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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-04 03:58:45 -0800 |
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} - .toc dt.sct { text-align:right; clear:both; font-variant:small-caps; margin-left:1em; } - .toc dt.jl { text-align:left; clear:both; font-variant:normal; } - .toc dt.scc { text-align:center; clear:both; font-variant:small-caps; text-indent:0; } - .toc dt span.lj { text-align:left; display:block; float:left; } - .toc dt.jr { font-style:normal; } - .toc dt a span.cn, .toc dt span.cn, dt span.cn { width:3.5em; text-align:right; margin-right:.7em; float:left; } - dt .large {font-weight:bold; } - -.clear { clear:both; } -.htab { margin-left:8em; } - /* MAXWIDTH FOR JUVENILE BOOKS */ - p, blockquote, li, dd, dt, div.bcat, pre { text-align:justify; margin-right:auto; margin-left:auto; } - p, li, dd, dt, div.bcat, pre.internal dl { max-width:25em; margin-right:auto; margin-left:auto; } - p.csmaller { max-width:42em; } - p.csmallest { max-width:40em; } - p.small { max-width:31.25em; } - blockquote { max-width:23em; } - div.verse { max-width:25em; margin-right:auto; margin-left:auto; } - div.bq { margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; max-width:23em; } - - /* book advertisements */ - div.bcat dl dd { margin-left:4em; max-width:21em; } - div.bcat dl dt { text-indent:-2em; margin-left:2em; } - p.bkad {font-size:125%; font-weight:bold; margin-top:2em; max-width:20em; margin-right:auto; margin-left:auto; } - p.bkpr {font-size:90%; } - p.bkrv { } - dl.blist dt { margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; } - dl.blist, dl.biblio { margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; max-width:25em; } - - dl.undent dd { max-width:23em; } - dl.int { margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; max-width:25em; } - dl.int dt {margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; } - dl.int dd {margin-left:2em; } -</style> -</head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Benjamin Franklin, by Robin McKown - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Benjamin Franklin - -Author: Robin McKown - -Release Date: August 19, 2020 [EBook #62974] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BENJAMIN FRANKLIN *** - - - - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - -<div class="img"> -<img class="cover" id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Benjamin Franklin" width="500" height="760" /> -</div> -<div class="box"> -<h1>BENJAMIN FRANKLIN</h1> -<p class="center"><b>by -<br /><span class="sc">Robin McKown</span></b></p> -<div class="img"> -<img src="images/p02.jpg" alt="Publisher logo" width="127" height="200" /> -</div> -<p class="center"><b><span class="sc">G. P. Putnam’s Sons -<br />New York</span></b></p> -</div> -<p class="tbcenter">To Rosalie Quine</p> -<p class="tbcenter">Third Impression -<br />© 1963 by Robin McKown -<br />All rights reserved</p> -<p class="center">Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-9688</p> -<p class="center">Manufactured in the United States of America</p> -<p class="center">Published simultaneously in the Dominion of Canada -<br />by Longmans Canada Limited, Toronto</p> -<p class="center">10216</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_5">5</div> -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> -<dl class="toc"> -<dt><span class="cn">1. </span><a href="#c1">A Boyhood in Boston</a> 9</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">2. </span><a href="#c2">A Young Man on His Own</a> 18</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">3. </span><a href="#c3">The Birth of Poor Richard</a> 28</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">4. </span><a href="#c4">The Civic-Minded Citizen</a> 38</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">5. </span><a href="#c5">The Thunder Giant</a> 49</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">6. </span><a href="#c6">A Brief Military Career</a> 61</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">7. </span><a href="#c7">The Battle with the Penns</a> 73</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">8. </span><a href="#c8">The White Christian Savages</a> 84</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">9. </span><a href="#c9">The Stamp Act</a> 91</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">10. </span><a href="#c10">Friendships in England</a> 100</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">11. </span><a href="#c11">The Terrible Hutchinson Letters</a> 111</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">12. </span><a href="#c12">Beginning of a Long War</a> 123</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">13. </span><a href="#c13">The Splendid Word Independence</a> 132</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">14. </span><a href="#c14">France Falls in Love with an American</a> 143</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">15. </span><a href="#c15">America’s First Ambassador</a> 155</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">16. </span><a href="#c16">A Glorious Old Age</a> 165</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">17. </span><a href="#c17">The Closing Years</a> 177</dt> -<dt><span class="cn"> </span><a href="#c18"><i>Suggested Reading</i></a> 188</dt> -<dt><span class="cn"> </span><a href="#c19"><i>Index</i></a> 189</dt> -</dl> -<div class="pb" id="Page_7">7</div> -<h1 title="">BENJAMIN FRANKLIN</h1> -<div class="pb" id="Page_9">9</div> -<h2 id="c1"><span class="h2line1">1</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">A BOYHOOD IN BOSTON</span></h2> -<p>The Franklins of Boston were poor, numerous, lively and -intelligent. There were seventeen children in all, seven by -their father’s first wife, who had died after Josiah Franklin -brought her from England to America; and ten by his second -wife, Abiah, Benjamin’s mother. Benjamin, born on January 6 -(January 17, new style), 1706, was the youngest son, though -he had two younger sisters, Jane, who was always his favorite, -and Lydia.</p> -<p>They lived on Milk Street across from the Old South -Church until he was six, when they took a larger house on -Hanover Street. A blue ball hung over the door, serving to -identify the house in lieu of street numbers. In June 1713, a -firm of slave traders advertised “three able Negro men and -three Negro women ... to be seen at the house of Mr. -Josiah Franklin at the Blue Ball.” Josiah kept no slaves himself -but had a shed in which he allowed these captives to be housed.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_10">10</div> -<p>Boston was then a busy seaport town, with some 12,000 -population, next largest to Philadelphia in the American colonies. -Its harbor was filled with sailing vessels; merchant ships -from the Barbados or faraway England unloaded their goods -at the Long Wharf. Streets were unpaved and unlighted, but -there was plenty of activity in the coffeehouses and taverns. -The town boasted of at least six book stores.</p> -<p>Benjamin could not remember when he learned to read. -According to his sister Jane, he was reading the Bible at five -and composing verses at seven. The verse writing was inspired -by his father’s brother, Uncle Benjamin, a versifier himself, -who appeared at varying intervals, usually staying as long as -his welcome lasted.</p> -<p>At a very young age, Benjamin devoured his father’s religious -tracts and sermons, but soon found boring their tirades -against infidels and Catholics. <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, in contrast, -was an absorbing adventure story, and <i>Plutarch’s Lives</i> -opened up a new and exciting world. His official schooling -began at eight and lasted just two years. After that he worked -in his father’s soap and candle making shop, doing errands, -dipping molds, cutting wick for candles.</p> -<p>With so many mouths to feed, higher education, such as -that offered at nearby Harvard University, was out of reach -for any of the Franklin children. To improve their minds, -Josiah often invited men of learning to dinner, encouraging -them to discuss worthwhile matters. Though his trade was -lowly, he was one of the town’s most respected citizens. Leading -Bostonians often consulted him about public affairs, or -asked him to arbitrate disputes. He was a man of many skills, -was handy with tools, played the violin, and sang hymns in -a pleasing voice. Benjamin’s love of music began in his childhood.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_11">11</div> -<p>The values of obedience and industry were implanted in all -of them. “Seest thou a man diligent in his calling,” Josiah -would quote from Solomon, “he shall stand before kings, he -shall not stand before mean men.” Nothing then seemed more -unlikely than that he, Benjamin Franklin, would ever stand -before a king.</p> -<p>He was a sturdy, squarely built youngster, with a broad -friendly face, light brown hair, and bright mischievous eyes. -Among boys of his own age he was the leader—and sometimes -led them into scrapes.</p> -<p>Once they were fishing for minnows in the salt marsh. -Benjamin suggested they build a wharf so as not to get their -feet wet. For the purpose, they appropriated a pile of stones -belonging to some workmen who were using them to build a -house. The wharf was a success but there were repercussions -when the men found their stones missing.</p> -<p>“Nothing is useful which is not honest,” Josiah told his -erring son.</p> -<p>As a youth, he learned to handle boats, to swim, to dive, -and to perform all manner of water stunts. One day he resolved -to try swimming and flying his kite simultaneously. To -his delight, he found that if he floated on his back while holding -the kite’s string, he was effortlessly drawn across the pond. -Another time he carved himself two oval slabs of wood, shaped -like a painter’s palette, bored a hole for his thumb, and used -them like oars to propel himself along. In this way he could -easily outswim his comrades, though his wrists soon tired. He -tried similar devices for his feet with less success. For this -invention he might be called the first frog man.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_12">12</div> -<p>He had no enthusiasm for cutting candle wicks and often -dreamed of going to sea as an older brother had done. Josiah -Franklin, sensing his discontent, told him he could take his -pick of other trades. In turn, he took his son to watch the -work of joiners, bricklayers, turners, and braziers. Young -Benjamin admired the way they handled their tools but did -not find these trades to his taste either.</p> -<p>Wisely, his father did not press him. His brother James had -returned from England in 1717 with equipment to set up a -printing shop at the corner of Queen Street and Dasset Alley. -Since Benjamin liked to read, what would he think of being -a printer—a trade that deals with pamphlets, books, everything -made with words? The idea appealed to Benjamin, though he -balked when he learned he would be apprenticed to his brother -until he was twenty. His father insisted; the apprenticeship, -legal as a slave contract, would assure him against losing a -second son to the dangerous sea. When Benjamin finally -signed the papers which bound him to his brother’s service, -he was twelve years old. Everyone agreed he was exceptionally -bright for his age.</p> -<p>James Franklin was one of Boston’s young intellectuals, -belonging to what the pious Cotton Mather called the “Hell -Fire Club,” made up of clever young men like himself. He -had reason to be pleased with how quickly his little brother -mastered the techniques of a printer’s trade. As Benjamin’s -skill began to surpass his own, his attitude changed to resentment -and jealousy. He found excuses to scold Benjamin, and -sometimes gave him blows.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_13">13</div> -<p>The shop handled pamphlets and advertisements and such -odd jobs. As a sideline they printed patterns on linen, calico, -and silk “in good figures, very lively and durable colours.” In -the second year of Benjamin’s apprenticeship, their fortunes -improved with a substantial contract to print the Boston -<i>Gazette</i> for 40 weeks. The <i>Gazette</i> was one of Boston’s two -newspapers, both insufferably dull. When his contract came -to an end, James decided to publish his own newspaper. His -friends scoffed, saying that America had no need of still another -newspaper!</p> -<p>The first issue of James Franklin’s <i>New England Courant</i> -appeared August 7, 1721, during a smallpox epidemic—and -was devoted to opposing the new “doubtful and dangerous -practice” of smallpox inoculation. There is no evidence that -young Benjamin took any stand—either for or against—in the -controversy.</p> -<p>The great advantage of working for his brother was that he -had access to books. Several apprentices to booksellers with -whom he made friends obligingly “loaned” him volumes from -their masters’ shelves. So they could be returned early in the -morning before they were missed, he often sat up all night -reading. There was also a tradesman named Matthew Adams -with his own library, who took a fancy to Benjamin and let -him borrow what he chose. From reading he turned his hand -to writing, composing a ballad called <i>The Lighthouse -Tragedy</i>, the account of the drowning of a ship’s captain and -his two daughters.</p> -<p>James saw possibilities in this effort, printed it for Benjamin, -then sent him out on the streets to sell it. (The story of young -Benjamin Franklin hawking his ballads on the streets of Boston -would much later bring tears to the eyes of his aristocratic -French friends.) <i>The Lighthouse Tragedy</i> was wonderfully -popular, but his second ballad, a sailor’s song about a pirate, -was such a dismal failure that he allowed his father to discourage -him from trying others.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_14">14</div> -<p>“Verse-makers are usually beggars,” Josiah Franklin had -commented.</p> -<p>Prose was Benjamin’s next effort. His inspiration was a volume -of the London <i>Spectator</i>, with essays by Joseph Addison -and Richard Steele, leading prose stylists of the eighteenth -century. He made notes on their subject matter, laid the notes -aside a few days, tried to reconstruct the original. He changed -the essays into verse, endeavored to put them back to prose. -Thus he strove to correct his own writing faults, on occasion -having the thrill of finding he had in a phrase or expression -improved the original.</p> -<p>Both reading and writing were done on his own time, before -the shop opened in the morning, at night, and on Sundays -when his conscience let him miss church. And still there were -never enough hours in the day for all the learning he sought.</p> -<p>When he was sixteen he came under the influence of a book -by a man named Tryon, who preached on the evils of eating -“fish or flesh.” He had been taking his dinners with James and -the workmen at a boardinghouse run by a Mrs. Peabody. -Would his brother agree to giving him half what he paid Mrs. -Peabody and let him buy his own dinner? Benjamin proposed. -James jumped at such a bargain. Henceforth the young apprentice -dined on dried raisins and bread instead of roasts and -legs of mutton. He even had money left over for books, and -two extra hours in the empty shop to peruse them as he ate. -One of the volumes he purchased at this time influenced him -even more than Tryon and his vegetarianism.</p> -<p>This was Xenophon’s <i>Memorabilia</i>, which told of Socrates -and his philosophy.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_15">15</div> -<p>Hitherto when Benjamin had an opinion, he stated it, as so -many do, unequivocally as a fact. It had been a mystery to him -why people so often took offense and set to arguing the opposite -side of the question. Instead of saying outright what he -had in mind, Socrates asked questions—and indirectly led -people to his own opinion. From that time on, Benjamin used -rarely such words as “certainly” or “undoubtedly,” but expressed -his own ideas with seeming diffidence and modesty. -Rather than saying, “This is so,” he substituted, “In my opinion, -this might be so.” He retained this habit of speech the rest -of his life.</p> -<p>Outwardly more humble, he was inwardly gaining self-confidence. -It seemed to him that the things which James and -his literary friends wrote for the <i>Courant</i> were no better than -he could do himself, but he was too smart to risk asking his -brother to let him have an opportunity to try. One morning -a letter was slipped under the door of the shop before any of -the staff arrived. It was signed by a “Mrs. Silence Dogood.”</p> -<p>Mrs. Dogood claimed to have been born on a ship bringing -her parents from London to New England. Her father, so she -said, was standing on the deck rejoicing at her birth when “a -merciless wave” carried him to his death. In America, as soon -as she was old enough, her hard-pressed mother had apprenticed -her to a young country parson, whom the young girl -later married. Now she was a widow with three children.</p> -<p>James printed Mrs. Dogood’s first letter, as well as subsequent -ones in which she expressed herself, wittily and clearly, -on such varied subjects as the folly of fashionable dress, the -character of the so-called weaker sex, the ill effects of liquor, -the inferior quality of New England poetry, the need of insurance -for widows and old maids, the hypocrisy of certain -“pretenders to religion,” and the uselessness of sending dullards -to Harvard simply because their fathers could afford to -pay their way.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_16">16</div> -<p>Not until her column had become the most controversial -and the most popular in the paper, did James Franklin learn -that his apprentice-brother was Mrs. Dogood’s creator.</p> -<p>In the meantime James was having his own troubles. Because -of an editorial attack by one of his contributors on the -Massachusetts governor, James was summoned before the City -Council, sent to jail for a month, and released only when he -agreed to make an abject apology. The City Council then -forbade him to print or publish the <i>Courant</i>. In desperation, -James and his friends hit on the scheme of making Benjamin, -in name only, the <i>Courant</i> publisher. So it would be legal, -James burned his brother’s apprenticeship papers, although -privately a new set was drawn up.</p> -<p>“Mrs. Dogood” added her voice to the indignation aroused -at James Franklin’s persecution. From the London <i>Journal</i>, -she quoted an article: “Without Freedom of Thought, there -can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as public -liberty without Freedom of Speech.” (Capitalization of nouns -was then held part of elegant writing, a practice which Benjamin -Franklin always followed carefully.)</p> -<p>He had a freer hand now and composed many articles for -the <i>Courant</i>. At seventeen, he was without doubt the best -writer in Boston, with a mind inferior to none. It is small -wonder that his brother felt it his moral duty to exert his -authority over him. There were arguments. There were more -blows on the part of James. Benjamin, by his own admission, -was “perhaps ... too saucy and provoking.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_17">17</div> -<p>One day he told his brother he was quitting. A runaway -apprentice was subject to the same penalties as a runaway -slave, but Benjamin’s case was slightly different. James could -not make public the secret apprenticeship papers without getting -himself in trouble. He took out his fury by visiting other -Boston printing shops to warn them not to employ his arrogant -younger brother.</p> -<p>Benjamin resolved to go to New York. His only confidant -was a young friend named Collins. Collins persuaded the captain -of a New York sloop to give him passage, telling a fantastic -yarn about Benjamin being pursued by a young woman -who wanted to marry him. The captain would not have -carried a runaway apprentice but goodnaturedly agreed to -help the young “ne’er-do-well” elude the female sex.</p> -<p>New York, where Benjamin arrived after a three-day -journey, had only 7,000 inhabitants but was suffused with an -atmosphere of luxury unknown in Boston. Streets, paved with -cobblestones, were filled with elegantly attired English officials -and wealthy businessmen. Houses were mostly of brick -with stairstep roofs in the Dutch style. Though the English -had captured it from the Netherlands in 1674, Dutch customs -still prevailed.</p> -<p>Benjamin called at once on William Bradford, New York’s -only printer. Bradford told him he needed no help—privately -he thought the Boston youth unstable—but advised him to go -to Philadelphia and see his son, Andrew Bradford, also a -printer. He could guarantee nothing but at least there was no -harm trying.</p> -<p>In history, William Bradford, a worthy man in his own -way, has two indirect claims to fame. One was that a former -apprentice of his named Peter Zenger braved official censure -and served a prison sentence for the principle of freedom of -the press. The other—that he refused a job to Benjamin -Franklin.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_18">18</div> -<h2 id="c2"><span class="h2line1">2</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">A YOUNG MAN ON HIS OWN</span></h2> -<p>No one could have looked sadder or funnier than Benjamin -Franklin when he walked down Philadelphia’s Market -Street for the first time. At the Fourth Street intersection, a -rosy-cheeked buxom young girl, standing in a doorway, burst -out laughing at the sight of him. It was understandable. His -traveling suit was wet, shrunken and shapeless. His pockets -were bulging with spare socks and shirts. He was hugging a -large puffy white roll tightly under each arm and simultaneously -eating a third.</p> -<p>The journey from New York had been a series of mishaps. -His ship nearly foundered in a squall off the Long Island -coast and was becalmed near Block Island. Fresh water ran -low. They would have gone hungry had not some of the -passengers hauled in a batch of codfish. Benjamin found the -aroma of frying fish so tempting that he there and then renounced -Mr. Tryon’s vegetarian regime, never returning to -it except for lack of funds.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_19">19</div> -<p>Thirty hours later they landed at Amboy, where a leaky -ferry took him across to Perth Amboy. From there he walked -some fifty miles to Burlington, a two-day hike in pouring -rain, then caught a boat going down the Delaware. The captain -was short a hand and Benjamin helped with the rowing.</p> -<p>By the time they reached Philadelphia, his entire fortune -was a Dutch dollar and a shilling in copper. The captain told -him he had earned his passage, but he insisted on paying the -shilling. It was a matter of pride: “A man being sometimes -more generous when he has but a little money than when he -has plenty, perhaps thro’ fear of being thought to have but -little.”</p> -<p>A three-penny piece had procured him the three enormous -rolls. One of them satisfied his hunger. He gave the other two -to a woman and child who had been on the boat with him. -That night he slept at the Crooked Billet Tavern, to which a -friendly Quaker directed him.</p> -<p>The next morning he made himself as presentable as he -could and went to see Andrew Bradford, the printer. Young -Bradford had no work but hospitably invited him to lodge -with his family. The same day Benjamin called on another -printer, Samuel Keimer, who promptly hired him. Thus -within twenty-four hours of his inopportune arrival, he had -a place to stay and a job.</p> -<p>Keimer was an eccentric little man with a long black beard -who had but recently come from France. He was somewhat -of a knave as Benjamin would learn later, and he knew little -about his trade. His press was old and in disrepair with only -one small and worn-out font (set of type). But the pay was -good, or so it seemed to a youth who had never had a salary -before. He soon had Keimer befuddled with admiration by -quoting Socrates to him.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_20">20</div> -<p>His employer was nervous about Benjamin living with a -rival printer and in a few weeks arranged for him to lodge -with a family named Read. His chest of clothes which he had -shipped from New York had now arrived. When Keimer took -him to his new landlady, Ben was dressed in his best, a handsome, -husky well-mannered young man, about five feet ten -inches, with a wide mouth and a humorous light in his brown -eyes. He was introduced to the daughter of the house, -Deborah Read. Both young people started in surprise. She -was the same lass who had laughed at him as he walked down -Market Street eating his roll.</p> -<p>Debby was a warmhearted outspoken young lady, cheerful -and quite pretty. Although, unlike himself, she had little interest -in improving her mind, he enjoyed her company. There -was shortly some talk of marriage between them. Her parents -discouraged the idea, saying they were both too young. Nor -was Benjamin overly ardent in his courtship. He was not yet -eighteen, and far too pleased to be free of family discipline -to think of settling down as a married man.</p> -<p>Philadelphia was largely a Quaker town, with a sprinkling -of Swedes and Finns and a large contingent of German immigrants. -The rich farms surrounding it were cut into deep -forests where Indians lingered. Bears and wolves were still -shot at the city’s gates. This “City of Brotherly Love” had -been planned by William Penn, the noble Quaker to whom -King Charles II had made a grant of the some forty thousand -square miles of land that made up the province of Pennsylvania. -In contrast to the royal colonies, like New York -and Massachusetts, Pennsylvania was known as a “proprietary” -colony.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_21">21</div> -<p>At William Penn’s death, his sons inherited the proprietorship. -There was already some resentment because of the vast -tracts which the Penns held tax-free.</p> -<p>In Philadelphia, Benjamin soon found friends of his own -age and of kindred interests. There were three with whom he -spent many social evenings: a pious young man named Watson, -an argumentative one named Osborne, and James Ralph, -who fancied himself a poet. They exchanged ideas on a multitude -of subjects and read each other things they had written. -Franklin was not overworked on his job and had leisure for -reading. His needs were few and he saved some money.</p> -<p>Certainly he missed his family but he dared not let them -know where he was for fear of being dragged back to Boston. -He did not realize that in the small and intimate world of the -colonies news of a stranger was likely to get around. He had -a brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, who was a sloop owner -living in New Castle, forty miles from Philadelphia. Somehow -Holmes learned of his whereabouts and wrote to tell him the -worry he had caused his parents. Benjamin answered in considerable -detail, explaining the reasons for his departure.</p> -<p>Soon afterwards two distinguished gentlemen knocked at -Keimer’s shop. Keimer spied them from an upstairs window. -“Sir William Keith!” he gasped in awe, and rushed down the -steps to open the door, bowing and scraping. Keith was governor -of the province of Pennsylvania! With him was another -important citizen, one Colonel French. No doubt Keimer -expected some important commission. The governor, however, -brushed him aside and demanded to see Mr. Benjamin -Franklin.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_22">22</div> -<p>“How do you do, sir,” he said when Benjamin appeared. “I -must reproach you for not making yourself known to me -when you first arrived. I have heard fine things about you, -very fine things indeed. The colonel and I are headed to the -tavern across the way which serves an excellent Madeira. -Would you care to join us?”</p> -<p>“I would be delighted, your honor,” Benjamin told him, -removing the leather apron which was a symbol of his trade. -His face was as impassive as if it were an everyday occurrence -to have a governor invite him for a glass of wine.</p> -<p>Keimer, mouth open, stared at them with the look of a -“poisoned pig.”</p> -<p>Over the Madeira, Benjamin learned that Keith knew -Robert Holmes, his brother-in-law, and had seen his letter. -Keith, a man of some literary pretensions himself, had been -deeply impressed with his skill at expressing himself.</p> -<p>“The printers of Philadelphia are a wretched lot,” Keith -asserted. “From what your brother-in-law says, Mr. Franklin, -I am convinced that you would succeed in your own shop. I -will do all in my power to aid you.”</p> -<p>As Benjamin basked in this heady tribute, the governor and -Colonel French launched into ways and means of setting him -up in the printing business. All that was needed was capital. -Would not Benjamin’s father provide the necessary backing? -It was very unlikely, Benjamin commented.</p> -<p>“I will tell you what I will do,” said the governor. “I will -write to your father myself to tell him how much faith I have -in your ability.”</p> -<p>Dazzled, Benjamin agreed to make a trip home to deliver -the governor’s letter personally.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_23">23</div> -<p>He took a leave of absence a few weeks later, telling Keimer -only that he was visiting his family. A year before he had quit -Boston, a near penniless runaway. He returned in triumph, -wearing a new suit, carrying a watch, and jingling some five -pounds of sterling in his pocket. His mother and father were -overjoyed to see him, and his sisters crowded around him -delightedly.</p> -<p>He could not resist going to the printing shop of his brother -James. No doubt he strutted somewhat and bragged about his -success. He showed the admiring workmen his silver money, -a novelty in Boston where paper money was used, and handed -each a piece of eight to buy a drink. Only James refused to be -impressed. He grew increasingly glum during Benjamin’s -visit. Later he said Benjamin had gone out of his way to insult -him and he would never forgive him.</p> -<p>That night Benjamin showed his father the letter from Sir -William Keith. Josiah Franklin was pleased as any parent that -such an important personage had taken an interest in his son -but did not approve of Keith’s proposal. In his opinion Benjamin -was too young to have the responsibility of his own -shop, he wrote in his politely worded reply.</p> -<p>“I see your father is a prudent man,” Keith said later in -Philadelphia when Benjamin came to make his report. He -added that he had found there was a great difference in persons -and that discretion did not always accompany years. Since -Josiah Franklin did not recognize his son’s unusual abilities, -he, the governor, would sponsor him.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_24">24</div> -<p>He had Benjamin regularly to his fine house for dinner the -next weeks. Gradually he unfolded his plan. Benjamin must -take his savings and go to England. There he could pick out -for himself his own press, type fonts, paper, and whatever -else he needed for a printing shop. The governor would provide -him with letters of introduction and letters of credit to -cover everything.</p> -<p>Who could have refused such a splendid opportunity? -Toward the end of 1724, after quitting his employment with -Keimer, Benjamin set sail for his first visit to the Old World. -There had been a touching farewell to Deborah Read, to -whom he promised to write often. James Ralph, his poet -friend, went with him, having decided to try his fortune in -England. Since the governor was busy with pressing affairs, -Colonel French saw him off. He did not have the letters Keith -had promised, but assured Benjamin they were safe in the -captain’s mailbag.</p> -<p>He had a pleasant trip and made one good friend—an elderly -Quaker merchant named Thomas Denham. Not until they -reached the English Channel did the ship captain sort out his -mail. That was when Benjamin learned that there were no -letters of credit, no letters of introduction, nothing at all from -Governor Keith. He was stranded in London, with only -twelve pounds to his name.</p> -<p>In his bewilderment, he confided his plight to Denham.</p> -<p>“There is not the least probability that he wrote any letters -for you,” the Quaker told him. “No one who knows the governor -would depend on him. As for his giving you any letters -of credit—that is a sad joke. He has no credit to give.”</p> -<p>“But why?” Benjamin asked. “Why would he play such a -trick on me?”</p> -<p>“Do not think too harshly of him,” Denham said charitably. -“Keith wants to please everyone. Having little to give, he -gives expectations.”</p> -<p>It was a bitter lesson.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_25">25</div> -<p>He stayed in London nearly eighteen months. It turned out -to be as easy for him to find a job here as in Philadelphia. -Part of the time he worked for a printer named Palmer and -after that for a Mr. Watt. Under the tutelage of experienced -workmen, he perfected his printing skills. He also attempted -to improve his colleagues by urging them to drink water instead -of beer for breakfast. The “Water American,” they -dubbed him, but a few of them followed his advice.</p> -<p>Not that he was a prude. London had much to offer a young -man who was curious and alert and full of fun. There were -operas in French or Italian, plays by William Shakespeare at -the Drury Lane Theatre, scientific lectures, and the lure of -dance halls. He wrote a pamphlet called “A Dissertation on -Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain,” which brought -him some acclaim among London’s young intellectuals. He -presented an American curiosity, a purse of stone asbestos, to -Sir Hans Sloane, secretary of the Royal Society, and almost -met Sir Isaac Newton. James Ralph borrowed money from -him and then split up with him without paying him back, in a -quarrel over a pretty milliner. He sent off one letter to -Deborah Read, but never got around to writing another.</p> -<p>He could not have missed observing the squalor of the -slums and the contrasting elegance of the great lords with -their postilions and liveried coachmen. That no such vast difference -existed between rich and poor in America may have -struck him, but he drew no moral lesson. He was not yet a -crusader and his heart was set on having as good a time as his -means allowed.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_26">26</div> -<p>On occasion he went swimming in the Thames with a co-worker -named Wygate, and once on an excursion to Chelsea -he dazzled Wygate and his other companions with a display -of the water exercises which he had invented in his childhood. -A certain Sir William Wyndham, a friend of the great Jonathan -Swift, heard of his prowess and invited him to teach -swimming to his sons. About the same time, Wygate proposed -that the two of them travel through Europe, earning their -way as journeymen printers.</p> -<p>Both suggestions tempted Benjamin but he rejected them. -His Quaker friend Thomas Denham had offered him a position -in his Philadelphia importing company. Denham had -made one fortune as a merchant and was set on making another. -With the crying need of America’s growing population -for goods from abroad, there was no reason why he should -not succeed. The salary was less than Franklin earned as a -printer, but there would be handsome commissions, travel to -foreign lands, and, so he believed, an assured future.</p> -<p>He set sail on July 23, 1726, on the <i>Berkshire</i>. It was -October 11 before they reached Philadelphia. Franklin, now -twenty, kept a journal on this long voyage. He had time to -think, to observe nature, to philosophize.</p> -<p>An eclipse of the sun and one of the moon were notable -events of the trip, duly recorded in his journal. The passengers -fished for dolphins. He noted their glorious appearance in the -water, their bodies “of a bright green, mixed with a silver -colour, and their tails of a shining golden yellow,” and wondered -at the “vulgar error of the painters, who always represent -this fish monstrously crooked and deformed.”</p> -<p>From the Gulf Stream he fished out several branches of -gulfweed and spent long hours studying a growth which he -called “vegetable animals,” resembling shellfish and yet seeming -part of the weed. Noting a small crab of the same yellowish -color as the weed, he deduced—erroneously but with -logic—that the crab came from the “vegetable animals” as a -butterfly comes from a cocoon.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_27">27</div> -<p>The idiosyncrasies of his fellow passengers also came under -his scrutiny. From watching the men play drafts he concluded -that “if two persons equal in judgment play for a considerable -sum, he that loves money will lose; his anxiety for the success -of the game confounds him.”</p> -<p>One of the passengers was caught cheating and would not -pay a fine. The others refused to eat, drink or talk with him. -The cheat soon paid up. “Man is a sociable being,” young -Franklin wrote in his journal, “and it is, for aught I know, -one of the worst of punishments to be excluded from society.”</p> -<p>He discovered that there was nothing like a contrary wind -to bring out the worst in mankind: “... we grow sullen, -silent, and reserved, and fret at each other upon every little -occasion.” At the sight of a ship from Dublin bound from -New York, on the contrary, he commented: “There is something -strangely cheering to the spirits in the meeting of a ship -at sea ... after we had been long separated and excommunicated -as it were from the rest of mankind.”</p> -<p>Interesting as the trip was, there was no moment equal to -that when one of the mess cried “Land! Land!” In less than -an hour they perceived the tufts of trees. “I could not discern -it so soon as the rest; my eyes were dimmed with the suffusion -of two small drops of joy.”</p> -<p>He had set out to conquer Philadelphia three years before -and had not succeeded. Now he was to have another try.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_28">28</div> -<h2 id="c3"><span class="h2line1">3</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE BIRTH OF POOR RICHARD</span></h2> -<p>Deborah Read was married. This bit of news which -greeted his return came as a shock, though he had only himself -to blame. A luscious young woman like Debby could hardly -be expected to nourish her affection on one letter in a year -and a half.</p> -<p>He had, it seemed to him, three major causes for self-reproach -in his past: the grief he had caused his parents by -running away from Boston; the wrong he had done his brother -James; and his long neglect of Debby. He resolved that henceforth -his life would be conducted differently.</p> -<p>Printing was behind him now, or so he thought. Under -Thomas Denham he set himself to learning the intricacies of -merchandising. He lived with Denham; their relationship was -that of father and son. It lasted only a few months. In February -1727, the good Quaker fell ill and did not recover. His -executors took over his store, and Franklin was out of a job.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_29">29</div> -<p>Swallowing his pride, he went back to Samuel Keimer. To -his surprise his former employer welcomed him with open -arms and even gave him a raise. He soon found out why. -Keimer had hired half a dozen men at very low pay. The -trouble was they knew nothing about printing. He needed -Franklin to teach them their trade.</p> -<p>Obligingly, Franklin went to great pains to show the men -everything he knew himself. He did considerably more than -he was paid to do. When types wore out, instead of sending -an order to England for more, he devised a copper mold to -cast new type, the first time this had been done in America. -He made their ink, and he started a sideline of engraving. All -the techniques he had learned from the London experts, he -now put to use.</p> -<p>Knowing Keimer, he did not expect gratitude nor did he -get it. As business improved and as the workmen mastered -their trade, the employer grew increasingly uncivil and quarrelsome. -He complained that he was paying Franklin too -much and nagged him incessantly. Matters soon came to a -climax. One day Franklin heard a loud noise outside the shop -and dashed to the window to see what was happening. He -never did find out.</p> -<p>Keimer was standing in the street below and, on seeing -Franklin’s face at the window, he bawled him out in such -violent and insulting terms that everyone in the neighborhood -could hear. No job was worth that much. Franklin took his -hat and walked out, never to come back.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_30">30</div> -<p>That night a fellow journeyman named Hugh Meredith -came to see him. Meredith, who had been a farmer and taken -up printing only recently, was fed up with Keimer. He proposed -that the two of them should go into partnership as soon -as his period of service was up a few months hence. His father -admired Franklin and was willing to finance them. Mr. Meredith -senior soon confirmed the offer, privately telling Franklin -he felt he would be a good influence on his son, who drank -too much.</p> -<p>During the next months Franklin did odd jobs and, in his -spare time, organized a club called the Junto. There were -twelve members in all, including Hugh and two other printers, -a shoemaker, a joiner, a scrivener, and others in modest trades. -“The Leather Apron Club,” the town’s wealthier citizens -nicknamed the Junto, because of the humble working class -background of its membership.</p> -<p>The Junto met each Friday. Franklin provided them with -a list of “queries” to be discussed. “Have you lately observed -any encroachment on the just liberties of the people?” Already -he was beginning to think in terms of civil rights. “Do -you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up -whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to encourage?” -He knew from personal experience how much it meant to a -young man to have friends to give him support and advice. -“Which is best: to make a friend of a wise and good man that -is poor or of a rich man that is neither wise nor good?” His -brief tussle with earning a living had convinced him that -wisdom was preferable to riches.</p> -<p>“Whence comes the dew that stands on the outside of a -tankard that has cold water in it in the summertime?” The -latter was one of many scientific “queries” he suggested to the -Junto, in line with his own curiosity about the mysteries of -life.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_31">31</div> -<p>To improve themselves, to cultivate ethical virtues, to lend -a hand to their neighbors—all were included in the Junto’s -lofty aims. They composed essays on various subjects. If a -member read something of interest in “history, morality, -Poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts,” he shared his new -knowledge with his fellow members.</p> -<p>They were not always serious. Sometimes they met for outdoor -sports. They held banquets, composed and sang songs, -made jokes, told stories, often had riotous times together. The -friendships they formed were firm, lasting as long as they -lived.</p> -<p>Occasionally Franklin caught sight of Sir William Keith -on the street, The former governor would look uncomfortable -and slink away. His fortune had deteriorated. Before very -long, he fled to England, leaving his wife and daughter penniless; -he died in a London debtors’ prison.</p> -<p>In the spring of 1728, when Franklin was twenty-two, he -and Hugh Meredith were ready to open their own printing -shop in a house on High Street. Their first customer was a -farmer who gave them five shillings to print an advertisement. -No sum ever loomed so large.</p> -<p>Customers were few and far between those first months. It -was not due to Franklin’s partner that they survived at all. He -was rarely sober enough to do a day’s labor. His father had -been optimistic in hoping that Franklin could change him. -Eventually Hugh admitted that he would never make a -printer.</p> -<p>“I was bred a farmer, Benjamin. ’Twas folly for me to come -to town and apprentice myself to learn a new trade.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_32">32</div> -<p>They talked the matter over and came to an agreement. -Franklin would pay back Hugh’s father the hundred pounds -he had advanced for their printing equipment, pay Hugh’s -personal debts and give him thirty pounds and a new saddle. -Two of his Junto friends loaned him the money he needed. -Hugh took off for his farm, leaving Franklin, at twenty-three, -the sole owner of the printing shop.</p> -<p>The common people of Pennsylvania at this time were -pleading for paper money, such as was used in Massachusetts -and other colonies, but the wealthier citizens opposed it. -Franklin, siding with the people, wrote a pamphlet on “The -Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency,” which he printed -himself, and which swayed the Pennsylvania Assembly to pass -a bill to issue such paper currency. For his contribution, -Franklin was awarded the contract to print the money.</p> -<p>Soon afterward, Philadelphia’s most esteemed lawyer, Andrew -Hamilton, arranged for him to print the laws and votes -of the government. Business was beginning to prosper.</p> -<p>With all orders he took infinite pains. He kept his equipment -in excellent shape, cleaning the type himself. He used -very white paper and very black inks and sometimes made -decorative woodcuts to illustrate advertisements. He hired a -workman and took an apprentice, but outworked them both, -staying in the shop from dawn to near midnight.