beautiful letters to her scattered all through his
+published works. The letters both to her and to Miss Ray became more
+serious as the two young women grew older and married. Miss Stevenson
+sought his advice on the question of her marriage, and his reply was as
+wise and affectionate as anything he ever wrote. She married Dr. Hewson,
+of London, and they migrated to Philadelphia, where she became the
+mother of a numerous family.
+
+Franklin had a younger sister, Jane, a pretty girl, afterwards Mrs.
+Mecom, of whom he was very fond, and he kept up a correspondence with
+her all his life, sending presents to her at Boston, helping her son to
+earn a livelihood, and giving her assistance in her old age. Their
+letters to each other were most homely and loving, and she took the
+greatest pride in his increasing fame.
+
+His correspondence with his parents was also pleasant and familiar. In
+one of his letters to his mother he amuses her by accounts of her
+grandchildren, and at the same time pays a compliment to his sister
+Jane.
+
+    "As to your grandchildren, Will is now nineteen years of age, a
+    tall, proper youth, and much of a beau. He acquired a habit of
+    idleness on the Expedition, but begins of late to apply himself
+    to business, and I hope will become an industrious man. He
+    imagined his father had got enough for him, but I have assured
+    him that I intend to spend what little I have myself, if it
+    pleases God that I live long enough; and, as he by no means
+    wants acuteness, he can see by my going on that I mean to be as
+    good as my word.
+
+    "Sally grows a fine girl, and is extremely industrious with her
+    needle, and delights in her work. She is of a most affectionate
+    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." (Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. ii. p.
+    154.)
+
+Over the grave of his parents in the Granary Burial-Ground in Boston he
+placed a stone, and prepared for it one of those epitaphs in which he
+was so skilful and which were almost poems:
+
+                    Josiah Franklin and Abiah his wife
+                            lie here interred.
+            They lived 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 grandchildren 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,--AE. 89.
+                   A. F. born 1667--died 1752,--AE. 85.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] Men, Women, and Manners in Colonial Times, vol. i. p. 210.
+
+[6] Men, Women, and Manners in Colonial Times, vol. i. p. 222.
+
+[7] Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. i. p. 180.
+
+[8] Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. v. p. 209.
+
+[9] H. W. Smith's Life of Rev. William Smith, vol. ii. p. 174.
+
+[10] Some years afterwards, when he had become prosperous, he restored
+the money to Mr. Vernon, with interest to date.
+
+[11] Vol. v. p. 201.
+
+[12] Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. iii. p. 216, note.
+
+[13] This verse Franklin also quotes against Smith in a letter to Miss
+Stevenson. (Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. iii. p. 235.)
+
+[14] Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. vii. p. 374.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+BUSINESS AND LITERATURE
+
+
+Franklin's ancestors in both America and England had not been remarkable
+for their success in worldly affairs. Most of them did little more than
+earn a living, and, being of contented dispositions, had no ambition to
+advance beyond it. Some of them were entirely contented with poverty.
+All of them, however, were inclined to be economical and industrious.
+They had no extended views of business enterprise, and we find none of
+them among the great merchants or commercial classes who were reaching
+out for the foreign trade of that age. Either from lack of foresight or
+lack of desire, they seldom selected very profitable callings. They took
+what was nearest at hand--making candles or shoeing horses--and clung to
+it persistently.
+
+Franklin advanced beyond them only because all their qualities of
+economy, thrift, industry, and serene contentedness were intensified in
+him. His choice of a calling was no better than theirs, for printing was
+not a very profitable business in colonial times, and was made so in his
+case only by his unusual sagacity.
+
+I have already described his adventures as a young printer, and how he
+was sent on a wild-goose chase to London by Governor Keith, of
+Pennsylvania. I have also told how on his return to Philadelphia he
+gave up printing and became the clerk of Mr. Denham. He liked Mr. Denham
+and the clerkship, and never expected to return to his old calling. If
+Mr. Denham had lived, Franklin might have become a renowned Philadelphia
+merchant and financier, like Robert Morris, an owner of ships and
+cargoes, a trader to India and China, and an outfitter of privateers.
+But this sudden change from the long line of his ancestry was not to be.
+Nature, as if indignant at the attempt, struck down both Denham and
+himself with pleurisy within six months of their association in
+business. Denham perished, and Franklin, after a narrow escape from
+death, went back reluctantly to set type for Keimer.
+
+He was now twenty-one, a good workman, with experience on two
+continents, and Keimer made him foreman of his printing-office. Within
+six months, however, his connection with Keimer was ended by a quarrel,
+and one of the workmen, Hugh Meredith, suggested that he and Franklin
+should set up in the printing business for themselves, Meredith to
+furnish the money through his father, and Franklin to furnish the skill.
+This offer was eagerly accepted; but as some months would be required to
+obtain type and materials from London, Franklin's quarrel with Keimer
+was patched up and he went back to work for him.
+
+In the spring of 1728 the type arrived. Franklin parted from Keimer in
+peace, and then with Meredith sprung upon him the surprise of a rival
+printing establishment. They rented a house for twenty-four pounds a
+year, and to help pay it took in Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Godfrey as
+lodgers. But their money was all spent in getting started, and they had
+a hard struggle. Their first work was a translation of a Dutch history
+of the Quakers. Franklin worked late and early. People saw him still
+employed as they went home from their clubs late at night, and he was at
+it again in the morning before his neighbors were out of bed.
+
+There were already two other printing-offices, Keimer's and Bradford's,
+and hardly enough work for them. The town prophesied failure for the
+firm of Franklin & Meredith; and, indeed, their only hope of success
+seemed to be in destroying one or both of their rivals, a serious
+undertaking for two young men working on borrowed capital. There was so
+little to be made in printing at that time that most of the printers
+were obliged to branch out into journalism and to keep stationery
+stores. Franklin resolved to start a newspaper, but, unfortunately, told
+his secret to one of Keimer's workmen, and Keimer, to be beforehand,
+immediately started a newspaper of his own, called _The Universal
+Instructor in all Arts and Sciences and the Pennsylvania Gazette_.
+
+[Illustration: FRONT PAGE OF THE FIRST NUMBER OF THE "PENNSYLVANIA
+GAZETTE," PUBLISHED BY FRANKLIN AND MEREDITH]
+
+Franklin was much disgusted, and in resentment, as he tells us, and to
+counteract Keimer, began writing amusing letters for the other newspaper
+of the town, Bradford's _Mercury_. His idea was to crush Keimer's paper
+by building up Bradford's until he could have one of his own. His
+articles, which were signed "Busy Body," show the same talent for humor
+that he had displayed in Boston a few years before, when he wrote for
+his brother's newspaper over the name "Silence Dogood;" but there is a
+great difference in their tone. No ridicule of the prevailing religion
+or hatred of those in authority appears in them. The young man evidently
+found Philadelphia more to his taste than Boston, and was not at war
+with his surroundings. The "Busy Body" papers are merely pleasant
+raillery at the failings of human nature in general, interspersed with
+good advice, something like that which he soon afterwards gave in "Poor
+Richard."
+
+Keimer tried to keep his journal going by publishing long extracts from
+an encyclopaedia which had recently appeared, beginning with the letter
+A, and he tried to imitate the wit of the "Busy Body." But he merely
+laid himself open to the "Busy Body's" attacks, who burlesqued and
+ridiculed his attempts, and Franklin in his Autobiography gives himself
+the credit of having drawn public attention so strongly to Bradford's
+_Mercury_ that Keimer, after keeping his _Universal Instructor_ going on
+only ninety subscribers for about nine months, gave it up. Franklin &
+Meredith bought it in and thus disposed of one of their rivals. That
+rival, being incompetent and ignorant, soon disposed of himself by
+bankruptcy and removal to the Barbadoes. Franklin continued the
+publication of the newspaper under the title of the _Pennsylvania
+Gazette;_ but it was vastly improved in every way,--better type, better
+paper, more news, and intelligent, well-reasoned articles on public
+affairs instead of Keimer's stupid prolixity.
+
+An article written by Franklin on that great question of colonial times,
+whether the Legislature of each colony should give the governor a fixed
+salary or pay him only at the end of each year, according as he had
+pleased them, attracted much attention. It was written with considerable
+astuteness, and, while upholding the necessity of the governor's
+dependence on the Legislature, was careful not to give offence to those
+who were of a different opinion. The young printers also won favor by
+reprinting neatly and correctly an address of the Assembly to the
+governor, which Bradford had previously printed in a blundering way. The
+members of the Assembly were so pleased with it that they voted their
+printing to Franklin & Meredith for the ensuing year. These politicians,
+finding that Franklin knew how to handle a pen, thought it well, as a
+matter of self-interest, to encourage him.
+
+The two young men were kept busily employed, yet found it very difficult
+to make both ends meet, although they did everything themselves, not
+having even a boy to assist them. Meredith's father, having suffered
+some losses, could lend them but half of the sum they had expected from
+him. The merchant who had furnished them their materials grew impatient
+and sued them. They succeeded in staying judgment and execution for a
+time, but fully expected to be eventually sold out by the sheriff and
+ruined.
+
+At this juncture two friends of Franklin came to him and offered
+sufficient money to tide over his difficulties if he would get rid of
+Meredith, who was intemperate, and take all the business on himself.
+This he succeeded in doing, and with the money supplied by his friends
+paid off his debts and added a stationery shop, where he sold paper,
+parchment, legal blanks, ink, books, and, in time, soap, goose-feathers,
+liquors, and groceries; he also secured the printing of the laws of
+Delaware, and, as he says, went on swimmingly. Soon after this he
+married Miss Read, and he has left us an account of how they lived
+together:
+
+    "We kept no idle servants, our table was plain and simple, our
+    furniture of the cheapest. 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 families, and make a progress in spite of
+    principle: being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in
+    a china bowl, with a spoon of silver! They had been bought for
+    me without my knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the
+    enormous sum of three and twenty shillings, for which she had no
+    other excuse or apology to make but that she thought _her_
+    husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of
+    his neighbors."
+
+A story is told on the Eastern Shore of Maryland of a young man who
+called one evening on an old farmer to ask him how it was that he had
+become rich.
+
+"It is a long story," said the old man, "and while I am telling it we
+might as well save the candle," and he put it out.
+
+"You need not tell it," said the youth. "I see."
+
+Franklin's method was the one that had always been practised by his
+ancestors, and with his wider intelligence and great literary ability it
+was sure to succeed. The silver spoons slowly increased until in the
+course of years, as he tells us, the plate in his house was "augmented
+gradually to several hundred pounds in value."
+
+His newspaper, the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, was the best in the colonies.
+Besides the ordinary news and advertisements, together with little
+anecdotes and squibs which he was always so clever in telling, he
+printed in it extracts from _The Spectator_ and various moral writers,
+articles from English newspapers, as well as articles of his own which
+had been previously read to the Junto. He also published long poems by
+Stephen Duck, now utterly forgotten; but he was then the poet laureate
+and wrote passable verse. He carefully excluded all libelling and
+personal abuse; but what would now be considered indelicate jests were
+not infrequent. These broad jokes, together with witticisms at the
+expense of ecclesiastics, constituted the stock amusements of the time,
+as the English literature of that period abundantly shows.
+
+Opening one of the old volumes of his _Gazette_ at random, we find for
+September 5, 1734, a humorous account of a lottery in England, by which,
+to encourage the propagation of the species, all the old maids of the
+country are to be raffled for. Turning over the leaves, we find the
+humorous will of a fellow who, among other queer bequests, leaves his
+body "as a very wholesome feast to the worms of his family vault." In
+another number an account is given of some excesses of the Pope, with a
+Latin verse and its translation which had been pasted on Pasquin's
+statue:
+
+    "Omnia Venduntur imo
+            Dogmata Christi
+    Et ne me vendunt, evolo.
+            Roma Vale."
+
+    "Rome all things sells, even doctrines old and new.
+    I'll fly for fear of sale; so Rome adieu."
+
+In the number for November 7, 1734, we are given "The Genealogy of a
+Jacobite."
+
+    "The Devil _begat_ Sin, Sin _begat_ Error, Error _begat_ Pride,
+    Pride _begat_ Hatred, Hatred _begat_ Ignorance, Ignorance
+    _begat_ Blind Zeal, Blind Zeal _begat_ Superstition,
+    Superstition _begat_ Priestcraft, Priestcraft _begat_ Lineal
+    Succession, Lineal Succession _begat_ Indelible Character,
+    Indelible Character _begat_ Blind Obedience, Blind Obedience
+    _begat_ Infallibility, Infallibility _begat_ the Pope and his
+    Brethren in the time of Egyptian Darkness, the Pope _begat_
+    Purgatory, Purgatory _begat_ Auricular Confession, Auricular
+    Confession _begat_ Renouncing of Reason, Renouncing of Reason
+    _begat_ Contempt of Scriptures, Contempt of the Scriptures
+    _begat_ Implicit Faith, Implicit Faith _begat_ Carnal Policy,
+    Carnal Policy _begat_ Unlimited Passive Obedience, Unlimited
+    Passive Obedience _begat_ Non-Resistance, Non-Resistance _begat_
+    Oppression, Oppression _begat_ Faction, Faction _begat_
+    Patriotism, Patriotism _begat_ Opposition to all the Measures of
+    the Ministry, Opposition _begat_ Disaffection, Disaffection
+    _begat_ Discontent, Discontent _begat_ a Tory, and a Tory
+    _begat_ a Jacobite, with Craftsman and Fog and their Brethren on
+    the Body of the Whore of Babylon when she was deemed past child
+    bearing."
+
+Franklin's famous "Speech of Polly Baker" is supposed to have first
+appeared in the _Gazette_. This is a mistake, but it was reprinted again
+and again in American newspapers for half a century.
+
+    "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 few
+    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.... Abstracted from the law, I cannot conceive (may it
+    please your honours) what the nature of my offence is. I have
+    brought five children into the world, 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 needs 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, unless,
+    perhaps, the ministers of 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 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 deemed such), should be advanced to honour and
+    power in the government that punishes my misfortunes with
+    stripes and infamy.... But how can it be believed that Heaven is
+    angry at my having children, when to the little done by me
+    towards 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? Forgive 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 number of bachelors in the
+    country, many of whom, from the mean fear of the expense of a
+    family, have never sincerely and honestly 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 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 humble opinion, instead of a whipping, to have a
+    statue erected to my memory."
+
+A newspaper furnishing the people with so much information and sound
+advice, mingled with broad stories, bright and witty, and appealing to
+all the human passions,--in other words, so thoroughly like
+Franklin,--was necessarily a success. It was, however, a small
+affair,--a single sheet which, when folded, was about twelve by eighteen
+inches,--and it appeared only twice a week.
+
+It differed from other colonial newspapers chiefly in its greater
+brightness and in the literary skill shown in its preparation. But
+attempts have been made to exaggerate its merits, and Parton declares
+that in it Franklin "originated the modern system of business
+advertising" and that "he was the first man who used this mighty engine
+of publicity as we now use it." A careful examination of the _Gazette_
+and the other journals of the time fails to disclose any evidence in
+support of this extravagant statement. The advertisements in the
+_Gazette_ are like those in the other papers,--runaway servants and
+slaves, ships and merchandise for sale, articles lost or stolen. On the
+whole, perhaps more advertisements appear in the _Gazette_ than in any
+of the others, though a comparison of the _Gazette_ with Bradford's
+_Mercury_ shows days when the latter has the greater number.
+
+Franklin advertised rather extensively his own publications, and the
+lamp-black, soap, and "ready money for old rags" which were to be had at
+his shop, for the reason, doubtless, that, being owner of both the
+newspaper and the shop, the advertisements cost him nothing. This is the
+only foundation for the tale of his having originated modern
+advertising. His advertisements are of the same sort that appeared in
+other papers, and there is not the slightest suggestion of modern
+methods in them.
+
+Parton also says that Franklin "invented the plan of distinguishing
+advertisements by means of little pictures which he cut with his own
+hands." If he really was the inventor of this plan, it is strange that
+he allowed his rival Bradford to use it in the _Mercury_ before it was
+adopted by the _Gazette_. No cuts appear in the advertisements in the
+_Gazette_ until May 30, 1734; but the _Mercury's_ advertisements have
+them in the year 1733.
+
+Franklin made no sudden or startling changes in the methods of
+journalism; he merely used them effectively. His reputation and fortune
+were increased by his newspaper, but his greatest success came from his
+almanac, the immortal "Poor Richard."
+
+In those days almanacs were the literature of the masses, very much as
+newspapers are now. Everybody read them, and they supplied the place of
+books to those who would not or could not buy these means of knowledge.
+Every farm-house and hunter's cabin had one hanging by the fireplace,
+and the rich were also eager to read afresh every year the weather
+forecasts, receipts, scraps of history, and advice mingled with jokes
+and verses.
+
+Every printer issued an almanac as a matter of course, for it was the
+one publication which was sure to sell, and there was always more or
+less money to be made by it. While Franklin and Meredith were in
+business they published their almanac annually, and it was prepared by
+Thomas Godfrey, the mathematician, who with his wife lived in part of
+Franklin's house. But, as has been related, Mrs. Godfrey tried to make a
+match between Franklin and one of her relatives, and when that failed
+the Godfreys and Franklin separated, and Thomas Godfrey devoted his
+mathematical talents to the preparation of Bradford's almanac.
+
+This was in the year 1732, and the following year Franklin had no
+philomath, as such people were called, to prepare his almanac. A great
+deal depended on having a popular philomath. Some of them could achieve
+large sales for their employer, while others could scarcely catch the
+public attention at all. Franklin's literary instinct at once suggested
+the plan of creating a philomath out of his own imagination, an ideal
+one who would achieve the highest possibilities of the art. So he wrote
+his own almanac, and announced that it was prepared by one Richard
+Saunders, who for short was called "Poor Richard," and he proved to be
+the most wonderful philomath that ever lived.
+
+As Shakespeare took the suggestions and plots of his plays from old
+tales and romances, endowing his spoils by the touch of genius with a
+life that the originals never possessed, so Franklin plundered right and
+left to obtain material for the wise sayings of "Poor Richard." There
+was, we are told, a Richard Saunders who was the philomath of a popular
+English almanac called "The Apollo Anglicanus," and another popular
+almanac had been called "Poor Robin;" but "Poor Richard" was a real
+creation, a new human character introduced to the world like Sir Roger
+de Coverley.
+
+Novel-writing was in its infancy in those days, and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's
+Progress," Addison's character of Sir Roger, and the works of
+Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett were the only examples of this new
+literature. That beautiful sentiment that prompts children to say, "Tell
+us a story," and which is now fed to repletion by trash, was then
+primitive, fresh, and simple. Franklin could have written a novel in the
+manner of Fielding, but he had no inclination for such a task. He took
+more naturally and easily to creating a single character somewhat in the
+way Sir Roger de Coverley was created by Addison, whose essays he had
+rewritten so often for practice.
+
+[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC FOR 1733]
+
+Sir Roger was so much of a gentleman, there were so many delicate
+touches in him, that he never became the favorite of the common people.
+But "Poor Richard" was the Sir Roger of the masses; he won the hearts of
+high and low. In that first number for the year 1733 he introduces
+himself very much after the manner of Addison.
+
+    "COURTEOUS READER,
+
+    "I might in this place attempt to gain thy favor by declaring
+    that I write almanacks with no other view than that of the
+    public good, but in this I should not be sincere; and men are
+    now-a-days too wise to be deceived by pretences, how specious
+    soever. The plain truth of the matter is, I am excessive poor,
+    and my wife, good woman, is, I tell her, excessive proud; she
+    cannot bear, she says, to sit spinning in her shift of tow,
+    while I do nothing but gaze at the stars; and has threatened
+    more than once to burn all my books and rattling traps (as she
+    calls my instruments) if I do not make some profitable use of
+    them for the good of my family. The printer has offered me some
+    considerable share of the profits, and I have thus begun to
+    comply with my dame's desire."
+
+There was a rival almanac, of which the philomath was Titan Leeds. "Poor
+Richard" affects great friendship for him, and says that he would have
+written almanacs long ago had he not been unwilling to interfere with
+the business of Titan. But this obstacle was soon to be removed.
+
+    "He dies by my calculation," says "Poor Richard," "made at his
+    request, on Oct. 17, 1733, 3 ho., 29 m., P. M., at the very
+    instant of the [symbol: conjunction] of [symbol: Sun] and
+    [symbol: Mercury]. By his own calculation he will survive till
+    the 26th of the same month. This small difference between us we
+    have disputed whenever we have met these nine years past; but at
+    length he is inclinable to agree with my judgment. Which of us
+    is most exact, a little time will now determine."
+
+In the next issue "Poor Richard" announces that his circumstances are
+now much easier. His wife has a pot of her own and is no longer obliged
+to borrow one of a neighbor; and, best of all, they have something to
+put in it, which has made her temper more pacific. Then he begins to
+tease Titan Leeds. He recalls his prediction of his death, but is not
+quite sure whether it occurred; for he has been prevented by domestic
+affairs from being at the bedside and closing the eyes of his old
+friend. The stars have foretold the death with their usual exactitude;
+but sometimes Providence interferes in these matters, which makes the
+astrologer's art a little uncertain. But on the whole he thinks Titan
+must be dead, "for there appears in his name, as I am assured, an
+Almanack for the year 1734 in which I am treated in a very gross and
+unhandsome manner; in which I am called a false predicter, an ignorant,
+a conceited scribbler, a fool, and a lyar;" and he goes on to show that
+his good friend Titan would never have treated him in this way.
+
+The next year he is still making sport of Titan, the deceased Titan, and
+the ghost of Titan, "who pretends to be still living, and to write
+Almanacks in spight of me;" and he proves again by means of the funniest
+arguments that he must be dead. Another year he devotes several pages of
+nonsense to disproving the charge that "Poor Richard" is not a real
+person. He ridicules astrology and weather forecasting by pretending to
+be very serious over it. At any rate, he says, "we always hit the day of
+the month, and that I suppose is esteemed one of the most useful things
+in an Almanack." He and his good old wife are getting on now better than
+ever; and the almanac for 1738 is prepared by Mistress Saunders herself,
+who rails at her husband and makes queer work with eclipses and
+forecasting. Then in the number for 1740 Titan writes a letter to "Poor
+Richard" from the other world.
+
+Besides the formal essays or prefaces which appeared in each number,
+there were numerous verses, paragraphs of admirable satire on the events
+of the day or the weaknesses of human nature, and those prudential
+maxims which in the end became the most famous of all. As we look
+through a collection of these almanacs for an hour or so we seem to have
+lived among the colonists, who were not then Americans, but merry
+Englishmen, heavy eaters and drinkers, full of broad jokes, whimsical,
+humorous ways, and forever gossiping with hearty good nature over the
+ludicrous accidents of life, the love-affairs, the married infelicities,
+and the cuckolds. It is the freshness, the sap, and the rollicking
+happiness of old English life.
+
+    "Old Batchelor would have a wife that's wise,
+        Fair, rich and young a maiden for his bed;
+    Not proud, nor churlish, but of faultless size,
+        A country housewife in the city bred.
+            He's a nice fool and long in vain hath staid;
+            He should bespeak her, there's none ready made."
+
+    "Never spare the parson's wine, nor the baker's pudding."
+
+    "Ne'er take a wife till thou hast a house (and a fire) to put her in."
+
+    "My love and I for kisses play'd,
+        She would keep stakes, I was content,
+    But when I won, she would be paid,
+        This made me ask her what she meant:
+            Quoth she, since you are in the wrangling vein
+            Here take your kisses, give me mine again."
+
+    "Who has deceived thee so oft as thyself?"
+
+    "There is no little enemy."
+
+    "_Of the Eclipses this year._
+
+    "During the first visible eclipse Saturn is retrograde: For
+    which reason the crabs will go sidelong and the ropemakers
+    backward. The belly will wag before, and the ---- will sit down
+    first.... When a New Yorker thinks to say THIS he shall say
+    DISS, and the People in New England and Cape May will 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...."
+
+    "Many dishes many diseases."
+
+    "Let thy maid servant be faithful, strong and homely."
+
+    "Here I sit naked, like some fairy elf;
+    My seat a pumpkin; I grudge no man's pelf,
+    Though I've no bread nor cheese upon my shelf,
+        I'll tell thee gratis, when it safe is
+    To purge, to bleed, or cut thy cattle or--thyself."
+
+    "Necessity never made a good bargain."
+
+    "A little house well filled, a little field well till'd and a
+    little wife well will'd are great riches."
+
+    "_Of the Diseases this year._
+
+    "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...."
+
+    "_Of the Fruits of the Earth._
+
+    "I find that this will be a plentiful Year of all manner of good
+    Things, to those who have enough; but the Orange Trees in
+    Greenland will go near to fare the worse for the Cold. As for
+    Oats, they'll be a great Help to Horses...."
+
+    "Lend money to an enemy, and thou'lt gain him; to a friend, and
+    thou'lt lose him."
+
+    "Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut
+    afterwards."
+
+    "It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright."
+
+For twenty years and more "Poor Richard" kept up this continuous stream
+of fun, breaking forth afresh every autumn,--sound, wholesome, dealing
+with the real things and the elemental joys of life, and expressed in
+that inimitable language of which Franklin was master. In this way was
+built up the greater part of his wonderful reputation, which in some of
+its manifestations surprises us so much. Such a reputation is usually of
+long growth; one or two conspicuous acts will not achieve it. But the
+man who every year for nearly a generation delighted every human being
+in the country, from the ploughman and hunter to the royal governors,
+was laying in store for himself a sure foundation of influence.
+
+The success of "Poor Richard" was immediate. The first number of it went
+through several editions, and after that the annual sales amounted to
+about ten thousand copies. For the last number which Franklin prepared
+for the year 1758, before he turned over the enterprise to his partner,
+he wrote a most happy preface. It was always his habit, when a
+controversy or service he was engaged in was finished, to summarize the
+whole affair in a way that strengthened his own position and left an
+indelible impression which all the efforts of his enemies could not
+efface. Accordingly, for this last preface he invented a homely,
+catching tale that enabled him to summarize all the best sayings of
+"Poor Richard" for the last twenty-five years.
+
+    "I stopt my Horse lately where a great Number of people were
+    collected at a Vendue of Merchant Goods. The Hour of Sale not
+    being come, they were conversing on the Badness of the Times,
+    and one of the Company call'd to a plain clean old Man, with
+    white Locks, 'Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the Times?
+    Won't these heavy Taxes quite ruin the Country? How shall we be
+    ever able to pay them? What would you advise us to?'--Father
+    Abraham stood up, and reply'd, 'If you'd have my Advice, I'll
+    give it you in short, for a Word to the Wise is enough, and many
+    Words won't fill a Bushel, as Poor Richard says.' They join'd in
+    desiring him to speak his Mind, and gathering round him, he
+    proceeded as follows:
+
+    "'Friends,' says he, 'and neighbours, the Taxes are indeed very
+    heavy, and if those laid on by the Government were the only Ones
+    we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have
+    many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed
+    twice as much by our Idleness, three times as much by our Pride,
+    and four times as much by our Folly, and from these Taxes the
+    Commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an
+    Abatement. However let us hearken to good Advice, and something
+    may be done for us; God helps them that help themselves, as Poor
+    Richard says in his Almanack of 1733.
+
+    "'It would be thought a hard Government that should tax its
+    People one tenth Part of their Time, to be employed in its
+    Service. But Idleness taxes many of us much more, if we reckon
+    all that is spent in absolute Sloth, or doing of nothing, with
+    that which is spent in idle Employments or Amusements, that
+    amount to nothing. Sloth, by bringing on Diseases absolutely
+    shortens Life. Sloth, like Rust, consumes faster than Labour
+    wears, while the used Key is always bright, as Poor Richard
+    says. But dost thou love Life, then do not squander Time, for
+    that's the Stuff Life is made of, as poor Richard says.--How
+    much more than is necessary do we spend in Sleep! forgetting
+    that The Sleeping Fox catches no Poultry, and that there will be
+    sleeping enough in the Grave, as Poor Richard says. If Time be
+    of all Things the most precious, wasting of Time must be, as
+    Poor Richard says, the greatest Prodigality, since, as he
+    elsewhere tells us, Lost Time is never found again; and what we
+    call Time-enough, always proves little enough. Let us then be up
+    and doing, and doing to the Purpose; so by Diligence shall we do
+    more with less Perplexity. Sloth makes all Things difficult, but
+    Industry all Things easy, as Poor Richard says; and He that
+    riseth late, must trot all Day, and shall scarce overtake his
+    Business at night. While Laziness travels so slowly, that
+    Poverty soon overtakes him, as we read in Poor Richard, who
+    adds, Drive thy Business, let that not drive thee; and Early to
+    Bed, and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "'So much for Industry, my Friends, and Attention to one's own
+    Business; but to these we must add Frugality, if we would make
+    our Industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows
+    not how to save as he gets, Keep his nose all his life to the
+    Grindstone, and die not worth a Groat at last.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "'And now to conclude, Experience keeps a dear School, but Fools
+    will learn in no other, and scarce in that; for it is true, we
+    may give Advice, but we cannot give Conduct, as Poor Richard
+    says: However, remember this, They that won't be counselled,
+    can't be helped, as Poor Richard says: and farther, That if you
+    will not hear Reason, she'll surely wrap your Knuckles.'
+
+    "Thus the old Gentleman ended his Harangue. The People heard it,
+    and approved the Doctrine, and immediately practised the
+    contrary, just as if it had been a common Sermon; for the Vendue
+    opened and they began to buy extravagantly, notwithstanding all
+    his Cautions and their own Fear of Taxes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This speech of the wise old man at the auction, while perhaps not so
+interesting to us now as are some other parts of "Poor Richard," was a
+great hit in its day; in fact, the greatest Franklin ever made. Before
+it appeared "Poor Richard's" reputation was confined principally to
+America, and without this final speech might have continued within
+those limits. But the "clean old Man, with white locks" spread the fame
+of "Poor Dick" over the whole civilized world. His speech was reprinted
+on broadsides in England to be fastened to the sides of houses,
+translated into French, and bought by the clergy and gentry for
+distribution to parishioners and tenants. Mr. Paul Leicester Ford, in
+his excellent little volume, "The Sayings of Poor Richard," has
+summarized its success. Seventy editions of it have been printed in
+English, fifty-six in French, eleven in German, and nine in Italian. It
+has also been translated into Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Welsh, Polish,
+Gaelic, Russian, Bohemian, Dutch, Catalan, Chinese, and Modern Greek,
+reprinted at least four hundred times, and still lives.
+
+It was quite common a hundred years ago to charge Franklin with being an
+arrant plagiarist. It is true that the sayings of "Poor Richard" and a
+great deal that went to make up the almanac were taken from Rabelais,
+Bacon, Rochefoucauld, Ray Palmer, and any other sources where they could
+be found or suggested. But "Poor Richard" changed and rewrote them to
+suit his purpose, and gave most of them a far wider circulation than
+they had before.
+
+More serious charges have, however, been made, and they are summarized
+in Davis's "Travels in America,"[15] which was published in 1803. I have
+already noticed one of these,--the charge that his letter on air-baths
+was taken from Aubrey's "Miscellanies,"--which, on examination, I cannot
+find to be sustained. Davis also charges that Franklin's famous epitaph
+on himself was taken from a Latin one by an Eton school-boy, published
+with an English translation in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for February,
+1736. Franklin's epitaph is already familiar to most of us:
+
+                   The Body
+                      of
+              Benjamin Franklin
+                   Printer
+        (Like the cover of an old book
+            Its contents torn out
+   And stript of its lettering and gilding)
+          Lies here, food for worms.
+        But the work shall not be lost
+ For it will (as he believed) appear once more
+      In a new and more elegant edition
+            Revised and corrected
+                      by
+                  The Author.
+
+The Eton boy's was somewhat like it:
+
+         Vitae Volumine peracto
+        Hic Finis Jacobi Tonson
+     Perpoliti Sociorum Principis;
+      Qui Velut Obstetrix Musarum
+           In Lucem Edivit
+        Foelices Ingenii Partus.
+      Lugete, Scriptorum chorus,
+         Et Frangite Calamos;
+ Ille vester, Margine Erasus, deletur!
+      Sed haec postrema Inscriptio
+       Huic primae Mortis Paginae
+              Imprimatur,
+     Ne Praelo Sepulchri Commissus,
+      Ipse Editor careat Titulo:
+         Hic Jacet Bibliopola
+          Folio vitae delapso
+       Expectans novam Editionem
+       Auctiorem et Emendatiorem.
+
+One of these productions might certainly have been suggested by the
+other. But Franklin's grandson, William Temple Franklin, who professed
+to have the original in his possession, in his grandfather's
+handwriting, said that it was dated 1728, and it is printed with that
+date in one of the editions of Franklin's works. If this date is
+correct, it would be too early for the epitaph to have been copied from
+the one in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for February, 1736. It might be
+said that possibly the Eton boy knew of Franklin's epitaph; but I cannot
+find that it was printed or in any way made public before 1736. There is
+no reason why both should not be original, for everybody wrote epitaphs
+in that century.
+
+Franklin has been credited by one of his biographers with the invention
+of the comic epitaph, and Smollett's famous inscription on Commodore
+Trunnion's tomb in "Peregrine Pickle" is described as a mere imitation
+of Franklin's epitaph on himself. But there is no evidence that Smollett
+had seen Franklin's production before "Peregrine Pickle" was published
+in 1750, and it was not necessary that he should. There were plenty of
+similar productions long before that time. Franklin's own _Gazette_,
+January 6 to January 15, 1735/6, gives a very witty inscription on a
+dead greyhound, which is described as cut on the walls of Lord Cobham's
+gardens at Stow. In writing comic epitaphs Franklin was merely following
+the fashion of his time, and he was hardly as good at it as Smollett.
+
+He has himself told us the source of one of his best short essays, "The
+Ephemera," a beautiful little allegory which he wrote to please Madame
+Brillon in Paris. In a letter to William Carmichael, of June 17, 1780,
+he describes the circumstances under which it was written, and says that
+"the thought was partly taken from a little piece of some unknown
+writer, which I met with fifty years since in a newspaper."[16] It was
+in this way that he worked over old material for "Poor Richard."
+Everything he had read seemed capable of supplying suggestions, and it
+must be said that he usually improved on the work of other men.
+
+He was very fond of paraphrasing the Bible as a humorous task and also
+to show what he conceived to be the meaning of certain passages. He
+altered the wording of the Book of Job so as to make it a satire on
+English politics. He did it cleverly, and it was amusing; but it was a
+very cheap sort of humor.
+
+His most famous joke of this kind was his "Parable against Persecution."
+He had learned it by heart, and when he was in England, and the
+discussion turned on religious liberty, he would open the Bible and read
+his parable as the last chapter in Genesis. The imitation of the
+language of Scripture was perfect, and the parable itself was so
+interesting and striking that every one was delighted with it. His
+guests would wonder and say that they had never known there was such a
+chapter in Genesis.
+
+The parable was published and universally admired, but when it appeared
+in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ some one very quickly discovered that it
+had been taken from Jeremy Taylor's Polemical Discourses, and there was
+a great discussion over it. Franklin afterwards said, in a letter to Mr.
+Vaughan, that he had taken it from Taylor; and John Adams said that he
+never pretended that it was original.[17] It is interesting to see how
+cleverly he improved on Taylor's language:
+
+    TAYLOR.
+
+    "When Abraham sat at his tent door according to his custom,
+    waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man stooping
+    and leaning on his staff; weary with age and travel, coming
+    towards him, who was an hundred years old. He received him
+    kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, and caused him to sit
+    down; but observing that the old man ate and prayed not, nor
+    begged for a blessing on his meat, he asked him why he did not
+    worship the God of heaven? The old man told him, that he
+    worshipped the fire only and acknowledged no other god. At which
+    answer Abraham grew so zealously angry, that he thrust the old
+    man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the
+    night and an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God
+    called to Abraham, and asked him where the stranger was? He
+    replied, I thrust him away, because he did not worship thee. God
+    answered him, I have suffered him these hundred years, although
+    he dishonoured me; and couldst not thou endure him one night,
+    and when he gave thee no trouble? Upon this, saith the story,
+    Abraham fetched him back again, and gave him hospitable
+    entertainment and wise instruction. Go thou and do likewise and
+    thy charity will be rewarded by the God of Abraham."
+
+    FRANKLIN.
+
+    "[P] 1 And it came to pass after these things, that Abraham sat in
+    the door of his tent, about the going down of the sun. [P] 2 And
+    behold a man, bent with age, coming from the way of the
+    wilderness leaning on his staff. [P] 3 And Abraham rose and met
+    him, and said unto him: Turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet,
+    and tarry all night; and thou shalt arise early in the morning
+    and go on thy way. [P] 4 But the man said, Nay, for I will abide
+    under this tree. [P] 5 And Abraham pressed him greatly: so he
+    turned and they went into the tent, and Abraham baked unleavened
+    bread, and they did eat. [P] 6 And when Abraham saw that the man
+    blessed not God he said unto him, wherefore dost thou not
+    worship the Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth? [P] 7 And
+    the man answered, and said, I do not worship thy God, neither do
+    I call upon his name; for I have made to myself a god, which
+    abideth in my house and provideth me with all things. [P] 8 And
+    Abraham's zeal was kindled against the man; and he arose and
+    fell upon him, and drove him forth with blows into the
+    wilderness. [P] 9 And at midnight God called unto Abraham saying,
+    Abraham, where is the stranger? [P] 10 And Abraham answered and
+    said, Lord, he would not worship thee, neither would he call
+    upon thy name; therefore have I driven him out from before my
+    face into the wilderness. [P] 11 And God said, have I borne with
+    him these hundred and ninety and eight years, and nourished him,
+    and Cloathed him, notwithstanding his rebellion against me; and
+    couldest not thou, who art thyself a sinner, bear with him one
+    night? [P] 12 And Abraham said, Let not the anger of the Lord wax
+    hot against his servant; lo, I have sinned; forgive me I pray
+    thee. [P] 13 And Abraham arose and went forth into the wilderness
+    and sought diligently for the man and found him, and returned
+    with him to the tent; and when he had entreated him kindly, he
+    sent him away on the morrow with gifts. [P] 14 And God spake unto
+    Abraham, saying, For this thy sin shall thy seed be afflicted
+    four hundred years in a strange land. [P] 15 But for thy
+    repentance will I deliver them; and they shall come forth with
+    power and gladness of heart, and with much substance."
+
+The parable was, indeed, older than Taylor for Taylor said he had found
+it in "The Jews' Book," and at length it was discovered in a Latin
+dedication of a rabbinical work, called "The Rod of Judah," published at
+Amsterdam in 1651, which ascribed the parable to the Persian poet Saadi.
+None of them, however, had thought of introducing it into the Old
+Testament, nor had they told it so well as Franklin, who gave it a new
+currency, and it was reprinted as a half-penny tract and also in Lord
+Kames's "Sketches of the History of Man."
+
+While on this question of plagiarism it may be said that Franklin's
+admirable style was in part modelled on that of the famous Massachusetts
+divine, Cotton Mather, whom he had known and whose books he had read in
+his boyhood. The similarity is, indeed, quite striking, and for vigorous
+English he could hardly have had a better model. But he improved so much
+on Mather that his style is entirely his own. It is the most effective
+literary style ever used by an American. Nearly one hundred and fifty
+years have passed since his Autobiography was written, yet it is still
+read with delight by all classes of people, has been called for at some
+public libraries four hundred times a year, and shows as much promise of
+immortality as the poems of Longfellow or the romances of Hawthorne.
+
+Besides his almanac and newspaper, Franklin extended his business by
+publishing books, consisting mostly of religious tracts and
+controversies. He also imported books from England, and sold them along
+with the lamp-black, soap, and groceries contained in that strange
+little store and printing-office on Market Street. He sent one of his
+journeymen to Charleston to establish a branch printing-office, of which
+Franklin was to pay one-third of the expense and receive one-third of
+the profits. After continuing in this manner some five years, the
+Legislature of the province in 1736 elected him clerk of that body,
+which enabled him to retain the printing of the notes, laws, paper
+money, and other public jobs, which he tells us were very profitable.
+
+The next year Colonel Spotswood, Postmaster-General of the colonies,
+made him deputy postmaster of Philadelphia. This appointment reinforced
+his other occupations. He could collect news for his _Gazette_ more
+easily, and also had greater facilities for distributing it to his
+subscribers. In those days the postmaster of a town usually owned a
+newspaper, because he could have the post-riders distribute copies of it
+without cost, and he did not allow them to carry any newspaper but his
+own. Franklin had been injured by the refusal of his predecessor to
+distribute his _Gazette_; but when he became postmaster, finding his
+subscriptions and advertisements much increased and his competitor's
+newspaper declining, he magnanimously refused to retaliate, and allowed
+his riders to carry the rival journal.
+
+How much money Franklin actually made in his business is difficult to
+determine, although many guesses have been made. He was, it would seem,
+more largely and widely engaged than any other printer in the colonies,
+for nearly all the important printing of the middle colonies and a
+large part of that of the southern colonies came to his office. He made
+enough to retire at forty-two years of age, having been working for
+himself only twenty years.
+
+On retiring he turned over his printing and publishing interest to his
+foreman, David Hall, who was to carry on the business in his own way,
+but under the firm name of Franklin & Hall, and to pay Franklin a
+thousand pounds a year for eighteen years, at the end of which time Hall
+was to become sole proprietor. This thousand pounds which Franklin was
+to receive may be looked upon as an indication that before his
+retirement the business was yielding him annually something more than
+that sum, possibly almost two thousand pounds, as some have supposed.
+
+He never again engaged actively in any gainful trade, and his retirement
+seems to have been caused by the passion for scientific research which a
+few years before had seized him, and by that trait of his character
+which sometimes appears in the form of a sort of indolence and at other
+times as a wilful determination to follow the bent of his inclinations
+and pleasures. Although extremely economical and thrifty in practice as
+well as in precept, he had very little love of money, and took no
+pleasure in business for mere business' sake. The charges of sordidness
+and mean penny-wisdom are not borne out by any of the real facts of his
+life. It is not improbable that just before his retirement he had
+advanced far enough in his scientific experiments to see dimly in the
+future the chance of a great discovery and distinction. He certainly
+went to work with a will as soon as he got rid of the cares of the
+printing-office, and in a few years was rewarded.
