American Statesmen

Standard Library Edition

Independence Hall, Philadelphia, 1776

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

BY

JOHN T. MORSE, JR.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1899

Copyright, 1898,

By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

All rights reserved.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

The editor has often been asked: "Upon what principle have you constructed this series of lives of American statesmen?" The query has always been civil in form, while in substance it has often implied that the "principle," as to which inquiry is made, has been undiscoverable by the interrogator. Other queries, like pendants, have also come: Why have you not included A, or B, or C? The inference from these is that the querist conceives A, or B, or C to be statesmen certainly not less eminent than E, or F, or G, whose names he sees upon the list. Now there really has been a principle of selection; but it has not been a mathematical principle, whereby the several statesmen of the country have been brought to the measuring-pole, like horses, and those of a certain height have been accepted, and those not seeming to reach that height have been rejected. The principle has been to make such a list of men in public life that the aggregation of all their biographies would give, in this personal shape, the history and the picture of the growth and development of the United States from the beginning of that agitation which led to the Revolution until the completion of that solidarity which we believe has resulted from the civil war and the subsequent reconstruction.

In illustration, let me speak of a few volumes. Patrick Henry was hardly a great statesman; but, apart from the prestige and romance which his eloquence has thrown about his memory, he furnished the best opportunity for drawing a picture of the South in the period preceding the Revolution, and for showing why and how the southern colonies, among whom Virginia was easily the leader, became sharers in the strife.

Benton might possibly have been included upon his own merits. But if there were any doubt upon this point, or if including him would seem to have rendered it proper to include others equally eminent and yet omitted, the reply is that Benton serves the important purpose of giving the best available opportunity to sketch the character of the Southwest, and the political feeling and development in that section of the country.

In like manner, Cass was hardly a great statesman, although very active and prominent for a long period. But the Northwest—or what used to be the Northwest not so very long ago—comes out of the wilderness and into the domain of civilization in the life of Cass.

John Randolph, erratic and bizarre, was not justly entitled to rank among great statesmen. But the characteristics of Congress, as a body, can be brought into better relief in the narrative of his life than in that of any other person of his day. These characteristics were so striking, so essential to an understanding of the history of those times, and so utterly different from the habits and ways of our own era, that an opportunity to present them must have been forced if Randolph had not fortunately offered it.

These four volumes are mentioned by way of illustration of the plan of the series in some of its less obvious purposes. By the light of the suggestions thus afforded, readers will probably see for themselves the motives which have led to the presence of other volumes. But one further statement should be made. It has been the editor's intention to deal with the advancement of the country. When the people have moved steadily along any road, the men who have led them on that road have been selected as subjects. When the people have refused to enter upon a road, or, having entered, have soon turned back from it, the leaders upon such inchoate or abandoned excursions have for the most part been rejected. Those who have been exponents of ideas and principles which have entered into the progress and have developed in a positive way the history of the nation have been chosen; those who have unfortunately linked themselves with rejected ideas and principles have themselves also been rejected. Calhoun has been made an exception to this rule, for reasons so obvious that they need not be rehearsed.

A Series of Great Failures presents fine opportunities, which will some day attract some enterprising editor; but that is not the undertaking here in hand. If the men who guided and the men who failed to guide the movement and progress of the country were to stand side by side in this series its size would be increased by at least one third, but probably not so its value. Yet the failures have held out some temptations which it has been difficult to resist. For example, there was Governor Hutchinson, whose life has since been written by the same gentleman who in this series has admirably presented his great antagonist, Samuel Adams. There was much to be said in favor of setting the two portraits, done by the same hand, side by side. It must be remembered that the cause for the disaffected colonists is argued by the writers in this series in the old-fashioned way,—that is to say, upon the fundamental theory that Great Britain was foully wrong and her cis-Atlantic subjects nobly right. A life of Hutchinson would have furnished an opportunity for showing that, as an unmodified proposition, this is very far from being correct. The time has come when efforts to state the quarrel fairly for both parties are not altogether refused a hearing in the United States. Nevertheless the admission of Hutchinson for this purpose would have entailed too many consequences. The colonists did secede and did establish independence; their action and their success constitute the history of the country; and the leaders of their movement are the persons whose portraits are properly hung in this gallery. The obstructionists, leaders of the defeated party, who failed to control our national destiny, must find room elsewhere. In the same way, Stephen A. Douglas has been left outside the door. Able, distinguished, influential, it was yet his misfortune to represent ideas and policies which the people decisively condemned. Sufficient knowledge of these ideas and policies is obtained from the lives of those who opposed and triumphed over them. The history of non-success needs not the elaborate presentation of a biography of the defeated leader in a series of statesmen. The work of Douglas was discredited; it does not remain as an active surviving influence, or as an integral part amid our modern conditions. Andrew Johnson, also, furnished such an admirable opportunity for the discussion of the subject of reconstruction that some persons have thought that he should have found a place. But this was impossible unless he were absolutely necessary for this especial purpose; and fortunately he was not so, since the work could be done in the lives of Seward and Stevens and Sumner. Then, if one were willing to contribute to the immortality of a scoundrel, there was Aaron Burr; but large as was the part which he played for a while in American politics, and near as it came to being very much larger, the presence of his name would have been a degradation of the series. Moreover his career was strictly selfish and personal; he led no party, represented no idea, and left no permanent trace. There was also William H. Crawford, who narrowly missed being President, and who was a greater man than many of the Presidents; but he did miss, and he died, and there was an end of him. There was Buchanan also; intellectually he had the making of a statesman; but his wrong-headed blundering is sufficiently depicted for the purposes of this series by the lives of those who foiled him.

These names, again, are mentioned only as indications of the scheme, as explaining some exclusions. There are other exclusions, which have been made, not because the individuals were not men of note, but because it seemed that the story of their lives would fill no hiatus among the volumes of the completed series.

The editor cannot expect every one to agree with him in the selection which he has made. We all have our favorites in past history as well as in modern politics, and few lists would precisely duplicate each other. So the only thing which would seriously afflict the editor with a sense of having made a bad blunder would be, if some one should detect a really gaping chasm, a neglect to treat somewhere among the lives some important item of our national history falling within the period which the series is designed to cover.

The whole series naturally shapes itself, in a somewhat crude and rough way to be sure, yet by virtue of substantial lines of division, into a few sub-series or groups. The first of these belongs to the Revolutionary period, what may be called the destructive period, since it witnessed the destruction of the long-established political conditions. In this group we find the leaders of the disaffection and revolt: Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and George Washington. Washington, of course, might properly find a place also in the second group; but for the purposes of separation he is by preference placed in the first one, because the Revolution was to so great an extent his own personal achievement, his transcendent and crowning glory.

The second group, constituting the constructive period, comprises the men who were foremost in framing the Constitution, and in organizing and giving coherence and life to the new government and to the nationality thereby created. This is introduced by John Adams. He, like Washington, might properly find a place in both the first and the second groups, but the distinction of the presidential office brings him with sufficient propriety into the second. The others in this group are Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, John Jay, and John Marshall.

The third group follows the overthrow of Federalism with its theory of a strongly centralized government. This, of course, begins with Thomas Jefferson, who led and organized the new party of the democracy. He is followed by his political disciple, James Madison; by their secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin; and by James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and John Randolph. The two last named are hardly to be called Jeffersonians, but they mark the passage of the nation from the statesmanship of Jefferson to the widely different democracy of Jackson.

The fourth group witnesses the absorption of the nation in questions of domestic policy. The crude and rough domination of Andrew Jackson opened a new order of things. Men's minds were busied with affairs at home, at first more especially with the tariff, then more and more exclusively with slavery. This group, besides Jackson, includes Martin Van Buren, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Thomas H. Benton, and Lewis Cass.

The fifth and closing group is that of the civil war. This of course opens with Abraham Lincoln. The others are William H. Seward, as being a sort of prime minister throughout the period; Salmon P. Chase, in whose life can properly be discussed the financial policy and the principal legal matters; Charles Francis Adams, embodying the important topic of diplomatic relations; Charles Sumner, representing the advanced abolitionist element; and Thaddeus Stevens, who appears as a tribune, perhaps we may say the leader, in the popular branch of Congress.

Almost inevitably the series begins with Benjamin Franklin, the first great American, the first man born on this side of the water who was "meant for the universe." His mere existence was a sort of omen. It was absurd to suppose that a people which could produce a man of that scope, in character and intellect, could long remain in a condition of political dependence. It would have been preposterous to have had Franklin die a colonist, and go down to posterity, not as an American, but as a colonial Englishman. He was a microcosm of the coming nation of the United States; all the better moral and intellectual qualities of our people existed in him, save only the dreamy philosophy of the famous New England school of thinkers. It is very interesting to see how slowly and reluctantly, yet how surely and decisively, he came to the point of resistance and independence. He was not like so many, who were unstable and shifting. There was no backward step, though there were many painful and unwilling forward ones in his progress. One feels almost as if an apology were needed for writing another life of a man so be-written. Yet there is some reason for doing so; the chapter concerning his services in France during the Revolution presents the true facts and the magnitude of his usefulness more carefully than, so far as I am aware, it has previously been done.

As a promoter of the Revolution, Samuel Adams has easily the most conspicuous place. He was an agitator to the very centre of his marrow. He was the incarnation of New England; to know thoroughly his career is to know the Massachusetts of that day as an anatomist knows the human frame. The man of the town meeting did more to kindle the Revolution than any other one person. Many stood with him, but his life tells the story and presents the picture. The like service is done for Virginia by Patrick Henry; and the contrast between the two men is most striking and picturesque, yet not more so than the difference between the two sections of the country to which they respectively belonged.

If John Adams had died before he was made President, he also would have been one of this group. But the lustre of his official position prevents our placing him in the earlier constellation. Yet, though not more prominent than many others, in fact hardly to be called prominent at all in the events which led up to the Revolution, he became a leader in the first Congress, and it is probable that no one contributed more than he did—possibly no one contributed so much—towards forcing the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

Washington, though a member of Congress, was by no means conspicuous in the agitation which preceded the actual outbreak of hostilities. His entry in his uniform among his civilian comrades was indeed dramatic; but his important public career really began with his acceptance of the position of commander in chief. In this capacity he achieved the overthrow of the British supremacy, and brought to a successful close the period of destruction.

This first group is a small one, for the first Congress brought no new men to the front. Indeed, that body lost its own prestige very soon after independence was declared; thereafter it was no stage on which new men could win distinction, or men already famous could add to their store; indeed, members were lucky if they escaped without diminution of their reputations, by very reason of being parts of so nerveless and useless a body. The fact is, that the civilians, after they had set the ball going, did little more. They contributed almost nothing to the Revolution in any practical way during its actual progress. Perhaps they could not; but certainly they did not. Washington and his officers and soldiers deserve all the credit for making independence a reality instead of an assertion. They were not very strenuously or generously backed by the mass of the people after the first fervor was over. The truth is that that grand event was the work of a small body of heroes, who presented freedom and nationality to the people of the thirteen colonies. John Adams and Congress said that the colonists were free, and there left the matter, functi officio. Washington and the troops took up the business, and actually made colonists into freemen. Those upon whom this dignity and advantage were conferred were, for the most part, content somewhat supinely to allow the new condition to be established for them.

JOHN T. MORSE, JR.

September, 1898.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

[Benjamin Franklin]

From the original by Jean Baptiste Greuze, in the Boston Public Library. It was painted for Benjamin Franklin as a gift to Richard Oswald, the English commissioner associated with him in the peace negotiations of 1782. Gardner Brewer of Boston bought the painting in 1872 and presented it to the Library.

Autograph from the Declaration of Independence.

The vignette of [Independence Hall] is after a drawing in the possession of the American Bank Note Co., Philadelphia.

[Count Vergennes]

From the frontispiece to Doniol, "Histoire de la Participation de la France à l'Establissement des Etats-Unis d'Amérique," Paris, 1886, 5 vols., 4to. vol. i.; an engraving by Vangelisti, from the original painting by Antoine Francois Callet.

Autograph from same book.

[Lord Hillsborough]
(Born Wills Hill; afterwards Marquis of Downshire)

From a painting by J. Rising, owned by Lord Salisbury.

Autograph from MS. collection in the New York
Public Library, Lenox Building.

[Paul Jones]

From the original portrait by C. W. Peale in Independence
Hall.

Autograph from MS. collection in Library of Boston
Athenæum.

[Sea-fight between the Serapis and Bon Homme Richard]

Off Flamborough Head, September 3, 1779. Paul Jones's ship, in compliment to the author of "Poor Richard's Maxims," was named "Bon Homme Richard." Captain Pearson, who commanded the Serapis, was knighted for his heroic resistance. Paul Jones, tradition says, on hearing of the honor conferred on Pearson, good-naturedly observed, "If I ever meet him again, I'll make a lord of him."

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

[CHAPTER I]

EARLY YEARS

It is a lamentable matter for any writer to find himself compelled to sketch, however briefly, the early years of Benjamin Franklin. That autobiography, in which the story of those years is so inimitably told, by its vividness, its simplicity, even by its straightforward vanity, and by the quaint charm of its old-fashioned but well-nigh faultless style, stands among the few masterpieces of English prose. It ought to have served for the perpetual protection of its subject as a copyright more sacred than any which rests upon mere statutory law. Such, however, has not been the case, and the narrative has been rehearsed over and over again till the American who is not familiar with it is indeed a curiosity. Yet no one of the subsequent narrators has justified his undertaking. Therefore because the tale has been told so often, and once has been told so well, and also in order that the stone which it is my lot to cast upon a cairn made up of so many failures may at least be only a small pebble, I shall get forward as speedily as possible to that point in Franklin's career where his important public services begin, at the same time commending every reader to turn again for further refreshment of his knowledge to those pages which might well have aroused the envy of Fielding and Defoe.

Franklin came from typical English stock. For three hundred years, perhaps for many centuries more, his ancestors lived on a small freehold at Ecton in Northamptonshire, and so far back as record or tradition ran the eldest son in each generation had been bred a blacksmith. But after the strange British fashion there was intertwined with this singular fixedness of ideas a stubborn independence in thinking, courageously exercised in times of peril. The Franklins were among the early Protestants, and held their faith unshaken by the terrors of the reign of Bloody Mary. By the end of Charles the Second's time they were non-conformists and attendants on conventicles; and about 1682 Josiah Franklin, seeking the peaceful exercise of his creed, migrated to Boston, Massachusetts. His first wife bore him seven children, and died. Not satisfied, he took in second nuptials Abiah Folger, "daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of whom honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather," and justly, since in those dark days he was an active philanthropist towards the Indians, and an opponent of religious persecution.[1] This lady outdid her predecessor, contributing no less than ten children to expand the family circle. The eighth of this second brood was named Benjamin, in memory of his father's favorite brother. He was born in a house on Milk Street, opposite the Old South Church, January 6, old style, 17, new style, 1706. Mr. Parton says that probably Benjamin "derived from his mother the fashion of his body and the cast of his countenance. There are lineal descendants of Peter Folger who strikingly resemble Franklin in these particulars; one of whom, a banker of New Orleans, looks like a portrait of Dr. Franklin stepped out of its frame."[2] A more important inheritance was that of the humane and liberal traits of his mother's father.