</p> -<p>His rival, Andrew Bradford, printed an address from the -Pennsylvania Assembly to the governor in a slipshod manner. -Franklin reprinted the same address elegantly, sending a copy -to every Assembly member. The next year he was voted -official printer for the Assembly. He started a stationer’s shop -to sell paper, booklets, and miscellaneous items. Perhaps to -impress the citizens of Philadelphia with his industry, he -carted his supplies from the wharf in a wheelbarrow, wearing -his leather apron.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_33">33</div> -<p>Philadelphia boasted only one newspaper, a dreary and conservative -sheet which Bradford published. Franklin talked -over with his friends his own desire to start a livelier paper. -One of them betrayed him to Keimer, his other rival, who -promptly put out a newspaper with the ambitious title, <i>The -Universal Instructor in All Arts and Science, and Pennsylvania -Gazette</i>.</p> -<p>That poor illiterate Keimer running a paper? It lasted only -until September 1729 when Keimer, head over heels in debt, -sold it to Franklin for a pittance and departed to the Barbados, -never to return. The <i>Pennsylvania Gazette</i>, as he called it, became -Franklin’s newspaper to run as he wished.</p> -<p>That winter he performed his first scientific experiment, -designed to find out if the heat of the sun was absorbed more -readily by colored objects than by white ones. The experiment -was so simple any child could do it; the wonder was no -one had thought of it before. He took some tailor’s samples—small -squares of cloth in black, blue, green, purple, red, -yellow, and white—and laid them out on the snow a bright -sunny morning. In a few hours, the black square, which the -sun had warmed most, had sunk low into the snow; the dark -blue was almost as low; the other colors had sunk less deeply; -while the white sample remained on the surface of the snow.</p> -<p>Franklin thought in terms of the practical value of this discovery: -white clothes would be more suitable than black ones -in a hot climate; summer hats should be white to repel the heat -and prevent sunstroke; fruit walls, if painted black, could absorb -enough of the sun’s heat to stay warm at night, thereby -helping to preserve the fruit from frost.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_34">34</div> -<p>A glazier’s family named Godfrey had been sharing his -High Street house. He was lonely when they moved. Even -his close friends of the Junto could not ease his longing to -have a family of his own.</p> -<p>On occasion he visited the Read family. Deborah’s marriage -had turned out tragically. Her husband, a good workman but -irresponsible, had, like Keimer, taken off to the West Indies -to escape debts. Even worse, it turned out that he had a wife -still living in England. Debby, who had come home to live -with her mother, was so pale and sad Franklin was filled with -pity for her. Perhaps first out of a desire to do good, Franklin -did his best to cheer her up, and it pleased him no end to see -the color gradually come back to her cheeks as her normally -high spirits returned. No woman had ever appealed to him -more than she. In time she responded to his affection. They -were married on September 1, 1730.</p> -<p>Theirs was not the most romantic attachment in the world, -but it endured. “She proved a good and faithful helpmate,” he -wrote some years later in his <i>Autobiography</i>, “... we throve -together, and have ever mutually endeavor’d to make each -other happy.” Indeed Debby proved the ideal wife for an -ambitious young man. She helped him in his printing orders, -by folding and stitching pamphlets or purchasing old linen -rags for the paper makers, and she ran their stationer’s shop. -Since he preached the need of economy, she obligingly served -him plain and simple fare and contented herself with the -cheapest furniture. Nor did she complain when he went every -Friday night to the meetings of the Junto.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_35">35</div> -<p>The little club had now hired a hall for its weekly gatherings. -As there was no good bookshop in Philadelphia, the -members pooled their own books and loaned them to each -other. This practice of communal sharing gave them so much -pleasure that, at Franklin’s suggestion, they commenced a -public library. Every subscriber, Junto member or not, paid -a sum down to buy books from England, and there was an annual -contribution for additional purchases. America’s earliest -lending library had come into being, the first of many civic -benefits which Franklin initiated over the years.</p> -<p>A rival organization to the Junto was the newly established -Philadelphia branch of the Masons, mostly well-to-do citizens. -The aim of Freemasonry was “to promote Friendship, mutual -Assistance, and Good Fellowship.” Franklin succeeded in -becoming a member by a rather sly trick, a note in the <i>Gazette</i> -claiming knowledge of the “Masonic mysteries.” Since these -“mysteries” were supposed to be highly secret, the members -were so alarmed they invited the <i>Gazette’s</i> editor and publisher -to join their ranks. For many years he was a leader in -Masonic affairs.</p> -<p>He had wanted to be a Mason, but no one could persuade -him to join any church or denomination. That there was one -God who made all things and that the soul was immortal, he -believed firmly. He held that “the most acceptable service to -God is doing good to man.” Since all religious sects, in theory, -preached the same, he never did see a reason to favor one of -them above others.</p> -<p>Within a year or so of its inception, the <i>Pennsylvania -Gazette</i> had the largest circulation of any paper in America. -Profiting from the lessons he had learned while working for -his brother James, he stressed human interest stories and local -news. He ran an article on the harsh treatment of a ship captain -to the Palatine immigrants. He published stories on robberies -and murders, was not above poking fun at the stodgy -official reports which filled the pages of Andrew Bradford’s -paper, and he took up the cudgel for the freedom of the press.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_36">36</div> -<p>Most popular of all were his “Letters from the Readers,” -many of which he undoubtedly wrote himself. Thus “Anthony -Afterwit” complained that his wife, who wished to play -the grand lady, was ruining him. “Celia Single” scolded the -<i>Gazette</i> editor for being partial to men. “Alice Addertongue,” -another contributor, announced the opening of her shop to -sell “calumnies, slanders and other feminine wares.” He ran -advertisements, sometimes for runaway slaves (it would be -some years before he crystallized his thinking on the evil of -slavery), sometimes for a wife pleading to her husband to -come home. He slipped in jokes as a good cook adds seasoning, -and he refused to let the paper be used for personal quarrels.</p> -<p>In 1732, three years after launching the <i>Gazette</i>, he was -ready for a new publishing venture, his celebrated <i>Poor -Richard’s Almanack</i>. There were other almanacs published in -the colonies; almanacs in fact sold almost as well as Bibles. -Soon <i>Poor Richard</i> eclipsed them all.</p> -<p>Like the others, it noted holidays, changes of season, dates -of fairs, gave weather information, advised the best day to -gather grapes or to sow seeds. Interspersed with such data -were proverbs, verses, witticisms and epigrams, some original -but a great many adapted from sayings of great writers of the -past, trimmed to suit an American audience:</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_37">37</div> -<p>Light purse, heavy heart. A rich rogue is like a fat hog, who -never does good till dead as a log. Eat to live, and not live to -eat. Nothing more like a fool, than a drunken man. To -lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals. None preaches better than -the ant, and she says nothing. Observe all men; thyself most. -Half the truth is often a great lie. Lost time is never found -again. Little strokes, fell great oaks. Nothing but money is -sweeter than honey. Love your enemies, for they tell you -your faults. Love your neighbor; yet don’t pull down your -hedge. Don’t throw stones at your neighbors’, if your own -windows are glass. The cat in gloves catches no mice. To err -is human, to repent divine; to persist devilish. A brother may -not be a friend, but a friend will always be a brother.</p> -<p>And, a tribute to Debby: “He that has not got a wife, is -not yet a complete man.”</p> -<p>Poor Richard had something to say on practically every -subject under the sun. He was in turn witty, wise, and, in -keeping with the time he lived in, somewhat bawdy. No matter -that he was sometimes inconsistent and contradictory, -that he might praise saving money at one moment and make -fun of the miser the next. Americans—farmers, businessmen, -wives and workmen—chuckled at him, laughed with him, and -perhaps at times took his moral lessons to heart. Many of his -maxims became embedded in the American language.</p> -<p>Because of <i>Poor Richard</i>, prosperity touched the family -that had hitherto known only economy and hard work. One -day Franklin came down to breakfast to find that Deborah -had served his bread and milk not in his usual two-penny -earthenware crock, but in a china bowl. Instead of his old -pewter spoon, there was one of silver.</p> -<p>“What is the meaning of this, Debby?”</p> -<p>“My Pappy can afford a china bowl and a silver spoon -now,” she said.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_38">38</div> -<h2 id="c4"><span class="h2line1">4</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE CIVIC-MINDED CITIZEN</span></h2> -<p>There were two children in the Franklin family now. The -first was William, the other, Francis Folger, whom the father -called Franky. He was proud of his sons. He had reason to -want to be a good example to them.</p> -<p>One day he drew up a list of thirteen “virtues” as follows:</p> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0">Temperance (eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation)</p> -<p class="t0">Silence (speak not but what may benefit others or yourself)</p> -<p class="t0">Order</p> -<p class="t0">Resolution (perform without fail what you resolve)</p> -<p class="t0">Frugality</p> -<p class="t0">Industry</p> -<p class="t0">Sincerity</p> -<p class="t0">Justice (wrong none by doing injuries)</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_39">39</div> -<p class="t0">Moderation</p> -<p class="t0">Cleanliness</p> -<p class="t0">Tranquillity</p> -<p class="t0">Chastity</p> -<p class="t0">Humility (imitate Jesus and Socrates)</p> -</div> -<p>Franklin’s ambitious project was to try to achieve all these -virtues, thus to approach as near as possible moral perfection. -This was no New Year’s Resolution to be lightly made and -quickly forgotten. He purchased a small notebook, ruled the -pages with red ink, making seven vertical columns, one for -each day of the week, and thirteen horizontal columns, one -for each virtue.</p> -<p>Each time he felt he had failed to practice one of his virtues -he made a black mark in the proper square. Thus if he put a -cross in the Tuesday column opposite Silence, he judged he -had that day talked too much about trivial matters. The thirteenth -virtue, Humility, suggested by a Quaker friend, was a -check on the others; if he was proud of his mastery over any -of his virtues, he would be lacking in humility.</p> -<p>He kept this notebook regularly for a long time. The virtue -which gave him most trouble was Order (let all your things -have their places; let each part of your business have its time). -Eventually he had to decide that he was not an orderly person -and never would be. Nor did he ever claim that he achieved -anywhere near “moral perfection” in any of the others, although -he did give credit years later to his daily discipline for -“the constant felicity of my life.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_40">40</div> -<p>It is unlikely that in any other part of the world a grown -and prospering businessman would have resolved to make himself -more virtuous, with all the diligence of a schoolboy -attacking a problem in arithmetic. His act was typically -American. The colonies were young and growing and pliable, -not old and set in their ways like the European nations. Young -countries, like young people, harbor the seeds of idealism, -yearnings for greatness, deep-rooted desires to be better in -any or every sphere of activity than their predecessors or contemporaries. -The youthful spirit that was part and parcel of -America remained with Benjamin Franklin to the end of his -days.</p> -<p>He was always trying to enlarge his mental horizons. For -that aim he taught himself French, Italian, Spanish, and German, -not yet dreaming that he would ever have practical use -for these languages. He was at the same time widening his -business activities, starting a branch of his printing shop in -Charleston, South Carolina, on a partnership arrangement. It -was the first of many branches.</p> -<p>In 1733, after an absence of ten years, he went back to -Boston to see his family. His parents were well but there were -some sad changes. Four of his sisters and one of his brothers -had died. Jane, his beautiful young sister, closer to him than -anyone else in the family, had been married for six years to -a saddler named Edward Mecom, and had two boys, but her -husband was in poor health and her children were also sickly. -Tragedy had cast its first shadow over her. She would in the -years to come lose her husband and twelve children, two of -them dying insane, as the result of some unknown inherited -sickness.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_41">41</div> -<p>James was living in Newport, and on his way back to -Philadelphia, Franklin paid this older brother a visit. Their reunion -was cordial and old differences were ignored if not -forgotten. James too was sick and knew that death was not -far away. His former apprentice promised to take care of -James’ son and teach him the printing business. When James -died two years later, Franklin sent the boy to school for five -years and then took him into his home as an apprentice, thus -making James “ample amends for the service I had depriv’d -him of by leaving him so early.”</p> -<p>All his life he would be giving aid—jobs, partnerships, loans, -gifts and, less welcome, advice—to his family, his in-laws, his -nieces, nephews, friends, and children of friends. The assistance -was sometimes unappreciated and seldom rewarded. It -played havoc with virtue number four, Frugality. Nor, as he -had omitted the virtue of generosity from his list, did he ever -give himself any good marks for such services.</p> -<p>Sorrow struck him personally on November 21, 1736, when -Francis Folger, a grave and sweet-faced lad of four, died of -smallpox. In the midst of his terrible grief, Franklin refuted a -false rumor. It was not true, he wrote in the <i>Gazette</i>, that his -boy had died as the result of smallpox inoculation. Had he -been inoculated, his life might have been spared. He felt it -important that his readers should know that he considered -inoculation “a safe and beneficial practice.”</p> -<p>The year of his son’s death, he was appointed clerk to the -Pennsylvania Assembly, and the following year he was made -postmaster of Philadelphia. These were his first official positions, -and there was pay and prestige attached to both. What -matter if the Assembly sessions were so tedious he worked out -mathematical puzzles to keep himself awake, and that his home -on High Street now housed the city post office in addition to -the Franklins, various relatives of both of them for varying -lengths of times, servants, apprentices, and on occasion -journeymen who had no other lodgings.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_42">42</div> -<p>He had six of these workmen now, including a Swede and -a German, which made it possible to print in those languages. -They were all kept busy. He was public printer for Delaware, -New Jersey and Maryland. Besides the <i>Almanack</i> and -the <i>Gazette</i>, a number of books were coming off the High -Street presses: Cato’s <i>Moral Distichs; The Constitution of the -Free-Masons</i>, the first Masonic book printed in America; -Cadwallader Colden’s <i>An Explication of the First Causes of -Motion in Matter</i>; and Richardson’s <i>Pamela</i>, the first novel -printed in America.</p> -<p>Their stationer’s shop now sold books as well as an astounding -range of miscellany: goose quills, chocolate, cordials, -cheese, codfish, compasses, scarlet broadcloth, four-wheeled -chaises, Seneca rattlesnake root with directions on how to use -it for pleurisy, ointments and salves for the “itch” and other -ailments, made by the Widow Read, Debby’s mother, and fine -green Crown soap, unique in the colonies, produced by -Franklin’s brothers John and Peter who had learned the secret -of its composition from their father.</p> -<p>In all this hustle and bustle, Franklin reigned as instigator -and executor. He was a little heavier, his brown hair somewhat -thinner, his face more mature, and his manner more calm and -assured, but in his eyes was the same merriment of the Boston -youth. Around the house and shop, he dressed in working -clothes, red flannel shirt, leather breeches, and his old leather -apron.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_43">43</div> -<p>For meetings of the Masons or for dinners with prominent -Philadelphians who were now demanding his company, he had -more elegant attire. On such occasions he might wear his best -black cloth breeches, velvet jacket, a Holland shirt with -ruffles at the wrist and neck, calfskin shoes, high-quality -worsted stockings, and a fashionable wig.</p> -<p>Debby never accompanied him to such affairs, nor would -she have been comfortable if she had done so. The years of -their marriage had put a wider social and intellectual gap -between them. While Franklin had cultivated his mental -powers and learned to speak as an equal to anyone, she was -the same Debby he had married, grown older and plumper. -Her voice was still rough, her language uncouth, her manners -hearty, and her taste in clothes flamboyant. He never tried to -change her. He appreciated her loyalty, her industry, her -warm heart, and asked for nothing more. “My plain Country -Joan,” he called her in a ballad he wrote and sang for the -members of the Junto:</p> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0">Of their Chloes and Phyllises poets may prate,</p> -<p class="t">I sing my plain Country Joan,</p> -<p class="t0">These twelve years my wife, still the joy of my life,</p> -<p class="t">Blest day that I made her my own.</p> -</div> -<p>As for Debby, had anyone told her that her husband would -one day be among the most famous men in the world, she -would have laughed in his face. Not her “Pappy”—as she always -called him. Not that he wasn’t the best of husbands, a -good provider, and really handy at doing things around the -house.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_44">44</div> -<p>She must have clapped her hands in delight at the stove he -set up in their common room in 1740. Houses then were -mostly heated by fireplaces. Large or small, they had in common -that one was scorched on approaching the fire too closely -and chilled at the far side of the room. It was impossible for a -woman to sit by the window to sew on a winter day. Her -fingers would be too stiff with cold to hold a needle. It was -taken for granted that everyone had colds during the winter -months, especially the women, who of necessity were indoors -more than the men. There was the problem of smoke too. -With the usual fireplace, most of the smoke came into the -room instead of going up the chimney, blackening curtains -and spreading soot everywhere.</p> -<p>Franklin’s Pennsylvania Fireplace, later called the Franklin -Stove, was made of cast iron, could be taken apart and moved -easily from room to room. It spread no smoke and, most -amazingly, heated the entire room an almost equal temperature.</p> -<p>Debby’s sole complaint about her husband had to do with -the way he spoiled his son William. Ever since the death of -little Franky, he humored the boy to excess. William had a -string of private schoolmasters—one of them decamped with -Franklin’s wardrobe when William was nine. He had his own -pony, like the sons of the rich. Whatever the boy wanted, he -managed to wangle from his indulgent father. “The greatest -villain on earth,” Debby once called this clever lad. The two -of them never did get along.</p> -<p>Even William had to take second place after their first and -only daughter, Sarah, was born in 1743. Sarah would bring to -her father joy and comfort to modify the pain caused by his -son.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_45">45</div> -<p>He was busy that year with a new project. In May he -issued a circular letter headed “Proposal for Promoting Useful -Knowledge Among the British Plantations in North America,” -which be mailed to men of learning throughout the colonies. -Now that the first drudgery of settling was over, he wrote, -the time had come “to cultivate the finer arts and improve the -common stock.”</p> -<p>For this purpose, he proposed formation of an organization -whose members, through meetings or by correspondence, -would exchange information on all new scientific discoveries -or inventions, and he offered his own services as secretary “till -they shall be provided with one more capable.” From this -letter grew the American Philosophical Society, which came -into being the following year. (The words “philosophical” -and “scientific” were then used as synonyms.) Its activities -were parallel to those of the famous Royal Society in London.</p> -<p>One of Franklin’s first contributions to the new society was -a paper on his “Pennsylvania Fireplace,” which he and Debby -had been enjoying several years, including diagrams and instructions -on how to install it. He refused to patent his invention: -“As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of -others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by -any invention of ours.”</p> -<p>Also in 1743 he printed his “Proposal Relating to the Education -of Youth in Pennsylvania,” a pamphlet suggesting an -academy of learning to match Yale, Harvard, and William -and Mary College at Williamsburg. He launched this plan not -as his own but as coming from some “public-spirited gentlemen,” -a tactical approach he had figured out to be more -effective than using his own name.</p> -<p>The academy, he wrote, should be “not far from a river, -having a garden, orchard, meadow, and a field or two.” It -should have a library. The students—youths from eight to -sixteen—should “diet together plainly, temperately, and frugally.” -They should be trained in running, leaping, wrestling, -and swimming.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_46">46</div> -<p>Subjects studied should be “those things that are likely to -be most useful and most ornamental.” All should be taught -to “write a fair hand” and to learn drawing, “a universal -language, understood by all nations.” They should learn grammar, -with Addison, Pope, and Cato’s <i>Letters</i> as models. He -stressed the importance of elocution: “pronouncing properly, -distinctly, emphatically.” The curriculum should include -mathematics, astronomy, history, geography, ancient customs, -morality, but not Latin and Greek, unless a student had “an -ardent desire to learn them.”</p> -<p>Franklin’s ideal and surprisingly modern academy was also -to teach practical matters: invention, manufactures, trade, -mechanics, “that art by which weak men perform such wonders -...,” planting and grafting. There should be “now -and then excursions made to the neighboring plantations of -the best farmers, their methods observed and reasoned upon -for the information of youth.”</p> -<p>This “Proposal” was the genesis of the University of Pennsylvania, -which in six years’ time—1749—became a reality. -(Franklin was elected first president, a post he held seven -years.)</p> -<p>Philadelphia had as yet no regular police force. Its dark and -narrow streets were in theory guarded by the local citizens, -appointed in rotation by the ward constables. Often citizens -preferred to pay the six shillings required to hire a substitute, -money which might be dissipated in drink, leaving streets unguarded, -or to pay the very ruffians against whom protection -was needed. To abolish such abuses, Franklin persuaded his -Junto members to campaign for a paid police force, which -was voted a few years later.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_47">47</div> -<p>Also through the Junto, he called public attention to Philadelphia’s -fire hazards and means of avoiding them. From this -effort came the Union Fire Company, the first organized firemen -in the colonies. Subsequently, he was responsible for the -first fire insurance company in the colonies.</p> -<p>Since 1739, England had been at war with Spain, and in -1744, war with France erupted. The struggle involved the -colonies when, in July 1747, French and Spanish privateers -plundered two plantations on the Delaware River, a little -below New Castle. There were rumors of a French plan to -sack Philadelphia. The city had no defenses. The Quaker-dominated -Assembly had refused to vote money for war -purposes.</p> -<p>Seeing danger threaten, Franklin published “Plain Truth,” -a pamphlet which succeeded in convincing even the Quakers -of the need for preparedness. Under his leadership, Pennsylvania’s -first volunteer militia, with some 10,000 members, -was formed. He was offered the post of colonel in the Philadelphia -branch. He declined, preferring to serve as a common -soldier. William, now sixteen, was also in service, not in the -militia but in a company raised by the British for a campaign -against French Canada.</p> -<p>In 1748, France, Spain and England settled their difficulties -temporarily in the peace treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. For the -time being, the colonies were free from danger of invasion or -attack. At last the Franklin family could return to normal -life.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_48">48</div> -<p>He was forty-two and by the standards of the time a rich -man. Since his income was sufficient for his needs, he made up -his mind to retire. A fellow printer named David Hall took -over the management of his printing shop. Franklin moved to -a quiet part of town, at Race and Second streets, and bought a -300-acre farm in Burlington, New Jersey, where he could -practice the art of a gentleman farmer.</p> -<p>It was time, he believed, to devote the remaining years of -his life to his friends, to his writing, to the pursuit of learning. -Particularly a branch of learning that had occupied his attention -on and off for the past several years—the study of -electricity.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_49">49</div> -<h2 id="c5"><span class="h2line1">5</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE THUNDER GIANT</span></h2> -<p>A few years before his retirement, Franklin, on a visit to -Boston, attended a display of electrical tricks given by a Dr. -Adam Spencer of Scotland. There is no record of the nature -of these “electrical tricks.” Franklin commented later that Dr. -Spencer was no expert and that they were imperfectly performed. -Since he had never seen anything of the sort before, -he was “surpris’d and pleased.”</p> -<p>That sparks could be produced by friction had been known -since ancient times. Little more was known about electricity -until, in the first part of the eighteenth century, a young -Frenchman, Charles François du Fay, identified two different -types of electricity: <i>vitreous</i>, produced by rubbing glass with -silk; <i>resinous</i>, produced by rubbing resin with wool or fur. -Such frictional electricity was brief-lived. Sparks flashed and -were gone, and that was the end of it.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_50">50</div> -<p>Was there any way in which electric charges could be -preserved from the rapid decay which they underwent in the -air? Around 1747 two scientists were working independently -on this problem—E. C. von Kleist of Pomerania and Pieter -van Musschenbroek of the University of Leyden. Within a -few months of each other, they had found a method of storing -electricity in a container. The Leyden jar, this container was -named. It was the first electrical condenser.</p> -<p>In one experiment Musschenbroek suspended a glass phial -of water from a gun barrel by a wire which went down -through a cork in the phial a few inches into the water. The -gun barrel, hanging on a silk rope, had a metallic fringe inserted -into the barrel which touched an electrically charged -glass globe. A friend who was watching him, a man named -Cunaeus, happened to grasp the phial with one hand and the -wire with another. Immediately he felt a strange and startling -sensation—reportedly the first manmade electric shock in -history.</p> -<p>Musschenbroek repeated what Cunaeus had done, this time -using a small glass bowl as his “Leyden jar.” “I would not -take a second shock for the King of France,” he said.</p> -<p>Van Kleist in Pomerania produced the same effect. He lined -the inside and outside of his Leyden jar with silver foil, -charged the inner coat heavily, connected it with the outer -foil by a wire which he held in his hand—and felt a violent -shock run into his arm and chest.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_51">51</div> -<p>A Leyden jar could take any number of forms. Even a wine -bottle would serve. The type used most frequently during the -next few years was a glass tube, some two and a half feet long, -and just big enough around so that a man might grasp it easily -in his hand. The advantage of this size and shape was that it -could most conveniently be electrified, which was then done -by hand, by rubbing the glass with a cloth or buckskin. This -simple device gave impetus to research on electricity throughout -Europe. It also provided a new form of entertainment.</p> -<p>Performers went from town to town with their Leyden -jars, giving spectators the thrill of receiving electric shocks, -and extolling the marvels of “electrical fire.” Louis XV of -France invited his guests to watch a novel spectacle arranged -by his court philosopher, Abbé Jean-Antoine Nollet. The -King’s Guard in full uniform lined up before the throne, -holding hands. The first one was instructed to grasp the wire -or chain connected to the Leyden jar. They all jumped convulsively -into the air as an electric current passed through -them.</p> -<p>In Italy some scientists tried to cure paralysis by electric -shock, claiming moderate success. In May 1748, for instance, -Jean-François Calgagnia, thirty-five years old, was given an -electric shock from a simple cylinder-type Leyden jar. Since -the age of twelve, his left arm had been so paralyzed he could -not lift his hand to his head. After the first electrical treatment -he at once raised his arm and touched his face. There is no -record as to whether the cure was permanent.</p> -<p>After Franklin became aware of this phenomenon, he was -agog to try experiments on his own. He wrote of his interest -to a London friend, Peter Collinson, a Quaker merchant and -member of the Royal Society. Collinson promptly sent him a -glass tube, along with suggestions as to how it might be used -for electrical experiments. This was all Franklin needed to -get started.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_52">52</div> -<p>He was not trained in scientific matters as were many of his -European contemporaries. He was unfamiliar with scientific -jargon, and could only write about what he was doing in -everyday language. But he had those qualities that are innate -in any scientist, with or without a university degree—an inquiring -mind, patience, and persistence.</p> -<p>His experiments, beginning with the winter of 1746, covered -a wide range. He melted brass and steel needles by -electricity, magnetized needles, fired dry gunpowder by an -electric spark. He stripped the gilding from a book, and he -electrified a small metallic crown above an engraving of the -King of England—so that whoever touched the crown received -a shock!</p> -<p>His home was soon so crowded with curious visitors trooping -up and down the stairs, he could hardly get any work -done. He solved the problem by having a glass blower make -tubes similar to his, passing them out to friends so they could -make their own experiments.</p> -<p>Several of the Junto members worked closely with him. At -first they electrified the tube, as was still done in Europe, by -vigorously rubbing one side of it with a piece of buckskin. -One of the club members, a Silversmith named Philip Synge, -devised a sort of grindstone, which revolved the tube as one -turned a handle. To charge the tube with electricity, all that -was needed was to hold the buckskin against the glass as it -revolved, a vast saving in physical labor.</p> -<p>Another invention of Franklin and his associates was the -first storage battery. For electrical plates they used eleven -window glass panes about six by eight inches in size, covered -with sheets of lead, and hung on silk cords by means of hooks -of lead wire. They found it as easy to charge this “battery” -with frictional electricity as to charge a single pane of glass.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_53">53</div> -<p>Among his disciples was an unemployed Baptist minister -named Ebenezer Kinnersley. Franklin suggested he might -both serve science and earn his living if he held electrical -demonstrations. Kinnersley’s first announcement of a lecture, -held in Newport, described “electrical fire” as having “an -appearance like fishes swimming in the air,” claiming this fire -would “live in water, a river not being sufficient to quench -the smallest spark of it.” He promised his audience such wonders -as “electrified money, which scarce anybody will take -when offered ... a curious machine acting by means of -electric fire, and playing a variety of tunes on eight musical -bells ... the force of the electric spark, making a fair hole -through a quire of paper....”</p> -<p>Kinnersley lectured in the colonies and the West Indies and -was hugely successful. Neither he nor any of the other collaborators -could rival Franklin’s own achievements.</p> -<p>Early in 1747, he gave the names of positive and negative -(or plus and minus) to the two types of electricity, to replace -the unwieldy terms, resinous and vitreous. Positive and negative -electricity became part of the scientific vocabulary. He -was the first to refer to the <i>conductivity</i> of certain substances. -Electricity passed easily through metals and water; they were -<i>conductive</i>. Glass and wood were <i>nonconductive</i>, unless they -were wet. He also noted that pointed metal rods were wonderfully -effective “in drawing off and throwing off the electrical -fire.”</p> -<p>After he retired in 1748, he spent much more time on -electricity. To Peter Collinson in London he wrote, “I never -was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my -attention and my time as this has lately done.” He kept Collinson -informed in detail of his experiments, not because he -thought he had the final word but in the hope that his experiments -might possibly prove helpful to English scientists.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_54">54</div> -<p>It was to Collinson he described an electrical party to be -held on the banks of the Schuylkill River in the spring of -1749: “A turkey is to be killed for our dinner by the electrical -shock, and roasted by the electrical jack, before a fire kindled -by the electrified bottle; when the healths of all the famous -electricians in England, Holland, France, and Germany are to -be drank in electrified bumpers, under the discharge of guns -from an electrical battery.”</p> -<p>For Christmas dinner that year, he started to electrocute -another turkey, but inadvertently gave himself the shock intended -for the fowl: “The company present ... say that the -flash was very great and the crack as loud as a pistol.... -I neither saw the one nor heard the other.... I then felt -... a universal blow throughout my whole body from head -to foot.... That part of my hand and fingers which held -the chain was left white, as though the blood had been driven -out, and remained so eight or ten minutes after, feeling like -dead flesh; and I had a numbness in my arms and the back of -my neck which continued till the next morning but wore off.”</p> -<p>He was apologetic rather than frightened by the near -catastrophe, comparing himself to the Irishman “who, being -about to steal powder, made a hole in the cask with a hot iron.”</p> -<p>This was soon after he had come to the conclusion that -what he now called “electrical fluid” had much in common -with lightning—that indeed they might be one and the same -thing. He was not the first to propose this theory but no one -before him had been able to suggest how it might be tested.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_55">55</div> -<p>Thunder and lightning had mystified humanity since the -beginning of recorded history. The Greeks had held that -thunderbolts were launched by the god Jupiter. (One Greek -philosopher, Empedocles, thought that lightning was caused -by the rays of the sun striking the clouds.) Hunters of primitive -tribes prayed to the god of lightning, who was a killer, as -they wished to be. Certain medicine men were said to be -endowed with the gift of summoning lightning at will.</p> -<p>Since biblical days, lightning was assumed to be an act of -heavenly vengeance, but no one could explain the paradox -that it struck church steeples more frequently than other -buildings. In medieval times, people believed that ringing -church bells would keep lightning away, a belief that survived -the death of countless unfortunate bell ringers.</p> -<p>About 1718, an English scientist, Jonathan Edwards, suggested -that thunder and lightning might be produced by a -“mighty fermentation, that is some way promoted by the cool -moisture, and perhaps attraction of the clouds.” There had -been very few other attempts to give a scientific explanation of -the phenomenon, and even in Franklin’s time many preachers -considered lightning a manifestation of the Divine Will.</p> -<p>“Electrical fluid” and lightning had in common, Franklin -wrote in his notes on November 7, 1749, that they both gave -light, had a crooked direction and swift motion, and were -conducted by metals. Both melted metals and could destroy -animals. Since they were similar in so many respects, would -it not follow that lightning, like “electrical fluid” would be -attracted by pointed rods? “Let the experiment be made.”</p> -<p>By May 1750, he was sure enough of his hypothesis that he -elaborated to Peter Collinson the advantages to humanity of -what later were called lightning rods:</p> -<blockquote> -<p>I am of the opinion that houses, ships, and even towers and -churches may be effectually secured from the strokes of lightning -... if, instead of the round balls of wood or metal which -are commonly placed on tops of weathercocks, vanes, or masts, -there should be a rod of iron eight or ten feet in length, -sharpened gradually to a point like a needle ... the electric -fire would, I think, be drawn out of a cloud silently, before -it could come near enough to strike....</p> -</blockquote> -<div class="pb" id="Page_56">56</div> -<p>Did he guess that he was on the verge of the most momentous -discovery of the century—one which would assure his -name a place among the immortals? It is fairly certain he was -more interested in solving a perplexing problem than in immortality. -Possibly he took it for granted that European -scientists were already three steps ahead of him.</p> -<p>By July he had prepared a manuscript describing all his -exciting experiments of the past two years, and including -specific instructions for setting up a lightning rod on a tower -or steeple, even to the necessary feature of a grounding wire. -“Let the experiment be made,” he had said. He did not make -it himself, not then. For one thing, he was waiting for a spire -to be erected on the top of Christ Church, from which he -wished to make his first try of drawing lightning from the -skies. Also, in spite of his alleged retirement, his days were -becoming increasingly filled with public duties.</p> -<p>He still had the Gazette and <i>Poor Richard’s Almanack</i> to -publish and edit. Beginning in 1748, he served on the City -Council. Since 1749 he was Grand Master of the Masons. In -1751 he was made an alderman and a member of the Pennsylvania -Assembly, where previously he had served as clerk.</p> -<p>In 1750, an American Philosophical Society member, Dr. -Thomas Bond, came to him for help in starting a hospital for -the sick and the insane. Hitherto those who could not pay for -medical care had no choice but the prison or the almshouse. -The need was urgent but Dr. Bond had failed to arouse interest -in his project.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_57">57</div> -<p>“Those whom I ask to subscribe,” he confided to Franklin, -“often ask me whether I have consulted you and what you -think of it. When I tell them I have not, they don’t subscribe.”</p> -<p>Franklin knew promotion methods as Dr. Bond did not, and -began by calling a meeting of citizens. Under his impetus the -list of subscribers grew, though not until May 1755 was the -cornerstone of the Pennsylvania Hospital laid on Eighth Street -between Spruce and Pine. Nearly thirty years later, when -Dr. Benjamin Rush joined the staff, the “lunatics” at Pennsylvania -Hospital received the first intelligent care available -in America and, with few exceptions, in the world.</p> -<p>Franklin was also busy during this period in the formation -of America’s first insurance company (stemming from a meeting -of Philadelphia businessmen in 1752), and was taking the -lead in organizing an expedition in search of a Northwest -Passage, under Captain Charles Swaine, America’s first voyage -of Arctic exploration.</p> -<p>In the category of pleasure were the infrequent periods he -spent on his Burlington farm, where he raised corn, red clover, -herd grass and oats, recording with scientific precision the -effects of frost and the results obtained from different types -of soil. He was one of the earliest Americans to think of agriculture -as a science. He never could persuade his farmer -neighbors to follow his example. They held that the ways of -their forefathers were inevitably the best.</p> -<p>It may have been at his farm that he made his experiment on -ants. Some ants had found their way into an earthen pot of -molasses. He shook out all but one and hung the pot by a -string to a nail in the ceiling. When the ant had dined to its -satisfaction, it climbed up the string and down the wall to the -floor. Half an hour later, he noted a swarm of ants retracing -its course back to the pot—exactly as though their comrade -had verbally informed them where to go for a good meal.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_58">58</div> -<p>There were few mysteries of nature on which at one time -or another Franklin did not direct his attention. More often -than not, he wrote his speculations in long and entertaining -and gracefully phrased letters to his friends, men and women -alike.</p> -<p>If he was not impatient to learn what Peter Collinson -thought of his proposed lightning rods, it was simply that he -had no time for impatience. The truth was that Collinson had -found his paper fascinating and had even read it to the Royal -Society. As the Society members remained skeptical and unimpressed, -in 1751 he arranged for it to be printed in a pamphlet—“Experiments -and Observations on Electricity, Made -at Philadelphia, in America.” Dr. John Fothergill, a London -physician, wrote the preface. The pamphlet was translated -into French the next year, creating immediate excitement.</p> -<p>Three French scientists, the naturalist Count Georges Louis -Buffon, Thomas François d’Alibard, and another named de -Lor, resolved to carry out the experiment on drawing lightning -from the skies, which Franklin had outlined.</p> -<p>It was d’Alibard who succeeded first. At Marly, outside of -Paris, he set up a pointed iron rod forty feet long, not on a -church steeple as Franklin had recommended, but simply on -a square plank with legs made of three wine bottles to insulate -it from the ground. During a thunderstorm, on May 10, 1752, -a crash of thunder was followed by a crackling sound—and -sparks flew out from the rod. Here then was absolute proof -that Franklin was right. Lightning and electricity were -identical.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_59">59</div> -<p>De Lor repeated the experiment in Paris eight days later. -Louis XV, King of France, was so moved that he sent congratulations -to the Royal Society, to be relayed to Messieurs -Franklin and Peter Collinson. The first successful experiment -in London was made by John Canton. Soon it was being repeated -throughout Europe. The name of Benjamin Franklin -was on everyone’s tongue.</p> -<p>No news of all this had yet been brought on the slow sailing -ships when, in June 1752, Franklin decided not to wait for -the completion of the Christ Church spire for his experiment. -He had another scheme. Why not try to draw electricity -from the skies with a kite?</p> -<p>“Make a small cross of two light strips of cedar, the arms so -long as to reach to the four corners of a large thin silk handkerchief -when extended; tie the corners of the handkerchief -to the extremities of the cross.” Thus he later described the -body of this world famous kite. Like ordinary kites, it had a -tail, loop, and string. At the top of the vertical cedar strip, -he fastened a sharp pointed wire about a foot long. At the end -of the string he tied a silk ribbon. He fastened a small key at -the juncture of silk and twine.