+
+He had invested some of his savings in houses and land in Philadelphia,
+and the thousand pounds (five thousand dollars) which he was to receive
+for eighteen years was a very good income in those times, and more than
+equivalent to ten thousand dollars at the present day. He moved from the
+bustle of Market Street and his home in the old printing, stationery,
+and grocery house, and is supposed to have taken a house at the
+southeast corner of Second and Race Streets. This was at the northern
+edge of the town, close to the river, where in the summer evenings he
+renewed his youthful fondness for swimming.
+
+It must be confessed that very few self-made men, conducting a
+profitable business with the prospect of steady accumulation of money,
+have willingly resigned it in the prime of life, under the influence of
+such sentiments as appear to have moved him. But that intense and
+absolute devotion to business which is the prevailing mood of our times
+had not then begun in America, and it was rather the fashion to retire.
+
+The years which followed his retirement, and before he became absorbed
+in political affairs, seem to have had for him a great deal of ideal
+happiness. He lived like a man of taste and a scholar accustomed to
+cultured surroundings more than like a self-made man who had battled for
+forty years with the material world. In writing to his mother, he
+said,--
+
+    "I read a great deal, ride a little, do a little business for
+    myself, now and then for others, retire when I can, and go into
+    company when I please; so the years roll round, and the last
+    will come, when I would rather have it said, He lived usefully
+    than He died rich."
+
+After his withdrawal from business he remained postmaster of
+Philadelphia, and in 1753, after he had held that office for sixteen
+years, he was appointed Postmaster-General of all the colonies, with
+William Hunter, of Virginia, as his colleague, and he retained this
+position until dismissed from it by the British government in 1774, on
+the eve of the Revolution. There was some salary attached to these
+offices, that of Postmaster-General yielding three hundred pounds. The
+postmastership of Philadelphia entailed no difficult duties at that
+time, and his wife assisted him; but when he was made Postmaster-General
+he more than earned his salary during the first few years by making
+extensive journeys through the colonies to reform the system. The salary
+attached to the office was not to be allowed unless the office produced
+it; and during the first four years the unpaid salary of Franklin and
+his colleague amounted to nine hundred and fifty pounds. He procured
+faster post-riders, increased the number of mails between important
+places, made a charge for carrying newspapers, had all newspapers
+carried by the riders, and reduced some of the rates of postage.
+
+But he was not the founder of the modern post-office system, nor was he
+the first Postmaster-General of America, as some of his biographers
+insist. He merely improved the system which he found and increased its
+revenues as others have done before and since.
+
+The leisure he sought by retirement was enjoyed but a few years. He
+became more and more involved in public affairs, and soon spent most of
+his time in England as agent of Pennsylvania or other colonies, and
+during the Revolution he was in France. There was a salary attached to
+these offices. As agent of Pennsylvania he received five hundred pounds
+a year, and when he represented other colonies he received from
+Massachusetts four hundred, from Georgia two hundred, and from New
+Jersey one hundred. These sums, together with the thousand pounds a year
+from Hall, would seem to be enough for a man of his habits; but
+apparently he used it all, and was often slow in paying his debts.
+
+In a letter written to Mrs. Stevenson in London, while he was envoy to
+France, he expresses surprise that some of the London tradespeople still
+considered him their debtor for things obtained from them during his
+residence there some years before, and he asks Mrs. Stevenson, with whom
+he had lodged, how his account stands with her. The thousand pounds from
+Hall ceased in 1766, and after that his income must have been seriously
+diminished, for the return from his invested savings is supposed to have
+been only about seven hundred pounds. He appears to have overdrawn his
+account with Hall, for there is a manuscript letter in the possession of
+Mr. Howard Edwards, of Philadelphia, written by Hall March 1, 1770,
+urging Franklin to pay nine hundred and ninety-three pounds which had
+been due for three years.
+
+He procured for his natural son, William, the royal governorship of New
+Jersey, and he was diligent all his life in getting government places
+for relatives. This practice does not appear to have been much
+disapproved of in his time; he was not subjected to abuse on account of
+it; and, indeed, nepotism is far preferable to some of the more modern
+methods.
+
+When Governor of Pennsylvania, after the Revolution, he declined, we are
+told, to receive any salary for his three years' service, accepting only
+his expenses for postage, which was high in those times, and amounted in
+this case to seventy-seven pounds for the three years. This is one of
+the innumerable statements about him in which the truth is distorted for
+the sake of eulogy. He did not decline to receive his salary, but he
+spent it in charity, and we find bequests of it in his will.
+
+As minister to France he had at first five hundred pounds a year and his
+expenses, and this was paid. He was also promised a secretary at a
+salary of one thousand pounds a year; but, as the secretary was never
+sent, he did the work himself with the assistance of his grandson,
+William Temple Franklin, who was allowed only three hundred pounds a
+year.
+
+He considered himself very much underpaid for his services in resisting
+the Stamp Act, for his mission to Canada in 1776 at the risk of his
+life, and for the long and laborious years which he spent in France.
+Certainly five hundred pounds a year and expenses was very small pay
+for his diplomatic work in Paris, but during the last six years of his
+mission there he received two thousand five hundred pounds a year, which
+would seem to be sufficient compensation for acting as ambassador, as
+well as merchant to buy and ship supplies to the United States, and as
+financial agent to examine and accept innumerable bills of exchange
+drawn by the Continental Congress (Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. ix.
+p. 127). In 1788, two years before his death, he made a statement of
+these claims for extra service and sent it to Congress, accompanied by a
+letter to his friend, Charles Thomson, the secretary.
+
+He thought that Congress should recognize these services by a grant of
+land, an office, or in some other way, as was the custom in Europe when
+an ambassador returned from a long foreign service; and he reminded
+Thomson that both Arthur Lee and John Jay had been rewarded handsomely
+for similar services. But the old Congress under the Articles of
+Confederation was then just expiring, and took no notice of his
+petition; and when the new Congress came in under the Constitution, it
+does not appear that his claims were presented. It is a mistake to say,
+however, as some have done, that the United States never paid him for
+his services and still owes him money. These claims were for extra
+services which the government had never obligated itself to pay.
+
+He died quite well off for those times, leaving an estate worth, it is
+supposed, considerably over one hundred thousand dollars. The rapid rise
+in the value of houses and land in Philadelphia after the Revolution
+accounts for a part of this sum. He owned five or six large houses in
+Philadelphia, the printing-house which he built for his grandson, and
+several small houses. He had also a number of vacant lots in the town, a
+house and lot in Boston, a tract of land in Nova Scotia, another large
+tract in Georgia, and still another in Ohio. His personal property,
+consisting mostly of bonds and money, was worth from sixty to seventy
+thousand dollars.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] Pp. 209-217.
+
+[16] Bigelow's Franklin from His Own Writings, vol. ii. p. 511.
+
+[17] Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. v. p. 376; also vol. x. p. 78;
+Adams's Works, vol. i. p. 659.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+SCIENCE
+
+
+The exact period at which Franklin began to turn his attention to
+original researches in science is difficult to determine. There are no
+traces of such efforts when he was a youth in Boston. He was not then
+interested in science, even in a boyish way. His instincts at that time
+led him almost exclusively in the direction of general reading and the
+training of himself in the literary art by verse-writing and by
+analyzing the essays of the _Spectator_.
+
+The atmosphere of Boston was completely theological. There was no room,
+no opportunity, for science, and no inducement or even suggestion that
+would lead to it, still less to original research in it. We find
+Franklin in a state of rebellion against the prevailing tone of thought,
+writing against it in his brother's newspaper at the risk of
+imprisonment, and in a manner more bitter and violent than anything he
+afterwards composed. If he had remained in Boston it is not likely that
+he would ever have taken seriously to science, for all his energies
+would have been absorbed in fighting those intolerant conditions which
+smothered all scientific inquiries.
+
+In Pennsylvania he found the conditions reversed. The Quakers and the
+German sects which made up the majority of the people of that province
+in colonial times had more advanced ideas of liberty and free thought
+than any of the other religious bodies in America, and in consequence
+science flourished in Pennsylvania long before it gained entrance into
+the other colonies. The first American medical college, the first
+hospital, and the first separate dispensary were established there.
+Several citizens of Philadelphia who were contemporaries of Franklin
+achieved sufficient reputation in science to make their names well known
+in Europe.
+
+David Rittenhouse invented the metallic thermometer, developed the
+construction of the compensation pendulum, and made valuable experiments
+on the compressibility of water. He became a famous astronomer,
+constructed an orrery to show the movements of the stars which was an
+improvement on all its predecessors, and conducted the observations of
+the transit of Venus in 1769. Pennsylvania was the only one of the
+colonies that took these observations, which in that year were taken by
+all the European governments in various parts of the world. The
+Legislature and public institutions, together with a large number of
+individuals, assisted in the undertaking, showing what very favorable
+conditions for science prevailed in the province.[18]
+
+These were the conditions which seem to have aroused Franklin. Without
+them his mind tended more naturally to literature, politics, and schemes
+of philanthropy and reform; but when his strong intellect was once
+directed towards science, he easily excelled in it. Some of the early
+questions discussed by the Junto, such as "Is sound an entity or body?"
+and "How may the phenomena of vapors be explained?" show an inclination
+towards scientific research; and it is very likely that he studied such
+subjects more or less during the ten years which followed his beginning
+business for himself.
+
+In his _Gazette_ for December 15, 1737, there is an essay on the causes
+of earthquakes, summarizing the various explanations which had been
+given by learned men, and this essay is supposed to have been written by
+him. Six years afterwards he made what has been usually considered his
+first discovery,--namely, that the northeast storms of the Atlantic
+coast move against the wind; or, in other words, that instead of these
+storms coming from the northeast, whence the wind blows, they come from
+the southwest. He was led to this discovery by attempting to observe an
+eclipse of the moon which occurred on the evening of October 21, 1743;
+but he was prevented by a heavy northeaster which did great damage on
+the coast. He was surprised to find that it had not prevented the people
+of Boston from seeing the eclipse. The storm, though coming from the
+northeast, swept over Philadelphia before it reached Boston. For several
+years he carefully collected information about these storms, and found
+in every instance that they began to leeward and were often more violent
+there than farther to windward.
+
+He seems to have been the first person to observe these facts, but he
+took no pains to make his observations public, except in conversation or
+in letters to prominent men like Jared Eliot, of Connecticut, and these
+letters were not published until long afterwards. This was his method in
+all his investigations. He never wrote a book on science; he merely
+reported his investigations and experiments by letter, usually to
+learned people in England or France. There were no scientific
+periodicals in those days. The men who were interested in such things
+kept in touch with one another by means of correspondence and an
+occasional pamphlet or book.
+
+During the same period in which he was making observations on northeast
+storms he invented the "Pennsylvania Fireplace," as he called it, a new
+sort of stove which was a great improvement over the old methods of
+heating rooms. He published a complete description of this stove in
+1745, and it is one of the most interesting essays he ever wrote. It is
+astonishing with what pleasure one can still read the first half of this
+essay written one hundred and fifty years ago on the driest of dry
+subjects. The language is so clear and beautiful, and the homely
+personality of the writer so manifest, that one is inclined to lay down
+the principle that the test of literary genius is the ability to be
+fascinating about stoves.
+
+He explained the laws of hot air and its movements; the Holland stove,
+which afforded but little ventilation; the German stove, which was
+simply an iron box fed from outside, with no ventilating properties; and
+the great open fireplace fed with huge logs, which required such a
+draft to prevent the smoke from coming back into the room that the outer
+door had to be left open,--and if the door was shut the draft would draw
+the outer air whistling and howling through the crevices of the windows.
+His "Pennsylvania Fireplace" was what we would now call an
+open-fireplace stove. It was intended to be less wasteful of fuel than
+the ordinary fireplace and to give ventilation, while combining the
+heating power of the German and Holland stoves. It continued in common
+use for nearly a century, and modified forms of it are still called the
+Franklin stoves.
+
+One of its greatest advantages was that it saved wood, which, for some
+time prior to the introduction of coal, had to be brought such a long
+distance that it was becoming very expensive. Franklin refused to take
+out a patent for his invention; for he was on principle opposed to
+patents, and said that as we enjoyed great advantages from the
+inventions of others, we should be willing to serve them by inventions
+of our own. He afterwards learned that a London ironmonger made a few
+changes in the "Pennsylvania Fireplace" and sold it as his own, gaining
+a small fortune.
+
+Franklin's invention was undoubtedly an improvement on the old methods
+of heating and ventilation; but he was not, as has been absurdly
+claimed, the founder of the "American stove system," for that system
+very soon departed from his lines and went back to the air-tight stoves
+of Germany and Holland.
+
+It was not until 1746 or 1747, after he had been making original
+researches in science for about five years, that he took up the subject
+of electricity, and he was then forty-one years old. It appears that Mr.
+Peter Collinson, of London, who was interested in botany and other
+sciences, and corresponded largely on such subjects, had presented to
+the Philadelphia Library one of the glass tubes which were used at that
+time for producing electricity by rubbing them with silk or skin.
+Franklin began experimenting with this tube, and seems to have been
+fascinated by the new subject. On March 28, 1747, he wrote to Mr.
+Collinson thanking him for the tube, and saying that they had observed
+with its aid some phenomena which they thought to be new.
+
+    "For my own part, I never was before engaged in any study that
+    so totally engrossed my attention and my time as this has lately
+    done; for what with making experiments when I can be alone, and
+    repeating them to my friends and acquaintance, who from the
+    novelty of the thing, come continually in crowds to see them, I
+    have, during some months past, had little leisure for anything
+    else."
+
+It will be observed that he speaks of crowds coming to see the
+experiments, and this confirms what I have already shown of the strong
+interest in science which prevailed at that time in Pennsylvania, and
+which had evidently first aroused Franklin. In fact, a renewed interest
+in science had been recently stirred up all over the world, and people
+who had never before thought much of such things became investigators.
+Voltaire, who resembled Franklin in many ways, had turned aside from
+literature, and at forty-one, the same age at which Franklin began the
+study of electricity, had become a man of science, and for four years
+devoted himself to experiments.
+
+Franklin was by no means alone in his studies. Besides the crowds who
+were interested from mere curiosity, there were three men--Ebenezer
+Kinnersley, Thomas Hopkinson, and Philip Syng--who experimented with
+him, and it was no mere amateurish work in which these men were engaged.
+Franklin was their spokesman and reported the results of his and their
+labor by means of letters to Mr. Peter Collinson. Within six months
+Hopkinson had observed the power of points to throw off electricity, or
+electrical fire, as he called it, and Franklin had discovered and
+described what is now known as positive and negative electricity. Within
+the same time Syng had invented an electrical machine, consisting of a
+sphere revolved on an axis with a handle, which was better adapted for
+producing the electrical spark than the tube-rubbing practised in
+Europe.
+
+The experiments and the letters to Collinson describing them continued,
+and about this time we find Franklin writing a long and apparently the
+first intelligent explanation of the action of the Leyden jar. Then
+followed attempts to explain thunder and lightning as phenomena of
+electricity, and on July 29, 1750, Franklin sent to Collinson a paper
+announcing the invention of the lightning-rod, together with an
+explanation of its action.
+
+In these papers he also suggested an experiment which would prove
+positively that lightning was a form of electricity. The two phenomena
+were alike as regarded light, color, crooked direction, noise, swift
+motion, being conducted by metals, subsisting in water or ice, rending
+bodies, killing animals, melting metals, and setting fire to various
+substances. It remained to demonstrate with absolute certainty that
+lightning resembled electricity in being attracted by points; and for
+this purpose Franklin proposed that a man stand in a sort of sentry-box
+on the top of some high tower or steeple and with a pointed rod draw
+electricity from passing thunder-clouds.
+
+This suggestion was successfully carried out in France, in the presence
+of the king, at the county-seat of the Duke D'Ayen; and afterwards
+Buffon, D'Alibard, and Du Lor confirmed it by experiments of their own.
+But they did not use steeples; they erected lofty iron rods, in one
+instance ninety-nine feet high. Nevertheless, it was in effect the same
+method that Franklin had suggested. The experiment was repeated in
+various forms in England, and the Philadelphia philosopher, postmaster,
+and author of "Poor Richard" became instantly famous as the discoverer
+of the identity of lightning with electricity.
+
+Two years before these experiments were inaugurated he had retired from
+business for various reasons, chief among which was his strong desire to
+devote more time to science. His letters continue to be filled with
+closely reasoned details of all sorts of experiments. So earnest were
+these Philadelphia investigators, that when Kinnersley wrote complaining
+that in travelling to Boston he found difficulty in keeping up his
+experiments, Franklin, in reply, suggested a portable electrical
+apparatus which would not break on a journey.
+
+In a letter written to Collinson on October 19, 1752, Franklin says he
+had heard of the success in France of the experiment he had suggested
+for drawing the lightning from clouds by means of an elevated metal rod;
+but in the mean time he had contrived another method for accomplishing
+the same result without the aid of a steeple or lofty iron rod. This was
+the kite experiment of which we have heard so much, and he goes on to
+describe it:
+
+    "Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so
+    long as to reach to the four corners of a large thin silk
+    handkerchief when extended; tie the corners of the handkerchief
+    to the extremities of the cross, so you have the body of a kite;
+    which being properly accommodated with a tail, loop, and string,
+    will rise in the air, like those made of paper; but this being
+    of silk is fitter to bear the wet and wind of a thunder gust
+    without tearing. To the top of the upright stick of the cross is
+    to be fixed a very sharp pointed wire, rising a foot or more
+    above the wood. To the end of the twine, next the hand, is to be
+    tied a silk ribbon, and where the silk and twine join, a key may
+    be fastened. This kite is to be raised when a thunder-gust
+    appears to be coming on, and the person who holds the string
+    must stand within a door or window, or under some cover, so that
+    the silk ribbon may not be wet; and care must be taken that the
+    twine does not touch the frame of the door or window. As soon as
+    any of the thunder clouds come over the kite, the pointed wire
+    will draw the electric fire from them, and the kite, with all
+    the twine, will be electrified, and the loose filaments of the
+    twine, will stand out every way, and be attracted by an
+    approaching finger. And when the rain has wetted the kite and
+    twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will
+    find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of
+    your knuckle. At this key the phial may be charged: and from
+    electric fire thus obtained, spirits may be kindled, and all the
+    other electric experiments be performed, which are usually done
+    by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the
+    sameness of the electric matter with that of lightning
+    completely demonstrated."
+
+This is the only description by Franklin of the experiment which added
+so much to his reputation. Franklin and the kite became a story for
+school-books; innumerable pictures of him and his son drawing the
+lightning down the string were made and reproduced for a century or more
+in every conceivable form, and even engraved on some of our national
+currency.
+
+The experiment was made in June, 1752; in the following October the
+above letter was written, and the news it contained appears to have
+rushed over the world without any effort on his part to spread it. He
+never wrote anything more concerning this experiment than the very
+simple and unaffected letter to Mr. Collinson. But people, of course,
+asked him about it, and from the details which they professed to have
+obtained grand statements have been built up describing his conduct and
+emotions on that memorable June afternoon on the outskirts of
+Philadelphia, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of the present Vine
+Street, near Fourth; how his heart stood still with anxiety lest the
+trial should fail; how with trembling hand he applied his knuckles to
+the key, and the wild exultation with which he saw success crown his
+efforts.
+
+But it is safe to say that there were none of these theatrical
+exhibitions, and that he made the experiment in that matter-of-fact and
+probably half-humorous way in which he did everything. Nothing important
+depended on it, for he had already proved conclusively, not only by
+reasoning but by his suggested experiments which had been tried in
+Europe, that thunder and lightning were phenomena of electricity. The
+kite was used because there were in Philadelphia no high steeples on
+which he could try the experiment that had proved his discovery in
+France.
+
+But it was Franklin's good fortune on a number of occasions to be placed
+in picturesque and striking situations, which greatly increased his
+fame. He did not foresee that kite-flying would be one of these, and as
+it was not essential to his discovery of the nature of lightning, he was
+disinclined at first to think much of it, and did not even report it to
+Mr. Collinson until after several months had elapsed. But the world
+fixed upon it instantly as something easy to remember. To this day it is
+the popular way of illustrating Franklin's discovery, and is all that
+most people know of his contributions to science.
+
+He went on steadily reporting his experiments to Collinson, and in 1753
+was at work on the mistaken hypothesis of the sea being the grand source
+of lightning, but at the same time making the discovery of the negative
+and sometimes positive electricity of the clouds. He had a rod erected
+on his house to draw down into it the mystical fire of any passing
+clouds, with bells arranged to warn him when his apparatus was working;
+and it was about this time that he was struck senseless and almost
+killed while trying the effect of an electrical shock on a turkey.
+
+Collinson kept his letters, and in May, 1751, had them published in a
+pamphlet called "New Experiments and Observations in Electricity made at
+Philadelphia in America." It had immediately, like all of Franklin's
+writings, a vast success, at first in France, and afterwards in England
+and other countries. Franklin was, strange to say, always more popular
+in France than in either America or England. In England his experiments
+in electricity were at first laughed at, and the Royal Society refused
+to publish his letters in their proceedings. But after Collinson had
+secured their publication in a pamphlet, they were translated into
+German, Italian, and Latin, as well as into French, and were greatly
+admired not only for the discoveries and knowledge they revealed, but
+for their fascinating style and noble candor tinged occasionally with
+the most telling and homely humor.
+
+It has been repeatedly charged that Franklin was indebted to his
+fellow-worker, Kinnersley, for his discoveries in electricity. The
+charge is so vaguely made that it is impossible to ascertain which of
+them are supposed to have been stolen. In Franklin's letters on
+electricity there are frequent footnotes giving credit to Hopkinson and
+Syng for their original work, and there are also in his published works
+letters to and from Kinnersley. He and Kinnersley seem to have been
+always fast friends, and, so far as I can discover, the latter never
+accused Franklin of stealing from him.
+
+After he had proved in such a brilliant manner that lightning was merely
+one of the forms or phenomena of that mysterious fire which appears when
+we rub a glass tube with buckskin, Franklin made no more discoveries in
+science; but his interest and patience of research were unabated. He
+cannot be ranked among the great men of science, the Newtons and
+Keplers, or the Humboldts, Huxleys, or Darwins. He belongs rather in the
+second class, among the minor discoverers. But his discovery of the
+nature of lightning was so striking and so capable of arousing the
+wonder of the masses of mankind, and his invention of the lightning-rod
+was regarded as so universally valuable, that he has received more
+popular applause than men whose achievements were greater and more
+important.
+
+During the rest of his life his work in science was principally in the
+way of encouraging its study. He was always observing, collecting facts,
+and writing out his conclusions. The public business in which he was
+soon constantly employed, and the long years of his diplomatic service
+in England and France, were serious interruptions, and during the last
+part of his life it was not often that he could steal time for that
+loving investigation of nature which after his thirtieth year became the
+great passion of his life.
+
+His command of language had seldom been put to better use than in
+explaining the rather subtle ideas and conceptions in the early
+development of electricity. Even now after the lapse of one hundred and
+fifty years we seem to gain a fresher understanding of that subject by
+reading his homely and beautiful explanations; and modern students would
+have an easier time if Franklin were still here to write their
+text-books. His subsequent letters and essays were many of them even
+more happily expressed than the famous letters on electricity.
+
+In old editions of his works all his writings on science were collected
+in one place, so that they could be read consecutively, which was rather
+better than the modern strictly chronological plan by which they are
+scattered throughout eight or ten large volumes. As we look over one of
+the old editions we feel almost compelled to begin original research at
+once,--it seems so easy and pretty. There are long investigations about
+water-spouts and whirlwinds,--whether a water-spout ever actually
+touches the surface of the sea, and whether its action is downward from
+the sky or upward from the water. He interviewed sea-captains and
+received letters from people in the West Indies to help him, and those
+who had once come within the circle of his fascination were never weary
+of giving aid.
+
+He investigated what he called the light in sea-water, now called
+phosphorescence. The cause of the saltness of the sea and the existence
+of masses of salt or salt-mines in the earth he explained by the theory
+that all the water of the world had once been salt, for sea-shells and
+the bones of fishes were found, he said, on high land; upheavals had
+isolated parts of the original water, which on evaporation had left the
+salt, and this being covered with earth, became a salt-mine. This
+explanation was given in a letter to his brother Peter, and is really a
+little essay on geology, which was then not known by that or any other
+name, but consisted merely of a few scattered observations.
+
+Many of his most interesting explanations of phenomena appear in letters
+to the young women with whom he was on such friendly terms. Indeed, it
+has been said that he was never at his best except when writing to
+women. People believe, he tells Miss Stevenson, that all rivers run
+into the sea, and he goes on to show in his most clever way that some
+rivers do not. The waters of the Delaware, for example, and the waters
+of the rivers that flow into Chesapeake Bay, probably never reach the
+ocean. The salt water backing up against them twice a day acts as a dam,
+and their fresh water is dissipated by evaporation. Only a few, like the
+Amazon and the Orinoco, are known to force their fresh water far out on
+the surface of the sea. In this same letter he describes the experiments
+he made to prove that dark colors absorb more of the sun's rays, and are
+therefore warmer than white.
+
+While representing Pennsylvania in England, and living with Mrs.
+Stevenson, in Craven Street, London, he made an experiment to prove that
+vessels move faster in deep than in shallow water. This was generally
+believed by seafaring men; but Franklin had a wooden trough made with a
+false bottom by which he could regulate the depth of water, and he put
+in it a little boat drawn by a string which ran over a pulley at the end
+of the trough, with a shilling attached for a weight. In this way he
+succeeded in demonstrating a natural law which, though known to
+practical men, had never been described in books of science.
+
+He took much pains to collect information about the Gulf Stream. This
+wonderful river in the ocean has been long known, but the first people
+to observe it closely were the Nantucket whalemen, who found that their
+game was numerous on the edges of it, but was never seen within its
+warm waters. In consequence of their more exact knowledge they were
+able to make faster voyages than other seamen. Franklin learned about it
+from them, and on his numerous voyages made many observations, which he
+carefully recorded. He obtained a map of it from one of the whalemen,
+which he caused to be engraved for the general benefit of navigation on
+the old London chart then universally used by sailors. But the British
+captains slighted it, and this, like his other efforts in science, was
+first appreciated in France.
+
+He has been called the discoverer of the temperature of the Gulf Stream;
+but this statement is somewhat misleading. That the stream was warmer
+than the surrounding ocean seems to have been long known; but Franklin
+was the first to take its temperature at different points with a
+thermometer. He did this most systematically on several of his voyages,
+even when suffering severely from sea-sickness, and thus suggested the
+use of the thermometer in investigating ocean currents. He first took
+these temperatures in 1775, and the next year Dr. Charles Blagden, of
+the British army, took them while on the voyage to America with troops
+to suppress the Revolution. He and Franklin are ranked together as the
+first to show the value of an instrument which is now universally used
+in ocean experiments as well as in the practical navigation of
+ships.[19]
+
+In the same careful manner he collected all that was known of the effect
+of oil in stilling waves by making the surface so smooth and slippery
+that the wind cannot act on it. So fascinated was he with this
+investigation that he had a cane made with a little receptacle for oil
+in the head of it, and when walking in the country in England
+experimented on every pond he passed. But it would be long to tell of
+all he wrote on light and heat, the _vis inertiae_ of matter, magnetism,
+rainfall, evaporation, and the aurora borealis.
+
+One of the discomforts of colonial times, when large open fireplaces
+were so common, was a smoky chimney. Franklin's attention was drawn to
+this question about the time that he invented the Pennsylvania
+fireplaces, and he made an exhaustive study of the nature of smoke and
+heated air. He became very skilful in correcting defects in the chimneys
+of his friends' houses, and while he was in England noblemen and
+distinguished people often sought his aid. It was not, however, until
+1785, near the close of his life, that he put his knowledge in writing
+in a letter to Dr. Ingenhausz, physician to the Emperor of Austria. The
+letter was published and extensively circulated as the best summary of
+all that was known on this important question. It is as fresh and
+interesting to-day as when it was written, and well worth reading,
+because it explains so charmingly the philosophy of some phenomena of
+common occurrence which modern books of science are not at much pains to
+make clear.
+
+His enemies, of course, ridiculed him as a chimney doctor, and his
+friends have gone to the other extreme in implying that he was the only
+man in the world who understood the action of heat and smoke, and that,
+alone and unaided, he delivered mankind from a great destroyer of their
+domestic comfort. But his letter shows that most of his knowledge and
+remedies were drawn from the French and Germans. In this, as in many
+other similar services, he was merely an excellent collector of
+scattered material, which he summarized so well that it was more
+available than before. He was by no means the only person in the world
+who could doctor a chimney; but there were few, if any, who could
+describe in such beautiful language the way in which it was done.
+
+He invented a stove that would consume its own smoke, taking the
+principle from a Frenchman who had shown how the flame of a burning
+substance could be made to draw downward through the fuel, so that the
+smoke was burnt with the fuel. But the way in which this invention is
+usually described would lead one to suppose that it was entirely
+original with Franklin.
+
+He was much interested in agriculture, and was an earnest advocate of
+mineral manures, encouraged grape culture, and helped to introduce the
+basket willow and broom-corn into the United States. He at one time
+owned a farm of three hundred acres near Burlington, New Jersey, where
+he tried agricultural experiments. He dabbled in medicine, as has been
+shown, and also wasted time over that ancient delusion, phonetic
+spelling.
+
+Knowing, as we do, Franklin's versatility, it is nevertheless somewhat
+of a surprise to find him venturing into the sphere of music. He is said
+to have been able to play on the harp, the guitar, and the violin, but
+probably only in a philosopher's way and not well on any of them. Some
+people in England had succeeded in constructing a musical instrument
+made of glasses, the idea being taken from the pleasant sound produced
+by passing a wet finger round the brim of a drinking-glass. When in
+England Franklin was so delighted with these instruments that he set
+about improving them. He had glasses specially moulded of a bell-like
+shape and ground with great care until each had its proper note. They
+were placed in a frame in such a way that they could all be set
+revolving at once by means of a treadle worked by the foot, and as they
+revolved they were played by the wet fingers pressed on their brims. He
+gave the name "Armonica" to his instrument, and describes its tones as
+"incomparably sweet beyond those of any other." It is said to have been
+used in public concerts, and it was one of the curiosities at his famous
+Craven Street lodging-house in London, where he also had a fine
+electrical apparatus, and took pleasure in showing his English friends
+the American experiments of which they had heard so much.
+
+He seems to have studied music with great care as a science, just as he
+studied the whirlwinds, the smoke, and the lightning; but he was
+unalterably opposed to the so-called modern music then becoming
+fashionable, and which is still to a great extent the music of our time.
+The pleasure derived from it was, he said, not the natural pleasure
+caused by harmony of sounds, but rather that felt on seeing the
+surprising feats of tumblers and rope-dancers.
+
+    "Many pieces of it are mere compositions of tricks. I have
+    sometimes, at a concert, attended by a common audience, placed
+    myself so as to see all their faces, and observed no signs of
+    pleasure in them during the performance of a great part that was
+    admired by the performers themselves; while a plain old Scotch
+    tune, which they disdained, and could scarcely be prevailed upon
+    to play, gave manifest and general delight."
+
+In a letter to Lord Kames which has been often quoted he explained at
+length, and for the most part in very technical language, the reasons
+for the superiority of the Scotch tunes.
+
+    "Farther, when we consider by whom these ancient tunes were
+    composed and how they were first performed we shall see that
+    such harmonical successions of sounds were natural and even
+    necessary in their construction. They 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 be 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 forever, though men
+    scarce know why."
+
+Franklin's numerous voyages naturally turned his mind to problems of the
+sea. He pondered much on the question whether the daily motion of the
+earth from west to east would increase the speed of a ship sailing
+eastward and retard it on a westward passage. He was not quite sure that
+the earth's motion would have such an effect, but he thought it
+possible.
+
+    "I wish I had mathematics enough to satisfy myself whether the
+    much shorter voyages made by ships bound hence to England, than
+    by those from England hither, are not in some degree owing to
+    the diurnal motion of the earth, and if so in what degree. It is
+    a notion that has lately entered my mind; I know not if ever any
+    other's." (Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. ii. p. 14.)
+
+He referred to the subject again soon after, and finally a few years
+before his death,[20] but always as an unsettled question. The idea
+seems never to have got beyond the stage of investigation with him, but
+Parton has built up out of it a wonderful discovery.
+
+    "He conceived an idea still more practically useful, which has
+    since given rise to a little library of nautical works, and
+    conferred unmerited honor upon a naval charlatan--Maury. This
+    idea was that by studying the form and motions of the earth and
+    directing a ship's course so that it shall partake of the
+    earth's diurnal motion a voyage may be materially shortened."
+    (Parton's "Life of Franklin," vol. ii. p. 72.)
+
+This is certainly a most extraordinary statement to be made by a writer
+like Parton, who has given the main facts of Franklin's life with
+considerable fidelity. He refers to it again in another passage, in
+which he says that this method of navigation is now used by all
+intelligent seamen. But there is no evidence that it was ever so used.
+He may have confused it with great circle sailing. The theory is an
+exploded one. There is no library of nautical works on the subject, and
+I think that the officers of the United States navy, the captains of the
+great ocean liners, and thousands of sailors all over the world would
+be very much surprised to hear Maury called a charlatan.
+
+Maury's wonderful investigations were not in the line of sailing a ship
+so as to take advantage of the earth's diurnal motion, and could not
+have been suggested by such an idea. He explored the physical geography
+of the sea, and particularly the currents, trade-winds, and zones of
+calm. It was he who first worked out the shortest routes from place to
+place, which are still used. Although he never made a picturesque and
+brilliant discovery about lightning, and had not Franklin's exquisite
+power of expression, he was a much more remarkable man of science.
+
+In a long letter to Alphonsus Le Roy, of Paris, written in 1785, on his
+voyage home from France with Captain Truxton, Franklin summed up all his
+maritime observations, including what he knew of the Gulf Stream. This
+letter is full of most curious suggestions for the navigation of ships,
+and was accompanied by a plate of carefully drawn figures, which has
+been reproduced in most editions of his works.
+
+So much attention had been given, he said, to shaping the hull of a
+vessel so as to offer the least resistance to the water, that it was
+time the sails were shaped so as to offer the least resistance to the
+air. He proposed to do this by making the sails smaller and increasing
+their number, and contrived a most curious rig (Fig. 4) which he thought
+would offer the least resistance both in sailing free and in beating to
+windward.
+
+[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S MARITIME SUGGESTIONS]
+
+Figs. 5, 6, and 7 show why, in those days of rope cables, a ship was
+always breaking the cable where it bent at right angles just outside the
+hawse-hole. All the strain was on the outer strands of the rope at _a b
+c_, Fig. 7, and as they broke the others followed one by one. His remedy
+for this was to have a large wheel or pulley in the hawse-hole.
+
+Figs. 8 and 9 show how a vessel with a leak at first fills very rapidly,
+so that the crew, finding they cannot gain on the water with the pumps,
+take to their boats. But if they would remain they would find after a
+while that the quantity entering would be less as the surfaces without
+and within became more nearly equal, and that the pumps would now be
+able to prevent it from rising higher. The water would also begin to
+reach light wooden work, empty chests, and water-casks, which would give
+buoyancy, and thus the ship could be kept afloat longer than the crew at
+first expected. In this connection he calls attention to the Chinese
+method of water-tight compartments which Mr. Le Roy had already adopted
+in his boat on the Seine.
+
+Fig. 12 is intended to show the loss of power in a paddle-wheel because
+the stroke from _A_ to _B_ is downward and from _D_ to _X_ upward, and
+the only effective stroke is from _B_ to _D_. A better method of
+propulsion, he thinks, is by pumping water out through the stern, as
+shown in Figs. 13 and 14.
+
+Figs. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 illustrate methods of making
+floating sea anchors by which to lay a vessel to in a gale. Fig. 24
+shows how a heavy boat may be drawn ashore by bending the rope from _C_
+to _D_. Fig. 23 represents a new way of planking ships to secure greater
+strength, and Figs. 26 and 27 are soup-dishes which will not spill in a
+heavy sea. But this delightful letter is published in all of the
+editions of his works, and should be read in order to render his
+ingenious contrivances intelligible.
+
+Among the few of Franklin's writings on scientific subjects which are
+not in the form of letters is an essay, entitled "Peopling of
+Countries," supposed to have been written in 1751. It is in part
+intended to show that Great Britain was not injured by the immigration
+to America; the gap was soon filled up; and the colonies, by consuming
+British manufactures, increased the resources of the mother country. The
+essay is full of reflections on political economy, which had not then
+become a science, and the twenty-second section contains the statement
+that there is no bound to the productiveness of plants and animals other
+than that occasioned by their crowding and interfering with one
+another's means of subsistence. This statement supplied Malthus with the
+foundation for his famous theory that the population of the earth
+increased in a geometrical ratio, while the means of subsistence
+increased only in an arithmetical ratio, and some of those who opposed
+this theory devoted themselves to showing error in Franklin's
+twenty-second section rather than to disputing the conclusions of
+Malthus, which they believed would fall if Franklin could be shown to be
+in the wrong.
+
+He investigated the new field of political economy with the same
+thoroughness as the other departments of science, and wrote on national
+wealth, the price of corn, free trade, the effects of luxury, idleness,
+and industry, the slave-trade, and peace and war. The humor and
+imagination in one of his letters to Dr. Priestley on war justify the
+quoting of a part of it:
+
+    "A young angel of distinction being sent down to this world on
+    some business, for the first time, had an old courier-spirit
+    assigned him as a guide. They arrived over the seas of
+    Martinico, in the middle of the long day of obstinate fight
+    between the fleets of Rodney and De Grasse. When through the
+    clouds of smoke he saw the fire of the guns, the decks covered
+    with mangled limbs and bodies dead and dying, or blown into the
+    air, and the quantity of pain, misery, and destruction the crews
+    yet alive were thus with so much eagerness dealing round to one
+    another, he turned angrily to his guide and said, 'You
+    blundering blockhead, you are ignorant of your business; you
+    undertook to conduct me to the earth and you have brought me
+    into hell!' 'No, sir,' says the guide, 'I have made no mistake;
+    this is really the earth, and these are men. Devils never treat
+    one another in this cruel manner; they have more sense, and more
+    of what men (vainly) call humanity.'" (Bigelow's Works of
+    Franklin, vol. vii. p. 465.)
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] Making of Pennsylvania, chap. ix.
+
+[19] Pillsbury's Gulf Stream, published by the U. S. government.
+
+[20] Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. ii. p. 331; vol. ix. p. 185.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE PENNSYLVANIA POLITICIAN
+
+
+While Franklin kept his little stationery shop and printing-office, sent
+out his almanacs every year, read and studied, experimented in science,
+and hoped for an assured income which would give larger leisure for
+study and experiment, he was all the time drifting more and more into
+public life. In a certain sense he had been accustomed to dealing with
+living public questions from boyhood. When an apprentice in his teens,
+he had written articles for his brother's newspaper attacking the
+established religious and political system of Massachusetts, and during
+his brother's imprisonment the newspaper had been published in the
+apprentice's name. In Pennsylvania his own newspaper, the _Gazette_,
+which he established when he was but twenty-three years old, made him
+something of a public man; and his pamphlet in favor of paper money,
+which appeared at about the same period, showed how strongly his mind
+inclined towards the large questions of government.
+
+When he reached manhood he also developed a strong inclination to assist
+in public improvements, in the encouragement of thrift and comfort, and
+in the relief of suffering, subjects which are now included under the
+heads of philanthropy and reform. He had in full measure the social and
+public spirit of the Anglo-Saxon, the spirit which instinctively builds
+up the community while at the same time it is deeply devoted to its own
+concerns. The only one of his ancestors that had risen above humble
+conditions was of this sort, and had been a leader in the public affairs
+of a village.
+
+His natural disposition towards benevolent enterprises was much
+stimulated, he tells us, by a book called "Essays to do Good," by the
+eminent Massachusetts divine, Cotton Mather, of witchcraft fame. He also
+read about the same time De Foe's "Essay upon Projects," a volume
+recommending asylums for the insane, technical schools, mutual benefit
+societies, improved roads, better banking, bankrupt laws, and other
+things which have now become the commonplace characteristics of our age.
+
+His club, the Junto, was the first important fruit of this benevolent
+disposition. At first its members kept all their books at its rooms for
+the common benefit; but some of the books having been injured, all were
+taken back by the owners, and this loss suggested to Franklin the idea
+of a circulating library supported by subscriptions. He drew up a plan
+and went about soliciting money in 1731, but it took him more than a
+year to collect forty-five pounds. James Logan, the secretary of the
+province, gave advice as to what books to buy, and the money was sent to
+London to be expended by Mr. Peter Collinson, to whom Franklin's famous
+letters on electricity were afterwards written.
+
+Mr. Collinson was the literary and philosophic agent of Pennsylvania in
+those days. To him John Bartram, the first American botanist, sent the
+plants that he collected in the New World, and Mr. Collinson obtained
+for him the money with which to pursue his studies. Collinson encouraged
+the new library in every way. For thirty years he made for it the annual
+purchase of books, always adding one or two volumes as a present, and it
+will be remembered that it was through him that Franklin obtained the
+electrical tube which started him on his remarkable discoveries.
+
+The library began its existence at the Junto's rooms and grew steadily.
+Influential people gradually became interested in it and added their
+gifts. For half a century it occupied rooms in various buildings,--at
+one time in the State-House, and during the Revolution in Carpenters'
+Hall,--until in 1790, the year of Franklin's death, it erected a pretty
+building on Fifth Street, opposite Independence square. During the
+period from 1731 to 1790 similar libraries were established in the town,
+which it absorbed one by one: in 1769 the Union Library, in 1771 the
+Association Library Company and Amicable Library Company, and, finally,
+in 1790 the Loganian Library, which James Logan had established by his
+will. Before the Revolution the number of books increased but slowly,
+and in 1785 was only 5487. They now number 190,000.
+
+Franklin says that it was the mother of subscription libraries in North
+America, and that in a few years the colonists became more of a reading
+people, and the common tradesmen and farmers were as intelligent as
+most gentlemen from other countries. This statement seems to be
+justified; for within a few years libraries sprang up in New England and
+the South, and they may have been suggested by the Philadelphia Library
+which Franklin founded.
