True to His Home: A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin

On the 18th of January, 1782, at Versailles, the representatives of England, France, and Spain signed the preliminaries of peace, declaring hostilities suspended, in the presence of Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin. These preliminaries were finally received as a definitive treaty of peace, and on Wednesday, September 3, 1783, this Treaty of Peace was signed in Paris.

When the preliminary treaty was signed, Franklin rushed into the arms of the Duc de la Rochefoucault, exclaiming:

"My friend, could I have hoped at my age to enjoy such happiness?" He was then seventy-six years old.

So again the handwriting of the old Boston school appeared in the great events of nations. It was now set to peace.

It would not seem likely that it would ever again adorn any like document. Franklin was old and gray. He had signed the Declaration, the Treaty of Alliance, and now the Treaty of Peace. He had done his work in writing well. It had ended well. Seventy-six years old; surely he would rest now at Passy, or return to some Philadelphia seclusion and await the change that must soon fall upon him.

But this glorious old man has not yet finished the work begun by Silence Dogood. Those are always able to do the most who are doing many things. It is a period of young men now; it was a time of old men then. People sought wisdom from experience, not experiment.

The peace is signed. The bells are ringing, and oppressed peoples everywhere rejoice. There is an iris on the cloud of humanity. The name of Franklin fills the world, and in most places is pronounced like a benediction.

From a tallow-chandler's shop to palaces; from the companionship of Uncle Ben, the poet, to that of royal blood, people of highest rank, and the most noble and cultured of mankind; from being laughed at, to being looked upon with universal reverence, love, and awe.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE TALE OF AN OLD VELVET COAT

When Franklin appeared to sign the Treaty of Peace between England and the United States, he surprised the ministers, envoys, and his own friends by wearing an old velvet coat. What did his appearance in this strange garment mean?

We must tell you the story, for it is an illustration of his honorable pride and the sensitiveness of his character. There was a time when all England, except a few of his own friends, were laughing at Franklin. Why?

Men who reach honorable success in life always pass through dark days – every sun and star is eclipsed some day – and Franklin had one day of eclipse that burned into his very soul, the memory of which haunted him as long as he lived.

It was that day when he, after a summons, appeared before the Council of the Crown as the agent of the colonies, and was openly charged with dishonor. It is the day of the charge of dishonor that is the darkest of all life. To an honorable man it is the day of a false charge of dishonor that leaves the deepest sting in memory.

"My life and honor both together run;Take honor from me, and my life is done."

But how came Franklin, the agent of the colonies in London, to be called before the Privy Council and to be charged with dishonor?

While he was in London and the colonies were filled with discontent and indignation at the severe measures of the crown, there came to him a member of Parliament who told him that these measures of which the colonies complained had been brought about by certain men in the colonies themselves; that the ministry had acted upon the advice of these men, and had thought that they were acting justly and wisely. Two of the men cited were Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver, both belonging to most respected and powerful families in the colonies.

Franklin could not believe these statements against his countrymen, and asked for the proof. The member of Parliament brought to him a package of letters addressed to public men on public affairs, written by Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson and Mr. Oliver, which proved to him that the severe action of the ministry against Boston and the province had been brought about by Bostonians themselves. Franklin asked permission to send these letters to Boston in the interests of justice to the ministry. The request was granted. The letters were sent to Boston, and were read in private to the General Assembly of the province. As an agent of the colonies, Franklin could not have done less in the interests of justice, truth, and honorable dealing.

But the use of these letters angered the ministry, and Franklin was called before the Privy Council to answer the charge of surreptitiously obtaining private correspondence and using it for purposes detrimental to the royal government.

To persons whose whole purpose of life is to live honorably such days as these come and develop character. Every one has some lurking enemy eager to misinterpret him to his own advantage. The lark must fly to the open sky when he sees the serpent coiling among the roses, or he must fight and dare the odds. Woe be to the wrongdoer who triumphs in such a case as this! He may gain money and ease, and laugh at his adversary, but when a man has proved untrue to any man for the sake of his own advantage, it may be written of him, "He went out, and it was night." A short chapter of a part of a biography or history may be an injustice, and seem to show that there is no God in the government of the world, but a long chapter of full history reveals God on the high throne of his power, and justice as his strength and glory. The Roman emperors built grand monuments to atone for their injustice, cruelty, and vice-seeking lives, but these only blackened their names by recalling what they were, and defeated their builders' ends. In this world all long chapters of history read one way: that character is everything, and that time tells the truth about all things. Justice is the highest expectation of life; it is only wise so to live that one's "expectation may not be disappointed." The young man can not be too soon led to see that "he that is spiritual judgeth all things, and that no man judgeth him."

