The Life of Benjamin Franklin

The exalted expectations formed of him by the public were not disappointed. Heartily a lover of man and the friend of equal rights, he had scarcely taken his seat in the legislature before he had to turn the torrent of his honest indignation against the proprietaries and their creatures the Governors.

The reader will please here be reminded that in the year 1680, that great good man, William Penn, a quaker, was paid off a large claim against Charles II. of England, by a grant of lands in North America. To make the best of a bad bargain, honest William gathered together a caravan of his poor persecuted brethren, and taking ship came over to North America.

The good angel that guided the steps of pious Jacob as he sojourned from Padan-aram to the land Uz, seeking a rest, guided Penn and his gentle followers to the mouth of the Delaware bay. He followed the stately flood in all its wanderings among the green marshes and forests of the new found world, until he reached the pleasant spot where now Philadelphia stands. The majestic grove that shaded the extended level on the western bank, bordered on the back by the beautiful serpentine river called by the natives, the Schuylkill, struck his eye as a fine site for his future city.

Abhorring the idea of killing his fellow men, the poor natives, and taking away their lands, he sent around among them the Calumet, or pipe of peace, inviting them to "a friendly talk." Painted in red ochre, and decked in all the savage pomp of wild skins and feathers, the kings of the soil with all their simple tribes assembled themselves together. The meeting was in the summer of 1681, under the trees near the margin of the great river. The scene was lovely to the eye of humanity. The red and white men from different continents were seen to meet, not as enemies for mutual slaughter, but as brothers for loving commerce. The shores were covered with British merchandize. The eyes of the simple children of nature sparkled on those rich wares, the like of which they had never seen before.

Penn gave them every thing. He gave them precious axes to master the forests; and still more magic guns to master the wolves and panthers. He gave them warm clothes for defence against the cold, and plough-shares and hoes for plentiful harvests. In return they gave him that large tract of land in their country, which, in honour of this good man, has been called Pennsylvania. Instantly the aged forests began to resound with the strokes of axes and the crash of falling trees. And the corner stone was laid of the new city, which, with great propriety, was named of Penn, Philadelphia, or the city of brotherly love.

Having thus laid, the foundation of this colony in justice to the poor natives, and in generosity to his own followers in the great cheapness of his lands, in perfect liberty of conscience, and in the exceeding moderation of his government, this wise statesman then looked to God for his blessings. Nor did he look in vain, The fame of "Penn Colony" resounded throughout Great Britain. An immense emigration were quickly on their way to Pennsylvania. The young city grew apace, and farms and fair buildings in the country, spread in every direction with a rapidity unequalled in history.

But alas! when honest William fell asleep, there rose after him a race of heirs "who knew not Joseph;" who not content, like him, with modest drab, and simple dinners, and aspiring to the true happiness of imitating God in godlike loves and deeds, basely prostituted their hearts to carnal lusts and pride.

The worship of these gods, though contemptible, is costly; and to these wet-quaker successors of the good William Penn, nothing promised such a swelling revenue as a bold rise in the price of their lands. And in this pitiful kind of management they soon gave the Pennsylvanians to understand that like Rehoboam of old, "their little fingers were heavier than their father's loins." I have not been able to procure any thing like certainty as to the sum that good William Penn gave to the natives for the vast tract of land he purchased of them. But that he hardly gave at the rate of a hatchet for what is now a noble farm, may be very fairly inferred. In 1754, which was seventy years later than the first purchase, the house of Penn bought of the Indians seven millions of acres lying within the royal grant. And what do you suppose they gave for it? what do you suppose they gave for seven millions of acres of rich, heavy timbered Pennsylvania land? why not quite two thousand dollars! not three cents the hundred acres! And what do you suppose they immediately asked for it? why fifteen pounds ten shillings! near fifty thousand cents per hundred acres! And yet with such a bank of millions in hand they were not willing to bear their part of the taxes for public good!!

Like the starched Pharisees of old, they could throw heavy weights on other men's shoulders, but not suffer a fly to light on theirs. They could smile when they saw the officer going round with his ink horn and pen, noting down the poor man's paddock, but if he but looked at their princely manors and parks they would make the whole colony ring with it.

Grown beyond calculation rich by the sales and rents of their lands in America, they scorned the country of their illustrious predecessor, and went over to London, where they mimicked the pride and pageantry of princes.

Thinking they did the obscure Pennsylvanians honour enough to govern them by proxy, they washed their hands of the poor colony government, and sent them over deputies. These, hirelings, to augment their salaries, soon commenced a course of oppressions on the people, whom they treated with great insolence.