+
+I have already shown how Franklin established the academy which soon
+became the College of Philadelphia, but this was some twenty years after
+he founded the library. Almost immediately after the academy was started
+Dr. Thomas Bond sought his assistance in establishing a hospital.
+Pennsylvania was receiving at that time great numbers of German
+immigrants, who arrived in crowded ships after a voyage of months, in a
+terrible state of dirt and disease. There was no proper place provided
+for them, and they were a source of danger to the rest of the people. A
+hospital was needed, and Dr. Bond, at first meeting with but little
+success, finally accomplished his object with the assistance of
+Franklin, who obtained for him a grant of two thousand pounds from the
+Assembly, and helped to stir up subscribers.
+
+This was the first hospital in America, and it still fulfils its mission
+in the beautiful old colonial buildings which were originally erected
+for it. Additional buildings have been since added, fortunately, in the
+same style of architecture. For the corner-stone Franklin wrote an
+inscription matchless for its originality and appropriateness:
+
+    "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 OF MERCIES bless the undertaking."
+
+In the same spirit Franklin secured by a little agitation the paving of
+the street round the market, and afterwards started subscriptions to
+keep this pavement clean. At that time the streets of Philadelphia, like
+those of most of the colonial towns, were merely earth roads, and it was
+not until some years after Franklin's first efforts at the market that
+there was any general paving done. He also secured a well-regulated
+night watch for the city in place of the disorderly, drunken heelers of
+the constables, who had long made a farce of the duty; and he
+established a volunteer fire company which was the foundation of the
+system that prevailed in Philadelphia until the paid department was
+introduced after the civil war.
+
+The American Philosophical Society, which was also originated by him,
+might seem to be more entitled to mention in the chapter on science. But
+it was really a benevolent enterprise, intended to propagate useful
+knowledge, to encourage agriculture, trade, and the mechanic arts, and
+to multiply the conveniences and pleasures of life. He first suggested
+it in 1743, in which year he prepared a plan for a society for promoting
+useful knowledge, and one appears to have been organized which led a
+languishing existence until 1769, when it was joined by another
+organization, called "The American Society held at Philadelphia for
+Promoting Useful Knowledge," and from this union resulted the American
+Philosophical Society, which still exists. Franklin was for a long time
+its president, and was succeeded by Rittenhouse. It was the first
+society in America devoted to science. Thomas Jefferson and other
+prominent persons throughout the colonies were members of it, and during
+the colonial period and long afterwards it held a very important
+position.
+
+Franklin was by nature a public man; but the beginning of his life as an
+office-holder may be said to have dated from his appointment as clerk of
+the Assembly. This took place in 1736, when he had been in business for
+himself for some years, and his newspaper and "Poor Richard" were well
+under way. It was a tiresome task to sit for hours listening to buncombe
+speeches, and drawing magic squares and circles to while away the time.
+But he valued the appointment because it gave him influence with the
+members and a hold on the public printing.
+
+The second year his election to the office was opposed; an influential
+member wanted the place for a friend, and Franklin had a chance to show
+a philosopher's skill in practical politics.
+
+    "Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce
+    and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of
+    perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of
+    lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I
+    return'd it in about a week with another note, expressing
+    strongly my sense of the favour. When we next met, in the House,
+    he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great
+    civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me
+    on all occasions, so that we became great friends and our
+    friendship continued to his death. This is another instance of
+    the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says 'He that has
+    once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another,
+    than he whom you yourself have obliged.'" (Bigelow's Franklin
+    from his own Writings, vol. i. p. 260.)
+
+Some people have professed to be very much shocked at this disingenuous
+trick, as they call it, although perhaps capable of far more
+discreditable ones themselves. It would be well if no worse could be
+said of modern practical politics.
+
+Franklin held his clerkship nearly fifteen years. During this period he
+was also postmaster of Philadelphia, and these two offices, with the
+benevolent enterprises of the library, the hospital, the Philosophical
+Society, and the academy and college, made him very much of a public man
+in the best sense of the word long before he was engaged in regular
+politics.
+
+In the year 1747 he performed an important public service by organizing
+the militia. War had been declared by England against both France and
+Spain, and the colonies were called upon to help the mother country.
+Great difficulty was experienced in recruiting troops in Quaker
+Pennsylvania, although the Quakers would indirectly consent to it when
+given a reasonable excuse. They would vote money for the king's use, and
+the king's officials might take the responsibility of using it for war;
+they would supply provisions to the army, for that was charity; and on
+one occasion they voted four thousand pounds for the purchase of beef,
+pork, flour, wheat, or _other grain_; and as powder was grain, the money
+was used in supplying it.
+
+But the actual recruiting of troops was more difficult, and it was to
+further this object that Franklin exerted himself. He wrote one of his
+clever pamphlets showing the danger of a French invasion, and supplied
+biblical texts in favor of defensive war. Then calling a mass-meeting in
+the large building afterwards used for the college, he urged the people
+to form an association for defence. Papers were distributed among them,
+and in a few minutes he had twelve hundred signatures. These citizen
+soldiers were called "Associators,"--a name used down to the time of the
+Revolution to describe the Pennsylvania militia. In a few days he had
+enrolled ten thousand volunteers, which shows how large the combatant
+portion of the population was in spite of Quaker doctrine.
+
+In 1748 he retired from active business with the purpose of devoting
+himself to science. It was the custom at that time to give retired men
+of business the more important public offices; and in 1752, about the
+time of his discovery of the nature of lightning, he was elected to the
+Assembly as one of the members to represent Philadelphia. In the same
+year he was also elected a justice of the peace and a member of the City
+Councils.
+
+At this time France and England were temporarily at peace. The treaty of
+Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 had resulted in a sort of cessation of
+hostilities, which France was using to push more actively her advantages
+on the Ohio River and in the Mississippi Valley. She intended to get
+behind all the colonies and occupy the continent to the Pacific Ocean.
+The efforts of Great Britain to check these designs, including the
+expeditions of the youthful Washington to the Ohio, need not be given
+here.[21] England broke the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and what is
+known as the Seven Years' War began with the memorable defeat of
+Braddock.
+
+Franklin was sent by the Pennsylvania Assembly to Braddock's
+head-quarters in Virginia to give any assistance he could and to prevent
+Braddock from making a raid into Pennsylvania to procure wagons, as he
+had threatened. The journey was made on horseback in company with the
+governors of New York and Massachusetts, and on the way Franklin had an
+opportunity to observe the action of a small whirlwind, which he
+reported in a pleasant letter to Mr. Collinson. It was while on this
+visit that Franklin appears in Thackeray's "Virginians," in which he is
+strangely described as a shrewd, bright little man who would drink only
+water.
+
+He told Braddock that there were plenty of wagons in Pennsylvania, and
+he was accordingly commissioned to procure them. He returned to
+Philadelphia, and within two weeks had delivered one hundred and fifty
+wagons and two hundred and fifty pack-horses. He had received only eight
+hundred pounds from Braddock, and was obliged to advance two hundred
+pounds himself and give bond to indemnify the owners of such horses as
+should be lost in the service. Claims to the amount of twenty thousand
+pounds were afterwards made against him, and he would have been ruined
+if the government, after long delay, had not come to his rescue. Such
+disinterested service was not forgotten, and his popularity was greatly
+increased.
+
+He had the year before been one of the representatives of Pennsylvania
+in the convention at Albany, where he had offered a plan for the union
+of all the colonies, which was generally approved, and I shall consider
+this plan more fully in another chapter. It was intended, of course,
+primarily to enable the colonies to make more effective resistance
+against the French and Indians, and as an additional assistance he
+suggested that a new colony be planted on the Ohio River. The
+establishment of this colony was a favorite scheme with him, and he
+urged it again many years afterwards while in England.
+
+As a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly he joined the Quaker majority
+in that body and became one of its leaders. This majority was in
+continual conflict with the governor appointed by William Penn's sons,
+who were the proprietors of the province. The government of the colony
+was divided in a curious way. The proprietors had the right to appoint
+the governor, judges, and sheriffs, or, in other words, had absolute
+control of the executive offices, while the colonists controlled the
+Legislature, or Assembly, as it was called, and in this Assembly the
+Quakers exercised the strongest influence.
+
+During the seventy years that the colony had been founded the Assembly
+had built up by slow degrees a body of popular rights. It paid the
+governor his salary, and this gave it a vast control over him; for if he
+vetoed any favorite law it could retaliate by cutting off his means of
+subsistence. This right to withhold the governor's salary constituted
+the most important principle of colonial constitutional law, and by it
+not only Pennsylvania but the other colonies maintained what liberty
+they possessed and saved themselves from the oppression of royal or
+proprietary governors.
+
+Another right for which the Pennsylvania Assembly always strenuously
+contended was that any bill passed by it for raising money for the crown
+must be simply accepted or rejected by the governor. He was not to
+attempt to force its amendment by threats of rejection, or to interfere
+in any way with the manner of raising the money, and was to have no
+control over its disbursement. The king had a right to ask for aid, but
+the colony reserved the right to use its own methods in furnishing it.
+
+These rights the proprietors were constantly trying to break down by
+instructing their governors to assent to money and other bills only on
+certain conditions, among which was the stipulation that they should not
+go into effect until the king's pleasure was known. They sent out their
+governors with secret instructions, and compelled them to give bonds for
+their faithful performance. When the governors declined to reveal these
+instructions, the Assembly thought it had another grievance, for it had
+always refused to be governed in this manner; and was now more
+determined than ever to maintain this point because several bills had
+been introduced in Parliament for the purpose of making royal
+instructions to governors binding on all the colonial assemblies without
+regard to their charters or constitutions.
+
+These were all very serious designs on liberty, and the proprietors took
+advantage of the war necessities and Braddock's defeat to carry them
+out in the most extreme form. The home government was calling on all the
+colonies for war supplies, and Pennsylvania must comply not only to
+secure her own safety but under fear of displeasing the Parliament and
+king. If under such pressure she could be induced to pass some of the
+supply bills at the dictation of the governor, or with an admission of
+the validity of his secret instructions, a precedent would be
+established and the proprietary hold on the province greatly
+strengthened.
+
+The Quakers, especially those comprising the majority in the Assembly,
+were not at heart opposed to war or to granting war supplies. As they
+expressed it in the preamble to one of their laws, they had no objection
+to others bearing arms, but were themselves principled against it. If
+the others wished to fight, or if it was necessary for the province to
+fight, they, as the governing body, would furnish the means. Franklin
+relates how, when he was organizing the Associators, it was proposed in
+the Union Fire Company that sixty pounds should be expended in buying
+tickets in a lottery, the object of which was to raise money for the
+purchase of cannon. There were twenty-two Quakers in the fire company
+and eight others; but the twenty-two, by purposely absenting themselves,
+allowed the proposition to be carried.
+
+The Quaker Assembly voted money for war supplies as liberally and as
+loyally as the Assembly of any other colony; but at every step it was
+met by the designs of the governor to force upon it those conditions
+which would be equivalent to a surrender of the liberties of the colony.
+Thus, in 1754 it voted a war supply of twenty thousand pounds, which was
+the same amount as Virginia, the most active of the colonies against the
+French, had just subscribed, and was much more than other colonies gave.
+New York gave only five thousand pounds, Maryland six thousand pounds,
+and New Jersey nothing. But the governor refused his assent to the bill
+unless a clause was inserted suspending it until the approval of the
+king had been obtained, and this condition the Assembly felt bound to
+reject.
+
+During the whole seven years of the war these contests with the governor
+continued; and the members of the Assembly, to show their zeal for the
+war, were obliged at times to raise the money on their own credit
+without submitting their bill to the governor for his approval. In these
+struggles Franklin bore a prominent part, drafting the replies which the
+Assembly made to the governor's messages, and acquiring a most thorough
+knowledge of all the principles of colonial liberty. At the same time he
+continued to enjoy jovial personal relations with the governors whom he
+resisted so vigorously in the Assembly, and was often invited to dine
+with them, when they would joke with him about his support of the
+Quakers.
+
+The disputes were increased about the time of Braddock's defeat by a new
+subject of controversy. As the Assembly was passing bills for war
+supplies which had to be raised by taxation, it was thought to be no
+more than right that the proprietary estates should also bear their
+share of the tax. The proprietors owned vast tracts of land which they
+had not yet sold to the people, and as the war was being waged for the
+defence of these as well as all the other property of the country, the
+Assembly and the people in general were naturally very indignant when
+the governor refused his consent to any bill which did not expressly
+exempt these lands from taxation. The amount assessed on the proprietary
+land was trifling,--only five hundred pounds; but both parties felt that
+they were contending for a principle, and when some gentlemen offered to
+pay the whole amount in order to stop the dispute, it was rejected.
+
+The proprietors, through the governor, offered a sort of indirect bribe
+in the form of large gifts of land,--a thousand acres to every colonel,
+five hundred to every captain, and so on down to two hundred to each
+private,--which seemed very liberal, and was an attempt to put the
+Assembly in an unpatriotic position if it should refuse to exempt the
+estates after such a generous offer. But the Assembly was unmoved, and
+declined to vote any more money for the purposes of the war, if it
+involved a sacrifice of the liberties of the people or enabled the
+proprietors to escape taxation. "Those," said Franklin, "who would give
+up essential liberty for the sake of a little temporary safety, deserve
+neither liberty nor safety."
+
+But the proprietors were determined to carry the point of exemption of
+their estates, and as a clamor was being raised against them in England
+for defeating, through their governor, the efforts of the Assembly to
+raise money for the war, they sent over word that they would subscribe
+five thousand pounds for the protection of the colony. Such munificence
+took the Assembly by surprise, and an appropriation bill was passed
+without taxing the proprietary estates. But popular resentment against
+the proprietors was raised to a high pitch when it was discovered that
+the five thousand pounds was to be collected out of the arrears of
+quit-rents due the proprietors. It was merely a clever trick on their
+part to saddle their bad debts on the province, have their estates
+exempted from taxation, and at the same time give themselves a
+reputation for generosity.
+
+The defeat of Braddock in July, 1755, was followed in September and
+October by a terrible invasion of the Indians, who massacred the farmers
+almost as far east as Philadelphia. Evidently something more was
+necessary to protect the province than the mere loose organization of
+the Associators, and a militia law drafted by Franklin was passed by the
+Quaker Assembly. The law had a long preamble attached, which he had
+prepared with great ingenuity to satisfy Quaker scruples. It was made up
+largely of previous Quaker utterances on war, and declared that while it
+would be persecution, and therefore unlawful in Pennsylvania, to compel
+Quakers to bear arms against their consciences, so it would be wrong to
+prohibit from engaging in war those who thought it their duty. The
+Quaker Assembly, as representing all the people of the province, would
+accordingly furnish to those who wanted to fight the legal means for
+carrying out their wish; and the law then went on to show how they
+should be organized as soldiers.
+
+In his _Gazette_ Franklin published a Dialogue written by himself, which
+was intended to answer criticisms on the law and especially the
+objections of those who were disgusted because the new law exempted the
+Quakers. Why, it was asked, should the combatant portion of the people
+fight for the lives and property of men who are too cowardly to fight
+for themselves? These objectors required as delicate handling as the
+Quakers, and Franklin approached them with his usual skill.
+
+    "Z. For my part I am no coward, but hang me if I will fight to
+    save the Quakers.
+
+    "X. That is to say, you will not pump ship, because it will save
+    the rats as well as yourself."
+
+As a consequence of his success in writing in favor of war, the
+philosopher, electrician, and editor found himself elected colonel of
+the men he had persuaded, and was compelled to lead about five hundred
+of them to the Lehigh Valley, where the German village of Gnadenhutten
+had been burnt and its inhabitants massacred. He had no taste for such
+business, and would have avoided it if he could; for he never used a gun
+even for amusement, and would not keep a weapon of any kind in his
+house. But the province with its peace-loving Quakers and Germans had
+never before experienced actual war, nor even difficulties with the
+Indians, and Franklin was as much a military man as anybody.
+
+So the philosopher of nearly fifty years, famous the world over for his
+discoveries in electricity and his "Poor Richard's Almanac," set forth
+in December, slept on the ground or in barns, arranged the order of
+scouting parties, and regulated the serving of grog to his men. He built
+a line of small forts in the Lehigh Valley, and during the two months
+that he was there no doubt checked the Indians who were watching him all
+the time from the hilltops, and who went no farther than to kill ten
+unfortunate farmers. He had no actual battle with them, and was perhaps
+fortunate in escaping a surprise; but he was very wily in his movements,
+and in his shrewd common-sense way understood Indian tactics. He has
+left us a description in one of his letters how a force like his should,
+before stopping for the night, make a circuit backward and camp near
+their trail, setting a guard to watch the trail so that any Indians
+following it could be seen long before they reached the camp.
+
+He, indeed, conducted his expedition in the most thorough and systematic
+manner, marching his men in perfect order with a semicircle of scouts in
+front, an advance-guard, then the main body, with scouts on each flank
+and spies on every hill, followed by a watchful rear-guard. He observed
+all the natural objects with his usual keen interest, noting the exact
+number of minutes required by his men to fell a tree for the palisaded
+forts he was building. After two months of roughing it he could not
+sleep in a bed on his return to Bethlehem. "It was so different," he
+says, "from my hard lodging on the floor of a hut at Gnadenhutten with
+only a blanket or two."
+
+Very characteristic of him also was the suggestion he made to his
+chaplain when the good man found it difficult to get the soldiers to
+attend prayers. "It is perhaps beneath the dignity of your profession,"
+said Franklin, "to act as steward of the rum; but if you were only to
+distribute it after prayers you would have them all about you." The
+chaplain thought well of it, and "never," Franklin tells us, "were
+prayers more generally or more punctually attended."
+
+On the return of the troops to Philadelphia after their two months'
+campaign they had a grand parade and review, saluting the houses of all
+their officers with discharges of cannon and small-arms; and the salute
+given before the door of their philosopher colonel broke several of the
+glasses of his electrical apparatus.
+
+The next year, 1756, brought some relief to the colonists by Armstrong's
+successful expedition against the Indians at Kittanning. But the year
+1757 was more gloomy than ever. Nothing was wanting but a few more
+soldiers to enable the French to press on down the Mississippi and
+secure their line to New Orleans, or to fall upon the rear of the
+colonies and conquer them. The proprietors of Pennsylvania took
+advantage of the situation to force the Assembly to abandon all its most
+cherished rights. The new governor came out with full instructions to
+assent to no tax bill unless it exempted the proprietary estates, to
+have the proprietary quit-rents paid in sterling instead of Pennsylvania
+currency, and to assent to no money bill unless the money to be raised
+was appropriated for some particular object or was to be at the
+disposal of the governor and Assembly jointly.
+
+Their attack on the liberties of the province was well timed; for, the
+English forces having been everywhere defeated, the Assembly felt that
+it must assist in the prosecution of the war at all hazards. It
+therefore resolved to waive its rights for the present, and passed a
+bill for raising thirty thousand pounds to be expended under the joint
+supervision of the Assembly and the governor. So the proprietors gained
+one of their points, and they soon gained another. The Assembly was
+before long obliged to raise more money, and voted one hundred thousand
+pounds, the largest single appropriation ever made. It was to be raised
+by a general tax, and the tax was to include the proprietary estates.
+The governor objected, and the Assembly, influenced by the terrible
+necessities of the war, yielded and passed the bill in February, 1757,
+without taxing the estates.
+
+But it was determined to carry on its contest with the governor in
+another way, and resolved to send two commissioners to England to lay
+before the king and Privy Council the conduct of the proprietors. The
+first avowed object of the commissioners was to secure the taxing of the
+proprietary estates, and the second was to suggest that the
+proprietorship be abolished and the province taken under the direct rule
+of the crown. Franklin and Isaac Norris, the Speaker of the Assembly,
+were appointed commissioners, but Norris being detained by ill health,
+Franklin started alone.
+
+He set forth as a sort of minister plenipotentiary to London, where he
+had at one time worked as a journeyman printer. He had left London an
+obscure, impoverished boy; he was returning as a famous man of science,
+retired from worldly business on an assured income. He remained in
+England for five years, and so full of pleasure, interesting occupation,
+and fame were those years that it is remarkable that he was willing to
+come back to Pennsylvania.
+
+He secured lodgings for himself and his son William at Mrs. Stevenson's,
+No. 7 Craven Street. Here he lived all of the five years and also during
+his subsequent ten years' residence in London. He had been recommended
+to her house by some Pennsylvania friends who had boarded there; but he
+soon ceased to be a mere lodger, and No. 7 Craven Street became his
+second home. He and Mrs. Stevenson became firm friends, and for her
+daughter Mary he formed a strong attachment, which continued all his
+life. His letters to her are among the most beautiful ever written by
+him, and he encouraged her to study science. "In all that time," he once
+wrote to her, referring to the happy years he had spent at her mother's
+house, "we never had among us the smallest misunderstanding; our
+friendship has been all clear sunshine, without the least cloud in its
+hemisphere."
+
+Mrs. Stevenson took care of the small every-day affairs of his life,
+advised as to the presents he sent home to his wife, assisted in buying
+them, and when a child of one of his poor English relatives needed
+assistance, she took it into her house and cared for it with almost as
+tender an interest as if she had been its mother. Many years afterwards,
+in a letter to her written while he was in France, Franklin regrets "the
+want of that order and economy in my family which reigned in it when
+under your prudent direction."[22]
+
+The familiar, pleasant life he led with her family is shown in a little
+essay written for their amusement, called "The Craven Street Gazette."
+It is a burlesque on the pompous court news of the English journals.
+Mrs. Stevenson figures as the queen and the rest of the family and their
+friends as courtiers and members of the nobility, and we get in this way
+pleasant glimpses of each one's peculiarities and habits, the way they
+lived, and their jokes on one another.
+
+He had an excellent electrical machine and other apparatus for
+experiments in her house, and went on with the researches which so
+fascinated him in much the same way as he had done at home. It was at
+No. 7 Craven Street that he planned his musical instrument, the
+armonica, already described, and exhibited it to his friends who came to
+see his electrical experiments. He quickly became a member of all the
+learned societies, was given the degree of doctor of laws by the
+universities of St Andrew's, Edinburgh, and Oxford, and soon knew all
+the celebrities in England. But he does not appear to have seen much of
+that burly and boisterous literary chieftain, Dr. Johnson. This was
+unfortunate, for Franklin's description of him would have been
+invaluable.
+
+Peter Collinson, to whom his letters on electricity had been sent, of
+course welcomed him. He became intimate with Dr. Fothergill, the
+fashionable physician of London, who had assisted to make his electrical
+discoveries known. This was another of his life-long friendships: the
+two were always in perfect sympathy, investigating with the enthusiasm
+of old cronies everything of philosophic and human interest.
+
+Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen and one of the foremost men of
+science of that time, became another bosom friend, and Franklin
+furnished him the material for his "History of Electricity." William
+Strahan, the prosperous publisher and friend of Dr. Johnson, also
+conceived a great liking for the Pennsylvania agent. Strahan afterwards
+became a member of Parliament, and was fond of saying to Franklin that
+they both had started life as printers, but no two printers had ever
+risen so high. He was a whole-souled, jovial man, wanted his son to
+marry Franklin's daughter, and wanted Mrs. Franklin to come over to
+England and settle there with her husband, who, he said, must never go
+back to America. He used to write letters to Mrs. Franklin trying to
+persuade her to overcome her aversion to the sea, and he made bets with
+Franklin that his persuasions would succeed.
+
+We need not wonder that Franklin spent five years on his mission, when
+he was so comfortably settled with his own servant in addition to those
+of Mrs. Stevenson, his chariot to drive in like an ambassador, and his
+son William studying law at the inns of court. During his stay, and
+about the year 1760, William presented him with an illegitimate
+grandson, William Temple Franklin. This boy was brought up exclusively
+by his grandfather, and scarcely knew his father, who soon married a
+young lady from the West Indies. In his infancy Temple was not an inmate
+of the Craven Street house, but he lived there afterwards during his
+grandfather's second mission to England, and accompanied him to France.
+
+The birth of Temple and his parentage were probably not generally known
+among Franklin's English friends during this first mission. It has been
+said also that William's illegitimacy was not known in London, but this
+is unlikely. It did not, however, interfere with the young man's
+advancement; for in 1762, just before Franklin returned to America,
+William was appointed by the crown governor of New Jersey. This honor,
+it is said, was entirely unsolicited by either father or son, and the
+explanation usually given is that it was intended to attach the father
+more securely to the royal interest in the disputes which were
+threatening between the colonies and the mother country.
+
+William and his father were on very good terms at this time. Every
+summer they took a little tour together, and on one occasion travelled
+in Holland. On a visit they made to the University of Cambridge they
+were entertained by the heads of colleges, the chancellor, and the
+professors in the most distinguished manner, discussed new points of
+science with them, and with Professor Hadley experimented on what was
+then a great wonder, the production of cold by evaporation. They
+wandered also to the old village of Ecton, where the Franklins had lived
+poor and humble for countless generations, saw many of the old people,
+and copied inscriptions on tombstones and parish registers. But Scotland
+they enjoyed most of all. There they met Lord Kames, the author of the
+"Elements of Criticism," and the historians Hume and Robertson. It was
+an atmosphere of philosophy and intelligence which Franklin thoroughly
+enjoyed. "The time we spent there," he wrote to Lord Kames, "was six
+weeks of the _densest_ happiness I have met with in any part of my
+life."
+
+During his stay in England the war against the French and Indians, which
+was raging when he left America, came to a close, and Quebec and Canada
+were surrendered. It became a question in settling with France whether
+it would be most advantageous for Great Britain to retain Canada or the
+Guadeloupe sugar islands, and there were advocates on both sides.
+Franklin published an admirable argument in favor of retaining Canada,
+without which the American colonies would never be secure from the
+Indians instigated by the French, and the acquisition of Canada would
+also tend to a grander development of the British empire. It was an able
+appeal, but there is no evidence that it alone influenced the final
+decision of the ministry, as has been claimed, any more than there is
+evidence that Franklin suggested the policy of William Pitt which had
+brought the war to a successful close. There were many advocates of
+these opinions and suggestions, and Franklin was merely one of them,
+though unquestionably an able one.
+
+He also published his essay on the "Peopling of Countries" and an
+article in favor of the vigorous prosecution of the war in Europe.
+These, with his pleasures and experiments in science, occupied most of
+the five years, and the work of his mission, though well done, was by no
+means absorbing.
+
+When he arrived, in July, 1757, he had, under the advice of Dr.
+Fothergill, first sought redress from the proprietors themselves before
+appealing to the government; but meeting with no success, he tried the
+members of the Privy Council, and first of all William Pitt, the great
+minister who was then conducting the war against France and recreating
+England. But he could not even secure an interview with that busy
+minister, which is a commentary on the extravagant claims of those who
+say that Franklin suggested Pitt's policy.
+
+Two years and more passed without his being able to accomplish anything
+except enlighten the general public concerning the facts of the
+situation. An article appeared in the _General Advertiser_ abusing the
+Pennsylvania Assembly, and his son William replied to it. The reply
+being extensively copied by other newspapers, the son was set to work on
+a book now known as the "Historical Review of Pennsylvania," which went
+over the whole ground of the quarrels of the Assembly with the
+proprietors and their deputy governors. It was circulated quite widely,
+some copies being sold and others distributed free to important persons.
+But it is doubtful whether it had very much influence, for it was an
+extremely dull book, and valuable only for its quotations from the
+messages of the governors and the replies of the Assembly.
+
+His opportunity to accomplish the main object of his mission came at
+last by accident. The Assembly in Pennsylvania were gradually starving
+the governor into submission by withholding his salary, and under
+pressure for want of money, he gave his assent to a bill taxing the
+proprietary estates. The bill being sent to England, the proprietors
+opposed it before the Privy Council as hostile to their rights, and
+obtained a decision in their favor in spite of the arguments of Franklin
+and his lawyers. But Franklin secured a reconsideration, and Lord
+Mansfield asked him if he really thought that no injury would be done
+the proprietary estates by the Assembly, for the proprietors had
+represented that the colonists intended to tax them out of existence.
+Franklin assured him that no injury would be done, and he was
+immediately asked if he would enter into an engagement to assure that
+point. On his agreeing to do this, the papers were drawn, the Assembly's
+bill taxing the estates was approved by the crown, and from that time
+the assaults of the proprietors on the liberties of the colony were
+decisively checked.
+
+Franklin was now most furiously attacked and hated by the proprietary
+party in Pennsylvania, but from the majority of the people, led by the
+Quakers, he received increased approbation and applause, and his
+willingness to risk his own personal engagement, as in the affair with
+Braddock, was regarded as an evidence of the highest public spirit.
+
+He remained two years longer in England on one pretext or another, and
+no doubt excuses for continuing such a delightful life readily suggested
+themselves. He returned in the early autumn of 1762, receiving from the
+Assembly three thousand pounds for his services, and during the five
+years of his absence he had been annually elected to that body. For a
+few months he enjoyed comparative quiet, but the next year he was again
+in the turmoil of a most bitter political contest.
+
+The war with France was over, and Canada and the Ohio Valley had been
+ceded to the English by the treaty of Paris, signed in February, 1763.
+But the Indians, having lost their French friends, determined to destroy
+the English, and, inspired by the genius of Pontiac, they took fort
+after fort and, rushing upon the whole colonial frontier of
+Pennsylvania, swept the people eastward to the Delaware with even worse
+devastation and slaughter than they had inflicted after Braddock's
+defeat. I cannot give here the full details of this war,[23] and must
+confine myself to one phase of it with which Franklin was particularly
+concerned.
+
+The Scotch-Irish who occupied the frontier counties of Pennsylvania
+suffered most severely from these Indian raids, and believed that the
+proprietary and Quaker government at Philadelphia neglected the defence
+of the province. Their resentment was strongest against the Quakers.
+They held the Quaker religion in great contempt and viewed with scorn
+the attempts of the Quakers to pacify the Indians and befriend those of
+them who were willing to give up the war-path and adopt the white man's
+mode of life.
+
+Some friendly Indians, descendants of the tribes that had welcomed
+William Penn, were living at Conestoga, near Lancaster, in a degenerate
+condition, having given up both war and hunting, and following the
+occupations of basket- and broom-making. They were the wards of the
+proprietary government, and were given presents and supplies from time
+to time. There were also at Bethlehem some other friendly Indians who
+had been converted to Christianity by the Moravians.
+
+The Scotch-Irish believed that all of these so-called friendly Indians
+were in league with the hostile tribes, furnished them with information,
+and even participated in their murders. They asked the governor to
+remove them, and assured him that their removal would secure the safety
+of the frontier. Nothing being done by the governor, a party of
+Scotch-Irish rangers started to destroy the Moravian Indians, but were
+prevented by a rain-storm. The governor afterwards, through
+commissioners, investigated these Moravian Indians, and finding reason
+to suspect them, they were all brought down to Philadelphia and
+quartered in barracks. But the Conestoga Indians were attacked by a
+party of fifty-seven Scotch-Irish, afterwards known as the "Paxton
+Boys," who, finding only six of them in the village,--three men, two
+women, and a boy,--massacred them all, mangled their bodies, and burnt
+their property. The remaining fourteen of the tribe were collected by
+the sheriff and put for protection in the Lancaster jail. The Paxtons
+hearing of it, immediately attacked the jail and cut the Indians to
+pieces with hatchets.
+
+We have grown so accustomed to lynch law that this slaughter of the
+Conestogas would not now cause much surprise, especially in some parts
+of the country; but it was a new thing to the colonists, who in many
+respects were more orderly than are their descendants, and a large part
+of the community were shocked, disgusted, and indignant. Franklin wrote
+a pamphlet which had a wide circulation and assailed the Scotch-Irish as
+inhuman, brutal cowards, worse than Arabs and Turks; fifty-seven of
+them, armed with rifles, knives, and hatchets, had actually succeeded,
+he said, in killing three old men, two women, and a boy.
+
+The Paxton lynchers, however, were fully supported by the people of the
+frontier. A large body of frontiersmen marched on Philadelphia with the
+full intention of revolutionizing the Quaker government, and they would
+have succeeded but for the unusual preparations for defence. They were
+finally, with some difficulty, persuaded to return without using their
+rifles.
+
+The governor was powerless to secure even the arrest of the men who had
+murdered the Indians in the jail, and the disorder was so flagrant and
+the weakness of the executive branch of the government so apparent that
+the Quakers and a majority of the people thought there was now good
+reason for openly petitioning the crown to abolish the proprietorship.
+While in England, Franklin had been advised not to raise this question,
+and he had accordingly confined his efforts to taxing the proprietary
+estates.
+
+The arrangement he had made provided that the estates should be fairly
+taxed, but the governor and the Assembly differed in opinion as to what
+was fair. The governor claimed that the best wild lands of the
+proprietors should be taxed at the rate paid by the people for their
+worst, and he tried the old tactics of forcing this point by delaying a
+supply bill intended to defend the province against Pontiac and his
+Indians. The Assembly passed the bill to suit him, but immediately
+raised the question of the abolition of the proprietorship. Twenty-five
+resolutions were passed most abusive of the proprietors, and the
+Assembly then adjourned to let the people decide by a general election
+whether a petition should be sent to the king asking for direct royal
+government.
+
+A most exciting political campaign followed in which Franklin took the
+side of the majority in favor of a petition, and wrote several of his
+most brilliant pamphlets. He particularly assailed Provost Smith, who,
+in a preface to a printed speech by John Dickinson defending the
+proprietary government, had eulogized William Penn in one of those
+laudatory epitaphs which were the fashion of the day:
+
+    "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 son. 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
+    occurred 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 upon their own merits, there was always
+    found an extreme scarcity of matter. Hence, _the father, the
+    honored and honorable father_, was so often repeated, that the
+    sons themselves grew sick of it, and have been heard to say to
+    each other with disgust, when told that A, B, and C, were come
+    to wait upon them with addresses on some public occasion, '_Then
+    I suppose we shall hear more about our father_.' So that, let me
+    tell the Prefacer, who perhaps was unacquainted with this
+    anecdote, that if he hoped to curry more favor with the family,
+    by the inscription he has framed for that great man's monument,
+    he may find himself mistaken; for there is too much in it of
+    _our father_."
+
+Franklin then goes on to say that he will give a sketch "in the lapidary
+way" which will do for a monument to the sons of William Penn.
+
+               "Be this a Memorial
+             Of T---- and R---- P----
+                 P---- of P----
+            Who with estates immense
+            Almost beyond computation
+             When their own province
+          And the whole British empire
+   Were engaged in a bloody & most expensive war
+       Begun for the defence of those estates
+            Could yet meanly desire
+           To have those very estates
+              Totally or partially
+             Exempted from taxation
+    While their fellow subjects all around them
+                    Groaned
+           Under the universal burden.
+               To gain this point
+          They refused the necessary laws
+          For the defence 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 of 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."
+
+Dickinson's followers, of course, assailed Franklin on all sides. Their
+pamphlets are very exciting reading, especially Hugh Williamson's "What
+is Sauce for a Goose is also Sauce for a Gander," which describes itself
+in its curious old-fashioned subtitle as
+
+    "Being a small Touch in the Lapidary Way, or Tit for Tat, in
+    your own way. An Epitaph on a certain Great Man. Written by a
+    Departed Spirit, and now most humbly inscribed to all his
+    dutiful Sons and Children, who may hereafter choose to
+    distinguish him by the Name of A Patriot. Dear Children, I send
+    you here a little Book for you to look upon that you may see
+    your Pappy's Face when he is dead and gone. Philadelphia,
+    Printed in Arch Street 1764."
+
+"Pappy" is then described for the benefit of his children in an epitaph:
+
+                 "An Epitaph &c
+         To the much esteem'd Memory of
+             B ... F ... Esq., LL.D.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+          Possessed of many lucrative
+                    Offices
+      Procured to him by the Interest of Men
+          Whom he infamously treated
+          And receiving enormous sums
+               from the Province
+                  For Services
+               He never performed
+    After betraying it to Party and Contention
+     He lived, as to the Appearance of Wealth
+           In moderate circumstances;
+     His principal Estate, seeming to consist
+            In his Hand Maid Barbara
+              A most valuable Slave
+                The Foster Mother
+              of his last offspring
+              Who did his dirty Work
+            And in two Angelic Females
+             Whom Barbara also served
+         As Kitchen Wench and Gold Finder
+               But alas the Loss!
+       Providence for wise tho' secret ends
+        Lately deprived him of the Mother
+                  of Excellency.
+       His Fortune was not however impaired
+         For he piously withheld from her
+                     Manes
+    The pitiful stipend of Ten pounds per Annum
+        On which he had cruelly suffered her
+                    To starve
+       Then stole her to the Grave in Silence
+  Without a Pall, the covering due to her dignity
+               Without a tomb or even
+             A Monumental Inscription."
+
+Franklin was a more skilful "lapidary" than his enemies, and his
+pamphlets were expressed in better language, but there is now very
+little doubt that he and the majority of the people were in the wrong.
+The colony had valuable liberties and privileges which had been built up
+by the Assembly through the efforts of nearly a hundred years. In spite
+of all the aggressions of the proprietors these liberties remained
+unimpaired and were even stronger than ever. The appeal to the king to
+take the colony under his direct control might lead to disastrous
+results; for if the people once surrendered themselves to the crown and
+the proprietorship was abolished, the king and Parliament might also
+abolish the charter and destroy every popular right.[24] In fact, the
+ministry were at that very time contemplating the Stamp Act and other
+measures which brought on the Revolution. Franklin seemed incapable of
+appreciating this, and retained for ten years, and in the face of the
+most obvious facts, his strange confidence in the king.
+
+But the petition was carried by an overwhelming majority, although
+Franklin failed to be re-elected to the Assembly. He never had been so
+fiercely assailed, and it is probable that the attacks on his morals and
+motives were far more bitter in ordinary conversation than in the
+pamphlets. This abuse may have had considerable effect in preventing his
+election. He was, however, appointed by the Assembly its agent to convey
+the petition to England and present it to the king. He set out in
+November, 1764, on this his second mission to England which resulted in
+a residence there of ten years. Fortunately, the petition was
+unsuccessful. He did not press it much, and the Assembly soon repented
+of its haste.
+
+He settled down comfortably at No. 7 Craven Street, where Mrs. Stevenson
+and her daughter were delighted to have again their old friend. His
+scientific studies were renewed,--spots on the sun, smoky chimneys, the
+aurora borealis, the northwest passage, the effect of deep and shallow
+water on the speed of boats,--and he was appointed on committees to
+devise plans for putting lightning-rods on St. Paul's Cathedral and the
+government powder-magazines. The circle of his acquaintance was much
+enlarged. He associated familiarly with the noblemen he met at country
+houses, was dined and entertained by notables of every sort, became
+acquainted with Garrick, Mrs. Montague, and Adam Smith, and added
+another distinguished physician, Sir John Pringle, to the list of his
+very intimate friends. He dined out almost every day, was admitted to
+all sorts of clubs, and of course diligently attended the meetings of
+all the associations devoted to learning and science.
+
+Although only an amateur in medicine, he was invited by the physicians
+to attend the meetings of their club, and it was of this club that he
+told the story that the question was once raised whether physicians had,
+on the whole, done more good than harm. After a long debate, Sir John
+Pringle, the president, was asked to give his opinion, and replied that
+if by physicians they meant to include old women, he thought they had
+done more good than harm; otherwise more harm than good.
+
+During this his second mission to England he became more intimate than
+ever with the good Bishop of St. Asaph, spending part of every summer
+with him, and it was at his house that he wrote the first part of his
+Autobiography. In a letter to his wife, dated August 14, 1771, he
+describes the close of a three weeks' stay at the bishop's:
+
+    "The Bishop's lady knows what children and grandchildren I have
+    and their ages; so, when I was to come away on Monday, the 12th,
+    in the morning, she insisted on my staying that one day longer,
+    that we might together keep my grandson's birthday. At dinner,
+    among other nice things, we had a floating island, which they
+    always particularly have on the birthdays of any of their own
+    six children, who were all but one at table, where there was
+    also a clergyman's widow, now above one hundred years old. The
+    chief toast of the day was Master Benjamin Bache, which the
+    venerable old lady began in a bumper of _mountain_. The Bishop's
+    lady politely added 'and that he may be as good a man as his
+    grandfather.' I said I hoped he would be _much better_. The
+    Bishop, still more complaisant than his lady, said: 'We will
+    compound the matter and be contented if he should not prove
+    _quite so good_.'" (Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. vi. p.
+    71.)
+
+The bishop's daughters were great friends of Franklin, and often
+exchanged with him letters which in many respects were almost equal to
+his own. Years afterwards, when he was in France during the Revolution,
+and it was rather imprudent to write to him, one of them, without the
+knowledge of her parents, sent him a most affectionate and charming
+girl's letter, which is too long to quote, but is well worth reading.
+
+He had his wife send him from Pennsylvania a number of live squirrels,
+which he gave to his friends. One which he presented to one of the
+bishop's daughters having escaped from its cage, and being killed by a
+dog, he wrote an epitaph on it rather different from his political
+epitaph:
+
+                  "Alas! poor MUNGO!
+           Happy wert thou, hadst thou known
+                  Thy own felicity.
+           Remote from the fierce bald eagle
+              Tyrant of thy native woods,
+   Thou hadst naught to fear from his piercing talons,
+               Nor from the murdering gun
+             Of the thoughtless sportsman.
+                Safe in thy weird castle
+            GRIMALKIN never could annoy thee.
+     Daily wert thou fed with the choicest viands,
+       By the fair hand of an indulgent mistress;
+                   But, discontented,
+            Thou wouldst have more freedom.
+          Too soon, alas! didst thou obtain it;
+                     And wandering
+  Thou art fallen by the fangs of wanton cruel Ranger!
+                      Learn hence
+            Ye who blindly seek more liberty,
+     Whether subjects, sons, squirrels or daughters,
+     That apparent restraint may be real protection
+               Yielding peace and plenty
+                    With security."
+
+Franklin's pleasures in England remind us of other distinguished
+Americans who, having gone to London to represent their country, have
+suddenly found themselves in congenial intercourse with all that was
+best in the nation and enjoying the happiest days of their lives.
