FOOTNOTES:

FRANKLIN’S MARITIME SUGGESTIONSFRANKLIN’S MARITIME SUGGESTIONS

Figs. 5, 6, and 7 show why, in those days of rope cables, a ship was always breaking the cable where it bent at right angles just outside the hawse-hole. All the strain was on the outer strands of the rope ata b c, Fig. 7, and as they broke the others followed one by one. His remedy for this was to have a large wheel or pulley in the hawse-hole.

Figs. 8 and 9 show how a vessel with a leak at first fills very rapidly, so that the crew, finding they cannot gain on the water with the pumps, take to their boats. But if they would remain they would find after a while that the quantity entering would be less as the surfaces without and within became more nearly equal, and that the pumps would now be able to prevent it from rising higher. The water would also begin to reach light wooden work, empty chests, and water-casks, which would give buoyancy, and thus the ship could be kept afloat longer than the crew at first expected. In this connection he calls attention to the Chinese method of water-tight compartments which Mr. Le Roy had already adopted in his boat on the Seine.

Fig. 12 is intended to show the loss of power in a paddle-wheel because the stroke fromAtoBis downward and fromDtoXupward, and the only effective stroke is fromBtoD. A better method of propulsion, he thinks, is by pumping water out through the stern, as shown in Figs. 13 and 14.

Figs. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 illustrate methods of making floating sea anchors by which to lay a vessel to in a gale. Fig. 24 shows how a heavy boat may be drawn ashore by bending the ropefromCtoD. Fig. 23 represents a new way of planking ships to secure greater strength, and Figs. 26 and 27 are soup-dishes which will not spill in a heavy sea. But this delightful letter is published in all of the editions of his works, and should be read in order to render his ingenious contrivances intelligible.

Among the few of Franklin’s writings on scientific subjects which are not in the form of letters is an essay, entitled “Peopling of Countries,” supposed to have been written in 1751. It is in part intended to show that Great Britain was not injured by the immigration to America; the gap was soon filled up; and the colonies, by consuming British manufactures, increased the resources of the mother country. The essay is full of reflections on political economy, which had not then become a science, and the twenty-second section contains the statement that there is no bound to the productiveness of plants and animals other than that occasioned by their crowding and interfering with one another’s means of subsistence. This statement supplied Malthus with the foundation for his famous theory that the population of the earth increased in a geometrical ratio, while the means of subsistence increased only in an arithmetical ratio, and some of those who opposed this theory devoted themselves to showing error in Franklin’s twenty-second section rather than to disputing the conclusions of Malthus, which they believed would fall if Franklin could be shown to be in the wrong.

He investigated the new field of political economy with the same thoroughness as the other departmentsof science, and wrote on national wealth, the price of corn, free trade, the effects of luxury, idleness, and industry, the slave-trade, and peace and war. The humor and imagination in one of his letters to Dr. Priestley on war justify the quoting of a part of it:

“A young angel of distinction being sent down to this world on some business, for the first time, had an old courier-spirit assigned him as a guide. They arrived over the seas of Martinico, in the middle of the long day of obstinate fight between the fleets of Rodney and De Grasse. When through the clouds of smoke he saw the fire of the guns, the decks covered with mangled limbs and bodies dead and dying, or blown into the air, and the quantity of pain, misery, and destruction the crews yet alive were thus with so much eagerness dealing round to one another, he turned angrily to his guide and said, ‘You blundering blockhead, you are ignorant of your business; you undertook to conduct me to the earth and you have brought me into hell!’ ‘No, sir,’ says the guide, ‘I have made no mistake; this is really the earth, and these are men. Devils never treat one another in this cruel manner; they have more sense, and more of what men (vainly) call humanity.’” (Bigelow’s Works of Franklin, vol. vii. p. 465.)

FOOTNOTES:[18]Making of Pennsylvania, chap. ix.[19]Pillsbury’s Gulf Stream, published by the U. S. government.[20]Bigelow’s Works of Franklin, vol. ii. p. 331; vol. ix. p. 185.

[18]Making of Pennsylvania, chap. ix.

[19]Pillsbury’s Gulf Stream, published by the U. S. government.

[20]Bigelow’s Works of Franklin, vol. ii. p. 331; vol. ix. p. 185.

WhileFranklin kept his little stationery shop and printing-office, sent out his almanacs every year, read and studied, experimented in science, and hoped for an assured income which would give larger leisure for study and experiment, he was all the time drifting more and more into public life. In a certain sense he had been accustomed to dealing with living public questions from boyhood. When an apprentice in his teens, he had written articles for his brother’s newspaper attacking the established religious and political system of Massachusetts, and during his brother’s imprisonment the newspaper had been published in the apprentice’s name. In Pennsylvania his own newspaper, theGazette, which he established when he was but twenty-three years old, made him something of a public man; and his pamphlet in favor of paper money, which appeared at about the same period, showed how strongly his mind inclined towards the large questions of government.

When he reached manhood he also developed a strong inclination to assist in public improvements, in the encouragement of thrift and comfort, and in the relief of suffering, subjects which are now included under the heads of philanthropy and reform.He had in full measure the social and public spirit of the Anglo-Saxon, the spirit which instinctively builds up the community while at the same time it is deeply devoted to its own concerns. The only one of his ancestors that had risen above humble conditions was of this sort, and had been a leader in the public affairs of a village.

His natural disposition towards benevolent enterprises was much stimulated, he tells us, by a book called “Essays to do Good,” by the eminent Massachusetts divine, Cotton Mather, of witchcraft fame. He also read about the same time De Foe’s “Essay upon Projects,” a volume recommending asylums for the insane, technical schools, mutual benefit societies, improved roads, better banking, bankrupt laws, and other things which have now become the commonplace characteristics of our age.

His club, the Junto, was the first important fruit of this benevolent disposition. At first its members kept all their books at its rooms for the common benefit; but some of the books having been injured, all were taken back by the owners, and this loss suggested to Franklin the idea of a circulating library supported by subscriptions. He drew up a plan and went about soliciting money in 1731, but it took him more than a year to collect forty-five pounds. James Logan, the secretary of the province, gave advice as to what books to buy, and the money was sent to London to be expended by Mr. Peter Collinson, to whom Franklin’s famous letters on electricity were afterwards written.