In that young, scrambling village in the new country, where all material, human or otherwise, was roughly and promptly utilized, the unproductive period of boyhood was cut very short. Franklin's father speedily resolved to devote him, "as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the church," and so sent him to the grammar school. A droller misfit than Franklin in an orthodox New England pulpit of that era can hardly be imagined; but since he was only seven years old when his father endeavored to arrange his life's career, a misappreciation of his fitnesses was not surprising. The boy himself had the natural hankering of children bred in a seaboard town for the life of a sailor. It is amusing to fancy the discussions between this babe of seven years and his father, concerning his occupation in life. Certainly the babe had not altogether the worst of it, for when he was eight years old his father definitively gave up the notion of making him a preacher of the Gospel. At the ripe age of ten he was taken from school, and set to assist his father in the trade of tallow-chandler and soap-boiler. But dipping wicks and pouring grease pleased him hardly better than reconciling infant damnation and a red-hot hell with the loveliness of Christianity. The lad remained discontented. His chief taste seemed to be for reading, and great were the ingenuity and the self-sacrifice whereby he secured books and leisure to read them. The resultant of these several forces was at last a suggestion from his father that he should take up, as a sort of quasi-literary occupation, the trade of a printer. James Franklin, an older brother of Benjamin, was already of that calling. Benjamin stood out for some time, but at last reluctantly yielded, and in the maturity of his thirteenth year this child set his hand to an indenture of apprenticeship which formally bound him to his brother for the next nine years of his life.

Handling the types aroused a boyish ambition to see himself in print. He scribbled some ballads, one about a shipwreck, another about the capture of a pirate; but he "escaped being a poet," as fortunately as he had escaped being a clergyman. James Franklin seems to have trained his junior with such fraternal cuffs and abuse as the elder brothers of English biography and literature appear usually to have bestowed on the younger. But this younger one got his revenges. James published the "New England Courant," and, inserting in it some objectionable matter, was forbidden to continue it. Thereupon he canceled the indenture of apprenticeship, and the newspaper was thereafter published by Benjamin Franklin. A secret renewal of the indenture was executed simultaneously. This "flimsy scheme" gave the boy his chance. Secure that the document would never be produced, he resolved to leave the printing-house. But the influence of James prevented his getting employment elsewhere in the town. Besides this, other matters also harassed him. It gives an idea of the scale of things in the little settlement, and of the serious way in which life was taken even at its outset, to hear that this 'prentice lad of seventeen years had already made himself "a little obnoxious to the governing party," so as to fear that he might soon "bring himself into scrapes." For the inherited habit of freedom in religious speculation had taken a new form in Franklin, who was already a free-thinker, and by his "indiscreet disputations about religion" had come to be "pointed at with horror by good people as an infidel and atheist"—compromising, even perilous, names to bear in that Puritan village. Various motives thus combined to induce migration. He stole away on board a sloop bound for New York, and after three days arrived there, in October, 1723. He had but a trifling sum of money, and he knew no one in the strange city. He sought occupation in his trade, but got nothing better than advice to move on to Philadelphia; and thither he went. The story of this journeying is delightfully told in the autobiography, with the famous little scene wherein he figures with a loaf under each arm and munching a third while he walks "up Market Street, as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance."

In Philadelphia Franklin soon found opportunity to earn a living at his trade. There were then only two printers in that town, ignorant men both, with scant capacity in the technique of their calling. His greater acquirements and ability, and superior knowledge of the craft, soon attracted attention. One day Sir William Keith, governor of the province, appeared at the printing-office, inquired for Franklin, and carried him off "to taste some excellent Madeira" with himself and Colonel French, while employer Keimer, bewildered at the compliment to his journeyman, "star'd like a pig poison'd." Over the genial glasses the governor proposed that Franklin should set up for himself, and promised his own influence to secure for him the public printing. Later he wrote a letter, intended to induce Franklin's father to advance the necessary funds. Equipped with this document, Franklin set out, in April, 1724, to seek his father's coöperation, and surprised his family by appearing unannounced among them, not at all in the classic garb of the prodigal son, but "having a genteel new suit from head to foot, a watch, and my pockets lin'd with near five pounds sterling in silver." But neither his prosperous appearance nor the flattering epistle of the great man could induce his hard-headed parent to favor a scheme "of setting a boy up in business, who wanted yet three years of being at man's estate." The independent old tallow-chandler only concluded that the distinguished baronet "must be of small discretion." So Franklin returned with "some small gifts as tokens" of parental love, much good advice as to "steady industry and prudent parsimony," but no cash in hand. The gallant governor, however, said: "Since he will not set you up, I will do it myself," and a plan was soon concocted whereby Franklin was to go to England and purchase a press and types with funds to be advanced by Sir William. Everything was arranged, only from day to day there was delay in the actual delivery to Franklin of the letters of introduction and credit. The governor was a very busy man. The day of sailing came, but the documents had not come, only a message from the governor that Franklin might feel easy at embarking, for that the papers should be sent on board at Newcastle, down the stream. Accordingly, at the last moment, a messenger came hurriedly on board and put the packet into the captain's hands. Afterward, when during the leisure hours of the voyage the letters were sorted, none was found for Franklin. His patron had simply broken an inconvenient promise. It was indeed a "pitiful trick" to "impose so grossly on a poor innocent boy." Yet Franklin, in his broad tolerance of all that is bad as well as good in human nature, spoke with good-tempered indifference, and with more of charity than of justice, concerning the deceiver. "It was a habit he had acquired. He wish'd to please everybody; and, having little to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenious, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good governor for the people.... Several of our best laws were of his planning, and passed during his administration."

None the less it turned out that this contemptible governor did Franklin a good turn in sending him to London, though the benefit came in a fashion not anticipated by either. For Franklin, not yet much wiser than the generality of mankind, had to go through his period of youthful folly, and it was good fortune for him that the worst portion of this period fell within the eighteen months which he passed in England. Had this part of his career been run in Philadelphia its unsavory aroma might have kept him long in ill odor among his fellow townsmen, then little tolerant of profligacy. But the "errata" of a journeyman printer in London were quite beyond the ken of provincial gossips. He easily gained employment in his trade, at wages which left him a little surplus beyond his maintenance. This surplus, during most of the time, he and his comrades squandered in the pleasures of the town. Yet in one matter his good sense showed itself, for he kept clear of drink; indeed, his real nature asserted itself even at this time, to such a degree that we find him waging a temperance crusade in his printing-house, and actually weaning some of his fellow compositors from their dearly loved "beer." One of these, David Hall, afterward became his able partner in the printing business in Philadelphia. Amid much bad companionship he fell in with some clever men. His friend James Ralph, though a despicable, bad fellow, had brains and some education. At this time, too, Franklin was in the proselyting stage of infidelity. He published "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," and the pamphlet got him some little notoriety among the free-thinkers of London, and an introduction to some of them, but chiefly of the class who love to sit in taverns and blow clouds of words. Their society did him no good, and such effervescence was better blown off in London than in Philadelphia.

But after the novelty of London life had worn off, it ceased to be to Franklin's taste. He began to reform somewhat, to retrench and lay by a little money; and after eighteen months he eagerly seized an opportunity which offered for returning home. This was opened to him by a Mr. Denham, a good man and prosperous merchant, then engaged in England in purchasing stock for his store in Philadelphia. Franklin was to be his managing and confidential clerk, with the prospect of rapid advancement. At the same time Sir William Wyndham, ex-chancellor of the exchequer, endeavored to persuade Franklin to open a swimming school in London. He promised very aristocratic patronage; and as an opening for money-getting this plan was perhaps the better. Franklin almost closed with the proposition. He seems, however, to have had a little touch of homesickness, a preference, if not quite a yearning, for the colonies, which sufficed to turn the scale. Such was his third escape; he might have passed his days in instructing the scions of British nobility in the art of swimming! He arrived at home, after a tedious voyage, October 11, 1726. But almost immediately fortune seemed to cross him, for Mr. Denham and he were both taken suddenly ill. Denham died; Franklin narrowly evaded death, and fancied himself somewhat disappointed at his recovery, "regretting in some degree that [he] must now sometime or other have all that disagreeable work to go over again." He seems to have become sufficiently interested in what was likely to follow his decease, in this world at least, to compose an epitaph which has become world-renowned, and has been often imitated:—

the body
of
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
(like the cover of an old book,
its contents torn out,
and stript of its lettering and gilding,)
lies here, food for worms,
yet the work itself shall not be lost,
for it will, as he believed, appear once more,
in a new
and more beautiful edition,
corrected and amended
by
the Author.

But there was no use for this graveyard literature; Franklin got well, and recurred again to his proper trade. Being expert with the composing-stick, he was readily engaged at good wages by his old employer, Keimer. Franklin, however, soon suspected that this man's purpose was only to use him temporarily for instructing some green hands, and for organizing the printing-office. Naturally a quarrel soon occurred. But Franklin had proved his capacity, and forthwith the father of one Meredith, a fellow journeyman under Keimer, advanced sufficient money to set up the two as partners in the printing business. Franklin managed the office, showing admirable enterprise, skill, and industry. Meredith drank. This allotment of functions soon produced its natural result. Two friends of Franklin lent him what capital he needed; he bought out Meredith and had the whole business for himself. His zeal increased; he won good friends, gave general satisfaction, and absorbed all the best business in the province.

At the time of the formation of the partnership the only newspaper of Pennsylvania was published by Bradford, a rival of Keimer in the printing business. It was "a paltry thing, wretchedly managed, no way entertaining, and yet was profitable to him." Franklin and Meredith resolved to start a competing sheet; but Keimer got wind of their plan, and at once "published proposals for printing one himself." He had got ahead of them, and they had to desist. But he was ignorant, shiftless, and incompetent, and after carrying on his enterprise for "three quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers," he sold out his failure to Franklin and Meredith "for a trifle." To them, or rather to Franklin, "it prov'd in a few years extremely profitable." Its original name, "The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, and Pennsylvania Gazette," was reduced by the amputation of the first clause, and, relieved from the burden of its trailing title, it circulated actively throughout the province, and further. Number 40, Franklin's first number, appeared October 2, 1729. Bradford, who was postmaster, refused to allow his post-riders to carry any save his own newspaper. But Franklin, whose morality was nothing if not practical, fought the devil with fire, and bribed the riders so judiciously that his newspaper penetrated whithersoever they went. He says of it: "Our first papers made a quite different appearance from any before in the Province; a better type, and better printed; but some spirited remarks of my writing, on the dispute then going on between Governor Burnet and the Massachusetts Assembly, struck the principal people, occasioned the paper and the manager of it to be much talked of, and in a few weeks brought them all to be our subscribers." Later his articles in favor of the issue of a sum of paper currency were so largely instrumental in carrying that measure that the profitable job of printing the money became his reward. Thus advancing in prestige and prosperity, he was able to discharge by installments his indebtedness. "In order to secure," he says, "my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care to be not only in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary." A characteristic remark. With Franklin every virtue had its market value, and to neglect to get that value out of it was the part of folly.

About this time the wife of a glazier, who occupied part of Franklin's house, began match-making in behalf of a "very deserving" girl; and Franklin, nothing loath, responded with "serious courtship." He intimated his willingness to accept the maiden's hand, provided that its fellow hand held a dowry, and he named an hundred pounds sterling as his lowest figure. The parents, on the other part, said that they had not so much ready money. Franklin civilly suggested that they could get it by mortgaging their house; they firmly declined. The negotiation thereupon was abandoned. "This affair," Franklin continues, "having turned my thoughts to marriage, I look'd round me and made overtures of acquaintance in other places; but soon found that, the business of a printer being generally thought a poor one, I was not to expect money with a wife, unless with such a one as I should not otherwise think agreeable." Finding such difficulties in the way of a financial alliance, Franklin appears to have bethought him of affection as a substitute for dollars; so he blew into the ashes of an old flame, and aroused some heat. Before going to England he had engaged himself to Miss Deborah Read; but in London he had pretty well forgotten her, and had written to her only a single letter. Many years afterward, writing to Catharine Ray in 1755, he said: "The cords of love and friendship ... in times past have drawn me ... back from England to Philadelphia." If the remark referred to an affection for Miss Read, it was probably no more trustworthy than are most such allegations made when lapsing years have given a fictitious coloring to a remote past. If indeed Franklin's profligacy and his readiness to marry any girl financially eligible were symptoms attendant upon his being in love, it somewhat taxes the imagination to fancy how he would have conducted himself had he not been the victim of romantic passion. Miss Read, meanwhile, apparently about as much in love as her lover, had wedded another man, "one Rogers, a potter," a good workman but worthless fellow, who soon took flight from his bride and his creditors. Her position had since become somewhat questionable; for there was a story that her husband had an earlier wife living, in which case of course her marriage with him was null. There was also a story that he was dead. But there was little evidence of the truth of either tale. Franklin, therefore, hardly knew what he was wedding, a maid, a widow, or another man's wife. Moreover the runaway husband "had left many debts, which his successor might be call'd upon to pay." Few men, even if warmly enamored, would have entered into the matrimonial contract under circumstances so discouraging; and there are no indications save the marriage itself that Franklin was deeply in love. Yet on September 1, 1730, the pair were wedded. Mrs. Franklin survived for forty years thereafter, and neither seems ever to have regretted the step. "None of the inconveniences happened that we had apprehended," wrote Franklin; "she proved a good and faithful helpmate; assisted me much by attending the shop; we throve together, and have ever mutually endeavored to make each other happy." A sensible, comfortable, satisfactory union it was, showing how much better is sense than sensibility as an ingredient in matrimony. Mrs. Franklin was a handsome woman, of comely figure, yet nevertheless an industrious and frugal one; later on in life Franklin boasted that he had "been clothed from head to foot in linen of [his] wife's manufacture." An early contribution of his own to the domestic ménage was his illegitimate son, William, born soon after his wedding, of a mother of whom no record or tradition remains. It was an unconventional wedding gift to bring home to a bride; but Mrs. Franklin, with a breadth and liberality of mind akin to her husband's, readily took the babe not only to her home but really to her heart, and reared him as if he had been her own offspring. Mr. Parton thinks that Franklin gave this excellent wife no further cause for suspicion or jealousy.

[CHAPTER II]

A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA: CONCERNMENT IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS

So has ended the first stage, in the benign presence of Hymen. The period of youth may be regarded as over; but the narrative thereof, briefly as it has been given, is not satisfactory. One longs to help out the outline with color, to get the expression as well as merely the features of the young man who is going to become one of the greatest men of the nation. Many a writer and speaker has done what he could in this task, for Franklin has been for a century a chief idol of the American people. The Boston boy, the boy printer, the runaway apprentice, the young journeyman, friendless and penniless in distant London, are pictures which have been made familiar to many generations of schoolboys; and the trifling anecdote of the bread rolls eaten in the streets of Philadelphia has for its only rival among American historical traditions the more doubtful story about George Washington, the cherry-tree, and the little hatchet.

Yet, if plain truth is to be told, there was nothing unusual about this sunrise, no rare tints of divine augury; the luminary came up in every-day fashion. Franklin had done much reading; he had taken pains to cultivate a good style in writing English; he had practiced himself in dispute; he had adopted some odd notions, for example vegetarianism in diet; he had at times acquired some influence among his fellow journeymen, and had used it for good; he had occasionally fallen into the society of men of good social position; he had kept clear of the prevalent habit of excessive drinking; sometimes he had lived frugally and had laid up a little money; more often he had been wasteful; he had been very dissolute, and in sowing his wild oats he had gone down into the mud. His autobiography gives us a simple, vivid, strong picture, which we accept as correct, though in reading it one sees that the lapse of time since the occurrences narrated, together with his own success and distinction in life, have not been without their obvious effect. By the time he thought it worth while to write those pages, Franklin had been taught to think very well of himself and his career. For this reason he was, upon the one hand, somewhat indifferent as to setting down what smaller men would conceal, confident that his fame would not stagger beneath the burden of youthful wrong-doing; on the other hand, he deals rather gently, a little ideally, with himself, as old men are wont to acknowledge with condemnation tempered with mild forgiveness the foibles of their early days. It is evident that, as a young man, Franklin intermingled sense with folly, correct living with dissipation, in a manner that must have made it difficult for an observer to forecast the final outcome, and which makes it almost equally impossible now to form a satisfactory idea of him. He is not to be disposed of by placing him in any ready-made and familiar class. If he had turned out a bad man, there would have been abundance in his early life to point the moralist's warning tale; as he turned out a very reputable one, there is scarcely less abundance for panegyrists to expatiate upon. Certainly he was a man to attract some attention and to carry some weight, yet not more than many another of whom the world never hears. At the time of his marriage, however, he is upon the verge of development; a new period of his life is about to begin; what had been dangerous and evil in his ways disappears; the breadth, originality, and practical character of his mind are about to show themselves. He has settled to a steady occupation; he is industrious and thrifty; he has gathered much information, and may be regarded as a well-educated man; he writes a plain, forcible style; he has enterprise and shrewdness in matters of business, and good sense in all matters,—that is the chief point, his sound sense has got its full growth and vigor, and of sound sense no man ever had more. Very soon he not only prospers financially, but begins to secure at first that attention and soon afterward that influence which always follow close upon success in practical affairs. He becomes the public-spirited citizen; scheme after scheme of social and public improvement is suggested and carried forward by him, until he justly comes to be one of the foremost citizens of Philadelphia. The enumeration of what he did within a few years in this small new town and poor community will be found surprising and admirable.