+Lowell, when minister there, had the same experience as Franklin, and
+when we read their experiences together, the resemblance is very
+striking. Others, though perhaps in less degree, have felt the same
+touch of race. Blood is thicker than water. But I doubt if any of
+them--Lowell, Motley, or even Holmes in his famous three months'
+visit--had such a good time as Franklin.
+
+He loved England and was no doubt delighted with the appointments that
+sent him there. If it is true, as his enemies have charged, that he
+schemed for public office, it is not surprising in view of the pleasure
+he derived from appointments such as these. Writing to Miss Stevenson on
+March 23, 1763, after he had returned to Pennsylvania from his first
+mission, he says,--
+
+    "Of all the enviable things England has, I envy it most its
+    people. Why should that petty Island, which, compared to
+    America, is but a stepping stone in a brook, scarce enough of it
+    above water to keep one's shoes dry; why, I say should that
+    little Island enjoy, in almost every neighborhood, more
+    sensible, virtuous, and elegant minds than we can collect in
+    ranging a hundred leagues of our vast forests?" (Bigelow's Works
+    of Franklin, vol. iii. p. 233.)
+
+In fact, he had resolved at one time, if he could prevail on Mrs.
+Franklin to accompany him, to settle permanently in England. His reason,
+he writes to Mr. Strahan, was for America, but his inclination for
+England. "You know which usually prevails. I shall probably make but
+this one vibration and settle here forever. Nothing will prevent it, if
+I can, as I hope I can, prevail with Mrs. F. to accompany me, especially
+if we have a peace."[25] This fondness for the old home no doubt helped
+to form that very conservative position which he took in the beginning
+of the Revolution, and which was so displeasing to some people in
+Massachusetts. His reason, though not his inclination, was, as he says,
+for America, but the ignorant and brutal course of the British ministry
+finally made reason and inclination one.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, p. 147.
+
+[22] Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. vi. p. 300.
+
+[23] Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, p. 221.
+
+[24] Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, chap. xix.
+
+[25] Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. iii. p. 212; vol. x. pp. 295,
+302.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+DIFFICULTIES AND FAILURE IN ENGLAND
+
+
+Franklin's diplomatic career was now to begin in earnest. Although the
+petition to change Pennsylvania into a royal province under the direct
+rule of the crown was, fortunately, not acted upon and not very
+seriously pressed, he, nevertheless, continued to believe that such a
+change would be beneficial and might some day be accomplished.
+
+He looked upon the king as supreme ruler of the colonies, and retained
+this opinion until he heard of actual bloodshed in the battle of
+Lexington. The king and not Parliament had in the beginning given the
+colonies their charters; the king and not Parliament had always been the
+power that ruled them; wherefore the passage by Parliament of stamp acts
+and tea acts was a usurpation. This was one of the arguments in which
+many of the colonists had sought refuge, but few of them clung to it so
+long as Franklin.
+
+Almost immediately after his arrival in London in December, 1764, the
+agitations about the proposed Stamp Act began, and within a few weeks he
+was deep in them. His previous residence of five years in London when he
+was trying to have the proprietary estates taxed had given him some
+knowledge of men and affairs in the great capital; had given him,
+indeed, his first lessons in the diplomat's art; but he was now
+powerless against the Stamp Act. The ministry had determined on its
+passage, and they considered the protests of Franklin and the other
+colonial agents of little consequence.
+
+The act passed, and Franklin wrote home on the subject one of his
+prettiest letters to Charles Thomson:
+
+    "Depend upon it, my good neighbor, 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 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 may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a
+    night of it as we can. We may still light candles. Frugality and
+    industry will go a great way towards indemnifying us. Idleness
+    and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If
+    we can get rid of the former we may easily bear the latter."
+
+Grenville, in conformity with his assurance that the act would work
+satisfactorily even to the Americans, announced that stamp officers
+would not be sent from England, but that the kind mother would appoint
+colonists, and he asked the colonial agents to name to him honest and
+responsible men in their several colonies. Franklin recommended his old
+friend John Hughes, a respectable merchant of Philadelphia, never
+dreaming that by so doing he was getting the good man into trouble. But
+as soon as Hughes's commission arrived his house was threatened by the
+mob and he was forced to resign.
+
+Franklin had no idea that the colonies would be so indignant and offer
+so much resistance. He supposed that they would quietly submit, buy the
+stamps, and paste them on all their documents. He bought a quantity of
+stamped paper and sent it over to his partner, David Hall, to sell in
+the little stationery shop which was still attached to their
+printing-office. When he heard of the mob violence and the positive
+determination not to pay the tax, he was surprised and disgusted. He
+wrote to John Hughes, expressing surprise at the indiscretion of the
+people and the rashness of the Virginia Assembly. "A firm loyalty to the
+crown," he said, "and a faithful adherence to the government of this
+nation, which it is the safety as well as honour of the colonies to be
+connected with, will always be the wisest course for you and I to
+take."[26]
+
+His old opponents, the proprietary party, were not slow to take this
+opportunity to abuse him as faithless to his province and the American
+cause. A certain Samuel Smith went about telling the people that
+Franklin had planned the Stamp Act and intended to have the Test Act put
+in force in America. A caricature of the time represents the devil
+whispering in his ear, "Thee shall be agent, Ben, for all my dominions,"
+and underneath was printed--
+
+    "All his designs concentre in himself
+    For building castles and amassing pelf.
+    The public 'tis his wit to sell for gain,
+    Whom private property did ne'er maintain."
+
+The mob even threatened his house, much to the alarm of his wife, who,
+however, sturdily remained and refused to seek safety in flight. This
+and other events, together with the information that he received from
+America during the next few months, compelled him to change his ground.
+He saw that there was to be substantial resistance to the act, and he
+joined earnestly in the agitation for its repeal. This agitation was
+carried on during the autumn of 1765 and a very strong case made for the
+colonies, the most telling part of which was the refusal of the
+colonists to buy English manufactured goods, which had already lost the
+British merchants millions of pounds sterling.
+
+In December Parliament met and the whole question was gone into with
+thoroughness. For six weeks testimony was taken before the House sitting
+as committee of the whole, and merchants, manufacturers, colonial
+agents, and every one who was supposed to be able to throw light on the
+subject were examined. It was during the course of this investigation
+that Franklin was called and gave those famous answers which enhanced
+his reputation more than any other one act of his life, except, perhaps,
+his experiment with the kite.
+
+For a long time before the examination he had been very busy
+interviewing all sorts of persons, going over the whole ground of the
+controversy and trying to impress members of Parliament with the
+information and arguments that had come to him from the colonies. His
+answers in the examination were not given so entirely on the spur of the
+moment as has sometimes been supposed, for he had gone over the subject
+again and again in conversation, and was well prepared. But his replies
+are truly wonderful in their exquisite shrewdness, the delicate turns of
+phrase, and the subtle but perfectly clear meaning given to words. The
+severe training in analyzing and rewriting the essays of the _Spectator_
+stood him in good stead that day, and we realize more fully what he
+himself said, that it was to his mastery of language that he owed his
+great reputation.
+
+They asked him, for example, "Are you acquainted with Newfoundland?" He
+could not tell to what they might be leading him, and some people would
+have replied no, or yes; but the wily old philosopher contented himself
+with saying, "I never was there."
+
+They drove him into an awkward corner at one point of the examination.
+He had been showing that the colonies had no objection to voting of
+their own free will supplies to the British crown, and had frequently
+done so in the French and Indian wars.
+
+"But," said his questioner, "suppose one of the colonial assemblies
+should refuse to raise supplies for its own local government, would it
+not then be right, in order to preserve order and carry on the
+government in that locality, that Parliament should tax that colony,
+inasmuch as it would not tax itself for its own support?"
+
+Franklin parried the question by saying that such a case could not
+happen, and if it did, it would cure itself by the disorder and
+confusion that would arise.
+
+"But," insisted his tormentor, "just suppose that it did happen; should
+not Parliament have the right to remedy such an evil state of affairs?"
+
+The philosopher yielded a little to this last question, and said that
+there might be such a right if it were used only for the good of the
+people of the colony. This was exactly what they had wanted him to say,
+so they put the next question which would clinch the nail.
+
+"But who is to judge of that, Britain or the colonies?"
+
+This was difficult to answer; but with inimitable sagacity their victim
+replied,--
+
+"Those that feel can best judge."
+
+It was a narrow escape, but he was safely out of the trap. Then they
+badgered him about the difference between external taxes, such as
+customs duties and taxes on commerce, which he said the colonists had
+always been willing to pay, and internal taxes, like the Stamp Tax,
+which they would never pay and could not be made to pay. He was very
+positive on this point; so a member asked him whether it was not likely,
+since the colonists were so opposed to internal taxes, that they would
+in time assume the same rebellious attitude towards external taxes.
+Franklin's reply was very subtle in showing how Great Britain was
+driving the colonies more and more into rebellion:
+
+    "They never have hitherto. Many arguments have been lately used
+    here to show them that there is no difference, and that if you
+    have no right to tax them internally, you have none to tax them
+    externally, or make any other law to bind them. At present they
+    do not reason so; but in time they may possibly be convinced by
+    these arguments."
+
+They reminded him of the clause in the charter of Pennsylvania which
+expressly allowed Parliament to tax that colony. How, then, they said,
+can the Pennsylvanians assert that the Stamp Act is an infringement of
+their rights? This was a poser; but Franklin was equal to the occasion.
+
+    "They understand it thus: by the same charter and otherwise they
+    are entitled to all the privileges and liberties of Englishmen.
+    They find in the Great Charters and the Petition and Declaration
+    of Rights that one of the privileges of English subjects is,
+    that they are not to be taxed but by their common consent. They
+    have therefore relied upon it, from the first settlement of the
+    province, that the Parliament never would, nor could, by color
+    of that clause in the charter, assume a right of taxing them
+    till it had qualified itself to exercise such right by admitting
+    representatives from the people to be taxed, who ought to make a
+    part of that common consent."
+
+But to print all the brilliant passages of this examination would
+require too much space. It should be read entire; for in its wonderful
+display of human intelligence we see Franklin at his best. He never did
+anything else quite equal to it, and he never again had such an
+opportunity. It was an ordeal that would have crushed or appalled
+ordinary men, and would have been too much for some very able men. They
+would have evaded the severe questions, given commonplace answers, or
+sought refuge in obscurity, eloquence, or sentiment. But Franklin, with
+perfect composure, ease, and almost indifference, met every question
+squarely as it was asked. Many other persons were examined during the
+long weeks of that investigation, but who now knows who they were? They
+may have been as well informed as Franklin, and doubtless many of them
+were; but they were submerged in the situation which he made a
+stepping-stone to greatness.
+
+In nothing that he said can there be discovered the slightest trace of
+hurry, surprise, or disturbed temper; everything is unruffled and
+smooth. He guards without effort the beauty and perfection of his
+language as carefully as its substance. Each reply is complete. Nothing
+can be added to it, and it would be impossible to abbreviate it. It was
+his superb physical constitution that enabled him to bear himself thus.
+No prize-fighter could have been more self-possessed.
+
+As is well known, he could seldom speak long, especially at this time of
+his life, without jesting or telling stories; but there is no trace of
+this in the examination, and the slightest touch of anything of the kind
+would have marred its wonderful merit. In his previous conversations
+with members he had been humorous enough. On one occasion a Tory asked
+him, as he would not agree to the act, to at least help them to amend
+it. He said he could easily do that by the change of a single word. The
+act read that it was to be enforced on a certain day in the year one
+thousand seven hundred and sixty-five. Just change one to two, he said,
+and America will have little or no objection to it. During his
+examination members who favored the repeal asked him questions
+calculated to bring out his favorite arguments, and one of them,
+remembering this jest, asked him a question which would lead to it. It
+seems to have been the only question he evaded; for, as he has told us,
+he considered such a jest too light and ridiculous for the occasion.
+
+The Stamp Act was repealed principally through the efforts of the
+merchants and tradespeople who thronged the lobbies of the House of
+Commons and clamorously demanded that the Americans should be restored
+to a condition in which they would be willing to buy British goods; but
+there is no question that Franklin's efforts and examination greatly
+assisted, and members of the opposition party thanked him for the aid he
+had given them in carrying the repeal. Pennsylvania reappointed him her
+agent, and he continued his life in London as a sort of colonial
+ambassador. In 1768 Georgia made him her agent, and during the next two
+years he was appointed agent for both New Jersey and Massachusetts; so
+that he was in a sense representing at London the interests of America.
+
+His appointment as the agent of Massachusetts had been opposed by many
+of the leaders of the liberty party in Boston; for his opinions were
+rather too moderate to suit them. He still retained his confidence in
+George III. as a safe ruler for America, and he did all he could to
+soften and accommodate the differences existing between the colonies and
+the mother country.
+
+His motives were, of course, attacked and his moderation ascribed to his
+love of office. He was at that time Postmaster of North America, and as
+his income of a thousand pounds a year from his partnership with David
+Hall in the printing business ceased in 1766, he was naturally desirous
+to retain his postmaster's salary. His zeal for the American cause was
+inclining Lord Sandwich, the Postmaster-General, to remove him, while
+the Duke of Grafton was disposed to give him a better office in England,
+in order to identify him with the mother country and bring him into
+close relations with the government.
+
+There is no evidence that he was unduly influenced by love of office.
+His confidence in the king was merely a mistake which many other people
+made, and his moderation and attempt to settle all difficulties amicably
+were measures which a man of his temperament and in his position would
+naturally take.
+
+He tried to give the English correct opinions about America, and to
+disclose the true interest and the true relations which should subsist
+between the mother and her daughters. To this end he wrote articles for
+the newspapers, and reprinted Dickinson's "Farmer's Letters" with a
+preface written by himself. There was a large party led by Burke, Barre,
+Onslow, Lord Chatham, and others who were favorable to America, and it
+seemed as if this party might be made larger. At any rate, Franklin felt
+bound to take sides with them, and assist them as far as possible. His
+articles were humorous, and necessarily anonymous; for he feared they
+would lose half of the slight effect they had if the name of the
+American agent were signed to them.
+
+His two famous articles were published in the early autumn of 1773. One,
+called "Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small One," was an
+admirable satire on the conduct of the British government. A great
+empire is like a cake, most easily diminished at the edges. Take care
+that colonies never enjoy the same rights as the mother country. Forget
+all benefits conferred by colonies; treat them as if they were always
+inclined to revolt; send prodigals, broken gamesters, and stock-jobbers
+to rule over them; punish them for petitioning against injustice;
+despise their voluntary grants of money, and harass them with novel
+taxes; threaten that you have the right to tax them without limit; take
+away from them trial by jury and _habeas corpus_, and those who are
+suspected of crimes bring to the mother country for trial; send the most
+insolent officials to collect the taxes; apply the proceeds of the taxes
+to increasing salaries and pensions; keep adjourning the colonial
+assemblies until they pass the laws you want; redress no grievances; and
+send a standing army among them commanded by a general with unlimited
+power.
+
+The popularity of this piece was so great that all the newspapers copied
+it and new editions had to be issued. The other article was a short
+squib, called "An Edict of the King of Prussia," and professes to be a
+formal announcement by Frederick the Great that, inasmuch as the British
+isles were originally Saxon colonies and have now reached a flourishing
+condition, it is just and expedient that a revenue be raised from them;
+and he goes on to declare the measures he had decided to put in force,
+which are most clever burlesques on the measures adopted by England for
+America.
+
+This edict also had a great run of popularity, and of course its
+authorship became known. Many of the slow-witted English at first
+thought it real, and Franklin in a letter to his son gives an
+interesting account of its reception, and at the same time allows us a
+glimpse of his life at English country houses:
+
+    "I was down at Lord le Despencer's, when the post brought that
+    day's papers. Mr. Whitehead was there, too, (Paul Whitehead, the
+    author of 'Manners,') who runs early through all the papers, and
+    tells the company what he finds remarkable. He had them in
+    another room, and we were chatting in the breakfast parlor, when
+    he came running in to us out of breath, with the paper in his
+    hand. 'Here,' says he, 'here's news for ye! Here's the King of
+    Prussia claiming a right to this kingdom!' All stared, and I as
+    much as anybody; and he went on to read it. When he had read two
+    or three paragraphs, a gentleman present said, 'Damn his
+    impudence; I dare say we shall hear by next post that he is upon
+    his march with one hundred thousand men to back this.'
+    Whitehead, who is very shrewd, soon after began to smoke it, and
+    looking in my face, said, 'I'll be hanged if this is not some of
+    your American jokes upon us.' The reading went on, and ended
+    with abundance of laughing, and a general verdict that it was a
+    fair hit; and the piece was cut out of the paper and preserved
+    in my Lord's collection."
+
+This was all very pleasant for Franklin, and increased his fame,
+especially among the Whigs, who were already on the side of America. But
+the Tories, whom it was necessary to win, were so indignant and so
+deeply disgusted that these brilliant essays may be said to have done
+more harm than good.
+
+It is not usual for an ambassador in a foreign country to discuss in the
+public prints the questions at issue between that country and his own.
+It would generally be regarded as serious misconduct, and the rule
+which prohibits it seems to be founded on good reasons. The ambassador
+is not there for the purpose of instructing or influencing the general
+public. He is not in any way concerned with them, but is concerned only
+with the heads of the government, with whom alone he carries on the
+business of his mission. In order that he may fulfil his part
+successfully he must be acceptable, or at least not offensive, to the
+persons in control of the government. But how can he be acceptable to
+them if he is openly or in secret appealing to the people of the country
+against them? Will they not regard him very much as if he were a spy or
+an enemy in disguise in their midst?
+
+This was precisely the difficulty into which Franklin got himself. He
+was not called an ambassador, and he would not have been willing to
+admit that he was in a foreign country. But in effect he was in that
+position, being the duly accredited agent of colonies that had a serious
+quarrel with the mother country which every one knew might terminate in
+war. When he began to write anonymous articles full of sarcasm and
+severity against the ministry of the party in power he was doing what,
+under ordinary diplomatic circumstances, might have caused his
+dismissal. It was distinctly a step downward. It was not different in
+essentials from that of an ambassador joining one of the political
+parties of the country to which he is accredited and making stump
+speeches for it. His arguments were approved only by people among the
+English liberals who were already convinced, while they made him bitter
+enemies among the Tory governing class at a time when he had every
+reason to mollify them, and when he was doing his utmost to accommodate
+amicably the differences between the mother and her daughters. They had
+now a handle against him, something that would offset the charm of his
+conversation, his learning, and his discoveries in science which gave
+him such influence among notable people. They soon had the opportunity
+they wanted in the famous episode of the Hutchinson letters.
+
+In order to carry out his purpose of accommodating all disputes, he was
+in the habit of saying wherever he went in England that the colonies
+were most loyal and loving; that there was no necessity for the severe
+measures against Boston,--quartering troops on her, and other
+oppressions. Such severities created the impression among the Americans
+that the whole English nation was against them; they did not stop to
+think that it was merely the ministry and the party in power.
+Accordingly there were riots and tumults among some of the disorderly
+classes in America which in their turn created a wrong impression in
+England, where such disturbances were falsely supposed to be
+representative of the colonists at large. In this way the
+misunderstanding was continually aggravated because the true state of
+things was unknown.
+
+Many people in England were disposed to smile at this pretty delusion of
+peace and affection, but they thought it best to let the colonial agents
+continue under its influence and not acquaint them with the means they
+had of knowing the contrary. At last, however, in the year 1772, one of
+them let the cat out of the bag. Franklin was talking in his usual
+strain to a Whig member of Parliament who was disposed to be very
+friendly to America, when that member frankly told him that he must be
+mistaken. The disorders in America were much worse than he supposed. The
+severe measures complained of were not the mere suggestion of the party
+in power in England, but had been asked for by people in Boston as the
+only means of restoring order and pacifying the country, which was
+really in a most rebellious and dangerous state.
+
+When Franklin expressed surprise and doubt, the member said he would
+soon satisfy him, and a few days after placed in his hands a packet of
+letters which had been written by Thomas Hutchinson, the Governor of
+Massachusetts, Andrew Oliver, the Lieutenant-Governor, and some other
+officials to Mr. William Whately, a man who had held some subordinate
+offices and had been an important political worker in the Grenville
+party.
+
+The letters described the situation in Massachusetts in the year 1768;
+the riotous proceedings when John Hancock's sloop was seized for
+violating the revenue laws; how the customs officers were insulted,
+beaten, the windows of their houses broken, and they obliged to take
+refuge on the "Romney" man-of-war. These and other proceedings the
+writers of the letters intimated were approved by the majority of the
+people, and they recommended that these turbulent colonists should, for
+their own good, be restrained by force, and the liberty they were
+misusing curtailed. "There must be an abridgment," said one of
+Hutchinson's letters, "of what are called English liberties."
+
+Hutchinson, as well as some of the other writers of the letters, were
+natives of New England; and Hutchinson, before he became governor, had
+had a long public career in Massachusetts in which he had distinguished
+himself as a most conservative, prudent, and able man who had conferred
+many benefits on the colony. The letters by him and the other officials
+had been handed about among prominent people in London, who regarded
+them as better evidence of the real situation in America than the
+benevolent talk of the colonial agent or his brilliant and anonymous
+sallies in the newspapers.
+
+The condition which the member of Parliament annexed to his loan of the
+letters to Franklin was that they should not be printed or copied, and
+after having been read by the leaders of the patriot movement in
+Massachusetts, they were to be returned to London. He must have had very
+little knowledge of the world, and Franklin must have smiled at the
+condition. Of course, in transmitting the letters to Massachusetts
+Franklin mentioned the condition. This relieved him from responsibility,
+and John Adams and John Hancock could do what they thought right under
+the circumstances.
+
+What might have been expected soon followed. The leaders in Boston read
+the letters and were furious. Here were their own governors and
+officials secretly furnishing the British government with information
+that would bring punishment on the colony, and actually recommending
+that the punishment should be inflicted. One of Hutchinson's letters
+distinctly stated that the information furnished by him in a previous
+letter had brought the troops to Boston; and, as is well known, it was
+the collision of some of these troops with a mob which led to what has
+been called the "Boston massacre."
+
+John Adams showed the letters to his aunt; others showed them to
+relatives and friends, no doubt, with the most positive instructions
+that they were not to be copied or printed, and were to be exhibited
+only to certain people. The Assembly met, and John Hancock, with a
+mysterious air, announced that a most important matter would in a few
+days be submitted to that body for consideration; but most of the
+members knew about it already; and when the day arrived the public was
+refused admittance and the letters read to the Assembly in secret
+session. As for publishing them, they were soon in print in London as
+well as in the colonies; and when the originals could be of no further
+use, John Adams put them in an envelope and sent them back to London, as
+the condition required.
+
+The Assembly resolved to ask the crown to remove both Hutchinson and
+Oliver, and prepared a petition to that effect, basing the request on
+the ground that these two men had plotted to encourage and intensify the
+quarrel of the colonies with the mother country. By their false
+representations they had caused a fleet and an army to be brought to
+Massachusetts, and were therefore the cause of the confusion and
+bloodshed which had resulted. This petition reached the king in the
+summer of 1773.
+
+Franklin thought that the whole affair would have a good effect. The
+resentment of the colonies against the mother country would be
+transferred to Hutchinson and the other individuals who had caused it;
+the ministry would see that the colonists were sincerely desirous of a
+good understanding with the British government and that Hutchinson and
+Oliver were evil persons bent on fomenting trouble and responsible for
+all the recent difficulties in Massachusetts. This was a pleasant
+theory, but it turned out to be utterly unsound and useless. The effect
+of the letters was just the opposite of what was expected. Instead of
+modifying the feelings of the colonists and the ministry, they increased
+the resentment of both.
+
+The king and his Privy Council were not inclined to pay any attention to
+the petition, and it might have slept harmlessly like other petitions
+from America at that time. But when the letters were printed in London,
+people began to wonder how they had reached the colonists. They were in
+a sense secret information, and had been intrusted to persons who were
+supposed to understand that they were for government circles alone.
+William Whately, to whom they had been written, was dead, and as it
+began to be suspected that his brother and executor, Thomas Whately,
+might have put them into circulation, he felt bound to defend himself.
+
+As a matter of fact, they seem to have passed out of William Whately's
+hands before his death, and were never in the possession of the
+executor. But the executor had given permission to John Temple to look
+over the deceased Whately's papers and to take from them certain letters
+which Temple and his brother had written to him. Accordingly, Thomas
+Whately went to see Temple, who gave the most positive assurances that
+he had taken only his own and his brother's letters, and he repeated
+these assurances twice afterwards. But the suspicion against him getting
+into the newspapers, he demanded from Whately a public statement
+exonerating him. Whately published a statement which merely gave the
+facts and exonerated him no more than to say that Temple had assured him
+he did not take the Hutchinson letters. Such a statement left an
+unpleasant implication against Temple, for the executor seemed
+studiously to avoid saying that he believed Temple's assurances.
+
+So Temple challenged Whately, and the challenge was carried by Ralph
+Izard, of South Carolina. They fought a queer sort of duel which would
+have amused Frenchmen, and half a century later would have amused
+Carolinians. Whately declined to be bothered with a second, so Temple
+could not have one. They met in Hyde Park at four in the morning,
+Whately with a sword and Temple with both sword and pistols. Seeing that
+Whately had only a sword, he supposed that he must be particularly
+expert with it, and he therefore suggested that they fight with pistols.
+They emptied their weapons without effect, and then took to their
+blades.
+
+Temple, who was something of a swordsman, soon discovered that Whately
+knew nothing of the art, and he chivalrously tried to wound him
+slightly, so as to end the encounter. But Whately slashed and cut in a
+bungling way that was extremely dangerous; and Temple, finding that he
+was risking his life by his magnanimity, aimed a thrust which would have
+killed Whately if he had not seized the blade in his left hand. As it
+was, it wounded him severely in the side, and he suggested that the
+fight end. But his opponent in this extraordinary duel was deaf, and,
+recovering his sword, as Whately slipped forward he wounded him in the
+back of the shoulder.
+
+Izard and Arthur Lee, of Virginia, now arrived on the scene and
+separated the combatants. One result of not fighting in the regular
+manner with witnesses was that some people believed, from the wound on
+Whately's back, that Temple had attempted to stab him when he was down.
+Meantime Franklin, who had been out of town on one of his pleasant
+excursions, returned to London and, hearing that another duel between
+the two was imminent, published a letter in the newspapers announcing
+that he was the person who had obtained and sent the letters to
+Massachusetts, and that they had never been in the possession of the
+executor and consequently could not have been stolen from him by Temple.
+
+He supposed that he had ended the difficulty most handsomely, and he
+continued to hope for good results from making the letters public. But
+the ministry and the Tories had now the opportunity they wanted. They
+saw a way to deprive him of his office of postmaster and attack his
+character. He had admitted sending the letters to Massachusetts. But how
+had he obtained them? How did he get possession of the private letters
+of a deceased member of the government; letters, too, that every one had
+been warned not to allow to get into a colonial agent's hands? If the
+distinguished man of science whose fascinating manner and conversation
+were the delight of London drawing-rooms and noblemen's country-seats
+had stepped down from the heights of philosophy to do this sort of work,
+why, then, his great reputation and popularity need no longer be
+considered as protecting him.
+
+It was unfortunate that Franklin sent these letters to Massachusetts in
+the way that has been described. At the same time it is rather too much
+to expect that he should have foreseen all the results. But after more
+than a hundred years have passed we can perhaps review the position of
+the Tory government a little more calmly than has been usual.
+
+Let us suppose that the Spanish minister in the United States should get
+possession of letters sent from Spain by our minister there to the
+Secretary of State at Washington; and we will assume also that these
+letters relate to a matter of serious controversy between our country
+and Spain, and are the private communications from our minister to the
+Secretary of State. If the Spanish minister should send these letters to
+his government, and that government should publish them in its own and
+our newspapers, would there not be considerable indignation in America?
+Would it not be said that the Spanish minister was here to conduct
+diplomatic negotiations in the usual way and not for the purpose of
+securing possession of the private documents of our government? Would it
+not be assumed at once that he must have bribed some one to give him the
+letters, or got them in some other clandestine way? and would not his
+country in all probability be asked to recall him?
+
+Then, too, we must remember that Franklin's argument that the colonies
+were all loyal and needed only a little kind treatment was in the eyes
+of the Tories a pious sham; and they were somewhat justified in thinking
+so. It is true, indeed, that outside of Massachusetts the people were
+very loyal, and determined not to break with Great Britain unless they
+were forced to it. But in Massachusetts Samuel Adams was laboring night
+and day to force a breach. He had as much contempt as the Tories for
+Franklin's peace and love policy, and thought it ridiculous that such a
+man should be the agent for Massachusetts. He was convinced that there
+never would be peace, that it was not desirable, and that the sooner
+there were war and independence the better.
+
+The Tory government knew all this; it knew of the committees of
+correspondence that the Boston patriots were inaugurating to inflame the
+whole country; it knew all these things, from the reports of the royal
+governors and other officials in the colonies, and it was probably
+better acquainted with the real situation than was Franklin. There may
+still be read among the documents of the British government the
+affidavits of the persons who followed Samuel Adams about and took down
+his words when he was secretly inciting the lower classes of the people
+in Boston to open rebellion.[27] About the time that Whately and Temple
+fought their duel, in December, 1773, the tea was thrown overboard in
+Boston harbor, and it is now generally believed that Samuel Adams
+inspired and encouraged this act as one which would most surely lead to
+a breach with the mother country.
+
+The school-book story of the "Boston Tea Party" has been so deeply
+impressed upon our minds as one of the glorious deeds of patriotism that
+its true bearings are obscured. There were many patriots at the time who
+did not consider it a wise act. Besides Boston, the tea was sent by the
+East India Company to Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York, and in
+these cities the people prevented its being landed and sold; but they
+did not destroy it. They considered that they had a right to prevent its
+landing and sale; that in doing this they were acting in a legal and
+constitutional manner to protect their rights; but to destroy it would
+have been both a riotous act and an attack on private property.
+
+The Tory ministry, while having no serious objection to the method
+adopted in Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York, considered the Boston
+method decidedly riotous, and from its point of view such a conclusion
+was natural. It seemed to be of a piece with all the other occurrences
+which Hutchinson and Oliver had described in their letters, and it
+confirmed most strongly all the statements and recommendations in those
+letters. It was decided to punish Boston in a way that she would
+remember, and in the following March, after careful deliberation,
+Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill, which locked up the harbor of
+that town, destroyed for the time her commerce, and soon brought on the
+actual bloodshed of the Revolution.
+
+Meantime the ministry also attended to Franklin's case. The Privy
+Council sent word to Franklin that it was ready to take up the petition
+of the Massachusetts Assembly asking for the removal of Governor
+Hutchinson, and required his presence as the colony's agent. He found
+that Hutchinson and Oliver had secured as counsel Alexander Wedderburn,
+a Scotch barrister, afterwards most successful in securing political
+preferment, and ending his career as Lord Rosslyn. Franklin had no
+counsel, and asked for a postponement of three weeks to obtain legal aid
+and prepare his case, which was granted.
+
+The day fixed for the hearing aroused great expectations. An
+unprecedented number of the members of the Privy Council attended. The
+Archbishop of Canterbury, Burke, Dr. Priestley, Izard, Lee, and many
+other distinguished persons, friends or opponents of Franklin, crowded
+into the chamber. The members of the Privy Council sat at a long table,
+and every one else had to stand as a mark of respect. The room was one
+of those apartments which tourists are often shown in palaces in Europe,
+somewhat like a large drawing-room with an open fireplace at one end.
+The fireplace projected into the room, and in one of the recesses at the
+side of it Franklin stood, not far behind Lord Gower, president of the
+Council, who had his back to the fireplace.
+
+Franklin's astute counsel, John Dunning, a famous barrister, afterwards
+Lord Ashburton, told him that his peace and love theory was not a very
+good ground to rest his case on before the Council. It would be well not
+to use the Hutchinson letters at all, or refer to them as little as
+possible; for the Privy Council believed every word in them to be true,
+and the passages in them which had most inflamed the colonists were the
+very ones which were most acceptable to the Council.
+
+So Dunning made a speech in which he said that no crime or offence was
+charged against Hutchinson and Oliver; they were in no way attacked or
+accused; the colonists were simply asking a favor of His Majesty, which
+was that the governor and the lieutenant-governor had become so
+distasteful to the people that it would be good policy and tend to peace
+and quiet to remove them.
+
+It was a ridiculous attempt, of course, and none knew better than
+Dunning that there was not the slightest hope of success. The Privy
+Council would never have taken up the petition, it would have slept in
+the dust of its pigeon-hole, if the council had not seen in it a way of
+attacking Franklin. Wedderburn's speech was the event awaited, and to it
+the Tories looked forward as to a cock-fight or a bull-baiting.
+
+A little volume published in England and to be found in some of the
+libraries in America contains an account of the proceedings and gives a
+large part of Wedderburn's speech. He has been most abundantly abused in
+America and by Whigs in England as an unprincipled office-seeker and a
+shallow orator, with no other talent than that of invective. That he was
+successful in obtaining office and rising to high distinction as an
+ardent Tory cannot be denied, and in this respect he did not differ
+materially from others or from the Whigs themselves when they had their
+innings. As to the charge of shallowness, it is not borne out by his
+speech on this occasion. Once concede his point of view as a Tory, and
+the speech is a very clever one.
+
+He began by a history of Hutchinson's useful public career in
+Massachusetts; and there is no question that Hutchinson had been a most
+valuable official; even the Massachusetts people themselves conceded
+that. The difficulty with Hutchinson was the same as with
+Wedderburn,--his point of view was not ours. Having reviewed Hutchinson,
+he went on to show how ridiculous it was to suppose that he alone had
+been the cause of sending the troops to Boston, and in this he was again
+probably right. The home government, as he well said, had abundant other
+means of information from General Gage, Sir Francis Bernard, and its
+officials all through the colonies; and he concluded this part of his
+speech with the point that Hutchinson, by the admission of Massachusetts
+herself, had never done anything wrong except write these letters, and
+would it not be ridiculous to dismiss a man for giving information
+which had been furnished by a host of others?
+
+Then he turned his attention to Franklin. How had he obtained those
+letters? And here it must be confessed that Franklin was in a scrape,
+and from the Tory point of view was fair game. He could not disclose the
+name of the member of Parliament who gave them to him, for he had
+promised not to do so, and even without this promise it would have been
+wanton cruelty to have subjected the man to the ruin and disgrace that
+would have instantly fallen upon him. Nothing could drag this secret
+from Franklin. He refused to answer questions on the subject, and it is
+a secret to this day, as it is also still a secret who was the mother of
+his son. Ingenious persons have written about one as about the other,
+and supposed and guessed and piled up probabilities to no purpose.
+Franklin told the world more private matters than is usual with men in
+his position; but in the two matters on which he had determined to
+withhold knowledge the world has sought for it in vain.
+
+Praiseworthy as his conduct may have been in this respect, it gave his
+opponents an advantage which we must admit they were entitled to take.
+If, as Wedderburn put it, he refused to tell from whom he received the
+letters, they were at liberty to suppose the worst, and the worst was
+that he had obtained them by improper means and fraud.
+
+For a time which must have seemed like years to Franklin, Wedderburn
+drew out and played on this point with most exasperating skill.
+Gentlemen respect private correspondence. They do not usually steal
+people's letters and print them. Even a foreign ambassador on the
+outbreak of war would hardly be justified in stealing documents. Must he
+not have known as soon as the letters were handed to him that honorable
+permission to use them could be obtained only from the family of
+Whately? Why had he chosen to bring that family into painful notoriety
+and one of them within a step of being murdered? He had sent the letters
+to Massachusetts with the address removed from them, and he was here
+supporting the petition with nothing but copies of the letters. He
+would, forsooth, have removed from office a governor in the midst of a
+long career of usefulness on the ground of letters the originals of
+which he could not produce and which he dared not tell how he had
+obtained.
+
+The orator went on to cite some of Franklin's letters to the people in
+Massachusetts encouraging them in their opposition. He read the
+resolutions of New England town meetings, and gave what, indeed, was a
+truthful description, from his point of view, of the measures taken for
+resistance in America. Franklin was aspiring to be Governor of
+Massachusetts in the place of Hutchinson, that was the secret of the
+whole affair, he said; and as for that beautiful argument that
+Hutchinson and Oliver had incensed the mother country against the
+colonies, what absurdity!
+
+We are perpetually told, he said, of men's incensing the mother country
+against the colonies, but we hear nothing of the vast variety of acts
+which have been made use of to incense the colonies against the mother
+country, setting at defiance the king's authority, treating Parliament
+as usurpers, pulling down the houses of royal officials and attacking
+their persons, burning His Majesty's ships of war, and denying the
+supreme jurisdiction of the British empire; and yet these people pretend
+a great concern about these letters as having a tendency to incense the
+parent state against the colonies, and would have a governor turned out
+because he reports their doings. "Was it to confute or prevent the
+pernicious effect of these 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?"
+
+While this ferocious attack was being delivered,--and it is said to have
+been delivered in thundering tones, emphasized by terrible blows of the
+orator's fist on a cushion before him on the table,--Franklin stood with
+head erect, unmoved, and without the slightest change upon his face from
+the beginning to the end. When all was over he went out, silent,
+dignified, without a word or sign to any one except that, as he passed
+Dr. Priestley, he secretly pressed his hand. His superb nerves and
+physique again raised him far above the occasion.
+
+It was one of the most remarkable traits of his wonderful personality
+that in all the great trials of his life he could give a dramatic
+interest and force to the situation which in the end turned everything
+in his favor. Burke said that his examination before Parliament
+reminded him of a master examined by a parcel of school-boys; and
+Whitefield said that every answer he gave made the questioner appear
+insignificant. In his much severer test before Wedderburn and the Privy
+Council he was defeated; but his supreme and serene manner was never
+forgotten by the spectators, and will live forever as a dramatic
+incident. Pictures have been painted of it, for it lends itself
+irresistibly to the purposes of the artist. In these pictures Franklin
+is the hero, for it is impossible, from an artistic point of view, to
+make any one else the hero in that scene.
+
+The petition of the Massachusetts Assembly was, of course, rejected with
+contempt; Franklin was immediately deprived of his office of postmaster
+of the colonies, and his usefulness as a colonial agent or as a
+diplomatist was at an end. He could no longer go to court or even be on
+friendly terms with the Tory party which controlled the government; and
+from this time on he was compelled to associate almost exclusively with
+the opposition, who still continued to be his friends. In other words,
+from being a colonial representative he had become a mere party man or
+party politician in England, and his own acts had brought him to this
+condition. While in a position which was essentially diplomatic, he had
+chosen to write anonymous newspaper articles against the very men with
+whom he was compelled to carry on his diplomatic negotiations. They
+naturally watched their opportunity to destroy him; and his conduct with
+regard to the Hutchinson letters gave it to them.
+
+He fully realized his situation, and made preparations to return to
+Philadelphia. He was, in fact, in danger of arrest; and the government
+had sent to America for the originals of some of his letters on which to
+base a prosecution for treason. But when it became known that the first
+Continental Congress was called to meet in September, he was persuaded
+to remain, as the Congress might have business for him to transact. He
+still believed that all difficulties would be finally settled. He did
+not think that there would be war; and this belief may have been caused
+partly by his conviction of the utter folly of such a war and partly
+because it was impossible for him to get full and accurate information
+of the real state of mind of the people in America. He had great faith
+in a change of ministry. If the Americans refused for another year to
+buy British goods, there would be such a clamor from the merchants and
+manufacturers that the Whigs would ride into power and colonial rights
+be safe.
+
+He remained until the following spring, without being able to accomplish
+anything, but he caught at several straws. Lord Chatham, who, as William
+Pitt, had conquered Canada in the French and Indian wars and laid the
+foundations of the modern British empire, was thoroughly disgusted at
+the conduct of the administration towards America. An old man, living at
+his country-seat within a couple of hours' drive from London, and
+suffering severely at times from the gout, he nevertheless aroused
+himself to reopen the subject in the House of Lords. He sent for
+Franklin, who has left us a most graphic account of the great man, so
+magnificent, eloquent, and gracious in his declining years.
+
+Franklin went over the whole ground with him; but the aged nobleman who
+had been such a conqueror of nations was fond of having everything his
+own way, and Franklin confesses that he was so charmed in watching the
+wonderful powers of his mind that he cared but little about criticising
+his plans. His lordship raised the question in the House of Lords in a
+grand oration, parts of which are still spoken by our school-boys, and
+he followed it by other speeches. He was for withdrawing all the troops
+from the colonies and restoring peace; but his oratory had no more
+effect on Parliament than Franklin's jokes.
+
+At the same time Lord Howe, brother of the General Howe who was
+afterwards prominent in the war against the colonies, attempted a plan
+of pacification which was to be accomplished through Franklin's aid. The
+Howes were favorably inclined towards America. Their brother, General
+Viscount Howe, had been very popular in the colonies, was killed at
+Ticonderoga in 1758 in the French and Indian war, and Massachusetts had
+erected a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey.
+
+Lord Howe's object was to secure some basis of compromise which both
+Franklin and the ministry could agree upon, an essential part of which
+was that his lordship was to be sent over to the colonies as a special
+commissioner to arrange final terms. The negotiations began by Franklin
+being asked to play chess with Lord Howe's sister, and he was also
+approached by a prominent Quaker, David Barclay, and by his old friend,
+Dr. Fothergill. There were numerous interviews, and Franklin prepared
+several papers containing conditions to which he thought the colonies
+would agree. Lord Howe promised him high rewards in case of success, and
+even offered, as an assurance of the good things to come, to pay him at
+once the arrears of his salary as agent of Massachusetts.
+
+Whether this was a sincere attempt at accommodation on the part of some
+of the more moderate of the Tories, or a scheme of Lord Howe's private
+ambition, or a mere trap for Franklin, has never been made clear.
+Franklin, however, rejected all the bribes and stood on the safe ground
+of terms which he knew would be acceptable in America; so this attempt
+also came to naught.