</p> -<p>With this child’s plaything, he and his tall full-grown son, -William, took off across the fields one threatening summer -day. They let the wind raise the kite into the air and they -waited. Even before it began raining, Franklin observed some -loose threads from the hempen string standing erect. He -pressed his knuckle to the key—and an electric spark shot out. -There were more sparks when the thunderstorm began. After -the string was wet, the “electric fire” was “copious.”</p> -<p>He must have grinned triumphantly at William, and perhaps -said casually, “Well, Billy, we’ve done it.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_60">60</div> -<p>There is no evidence that he realized his experiment might -be dangerous, even deadly.</p> -<p>The first account of the “Electrical Kite” appeared five -months later in the October 19, 1752, issue of the <i>Gazette</i>. -<i>Poor Richard’s Almanack</i> for 1753 contained complete instructions -on how to build a lightning rod. He had already -put one up on his own chimney. It had small bells which -chimed when clouds containing electricity passed by. The -bells rang in his house for years.</p> -<p>News of his triumphs abroad were now flooding in. The -praise of the French king, he wrote a friend, made him feel -like the girl “who was observed to grow suddenly proud, and -none could guess the reason, till it came to be known that she -had got on a new pair of garters.” The Royal Society, making -up for lost time, published an account of his kite in <i>Transactions</i>, -their official paper, and in November 1753, gave him -the Copley gold medal for “his curious experiments and observations -on electricity.” They conservatively held off making -him a member of the Society until May 29, 1756. At -home, Harvard, Yale, and William and Mary College in turn -gave him honorary degrees of master of arts.</p> -<p>While these and other tributes were being heaped on him, -he was launching into a new profession—that of military expert -and officer.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_61">61</div> -<h2 id="c6"><span class="h2line1">6</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">A BRIEF MILITARY CAREER</span></h2> -<p>In 1753, trouble was brewing once more between Great -Britain and France, with the colonists caught in the middle. -While English subjects in America were as yet confined to a -narrow strip along the Atlantic, France held Canada and the -St. Lawrence Valley to the north; New Orleans and the great -Louisiana territory in the south. By right of early explorations, -the French also claimed the rich Ohio Valley region -and were building forts along the Ohio and Allegheny rivers. -The British considered these forts an intrusion on <i>their</i> territory.</p> -<p>As the situation grew more tense, both British and French -courted the favor of the Indians. In Pennsylvania this would -have been easier had the policy of William Penn been followed; -he had gone further than any other white man in establishing -friendly Indian relations. Unfortunately, much of his -work had been undone by his son Thomas, in the episode -known as the Walking Purchase.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_62">62</div> -<p>To make room for his immigrants, William Penn had once -purchased a tract of land from the Indians to extend “as far -as a man could walk in three days.” In 1683, he had leisurely -walked out a day and a half of this purchase, some twenty-five -miles. In 1737, fifty years later, Thomas Penn decided to -take up the rest of the Walking Purchase. He hired three athletes -to do the walking for him. In a day and a half, they -managed to cover eighty-six miles. The Indians had never forgiven -this underhanded trick.</p> -<p>It was partially to undo this bad feeling that in September -1753 Franklin and several other commissioners were sent by -Governor James Hamilton to Carlisle, some 125 miles west of -Philadelphia, to meet with chiefs of the Delaware and Shawnee -Indians and the Six Nations (the name given to the united -Iroquois tribes).</p> -<p>Franklin had never been so far inland before nor had he any -previous dealings with the original Americans. He was impressed -with the ceremonial exchange of gifts and greetings -which preceded the actual conference. These “savages” of -whom he had heard such disparaging things had customs very -different from those of the white man, but “savage justice,” as -he was to write later, had as much to recommend it as “civilized -justice.”</p> -<p>The grievances presented by the chiefs after the conference -began he found reasonable. They wanted, from the white man, -fewer trading posts and more honest traders. They wanted to -be sold less rum, which was ruinous to the braves, and more -gunpowder, which they needed for hunting. The commissioners -promised to do their best and, as they had been authorized -to do, offered the Indians protection from the -French, in return for their loyalty. Unfortunately, neither -colonies nor British were in a position to guarantee such protection.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_63">63</div> -<p>Franklin returned from Carlisle to learn that he had been -appointed deputy postmaster, with William Hunter of Williamsburg, -of all the North American provinces. He had the -prestige of being an officer of the Crown though the pay was -nominal—only 600 pounds a year divided between him and -Hunter should the service make a profit—and the work was -considerable, for Hunter was ill and could give little help.</p> -<p>He could and did provide his family with jobs. William, -his son, became postmaster of Philadelphia, Franklin’s former -job. William later turned this post over to a relative of -Debby’s who in due time was succeeded by Franklin’s brother -Peter. He appointed another brother, John, postmaster of -Boston. At John’s death his widow succeeded him, thought to -be the first American woman to hold a public office.</p> -<p>Not only his family but all of America profited by Franklin’s -appointment. Horseback riders carried mail in colonial -America. Delivery was slow, irregular and costly. Franklin -acted as an efficiency expert. He increased mail deliveries from -Philadelphia to New York from once a week to three times a -week during the warmer six months of the year and he made -sure his riders did the route twice a week in the winter except -in the worst weather. In time he visited all the post offices -of the colonies, studied their local problems, surveyed roads, -ferries, and fords. He started America’s first Dead Letter Office, -and gave patrons other services they had never had before. -By the time he had held the post eight years, not only -could he and Hunter collect their full salaries but there was a -surplus for the London office, the first time it had ever profited -from its American branch.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_64">64</div> -<p>Late in 1753, Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia sent -young Major George Washington on a journey to the French -Fort Le Boeuf (now Erie, Pennsylvania) to order the French -to evacuate. They chose to ignore the warning.</p> -<p>Franklin attended another conference with the Six Nations, -held at Albany, New York, in June 1754, attended by commissioners -from seven colonies. In regard to Indian relations, -the Albany conference was no more successful than the one at -Carlisle. Afterward the Indians claimed they had been persuaded -to deed a tract of land whose boundaries they had not -grasped and that the deed was irregular since, contrary to the -Six Nations’ custom, it gave away land of tribes whose representatives -had not signed the deed.</p> -<p>Thus the two meetings had the opposite effect of what had -been hoped. They succeeded only in antagonizing the Indians. -Many of them decided to support the French, as the -lesser of the two white evils.</p> -<p>It is most unlikely that Franklin suspected any wrong being -perpetrated on the Indians. During the Albany conference he -presented to his fellow commissioners a plan which had its inspiration -from Six Nations. If the Iroquois tribes could work -together harmoniously, why should the American colonies, -allegedly civilized, always be quarreling? Accordingly, he proposed -they form a confederacy under a single president-general -appointed by the Crown.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_65">65</div> -<p>The commissioners approved wholeheartedly but that was -as far as he got. When his plan was presented to the assemblies -of the various colonies, it was rejected as being too dictatorial. -The Crown opposed it as being too democratic. In a -final effort to make his point he published in the <i>Gazette</i> -America’s first cartoon, a drawing of a snake chopped in eight -pieces, each marked with the initials of different colonies. -“Join or Die” read the caption. But he was several years in -advance of the times.</p> -<p>Even while the Albany conference was under way, seven -hundred French soldiers and Indians forced the surrender of -Fort Necessity, a small barricade fifty miles from Wills Creek, -held by George Washington, now a colonel, and a scant 400 -men. The nine-year French and Indian Wars were unofficially -under way.</p> -<p>In December, six months later, General Edward Braddock -landed in Virginia with two regiments of British regulars. -They had come to take the French Fort Duquesne, located on -the forks of the Ohio (where Pittsburgh now stands). The -Pennsylvania Assembly sent Franklin to meet the general at -Frederickstown and offer his services as postmaster. Franklin -with his son William spent several days with Braddock. He -found the general a master of European military strategy but -more than a little arrogant.</p> -<p>“After taking Fort Duquesne,” Braddock announced one -night at dinner, “I will proceed to Niagara; and, having taken -that, to Frontenac, if the season will allow time; and I suppose -it will, for Duquesne can hardly detain me above three or -four days.”</p> -<p>In his mind, Franklin pictured the long line of Braddock’s -army marching along a narrow road cut through thick woods -and bushes, and he was uneasy. He was sure, he told the general, -that there would be scant resistance at Duquesne, if he -arrived there. The danger would be Indian ambush on the way.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_66">66</div> -<p>Braddock smiled patronizingly. “These savages may, indeed, -be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia, -but upon the king’s regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is -impossible they should make any impression.”</p> -<p>Franklin did not press his doubts. It would have been improper -for him to argue with a military man about his own -profession. Braddock was only too glad to let Franklin hunt -up some transport wagons for him. This he did by distributing -circulars through Lancaster, York and Cumberland counties. -Within two weeks Pennsylvania farmers had come -through with the loan of 150 wagons and 259 horses. Of the -1,000 pounds due the owners in payment, Braddock paid -800 and Franklin advanced the extra 200 pounds on his own. -Since the farmers knew and trusted him, he, rather than Braddock, -gave them his bond for the full cost.</p> -<p>After he returned to Philadelphia, he persuaded the Assembly -to donate twenty parcels for the regiment officers, each -containing six pounds of sugar, a pound of tea, six pounds of -coffee, six pounds of chocolate, as well as biscuit, cheese, -butter, wine, cured hams. He sent along other supplies for the -soldiers, advancing 1,000 pounds more of his own money to -cover the costs. Barely had he been reimbursed for his expenses -thus far, when the disastrous news broke.</p> -<p>Braddock’s army—some 1,400 British regulars and 700 colonial -militiamen—was ambushed by a force of French, Canadians, -and Indians on July 9, 1755, when they were within -seven miles of Fort Duquesne. Terrified at the shooting from -this invisible enemy, the regulars panicked. Nearly a thousand -were killed or wounded, including most of the officers. George -Washington, who was serving as Braddock’s aide, stayed to -fight a valiant rear guard action. Braddock was mortally -wounded, dying four days later.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_67">67</div> -<p>At the start of the fray, the drivers took one horse from -each team and raced off, leaving wagons, food parcels and -provisions to the attackers. Since Franklin had given bond, the -wagon owners soon appeared, demanding recompense for -their losses—a total of some 20,000 pounds. He faced ruin until -October when the new British commander-in-chief, Governor -Shirley, authorized government payment of the debt.</p> -<p>In the midst of that summer’s harassment and disaster, there -was one pleasant interlude. On a trip to visit Rhode Island -post offices, Franklin met a delightful young lady named Catherine -Ray. Middle-aged and tending to stoutness as he was, -she lavished affection on him, not as a suitor but as someone -to whom she could confide her innermost thoughts. Though -he saw Catherine only infrequently after that meeting, she -later married a worthy young man named William Greene by -whom she had six children—she and Franklin wrote each other -lengthy and intimate letters as long as they lived. Until he met -her, apart from Debby, his friendships had all been with men. -Beginning with Catherine, he had many women friends, who -found in him a rare understanding of their qualities of mind -and spirit.</p> -<p>The defeat of Braddock taught the colonists that the British -military was not as invincible as they had been led to believe. -Many more Indians joined the French, deciding they were -most likely to win. In the summer of 1755, Indian raiders were -attacking isolated farms less than 100 miles from Philadelphia. -It was obvious that once again Pennsylvania must provide its -own defense.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_68">68</div> -<p>A bill to vote 60,000 pounds for the militia was presented -to the Pennsylvania Assembly. At first the Quakers opposed -it, but with great tact Franklin won from them a concession -that even though they bore no arms themselves they would -not object if others did so. There was still more dissension on -the subject of taxes. Franklin and many others believed that -the taxes should be raised from all the landholders in the province. -The lawyer for “the proprietors” claimed that the Penn -family should be exempt from such taxes, as they always had -been. He was supported by the conservatives in the Assembly -and by Governor Robert Hunter Morris, who owed his appointment -to the Penns.</p> -<p>Eventually the Penns compromised by offering 5,000 -pounds toward the militia as a gift. The question as to whether -or not their vast lands should be taxed remained unsettled, to -trouble the future. Thomas Penn, who was living in London, -was duly informed that Benjamin Franklin was a crafty man -who could bend the Assembly to his will.</p> -<p>On November 24, 1755, a Shawnee war party burned down -the Moravian village of Gnadenhuetten, 75 miles from Philadelphia, -killing all the inhabitants except a few who escaped -into the forests. The crime was the more appalling since the -Moravians were as opposed to violence as the Quakers. They -were a gentle, devout people who had befriended the Indians. -The next day the Assembly appointed Franklin to head a committee -of seven to manage the funds for the defense. More -responsibilities on his shoulders, more decisions to make, arguments -to settle, hotheads to calm down.</p> -<p>“All the world claims the privilege of troubling my Pappy,” -wailed Deborah to a clerk named Daniel Fisher whom Franklin -had just hired.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_69">69</div> -<p>A few weeks later Franklin set out on horseback with 50 -cavalrymen to recruit volunteers, and check on defenses in -outlying districts—a strenuous assignment for a man nearly -fifty and sedentary in his habits. William served as his aide. -Theoretically, James Hamilton, a former governor, was in -charge, but after a few days he quietly yielded the leadership -to Franklin.</p> -<p>Their first stop was Bethlehem, the chief Moravian settlement. -Franklin had expected them to be as opposed to military -defense as the Quakers. On the contrary, they were determined -to avoid a tragedy such as that at Gnadenhuetten, had -built a stockade around their principal buildings, brought in -arms from New York, and were even arming their women -with small paving stones to throw out the windows should -any marauding Indians approach.</p> -<p>“General Franklin,” the Moravians insisted on calling the -head of the Philadelphia expedition.</p> -<p>They rode on to Easton next, to find a town in a state of -panic and disorder with no discipline at all. Refugees filled the -houses. Food was almost gone. There was drinking and rioting. -Franklin organized a guard, put sentries on the principal -street, set up a patrol, had bushes outside of town cleared away -to avert their use as ambush, and enlisted some two hundred -men into the provincial militia.</p> -<p>They visited other towns, arriving at the ruins of Gnadenhuetten -in the bitter cold of January. After the mournful -chore of burying the dead, the men set to building a stockade—felling -pines, placing them firmly in the ground side by side. -Franklin, with his passion for collecting facts, noted that it -took six men six minutes to fell a pine of 14-inch diameter, -and he observed that his men were more cheerful on the days -they worked than when, because of rain or snow, they had -to sit idle.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_70">70</div> -<p>Supplies were running low when provisions arrived from -Philadelphia, including roast beef, veal, and apples from Deborah. -To reassure her, he wrote that he was sleeping on a -featherbed under warm blankets. The truth was that, like his -men, he slept on the floor of a hut with only one thin blanket. -The stockade, finished at last, was 450 feet in circumference, -12 feet high, and had two mounted swivel guns but no cannon.</p> -<p>They were aware of the danger lurking in the dense forest. -On a patrol, Franklin found the remains of Indian watches. -For their fires they dug holes about three feet deep. The prints -in weeds and grass showed they had lain in a circle around the -fire holes, letting their feet hang over to keep warm. At a -short distance, neither flame, sparks, nor smoke could be seen. -But the Indians, not then nor later, risked an attack.</p> -<p>Franklin’s militia did no fighting but they turned defenseless -regions into defensive ones. They had built two more -stockades at Fort Norris and Fort Allen, when Franklin was -called back to Philadelphia early in February for a special -Assembly meeting. To have a good bed again seemed so -strange, he hardly slept all night long.</p> -<p>On his return he was appointed a militia colonel. Following -his first review of his regiment, the men accompanied him -to his house and saluted him with several rounds of fire, incidentally -breaking some glass tubes of his electrical apparatus. -The following day when he set off for Virginia on post office -business, 20 officers and some 30 grenadiers escorted him to -the ferry, the grenadiers riding with drawn swords in a ceremony -reserved for persons of great distinction. When Thomas -Penn in England learned of this tribute, he was furious. No -grenadiers had ever drawn their swords for him.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_71">71</div> -<p>As for Governor Morris, he suavely suggested that Franklin -and his command should try to take Fort Duquesne, which -Braddock had failed to take, promising him a general’s commission. -Franklin firmly declined. He had no illusions about -his military ability and likely suspected Morris of wishing to -be rid of him. (Fort Duquesne was eventually captured in -1758, in an expedition led by British Brigadier General Forbes; -George Washington hoisted the British flag over the fort’s -ruins.)</p> -<p>In August 1756, following a declaration of war on the -Delaware, the new governor, William Denny, offered large -bounties for “the scalp of every male Indian enemy above the -age of twelve years,” and smaller bounties for “female Indian -prisoners and youths under eight.” Franklin, like the majority -of the Assembly members, was outraged at this barbarity, and -disgusted with the conduct of the proprietors and their representatives. -Early in 1757, a vote was passed to send Franklin -to England, as official agent of Pennsylvania, there to present -to Parliament and the King a petition of grievances against -the Penns.</p> -<p>Debby would not go with him. She was frightened to death -of the sea. He did take William, who was radiant at seeing -England. By April they were in New York, ready to catch -their ship. Packets for England were in charge of Lord Loudon, -the new commander-in-chief, an amiable person with all -the time in the world to listen to complaints, indulge in long -conversations, and to write endless notes. Not until he had -finished this mysterious correspondence, would he permit the -fleet to depart. For more than two months, Franklin and his -son waited, restless and impatient and helpless.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_72">72</div> -<p>There was plenty of time to puzzle about the errors of the -British. Why they should send to the colonies an arrogant man -like General Braddock, a dawdler like Loudon, governors like -the dishonest Sir William Keith, or Morris and Denny, who -were far more interested in protecting the rich proprietors -than in the welfare of the colonists. But then the reason for -Franklin’s voyage was to correct such mistakes. He had no -doubt that the King and the mighty Parliament would be -glad to listen to him.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_73">73</div> -<h2 id="c7"><span class="h2line1">7</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE BATTLE WITH THE PENNS</span></h2> -<p>During the voyage to England, Franklin wrote a preface -for his 1758 <i>Almanack</i>. In the form of a letter from “Poor -Richard” to his “Courteous Reader,” it told of a sermon on -frugality and industry, which Poor Richard had heard in the -market place by “a plain clean old man with white locks” -called Father Abraham. He was most flattered to find that -Father Abraham was quoting him, Poor Richard, at every -other breath.</p> -<blockquote> -<p>As Poor Richard says: Many words won’t fill a bushel.... -God helps them that help themselves.... The sleeping fox -catches no poultry.... Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man -healthy, wealthy, and wise.... For want of a nail the shoe -was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want -of a horse the rider was lost....</p> -<p>As Poor Richard says: Many a little makes a mickle.... -Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them.... Pride that dines -on vanity, sups on contempt.... ’Tis hard for an empty bag -to stand upright.... If you will not hear reason, she’ll surely -rap your knuckles...</p> -</blockquote> -<div class="pb" id="Page_74">74</div> -<p>All the nuggets of wise counsel which he had dropped in -his <i>Almanack</i> in the twenty-five years of its existence, Franklin -gathered for Father Abraham’s speech. Omitted were the -racy ballads, verses, broad humor and jokes which had made -the <i>Almanack</i> a potpourri where every man could find something -to his taste. Only at the end was a touch of Franklin’s -sly wit. Following Father Abraham’s sermon, Poor Richard -watched disconsolately as the village folk dispersed to spend -their hard-earned money as foolishly as ever on the marketplace -wares. The only one to take the sermon to heart was -Poor Richard himself who had come to buy material for a -new coat but left, “resolved to wear my old one a little -longer.”</p> -<p>Father Abraham’s speech was later published under the title -of “The Way to Wealth.” It was reprinted in many editions -and translated in many languages, and it won the author almost -as much fame as his discoveries in electricity.</p> -<p>Peter Collinson met Franklin and his son in London, where -they arrived on July 26, 1757, taking them to his home. No -doubt he and Franklin discussed electricity until very late, -with William only half listening and more or less bored. The -next day, a printer named William Strahan, with whom -Franklin had corresponded some fourteen years but never met, -called on him.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_75">75</div> -<p>“I never saw a man who was, in every respect, so perfectly -agreeable to me,” Strahan wrote Deborah Franklin of this -meeting, adding that William was “one of the prettiest young -gentlemen I ever knew from America.”</p> -<p>Deborah likely scowled. It was just like that artful lad to -ingratiate himself so quickly.</p> -<p>A few days later father and son rented four rooms from a -widow, Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, who lived with her young -daughter Polly in a substantial mansion on 7 Craven Street, -Strand. This was to be Franklin’s English home, which over -the years became almost as dear to him as his Philadelphia one.</p> -<p>He had brought two servants with him. One of them, Peter, -served him faithfully, though the other, a slave, ran away -shortly after their arrival. Franklin’s post as Massachusetts agent -required a bit of pomp. He wore a wig in the latest fashion, -silver shoe and knee buckles and purchased linen for new -shirts. Later he rented a coach.</p> -<p>Barely was he settled when he was invited to visit Lord -George Grenville, president of the Privy Council and one of -England’s most important statesmen. This was Franklin’s first -test in holding his own with persons more steeped than he in -political intrigue.</p> -<p>Lord Grenville received him with great civility, questioned -him at length about American affairs, and then announced that -the colonists had some erroneous notions he felt duty bound -to correct:</p> -<p>“You Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your -constitution; you contend that the King’s instructions to his -governors are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard -or disregard them at your own discretion. You must be -made to understand that the King’s instruction are <i>The Law -of the Land</i>.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_76">76</div> -<p>This was simply not true. The King’s instructions were laws -in the colonies only if they received the approval of the local -Assembly. In the same way, laws passed by a colonial Assembly -had to be submitted to the King before they became final. -That was why Franklin was in England, to get the King’s approval -of the Assembly decision on the Penns.</p> -<p>Sure as he was of his facts, he voiced his opinion in the manner -he had learned from Socrates: “It is my understanding -that ...”</p> -<p>“You are totally mistaken,” Lord Grenville stated patronizingly, -when he had finished.</p> -<p>It was Franklin’s first experience with the contemptuous attitude -which certain of the British took in regard to the -colonists. He would later observe that “every man in England -seems to jostle himself into the throne with the King, and -talks of <i>our subjects</i> in the colonies.”</p> -<p>Around the middle of August he called on the Penn family, -at their stately mansion in Spring Garden. It had seemed courteous -to meet with them personally before approaching higher -authority. William Penn’s son Thomas was there and probably -Richard Penn and his son, John. They received him with glacial -politeness, listened haughtily as he told them the Assembly’s -grievances, and just as haughtily denied that the grievances -were in any way justified.</p> -<p>Franklin pointed out that the Assembly was asking no more -than what William Penn had promised citizens under his 1701 -Charter of Privileges.</p> -<p>“My father granted privileges he had no right to grant, according -to the Royal Charter,” Thomas Penn announced.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_77">77</div> -<p>“Then all those who came to settle in the province, expecting -to enjoy the privileges contained in the grant were deceived, -cheated and betrayed?” With the greatest difficulty, -Franklin kept his voice calm.</p> -<p>Thomas Penn laughed insolently. “If the people were -cheated, it was their own fault. They should have gone to the -trouble of reading the Royal Charter.”</p> -<p>His tone reminded Franklin of a horse trader of low character, -jeering at the purchaser he had victimized. “Poor people -are not lawyers,” he said steadily. “They trusted your father -and did not think it necessary to consult a lawyer.”</p> -<p>Unabashed, Thomas Penn rose to dismiss him. “If you care -to put your complaints in writing, Mr. Franklin, we will then -consider them.”</p> -<p>Those arrogant Penns! How it would have grieved their -noble father to see into what selfish hands he had left his beloved -Pennsylvania! Franklin had yet to find out through -personal experience that nobility of character is not always -inherited.</p> -<p>Five days later he returned with the Assembly’s grievances -in written form. On the advice of their lawyer, a “proud and -angry man,” Ferdinand John Paris, the Penns sent Franklin’s -paper to the Royal lawyers, the Attorney-General Charles -Pratt, and Solicitor-General Charles Yorke. These gentlemen -were out of town. There was nothing to do but wait.</p> -<p>Franklin fell sick with a cold and fever that September and -was bedridden nearly eight weeks. Dr. Fothergill, the man -who had written the preface for his pamphlet on electricity, -tended him regularly. Mrs. Stevenson, his landlady, nursed -him like a son. Even William was unusually obliging, did his -errands and helped him to prepare a letter to the <i>Citizen</i> to -counteract slanders about Pennsylvania which Franklin suspected -emanated from the Penns. William was enrolling in law -school in London; he had bought himself elegant clothes that -rivaled those of any young English peer.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_78">78</div> -<p>As soon as he was well enough, Franklin went on a shopping -spree himself. For Debby, who still liked bright colors, -he purchased a crimson satin cloak and for Sally a black silk -one, with a scarlet feather and muff which William selected. -There were other luxuries for their home not found in America: -English china, silver salt ladles, an apple corer and a -gadget “to make little turnips out of great ones,” a carpet, -tablecloths, napkins, silk blankets from France, and a “large -fine jug for beer,” which he had fallen in love with at first -sight.</p> -<p>“I thought it looked like a fat jolly dame,” he explained the -gift to Debby, “clean and tidy, with a neat blue and white -calico gown on, good-natured and lovely, and put me in mind -of—somebody.”</p> -<p>His most extravagant present followed later—a harpsichord -for Sally which cost the huge sum of forty-two guineas.</p> -<p>If some Englishmen were snobs, there were plenty of others -who were just the opposite. Franklin’s fellow members of the -august Royal Society welcomed him warmly. He made many -new scientific friends, among them the stout and amiable John -Pringle, an authority on military medicine and sanitation, and -John Canton, the first Englishman to draw lightning from -the sky. At Cambridge, in May 1758, he performed experiments -in evaporation with John Hadley, professor of chemistry. -He made a trip to Northampton, the ancestral home of -the Franklins, and met some distant relatives. When he found -the Franklin graves in the cemetery so moss covered that their -inscriptions were effaced, he had his servant Peter scour them -clean.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_79">79</div> -<p>The Scottish University of St. Andrews gave him a degree -as doctor of law. Henceforth he had the right to call himself -Dr. Franklin. Later he visited Scotland where he was made an -honorary burgess and guildbrother at Edinburgh; met the -economist Adam Smith; and the philosopher David Hume, -who said of him: “America has sent us many good things, -gold, silver, sugar, tobacco, indigo, etc., but you are the first -philosopher, and indeed the first great man of letters, for -whom we are beholden to her.”</p> -<p>He stayed with the congenial Scottish judge Lord Henry -Home Kames, to whom he wrote in his note of thanks that -the time spent in Scotland “was six weeks of the <i>densest</i> happiness -I have met with in any part of my life.”</p> -<p>A bitter fellow American arrived in London, William -Smith, provost of the Pennsylvania Academy, one of those -who had opposed him on the Penn issue. The Pennsylvania -Assembly had tried him on the charge of libel and he had spent -three months in jail. Now he was seeking redress from the -Crown, and blaming not only the Quakers for his arrest but -Franklin, who had not even been in Pennsylvania. Smith was -saying that Franklin was not really a scientist, that he had -stolen his ideas from others.</p> -<p>Franklin took the slander philosophically: “’Tis convenient -to have at least one enemy, who by his readiness to revile one -on all occasions may make one careful of one’s conduct. I -shall keep him an enemy for that purpose.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_80">80</div> -<p>While the proprietors were stalling, Franklin set out to meet -such high-placed persons as might help his cause. He tried to -see the Prime Minister William Pitt, who was said to be sympathetic -to the colonies, but Pitt was too occupied with his -enormous war in India to give him a hearing. Eventually he -met the two royal lawyers, Charles Yorke and Charles Pratt, -to whom the Penns had submitted the Assembly’s grievances. -To his surprise he found they had already given their verdict, -a negative one, which the Penns had forwarded directly to -the Assembly, bypassing Franklin. The Penns were claiming -he had insulted them. He had not addressed them as the “True -and Absolute Proprietaries of the Province of Pennsylvania.”</p> -<p>Back in Pennsylvania, the Assembly had finally persuaded -Governor Denny to pass its act taxing the proprietary -estate. Franklin brought the matter before the British Committee -for Plantation Affairs in August 1759, when he had -been two years in England. The decision was a compromise: -unsurveyed lands of the proprietors should not be taxed but -their surveyed lands must be taxed at a rate no higher than -other similar lands. The Pennsylvania Assembly held Franklin -solely responsible for the victory, and congratulations flowed -to him.</p> -<p>He could have gone home now but he stayed on. There -was a tremendous propaganda job to be done and he was the -only one capable. He wanted to set the English straight on -the role of the American colonies in the British Empire. He -wrote articles for the press. He expressed his ideas at the -Whig Club, in coffeehouses where philosophers and literary -men congregated, and to guests whom he invited to dine at -Craven Street. His refreshing candor and quiet wit brought -him attention everywhere.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_81">81</div> -<p>At odd moments he tinkered with various inventions. For -the Stevensons, he devised an iron frame with a sliding plate -to serve as a draught in their fireplace, so it would give more -heat and take less fuel. He made a clock with only three -wheels and one hand, which showed hours, minutes, and seconds. -Later others improved his model and sold it commercially.</p> -<p>He spent long hours constructing a musical instrument, -based on the principle of musical glasses. The “armonica” he -named it, remarking that it was “peculiarly adapted to Italian -music, especially that of the soft and plaintive kind.” Subsequently, -an English musician, Marianne Davies, toured the -Continent giving armonica recitals; Marie Antoinette took -lessons from her. Mozart and Beethoven composed selections -for the armonica. Its vogue lasted some fifty years, and then, -no one knows just why, it lost its popularity.</p> -<p>In August 1761, he took William on a trip to Belgium and -Holland. In Brussels, the Prince of Lorraine welcomed him -and showed him his physics laboratory. At Leyden, he met -Musschenbroek, inventor of the Leyden jar. They were back -in time for the coronation of George III, whom Franklin -judged “a virtuous and generous young man.”</p> -<p>In February 1762, Oxford University gave the honorary degree -of doctor of civil laws to “the illustrious Benjamin Franklin, -Esquire, Agent of the Province of Pennsylvania, Postmaster-General -of North America, and Fellow of the Royal -Society.” Less ostentatiously, William was presented a degree -of master of arts.</p> -<p>William had been basking in the sunlight of his father’s -reputation, and Franklin had more than a little reason to worry -about him. Unlike his father, the youth was proud and haughty -and disdainful of those of humble birth.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_82">82</div> -<p>One day Franklin told him a story. When he was a child -of seven, Franklin said, some friends on a holiday filled his -pocket with coppers. He went directly to a toy shop, and being -charmed with the sound of a whistle in the hands of another -boy, he gave all his money for one like it. He came -home and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with -his purchase, until his brothers, sisters, and cousins told him -he had given four times as much as it was worth, laughing -at him for his folly. Put in mind of the good things he might -have bought with the rest of the money, he cried with vexation. -“The reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle -gave me pleasure.”</p> -<p>“As I grew older,” he continued, “I have found a number -of men who have given too much for their whistle—popularity-seekers, -misers, and men of pleasure. Don’t give too much -for the whistle, William. Why not become a joiner or wheelwright, -if the estate I leave you is not enough? The man who -lives by his labor is at least free.”</p> -<p>Did little Benjamin really spend all his pennies for a whistle, -or was this a fable which Franklin invented to clothe a moral -lesson? There is no way of knowing for sure and it is not important. -It should be emphasized that the story, or fable, was -not intended merely to show the folly of wasting money. It -had a far more subtle meaning.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_83">83</div> -<p>Much as Franklin had come to love England, his heart was -heavy with yearning for his family and his own country after -his five year absence. Since England and France were still at -war, he had to wait for a safe convoy. It was August 1762 -when he set sail from Portsmouth. William did not come with -him. The Crown had appointed him to the high post of governor -of New Jersey. He would take a later ship, after his -papers were in order.</p> -<p>“Don’t give too much for the whistle,” Franklin may have -warned him once more before he left.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_84">84</div> -<h2 id="c8"><span class="h2line1">8</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE WHITE CHRISTIAN SAVAGES</span></h2> -<p>“Benjamin Franklin has lost all his Philadelphia friends.”</p> -<p>That was the rumor which his “enemy,” William Smith, had -been spreading. It had reached Franklin’s ears but he had not -worried about it nor did he have reason to. As his ship sailed -into port, in November 1762, the docks were bright with waving -flags and packed with cheering crowds. Five hundred -horsemen escorted him home.</p> -<p>Waiting for him were Debby, his “plain country Joan,” -stout, beaming, and vociferous in her greeting, and his daughter -Sally, pretty and elegant in the London frocks he had sent -her. From morning to night in the next days, his Philadelphia -friends, those whom Smith said he did not have, were filling -his house, boisterous and hearty, slapping him on the back, congratulating -him on the job he had done, in every way possible -showing him their warm and lasting affection.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_85">85</div> -<p>Did he find their manners a bit rough, their horizon of -knowledge limited after his cultured and learned English -friends? Nostalgically he wrote to Polly Stevenson: “Why -should that little island (England) enjoy in almost every neighbourhood -more sensible, virtuous, and elegant minds than we -can collect in ranging a hundred leagues of our vast forests?”</p> -<p>Not that America would always remain behind England in -the arts: “Already some of our young geniuses begin to lisp -attempts at painting poetry and music.” And with his letter he -proudly included some American verse he thought might find -favor in England.</p> -<p>The supporters of the proprietors were still criticizing him, -claiming now that Benjamin Franklin had lived extravagantly -and wasted public money in England. They were disappointed -rather than gratified when he submitted to the Assembly a bill -for his five years’ expenses—for just 714 pounds, ten shillings, -seven pence. The Assembly, too embarrassed to accept such a -modest estimate, promptly voted him 3,000 pounds.</p> -<p>In February, William arrived to take up his office as New -Jersey’s royal governor, bringing with him a beautiful and -dignified new bride, Elizabeth, who had been born in the West -Indies. Franklin toured New Jersey with them, along with an -escort of cavalry and gentlemen on sleighs. His heart filled -with pride as he saw the respect and affection with which they -were welcomed by rich and poor alike, and his fears about -William were for the moment put aside.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_86">86</div> -<p>He did some 1,600 miles traveling of his own from the -Spring to the fall of 1763, the first year of his return, taking up -where he had left off in expanding and improving the colonial -postal services. Sally went with him on one trip up to New -England, when they stayed with the former Catherine Ray, -now Mrs. William Greene, her husband a future governor of -Rhode Island. When he dislocated his shoulder in a fall from -his horse, it was Catherine who nursed him. The friendships of -Benjamin Franklin—how much could be said of them! He -guarded them all, men and women alike, more preciously than -jewels, nourished them with letters during separations, and -with personal warmth during reunions.</p> -<p>In February 1763, the Treaty of Paris brought the French -and Indian Wars to a formal close in England’s favor, but did -not solve the tensions between colonists and Indians which -the struggle had fomented.</p> -<p>Though the treaty granted the Indians the lands from the -Allegheny Mountains to the Mississippi, the Indians had -learned to be suspicious of the white man’s treaties and rightly -feared that future settlers would drive them back further -and further. Out of desperation, they attacked English garrisons -from Detroit to Fort Pitt.</p> -<p>The English reciprocated ruthlessly. One British general -suggested that blankets inoculated with smallpox be presented -to them “to extirpate this execrable race.” As contagious as -any disease was the racial hatred that spread along the frontiers. -In Lancaster County, certain Scotch-Irish settlers of -Paxton and Donegal townships met together and vowed vengeance -on the “redskins.” “The only good Indian is a dead -Indian,” they said. If the warring Indians vanished into the -forests after each assault, why then there were plenty of others—such -as those living under the protection of the good -Moravians.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_87">87</div> -<p>In December, the Paxton Boys, as they called themselves, -attacked a tiny hamlet of peaceful Conestoga Indians. Six -were killed outright. Fourteen others, old people, women and -children, who had been out selling baskets, brooms and bowls -to their white neighbors, were taken captive and lodged at the -Lancaster workhouse. Two days after Christmas, the rioters -broke into the workhouse, killing all of them with hatchets. -Streams of other peaceful Indians poured into Philadelphia for -protection.</p> -<p>William Penn’s grandson, John Penn, was now Pennsylvania’s -governor. He ordered the arrest of the murderers but -did nothing to enforce his order. Made bold by this seeming -lack of concern, the Paxton Boys, their ranks swollen by a -lawless mob, voted to go to Philadelphia and force the Assembly -to turn over the Indian refugees to their untender -mercies.</p> -<p>Franklin’s war activities had shown he condemned atrocities -against the frontiersmen, but he was outraged that Indians -who had kept faith with the white men should have been -betrayed. By mid-January he had both written and printed a -pamphlet, “Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster -County.”</p> -<p>The first part retold the story of Indian relations in Pennsylvania. -How members of the Six Nations had first settled -in Conestoga, how its messengers had welcomed the English -with presents of venison, corn and skins, how the tribe had -entered into a treaty of friendship with William Penn, to last -“as long as the sun should shine or the waters run in the rivers.”</p> -<p>It was an “enormous wickedness,” he continued, to assassinate -these Conestoga Indians for the sins of the “rum-debauched, -trader-corrupted vagabonds and thieves on the Susquehanna -and Ohio.” It was as illogical as if the Dutch should -seek revenge on the English for injuries done by the French, -merely because both English and French were white.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_88">88</div> -<p>To what good, he asked, had Old Shehaes, so ancient he had -been present at Penn’s Treaty in 1701, been cut to pieces in -his bed? What was to be gained by shooting or killing with -a hatchet little boys and girls—and a one-year-old baby? “This -is done by no civilized nation in Europe. Do we come to -America to learn and practise the manners of barbarians?” -The Conestoga Indians would have been safe among the -ancient heathen, the Turks, the Saracens, the Moors, the -Spanish, the Negroes—anywhere in the world “except in the -neighborhood of the Christian white savages.”