Mr. Collinson was the literary and philosophicagent of Pennsylvania in those days. To him John Bartram, the first American botanist, sent the plants that he collected in the New World, and Mr. Collinson obtained for him the money with which to pursue his studies. Collinson encouraged the new library in every way. For thirty years he made for it the annual purchase of books, always adding one or two volumes as a present, and it will be remembered that it was through him that Franklin obtained the electrical tube which started him on his remarkable discoveries.

The library began its existence at the Junto’s rooms and grew steadily. Influential people gradually became interested in it and added their gifts. For half a century it occupied rooms in various buildings,—at one time in the State-House, and during the Revolution in Carpenters’ Hall,—until in 1790, the year of Franklin’s death, it erected a pretty building on Fifth Street, opposite Independence square. During the period from 1731 to 1790 similar libraries were established in the town, which it absorbed one by one: in 1769 the Union Library, in 1771 the Association Library Company and Amicable Library Company, and, finally, in 1790 the Loganian Library, which James Logan had established by his will. Before the Revolution the number of books increased but slowly, and in 1785 was only 5487. They now number 190,000.

Franklin says that it was the mother of subscription libraries in North America, and that in a few years the colonists became more of a reading people, and the common tradesmen and farmers were asintelligent as most gentlemen from other countries. This statement seems to be justified; for within a few years libraries sprang up in New England and the South, and they may have been suggested by the Philadelphia Library which Franklin founded.

I have already shown how Franklin established the academy which soon became the College of Philadelphia, but this was some twenty years after he founded the library. Almost immediately after the academy was started Dr. Thomas Bond sought his assistance in establishing a hospital. Pennsylvania was receiving at that time great numbers of German immigrants, who arrived in crowded ships after a voyage of months, in a terrible state of dirt and disease. There was no proper place provided for them, and they were a source of danger to the rest of the people. A hospital was needed, and Dr. Bond, at first meeting with but little success, finally accomplished his object with the assistance of Franklin, who obtained for him a grant of two thousand pounds from the Assembly, and helped to stir up subscribers.

This was the first hospital in America, and it still fulfils its mission in the beautiful old colonial buildings which were originally erected for it. Additional buildings have been since added, fortunately, in the same style of architecture. For the corner-stone Franklin wrote an inscription matchless for its originality and appropriateness:

“In the year ofChristMDCCLV George the Second happily reigning (for he sought the happiness of his people), Philadelphia flourishing (for its inhabitants were public spirited), this building,by the bounty of the government, and of many private persons, was piously founded for the relief of the sick and miserable. May theGod of Merciesbless the undertaking.”

In the same spirit Franklin secured by a little agitation the paving of the street round the market, and afterwards started subscriptions to keep this pavement clean. At that time the streets of Philadelphia, like those of most of the colonial towns, were merely earth roads, and it was not until some years after Franklin’s first efforts at the market that there was any general paving done. He also secured a well-regulated night watch for the city in place of the disorderly, drunken heelers of the constables, who had long made a farce of the duty; and he established a volunteer fire company which was the foundation of the system that prevailed in Philadelphia until the paid department was introduced after the civil war.

The American Philosophical Society, which was also originated by him, might seem to be more entitled to mention in the chapter on science. But it was really a benevolent enterprise, intended to propagate useful knowledge, to encourage agriculture, trade, and the mechanic arts, and to multiply the conveniences and pleasures of life. He first suggested it in 1743, in which year he prepared a plan for a society for promoting useful knowledge, and one appears to have been organized which led a languishing existence until 1769, when it was joined by another organization, called “The American Society held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge,” and from this union resulted theAmerican Philosophical Society, which still exists. Franklin was for a long time its president, and was succeeded by Rittenhouse. It was the first society in America devoted to science. Thomas Jefferson and other prominent persons throughout the colonies were members of it, and during the colonial period and long afterwards it held a very important position.

Franklin was by nature a public man; but the beginning of his life as an office-holder may be said to have dated from his appointment as clerk of the Assembly. This took place in 1736, when he had been in business for himself for some years, and his newspaper and “Poor Richard” were well under way. It was a tiresome task to sit for hours listening to buncombe speeches, and drawing magic squares and circles to while away the time. But he valued the appointment because it gave him influence with the members and a hold on the public printing.

The second year his election to the office was opposed; an influential member wanted the place for a friend, and Franklin had a chance to show a philosopher’s skill in practical politics.

“Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I return’d it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favour. When we next met, in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends and our friendship continued to his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says ‘He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.’” (Bigelow’s Franklin from his own Writings, vol. i. p. 260.)

Some people have professed to be very much shocked at this disingenuous trick, as they call it, although perhaps capable of far more discreditable ones themselves. It would be well if no worse could be said of modern practical politics.

Franklin held his clerkship nearly fifteen years. During this period he was also postmaster of Philadelphia, and these two offices, with the benevolent enterprises of the library, the hospital, the Philosophical Society, and the academy and college, made him very much of a public man in the best sense of the word long before he was engaged in regular politics.

In the year 1747 he performed an important public service by organizing the militia. War had been declared by England against both France and Spain, and the colonies were called upon to help the mother country. Great difficulty was experienced in recruiting troops in Quaker Pennsylvania, although the Quakers would indirectly consent to it when given a reasonable excuse. They would vote money for the king’s use, and the king’s officials might take the responsibility of using it for war; they would supply provisions to the army, for that was charity; and on one occasion they voted four thousand pounds for the purchase of beef, pork, flour, wheat, orother grain; and as powder was grain, the money was used in supplying it.

But the actual recruiting of troops was more difficult, and it was to further this object that Franklin exerted himself. He wrote one of his clever pamphlets showing the danger of a French invasion, andsupplied biblical texts in favor of defensive war. Then calling a mass-meeting in the large building afterwards used for the college, he urged the people to form an association for defence. Papers were distributed among them, and in a few minutes he had twelve hundred signatures. These citizen soldiers were called “Associators,”—a name used down to the time of the Revolution to describe the Pennsylvania militia. In a few days he had enrolled ten thousand volunteers, which shows how large the combatant portion of the population was in spite of Quaker doctrine.

In 1748 he retired from active business with the purpose of devoting himself to science. It was the custom at that time to give retired men of business the more important public offices; and in 1752, about the time of his discovery of the nature of lightning, he was elected to the Assembly as one of the members to represent Philadelphia. In the same year he was also elected a justice of the peace and a member of the City Councils.

