Heroes of Science: Physicists

"85. Q. How can the commerce be affected?

"A. You will find that, if the Act is not repealed, they will take a very little of your manufactures in a short time.

"86. Q. Is it in their power to do without them?

"A. I think they may very well do without them.

"87. Q. Is it their interest not to take them?

"A. The goods they take from Britain are either necessaries, mere conveniences, or superfluities. The first, as cloth, etc., with a little industry they can make at home; the second they can do without till they are able to provide them among themselves; and the last, which are much the greatest part, they will strike off immediately. They are mere articles of fashion, purchased and consumed because the fashion in a respected country; but will now be detested and rejected. The people have already struck off, by general agreement, the use of all goods fashionable in mournings, and many thousand pounds' worth are sent back as unsaleable.

"173. Q. What used to be the pride of the Americans?

"A. To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain.

"174. Q. What is now their pride?

"A. To wear their old clothes over again till they can make new ones."

The month following Franklin's examination, the repeal of the Stamp Act received the royal assent. Thereupon Franklin sent his wife and daughter new dresses, and a number of other little luxuries (or toilet necessaries).

In 1767 Franklin visited Paris. In the same year his daughter married Mr. Richard Bache. Though Parliament had repealed the Stamp Act, it nevertheless insisted on its right to tax the colonies. The Duty Act was scarcely less objectionable than its predecessor. On Franklin's return from the Continent, he heard of the retaliatory measures of the Boston people, who had assembled in town-meetings, formally resolved to encourage home manufactures, to abandon superfluities, and, after a certain time, to give up the use of some articles of foreign manufacture. These associations afterwards became very general in the colonies, so that in one year the importations by the colonists of New York fell from £482,000 to £74,000, and in Pennsylvania from £432,000 to £119,000.

The effect of the Duty Act was to encourage the Dutch and other nations to smuggle tea and probably other India produce into America. The exclusion from the American markets of tea sent from England placed the East India Company in great difficulties; for while they were unable to meet their bills, they had in stock two million pounds' worth of tea and other goods. The balance of the revenue collected under the Duty Act, after paying salaries, etc., amounted to only £85 for the year, and for this a fleet had to be maintained, to guard the fifteen hundred miles of American coast; while the fall in East India Stock deprived the revenue of £400,000 per annum, which the East India Company would otherwise have paid. At length a licence was granted to the East India Company to carry tea into America, duty free. This, of course, excluded all other merchants from the American tea-trade. A quantity of tea sent by the East India Company to Boston was destroyed by the people. The British Government then blockaded the port. This soon led to open hostilities. Franklin worked hard to effect a reconciliation. He drew up a scheme, setting forth the conditions under which he conceived a reconciliation might be brought about, and discussed it fully with Mr. Daniel Barclay and Dr. Fothergill. This scheme was shown to Lord Howe, and afterwards brought before the Ministry, but was rejected. Other plans were considered, and Franklin offered to pay for the tea which had been destroyed at Boston. All his negotiations were, however, fruitless. At last he addressed a memorial to the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State, complaining of the blockade of Boston, which had then continued for nine months, and had "during every week of its continuance done damage to that town, equal to what was suffered there by the India Company;" and claiming reparation for such injury beyond the value of the tea which had been destroyed. The memorial also complained of the exclusion of the colonists from the Newfoundland fisheries, for which reparation would one day be required. This memorial was returned to Franklin by Mr. Walpole, and Franklin shortly afterwards returned to Philadelphia.

During this visit to England he had lost his wife, who died on December 19, 1774; and his friend Miss Stevenson had married and been left a widow.

In April, 1768, Franklin was appointed Agent for Georgia, in the following year for New Jersey, and in 1770 for Massachusetts, so that he was then the representative in England of four colonies, with an income of £1200 per annum.

In 1771 he spent three weeks at Twyford, with the Bishop of St. Asaph, who remained a fast friend of Franklin's until his death. In 1772 he was nominated by the King of France as Foreign Associate of the Academy of Sciences.

During his negotiations with the British Government Franklin wrote two satirical pieces, setting forth the treatment which the American colonists were receiving. The first was entitled "Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small One," the rules being precisely those which, in Franklin's opinion, had been followed by the British Government in its dealings with America. The other was "An Edict by the King of Prussia," in which the king claimed the right of taxing the British nation; of forbidding English manufacture, and compelling Englishmen to purchase Prussian goods; of transporting prisoners to Britain, and generally of exercising all such controls over the English people as had been claimed over America by various Acts of the English Parliament, on the ground that England was originally colonized by emigrants from Prussia.