</p> -<p>Christian white savages! That was a phrase to make people -wince. Those who shared the prejudices of the Paxton Boys -were highly indignant. But the Quakers agreed with him, and -the pamphlet convinced a surprising number of others that -it was their duty to defend their city and protect the Indians -who had sought refuge with them.</p> -<p>Panic spread as the Paxton rioters, armed and in an ugly -mood, approached Philadelphia. In the emergency Governor -John Penn turned to Franklin to reorganize his militia. Almost -overnight a thousand citizens rallied to arms, among them -Junto members and firemen. On February 8, word came that -the mob was at the city limits. The governor, with his councilors, -rushed to Franklin at midnight, seeking advice. His -house became their temporary headquarters.</p> -<p>The ford over the Schuylkill River was guarded. The Paxton -group bypassed it, turned north, crossed the river at another -ford, and came noisily into Germantown some ten miles -from Philadelphia.</p> -<p>“You go talk to them, Franklin,” pleaded the frightened -governor.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_89">89</div> -<p>Benjamin rode off to Germantown with only three of his -men, and spoke with the mob’s leaders so reasonably and -sternly they agreed to turn back. Three days later they had all -gone home and quiet was restored to the city.</p> -<p>“For about 48 hours, I was a very great man,” he wrote -Lord Kames. To Dr. Fothergill in London, he tersely described -his activities: “Your old friend was a common soldier, -a councillor, a kind of dictator, an ambassador to a country -mob, and, on his returning home, nobody again.”</p> -<p>The help he had given in a delicate situation did not win -him the governor’s approval. To his Uncle Thomas Penn he -wrote on May 5 that there would never be “any prospect of -ease and happiness while that villain has the liberty of spreading -about the poison of that inveterate malice and ill nature -which is deeply implanted in his own black heart.”</p> -<p>Instead of bringing the Paxton criminals to justice, John -Penn launched a bitter attack on the Pennsylvania Assembly, -whom he called “arrogant usurpers.” The Assembly membership -promptly voted as president their most controversial -member, Benjamin Franklin.</p> -<p>The annual elections for Assembly seats were held in October -1764. Two parties sprang up: Old Ticket, which supported -Franklin and Joseph Galloway, another liberal, as -candidates; New Ticket, the conservatives, the supporters of -the Penns, and the Indian haters in whose hearts still rankled -Franklin’s phrase, “white Christian savages.” The campaign -was stormy and there was mud slinging on both sides. In -Philadelphia, Old Ticket lost by 25 votes out of 4,000. Galloway -was upset. Franklin merely shrugged and went home -to bed.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_90">90</div> -<p>Only in Philadelphia had the New Ticket won. When the -returns came in from the rest of the province, Old Ticket -still had a majority in the Assembly. They convened on October -26, and voted to send the King a petition begging him -to take back the province from the Penns, making it a royal -province. Franklin prepared the petition and was selected to -take it in person to England. John Penn was blind with fury -but helpless.</p> -<p>Franklin was engaged in having a new house built on -Market Street between Third and Fourth. It was of brick, -thirty-four feet square, with three rooms to each floor, and -it had a pleasant garden. The kitchen was in the cellar with -a special arrangement of pipes “to carry off steam and smell -and smoke.” It would naturally be protected by a lightning -rod and would be heated by the now celebrated Franklin -stoves.</p> -<p>He did not like to leave his house unfinished and he dreaded -another separation from Debby, who was still terrified at the -thought of an Atlantic crossing. But the long political squabble -had bored and wearied him, and he looked forward to seeing -England and his English friends again.</p> -<p>“I will be gone only a few months,” he assured his wife and -his pretty daughter, when he left them in November 1764. He -could not then guess that the few months would stretch to -more than ten years.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_91">91</div> -<h2 id="c9"><span class="h2line1">9</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE STAMP ACT</span></h2> -<p>His ship, the <i>King of Prussia</i>, reached Portsmouth in just -thirty days. By December 11, 1764, he was ensconced once -more at 7 Craven Street, in the tender care of Polly and Mrs. -Stevenson, exuberant to have their kind American friend with -them once more. How pleasant to be spoiled by them, to resume -his dinners at the Royal Society, his meetings with his -scientific colleagues, to see again his many English acquaintances!</p> -<p>In respect to his mission, his return was less satisfactory. -The Penn family was as influential as ever. For nearly two -years, their scheming prevented him from getting the Assembly -petition so much as a hearing by the King’s Privy -Council. When at last, in November 1766, the hearing was -granted, the answer was short and decisive: the King had no -power to interfere with the rights of the proprietors of a -province. The petition was denied.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_92">92</div> -<p>Franklin tried in vain to have the decision reversed. The -proprietors officially retained their claims on Pennsylvania for -ten years more, until the events of 1776 changed the whole -structure of the American provinces.</p> -<p>An even more urgent crisis retained him in London. Lord -George Grenville, the same who had so blatantly stated that -the King’s word was law in the colonies, was now chief adviser -to George III. His situation was precarious and he knew -that his cabinet was doomed if he failed to raise some money. -And where would one find money if not by taxing the American -colonies? Since the Americans had no representation in -Parliament, no votes would be lost even should the colonists -grumble at being taxed.</p> -<p>So Grenville reasoned, and it was thus that he conceived -foisting the Stamp Act on the colonies. The Act was to tax -some fifty-five articles, including all legal papers, advertisements, -and marriage licenses. A liquor license required a tax -of four pounds; a pack of cards, one shilling; a pair of dice, -ten shillings. A newspaper on a half-sheet of paper must carry -a stamp worth one half-penny. A civil appointment worth -more than twenty pounds a year took a four-pound tax. A -college degree cost two pounds in taxes.</p> -<p>Grenville called the colonial agents together and discussed -his brainstorm with them. The money raised, he assured them, -would be used in America—for public works and for the maintenance -of British troops to protect them. If they had any -better idea for levying taxes, they should tell him. The agents, -Franklin among them, could only point out that no taxes would -be popular; that if Parliament needed money, the proper procedure -was to ask the Assemblies to raise what they could.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_93">93</div> -<p>Their objections were ignored. Politically, America was -then in disfavor. The English held that the seven-year struggle -with France, with its huge expenditure in lives and money, -had saved the thirteen colonies from French tyranny. They -should be grateful. They should want to help reduce the -national debt. Instead they were always clamoring for something -or other.</p> -<p>In quick succession the Stamp Act passed the House of -Lords and the House of Commons, and was approved by the -King on March 22, 1765, scheduled to go into effect on -November 1. Franklin felt that a bad mistake had been made, -but that, since the Stamp Act was now a law, it should be -obeyed until a way was found to get it repealed. To an American -friend he wrote that he opposed it “sincerely and heartily.” -He added philosophically, “Idleness and pride tax with a -heavier hand than kings and parliaments; if we can get rid -of the former, we may easily bear the latter.”</p> -<p>Grenville summoned Franklin to a conference. Was it not -a good idea to appoint Americans as stamp officers to distribute -the stamps, so that the colonists could deal with their own? -Did Franklin have anyone to suggest? Franklin proposed two—John -Hughes of Pennsylvania, who needed a job, and Jared -Ingersoll, agent for Connecticut. Somehow it did not occur -to him that he was throwing himself open to criticism at home.</p> -<p>An attack of gout kept him in bed for some time after the -passage of the Act. He amused himself with one of his hoaxes, -a letter to the newspapers mocking certain alleged economists -who claimed that the colonies could never be self-supporting.</p> -<p>In America, he wrote, the “very tails of the American sheep -are so laden with wool, that each has a little car or wagon -on four little wheels, to support and keep it from trailing on -the ground.” Wool was so cheap and plentiful that colonists -spread it on the floors of the horses’ stalls instead of straw.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_94">94</div> -<p>He next described a mythical “cod and whale fishery” on -the Great Lakes. Did people imagine that cod and whale lived -only in salt water? They should know how cod fled from -whales into any safe water, salt or fresh, and how the whales -pursued them: “The grand leap of the whale in the chase up -the falls of Niagara is esteemed, by all who have seen it, as one -of the finest spectacles in nature.”</p> -<p>Soon all London was chuckling about the whale that leaped -up the Niagara.</p> -<p>In the meantime a tempest was erupting in America. The -Stamp Act which Franklin had taken so calmly had evoked -a clamor throughout the colonies, loudest in New England -and Virginia. At the House of Burgesses in lovely Williamsburg, -an eloquent young Virginian named Patrick Henry rose -to declare the act “illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust,” and -to spout a set of resolutions, defining the rights of colonists as -British subjects, as had never been done so effectively. The -Virginia Resolves were printed in all the colonial newspapers, -setting aflame a smoldering indignation. A new organization, -the Sons of Liberty, held parades and protest meetings.</p> -<p>Franklin was plainly shocked. “The rashness of the Assembly -in Virginia is amazing,” he wrote John Hughes, his -appointee as stamp officer. “A firm loyalty to the Crown ... -will always be the wisest course.” The stupid Lord Grenville -had been succeeded in July by the Marquis of Rockingham. -Franklin was hopeful he could be persuaded of the folly and -injustice of the tax. All that was needed was patience.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_95">95</div> -<p>But the word patience had no appeal in America. When the -names of the stamp officers were published in August, riots -broke out from New Hampshire to South Carolina. Mobs -gathered in front of the house of John Hughes, burning him -in effigy, threatening him with hanging and drowning, until -he was forced to resign. Similar demonstrations forced resignations -from Jared Ingersoll and other stamp officers. By the -time the stamps arrived, there were almost no officers to distribute -them. As a further measure, the colonists began to -boycott British goods, to the sorrow of the British merchants -who henceforth became the most ardent advocates of repeal.</p> -<p>The Penn supporters took advantage of the fray to point -out that it was Lord Grenville who was responsible for the -hated act—not the proprietors. As for Benjamin Franklin, -everyone in England knew he was on excellent terms with -Grenville. In the stormy atmosphere, exaggeration mounted -to falsehood. Soon people were saying that Franklin had -framed the act, helped to get it passed, and accepted pay for -recommending the stamp officers.</p> -<p>Debby became marked as the wife of the man who had -betrayed his trust, and old friends slighted her on the street. -There were rumblings about burning their handsome new -home. Governor William Franklin worriedly came to try to -persuade her and Sally to take refuge with him in New Jersey. -She let Sally go but refused to budge herself.</p> -<p>Cool-headedly and courageously, she collected guns and -ammunition and enough provisions to see her through a siege. -Her brother came to stay with her as did one of Franklin’s -nephews. The house was turned into an arsenal. But no attacks -were made. In her heart Debby was sure there would be none. -Why should anyone want to hurt her or Pappy?</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_96">96</div> -<p>The object of this fury was in that very period working -tirelessly to achieve repeal by peaceful means. “I was extremely -busy,” he wrote Lord Kames, “attending members of both -Houses, informing, explaining, consulting, disputing, in a -continual hurry from morning to night.”</p> -<p>He conferred with leading statesmen, such as Lord Dartmouth, -so much respected in America that a college was -named for him. He dined with the Minister Lord Rockingham, -and found an ally in Rockingham’s private secretary, a gifted -Irishman named Edmund Burke. He sought out the manufacturers -and merchants who were suffering from the American -boycott, and enlisted their support. He wrote letters to -newspapers to convince England’s common people that the -Stamp Act was a major obstacle to Anglo-American friendship.</p> -<p>He used his charm, his wit, his power of persuasion, his -writing talents, his high reputation as a scientist, all as weapons -to win friends for the American cause. The other colonial -agents worked with him, but none could equal his activities. -The news from America saddened him and he knew he had -to fight, not only to save his own prestige, but to preserve -what then seemed to him terribly important—the harmony -between the colonists and the Crown.</p> -<p>Finally, in February 1766, there was a breakthrough in the -wall of seeming indifference. The House of Commons summoned -him to answer questions of the probable effects of the -Stamp Act in America. He was dead with fatigue and troubled -with gout, but inwardly he was jubilant. He had coached his -friends in Parliament in advance on what to ask, and guessed -without difficulty the line of inquiry of the opposition.</p> -<p>“What is your name and place of abode?” the Speaker asked -first.</p> -<p>“Franklin of Philadelphia,” he said, as if there were no need -to be more explicit.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_97">97</div> -<p>For three hours the questions rained down on him. He -answered fully, drawing from his vast knowledge of American -affairs. As he spoke in his dry quiet voice, peering at the -House members over his spectacles, he gave the impression -of a schoolmaster instructing a group of students.</p> -<p>“Do the Americans pay any considerable taxes among themselves?” -asked James Hewitt, Member for Coventry, a town -that manufactured the worsteds and ribbons which the colonists -had stopped buying.</p> -<p>They paid many and heavy taxes, Franklin said. He enumerated -them precisely, stressing the debt contracted in the -recent war, stressing too that people of the frontier counties -were so impoverished by enemy raids they could contribute -nothing.</p> -<p>“From the thinness of the back settlements, would not the -Stamp Act be extremely inconvenient to the inhabitants?” -This was certainly a question he had formulated himself.</p> -<p>It definitely would, Franklin said. “Many of the inhabitants -could not get stamps when they had occasion for them without -taking long journeys and spending perhaps three or four -pounds that the Crown might get sixpence.”</p> -<p>There were many more questions and then the Stamp Act’s -creator, Lord Grenville, asked sharply, “Do you think it right -that America should be protected by this country and pay no -part of the expense?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_98">98</div> -<p>“That is not the case,” Franklin told them. “The colonies -raised, clothed, and paid, during the last war, near 25,000 men -and spent many millions.” Though they were supposed to be -reimbursed by Parliament, in actual fact they received only -a small part of their expenses. “Pennsylvania, in particular, -disbursed about 500,000 pounds and the reimbursements in the -whole did not exceed 60,000 pounds.”</p> -<p>He had at his fingertips equally factual data on every subject -that arose.</p> -<p>Someone asked, “Do you not think the people of America -would submit to pay the stamp duty if it was moderated?”</p> -<p>“No, never,” Franklin stated, “unless compelled by force -of arms.”</p> -<p>Another asked, “What was the temper of America toward -Great Britain before the year 1763?”</p> -<p>He replied, “The best in the world. They submitted willingly -to the government of the Crown, and paid, in all their -courts, obedience to the acts of Parliament.... They had -not only a respect but an affection for Great Britain.”</p> -<p>“And what is their temper now?” he was asked.</p> -<p>“Oh, very much altered,” he assured them.</p> -<p>“What used to be the pride of the Americans?”</p> -<p>“To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great -Britain.”</p> -<p>“What is now their pride?”</p> -<p>“To wear their old clothes over again till they can make -new ones,” he said calmly.</p> -<p>The session ended with this verbal blow leaving them -gasping.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_99">99</div> -<p>He had never considered himself a public speaker, and never -before or after spoken so long before such a large audience, -but he had won his point. In less than a month, on March 8, -the Stamp Act repeal had passed both houses of Parliament and -received the reluctant assent of the King. Franklin’s “Examination” -was published in London, and later that year in Boston, -New York, Philadelphia, Williamsburg, and elsewhere in the -colonies. It was translated into French and German.</p> -<p>It was a wonderful victory. There was rejoicing throughout -America. Philadelphia coffeehouses made gifts to the crew of -the ship that brought the news. Taverns served punch and -beer on the house. Benjamin Franklin was once more a hero. -Even the Penn supporters had to admit he had done a fine job. -At the Philadelphia State House, 300 guests of the governor -and the mayor drank a toast to him.</p> -<p>Franklin’s own celebration was to go shopping. With Mrs. -Stevenson to guide him, he bought more presents for his wife -and Sally—fourteen yards of Pompadour satin for a new gown, -a silk negligee, a petticoat of “brocaded lutestring,” a Turkish -carpet, crimson mohair for curtains, three damask tablecloths, -and a box of “three fine cheeses.”</p> -<p>“Perhaps a bit of them may be left when I come home,” he -wrote hopefully to Debby.</p> -<p>He had asked the Pennsylvania Assembly to let him come -home but instead they appointed him agent for another year.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_100">100</div> -<h2 id="c10"><span class="h2line1">10</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">FRIENDSHIPS IN ENGLAND</span></h2> -<p>Some time early in 1766, a young man named Joseph -Priestley, a dissenting minister and a teacher of classical languages -in Warrington, Lancashire, came to see Franklin to -ask his help for a history of electricity he was writing. Franklin -gladly gave him assistance and told him of his kite experiment -in more detail than he had done to anyone before.</p> -<p>Impressed with Priestley’s scientific talents, he recommended -him to membership in the Royal Society. Priestley more than -fulfilled his expectations. A few years later he would discover -oxygen—calling it by the cumbersome name of “dephlogistated -air.” He also became a lifelong friend of the American -colonies.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_101">101</div> -<p>Inevitably, the most brilliant scientists in England and the -continent sought Franklin out and, except for a few jealous -ones, were added to the circle of his friendships. Among the -most intimate of these was John Pringle, whom he had met -on his last English trip and who was now Sir John, personal -Physician to England’s Queen. Samuel Johnson’s biographer, -Boswell, once called on Pringle and found him and Franklin -playing chess.</p> -<p>Boswell wrote: “Sir John, though a most worthy man, has -a peculiar sour manner. Franklin again is all jollity and pleasantry. -I said to myself: Here is a prime contrast: acid and -alkali.”</p> -<p>With Pringle, Franklin took a trip to the continent in June -1766. They stayed first in Pyrmont, in what is now West -Germany, a fashionable mineral springs resort. From there -they visited Göttingen, where the Royal Society of Sciences -elected both to membership. They met Rudolf Erich Raspe, -narrator of the famous tall tales of the adventures of Baron -Münchausen. In their turn, Pringle and Franklin entertained -their new friends with stories about the giant Patagonians of -South America, which neither of them had of course ever -seen. When Franklin later read the newspaper accounts of -their voyage, he noted with amusement that the Patagonians -had grown even taller in the hands of the press.</p> -<p>A letter was waiting for him in London from Debby, saying -that Sally wanted his consent to marry a young man named -Richard Bache. Franklin was too far away to judge the merits -of her suitor: “I can only say that if he proves a good husband -to her, and a good son to me, he shall find me as good a father -as I can be,” he wrote. The marriage took place in October -1767. The ships in the harbor in Philadelphia ran up their flags -to celebrate the wedding of the daughter of their most famous -citizen.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_102">102</div> -<p>The ministry of Lord Rockingham, in which Franklin had -such confidence, toppled while he was in Germany. The King -and William Pitt, now Lord Chatham, set up a coalition -cabinet. Pitt, still a good friend of the American colonies, soon -fell violently ill, during which time the reins of the government -were seized by Charles Townshend, chancellor of the -exchequer.</p> -<p>Townshend considered the whole colonial uproar over taxes -“perfect nonsense.” Since the Americans had balked at the -<i>internal</i> Stamp Tax, he resolved to let them pay <i>external</i> taxes, -in the form of import duties on glass, lead, paper, paints—and -tea.</p> -<p>By the Townshend Acts, duties were to be collected by -English revenue officers. The acts violated the time-honored -right of trial by jury; those accused of ignoring the revenue -laws were to be tried in the admiralty courts without a jury. -As an added insult, the revenue collected was to be used for -the salaries of royal governors and judges who previously had -been paid by the Assemblies and thus subject to some colonial -control.</p> -<p>Franklin foresaw grave danger ahead. The Americans -would not accept these harsh measures. “Every act of oppression -will sour their tempers,” he wrote Lord Kames, “lessen -greatly—if not annihilate ... the profits of your commerce -with them, and hasten their final revolt; for the seeds of liberty -are universally found there, and nothing can eradicate them.” -He felt that the colonists’ affection for Britain was such that -“if cultivated prudently” they might be easily governed “without -force or any considerable expense.” But he did not see “a -sufficient quantity of the wisdom that is necessary to produce -such a conduct.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_103">103</div> -<p>The lack of “a sufficient quantity of the wisdom” on the -part of Parliament and the ministry was almost daily becoming -more obvious to him. Still he continued his course of education -and propaganda and persuasion, and of meeting with men -in the government whom he hoped to influence. Many listened -to him. The young and wealthy Earl of Shelburne, Secretary -of State for the Colonies, became his close friend. In recognition -of his usefulness to his country, in 1768 he was chosen -agent for Georgia; in 1769, for New Jersey; and in 1770, for -Massachusetts.</p> -<p>Nearly every year he took a trip from London for his -health and to refresh his mind. In the fall of 1767, he made his -first visit to France, again in the company of his “steady, good -friend,” Sir John Pringle. As a loyal subject of an England -frequently at war with France, he was prejudiced in advance -against “that intriguing nation,” as he called it. Even this first -short visit led him to reverse his opinion.</p> -<p>“It seems to be a point settled here universally that strangers -are to be treated with respect,” he wrote Polly Stevenson. -“Why don’t we practise this urbanity to Frenchmen? Why -should they be allowed to outdo us in anything?” Already he -was adopting French fashions. “I had not been here six days -before my tailor and peruquier [wig maker] had transformed -me into a Frenchman. Only think what a figure I make in a -little bag-wig and naked ears! They told me I was become -twenty years younger, and looked very <i>galant</i>.”</p> -<p>In French scientific circles, his name was legendary. Scientists -bragged that they were <i>Franklinistes</i>, a word they had -coined. Thomas d’Alibard, the first to draw electricity from -the skies, entertained him royally. At Versailles, he and Sir -John were presented to Louis XV, whose praise of his electrical -experiments Franklin could hardly have forgotten, and -whom he found “a handsome man, has a very lively look, and -appears younger than he is.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_104">104</div> -<p>The King “talked a good deal to Sir John,” he wrote Polly, -“asking many questions about our royal family; and did me -too the honour of taking some notice of me. That’s saying -enough, for I would not have you think me so much pleased -with this king and queen as to have a whit less regard than I -used to have for ours.” “Our king” to him was still George III.</p> -<p>He thought Versailles badly kept up in spite of its splendor -but was impressed with the way drinking water was kept pure -by filtering it through cisterns filled with sand.</p> -<p>It seemed as though every time he turned his back to -London there were changes in the ministry. Townshend, who -had done more than any man before him to turn the Americans -into revolutionists, died in September 1767. He was succeeded -by the Tory, Lord North, a pompous thick-lipped personage, -who had neither the will nor the desire to improve colonial -relations. William Pitt’s health was still poor. He collapsed in -1768 in the House of Lords, in the midst of a fiery attack on -his government’s American policies. In the same year, the -pleasant Lord Shelburne was succeeded by the Earl of Hillsborough, -a master of hypocrisy in Franklin’s estimation, as -Secretary of State for the Colonies.</p> -<p>In America, the Massachusetts Assembly sent a letter to -other colony assemblies, proposing united opposition to the -Townshend Acts. Hillsborough demanded that they rescind -their action or dissolve. The Assembly refused, and was -backed by the other colonies. In October 1768, the British -sent eight ships of war to try to compel Boston to pay the -import taxes. Other ships followed. By one estimate the extra -military expenses that year were five thousand times the -amount which the Townshend Acts produced in revenue. -Franklin had judged their stupidity rightly.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_105">105</div> -<p>In the midst of the American protests against these acts, he -was entertained by the Lord Chancellor Lord Bathurst and -Lady Bathurst. He brought them a gift of American nuts and -apples. With an irony that his lordship could not have missed, -he prayed them to accept his present “as a tribute from the -country, small indeed but voluntary.” The nuts and apples -had come from Debby, who also sent him such American -products as corn meal, buckwheat flour, cranberries and dried -peaches.</p> -<p>That year young Christian VII of Denmark visited England, -and insisted that Franklin dine with him at St. James. He -would not have been human had he not recalled the proverb -of Solomon which his father had so frequently quoted in his -childhood. Now he had not only stood before one king, -Louis XV, he had sat down with a second. There would be -others.</p> -<p>The English tried for two more years to make the colonists -pay duties they did not want to pay. At last, on March 5, -1770, Parliament voted unanimously to repeal all of them but -the tax on tea. Franklin commented dryly that repealing only -part of the duties was as bad surgery as to leave splinters in a -wound “which must prevent its healing.” In Boston on that -same day a squad of British soldiers fired into a crowd which -had been pelting them with snowballs—killing five and wounding -six. The “Boston Massacre” became a <i>cause célèbre</i>. -Bloodshed had been added to the other colony grievances.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_106">106</div> -<p>The next summer Franklin visited Ireland. In Dublin, he -attended two sessions of the Irish Parliament. The Speaker -introduced him as “an American gentleman of distinguished -character and merit,” and he was given a place of honor. He -noted that the Irish Parliamentarians were more cordial than -their English counterparts, but was too astute not to realize -they did not really represent their own people. Ireland, like -America, had suffered under British oppressive measures, but -more intensely and longer. The appalling misery of the Irish -people was a moral lesson to him. He foresaw that if the colonists -did not continue to insist on their rights, they would -suffer the same wretched fate.</p> -<p>Sally’s husband, Richard Bache, came to England that fall -to meet his famous father-in-law. Bache had set his heart on -getting a political appointment and had brought a thousand -pounds in case he would have to pay for it. Even members of -the House of Commons bought their posts, a practice which -was responsible for much of the corruption and inefficiency -of the government. Franklin advised his son-in-law to stay -clear of politics.</p> -<p>“Invest your money in merchandise. Start a store in Philadelphia. -You will be independent and less subject to the -caprices of superiors.”</p> -<p>Bache followed this advice and within a few years was one -of Pennsylvania’s most respected merchants.</p> -<p>That year Lord Hillsborough, with whom Franklin’s relations -had been only outwardly civil, was succeeded by Lord -Dartmouth, whom he liked. Again his hopes were raised for a -cessation of hostilities. In truth, the ministry and Parliament -had never treated him more cordially.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_107">107</div> -<p>“As to my situation here,” he wrote his son on August -19, 1772, “nothing can be more agreeable ... a general respect -paid me by the learned, a number of friends and -acquaintances among them with whom I have a pleasing intercourse -... my company so much desired that I seldom dine -at home in winter and could spend the whole summer in the -country houses of inviting friends if I chose it.... The king -too has lately been heard to speak of me with great regard.” -In a postscript he mentioned that the French Royal Academy -had chosen him a foreign member, of which there were only -eight.</p> -<p>His Craven Street family was now enlarged to include his -grandson William Temple Franklin, and a distant English -cousin named Sally Franklin who was, like his daughter, an -eager young girl “nimble-footed and willing to run errands -and wait upon me.” Mrs. Stevenson continued to pamper him -and nurse him during his spells of gout. Polly, for whom he -always had great affection, was married to a young doctor, -William Hewson. The young couple had been living with -their mother since 1770.</p> -<p>There were several weeks when Mrs. Stevenson was away, -leaving Polly in charge. To amuse them, Franklin composed a -newspaper, the <i>Craven Street Gazette</i>, reporting the daily -household happenings as though they were world events. In -this sheet, Mrs. Stevenson was “Queen Margaret,” Sally was -“first maid of honor,” Polly and her husband were “Lord and -Lady Hewson,” while he referred to himself as the “Great -Person”—“so called from his enormous size.”</p> -<p>When Debby wrote him of the cleverness of his grandson -Benjamin Franklin Bache, born in August 1769, Franklin responded -with anecdotes about Polly’s first boy, whose godfather -he was.</p> -<p>Wherever he was, a rich family life was as essential to his -happiness as food. Among his close friends was Jonathan Shipley, -bishop of St. Asaph, at Twyford. “I now breathe with -reluctance the smoke of London, when I think of the sweet -air of Twyford,” he wrote after a visit there in June 1771.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_108">108</div> -<p>The bishop had five daughters and a son, and Franklin more -or less adopted them all. To the Shipley girls he presented a -gray squirrel which Debby had sent. They were thrilled with -Skugg, as they named him. One day the squirrel escaped from -his cage and was killed by a dog. The children buried him in -their garden and Franklin composed his epitaph:</p> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0">Here Skugg</p> -<p class="t0">Lies snug</p> -<p class="t0">As a bug</p> -<p class="t0">In a rug.</p> -</div> -<p>At the Shipleys he wrote the first part of his famous <i>Autobiography</i> -in the form of a letter to William.</p> -<p>Another of his intimates was Lord Le Despencer, former -chancellor of the exchequer, who in his youth was reputedly -the “wickedest man in England.” Franklin found him a delightful -companion and often stayed at his country place at -Wycombe. “I am in this house,” he wrote William, “as much -at my ease as if it was my own; and the gardens are a paradise. -But a pleasanter thing is the kind countenance, the facetious -and very intelligent conversation of mine host.” With Lord -Le Despencer, the alleged “rake,” he wrote an <i>Abridgement -of the Book of Common Prayer</i>, published in 1773.</p> -<p>He was a frequent guest of Lord Shelburne, whose vast -wooded estate was also at Wycombe. One windy day he -gravely told the other visitors that he could quiet the waves -on a small stream on the grounds. Ignoring their skeptical -looks, he walked upstream, made some mysterious passes over -the water, and waved his cane three times in the air. As he -had prophesied, the waves quieted down and the stream became -smooth as a mirror. His companions could not conceal -their astonishment.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_109">109</div> -<p>Later he satisfied their curiosity. There was oil in the hollow -joint of his cane. A few drops of it spread in a thin film -over the water and caused the seeming miracle.</p> -<p>Back of this trick was a great deal of serious study on the -effects of pouring oil on troubled waters. In his youth he had -read in Pliny how sailors of ancient Greece had smoothed a -choppy sea in this manner. On one of his ocean crossings an -old sea captain told him that Bermuda fishermen poured oil -on rough waters so they could see the fish strike. Subsequently, -he had made his own experiments, finding that one -teaspoon of oil would calm a pond several yards across.</p> -<p>If such a minute bit of oil would still a pond, would not -several barrels of oil level out the surf, making it possible for -boats to land with less danger? He tried out this theory the -next year at Portsmouth, England. With a local sea captain he -took off on a barge one windy day, sprinkling oil on the waves -from a large stone bottle. The experiment was only partially -successful. Oil did not diminish the height or force of the surf -on the shore, but he had the satisfaction of seeing that where -the oil had spread, the surface of the water was not wrinkled -by smaller waves or whitecaps.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_110">110</div> -<p>His scientific and cultural interests were as varied as life -itself. He was in turn occupied with the nature of mastodon -tusks and teeth which a friend sent to London, with the transit -of Venus, the causes of lead poisoning, population increase, -geology, salt mines, Scottish tunes, whirlwinds and water-spouts, -and the science of phonetics—the need of reforms to -reduce the “disorderly confusion in English spelling”—and the -curious fact that flies apparently drowned in a bottle of Madeira -wine might sometimes be brought back to life.</p> -<p>His observations on all these matters were published in -<i>Letters on Philosophical Subjects</i>, and added to the fourth edition -of “Experiments and Observations on Electricity.” Barbeu -Dubourg, a Parisian printer, issued a French translation in -two handsome volumes, which included “The Way to Wealth,” -under the French title, “<i>Le Moyen de s’Enricher</i>.”</p> -<p>Philadelphia, wrote Dubourg in his preface, was founded in -the midst of the savages of America by William Penn, a man -wiser than the Spartan hero Lycurgus. In less than a century -the city had gone far beyond the ancient world in the practice -of the purest virtues and the most useful arts. Benjamin -Franklin, scientist, statesman, and sage, had now brought this -heroic age to troubled Europe.</p> -<p>The legend of Benjamin Franklin, which would mount to -greater heights in France than anywhere else in the world, -was already in the making.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_111">111</div> -<h2 id="c11"><span class="h2line1">11</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE TERRIBLE HUTCHINSON LETTERS</span></h2> -<p>At sixty-seven, Franklin had an expression at once benign, -kindly, and humorous. His years in England had subtly -altered his appearance and his manner. He dressed with elegance -in a smooth wig and fashionable ruffles, and he was -equally at ease with eleven-year-old Kitty Shipley or the -King’s ministers. During the London season, he set out each -afternoon in his coach, often with Temple, his lively grandson, -to leave his card or pay calls on members of Parliament -or other influential persons whom he wished to win over to -the American cause.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_112">112</div> -<p>In the year 1773, he was most concerned with the threat of -the British troops still stationed in Boston three years after the -“Boston Massacre.” Wherever he thought it might help, he -argued the folly of treating Bostonians like troublesome children. -“I am in perpetual anxiety lest the mad measure of mixing -soldiers among a people whose minds are in such a state of -irritation, may be attended with some sudden mischief,” he -wrote his Boston correspondent, Thomas Cushing.</p> -<p>One day, during a conversation on this subject, a British -“gentleman of character and distinction” told him that he was -wrong to blame the English for the troops in Boston. They -had been requested by some of his most respectable fellow -countrymen.</p> -<p>Franklin was incredulous. The gentleman then turned over -to him some letters written between 1767 and 1769 by two -Massachusetts Crown officers, both native Americans, Thomas -Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver. In effect, it was as Franklin -had been told. Hutchinson, and Oliver too, pleaded of England -“a firm hand,” even armed forces, to keep order. They -demanded for Massachusetts “an abridgment of what are -called English liberties.”</p> -<p>By the time Franklin read these letters, Oliver was lieutenant -governor of Massachusetts and Thomas Hutchinson was governor. -Hutchinson had as an excuse that his house had been -ransacked during the Stamp Act furor. This did not alter that -he had been undermining the work of colonial agents and betraying -the very people he had been chosen to govern.</p> -<p>In his position as agent for Massachusetts, Franklin knew he -must warn their Assembly. After some reflection, he sent the -letters to Thomas Cushing, asking that they be returned to him -after Cushing and members of the Assembly Committee of -Correspondence, a small and trusted group, had studied them. -He further explained that he could not reveal the source of -the letters and that he was not at liberty to make them public. -He had no scruples about showing the letters since they were -political, not personal, but he had to protect the “gentleman -of distinction” who had entrusted them with him.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_113">113</div> -<p>In due time the letters reached Cushing, who followed -Franklin’s instructions. Neither Cushing nor anyone else who -saw the letters could prevent their being talked about. In June -1773, Samuel Adams, one of the most ardent of Boston -patriots, read them to a secret session of the Massachusetts -Assembly. Someone took the responsibility of having them -copied and printed. In the public uproar that ensued, the Assembly -prepared a petition to the King to remove both Hutchinson -and Oliver from office.</p> -<p>Perhaps it was for the best, Franklin decided when the news -reached him. Without reproaches, he wrote Cushing that he -was grateful his own name had not been mentioned, “though -I hardly expect it.” He only hoped that the letters’ publication -would not “occasion some riot of mischievous consequence.”</p> -<p>He was continuing his own methodical and unrelenting -pressure to bring reason to the English government. In September -1773, an anonymous and stinging satire appeared in the -<i>Public Advertiser</i> under the title “Rules by Which a Great -Empire may be Reduced to a Small One.” Among the rules -cited were:</p> -<blockquote> -<p>Forget that their colonies were founded at the expense of -the colonists;</p> -<p>Resent their importance to the Empire;</p> -<p>Suppose them always inclined to revolt, and treat them accordingly;</p> -<p>Choose “inferior, rapacious and pettifogging” men for governors -and judges in the provinces;—and reward these men for -having governed badly.</p> -</blockquote> -<div class="pb" id="Page_114">114</div> -<p>In all, the “Rules” encompassed every fault and folly of -which England was guilty in its treatment of the American -colonies. Ministers and members of Parliament could not -doubt that the piece came from the quill pen of Benjamin -Franklin. It was followed by an even more devastating attack -on British policy: “Edict by the King of Prussia.”</p> -<p>Frederick the Great of Prussia, the “Edict” announced, was -now taking up his claims on the province of Great Britain, -which had been settled originally by German colonists and had -never been emancipated. Hence the Prussian government had -the right to exact revenue from its “British colonies,” to lay -duties on all goods they exported or imported, to forbid all -manufacturing in these “colonies.”</p> -<p>From now on, should the British need hats, they must send -raw materials to Prussia, which would manufacture the hats and -let the British purchase them. (This was exactly the manner -in which the British were preventing American manufacture.) -Next, Prussia planned to ship to “the island of Great Britain” -all the “thieves, highway and street robbers, housebreakers, -and murderers” whom they “do not think fit here to hang.” -(Here Franklin returned to an old grievance—Britain’s using -the colonies as a dumping ground for convicts. In 1751 he had -proposed tongue-in-cheek to send American rattlesnakes to -England in exchange.)</p> -<p>He was visiting Lord Le Despencer when a servant brought -to the breakfast table the newspaper which had printed the -“Edict” hoax. A fellow guest named Paul Whitehead read the -first paragraphs and exploded:</p> -<p>“Here’s the King of Prussia claiming a right to this kingdom.... -I dare say we shall hear by next post that he is upon -his march with one hundred thousand men to back this.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_115">115</div> -<p>Franklin kept a straight face. Whitehead read on until, as -absurdities piled up, it dawned on him that he had been taken:</p> -<p>“I’ll be hanged, Franklin, if this is not some of your American -jokes upon us.”</p> -<p>They admitted he had made his point very cleverly and all -had a good laugh.</p> -<p>But neither the “Rules” nor the “Edict” persuaded Parliament -and the ministry to change their ways. Colonial resentment -focused on the tax on tea, which small as it was, -remained a “splinter in the unhealed wound.” In Boston, on -December 16, 1773, fifty citizens, dressed as Mohawk Indians, -defiantly dumped 342 chests of British tea into the ocean. -Parliament, when the news reached London, acted swiftly. -Until restitution was made for the tea, the port of Boston was -to be closed. Four more regiments under General Thomas -Gage were sent to keep order. Boston became an occupied -city, unable to conduct its commerce and faced with financial -ruin.</p> -<p>Pay for the tea, Franklin urged his Boston colleagues. The -Boston Tea Party was an act of lawlessness which could only -harm the cause of the colonies. Just as the colonists were unaware -of the problems that faced him daily in England, so he -was too far away to appreciate the fire of indignation that was -sweeping America.</p> -<p>In the meantime a scandal had erupted in London as a result -of the publication of Governor Hutchinson’s letters. Two -gentlemen, William Whately and John Temple, had each accused -the other of making the letters public. They carried the -argument to the newspapers, and then Temple challenged -Whately to a duel. It was fought at Hyde Park on December 11, -with pistols and swords. Whately was wounded. -Neither party was satisfied.