At this time France and England were temporarily at peace. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 had resulted in a sort of cessation of hostilities, which France was using to push more actively her advantages on the Ohio River and in the Mississippi Valley. She intended to get behind all the colonies and occupy the continent to the Pacific Ocean. The efforts of Great Britain to check these designs, including the expeditions of the youthful Washington to the Ohio, need not be given here.[21]Englandbroke the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and what is known as the Seven Years’ War began with the memorable defeat of Braddock.

Franklin was sent by the Pennsylvania Assembly to Braddock’s head-quarters in Virginia to give any assistance he could and to prevent Braddock from making a raid into Pennsylvania to procure wagons, as he had threatened. The journey was made on horseback in company with the governors of New York and Massachusetts, and on the way Franklin had an opportunity to observe the action of a small whirlwind, which he reported in a pleasant letter to Mr. Collinson. It was while on this visit that Franklin appears in Thackeray’s “Virginians,” in which he is strangely described as a shrewd, bright little man who would drink only water.

He told Braddock that there were plenty of wagons in Pennsylvania, and he was accordingly commissioned to procure them. He returned to Philadelphia, and within two weeks had delivered one hundred and fifty wagons and two hundred and fifty pack-horses. He had received only eight hundred pounds from Braddock, and was obliged to advance two hundred pounds himself and give bond to indemnify the owners of such horses as should be lost in the service. Claims to the amount of twenty thousand pounds were afterwards made against him, and he would have been ruined if the government, after long delay, had not come to his rescue. Such disinterested service was not forgotten, and his popularity was greatly increased.

He had the year before been one of the representativesof Pennsylvania in the convention at Albany, where he had offered a plan for the union of all the colonies, which was generally approved, and I shall consider this plan more fully in another chapter. It was intended, of course, primarily to enable the colonies to make more effective resistance against the French and Indians, and as an additional assistance he suggested that a new colony be planted on the Ohio River. The establishment of this colony was a favorite scheme with him, and he urged it again many years afterwards while in England.

As a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly he joined the Quaker majority in that body and became one of its leaders. This majority was in continual conflict with the governor appointed by William Penn’s sons, who were the proprietors of the province. The government of the colony was divided in a curious way. The proprietors had the right to appoint the governor, judges, and sheriffs, or, in other words, had absolute control of the executive offices, while the colonists controlled the Legislature, or Assembly, as it was called, and in this Assembly the Quakers exercised the strongest influence.

During the seventy years that the colony had been founded the Assembly had built up by slow degrees a body of popular rights. It paid the governor his salary, and this gave it a vast control over him; for if he vetoed any favorite law it could retaliate by cutting off his means of subsistence. This right to withhold the governor’s salary constituted the most important principle of colonial constitutional law, and by it not only Pennsylvania but the other coloniesmaintained what liberty they possessed and saved themselves from the oppression of royal or proprietary governors.

Another right for which the Pennsylvania Assembly always strenuously contended was that any bill passed by it for raising money for the crown must be simply accepted or rejected by the governor. He was not to attempt to force its amendment by threats of rejection, or to interfere in any way with the manner of raising the money, and was to have no control over its disbursement. The king had a right to ask for aid, but the colony reserved the right to use its own methods in furnishing it.

These rights the proprietors were constantly trying to break down by instructing their governors to assent to money and other bills only on certain conditions, among which was the stipulation that they should not go into effect until the king’s pleasure was known. They sent out their governors with secret instructions, and compelled them to give bonds for their faithful performance. When the governors declined to reveal these instructions, the Assembly thought it had another grievance, for it had always refused to be governed in this manner; and was now more determined than ever to maintain this point because several bills had been introduced in Parliament for the purpose of making royal instructions to governors binding on all the colonial assemblies without regard to their charters or constitutions.

These were all very serious designs on liberty, and the proprietors took advantage of the war necessitiesand Braddock’s defeat to carry them out in the most extreme form. The home government was calling on all the colonies for war supplies, and Pennsylvania must comply not only to secure her own safety but under fear of displeasing the Parliament and king. If under such pressure she could be induced to pass some of the supply bills at the dictation of the governor, or with an admission of the validity of his secret instructions, a precedent would be established and the proprietary hold on the province greatly strengthened.

The Quakers, especially those comprising the majority in the Assembly, were not at heart opposed to war or to granting war supplies. As they expressed it in the preamble to one of their laws, they had no objection to others bearing arms, but were themselves principled against it. If the others wished to fight, or if it was necessary for the province to fight, they, as the governing body, would furnish the means. Franklin relates how, when he was organizing the Associators, it was proposed in the Union Fire Company that sixty pounds should be expended in buying tickets in a lottery, the object of which was to raise money for the purchase of cannon. There were twenty-two Quakers in the fire company and eight others; but the twenty-two, by purposely absenting themselves, allowed the proposition to be carried.

The Quaker Assembly voted money for war supplies as liberally and as loyally as the Assembly of any other colony; but at every step it was met by the designs of the governor to force upon it thoseconditions which would be equivalent to a surrender of the liberties of the colony. Thus, in 1754 it voted a war supply of twenty thousand pounds, which was the same amount as Virginia, the most active of the colonies against the French, had just subscribed, and was much more than other colonies gave. New York gave only five thousand pounds, Maryland six thousand pounds, and New Jersey nothing. But the governor refused his assent to the bill unless a clause was inserted suspending it until the approval of the king had been obtained, and this condition the Assembly felt bound to reject.

During the whole seven years of the war these contests with the governor continued; and the members of the Assembly, to show their zeal for the war, were obliged at times to raise the money on their own credit without submitting their bill to the governor for his approval. In these struggles Franklin bore a prominent part, drafting the replies which the Assembly made to the governor’s messages, and acquiring a most thorough knowledge of all the principles of colonial liberty. At the same time he continued to enjoy jovial personal relations with the governors whom he resisted so vigorously in the Assembly, and was often invited to dine with them, when they would joke with him about his support of the Quakers.