It was the year 1773, when Franklin was sixty-eight years of age, that this dark and evil day came. A barrister named Wedderburn, young in years and new to the bar, a favorite of Lord North, and one who was regarded as "a wonderfully smart young man," was to present the case of the government against him.

The case filled all England with intense interest. The most notable men of the kingdom arranged to be present at the hearing. Thirty-five members of the Privy Council were present, an unusual number at such an assembly. Lord North was there; the Archbishop of Canterbury; even Dr. Priestley was there.

Dr. Franklin appeared on this memorable day in a velvet coat. He took a place in the room in a recess formed by a chimney, a retired place, where he stood motionless and silent. The coat was of Manchester velvet, and spotted.

Wedderburn addressed the Council. He was witty, brilliant, careless of facts. His address on that occasion was the talk of all England in a few days, and it led him to a career of fame that would have been success had it had the right foundation. But nothing lasts that is not sincere. Everything in this world has to be readjusted that is not right.

"How these letters," said he, "came into the possession of any one but the right owners is a mystery for Dr. Franklin to explain."

He then spoke of Mr. Whatley, to whom the letters were first consigned, and proceeded thus:

"He has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity of virtue? Men will watch him with a jealous eye; they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their escritoires. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a man of letters; this man of three letters. (Fur– a thief.)"

The manner of the orator thrilled the august company. It is thus described by Jeremy Bentham:

"I was not more astonished at the brilliancy of his lightning than astounded by the thunder that accompanied it. As he stood, the cushion lay on the council table before him; his station was between the seats of two of the members, on the side of the right hand of the lord president. I would not, for double the greatest fee the orator could on that occasion have received, been in the place of that cushion; the ear was stunned at every blow; he had been reading perhaps in that book in which the prince of Roman orators and rhetoric professors instructs his pupils about how to make impression. The table groaned under the assault. Alone, in the recess on the left hand of the president, stood Benjamin Franklin, in such position as not to be visible from the situation of the president, remaining the whole time like a rock, in the same posture, his head resting on his left hand; and in that attitude abiding the pelting of the pitiless storm."

Franklin, the agent of the colonies, stood in his humble place, calm and undisturbed to all outward appearance, but he was cut to the quick as he heard this assembly of representative Englishmen laughing at his supposed dishonor.

Says one of that day, "At the sallies of the orator's sarcastic wit all the members of the Council, the president himself not excepted, frequently laughed outright."

Benjamin Franklin went home, and put away his spotted velvet coat. He might want it again. It would be a reminder to him – a lesson of life. He might wear it again some day.

The next day, being Sunday, the eminent Dr. Priestley came to take breakfast with him.

Dr. Franklin said: "Let me read the arraignment twice over. I have never before been so sensible of the power of a good conscience. If I had not considered the thing for which I have been so much insulted the best action of my life, and which I certainly should do again under like circumstances, I could not have supported myself."

Franklin held an office under the crown. On Monday morning a letter was brought to him from the postmaster-general. It read:

"The king finds it necessary to dismiss you from the office of deputy postmaster-general in America."

Dismissed in disgrace at the age of sixty-eight! And England laughing. He had nothing left to comfort him now but his conscience – that was the everything.

The old spotted velvet coat; he brought it out on the day of the treaty. It was some nine or more years old now. He stood like a culprit in it one day; it should adorn him now in the hour of his honor.

He was facing eighty years.

He prepared to leave France, where his career had been one of such honor and glory that his fame filled the world.

The court made him a parting present. It was a portrait of the king set in a frame of four hundred diamonds!

CHAPTER XL.

IN SERVICE AGAIN

It has been said that Franklin forgot to be old. Verging upon eighty, he had asked to be recalled from France, and he dreamed of quiet old age among his grandchildren on the banks of the Schuylkill, where so many happy years of his middle life had been spent. He was recalled from France, but, as we have before stated, this was an age in America when men sought the councils of wisdom and experience.

Pennsylvania needed a President or Governor who could lay the foundations of early legislation with prudence, and she turned to the venerable Franklin to fill the chair of state. He was nominated for the office of President of Pennsylvania, and elected, and twice re-elected; and we find him now, over eighty years of age, in activities of young manhood, and bringing to the office the largest experience of any American.

He was among the first of most eminent Americans to crown his life after the period of threescore and ten years with the results of the scholarship of usefulness.