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_116">116</div> -<p>Franklin was out of town when the duel took place. After -he heard about it, he realized what he had to do. On Christmas -Day, a letter signed by him appeared in the <i>Public Advertiser</i>, -which said that both Whately and Temple were “ignorant and -innocent” of the publication of the Hutchinson letters, that -he was the one who had obtained them and sent them to Boston. -The entire blame was his. He did not give the name of the -man who had turned the letters over to him. This secret he -carried to his grave.</p> -<p>How many high-placed persons in England were waiting to -get something on this imperturbable Philadelphian! How many -resented the way, like Socrates’ gadfly, he forced them to admit -what they did not want to admit, and pestered them -eternally with his troublesome colonies. Now they would have -their revenge. Franklin knew his admission would bring wrath -on his head. He had not long to wait.</p> -<p>On January 29, 1774, he was summoned to the Cockpit -Tavern, to a meeting of the King’s Privy Council for Plantation -Affairs. The subject given was the petition of the Massachusetts -Assembly for the removal from office of Andrew -Oliver and Governor Hutchinson. Franklin’s friends had informed -him already that the petition was to be denied. There -were even rumors that his papers might be seized and himself -thrown in prison. He was prepared for the worst.</p> -<p>He arrived on time, dressed in a suit of figured Manchester -velvet, wearing an old-fashioned curled wig, and carrying the -same cane with which he had once quieted the ripples on the -stream at Lord Shelburne’s estate.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_117">117</div> -<p>Thirty-six members of the Privy Council were seated -around a large table. Among them were the Archbishop of -Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the Duke of Queensberry, -Lord Dartmouth, whom he had found sympathetic; Lord Hillsborough, -who hated and feared him; and the Earl of Sandwich -(from whom the word “sandwich” was derived); the -London head of the post office, a conceited individual who -disliked everything that Franklin stood for. Among them, -Franklin could be positive of only one friend—Lord Le Despencer.</p> -<p>A few spectators had been admitted, including Joseph -Priestley, the scientist, and Edmund Burke, the Irish peer. -They stood behind the table since there were no extra chairs. -No one offered Franklin a chair either. For the entire hearing -he stood by the fireplace, facing the councilors.</p> -<p>It opened with a reading of the Massachusetts petition and -of the Hutchinson and Oliver letters. Franklin’s lawyer, John -Dunning, appealed to the King’s “wisdom and goodness” to -favor the petition and remove the two men from their posts, -as a gesture to quiet colonial unrest. Then Alexander Wedderburn, -lawyer for Hutchinson, took over.</p> -<p>His speech, which lasted an hour, was from beginning to -end a tirade against Franklin. Franklin could have got hold of -the controversial letters only by fraudulent or corrupt means, -he said. His own letter, clearing Whately and Temple of -blame, was “impossible to read without horror.” Franklin was -“a receiver of goods dishonorably come by.” He had duped -the “innocent, well-meaning farmers” of the Massachusetts -Assembly.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_118">118</div> -<p>Wedderburn’s accusations grew wilder as he warmed to his -subject. Franklin wanted to become governor himself, he -stated categorically. That was why he had taken on himself -“to furnish materials for dissensions; to set at variance the -different branches of the legislature; and to irritate and incense -the minds of the King’s subjects against the King’s governor.”</p> -<p>While Wedderburn continued to spew forth his poisonous -invective, Franklin stood stoically, his face impassive, seemingly -unaware either of the triumphal smirks of his enemies or -the compassionate glances of his friends. People agreed later -that his silence, in face of the screams of his adversary, showed -him the stronger man. When the hearing was over, he went -quietly home alone.</p> -<p>He made no answer to Wedderburn, nor even to those -closest to him did he indicate that the attack rankled. To -Thomas Cushing he wrote, “Splashes of dirt thrown upon my -character I suffered while fresh to remain. I did not choose to -spread by endeavouring to remove them, but relied on the vulgar -adage that they would all rub off when they were dry.”</p> -<p>The day after the hearing he was notified of his dismissal as -deputy postmaster-general of the colonies. This was a severe -blow, for he had prided himself on the efficient work he had -done in this service. Then, on February 7, 1774, the King -formally rejected the Massachusetts Assembly petition to remove -Hutchinson and Oliver.</p> -<p>Seemingly Franklin’s usefulness as a provincial agent was -ended. He thought of going home but decided against it. Critical -days were ahead. He felt he might still, in spite of his disgrace, -find ways of helping his country.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_119">119</div> -<p>Except that he had no direct dealings with the ministry or -Parliament, his life went on as before. He discussed scientific -matters with Joseph Priestley, among them the phenomenon -of marsh gas. When Polly Hewson’s husband died, leaving -her with three children, he grieved with and for her. He -worried lest William be removed from the governorship of -New Jersey as further punishment to him, but this did not -happen.</p> -<p>In September 1774, a dark-haired youngish man, who spoke -in the Quaker manner, paid him a visit. His name was Thomas -Paine, he said. He was fascinated by Franklin’s work in electricity -and gave evidence of being well informed himself on -scientific matters. He had also done a bit of writing, particularly -a quite eloquent petition to Parliament on the plight of -the excisemen, a petition that had cost him his own job in the -excise service.</p> -<p>He had a dream of going to America, Paine confided. -Would Dr. Franklin be good enough to give him some advice?</p> -<p>Franklin rarely refused such requests. In this case, he was -sufficiently impressed to write a note of recommendation to -his son-in-law Richard Bache. He could not guess the enormous -favor he was doing his homeland by sending Thomas -Paine to America’s shores.</p> -<p>Massachusetts had rejected Franklin’s advice to pay for the -Boston Tea Party. Other colonies were coming to the rescue -of beleaguered Boston. Connecticut sent flocks of sheep. From -Virginia came flour. South Carolina gave rice. Franklin was -delighted; at last the colonies were helping each other, nearly -twenty years after he had proposed a union at the Albany conference.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_120">120</div> -<p>When the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in -May 1774, he was full of praise for “the coolness, temper, and -firmness of the American proceedings,” and he was all in -favor of a strong boycott of British manufacturers. “If America -would save for three or four years the money she spends in -fashions and fineries and fopperies of this country she might -buy the whole Parliament, ministers and all.”</p> -<p>At last his beloved colonies were learning the value of concerted -and dignified action, so much more effective, in his -thinking, than mob actions.</p> -<p>As the crisis deepened, one by one important statesmen -sought him out and almost humbly asked his advice as to -what they should do. The great William Pitt summoned him -in August. Did he think the colonists would go as far as to ask -for independence? Franklin assured him, truthfully, that he -“never had heard in any conversation, from any person drunk -or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation or hint -that such a thing would be advantageous to America.”</p> -<p>He received an invitation to play chess with the sister of -Admiral Lord Richard Howe. At their second session, Miss -Howe pressed him to tell her what should be done to settle -the dispute between Great Britain and the colonies. “They -should kiss and be friends,” he said lightly. Nor would he be -more explicit when she brought Admiral Lord Howe to talk -with him. In his heart he knew it was now too late to repair -the many blunders on the part of Parliament and the King.</p> -<p>On December 18, 1774, he received the Declaration of -Rights and Grievances, a petition from the First Continental -Congress to George III. The King, who was having the first -of those attacks which would end in insanity, ignored it completely. -With William Pitt, Admiral Lord Howe, and other of -the more reasonable officials, Franklin spent long hours trying -to work out a compromise that would keep the peace. It was -all in vain.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_121">121</div> -<p>In the midst of these labors, word reached him that his -faithful Debby had died of a stroke on December 19—the day -after the arrival of the petition.</p> -<p>There would be no more of her warm and loving and -atrociously spelled letters to keep him informed about his -relatives: “I donte know wuther you have bin told that Cosin -Benney Mecome and his Lovely wife and five Dafters is come -here to live and work Jurney worke I had them to Dine and -drink tee yisterday....”</p> -<p>Or to lament the lack of news from him: “I have bin verey -much distrest a bout [you] as I did not [get] oney letter nor -one word from you nor did I hear one word from oney bodey -that you wrote to so I muste submit and indever to submit to -what I am to bair.”</p> -<p>Letters which she might sign “Your afeckshonet wife,” or -when she was less careful “Your ffeckshonot wife.” He -would miss them, but above all he would miss the assurance -that she was there waiting for him, loyal and cheerful, to greet -him whenever he returned from his long voyage.</p> -<p>He stayed on in England only a few months longer. His -last day in London he spent with Joseph Priestley. Together -they read papers from America, and now and then tears ran -down Franklin’s cheeks. He was sure America would win if -there were a war, he told Priestley, but it would take at least -ten years.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_122">122</div> -<p>On March 25, 1775, he and his grandson Temple embarked -on the <i>Pennsylvania Packet</i>. The crossing took six weeks and -the weather was pleasant. In the first half of it, he wrote out -the complicated story of his recent dealings with the ministry -in his last futile and desperate efforts to prevent war. The last -part of the journey he devoted to studying the nature of the -Gulf Stream, taking its temperature two to four times a day, -and noting that its water had a special color of its own and -“that it does not sparkle in the night.”</p> -<p>Thus he was able to enjoy a brief interlude in the world of -nature between the bitter disputes he left behind and the -struggle that lay ahead.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_123">123</div> -<h2 id="c12"><span class="h2line1">12</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">BEGINNING OF A LONG WAR</span></h2> -<p>He reached Philadelphia on May 5, 1775—an elderly widower, -nearly seventy, grave and saddened by the loss of his -wife, by the crisis to his country which his many years of -negotiations could not forestall. Sally and Richard Bache took -him to the house on Market Street which he had designed but -never occupied. Two small grandchildren whom he had never -seen, Benjamin and William Bache, were waiting to embrace -him and to greet their youthful English cousin, Temple. Franklin’s -friends of the Junto and political companions were on hand -to give him the big news.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_124">124</div> -<p>On April 19, while he was on the high seas, that was when -it had happened. General Sir William Howe (another brother -of the chess-playing Miss Howe), who was now stationed in -Boston, had sent some 800 British soldiers to Concord, where -the Massachusetts Committee of Safety had a store of arms and -ammunition. The Massachusetts Minutemen, forewarned by -Paul Revere, had tried to stop them at Lexington. The Redcoats, -who claimed that the colonials fired first, had killed -eight and left ten wounded, then pushed onwards. It was at -Concord where for the first time in America the King’s subjects -shot at the King’s troops. The return of the Redcoats was -a rout, with farmers and tradesmen firing behind every barn -and haystack. General Howe announced 73 of his men slain -and 174 wounded.</p> -<p>A rebellion was under way and there was no turning back.</p> -<p>On his second day home, Franklin was chosen as a Pennsylvania -delegate to the Second Continental Congress. It opened -on May 10 in the Philadelphia State House; delegates from all -the colonies attended. In both years and experience, Franklin -was the senior member.</p> -<p>Colonel George Washington, a big quiet man of forty-three, -wore his colonial uniform, as if guessing the heavy responsibility -ahead of him as Commander-in-Chief of the -Continental Armies. On the day he left for Cambridge to -assume his post, word came of the valiant fight at Breed Hill -(which history would call the Battle of Bunker Hill). Another -tall Virginian joined the Congress, red-haired Thomas -Jefferson, thirty-two years old, lawyer and college graduate -and of a wealthy and cultured family. In spite of differences in -age and background, Franklin found him a kindred spirit. -Jefferson, like himself, was a scientist, inventor, man of letters.</p> -<p>In July, Congress voted to send another petition to their -“gracious sovereign,” asking for a redress of grievances. Franklin -knew in advance that this “olive branch” petition was a -waste of paper, but he did not voice his objections. Let these -impulsive young men of Congress find out for themselves that -the weak and stubborn George III was not on their side. They -would likely not have taken his word anyway.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_125">125</div> -<p>In sessions of Congress he spoke less than any man present. -In his school days he had learned a jingle: “A man of words -and not of deeds / Is like a garden full of weeds.” Better to -show one’s patriotism in action than talk.</p> -<p>Congress did its work largely by committees. Franklin -served on a committee for the making of paper money, on -committees to protect colony trade, to investigate lead ore -deposits, and to study the cheapest and easiest way to procure -salt. He was on another committee which considered, and -turned down, a reconciliation plan submitted by Lord North. -He was one of three commissioners appointed to handle Indian -affairs in Pennsylvania and Virginia.</p> -<p>On July 25, the Congress voted him postmaster-general of -the colonies. The postal system which he set up with his son-in-law -Richard Bache was so efficient and comprehensive that -it served as a model to modern times, giving Franklin right to -the title, “Father of the American Post Office.”</p> -<p>For local defense, the Pennsylvania Assembly set up a Committee -of Safety, appointing Franklin as president. Among his -duties were the reorganizing of the Philadelphia militia, selecting -officers for armed boats, obtaining medicines for the soldiers. -He designed a special pike—a long wooden pole with -pointed metal head—to be used in hand-to-hand fighting as a -substitute for bayonets, which the colonists did not have. Half-seriously, -he proposed use of bows and arrows, in lieu of -more powerful weapons. To keep British warships from coming -within firing range of Philadelphia, he had built huge contraptions -of logs and iron, called <i>Chevaux de Frise</i>, to be sunk -in the Delaware River.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_126">126</div> -<p>On his papers and plans he worked late night after night. -He met with the Committee of Safety at six each morning. -From nine to four he sat in Congress. It was small wonder -that delegate John Adams would catch him napping during -the hot and often wearisome sessions. No one knows how he -found time for his postmaster duties.</p> -<p>Could anything more be expected of old Ben Franklin who -twenty-eight years before had decided to retire, since he had -enough money to live on, and no man needed more than -enough? In all those years he had continued to work for his -city, his province, the thirteen colonies. His greatest services -still lay ahead.</p> -<p>He was sure America would win—eventually. He had no -illusions about the hardships involved. England was the most -powerful country in the world, swollen with the glory of its -victories over France and Spain. Its superb navy was rivaled -by none. Its army was well-trained, well-armed, disciplined, -and numerous. The Americans had to start from scratch.</p> -<p>The embargo against English goods had boomeranged sadly. -America was still an agricultural country with little manufacturing -of its own. There were shortages of necessities and of -luxuries. That year Abigail Adams sent a tearful request to her -husband, John, to buy her a box of pins in Philadelphia—even -if it cost ten dollars.</p> -<p>The most urgent need was for arms and ammunition. From -General Washington at Cambridge came letter after letter, -pleading for them. One note, confessing that he had no more -than half a pound of gunpowder per soldier, fell into the hands -of General Howe—who thought it was a trick. (It was not -until March 1776 that Henry Knox brought down guns captured -at Ticonderoga and Washington could frighten Howe -and his troops from Boston.)</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_127">127</div> -<p>One of Franklin’s many Congressional committees was -formed to promote the manufacture of saltpeter for gunpowder. -Progress was slow. Throughout the war, the colonies -produced only about fifty tons of gunpowder. Obviously -home manufacture was not the answer.</p> -<p>In July, Congress had a visitor from Bermuda, Colonel -Henry Tucker, who headed the island’s local militia. Tucker -was sympathetic to the Americans as were many Bermudians. -There was for a time talk of Bermuda being the fourteenth -colony to revolt against British domination. It had previously -been dependent on America for foodstuffs, but as it was a -British possession shipments had been stopped. Colonel Tucker -had come to plead that the ban be lifted.</p> -<p>Franklin found occasion to talk with Tucker privately and -one thing the Bermudian told him interested him greatly. At -the Royal Arsenal at St. George, there was a large stock of -gunpowder—and no guard.</p> -<p>On Franklin’s recommendation, Congress put through a -blanket order to exchange food for guns with any vessel arriving -on the American coast, an order which evaded the controversial -point of trading with an enemy. Bermuda was -promised not only food, but candles, soap and lumber. There -was another deal with Colonel Tucker, about which only -those intimately concerned were informed.</p> -<p>In August, two ships set sail for Bermuda—the <i>Lady Catherine</i> -from Virginia and the <i>Savannah Pacquet</i> from South Carolina. -At Mangrove Bay, their crews disembarked, to be -welcomed by friendly Bermudians, including the son of -Colonel Tucker. Bermudians and American seamen boarded -small boats and sailed along the coast to St. George, where, on -the estate of Bermuda’s Governor James Bruere, the Royal -Arsenal was located.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_128">128</div> -<p>The raiders waited until the governor, his fourteen children, -and his numerous watchdogs were all asleep. They proceeded -so stealthily that not even a dog was wakened. A -sailor, lowered into the arsenal through a vent in the roof, -unlocked the doors from inside. Barrels of powder were rolled -to the waiting boats. Then the party took off.</p> -<p>Twelve days later the <i>Lady Catherine</i> arrived at Philadelphia -with 1,800 pounds of gunpowder, while the <i>Savannah -Pacquet</i> delivered its cargo at Charleston.</p> -<p>This was Franklin’s first victory in his battle for ammunition. -Although Governor Bruere, on discovering his loss, -promptly sent for British warships to patrol the island, Bermudian -sloops continued to get through to America, and -American ships managed regularly to maneuver around the -patrol. The trade continued for the benefit of both Americans -and Bermudians.</p> -<p>In the midst of this hectic summer, Franklin spent one long -and miserable evening with William, the son whom he had -made part of his life as much as any father ever had. He had -hoped his flesh and blood would share his burning indignation -at English oppression. The most bitter disillusion of his life -now faced him. The governor of New Jersey haughtily denied -any sympathy for the “American rabble.” His loyalty -was to the Crown, and that was that.</p> -<p>Franklin continued to write affectionately to Temple, who -had gone to stay with his father, but the breach between him -and his first-born son remained deep.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_129">129</div> -<p>The Bermuda raid was Franklin’s first step toward a larger -plan. The Secret Committee to further importation of war -supplies was set up on September 18, 1775. Among those serving -with him was Robert Morris, the prosperous merchant who -became the financial genius of the American Revolution. The -Committee was granted substantial sums of money and wide -powers. It made contracts with American merchants who, -with permits issued by Congress, took cargoes to the West -Indies, Martinique, Santo Domingo, and even Europe, bringing -back arms and ammunition.</p> -<p>Part of the Committee’s work was to get in touch with -merchants from many countries. England was no exception. -The friendships Franklin had formed among English merchants -when he was seeking repeal of the Stamp Act now -proved their value. These merchants knew they could trust -him and were not adverse to giving a helping hand to the -Americans and making a profit at the same time.</p> -<p>There was in the West Indies a tiny island no more than -seven or eight miles square called St. Eustatius, a dependency -of Holland and an international free port. Statia, as the Americans -called it, had long been a market for smuggled goods -from every corner of the globe. Now it became an arsenal to -which merchants from Holland, France, England, and other -nations brought war materials to be picked up by American -vessels. The British government, through its excellent espionage -system, knew what was happening but could not prevent -it.</p> -<p>“Powder cruises,” these ventures were called. They were -only one phase of American sea activity. There was in time a -Continental Navy, which was never very effective. Individual -colonies had their own navies. There were also the romantic -privateers, privately owned vessels with commissions -from Congress, which by the first twenty months of the war -had captured over 700 English vessels—and made fortunes for -their owners and crews. The powder cruises alone were -planned for the sole purpose of getting war materials for the -fighting forces.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_130">130</div> -<p>They were a long-range project. It took time to fit and -man and load the ships, more time for them to make their -journeys and return. Not for two years would the Americans -have enough ammunition to win a major engagement. Before -this happened, there were hard days ahead.</p> -<p>On October 4, Franklin rode off to visit Washington’s camp -at Cambridge, on a Congressional mission with Thomas Lynch -of South Carolina and Benjamin Harrison of Virginia. If he -was a little flabbergasted at the motley assembly of backwoodsmen, -farmers and teenage youths to whom Washington -was trying to teach military discipline, he did not say so. These -were his people. He was proud of them and what they had set -out to do.</p> -<p>On his return, he stopped in Warwick, Rhode Island, where -his sister Jane Mecom, an old woman now, had taken refuge -from British-occupied Boston with their old friends, the -Greenes. Besides himself, she was the only one of Josiah -Franklin’s seventeen children who was still living. Happily, -she did not yet know that her Boston home was being looted -in her absence.</p> -<p>“Sorrows roll over me like the waves of the sea,” she had -written Franklin a few years before on the death of her adored -daughter Polly. She was worried now about her son Benjamin, -who was unable to hold a job and whose wife and children -were destitute (the same whom Debby had written her -husband that she had had to tea). Only a few months later, his -mind completely gone, Benjamin wandered out in the dark, -never to be seen again.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_131">131</div> -<p>In spite of the repeated blows of a cruel fate, Jane had remained -warmhearted and thoughtful. Franklin, who had the -tenderest affection for her, brought her back to Philadelphia, -where she stayed with him for the next year. Always he had -humored her, given her and her inevitably needy family material -help, written her long and loving letters—and occasionally -fretted at her constant solicitude.</p> -<p>On this same trip he distributed a hundred pounds, sent by -English friends to aid the wounded of Lexington and Concord -and the widows and orphans of those who had been killed. It -is possible that one of the generous donors was Joseph Priestley, -to whom Franklin wrote about this time:</p> -<p>“Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed one hundred -and fifty Yankees in this campaign, which is twenty -thousand pounds a head.... During the same time sixty -thousand children have been born in America.”</p> -<p>His letter was quoted throughout England, where the hearts -of many lay not with their own corrupt Parliament, but with -those who had the courage to oppose it.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_132">132</div> -<h2 id="c13"><span class="h2line1">13</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE SPLENDID WORD INDEPENDENCE</span></h2> -<p>As Franklin had foreseen, the King paid no heed to the -“olive branch” petition of the Second Continental Congress. -By Royal proclamation all Americans were declared Rebels. -The British had burned Charlestown in June and Falmouth in -October 1775. It was hinted they were buying mercenaries -from German princes. That foreigners should be paid by the -English to kill English subjects seemed the greatest insult of -all.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_133">133</div> -<p>Franklin composed a short letter to William Strahan, his -English printer friend:</p> -<blockquote> -<p><span class="sc">Mr. Strahan:</span></p> -<p>You are a member of Parliament, and one of that majority -which has doomed my country to destruction. You have begun -to burn our towns and murder our people. Look upon your -hands! They are stained with the blood of your relations. You -and I were long friends. You are now my enemy, and I am</p> -<p><span class="center">Yours,</span> -<span class="jr"><span class="sc">B. Franklin.</span></span></p> -</blockquote> -<p>He did not send this cruel note, but instead wrote Strahan a -warm and cordial letter which Strahan answered in kind. Perhaps -he had written the first one to see how it sounded and -when he read it over did not like it. Throughout the conflict -he found ways of carrying on a correspondence with those he -cherished in England.</p> -<p>On November 29, 1775, the Congressional Committee of -Secret Correspondence was formed with five members—Benjamin -Franklin and John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, Benjamin -Harrison of Virginia, Thomas Johnson of Maryland, -and John Jay of New York. Its assignment was to establish -closer relations with foreign nations, and where possible to -make allies of those nations. With these duties, the Committee -of Secret Correspondence became the predecessor of the -United States Department of State.</p> -<p>As a member of the new committee, Franklin wrote his -friend Charles Dumas, a Swiss journalist with many political -connections: “We wish to know whether, if, as seems likely -to happen, we should be obliged to break off all connection -with Britain, and declare ourselves an independent people, -there is any state or power in Europe, who would be willing -to enter into an alliance with us for the benefits of our commerce.” -In a similar vein he sounded out Barbeu Dubourg, his -Paris printer, who had, as he knew, friends high in the French -government.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_134">134</div> -<p>The French were already watching America with interest. -The harsh terms of the 1763 treaty with Great Britain still -rankled. They welcomed any struggle that would involve -England’s military forces, particularly if it could be prolonged -to seriously weaken her.</p> -<p>In December 1775, a certain Monsieur Achard de Bonvouloir, -allegedly an Antwerp merchant, arrived in Philadelphia. -Through a French bookseller he arranged to meet -Franklin, to whom he admitted that he had connections at the -Court of Versailles. In truth he was a French agent, sent by -Louis XVI’s foreign minister, Count Charles Gravier de Vergennes, -to appraise the American situation.</p> -<p>Franklin arranged for Bonvouloir to meet with the Committee -of Secret Correspondence at a quiet house in the outskirts -of Philadelphia. It turned out to be a very crucial meeting. -The French government did not object to American ships -coming into her ports to pick up cargoes, Bonvouloir said. If -the British complained of the presence of these ships as a -breach of neutrality, the government would simply plead ignorance -of what was going on. But in return for this welcome -assurance of free trade, the French wanted to make sure that -America intended to declare its independence from England.</p> -<p>Independence was a word as yet heard rarely. Though -Franklin had mentioned its possibility in his letter to Dumas, -he knew that few other members of Congress, much less the -American people, were ready for such a drastic step. The -urgent need for French cooperation made him speak out -boldly.</p> -<p>Certainly the Americans were going to separate from England, -he told Bonvouloir blandly. The country was behind the -war to a man. Everything was going splendidly. General -Washington’s army was growing.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_135">135</div> -<p>There was exaggeration in his statements. Not only was talk -of independence rare, but America was peppered with Loyalists, -those who, like Franklin’s own son, were opposed to action -against the British Crown. While new recruits were joining -Washington, many simply walked off when their time of service -was up, and some were deserting outright. But Franklin’s -words were a magnificent prophecy. He was speaking from -his own profound faith in his countrymen, and his confidence -was contagious. Bonvouloir sent back a glowing report to the -French minister Vergennes; France’s secret alliance with -America began from that time.</p> -<p>If Americans were not more solidly behind the rebellion, it -was that their emotions had not been deeply aroused. Was not -the chief dispute a matter of taxes? No one likes to pay taxes, -but though people were ready to parade and protest against -them, not all were willing to risk their lives rather than pay -them. It took the protégé of Franklin, Thomas Paine, to point -out that the rebellion was for something much more important -than taxes.</p> -<p>Paine had settled in Philadelphia, taken a job with the <i>Pennsylvania -Magazine</i>, and had, in the few months he had been -in America, written some fine articles, among them one of the -first attacks on slavery to appear in the American press. Franklin -saw him in October and proposed that he write “a history -of the present transactions,” an account of events that had led -to the present crisis. Paine had only looked mysterious, saying -that he was working on something.</p> -<p>Then in January 1776, Franklin received the first copy off -the press of a pamphlet titled “Common Sense.” Though it was -published anonymously, “written by an Englishman,” he -guessed easily who had written it.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_136">136</div> -<p>“Common Sense,” written simply and clearly, was a passioned -and reasoned plea for secession from England. It -showed Americans how much they had to gain from independence -and how little there was to lose. It made them hold -up their heads with the pride of being American and convinced -them they were fighting for the most precious thing in the -world—their freedom. There is no estimating the enormous -service done by “Common Sense” in uniting the colonies in a -common cause.</p> -<p>In February, Franklin sent in his resignation to the Pennsylvania -Assembly and its Committee of Safety: “Aged as I am, -I feel myself unequal to do so much business....” At the same -time he accepted another arduous assignment from Congress, -to head a delegation to Canada to try and win French Canadians -to the side of the colonies.</p> -<p>Two expeditions had already been sent to wrest Quebec -from the British, one under General Richard Montgomery, -the other under Colonel Benedict Arnold. Both had failed. -Montgomery had been killed. Arnold, severely wounded, had -retreated with his battered army to Montreal.</p> -<p>Franklin, aged seventy, set out on his mission the last week of -March 1776. There were stops in New York, Albany, and in -Saratoga where the snow was still six inches deep. From there -they rode horseback across to the Hudson and proceeded up -the river in rowboats to Fort Edward. “I began to apprehend -that I have undertaken a fatigue that at my time of life may -prove too much for me,” Franklin wrote Josiah Quincy.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_137">137</div> -<p>They sailed along the coast of Lake George in open flatboats, -fighting their way through ice. When the cold grew too -bitter, they stopped to make fires, thaw out, and brew tea. By -April 25 they had reached Lake Champlain, and in clumsy -wagons drove over bad roads to the St. Lawrence, where they -again took to boats. Their hard journey ended at Montreal on -the 29th. Benedict Arnold, now a general, came to meet them, -and there was a cannon salute to the “Committee of the Honourable -Continental Congress,” and to the “celebrated Dr. -Franklin.”</p> -<p>The conferences the next day proved what Franklin had -doubtless suspected. The Canadians for the most part found -British rule preferable to French rule and were not dissatisfied. -The majority were Catholic and as such hostile to the -colonies because of unpleasant things that had been said about -their faith.</p> -<p>General Arnold and his men were penniless. Franklin loaned -them about 350 pounds of his own money in gold. On May 6, -word came that the British were sending reinforcements from -England. Franklin guessed that the Americans would be -driven from Canada; it happened just a month later. He stayed -on until May 11, then, realizing nothing more could be done, -set out for home.</p> -<p>He was in New York by the 27th, as worn out and ill as -though the vain mission had drained the last bit of his strength. -His health returned slowly. From Philadelphia, on June 21, he -wrote Washington that gout had kept him from “Congress -and company”—that he knew little of what had passed except -that “a declaration of independence was in the making.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_138">138</div> -<p>To this development, the magic of “Common Sense” deserved -credit. On April 12, North Carolina had instructed -its delegates to Congress to vote for independence. Other -colonies followed suit. On June 7, Richard Henry Lee introduced -a resolution that “these colonies are, and of a right -ought to be, free and independent states.” Three days later -Congress appointed Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Robert -Livingston of New York, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and -Benjamin Franklin, as a committee to prepare the declaration.</p> -<p>Jefferson produced the first draft. John Adams and Franklin -made only a few alterations before it was submitted to -Congress on June 18.</p> -<p>Congress nearly drove the Committee out of its mind with -demands for extensive changes. One clause which attacked -slavery was deleted altogether. When nerves grew tense, -Franklin told a story.</p> -<p>There was a hatter he had once known who built a handsome -signboard reading, “John Thompson, hatter, makes and -sells hats for some ready money,” adorned with a picture of -a hat. He submitted it to his friends for approval. One thought -the word “hatter” unnecessary. Another that “makes” was not -needed. A third thought “for ready money” useless, since no -one then sold for credit. His next friend insisted “sells hats” be -omitted; no one expected him to give them away. All that was -left, when his friends were through with him, was his name -“John Thompson” and the drawing of the hat.</p> -<p>The moral lesson implied may have speeded up the Congressional -process. At length, the Declaration met with approval. -John Hancock, in big black writing, affixed his signature first. -According to legend, Hancock said, “We must be unanimous; -there must be no pulling different ways; we must all hang together.” -To which Franklin allegedly replied, “We must indeed -all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang -separately.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_139">139</div> -<p>The ideas in the Declaration were not new. Many of them -had been said by others, specifically by Thomas Paine, in -phraseology not too different from Jefferson’s. The document, -adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776, remained the greatest -charter of freedom of all time.</p> -<p>In the midst of the wonder of independence, the New Jersey -Assembly ordered the arrest of its governor, William -Franklin, as a Loyalist, another sad blow for his father. He was -first held under guard at his home, then taken to Connecticut, -where he was kept for two years in the Litchfield jail or on -parole. Temple came to live with his grandfather, attending -the Pennsylvania Academy which Franklin had started so -many years before.</p> -<p>The Declaration of Independence, splendid as it was, still -was only words on paper. The reality was far in the future -and the present looked very dark.</p> -<p>On and around Long Island was gathered the greatest British -expeditionary force in history. Some 32,000 men (including -German mercenaries whom the Americans called Hessians) -and 500 vessels were there in command of General Sir William -Howe who, after leaving Boston, had gone to Halifax for reinforcements. -And in the harbor, a mighty fleet under his -brother Admiral Lord Richard Howe. And in Manhattan, -General George Washington with less than half as many men, -ill-clad and hungry and a good portion too sick to fight.</p> -<p>To get a foothold on Long Island, Washington took half -his army to Brooklyn Heights. The results were disastrous—a -surprise attack by the British on August 27, brought American -casualties, killed and wounded, to nearly two thousand. It -was to the credit of Washington, and John Glover’s Marbleheaders -and former Salem sailors, that boats were found to -carry the survivors back to Manhattan under the cloak of -night.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_140">140</div> -<p>Why did not the Howe brothers pursue them then and -there? They needed only to send a force up the Hudson or -Long Island Sound to trap the Rebels and cut to pieces -America’s principal army. Yet they dawdled a while. Why?</p> -<p>The truth was that Admiral Lord Howe, whom Franklin -had first met at the home of his sister, had come in a dual role -of warrior and peace ambassador. He was empowered to offer -full pardon to all Rebels (with the secret exception of John -Adams) and on his arrival had sent Franklin a flattering and -friendly letter making a proposal for reconciliation—which -Franklin, with the sanction of Congress, had turned down in -an equally cordial missive.</p> -<p>Soon after the Battle of Long Island, Lord Howe sent another -request to Philadelphia, by a paroled prisoner, General -John Sullivan, for delegates to come and discuss a settlement -of hostilities. Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge of -South Carolina were chosen. They met Lord Howe and his -staff on September 11, at a neglected house on Staten Island, -in a room hung with moss and branches. Americans and British -dined on cold ham, tongue, mutton, bread, and claret, all the -while making polite conversation. Then they got to business. -Lord Howe did most of the talking.</p> -<p>He felt for America as for a brother, he said, and should -lament, as a brother, should America fall.</p> -<p>“My Lord, we will use our utmost endeavors to save your -lordship that mortification,” Franklin said with a guileless -smile.</p> -<p>“The King’s most earnest desire” was to make his American -subjects happy, Howe continued. They would redress any -real grievances. It was not money they wanted. America’s solid -advantage to Great Britain was “her commerce, her strength, -her men.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_141">141</div> -<p>“Aye, my Lord,” Franklin said, chuckling, “we have a -pretty considerable manufactory of men.” He was referring -not, as Howe’s secretary presumed, to the growing army, but -to America’s rapidly increasing population.</p> -<p>Howe continued to plead for a resumption of the old relationship -with England. Franklin told him firmly that was impossible. -Had not their defenseless towns been burned in the -midst of winter, Indians encouraged to massacre their farmers, -and slaves to murder their masters—and now foreign mercenaries -brought to deluge their settlements with blood? Ah no, -after these atrocious injuries, there could be no return to their -previous status.</p> -<p>The conference ended on this impasse.</p> -<p>Following this meeting, the British drove Washington north -to Harlem Heights and on to White Plains. During the evacuation, -New York caught fire and a third of it burned. No one -ever knew who was responsible. The situation looked hopeless—unless -substantial aid could be had from outside. And -where could they go for such aid if not to France?</p> -<p>Congress chose three commissioners to represent America at -the French court—Jefferson, Franklin, and Silas Deane of Connecticut, -who was already in Paris. When Jefferson declined -because of his wife’s health, Arthur Lee, cousin of “Light-Horse -Harry” Lee of Virginia, was chosen in his place.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_142">142</div> -<p>Before he left, Franklin appointed Richard Bache as deputy -postmaster and turned over to Congress all the money he could -raise as a loan—around 4,000 pounds. To his friend Joseph -Galloway, he entrusted his trunk, containing his correspondence -from the years he had spent in England, as well as the -only existing manuscript of his <i>Autobiography</i>. He took with -him two grandsons, eighteen-year-old Temple Franklin, and -Benjamin Franklin Bache, age seven. They left on the sloop -<i>Reprisal</i>, October 27, 1776.</p> -<p>Did the two youths know what a perilous journey they -were making, with the English Navy prowling the seas in -search of just such prizes as the <i>Reprisal</i>? Temple at least must -have realized that if they were captured, his gray-haired -grandfather would be considered a prize more valuable than -any ship, and would certainly be hanged as a traitor. Not only -was the crossing made safely but within two days of landing, -the passengers had the thrill of witnessing their captain -take two British “prizes,” which the <i>Reprisal</i> on December 3 -brought to Auray on the coast of Brittany.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_143">143</div> -<h2 id="c14"><span class="h2line1">14</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">FRANCE FALLS IN LOVE WITH AN AMERICAN</span></h2> -<p>“The carriage was a miserable one,” Franklin wrote of the -trip from Auray to the French town of Nantes, where the -<i>Reprisal</i> would have brought them had it not been for the two -prizes. “With tired horses, the evening dark, scarce a traveler -but ourselves on the road; and, to make it more comfortable, -the driver stopped near a wood we were to pass through, to -tell us that a gang of eighteen robbers infested that wood who -but two weeks ago had murdered some travelers on that very -spot.”</p> -<p>The Nantes townspeople were expecting the celebrated -American and were waiting to greet him as he descended from -his carriage.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_144">144</div> -<p>Instead of a curled and powdered wig, he wore a fur cap -over his thin gray straight hair, which he had adopted on shipboard -for reasons of comfort. His costume was of brown -homespun worsted, with white stockings and buckled shoes. -He wore spectacles, because at seventy vanity was less important -to him than seeing clearly. He carried a plain crabtree -cane, such as any man could have cut for himself.</p> -<p>“A <i>primitive</i>!” people exclaimed. His simple attire delighted -them all.</p> -<p>For his few days in Nantes he stayed with a commercial -agent, Monsieur Gruet. A string of visitors appeared afternoon -and evenings to pay their respects. He spoke little, -knowing his French was imperfect, and his silence made him -seem all the wiser. Everyone was filled with admiration. The -women of the town paid him their greatest tribute in a <i>Coiffure -à la Franklin</i>, dressing their hair in a high curly mass to -resemble his fur cap.