The disputes were increased about the time of Braddock’s defeat by a new subject of controversy. As the Assembly was passing bills for war supplies which had to be raised by taxation, it was thought to be no more than right that the proprietary estates should also bear their share of the tax. The proprietorsowned vast tracts of land which they had not yet sold to the people, and as the war was being waged for the defence of these as well as all the other property of the country, the Assembly and the people in general were naturally very indignant when the governor refused his consent to any bill which did not expressly exempt these lands from taxation. The amount assessed on the proprietary land was trifling,—only five hundred pounds; but both parties felt that they were contending for a principle, and when some gentlemen offered to pay the whole amount in order to stop the dispute, it was rejected.

The proprietors, through the governor, offered a sort of indirect bribe in the form of large gifts of land,—a thousand acres to every colonel, five hundred to every captain, and so on down to two hundred to each private,—which seemed very liberal, and was an attempt to put the Assembly in an unpatriotic position if it should refuse to exempt the estates after such a generous offer. But the Assembly was unmoved, and declined to vote any more money for the purposes of the war, if it involved a sacrifice of the liberties of the people or enabled the proprietors to escape taxation. “Those,” said Franklin, “who would give up essential liberty for the sake of a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

But the proprietors were determined to carry the point of exemption of their estates, and as a clamor was being raised against them in England for defeating, through their governor, the efforts of the Assembly to raise money for the war, they sent over wordthat they would subscribe five thousand pounds for the protection of the colony. Such munificence took the Assembly by surprise, and an appropriation bill was passed without taxing the proprietary estates. But popular resentment against the proprietors was raised to a high pitch when it was discovered that the five thousand pounds was to be collected out of the arrears of quit-rents due the proprietors. It was merely a clever trick on their part to saddle their bad debts on the province, have their estates exempted from taxation, and at the same time give themselves a reputation for generosity.

The defeat of Braddock in July, 1755, was followed in September and October by a terrible invasion of the Indians, who massacred the farmers almost as far east as Philadelphia. Evidently something more was necessary to protect the province than the mere loose organization of the Associators, and a militia law drafted by Franklin was passed by the Quaker Assembly. The law had a long preamble attached, which he had prepared with great ingenuity to satisfy Quaker scruples. It was made up largely of previous Quaker utterances on war, and declared that while it would be persecution, and therefore unlawful in Pennsylvania, to compel Quakers to bear arms against their consciences, so it would be wrong to prohibit from engaging in war those who thought it their duty. The Quaker Assembly, as representing all the people of the province, would accordingly furnish to those who wanted to fight the legal means for carrying out their wish; and the law then went on to show how they should be organized as soldiers.

In hisGazetteFranklin published a Dialogue written by himself, which was intended to answer criticisms on the law and especially the objections of those who were disgusted because the new law exempted the Quakers. Why, it was asked, should the combatant portion of the people fight for the lives and property of men who are too cowardly to fight for themselves? These objectors required as delicate handling as the Quakers, and Franklin approached them with his usual skill.

“Z. For my part I am no coward, but hang me if I will fight to save the Quakers.“X. That is to say, you will not pump ship, because it will save the rats as well as yourself.”

“Z. For my part I am no coward, but hang me if I will fight to save the Quakers.

“X. That is to say, you will not pump ship, because it will save the rats as well as yourself.”

As a consequence of his success in writing in favor of war, the philosopher, electrician, and editor found himself elected colonel of the men he had persuaded, and was compelled to lead about five hundred of them to the Lehigh Valley, where the German village of Gnadenhutten had been burnt and its inhabitants massacred. He had no taste for such business, and would have avoided it if he could; for he never used a gun even for amusement, and would not keep a weapon of any kind in his house. But the province with its peace-loving Quakers and Germans had never before experienced actual war, nor even difficulties with the Indians, and Franklin was as much a military man as anybody.

So the philosopher of nearly fifty years, famous the world over for his discoveries in electricity andhis “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” set forth in December, slept on the ground or in barns, arranged the order of scouting parties, and regulated the serving of grog to his men. He built a line of small forts in the Lehigh Valley, and during the two months that he was there no doubt checked the Indians who were watching him all the time from the hilltops, and who went no farther than to kill ten unfortunate farmers. He had no actual battle with them, and was perhaps fortunate in escaping a surprise; but he was very wily in his movements, and in his shrewd common-sense way understood Indian tactics. He has left us a description in one of his letters how a force like his should, before stopping for the night, make a circuit backward and camp near their trail, setting a guard to watch the trail so that any Indians following it could be seen long before they reached the camp.

He, indeed, conducted his expedition in the most thorough and systematic manner, marching his men in perfect order with a semicircle of scouts in front, an advance-guard, then the main body, with scouts on each flank and spies on every hill, followed by a watchful rear-guard. He observed all the natural objects with his usual keen interest, noting the exact number of minutes required by his men to fell a tree for the palisaded forts he was building. After two months of roughing it he could not sleep in a bed on his return to Bethlehem. “It was so different,” he says, “from my hard lodging on the floor of a hut at Gnadenhutten with only a blanket or two.”

Very characteristic of him also was the suggestionhe made to his chaplain when the good man found it difficult to get the soldiers to attend prayers. “It is perhaps beneath the dignity of your profession,” said Franklin, “to act as steward of the rum; but if you were only to distribute it after prayers you would have them all about you.” The chaplain thought well of it, and “never,” Franklin tells us, “were prayers more generally or more punctually attended.”

On the return of the troops to Philadelphia after their two months’ campaign they had a grand parade and review, saluting the houses of all their officers with discharges of cannon and small-arms; and the salute given before the door of their philosopher colonel broke several of the glasses of his electrical apparatus.

The next year, 1756, brought some relief to the colonists by Armstrong’s successful expedition against the Indians at Kittanning. But the year 1757 was more gloomy than ever. Nothing was wanting but a few more soldiers to enable the French to press on down the Mississippi and secure their line to New Orleans, or to fall upon the rear of the colonies and conquer them. The proprietors of Pennsylvania took advantage of the situation to force the Assembly to abandon all its most cherished rights. The new governor came out with full instructions to assent to no tax bill unless it exempted the proprietary estates, to have the proprietary quit-rents paid in sterling instead of Pennsylvania currency, and to assent to no money bill unless the money to be raised was appropriated for someparticular object or was to be at the disposal of the governor and Assembly jointly.