Before Franklin reached America, the War of Independence, though not formally declared, had fairly begun. He was appointed a member of the second Continental Congress, and one of a committee of three to confer with General Washington respecting the support and regulation of the Continental Army. This latter office necessitated his spending some time in the camp. On October 3, 1775, he wrote to Priestley: —

Tell our dear good friend, Dr. Price, who sometimes has his doubts and despondencies about our firmness, that America is determined and unanimous; a very few Tories and placemen excepted, who will probably soon export themselves. Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed a hundred and fifty Yankees this campaign, which is £20,000 a head; and at Bunker's Hill she gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost again by our taking the post on Ploughed Hill. During the same time sixty thousand children have been born in America. From these data his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all and conquer our whole territory.

In 1776 Franklin, then seventy years old, was appointed one of three Commissioners to visit Canada, in order, if possible, to promote a union between it and the States. Finding that only one Canadian in five hundred could read, and that the state of feeling in Canada was fatal to the success of the Commissioners, they returned, and Franklin suggested that the next Commission sent to Canada should consist of schoolmasters. On the 4th of July Franklin took part in the signing of the Declaration of Independence. When the document was about to be signed, Mr. Hancock remarked, "We must be unanimous; there must be no pulling different ways; we must all hang together." Franklin replied, "Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

In the autumn of 1776 Franklin was unanimously chosen a Special Commissioner to the French Court. He took with him his two grandsons, William Temple Franklin and Benjamin Franklin Bache, and leaving Marcus Hook on October 28, crossed the Atlantic in a sloop of sixteen guns. In Paris he met with an enthusiastic reception. M. de Chaumont placed at his disposal his house at Passy, then about a mile from Paris, but now within the city. Here he resided for nine years, being a constant visitor at the French Court, and certainly one of the most conspicuous figures in Paris. He was obliged to serve in many capacities, and was very much burdened with work. Not only were there his duties as Commissioner at the French Court, but he was also made Admiralty Judge and Financial Agent, so that all the coupons for the payment of interest on the money borrowed for the prosecution of the war, as well as all financial negotiations, either with the French Government or contractors, had to pass through his hands. Perhaps the most unpleasant part of his work was his continued applications to the French Court for monetary advances. The French Government, as is well known, warmly espoused the cause of the Americans, and to the utmost of its ability assisted them with money, material, and men. Franklin was worried a good deal by applications from French officers for introductions to General Washington, that they might obtain employment in the American Army. At last he framed a model letter of recommendation, which may be useful to many in this country in the present day. It was as follows: —

"Sir,

The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me to give him a letter of recommendation, though I know nothing of him, not even his name. This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you it is not uncommon here. Sometimes, indeed, one unknown person brings another equally unknown, to recommend him; and sometimes they recommend one another! As to this gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his character and merits, with which he is certainly better acquainted than I can possibly be. I recommend him, however, to those civilities which every stranger, of whom one knows no harm, has a right to; and I request you will do him all the good offices and show him all the favour that, on further acquaintance, you shall find him to deserve.

I have the honour to be, etc.

Captain Wickes, of the Refusal, having taken about a hundred British seamen prisoners, Franklin and Silas Deane, one of the other Commissioners, wrote to Lord Stormont, the British ambassador, respecting an exchange. Receiving no answer, they wrote again, and ventured to complain of the treatment which the American prisoners were receiving in the English prisons, and in being compelled to fight against their own countrymen. To this communication Lord Stormont replied: —

The king's ambassador receives no applications from rebels, unless they come to implore his Majesty's mercy.

To this the Commissioners rejoined: —

In answer to a letter, which concerns some of the most material interests of humanity, and of the two nations, Great Britain and the United States of America, now at war, we received the enclosed indecent paper, as coming from your Lordship, which we return for your Lordship's more mature consideration.

At first the British Government, regarding the Americans as rebels, did not treat their prisoners as prisoners of war, but threatened to try them for high treason. Their sufferings in the English prisons were very great. Mr. David Hartley did much to relieve them, and Franklin transmitted money for the purpose. When a treaty had been formed between France and the States, and France had engaged in the war, and when fortune began to turn in favour of the united armies, the American prisoners received better treatment from the English Government, and exchanges took place freely. In April, 1778, Mr. Hartley visited Franklin at Passy, apparently for the purpose of preventing, if possible, the offensive and defensive alliance between America and France. Very many attempts were made to produce a rupture between the French Government and the American Commissioners, but Franklin insisted that no treaty of peace could be made between England and America in which France was not included. In 1779 the other Commissioners were recalled, and Franklin was made Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of France.

In a letter to Mr. David Hartley, dated February 2, 1780, Franklin showed something of the feelings of the Americans with respect to the English at that time: —

You may have heard that accounts upon oath have been taken in America, by order of Congress, of the British barbarities committed there. It is expected of me to make a school-book of them, and to have thirty-five prints designed here by good artists, and engraved, each expressing one or more of the horrid facts, in order to impress the minds of children and posterity with a deep sense of your bloody and insatiable malice and wickedness. Every kindness I hear of done by an Englishman to an American prisoner makes me resolve not to proceed in the work.