His first enterprise, of a quasi public nature, was the establishment of a library. There were to be fifty subscribers for fifty years, each paying an entrance fee of forty shillings and an annual due of ten shillings. He succeeded only with difficulty and delay, yet he did succeed, and the results were important. Later a charter was obtained, and the number of subscribers was doubled. "This," he says, "was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous.... These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common traders and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defense of their privileges." "Reading became fashionable," he adds. But it was not difficult to cultivate the desire for reading; that lay close to the surface. The boon which Franklin conferred lay rather in setting the example of a scheme by which books could be cheaply obtained in satisfactory abundance.

From the course of this business he drew one of those shrewd, practical conclusions which aided him so much in life. He says that he soon felt "the impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project that might be supposed to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it." This method he found so well suited to the production of results that he habitually followed it in his subsequent undertakings. It was sound policy; the self-abnegation helped success; the success secured personal prestige. It was soon observed that when "a number of friends" or "a few gentlemen" were represented by Franklin, their purpose was usually good and was pretty sure to be carried through. Hence came reputation and influence.

In December, 1732, he says, "I first published my Almanack, under the name of Richard Saunders," price five pence, thereby falling in with a common custom among the colonial printers. Within the month three editions were sold; and it was continued for twenty-five years thereafter with an average sale of 10,000 copies annually, until "Poor Richard" became a nom de plume as renowned as any in English literature. The publication ranks as one of the most influential in the world. Its "proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality as the means of procuring wealth and thereby securing virtue," were sown like seed all over the land. The almanac went year after year, for quarter of a century, into the house of nearly every shopkeeper, planter, and farmer in the American provinces. Its wit and humor, its practical tone, its shrewd maxims, its worldly honesty, its morality of common sense, its useful information, all chimed well with the national character. It formulated in homely phrase and with droll illustration what the colonists more vaguely knew, felt, and believed upon a thousand points of life and conduct. In so doing it greatly trained and invigorated the natural mental traits of the people. "Poor Richard" was the revered and popular schoolmaster of a young nation during its period of tutelage. His teachings are among the powerful forces which have gone to shaping the habits of Americans. His terse and picturesque bits of the wisdom and the virtue of this world are familiar in our mouths to-day; they moulded our great-grandparents and their children; they have informed our popular traditions; they still influence our actions, guide our ways of thinking, and establish our points of view, with the constant control of acquired habits which we little suspect. If we were accustomed still to read the literature of the almanac, we should be charmed with its humor. The world has not yet grown away from it, nor ever will. Addison and Steele had more polish but vastly less humor than Franklin. "Poor Richard" has found eternal life by passing into the daily speech of the people, while the "Spectator" is fast being crowded out of the hands of all save scholars in literature. At this period of his life he wrote many short fugitive pieces, which hold some of the rarest wit that an American library contains. Few people suspect that the ten serious and grave-looking octavos, imprinted "The Works of Benjamin Franklin," hide much of that delightful kind of wit that can never grow old, but is as charming to-day as when it came damp from the press a century and more ago. How much of "Poor Richard" was actually original is a sifting not worth while to make. Franklin said: "I was conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own which he ascribed to me, but rather the gleanings that I had made of the sense of all ages and nations." No profound wisdom is really new, but only the expression of it; and all that of "Poor Richard" had been fused in the crucible of Franklin's brain.

But the famous almanac was not the only pulpit whence Franklin preached to the people. He had an excellent ideal of a newspaper. He got news into it, which was seldom done in those days, and which made it attractive; he got advertisements into it, which made it pay, and which also was a novel feature; indeed, Mr. Parton says that he "originated the modern system of business advertising;" he also discussed matters of public interest. Thus he anticipated the modern newspaper, but in some respects improved in advance upon that which he anticipated. He made his "Gazette" a vehicle for disseminating information and morality, and he carefully excluded from it "all libeling and personal abuse." The sheet in its every issue was doing the same sort of work as "Poor Richard." In a word, Franklin was a born teacher of men, and what he did in this way in these his earlier days gives him rank among the most distinguished moralists who have ever lived.

What kind of morality he taught is well known. It was human; he kept it free from entangling alliances with any religious creed; its foundations lay in common sense, not in faith. His own nature in this respect is easy to understand but difficult to describe, since the words which must be used convey such different ideas to different persons. Thus, to say that he had the religious temperament, though he was skeptical as to all the divine and supernatural dogmas of the religions of mankind, will seem to many a self-contradiction, while to others it is entirely intelligible. In his boyhood one gets a flavor of irreverence which was slow in disappearing. When yet a mere child he suggested to his father the convenience of saying grace over the whole barrel of salt fish, in bulk, as the mercantile phrase would be. By the time that he was sixteen, Shaftesbury and Collins, efficiently aided by the pious writers who had endeavored to refute them, had made him "a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine;" and while he was still his brother's apprentice in Boston, he fell into disrepute as a skeptic. Apparently he gathered momentum in moving along this line of thought, until in England his disbelief took on for a time an extreme and objectionable form. His opinions then were "that nothing could possibly be wrong in the world; and that vice and virtue were empty distinctions, no such things existing." But the pamphlet, already mentioned, in which he expressed these views, was the outburst of a youthful free-thinker not yet accustomed to his new ideas; not many years passed over his head before it "appear'd not so clever a performance as [he] once thought it;" and in his autobiography he enumerates it among the "errata" of his life.

It was not so very long afterward that he busied himself in composing prayers, and even an entire litany, for his own use. No Christian could have found fault with the morals therein embodied; but Christ was entirely ignored. He even had the courage to draw up a new version of the Lord's Prayer; and he arranged a code of thirteen rules after the fashion of the Ten Commandments; of these the last one was: "Imitate Jesus and Socrates." Except during a short time just preceding and during his stay in London he seems never to have been an atheist; neither was he ever quite a Christian; but as between atheism and Christianity he was very much further removed from the former than from the latter. He used to call himself a deist, or theist; and said that a deist was as much like an atheist as chalk is like charcoal. The evidence is abundant that he settled down into a belief in a personal God, who was good, who concerned himself with the affairs of men, who was pleased with good acts and displeased with evil ones. He believed also in immortality and in rewards in a life to come. But he supported none of these beliefs upon the same basis on which Christians support them.

Unlike the infidel school of that day he had no antipathy even to the mythological portions of the Christian religion, no desire to discredit it, nor ambition to distinguish himself in a crusade against it. On the contrary, he was always resolute to live well with it. His mind was too broad, his habit of thought too tolerant, to admit of his antagonizing so good a system of morals because it was intertwined with articles of faith which he did not believe. He went to church frequently, and always paid his contribution towards the expenses of the society; but he kept his commendation only for those practical sermons which showed men how to become virtuous. In like manner the instruction which he himself inculcated was strictly confined to those virtues which promote the welfare and happiness of the individual and of society. In fact, he recognized none other; that which did not advance these ends was but a spurious pretender to the title of virtue.

One is tempted to make many quotations from Franklin's writings in this connection; but two or three must suffice. In 1743 he wrote to his sister:—

"There are some things in your New England doctrine and worship which I do not agree with; but I do not therefore condemn them, or desire to shake your belief or practice of them. We may dislike things that are nevertheless right in themselves. I would only have you make me the same allowance, and have a better opinion both of morality and your brother."

In 1756 he wrote to a friend:—

"He that for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands compared with those who think they deserve Heaven for the little good they do on earth.... For my own part, I have not the vanity to think I deserve it, the folly to expect it, nor the ambition to desire it; but content myself in submitting to the will and disposal of that God who made me, who hitherto has preserved and blessed me, and in whose fatherly goodness I may well confide....

"The faith you mention has doubtless its use in the world; I do not desire it to be diminished, nor would I endeavor to lessen it in any man. But I wish it were more productive of good works than I have generally seen it. I mean real good works,—works of kindness, charity, mercy, and public spirit; not holiday-keeping, sermon reading or hearing, performing church ceremonies, or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised even by wise men and much less capable of pleasing the Deity. The worship of God is a duty, the hearing and reading of sermons may be useful; but if men rest in hearing and praying, as too many do, it is as if a tree should value itself in being watered and putting forth leaves, though it never produced any fruit."

Throughout his life he may be said to have very slowly moved nearer and nearer to the Christian faith, until at last he came so near that many of those somewhat nondescript persons who call themselves "liberal Christians" might claim him as one of themselves. But if a belief in the divinity of Christ is necessary to make a "Christian," it does not appear that Franklin ever fully had the qualification. When he was an old man, in 1790, President Stiles of Yale College took the freedom of interrogating him as to his religious faith. It was the first time that any one had ever thus ventured. His reply[3] is interesting: "As to Jesus of Nazareth," he says, "I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is like to see." But he thinks they have been corrupted. "I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequences, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed; especially as I do not see that the Supreme takes it amiss by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure." His God was substantially the God of Christianity; but concerning Christ he was generally reticent and non-committal.

Whatever were his own opinions, which undoubtedly underwent some changes during his life, as is the case with most of us, he never introduced Christianity, as a faith, into any of his moral writings. A broad human creature, with a marvelous knowledge of mankind, with a tolerance as far-reaching as his knowledge, with a kindly liking for all men and women; withal a prudent, shrewd, cool-headed observer in affairs, he was content to insist that goodness and wisdom were valuable, as means, towards good repute and well-being, as ends. He urges upon his nephew, about to start in business as a goldsmith, "perfect honesty;" and the reason he gives for his emphasis is, that the business is peculiarly liable to suspicion, and if a man is "once detected in the smallest fraud ... at once he is ruined." The character of his argument was always simple. He usually began with some such axiom as the desirability of success in one's enterprises, or of health, or of comfort, or of ease of mind, or a sufficiency of money; and then he showed that some virtue, or collection of virtues, would promote this result. He advocated honesty upon the same principle upon which he advocated that women should learn to keep accounts, or that one should hold one's self in the background in the presentation of an enterprise such as his public library; that is to say, his advocacy of a cardinal virtue, of acquiring a piece of knowledge, or of adopting a certain method of procedure in business, ran upon the same line, namely, the practical usefulness of the virtue, the knowledge, or the method, for increasing the probability of a practical success in worldly affairs. Among the articles inculcating morality which he used to put into his newspaper was a Socratic Dialogue, "tending to prove that whatever might be his parts and abilities, a vicious man could not properly be called a man of sense."

He was forever at this business; it was his nature to teach, to preach, to moralize. With creeds he had no concern, but took it as his function in life to instruct in what may be described as useful morals, the gospel of good sense, the excellence of common humanity. About the time in his career which we have now reached this tendency of his had an interesting development in its relationship to his own character. He "conceiv'd the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection." It is impossible to recite the details of his scheme, but the narration constitutes one of the most entertaining and characteristic parts of the autobiography. Such a plan could not long be confined in its operation to himself alone; the teacher must teach; accordingly he designed to write a book, to be called "The Art of Virtue," a title with which he was greatly pleased, as indicating that the book was to show "the means and manner of obtaining virtue" as contradistinguished from the "mere exhortation to be good, that does not instruct or indicate the means." A receipt book for virtues! Practical instructions for acquiring goodness! Nothing could have been more characteristic. One of his Busy-Body papers, February 18, 1728, begins with the statement that: "It is said that the Persians, in their ancient constitution, had public schools in which virtue was taught as a liberal art, or science;" and he goes on to laud the plan highly. Perhaps this was the origin of the idea which subsequently became such a favorite with him. It was his

"design to explain and enforce this doctrine: that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature of man alone considered; that it was therefore every one's interest to be virtuous who wished to be happy even in this world; and I should ... have endeavored to convince young persons that no qualities were so likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of probity and integrity."

Long years afterward, in 1760, he wrote about it to Lord Kames:—

"Many people lead bad lives that would gladly lead good ones, but do not know how to make the change.... To expect people to be good, to be just, to be temperate, etc., without showing them how they should become so seems like the ineffectual charity mentioned by the apostle, which consists in saying to the hungry, the cold, and the naked, 'Be ye fed, be ye warmed, be ye clothed,' without showing them how they should get food, fire, or clothing.... To acquire those [virtues] that are wanting, and secure what we acquire, as well as those we have naturally, is the subject of an art. It is as properly an art as painting, navigation, or architecture. If a man would become a painter, navigator, or architect, it is not enough that he is advised to be one, that he is convinced by the arguments of his adviser that it would be for his advantage to be one, and that he resolves to be one; but he must also be taught the principles of the art, be shown all the methods of working, and how to acquire the habit of using properly all the instruments.... My 'Art of Virtue' has also its instruments, and teaches the manner of using them."

He was then full of zeal to give this instruction. A year later he said: "You will not doubt my being serious in the intention of finishing my 'Art of Virtue.' It is not a mere ideal work. I planned it first in 1732.... The materials have been growing ever since. The form only is now to be given." He even says that "experiments" had been made "with success;" one wonders how; but he gives no explanation. Apparently Franklin never definitely abandoned this pet design; one catches glimpses of it as still alive in his mind, until it seems to fade away in the dim obscurity of extreme old age. He said of it that it was only part of "a great and extensive project that required the whole man to execute," and his countrymen never allowed Franklin such uninterrupted possession of himself.

A matter more easy of accomplishment was the drawing up a creed which he thought to contain "the essentials of every known religion," and to be "free of everything that might shock the professors of any religion." He intended that this should serve as the basis of a sect, which should practice his rules for self-improvement. It was at first to consist of "young and single men only," and great caution was to be exercised in the admission of members. The association was to be called the "Society of the Free and Easy;" "free, as being, by the general practice and habit of the virtues, free from the dominion of vice; and particularly by the practice of industry and frugality free from debt, which exposes a man to confinement and a species of slavery to his creditors." It is hardly surprising to hear that this was one of the very few failures of Franklin's life. In 1788 he professed himself "still of the opinion that it was a practicable scheme." One hardly reads it without a smile nowadays, but it was not so out of keeping with the spirit and habits of those times. It indicates at least Franklin's appreciation of the power of fellowship, of association. No man knew better than he what stimulus comes from the sense of membership in a society, especially a secret society. He had a great fondness for organizing men into associations, and a singular aptitude for creating, conducting, and perpetuating such bodies. The Junto, a child of his active brain, became a power in local public affairs, though organized and conducted strictly as a "club of mutual improvement." He formed it among his "ingenious acquaintance" for the discussion of "queries on any point of morals, politics, or natural philosophy." He found his model, without doubt, in the "neighborhood benefit societies," established by Cotton Mather, during Franklin's boyhood, among the Boston churches, for mutual improvement among the members. [4] In time there came a great pressure for an increase of the number of members; but Franklin astutely substituted a plan whereby each member was to form a subordinate club, similar to the original, but having no knowledge of its connection with the Junto. Thus sprang into being five or six more, "The Vine, The Union, The Band," etc., "answering, in some considerable degree, our views of influencing the public opinion upon particular occasions." When Franklin became interested in any matter, he had but to introduce it before the Junto for discussion; straightway each member who belonged to any one of the other societies brought it up in that society. Thus through so many active-minded and disputatious young men interest in the subject speedily percolated through a community of no greater size than Philadelphia. Franklin was the tap-root of the whole growth, and sent his ideas circulating throughout all the widespreading branches. He tells us that in fact he often used this efficient machinery to much advantage in carrying through his public and quasi public measures. Thus he anticipated more powerful mechanisms of the like kind, such as the Jacobin Club; and he himself, under encouraging circumstances, might have wielded an immense power as the creator and occult, inspiring influence of some great political society.