Their attack on the liberties of the province was well timed; for, the English forces having been everywhere defeated, the Assembly felt that it must assist in the prosecution of the war at all hazards. It therefore resolved to waive its rights for the present, and passed a bill for raising thirty thousand pounds to be expended under the joint supervision of the Assembly and the governor. So the proprietors gained one of their points, and they soon gained another. The Assembly was before long obliged to raise more money, and voted one hundred thousand pounds, the largest single appropriation ever made. It was to be raised by a general tax, and the tax was to include the proprietary estates. The governor objected, and the Assembly, influenced by the terrible necessities of the war, yielded and passed the bill in February, 1757, without taxing the estates.

But it was determined to carry on its contest with the governor in another way, and resolved to send two commissioners to England to lay before the king and Privy Council the conduct of the proprietors. The first avowed object of the commissioners was to secure the taxing of the proprietary estates, and the second was to suggest that the proprietorship be abolished and the province taken under the direct rule of the crown. Franklin and Isaac Norris, the Speaker of the Assembly, were appointed commissioners, but Norris being detained by ill health, Franklin started alone.

He set forth as a sort of minister plenipotentiary to London, where he had at one time worked as a journeyman printer. He had left London an obscure, impoverished boy; he was returning as a famous man of science, retired from worldly business on an assured income. He remained in England for five years, and so full of pleasure, interesting occupation, and fame were those years that it is remarkable that he was willing to come back to Pennsylvania.

He secured lodgings for himself and his son William at Mrs. Stevenson’s, No. 7 Craven Street. Here he lived all of the five years and also during his subsequent ten years’ residence in London. He had been recommended to her house by some Pennsylvania friends who had boarded there; but he soon ceased to be a mere lodger, and No. 7 Craven Street became his second home. He and Mrs. Stevenson became firm friends, and for her daughter Mary he formed a strong attachment, which continued all his life. His letters to her are among the most beautiful ever written by him, and he encouraged her to study science. “In all that time,” he once wrote to her, referring to the happy years he had spent at her mother’s house, “we never had among us the smallest misunderstanding; our friendship has been all clear sunshine, without the least cloud in its hemisphere.”

Mrs. Stevenson took care of the small every-day affairs of his life, advised as to the presents he sent home to his wife, assisted in buying them, and when a child of one of his poor English relatives neededassistance, she took it into her house and cared for it with almost as tender an interest as if she had been its mother. Many years afterwards, in a letter to her written while he was in France, Franklin regrets “the want of that order and economy in my family which reigned in it when under your prudent direction.”[22]

The familiar, pleasant life he led with her family is shown in a little essay written for their amusement, called “The Craven Street Gazette.” It is a burlesque on the pompous court news of the English journals. Mrs. Stevenson figures as the queen and the rest of the family and their friends as courtiers and members of the nobility, and we get in this way pleasant glimpses of each one’s peculiarities and habits, the way they lived, and their jokes on one another.

He had an excellent electrical machine and other apparatus for experiments in her house, and went on with the researches which so fascinated him in much the same way as he had done at home. It was at No. 7 Craven Street that he planned his musical instrument, the armonica, already described, and exhibited it to his friends who came to see his electrical experiments. He quickly became a member of all the learned societies, was given the degree of doctor of laws by the universities of St Andrew’s, Edinburgh, and Oxford, and soon knew all the celebrities in England. But he does not appear to have seen much of that burly and boisterous literarychieftain, Dr. Johnson. This was unfortunate, for Franklin’s description of him would have been invaluable.

Peter Collinson, to whom his letters on electricity had been sent, of course welcomed him. He became intimate with Dr. Fothergill, the fashionable physician of London, who had assisted to make his electrical discoveries known. This was another of his life-long friendships: the two were always in perfect sympathy, investigating with the enthusiasm of old cronies everything of philosophic and human interest.

Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen and one of the foremost men of science of that time, became another bosom friend, and Franklin furnished him the material for his “History of Electricity.” William Strahan, the prosperous publisher and friend of Dr. Johnson, also conceived a great liking for the Pennsylvania agent. Strahan afterwards became a member of Parliament, and was fond of saying to Franklin that they both had started life as printers, but no two printers had ever risen so high. He was a whole-souled, jovial man, wanted his son to marry Franklin’s daughter, and wanted Mrs. Franklin to come over to England and settle there with her husband, who, he said, must never go back to America. He used to write letters to Mrs. Franklin trying to persuade her to overcome her aversion to the sea, and he made bets with Franklin that his persuasions would succeed.

We need not wonder that Franklin spent five years on his mission, when he was so comfortablysettled with his own servant in addition to those of Mrs. Stevenson, his chariot to drive in like an ambassador, and his son William studying law at the inns of court. During his stay, and about the year 1760, William presented him with an illegitimate grandson, William Temple Franklin. This boy was brought up exclusively by his grandfather, and scarcely knew his father, who soon married a young lady from the West Indies. In his infancy Temple was not an inmate of the Craven Street house, but he lived there afterwards during his grandfather’s second mission to England, and accompanied him to France.

The birth of Temple and his parentage were probably not generally known among Franklin’s English friends during this first mission. It has been said also that William’s illegitimacy was not known in London, but this is unlikely. It did not, however, interfere with the young man’s advancement; for in 1762, just before Franklin returned to America, William was appointed by the crown governor of New Jersey. This honor, it is said, was entirely unsolicited by either father or son, and the explanation usually given is that it was intended to attach the father more securely to the royal interest in the disputes which were threatening between the colonies and the mother country.

William and his father were on very good terms at this time. Every summer they took a little tour together, and on one occasion travelled in Holland. On a visit they made to the University of Cambridge they were entertained by the heads of colleges, thechancellor, and the professors in the most distinguished manner, discussed new points of science with them, and with Professor Hadley experimented on what was then a great wonder, the production of cold by evaporation. They wandered also to the old village of Ecton, where the Franklins had lived poor and humble for countless generations, saw many of the old people, and copied inscriptions on tombstones and parish registers. But Scotland they enjoyed most of all. There they met Lord Kames, the author of the “Elements of Criticism,” and the historians Hume and Robertson. It was an atmosphere of philosophy and intelligence which Franklin thoroughly enjoyed. “The time we spent there,” he wrote to Lord Kames, “was six weeks of thedensesthappiness I have met with in any part of my life.”