+
+After reading the long account Franklin has given of these negotiations,
+and the innumerable letters and proposals that were exchanged, one may
+see many causes of the break with the colonies,--ignorance, blindness,
+the infatuation of the king or of North or of Townsend,--but the primary
+cause of all is the one given at the end by Franklin,--corruption. The
+whole British government of that time was penetrated through and through
+with a vast system of bribery. Statesmen and politicians cared for
+nothing and would do nothing that did not give them offices to
+distribute. That was one of the objects of Lord Howe's scheme. Dr.
+Fothergill was intimate with all the governing class, and he said to
+Franklin, "Whatever specious pretences are offered, they are hollow; to
+get a larger field on which to fatten a herd of worthless parasites is
+all that is regarded." England lost her colonies by corruption, and she
+could not have built up her present vast colonial empire unless
+corruption had been abolished.
+
+At the end of April Franklin set out on his return to Philadelphia, and
+there was some question whether he would not be arrested before he could
+start. He used some precautions in getting away as quietly as possible,
+and sailed from Portsmouth unmolested.
+
+He still believed that there would be no war, and fully expected to
+return in October with instructions from the Continental Congress that
+would end the controversy. His ground for this belief seems to have been
+the old one that the hostility in England towards America was purely a
+ministerial or party question, and would be overthrown by the refusal of
+the colonists to buy British goods. But on his arrival in Philadelphia
+on the 5th of May he heard of the battle of Lexington, and never after
+that entertained much hope of a peaceful accommodation.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[26] Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, p. 314.
+
+[27] Hosmer's Life of Samuel Adams, p. 117.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+AT HOME AGAIN
+
+
+Franklin's wife had died while he was in England, and his daughter, Mrs.
+Sarah Bache, was now mistress of his new house, which had been built
+during his absence. The day after his arrival the Assembly made him one
+of its deputies in the Continental Congress which was soon to meet in
+Philadelphia. For the next eighteen months (from his arrival on the 5th
+of May, 1775, until October 26, 1776, when he sailed for France) every
+hour of his time seems to have been occupied with labors which would
+have been enough for a man in his prime, but for one seventy years old
+were a heavy burden.
+
+He was made Postmaster-General of the united colonies, and prepared a
+plan for a line of posts from Maine to Georgia. He dropped all his
+conservatism and became very earnest for the war, but was humorous and
+easy-going about everything. He had, of course, the privilege of
+franking his own letters; but instead of the usual form, "Free. B.
+Franklin," he would mark them "B free Franklin." He prepared a plan or
+constitution for the union of the colonies, which will be considered
+hereafter. Besides his work in Congress, he was soon made a member of
+the Pennsylvania Legislature, and was on the Committee of Safety which
+was preparing the defences of the province, and was, in effect, the
+executive government in place of the proprietary governor. From six to
+nine in the morning he was with this committee, and from nine till four
+in the afternoon he attended the session of Congress. He assisted in
+devising plans for obstructing the channel of the Delaware River, and
+the _chevaux-de-frise_, as they were called, which were placed in the
+water were largely of his design.
+
+It was extremely difficult for the Congress to obtain gunpowder for the
+army. The colonists had always relied on Europe for their supply, and
+were unaccustomed to manufacturing it. Franklin suggested that they
+should return to the use of bows and arrows:
+
+    "These were good weapons not wisely laid aside: 1st. Because a
+    man may shoot as truly with a bow as with a common musket. 2dly.
+    He can discharge four arrows in the time of charging and
+    discharging one bullet. 3dly. His object is not taken from his
+    view by the smoke of his own side. 4thly. A flight of arrows
+    seen coming upon them, terrifies and disturbs the enemies'
+    attention to their business. 5thly. An arrow striking any part
+    of a man puts him _hors de combat_ till it is extracted. 6thly.
+    Bows and arrows are more easily provided everywhere than muskets
+    and ammunition."
+
+This suggestion seems less strange when we remember that the musket of
+that time was a smooth-bore and comparatively harmless at three hundred
+yards.
+
+[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S LETTER TO STRAHAN]
+
+His letters to his old friends in England were full of resentment
+against the atrocities of the British fleet and army, especially the
+burning of the town of Portland, Maine. It was at this time that he
+wrote his famous letter to his old London friend, Mr. Strahan, a
+reproduction of which, taken from the copy at the State Department,
+Washington, is given in this volume. It is a most curiously worded,
+half-humorous letter, and the most popular one he ever wrote. It has
+been reprinted again and again, and _fac-similes_ of it have appeared
+for a hundred years, some of them in school-books.
+
+He could have desired nothing better than its appearance in
+school-books. One of his pet projects was that all American
+school-children should be taught how shockingly unjust and cruel Great
+Britain had been to her colonies; they must learn, he said, to hate her;
+and while he was in France he prepared a long list of the British
+outrages which he considered contrary to all the rules of civilized
+warfare. He intended to have a picture of each one prepared by French
+artists and sent to America, that the lesson of undying hatred might be
+burnt into the youthful mind.
+
+In the autumn of 1775 he went with two other commissioners to
+Washington's army before Boston to arrange for supplies and prepare
+general plans for the conduct of the war. In the following March he was
+sent to Canada with Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll, of Maryland, to
+win over the Canadians to the side of the revolted colonies. Charles
+Carroll's brother John, a Roman Catholic priest, accompanied them at the
+request of the members of Congress, who hoped that he would be able to
+influence the French Canadian clergy.
+
+It was a terrible journey for Franklin, now an old man; for as they
+advanced north they found the ground covered with snow and the lakes
+filled with floating ice. They spent five days beating up the Hudson in
+a little sloop to Albany, and two weeks after they had started they
+reached Lake George. General Schuyler, who lived near Albany,
+accompanied them after they had rested at his house, and assisted in
+obtaining wagons and boats. Franklin was ill with what he afterwards
+thought was an incipient attack of the gout which his constitution
+wanted strength to develop completely. At Saratoga he made up his mind
+that he would never see his home again, and wrote several letters of
+farewell.
+
+But by the care and assistance of John Carroll, the priest, with whom he
+contracted a life-long friendship, he was able to press on, and they
+reached the southern end of Lake George, where they embarked on a large
+flat-bottomed boat without a cabin, and sailed the whole length of the
+lake through the floating ice in about a day. Their boat was hauled by
+oxen across the land to Lake Champlain, and after a delay of five days
+they embarked again amidst the floating ice. Sailing and rowing,
+sleeping under a canvas cover at night, and going ashore to cook their
+meals, they made the upper end of the lake in about four days, and
+another day in wagons brought them to Montreal.
+
+Their mission was fruitless. The army under General Montgomery which had
+invaded the country had been unsuccessful against the British, had
+contracted large debts with the Canadians which it was unable to pay,
+and the Canadians would not join in the Revolution. So Franklin and the
+commissioners had to make their toilsome journey back again without
+having accomplished anything; and many years afterwards Franklin
+mentioned this journey, which nearly destroyed his life, as one of the
+reasons why Congress should vote him extra pay for his services in the
+Revolution.
+
+In June, 1776, Franklin was made a member of the convention which framed
+a new constitution for Pennsylvania to supply the place of the old
+colonial charter of William Penn, and he was engaged in this work during
+the summer, when his other duties permitted; but of this more hereafter.
+At the same time he was laboring in the Congress on the question of
+declaring independence. He was in favor of an immediate declaration, and
+his name is signed to the famous instrument.
+
+During this same summer he also had another conference with Lord Howe,
+who had arrived in New York harbor in command of the British fleet, and
+again wanted to patch up a peace. He failed, of course, for he had
+authority from his government only to receive the submission of the
+colonies; and he was plainly told by Franklin and the other
+commissioners who met him that the colonies would make no treaty with
+England except one that acknowledged them as an independent nation.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE EMBASSY TO FRANCE AND ITS SCANDALS
+
+
+Franklin's most important duties in the Continental Congress were
+connected with his membership of the "Secret Committee," afterwards
+known as the "Committee of Correspondence." It was really a committee on
+foreign relations, and had been formed for the purpose of corresponding
+with the friends of the revolted colonies in Europe and securing from
+them advice and assistance. From appointing agents to serve this
+committee in France or England, Franklin was soon promoted to be himself
+one of the agents and to represent in France the united colonies which
+had just declared their independence.
+
+On September 26, 1776, he was given this important mission, not by the
+mere appointment of his own committee, but by vote of Congress. He was
+to be one of three commissioners of equal powers, who would have more
+importance and weight than the mere agents hitherto sent to Europe. The
+news received of the friendly disposition of France was very
+encouraging, and it was necessary that envoys should be sent with full
+authority to take advantage of it. Silas Deane, who had already gone to
+France as a secret agent, and Thomas Jefferson were elected as
+Franklin's fellow-commissioners. The ill health of Jefferson's wife
+compelled him to decline, and Arthur Lee, already acting as an agent for
+the colonies in Europe, was elected in his place.
+
+When the result of the first ballot taken in Congress showed that
+Franklin was elected, he is said to have turned to Dr. Rush, sitting
+near him, and remarked, "I am old and good for nothing; but as the
+storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, I am but a fag end, you may
+have me for what you please."
+
+There was, however, fourteen more years of labor in the "fag end," as he
+called himself; and the jest was one of those appropriately modest
+remarks which he knew so well how to make. He probably looked forward
+with not a little satisfaction to the prospect of renewing again those
+pleasures of intercourse with the learned and great which he was so
+capable of enjoying and which could be found only in Europe. His
+reputation was already greater in France than in England. He would be
+able to see the evidences of it as well as increase it in this new and
+delightful field. But the British newspapers, of course, said that he
+had secured this appointment as a clever way of escaping from the
+collapse of the rebellion which he shrewdly foresaw was inevitable.
+
+On October 26, 1776, he left Philadelphia very quietly and, accompanied
+by his two grandsons, William Temple Franklin and Benjamin Franklin
+Bache, drove some fifteen miles down the river to Marcus Hook, where the
+"Reprisal," a swift war-vessel of the revolted colonies, awaited him.
+She set sail immediately and got out of the river into the ocean as
+quickly as possible, for the British desired nothing better than to
+capture this distinguished envoy to the court of France. Wickes, the
+captain, afterwards famous for the prizes he took from the British, knew
+that he must run the gauntlet of the cruisers, and he drove his little
+vessel with all sail through the November gales, making Quiberon Bay, on
+the coast of France, in thirty-three days.
+
+It was a rough, dangerous, exciting voyage; the venerable philosopher of
+seventy years was confined to a little, cramped cabin, more sick and
+distressed than he had ever been before on the ocean; and yet he
+insisted on taking the temperature of the water every day to test again
+his theory of the Gulf Stream. They were chased by cruisers, but the
+fleet "Reprisal" could always turn them into fading specks on the
+horizon's verge; and as she neared the coast of France she fell in with
+some good luck,--two British vessels loaded with lumber, wine, brandy,
+and flaxseed, which were duly brought to and carried into a French port
+to be sold. The "Reprisal" had on board a small cargo of indigo, which,
+with the prizes, was to go towards paying the expense of the mission to
+France. In this simple and homely way were the colonies beginning their
+diplomatic relations.
+
+The French people received Franklin with an outburst of enthusiasm which
+has never been given by them to any other American. So weak from the
+sickness of the voyage that he could scarcely stand, the old man was
+overwhelmed with attention,--a grand dinner at Nantes, an invitation to
+a country house where he expected to find rest, but had none from the
+ceaseless throng of visitors. The unexpected and romantic manner of his
+arrival, dodging the cruisers and coming in with two great merchantmen
+as prizes, aroused the greatest interest and delight. It was like a
+brilliant stroke in a play or a tale from the "Arabian Nights," worthy
+of French imagination; and here this wonderful American from the woods
+had made it an accomplished fact.
+
+The enthusiasm of this reception never abated, but, on the contrary,
+soon became extravagant worship, which continued during the nine years
+of his residence in France. Even on his arrival they were exaggerating
+everything about him, adding four years to his age to make his
+adventures seem more wonderful; and Paris waited in as much restless
+expectation for his arrival as if he had been a king.
+
+Beneath all this lay, of course, the supreme satisfaction with which the
+French contemplated the revolt of the colonies and the inevitable
+weakening of their much-hated enemy and rival, Great Britain; and they
+had made up their minds to assist in this dismemberment to the utmost of
+their ability. They were already familiar with Franklin; his name was a
+household word in France; his brilliant discovery of the nature of
+lightning appealed strongly to every imagination; "Poor Richard" had
+been translated for them, and its shrewd economy and homely wisdom had
+been their delight for years. Its author was the synonyme and
+personification of liberty,--that liberty which they were just beginning
+to rave about, for their own revolution was not twenty years away.
+
+It interested them all the more that the man who represented all this
+for them, and whose name seemed to be really a French one, came from the
+horrible wilderness of America, the home of interminable dark forests,
+filled with savage beasts and still more savage men.
+
+France at that time was the gay, pleasure- and sensation-loving France
+which had just been living under the reign of Louis XIV. Sated with
+luxury and magnificence, with much intelligence and culture even among
+the middle classes, there was no novelty that pleased Frenchmen more
+than something which seemed to be close to nature; and when they
+discovered that this exceedingly natural man from the woods had also the
+severe and serene philosophy of Cato, Phocion, Socrates, and the other
+sages of antiquity, combined with a conversation full of wit, point, and
+raillery like their own, it is not surprising that they made a perpetual
+joy and feast over him. It was so delightful for a lady to pay him a
+pretty compliment about having drawn down the fire from heaven, and have
+him instantly reply in some most apt phrase of an old man's gallantry;
+and then he never failed; there seemed to be no end to his resources.
+
+[Illustration: FRANKLIN CANNOT DIE
+
+(From a French engraving)]
+
+Amidst these brilliant surroundings he wore for a time that shocking old
+fur cap which appears in one of his portraits; and although his
+biographers earnestly protest that he was incapable of such affectation,
+there is every reason to believe that he found that it intensified
+the character the French people had already formed of him. Several
+writers of the time speak of his very rustic dress, his firm but free
+and direct manner which seemed to be the simplicity of a past age. But
+if he was willing to encourage their laudation by a little clever
+acting, he never carried it too far; and there is no evidence that his
+head was ever turned by all this extravagant worship. He was altogether
+too shrewd to make such a fatal mistake. He knew the meaning and real
+value of it, and nursed it so carefully that he kept it living and fresh
+for nine years.
+
+So he went to live in Paris, while the people began to make portraits,
+medals, and busts of him, until there were some two hundred different
+kinds to be set in rings, watches, snuff-boxes, bracelets,
+looking-glasses, and other articles. Within a few days after his arrival
+it was the fashion for every one to have a picture of him on their
+mantel-piece. He selected for his residence the little village of Passy,
+about two miles from the heart of Paris, and not too far from the court
+at Versailles. There for nine years his famous letters were dated, and
+Franklin at Passy, with his friends, their gardens and their wit, was a
+subject of interest and delight to a whole generation of the civilized
+world.
+
+M. Ray de Chaumont had there a large establishment called the Hotel de
+Valentinois. In part of it he lived himself, and, to show his devotion
+to the cause of America, he insisted that Franklin should occupy the
+rest of it as his home and for the business of the embassy free of rent.
+This arrangement Franklin accepted in his easy way, and nothing more
+was thought of it until precise John Adams arrived from Massachusetts
+and was greatly shocked to find an envoy of the United States living in
+a Frenchman's house without paying board.
+
+Pleasantly situated, with charming neighbors who never wearied of him,
+enjoying the visits and improving conversation of the great men of the
+learned and scientific worlds, caressed at court, exchanging repartees
+and flirtations with clever women, oppressed at times with terrible
+anxiety for his country, but slowly winning success, and dining out six
+nights of nearly every week when he was not disabled by the gout, the
+old Philadelphia printer cannot be said to have fallen upon very evil
+days.
+
+His position was just the reverse of what it had been in England, where
+his task had been almost an impossible one. In France everything was in
+his favor. There were no Wedderburns or Tory ministers, no powerful
+political party opposed to his purposes, and no liberal party with which
+he might be tempted to take sides. The whole nation--king, nobles, and
+people--was with him. He had only to suggest what was wanted; and,
+indeed, a great deal was done without even his suggestion.
+
+This condition of affairs precluded the possibility of his accomplishing
+any great feat in diplomacy. The tide being all in his favor, he had
+only to take advantage of it and abstain from anything that would check
+its flow. Instead of the aggressive course he had seen fit to follow in
+England, he must avoid everything which in the least resembled
+aggression. He must be complaisant, popular, and encourage the
+universal feeling instead of opposing it, and this part he certainly
+played to perfection.
+
+He was by no means the sole representative of his country in France, and
+considerable work had been accomplished before he arrived. In fact, the
+French were ready to do the work themselves without waiting for a
+representative. When Franklin was leaving London in 1775 the French
+ambassador called upon him and gave him to understand in no doubtful
+terms that France would be on the side of the colonies.
+
+It is a mistake to suppose, as has sometimes been done, that some one
+person suggested to the French government, or that Franklin himself
+suggested or urged, the idea of weakening England by assisting America.
+It was a policy the wisdom of which was obvious to every one. As early
+as the time of the Stamp Act, Louis XV. sent De Kalb to America to watch
+the progress of the rebellion, and to foment it. The English themselves
+foresaw and dreaded a French alliance with the colonies. Lord Howe
+referred to it in his last interview with Franklin; Beaumarchais argued
+about it in long letters to the king; it was favored by the Count
+d'Artois, the Duke of Orleans, and the Count de Broglie, not to mention
+young Lafayette; and the colonists themselves thought of it as soon as
+they thought of resistance. The French king, Louis XVI., who, as an
+absolute monarch, disliked rebellion, hesitated for a time; but he was
+won over by Vergennes and Beaumarchais.
+
+France had just come out of a long war with England in which she had
+lost Canada and valuable possessions in the East and West Indies.
+England held the port of Dunkirk, on French soil, and searched French
+ships whenever she pleased. France was humiliated and full of
+resentment. She had failed to conquer the English colonies; but it would
+be almost as good and some slight revenge if she deprived England of
+them by helping them to secure their own independence. It would cripple
+English commerce, which was rapidly driving that of France from the
+ocean. England had in 1768 helped the Corsican rebels against France,
+and that was a good precedent for France helping the American rebels
+against England.
+
+In the autumn of 1775 the Secret Committee of Congress had sent Thomas
+Story to London, Holland, and France to consult with persons friendly to
+the colonies. He was also to deliver a letter to Arthur Lee, who had
+taken Franklin's place as agent of Massachusetts in London, and this
+letter instructed Lee to learn the disposition of foreign powers. A
+similar letter was to be delivered to Mr. Dumas in Holland, and soon
+after Story's departure M. Penet, a French merchant of Nantes, was sent
+to France to buy ammunition, arms, and clothing.
+
+A few months afterwards, in the beginning of 1776, the committee sent to
+Paris Silas Deane, of Connecticut, who had served in the Congress. He
+was more of a diplomatic representative than any of the others, and was
+instructed to procure, if possible, an audience with Vergennes, the
+French Minister of Foreign Affairs, suggest the establishment of
+friendly relations, the need of arms and ammunition, and finally lead up
+to the question whether, if the colonies declared their independence,
+they might look upon France as an ally.
+
+Meantime that strange character, Beaumarchais, the author of "The Barber
+of Seville" and "The Marriage of Figaro," and still a distinguished
+light of French literature, fired by the general enthusiasm for the
+Americans, constituted himself their agent and ambassador, and was by no
+means an unimportant one. He was the son of a respectable watch-maker,
+and when a mere youth had distinguished himself by the invention of an
+improvement in escapements, which was stolen by another watch-maker, who
+announced it as his own. Beaumarchais appealed to the Academy of
+Sciences in a most cleverly written petition, and it decided in his
+favor. Great attention had been drawn to him by the contest; he appeared
+at court, and was soon making wonderful little watches for the king and
+queen; he became a favorite, the familiar friend of the king's
+daughters, and his career as an adventurer, courtier, and speculator
+began. A most wonderful genius, typical in many ways of his century, few
+men have ever lived who could play so many parts, and his excellent
+biographer, Lomenie, has summed up the occupations in which he excelled:
+
+    "Watch-maker, musician, song writer, dramatist, comic writer,
+    man of fashion, courtier, man of business, financier,
+    manufacturer, publisher, ship-owner, contractor, secret agent,
+    negotiator, pamphleteer, orator on certain occasions, a peaceful
+    man by taste, and yet always at law, engaging, like Figaro, in
+    every occupation, Beaumarchais was concerned in most of the
+    events, great or small, which preceded the Revolution."
+
+He traded all over the world, and made three or four fortunes and lost
+them; he had at times forty vessels of his own on the ocean, and his
+private man-of-war assisted the French navy at the battle of Grenada. In
+fact, he was like his great contemporary, Voltaire, who, besides being a
+dramatist, a philosopher, a man of letters, and a reformer, was one of
+the ablest business men of France, a ship-owner, contractor, and
+millionaire.
+
+The resemblance of Franklin to these two men is striking. He showed the
+same versatility of talents, though perhaps in less degree. He had the
+same strange ability to excel at the same time in both literary and
+practical affairs, he had very much the same opinion on religion, and
+his morals, like Voltaire's, were somewhat irregular. When we connect
+with this his wonderful reputation in France, the adoration of the
+people, and the strange way in which during his residence in Paris he
+became part of the French nation, we are almost led to believe that
+through some hidden process the causes which produced Franklin must have
+been largely of French origin. He is, indeed, more French than English,
+and seems to belong with Beaumarchais and Voltaire rather than with
+Chatham, Burke, or Priestley.
+
+But to return to Beaumarchais and the Revolution. He was carried away by
+the importance of the rebellion in America, and devoted his whole soul
+to bringing France to the assistance of the colonies. He argued with
+the court and the king, visited London repeatedly in the secret service
+of his government, and became more than ever convinced of the weakness
+of Great Britain.
+
+The plan which the French ministry now adopted was to aid the colonies
+in secret and avoid for the present an open breach with England. Arms
+were to be sent to one of the French West India islands, where the
+governor would find means of delivering them to the Americans. Soon,
+however, this method was changed as too dangerous, and in place of it
+Beaumarchais established in Paris a business house, which he personally
+conducted under the name of Roderique Hortalez & Company. He did this at
+the request of the government, and his biographer, De Lomenie, has given
+us a statement of the arrangement in language which he assumes Vergennes
+must have used in giving instructions to Beaumarchais:
+
+    "The operation must essentially in the eyes of the English
+    government, and even in the eyes of the Americans, have the
+    appearance of an individual speculation, to which the French
+    ministers are strangers. That it may be so in appearance, it
+    must also be so, to a certain point, in reality. We will give a
+    million secretly, we will try to induce the court of Spain to
+    unite with us in this affair, and supply you on its side with an
+    equal sum; with these two millions and the co-operation of
+    individuals who will be willing to take part in your enterprise
+    you will be able to found a large house of commerce, and at your
+    own risk can supply America with arms, ammunition, articles of
+    equipment, and all other articles necessary for keeping up the
+    war. Our arsenals will give you arms and ammunition, but you
+    shall replace them or shall pay for them. You shall ask for no
+    money from the Americans, as they have none; but you shall ask
+    them for returns in products of their soil, and we will help you
+    to get rid of them in this country, while you shall grant them,
+    on your side, every facility possible. In a word, the
+    operation, after being secretly supported by us at the
+    commencement, must afterwards feed and support itself; but, on
+    the other side, as we reserve to ourselves the right of favoring
+    or discouraging it, according to the requirements of our policy,
+    you shall render us an account of your profits and your losses,
+    and we will judge whether we are to accord you fresh assistance,
+    or give you an acquittal for the sums previously granted." (De
+    Lomenie's Beaumarchais, p. 273.)
+
+It was in June, 1776, that Beaumarchais started his extraordinary
+enterprise in the Rue Vieille du Temple, in a large building called the
+Hotel de Hollande, which had formerly been used as the residence of the
+Dutch ambassador. The million francs was paid to him by the French
+government, another million by Spain in September, and still another
+million by France in the following year. So with the greatest
+hopefulness and delight he began shipping uniforms, arms, ammunition,
+and all sorts of supplies to America. He had at times great difficulty
+in getting his laden ships out of port. The French government was
+perfectly willing that they should go, and always affected to know
+nothing about them. But Lord Stormont, the British ambassador, would
+often discover their destination and protest in most vigorous and
+threatening language. Then the French ministry would appear greatly
+surprised and stop the ships. This process was repeated during two
+years,--a curious triangular, half-masked contest between Beaumarchais,
+Lord Stormont, and the ministry.
+
+    "If government caused my vessels to be unloaded in one port, I
+    sent them secretly to reload at a distance in the roads. Were
+    they stopped under their proper names, I changed them
+    immediately, or made pretended sales, and put them anew under
+    fictitious commissions. Were obligations in writing exacted from
+    my captains to go nowhere but to the West India Islands,
+    powerful gratifications on my part made them yield again to my
+    wishes. Were they sent to prison on their return for
+    disobedience, I then doubled their gratifications to keep their
+    zeal from cooling, and consoled them with gold for the rigor of
+    our government."
+
+In this way he sent to the colonies within a year eight vessels with
+supplies worth six million francs. Sometimes, in spite of all efforts,
+one of his vessels with a valuable cargo was obliged to sail direct to
+the West Indies, and could go nowhere else. In one instance of this sort
+he wrote to his agent Francy, in America, to have several American
+privateers sent to the West Indies to seize the vessel.
+
+    "My captain will protest violently, and will draw up a written
+    statement threatening to make his complaint to the Congress. The
+    vessel will be taken where you are. The Congress will loudly
+    disavow the action of the brutal privateer, and will set the
+    vessel at liberty with polite apologies to the French flag;
+    during this time you will land the cargo, fill the ship with
+    tobacco, and send it back to me as quickly as possible, with all
+    you may happen to have ready to accompany it."
+
+Imagination is sometimes a very valuable quality in practical affairs,
+and this neat description by the man of letters was actually carried out
+in every detail and with complete success by his agent in America. He
+was certainly a valuable ambassador of the colonies, this wonderful
+Beaumarchais; but he suffered severely for his devotion. Under his
+agreement with his government, the government's outlay was to be paid
+back gradually by American produce; but Congress would not send the
+produce, or sent it so slowly that Beaumarchais was threatened with
+ruin, and suffered the torturing anxiety which comes with the conviction
+that those for whom you are making the greatest sacrifices are
+indifferent and incapable of gratitude.
+
+It was in vain that he appealed to Congress; for Arthur Lee was
+continually informing that body that he was a fraud and his claims
+groundless, because the French government intended that all the supplies
+sent through Hortalez & Co. should be a free gift to the revolted
+colonies. Lee may have sincerely believed this; but it was very
+unfortunate, because more than two years elapsed before Congress became
+convinced that the supplies were not entirely a present, and voted
+Beaumarchais its thanks and some of the money he claimed. A large part
+of his claims were never paid. For fifty years there was a controversy
+about "the lost million," and for its romantic history the reader is
+referred to De Lomenie, Durand's "New Material for the History of the
+American Revolution," and Dr. Stille's "Beaumarchais and the Lost
+Million."
+
+But he was not the only person who suffered. The truth is that the whole
+arrangement made by Congress for conducting the business in France was
+ridiculously inefficient, not to say cruel and inhuman. That we got most
+important aid from France was due to the eagerness and efforts of the
+French themselves, and not to anything done by Congress.
+
+Franklin and his two fellow-commissioners, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee,
+had equal powers. They had to conduct a large and complicated business
+involving the expenditure of millions of dollars without knowing exactly
+where the millions were to come from, and with no regular system of
+accounts or means of auditing and investigating; their arrangements had
+to be largely kept secret; they expended money in lump sums without
+always knowing what use was made of it; they were obliged to rely on the
+assistance of all sorts of people,--naval agents, commercial agents, and
+others for whose occupation there was no exact name; and they had no
+previous experience or precedents to guide them. On their arrival at
+Paris, the three commissioners found a fourth person, Beaumarchais, well
+advanced in his work, and accomplishing in a practical way rather more
+than any of them could hope to do. Moreover, Beaumarchais's arrangement
+was necessarily so secret that though they knew in a general way, as did
+Lord Stormont and all Paris, what he was doing, yet only one of them,
+Deane, was ever fully admitted into the secret, and it is probable that
+the other two died without having fully grasped the real nature and
+conditions of his service.
+
+That three joint commissioners of equal powers should conduct such an
+enormous business of expenditure and credit for a series of years
+without becoming entangled in the most terrible suspicions and bitter
+quarrels was in the nature of things impossible. The result was that the
+history of their horrible disputes and accusations against one another
+is more voluminous than the history of their services. Deane, who did
+more actual work than any one except Beaumarchais, was thoroughly and
+irretrievably ruined. Arthur Lee, who accomplished very little besides
+manufacturing suspicions and charges, has left behind him a reputation
+for malevolence which no one will envy; Beaumarchais suffered tortures
+which he considered almost equivalent to ruin, and his reputation was
+not entirely rescued until nearly half a century after his death; and
+Franklin came nearer than ever before in his life to sinking his great
+fame in an infamy of corruption, for the attacks made upon him by Arthur
+Lee were a hundred times worse than those of Wedderburn.
+
+It was a terrible ordeal for the four men,--those two years before
+France made an open alliance with the colonies,--and I will add a few
+other circumstances which contributed variety to their situation. Ralph
+Izard, of South Carolina, a very passionate man, was appointed by the
+wise Congress an envoy to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He never went to
+Tuscany for the simple reason that the duke could not receive him
+without becoming embroiled with Great Britain; so he was obliged to
+remain in Paris, where he assisted Lee in villifying Deane, Franklin,
+and Beaumarchais, and his letters home were full of attacks on their
+characters.
+
+He was not a member of the commission which had charge of French
+affairs, and yet, in the loose way in which all the foreign business of
+the colonies was being managed, it was perhaps natural that, as an
+energetic and able man and an American, he should wish to be consulted
+occasionally by Franklin and Deane. In a certain way he was directly
+connected with them, for he had to obtain money from them for some of
+his expenses incurred in attempting to go to Tuscany, and on this
+subject he quarrelled with Franklin, who thought that he had used too
+much. He was also obliged to apply to Franklin for certain papers to
+enable him to make a commercial treaty with Tuscany, and these, he said,
+Franklin had delayed supplying. He complained further of Franklin's
+neglect to answer his letters and obstructing his means of sending
+information to America.
+
+Franklin afterwards admitted that he might have saved himself from
+Izard's enmity by showing him a little attention; his letters to both
+Izard and Lee were very stinging; in fact, they were the severest that
+he ever wrote; and Izard's charge that he delayed answering letters was
+probably true, for we know from other sources that he was never orderly
+in business matters. At any rate, the result of his neglect of Izard was
+that that gentleman's hatred for him steadily increased to the end of
+his life, and years after Izard had left Paris he is described as unable
+to contain himself at the mention of Franklin's name, bursting out into
+passionate denunciation of him like the virtuous old ladies we are told
+of in Philadelphia.
+
+Then there was William Lee, brother of Arthur Lee, appointed envoy to
+Berlin and Vienna, which places he could not reach for the same reason
+that prevented Izard from going to Tuscany. So he also stayed in Paris,
+assisted his brother Arthur, became a commercial agent, and had no love
+for either Franklin or Deane. There was also Dr. Edward Bancroft, who
+had no regular appointment, but flitted back and forth between London
+and Paris. He was intimate with Franklin, assisted Deane, knew the
+secrets of the American business in Paris, which knowledge Lee tells us
+he used for the purpose of speculating in London, and Bancroft the
+historian says that he was really a British spy. Thomas Morris, a
+younger brother of Robert Morris, was a commercial agent at Nantes,
+wrecked himself with drink, and started what came near being a serious
+dispute between Robert Morris and Franklin; and Franklin himself had his
+own nephew, Jonathan Williams, employed as naval agent, which gave Lee a
+magnificent opportunity to charge that the nephew was in league with the
+uncle and with Deane to steal the public money and share with them the
+proceeds of the sale of prizes.
+
+It is impossible to go fully into all these details; but we are obliged
+to say, in order to make the situation plain, that Deane, being taken
+into the full confidence of Beaumarchais, conducted with him an immense
+amount of business through the firm of Hortalez & Co. On several
+occasions Franklin testified in the warmest manner to Deane's efficiency
+and usefulness, and this testimony is the stronger because Franklin was
+never taken into the confidence of Beaumarchais, had no intercourse with
+him, and might be supposed to be piqued, as Lee was, by this neglect.
+But the greatest secrecy was necessary, and Deane could not reveal his
+exact relationship with the French contractor and dramatist. So letter
+after letter was received by Congress from Lee, describing what dreadful
+fraud and corruption the wicked pair, Deane and Beaumarchais, were
+guilty of every day. Deane, he said, was making a fortune for himself by
+his relations with Beaumarchais, and was speculating in London. Deane
+also urged that Beaumarchais should be paid for the supplies, which were
+not, he said, a present from the king, and this Lee, of course, thought
+was another evidence of his villany.
+
+Some of Lee's accusations are on their face rather far-fetched. On the
+charge, however, that Deane and Franklin's nephew, Jonathan Williams,
+were speculating on their own account in the sale of prizes, he quotes a
+letter from Williams to Deane which is rather strong:
+
+    "I have been on board the prize brig. Mr. Ross tells me he has
+    written to you on the subject and the matter rests whether
+    according to his letter you will undertake or not; if we take
+    her on private account she must be passed but 13,000 livres."
+
+This, it must be confessed, looked very suspicious, for Williams was in
+charge of the prizes, and by this letter he seemed prepared to act as
+both seller and purchaser and to share with Deane.
+
+The charge that Deane had assumed to himself the whole management of
+affairs and ignored Lee was undoubtedly true, and no one has ever denied
+it. Franklin also ignored him, for he was an unbearable man with whom no
+one could live at peace.
+
+Lee kept on with his accusations, declaring that Deane's accounts were
+in confusion. A packet of despatches sent to Congress was found on its
+arrival to contain nothing but blank paper. It had evidently been opened
+and robbed. Lee promptly insinuated that Deane must have been the thief,
+and that Franklin probably assisted.
+
+In a letter to Samuel Adams, Lee said,--
+
+    "It is impossible to describe to you to what a degree this kind
+    of intrigue has disgraced, confounded, and injured our affairs
+    here. The observation of this at head-quarters has encouraged
+    and produced through the whole a spirit of neglect, abuse,
+    plunder, and intrigue in the public business which it has been
+    impossible for me to prevent or correct."
+
+So the evidence, or rather suspicions, piled up against Deane, and he
+was ordered home. Supposing that Congress wanted him merely for
+information about the state of France, he returned after the treaty of
+alliance was signed, coming over, as he thought, in triumph with Admiral
+D'Estaing and the fleet that was to assist the Americans.
+
+He expected to be welcomed with gratitude, but Congress would not notice
+him; and when at last he was allowed to tell his story, the members of
+that body did not believe a word of it. He made public statements in the
+newspapers, fought Lee with paper and ink, and the curious may still
+read his and Lee's recriminations, calling one another traitors, and
+become more confused than ever over the controversy. His arguments only
+served to injure his case. He made the mistake of attacking Lee instead
+of merely defending himself, and he talked so openly about our affairs
+in France, revealing, among other things, the dissensions among the
+members of the commission, that he was generally regarded as having
+injured our standing among the governments of Europe.
+
+He struggled with Congress, and returned to Paris to have his accounts
+audited; but it was all useless; he was ruined; and, in despair and fury
+at the injustice done him, he went over to the British, like Arnold, and
+died in poverty and obscurity.
+
+In America both he and Beaumarchais seem to have been considered rascals
+until far into the next century, when the publication of Beaumarchais's
+life and the discovery of some papers by a member of the Connecticut
+Historical Society put a different face upon their history. Congress
+voted Deane's heirs thirty-eight thousand dollars as a recompense for
+the claims which the Continental Congress had refused to pay their
+ancestor. Indeed, the poverty in which Deane died was not consistent
+with Lee's story that he had been making millions by his arrangement
+with Beaumarchais. Franklin always stood by him, and publicly declared
+that in all his dealings with him he had never had any occasion to
+suspect that he lacked integrity.
+
+Lee was a Virginian, a member of the famous family of that name, and a
+younger brother of Richard Henry Lee, who was a member of the
+Continental Congress. Though born in Virginia, he was educated in
+England at Eton and also at Edinburgh, where he took the degree of
+doctor of medicine. The easy-going methods by which Franklin and Deane
+handled millions of dollars, sold hundreds of prizes brought in by Paul
+Jones and other American captains, and shipped cargoes of arms,
+ammunition, and clothing to America were extremely shocking to him. Or
+perhaps he was extremely shocked because he was not allowed a hand in
+it. But it was necessary to be prompt in giving assistance to the
+revolted colonies, and Franklin and Deane pushed the business along as
+best they could.
+
+If Congress had made a less stupid arrangement the embassy might have
+been organized on a business-like system in which everything would move
+by distinct, definite orders, everybody's sphere be defined, with a
+regular method of accounts in which every item should have its voucher.
+But, as Franklin himself confessed, he never could learn to be orderly;
+and now, when he was past seventy, infirm, often laid up with violent
+attacks of the gout, with a huge literary and philosophic reputation to
+support, tormented by Lee and Izard, the whole French nation insane with
+admiration for him, and dining out almost every day, it was difficult
+for him to do otherwise than as he did.
+
+Although the others had equal power with him, he was necessarily the
+head of the embassy, for his reputation was so great in France that
+everything gravitated towards him. Most people scarcely knew that there
+were two other commissioners, and the little they knew of Lee they did
+not like. Lee was absent part of the time on journeys to Spain, Berlin,
+and Vienna, and as Deane had started the business of sending supplies
+before either Franklin or Lee arrived, the conduct of affairs naturally
+drifted away from Lee. It afforded a good excuse for ignoring him. He
+was insanely suspicious, and charged John Jay, Reed, Duane, and other
+prominent Americans with treason, apparently without the slightest
+foundation.
+
+Finding himself ignored and in an awkward and useless position, he
+should have resigned, giving his reasons. But he chose to stay and send
+private letters to members of Congress attacking the characters of his
+fellow-commissioners and intriguing to have himself appointed the sole
+envoy to France. Among his letters are to be found three on this
+subject, two to his brother in Congress and one to Samuel Adams.
+
+    "There is but one way of redressing this and remedying the
+    public evil; that is the plan I before sent you of appointing
+    the Dr. _honoris causa_ to Vienna, Mr. Deane to Holland, Mr.
+    Jennings to Madrid, and leaving me here." (Life of Arthur Lee,
+    vol. ii. p. 127.)
+
+His attack on Franklin and his nephew, Jonathan Williams, was a very
+serious one, and was published in a pamphlet, entitled "Observations on
+Certain Commercial Transactions in France Laid Before Congress."
+Williams was one of Franklin's Boston nephews who turned up in Paris
+poor and without employment. Franklin was always taking care of his
+relatives with government positions, and he gave this one the position
+of naval agent at Nantes. He had charge of the purchase of supplies for
+American men-of-war, sold the prizes that were brought in, and also
+bought and shipped arms and ammunition. It was a large business
+involving the handling of enormous sums of money, and there is no doubt
+that there were opportunities in it for making a fortune. Under the
+modern spoils system it would be regarded as a precious plum which a
+political party would be justified in making almost any sacrifices to
+secure.
+
+Franklin and Deane seem to have let Williams manage this department
+pretty much as he pleased, and, as has been already shown, Lee had some
+ground for suspecting that Deane was privately interested with Williams
+in the sale of prizes. Williams certainly expended large sums on Deane's
+orders alone, and he was continually calling for more money from the
+commissioners' bankers. Lee demanded that there should be no more orders
+signed by Deane alone, and that Williams should send in his accounts;
+and, notwithstanding Lee's naturally captious and suspicious
+disposition, he was perfectly right in this.
+
+Deane and Williams kept demanding more money, and Lee asked Franklin to
+stop it, which he not only refused to do, but wrote a letter to his
+nephew justifying him in everything:
+
+    "PASSY, Dec. 22, 1777.
+
+    "DEAR NEPHEW:
+
+    "I received yours of the 16th and am concerned as well as you at
+    the difference between Messrs. Deane and Lee, but cannot help
+    it. You need, however, be under no concern as to your orders
+    being only from Mr. Deane. As you have always acted uprightly
+    and ably for the public service, you would be justified if you
+    had no orders at all. But as he generally consulted with me and
+    had my approbation in the orders he gave, and I know they were
+    for the best and aimed at the public good, I hereby certify you
+    that I approve and join in those you received from him and
+    desire you to proceed in the execution of the same."
+
+Williams at last sent in his accounts, and Lee went over them, marking
+some items "manifestly unjust," others "plainly exorbitant," and others
+"altogether unsatisfactory for want of names, dates, or receipts." He
+refused to approve the accounts, sent them to Congress, and asked
+Williams to produce his vouchers. The vouchers, Lee tells us, were never
+produced. He asked for them again and again, but there was always some
+excuse, and he charges that Williams had in his possession a hundred
+thousand livres more than was accounted for. Finally, John Adams, who
+had come out to supersede Deane, joined with Franklin in giving Williams
+an order on the bankers for the balance claimed by him; but the order
+expressly stated that it was not to be understood as an approval of his
+accounts, for which he must be responsible to Congress. Franklin
+appointed certain persons to audit the accounts, but at a time, Lee
+says, when they were on the point of sailing for America, and therefore
+could not act. Adams seems to have been convinced that Williams was not
+all that could be desired, and he and Franklin soon dismissed him from
+his office, again reminding him that this was not to be considered as an
+approval of his accounts.
+
+Lee's charge against Franklin was that he had connived at the acts of
+his nephew and done everything possible to shield him and enable him to
+get possession of the balance of money he claimed. Readers must draw
+their own conclusions, for the matter was never officially investigated.
+It would have been unwise for Congress to inaugurate a public scandal
+at a time when the country was struggling for existence, needed all the
+moral and financial support it could obtain from Europe, and as yet saw
+no end to the Revolution.
+
+One more point must be noticed. Lee commented with much sarcasm on the
+sudden prosperity of Jonathan Williams. He had been clerk to a
+sugar-baker in England, and was supposed to be without means; but as
+naval agent he soon began to call himself a merchant, and when waiting
+on the commissioners charged five Louis d'ors a day for the loss of his
+time. Lee, according to some of his letters, had been trying for some
+time to have a certain John Lloyd, of South Carolina, appointed in the
+place of Williams; and I shall quote part of one of these letters, which
+shows why Lee wanted Williams's place for one of his friends.