Besides his didactic newspaper, his almanac even more didactic, the Junto, the subscription library, the Society of the Free and Easy, his system of religion and morals, and his scheme for acquiring all the virtues, Franklin was engaged in many other matters. He learned French, Italian, and Spanish; and in so doing evolved some notions which are now beginning to find their way into the system of teaching languages in our schools and colleges. In 1736 he was chosen clerk to the General Assembly, and continued to be reëlected during the next fourteen years, until he was chosen a member of the legislature itself. In 1737 he was appointed postmaster of Philadelphia, an office which he found "of great advantage, for, tho' the salary was small, it facilitated the correspondence that improv'd my newspaper, increased the number demanded, as well as the advertisements to be inserted, so that it came to afford me a considerable income. My old competitor's newspaper declined proportionably, and I was satisfied without retaliating his refusal, while postmaster, to permit my papers being carried by the riders."

Soon afterward he conferred a signal benefit on his countrymen by inventing an "open stove for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel,"—the Franklin stove, or, as he called it, "the Pennsylvania fireplace." Mr. Parton warmly describes it as the beginning of "the American stove system, one of the wonders of the industrial world." Franklin refused to take out a patent for it, "from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz.: That as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously." This lofty sentiment, wherein the philanthropist got the better of the man of business, overshot its mark; an ironmonger of London, who did not combine philosophy and philanthropy with his trade, made "some small changes in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made a little fortune by it."

A little later Franklin founded a philosophical society, not intended to devote its energies to abstractions, but rather to a study of nature, and the spread of new discoveries and useful knowledge in practical affairs, especially in the way of farming and agriculture. Franklin always had a fancy for agriculture, and conferred many a boon upon the tillers of the soil. A good story, which may be true, tells how he showed the fertilizing capacity of plaster of Paris. In a field by the roadside he wrote, with plaster, this has been plastered; and soon the brilliant green of the letters carried the lesson to every passer-by.

In 1743 Franklin broached the idea of an academy; but the time had not quite come when the purse-strings of well-to-do Pennsylvanians could be loosened for this purpose, and he had no success. It was, however, a project about which he was much in earnest, and a few years later he returned to it with better auspices. He succeeded in getting it under weigh by means of private subscriptions. It soon vindicated its usefulness, drew funds and endowments from various sources, and became the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin tells an amusing story about his subsequent connection with it. Inasmuch as persons of several religious sects had contributed to the fund, it was arranged that the board of trustees should consist of one member from each sect. After a while the Moravian died; and his colleagues, having found him obnoxious to them, resolved not to have another of the same creed. Yet it was difficult to find any one who did not belong to, and therefore unduly strengthen, some sect already represented. Finally Franklin was mentioned as being "merely an honest man, and of no sect at all." The recommendation secured his election. It was always a great cause of his success and influence that nothing could be alleged against his correct and respectable exterior and prudent, moderate deportment.

He now endeavored to reorganize the system, if system it can be called, of the night-watch in Philadelphia. His description of it is picturesque:—

"It was managed by the constables of the respective wards, in turn; the constable warned a number of housekeepers to attend him for the night. Those who chose never to attend paid him six shillings to be excus'd, which was supposed to be for hiring substitutes, but was, in reality, much more than was necessary for that purpose, and made the constableship a place of profit; and the constable, for a little drink, often got such ragamuffins about him as a watch, that respectable housekeepers did not choose to mix with. Walking the rounds, too, was often neglected, and most of the nights spent in tippling."

But even Franklin's influence was overmatched by this task. An abuse, nourished by copious rum, strikes its roots deep, and many years elapsed before this one could be eradicated.

In another enterprise Franklin shrewdly enlisted the boon-companion element on his side, with the result of immediate and brilliant success. He began as usual by reading a paper before the Junto, and through this intervention set the people thinking concerning the utter lack of any organization for extinguishing fires in the town. In consequence the Union Fire Company was soon established, the first thing of the kind in the city. Franklin continued a member of it for half a century. It was thoroughly equipped and efficiently conducted. An item in the terms of association was that the members should spend a social evening together once a month. The example was followed; other companies were formed, and fifty years later Franklin boasted that since that time the city had never "lost by fire more than one or two houses at a time; and the flames have often been extinguished before the house in which they began has been half consumed."

About this time he became interested in the matter of the public defenses, and wrote a pamphlet, "Plain Truth," showing the helpless condition of Pennsylvania as against the French and their Indian allies. The result was that the people were alarmed and aroused. Even the Quakers winked at the godless doings of their fellow citizens, while the enrollment and drill of a volunteer force went forward, and funds were raised for building and arming a battery. Franklin suggested a lottery, to raise money, and went to New York to borrow guns. He was very active and very successful; and though the especial crisis fortunately passed away without use being made of these preparations, yet his energy and efficiency greatly enhanced his reputation in Pennsylvania.

That Franklin had been prospering in his private business may be judged from the facts that in 1748 he took into partnership David Hall, who had been a fellow journeyman with him in London; and that his purpose was substantially to retire and get some "leisure ... for philosophical studies and amusements." He cherished the happy but foolish notion of becoming master of his own time. But his fellow citizens had purposes altogether inconsistent with those pleasing and comfortable plans which he sketched so cheerfully in a letter to his friend Colden in September, 1748. The Philadelphians, whom he had taught thrift, were not going to waste such material as he was. "The publick," he found, "now considering me as a man of leisure, laid hold of me for their purposes; every part of our civil government, and almost at the same time, imposing some duty upon me. The governor put me into the commission of the peace; the corporation of the city chose me of the common council, and soon after an alderman; and the citizens at large chose me a burgess to represent them in the Assembly." This last position pleased him best, and he turned himself chiefly to its duties, with the gratifying result, as he records, that the "trust was repeated every year for ten years, without my ever asking any elector for his vote, or signifying, either directly or indirectly, any desire of being chosen."

The next year he was appointed a commissioner to treat with the Indians, in which business he had so much success as can ever attend upon engagements with savages. He gives an amusing account of the way in which all the Indian emissaries got drunk, and of their quaint apology: that the Great Spirit had made all things for some use; that "when he made rum, he said, 'Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with;' and it must be so."

In 1751 he assisted Dr. Bond in the foundation of his hospital. The doctor at first tried to carry out his scheme alone, but could not. The tranquil vanity of Franklin's narration is too good to be lost: "At length he came to me, with the compliment that he found there was no such thing as carrying a public-spirited project through, without my being concerned in it. 'For,' says he, 'I am often asked by those to whom I propose subscribing. Have you consulted Franklin upon this business? and what does he think of it? And when I tell them that I have not (supposing it rather out of your line), they do not subscribe, but say they will consider of it.'" It is surprising that this artful and sugar-tongued doctor, who evidently could read his man, had not been more successful with his subscription list. With Franklin, at least, he was eminently successful, touching him with a consummate skill which brought prompt response and coöperation. The result was as usual. Franklin's hand knew the way to every Philadelphian merchant's pocket. Respected as he was, it may be doubted whether he was always sincerely welcomed as he used to move from door to door down those tranquil streets, with an irresistible subscription paper in his hand. In this case private subscriptions were eked out by public aid. The legislature was applied to for a grant. The country members objected, said that the benefit would be local, and doubted whether even the Philadelphians wanted it. Thereupon Franklin drew a bill, by which the State was to give £2000 upon condition that a like sum should be raised from private sources. This was soon done. Franklin regarded his device as a novelty and a ruse in legislation. He complacently says: "I do not remember any of my political manœuvres, the success of which gave me at the time more pleasure, or wherein, after thinking of it, I more easily excused myself for having made some use of cunning." Simple times, in which such an act could be described as a "manœuvre" and "cunning!"

He further turned his attention to matters of local improvement. He got pavements laid; and even brought about the sweeping of the streets twice in each week. Lighting the streets came almost simultaneously; and in connection with this he showed his wonted ingenuity. Globes open only at the top had heretofore been used, and by reason of the lack of draft, they became obscured by smoke early in the evening. Franklin made them of four flat panes, with a smoke-funnel, and crevices to admit the air beneath. The Londoners had long had the method before their eyes, every evening, at Vauxhall; but had never got at the notion of transferring it to the open streets.

For a long while Franklin was employed by the postmaster-general of the colonies as "his comptroller in regulating several offices and bringing the officers to account." In 1753 the incumbent died, and Franklin and Mr. William Hunter, jointly, were appointed his successors. They set to work to reform the entire postal service of the country. The first cost to themselves was considerable, the office falling more than £900 in debt to them during the first four years. But there-afterward the benefit of their measures was felt, and an office which had never before paid anything to that of Great Britain came, under their administration, "to yield three times as much clear revenue to the crown as the post-office of Ireland." Franklin narrates that in time he was displaced "by a freak of the ministers," and in happy phrase adds, "Since that imprudent transaction, they have received from it—not one farthing!" In this connection it may be worth while to quote Franklin's reply to a request to give a position to his nephew, a young man whom he liked well, and otherwise aided. "If a vacancy should happen, it is very probable he may be thought of to supply it; but it is a rule with me not to remove any officer that behaves well, keeps regular accounts, and pays duly; and I think the rule is founded on reason and justice."

At this point in his autobiography he records, with just pride, that he received the degree of Master of Arts, first from Yale College and afterward from Harvard. "Thus, without studying in any college, I came to partake of their honors. They were conferred in consideration of my improvements and discoveries in the electric branch of natural philosophy."

An interesting page in the autobiography concerns events in the year 1754. There were distinct foreshadowings of that war between England and France which soon afterward broke out, beginning upon this side of the water earlier than in Europe; and the lords of trade ordered a congress of commissioners from the several colonies to assemble at Albany for a conference with the chiefs of the Six Nations. They came together June 19, 1754. Franklin was a deputy from Pennsylvania; and on his way thither he "projected and drew a plan for the union of all the colonies under one government, so far as might be necessary for defense and other important general purposes." It was not altogether a new idea; in 1697 William Penn had suggested a commercial union and an annual congress. The journal of the congress shows that on June 24 it was unanimously voted that a union of the colonies was "absolutely necessary for their security and defense." The Massachusetts delegation alone had been authorized to consider the question of a union, and they had power to enter into a confederation "as well in time of peace as of war." Franklin had already been urging this policy by writings in the "Gazette," and now, when the ideas of the different commissioners were brought into comparison, his were deemed the best. His outline of a scheme, he says, "happen'd to be preferr'd," and, with a few amendments, was accordingly reported. It was a league rather than a union, somewhat resembling the arrangement which came into existence for the purposes of the Revolution. But it came to nothing; "its fate," Franklin said, "was singular." It was closely debated, article by article, and having at length been "pretty unanimously accepted, it came before the colonial assemblies for ratification." But they condemned it; "there was too much prerogative in it," they thought. On the other hand, the board of trade in England would not approve it because it had "too much of the democratic." All which led Franklin to "suspect that it was really the true medium." He himself acknowledged that one main advantage of it would be "that the colonies would, by this connection, learn to consider themselves, not as so many independent states, but as members of the same body; and thence be more ready to afford assistance and support to each other," etc. It was already the national idea which lay, not quite formulated, yet distinct enough in his mind. It was hardly to be expected that the home government would fail to see this tendency, or that they would look upon it with favor. Franklin long afterward indulged in some speculations as to what might have been the consequences of an adoption of his scheme, namely: united colonies, strong enough to defend themselves against the Canadian French and their Indian allies; no need, therefore, of troops from England; no pretext, therefore, for taxing the provinces; no provocation, therefore, for rebellion. "But such mistakes are not new; history is full of the errors of states and princes.... The best public measures are seldom adopted from previous wisdom but forc'd by the occasion." But this sketch of what might have been sounds over-fanciful, and the English were probably right in thinking that a strong military union, with home taxation, involved more of danger than of safety for the future connection between the colonies and the mother country.

There was much uneasiness, much planning, theorizing, and discussing going on at this time about the relationship between Great Britain and her American provinces; earlier stages of that talk which kept on growing louder, more eager, and more disputatious, until it was swallowed up in the roar of the revolutionary cannon. Among others, Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, concocted a scheme and showed it to Franklin. By this an assembly of the governors of all the colonies, attended by one or two members of their respective councils, was to have authority to take such measures as should seem needful for defense, with power to draw upon the English treasury to meet expenses, the amount of such drafts to be "re-imbursed by a tax laid on the colonies by act of Parliament." This alarming proposition at once drew forth three letters from Franklin, written in December, 1754, and afterward published in the "London Chronicle" in December, 1766. His position amounted to this: that the business of self-defense and the expense thereof were matters neither beyond the abilities of the colonies, nor outside their willingness, and should therefore be managed by them. Their loyalty could be trusted; their knowledge must be the best; on the other hand, governors were apt to be untrustworthy, self-seeking, and ignorant of provincial affairs. But the chief emphasis of his protest falls against taxation without representation. He says:—

"That it is supposed an undoubted right of Englishmen not to be taxed but by their own consent, given through their representatives.

"That the colonists have no representative in Parliament.

"That compelling the colonists to pay money without their consent would be rather like raising contributions in an enemy's country, than taxing of Englishmen for their own public benefit.

"That it would be treating them as a conquered people, and not as true British subjects."

And so on; traversing beforehand the same ground soon to be so thoroughly beaten over by the patriot writers and speakers of the colonies. In a very few years the line of argument became familiar, but for the present Franklin and a very few more were doing the work of suggestion and instruction for the people at large, teaching them by what logic their instinctive convictions could be maintained.

He further ingeniously showed that the colonists were already heavily taxed in ways from which they could not escape. Taxes paid by British artificers came out of the colonial consumers, and the colonists were compelled to buy only from Britain those articles which they would otherwise be able to buy at much lower prices from other countries. Moreover, they were obliged to sell only in Great Britain, where heavy imposts served to curtail the net profits of the producer. Even such manufactures as could be carried on in the colonies were forbidden to them. He concluded:—

"These kinds of secondary taxes, however, we do not complain of, though we have no share in the laying or disposing of them; but to pay immediate, heavy taxes, in the laying, appropriation, and disposition of which we have no part, and which perhaps we may know to be as unnecessary as grievous, must seem hard measures to Englishmen, who cannot conceive that by hazarding their lives and fortunes in subduing and settling new countries, extending the dominion and increasing the commerce of the mother nation, they have forfeited the native rights of Britons, which they think ought rather to be given to them, as due to such merit, if they had been before in a state of slavery."

A third letter discussed a proposition advanced by Shirley for giving the colonies representation in Parliament. Franklin was a little skeptical, and had no notion of being betrayed by a kiss. A real unification of the two communities lying upon either side of the Atlantic, and even a close approximation to proportionate representation, would constitute an excellent way out of the present difficulties. But he saw no encouragement to hope for this.