It were too great an honour to those wretches to set the people of the present day to reading their insolent messages to the legislature. They were always, however, very properly chastised by Dr. Franklin; sometimes in the columns of his own popular newspaper, and sometimes in the assembly. Not, indeed, by long and eloquent orations, for which he either had no talent, or declined it, preferring the pithy and pungent anecdote or story, which was always so admirably appropriate, and withal so keen in wit and truth, that like a flash from his own lightning rods, it never failed to demolish the fairest fabric of sophistry, and cause even its greatest admirers to blush that they had been so fascinated by its false glare.

In 1756, he was appointed deputy post-master general for the British colonies. It is asserted that in his hands, the post-office in America yielded annually thrice as much as did that of Ireland. An extraordinary proof of our passion for reading and writing beyond the Irish. Perhaps it was owing to this that we saved our liberties, while they lost theirs.

Several of the middle colonies suffering much at this time from Indian depredations on their frontiers, it was agreed among them to send commissioners to Albany to devise means for mutual defence. Dr. Franklin, commissioner on the part of Pennsylvania, had the honour to draw up a plan, which was thought excellent. Knowing the colonists to be the best marksmen in the world, and supposing it infinitely safer that the defence of their own firesides should be entrusted to them than to British hirelings, he had with his usual sagacity recommended that muskets and powder should be put into their hands.

But when his plan was presented to the king and council for ratification, it was indignantly rejected. It was thought by some that hardly could Satan and his black janisaries have been more seriously offended, had a cargo of Bibles and hymn books been recommended for their pandemonium.

The truth is, the British ministry had for a long time depressed the unfortunate Americans into mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, by making them bring all their rich produce of tobaccos, furs, &c. to English ports, and there give them the meanest prices; sometimes a penny, and even half a penny a pound for their brightest tobacco, which they would the next hour sell to the Dutch merchants for two shillings a pound. To preserve such a trade as this, as Lord Howe ingenuously confessed, from going into any other channel, was a grand object to the ministry. But this they could not long count on, if the Americans were furnished with muskets, cannon, and powder. They therefore, very prudently, determined to leave Dr. Franklin's excellent marksmen out of the question, and confide to their own creatures the protection of a country whose trade could so well repay them for it.

But their folly in preferring such troops was soon made evident, as Franklin had predicted. In the spring of 1755, two thousand veterans, the elite of the British military, were sent over to drive the French from the Ohio. One half that number of Virginia riflemen would have done the business completely. But such was the ministerial jealousy of the American riflemen, and so great their dread to embody and arm that kind of troops, that they permitted no more than three companies to join the army. And even these were so ludicrously scrimped up by governor Dinwiddie, in jackets scarcely reaching to their waists, that they became a mere laughing stock of the British army, who never called them by any other name than the "Virginia short rumps." Many believed that this was done purposely, that by being thus constantly laughed at, they might be cowed thereby, and be led to think meanly of themselves, as quite an inferior sort of beings to the mighty English. But blessed be God whose providence always takes part with the oppressed. A few short weeks only elapsed when this motley army was led, by an incautious commander, into a fatal ambuscade of the French and Indians—general Braddock, at the head of his 2000 British veterans, and young George Washington at the head of his two hundred "Virginia short rumps." Then was displayed the soundness of Dr. Franklin's judgment, in the wide difference, as to self-possession and hard fighting, between these two kind of troops.

The conceited Englishmen behaved no better than wild turkies; while the despised "Virginia short rumps" fought like lions, and had the glory of saving the wreck of the British army.

This sad defeat had like to have ruined doctor Franklin, by whose credit with the Pennsylvanians, colonel Dunbar of the rear guard of his army, had been furnished with fifty wagons, which were all burnt on the retreat. His escape from this danger was owing to the generosity of governor Shirley, who learning that Franklin had incurred this debt on account of the British government, undertook to discharge it.

Seeing no end to the vexation and expense brought on the colony by those selfish beings, the proprietaries, the assembly came at length, to the resolution to petition the king to abolish the proprietary government, and take the colony under his own care. Doctor Franklin was appointed to the honour of presenting this petition to his majesty George II. and sailed for England, June, 1757.

Learning at last that by obstinately contending for too much, they might possibly lose all, the proprietaries signified to doctor Franklin a willingness that their land should be taxed.

After the completion of this important business, Franklin remained at the court of Great Britain as agent for the province of Pennsylvania. The extensive knowledge which he possessed of the situation of the colonies and the regard which he always manifested for their interests, occasioned his appointment to the same office by the colonies of Massachusetts, Maryland and Georgia.

He had now an opportunity of visiting those illustrious Englishmen, whom his useful writings and discoveries had strongly bound to him, though they had never seen his face. The high opinion which they had formed of him at a distance, was greatly increased by a personal acquaintance.