+
+    "My brother and myself have conceived that as the public
+    allowance to the commercial agent is very liberal and the
+    situation necessarily must recommend considerable business, the
+    person appointed might with the most fair and conscientious
+    discharge of his duty to the public make his own fortune." (Life
+    of Arthur Lee, vol. ii. p. 144.)
+
+He did not succeed in having Lloyd appointed, but he and his brother
+William secured the position for a friend of theirs called
+Schweighauser, on the dismissal of Williams, and this Schweighauser
+appointed a nephew of the Lees as one of his assistants.
+
+It should be said that although Lee and Izard were constantly hinting at
+evil practices by Franklin, and sometimes directly stigmatized him as
+the "father of corruption" and deeply involved in the most disreputable
+schemes, they never produced any proof that he had enriched himself or
+was directly engaged in anything discreditable. There seems to be no
+doubt that certain people were making money under cover of the loose way
+in which affairs were managed. Franklin must have known of this, as well
+as Adams and the other commissioners, but neither he nor they were
+enriched by it. Lee's pamphlet goes no farther than to say that Franklin
+had shielded his nephew. John Adams, it may be observed, assisted in
+this shielding, if it can with justice be so called, for he signed with
+Franklin the order allowing the money to be paid to Williams on
+condition that it should not be considered an approval of his accounts.
+Adams afterwards described very concisely the situation, and how he,
+with the others, was compelled to connive at peculations under the
+absurd system.
+
+    "I knew it to be impossible to give any kind of satisfaction to
+    our constituents, that is to Congress, or their constituents,
+    while we consented or connived at such irregular transactions,
+    such arbitrary proceedings, and such contemptible peculations as
+    had been practised in Mr. Deane's time, not only while he was in
+    France, alone, without any public character, but even while he
+    was associated with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Arthur Lee in a real
+    commission; and which were continued in some degree while I was
+    combined in the commission with Franklin and Lee, in spite of
+    all the opposition and remonstrance that Lee and I could make."
+    (Adams's Works, vol. i. p. 657.)
+
+Franklin said and wrote very little on the subject. He sent no letters
+to members of Congress undermining the characters of his
+fellow-commissioners; the few statements that he made were exceedingly
+mild and temperate, and were usually to the effect that there were
+differences and disputes which he regretted. He usually invited his
+fellow-commissioners to dine with him every Sunday, and on these
+occasions they appeared very friendly, though at heart cherishing
+vindictive feelings towards one another.
+
+In truth, Lee and Izard wrote so much and so violently that they dug the
+graves of their own reputations. It was Dr. Johnson who said that no man
+was ever written down except by himself, and Franklin once shrewdly
+remarked, "spots of dirt thrown upon my character I suffered while fresh
+to remain; I did not choose to spread by endeavoring to remove them, but
+relied on the vulgar adage that they would all rub off when they were
+dry."
+
+General public opinion was then and has remained in favor of Franklin,
+and the prominent men of France were, without exception, on his side.
+They all in the end detested Lee, whose conduct showed a vindictive
+disposition, and who evidently had purposes of his own to serve. One of
+his pet suspicions was that Paul Jones was a rascal in league with the
+other rascal, Franklin, and he protests in a letter to a member of
+Congress against Jones being "kept upon a cruising job of Chaumont and
+Dr. Franklin." Jones, he predicted, would not return from this cruise,
+but would go over to the enemy.
+
+Franklin's service in France may be divided into four periods. First,
+from his arrival in December, 1776, until February, 1778, during which
+two years he and Deane conducted the business as best they could and
+quarrelled with Lee and Izard. Second, the year from February, 1778,
+until February, 1779, during which John Adams was in Paris in the place
+of Silas Deane. Third, some of the remaining months of 1779, during
+which, although Franklin was sole plenipotentiary to France, Lee, Izard,
+and others still retained their appointments to other countries, and
+remained in Paris, continuing the quarrels more viciously than ever.
+They were recalled towards the close of 1779, and from that time dates
+the fourth period, during which Franklin enjoyed the sole control,
+unassailed by the swarm of hornets which had made his life a burden.
+
+I have already described most of the first period as briefly as
+possible; its full treatment would require a volume. All that remains is
+to describe the act with which it closed,--the signing of the treaty of
+alliance. This treaty, which secured the success of our Revolution by
+giving us the assistance of a French army and fleet, was the result of
+unforeseen events, and was not obtained by the labors of Franklin or
+those of any of the commissioners.
+
+France had been anxious to ally herself with us during the first two
+years of the Revolution, but dared not, because there was apparently no
+prospect that we would be successful. In fact, all the indications
+pointed to failure. Washington was everywhere defeated; had been driven
+from New York, lost the battle of the Brandywine, lost Philadelphia, and
+then the news arrived in Europe that Burgoyne was moving from Canada
+down the Hudson, and would be joined by Howe from New York. This would
+cut the colonies in half; separate New England, the home of the
+Revolution, from the Middle and Southern Colonies and result in our
+total subjugation.
+
+The situation of the commissioners in Paris was dismal enough at this
+time. They had been successful at first, with the aid of Beaumarchais;
+but now Beaumarchais was in despair at the ingratitude of Congress and
+its failure to pay him; no more prizes were coming in, for the British
+fleets had combined against the American war vessels and driven them
+from the ocean; the commissioners had spent all their money, and
+Franklin proposed that they should sell what clothing and arms they had
+been unable to ship and pay their debts as far as possible with the
+proceeds. At any moment they might hear that they had neither country
+nor flag, that the Revolution had collapsed, and that they must spend
+the rest of their lives in France as pensioners on the royal bounty,
+daring to go neither to America nor to England, where they would be hung
+as ringleaders of the rebels.
+
+In their dire extremity they forgot their animosities, and one is
+reminded of those pictures of the most irreconcilable wild
+animals--foxes and hares, or wolves and wild-cats--seeking refuge
+together from a flood on a floating log. In public they kept a bold
+front, in spite of the sneers of the English residents in Paris and the
+shrugging shoulders of the Frenchmen.
+
+"Well, doctor," said an Englishman to Franklin, "Howe has taken
+Philadelphia."
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir; Philadelphia has taken Howe."
+
+But in his heart Franklin was bowed down with anxiety and apprehension.
+We all know what happened. Burgoyne and Howe failed to connect, and
+Burgoyne surrendered his army to the American general, Gates. That was
+the turning-point of the Revolution, and there was now no doubt in
+France of the final issue. A young man, Jonathan Austin, of
+Massachusetts, was sent on a swift ship to carry the news to Paris. The
+day his carriage rolled into the court-yard of Chaumont's house at
+Passy, Franklin, Deane, both the Lees, Izard, Beaumarchais,--in fact,
+all the snarling and quarrelling agents,--were there, debating, no
+doubt, where they would drag out the remains of their miserable lives.
+
+They all rushed out to see Austin, and Franklin addressed to him one sad
+question which they all wanted answered, whether Philadelphia really was
+taken.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Austin.
+
+The old philosopher clasped his hands and was stumbling back into the
+house.
+
+"But, sir, I have greater news than that. General Burgoyne and his whole
+army are prisoners of war."
+
+Beaumarchais drove his carriage back to Paris so fast that it was
+overturned and his arm dislocated. Austin relates that for a long time
+afterwards Franklin would often sit musing and dreaming and then break
+out, "Oh, Mr. Austin, you brought us glorious news."
+
+Austin had arrived on December 3, 1777. On the 6th of the same month
+the French government requested the commissioners to renew their
+proposals for an alliance. Eleven days after that they were told that
+the treaty would be made, and within two months,--namely, on February 6,
+1778,--after full discussion of all the details, it was signed. This was
+certainly very prompt action on the part of France and shows her
+eagerness.
+
+On the day that he signed the treaty, Franklin, it is said, wore the
+same suit of Manchester velvet in which he had been dressed when
+Wedderburn made his attack upon him before the Privy Council in London,
+and after the signing it was never worn again. When asked if there had
+not been some special meaning attached to the wearing of these clothes
+at the signing, he would make no other reply than a smile. It was really
+beautiful philosophic vengeance, and adds point to Walpole's epigram on
+the scene before the Council:
+
+    "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."
+
+There was much discussion among the three envoys over the terms of the
+treaty, and their love for one another was not increased. The principal
+part of Izard's bitterness against Franklin is supposed to have begun at
+this time. Lee made a point on the question of molasses. In the first
+draft of the treaty it was agreed that France should never lay an export
+duty on any molasses taken from her West India islands by Americans.
+Vergennes objected that this was not fair, as the Americans bound
+themselves to no equivalent restriction on their own exports. Franklin
+suggested a clause that, in consideration of France agreeing to lay no
+export duty on molasses, the United States should agree to lay no export
+duty on any article taken by Frenchmen from America, and this was
+accepted by Vergennes.
+
+Lee, however, objected that we were binding ourselves on every article
+of export, while France bound herself on only one. In this he was
+entirely right, and it was not an officious interference, as Franklin's
+biographers have maintained. He pressed his point so hard that it was
+finally agreed with the French government that Congress might accept or
+reject the whole arrangement on this question, if it saw fit. Congress
+supported Lee and rejected it.
+
+The signing of the treaty of course rendered Beaumarchais's secret work
+through Hortalez & Co. of less importance. France was now the open ally
+of the United States; the French government need no longer smuggle arms
+and clothing into America, but was preparing to send a fleet and an army
+to assist the insurgents, as they were still called in Paris. All this
+rendered the labors of the embassy lighter and less complicated.
+
+In April, 1778, a few months after the signing of the treaty, John
+Adams, after a most dangerous and adventurous voyage across the
+Atlantic, arrived to take the place of Silas Deane. He has left us a
+very full account of the condition of affairs and his efforts at
+reform. Franklin's biographers have been sorely puzzled to know what to
+do with these criticisms; but any one who will take the trouble to read
+impartially all that Adams has said, and not merely extracts from it,
+will easily be convinced of his fairness. He makes no mistake about Lee;
+speaks of him as a man very difficult to get on with, and describes
+Izard in the same way. There is not the slightest evidence that these
+two men poisoned his mind against Franklin. He does not side with them
+entirely; but, on the contrary, in the changes he undertook to make was
+sometimes on their side and sometimes against them. He held the scales
+very evenly.
+
+Lee wanted all the papers of the embassy brought to his own house, and
+Adams wrote him a letter which certainly shows that Adams had not gone
+over to the Lee party, and is also an example of the efforts he was
+making to improve the situation.
+
+    "I have not asked Dr. Franklin's opinion concerning your
+    proposal of a room in your house for the papers, and an hour to
+    meet there, because I know it would be in vain; for I think it
+    must appear to him more unequal still. It cannot be expected,
+    that two should go to one, when it is as easy again for one to
+    go to two; not to mention Dr. Franklin's age, his rank in the
+    country, or his character in the world; nor that nine-tenths of
+    the public letters are constantly brought to this house, and
+    will ever be carried where Dr. Franklin is. I will venture to
+    make a proposition in my turn, in which I am very sincere; it is
+    that you would join families with us. There is room enough in
+    this house to accommodate us all. You shall take the apartments
+    which belong to me at present, and I will content myself with
+    the library room and the next to it. Appoint a room for
+    business, any that you please, mine or another, a person to keep
+    the papers, and certain hours to do business. This arrangement
+    will save a large sum of money to the public, and, as it would
+    give us a thousand opportunities of conversing together, which
+    now we have not, and, by having but one place for our countrymen
+    and others to go to, who have occasion to visit us, would
+    greatly facilitate the public business. It would remove the
+    reproach we lie under, of which I confess myself very much
+    ashamed, of not being able to agree together, and would make the
+    commission more respectable, if not in itself, yet in the
+    estimation of the English, the French, and the American nations;
+    and, I am sure, if we judge by the letters we receive, it wants
+    to be made more respectable, at least in the eyes of many
+    persons of this country." (Bigelow's Franklin from His Own
+    Writings, vol. ii. p. 424.)
+
+Adams had none of the rancor of Lee and Izard, but he tells us candidly
+that he found the public business in great confusion. It had never been
+methodically conducted. "There never was before I came a minute book, a
+letter book, or an account book; and it is not possible to obtain a
+clear idea of our affairs." Of Deane he says that he "lived expensively,
+and seems not to have had much order in his business, public or private;
+but he was active, diligent, subtle, and successful, having accomplished
+the great purpose of his mission to advantage."
+
+Adams procured blank books and devoted himself to assorting the papers
+of the office at Passy, where Franklin had allowed everything to lie
+about in the greatest confusion. He found that too many people had been
+making money out of the embassy, and of these Jonathan Williams appears
+to have been one. He united with Lee in demanding Williams's accounts,
+and compelled Franklin to join in dismissing him. A man named Ross was
+another delinquent who was preying on the embassy, and the arrangement
+by which he was allowed to do it is described by Adams as "more
+irregular, more inconsistent with the arrangement of Congress and every
+way more unjustifiable than even the case of Mr. Williams."
+
+He gives us many glimpses of Franklin's life,--his gayety, the bright
+stories he told, and his wonderful reputation among the French. An
+interesting young lady, Mademoiselle de Passy, was a great favorite with
+Franklin, who used to call her his flame and his love. She married a man
+whose name translated into English would be "Marquis of Thunder." The
+next time Madame de Chaumont met Franklin, she cried out, "Alas! all the
+conductors of Mr. Franklin could not prevent the thunder from falling on
+Mademoiselle de Passy."
+
+Adams was at the Academy of Sciences when Franklin and Voltaire were
+present, and a general cry arose among the sensation-loving people that
+these two wonderful men should be introduced to each other. They
+accordingly bowed and spoke. But this was not enough, and the two
+philosophers could not understand what more was wanted. They took each
+other by the hand; but still the clamor continued. Finally it was
+explained to them that "they must embrace in French fashion." The two
+old men immediately began hugging and kissing each other, which
+satisfied the company, and the cry spread through the whole country,
+"How beautiful it was to see Solon and Sophocles embrace!"
+
+Some of Adams's criticisms and estimates of Franklin, though not
+satisfactory to his eulogists, are, on the whole, exceedingly just.
+
+    "That he was a great genius, a great wit, a great humorist, a
+    great satirist, and a great politician is certain. That he was a
+    great philosopher, a great moralist, and a great statesman is
+    more questionable." (Adams's Works, vol. iii. p. 139.)
+
+This brief statement will bear the test of very close investigation.
+Full credit, it will be observed, is given to his qualities as a
+humorous and satirical writer, and even as a politician. The word
+politician is used very advisedly, for up to that time Franklin had done
+nothing that would raise him beyond that class into statesmanship.
+
+He had had a long career in Pennsylvania politics, where his abilities
+were confined to one province, and in the attempt to change the colony
+into a royal government he had been decidedly in the wrong. While
+representing Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Georgia in England from
+the time of the Stamp Act until the outbreak of the Revolution, he had
+accomplished nothing, except that his examination before Parliament had
+encouraged the colonists to persist in their opposition; he had got
+himself into a very bad scrape about the Hutchinson letters; and his
+plan of reconciliation with the mother country had broken down. In
+France, the government being already very favorable to the colonies,
+there was but little for the embassy to do except to conduct the
+business of sending supplies and selling prizes, and in this Deane and
+Beaumarchais did most of the work, while Franklin had kept no accounts,
+had allowed his papers to get into confusion, was utterly unable to keep
+the envoys in harmony, and had not made any effective appeal to
+Congress to change the absurd system which permitted the sending to a
+foreign country of three commissioners with equal powers. In the last
+years of his mission in France he did work which was more valuable; but
+it was not until some years afterwards, when he was past eighty and on
+the verge of the grave, that he accomplished in the Constitutional
+Convention of 1787 the one act of his life which may be called a
+brilliant stroke of statesmanship.
+
+His qualities as a moralist have been discussed in a previous chapter
+which fully justifies Adams's assertion. As a philosopher, by which
+Adams meant what we now call a man of science, Franklin was
+distinguished, but not great. It could not be said that he deserved to
+be ranked with Kepler or Newton. His discovery of the nature of
+lightning was picturesque and striking, and had given him popular
+renown, but it could not put him in the front rank of discoverers.
+
+In a later passage in his Diary Adams attempts to combat the French idea
+that Franklin was the American legislator.
+
+    "'Yes,' said M. Marbois, 'he is celebrated as the great
+    philosopher and the great legislator of America.' 'He is,' said
+    I, 'a great philosopher, but as a legislator of America he has
+    done very little. It is universally believed in France, England,
+    and all Europe, that his electric wand has accomplished all this
+    revolution. But nothing is more groundless. He has done very
+    little. It is believed that he made all the American
+    constitutions and their confederation; but he made neither. He
+    did not even make the constitution of Pennsylvania, bad as it
+    is.'...
+
+[Illustration: AMERICA SET FREE BY FRANKLIN
+
+(From a French engraving)]
+
+    "I said that Mr. Franklin had great merit as a philosopher. His
+    discoveries in electricity were very grand, and he certainly was
+    a great genius, and had great merit in our American affairs.
+    But he had no title to the 'legislator of America.' M. Marbois
+    said he had wit and irony; but these were not the faculties of
+    statesmen. His Essay upon the true means of bringing a great
+    Empire to be a small one was very pretty. I said he had wrote
+    many things which had great merit, and infinite wit and
+    ingenuity. His Bonhomme Richard was a very ingenious thing,
+    which had been so much celebrated in France, gone through so
+    many editions, and been recommended by curates and bishops to so
+    many parishes and dioceses.
+
+    "M. Marbois asked, 'Are natural children admitted in America to
+    all privileges like children born in wedlock?'... M. Marbois
+    said this, no doubt, in allusion to Mr. F.'s natural son, and
+    natural son of a natural son. I let myself thus freely into this
+    conversation, being led on naturally by the Chevalier and M.
+    Marbois on purpose, because I am sure it cannot be my duty, nor
+    the interest of my country, that I should conceal any of my
+    sentiments of this man, at the same time that I do justice to
+    his merits. It would be worse than folly to conceal my opinion
+    of his great faults." (Adams's Works, vol. iii. p. 220.)
+
+The French always believed that Franklin was the originator of the
+Revolution, and that he was a sort of Solon who had prepared laws for
+all the revolted colonies, directed their movements, and revised all
+their state papers and public documents. It was under the influence of
+this notion that they worshipped him as the personification of liberty.
+It must have been extremely irritating to Adams and others to find the
+French people assuming that the old patriarch in his fur cap had
+emancipated in the American woods a rude and strange people who without
+him could not have taken care of themselves. But, protest as they might,
+they never could persuade the French to give up their ideal, and this
+was undoubtedly the foundation of a great deal of the hostility to
+Franklin which showed itself in Congress.
+
+In 1811, long after Franklin's death, Adams wrote a newspaper article
+defending himself against some complaints that Franklin had made, of
+which I shall have more to say hereafter. It is a most vigorous piece of
+writing, and, in spite of some unfounded suspicions which it contains
+and the bluster and egotism so characteristic of its author, is by far
+the most searching and fairest criticism of Franklin that was ever
+written:
+
+    "His reputation was more universal than that of Leibnitz or
+    Newton, Frederick or Voltaire, and his character more beloved
+    and esteemed than any or all of them.... His name was familiar
+    to government and people, to kings and courtiers, nobility,
+    clergy and philosophers, as well as plebeians, to such a degree
+    that there was scarcely a peasant or a citizen, a _valet de
+    chambre_, coachman or footman, a lady's chambermaid or a
+    scullion in a kitchen who was not familiar with it, and who did
+    not consider him as a friend to human kind." (Adams's Works,
+    vol. i. p. 660.)
+
+A large part of this reputation rested, Adams thought, on great talents
+and qualities, but the rest was artificial, the result of peculiar
+circumstances which had exaggerated the importance of Franklin's
+opinions and actions. The whole tribe of printers and newspaper editors
+in Europe and America had become enamoured and proud of him as a member
+of their body. Every day in the year they filled the magazines,
+journals, pamphlets, and all the gazettes of Europe "with incessant
+praise of Monsieur Franklin." From these gazettes could be collected "a
+greater number of panegyrical paragraphs upon '_le grand_ Franklin' than
+upon any other man that ever lived." He had become a member of two of
+the most powerful democratic and liberal bodies in Europe, the
+Encyclopedists and the Society of Economists, and thus effectually
+secured their devotion and praise. All the people of that time who were
+rousing discontent in Europe and preparing the way for the French
+Revolution counted Franklin as one of themselves. When he took part in
+the American Revolution their admiration knew no bounds. He was "the
+magician who had excited the ignorant Americans to resistance," and he
+would soon "abolish monarchy, aristocracy, and hierarchy throughout the
+world." But most important of all in building up his reputation was the
+lightning-rod.
+
+    "Nothing," says Adams, "perhaps, that ever occurred upon the
+    earth was so well calculated to give any man an extensive and
+    universal a celebrity as the discovery of the efficacy of iron
+    points and the invention of lightning-rods. The idea was one of
+    the most sublime that ever entered a human imagination, that a
+    mortal should disarm the clouds of heaven, and almost 'snatch
+    from his hand the sceptre and the rod.' The ancients would have
+    enrolled him with Bacchus and Ceres, Hercules and Minerva. His
+    paratonnerres erected their heads in all parts of the world, on
+    temples and palaces no less than on cottages of peasants and the
+    habitations of ordinary citizens. These visible objects reminded
+    all men of the name and character of their inventor; and in the
+    course of time have not only tranquillized the minds and
+    dissipated the fears of the tender sex and their timorous
+    children, but have almost annihilated that panic, terror, and
+    superstitious horror which was once almost universal in violent
+    storms of thunder and lightning." (Adams's Works, vol. 1. p.
+    661.)
+
+The Latin motto universally applied to Franklin at this time, _Eripuit
+coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis_, has usually been attributed to
+Turgot, the French Minister of Finance; but Adams believed that Sir
+William Jones was the author of it. Turgot made an alteration in it. As
+usually understood, the last half referred to the American colonies
+delivered from the oppression of Great Britain; but as Franklin grew to
+be more and more the favorite of that large class of people in Europe
+who were opposed to monarchy, and who believed that he would soon be
+instrumental in destroying or dethroning all kings and abolishing all
+monarchical government, Turgot suggested that the motto should read,
+_Eripuit coelo fulmen; mox septra tyrannis_, which may be freely
+translated, "He has torn the lightning from the sky; soon he will tear
+their sceptres from the kings."
+
+At first Adams took the quarrelling lightly, trying to ignore and keep
+clear of it; but in a little while he confesses that "the uncandor, the
+prejudices, the rage among several persons here make me sick as death."
+After about a month he was so disgusted with the service, so fully
+convinced that the public business was being delayed and neglected on
+account of the disputes, that he determined to try to effect a change.
+He therefore wrote to Samuel Adams, then in Congress, declaring that the
+affairs of the embassy were in confusion, prodigious sums of money
+expended, large sums yet due, but no account-books or documents; the
+commissioners lived expensively, each one at the rate of from three to
+six thousand pounds a year; this would necessarily continue as long as
+their salaries were not definitely fixed, and it would be impossible to
+get an account of the expenditure of the public money. Equally
+ridiculous was the arrangement which made the envoys half ambassadors
+and half commercial agents. Instead of all this he suggested that
+Congress separate the offices of public ministers from those of
+commercial agents, recall all the envoys except one, define with
+precision the salary he should receive, and see that he got no more.
+
+[Illustration: FRANKLIN TEARS THE LIGHTNING FROM THE SKY AND THE SCEPTRE
+FROM THE TYRANTS
+
+(From a French engraving)]
+
+This is what Lee should have done long before. Franklin had indeed
+recommended a change in one of his letters, but not with such force as
+to cause its adoption. Now that Adams had set the example, they all
+wrote letters in the succeeding months begging for reform. The wisdom of
+Adams's plan was so apparent that when the facts were laid before
+Congress it was quickly adopted and Franklin made sole plenipotentiary.
+
+But Lee and Izard retained their missions to other countries and
+remained in Paris, renewing their discussions and attacks on Franklin
+until the subject was again brought before Congress, and it was proposed
+to order all of them back to America and send others in their stead.
+Franklin had a narrow escape. The large committee which had the question
+before it was at one time within a couple of votes of recalling him and
+sending Arthur Lee in his place, which, whatever were the failings of
+Franklin, would have been a terrible misfortune. The French minister to
+the United States, M. Gerard, came to the rescue. He disclosed the
+extreme favor with which the French government regarded Franklin and its
+detestation of Lee. Franklin's wonderful reputation in Europe saved him,
+for it would have been folly to recall under a cloud the one man whom
+our allies took such delight in honoring.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+PLEASURES AND DIPLOMACY IN FRANCE
+
+
+Congress not only refused to recall Franklin, but relieved him entirely
+of the presence of Lee and Izard, so that the remaining six years of his
+service were peaceful and can be very briefly described. The improvement
+in the management of the embassy which immediately followed shows what a
+serious mistake the previous arrangement had been. Left entirely to his
+own devices, and master of the situation, he began the necessary reforms
+of his own accord, had complete books of account prepared, and managed
+the business without difficulty.
+
+It is curious to read of the diverse functions the old man of
+seventy-four had to perform in this infancy of our diplomatic service.
+He was a merchant, banker, judge of admiralty, consul, director of the
+navy, ambassador to France, and negotiator with England for the exchange
+of prisoners and for peace, in addition to attending to any other little
+matter, personal or otherwise, which our representatives to other
+countries or the individual States of the Union might ask of him. The
+crudeness of the situation is revealed when we remember that not only
+was Congress obtaining loans of money and supplies of arms in Europe,
+but several of the States were doing the same thing, and it was often
+rather difficult for Franklin to assist them all without discrimination
+or injustice.
+
+Paul Jones and the other captains of our navy who were cruising against
+British commerce on that side of the Atlantic made their head-quarters
+in French ports, and were necessarily under the direction of Franklin
+because the great distance made it impossible to communicate with
+Congress without months of delay. That they were lively sailors we may
+judge from the exploits of the "Black Prince," which in three months on
+the English coast took thirty-seven prizes, and brought in seventy-five
+within a year. Franklin had to act as a court of admiralty in the matter
+of prizes and their cargoes, settle disputes between the officers and
+men, quiet discontent about their pay by advancing money, decide what
+was to be done with mutineers, and see that ships were refitted and
+repaired. A couple of quotations from one of his letters to Congress
+will give some idea of his duties:
+
+    "In the mean time, I may just mention some particulars of our
+    disbursements. Great quantities of clothing, arms, ammunition,
+    and naval stores, sent from time to time; payment of bills from
+    Mr. Bingham, one hundred thousand livres; Congress bills in
+    favor of Haywood & Co., above two hundred thousand; advanced to
+    Mr. Ross, about twenty thousand pounds sterling; paid Congress
+    drafts in favor of returned officers, ninety-three thousand and
+    eighty livres; to our prisoners in England, and after their
+    escape to help them home, and to other Americans here in
+    distress, a great sum, I cannot at present say how much;
+    supplies to Mr. Hodge for fitting out Captain Conyngham, very
+    considerable; for the freight of ships to carry over the
+    supplies, great sums; to Mr. William Lee and Mr. Izard, five
+    thousand five hundred pounds sterling; and for fitting the
+    frigates _Raleigh_, _Alfred_, _Boston_, _Providence_,
+    _Alliance_, _Ranger_, &c., I imagine not less than sixty or
+    seventy thousand livres each, taken one with another; and for
+    the maintenance of the English prisoners, I believe, when I get
+    in all the accounts, I shall find one hundred thousand livres
+    not sufficient, having already paid above sixty-five thousand on
+    that article. And now, the drafts of the treasurer of the loans
+    coming very fast upon me, the anxiety I have suffered, and the
+    distress of mind lest I should not be able to pay them, have for
+    a long time been very great indeed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "With regard to the fitting out of ships, receiving and
+    disposing of cargoes, and purchasing of supplies, I beg leave to
+    mention, that, besides my being wholly unacquainted with such
+    business, the distance I am from the ports renders my having
+    anything to do with it extremely inconvenient. Commercial agents
+    have indeed been appointed by Mr. William Lee; but they and the
+    captains are continually writing for my opinion or orders, or
+    leave to do this or that, by which much time is lost to them,
+    and much of mine taken up to little purpose, from my ignorance.
+    I see clearly, however, that many of the captains are exorbitant
+    in their demands, and in some cases I think those demands are
+    too easily complied with by the agents, perhaps because the
+    commissions are in proportion to the expense. I wish, therefore,
+    the Congress would appoint the consuls they have a right to
+    appoint by the treaty, and put into their hands all that sort of
+    employment. I have in my desk, I suppose, not less than fifty
+    applications from different ports, praying the appointment, and
+    offering to serve gratis for the honor of it, and the advantage
+    it gives in trade; but I imagine, that, if consuls are
+    appointed, they will be of our own people from America, who, if
+    they should make fortunes abroad, might return with them to
+    their country."
+
+He was, in fact, deciding questions and assuming responsibilities which
+with other nations and afterwards with our own belonged to the home
+government. He had great discretionary power, an instance of which may
+be given in connection with the subject which was then agitating
+European countries, of "free ships, free goods." He wrote to Congress,
+telling that body how the matter stood:
+
+    "Whatever may formerly have been the law of nations, all the
+    neutral powers at the instance of Russia seem at present
+    disposed to change it, and to enforce the rule that _free ships
+    shall make free goods_, except in the case of contraband.
+    Denmark, Sweden, and Holland have already acceded to the
+    proposition, and Portugal is expected to follow. France and
+    Spain, in their answers, have also expressed their approbation
+    of it. I have, therefore, instructed our privateers to bring in
+    no more neutral ships, as such prizes occasion much litigation,
+    and create ill blood."
+
+He did not know whether Congress would approve of this new rule of law,
+but he took his chances. He was not the first person to suggest the
+principle of "free ships, free goods," nor was he a prominent advocate
+of it, as has sometimes been implied; for his letter shows that Russia
+had suggested this improvement in the rules of international law, and
+that other nations were accepting it. He, however, urged on a number of
+occasions that war should be confined exclusively to regularly organized
+armies and fleets, that privateering should be abolished, that merchant
+vessels should be free from capture even by men-of-war, and that
+fishermen, farmers, and all who were engaged in supplying the
+necessaries of life should be allowed to pursue their avocations
+unmolested. The world has not yet caught up with this suggestion.
+
+The great difficulty during the last two or three years of the
+Revolution was the want of money. The supplies sent out by Beaumarchais
+and Deane in the early part of the struggle merely served to start it.
+In the long run expenses increased enormously, the resources of the
+country were drained, the paper money depreciated with terrible
+rapidity, and we were compelled to continue borrowing from France or
+Holland. We borrowed principal and then borrowed more to pay the
+interest on the principal, and a large part of this business passed
+through Franklin's hands.
+
+He persuaded the French government to lend, and then to lend again to
+pay interest. He was regarded as the source from which all the money was
+to come. Congress drew on him, John Jay in Spain drew on him, he had to
+pay salaries and the innumerable expenses appertaining to the fitting
+out and repairing of ships and the exchange of prisoners. These calls
+upon him were made often from a long distance, with a sort of blind
+confidence that he would in some way manage to meet them. A captain in
+the West Indies would run his ship into a port to be careened, refitted,
+and supplied, and coolly draw on him for the expense. It was extremely
+dangerous sometimes to refuse to accept a bill presented to him, and, as
+he said to Congress, if a single draft for interest on a loan went to
+protest there would be "dreadful consequences of ruin to our public
+credit both in America and Europe."
+
+He suffered enough anxiety and strain to have destroyed some men. When
+Jay went to Spain in 1780, Congress was so sure he would obtain money
+from that monarchy that it drew on him. But as Jay could not get a cent,
+he forwarded the drafts to Franklin, who in reply wrote, "the storm of
+bills which I found coming upon us both has terrified and vexed me to
+such a degree that I have been deprived of sleep, and so much indisposed
+by continual anxiety as to be rendered almost incapable of writing." He
+would have gone under in this storm if he had not persuaded the French
+government to come to his rescue.
+
+He was also from time to time receiving all sorts of proposals of peace
+from emissaries or agents of the British government; and he had a long
+correspondence on this subject with David Hartley, who helped him to
+arrange the exchange of prisoners in England. Nearly all these proposals
+contained a trap of some kind, as that we should break our alliance with
+France and then England would treat with us, or that there should be a
+peace without a definite recognition of independence; and some of them
+may have been intended to entrap Franklin himself. It was, in any event,
+most dangerous and delicate work, for it was corresponding with the
+public enemy. Most men in Franklin's position would have been compelled
+to drop it entirely, for fear of becoming involved in some serious
+difficulty; for it was suspected, if not actually proved, that persons
+connected with our own embassy in France were using their official
+knowledge to speculate in stocks in England. But Franklin came through
+it all unscathed.
+
+He was much annoyed by numerous applications from people who wished to
+serve in the American army. Most of them had proved failures in France
+and were burdens on their relations. In the early years of the embassy
+many were sent out who gave endless trouble and embarrassment to
+Washington and Congress. Out of the whole horde, only about
+three--Lafayette, Steuben, and De Kalb--were ever anything more than a
+nuisance. But, to avoid giving offence to the French people, Franklin
+was often obliged to give these applicants some sort of letter of
+recommendation, and he drew up a form which he sometimes used in extreme
+cases:
+
+    "The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me to give
+    him a letter of recommendation, though I know nothing of him,
+    not even his name. This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you
+    it is not uncommon here. Sometimes, indeed, one unknown person
+    brings another equally unknown, to recommend him; and sometimes
+    they recommend one another! As to this gentleman, I must refer
+    you to himself for his character and merits, with which he is
+    certainly better acquainted than I can possibly be. I recommend
+    him, however, to those civilities, which every stranger, of whom
+    one knows no harm, has a right to; and I request you will do him
+    all the good offices, and show him all the favor, that, on
+    further acquaintance, you shall find him to deserve. I have the
+    honor to be, &c."
+
+The old man's sense of humor carried him through many a difficulty; and
+it is hardly necessary to say that the management of all this
+multifarious business, the exercise of such large authority and
+discretion, and the weight of such responsibility required a nervous
+force, patience, tact, knowledge of men and affairs, mental equipoise,
+broad, cool judgment, and strength of character which comparatively few
+men in America possessed. Indeed, it is difficult to name another who
+could have filled the position. John Adams could not have done it. He
+would have lost his temper and blazed out at some point, or have
+committed some huge indiscretion that would have wrecked everything.
+That Lee, Izard, or even Deane could have held the post would be
+ridiculous to suppose.
+
+Adams appeared again in Paris in the beginning of the year 1780, having
+been sent by Congress to await England's expected willingness to treat
+for peace. He was authorized to receive overtures for a general peace,
+and also, if possible, to negotiate a special commercial treaty with
+England. He had nothing to do but wait, and was in no way connected with
+our embassy in France. But being presented at court and asked by
+Vergennes to furnish information, he must needs try to make an
+impression. He assailed Vergennes, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, with
+numerous reasons why he should at once disclose to the court at London
+his readiness to make a commercial treaty. He argued about the question
+of the Continental currency and how it should be redeemed. He urged the
+sending of a large naval force to the United States; and when told that
+the force had already been sent without solicitation, he attempted to
+prove in the most tactless and injudicious manner that it was not
+without solicitation, but, on the contrary, the king had been repeatedly
+asked for it, and had yielded at last to importunity.
+
+This conduct was so offensive to Vergennes that he complained of it to
+Franklin, who was obliged to rebuke Adams; and Congress, when the matter
+came before it, administered another rebuke. Adams never forgave
+Franklin for this, and afterwards publicly declared that Franklin and
+Vergennes had conspired to destroy his influence and ruin him. At the
+time, however, he had the good sense to take his rebuff in silence, and
+went off grumbling to Holland to see if something could not be done to
+render the United States less dependent on France.
+
+Adams represented a large party, composed principally of New-Englanders,
+who did not like the alliance with France and were opposed to Franklin's
+policy of extreme conciliation and friendliness with the French court.
+It was as one of this party that Adams had attempted to give Vergennes a
+lesson and show him that America was not a suppliant and a pauper. Like
+the rest of his party, he harbored the bitter thought that France
+intended to lord it over the United States, send a general over there
+who would control all the military operations, get all the glory, and
+give the French ever after a preponderating influence. He thought
+America had been too free in expressions of gratitude to France, that a
+little more stoutness, a greater air of independence and boldness in our
+demands, would procure sufficient assistance and at the same time save
+us from the calamity of passing into the hands of a tyrant who would be
+worse than Great Britain had been.
+
+His attempt at stoutness, however, was at once checked by Vergennes, who
+refused to answer any more of his letters; and there is no doubt that if
+Adams's plan had been adopted by the United States government, our
+alliance with France would have been jeopardized. It is not pleasant to
+think that without the aid of France the Revolution would have failed
+and we would have again been brought under subjection to England; but it
+is unquestionably true, and as Washington had no hesitation in frankly
+admitting it, we need have none.
+
+At the time of Adams's attempted interference with Franklin's policy our
+fortunes were at a very low ebb. The resources of the country were
+exhausted and the army could no longer be maintained on them. The
+soldiers were starving and naked, and the generals could not show
+themselves without being assailed with piteous demands for food and
+clothes. France had much to gain by assisting us against England, and
+she never pretended that she had not; but in all the documents and
+correspondence that have been brought to light there is no evidence that
+she intended to take advantage of our situation or that her ministers
+had designs on our liberties. Indeed, when we read the whole story of
+her assistance, including the secret correspondence, it will be found
+almost unequalled for its worthiness of purpose and for the honorable
+means employed.
+
+Franklin had spent several years at the court, knew everybody, and
+thoroughly understood the situation.
+
+    "The king, a young and virtuous prince, has, I am persuaded, a
+    pleasure in reflecting on the generous benevolence of the action
+    in assisting an oppressed people, and proposes it as a part of
+    the glory of his reign. I think it right to increase this
+    pleasure by our thankful acknowledgments, and that such an
+    expression of gratitude is not only our duty, but our interest.
+    A different conduct seems to me what is not only improper and
+    unbecoming, but what may be hurtful to us.... It is my intention
+    while I stay here to procure what advantages I can for our
+    country by endeavoring to please this court; and I wish I could
+    prevent anything being said by any of our countrymen here that
+    may have a contrary effect, and increase an opinion lately
+    showing itself in Paris, that we seek a difference, and with a
+    view of reconciling ourselves in England."
+
+Please the court, as well as the whole French nation, he most certainly
+did. His communications with Vergennes, even when he was asking for
+money or some other valuable thing, were not only free from offence, but
+so adroit, so beautifully and happily expressed, that they charmed the
+exquisite taste of Frenchmen. There is not space in this volume to give
+expression to all that the people of the court thought of his way of
+managing the business intrusted to him by America, but one sentence from
+a letter of Vergennes to the French minister in America may be given:
+
+    "If you are questioned respecting our opinion of Dr. Franklin,
+    you may without hesitation say that we esteem him as much on
+    account of the patriotism as the wisdom of his conduct, and it
+    has been owing in a great part to this cause, and to the
+    confidence we put in the veracity of Dr. Franklin, that we have
+    determined to relieve the pecuniary embarrassments in which he
+    has been placed by Congress."
+
+It is not likely that Gouverneur Morris, Jefferson, or any other
+American of that time possessed the qualifications necessary to give
+them such a hold on the French court as Franklin had. We were colonists,
+very British in our manners, of strong energy and intelligence, but
+quite crude in many things, and capable of appearing in a very
+ridiculous light in French society, which was in effect the society of
+Louis XIV., very exacting, and by no means so republican as it has since
+become.
+
+As a matter of fact, the French disliked everybody we sent to them at
+that time except Franklin. Deane they tolerated, Izard they laughed at,
+Adams they snubbed, and Lee they despised as a stupid blunderer who
+knew no better than to abuse French manners in the presence of his
+servants, who spread the tale all over Paris. But dear, delightful,
+philosophic, shrewd, economical, naughty, flirtatious, and
+anecdote-telling Franklin seemed like one of themselves. He still
+remains the only American that the French have thoroughly known and
+liked. The more we read of him the more confidence we are inclined to
+place in the supposition that three or four centuries back he must have
+had a French ancestor who migrated to England, and some of whose
+characteristics were reproduced in his famous descendant. The little
+fables and allegories he wrote to please them read like translations
+from the most subtle literary men of France. Fancy any other American or
+Englishman writing to Madame Brillon the letter which was really a
+little essay afterwards known as the "Ephemera," and very popular in
+France.
+
+    "You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spent
+    that happy day in the delightful garden and sweet society of the
+    Moulin Joly, I stopped a little in one of our walks, and stayed
+    some time behind the company. We had been shown numberless
+    skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an ephemera, whose
+    successive generations, we were told, were bred and expired
+    within the day. I happened to see a living company of them on a
+    leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation. You know I
+    understand all the inferior animal tongues. My too great
+    application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give
+    for the little progress I have made in your charming language. I
+    listened through curiosity to the discourse of these little
+    creatures; but as they, in their natural vivacity, spoke three
+    or four together, I could make but little of their conversation.
+    I found, however, by some broken expressions that I heard now
+    and then, they were disputing warmly on the merit of two
+    foreign musicians, one a _cousin_, the other a _moscheto_; in
+    which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless of
+    the shortness of life as if they had been sure of living a
+    month. Happy people! thought I; you are certainly under a wise,
+    just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances
+    to complain of, nor any subject of contention but the
+    perfections and imperfections of foreign music. I turned my head
+    from them to an old grey-headed one, who was single on another
+    leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I
+    put it down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to
+    whom I am so much indebted for the most pleasing of all
+    amusements, her delicious company and heavenly harmony."...
+
+The letter is too long to quote entire; but some of the fine touches in
+the passage given should be observed. He refers to the little progress
+he had made in French, and he certainly spoke that language badly,
+although he read it with ease. He probably had a large vocabulary; but
+he trampled all over the grammar, as Adams tells us. He managed,
+however, by means of a little humor to make this defect endear him still
+more to the people. The musical dispute of the insects is a hit at a
+similar dispute among the Parisians over two musicians, Gluck and
+Picini. But what a depth of subtlety is shown in the suggestion which
+follows, that the French were under such a wise government and such a
+good king that they could afford to waste their time in disputing about
+trifles! No wonder that all the notable people and the rulers loved him.