</p> -<p>His welcome at Nantes was only a preview of what attended -him in Paris. His printer, Barbeu Dubourg, had prepared -the populace by distributing circulars about his visit. -For two days before his arrival, he was the sole subject of conversation -in Paris cafés. Wherever he went, admiring citizens -surrounded him, remarking on the simplicity of his costume -and his unaffected manners. Silas Deane, who had received no -such attention on his arrival, was amazed. But then, Deane had -little love for the French people, had made no effort to learn -their language, and was obviously unhappy in this foreign -environment.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_145">145</div> -<p>From Deane, Franklin learned of a plan already under way -to help America. A dummy exporting house had been set up -under the name of Hortalez and Company, to which the -French and Spanish governments had each contributed a million -livres. (The livre is replaced by the franc in modern -French currency.) When Deane had reached Paris a few -months before, authorized to buy supplies, Foreign Minister -Vergennes had promptly sent him to the head of Hortalez, a -dashing adventurer named Caron de Beaumarchais (who -would later become known for his librettos of <i>The Marriage -of Figaro</i> and <i>The Barber of Séville</i>). The company was now -arranging to send arms and ammunition, uniforms, everything -the colonies needed.</p> -<p>Since this was Deane’s project, Franklin did not interfere. -Later, when Americans found they were receiving inferior -goods from Hortalez, when Congress was billed for what they -were told was a gift, when Beaumarchais unaccountably became -wealthy, and even Deane was accused of dishonesty, he -may have wished that he had kept a closer check. For the -moment, he had plenty of other work to do.</p> -<p>Silas Deane as well as Arthur Lee, the third commissioner, -both gave him advice on how to conduct himself. Deane, a -blunt and tactless man, was all for forcing the issue with -France. Arthur Lee, who had an intriguing nature, advocated -a devious approach. Franklin listened attentively to both of -them and went his own way.</p> -<p>On December 28, he and Deane were received at Versailles -by Vergennes, of whom Franklin had already heard so much. -As usual, he wore his brown worsted suit and his head was -bare, with no wig to hide his gray locks. Though he did little -more than transmit expressions of good will and gratitude -from his country, the suave and polished French diplomat -summed him up as a great and good man. Henceforth, whenever -possible, Vergennes avoided dealing with any American -other than Benjamin Franklin.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_146">146</div> -<p>The next night he attended a soiree held by Madame la -Marquise du Deffand. Her guests were the most important -personages in Europe. The Marquise was known to be -strongly pro-British. Everyone expected that Monsieur Franklin -from Philadelphia would be put in his place. How could he -compete in this brilliant company? He was much too clever -to try. All evening he sat quietly smiling, waiting for others -to do the talking, listening with interest to everything that was -said, even by the ladies. The company was enchanted. They -had believed all Americans to be bold and rude-mannered and -self-assertive. This Monsieur Franklin, who dressed like a -Quaker, was a sage, a patriarch! They had never known anyone -like him. From then on, the aristocracy gave him their -adoration, as did the scientific world and the common people.</p> -<p>A few days later there was a gift of two million livres, not -connected with the funds at Hortalez, presented for the American -cause in the name of the French King. Franklin had, without -resort to bullying or conniving, scored his first victory in -French diplomacy.</p> -<p>For fear of British retaliation, Vergennes dared not openly -sponsor him. Privately he was doing all in his power to convince -Louis XVI that the American rebellion, even though -against another king, should be supported to the hilt. This was -not easy, for the French ruler was not yet ready to show more -than a token interest in the Americans. Franklin understood -Vergennes’ position and did not press him for what he had -really come to get, an open alliance. His most important task, -from Vergennes’ viewpoint, was to win French public opinion -to his side. This he did without half trying.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_147">147</div> -<p>His popularity mounted daily. For the French he was a -man of reason, like their Voltaire, and an advocate of the -equality of man and the virtues of rustic living, like their philosopher -Jean Jacques Rousseau. They saw him as the man -who had singlehandedly fomented the American Revolution, -a rumor carefully nourished by the British Ambassador in -Paris, Lord Stormont.</p> -<p>He was given credit for the Declaration of Independence -and the Pennsylvania Constitution. Not knowing yet of -Thomas Paine, people took it for granted that he was the -author of that marvelous pamphlet “Common Sense,” which -was reprinted in French with the omission of its attacks on -royalty. They admired him alike for his scientific achievements -and for “The Way of Wealth,” the proverbs of Poor -Richard as cited by Father Abraham, which they praised to the -skies as “sublime morality.”</p> -<p>It became the fashion of every home to have an engraving -of him above the mantel. Medallions with his image in enamel -adorned the lids of snuffboxes, and tiny ones were even set in -rings, selling in incredible numbers. In time his portrait was -reproduced on watches, clocks, vases, dishes, handkerchiefs, -pocket knives. There were paintings of him without end, and -busts in marble, bronze and plaster. “These,” Franklin wrote -to his daughter Sally, “with the pictures, busts, and prints (of -which copies upon copies are spread everywhere), have made -your father’s face as well known as that of the moon.”</p> -<p>The first of March he moved from the Paris hotel where he -and his grandsons had been staying to Passy, a beautiful spot -half a mile from Paris, less a village than a group of villas set -amidst forests and vineyards. Their house was on the great -estate of Le Ray de Chaumont, an ardent partisan of the -United States, who refused to accept rent from his distinguished -guest.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_148">148</div> -<p>The grounds of the Chaumont estate were laid out in formal -gardens around an octagonal pond, with alleys of linden trees. -Often Franklin and his grandsons ate at the lavish Chaumont -table, or had their meals sent from the Chaumont kitchen for -a minimum charge. When he gave a large dinner party in his -own quarters, everything would be sent over by the Chaumont -staff. He had his own servants, including a coachman, -and kept a carriage and a pair of horses. Benjamin Bache went -to boarding school in the village, coming home for Sunday. -Temple acted as his secretary.</p> -<p>The British, who had spies everywhere, were well aware of -the reason for his presence in France. Vainly did British Ambassador -Lord Stormont try to belittle him or his country. He -could not match Franklin’s wit. Once Franklin learned that -Stormont was spreading a rumor that 4,000 Americans had -been lost in a battle and their general killed. “Truth is one -thing. Stormont is another,” he commented dryly. In Parisian -slang, the verb “to Stormont” became a synonym for “to lie.”</p> -<p>In truth, with the exception of Washington’s victory over -the Hessians at Trenton, the Christmas of 1776, news from -America was discouraging. Franklin refused to show any sign -of worry. “<i>Ça ira</i>,”—“it will go on”—he would say to anyone -who asked how the American Revolution was faring. In the -years of France’s own revolution, Franklin’s famous <i>Ça ira</i> -became the catchword of a popular war song.</p> -<p>Some time that summer, or so it is said, Franklin passed a -night at the same inn as Edward Gibbon, author of <i>Rise and -Fall of the Roman Empire</i>. Franklin sent up a note requesting -the pleasure of his company. Gibbon answered that though he -admired Franklin as a philosopher he could not, as a loyal -English subject, converse with a Rebel. Franklin promptly -sent him a second note. He had the greatest respect for the -historian, he wrote, and when Gibbon decided to write the -<i>Rise and Fall of the British Empire</i>, he would be happy to -supply all the needed data.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_149">149</div> -<p>The revolt in America had enormous glamour for innumerable -European officers who were eager to offer their services, -for money, for the thrill of adventure, and perhaps less often -because they believed in the American cause. Franklin was -besieged with their requests for him to recommend them to -the American army. “My perpetual torment,” he called them:</p> -<blockquote> -<p>People will believe, notwithstanding my continually repeated -declaration to the contrary, that I am sent hither to engage -officers. You have no conception how I am harassed.... Great -officers of all ranks, in all departments; ladies, great and small, -besides professed solicitors, worry me from morning to night.... -I am afraid to accept an invitation to dine abroad, being -almost sure of meeting some officer or some officer’s friend -who, as soon as I am put in good humour with a glass of champagne, -begins his attack upon me.</p> -</blockquote> -<p>Only partly in jest, he composed a form letter:</p> -<blockquote> -<p>The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me to -give him a letter of recommendation, though I know nothing -of him, not even his name. This may seem extraordinary, but I -assure you is not uncommon here. Sometimes, indeed, one unknown -person brings another, equally unknown, to recommend -him; and sometimes they recommend one another. As to this -gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his character and -merits, with which he is certainly better acquainted than I can -possibly be. I recommend him, however, to those civilities which -every stranger of whom one knows no harm has a right to; and -I request you will do him all the good offices, and show him all -the favour, that on further acquaintance you shall find him to -deserve.</p> -</blockquote> -<div class="pb" id="Page_150">150</div> -<p>Temple later claimed that he actually used this letter on -occasion, though it has never been proved.</p> -<p>There was, however, one officer whom Franklin recommended -to George Washington without ever having met. -This was the nineteen-year-old Marquis de Lafayette, an -ardent youth set on revenging a father killed by the English. -“He is exceedingly beloved,” he wrote Washington early in -August after Lafayette had already left France, “and everybody’s -good wishes attend him; we cannot but hope he may -meet with such a reception as will make the country and his -expedition agreeable to him.”</p> -<p>Another valuable recruit Franklin sent to America was the -former Prussian officer Baron von Steuben, whose rigid training -of American troops at Valley Forge raised morale at a -moment when it had sunk to a new low.</p> -<p>In England, he still had friends in high places. Lord Rockingham -was praising his courage in crossing the Atlantic, risking -capture and being brought to an “implacable tribunal.” -Charles James Fox, a member of Lord North’s cabinet, was -quoting to his fellow cabinet members Franklin’s remark that -England’s war on America would be as costly and useless as -the Crusades. While to George III he had become “that insidious -man from Philadelphia,” Sir John Pringle, now president -of the Royal Society, supported him in one of the few comic -episodes of wartime.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_151">151</div> -<p>During Franklin’s stay in England, he had given advice on -installing lightning rods on St. Paul’s Cathedral and other important -buildings. One member of the Royal Society, Benjamin -Wilson, an artist who had painted Franklin’s portrait, -argued that blunt lightning rods would be more effective than -pointed ones, but he had been over-ruled. The battle between -“the sharps and the flats” raged briefly and then subsided.</p> -<p>It was revived when the war was under way by George III, -who felt that since pointed lightning rods had been invented -by a Rebel, they must certainly be subversive. He ordered that -the rods on his palace and throughout the United Kingdom be -replaced by the blunt type and commanded Sir John Pringle -to back him. Sir John boldly retorted that the laws of nature -were not changeable at royal pleasure. He was thereupon informed -that the royal authority did not believe that a man of -his views should occupy the presidency of the Royal Society. -Sir John, loyal to Franklin to the end, promptly resigned.</p> -<p>As for Franklin, he remained an objective observer: “I have -never entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical -opinions,” he wrote in October 1777. “I leave them -to take their chances in the world. If they are <i>right</i>, truth and -experience will support them; if <i>wrong</i>, they ought to be -refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one’s temper, -and disturb one’s quiet.”</p> -<p>In November a visitor to Passy informed him that General -Howe had taken Philadelphia. (Congress had fled to York, -Pennsylvania, which became temporarily the capital of the -United States.) Calm and smiling, Franklin countered, “I beg -your pardon, sir. Philadelphia has taken Howe.”</p> -<p>Inwardly, he was gravely concerned. His daughter and her -family, his home, those he loved, and everything he owned -was in Philadelphia. But he could not afford to let his anxiety -show.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_152">152</div> -<p>He considered at this time telling Vergennes that unless -America could count on a French alliance, they would have -to make terms with England, but decided the threat might -boomerang and force the French to abandon them. Best wait -until the news was better. It so happened he had not long to -wait.</p> -<p>On December 4, a messenger from Boston arrived at Passy, -to announce that General John Burgoyne, whom the British -had sent to Canada to lead an army to invade the colonies from -the north, had been defeated at Saratoga. Beaumarchais, who -was present when this news came, drove off to Paris so recklessly -that his carriage upset and his arm was broken.</p> -<p>Franklin and his two commissioners promptly drew up a -dispatch for Vergennes. Two days later Conrad-Alexandre -Gérard of the foreign office arrived at Passy with Vergennes’ -congratulations—and a request that the Americans renew their -proposal for an alliance.</p> -<p>Franklin drafted the proposal on December 7 and Temple -delivered it the next day. On the 12th, the commissioners met -secretly with Vergennes. Franklin hoped the matter could be -settled there and then but the French minister said France -could not agree to an alliance without Spain. It took three -weeks for a courier to make the trip and bring back an answer -from Spain. It was negative. Temporarily negotiations were at -a standstill.</p> -<p>In the meantime England had sent an envoy named Paul -Wentworth to parley with the Americans. He passed himself -off as a stock speculator though he was actually chief of the -British espionage. Silas Deane saw him several times. Wentworth -told him that the British ministry was ready to return to -the imperial status of before 1763, suggested a general armistice -with all British troops withdrawn except those on the -New York islands, and added, insinuatingly, that any Americans -who helped to bring about an understanding would be -rewarded with wealth and titles and high administrative posts.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_153">153</div> -<p>Franklin knew about Wentworth but refused to see him -until January 6, a week after the news of Spain’s rejection -of the alliance. That day he conferred two hours with Wentworth, -devoting the whole time to a recital of England’s -crimes against America. After that he and Wentworth had -dinner with Silas Deane and his assistant Edward Bancroft -(who was also an English spy).</p> -<p>The results of this dinner were exactly what Franklin anticipated. -It was duly reported to Vergennes, who could only -judge that negotiations for a reconciliation between England -and America were under way, which was the last thing in the -world he wanted. The very next day the French King’s council -voted formally on a treaty and an alliance with the United -States of America.</p> -<p>The signing of the treaty took place on Friday, February 7, -1778, at the office of the ministry for foreign affairs in the -Hotel de Lautrec, Paris. For this all important occasion Franklin -donned an old costume, somewhat old-fashioned and rather -too tight for him, of figured Manchester velvet. Someone asked -him why. “To get it a little revenge,” Franklin said. “I wore -this coat on the day Wedderburn abused me.”</p> -<p>The ceremony was simple. Gérard signed first, then Franklin, -after which Arthur Lee and Silas Deane added their names. -A magnificent diplomatic campaign had been won.</p> -<p>On March 20, Louis XVI avowed the treaty by receiving -the three commissioners in his private quarters at Versailles. -Franklin wore a brown velvet suit, white hose, and carried -a white hat under his arm. He had neither wig nor sword, and -his spectacles were on his nose. The courtiers claimed they had -never seen anything so striking as this “republican simplicity.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_154">154</div> -<p>To the commissioners, the King said, “Firmly assure Congress -of my friendship. I hope that this will be for the good -of the two nations.”</p> -<p>Franklin responded for his fellow envoys. “Your Majesty -may count on the gratitude of Congress and its faithful observance -of the pledges it now takes.”</p> -<p>That evening Vergennes gave a great dinner in their honor -at Versailles. Later they made a call on the royal family. The -charming and beautiful Marie Antoinette, who was at her -gambling table, insisted that Franklin stand by her, and talked -to him in between making her bids at exceedingly high stakes. -It was certainly the first time in history that the son of an -American candlemaker kept company with a queen.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_155">155</div> -<h2 id="c15"><span class="h2line1">15</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">AMERICA’S FIRST AMBASSADOR</span></h2> -<p>In the spring after the signing of the treaty with France, -Silas Deane was recalled to America. John Adams was sent to -take his place. Franklin invited him and his wife Abigail -to stay with him at Passy, and arranged for their ten-year-old -son John Quincy to go to school with Benjamin Bache.</p> -<p>The comfortable life at Passy made Puritan-minded Adams -uncomfortable. Though Franklin’s taste in dress and food was -exceedingly simple compared to the French aristocrats with -whom he had to keep company, Adams found him extravagant. -He felt it a waste of money that Arthur Lee should have separate -quarters in Paris. At the same time he objected that no -rent was paid at Passy and vainly tried to get Chaumont to -accept payment.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_156">156</div> -<p>He could not help himself. Basically it was simply impossible -for him to approve of someone like Benjamin Franklin: “He -loves his ease, hates to offend, and seldom gives any opinion -till obliged to do it.... Although he has as determined a -soul as any man, yet it is his constant policy never to say yes -or no decidedly but when he cannot avoid it.”</p> -<p>John Adams was a man who always said yes or no decidedly, -never having, like Franklin, learned from Socrates that if you -wish to convince people, making them think for themselves is -more effective than bludgeoning them.</p> -<p>But as he was essentially honest, Adams did not deny that -Franklin was beloved by the French as he would never be: -“His name was familiar to government and people,” he wrote -later, “to king, courtiers, nobility, clergy, and philosophers, -as well as plebeians, to such a degree that there was scarcely a -peasant or a citizen, a <i>valet de chambre</i>, coachman or footman, -a lady’s chambermaid or a scullion in a kitchen who was not -familiar with it and who did not consider him a friend to -human kind.... When they spoke of him they seemed to -think he was to restore the golden age....”</p> -<p>In one of the many elaborate ceremonies organized in -Franklin’s honor, a crown of laurel was placed on his white -hair by the most beautiful of three hundred women admirers. -At another, a walking stick with a gold head wrought in the -form of a cap of liberty was presented to him. A poem, composed -for the occasion, was read.</p> -<p>The wood of the cane, it said, had been seized on the plains -of Marathon by the Goddess of Liberty before she abandoned -Greece. It had been transported to Switzerland, where the -valiant mountaineers fought against invading Austrians. More -recently it had been seen at Trenton, where Washington defeated -the British. By possession of this symbol of victory, -Benjamin Franklin was assured of a place in the “Temple of -Memory.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_157">157</div> -<p>Franklin’s French friends had long been hoping for a meeting -between him and Voltaire, considered the two most enlightened -men of the eighteenth century. In February 1778, -after an exile of more than twenty-eight years, Voltaire -returned to spend the last four months of his life in Paris. With -his grandson Temple, Franklin called to pay his respects to -the great philosopher. Voltaire was then eighty-four, lean and -emaciated, but he still had the fiery spirit that had kept all -Europe in an uproar over the major part of his life. He insisted -on greeting the “illustrious and wise Franklin” in English, -and held his hand over Temple’s head in blessing, pronouncing -the words “God and Liberty.”</p> -<p>There was a more publicized meeting in April at the Academy -of Sciences. The audience, seeing both present, clamored -to have them introduced to each other. Obligingly, they -stepped forward and bowed to each other. The spectators -were not yet satisfied. They wanted them to embrace each -other in the French manner. Only when Franklin and Voltaire -put their arms around each other and kissed each other’s cheeks -did the tumult subside.</p> -<p>That year the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon, who -had immortalized Voltaire in marble, did his bust of Franklin, -catching his likeness better than any other had done. And that -Baron Turgot, the French Minister of Finance, made his most -famous epigram about Franklin: “He snatched the lightning -from the sky and the sceptre from the tyrants.” Vainly Franklin -protested that other Americans, “able and brave men,” -deserved credit for the Revolution.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_158">158</div> -<p>On September 14, 1778, Congress revoked the commission -of three and elected Franklin sole plenipotentiary to France—America’s -first official ambassador to a foreign land. With only -Temple and a clerk to help him with detail work, he was in -actual fact consul-general, consultant on American affairs, -propagandist for America, and, the part which pleased Franklin -least but which he performed expertly, official beggar to -the Court of Versailles for the ever increasing sums of money -which Congress instructed him to procure for their costly war.</p> -<p>With his other duties, he was director of naval affairs, Judge -of the Admiralty, and in effect if not in name, overseas Secretary -of the Navy. In this capacity in March of 1779 he wrote -a “passport” for the Pacific explorer Captain James Cook, -instructing commanders of American ships that Cook and his -crew should be treated as “common friends to mankind” and -allowed to go on their way. The sad news had not reached -Europe; a month before Franklin’s instructions, Cook had -been killed by natives on the Hawaiian Islands.</p> -<p>Ever since his arrival in France, he had been concerned with -the plight of captured American seamen, whom the English -kept in foul prisons and treated not as prisoners-of-war but as -traitors, charged with high treason and subject to execution. -To Lord Stormont, the British ambassador, he had sent a -formal plea requesting the exchange of American prisoners -for English ones, man for man. It was ignored. A second came -back unopened with a note: “The King’s Ambassador receives -no Letters from Rebels but when they come to implore -his Majesty’s Mercy.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_159">159</div> -<p>Through an English friend, David Hartley, Franklin sent -money for the relief of the American prisoners, and generous -Englishmen added to the fund. That was all that could be -done until some nine months after the signing of the treaty -with France, when he received reluctant consent from the -London ministry for prisoner exchange.</p> -<p>There was still the problem of getting sufficient English -prisoners for the exchange. Before the treaty, British seamen -on the “prizes” which American ships brought into French -ports had to be set free by maritime law. With France now -officially at war with England, the ban no longer applied, but -there were still far fewer English prisoners in France than -American ones in England.</p> -<p>In May 1779, as Minister of the United States at the Court -of France, Franklin signed a commission for Captain Stephen -Marchant of Boston, on the privateer, the <i>Black Prince</i>, to -operate off the north coast of France. The <i>Black Prince</i> was -so named for her sleek lines, her black sides, and her reputation -as one of the swiftest vessels ever to run a cargo.</p> -<p>Franklin’s instructions to the captain were brief and explicit. -He was to bring in all the prisoners possible “to relieve -so many of our countrymen from their captivity in England.” -He only found out later that Captain Marchant was a figurehead. -The real commander of the <i>Black Prince</i> was a twenty-five-year-old -Irishman named Luke Ryan, with a dazzling -record as a smuggler—an honorable profession in an Ireland -reduced to starvation by repressive English trade regulations.</p> -<p>The success of the <i>Black Prince</i> was phenomenal—twenty-nine -prizes, including a recapture, in the space of two months -and eleven days. Franklin gave commissions to two sister -privateers, the <i>Black Princess</i> and the <i>Fearnot</i>. Their combined -efforts produced a total of 114 British vessels of all -descriptions, brought into free ports, burned, scuttled or -ransomed. They created havoc with coastal trade in the English, -Irish and Scotch seas, embarrassed the British Admiralty, -caused marine insurance rates to soar.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_160">160</div> -<p>Franklin was proud of his three privateers and must have -had a vicarious thrill in their exploits. His own role in the -affair became increasingly worrisome. Each prize was judged -in the local marine court of the port where it was brought. -Sometimes there were delays, resulting in the loss of perishable -cargo and voluble cries of protest from the crews who saw -their prize money diminishing daily. In due time Franklin, as -Judge of the Admiralty, received the bulky and voluminous -report, handwritten and of course in French. It was up to him -and Temple to appraise the contents if the venture was to be -kept going.</p> -<p>Unfortunately, much as the privateers disrupted English -shipping, the number of prisoners was far fewer than Franklin -had hoped. Sometimes there was no room for prisoners on -shipboard, or, when there were captive ships to man, not -enough men to guard prisoners. Franklin proposed that the -privateer captains get sea paroles from those they set free, but -the British stubbornly refused to honor the paroles in prisoner -exchange. There were also numerous British seamen who -gladly joined the privateer crews, finding their free life far -preferable to the cruel discipline of the British Navy.</p> -<p>Aside from his privateers, Franklin pinned his hope on a -Scottish-born American seaman with a colorful past, named -John Paul Jones. In 1778, Jones had captured the <i>Drake</i>, the -first British warship to surrender to a Continental vessel. He -had come to Brest from America in the <i>Ranger</i>, which had -raided English and Scottish coasts, taking seven prizes. Red -tape kept Jones idle for some months after that but at length -he was given an aged and decrepit French forty-gun ship, -which he renamed the <i>Bonhomme Richard</i>—the French translation -of “Poor Richard.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_161">161</div> -<p>In September 1779, the <i>Bonhomme Richard</i> closed in on the -superior British frigate, the <i>Serapis</i>, in a battle which lasted -three and a half hours. When the hull of the <i>Bonhomme -Richard</i> was pierced, her decks ripped, her hold filling with -water, and fires destroying her, the British captain asked if -they were ready to surrender.</p> -<p>“Sir, I have not yet begun to fight,” Jones reportedly replied.</p> -<p>While his ship was sinking, he and his men boarded the -<i>Serapis</i> and took her captive.</p> -<p>Exultantly, Franklin prepared his dispatch to Congress, announcing -“one of the most obstinate and bloody conflicts that -has happened in this war.” With even greater pleasure he reported -three weeks later that John Paul Jones was safe in -Texel, North Holland, with some 500 British prisoners! In -Paris soon afterward the welcome given the hero of the <i>Bonhomme -Richard</i> rivaled only Franklin’s reception there.</p> -<p>At home the war was going drearily. Combined American -forces failed to win Savannah from the British. A British -expedition took Charleston. The British General Cornwallis, -marching inland, routed General Horatio Gates. England, now -at war with Holland, captured tiny St. Eustatius, thus cutting -off America’s chief West Indian source of supplies. Benedict -Arnold had turned traitor, and the British had moved their -army from Philadelphia to New York.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_162">162</div> -<p>The Bache family, who had been living in the country, returned -to find that the officers who had occupied their house -had carried off some of Franklin’s musical instruments, Temple’s -school books, and some electrical apparatus. The portrait -of Franklin done by Benjamin Wilson had also vanished. It -turned out that it had been taken by the English spy Major -John André. (It reached England but was later restored to -the White House in Washington in 1906.)</p> -<p>In the spring of 1781, Franklin received two American -visitors at Passy, young Colonel John Laurens, son of the -former Congress president Henry Laurens, and Thomas Paine. -There was another financial crisis in Congress and they had -come to request a loan of a million pounds sterling each year -for the duration. Franklin had foreseen the need and could -tell them he already had a promise of an outright gift of 6 -million livres. Since July 1780, General Rochambeau and 6,000 -fully equipped French regulars were in America, waiting for -the auspicious time to join the conflict. France had its own -to protect now.</p> -<p>The tide turned that year. The valiant General Nathanael -Greene (nephew by marriage of Franklin’s friend, Catherine -Ray Greene) together with Daniel Morgan, “Light-Horse -Harry” Lee, and Francis Marion (known as “The Swamp -Fox”) harassed Cornwallis into Virginia, where General Lafayette, -in charge of his first command, forced him onto the -peninsula of Yorktown. To Lafayette’s aid came two armies, -the American one led by Washington, and the French one -led by Rochambeau. The siege lasted just nine days. Cornwallis -surrendered on October 18, 1781. The news reached -Franklin at eleven o’clock on the night of November 19, just -one month later.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_163">163</div> -<p>The defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown marked the unofficial -end of the war, though George III refused to believe it. -In his disordered mental state, he could not face the reality -of the enormous budget asked from an empty treasury. Nearly -everyone else knew that the former American colonies were -lost to the British Empire forever.</p> -<p>Franklin wrote Congress offering his resignation, planning -that if it were accepted he would take his grandsons on a -tour in Italy and Germany. Congress had other plans for him. -Along with John Adams and John Jay of New York, he was -chosen a commissioner to negotiate the formal peace with -Great Britain.</p> -<p>“I have never known a peace made, even the most advantageous,” -Franklin wrote John Adams, “that was not censured -as inadequate.... I esteem it, however, an honour.”</p> -<p>John Jay and his family came to stay at Passy, as the Adams -family had done. Maria Jay, age one and a half years, formed -a “singular attachment” to the ancient philosopher, which he -claimed he would never forget.</p> -<p>The peace negotiations dragged on month after month, -seemingly interminable. In April 1782, in the midst of them, -Franklin was stricken with a kidney stone, which disabled him -the rest of his life. From then on even the jolting of his carriage -over the cobblestone streets was unbearably painful. He refused -either to have an operation or take drugs. “You may -judge that my disease is not very grievous,” he wrote John -Jay, “since I am more afraid of the medicine than the malady.”</p> -<p>The preliminary Anglo-American peace terms were finally -signed on November 30, 1782, and on September 3, 1783, -came the signing of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain -at last acknowledged the independence of the United States. -The achievement of this treaty, by Franklin with John Adams -and John Jay, would be labeled “the greatest triumph in the -history of American diplomacy.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_164">164</div> -<p>“May we never see another war!” wrote Franklin to Josiah -Quincy. “For in my opinion there never was a good war or a -bad peace.”</p> -<p>“The times that tried men’s souls are over,” wrote Thomas -Paine in America.</p> -<p>Franklin was seventy-seven, sick with gout, dropsy, and -half a dozen minor ailments besides his dreadful stone, but his -mind was as keen and his soul as full of fun as a youth of -twenty. No one ever had a more glorious old age than he was -having.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_165">165</div> -<h2 id="c16"><span class="h2line1">16</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">A GLORIOUS OLD AGE</span></h2> -<p>On August 27, 1783, just a few days before the signing of -the peace treaty with England, a balloon ascension was held -at the Champ-de-Mars. It was the first in Paris; the first in -history had taken place near Lyons in the previous June. For -four days preceding the event, the great balloon of varnished -silk had been filling up with hydrogen gas under the direction -of the physicist Jacques-Alexandre-César Charles. Paris was -agog with excitement. Some 50,000 gathered to watch.</p> -<p>Franklin, who was present, reported that the balloon rose -rapidly “till it entered the clouds, when it seemed to me scarce -bigger than an orange and soon after became invisible.”</p> -<p>“What good is it?” a skeptic asked.</p> -<p>“What good is a newborn baby?” Franklin retorted, a -remark that went around the world.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_166">166</div> -<p>He saw the first free balloon ascend with human passengers -on November 20, at the Château de la Muette in Passy. The -passengers, scientist Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arland, -were lifted some 500 feet, floated over the Seine, and -landed in Paris. A few weeks later he witnessed a balloon soar -upwards from the Paris Tuileries, taking its human cargo to -the incredible height of 2,000 feet.</p> -<p>He could not resist speculating as to what man’s triumph -over space might mean to the future. Would the balloon perhaps -become a common means of transportation? How delightful -that would be for one like himself for whom riding in a -carriage had become such agony. But he could hardly hope for -such comfort in his lifetime.</p> -<p>More to the point was the possibility that the actuality of -balloon flight might convince “sovereigns of the folly of -wars”:</p> -<blockquote> -<p>Five thousand balloons, capable of raising two men each, could -not cost more than five ships of the line; and where is the -prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for -its defense as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds -might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief before -a force could be brought together to repel them?</p> -</blockquote> -<p>Not even the wealthiest and most powerful ruler could -guard his dominions against such an air raid. The terrible -threat would mean an end to warfare. So Franklin reasoned, -happily unable to peer into the future.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_167">167</div> -<p>Following the Treaty of Paris, Congress had retained his -services as ambassador to France for two years longer. He -served unofficially as United States ambassador for all of -Europe, and new honors rained down on him. He was elected -a member of Madrid’s Royal Academy of History, of Manchester’s -Literary and Philosophical Society, of the Academies -of Sciences and Arts in the French towns of Orléans and -Lyons. Through Admiral Lord Richard Howe, a staunch -friend still, the British Admiralty sent him Captain Cook’s -<i>Voyage to the Pacific Ocean</i>, a tribute to his instructions to -American cruisers to refrain from interfering with the explorer -and his crew.</p> -<p>His real and solid pleasures came not from such tokens of -recognition but from the circle of good friends he had acquired -in his years at Passy. He was on good terms with the -parish priest, the village tradesmen, and all the children of the -town. The Chaumont family, on whose estate he lived, were -deeply devoted to him, including the young daughter Sophie -whom he called “my little wife.”</p> -<p>He established strong bonds of friendship with his neighbor, -the lovely and talented young Madame Brillon, wife of an -elderly treasury official. For several years he called on her -nearly every Wednesday and Saturday, to play chess or to idle -on her terrace in the sun. Sometimes he played for her on his -armonica.</p> -<p>Once he spent a summer day with Madame Brillon and some -other companions on Moulin-Joli, an island on the Seine. Over -the river hovered a swarm of tiny May flies, known as <i>ephemera</i> -since their life span is but a few hours. As a souvenir of -this holiday, he wrote the “Ephemera,” one of his most -charming fables, a delicate satire about the trivia which make -up the thoughts and actions of many human souls during their -own comparatively brief period on earth.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_168">168</div> -<p>“Papa,” Madame Brillon called Franklin. After she and her -husband left Passy, she sent him a plaintive note. “How am I -going to spend the Wednesdays and Saturdays?” Might they -perhaps be united in paradise? “We shall live on roast apples -only; the music will be made up of Scottish airs ... everyone -will speak the same language; the English will be neither unjust -nor wicked ... ambition, envy, pretensions, jealousy, -prejudices, all these will vanish at the sound of the trumpet.”</p> -<p>Young and old, French women lavished attention on the -American philosopher. In return, he gave them affection both -fatherly and gallant, told them amusing stories, and showed -that combination of respect for their mental capacities and -appreciation of their womanly charms which had won over -Catherine Ray Greene so many years before.</p> -<p>Among his many close women friends the most celebrated -was the elderly Madame Helvétius, widow of a wealthy landowner -and philosopher, who lived with her two daughters at -Auteuil, a village next to Passy, in the midst of a little park -planted with hortensias and rhododendron, and over-run with -cats, dogs, chickens, canaries, pigeons, and wild birds. “Our -Lady of Auteuil,” Franklin called her, while her daughters -were “<i>les étoiles</i>,” the stars.</p> -<p>Her salon was frequented by philosophers, statesmen, poets, -scientists, and mathematicians. Franklin first met her through -the French minister Turgot. When she knew him better she -told him she wished she had welcomed him as she had Voltaire, -whom she had greeted at her gate like a king.</p> -<p>One of the many scholars Franklin met at her salon was a -talented young doctor named Philippe Pinel. Franklin advised -him to come to America where doctors were badly needed. -Pinel was tempted but refused—and became famous for his -courage and wisdom in removing chains from the insane at -the Paris hospitals of Bicêtre and Saltpêtrière.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_169">169</div> -<p>While John Adams and his wife Abigail were at Passy, -Franklin invited Madame Helvétius to dinner. The worthy -Abigail was horrified when Madame Helvétius kissed Franklin’s -cheeks and forehead in greeting. Even more shocking in -her eyes, the guest held Franklin’s hand at dinner and now -and then let her arm rest on the back of John Adams’ chair.</p> -<p>“I should have been greatly astonished at this conduct,” -Abigail wrote afterwards, “if the good Doctor had not told -me that in this lady I should see a genuine Frenchwoman, -wholly free from affectation or stiffness of behaviour, and one -of the best women in the world. For this I must take the -Doctor’s word; but I should have set her down for a very -bad one.”</p> -<p>Whatever Abigail Adams thought, there is no doubt of -Franklin’s devotion. Sometime—no one knows just when—he -proposed marriage to Madame Helvétius. She refused him. -Perhaps she was too accustomed to her own way of life to -want to make a change. Perhaps she felt that his proposal was -only a form of gallantry. Neither the proposal nor her refusal -interfered with their friendship, which lasted as long as he -stayed in France and by correspondence afterward.</p> -<p>Since 1777 he had his own private press at Passy and a -foundry to cast his own type. His excuse was that the press -was useful with so many official forms to be prepared, but it -was also true that printing was still in his blood and always -would be.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_170">170</div> -<p>One of the pamphlets that came off the Passy printing press -was “Information to Those who would Remove to America.” -He thought too many of the wrong people wanted to emigrate -to America for the wrong reasons, and he wanted to -correct their misapprehensions. He discouraged artists and -scholars who expected they would receive free transportation, -land, slaves, tools and livestock from a rich but ignorant -America. In America, a man who did not bring his fortune -“must work and be industrious to live.”</p> -<p>The chief resource of America was cheap land, he pointed -out. Farm laborers were needed. Skilled artisans could make a -good living and “provide for children and old age.” But “those -Europeans who have these or greater advantages at home -would do well to stay where they are.”</p> -<p>To answer those who besieged him with questions about -the Indians, he wrote “Remarks Concerning the Savages of -North America,” perhaps the first fair appraisal of America’s -original inhabitants to be printed:</p> -<blockquote> -<p>The Indian men, when young, are hunters and warriors; when -old, counsellors; for all their government is by counsel of the -sages; there is no force, there are no prisons, no officers to compel -obedience or inflict punishment.... The Indian women -till the ground, dress the food, nurse and bring up the children, -and preserve and hand down to posterity the memory of public -transactions. These employments of men and women are accounted -natural and honourable. Having few artificial wants -they have abundance of leisure for improvement by conversation. -Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they -esteem slavish and base; and the learning on which we value -ourselves they regard as frivolous and useless....</p> -</blockquote> -<p>So he continued, by illustration and by example, to show -that while Indian ways and customs were quite different from -those of the white men, there was much to be said for them, -and they were by no means always inferior. In fact, there was -much which men who called themselves civilized could learn -by studying the nature of those called savages.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_171">171</div> -<p>Some pieces in lighter vein were also run off his press, which -Franklin wrote partly as an exercise in French, partly to entertain -himself and his friends. In one of these bagatelles, as such -pieces are known, he told Parisians of a discovery he had made -whereby they could make great savings in the cost of candles -and oil lamps. He had gone to bed one night, as usual at three -or four hours after midnight, and had been awakened by a -sudden noise at six, to find that his room was flooded with -light! His servant had forgotten to close the shutters before he -retired. Looking into his almanac, he learned what few others -could know—that the sun rises early and “<i>that he gives light -as soon as he rises</i>.”</p> -<p>Another of his bagatelles was “Dialogue between Franklin -and the Gout,” in which Gout explains his frequent and unwelcome -visits as due simply to Franklin’s indolence; he plays -chess too much and exercises too little. The “Ephemera” was -printed as a bagatelle, and so was “The Whistle,” an expanded -version of the little story he had once told his son William.