We have recently seen Gladstone, Tennyson, King William, Bismarck, Von Moltke, Whittier, Holmes, and many other men of the enlightened world, doing some of their strongest and most impressive work after seventy years of age, and some of these setting jewels in the crown of life when past eighty. We have seen Du Maurier producing his first great work of fiction at sixty, and many authors fulfilling the hopes of years at a like age.

We have a beautiful pen picture of Franklin in these several years, in his youth's return when eighty years were past. It shows what is possible to a life of temperance and beneficence, and it is only such a life that can have an Indian summer, a youth in age.

"Dr. Franklin's house," wrote a clergyman who visited him in his old age, "stands up a court, at some distance from the street. We found him in his garden, sitting upon a grass-plot, under a very large mulberry tree, with several other gentlemen and two or three ladies. When Mr. Gerry introduced me, he rose from his chair, took me by the hand, expressed his joy at seeing me, welcomed me to the city, and begged me to seat myself close to him. His voice was low, but his countenance open, frank, and pleasing. I delivered to him my letters. After he read them he took me again by the hand, and, with the usual compliments, introduced me to the other gentlemen.

"Here we entered into a free conversation, and spent our time most agreeably until it was quite dark. The tea table was spread under the tree, and Mrs. Bache, who is the only daughter of the doctor and lives with him, served it out to the company. She had three of her children about her. They seemed to be excessively fond of their grandpa. The doctor showed me a curiosity he had just received, and with which he was much pleased. It was a snake with two heads, preserved in a large vial. It was taken near the confluence of the Schuylkill with the Delaware, about four miles from this city. It was about ten inches long, well proportioned, the heads perfect, and united to the body about one fourth of an inch below the extremities of the jaws. The snake was of a dark brown, approaching to black, and the back beautifully speckled with white. The belly was rather checkered with a reddish color and white. The doctor supposed it to be full grown, which I think is probable; and he thinks it must be a sui generis of that class of animals. He grounds his opinion of its not being an extraordinary production, but a distinct genus, on the perfect form of the snake, the probability of its being of some age, and there having been found a snake entirely similar (of which the doctor has a drawing, which he showed us) near Lake Champlain in the time of the late war. He mentioned the situation of this snake if it was traveling among bushes, and one head should choose to go on one side of the stem of a bush and the other head should prefer the other side, and neither of the heads would consent to come back or give way to the other. He was then going to mention a humorous matter that had that day occurred in the convention in consequence of his comparing the snake to America, for he seemed to forget that everything in the convention was to be kept a profound secret. But this secrecy of convention matters was suggested to him, which stopped him and deprived me of the story he was going to tell.

"After it was dark we went into his house, and he invited me into his library, which is likewise his study. It is a very large chamber and high studded. The walls are covered with bookshelves filled with books; besides, there are four large alcoves extending two thirds of the length of the chamber, filled in the same manner. I presume this is the largest and by far the best private library in America.

"He seemed extremely fond, through the course of the visit, of dwelling on philosophical subjects, and particularly that of natural history, while the other gentlemen were swallowed up with politics. This was a favorable circumstance for me, for almost the whole of his conversation was addressed to me; and I was highly delighted with the extensive knowledge he appeared to have of every subject, the brightness of his memory, and the clearness and vivacity of all his mental faculties, notwithstanding his age. His manners are perfectly easy, and everything about him seems to diffuse an unrestrained freedom and happiness. He has an incessant vein of humor, accompanied with an uncommon vivacity, which seems as natural and involuntary as his breathing. He urged me to call on him again, but my short stay would not admit. We took our leave at ten, and I retired to my lodgings."

The convention to frame a Constitution for the United States assembled at this time in Philadelphia. Dr. Franklin was elected to bring his ripe statesmanship into this great work.

He was a poet in old age. When past eighty he fulfilled one of the hopes of Uncle Ben. When the Constitution had been adopted by a majority of the States, the event was celebrated by a grand festival in Philadelphia. There were a long procession of the trades, an oration, the booming of cannon, and the ringing of bells. Some twenty thousand people joined in the festivities. They wanted a poet for the joyful occasion. Poets were not many in those days. Who should appear? It was Silence Dogood, the Poor Richard of a generation gone.

To the draft of the Constitution of the United States Benjamin Franklin placed his signature, and thus again honored his Boston writing-master of seventy years ago.

But he gave to this august assembly an influence as noble as his signature to the document that it produced. Franklin had been skeptical in his youth, and a questioner of religious teachings in other periods of his life. Mature thought had convinced him of the glory of the Christian faith, of the doctrine of immortality and the power of prayer. The deliberations in the Constitutional Assembly were long, and they were sometimes bitter. In the midst of the debates, the divisions of opinion and delays, Dr. Franklin arose one day – it was the 28th of June, 1787 – and moved

"That henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business; and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service."