+
+This single delicately veiled point was alone almost sufficient to make
+his fortune in the peculiar society of that time. It was in such perfect
+taste, so French, such a rebuke to the fanatics who were laying the
+foundations of the Reign of Terror; and yet, at the same time,
+Franklin, as the apostle of liberty, was regarded by many of those
+fanatics as one of themselves. In this way he carried with him all
+France.
+
+But suppose that John Adams had been given the opportunity to write such
+a letter to a French lady; what would he have done? The straightforward
+fellow would probably have thought it his religious, moral, and
+patriotic duty to tell her that the government she lived under was
+wasteful and extravagant, and was plotting to destroy the liberties of
+America.
+
+Madame Brillon, for whom the "Ephemera" was written, was a charming
+woman and more domestic than French ladies are supposed to be. For her
+amusement were written some of Franklin's most famous essays,--"The
+Morals of Chess," "The Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout," "The
+Story of the Whistle," "The Handsome and Deformed Leg," and "The
+Petition of the Left Hand." In a letter telling how the "Ephemera"
+happened to be written he has described the intimacy he and his grandson
+enjoyed at her house:
+
+    "The person to whom it was addressed is Madame Brillon, a lady
+    of most respectable character and pleasing conversation;
+    mistress of an amiable family in this neighborhood, with which I
+    spend an evening twice every week. She has, among other elegant
+    accomplishments, that of an excellent musician; and with her
+    daughter who sings prettily, and some friends who play, she
+    kindly entertains me and my grandson with little concerts, a cup
+    of tea, and a game of chess. I call this _my Opera_, for I
+    rarely go to the Opera at Paris."
+
+Madame Helvetius, a still more intimate friend, was a very different
+sort of woman. She was the widow of a literary man of some celebrity,
+and she and Franklin were always carrying on an absurd sort of
+flirtation. They hugged and kissed each other in public, and exchanged
+extravagant notes which were sometimes mock proposals of marriage,
+although some have supposed them to have been real ones. He wrote a sort
+of essay addressed to her, in which he imagines himself in the other
+world, where he meets her husband, and, after the exchange of many
+clever remarks with him about madame, he discovers that Helvetius is
+married to his own deceased wife, Mrs. Franklin, who declares herself
+rather better pleased with him than she had been with the Philadelphia
+printer.
+
+    "Indignant at this refusal of my Eurydice, I immediately
+    resolved to quit those ungrateful shades, and return to this
+    good world again, to behold the sun and you! Here I am: let us
+    _avenge ourselves_!"
+
+Such sport over deceased wives and husbands would not be in good taste
+in America or England, but it was correct enough in France. One of his
+short notes to Madame Helvetius has also been preserved:
+
+    "Mr. Franklin never forgets any party at which Madame Helvetius
+    is expected. He even believes that if he were engaged to go to
+    Paradise this morning, he would pray for permission to remain on
+    earth until half-past one, to receive the embrace promised him
+    at the Turgots'."
+
+Mrs. Adams has left a description of Madame Helvetius which admirers of
+Franklin have in vain attempted to explain away by saying that all
+French women were like her, and that she was, after all, a really noble
+person:
+
+    "She entered the room with a careless, jaunty air; upon seeing
+    ladies who were strangers to her, she bawled out, 'Ah! mon Dieu,
+    where is Franklin? Why did you not tell me there were ladies
+    here?' You must suppose her speaking all this in French. 'How I
+    look!' said she, taking hold of a chemise made of tiffany, which
+    she had on over a blue lute-string, and which looked as much
+    upon the decay as her beauty, for she was once a handsome woman;
+    her hair was frizzled; over it she had a small straw hat, with a
+    dirty gauze half-handkerchief round it, and a bit of dirtier
+    gauze than ever my maids wore was bowed on behind. She had a
+    black gauze scarf thrown over her shoulders. She ran out of the
+    room; when she returned, the Doctor entered at one door, she at
+    the other; upon which she ran forward to him, caught him by the
+    hand, 'Helas! Franklin;' then gave him a double kiss, one upon
+    each cheek, and another upon his forehead. When we went into the
+    room to dine, she was placed between the Doctor and Mr. Adams.
+    She carried on the chief of the conversation at dinner,
+    frequently locking her hand into the Doctor's, and sometimes
+    spreading her arms upon the backs of both the gentlemen's
+    chairs, then throwing her arm carelessly upon the Doctor's neck.
+
+    "I should have been greatly astonished at this conduct, if the
+    good Doctor had not told me that in this lady I should see a
+    genuine Frenchwoman, wholly free from affectation or stiffness
+    of behavior, and one of the best women in the world. For this I
+    must take the Doctor's word; but I should have set her down for
+    a very bad one, although sixty years of age, and a widow. I own
+    I was highly disgusted, and never wish for an acquaintance with
+    any ladies of this cast. After dinner she threw herself upon a
+    settee, where she showed more than her feet. She had a little
+    lap-dog, who was, next to the Doctor, her favorite. This she
+    kissed, and when he wet the floor she wiped it up with her
+    chemise. This is one of the Doctor's most intimate friends, with
+    whom he dines once every week, and she with him. She is rich,
+    and is my near neighbor; but I have not yet visited her. Thus
+    you see, my dear, that manners differ exceedingly in different
+    countries. I hope, however, to find amongst the French ladies
+    manners more consistent with my ideas of decency, or I shall be
+    a mere recluse." (Letters of Mrs. John Adams, p. 252.)
+
+It is not likely that Franklin had the respect for Madame Helvetius that
+he had for Madame Brillon. She was, strange to say, an illiterate woman,
+as one of her letters to him plainly shows. Some of his letters to her
+read as if he were purposely feeding her inordinate vanity. He tells her
+in one that her most striking quality is her artless simplicity; that
+statesmen, philosophers, and poets flock to her; that he and his friends
+find in her "sweet society that charming benevolence, that amiable
+attention to oblige, that disposition to please and to be pleased which
+we do not always find in the society of one another." She lived at
+Auteuil, and he and the Abbe Morellet and others called her "Our Lady of
+Auteuil." They boasted much of their love for her, and enjoyed many
+wonderful conversations on literature and philosophy, and much gayety at
+her house, which they called "The Academy."
+
+After Franklin had returned to America the Abbe Morellet, who was an
+active and able man in his way, wrote him many amusing letters about
+their lady and her friends.
+
+    "I shall never forget the happiness I have enjoyed in knowing
+    you and seeing you intimately. I write to you from Auteuil,
+    seated in your arm chair, on which I have engraved _Benjamin
+    Franklin hic sedebat_, and having by my side the little bureau,
+    which you bequeathed to me at parting with a drawerful of nails
+    to gratify the love of nailing and hammering, which I possess in
+    common with you. But, believe me, I have no need of all these
+    helps to cherish your endeared remembrance and to love you.
+
+    "'Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos reget artus.'"
+
+[Illustration: FRANKLIN RELICS IN THE POSSESSION OF THE HISTORICAL
+SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA]
+
+One of the cleverest letters Franklin wrote while in France was
+addressed to an old English friend, Mrs. Thompson, who had called him
+a rebel. "You are too early, _hussy_" he says, "as well as too saucy, in
+calling me _rebel_; you should wait for the event, which will determine
+whether it is a _rebellion_ or only a _revolution_. Here the ladies are
+more civil; they call us _les insurgens_, a character that usually
+pleases them." He continues chaffing her, and describes himself as
+wearing his own hair in France, where every one else had on a great
+powdered wig. If they would only dismiss their _friseurs_ and give him
+half the money they pay to them, "I could then enlist these _friseurs_,
+who are at least one hundred thousand, and with the money I would
+maintain them, make a visit with them to England, and dress the heads of
+your ministers and privy councillors, which I conceive at present to be
+_un peu derangees_. Adieu, madcap; and believe me ever, your
+affectionate friend and humble servant."
+
+In the large house of M. de Chaumont, which he occupied, he, of course,
+had his electrical apparatus, and played doctor by giving electricity to
+paralytic people who were brought to him. On one occasion he made the
+wrong contact, and fell to the floor senseless. He had, also, a small
+printing-press with type made in the house by his own servants, and he
+used it to print the little essays with which he amused his friends.
+
+His friendships in France seem to have been mostly among elderly people.
+There are only a few traces of his fondness for young girls, and we find
+none of those pleasant intimacies such as he enjoyed with Miss Ray, Miss
+Stevenson, or the daughters of the Bishop of St. Asaph. Unmarried women
+in France were too much restricted to be capable of such friendships
+even with an elderly man. But among his papers in the collection of the
+American Philosophical Society there is a letter written by some French
+girl who evidently had taken a fancy to him and playfully insisted on
+calling herself his daughter.
+
+    "MY DEAR FATHER AMERICAIN
+
+    "god Bess liberty! I drunk with all my heart to the republick of
+    the united provinces. I am prepared to my departure if you will
+    and if it possible. give me I pray you leave to go. I shall be
+    happy of to live under the laws of venerable good man richard.
+    adieu my dear father I am with the most respect and tenderness
+
+    "Your humble Servant
+      "and your daughter
+        "J. B. J. CONWAY.
+
+    "Auxerre 22 M. 1778."
+
+Besides the dining abroad, which, he tells us, occurred six days out of
+seven, he gave a dinner at home every Sunday for any Americans that were
+in Paris; "and I then," he says, "have my grandson Ben, with some other
+American children from the school."
+
+New-Englanders had very economical ideas in those days, and when it was
+learned that Franklin entertained handsomely in Paris there was a great
+fuss over it in the Connecticut newspapers.
+
+The _fete-champetre_ that was given to him by the Countess d'Houdetot
+must have been a ridiculous and even nauseous dose of adulation to
+swallow; but he no doubt went through it all without a smile, and it
+serves to show the extraordinary position that he occupied. He was more
+famous in France than Voltaire or any Frenchman.
+
+A formal account of the _fete_ was prepared by direction of the
+countess, and copies circulated in Paris. The victim of it is described
+as "the venerable sage" who, "with his gray hairs flowing down upon his
+shoulders, his staff in his hand, the spectacles of wisdom on his nose,
+was the perfect picture of true philosophy and virtue;" and this
+sentence is as complete a summary as could be made of what Franklin was
+to the French people.
+
+As soon as he arrived the countess addressed him in verse:
+
+    "Soul of the heroes and the wise,
+    Oh, Liberty! first gift of the gods.
+    Alas! at too great a distance do we offer our vows.
+    As lovers we offer homage
+    To the mortal who has made citizens happy."
+
+The company walked through the gardens and then sat down to the banquet.
+At the first glass of wine they rose and sang,--
+
+    "Of Benjamin let us celebrate the glory;
+    Let us sing the good he has done to mortals.
+    In America he will have altars;
+    And in Sanoy let us drink to his glory."
+
+At the second glass the countess sang a similar refrain, at the third
+glass the viscount sang, and so on for seven glasses, each verse more
+extraordinary than the others. Virtue herself had assumed the form of
+Benjamin; he was greater than William Tell; Philadelphia must be such a
+delightful place; the French would gladly dwell there, although there
+was neither ball nor play. But Sanoy was Philadelphia as long as dear
+Benjamin remained there. He was led to the garden to plant a tree, with
+more singing about the lightning that he had drawn from the sky, and the
+lightning, of course, would never strike that tree. Finally he was
+allowed to depart with another song of adulation addressed to him after
+he was seated in the carriage.
+
+Now that more than a hundred years have passed it is gratifying to our
+national pride to reflect that a man who was so thoroughly American in
+his origin and education should have been worshipped in this way by an
+alien race as no other man, certainly no other American, was ever
+worshipped by foreigners. But the enjoyment of this stupendous
+reputation, overshadowing and dwarfing the Adamses, Jays, and all other
+public men who went to Europe, was marred by some unpleasant
+consequences. Jealousies were aroused not only among individuals, but to
+a certain extent among all the American people. It was too much. He had
+ceased to be one of them. It was rumored that he would never return to
+America, but would resign and settle down among those strangers who
+treated him as though he were a god.
+
+It was also inevitable that a worse suspicion should arise. He was too
+subservient, it was said, to France. He yielded everything to her. He
+was turning her from an ally into a ruler. He could no longer see her
+designs; or, if he saw them, he approved of them. This suspicion gained
+such force that it was the controlling principle with Adams and Jay
+when they went to Paris to arrange the treaty of peace with England
+after the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in October, 1781. We
+have seen instances in our own time of our ministers to Great Britain
+becoming very unpopular at home because they were liked in England, and
+in Franklin's case this feeling was vastly greater than anything we have
+known in recent years, because his popularity in France was prodigious,
+and he avowedly acted upon the principle that it was best to be
+complaisant to the French court.
+
+During the winter which followed the surrender of Lord Cornwallis
+overtures of peace were made by England to Franklin, as representing
+America, and to Vergennes, as representing France, and they became more
+earnest in March after the Tory ministry, which had been conducting the
+war, was driven from power. In April the negotiations with Franklin were
+well under way, and he continued to conduct them until June, when he was
+taken sick and incapacitated for three months. After his recovery he
+took only a minor part in the proceedings, for Jay and Adams had
+meanwhile arrived.
+
+Congress had appointed Adams, Jay, Franklin, Jefferson, and Laurens
+commissioners to arrange the treaty, and made Adams head of the
+commission. When the negotiations began, however, Franklin was the only
+commissioner at Paris, and necessarily took charge of all the business.
+Just before he was taken sick Jay arrived, and he and Jay conducted
+affairs until Adams joined them at the end of October. Laurens, who had
+been a prisoner in England, did not reach Paris until just before the
+preliminary treaty was signed, and Jefferson, being detained in America,
+took no part in the proceedings.
+
+While Franklin was carrying on the negotiations alone, he insisted on
+most of the terms which were afterwards agreed upon: first of all,
+independence, and, in addition to that, the right to fish on the
+Newfoundland Banks and a settlement of boundaries; but he added a point
+not afterwards pressed by the others,--namely, that Canada should be
+ceded to the United States. In exchange for Canada he was prepared to
+allow some compensation to the Tories for their loss of property during
+the war. Adams and Jay, on taking up the negotiations, dropped Canada
+entirely and insisted stoutly to the end that there should be no
+compensation whatever to the Tories.
+
+Franklin's admirers have always contended that it would have been better
+if Jay and Adams had kept away altogether, for in that case Franklin
+would have secured all that they got for us and Canada besides. This,
+however, is mere supposition, one of those vague ideas of what might
+have been without any proof to support it. Franklin pressed the cession
+of Canada, it is true; but there is no evidence that it would have been
+granted. At that time the people of the United States appear not to have
+wanted the land of snow, and ever since then the general opinion has
+been that we have enough to manage already, and are better off without a
+country vexed with serious political controversies with its French
+population and the Roman Catholic school question.
+
+On the whole, it would not have been well for Franklin to have continued
+to conduct the negotiations alone. The situation was difficult, and the
+united efforts and varied ability of at least three commissioners were
+required. Neither Franklin nor Jay knew much about the fisheries
+question, and they might have been forced to yield on this point. But
+Adams, from his long experience in conducting litigation for the
+Massachusetts fishing interests, was better prepared on this subject
+than any other American, and it was generally believed by the public men
+of that time that the important rights we secured on the Newfoundland
+Banks were due almost entirely to his skill. He was also more familiar
+with the boundary question between Maine and New Brunswick, and had
+brought with him documents from Massachusetts which were invaluable.
+
+While Jay and Franklin were acting together before the arrival of Adams,
+a serious question arose about the commission of Oswald, the British
+negotiator who had come over to Paris. He was empowered to treat with
+the "Colonies or Plantations," and nowhere in the document was the term
+United States of America used. Jay refused to treat with a man who held
+such a commission. Franklin and Vergennes vainly urged that it was a
+mere form, and that Great Britain had already in several ways
+acknowledged the independence of the United States. Oswald showed an
+article of his instructions which authorized him to grant complete
+independence to the thirteen colonies, and he offered to write a letter
+declaring that he treated with them as an independent power; but Jay
+was inflexible, and in this he seems to have been right.
+
+Franklin made a great mistake in not agreeing with him, for in the
+suspicious state of people's minds at that time his conduct in this
+respect was taken as proof positive of his subserviency to the French
+court. Jay suspected that Vergennes advised accepting Oswald's
+commission so as to prevent a clear admission of independence, and thus
+keep the United States embroiled with England as long as possible. In
+order to support his opposition to Jay, Franklin was obliged to talk
+about his confidence in the French court, its past generosity and
+friendliness, and also to call attention to the instruction of Congress
+that the commissioners should do nothing without the knowledge of the
+French government, and in all final decisions be guided by that
+government's advice.
+
+This instruction had been passed by Congress after much debate and
+hesitation, and was finally carried, it is said, through the influence
+of the French minister. Its adoption was a mistake; without it the
+commissioners would probably of their own accord have sought the advice
+of Vergennes; but a positive order to do so put them in an undignified
+and humiliating position. Franklin had been so long intimate with
+Vergennes and was so accustomed to consulting him that the instruction
+was superfluous as to him. His reputation was so great in France and his
+tact so perfect that he was in no danger of feeling overshadowed or
+subdued by such consultations; but Jay and Adams so thoroughly detested
+the instruction that they had made up their minds to disregard it
+altogether.
+
+"Would you break your instruction?" said Franklin.
+
+"Yes," said Jay, "as I break this pipe," and he threw the pieces into
+the fire.
+
+Jay's firmness compelled Oswald to obtain a new commission in the proper
+form, and while he deserves credit for this and also for his principle,
+"We must be honest and grateful to our allies, but think for ourselves,"
+he seems in the light of later evidence to have been mistaken in his
+deep mistrust of the French court. His opinions have been briefly stated
+by Adams:
+
+    "Mr. Jay likes Frenchmen as little as Mr. Lee and Mr. Izard did.
+    He says they are not a moral people; they know not what it is;
+    he don't like any Frenchman; the Marquis de Lafayette is clever,
+    but he is a Frenchman. Our allies don't play fair, he told me;
+    they were endeavoring to deprive us of the fishery, the western
+    lands, and the navigation of the Mississippi; they would even
+    bargain with the English to deprive us of them; they want to
+    play the western lands, Mississippi, and whole Gulf of Mexico
+    into the hands of Spain." (Adams's Works, vol. iii. p. 303.)
+
+Jay had had a very bitter experience in Spain, where the cold
+haughtiness and chicanery of the court had made him feel that he was
+among enemies. The instructions sent to him by Congress had been
+intercepted, and instead of receiving them as secret orders from his
+government, they had been handed to him by the Spanish prime-minister
+after that official had read them. He was accordingly prepared to think
+that the French government was no better.
+
+In a certain sense there were grounds for his suspicion of France. She
+was interested in the fisheries on the Banks of Newfoundland, and would
+naturally like to have a share in them. It was also obviously her policy
+to prevent the United States and England from becoming too friendly and
+from making too firm a peace, for fear that they might unite at some
+future time against her. If she could get them to make a sort of half
+peace with a number of subjects left unsettled, about which there would
+be difficulties for many years, it would be a great advantage to her.
+
+Spain wanted to secure the control of the Gulf of Mexico, the exclusive
+navigation of the Mississippi, and the possession of the lands west of
+that river, and France, as her ally, might be expected to assist her to
+obtain these concessions. Arguments and suggestions favoring all these
+projects were unquestionably used by Frenchmen at that time, and no
+doubt Vergennes and other public men often had them in mind. It was
+their duty at least to consider them. But there is no evidence that they
+actively promoted these schemes or acted in any other than an honorable
+manner towards us.
+
+As a matter of fact, our commercial relations with England were left
+unsettled. England claimed, among other things, the right to search our
+ships, and there was great discontent over this for a long time, amply
+sufficient to keep us from friendship with England until the question
+was finally settled by the war of 1812. Adams seems to imply that he
+could have settled this and other difficulties in 1780 by the
+commercial treaty which he was empowered to make with England, and that
+Vergennes, in advising him not to communicate with England, had intended
+to keep England and the United States embroiled. Possibly that may have
+been Vergennes's intention. But as it was afterwards found impossible to
+adjust these commercial difficulties until the war of 1812, and as Adams
+himself did not attempt it, though he might have done so in spite of
+Vergennes's advice, and as they were finally settled only by a war, it
+is not probable that Adams could have adjusted them in the easy, offhand
+way he imagines. In any event, it was not worth while for the sake of
+these future contingencies to offend Vergennes and jeopardize our
+alliance and the loans of money we were obtaining from France.
+
+Franklin's policy of making absolutely sure of the friendship and
+assistance of France seems to have been the sound one, and with his
+wonderful accomplishments and adaptability he could be friendly and
+agreeable without sacrificing anything. But Adams went at everything
+with a club, and could understand no other method.
+
+I cannot find that Franklin was at any time willing to sacrifice the
+fisheries, or the Mississippi River or the western lands. In fact, he
+was more firm on the question of the Mississippi than Congress. In its
+extremity, Congress finally instructed Jay to yield the navigation of
+the Mississippi if he could get assistance from Spain in no other way;
+and the Spanish premier, having intercepted this instruction and read
+it, had poor Jay at his mercy. But Franklin was very strenuous on this
+point, and wrote to Jay,--
+
+    "Poor as we are, yet, as I know we shall be rich, I would rather
+    agree with them to buy at a great price the whole of their right
+    on the Mississippi, than sell a drop of its waters. A neighbor
+    might as well ask me to sell my street door."
+
+Jay grew more and more suspicious of France, and Adams reports him as
+saying, "Every day produces some fresh proof and example of their vile
+schemes." One of the British negotiators obtained for him a letter which
+Marbois, the secretary of the French legation in America, had written
+home, urging Vergennes not to support the commissioners in their claim
+to the right of fishing on the Newfoundland Banks. This he considered
+absolute proof; but the examination which has since been made of all the
+confidential correspondence of that period does not show that Marbois's
+suggestion was ever acted upon. Individuals doubtless cherished purposes
+of their own, but the French government in all its actions seems to have
+fully justified Franklin's confidence in it. Jefferson, who afterwards
+went to France, declared that there was no proof whatever of Franklin's
+subserviency.
+
+When Adams arrived he was delighted to find himself in full accord with
+Jay. He had been in Holland, where he had succeeded in negotiating a
+loan and a commercial treaty, and consequently felt that he was somewhat
+of a success as a diplomatist, and need not any longer be so much
+overawed by Franklin. He relates in his diary how the French courtiers
+heaped compliments on him. "Sir," they would say, "you have been the
+Washington of the negotiation." To which he would answer in his best
+French, "Sir, you have given me the grandest honor and a compliment the
+most sublime." They would reply, "Ah, sir, in truth you have well
+deserved it." And he concludes by saying, "A few of these compliments
+would kill Franklin, if they should come to his ears."
+
+He uses strong language about the "base system" pursued by Franklin, and
+talks in a lofty way of the impossibility of a man becoming
+distinguished as a diplomatist who allows his passion for women to get
+the better of him. He and Jay conducted the rest of the negotiations and
+completed the treaty, Franklin merely assisting; and Adams gloried in
+breaking the instruction of Congress to take the advice of France. He
+was still smarting under the rebuke administered for his interference
+and for the offence he gave Vergennes a year or two before, and after
+declaring that Congress in this rebuke had prostituted its own honor as
+well as his, he breaks forth on the subject of the instruction to take
+the advice of France:
+
+    "Congress surrendered their own sovereignty into the hands of a
+    French minister. Blush! blush! ye guilty records! blush and
+    perish! It is glory to have broken such infamous orders.
+    Infamous, I say, for so they will be to all posterity. How can
+    such a stain be washed out? Can we cast a veil over it and
+    forget it?" (Adams's Works, vol. iii. p. 359.)
+
+Franklin finally agreed that they should go on with the negotiations and
+make the treaty without consulting the French government. Vergennes was
+offended, but Franklin managed to smooth the matter over and pacify him.
+Congress censured the commissioners for violating the instruction, and
+they all made the best excuses they could. Franklin's was a very clever
+one.
+
+    "We did what appeared to all of us best at the time, and if we
+    have done wrong, the Congress will do right, after hearing us,
+    to censure us. Their nomination of five persons to the service
+    seems to mark, that they had some dependence on our joint
+    judgment, since one alone could have made a treaty by direction
+    of the French ministry as well as twenty."
+
+It is probable that Franklin agreed to ignore the instruction, and
+assented to all the other acts of the commissioners, because he thought
+it best to have harmony. Such an opportunity for a terrible quarrel
+could not have been resisted by some men, for Adams bluntly told him
+that he disapproved of all his previous conduct in the matter of the
+treaty. As Adams was the head of the commission, it would seem that
+Franklin, finding himself outvoted, took the proper course of not
+blocking a momentous negotiation by his personal feelings or opinions,
+so long as substantial results were being secured. In this respect he
+did exactly the reverse of what Adams had prophesied. In the beginning
+of the negotiations Adams entered in his diary, "Franklin's cunning will
+be to divide us; to this end he will provoke, he will insinuate, he will
+intrigue, he will manoeuvre." Instead of that he encouraged their
+union.
+
+Adams's writings are full of extraordinary suspicions of this sort which
+turned out to be totally unfounded; but so fond was he of them that,
+after having been obliged to confess that Franklin had acted in entire
+harmony with the commissioners, and after all had ended well and
+Franklin had obtained another loan of six millions from Vergennes, he
+cannot resist saying, "I suspect, however, and have reason, but will say
+nothing." Those familiar with him know that this means that he had no
+reason or evidence whatever, but was simply determined to gratify his
+peculiar passion.
+
+Franklin wrote a long letter to Congress about the treaty, and after
+saying that he entirely discredited the suspicions of the treachery of
+the French court, he squares accounts with Adams:
+
+    "I ought not, however, to conceal from you, that one of my
+    colleagues is of a very different opinion from me in these
+    matters. He thinks the French minister one of the greatest
+    enemies of our country, that he would have straitened our
+    boundaries, to prevent the growth of our people; contracted our
+    fishery, to obstruct the increase of our seamen; and retained
+    the royalists among us, to keep us divided; that he privately
+    opposes all our negotiations with foreign courts, and afforded
+    us, during the war, the assistance we received, only to keep it
+    alive, that we might be so much the more weakened by it; that to
+    think of gratitude to France is the greatest of follies, and
+    that to be influenced by it would ruin us. He makes no secret of
+    his having these opinions, expresses them publicly, sometimes in
+    presence of the English ministers, and speaks of hundreds of
+    instances which he could produce in proof of them. None,
+    however, have yet appeared to me, unless the conversations and
+    letter above-mentioned are reckoned such.
+
+    "If I were not convinced of the real inability of this court to
+    furnish the further supplies we asked, I should suspect these
+    discourses of a person in his station might have influenced the
+    refusal; but I think they have gone no further than to occasion
+    a suspicion, that we have a considerable party of Antigallicians
+    in America, who are not Tories, and consequently to produce some
+    doubts of the continuance of our friendship. As such doubts may
+    hereafter have a bad effect, I think we cannot take too much
+    care to remove them; and it is therefore I write this, to put
+    you on your guard, (believing it my duty, though I know that I
+    hazard by it a mortal enmity), and to caution you respecting the
+    insinuations of this gentleman against this court, and the
+    instances he supposes of their ill will to us, which I take to
+    be as imaginary as I know his fancies to be, that Count de
+    Vergennes and myself are continually plotting against him, and
+    employing the news-writers of Europe to depreciate his
+    character, &c. But as Shakespeare says, 'Trifles light as air,'
+    &c. I am persuaded, however, that he means well for his country,
+    is always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes, and in
+    some things, absolutely out of his senses."
+
+Adams never forgave this slap, and he and his descendants have kept up
+the "mortal enmity" which Franklin knew he was hazarding.
+
+Before he left France Franklin took part in making a treaty with
+Prussia, and secured the insertion of an article which embodied his
+favorite idea that in case of war there should be no privateering, the
+merchant vessels of either party should pass unmolested, and unarmed
+farmers, fishermen, and artisans should remain undisturbed in their
+employments. But as a war usually breaks all treaties between the
+contending nations, this one might have been difficult to enforce.
+
+At last, in July, 1785, came the end of his long and delightful
+residence in a country which he seems to have loved as much as if it had
+been his own. No American, and certainly no Englishman, has ever spoken
+so well of the French. He never could forget, he said, the nine years'
+happiness that he had enjoyed there "in the sweet society of a people
+whose conversation is instructive, whose manners are highly pleasing,
+and who, above all the nations of the world, have, in the greatest
+perfection, the art of making themselves beloved by strangers."
+
+[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF LOUIS XVI. GIVEN BY HIM TO FRANKLIN]
+
+The king gave him his picture set in two circles of four hundred and
+eight diamonds,[28] and furnished the litter, swung between two mules,
+to carry him to the coast. If the king himself had been in the litter he
+could not have received more attention and worship from noblemen,
+ecclesiastics, governors, soldiers, and important public bodies on the
+journey to the sea. It was a triumphal march for the American
+philosopher, now so old and so afflicted with the gout and the stone
+that he could barely endure the easy motion of the royal mules.
+
+His two grandsons accompanied him. De Chaumont and his daughter insisted
+on going as far as Nanterre, and his old friend Le Veillard went with
+him all the way to England. He kept a diary of the journey, full of most
+interesting details of the people who met him on the road, how the
+Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld sent messengers to stop him and order him
+with mock violence to spend the night at his castle. It is merely the
+jotting down of odd sentences in a diary, but the magic of Franklin's
+genius has given to the smallest incidents an immortal fascination.
+
+He would have liked to spend some time in England among his old friends,
+but the war feeling was still too violent. He, however, crossed to
+England and stayed four days at Southampton waiting for Captain
+Truxton's ship, which was to call for him. English friends flocked down
+to see him and to give him little mementos, and the British government
+gave orders that his baggage should not be examined. The Bishop of St.
+Asaph, who lived near by, hastened to Southampton with his wife and one
+of his daughters and spent several days in saying farewell. On the
+evening of the last day they accompanied him on board the ship, dined
+there, and intended to stay all night; but, to save him the pain of
+parting, they went ashore after he had gone to bed. "When I waked in the
+morning," he says, "found the company gone and the ship under sail."
+
+The bishop's daughter, Catherine, wrote him one of her charming letters
+which, as it relates to him, is as immortal as any of his own writings.
+Every day at dinner, she tells him, they drank to his prosperous voyage.
+She is troubled because she forgot to give him a pin-cushion. He seemed
+to have everything else he needed, and that might have been useful. "We
+are forever talking of our good friend; something is perpetually
+occurring to remind us of the time spent with you." They had besought
+him to finish during the voyage his Autobiography, which had been begun
+at their house. "We never walk in the garden without seeing _Dr.
+Franklin's room_, and thinking of the work that was begun in it."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[28] By his will Franklin left this picture to his daughter, Sarah
+Bache, and it is still in the possession of her descendants. He
+requested her not to use the outer circle of diamonds as ornaments and
+introduce the useless fashion of wearing jewels in America, but he
+implied that she could sell them. She sold them, and with the proceeds
+she and her husband made the tour of Europe. The inner circle he
+directed should be preserved with the picture, but they were removed.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE CONSTITUTION-MAKER
+
+
+Almost immediately on Franklin's return to Philadelphia he was made
+President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, under the
+extraordinary constitution he had helped to make before he went to
+France in 1776. This office was somewhat like that of the modern
+governor. He held it for three years, by annual re-elections, but
+without being involved in any notable questions or controversies.
+
+He was at this period of his life still genial and mellow, in spite of
+disease, and full of anecdotes, learning, and curious experiences. His
+voice is described as low and his countenance open, frank, and pleasing.
+
+He enjoyed what to him was one of the greatest pleasures of life,
+children and grandchildren. He had six grandchildren, and no doubt often
+wished that he had a hundred. He had no patience with celibacy, and was
+constantly urging marriage on his friends. To John Sargent he wrote,--
+
+    "The account you give me of your family is pleasing, except that
+    your eldest son continues so long unmarried. I hope he does not
+    intend to live and die in celibacy. The wheel of life that has
+    rolled down to him from Adam without interruption should not
+    stop with him. I would not have one dead unbearing branch in the
+    genealogical tree of the Sargents. The married state is, after
+    all our jokes, the happiest."
+
+Sir Samuel Romilly, who visited him in Paris shortly before his return
+to America, says in his journal,--
+
+    "Of all the celebrated persons whom in my life I have chanced to
+    see, Dr. Franklin, both from his appearance and his
+    conversation, seemed to me the most remarkable. His venerable
+    patriarchal appearance, the simplicity of his manner and
+    language, and the novelty of his observations, at least the
+    novelty of them at that time to me, impressed me with an opinion
+    of him as one of the most extraordinary men that ever existed."
+    (Life of Romilly. By his Sons. Vol. i. p. 50.)
+
+He lived in a large house in Philadelphia, situated on a court long
+afterwards called by his name, a little back from the south side of
+Market Street, between Third and Fourth Streets. There was a small
+garden attached to it, and also a grass-plot on which was a large
+mulberry-tree, under which he often sat and received visitors on summer
+afternoons. He built a large addition to the house, comprising a
+library, a room for the meetings of the American Philosophical Society,
+with some bedrooms in the third story. Here he passed the closing years
+of his life with his daughter and six grandchildren, reading, writing,
+receiving visits from distinguished men, and playing cards in the winter
+evenings.
+
+    "I have indeed now and then," he writes to Mrs. Hewson, "a
+    little compunction in reflecting that I spend time so idly; but
+    another reflection comes to relieve me, whispering, '_You know
+    that the soul is immortal; why then should you be such a niggard
+    of a little time, when you have a whole eternity before you?_'
+    So, being easily convinced, and, like other reasonable
+    creatures, satisfied with a small reason, when it is in favor of
+    doing what I have a mind to, I shuffle the cards again, and
+    begin another game."
+
+[Illustration: FRANKLIN PORTRAIT IN WEST COLLECTION]
+
+He was soon, however, given very important employment in spite of his
+age. He had made himself famous in many varied spheres, from almanacs
+and stove-making to treaties of alliance. Nothing seemed to be too small
+or too great for him. He invented an apparatus for taking books from
+high shelves. He suggested that sailors could mitigate thirst by sitting
+in the salt water or soaking their clothes in it. The pores of the skin,
+he said, while large enough to admit the water, are too small to allow
+the salt to penetrate; and the experiment was successfully tried by
+shipwrecked crews. He suggested that bread and flour could be preserved
+for years in air-tight bottles, and Captain Cook tried it with good
+results in his famous voyage. It is certainly strange that the man who
+was so passionately interested in such subjects should enter the great
+domain of constitution-making and, in spite of many blunders, excel
+those who had made it their special study.
+
+He had no knowledge of technical law, either in practice or as a
+science. He was once elected a justice of the peace in Philadelphia, but
+soon resigned, because, as he said, he knew nothing of the rules of
+English common law. It was perhaps the only important domain of human
+knowledge in which he was not interested.
+
+As a public man of long experience he had considerable knowledge of
+general laws and their practical effect. He was a law-maker rather than
+a law-interpreter. He understood colonial rights, and knew every phase
+of the controversy with Great Britain, and he had fixed opinions as to
+constitutional forms and principles. Some of his ideas on
+constitution-making were unsound; but it is astonishing what an
+important part he played during his long life in American constitutional
+development.
+
+I have shown in another volume, called "The Evolution of the
+Constitution of the United States," how the principles and forms of that
+instrument were developed out of two hundred years' experience with more
+than forty colonial charters and Revolutionary constitutions and more
+than twenty plans of union. The plans of union were devised from time to
+time with the purpose of uniting the colonies under one general
+government. None of them was put into actual practice until the
+"Articles of Confederation" were adopted during the Revolution. But
+although unsuccessful in the sense that no union was formed under any of
+them, they contributed ideas and principles which finally produced the
+federalism of the national Constitution under which we now live.
+
+Two of these plans of union were prepared by Franklin. No other American
+prepared more than one, and Franklin's two were the most important of
+all. Not only was he the originator of the two most important plans, but
+he lived long enough to take part in framing the final result of all the
+plans, the national Constitution, and he was the author of one of the
+most valuable provisions in it.
+
+The first plan of union which he drafted was the one adopted by the
+Albany Conference of 1754, that had been called to make a general treaty
+with the Indians which would obviate the confusion of separate treaties
+made by the different colonies. Such a general treaty, by controlling
+the Indians, would, it was hoped, assist in resisting the designs of the
+French in Canada. It was obvious, also, that if the colonies were united
+under a general government they would be better able to withstand the
+French. Franklin had advocated this idea of union in his _Gazette_, and
+had published a wood-cut representing a wriggling snake separated into
+pieces, each of which had on it the initial letter of one of the
+colonies, and underneath was written, "Join or die."
+
+He was sent to the conference as one of the delegates from Pennsylvania,
+and his plan of union, which was adopted, was a distinct improvement on
+all others that had preceded it, and contained the germs of principles
+which are now a fundamental part of our political system. In 1775, while
+a member of the Continental Congress, he drafted another plan, which,
+though not adopted, added new suggestions and developments. But as both
+of these plans are fully discussed in "The Evolution of the
+Constitution,"[29] it is unnecessary to say more about them here.
+
+He was a member of the convention which in 1776 framed a new
+constitution for Pennsylvania, and in this instrument he secured the
+adoption of two of his favorite ideas. He believed that a Legislature
+should consist of only one House, and that the executive authority,
+instead of being vested in a single person, should be exercised by a
+committee. The executive department of Pennsylvania became, therefore, a
+Supreme Executive Council of twelve members elected by the different
+counties. In order to make up for the lack of a double House, there was
+a sort of makeshift provision providing that every bill must pass two
+sessions of the Assembly before it became a law. There was also a
+curious body called the Council of Censors, two from each city and
+county, who were to see that the constitution was not violated and that
+all departments of government did their duty. It was a crude and awkward
+attempt to prevent unconstitutional legislation, and proved an utter
+failure. The whole constitution was a most bungling contrivance which
+wrought great harm to the State and was replaced by a more suitable one
+in 1790.
+
+But Franklin heartily approved of it, and in 1790 protested most
+earnestly against a change. He argued at length against a single
+executive and in favor of a single house Legislature in the teeth of
+innumerable facts proving the utter impracticability of both. No other
+important public men of the time believed in them, and they had been
+rejected in the national Constitution. He was, however, as humorous and
+clever in this argument as if he had been in the right. A double-branch
+Legislature would, he said, be too weak in each branch to support a good
+measure or obstruct a bad one.
+
+    "Has not the famous political fable of the snake with two heads
+    and one body some useful instruction contained in it? She was
+    going to a brook to drink, and in her way was to pass through a
+    hedge, a twig of which opposed her direct course; one head chose
+    to go on the right side of the twig, the other on the left; so
+    that time was spent in the contest, and, before the decision was
+    completed, the poor snake died with thirst." (Bigelow's Works of
+    Franklin, vol. x. p. 186.)
+
+After Franklin had taken part in framing the Pennsylvania constitution
+of 1776 and had gone to Paris as ambassador to France, he had all the
+new Revolutionary constitutions of the American States translated into
+French and widely circulated. Much importance has been attached to this
+translation by some writers, Thomas Paine saying that these translated
+constitutions "were to liberty what grammar is to language: they define
+its parts of speech and practically construct them into syntax;" and
+both he and some of Franklin's biographers ascribe to them a vast
+influence in shaping the course of the French Revolution. Franklin wrote
+to the Rev. Dr. Cooper, of Boston, that the French people read the
+translations with rapture, and added,--
+
+    "There are such numbers everywhere who talk of removing to
+    America with their families and fortunes as soon as peace and
+    our independence shall be established that it is generally
+    believed we shall have a prodigious addition of strength, wealth
+    and arts from the emigration of Europe; and it is thought that
+    to lessen or prevent such emigration the tyrannies established
+    there must relax and allow more liberty to their people. Hence
+    it is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of
+    all mankind and that we are fighting for their liberty in
+    defending our own."
+
+As there was none of the vast emigration out of France which he speaks
+of, and the great emigration from Europe did not begin until after the
+year 1820, it may very well be that both he and his biographers have
+exaggerated the effect of the translations. But there seems to be no
+doubt that the translations must, on general principles, have had a
+stimulating effect on liberal ideas, although we may not be able to
+measure accurately the full force of their influence. They also were
+valuable in arousing the enthusiasm of the French forces, and making
+more sure of their assistance and alliance.
+
+His last work in constitution-making was in 1787, when the convention
+met at Philadelphia to frame the national document which was to take the
+place of the old Articles of Confederation, and this was also the last
+important work of his life. He was then eighty-one years old, and
+suffering so much from the gout and stone that he could not remain
+standing for any length of time. His important speeches he usually wrote
+out and had his colleague, Mr. Wilson, read them to the convention. This
+was in some respects an advantage, for these speeches have been
+preserved entire in Madison's notes of the debates, while what was said
+by the other members was written by Madison from memory or much
+abbreviated. It was Franklin's characteristic good luck attending him to
+the last.
+
+Considering his age and infirmity, one would naturally not expect much
+from him, and, as we go over the debates, some propositions which he
+advocated and his treatment by the other members incline us at first to
+the opinion that he had passed his days of great usefulness, and that he
+was in the position of an old man whose whims are treated with kindness.
+
+One of the principles which he advocated most earnestly was that the
+President, or whatever the head of the government should be called,
+should receive no salary. He moved to amend the part relating to the
+salary by substituting for it "whose necessary expenses shall be
+defrayed, but who shall receive no salary, stipend, fee, or reward
+whatsoever for their services."
+
+He wrote an interesting speech in support of his amendment. But it is
+easy to see that his suggestion is not a wise one. No one familiar with
+modern politics would approve of it, and scarcely any one in the
+convention looked upon it with favor. Madison records that Hamilton
+seconded the motion merely to bring it before the House and out of
+regard for Dr. Franklin. It was indefinitely postponed without debate,
+and Madison adds that "it was treated with great respect, but rather for
+the author of it than from any apparent conviction of its expediency or
+practicability."