In fact, the project of laying direct internal taxes upon the colonies by act of Parliament was taking firm root in the English mind, and colonial protests could not long stay the execution of the scheme. Even such grants of money as were made by some of the colonial legislatures were vetoed, on the ground that they were connected with encroachments, schemes for independence, and an assumption of the right to exercise control in the matter of the public finances.[5] The Penns rejoiced. Thomas Penn wrote, doubtless with a malicious chuckle: "If the several assemblies will not make provision for the general service, an act of Parliament may oblige them here." He evidently thought that it would be very wholesome if government should become incensed and severe with the recalcitrants.

During his discussion with Shirley, Franklin had been upon a visit to Boston. He "left New England," he says, "slowly, and with great reluctance;" for he loved the country and the people. He returned home to be swept into the hurly-burly of military affairs. War appropriations came hard from the legislature of the Quaker province; but the occasion was now at hand when come they must. In the autumn of 1755 £60,000 were voted, chiefly for defense, and Franklin was one of the committee in charge of the expenditure. The border was already unsafe, and formal hostilities on a large scale were close at hand. France and England must fight it out for the possession of the new continent, which, boundless as it then seemed, was yet not big enough to admit of their both dwelling in it. France had been steadily pressing upon the northern and western frontiers of the British colonies, and she now held Crown Point, Niagara, the fort on the present site of Pittsburg, and the whole valley of the Ohio River. It seemed that she would confine the English to the strip along the coast which they already occupied. It is true that she offered to relinquish the Ohio valley to the savages, to be a neutral belt between the European nations on either side of it. But the proposal could not be accepted; the French were much too clever in managing the Indians. Moreover, it was felt that they would never permanently desist from advancing. Then, too, the gallant Braddock was on his way across seas, with a little army of English regulars. Finally, the disproportion between the English and French in the New World was too great for the former to rest satisfied with a compromise. There were about 1,165,000 whites in the British provinces, and only about 80,000 French in Canada. The resources, also, of the former were in every respect vastly greater. These iron facts must tell; were already telling. Throughout this last deadly grapple, now at hand, the French were in desperate earnest. History records few struggles wherein the strength of a combatant was more utterly spent, with more entire devotion, than was the case with these Canadian-French provinces. Every man gave himself to the fight, so literally that no one was left to till the fields, and erelong famine began its hideous work among the scanty forces. The English and Americans, on the other hand, were far from conducting the struggle with the like temper as the French; yet with such enormous advantages as they possessed, if they could not conquer a satisfactory peace in course of time, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. So no composition could be arranged; the Seven Years' War began, and to open it with becoming éclat Braddock debarked, a gorgeous spectacle in red and gold. Yet still there had as yet been in Europe no declaration of hostilities between England and France; on the contrary, the government of the former country was giving very fair words to that of the latter; and in America the British professed only to intend "to repel encroachments."[6]

Franklin had to take his share of the disasters attendant upon the fatal campaign of Braddock. According to his notion that foolish officer and his two ill-behaved regiments should never, by good rights, have been sent to the provinces at all; for the colonists, being able and willing to do their own fighting, should have been allowed to undertake it. But eleven years before this time the Duke of Bedford had declared it a dangerous policy to enroll an army of 20,000 provincials to serve against Canada, "on account of the independence it might create in those provinces, when they should see within themselves so great an army, possessed of so great a country by right of conquest." This anxiety had been steadily gaining ground. The home government did not choose "to permit the union of the colonies, as proposed at Albany, and to trust that union with their defense, lest they should thereby grow too military and feel their own strength, suspicions and jealousies being at this time entertained of them." So it was because the shadow of the Revolutionary War already darkened the visions of English statesmen that the gallant array of soldiery, with the long train of American attendants, had to make that terrible march to failure and death.

The Assembly of the Quaker province was sadly perturbed lest this arbitrary warrior, encamped hard by in Virginia, should "conceive violent prejudices against them, as averse to the service." In their alarm they had recourse to Franklin's shrewd wit and ready tongue. Accordingly, he visited Braddock under pretense of arranging for the transmission of mails during the campaign, stayed with him several days, and dined with him daily. There were some kinds of men, perhaps, whom Braddock appreciated better than he did Indians; nor is it a slight proof of Franklin's extraordinary capacity for getting on well with every variety of human being that he could make himself so welcome to this testy, opinionated military martinet, who in every particular of nature and of training was the precise contrary of the provincial civilian.

Franklin's own good will to the cause, or his ill luck, led him into an engagement, made just before his departure, whereby he undertook to procure horses and wagons enough for the transportation of the ordnance and all the appurtenances of the camp. It was not a personal contract upon his part to furnish these; he was neither to make any money, nor to risk any; he was simply to render the gratuitous service of inducing the Pennsylvania farmers to let out their horses, wagons, and drivers to the general. It was a difficult task, in which the emissaries of Braddock had utterly failed in Virginia. But Franklin conceived the opportunities to be better in his own province, and entered on the business with vigor and skill. Throughout the farming region he sent advertisements and circulars, cleverly devised to elicit what he wanted, and so phrased as to save him harmless from personal responsibility for any payment. Seven days' pay was to be "advanced and paid in hand" by him, the remainder to be paid by General Braddock, or by the paymaster of the army. He said, in closing his appeal: "I have no particular interest in this affair, as, except the satisfaction of endeavoring to do good, I shall have only my labor for my pains."

But he was not to get off so easily; for, he says, "the owners, ... alleging that they did not know General Braddock, or what dependence might be had on his promise, insisted on my bond for the performance, which I accordingly gave them." This was the more patriotic because Franklin was by no means dazzled by the pomp and parade of the doughty warrior, but on the contrary, reflecting on the probable character of the campaign, he had "conceived some doubts and some fears for the event." What happened every one knows. The losses of wagons and horses in the slaughter amounted to the doleful sum of £20,000; "which to pay would have ruined me," wrote Franklin. Nevertheless the demands began at once to pour in upon him, and suits were instituted. It was a grievous affair, and the end was by no means clear. It was easily possible that in place of his fortune, sacrificed in the public service, he might have only the sorry substitute of a claim against the government. But after many troubled weeks he was at length relieved of the heaviest portion of his burden, through General Shirley's appointment of a commission to audit and pay the claims for actual losses. Other sums due him, representing considerable advances which he had made at the outset in the business, and later for provisions, remained unpaid to the end of his days. The British government in time probably thought the Revolution as efficient as a statute of limitations for barring that account. At the moment, however, Franklin not only lost his money, but had to suffer the affront of being supposed even to be a gainer, and to have filled his own pockets. He indignantly denied that he had "pocketed a farthing;" but of course he was not believed. He adds, with delicious humor: "and, indeed, I have since learnt that immense fortunes are often made in such employments." Those, however, were simple, provincial days. In place of the money which he did not get, also of the further sum which he actually lost, he had to satisfy himself with the consolation derived from the approbation of the Pennsylvania Assembly, while also Braddock's dispatches gave him a good name with the officials in England, which was of some little service to him.

A more comical result of the Braddock affair was that it made Franklin for a time a military man and a colonel. He had escaped being a clergyman and a poet, but he could not escape that common fate of Americans, the military title, the prevalence of which, it has been said, makes "the whole country seem a retreat of heroes." It befell Franklin in this wise: immediately after Braddock's defeat, in the panic which possessed the people and amid the reaction against professional soldiers, recourse was had to plain good sense, though unaccompanied by technical knowledge. No one, as all the province knew, had such sound sense as Franklin, who was accordingly deputed to go to the western frontier with a small volunteer force, there to build three forts for the protection of the outlying settlements. "I undertook," he says, "this military business, though I did not conceive myself well qualified for it." It was a service involving much difficulty and hardship, with some danger; General Braddock would have made a ridiculous failure of it; Franklin acquitted himself well. What he afterward wrote of General Shirley was true of himself: "For, tho' Shirley was not bred a soldier, he was sensible and sagacious in himself, and attentive to good advice from others, capable of forming judicious plans, and quick and active in carrying them into execution." In a word, Franklin's military career was as creditable as it was brief. He was called forward at the crisis of universal dismay; he gave his popular influence and cool head to a peculiar kind of service, of which he knew much by hearsay, if nothing by personal experience; he did his work well; and, much stranger to relate, he escaped the delusion that he was a soldier. So soon as he could do so, that is to say after a few weeks, he returned to his civil duties. But he had shown courage, intelligence, and patriotism in a high degree, and he had greatly increased the confidence reposed in him by his fellow citizens.

Beyond those active military measures which the exigencies of the time made necessary, Franklin fell in with, if he did not originate, a plan designed to afford permanent protection in the future. This was to extend the colonies inland. His notions were broad, embracing much both in space and time. He thought "what a glorious thing it would be to settle in that fine country a large, strong body of religious, industrious people. What a security to the other colonies and advantage to Britain by increasing her people, territory, strength, and commerce." He foretold that "perhaps in less than another century" the Ohio valley might "become a populous and powerful dominion, and a great accession of power either to England or France." Having this scheme much at heart, he drew up a sort of prospectus "for settling two western colonies in North America;" "barrier colonies" they were called by Governor Pownall, who was warm in the same idea, and sent a plan of his own, together with Franklin's, to the home government.

It is true that these new settlements, regarded strictly as bulwarks, would have been only a change of "barrier," an advancement of frontier; they themselves would become frontier instead of the present line, and would be equally subject to Indian and French assaults. Still the step was in the direction of growth and expansion; it was advancing and aggressive, and indicated an appreciation of the enormous motive power which lay in English colonization. Franklin pushed it earnestly, interested others in it, and seemed at one time on the point of securing the charters. But the conquest of Canada within a very short time rendered defensive colonization almost needless, and soon afterward the premonitions and actual outbreak of the Revolution put an end to all schemes in this shape.

[CHAPTER III]

REPRESENTATIVE OF PENNSYLVANIA IN ENGLAND: RETURN HOME

It was not possible to make a world-wide reputation in the public affairs of the province of Pennsylvania; but so much fame as opportunity would admit of had by this time been won by Franklin. In respect of influence and prestige among his fellow colonists none other came near to him. Meanwhile among all his crowding occupations he had found time for those scientific researches towards which his heart always yearned. He had flown his famous kite; had entrapped the lightning of the clouds; had written treatises, which, having been collected into a volume, "were much taken notice of in England," made no small stir in France, and were "translated into the Italian, German, and Latin languages." A learned French abbé, "preceptor in natural philosophy to the royal family, and an able experimenter," at first controverted his discoveries and even questioned his existence. But after a little time this worthy scientist became "assur'd that there really existed such a person as Franklin at Philadelphia," while other distinguished scientific men of Europe united in the adoption of his theories. Kant called him the 'Prometheus of modern times.' Thus, in one way and another, his name had probably already come to be more widely known than that of any other living man who had been born on this side of the Atlantic. It might have been even much more famous, had he been more free to follow his own bent, a pleasure which he could only enjoy in a very limited degree. In 1753 he wrote: "I am so engaged in business, public and private, that those more pleasing pursuits [philosophical inquiries] are frequently interrupted, and the chain of thought necessary to be closely continued in such disquisitions is so broken and disjointed that it is with difficulty I satisfy myself in any of them." Similar complaints occur frequently, and it is certain that his extensive philosophical labors were all conducted in those mere cracks and crannies of leisure scantily interspersed amid the hours of a man apparently overwhelmed with the functions of active life.

He was now selected by the Assembly to encounter the perils of crossing the Atlantic upon an important mission in behalf of his province. For a long while past the relationship between the Penns, unworthy sons of the great William, and now the proprietaries, on the one side, and their quasi subjects, the people of the province, upon the other, had been steadily becoming more and more strained, until something very like a crisis had been reached. As usual in English and Anglo-American communities, it was a quarrel over dollars, or rather over pounds sterling, a question of taxation, which was producing the alienation. At bottom, there was the trouble which always pertains to absenteeism; the proprietaries lived in England, and regarded their vast American estate, with about 200,000 white inhabitants, only as a source of revenue. That mercantile community, however, with the thrift of Quakers and the independent temper of Englishmen, had a shrewd appreciation of, and an obstinate respect for, its own interests. Hence the discussions, already of threatening proportions.

The chief point in dispute was, whether or not the waste lands, still directly owned by the proprietaries, and other lands let by them at quit-rents, should be taxed in the same manner as like property of other owners. They refused to submit to such taxation; the Assembly of Burgesses insisted. In ordinary times the proprietaries prevailed; for the governor was their nominee and removable at their pleasure; they gave him general instructions to assent to no law taxing their holdings, and he naturally obeyed his masters. But since governors got their salaries only by virtue of a vote of the Assembly, it seems that they sometimes disregarded instructions, in the sacred cause of their own interests. After a while, therefore, the proprietaries, made shrewd by experience, devised the scheme of placing their unfortunate sub-rulers under bonds. This went far towards settling the matter. Yet in such a crisis and stress as were now present in the colony, when exceptionally large sums had to be raised, and great sacrifices and sufferings endured, and when little less than the actual existence of the province might be thought to be at stake, it certainly seemed that the rich and idle proprietaries might stand on the same footing with their poor and laboring subjects. They lived comfortably in England upon revenues estimated to amount to the then enormous sum of £20,000 sterling; while the colonists were struggling under unusual losses, as well as enormous expenses, growing out of the war and Indian ravages. At such a time their parsimony, their "incredible meanness," as Franklin called it, was cruel as well as stupid. At last the Assembly flatly refused to raise any money unless the proprietaries should be burdened like the rest. All should pay together, or all should go to destruction together. The Penns too stood obstinate, facing the not less resolute Assembly. It was indeed a deadlock! Yet the times were such that neither party could afford to maintain its ground indefinitely. So a temporary arrangement was made, whereby of £60,000 sterling to be raised the proprietaries agreed to contribute £5000, and the Assembly agreed to accept the same in lieu or commutation for their tax. But neither side abandoned its principle. Before long more money was needed, and the dispute was as fierce as ever.

The burgesses now thought that it would be well to carry a statement of their case before the king in council and the lords of trade. In February, 1757, they named their speaker, Isaac Norris, and Franklin to be their emissaries "to represent in England the unhappy situation of the province," and to seek redress by an act of Parliament. Norris, an aged man, begged to be excused; Franklin accepted. His son was given leave of absence, in order to attend him as his secretary. During the prolonged and bitter controversies Franklin had been the most prominent member of the Assembly on the popular side. He had drawn many of the addresses, arguments, and other papers; and his familiarity with the business, therefore, no less than his good judgment, shrewdness, and tact united to point him out as the man for the very unpleasant and difficult errand.

A portion of his business also was to endeavor to induce the king to resume the province of Pennsylvania as his own. A clause in the charter had reserved this right, which could be exercised on payment of a certain sum of money. The colonists now preferred to be an appanage of the crown rather than a fief of the Penns. Oddly enough, some of the provincial governors were suggesting the like measure concerning other provinces; but from widely different motives. The colonists thought a monarch better than private individuals, as a master; while the governors thought that only the royal authority could enforce their theory of colonial government. They angrily complained that the colonies would do nothing voluntarily; a most unjust charge, as was soon to be seen; for in the Seven Years' War the colonists did three quarters of all that was done. What the governors really meant was that the colonies would not raise money and turn it over to other persons to spend for them.

It must be acknowledged that the prospects for the success of this mission were not good. Almost simultaneously with Franklin's appointment, the House of Commons resolved that "the claim of right in a colonial Assembly to raise and apply public money, by its own act alone, is derogatory to the crown, and to the rights of the people of Great Britain." This made Thomas Penn jubilant. "The people of Pennsylvania," he said, "will soon be convinced ... that they have not a right to the powers of government they claim."[7]

Franklin took his passage in a packet-ship, which was to sail from New York forthwith. But the vessel was subject to the orders of Lord Loudoun, newly appointed governor of the province of New York, and a sort of military over-lord over all the governors, assemblies, and people of the American provinces. His mission was to organize, to introduce system and submission, and above all else to overawe. But he was no man for the task; not because his lordship was not a dominant character, but because he was wholly unfit to transact business. Franklin tried some negotiations with him, and got no satisfaction or conclusion.