While at Passy, Franklin addressed to the Journal of Paris a paper on an economical project for diminishing the cost of light. The proposal was to utilize the sunlight instead of candles, and thereby save to the city of Paris the sum of 96,075,000 livres per annum. His reputation in Paris is shown by the following quotation from a contemporary writer: —

I do not often speak of Mr. Franklin, because the gazettes tell you enough of him. However, I will say to you that our Parisians are no more sensible in their attentions to him than they were towards Voltaire, of whom they have not spoken since the day following his death. Mr. Franklin is besieged, followed, admired, adored, wherever he shows himself, with a fury, a fanaticism, capable no doubt of flattering him and of doing him honour, but which at the same time proves that we shall never be reasonable, and that the virtues and better qualities of our nation will always be balanced by a levity, an inconsequence, and an enthusiasm too excessive to be durable.

Franklin always advocated free trade, even in time of war. He was of opinion that the merchant, the agriculturist, and the fisherman were benefactors to mankind. He condemned privateering in every form, and endeavoured to bring about an agreement between all the civilized powers against the fitting out of privateers. He held that no merchantmen should be interfered with unless carrying war material. He greatly lamented the horrors of the war, but preferred anything to a dishonourable peace. To Priestley he wrote: —

Perhaps as you grow older you may … repent of having murdered in mephitic air so many honest, harmless mice, and wish that, to prevent mischief, you had used boys and girls instead of them. In what light we are viewed by superior beings may be gathered from a piece of late West India news, which possibly has not yet reached you. 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 or dying; the ships sinking, burning, 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.'

Franklin maintained that it would be far cheaper for a nation to extend its possessions by purchase from other nations than to pay the cost of war for the sake of conquest.

Two British armies, under General Burgoyne and Lord Cornwallis, having been wholly taken prisoners during the war, at last, after two years' negotiations, a definitive treaty of peace was signed on September 3, 1782, between Great Britain and the United States, Franklin being one of the Commissioners for the latter, and Mr. Hartley for the former. On the same day a treaty of peace between Great Britain and France was signed at Versailles. The United States Treaty was ratified by the king on April 9, and therewith terminated the seven years' War of Independence. Franklin celebrated the surrender of the armies of Burgoyne and Cornwallis by a medal, on which the infant Hercules appears strangling two serpents.

When peace was at length realized, a scheme was proposed for an hereditary knighthood of the order of Cincinnatus, to be bestowed upon the American officers who had distinguished themselves in the war. Franklin condemned the hereditary principle. He pointed out that, in the ninth generation, the "young noble" would be only "one five hundred and twelfth part of the present knight," 1022 men and women being counted among his ancestors, reckoning only from the foundation of the knighthood. "Posterity will have much reason to boast of the noble blood of the then existing set of Chevaliers of Cincinnatus."

On May 2, 1785, Franklin received from Congress permission to return to America. He was then in his eightieth year. On July 12 he left Passy for Havre, whence he crossed to Southampton, and there saw for the last time his old friend, the Bishop of St. Asaph, and his family. He reached his home in Philadelphia early in September, and the day after his arrival he received a congratulatory address from the Assembly of Pennsylvania. In the following month he was elected President of the State, and was twice re-elected to the same office, it being contrary to the constitution for any president to be elected for more than three years in succession.

The following extract from a letter, written most probably to Tom Paine, is worthy of the attention of some writers: —

I have read your manuscript with some attention. By the argument it contains against a particular Providence, though you allow a general Providence, you strike at the foundations of all religion. For without the belief of a Providence that takes cognizance of, guards, and guides, and may favour particular persons, there is no motive to worship a Deity, to fear His displeasure, or to pray for His protection. I will not enter into any discussion of your principles, though you seem to desire it. At present I shall only give you my opinion, that, though your reasonings are subtle, and may prevail with some readers, you will not succeed so as to change the general sentiments of mankind on that subject, and the consequence of printing this piece will be a great deal of odium drawn upon yourself, mischief to you, and no benefit to others. He that spits against the wind spits in his own face.

But were you to succeed, do you imagine any good would be done by it? You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous life without the assistance afforded by religion; you having a clear perception of the advantages of virtue and the disadvantages of vice, and possessing strength of resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common temptations. But think how great a portion of mankind consists of weak and ignorant men and women, and of inexperienced, inconsiderate youth of both sexes, who have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great point for its security. And perhaps you are indebted to her originally, that is, to your religious education, for the habits of virtue upon which you now justly value yourself. You might easily display your excellent talents of reasoning upon a less hazardous subject, and thereby obtain a rank with our most distinguished authors. For among us it is not necessary, as among the Hottentots, that a youth, to be raised into the company of men, should prove his manhood by beating his mother.