During his stay in England the war against the French and Indians, which was raging when he left America, came to a close, and Quebec and Canada were surrendered. It became a question in settling with France whether it would be most advantageous for Great Britain to retain Canada or the Guadeloupe sugar islands, and there were advocates on both sides. Franklin published an admirable argument in favor of retaining Canada, without which the American colonies would never be secure from the Indians instigated by the French, and the acquisition of Canada would also tend to a grander development of the British empire. It was an able appeal, but there is no evidence that it alone influenced the final decision of the ministry, as has been claimed,any more than there is evidence that Franklin suggested the policy of William Pitt which had brought the war to a successful close. There were many advocates of these opinions and suggestions, and Franklin was merely one of them, though unquestionably an able one.

He also published his essay on the “Peopling of Countries” and an article in favor of the vigorous prosecution of the war in Europe. These, with his pleasures and experiments in science, occupied most of the five years, and the work of his mission, though well done, was by no means absorbing.

When he arrived, in July, 1757, he had, under the advice of Dr. Fothergill, first sought redress from the proprietors themselves before appealing to the government; but meeting with no success, he tried the members of the Privy Council, and first of all William Pitt, the great minister who was then conducting the war against France and recreating England. But he could not even secure an interview with that busy minister, which is a commentary on the extravagant claims of those who say that Franklin suggested Pitt’s policy.

Two years and more passed without his being able to accomplish anything except enlighten the general public concerning the facts of the situation. An article appeared in theGeneral Advertiserabusing the Pennsylvania Assembly, and his son William replied to it. The reply being extensively copied by other newspapers, the son was set to work on a book now known as the “Historical Review of Pennsylvania,” which went over the whole ground of thequarrels of the Assembly with the proprietors and their deputy governors. It was circulated quite widely, some copies being sold and others distributed free to important persons. But it is doubtful whether it had very much influence, for it was an extremely dull book, and valuable only for its quotations from the messages of the governors and the replies of the Assembly.

His opportunity to accomplish the main object of his mission came at last by accident. The Assembly in Pennsylvania were gradually starving the governor into submission by withholding his salary, and under pressure for want of money, he gave his assent to a bill taxing the proprietary estates. The bill being sent to England, the proprietors opposed it before the Privy Council as hostile to their rights, and obtained a decision in their favor in spite of the arguments of Franklin and his lawyers. But Franklin secured a reconsideration, and Lord Mansfield asked him if he really thought that no injury would be done the proprietary estates by the Assembly, for the proprietors had represented that the colonists intended to tax them out of existence. Franklin assured him that no injury would be done, and he was immediately asked if he would enter into an engagement to assure that point. On his agreeing to do this, the papers were drawn, the Assembly’s bill taxing the estates was approved by the crown, and from that time the assaults of the proprietors on the liberties of the colony were decisively checked.

Franklin was now most furiously attacked andhated by the proprietary party in Pennsylvania, but from the majority of the people, led by the Quakers, he received increased approbation and applause, and his willingness to risk his own personal engagement, as in the affair with Braddock, was regarded as an evidence of the highest public spirit.

He remained two years longer in England on one pretext or another, and no doubt excuses for continuing such a delightful life readily suggested themselves. He returned in the early autumn of 1762, receiving from the Assembly three thousand pounds for his services, and during the five years of his absence he had been annually elected to that body. For a few months he enjoyed comparative quiet, but the next year he was again in the turmoil of a most bitter political contest.

The war with France was over, and Canada and the Ohio Valley had been ceded to the English by the treaty of Paris, signed in February, 1763. But the Indians, having lost their French friends, determined to destroy the English, and, inspired by the genius of Pontiac, they took fort after fort and, rushing upon the whole colonial frontier of Pennsylvania, swept the people eastward to the Delaware with even worse devastation and slaughter than they had inflicted after Braddock’s defeat. I cannot give here the full details of this war,[23]and must confine myself to one phase of it with which Franklin was particularly concerned.

The Scotch-Irish who occupied the frontier countiesof Pennsylvania suffered most severely from these Indian raids, and believed that the proprietary and Quaker government at Philadelphia neglected the defence of the province. Their resentment was strongest against the Quakers. They held the Quaker religion in great contempt and viewed with scorn the attempts of the Quakers to pacify the Indians and befriend those of them who were willing to give up the war-path and adopt the white man’s mode of life.

Some friendly Indians, descendants of the tribes that had welcomed William Penn, were living at Conestoga, near Lancaster, in a degenerate condition, having given up both war and hunting, and following the occupations of basket- and broom-making. They were the wards of the proprietary government, and were given presents and supplies from time to time. There were also at Bethlehem some other friendly Indians who had been converted to Christianity by the Moravians.

The Scotch-Irish believed that all of these so-called friendly Indians were in league with the hostile tribes, furnished them with information, and even participated in their murders. They asked the governor to remove them, and assured him that their removal would secure the safety of the frontier. Nothing being done by the governor, a party of Scotch-Irish rangers started to destroy the Moravian Indians, but were prevented by a rain-storm. The governor afterwards, through commissioners, investigated these Moravian Indians, and finding reason to suspect them, they were all brought down to Philadelphiaand quartered in barracks. But the Conestoga Indians were attacked by a party of fifty-seven Scotch-Irish, afterwards known as the “Paxton Boys,” who, finding only six of them in the village,—three men, two women, and a boy,—massacred them all, mangled their bodies, and burnt their property. The remaining fourteen of the tribe were collected by the sheriff and put for protection in the Lancaster jail. The Paxtons hearing of it, immediately attacked the jail and cut the Indians to pieces with hatchets.

We have grown so accustomed to lynch law that this slaughter of the Conestogas would not now cause much surprise, especially in some parts of the country; but it was a new thing to the colonists, who in many respects were more orderly than are their descendants, and a large part of the community were shocked, disgusted, and indignant. Franklin wrote a pamphlet which had a wide circulation and assailed the Scotch-Irish as inhuman, brutal cowards, worse than Arabs and Turks; fifty-seven of them, armed with rifles, knives, and hatchets, had actually succeeded, he said, in killing three old men, two women, and a boy.

The Paxton lynchers, however, were fully supported by the people of the frontier. A large body of frontiersmen marched on Philadelphia with the full intention of revolutionizing the Quaker government, and they would have succeeded but for the unusual preparations for defence. They were finally, with some difficulty, persuaded to return without using their rifles.