The ship which waited upon the will of this noble procrastinator had a very doubtful future. Every day at nine o'clock his lordship seated himself at his desk, and stayed there writing industriously, hour after hour, upon his dispatches; every day he foretold with much accuracy and positiveness of manner that these would surely be ready, and the ship would inevitably sail, on the next day. Thus week after week glided by, and still he uttered the same prediction, "to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow." Yet in spite of this wonderful industry of the great man his letters never got written, so that, says Franklin, "it was about the beginning of April that I came to New York, and I think it was the end of June before we sail'd." Even then the letters were not ready, and for two days the vessel had to accompany his lordship's fleet on the way towards Louisburg, before she got leave to go upon her own proper voyage. It is entertaining to hear that this same lord, during his stay in America, detained other packets for other letters, until their bottoms got so foul and worm-eaten that they were unseaworthy. He was irreverently likened by those who waited on his pleasure to "St. George on the signs, always on horseback, and never rides on." He was at last removed by Mr. Pitt, because that energetic minister said "that he never heard from him, and could not know what was doing."

Escaping at last from a detention more tedious, if less romantic, than any which ever befell Ulysses, Franklin steered for England. The vessel was "several times chas'd" by French cruisers, and later was actually within a few lengths of being wrecked on the Scilly rocks. Franklin wrote to his wife that if he were a Roman Catholic he should probably vow a chapel to some saint; but, as he was not, he should much like to vow a lighthouse. At length, however, he came safely into Falmouth, and on July 27, 1757, arrived in London.

Immediately he was taken to see Lord Granville, president of the council; and his account of the interview is too striking not to be given entire. His lordship, he says,

"received me with great civility; and after some questions respecting the present state of affairs in America and discourse thereupon, he said to me: 'You Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution; you contend that the king's instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion. But these instructions are not like the pocket instructions given to a minister going abroad, for regulating his conduct on some trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges learned in the laws; they are then considered, debated, and perhaps amended, in council, after which they are signed by the king. They are then, so far as they relate to you, the law of the land, for the king is the legislator of the colonies.' I told his lordship this was new doctrine to me. I had always understood from our charters that our laws were to be made by our assemblies, to be presented indeed to the king for his royal assent; but that being once given, the king could not repeal or alter them. And as the assemblies could not make permanent laws without his assent, so neither could he make a law for them without theirs. He assured me I was totally mistaken. I did not think so, however; and his lordship's conversation having somewhat alarmed me as to what might be the sentiments of the court concerning us, I wrote it down as soon as I returned to my lodgings."[8]

Granville also defended the recent act of Parliament laying "grievous restrictions on the export of provisions from the British colonies," the intent being to distress the American possessions of France by famine. His lordship said: "America must not do anything to interfere with Great Britain in the European markets." Franklin replied: "If we plant and reap, and must not ship, your lordship should apply to Parliament for transports to bring us all back again."

Next came an interview with the proprietaries. Each side declared itself disposed towards "reasonable accommodations;" but Franklin supposed that "each party had its own ideas of what should be meant by reasonable." Nothing came of all this palaver; which only meant that time was being wasted to no better purpose than to show that the two parties were "very wide, and so far from each other in [their] opinions as to discourage all hope of agreement." But this had long been evident. The lawyer of the proprietaries was then put forward. He was a "proud, angry man," with a "mortal enmity" toward Franklin; for the two had exchanged buffets more than once already, and the "proud angry man" had been hit hard. It had been his professional duty, as counsel for the Penns, to prepare many papers to be used by their governor in the course of their quarrels with the Assembly. It had usually fallen to Franklin's lot to draft the replies of the Assembly, and by Franklin's own admission these documents of his, like those which they answered, were "often tart and sometimes indecently abusive." Franklin now found his old antagonist so excited that it seemed best to refuse to have any direct dealings with him.

The proprietaries then put their interests in charge of Attorney-General Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden, and the Solicitor-General Charles Yorke, afterward lord chancellor. These legal luminaries consumed "a year, wanting eight days" before they were in a condition to impart light; and during that period Franklin could of course achieve nothing with the proprietaries. After all, the proprietaries ignored and insulted him, and made further delay by sending a message to the Assembly of Pennsylvania, wherein they complained of Franklin's "rudeness," and professed themselves "willing to accommodate matters," if a "person of candour" should be sent to treat with them. The only reply to their message came in the pointed and intelligible shape of an act "taxing the proprietary estate in common with the estates of the people." Much disturbed, the proprietaries now obtained a hearing before the king in council. They requested his majesty to set aside this tax act, and several other acts which had been passed within two years by the Assembly. Of these other acts some were repealed, according to the prayer of the proprietaries; but more were allowed to stand. These were, however, of comparatively little consequence; the overshadowing grievance for the Penns lay in this taxation of their property. Concerning this it was urged by their counsel that the proprietaries were held in such odium by the people that, if left to the popular "mercy in apportioning the taxes, they would be ruined." The other side, of course, vehemently denied that there was the slightest ground for such a suspicion.

In June, 1760, the board of trade rendered a report very unfavorable to the Assembly. Their language showed that they had been much affected by the appearance of popular encroachments, and by the allegations of an intention on the part of the colonists "to establish a democracy in place of his majesty's government." Their advice was to bring "the constitution back to its proper principles; to restore to the crown, in the person of the proprietaries, its just prerogative; to check the growing influence of assemblies, by distinguishing, what they are perpetually confounding, the executive from the legislative power." News of this alarming document reached Franklin just as he was about to start upon a trip through Ireland. It put an end to that pleasure; he had to set to work on the moment, with all the zeal and by all the means he could compass, to counteract this fulmination. Just how he achieved so difficult an end is not recorded; but it appears that he succeeded in securing a further hearing, in the progress of which Lord Mansfield "rose, and beckoning me, took me into the clerk's chambers, ... and asked me, if I was really of opinion that no injury would be done to the proprietary estate in the execution of the act. I said: Certainly. 'Then,' says he, 'you can have little objection to enter into an engagement to assure that point.' I answered: None at all." Thereupon a paper of this purport, binding personally upon Franklin and upon Mr. Charles, the resident agent of the province, was drawn up, and was duly executed by them both; and on August 28 the lords filed an amended report, in which they said that the act taxing the proprietary estates upon a common basis with those of other owners was "fundamentally wrong and unjust and ought to be repealed, unless six certain amendments were made therein." These amendments were, in substance, the undertakings entered into in the bond of the colonial agents. Franklin soon afterward had occasion to review this whole business. He showed that of the six amendments, five were immaterial, since they only expressed with greater clearness the intent of the Assembly. He admitted that the sixth was of more consequence. It seems that £100,000 had been voted, appropriated, raised, and expended, chiefly for the defense of the colony. The manner of doing this was to issue paper money to this amount, to make it legal tender, and then to retire it by the proceeds of the tax levy. The proprietaries insisted that they could not be compelled to receive their rents in this money, and the lords now found for them. Franklin acknowledged that herein perhaps the lords were right and the Assembly wrong; but he added this scathing paragraph:—

"But if he cannot on these considerations quite excuse the Assembly, what will he think of those honourable proprietaries, who, when paper money was issued in their colony for the common defense of their vast estates with those of the people, could nevertheless wish to be exempted from their share of the unavoidable disadvantages. Is there upon earth a man besides, with any conception of what is honest, with any notion of honor, with the least tincture in his veins of the gentleman, but would have blushed at the thought, but would have rejected with disdain such undue preference, if it had been offered him? Much less would he have struggled for it, moved heaven and earth to obtain it, resolved to ruin thousands of his tenants by a repeal of the act, rather than miss of it, and enforce it afterwards by an audaciously wicked instruction, forbidding aids to his king, and exposing the province to destruction, unless it was complied with. And yet, these are honourable men!"

This was, however, altogether a subordinate issue. The struggle had really been conducted to determine whether the proprietary estate should be taxed like other estates, and the decision upheld such taxation. This was a complete triumph for the Assembly and their representative. "But let the proprietaries and their discreet deputies hereafter recollect and remember," said Franklin, "that the same august tribunal, which censured some of the modes and circumstances of that act, did at the same time establish and confirm the grand principle of the act, namely: 'That the proprietary estate ought, with other estates, to be taxed;' and thereby did, in effect, determine and pronounce that the opposition so long made in various shapes to that just principle, by the proprietaries, was 'fundamentally wrong and unjust!'"

It was a long while before the Assembly found leisure to attend to that engagement of their agents which stipulated for an investigation to see whether the proprietaries had not been unduly and excessively assessed. But at length, after having had the spur of reminder constantly applied to their laggard memories, they appointed a committee to inquire and report concerning the valuations made by the tax-gatherers.

This committee reported that—

"there has not been any injustice done to the proprietaries, or attempts made to rate or assess any part of their estates higher than the estates of the like kind belonging to the inhabitants are rated and assessed; but, on the contrary, ... their estates are rated, in many instances, below others."

So the matter ended.

Franklin had been detained a little more than three years about this business. At its conclusion he anticipated a speedy return home; but he had to stay yet two years more to attend to sundry matters smaller in importance, but which were advanced almost as slowly. Partly such delay was because the aristocrats of the board of trade and the privy council had not the habits of business men, but consulted their own noble convenience in the transaction of affairs; and partly it was because procrastination was purposely employed by his opponents, who harassed him and blocked his path by every obstacle, direct and indirect, which they could put in his way. For they seemed to hope for some turn in affairs, some event, or some too rapid advance of the popular party in America, which should arouse the royal resentment against the colonists and so militate on their side. Delay was easily brought about by them. They had money, connections, influence, and that familiarity with men and ways which came from their residence in England; while Franklin, a stranger on an unpopular errand, representing before an aristocratic government a parcel of tradespeople and farmers who lived in a distant land and were charged with being both niggardly and disaffected, found that he could make only difficult and uncertain progress. He was like one who sails a race not only against hostile winds and tides, but also in strange waters where the shoals and rocks are unknown, and where invisible currents ceaselessly baffle his course. His lack of personal importance hampered him exasperatingly. Thus during his prolonged stay he repeatedly made every effort in his power to obtain an audience of William Pitt. But not even for once could he succeed. A provincial agent, engaged in a squabble about taxing proprietary lands, was too small a man upon too small a business to consume the precious time of the great prime minister, who was endeavoring to dominate the embroilments and intrigues of all Europe, to say nothing of the machinations of his opponents at home. So the subalterns of Mr. Pitt met Franklin, heard what he had to say, sifted it through the sieve of their own discretion, and bore to the ears of their principal only such compends as they thought worthy of attention.

But the vexation of almost endless delay had its alleviations, apparently much more than enough to offset it. Early in September, 1757, that is to say some five or six weeks after his landing, Franklin was taken very ill of an intermittent fever, which lasted for eight weeks. During his convalescence he wrote to his wife that the agreeable conversation of men of learning, and the notice taken of him by persons of distinction, soothed him under this painful absence from family and friends; yet these solaces would not hold him there another week, were it not for duty to his country and the hope of being able to do it service. But after the early homesickness wore off, a great attachment for England took its place. He found himself a man of note among scientists there, who gave him a ready welcome and showed a courteous and flattering recognition of his high distinction in their pursuits. Thence it was easy to penetrate into the neighboring circle of literature, wherein he made warm personal friends, such as Lord Kames, David Hume, Dr. Robertson, and others. From time to time he was a guest at many a pleasant country seat, and at the universities. He found plenty of leisure, too, for travel, and explored the United Kingdom very thoroughly. When he went to Edinburgh he was presented with the freedom of the city; and the University of St. Andrews conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws; later, Oxford did the same. He even had time for a trip into the Low Countries. As months and finally years slipped away, with just enough of occupation of a dignified character to save him from an annoying sense of idleness, with abundant opportunities for social pleasure, and with a very gratifying deference shown towards himself, Franklin, who liked society and did not dislike flattery, began to think the mother country no such bad place. For an intellectual and social career London certainly had advantages over Philadelphia. Mr. Strahan, the well-known publisher of those days, whom Franklin used affectionately to call Straney, became his close friend, and was very insistent with him that he should leave the provinces and take up a permanent residence in England. He baited his hook with an offer of his son in marriage with Franklin's daughter Sarah. He had never seen Sarah, but he seems to have taken it for granted that any child of her father must be matrimonially satisfactory. Franklin wrote home to his wife that the young man was eligible, and that there were abundant funds in the Strahan treasury, but that he did not suppose that she would be able to overcome her terror of the ocean voyage. Indeed, this timidity on the part of his wife was more than once put forward by him as if it were really the feather which turned the scale in the choice of his future residence.

Franklin himself also was trying his hand at match-making. He had taken a great fancy to a young lady by the name of Mary Stevenson, with whom, when distance prevented their meeting, he kept up a constant correspondence concerning points of physical science. He now became very pressing with his son William to wed this learned maiden; but the young man possibly did not hold a taste for science to be the most winning trait in woman; at any rate, having bestowed his affections elsewhere, he refused to transfer them. So Franklin was compelled to give up his scheme, though with an extreme reluctance, which he expressed to the rejected damsel with amusing openness. Had either of these matrimonial bonds been made fast, it is not improbable that Franklin would have lived out the rest of his life as a friend of the colonies in England. But his lot was otherwise cast; a second time he escaped, though narrowly, the prospect of dying an Englishman and the subject of a king. At the moment he was not altogether glad that matters worked thus. On August 17, 1762, he wrote from Portsmouth to Lord Kames:—

"I am now waiting here only for a wind to waft me to America; but cannot leave this happy island and my friends in it without extreme regret, though I am going to a country and a people that I love. I am going from the old world to the new; and I fancy I feel like those who are leaving this world for the next: grief at the parting; fear of the passage; hope of the future. These different passions all affect their minds at once; and these have tendered me down exceedingly."

And six days later, from the same place, he wrote to Strahan: "I cannot, I assure you, quit even this disagreeable place, without regret, as it carries me still farther from those I love, and from the opportunities of hearing of their welfare. The attraction of reason is at present for the other side of the water, but that of inclination will be for this side. 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." Apparently the Americans owe a great debt of gratitude to Mrs. Franklin's fearfulness of the untrustworthy Atlantic.

Before dismissing this stay of Franklin in England a word should be said concerning his efforts for the retention of Canada by the British, as spoils of war. The fall of Quebec, in the autumn of 1759, practically concluded the struggle in America. The French were utterly spent; they had no food, no money; they had fought with desperate courage and heroic self-devotion; they could honestly say that they had stood grimly in the last trench, and had been slaughtered there until the starved and shattered remnant could not find it in their exhausted human nature longer to conduct a contest so thoroughly finished. In Europe, France was hardly less completely beaten. At the same time the singular position of affairs existed that the triumphant conqueror was even more resolutely bent upon immediate peace than were the conquered. George III., newly come to the throne, set himself towards this end with all the obstinacy of his resolute nature. It became a question of terms, and eager was the discussion thereof. The colonies were profoundly interested, for a question sharply argued was: whether England should retain Guadaloupe or Canada. She had conquered both, but it seemed to be admitted that she must restore one. It was even then a comical bit of political mathematics to establish anything like an equation between the two, nor could it possibly have been done with reference to intrinsic values. It was all very well to dilate upon the sugar crop of the island, its trade, its fertility, its harborage. Every one knew that Canada could outweigh all these things fifty times over. But into the Guadaloupe scale was dropped a weighty consideration, which was clearly stated in an anonymous pamphlet attributed to William Burke. This writer said:—

"If the people of our colonies find no check from Canada, they will extend themselves almost without bound into the inland parts. They will increase infinitely from all causes. What the consequence will be, to have a numerous, hardy, independent people, possessed of a strong country, communicating little or not at all with England, I leave to your own reflections. By eagerly grasping at extensive territory we may run the risk, and in no very distant period, of losing what we now possess. A neighbor that keeps us in some awe is not always the worst of neighbors. So that, far from sacrificing Guadaloupe to Canada, perhaps, if we might have Canada without any sacrifice at all, we ought not to desire it. There should be a balance of power in America.... The islands, from their weakness, can never revolt; but, if we acquire all Canada, we shall soon find North America itself too powerful and too populous to be governed by us at a distance."