I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person; whereby you will save yourself a great deal of mortification by the enemies it may raise against you, and perhaps a good deal of regret and repentance. If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it? I intend this letter itself as a proof of my friendship, and therefore add no professions to it; but subscribe simply yours.

During the last few years of his life Franklin suffered from a painful disease, which confined him to his bed and seriously interfered with his literary work, preventing him from completing his biography. During this time he was cared for by his daughter, Mrs. Bache, who resided in the same house with him. He died on April 17, 1790, the immediate cause of death being an affection of the lungs. He was buried beside his wife in the cemetery of Christ Church, Philadelphia, the marble slab upon the grave bearing no other inscription than the name and date of death. In his early days (1728) he had written the following epitaph for himself: —

The BodyofBENJAMIN FRANKLIN,Printer,(like the cover of an old book,its contents torn outand stript of its lettering and gilding,)lies here, food for wormsbut the work shall not be lost,for it will (as he believed) appear once morein a new and more elegant edition,revised and correctedbyTHE AUTHOR

When the news of his death reached the National Assembly of France, Mirabeau rose and said: —

"Franklin is dead!

"The genius, which gave freedom to America, and scattered torrents of light upon Europe, is returned to the bosom of the Divinity.

"The sage, whom two worlds claim; the man, disputed by the history of the sciences and the history of empires, holds, most undoubtedly, an elevated rank among the human species.

"Political cabinets have but too long notified the death of those who were never great but in their funeral orations; the etiquette of courts has but too long sanctioned hypocritical grief. Nations ought only to mourn for their benefactors; the representatives of free men ought never to recommend any other than the heroes of humanity to their homage.

"The Congress hath ordered a general mourning for one month throughout the fourteen confederated States on account of the death of Franklin; and America hath thus acquitted her tribute of admiration in behalf of one of the fathers of her constitution.

"Would it not be worthy of you, fellow-legislators, to unite yourselves in this religious act, to participate in this homage rendered in the face of the universe to the rights of man, and to the philosopher who has so eminently propagated the conquest of them throughout the world?

"Antiquity would have elevated altars to that mortal who, for the advantage of the human race, embracing both heaven and earth in his vast and extensive mind, knew how to subdue thunder and tyranny.

"Enlightened and free, Europe at least owes its remembrance and its regret to one of the greatest men who has ever served the cause of philosophy and liberty.

"I propose, therefore, that a decree do now pass, enacting that the National Assembly shall wear mourning during three days for Benjamin Franklin."

HENRY CAVENDISH

It would not be easy to mention two men between whom there was a greater contrast, both in respect of their characters and lives, than that which existed between Benjamin Franklin and the Honourable Henry Cavendish. The former of humble birth, but of great public spirit, possessed social qualities which were on a par with his scientific attainments, and toward the close of his life was more renowned as a statesman than as a philosopher; the latter, a member of one of the most noble families of England, and possessed of wealth far exceeding his own capacity for the enjoyment of it, was known to very few, was intimate with no one, and devoted himself to scientific pursuits rather for the sake of the satisfaction which his results afforded to himself than from any hope that they might be useful to mankind, or from any desire to secure a reputation by making them known, and passed a long life, the most uneventful that can be imagined.

Though the records of his family may be traced to the Norman Conquest, the famous Elizabeth Hardwicke, the foundress of two ducal families and the builder of Hardwicke Hall and of Chatsworth as it was before the erection of the present mansion, was the most remarkable person in the genealogy. Her second son, William, was raised to the peerage by James I., thus becoming Baron Cavendish, and was subsequently created first Earl of Devonshire by the same monarch. His great-grandson, the fourth earl, was created first Duke of Devonshire by William III., to whom he had rendered valuable services. He was succeeded by his eldest son in 1707, and the third son of the second duke was Lord Charles Cavendish, the father of Henry and Frederick, of whom Henry was the elder, having been born at Nice, October 13, 1731. His mother died when he was two years old, and very little indeed is known respecting his early life. In 1742 he entered Dr. Newcome's school at Hackney, where he remained until he entered Peterhouse, in 1749. He remained at Cambridge until February, 1753, when he left the university without taking his degree, objecting, most probably, to the religious tests which were then required of all graduates. In this respect his brother Frederick followed his example. On leaving Cambridge Cavendish appears to have resided with his father in Marlborough Street, and to have occasionally assisted him in his scientific experiments, but the investigations of the son soon eclipsed those of the father. It is said that the rooms allotted to Henry Cavendish "were a set of stables, fitted up for his accommodation," and here he carried out many of his experiments, including all those electrical investigations in which he forestalled so much of the work of the present century.