The governor was powerless to secure even the arrest of the men who had murdered the Indians in the jail, and the disorder was so flagrant and the weakness of the executive branch of the government so apparent that the Quakers and a majority of the people thought there was now good reason for openly petitioning the crown to abolish the proprietorship. While in England, Franklin had been advised not to raise this question, and he had accordingly confined his efforts to taxing the proprietary estates.

The arrangement he had made provided that the estates should be fairly taxed, but the governor and the Assembly differed in opinion as to what was fair. The governor claimed that the best wild lands of the proprietors should be taxed at the rate paid by the people for their worst, and he tried the old tactics of forcing this point by delaying a supply bill intended to defend the province against Pontiac and his Indians. The Assembly passed the bill to suit him, but immediately raised the question of the abolition of the proprietorship. Twenty-five resolutions were passed most abusive of the proprietors, and the Assembly then adjourned to let the people decide by a general election whether a petition should be sent to the king asking for direct royal government.

A most exciting political campaign followed in which Franklin took the side of the majority in favor of a petition, and wrote several of his most brilliant pamphlets. He particularly assailed Provost Smith, who, in a preface to a printed speech by John Dickinson defending the proprietary government, hadeulogized William Penn in one of those laudatory epitaphs which were the fashion of the day:

“Utterly to confound the assembly, and show the excellence of proprietary government, the Prefacer has extracted from their own votes the praises they have from time to time bestowed on the first proprietor, in their addresses to his son. And, though addresses are not generally the best repositories of historical truth, we must not in this instance deny their authority.“That these encomiums on the father, though sincere, have occurred so frequently, was owing, however, to two causes: first, a vain hope the assemblies entertained, that the father’s example, and the honors done his character, might influence the conduct of the sons; secondly, for that, in attempting to compliment the sons upon their own merits, there was always found an extreme scarcity of matter. Hence,the father, the honored and honorable father, was so often repeated, that the sons themselves grew sick of it, and have been heard to say to each other with disgust, when told that A, B, and C, were come to wait upon them with addresses on some public occasion, ‘Then I suppose we shall hear more about our father.’ So that, let me tell the Prefacer, who perhaps was unacquainted with this anecdote, that if he hoped to curry more favor with the family, by the inscription he has framed for that great man’s monument, he may find himself mistaken; for there is too much in it ofour father.”

“That these encomiums on the father, though sincere, have occurred so frequently, was owing, however, to two causes: first, a vain hope the assemblies entertained, that the father’s example, and the honors done his character, might influence the conduct of the sons; secondly, for that, in attempting to compliment the sons upon their own merits, there was always found an extreme scarcity of matter. Hence,the father, the honored and honorable father, was so often repeated, that the sons themselves grew sick of it, and have been heard to say to each other with disgust, when told that A, B, and C, were come to wait upon them with addresses on some public occasion, ‘Then I suppose we shall hear more about our father.’ So that, let me tell the Prefacer, who perhaps was unacquainted with this anecdote, that if he hoped to curry more favor with the family, by the inscription he has framed for that great man’s monument, he may find himself mistaken; for there is too much in it ofour father.”

Franklin then goes on to say that he will give a sketch “in the lapidary way” which will do for a monument to the sons of William Penn.

“Be this a MemorialOf T—— and R—— P——P—— of P——Who with estates immenseAlmost beyond computationWhen their own provinceAnd the whole British empireWere engaged in a bloody & most expensive warBegun for the defence of those estatesCould yet meanly desireTo have those very estatesTotally or partiallyExempted from taxationWhile their fellow subjects all around themGroanedUnder the universal burden.To gain this pointThey refused the necessary lawsFor the defence of their peopleAnd suffered their colony to welter in its bloodRather than abate in the leastOf these their dishonest pretensions.The privileges granted by their fatherWisely and benevolentlyTo encourage the first settlers of the provinceTheyFoolishly and cruelly,Taking advantage of public distress,Have extorted from the posterity of those settlers;And are daily endeavoring to reduce themTo the most abject slavery;Though to the virtue and industry of those people,In improving their countryThey owe all that they possess and enjoy.A striking instanceOf human depravity and ingratitude;And an irrefragable proof,That wisdom and goodnessDo not descend with an inheritance;But that ineffable meannessMay be connected with unbounded fortune.”

Dickinson’s followers, of course, assailed Franklin on all sides. Their pamphlets are very exciting reading, especially Hugh Williamson’s “What is Sauce for a Goose is also Sauce for a Gander,” which describes itself in its curious old-fashioned subtitle as

“Being a small Touch in the Lapidary Way, or Tit for Tat, in your own way. An Epitaph on a certain Great Man. Written by a Departed Spirit, and now most humbly inscribed to all his dutiful Sons and Children, who may hereafter choose to distinguish him by the Name of A Patriot. Dear Children, I send you here a little Book for you to look upon that you may see your Pappy’s Face when he is dead and gone. Philadelphia, Printed in Arch Street 1764.”

“Pappy” is then described for the benefit of his children in an epitaph:

“An Epitaph &cTo the much esteem’d Memory ofB ... F ... Esq., LL.D.

Possessed of many lucrativeOfficesProcured to him by the Interest of MenWhom he infamously treatedAnd receiving enormous sumsfrom the ProvinceFor ServicesHe never performedAfter betraying it to Party and ContentionHe lived, as to the Appearance of WealthIn moderate circumstances;His principal Estate, seeming to consistIn his Hand Maid BarbaraA most valuable SlaveThe Foster Motherof his last offspringWho did his dirty WorkAnd in two Angelic FemalesWhom Barbara also servedAs Kitchen Wench and Gold FinderBut alas the Loss!Providence for wise tho’ secret endsLately deprived him of the Motherof Excellency.His Fortune was not however impairedFor he piously withheld from herManesThe pitiful stipend of Ten pounds per AnnumOn which he had cruelly suffered herTo starveThen stole her to the Grave in SilenceWithout a Pall, the covering due to her dignityWithout a tomb or evenA Monumental Inscription.”