From many other quarters came the same warning predictions.[9]

Franklin watched the controversy with deep interest and no small anxiety. As the argument grew heated he could no longer hold his hand; he cast into the Canadian scale an able pamphlet, ingenuous in the main if not in all the details. It is not worth while to rehearse what he had to say upon mercantile points, or even concerning the future growth of a great American empire. What he had really to encounter was the argument that it was sound policy to leave Canada in possession of the French. Those who pretended to want Guadaloupe did not so much really want it as they did wish to have Canada remain French. To make good this latter point they had to show, first, that French ownership involved no serious danger to the English possessions; second, that it brought positive advantages. To the first proposition they said that the French had fully learned their lesson of inferiority, and that a few forts on the frontier would easily overawe the hostile Indians. To the second proposition, they elaborated the arguments of William Burke. Franklin replied that the war-parties of braves would easily pass by the forts in the forests, and after burning, pillaging, murdering, and scalping, would equally easily and safely return. Nothing save a Chinese wall the whole length of the western frontier would suffice for protection against savages. Then, with one of those happy illustrations of which he was a master, he said: "In short, long experience has taught our planters that they cannot rely upon forts as a security against Indians; the inhabitants of Hackney might as well rely upon the Tower of London, to secure them against highwaymen and house-breakers." The admirable simile could neither be answered nor forgotten.

Concerning the positive desirability of leaving the French as masters of Canada to "check" the growth of the colonies, Franklin indignantly exclaimed: "It is a modest word, this 'check' for massacring men, women, and children!" If Canada is to be "restored on this principle, ... will not this be telling the French in plain terms, that the horrid barbarisms they perpetrate with Indians on our colonists are agreeable to us; and that they need not apprehend the resentment of a government with whose views they so happily concur." But he had the audacity to say that he was abundantly certain that the mother country could never have any occasion to dread the power of the colonies. He said:—

"I shall next consider the other supposition, that their growth may render them dangerous. Of this, I own, I have not the least conception, when I consider that we have already fourteen separate governments on the maritime coast of the continent; and, if we extend our settlements, shall probably have as many more behind them on the inland side." By reason of the different governors, laws, interests, religions, and manners of these, "their jealousy of each other is so great, that, however necessary a union of the colonies has long been, for their common defence and security against their enemies, and how sensible soever each colony has been of that necessity, yet they have never been able to effect such a union among themselves, nor even to agree in requesting the mother country to establish it for them." If they could not unite for self-defence against the French and the murderous savages, "can it reasonably be supposed there is any danger of their uniting against their own nation, which protects and encourages them, with which they have so many connexions and ties of blood, interest, and affection, and which, it is well known, they all love much more than they love one another?

"In short there are so many causes that must operate to prevent it, that I will venture to say a union amongst them for such a purpose is not merely improbable, it is impossible. And if the union of the whole is impossible, the attempt of a part must be madness.... When I say such a union is impossible, I mean without the most grievous tyranny and oppression.... The waves do not rise but when the winds blow.... What such an administration as the Duke of Alva's in the Netherlands might produce, I know not; but this, I think, I have a right to deem impossible."

We read these words, even subject to the mild saving of the final sentences, with some bewilderment. Did their shrewd and well-informed writer believe what he said? Was he casting this political horoscope in good faith? Or was he only uttering a prophecy which he desired, if possible, and for his own purposes to induce others to believe? If he was in earnest, Attorney-General Pratt was a better astrologer. "For all what you Americans say of your loyalty," he said to Franklin, "and notwithstanding your boasted affection, you will one day set up for independence." "No such idea," said Franklin, "is entertained by the Americans, or ever will be, unless you grossly abuse them." "Very true," said Pratt; "that I see will happen, and will produce the event."[10] Choiseul, the able French minister, expressed his wonder that the "great Pitt should be so attached to the acquisition of Canada," which, being in the hands of France, would keep the "colonies in that dependence which they will not fail to shake off the moment Canada shall be ceded."[11] Vergennes saw the same thing not less clearly; and so did many another.

If Franklin was really unable to foresee in this business those occurrences which others predicted with such confidence, at least he showed a grand conception of the future, and his vision took in more distant and greater facts and larger truths of statesmanship than were compassed by the British ministers. Witness what he wrote to Lord Kames:—

"I have long been of opinion that the foundations of the future grandeur and stability of the British empire lie in America.... I am therefore by no means for restoring Canada. If we keep it, all the country from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi will in another century be filled with British people. Britain itself will become vastly more populous by the immense increase to its commerce; the Atlantic sea will be covered with your trading ships; and your naval power, thence continually increasing, will extend your influence round the whole globe, and awe the world."

Whatever regret Franklin may have felt at not being able to remain in England was probably greatly mitigated if not entirely dissipated by the cordial reception which he met with at home. On December 2, 1762, he wrote to Strahan that the reports of the diminution of his friends were all false; that ever since his arrival his house had been full of a succession of them from morning till night, congratulating him on his return. The Assembly honored him with a vote of thanks, and also voted him £3000 towards defraying his expenses. It was, of course, much less than he had expended during an absence of nearly six years; but it seems that he considered that, since much of his time had been passed in the enjoyment of an agreeable leisure, he should bear a corresponding part of the expense. While on the sea he had been chosen unanimously, as indeed had been done in each year of his absence, a member of that body; and he was told that, if he had not got so privately into town, he should have been met by an escort of 500 horsemen. All this must have been very gratifying.

A different kind of tribute, somewhat indirect, but none the less intelligible, was at the same time paid to him by the British government. In the autumn of 1762 his illegitimate son, William Franklin, was appointed governor of New Jersey. This act created a great storm of wrath from some of the provincial aristocratic party, and was vehemently railed at as an "indignity," a "dishonor and disgrace," an "insult." After all, it failed of its obvious purpose. The government shot brought down the wrong bird, common carrion, while the one aimed at never swerved in the slightest from his course. William, whom no one cared for in the least, became a confirmed royalist, and ultimately, as a Tory refugee, for years continued to absorb a pension for which he could return no adequate consideration. So far as Benjamin Franklin was concerned, he was at first much pleased; but his political views and course were not in the slightest degree affected. On the contrary, as the scheme developed, and the influence on the younger man became apparent, the final result was an alienation between father and son, which was only partially healed so late as 1784, just before the former returned from Europe for the last time.

[CHAPTER IV]

LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA

When Franklin came home he was fifty-six years old. By nature he was physically indolent, and fifteen years ago he had given proof of his desire for the command of his own time by retiring from a lucrative business. But his forecasting of a tranquil, social career in Philadelphia, with science as his chief and agreeable occupation, was still to continue a day-dream, interrupted only by some thoughts of an English home. "Business, public and private, consumes all my time; I must return to England for repose. With such thoughts I flatter myself, and need some kind friend to put me often in mind that old trees cannot safely be transplanted." Thus he wrote to Mary Stevenson, the young lady whom he had hoped to have as a daughter-in-law.

His first labor in the provinces came in the shape of a journey about the country to supervise and regulate the postal business. Upon this errand he went 1600 miles, which was no slight matter as travel was conducted in those days. He started in the spring of 1763, and did not get back until November. Upon his return he found himself at once immersed in public affairs. In October, 1763, Governor Hamilton was superseded by John Penn, nephew of the proprietary Thomas Penn.

"Never," said Franklin, "did any administration open with a more promising prospect than this of Governor Penn. He assured the people in his first speeches of the proprietaries' paternal regard for them, and their sincere dispositions to do everything that might promote their happiness. As the proprietaries had been pleased to promote a son of the family to the government, it was thought not unlikely that there might be something in these professions; for that they would probably choose to have his administration made easy and agreeable, and to that end might think it prudent to withdraw those harsh, disagreeable, and unjust instructions, with which most of his predecessors had been hampered. The Assembly therefore believed fully and rejoiced sincerely. They showed the new governor every mark of respect and regard that was in their power. They readily and cheerfully went into everything he recommended to them."

Moreover, the first event of public importance after Governor Penn's advent had, in its early stage, the effect of drawing him very closely to Franklin. Some of the settlers on the frontier, infuriated beyond the control of reason by the Indian marauding parties, gathered together for the purpose of slaughter. If they had directed their vengeance against the braves, and even all the occupants of the villages of the wilderness, they might have been excused though their vindictive rage led them to retaliate by the same barbarities which the red men had practiced towards the whites. Unfortunately, instead of courageously turning their faces towards the forests, they turned their backs in that direction, where only there was any enemy to be feared, and in a safe expedition they wreaked a deadly, senseless, cowardly, and brutal vengeance on an unoffending group of twenty old men, women, and children, living peacefully and harmlessly near Lancaster. The infamous story is familiar in the annals of Pennsylvania as the "Paxton massacre," because the "Paxton boys," the perpetrators, came from the Scotch-Irish settlement bearing that name.

Franklin's indignation was great, and he expressed it forcibly in a pamphlet. But many, even of the class which should have felt with him, were in such a temper that they would condemn no act done against an Indian. Encouraged by the prevalence of this feeling, this same band, swelled to a numerous and really formidable force, had the audacity to start for Philadelphia itself, with the avowed purpose of massacring there a small body of civilized Christian Indians, who had fled thither for safety under the charge of their Moravian missionary, and against whom not a complaint could be made. Panic reigned in the City of Brotherly Love, little competent to cope with imminent violence. In the crisis citizens and governor could conceive no more hopeful scheme than an appeal to Franklin, which was made at once and urgently. The governor himself actually took up his residence in Franklin's house, and stayed there till the threat of trouble passed over, speaking, writing, and ordering only at Franklin's dictation,—a course which had in it more of sense than of dignity. The appeal was made in the right quarter. Already profoundly moved in this matter, Franklin was prompt and zealous to save his city from a shameful act, and the Indians from barbarous murder. His efforts soon gathered, and after a fashion organized, a body of defenders probably somewhat more numerous than the approaching mob. Yet a collision would have been most unfortunate, whatever the result; and to avert it Franklin took it upon him to go in person to meet the assailants. His courage, coolness, and address prevailed; he succeeded in satisfying the "Paxton boys" that they were so greatly outnumbered that, far from attacking others, they could only secure their own safety by instant dispersion. Thus by the resources and presence of mind of one man Philadelphia was saved from a day of which the bloody stain could never have been effaced from her good fame.

But Franklin seemed for a while to reap more of hostility than of gratitude for his gallant and honorable conduct in this emergency. Governor Penn was an ignoble man, and after the danger was over he left the house, in which he had certainly played a rather ignominious part, with those feelings toward his host which a small soul inevitably cherishes toward a greater under such circumstances. Moreover, there were very many among the people who had more of sympathy with the "Paxton boys" than with the wise and humane man who had thwarted them. "For about forty-eight hours," Franklin wrote to one of his friends, "I was a very great man;" but after "the fighting face we put on" caused the insurgents to turn back, "I became a less man than ever; for I had, by this transaction, made myself many enemies among the populace," a fact of which the governor speedily took advantage. But without this episode enmity between Penn and Franklin was inevitable. They served masters whose ends were wide apart; upon the one side avaricious proprietaries of little foresight and judgment, upon the other side a people jealous of their rights and unwilling to leave to any one else the definition and interpretation of them.

Soon it became known that the instructions of the new governor differed in no substantial particular from those of his predecessors. The procession of vetoes upon the acts of the Assembly resumed its familiar and hateful march. A militia bill was thus cut off, because, instead of leaving with the governor the nomination of regimental officers, it stipulated that the rank and file should name three persons for each position, and that the governor should choose one of these,—an arrangement bad in itself, but perhaps well suited to the habits and even the needs of the province at that time. A tax bill met the like fate, because it did not discriminate in favor of the located lands of the proprietaries by rating their best lands at no higher valuation than the worst lands of other persons. Soon it was generally felt that matters were as bad as ever, and with scantier chances of improvement. Then "all the old wounds broke out and bled afresh; all the old grievances, still unredressed, were recollected; despair succeeded of seeing any peace with a family that could make such returns to all overtures of kindness." The aggrieved party revived its scheme for a transfer of the government from the proprietaries to the crown, and Franklin threw himself into the discussion with more of zeal and ardor than he had often shown.

While the debates upon this subject waxed hot in the Assembly, it was moved and carried that that body should adjourn for a few weeks, in order that members might consult their constituents and sound the public feeling. During this recess it may be conceived that neither side was slack in its efforts. Franklin for his share contributed a pamphlet, entitled "Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of our Public Affairs." "Mischievous and distressing," he said, as the frequent disputes "have been found to both proprietaries and people, it does not appear that there is any prospect of their being extinguished, till either the proprietary purse is unable to support them, or the spirit of the people so broken that they shall be willing to submit to anything rather than continue them." With a happy combination of shrewdness and moderation he laid the blame upon the intrinsic nature of a proprietary government. "For though it is not unlikely that in these as well as in other disputes there are faults on both sides, every glowing coal being apt to inflame its opposite; yet I see no reason to suppose that all proprietary rulers are worse men than other rulers, nor that all people in proprietary governments are worse people than those in other governments. I suspect, therefore, that the cause is radical, interwoven in the constitution, and so become the very nature, of proprietary governments; and will therefore produce its effects as long as such governments continue." It indicated a broad and able mind, and one well under control, to assume as a basis this dispassionate assertion of a general principle, amid such personal heats as were then inflaming the passions of the whole community. His conclusion held one of his admirable similes which had the force of argument: "There seems to remain then but one remedy for our evils, a remedy approved by experience, and which has been tried with success by other provinces; I mean that of an immediate Royal Government, without the intervention of proprietary powers, which, like unnecessary springs and movements in a machine, are so apt to produce disorder."

Further, he held out a bait to the crown:—

"The expression, change of government, seems indeed to be too extensive, and is apt to give the idea of a general and total change of our laws and constitution. It is rather and only a change of governor—that is, instead of self-interested proprietaries, a gracious king. His majesty, who has no views but for the good of the people, will thenceforth appoint the governor, who, unshackled by proprietary instructions, will be at liberty to join with the Assembly in enacting wholesome laws. At present, when the king desires supplies of his faithful subjects, and they are willing and desirous to grant them, the proprietaries intervene and say: 'Unless our private interests in certain particulars are served, nothing shall be done.' This insolent tribunal VETO has long encumbered our public affairs and been productive of many mischiefs."

He then drew a petition "to the king's most excellent majesty in council," which humbly showed "That the government of this province by proprietaries has, by long experience, been found inconvenient, attended by many difficulties and obstructions to your majesty's service, arising from the intervention of proprietary private interests in public affairs, and disputes concerning those interests. That the said proprietary government is weak, unable to support its own authority, and maintain the common internal peace of the province; great riots have lately arisen therein.... And these evils are not likely to receive any remedy here, the continual disputes between the proprietaries and people, and their mutual jealousies and dislikes, preventing." Wherefore his majesty was asked to be "graciously pleased to resume the government of this province, ... permitting your dutiful subjects therein to enjoy, under your majesty's more immediate care and protection, the privileges that have been granted to them by and under your royal predecessors."