Such vastness of mind with such sweetness of spirit and simplicity of manners, formed a spectacle as rare as it was lovely. And as a proof that superior sense and superior benevolence will always prevail against prejudice, he was now courted by those learned societies who formerly affected to deride his discoveries in philosophy and electricity. The Royal Society of London, which had at first refused his performances admission into its transactions, now deemed it an honour to class him among its fellows. The universities of St. Andrews, of Edinburgh, and Oxford, conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws; and the most distinguished philosophers of Europe sought his correspondence. In reading his letters to those great men, we are at a loss which most to admire, the majesty of his sense, or the simplicity of his style. While in England, which was from July, 1757, to July, '62, he suggested to the British ministry the duty of dispossessing the French of that great country on the north of our colonies called Canada. To this end, he published his famous Canada pamphlet, exhibiting in strong colours the many mischiefs and murders committed on his countrymen, even in times of peace, by the Indians in French pay. This little tract served to rouse the British nation to the pitch he desired.

An army of English regulars and New-England militia were sent under the command of general Wolfe, who presently succeeded in driving the French out of a fine country, of which, by their cruelties, they had rendered themselves utterly unworthy.

About this time the celebrated doctor Cullen, of Scotland, made some curious discoveries in the art of producing cold by evaporation. Hoping that the genius of Franklin might throw some lights on this dawning science, a friend of doctor Cullen's wrote a statement of the facts to Franklin. The American philosopher, though now immersed in political pursuits, took a little leisure to repeat doctor Cullen's experiments on cold, which he so improved as easily to produce ice in the dog days. But it was one of those discoveries, which, as he says, he never valued, because it was too expensive to be of general utility.

About the autumn of 1761, he rendered himself prodigiously popular among the ladies in London, by completing that sweet toned little instrument of music, the Harmonica.

I have been told that his fame at court on this account, so awakened the recollection of George III. that he caused it to be signified to Dr. Franklin, that he felt a disposition to "do something for him." Our philosopher replied, that he wanted nothing for himself, but—that, he had a son in America. The king took the hint, and immediately made out a commission of "Governor of his colony of New Jersey, for his beloved subject, Temple Franklin, Esq." On such small things are the fortunes of men sometimes founded!

Doctor Franklin was now become so great a favourite that the people of all classes seemed to take a pride in talking of him, and his sayings, insomuch that not a word of the brilliant sort could fall from his lips but it was sure to be caught up instantly and re-echoed through every circle, from proud St. James to humble St. Giles. The following impromptu made a great noise in London about this time.

One evening in a large party at his friend Vaughan's he was, laughingly, challenged by a very beautiful girl, a Miss Gun, to make her a couplet of verses extempore. Well, madam, replied he, with great gallantry, since every body is offering a tribute to your graces, let me tender the following:

"Cupid now to ensure his fun,Quits his bow and takes to gun."

This handsome play on her name instantly suffused the cheeks of Miss Gun with celestial roses, making her look much more like an angel than before.

I mention this merely to show what an extraordinary mind that man must have possessed, who with such equal ease, could play the Newton or the Chesterfield, and charm alike the lightnings and the ladies.

In the summer of 1762, he took leave of his friends in England to return to his native country. On his voyage he discovered in oil or grease thrown on the water, a property, which few people ever dreamt of. When we learn of gold that it may by beating, be expanded into a leaf of such incredible fineness, that a guinea might in that way be made to cover Solomon's temple, or deck Noah's ark, we are filled with wonder of such a metal. Doctor Franklin tells us of equal wonders in oil. He informs us, that a wine glass full of pure oil poured on a mill pond, will presently spread over it, with a film inconceivably thinner than a cobweb, and so adhesive that the winds shall not excite it to mad-caps and breakers. Hence, he infers, that oil might be made a mean of saving ships during a violent storm at sea.

In this voyage he made also another discovery, which ought to be known to all going by sea, viz. that if persons perishing of thirst on a voyage, would but bathe half a dozen times a day in the sea water, which they easily might, by using their empty water casks as bathing tubs, they would obtain great relief from their thirst, and live several days longer; thence enjoying a better chance for their lives, by getting into port, or falling in with some friendly sail.

On his arrival in Philadelphia doctor Franklin was welcomed with marks of the most flattering respect by the citizens universally—handsome addresses and dinners were given him by literary societies and clubs—and the assembly, in the most public manner voted him their thanks for "the great honour and services he had rendered the country in general during his residence in England; and especially to the province of Pennsylvania." And they accompanied their thanks with a present of five thousand pounds.

Ye blind parents who can think hard of laying out a few dollars for books and education of your children, O think of this, and learn a course of conduct more to your own credit and to their temporal and eternal welfare.

In a few weeks after his return to Philadelphia there occurred in that neighbourhood an affair that serves to show the popularity of doctor Franklin in a very strong light.