Franklin was a more skilful “lapidary” than his enemies, and his pamphlets were expressed in better language, but there is now very little doubt that he and the majority of the people were in the wrong. The colony had valuable liberties and privileges which had been built up by the Assembly through the efforts of nearly a hundred years. In spite of all the aggressions of the proprietors these liberties remained unimpaired and were even stronger than ever. The appeal to the king to take the colony under his direct control might lead to disastrous results; for if the people once surrendered themselves to the crown and the proprietorship was abolished, the king and Parliament might also abolish the charter and destroy every popular right.[24]In fact, the ministry were at that very time contemplating the Stamp Act and other measures which brought on the Revolution. Franklin seemed incapable of appreciating this, and retained for ten years, and in the face of the most obvious facts, his strange confidence in the king.

But the petition was carried by an overwhelming majority, although Franklin failed to be re-elected to the Assembly. He never had been so fiercely assailed, and it is probable that the attacks on his morals and motives were far more bitter in ordinary conversation than in the pamphlets. This abuse may have had considerable effect in preventing his election. He was, however, appointed by the Assembly its agent to convey the petition to England and present it to the king. He set out in November, 1764,on this his second mission to England which resulted in a residence there of ten years. Fortunately, the petition was unsuccessful. He did not press it much, and the Assembly soon repented of its haste.

He settled down comfortably at No. 7 Craven Street, where Mrs. Stevenson and her daughter were delighted to have again their old friend. His scientific studies were renewed,—spots on the sun, smoky chimneys, the aurora borealis, the northwest passage, the effect of deep and shallow water on the speed of boats,—and he was appointed on committees to devise plans for putting lightning-rods on St. Paul’s Cathedral and the government powder-magazines. The circle of his acquaintance was much enlarged. He associated familiarly with the noblemen he met at country houses, was dined and entertained by notables of every sort, became acquainted with Garrick, Mrs. Montague, and Adam Smith, and added another distinguished physician, Sir John Pringle, to the list of his very intimate friends. He dined out almost every day, was admitted to all sorts of clubs, and of course diligently attended the meetings of all the associations devoted to learning and science.

Although only an amateur in medicine, he was invited by the physicians to attend the meetings of their club, and it was of this club that he told the story that the question was once raised whether physicians had, on the whole, done more good than harm. After a long debate, Sir John Pringle, the president, was asked to give his opinion, and replied that if by physicians they meant to include oldwomen, he thought they had done more good than harm; otherwise more harm than good.

During this his second mission to England he became more intimate than ever with the good Bishop of St. Asaph, spending part of every summer with him, and it was at his house that he wrote the first part of his Autobiography. In a letter to his wife, dated August 14, 1771, he describes the close of a three weeks’ stay at the bishop’s:

“The Bishop’s lady knows what children and grandchildren I have and their ages; so, when I was to come away on Monday, the 12th, in the morning, she insisted on my staying that one day longer, that we might together keep my grandson’s birthday. At dinner, among other nice things, we had a floating island, which they always particularly have on the birthdays of any of their own six children, who were all but one at table, where there was also a clergyman’s widow, now above one hundred years old. The chief toast of the day was Master Benjamin Bache, which the venerable old lady began in a bumper ofmountain. The Bishop’s lady politely added ‘and that he may be as good a man as his grandfather.’ I said I hoped he would bemuch better. The Bishop, still more complaisant than his lady, said: ‘We will compound the matter and be contented if he should not provequite so good.’” (Bigelow’s Works of Franklin, vol. vi. p. 71.)

The bishop’s daughters were great friends of Franklin, and often exchanged with him letters which in many respects were almost equal to his own. Years afterwards, when he was in France during the Revolution, and it was rather imprudent to write to him, one of them, without the knowledge of her parents, sent him a most affectionate and charming girl’s letter, which is too long to quote, but is well worth reading.

He had his wife send him from Pennsylvania anumber of live squirrels, which he gave to his friends. One which he presented to one of the bishop’s daughters having escaped from its cage, and being killed by a dog, he wrote an epitaph on it rather different from his political epitaph:

“Alas! poorMungo!Happy wert thou, hadst thou knownThy own felicity.Remote from the fierce bald eagleTyrant of thy native woods,Thou hadst naught to fear from his piercing talons,Nor from the murdering gunOf the thoughtless sportsman.Safe in thy weird castleGrimalkinnever could annoy thee.Daily wert thou fed with the choicest viands,By the fair hand of an indulgent mistress;But, discontented,Thou wouldst have more freedom.Too soon, alas! didst thou obtain it;And wanderingThou art fallen by the fangs of wanton cruel Ranger!Learn henceYe who blindly seek more liberty,Whether subjects, sons, squirrels or daughters,That apparent restraint may be real protectionYielding peace and plentyWith security.”

Franklin’s pleasures in England remind us of other distinguished Americans who, having gone to London to represent their country, have suddenly found themselves in congenial intercourse with all that was best in the nation and enjoying the happiest days of their lives. Lowell, when minister there, had the same experience as Franklin, and when we read their experiences together, the resemblance isvery striking. Others, though perhaps in less degree, have felt the same touch of race. Blood is thicker than water. But I doubt if any of them—Lowell, Motley, or even Holmes in his famous three months’ visit—had such a good time as Franklin.

He loved England and was no doubt delighted with the appointments that sent him there. If it is true, as his enemies have charged, that he schemed for public office, it is not surprising in view of the pleasure he derived from appointments such as these. Writing to Miss Stevenson on March 23, 1763, after he had returned to Pennsylvania from his first mission, he says,—

“Of all the enviable things England has, I envy it most its people. Why should that petty Island, which, compared to America, is but a stepping stone in a brook, scarce enough of it above water to keep one’s shoes dry; why, I say should that little Island enjoy, in almost every neighborhood, more sensible, virtuous, and elegant minds than we can collect in ranging a hundred leagues of our vast forests?” (Bigelow’s Works of Franklin, vol. iii. p. 233.)

In fact, he had resolved at one time, if he could prevail on Mrs. Franklin to accompany him, to settle permanently in England. His reason, he writes to Mr. Strahan, was for America, but his inclination for England. “You know which usually prevails. I shall probably make but this one vibration and settle here forever. Nothing will prevent it, if I can, as I hope I can, prevail with Mrs. F. to accompany me, especially if we have a peace.”[25]Thisfondness for the old home no doubt helped to form that very conservative position which he took in the beginning of the Revolution, and which was so displeasing to some people in Massachusetts. His reason, though not his inclination, was, as he says, for America, but the ignorant and brutal course of the British ministry finally made reason and inclination one.

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