</p> -<p>His intellectual curiosity had not slackened during his years -in France. War or no war, he continued to observe natural -phenomenon, write and reflect on scientific matters, and keep -up with the newest discoveries and inventions.</p> -<p>He attended meetings of the Royal Society of Medicine, -to which he had been elected in 1777, and of the French Academy -of Science. In 1782, he watched Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier -perform an experiment with the gas he had named oxygen—Joseph -Priestley’s “dephlogistated air.” He wrote to Jan -Ingenhousz, a Dutch scientist, about differences between the -Leyden jar and Volta’s new electrophorus, and to Edward -Nairne, an English friend, about the comparative humidity -of the air in London, Philadelphia and Passy.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_172">172</div> -<p>To a French friend, Count de Gebelin, he discoursed on the -characteristics of the various Indian languages. When de -Gebelin commented that some Indian words sounded Phoenician, -Franklin dived into archaeological speculations:</p> -<blockquote> -<p>If any Phoenicians arrived in America, I should rather think it -was not by the accident of a storm but in the course of their -long and adventurous voyages; and that they coasted from -Denmark and Norway over to Greenland, and down southward -by Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, etc., to New England; as the -Danes themselves certainly did some ages before Columbus.</p> -</blockquote> -<p>He wrote a paper on the phenomenon of the aurora borealis -(the northern lights) for the French Academy of Science, sent -notes to Marie Antoinette’s physician, Felix Vicq d’Azyr, on -the length of time infection could remain in the body after -death, and investigated a story of some workmen in the Passy -quarry who claimed to have found living toads shut up in -solid stone.</p> -<p>In a letter to another friend, the Abbé Soulavie, he pondered -on why there were coal mines under the sea at Whitehaven -and oyster shells in the Derbyshire mountains—indications of -great geological changes in the past. Was it possible that the -surface of the earth was a shell “capable of being broken and -disordered by the violent movements of the fluid on which it -rested?” Admittedly, this was only a guess: “I approve much -more your method of philosophizing, which proceeds upon -actual observations....”</p> -<p>He still tinkered with inventions, and for his own comfort -devised the first bifocal glasses, so he could see both near and -far without changing his spectacles.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_173">173</div> -<p>He was old enough to be serious all the time, but he never -could resist a hoax, even with his scientific friends. To the -eminent French physician Georges Cabanis he confided that -in the forests of North America he had observed a bird which -“like the horned screamer or the horned lapwing, carries two -horned tubercles at the joints of the wings. These two tubercles -at the death of the bird become the sprouts of two vegetable -stalks, which grow at first in sucking the juice from its -cadaver and which subsequently attach themselves to the earth -in order to live in the manner of plants and trees.”</p> -<p>The inspiration for this weird creation of his imagination -was perhaps the “vegetable animal” he thought he saw on the -gulf weed he had fished out of the Gulf Stream at the age -of twenty. His friend Cabanis, suspecting nothing, dutifully -reported it in one of his books, taking only the precaution -to note that “in spite of the great veracity of Franklin, I cite it -with a great deal of reserve.”</p> -<p>What endless marvels the world offered and how much -there was to know about them! One lifetime was not nearly -long enough. “The rapid progress true science now makes -occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon,” -he wrote Joseph Priestley after their countries were at peace -once more. “It is impossible to imagine the height to which -may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over -matter.... O that moral science were in as fair a way of -improvement that men would cease to be wolves to one another, -and that human beings would at length learn what they -now improperly call humanity.” He could not guess that his -fervent cry would still be echoed, in one form or another, -more than a hundred and seventy-five years after his death.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_174">174</div> -<p>In 1784, the King of France chose him to serve on a commission -of five to investigate the work of Dr. Franz Anton -Mesmer, who claimed to effect cures through “animal magnetism,”—a -universal fluid which flowed to his patients from -the healer, or from some object “magnetized” by the healer, -such as a tree. All fashionable Paris was flocking to Mesmer’s -seances; his following was enormous throughout France.</p> -<p>With Franklin on this commission served Joseph-Ignace -Guillotin (whose name would survive in the French Revolution’s -chief instrument of execution) and the scientist Lavoisier -(whom the guillotine would claim as a victim). After -many months of study, the commission concluded that “animal -magnetism” did not exist, and that Mesmer’s cures were the -result of “imagination.” The importance of imagination in -physical illness was as yet unrecognized. Privately Franklin -commented that Mesmer’s treatments certainly did some good—at -least they kept some from taking injurious drugs.</p> -<p>On the whole the findings of the commission brought both -Mesmer and mesmerism into disrepute. Indirectly the shadow -of its disapproval fell on a phenomenon first discovered by a -Mesmer disciple, the Marquis de Puysegur—that some persons, -in a state of trance and apparently asleep, are able to obey -simple commands. Hypnotism, for many years after de Puysegur’s -observations, was relegated to quacks rather than -physicians and scientists.</p> -<p>In August of 1784 Thomas Jefferson arrived from America -to help negotiate treaties with European and North African -powers. Franklin introduced him to his French scientific -friends and found in his company the same harmony as when -they were both members of the Second Continental Congress. -His last winter in France, Polly Hewson and her children -also joined him at Passy. Mrs. Stevenson, Polly’s mother, had -died in England during the war. Franklin welcomed these -members of his “English family” with joy and affection.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_175">175</div> -<p>He still had his two grandsons with him. There had been -some objections from Congress to his making Temple his -secretary, on the grounds that he was the son of a traitor. -Franklin had been highly indignant: “Methinks it is rather -some merit that I have rescued a valuable young man from the -danger of being a Tory, and fixed him in honest republican -Whig principles.”</p> -<p>Yet there was some justification in the fears of Congress. At -twenty-six, Temple was charming, handsome and spoiled. He -spent his evenings at music halls and, wearing red heels, an -embroidered coat, and with an Angora cat on a leash, paraded -the boulevards with aristocratic young friends. Mockingly -the Parisians dubbed him “Franklinet.” While Franklin was -trying to kill a clause in the peace treaty conceding special -privileges to Tories, Temple, without his knowledge, wrote to -Lord Shelburne pleading a government post for his Tory -father.</p> -<p>Different as could be was Benjamin Bache, now sixteen, a -husky wholesome youngster much like Franklin at his age. He -wanted no more than to be a printer as his grandfather had -been. Franklin taught him how to cast type, and in April 1785 -persuaded the best printer in France to make him an apprentice. -The arrangement was of short duration.</p> -<p>In May, Franklin at last received permission from Congress -to come home. Jefferson was appointed ambassador to France -in his stead. “I am not replacing Franklin,” Jefferson said loyally. -“No one could do that. I am only his successor.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_176">176</div> -<p>He left Passy on July 12, 1785, traveling to Havre in a -royal litter drawn by mules, which the King had provided for -his comfort. His personal goods—128 boxes in all—went by -barge down the Seine. He took with him Louis XVI’s personal -gift—the King’s miniature, set with 408 diamonds. The -whole population of Passy watched him leave, silent except -for occasional outbursts of sobs.</p> -<p>“All the days of my life I shall remember that a great man, -a sage, wished to be my friend,” wrote Madame Brillon just -before his departure. A farewell note from Madame Helvétius -was waiting for him at Havre: “I see you in your litter, every -step taking you further from us, lost to me and all my friends -who love you so much and to whom you leave such long -regrets.”</p> -<p>He and his grandsons spent four days at Southampton, England. -William Franklin came down from London, where he -was now living, to see them, but the meeting with his father -was brief and strained. Then Benjamin Franklin set off for his -eighth crossing of the Atlantic. He knew it would be his last.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_177">177</div> -<h2 id="c17"><span class="h2line1">17</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE CLOSING YEARS</span></h2> -<p>Never had America given a returning hero a more resounding -welcome. Booming cannons announced his landing -on September 14, 1785, at Philadelphia’s Market Street wharf. -Bells rang throughout the city and the whole town was out to -greet him. Cheering crowds lined the street as his carriage -proceeded to his home at Franklin Court, where Sally and his -grandchildren, eight now in all, were waiting for him. Ceremonies -in his honor continued for weeks.</p> -<p>Old and feeble and almost constantly in pain, he was still -not allowed to relax. On October 11, he was made president -of the Supreme Executive Council of the Pennsylvania Assembly—an -Assembly which would never again have to pay -heed to “the proprietors.” On October 29, two weeks later, -he was elected president of Pennsylvania. To avoid the agony -of riding in a carriage, he had a sedan chair built, so he could -be carried to meetings.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_178">178</div> -<p>His eightieth birthday, January 6, 1786, was celebrated at -the Bunch of Grapes Tavern by Philadelphia’s now numerous -printers. They drank their first toast to their “venerable -printer, philosopher, and statesman.” At least once in this -period George Washington came to dinner with him. One -pleasant afternoon and evening he spent with Thomas Paine, -now one of America’s most distinguished citizens; together -they worked on inventing a “smokeless candle.” For a while, -Franklin kept in his garden a model of an iron bridge which -Paine had invented and which attracted droves of curious -visitors.</p> -<p>He tried vainly to secure a post for Temple, but Congress -was still doubtful about him. Later he bought the young man -a farm at Rancocas, New Jersey. Temple liked farm life so little -he spent most of his time in Philadelphia. For Benjamin -Bache he set up a printing press and type foundry, which the -youth managed contentedly until at the age of thirty an attack -of yellow fever brought his life to a premature end.</p> -<p>In July 1786, an Indian chief of the Wyandots, named -Scotosh, came to Franklin with a message from his people, -bringing strings of white wampum. Franklin received him -with the same courtesy due any ambassador. Following the -Indian custom, he waited two days to consider the chief’s -message, then presented more strings of wampum with his -reply.</p> -<p>In the Pennsylvania Assembly, that September, he helped revise -the penal code. No longer were men to be hanged for -robbery, arson, or counterfeiting. By the new act only murder -and treason warranted capital punishment. Branding with a -hot iron, flogging, the pillory were all abolished. Such barbarities -did not belong in a new nation.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_179">179</div> -<p>He was pleased with signs of progress and quick recovery -from war. “Our working-people are all employed and get high -wages, are well fed and well clad,” he wrote in November. -“Buildings in Philadelphia increase rapidly, besides small -towns rising in every quarter of the country. The laws govern, -justice is well administered, and property is as secure as -in any country in the globe.... In short, all among us may -be happy who have happy dispositions; such being necessary -to happiness even in paradise.”</p> -<p>But all was not yet honey and roses in the new United -States, as he soon discovered. Much trouble had risen because -of the lack of power of the Confederacy.</p> -<p>Under the Articles of the Confederation, Congress might -declare war, but could not enlist a single soldier. Congress -could ask the states for money, but had no authority to raise -a dollar by taxation. It could make treaties but could not force -the states to recognize them. It could not regulate commerce -and each state taxed imports as it wished. Not only the -Confederacy, but all the states issued their own money, resulting -in endless confusion.</p> -<p>To create a strong central government, the Constitutional -Convention opened on May 25, 1787, at the Philadelphia -State House, in the same room where the Declaration of Independence -had been signed. Franklin, who was the oldest -delegate here, as he had been at the Second Continental Congress, -expressed the hope that good would come from the -Convention: “Indeed if it does not do good it must do harm, -as it will show that we have not wisdom enough among us to -govern ourselves.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_180">180</div> -<p>There were fifty-five delegates in all, the best minds in -America. George Washington was the natural choice as presiding -officer. All that hot summer they labored on the task -of making a workable constitution.</p> -<p>Franklin did not miss a meeting in the four months. As always, -he said little. When he had a speech to make, he wrote -it out in advance and let James Wilson, or some other delegate, -read it for him. He could no longer stand to deliver an -address without pain. In the course of the sessions he advocated -three ideas—a single legislature, a plural executive, the -nonpayment of officers. All three were rejected. He accepted -the defeat without rancor.</p> -<p>His main role was as a peacemaker. In case of an impasse, as -was inevitable with so many contrary views and opinions, it -was invariably he who suggested a workable compromise. -Once, when feelings were taut to the point of hostility, he -moved that the Convention open its sessions with prayer:</p> -<p>“I have lived a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing -proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the -affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground -without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without -His aid?”</p> -<p>His motion was received with respect but no action was -taken on it. Perhaps he guessed there would be none. Whether -he planned it or not, his proposal had the effect of cooling -hot tempers, and work continued with less dissension.</p> -<p>The final day of the Convention was Monday, September -17. The great document, which was the fruit of their heavy -labor, was read by the secretary. Then James Wilson gave -Franklin’s comments:</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_181">181</div> -<blockquote> -<p>I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which -I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never -approve them; for, having lived long, I have experienced many -instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration -to change my opinions.... In these sentiments, -sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if there are -such; because I think a general government necessary for us, -and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing -to the people if well administered.... Thus I consent, sir, -to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I -am not sure that it is not the best....</p> -</blockquote> -<p>Then Franklin moved that the Constitution be signed by -the delegates as “done in Convention by the unanimous consent -of the states present.”</p> -<p>While the last delegates were affixing their signature, -Franklin’s eyes were on the president’s chair, on the back of -which a sunset—or sunrise—was painted. To those near him he -said, “I have often and often in the course of the session ... -looked at that sun behind the president without being able -to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now at length I -have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting -sun.”</p> -<p>In the year of the Convention, the Massachusetts delegate, -Elbridge Gerry, called on Franklin, bringing a friend named -Manasseh Cutler. Later Cutler wrote down his recollections of -this first meeting with the philosopher-statesman.</p> -<p>He was sitting hatless under a mulberry tree in his garden, “a -short, fat, trunched old man in a plain Quaker dress, bald pate, -and short white locks.” Present were several men and women, -one of whom was Sarah Bache. When Cutler was introduced, -Franklin rose, took him by the hand, expressed his joy at seeing -him, and begged him to be seated by his side. He spoke in a -low voice and his “countenance was open, frank, and -pleasing.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_182">182</div> -<p>Sarah Bache served tea under the tree. She had three of her -younger children with her, who “seemed to be excessively -fond of their grandpapa.” They talked until dark when Franklin -took his guests into his study, “a very large chamber and -high-studded.” The walls were lined with bookshelves and -there were more books in four alcoves extending two-thirds -of the length of the room. Cutler guessed rightly that this was -“the largest and by far the best private library in America.”</p> -<p>Their host showed them a sort of artificial arm—a long pole -with prongs at the end that could be opened or shut with a -rope, which he had devised to take down and put up books -on the upper shelves. (Previously he had used a chair which -could be unfolded into a ladder, but now he was not sufficiently -agile.) He had other curiosities in the room, such as a -glass machine for “exhibiting the circulation of the blood in -the arteries and veins of the human body” and his rocking -armchair, with a fan placed over it which he could operate -by a small motion of his foot.</p> -<p>Because Cutler was a botanist, Franklin showed him a precious -folio containing <i>Systema Vegetabilium</i>, by Linnaeus, the -founder of systematic botany. Heavy as the folio was, Franklin -insisted on lifting it himself, and to Cutler he expressed -regret that he had not in his youth given more attention to -the science of botany.</p> -<p>They discussed many other matters and Cutler was astonished -at Franklin’s extensive knowledge, “the brightness of his -memory, and clearness and vivacity of all his mental faculties, -notwithstanding his age,” and at the “incessant vein of humour -... which seems as natural and involuntary as his breathing.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_183">183</div> -<p>But his age was catching up with Benjamin Franklin, as no -one realized better than he. In February 1788, he fell on the -stone steps that led into his garden, bruising himself badly and -spraining his wrist, so that temporarily he could not even write -to his friends. The accident was followed by a severe attack -of his kidney stone ailment. He was still confined to bed when -Pennsylvania celebrated gloriously its twelfth Fourth of July. -The Pennsylvania Council held meetings at his house during -his illness, and in October, Thomas Mifflin, a veteran of the -Revolutionary War, was elected to succeed him.</p> -<p>To quiet the anxiety of his sister in Boston, Jane Mecom, -he wrote, “There are in life real evils enough, and it is a folly -to afflict ourselves with imaginary ones.... As to the pain -I suffer, about which you make yourself so unhappy, it is, -when compared with the long life I have enjoyed of health -and ease, but a trifle.”</p> -<p>He made his will that summer of 1788. In a codicil, he bequeathed -to “my friend, and the friend of mankind, General -Washington,” the walking stick with the gold head in the -shape of a cap of liberty, which had been given him in France -as a symbol of victory.</p> -<p>Congress was now allotting many pensions and bonuses to -patriots who had sacrificed their personal interests to serve in -the cause of freedom. Franklin had hoped that his many years -of foreign service might be thought worthy of a grant of a -tract of land in the West “which might have been of some -use and some honour to my posterity.” This was never given -him.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_184">184</div> -<p>Arthur Lee, who had been notably jealous of Franklin and -who had written him vitriolic letters in France accusing him -of leaving him out of things, was a member of the Treasury -Board. He had never forgotten or forgiven Franklin for being -the better man. John Adams was finding ears to listen to -his long-standing disapproval of Franklin’s “frivolity.” He was -being criticized for being too fond of France, as he had once -been censored for his attachment to England, and especially -for accepting as a gift the King of France’s miniature. There -was also a matter of a million livres given by France to the -dummy importing concern, Hortalez and Company, which -was unaccounted for. Franklin was condemned by innuendo, -though time would clear him completely.</p> -<p>He was sorrowful about this turn of affairs but he blamed -nobody. He knew something of the “nature of such changeable -assemblies,” he wrote a friend, “and how little successors -are informed of services that have been rendered to the corps -before their admission.”</p> -<p>Once more he had turned to working on his <i>Autobiography</i>, -commenced years before at the Shipley home in England. -For six months off and on he kept at it, even while his -kidney stone was causing him such acute pain he had to resort -to opium. He brought his life story up to the time of his first -meetings with the Penn brothers in England. It remained unfinished.</p> -<p>By the summer of 1789 he was so emaciated that, in his -words, “little remains of me but a skeleton covered with a -skin,” and philosophic as always, commented, “In this world, -nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes,” -tossing off another epigram that would survive.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_185">185</div> -<p>The long fermenting discontent of the French working -classes exploded in the storming of the Bastille on July 14, -1789. Franklin seems not to have realized the extent of the -misery in France during his stay there. Most of his intimate -friends had been wealthy, or at least well-to-do. His own life -had been so idyllic he had come to think of his foster country -almost as a utopia. Moreover, he was deeply grateful to the -French King for his generosity to America.</p> -<p>But his belief in the rights of the common man was firm -and if the people of France felt they needed a change, he was -with them. When rumors of their Revolution reached him, he -wrote, “Disagreeable circumstances might attend the convulsions -in France ... but if by the struggle she obtains -and secures for her nation its future liberty, and a good constitution, -a few years’ enjoyment of those blessings will amply -repair all the damages their acquisition may have occasioned.”</p> -<p>Since 1787 he had been president of the Pennsylvania Society -for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, founded by the -Quakers, and his signature was on a memorial which the society -sent to Congress on February 12, 1790, advocating the -abolition of slavery. Congress dismissed the memorial on the -grounds that it had no authority to interfere in the internal -affairs of the states. Whereupon Franklin promptly published -an essay, “On the Slave Trade,” in which a mythical Algerian, -Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim, used the same arguments as the Negro -slave owners to defend his right to Christian slaves! The piece -showed the same barbs of wit and satire as his earlier writings. -His campaign against slavery was his last public activity.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_186">186</div> -<p>His pain now kept him bedridden, but he did some work, -using Benjamin Bache as his secretary, and he found the -energy to listen to his nine-year-old granddaughter Deborah -recite lessons from her Webster spelling book. In March, -Thomas Jefferson, on his way to accept his post as Secretary -of State under President George Washington, came to see him, -and on April 8, he wrote Jefferson his last letter, a clear account -of the map which he and the other peace commissioners -used in fixing the boundary between Maine and Nova Scotia.</p> -<p>He was now running a high temperature. Breathing became -so difficult that he nearly suffocated. When, briefly, he felt a -little better, he rose from his bed, begging that it might be -made up fresh for him so he could die in a decent manner.</p> -<p>His daughter Sally told him she hoped he would recover and -live many years longer.</p> -<p>“I hope not,” he said calmly.</p> -<p>They put him back to bed and his physician advised him to -change his position so he could breathe more easily.</p> -<p>“A dying man can do nothing easy,” he commented.</p> -<p>Soon afterwards he fell in a coma. Temple and Benjamin -Bache, his grandsons, were alone with him when, on April 17, -1790, at the age of eighty-four and three months, the end came.</p> -<p>His death brought an abrupt halt to the petty recriminations -that had saddened his last months. In Philadelphia, the city -that had grown up with him and because of him, muffled bells -tolled, and flags on the ships in the harbor hung at half mast. -Some 20,000 attended his funeral, the greatest number the -city had ever seen gathered in one spot. As he was lowered -into his grave in the Christ Church burying ground beside -his wife, a company of militia artillery fired funeral guns in -honor of the man who had organized Pennsylvania’s first -militia.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_187">187</div> -<p>In New York, by a motion passed unanimously, the United -States House of Representatives voted to wear mourning for -a month. Neither the Senate nor the Executive Council followed -the example of the House. Ironically, the man chosen -to pronounce his funeral eulogy at the Lutheran German -Church in Philadelphia was William Smith, his ancient enemy. -Although Smith did not do him justice, the crowd before the -pulpit sobbed openly.</p> -<p>But it was in France, his adopted country, where the expressions -of grief and loss were most tumultuous. The National -Assembly proclaimed a period of three months of national -mourning for the “benefactor and hero of humanity.” “Antiquity -would have raised altars to this mighty genius,” cried -the revolutionary leader Mirabeau.</p> -<p>Splendid orations in his honor were delivered by the Jacobins, -the Friends of the Constitution, the Academy of Science, -the Royal Society of Medicine, the National Guard, -the Masonic lodges, the printers of France, and uncounted -other societies. All over the country, women wept for him. It -is said that one enterprising businessman became rich by selling -statuettes of him, made from the stones of the Bastille.</p> -<p>Franklin’s contributions to his country, to science, to better -understanding between nations and peoples were immense. His -maxims on thrift and moral virtues have been extolled to generations -of school children. His wit and wisdom have added -to the world’s riches. He was many men in one—statesman, -scientist, inventor, writer, humorist, philosopher, and a friend -of humanity who shared himself with all around him.</p> -<p>“Who that know and love you can bear the thoughts of -surviving you in this gloomy world?” cried out Jane Mecom, -his beloved sister, shortly before his death.</p> -<p>Posterity would provide her answer. Because Benjamin -Franklin lived and enjoyed life, the world would be a little less -gloomy and a little more pleasant for all who came after him.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_188">188</div> -<h2 id="c18"><span class="h2line1">SUGGESTED READING</span></h2> -<p>Aldrich, Alfred Owen, <i>Franklin and His French Contemporaries</i>. -New York, New York University Press, 1957.</p> -<p><i>The American Heritage Book of the Revolution.</i> By the Editors -of American Heritage. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1958.</p> -<p>Augur, Helen, <i>The Secret War of Independence</i>. New York, -Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1955.</p> -<p>Burt, Struthers, <i>Philadelphia Holy Experiment</i>. New York, -Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1945.</p> -<p>Clark, William Bell, <i>Ben Franklin’s Privateers</i>. Baton Rouge, La., -Louisiana State University Press, 1956.</p> -<p>Fäy, Bernard, <i>Franklin, the Apostle of Modern Times</i>. Boston, -Little, Brown, and Company, 1929.</p> -<p>Ford, Paul Leicester, <i>The Many-Sided Franklin</i>. New York, The -Century Company, 1899.</p> -<p><i>Franklin’s Wit & Folly—the Bagatelles</i>, edited by Richard E. -Amacher. New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, 1953.</p> -<p><i>A Benjamin Franklin Reader</i>, edited by Nathan G. Goodman. -New York, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1945.</p> -<p><i>Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiographical Writings</i>, selected and -edited by Carl Van Doren. New York, The Viking Press, 1945.</p> -<p><i>The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin</i>, with postcript by -Richard B. Morris. New York, The Pocket Library, 1954.</p> -<p>Van Doren, Carl, <i>Benjamin Franklin</i>. New York, The Viking -Press, 1938.</p> -<p>Van Doren, Carl, <i>Jane Mecom</i>. New York, The Viking Press, -1950.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_189">189</div> -<h2 id="c19"><span class="h2line1">INDEX</span></h2> -<p class="center"><a class="ab" href="#index_A">A</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_B">B</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_C">C</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_D">D</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_E">E</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_F">F</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_G">G</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_H">H</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_I">I</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_J">J</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_K">K</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_L">L</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_M">M</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_N">N</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_O">O</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_P">P</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_Q">Q</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_R">R</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_S">S</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_T">T</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_U">U</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_V">V</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_W">W</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_X">X</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_Y">Y</a> <a class="ab" href="#index_Z">Z</a></p> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_A">A</dt> -<dt><i>Abridgement of the Book of Common Prayer</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_108">108</a></dt> -<dt>Adams, Abigail, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_168">168</a>-69</dt> -<dt>Adams, John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_155">155</a>-56, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_168">168</a>-69, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_184">184</a></dt> -<dt>Adams, John Quincy, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_155">155</a></dt> -<dt>Adams, Matthew, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_13">13</a></dt> -<dt>Adams, Samuel, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_113">113</a></dt> -<dt>Addison, Joseph, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_14">14</a></dt> -<dt>Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a></dt> -<dt>Albany, New York, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_64">64</a></dt> -<dt>Alibard, Thomas François d’, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_103">103</a></dt> -<dt>American Philosophical Society, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_56">56</a></dt> -<dt>André, Major John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -<dt>Animal magnetism, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_173">173</a>-74</dt> -<dt>Anton, Franz, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_173">173</a></dt> -<dt>Ants, experiment with, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_57">57</a>-58</dt> -<dt>Arland, Marquis d’, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_165">165</a>-66</dt> -<dt>Armonica, invention of the, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a></dt> -<dt>Arnold, General Benedict, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_136">136</a>-37, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_161">161</a></dt> -<dt>Articles of Confederation, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_179">179</a></dt> -<dt>Auteuil, France, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_168">168</a></dt> -<dt><i>Autobiography</i> of Benjamin Franklin, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_184">184</a></dt> -<dt>Azyr, Felix Vicq d’, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_172">172</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_B">B</dt> -<dt>Bache, Benjamin Franklin (Benjamin’s grandson), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_186">186</a></dt> -<dt>Bache, Deborah (Benjamin’s granddaughter), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_185">185</a></dt> -<dt>Bache, Richard (Benjamin’s son-in-law), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_161">161</a></dt> -<dt>Bache, Sarah Franklin (Benjamin’s daughter), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_186">186</a></dt> -<dt>Bache, William (Benjamin’s grandson), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a></dt> -<dt>Balloon ascensions, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_165">165</a>-66</dt> -<dt>Bancroft, Edward, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_153">153</a></dt> -<dt>Bathurst, Lord and Lady, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_105">105</a></dt> -<dt>Beaumarchais, Caron de, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_152">152</a></dt> -<dt>Beethoven, Ludwig von, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a></dt> -<dt>Belgium, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a></dt> -<dt><i>Berkshire</i>, ship, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_26">26</a></dt> -<dt>Bermuda, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_127">127</a>-28</dt> -<dt>Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_69">69</a></dt> -<dt><i>Black Prince</i>, privateer, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_159">159</a></dt> -<dt><i>Black Princess</i>, privateer, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_159">159</a></dt> -<dt>Bond, Dr. Thomas, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_56">56</a>-57</dt> -<dt><i>Bonhomme Richard</i>, privateer, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_160">160</a>-61</dt> -<dt>Bonvouloir, Achard de, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_135">135</a></dt> -<dt>Boston, Massachusetts, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_9">9</a>-17, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_111">111</a>-13, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_139">139</a></dt> -<dt>Boston City Council, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_16">16</a></dt> -<dt>Boston <i>Gazette</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_13">13</a></dt> -<dt>Boston Massacre, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_105">105</a></dt> -<dt>Boston Tea Party, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_119">119</a></dt> -<dt>Boswell, James, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a></dt> -<dt>Braddock, General Edward, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_65">65</a>-66, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_71">71</a></dt> -<dt>Bradford, Andrew, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_35">35</a></dt> -<dt>Bradford, William, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_17">17</a></dt> -<dt>Brillon, Madame, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_167">167</a>-68, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_176">176</a></dt> -<dt>British Royal Society, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a></dt> -<dt>Brooklyn Heights, Battle of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_139">139</a></dt> -<dt>Bruere, James, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_128">128</a></dt> -<dt>Brussels, Holland, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a></dt> -<dt>Buffon, Count Georges Louis, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_58">58</a></dt> -<dt>Bunker Hill, Battle of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_124">124</a></dt> -<dt>Burgesses, Virginia House of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_94">94</a></dt> -<dt>Burgoyne, General John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_152">152</a></dt> -<dt>Burke, Edmund, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_117">117</a></dt> -<dt>Burlington, New Jersey, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_57">57</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_C">C</dt> -<dt>Cabanis, Georges, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_172">172</a>-73</dt> -<dt>Calgagnia, Jean-François, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_51">51</a></dt> -<dt>Canada, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_136">136</a>-37, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_152">152</a></dt> -<dt>Canton, John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_78">78</a></dt> -<dt>Carlisle, Pennsylvania, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_62">62</a></dt> -<dt>Charles, Jacques-Alexandre-César, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_165">165</a></dt> -<dt>Charles II, King, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_20">20</a></dt> -<dt>Charleston, South Carolina, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_40">40</a></dt> -<dt>Chaumont, Le Ray de, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_155">155</a></dt> -<dt>Chaumont, Sophie de, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_167">167</a></dt> -<dt>Christian VII, King, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_105">105</a></dt> -<dt>Collins (Benjamin’s friend), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_17">17</a></dt> -<dt>Collinson, Peter, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_74">74</a></dt> -<dt>“Common Sense,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_135">135</a>-36, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_147">147</a></dt> -<dt>Concord, Battle of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a>-24</dt> -<dt>Constitutional Convention, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_179">179</a>-81</dt> -<dt>Continental Congress, <i>see</i> First Continental Congress, Second Continental Congress</dt> -<dt>Continental Navy, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_129">129</a>;</dt> -<dd><i>see also</i> Privateers</dd> -<dt>Cook, Captain James, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_167">167</a></dt> -<dt>Cornwallis, General Charles, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -<dt><i>Craven Street Gazette</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_107">107</a></dt> -<dt>Cunaeus, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_50">50</a></dt> -<dt>Cushing, Thomas, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_118">118</a></dt> -<dt>Cutler, Manasseh, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_181">181</a>-82</dt> -</dl> -<div class="pb" id="Page_190">190</div> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_D">D</dt> -<dt>Dartmouth, Lord, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_117">117</a></dt> -<dt>Davies, Marianne, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a></dt> -<dt>Deane, Silas, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_144">144</a>-45, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_155">155</a></dt> -<dt>Declaration of Independence, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_137">137</a>-39, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_147">147</a></dt> -<dt>Declaration of Rights and Grievances, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_120">120</a></dt> -<dt>Deffand, Marquise du, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_145">145</a>-46</dt> -<dt>De Lor, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_58">58</a></dt> -<dt>Denham, Thomas, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_28">28</a></dt> -<dt>Denny, William, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_80">80</a></dt> -<dt>“Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a></dt> -<dt>Dickinson, John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_133">133</a></dt> -<dt>Dinwiddie, Robert, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_64">64</a></dt> -<dt>“Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain, A,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_25">25</a></dt> -<dt><i>Drake</i>, H.M.S., <a class="pgref" href="#Page_160">160</a></dt> -<dt>Dublin, Ireland, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_105">105</a></dt> -<dt>Dubourg, Barbeu, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_144">144</a></dt> -<dt>Du Fay, Charles François, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_49">49</a></dt> -<dt>Dumas, Charles, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_133">133</a></dt> -<dt>Dunning, John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_117">117</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_E">E</dt> -<dt>Easton, Pennsylvania, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_69">69</a></dt> -<dt>“Edict by the King of Prussia,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_114">114</a>-15</dt> -<dt>Edwards, Jonathan, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_55">55</a></dt> -<dt>Electricity, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_49">49</a>-56, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_58">58</a>-60, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_100">100</a></dt> -<dt>Empedocles, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_54">54</a></dt> -<dt>England, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_24">24</a>-26, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_74">74</a>-83, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_91">91</a>-99, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_100">100</a>-10, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_111">111</a>-21, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a>-51, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_152">152</a>-53, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_158">158</a>-59, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_161">161</a></dt> -<dt>“Ephemera,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a></dt> -<dt>“Experiments and Observations in Electricity, Made at Philadelphia, in America,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_58">58</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_F">F</dt> -<dt><i>Fearnot</i>, privateer, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_159">159</a></dt> -<dt>First Continental Congress, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_120">120</a></dt> -<dt>Fisher, Daniel, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_68">68</a></dt> -<dt>Forbes, Brigadier General, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_71">71</a></dt> -<dt>Fort Duquesne, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_70">70</a>-71</dt> -<dt>Fothergill, Dr. John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_89">89</a></dt> -<dt>Fox, Charles James, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a></dt> -<dt>France and the French, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_133">133</a>-35, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_143">143</a>-54, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_157">157</a>-64, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_165">165</a>-76, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_184">184</a>-85, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_187">187</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin, Abiah (Benjamin’s mother), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_40">40</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin, Benjamin, agricultural interests, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_57">57</a>;</dt> -<dd>ambassador to France, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_158">158</a>-63, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_166">166</a>-76;</dd> -<dd>birth, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_9">9</a>;</dd> -<dd>book