In consequence of a number of murders committed on the frontiers by some villanous Indians, about a hundred and twenty young men of Dauphin county, christians in name but perfect savages in nature, bound themselves by a horrid oath to exterminate a little tribe of about twenty tame Indians, who lived very harmlessly among the whites in York county. Mounted on horses, and with rifles and tomahawks in their hands, they set off very deliberately on this hellish errand towards the settlements of the poor Indians. The old men, women, and children, in the cabins, soon fell weltering in their blood. The rest, who were at work, getting notice, fled to Lancaster, and were lodged in the jail as in a place of security. The blood thirsty whites broke open the jail and butchered every soul. All smeared with innocent blood, and furious as demons, they then pushed off for Philadelphia, to massacre the feeble remains of a friendly tribe who had fled into that city for protection. The governor issued his proclamation. The rioters paid no regard to it, but moved on rapidly, well armed, and determined to cut their way to the hated Indians over the bodies of all who should oppose them. They are now on this side of Germantown, only one hour's march from Philadelphia. The inhabitants are all in terror. The governor quits his palace, and for safety flies to the house of doctor Franklin. He, calm as he was wont to be amidst the lightnings as they darted around him on his rods, went out to meet the rioters. We sincerely regret that we cannot give the speech which he made on this memorable occasion. It must have been impressive in a most extraordinary degree; for on hearing it they instantly abandoned their hellish design and returned peaceably to their homes!

CHAPTER XL

Had the fatal sisters, even now, put forth their shears and clipped his thread, yet would not the friend of man "have fallen without his fame." Admiring posterity would still have written on his tomb,

Here lies the GREAT FRANKLIN

But though great now, he is destined to be much greater still. A crisis is approaching that is to call forth all his talents, and to convince even the most unthinking, that in the dark day of trouble the "wise shall shine forth like the firmament." By the crisis here mentioned, I mean the events leading to the American revolution.

The British cabinet, as if entire strangers to that divine philosophy which commands its disciples to be "no respecters of persons," allowed themselves in the most fatal policy of sparing the British subjects in England at the expense of the British subjects in America. After having drained much money from them in a variety of unconstitutional ways, they came at length to the resolution of taxing the colonies without their consent.

This dark design was hinted in 1754, by the minister, to governor Shirley, of the Massachusetts-Bay colony. The governor, well knowing his extraordinary penetration and judgment, broke this ministerial plan to Dr. Franklin; requesting his opinion of it. Dr. Franklin answered this question of the governor, by urging an "immediate union of the colonies with great Britain, by allowing them representatives in parliament," as the only thing that could prevent those ceaseless encroachments on the one side, and those bitter animosities on the other, which, he feared, would one day prove the ruin of both countries. As to the ministerial plan of taxing the colonies by act of parliament, where they have no representation, he assured the governor that it would prove utterly abominable. "His majesty, sir," said he to the governor, "has no subjects in all his wide dominions, who more heartily love him than do his American subjects. Nor do there exist on earth, the Englishmen who hold more dear the glory of old England than they do. But the same spirit of their gallant forefathers, which makes them ready to lay down their lives and fortunes, in a constitutional way, for their king and country, will for ever secure them from being slaves. We exult, sir, in the recollection, that of all the governments on earth, that of Great Britain has long been the freest; and that more blood has been shed for freedom's sake in England in one week, than on the whole continent for fifty years. Now, on the bright face of that government, the first and fairest feature is this: that no king can touch a penny belonging to the poorest subject, without his own consent, by his representative in parliament. For, if, say they, 'a king can at pleasure take our money, he can take every thing else; since with that he can easily hire soldiers to rob, and then murder us if we but open our lips against him.' As Americans glory in being Englishmen on the western side of the Atlantic, they very naturally claim the common right of Englishmen, not to be taxed without their own consent, by their representatives in parliament. But the British ministry, though they obstinately refuse to the Americans the sacred rights of representation, yet as wickedly insist on the right of taxation; and accordingly have brought into parliament the famous stamp act bill, whereby no business that requires a record on paper, as deeds, bonds, wills, marriages, &c. can be legally done but on paper that has received the royal stamp. Now, sir, you well know that the same minister who proposes this most iniquitous and unconstitutional act, would not dare propose to any the most drunken tavern-keeper in England, a farthing tax on a pot of his ale without the consent of his representative in parliament; and yet, without being allowed a hearing in parliament, three millions of free-born Americans, sons of Englishmen, are to be taxed at the pleasure of a distant minister! Not, honoured sir, that the Americans care a fig for the pence imposed on this bit of stamp paper, but for the principle. For they well know that if parliament claim a right to take from us a penny in the pound, there is no line drawn to bound that right; and what shall hinder their calling whenever they please for the other nineteen shillings and eleven pence? And besides, sir, where is the necessity for this most degrading measure? Have not the Americans ever shown themselves the warmest friends of their king and country? Have they not, in all cases of danger, most readily voted both their men and money to the full extent of their means, and sometimes far beyond?