In an address supporting this resolution he said: "I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: ThatGodgoverns in the affairs of men! And if a sparrow can not fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the building of Babel; we shall be divided by our partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance despair of establishing government by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest."

To consummate the American Government now only one thing was lacking – a power to interpret the meaning of the Constitution, and so to decide any disputes that should arise among the States.

In Mr. Vernon's garden, after the controversy between the fishermen of Maryland and Virginia, a plan to settle such disputes was produced. It was a high court of final appeal.

So rose the Supreme Court. And this court to decide questions of controversy arising among the States, we may hope, was the beginning of a like body, a Supreme Court of the nations of the world that shall settle the questions in dispute among nations, without an appeal to war or the shedding of human blood.

These were glorious times, and although Dr. Franklin was not actively engaged in this last grand movement for the government of the people, he lived to give his influence to make George Washington President, and see the new order of a popular government inaugurated. He entered the doors of that golden age of liberty, equality, and progress, when the destinies might say to their spindles, "Thus go on forever!"

CHAPTER XLI.

JANE'S LAST VISIT

It was midsummer. Benjamin Franklin, of fourscore years, President of Pennsylvania, had finished a long, three-story ell to his house on Market Street, and in this ell he had caused to be made a library which filled his heart with pride. He had invented a long arm with which to take down books from the high shelves of this library – an invention which came into use in other libraries in such a way as to make many librarians grateful to him.

He was overburdened with care, and suffered from chronic disease.

In his days of pain he had been comforted by letters from Jenny, now long past seventy years of age. She had written to him in regard to his sufferings such messages as these:

"Oh, that after you have spent your whole life in the service of the public, and have attained so glorious a conclusion, as I thought, as would now permit you to come home and spend (as you say) the evening with your friends in ease and quiet, that now such a dreadful malady should attack you! My heart is ready to burst with grief at the thought. How many hours have I lain awake on nights thinking what excruciating pains you might then be encountering, while I, poor, useless, and worthless worm, was permitted to be at ease! Oh, that it was in my power to mitigate or alleviate the anguish I know you must endure!"

When she heard of his arrival in Philadelphia she wrote:

"I long so much to see you that I should immediately seek for some one that would accompany me, but my daughter is in a poor state of health and gone into the country to try to get a little better, and I am in a strait between two; but the comfortable reflection that you are at home among all your dear children, and no more seas to cross, will be constantly pleasing to me till I am permitted to enjoy the happiness of seeing and conversing with you."

The tenderness and charity of Franklin for the many members of his own family still revealed his heart. "I tenderly love you," he wrote to Jane – Jenny – "for the care of our father in his sickness."

One of his sisters, Mrs. Dowse, whose family had died, insisted upon living alone, on account of her love for the place that had been her home. Many other men would have compelled her removal, but there is nothing more beautiful in all Franklin's letters than the way that he advised Jenny how to treat this matter. He had been told that this venerable woman would have her own way.

"As having their own way is one of the greatest comforts of life to old people, I think their friends should endeavor to accommodate them in that as well as anything else. When they have long lived in a house, it becomes natural to them; they are almost as closely connected with it as the tortoise with his shell; they die if you tear them out. Old folks and old trees, if you remove them, 'tis ten to one that you kill them, so let our good old sister be no more importuned on that head; we are growing old fast ourselves, and shall expect the same kind of indulgences; if we give them, we shall have a right to receive them in our turn."

Jane Mecom – the "Jenny" of Franklin's young life – had one great desire as the years went on: it was, to meet her brother once more and to review the past with him.

"I will one day go to Philadelphia and give him a great surprise," the woman used to say.

Let us picture such a day.

Benjamin Franklin sat down in his new library. His books had been placed and his pictures hung.

Among the pictures were two that were so choice that we may suppose them to be hung under coverings. One of them was the portrait of the King of France in its frame of four hundred brilliants, and the other was his own portrait with, perhaps, Turgot's famous inscription.

It was near evening when he sat down and asked to be left alone.

He opened his secretary, and took from it a letter from Washington. It read:

"Amid the public gratulations on your safe return to America after a long absence, and many eminent services you have rendered it, for which as a benefited person I feel the obligation, permit an individual to join the public voice in expressing a sense of them, and to assure you that, as no one entertains more respect for your character, so no one can salute you with more sincerity or with greater pleasure than I do on the occasion."