+
+He also clung steadfastly to his old notions that the executive
+authority should be vested in a number of persons,--a sort of council,
+like the absurd arrangement in Pennsylvania,--and that the Legislature
+should consist of only one House. These two propositions he advocated to
+the end of the session. We find, moreover, that he seconded the motion
+giving the President authority to suspend the laws for a limited time,
+certainly a most dangerous power to give, and very inconsistent with
+Franklin's other opinions on the subject of liberty.
+
+On the other hand, however, we find him opposing earnestly any
+restrictions on the right to vote. He was always urging the members to
+a spirit of conciliation and a compromise of their violent opinions on
+the ground that it was only by this means that a national government
+could be created. It was for this purpose that he proposed the daily
+reading of prayers by some minister of the Gospel, which was rejected by
+the convention, because, as they had not begun in this way, their taking
+it up in the midst of their proceedings would cause the outside world to
+think that they were in great difficulties.
+
+He was strongly in favor of a clause allowing the President to be
+impeached for misdemeanors, which would, he said, be much better than
+the ordinary old-fashioned way of assassination; and he was opposed to
+allowing the President an absolute veto on legislation. All matters
+relating to money should, he thought, be made public; there should be no
+limitation of the power of Congress to increase the compensation of the
+judges, and very positive proof should be required in cases of treason.
+In these matters he was in full accord with the majority of the
+convention.
+
+But his great work was done in settling the question of the amount of
+representation to be given to the smaller States, and was accomplished
+in a curious way. John Dickinson, of Delaware, was the champion of the
+interests of the small commonwealths, which naturally feared that if
+representation in both Houses of Congress was to be in proportion to
+population, their interests would be made subordinate to those of the
+States which outnumbered them in inhabitants. This was one of the most
+serious difficulties the convention had to face, and the strenuousness
+with which the small States maintained their rights came near breaking
+up the convention.
+
+Franklin was in favor of only one House of Congress, with the
+representation in it proportioned to population, and he made a most
+ingenious and fallacious argument to show that there was more danger of
+the smaller States absorbing the larger than of the larger swallowing
+the smaller. But, in the hope of conciliating Dickinson and his
+followers, he suggested several compromises, the first one of which was
+very cumbersome and impracticable and need not be mentioned here. It
+seemed to take for granted that there was to be only one House of
+Congress.
+
+Afterwards, when it was definitely decided to have two Houses, the
+question as to the position of the smaller States was again raised in
+deciding how the Senate was to be composed. Some were for making its
+representation proportional to population, like that of the lower House,
+and this the small States resisted. Franklin said that the trouble
+seemed to be that with proportional representation in the Senate the
+small States thought their liberties in danger, and if each State had an
+equal vote in the Senate the large States thought their money was in
+danger. He would, therefore, try to unite the two factions. Let each
+State have an equal number of delegates in the Senate, but when any
+question of appropriating money arose, let these delegates "have
+suffrage in proportion to the sums which their respective States do
+actually contribute to the treasury." This was not very practical, but
+it proved to be a step which led him in the right direction.
+
+A few days afterwards, in a committee appointed to consider the
+question, he altered his suggestion so that in the lower House the
+representation should be in proportion to population, but in the Senate
+each State should have an equal vote, and that money bills should
+originate only in the lower House. The committee reported in favor of
+his plan, and it was substantially adopted in the Constitution. The
+lower House was given proportional representatives, and the Senate was
+composed of two Senators from each State, which gave absolute equality
+of representation in that body to all the States. Money bills were
+allowed to originate only in the lower House, but the Senate could
+propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.
+
+Thus the great question was settled by one of those strokes of
+Franklin's sublime luck or genius. He disapproved of the whole idea of a
+double-headed Congress, and thought the fears of the small States
+ridiculous; but, for the sake of conciliation and compromise with John
+Dickinson and his earnest followers, his masterful intellect worked out
+an arrangement which satisfied everybody and is one of the most
+important fundamental principles of our Constitution. Without it there
+would be no federal union. We would be a mere collection of warring,
+revolutionary communities like those of South America. It has never been
+changed and in all human probability never will be so long as we
+retain even the semblance of a republic.
+
+[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S GRAVE IN CHRIST CHURCH GRAVEYARD,
+PHILADELPHIA]
+
+This was Franklin's greatest and most permanent service to his country,
+more valuable than his work in England or France, and a fitting close to
+his long life. The most active period of his life, as he has told us,
+was between his seventieth and eighty-second years. How much can be done
+in eighty vigorous years, and what labors had he performed and what
+pleasures and vast experiences enjoyed in that time! Few men do their
+best work at such a great age. Moses, however, we are told, was eighty
+years old before he began his life's greatest work of leading the
+children of Israel out of Egypt. But it would be difficult to find any
+other instances in history except Franklin.
+
+After the Constitution as prepared by the convention had been engrossed
+and read, it became a question whether all the members of the convention
+could be persuaded to sign it, and Franklin handed one of his happy
+speeches to Mr. Wilson to be read. He admitted that the Constitution did
+not satisfy him; it was not as he would have had it prepared; but still
+he would sign it. With all its faults it was better than none. A new
+convention would not make a better one, for it would merely bring
+together a new set of prejudices and passions. He was old enough, he
+said, to doubt somewhat the infallibility of his own judgment. He was
+willing to believe that others might be right as well as he; and he
+amused the members with his humor and the witty story of the French lady
+who, in a dispute with her sister, said, "I don't know how it happens,
+sister, but I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right."
+
+    "It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system
+    approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it
+    will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to
+    hear that our councils are confounded, like those of the
+    builders of Babel, and that our States are on the point of
+    separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting
+    one another's throats....
+
+    "On the whole, sir, I cannot help expressing a wish, that every
+    member of the Convention who may still have objections to it,
+    would with me on this occasion doubt a little of his own
+    infallibility, and, to make _manifest_ our _unanimity_, put his
+    name to this instrument."
+
+At the close of the reading of his speech Franklin moved that the
+Constitution be signed, and offered as a convenient form,--
+
+    "Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States
+    present the 17th day of September, etc. In witness whereof we
+    have hereunto subscribed our names."
+
+Madison explains that this form, with the words "consent of the States,"
+had been drawn up by Gouverneur Morris to gain the doubtful States'
+rights party. It was given to Franklin, he says, "that it might have the
+better chance of success."
+
+    "Whilst the last members were signing," says Madison, "Dr.
+    Franklin, looking towards the president's chair, at the back of
+    which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few
+    members near him that painters had found it difficult to
+    distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. 'I have,'
+    said he, 'often and often in the course of the session and the
+    vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at
+    that behind the president, without being able to tell whether it
+    was rising or setting, but now at length I have the happiness to
+    know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.'"
+
+So Franklin, from whose life picturesqueness and charm were seldom
+absent, gave, in his easy manner, to the close of the dry details of the
+convention a touch of beautiful and true sentiment which can never be
+dissociated from the history of the republic he had helped to create.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[29] Pp. 218, 231-236.
+
+
+
+
+Appendix to Page 104
+
+FRANKLIN'S DAUGHTER, MRS. FOXCROFT
+
+
+It was impossible in the text at page 104 to give in full all the
+letters which showed that Mrs. Foxcroft was Franklin's daughter. Most of
+them, however, were cited. It seems necessary now to give them in full,
+because since the book was first published the correctness of the
+statement in the text has been questioned; and the reasons for
+questioning it have been set forth by a reviewer in a New York newspaper
+called _The Nation_. A reply to this review appeared in _Lippincott's
+Magazine_ for May, 1899, and this reply, so far as it relates to Mrs.
+Foxcroft, was as follows:
+
+    The best way to discuss the above statement, and a great deal
+    more nonsense that the reviewer has written on this subject, is
+    to give in full the letters and reasons which have led the
+    members of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to believe
+    that a certain manuscript letter in the possession of the
+    society showed that Franklin had an illegitimate daughter.
+
+    The letter itself, which Mr. Fisher gives in his book, is
+    addressed to Franklin at his Craven Street lodgings in London,
+    and is as follows:
+
+       PHILADA. Feby. 2d, 1772.
+
+       Dear Sir:
+
+       I have the happiness to acquaint you that your daughter was
+       safely brot to Bed the 20th ulto. and presented me with a
+       sweet little girl, they are both in good spirits and are
+       likely to do very well.
+
+       I was seized with a Giddyness in my head the Day before
+       yesterday as I had 20 oz. of blood taken from me and took
+       physick wch does not seem in the least to have relieved me.
+
+       I am hardly able to write this. Mrs. F. Joins me in best
+       affections to yourself and compts to Mrs. Stevenson and Mr.
+       and Mrs. Huson.
+
+       I am Dr Sir
+
+       yrs affectionately
+
+       JOHN FOXCROFT.
+
+       Mrs. Franklin, Mrs. Bache, little Ben & Family at Burlington
+       are all well. I had a letter from yr. Govr. yesterday.
+
+       J. F.
+
+It is to be observed that the above letter is an entirely serious one
+from beginning to end; there is no attempt to joke or make sport, as
+some of Franklin's correspondents did; and the first sentence in the
+letter states that the writer's wife was Franklin's daughter and that
+she had given birth to a girl. The letter is apparently written to
+announce that event to Franklin. Such a statement, made by a man about
+his wife, is certainly deserving of serious consideration. Would he on
+such an occasion and in such a manner have said that she was Franklin's
+daughter unless he firmly believed that she was?
+
+If she was Franklin's daughter, as her husband describes her, she must
+have been illegitimate, for it is well known that Franklin's only
+legitimate daughter was Mrs. Sarah Bache.
+
+John Foxcroft, the writer of the letter, is well known as the deputy
+postmaster of Philadelphia at that time, and Franklin was
+postmaster-general of the Colonies. Foxcroft and Franklin were close
+friends and often corresponded on business matters. We shall give,
+therefore, the letters of Franklin to Foxcroft in which he refers to
+Mrs. Foxcroft as his daughter, and we shall give them in full, so that
+the connection can be seen. Some of these letters are in the collection
+of Franklin's papers in the State Department at Washington, and have
+been copied from that source. Others are from the collection of the
+American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, and one or two can be
+found in Bigelow's "Works of Franklin."
+
+American Philosophical Society Collection, vol. xlv., No. 46:
+
+    LONDON, Feb. 4, 1772.
+
+    MR. FOXCROFT,
+
+    Dear Friend
+
+    I have written two or three small letters to you since my return
+    from Ireland and Scotland. I now have before me your favours of
+    Oct. 1, Nov. 5 and Nov. 13.
+
+    Mr. Todd has not yet shown me that which you wrote to him about
+    the New Colony, tho he mentioned it and will let me see it, I
+    suppose, when I call on him. I told you in one of mine, that he
+    had advanced for your share what has been paid by others, tho I
+    was ready to [torn] and shall in the whole Affair take the same
+    care of your interests as of my own. You take notice that Mr.
+    Wharton's friends will not allow me _any Merit_ in this
+    transaction, but insist _the Whole_ is owing to his superior
+    Abilities. It is a common error in Friends when they would extol
+    their Friend to make comparison and depreciate the merit of
+    others. It was not necessary for his Friends to do so in this
+    case. Mr. Wharton will in truth have a good deal of Merit in the
+    Affair if it succeeds, he having been exceedingly active and
+    industrious in soliciting it, and in drawing up Memorials and
+    Papers to support the Application, remove objections &c. But tho
+    I have not been equally active (it not being thought proper that
+    I should appear much in the solicitation since I became a little
+    obnoxious to the Ministry on acct. of my Letters to America) yet
+    I suppose my Advice may have been thought of some use since it
+    has been asked in every step, and I believe that being longer
+    and better known here than Mr. Wharton, I may have lent some
+    weight to his Negotiations by joining in the Affair, from the
+    greater confidence men are apt to place in one they know than in
+    a stranger. However, as I neither ask or expect any particular
+    consideration for any service I may have done and only think I
+    ought to escape censure, I shall not enlarge on this invidious
+    topic. Let us all do our endeavours, in our several capacities,
+    for the common Service, and if one has the ability or
+    opportunity of doing more for his Friends than another let him
+    think that a happiness and be satisfied.
+
+    The Business is not yet quite completed and as many Things
+    happen between the Cup and the Lip, perhaps there may be nothing
+    of this kind for Friends to dispute about. For if no body should
+    receive any Benefit there would be no scrambling for the Honour.
+
+    Stavers is in the wrong to talk of my promising him the Rider's
+    Place again. I only told him that I would (as he requested it)
+    recommend him to Mr. Hubbard to be replaced if it could be done
+    without impropriety or inconveniency. This I did & the rather as
+    I had always understood him to have been a good honest punctual
+    Rider. His behaviour to you entitles him to no Favour, and I
+    believe any Application he may make here will be to little
+    purpose.
+
+    In yours from N York of July 3 you mention your intention of
+    purchasing a Bill to send hither as soon as you return home from
+    your journey. I have not since received any from you, which I
+    only take notice of to you, that if you have sent one you may
+    not blame me for not acknowledging the Receipt of it.
+
+    In mine of April 20 I explained to you what I had before
+    mentioned that in settling our private Account I had paid you
+    the sum of 389L (or thereabouts) in my own Wrong, having before
+    paid it for you to the General Post Office. I hope that since
+    you have received your Books and looked over the Accounts you
+    are satisfied of this. I am anxious for your Answer upon it, the
+    sum being large and what cannot prudently for you or me be left
+    long without an Adjustment.
+
+    My Love to my Daughter and compliments to your Brother, I am
+    ever my dear Friend
+
+    Yours most affectionately
+
+    B FRANKLIN
+
+The above letter is taken from the copy kept by Franklin in his own
+handwriting in the collection of the American Philosophical Society.
+The same letter, with some verbal differences and without the last
+clause relating to the daughter, appears in Bigelow's "Works of
+Franklin," vol. iv., p. 473.
+
+Library of State Department, Washington, 11 R, 8:
+
+    LONDON, Oct. 7, 1772.
+
+    MR. FOXCROFT,
+
+    Dear Sir--
+
+    I had no line from you by this last Packet, but find with
+    Pleasure by yours to Mr. Todd that you and yours are well.
+
+    The affair of the Patent is in good Train and we hope, if new
+    Difficulties unexpected do not arise, we may get thro' it as
+    soon as the Board meet. We are glad you made no Bargain [torn]
+    your Share and hope none of our Partners [torn] do any such
+    thing; for the Report of such a Bargain before the Business is
+    completed might overset the whole.
+
+    Mr. Colden has promised by this Packet that we shall certainly
+    have the Accounts by the next. If they do not come I think we
+    shall be blamed, and he will be superseded; For their Lordships
+    our masters are incensed with the long Delay.
+
+    I hope you have by this time examined our private Accounts as
+    you promised, and satisfyd yourself that I did, as I certainly
+    did, pay you that Ballance of about 389L in my own wrong. It
+    would relieve me of some uneasiness to have the Matter settled
+    between us, as it is a Sum of Importance and in case of Death
+    might be not so easily understood as while we are both living.
+
+    With love to my Daughter and best Wishes of Prosperity to you
+    both, and to the little one, I am ever my dear Friend
+
+    Yours most affectionately,
+    B. FRANKLIN
+
+Library of State Department, Washington, 11 R, 12:
+
+    LONDON Nov 3 1772
+
+    MR. FOXCROFT
+
+    Dear Sir
+
+    I received your Favour of June 22d by Mr. Finlay and shall be
+    glad of an opportunity of rendering him any service on your
+    Recommendation. There does not at present appear to be any
+    Disposition in the Board to appoint a Riding Surveyor, nor does
+    Mr. Finlay seem desirous of such an Employment. Everything at
+    the Office remains as when I last wrote only the Impatience for
+    the Accounts seems increasing. I hope they are in the October
+    Packet now soon expected agreeable to Mr. Colden's last
+    promise.
+
+    I spent a Fortnight lately at West Wycomb with our good master
+    Lord Le Despencer and left him well.
+
+    The Board has begun to act again and I hope our Business will
+    again go forward.
+
+    My love to my Daughter concludes from
+
+    Your affectionate Friend
+    and humble servant
+    B. F.
+
+There is a letter to Foxcroft in the Library of the State Department,
+Washington, 11 R, 8, dated London, December 2, 1772, which need not
+perhaps be given in full, because Franklin sends love to his daughter
+and then crosses it out as follows:
+
+    I can now only add my Love to my Daughter and best Wishes of
+    Happiness to you and yours from Dear Friend
+
+    Yours most affectionately
+    B. FRANKLIN.
+
+He apparently struck out the words "Love to my Daughter and" because
+they were in effect included in the best wishes and happiness which
+followed.
+
+Library of State Department, Washington, 11 R, 63:
+
+    LONDON Mar. 3, 73
+
+    MR. FOXCROFT,
+
+    Dear Friend--
+
+    I am favoured with yours of June 5, and am glad to hear that you
+    and yours are well. The Flour and Bisket came to hand in good
+    order. I am much obliged to you and your brother for your care
+    in sending them.
+
+    I believe I wrote you before that the Demand made upon us on
+    Acct. of the Packet Letters was withdrawn as being without
+    Foundation. As to the Ohio Affair we are daily amused with
+    Expectations that it is to be compleated at this and T'other
+    time, but I see no Progress made in it. And I think more and
+    more that I was right in never placing any great dependence on
+    it. Mr. Todd has received your 200L.
+
+    Mr. Finlay sailed yesterday for New York. Probably you will have
+    seen him before this comes to hand.
+
+    You misunderstood me if you thought I meant in so often
+    mentioning our Acct. to press an immediate Payment of the
+    Ballance. My Wish only was, that you would inspect the Account
+    and satisfy yourself that I had paid you when here that large
+    supposed Ballance in my own wrong. If you are now satisfied
+    about it and transmit me the Account you promise with the
+    Ballance stated I shall be easy and you will pay it when
+    convenient.
+
+    With my Love to my Daughter &c I am ever Dear Friend
+
+    Yours most affectionately
+    B. FRANKLIN
+
+Bigelow's "Works of Franklin," vol. v. p. 201:
+
+    LONDON, 14 July, 1773.
+
+    TO MR. FOXCROFT.
+
+    Dear Friend:--I received yours of June 7th, and am glad to find
+    by it that you are safely returned from your Virginia journey,
+    having settled your affairs there to satisfaction, and that you
+    found your family well at New York.
+
+    I feel for you in the fall you had out of your chair. I have had
+    three of those squelchers in different journeys, and never
+    desire a fourth.
+
+    I do not think it was without reason that you continued so long
+    one of St. Thomas' disciples: for there was always some cause
+    for doubting. Some people always ride before the horse's head.
+    The draft of the patent is at length got into the hands of the
+    Attorney General, who must approve the form before it passes the
+    seals, so one would think much more time can scarce be required
+    to complete the business: but 'tis good not to be too sanguine.
+    He may go into the country, and the Privy Councillors likewise,
+    and some months elapse before they get together again:
+    therefore, if you have any patience, use it.
+
+    I suppose Mr. Finlay will be some time at Quebec in settling his
+    affairs. By the next packet you will receive a draft of
+    instructions for him.
+
+    In mine of December 2d, upon the post-office accounts to April,
+    1772, I took notice to you that I observed I had full credit for
+    my salary: but no charge appeared against me for money paid on
+    my account to Mrs. Franklin from the Philadelphia office. I
+    supposed the thirty pounds currency per month was regularly
+    paid, because I had had no complaint from her for want of money,
+    and I expected to find the charge in the accounts of the last
+    year--that is, to April 3, 1773: but nothing of it appearing
+    there, I am at a loss to understand it, and you take no notice
+    of my observation above mentioned. The great balance due from
+    that office begins to be remarked here, and I should have
+    thought the officer would, for his own sake, not have neglected
+    to lessen it by showing what he had paid on my account. Pray, my
+    dear friend, explain this to me.
+
+    I find by yours to Mr. Todd that you expected soon another
+    little one. God send my daughter a good time, and you a good
+    boy. Mrs. Stevenson is pleased with your remembrance of her, and
+    joins with Mr. and Mrs. Hewson and myself in best wishes for you
+    and yours.
+
+    I am ever yours affectionately,
+
+    B. FRANKLIN.
+
+American Philosophical Society Collection, vol. xlv., No. 80:
+
+    LONDON Feb. 18, 1774
+
+    MR. FOXCROFT,
+
+    Dear Friend--
+
+    It is long since I have heard from you. I hope
+    nothing I have written has occasioned any coolness. We are no
+    longer Colleagues, but let us part as we have lived so long in
+    Friendship.
+
+    I am displaced unwillingly by our masters who were obliged to
+    comply with the orders of the Ministry. It seems I am too much
+    of an American. Take care of yourself for you are little less.
+
+    I hope my daughter continues well. My blessing to her. I
+    shall soon, God willing, have the Pleasure of seeing you, intending
+    homewards in May next. I shall only wait the Arrival of the April
+    Pacquet with the accounts, that I may settle them here before I go.
+    I beg you will not fail of forwarding them by that Opportunity,
+    which will greatly oblige.
+
+    Dear Friend
+
+    Yours most affectionately
+
+It is to be observed of all these letters that, like the original letter
+of Foxcroft, they are entirely serious. They are business letters. They
+are not letters of amusement and pleasure, in which Franklin might joke
+and laugh with a young girl and in sport call her his daughter. They are
+not addressed to the woman in question but to her husband, and at the
+close of long details about business matters he simply says "give my
+love to my daughter," or he refers to her, as in the letter next to the
+last, as about to have another child. Read in connection with Foxcroft's
+original letter, they form very strong proof that Franklin believed Mrs.
+Foxcroft to be his daughter.
+
+But the reviewer says that Mr. Fisher notes in two places that women
+correspondents in writing to Franklin called him father and signed
+themselves "your daughter." Mr. Fisher notes on page 332 the letter of a
+girl written to Franklin in broken French and English, in which she
+begins by calling him "My dear father Americain," and signs herself
+"your humble servant and your daughter J. B. J. Conway." The letter is
+obviously childish and sportive. We do not find the other instance of a
+similar letter to which the reviewer alludes. The Conway letter is such
+a frivolous one that it amounts to nothing as proof to overcome the
+serious, solemn statements by Franklin and Foxcroft in their letters. A
+light-minded French girl calling Franklin her father is very different
+from serious, business-like statements by Franklin saying that a certain
+woman was his daughter.
+
+The reviewer goes on to say that "a little more research would have
+shown him [Mr. Fisher] letters of Franklin couched in the same parental
+terms." The meaning of this is presumably that Franklin was in the habit
+of calling the young women he corresponded with his daughters. This,
+however, it will be observed, is quite a different matter from
+Franklin's writing to a husband and sending love to the husband's wife
+as his daughter. But there are some letters to young girls on which a
+reckless, slap-dash reviewer would be likely to base the statement that
+Franklin habitually called women his daughters. Let us look into these
+letters and see what they are.
+
+Franklin's first correspondent of this sort was Miss Catherine Ray, of
+Rhode Island. They were great friends and exchanged some beautiful
+letters, almost unequalled in the English language. They are collected
+in Bigelow's "Works of Franklin," vol. ii. pp. 387, 414, 495. The letter
+at page 387 begins "Dear Katy," and ends "believe me, my dear girl, your
+affectionate faithful friend and humble servant." The letter at page 414
+begins "My Katy," speaks of her as "dear girl," and ends with the same
+phrase as the previous one, except that the word "faithful" is left out.
+The one at page 495 begins "Dear Katy," and closes "Adieu dear good girl
+and believe me ever your affectionate friend." In none of these letters
+does he speak of her as his daughter.
+
+The letters to Miss Catherine Louisa Shipley and to Miss Georgiana
+Shipley, the daughters of the Bishop of St. Asaph, are friendly but not
+very endearing in the terms used. He once calls Georgiana "My dear
+friend," and in the famous letter on the squirrel addresses her as "My
+dear Miss." He nowhere calls them his daughters.
+
+The letters that come nearest to what the reviewer wants are those to
+Miss Mary Stevenson. There are quite a number of them, and she and
+Franklin were on the most affectionate terms. We will give the citations
+of them in Bigelow, although any one can look them up in the index: In
+vol. iii. pp. 34, 46, 54, 56, 62, 139, 151, 186, 187, 195, 209, 232,
+238, 245; in vol. iv. pp. 17, 33, 212, 258, 264, 287, 332, 339; in vol.
+x. p. 285. These letters call Miss Stevenson "Dear Polly," "My dear
+friend," "My good girl," and "My dear good girl." The first of them,
+vol. iii. p. 34, begins by addressing her as "dear child," and another,
+vol. iii. p. 209, closes by saying "Adieu my dear child. I will call you
+so. Why should I not call you so, since I love you with all the
+tenderness of a father."
+
+This may be what the reviewer had in his mind. But Franklin nowhere
+calls Miss Stevenson his daughter. The word daughter and child are very
+different. We all of us often call children we fancy "my child."
+Franklin's use of the word child as applied to Miss Stevenson has from
+the context of the letters a perfectly obvious meaning,--no one can
+mistake it; just as his use of the word daughter in the Foxcroft letters
+has, from the context and all the circumstances, a perfectly obvious
+meaning.
+
+It would be endless to discuss all the reviewer's irrelevant and
+extravagant statements. We shall call attention to only one other
+illustration of his methods. He closes one of his wild paragraphs by
+saying that if "Mr. Fisher wishes further knowledge on this subject for
+'speculation,' we recommend him to read Franklin's letter to Foxcroft of
+September 7, 1774."
+
+The reviewer is careful not to quote from this letter or even to say
+where it may be found, and the inference the ordinary reader would draw
+from the way it is paraded is that it contains some very positive denial
+that Mrs. Foxcroft was Franklin's daughter. But when it is examined, it
+is found to be a business letter like the others, referring to the lady
+in question as "Mrs. Foxcroft" instead of as "my daughter," a perfectly
+natural way of referring to her and entirely consistent with the other
+letters. We give the letter in full. It is in the American Philosophical
+Society Collection, vol. xlv., No. 94:
+
+    LONDON Sept. 7, 1774.
+
+    MR. FOXCROFT,
+
+    Dear Friend--
+
+    Mr. Todd called to see me yesterday. I perceive there is good
+    deal of uneasiness at the office concerning the Delay of the
+    Accounts. He sent me in the Evening to read and return to him a
+    Letter he had written to you for the Mail. Friendship requires
+    me to urge earnestly your Attention to the contents, if you
+    value the Continuance of your Appointment; for these are times
+    of uncertainty, and I think it not unlikely that there is some
+    Person in view ready to step into your Shoes, if a tolerable
+    reason could be given for dismissing you. Mr. Todd is
+    undoubtedly your Friend. But everything is not always done as he
+    would have it This to yourself; and I confide that you will take
+    it as I mean it for your Good.
+
+    Several Packets are arrived since I have had a Line from you.
+    But I had the pleasure of seeing by yours to Mr. Todd that you
+    and Mrs. Foxcroft with your little Girl are all in good Health
+    which I pray may continue.
+
+    I am ever my dear old friend
+
+    Yours most affectionately
+
+    B. FRANKLIN.
+
+
+
+
+Index
+
+
+    Academy established by Franklin, 74-5.
+
+    ---- of Madame Helvetius, 330.
+
+    ADAMS, John, 295, 297, 303-5;
+      criticisms of Franklin, 306-12;
+      his difficulties with Vergennes, 321;
+      opposed to France, 322-3, 341-6;
+      Franklin criticises, 345-6.
+
+    ----, Mrs. John, 328-9.
+
+    Advertising, Franklin's methods of, 141-2.
+
+    Air-baths, 25-6.
+
+    Albany Conference, 201, 352-3.
+
+    ALLEN, Chief-Justice, 122.
+
+    Alliance, treaty of, 299-303.
+
+    Almanac, Franklin's, 143-52.
+
+    American Philosophical Society, 196.
+
+    Amusements as a youth, 18, 20.
+
+    Ancestors of Franklin, 42, 132.
+
+    Aristocracy, colonial, opposed to Franklin, 124.
+
+    Arithmetic, Franklin learns, 51.
+
+    "Armonica," the, 185.
+
+    Asaph, St., the Bishop of, 227, 348;
+      his daughters, 227-8.
+
+    Asbestos purse, the, 63.
+
+    Assembly, Franklin clerk of, 159;
+      elected a member of, 199.
+
+    "Associators," the, 199.
+
+    AUSTIN, Jonathan, 301.
+
+    Autobiography, Franklin's, 158.
+
+
+    BACHE, Sarah, 119, 265.
+
+    BAKER, Polly, 139.
+
+    Ballads by Franklin, 45.
+
+    BANCROFT, Dr. Edward, 288.
+
+    BARTRAM, John, 192.
+
+    BEAUMARCHAIS, 279-83.
+
+    Black Prince, the, 315.
+
+    BLAGDEN, Dr. Charles, 182.
+
+    Blood, causes of heat of, 29.
+
+    Books read by Franklin, 44.
+
+    Bows and arrows, Franklin suggests use of, 266.
+
+    BRADDOCK, Franklin visits, 200.
+
+    BRILLON, Madame, 325-7.
+
+    Broad jokes of Franklin, 125.
+
+    Broom-corn, 184.
+
+    BURGOYNE, surrender of, 301.
+
+    "Busy Body" papers, 135.
+
+
+    Canada, cession of, 336;
+      Franklin's journey to, 267-9.
+
+    CARROLL, Rev. John, 96, 267.
+
+    Celibacy, Franklin's dislike of, 106, 349.
+
+    CHATHAM, Lord, assists the Americans, 261.
+
+    CHAUMONT, Ray de, 275, 347.
+
+    Chevaux-de-frise devised by Franklin, 266.
+
+    Chimneys, smoky, 183.
+
+    Claims for extra service, 164-5.
+
+    Clerk of the Assembly, 159, 197.
+
+    COBBETT, his attack on Franklin, 123.
+
+    Colds, Franklin's theory of, 27-9.
+
+    College of Philadelphia founded, 74-6.
+
+    COLLINS, John, 19-20, 45, 57.
+
+    COLLINSON, Peter, 172-3, 177.
+
+    Constitution of Pennsylvania, 349, 353-4.
+
+    ----, signing of, 361-2.
+
+    Constitutional Convention of 1787, 356.
+
+    Constitution-making, 349-63.
+
+    Constitutions, American, translated into French, 355.
+
+    Contentment of Franklin, 21.
+
+    CONWAY, Mademoiselle, 332.
+
+    _Courant, New England_, 80-1.
+
+    COVERLEY, Sir Roger de, 144-5.
+
+    Creed, Franklin's, 88-91.
+
+
+    DEANE, Silas, 270, 278, 288, 289-91.
+
+    Death of Franklin, 39-40.
+
+    Deep water, effect of, on vessels, 181.
+
+    DE FOE'S "Essay upon Projects," 193.
+
+    Deism, Franklin's, 80, 84, 91.
+
+    DENHAM, Mr., befriends Franklin, 59, 65, 133.
+
+    DESPENCER, Lord le, 98, 242.
+
+    Diseases of Franklin, 34-40.
+
+    Diurnal motion of the earth, 186-7.
+
+    "Dogood, Silence," 135.
+
+    Dreams, Franklin's fondness for, 26.
+
+
+    Edict of the King of Prussia, 241-2.
+
+    Education, defects of modern, 47-50.
+
+    Electricity, 172-8.
+
+    ELIOT, Jared, 170.
+
+    "Ephemera, The," 154-5, 325-6.
+
+    Epitaph of Franklin on himself, 153;
+      comic epitaphs, 154;
+      on the Penns, 223;
+      on Franklin, 224;
+      on the squirrel, 228.
+
+    Examination before Parliament, 234-9.
+
+    Exercise, Franklin's opinion of, 37.
+
+
+    "Fireplace, Pennsylvania," 170.
+
+    Fisheries, the, 337, 340-2.
+
+    FORD, Paul Leicester, his essay on the mother of Franklin's son,
+      106-7.
+
+    FOTHERGILL, Dr., 213.
+
+    FOXCROFT, John, 104-5.
+
+    France, willingness of, to assist America, 277-8;
+      loans from, 317-18;
+      Franklin's love for, 346;
+      appointed commissioner to, 270;
+      subserviency to, 343;
+      departure from, 347.
+
+    FRANKLIN, Mrs., 114-18, 120-1, 137.
+
+    ----, William, 105-7, 113, 214.
+
+    ----, William Temple, 106, 214.
+
+    Free ships, 316.
+
+    French, enthusiasm of the, for Franklin, 273-5.
+
+    ----, Franklin's knowledge of, 71, 74, 325-6.
+
+    Fur cap, Franklin's, 274.
+
+
+    _Gazette, Pennsylvania_, founded by Franklin, 135-42;
+      advertisements in, 142.
+
+    Girls, Franklin's fondness for, 128-9, 332-3.
+
+    GODFREY, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, 134, 143.
+
+    Gout, dialogue of the, with Franklin, 35.
+
+    Governor, the Assembly's contests with the, 204.
+
+    Governor's salary, contests about, 201.
+
+    "Great Empire, Rules for Reducing a," 240-1.
+
+    Gulf Stream, 181-2.
+
+
+    HALL, David, Franklin's partner, 160.
+
+    HARTLEY, David, 319.
+
+    "Hat Honor," 82-3.
+
+    HELVETIUS, Madame, 327-30.
+
+    HOPKINSON, Thomas, 173.
+
+    Hospital, the Pennsylvania, 123, 195.
+
+    HOUDETOT, Countess d', 332-4.
+
+    HOWE, Lord, 262, 269.
+
+    HUGHES, John, 232.
+
+    Hutchinson Letters, the, 245-60.
+
+
+    Illegitimate children of Franklin, 104.
+
+    Immorality, Franklin's, 103.
+
+    Indolence, Franklin's, 21.
+
+    IZARD, Ralph, 286-7.
+
+
+    "Jacobite, The Genealogy of a," 139.
+
+    JAY, John, 318, 338-9, 341-2.
+
+    Junto, the, 66-70.
+
+
+    KAMES, Lord, 158, 186, 215.
+
+    KEIMER, 54-5, 65, 133-5.
+
+    KEITH, Governor, 55, 56-9.
+
+    KINNERSLEY, Ebenezer, 173-4, 178.
+
+    Kite experiment, 175-6.
+
+
+    Languages, modern, 71-2.
+
+    Latin, Franklin learns, 71;
+      wants to abolish the study of, 72.
+
+    LEE, Arthur, 286, 291-5.
+
+    LEEDS, Titan, 145-6.
+
+    Legislature, Franklin clerk of, 159;
+      elected a member of, 199.
+
+    Lehigh Valley, expedition to, 207-9.
+
+    "Liberty and Necessity," Franklin's pamphlet on, 60-3, 85-6.
+
+    Library, the Philadelphia, 193-4.
+
+    Liturgy, Franklin's, 89-90.
+
+    Loans from France, 317-18.
+
+    London, Franklin's first visit to, 59;
+      his life there, 60-5.
+
+    LOUIS XVI. gives his portrait to Franklin, 347.
+
+    Love of money, Franklin's, 160.
+
+
+    MALTHUS, 190.
+
+    Manures, mineral, 184.
+
+    MARBOIS, 342.
+
+    Maritime suggestions, 188-90.
+
+    Marriage, Franklin favors, 106, 349;
+      attempts it for himself, 109, 111;
+      marries Mrs. Rogers, 112-13.
+
+    MATHER, Cotton, 66, 68, 81, 158, 193.
+
+    MAURY, 187-8.
+
+    MECOM, Jane, 130.
+
+    _Mercury_, the, 134-5, 142.
+
+    MEREDITH, Hugh, 133, 136.
+
+    Militia, Franklin organizes the, 198.
+
+    ---- law drafted by Franklin, 206.
+
+    Mississippi, navigation of the, 341.
+
+    Mistress, Franklin's advice on the choice of a, 126-7.
+
+    Modern languages, 71-2.
+
+    Molasses, export duty on, 302-3.
+
+    Money, Franklin's love of, 160.
+
+    Moral code, Franklin's, 102, 108.
+
+    Music, 185.
+
+
+    Nepotism, 164, 293.
+
+    Northeast storms, origin of, 169.
+
+    Nuncio, the papal, 96-7.
+
+
+    Oil, effect of, on waves, 182-3.
+
+    Ordination of bishops, 96-7.
+
+    OSWALD, commission of, 337-9.
+
+
+    Paper money, Franklin's pamphlet on, 70.
+
+    Parable against persecution, 155-8.
+
+    Paralytic people brought to Franklin, 331.
+
+    PARKER, Theodore, 106.
+
+    Passy, Franklin at, 275.
+
+    PASSY, Mademoiselle de, 306.
+
+    "Paxton Boys," 219-20.
+
+    Peace, proposals of, 319;
+      treaty of, 335.
+
+    "Pennsylvania Fireplace," 170.
+
+    ---- Hospital, 195.
+
+    Peopling of countries, 190.
+
+    Perfumes, Franklin's letter on, 126.
+
+    Persecution, parable against, 155-8.
+
+    Philadelphia, Franklin's first journey to, 52-4.
+
+    ---- Library, 193-4.
+
+    Plagiarism, 26, 152.
+
+    Plan of life, Franklin's, 85.
+
+    Polly Baker's speech, 139.
+
+    PONTIAC, conspiracy of, 218.
+
+    "Poor Richard," 143-52.
+
+    Portraits of Franklin, 30-3.
+
+    Postmaster of Philadelphia, 159.
+
+    Postmaster-General of the colonies, 162;
+      under Congress, 265.
+
+    Prayer-book, Franklin's revision of, 98-101.
+
+    PRIESTLEY, Joseph, 213.
+
+    Privateering, Franklin opposed to, 317.
+
+    Profits of business, 159-61, 163-5.
+
+    Proprietary estates, taxing of, 204-5, 209-10, 216-17, 221.
+
+    Proprietorship, abolition of, 221-6, 231.
+
+
+    RALPH, a friend of Franklin, 59, 64.
+
+    RAY, Miss Catharine, 128.
+
+    READ, Miss, 54, 58, 60, 65-6, 112.
+
+    Reading as a boy, 42.
+
+    Recommendation, letters of, 319-20.
+
+    "Reprisal," the, 271-2.
+
+    Retirement from business, 160-1.
+
+    RITTENHOUSE, David, 168.
+
+    Rolls, Franklin's story of the, 54.
+
+    ROMILLY, Sir Samuel, visits Franklin, 350.
+
+    Royal government, petition to, 221-6, 231.
+
+    "Rules for Reducing a Great Empire," 240-1.
+
+
+    Sabbath-breaker, Franklin as a, 78, 93.
+
+    Salaries of Franklin's offices, 163-4.
+
+    Salary of the President, Franklin opposes, 357.
+
+    School-days, 41.
+
+    Scotch-Irish, the, 219-20.
+
+    Sedentary life of Franklin, 22.
+
+    Self-made man, Franklin as a, 41.
+
+    Senate, composition of the, 360.
+
+    Shallow water, effect of, 181.
+
+    SLOANE, Sir Hans, 63.
+
+    Small-pox, inoculation for, 81.
+
+    SMITH, Rev. William, 76, 122.
+
+    Smoke-consuming stove, 184.
+
+    Smoky chimneys, 183.
+
+    Soldier, Franklin as a, 207.
+
+    Spain, her interests in the Mississippi, 340.
+
+    _Spectator, The_, analyzed by Franklin, 46.
+
+    Stamp Act, 231-9.
+
+    States, the smaller, 358.
+
+    STEVENSON, Miss Mary, 129.
+
+    ----, Mrs., 211-12.
+
+    Storms from the northeast, 169.
+
+    STRAHAN, William, 213, 267.
+
+    Street-cleaning, 196.
+
+    Subserviency to France, 334-5, 343.
+
+    Swimming, 18-19.
+
+    SYNG, Philip, 173.
+
+
+    Taxing the estates, 204-5, 209-10, 216-17, 221.
+
+    Temperance, 24-5.
+
+    TEMPLE, John, his duel with Whately, 249.
+
+    THOMPSON, Mrs., calls Franklin a rebel, 331.
+
+    THUNDER, Marquis of, 306.
+
+    TRUXTON, Captain, 348.
+
+    TURGOT, 311-12.
+
+
+    Union, plans of, 352-3.
+
+
+    Vegetarianism, 22.
+
+    VEILLARD, Le, 347.
+
+    Ventilation, 29.
+
+    Venus, transit of, 168.
+
+    VERGENNES, 277, 281, 303, 321-2, 324, 338, 341, 344.
+
+    "Virtue, The Art of," planned by Franklin, 109.
+
+    VOLTAIRE, resemblance of, to Franklin, 280;
+      embraces Franklin, 306.
+
+
+    War, Franklin's opinion of, 191.
+
+    War, Quaker opinion of, 203.
+
+    Water, depth of, as affecting vessels, 181.
+
+    Water-drinking, 23.
+
+    Water-spouts, 180.
+
+    Wealth of Franklin, 165.
+
+    WEDDERBURN, 256-9.
+
+    WHATELY, Thomas, his duel with Temple, 249.
+
+    Whistle, story of the, 60.
+
+    WHITEFIELD, Rev. George, 94-5.
+
+    WILLIAMS, Jonathan, 293-8.
+
+    Writing, Franklin trains himself in, 46.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note.
+
+
+Irregular spelling in quoted material is as per the original. Minor
+errors in punctuation corrected without note. The following
+typographical errors have been corrected:
+
+   Page 23: Original: "... other projects, to form a religous ..."
+       (changed to "religious")
+
+   Page 35: Original: "... ate and drank too freeely, and ..."
+       (changed to "freely")
+
+   Page 139: Original: "... American newsapers for half a ..."
+       (changed to "newspapers")
+
+   Page 291: Original: "... publication of Beamarchais's life ..."
+       (changed to "Beaumarchais's")
+
+   Page 293: Original: "... in a phamphlet, entitled ..."
+       (changed to "pamphlet")
+
+   Page 349: Original: "... Eripuit coelo fulmen septrumque ..."
+       (changed to "sceptrumque")
+
+The section of text comparing Taylor's and Franklin's language (pp.
+156-7) was printed side by side in the original. Oe ligatures in the
+original replaced with "oe" in this version.
+
+The Pilcrow symbol has been replaced with "[P]" in this version.
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The True Benjamin Franklin, by Sydney George Fisher
+
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