publisher, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_42">42</a>;</dd> -<dd>boyhood, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_9">9</a>-17;</dd> -<dd>Braddock and, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_65">65</a>-67;</dd> -<dd>children, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_44">44</a>;</dd> -<dd>civic improvements suggested by, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_46">46</a>-47, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_56">56</a>-57;</dd> -<dd>clerk to Pennsylvania Assembly, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_41">41</a>;</dd> -<dd>commissioner to France, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_143">143</a>-54;</dd> -<dd>continental trips, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_103">103</a>-04;</dd> -<dd>courtship, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_169">169</a>;</dd> -<dd>death, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_186">186</a>;</dd> -<dd>Declaration of Independence and, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_137">137</a>-38;</dd> -<dd>delegate to Constitutional Convention, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_179">179</a>-81;</dd> -<dd>delegate to Second Continental Congress, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_124">124</a>-31, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_132">132</a>-41;</dd> -<dd>education, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_40">40</a>;</dd> -<dd>educational proposals, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_45">45</a>-46;</dd> -<dd>electrical experiments, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_51">51</a>-56, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_58">58</a>-60, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_100">100</a>;</dd> -<dd>England visited by, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_24">24</a>-26, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_74">74</a>-83, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_91">91</a>-121;</dd> -<dd>founder of American Philosophical Society, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_44">44</a>-45;</dd> -<dd>France visited by, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_103">103</a>;</dd> -<dd>friendships in England, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_100">100</a>-10;</dd> -<dd>funeral of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_186">186</a>;</dd> -<dd>honors, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_166">166</a>-67, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_186">186</a>-87;</dd> -<dd>Hutchinson letters and, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_112">112</a>-13, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_115">115</a>-18;</dd> -<dd>illnesses, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_77">77</a>-78, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_185">185</a>;</dd> -<dd>inventions, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_43">43</a>-44, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_80">80</a>-81, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_178">178</a>;</dd> -<dd>journey to Philadelphia, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_18">18</a>-19;</dd> -<dd>library for public established by, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_34">34</a>-35;</dd> -<dd>marriage, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_34">34</a>;</dd> -<dd>Masonic leader, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_56">56</a>;</dd> -<dd>meeting with Richard Howe, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_140">140</a>-41;</dd> -<dd>military career, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_68">68</a>-71;</dd> -<dd>musical interests, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a>;</dd> -<dd>old age, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_166">166</a>-76, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_177">177</a>-86;</dd> -<dd>peace negotiations with England, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_163">163</a>;</dd> -<dd>Penn family and, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_76">76</a>-77, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_89">89</a>-90, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_91">91</a>-92;</dd> -<dd>Pennsylvania Hospital established by, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_57">57</a>;</dd> -<dd>personal appearance, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_42">42</a>-43, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_143">143</a>-44, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_181">181</a>-82;</dd> -<dd>postmaster-general of the colonies, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_125">125</a>;</dd> -<dd>postmaster of Philadelphia, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_41">41</a>;</dd> -<dd>printer in Philadelphia, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_19">19</a>-24, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_29">29</a>-30, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_31">31</a>-37, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a>;</dd> -<dd>printer’s apprentice, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_12">12</a>-17;</dd> -<dd>publisher of the Courant in Boston, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_16">16</a>;</dd> -<dd>religious beliefs, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_180">180</a>;</dd> -<dd>retirement, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a>-48;</dd> -<dd>scientific interests, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_26">26</a>-27, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_51">51</a>-56, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_57">57</a>-60, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_108">108</a>-10, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_121">121</a>-22, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a>-74, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_182">182</a>;</dd> -<dd>Stamp Act and, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_92">92</a>-99;</dd> -<dd>summoned before King’s Privy Council, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_116">116</a>-17;</dd> -<dd>vegetarian diet, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_18">18</a>;</dd> -<dd>verse-making, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_13">13</a>-14, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_43">43</a>;</dd> -<dd>virtues, thirteen, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_38">38</a>-40, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_41">41</a>;</dd> -<dd>Voltaire and, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_157">157</a>;</dd> -<dd>will of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_183">183</a></dd> -<dt>Franklin, Benjamin (Benjamin’s uncle), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_10">10</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin, Deborah Read (Benjamin’s wife), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_43">43</a>-44, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_69">69</a>-70, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_74">74</a>-75, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_121">121</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin, Elizabeth (William’s wife), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_85">85</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin, Francis Folger (Benjamin’s son), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_44">44</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin, James (Benjamin’s brother), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_12">12</a>-13, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_16">16</a>-17, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_40">40</a>-41</dt> -<dt>Franklin, Jane, <i>see</i> Mecom, Jane Franklin</dt> -<dt>Franklin, John (Benjamin’s brother), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_63">63</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin, Josiah (Benjamin’s father), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_11">11</a>-12, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_105">105</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin, Lydia (Benjamin’s sister), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_9">9</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin, Peter (Benjamin’s brother), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_63">63</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin, Sally (Benjamin’s cousin), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_107">107</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin, Sarah (Sally), <i>see</i> Bache, Sarah Franklin</dt> -<dt>Franklin, William (Benjamin’s son), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_77">77</a>-78, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a>-83, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_176">176</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin, William Temple (Benjamin’s grandson), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_186">186</a></dt> -<dt>Franklin Stove, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_90">90</a></dt> -<dt>Frederick the Great, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_114">114</a></dt> -<dt>Freedom of the press, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_35">35</a></dt> -<dt>Freemasonry, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_35">35</a></dt> -<dt>French, Colonel, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_21">21</a>-22, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_24">24</a></dt> -<dt>French and Indian Wars, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_86">86</a></dt> -<dt>French Academy of Sciences, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_172">172</a></dt> -<dt>French Revolution, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_184">184</a>-85</dt> -<dt>French Royal Academy, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_107">107</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_G">G</dt> -<dt>Gage, General Thomas, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_115">115</a></dt> -<dt>Galloway, Joseph, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_141">141</a></dt> -<dt>Gates, General Horatio, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_161">161</a></dt> -<dt>Gebelin, Count de, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a>-72</dt> -<dt>George III, King, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -<dt>Gérard, Conrad-Alexandre, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_153">153</a></dt> -<dt>German Royal Academy of Sciences, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a></dt> -<dt>Germantown, Pennsylvania, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_88">88</a></dt> -<dt>Gerry, Elbridge, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_181">181</a></dt> -<dt>Gibbon, Edward, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_148">148</a></dt> -<dt>Glover, John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_139">139</a></dt> -<dt>Gnadenhuetten, Pennsylvania, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_69">69</a></dt> -<dt>Göttingen, Germany, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a></dt> -<dt>Greene, Catherine Ray, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_85">85</a>-86, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_168">168</a></dt> -<dt>Greene, General Nathanael, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -<dt>Greene, William, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_86">86</a></dt> -<dt>Grenville, Lord George, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_75">75</a>-76, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_97">97</a></dt> -<dt>Gruet, M., <a class="pgref" href="#Page_144">144</a></dt> -<dt>Guillotin, Joseph-Ignace, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_174">174</a></dt> -<dt>Gulf Stream, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_121">121</a>-22</dt> -</dl> -<div class="pb" id="Page_191">191</div> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_H">H</dt> -<dt>Hadley, John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_78">78</a></dt> -<dt>Hall, David, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a></dt> -<dt>Hamilton, Andrew, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_32">32</a></dt> -<dt>Hamilton, James, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_69">69</a></dt> -<dt>Hancock, John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_138">138</a></dt> -<dt>Harrison, Benjamin, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_133">133</a></dt> -<dt>Hartley, David, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_158">158</a></dt> -<dt>Havre, France, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_176">176</a></dt> -<dt>Harvard College, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_60">60</a></dt> -<dt>Hell Fire Club, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_12">12</a></dt> -<dt>Helvétius, Madame, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_168">168</a>-69, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_176">176</a></dt> -<dt>Henry, Patrick, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_94">94</a></dt> -<dt>Hessians, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_148">148</a></dt> -<dt>Hewitt, James, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_97">97</a></dt> -<dt>Hewson, Polly Stevenson, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_174">174</a></dt> -<dt>Hewson, William, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_118">118</a></dt> -<dt>Hillsborough, Earl of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_117">117</a></dt> -<dt>Holland, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_161">161</a></dt> -<dt>Holmes, Robert, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_22">22</a></dt> -<dt>Hortalez and Company, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_144">144</a>-45, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_184">184</a></dt> -<dt>Houdon, Jean-Antoine, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_157">157</a></dt> -<dt>Howe, Admiral Lord Richard, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_139">139</a>-40, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_167">167</a></dt> -<dt>Howe, General Sir William, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_151">151</a></dt> -<dt>Hughes, John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_94">94</a></dt> -<dt>Hume, David, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_79">79</a></dt> -<dt>Hunter, William, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_63">63</a></dt> -<dt>Hutchinson, Thomas, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_116">116</a></dt> -<dt>Hutchinson Letters, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_112">112</a>-13, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_115">115</a>-18</dt> -<dt>Hypnotism, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_174">174</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_I">I</dt> -<dt>Indians, American, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_61">61</a>-62, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_86">86</a>-88, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a>-72, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_178">178</a></dt> -<dt>“Information to Those who would Remove to America,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_169">169</a>-70</dt> -<dt>Ingenhousz, Jan, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a></dt> -<dt>Ingersoll, Jared, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_95">95</a></dt> -<dt>Insurance company, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_57">57</a></dt> -<dt>Ireland, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_105">105</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_J">J</dt> -<dt>Jay, John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_163">163</a></dt> -<dt>Jay, Maria <a class="pgref" href="#Page_163">163</a></dt> -<dt>Jefferson, Thomas, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_185">185</a>-86</dt> -<dt>Johnson, Samuel, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a></dt> -<dt>Johnson, Thomas, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_133">133</a></dt> -<dt>Jones, John Paul, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_160">160</a>-61</dt> -<dt>Junto, the, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_30">30</a>-31, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_K">K</dt> -<dt>Kames, Lord Henry Home, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_102">102</a></dt> -<dt>Keimer, Samuel, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_19">19</a>-20, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_33">33</a></dt> -<dt>Keith, Sir William, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_21">21</a>-22, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_71">71</a></dt> -<dt><i>King of Prussia</i>, ship, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_91">91</a></dt> -<dt>Kinnersley, Ebenezer, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_52">52</a>-53</dt> -<dt>Kleist, E. C. von, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_50">50</a></dt> -<dt>Knox, Henry, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_126">126</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_L">L</dt> -<dt><i>Lady Catherine</i>, ship, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_128">128</a></dt> -<dt>Lafayette, Marquis de, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -<dt>Laurens, Henry, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -<dt>Laurens, Colonel John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -<dt>Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_174">174</a></dt> -<dt>Le Despencer, Lord, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_117">117</a></dt> -<dt>Lee, Arthur, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_183">183</a></dt> -<dt>Lee, “Light-Horse Harry,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -<dt>Lee, Richard Henry, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_137">137</a></dt> -<dt><i>Letters on Philosophical Subjects</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_110">110</a></dt> -<dt>Lexington, Battle of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a></dt> -<dt>Leyden jar, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_50">50</a>-51, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a></dt> -<dt><i>Lighthouse Tragedy, The</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_13">13</a></dt> -<dt>Lightning rods, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_55">55</a>-56, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a>-51</dt> -<dt>Linnaeus, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_182">182</a></dt> -<dt>Livingston, Robert, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_138">138</a></dt> -<dt>London, England, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_24">24</a>-26, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_74">74</a></dt> -<dt>London <i>Journal</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_16">16</a></dt> -<dt>London <i>Spectator</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_14">14</a></dt> -<dt>Lorraine, Prince of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a></dt> -<dt>Loudon, Lord, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_71">71</a></dt> -<dt>Louis XV, King, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_103">103</a>-04, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_105">105</a></dt> -<dt>Louis XVI, King, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_185">185</a></dt> -<dt>Lynch, Thomas, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_130">130</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_M">M</dt> -<dt>Marchant, Captain Stephen, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_159">159</a></dt> -<dt>Marie Antoinette, Queen, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_154">154</a></dt> -<dt>Marion, Francis, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -<dt>Massachusetts Assembly, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_118">118</a></dt> -<dt>Massachusetts Committee of Safety, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a></dt> -<dt>Mather, Cotton, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_12">12</a></dt> -<dt>Mecom, Edward, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_40">40</a></dt> -<dt>Mecom, Jane Franklin (Benjamin’s daughter), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_130">130</a>-31, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_187">187</a></dt> -<dt>Meredith, Hugh, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_29">29</a>-30, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_31">31</a>-32</dt> -<dt>Mesmer, Dr., <a class="pgref" href="#Page_174">174</a></dt> -<dt>Mifflin, Thomas, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_183">183</a></dt> -<dt>Militia, Pennsylvania, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_68">68</a>-71, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_125">125</a></dt> -<dt>Minutemen, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a>-24</dt> -<dt>Mirabeau, Count de, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_187">187</a></dt> -<dt>Montgomery, General Richard, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_136">136</a></dt> -<dt>Montreal, Canada, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_137">137</a></dt> -<dt>Moravians, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_86">86</a></dt> -<dt>Morgan, Daniel, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -<dt>Morris, Robert, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_128">128</a>-29</dt> -<dt>Morris, Robert Hunter, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_70">70</a>-71</dt> -<dt>Mozart, Wolfgang, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a></dt> -<dt>Musschenbroek, Pieter van, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_N">N</dt> -<dt>Nairne, Edward, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a></dt> -<dt>Nantes, France, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_143">143</a>-44</dt> -<dt>“Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster County,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_87">87</a></dt> -<dt>“Nature and Necessity of Paper Money, The,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_32">32</a></dt> -<dt>New Castle, Pennsylvania, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a></dt> -<dt><i>New England Courant</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_16">16</a></dt> -<dt>Newport, Rhode Island, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_53">53</a></dt> -<dt>Newton, Sir Isaac, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_25">25</a></dt> -<dt>New York City, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_186">186</a>-87</dt> -<dt>Nollet, Abbé Jean-Antoine, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_51">51</a></dt> -<dt>North, Lord, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_125">125</a></dt> -<dt>Northwest Passage, search for, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_57">57</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_O">O</dt> -<dt>Oliver, Andrew, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_116">116</a></dt> -<dt>“On the Slave Trade,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_185">185</a></dt> -<dt>Oxford University, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_81">81</a></dt> -</dl> -<div class="pb" id="Page_192">192</div> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_P">P</dt> -<dt>Paine, Thomas, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_135">135</a>-36, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_178">178</a></dt> -<dt>Palmer (London printer), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_25">25</a></dt> -<dt>Paper currency, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_32">32</a></dt> -<dt>Paris, Ferdinand John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_77">77</a></dt> -<dt>Paris, France, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_165">165</a></dt> -<dt>Paris, Treaty of (1763), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_86">86</a></dt> -<dt>Paris, Treaty of (1783), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_163">163</a></dt> -<dt>Passy, France, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_167">167</a>-69, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_175">175</a>-76</dt> -<dt>Paxton Boys, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_86">86</a>-87, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_88">88</a>-89</dt> -<dt>Peabody, Mrs., <a class="pgref" href="#Page_14">14</a></dt> -<dt>Penal code revision, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_178">178</a></dt> -<dt>Penn, John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_90">90</a></dt> -<dt>Penn, Richard, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_76">76</a></dt> -<dt>Penn, Thomas, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_76">76</a>-77, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_89">89</a></dt> -<dt>Penn, William, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_110">110</a></dt> -<dt>Pennsylvania Academy, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_139">139</a></dt> -<dt>Pennsylvania Assembly, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_178">178</a></dt> -<dt><i>Pennsylvania Gazette</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_35">35</a>-36, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_64">64</a></dt> -<dt>Pennsylvania Hospital, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_57">57</a></dt> -<dt><i>Pennsylvania Magazine</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_135">135</a></dt> -<dt><i>Pennsylvania Packet</i>, ship, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_121">121</a></dt> -<dt>Perth Amboy, New Jersey, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_19">19</a></dt> -<dt>Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_20">20</a>-21, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_46">46</a>-47, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_186">186</a></dt> -<dt>Philadelphia City Council, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_56">56</a></dt> -<dt><i>Philadelphia Gazette</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_56">56</a></dt> -<dt><i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_10">10</a></dt> -<dt>Pinel, Philippe, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_168">168</a></dt> -<dt>Pitt, William (Lord Chatham), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a>-02, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_120">120</a></dt> -<dt>“Plain Truth,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a></dt> -<dt><i>Plutarch’s Lives</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_10">10</a></dt> -<dt>Police force, Philadelphia, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_46">46</a></dt> -<dt><i>Poor Richard’ s Almanack</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_36">36</a>-37, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_73">73</a>-74</dt> -<dt>Portsmouth, England, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_109">109</a></dt> -<dt>Pratt, Charles, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_80">80</a></dt> -<dt>Priestley, Joseph, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_173">173</a></dt> -<dt>Pringle, Sir John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_100">100</a>-01, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_103">103</a>-04, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_151">151</a></dt> -<dt>Privateers, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_159">159</a>-61</dt> -<dt>“Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge Among British Plantations in North America,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_44">44</a>-45</dt> -<dt>“Proposal Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_45">45</a>-46</dt> -<dt><i>Public Advertiser</i>, London, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_116">116</a></dt> -<dt>Puysegur, Marquis de, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_174">174</a></dt> -<dt>Pyrmont, Germany, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_Q">Q</dt> -<dt>Quebec, Canada, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_136">136</a></dt> -<dt>Queensberry, Duke of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_117">117</a></dt> -<dt>Quincy, Josiah, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_163">163</a>-64</dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_R">R</dt> -<dt>Ralph, James, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_25">25</a></dt> -<dt>Rancocas, New Jersey, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_178">178</a></dt> -<dt><i>Ranger</i>, privateer, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_160">160</a></dt> -<dt>Raspe, Rudolf Erich, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a></dt> -<dt>Ray, Catherine, <i>see</i> Greene, Catherine Ray</dt> -<dt>Read, Deborah, <i>see</i> Franklin, Deborah Read</dt> -<dt>“Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_170">170</a></dt> -<dt><i>Reprisal</i>, sloop, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_143">143</a></dt> -<dt>Revere, Paul, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a></dt> -<dt>Revolutionary War, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_123">123</a>-31, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_132">132</a>-42, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_149">149</a>-50, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_151">151</a>-52, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_158">158</a>-63</dt> -<dt>Rochambeau, General, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -<dt>Rockingham, Marquis of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a></dt> -<dt>Rozier, Pilâtre de, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_165">165</a></dt> -<dt>“Rules by Which a Great Empire may be Reduced to a Small One,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_113">113</a>-14, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_115">115</a></dt> -<dt>Rush, Dr. Benjamin, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_57">57</a></dt> -<dt>Rutledge, Edward, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_140">140</a></dt> -<dt>Ryan, Luke, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_159">159</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_S">S</dt> -<dt>St. Andrews University, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_79">79</a></dt> -<dt>St. Eustatius, West Indies, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_161">161</a></dt> -<dt>St. George, Bermuda, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_127">127</a></dt> -<dt>Sandwich, Earl of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_117">117</a></dt> -<dt>Saratoga, Battle of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_152">152</a></dt> -<dt><i>Savannah Pacquet</i>, ship, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_128">128</a></dt> -<dt>Scotland, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_79">79</a></dt> -<dt>Scotosh, Chief, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_178">178</a></dt> -<dt>Second Continental Congress, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_124">124</a>-30, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_132">132</a>-41, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_157">157</a>-58, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_185">185</a></dt> -<dt><i>Serapis</i>, H.M.S., <a class="pgref" href="#Page_161">161</a></dt> -<dt>Shelburne, Earl of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_175">175</a></dt> -<dt>Sherman, Roger, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_138">138</a></dt> -<dt>Shipley, Jonathan, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_107">107</a>-08</dt> -<dt>Shipley, Kitty, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_111">111</a></dt> -<dt>Shirley, Governor, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_67">67</a></dt> -<dt>Six Nations, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_87">87</a></dt> -<dt>Slaves and slavery, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_185">185</a></dt> -<dt>Sloane, Sir Hans, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_25">25</a></dt> -<dt>Smallpox epidemics, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_86">86</a></dt> -<dt>Smith, Adam, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_79">79</a></dt> -<dt>Smith, William, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_187">187</a></dt> -<dt>Socrates, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_14">14</a>-15, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_20">20</a></dt> -<dt>Sons of Liberty, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_94">94</a></dt> -<dt>Soulavie, Abbé, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_172">172</a></dt> -<dt>Southampton, England, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_176">176</a></dt> -<dt>Spain, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_152">152</a></dt> -<dt>Spencer, Dr. Adam, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_49">49</a></dt> -<dt>Stamp Act, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_92">92</a>-99, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_102">102</a></dt> -<dt>Steele, Richard, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_14">14</a></dt> -<dt>Steuben, Baron von, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a></dt> -<dt>Stevenson, Margaret, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_174">174</a></dt> -<dt>Stevenson, Polly, <i>see</i> Hewson, Polly Stevenson</dt> -<dt>Storage battery, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_52">52</a>-53</dt> -<dt>Stormont, Lord, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_158">158</a></dt> -<dt>Strahan, William, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_132">132</a>-33</dt> -<dt>Sullivan, General John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_140">140</a></dt> -<dt>Swaine, Captain Charles, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_57">57</a></dt> -<dt>Swift, Jonathan, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_26">26</a></dt> -<dt>Synge, Philip, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_52">52</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_T">T</dt> -<dt>Temple, John, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_115">115</a>-16, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_117">117</a></dt> -<dt>Townshend, Charles, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_104">104</a></dt> -<dt>Townshend Acts, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_104">104</a></dt> -<dt>Trenton, Battle of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_148">148</a></dt> -<dt>Tryon, Mr., <a class="pgref" href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_18">18</a></dt> -<dt>Tucker, Colonel Henry, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_127">127</a></dt> -<dt>Turgot, Baron, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_168">168</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_U">U</dt> -<dt>Union Fire Company of Philadelphia, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_47">47</a></dt> -<dt><i>Universal Instructor in All Arts and Science, and Pennsylvania Gazette</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_33">33</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_V">V</dt> -<dt>Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a></dt> -<dt>Vergennes, Count Charles Gravier de, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_154">154</a></dt> -<dt>Versailles, France, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_154">154</a></dt> -<dt>Virginia Resolves, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_94">94</a></dt> -<dt>Voltaire, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_168">168</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_W">W</dt> -<dt>Walking Purchase, the, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_61">61</a>-62</dt> -<dt>Warwick, Rhode Island, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_130">130</a></dt> -<dt>Washington, General George, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_185">185</a></dt> -<dt>Watt (London printer), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_25">25</a></dt> -<dt>“Way to Wealth, The,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_147">147</a></dt> -<dt>Wedderburn, Alexander, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_117">117</a>-18</dt> -<dt>Wentworth, Paul, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_152">152</a>-53</dt> -<dt>Whately, William, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_117">117</a></dt> -<dt>Whig Club, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_80">80</a></dt> -<dt>“Whistle, The,” <a class="pgref" href="#Page_171">171</a></dt> -<dt>Whitehead, Paul, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_114">114</a>-15</dt> -<dt>William and Mary College, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_60">60</a></dt> -<dt>Williamsburg, Virginia, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_94">94</a></dt> -<dt>Wilson, Benjamin, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -<dt>Wilson, James, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_180">180</a></dt> -<dt>Wygate (Benjamin’s London friend), <a class="pgref" href="#Page_25">25</a>-26</dt> -<dt>Wyndham, Sir William, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_26">26</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_X">X</dt> -<dt>Xenophon’s <i>Memorabilia</i>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_14">14</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_Y">Y</dt> -<dt>Yale College, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_60">60</a></dt> -<dt>Yorke, Charles, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_80">80</a></dt> -<dt>Yorktown, Battle of, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_162">162</a></dt> -</dl> -<dl class="index"> -<dt class="center b" id="index_Z">Z</dt> -<dt>Zenger, Peter, <a class="pgref" href="#Page_17">17</a></dt> -</dl> -<hr class="dwide" /> -<h2 id="c20"><span class="h2line1"><span class="smaller">THE</span> <i>Lives to Remember</i> <span class="smaller">SERIES</span></span></h2> -<p><span class="sc">Lives To Remember</span> is a series of concise biographies introducing the -world’s great men and women.</p> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>HELEN KELLER</b></p> -<p class="t0">by J. W. and Anne Tibble</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>NOBODY STOPS CUSHING</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Frank Cetin</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>ISAAC NEWTON</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Patrick Moore</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>FRIDTJOF NANSEN</b></p> -<p class="t0"><b>Arctic Explorer</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Francis Noel-Baker</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>DOUGLAS MacARTHUR</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Alfred Steinberg</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>ELEANOR ROOSEVELT</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Alfred Steinberg</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>WOODROW WILSON</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Alfred Steinberg</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Gertrude Norman</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>MADAME CURIE</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Robin McKown</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>ALBERT EINSTEIN</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Arthur Beckhard</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>ABRAHAM LINCOLN</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Manuel Komroff</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>CHARLES STEINMETZ</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Henry Thomas</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>DANIEL WEBSTER</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Alfred Steinberg</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>ADMIRAL RICHARD E. BYRD</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Alfred Steinberg</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>THE WRIGHT BROTHERS</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Henry Thomas</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Henry Thomas</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>ULYSSES S. GRANT</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Henry Thomas</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Henry Thomas</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>BILLY MITCHELL</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Arch Whitehouse</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>GEORGE GERSHWIN</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Edward Jablonski</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>THOMAS PAINE</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Robin McKown</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>JOHN MARSHALL</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Alfred Steinberg</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>ALEXANDER HAMILTON</b></p> -<p class="t0">by William Wise</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>BENJAMIN FRANKLIN</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Robin McKown</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>HARRY S. TRUMAN</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Alfred Steinberg</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>JOHN J. PERSHING</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Arch Whitehouse</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>THADDEUS LOWE</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Lydel Sims</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>SOCRATES</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Robert Silverberg</p> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0"><b>HARRIET BEECHER STOWE</b></p> -<p class="t0">by Winifred E. Wise</p> -</div> -<div class="box"> -<p class="center"><b><span class="large">PUTNAM</span> -<br />GUARANTEED BINDING</b> -<br />Washable -<br />Colorfast -<br />GUARANTEED FOR THE LIFE OF THE SHEETS</p> -</div> -<h3 id="c21">Recent titles in the LIVES TO REMEMBER series include:</h3> -<div class="verse"> -<p class="t0">ALEXANDER HAMILTON <i>by William Wise</i></p> -<p class="t0">JOHN MARSHALL <i>by Alfred Steinberg</i></p> -<p class="t0">THOMAS PAINE <i>by Robin McKown</i></p> -<p class="t0">GEORGE GERSHWIN <i>by Edward Jablonski</i></p> -<p class="t0">BILLY MITCHELL <i>by Arch Whitehouse</i></p> -<p class="t0">FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT <i>by Henry Thomas</i></p> -<p class="t0">ULYSSES S. GRANT <i>by Henry Thomas</i></p> -<p class="t0">WOODROW WILSON <i>by Alfred Steinberg</i></p> -<p class="t0">DOUGLAS MacARTHUR <i>by Alfred Steinberg</i></p> -</div> -<h3 id="c22">THE AUTHOR</h3> -<p>Robin McKown was born in Denver and attended the University -of Colorado, Northwestern University, and the University of -Illinois. She sold her first one-act play to a literary magazine while -she was still in college, and later won a drama prize at the -University of Colorado. She has worked in public relations, with a -literary agency, and prepared radio scripts. Mrs. McKown is -the author of <i>Thomas Paine</i> and <i>Marie Curie</i>, both in the Lives -to Remember series, as well as <i>Publicity Girl</i> and <i>Foreign Service -Girl</i>. She makes her home in New York City.</p> -<h3 id="c23"><i>Other Books by Robin McKown</i></h3> -<dl class="undent"><dt>THOMAS PAINE</dt> -<dt>MARIE CURIE</dt> -<dt>FOREIGN SERVICE GIRL</dt> -<dt>PUBLICITY GIRL</dt> -<dt>ROOSEVELT’S AMERICA</dt> -<dt>WASHINGTON’S AMERICA</dt> -<dt>THE FABULOUS ISOTOPES</dt> -<dt>GIANT OF THE ATOM: <i>Ernest Rutherford</i></dt> -<dt>SHE LIVED FOR SCIENCE: <i>Irène Joliot-Curie</i></dt> -<dt>JANINE</dt> -<dt>THE ORDEAL OF ANNE DEVLIN</dt> -<dt>AUTHOR’S AGENT</dt> -<dt>PAINTER OF THE WILD WEST: <i>Frederick Remington</i></dt> -<dt>PIONEERS IN MENTAL HEALTH</dt></dl> -<h3 id="c24">BENJAMIN FRANKLIN</h3> -<p>Few men have more claims to greatness than Benjamin -Franklin. He was in his long lifetime, writer, editor and publisher, -scientist and inventor, propagandist for the cause of the -American colonies, statesman, diplomat. He was a wit and a -humorist, a loyal friend and a good family man. From his birth -in Boston as the son of a poor candlemaker to his election by -Congress as America’s first ambassador to France and his subsequent -return to the United States, the author traces the -fascinating development of an impetuous and saucy youth -who became a beloved man both on his native soil and -throughout the world.</p> -<h2>Transcriber’s Notes</h2> -<ul> -<li>Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.</li> -<li>Collected series, volume, and author information at the end of the e-text.</li> -<li>Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.</li> -<li>In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)</li> -</ul> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Benjamin Franklin, by Robin McKown - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BENJAMIN FRANKLIN *** - -***** This file should be named 62974-h.htm or 62974-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/9/7/62974/ - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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