The result of feeling the public pulse showed that it beat very high and strong for the proposed change. Accordingly the resolution to present the petition was now easily carried. But again the aged speaker, Norris, found himself called upon to do that for which he had not the nerve. He resigned the speakership; Franklin was chosen in his place and set the official signature to the document.

Another paper by Franklin upon the same subject, and of considerable length, appeared in the shape of a preface to a speech delivered in the Assembly by Joseph Galloway in answer to a speech on the proprietary side by John Dickinson, which speech, also with a long preface, had been printed. In this pamphlet he reviewed all the recent history of the province. He devoted several pages to a startling exposition of the almost incredible usage which had long prevailed, whereby bills were left to accumulate on the governor's table, and then were finally signed by him in a batch, only upon condition that he should receive, or even sometimes upon his simultaneously receiving, a considerable douceur. Not only had this been connived at by the proprietaries, but sometimes these payments had been shared between the proprietaries and the governors. This topic Franklin finally dismissed with a few lines of admirable sarcasm: "Do not, my courteous reader, take pet at our proprietary constitution for these our bargain and sale proceedings in legislation. It is a happy country where justice, and what was your own before, can be had for ready money. It is another addition to the value of money, and, of course, another spur to industry. Every land is not so blessed." Many quotations from this able state paper have already been made in the preceding pages, though it is so brilliant a piece of work that to quote is only to mutilate. Its argument, denunciation, humor, and satire are interwoven in a masterly combination. The renowned "sketch in the lapidary style," prepared for the gravestone of Thomas and Richard Penn, with the introductory paragraphs, constitutes one of the finest assaults in political literature.[12] It is unfortunately impossible to give any adequate idea or even abstract of a document which covers so much ground and with such variety of treatment. It had of course a powerful effect in stimulating the public sentiment, and it was especially useful in supplying formidable arguments to those of the popular way of thinking; drawing their weapons from this armory, they felt themselves invincible.

But it must not be supposed that all this while Franklin was treading the velvet path of universal popularity, amid the unanimous encouragement of his fellow citizens, and with only the frowns of the proprietary officials to disturb his serenity. By one means and another the proprietaries mustered a considerable party in the province, and the hatred of all these men was concentrated upon Franklin with extreme bitterness. He said that he was "as much the butt of party rage and malice," and was as much pelted with hostile prints and pamphlets, as if he were prime minister. Neither was the notion of a royal government looked upon with liking even by all those who were indignant against the present system. Moreover many persons still remained ill disposed towards him by reason of his opinions and behavior during the Paxton outbreak. The combination against him, made up of all these various elements, felt itself powerful enough for mischief, and found its opportunity in the election to the Assembly occurring in the autumn of 1764. The polls were opened on October 1, at nine o'clock in the morning. The throng was dense, and the column of voters could move but slowly. At three o'clock of the following morning, the voting having continued during the night, the friends of the "new ticket," that is to say of the new candidate, moved to close the polls. The friends of the "old ticket" opposed this motion and unfortunately prevailed. They had a "reserve of the aged and lame," who had shunned the crowd and were now brought in chairs and litters. Thus in three hours they increased their score by some two hundred votes. But the other side was not less enterprising, and devoting the same extension of time to scouring Germantown and other neighborhoods, they brought in near five hundred additional votes upon their side. It was apparently this strange blunder of the political managers for the "old ticket" party that was fatal to Franklin, for when the votes were all counted he was found to be beaten by a balance against him of twenty-five. He had therefore evidently had a majority at the hour when his friends prevented the closing of the polls. He "died like a philosopher. But Mr. Galloway agonized in death like a Mortal Deist, who has no Hopes of a Future Existence."[13]

But the jubilation of the proprietary party over this signal victory was soon changed into mourning. For within a few days the new Assembly was in session, and at once took into consideration the appointment of Dr. Franklin as its agent to present to the king in council another petition for a royal government. The wrath of the other side blazed forth savagely. "No measure," their leader, Dickinson, said, was "so likely to inflame the resentments and embitter the discontents of the people." He "appealed to the heart of every member for the truth of the assertion that no man in Pennsylvania is at this time so much the object of public dislike as he that has been mentioned. To what a surprising height this dislike is carried among vast numbers" he did "not choose to repeat." He said that within a few hours of the nomination hundreds of the most reputable citizens had protested, and if time were given thousands "would crowd to present the like testimony against [him]. Why then should a majority of this House single out from the whole world the man most obnoxious to his country to represent his country, though he was at the last election turned out of the Assembly, where he had sat for fourteen years? Why should they exert their power in the most disgusting manner, and throw pain, terror, and displeasure into the breasts of their fellow citizens?" The excited orator then threw out a suggestion to which this vituperation had hardly paved a way of roses; he actually appealed to Franklin to emulate Aristides, and not be worse than "the dissolute Otho," and to this end urged that he should distinguish himself in the eyes of all good men by "voluntarily declining an office which he could not accept without alarming, offending, and disturbing his country." "Let him, from a private station, from a smaller sphere, diffuse, as I think he may, a beneficial light; but let him not be made to move and blaze like a comet, to terrify and to distress."[14] The popular majority in the Assembly withstood Mr. Dickinson's rhetoric, and, to quote the forcible language of Bancroft, "proceeded to an act which in its consequences was to influence the world." That is to say, they carried the appointment. Franklin likewise set aside Dickinson's seductive counsels, and accepted the position.

It is not in human nature to be so extravagantly abused in times of intense excitement, and wholly to hold one's peace. Even the cool temper of Dr. Franklin was incited to a retort; his defense was brief and dignified, in a very different tone from that of the aspersions to which it replied; and it carries that influence which always belongs to him who preserves moderation amid the passions of a fierce controversy.[15]

[CHAPTER V]

SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND, I

Franklin so hastened his preparations that he was ready to depart again for England in twelve days after his election. There was no money in the provincial treasury; but some of the well-to-do citizens, in expectation of reimbursement, raised by subscription £1100. He took only £500. A troop of three hundred mounted citizens escorted him from the city sixteen miles down the river to the ship, and "filled the sails with their good wishes." This parade, designed only as a friendly demonstration, was afterward made a charge against him, as an assumption of pomp and a display of popularity. If it had been deliberately planned, it would have been ill advised; but it took him by surprise, and he could not prevent it. The ship cast anchor in St. Helen's Road, Isle of Wight, on December 9, 1764. He forthwith hastened to London, and installed himself in the familiar rooms at No. 7 Craven Street, Strand. In Philadelphia, when the news came of the safe arrival of this "man the most obnoxious to his country," the citizens kept the bells ringing until midnight.

So altogether the prospect now seemed agreeable in whatever direction Dr. Franklin chose to look. He was in quarters in which he was at least as much at home as he could feel in his house at Philadelphia; Mrs. Stevenson, his landlady, and her daughter Mary, whom he had sought to persuade his son to marry, upon the excellent ground of his own great affection for her, not only made him comfortable but saved him from homesickness; old and warm friends welcomed him; the pleasures of London society again spread their charms before him. Without the regrets and doubts which must have attended the real emigration which he had been half inclined to make, he seemed to be reaping all the gratification which that could have brought him. At the same time he had also the pride of receiving from the other side of the Atlantic glowing accounts of the esteem in which he was held by a controlling body of those who were still his fellow citizens there. But already there had shown itself above the horizon a cloud which rapidly rose, expanded, and obscured all this fair sky.

Franklin came to England in the anticipation of a short stay, and with no purpose beyond the presentation and urging of the petition for the change of government. Somewhat less than ten months, he thought, would suffice to finish this business. In fact, he did not get home for ten years, and this especial errand, which had seemed all that he had to do, soon sank into such comparative insignificance that, though not actually forgotten, it could not secure attention. He conscientiously made repeated efforts to keep the petition in the memory of the English ministry, and to obtain action upon it; but his efforts were vain; that body was absorbed by other affairs in connection with the troublesome American colonies,—affairs which gave vastly more perplexity and called for much more attention than were becoming in the case of provinces that should have been submissive as well-behaved children. Franklin himself found his own functions correspondingly enlarged. Instead of remaining simply an agent charged with urging a petition which brought him in conflict only with private persons, like himself subjects of the king, he found his position rapidly change and develop until he became really the representative of a disaffected people maintaining a cause against the monarch and the government of the great British Empire. It was the "Stamp Act" which effected this transformation.

Scarcely had the great war with France been brought to a close by the treaty of 1763, bringing such enormous advantages to the old British possessions in America, before it became apparent that among the fruits some were mingled that were neither sweet nor nourishing. The war had moved the colonies into a perilous foreground. Their interests had cost much in men and money, and had been worth all that they had cost, and more; the benefits conferred upon them had been immense, yet were recognized as not being in excess of their real importance, present and future. Worst of all, the magnitude of their financial resources had been made apparent; without a murmur, without visible injury to their prosperity, they had voluntarily raised large sums by taxation. Meanwhile the English treasury had been put to enormous charges, and the English people groaned beneath the unwonted tax burdens which they had to bear. The attention of British financiers, even before the war was over, was turned toward the colonies, as a field of which the productive capacity had never been developed.

So soon as peace brought to the government leisure to adjust domestic matters in a thorough manner, the scheme for colonial taxation came to the front. "America ... became the great subject of consideration; ... and the minister who was charged with its government took the lead in public business."[16] This minister was at first Charles Townshend, than whom no man in England, it was supposed, knew more of the transatlantic possessions. His scheme involved a standing army of 25,000 men in the provinces, to be supported by taxes to be raised there. In order to obtain this revenue he first gave his care to the revision of the navigation act. Duties which had been so high that they had never been collected he now proposed to reduce and to enforce. This was designed to be only the first link in the chain, but before he could forge others he had to go out of office with the Bute ministry. The change in the cabinet, however, made no change in the colonial policy; that was not "the wish of this man or that man," but apparently of nearly all English statesmen.

So in March, 1763, George Grenville, in the treasury department, took up the plan which Townshend had laid down. Grenville was commercially minded, and his first efforts were in the direction of regulating the trade of the colonies so as to carry out with much more stringency and thoroughness than heretofore three principles: first, that England should be the only shop in which a colonist could purchase; second, that colonists should not make for themselves those articles which England had to sell to them; third, that the people of different colonies should not trade with each other even to the indirect or possible detriment of the trade of either with England. Severely as these restrictions bore upon the colonists, they were of that character, as relating to external trade, which no colonist denied to lie within the jurisdiction of Parliament. But they were not enough; they must be supplemented; and a stamp act was designed as the supplement. On March 9, 1764, Grenville stated his intention to introduce such a bill at the next session; he needed the interval for inquiries and preparation. It was no very novel idea. It "had been proposed to Sir Robert Walpole; it had been thought of by Pelham; it had been almost resolved upon in 1755; it had been pressed upon Pitt; it seems, beyond a doubt, to have been a part of the system adopted in the ministry of Bute, and it was sure of the support of Charles Townshend. Knox, the agent of Georgia, stood ready to defend it.... The agent of Massachusetts favored raising the wanted money in that way." Little opposition was anticipated in Parliament, and none from the king. In short, "everybody, who reasoned on the subject, decided for a stamp tax."[17] Never did any bill of any legislature seem to come into being with better auspices. Some among the colonial agents certainly expressed ill feeling towards it; but Grenville silenced them, telling them that he was acting "from a real regard and tenderness" towards the Americans. He said this in perfect good faith. His views both of the law and of the reasons for the law were intelligent and honest; he had carefully gathered information and sought advice; and he had a profound belief alike in the righteousness and the wisdom of the measure.

News of what was in preparation in England reached Pennsylvania in the summer of 1764, shortly before Franklin sailed. The Assembly debated concerning it; Franklin was prominent in condemning the scheme; and a resolution protesting against it was passed. It was made part of Franklin's duty in London to urge upon Grenville these views of Pennsylvania. But when he arrived he found that the grinding at the mills of government was going on much too evenly to be disturbed by the introduction of any such insignificant foreign substance as a colonial protest. Nevertheless he endeavored to do what he could. In company with three other colonial agents he had an interview with Grenville, February 2, 1765, in which he urged that taxation by act of Parliament was needless, inasmuch as any requisition for the service of the king always had found, and always would find, a prompt and liberal response on the part of the Assembly. Arguments, however, and protests struck ineffectually against the solid wall of Grenville's established purpose. He listened with a civil appearance of interest and dismissed his visitors and all memory of their arguments together. On the 13th of the same month he read the bill in Parliament; on the 27th it passed the Commons; on March 8, the Lords; and on March 22 it was signed by a royal commission; the insanity of the king saved him from placing his own signature to the ill-starred law. In July Franklin wrote to Charles Thomson:—

"Depend upon it, my good neighbor, I took every step in my power to prevent the passing of the Stamp Act. Nobody could be more concerned and interested than myself to oppose it sincerely and heartily. But the tide was too strong against us. The nation was provoked by American claims of independence, and all parties joined in resolving by this act to settle the point. We might as well have hindered the sun's setting. That we could not do. But since it is down, my friend, and it may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a night of it as we can. We can still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a great way towards indemnifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the former, we may easily bear the latter."

In such a temper was he at this time, and so remained until he got news of the first mutterings of the storm in the colonies. His words show a discouragement and despondency unusual with him; but what attracts remark is the philosophical purpose to make the best even of so bad a business, the hopeless absence of any suggestion of a further opposition, and that his only advice is patient endurance. Unquestionably he did conceive the matter to be for the time settled. The might of England was an awful fact, visible all around him; he felt the tremendous force of the great British people; and he saw their immense resources every day as he walked the streets of busy, prosperous London. As he recalled the infant towns and scattered villages of the colonies, how could he contemplate forcible resistance to an edict of Parliament and the king? Had Otis, Adams, Henry, Gadsden, and the rest seen with their bodily eyes what Franklin was seeing every day, their words might have been more tempered. Even a year later, in talk with a gentleman who said that so far back as 1741 he had expressed an opinion that the colonies "would one day release themselves from England," Franklin answered, "with his earnest, expressive, and intelligent face:" "Then you were mistaken; the Americans have too much love for their mother country;" and he added that "secession was impossible, for all the American towns of importance, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were exposed to the English navy. Boston could be destroyed by bombardment." Near the same time he said to Ingersoll of Connecticut, who was about departing for the colonies: "Go home and tell your countrymen to get children as fast as they can." By no means without forebodings for the future, he was yet far from fancying that the time had come when physical resistance was feasible. It seemed still the day for arguments, not for menaces.

To Franklin in this frame of mind, never doubting that the act would be enforced, there was brought a plausible message from Grenville. The minister desired "to make the execution of the act as little inconvenient and disagreeable to America as possible," and to this end he preferred to nominate as stamp distributers "discreet and reputable" residents in the province, rather than to send over strangers from Great Britain. Accordingly he solicited a nomination from Franklin of some "honest and responsible" man in Philadelphia. Franklin readily named a trustworthy merchant of his acquaintance, Mr. Hughes. The Stamp Act itself hardly turned out a greater blunder for Grenville than this well-meant suggestion was near turning out for Franklin. When the Philadelphians got news of the passage of the act, the preparations for its enforcement, the nomination of Mr. Hughes, and the fact that he had been suggested by Franklin, the whole city rose in a wild frenzy of rage. Never was such a sudden change of feeling. He who had been their trusted companion was now loudly reviled as a false and truckling traitor. He was said to have deserted his own, and to have gone over to the minister's side; to have approved the odious law, and to have asked that a position under it might be given to his friend. The mobs ranging the streets threatened to destroy the new house, in which he had left his wife and daughter. The latter was persuaded to seek safety in Burlington; but Mrs. Franklin, with admirable courage, stayed in the house till the danger was over. Some armed friends stood ready to assist if the crisis should come, but fortunately it passed by. All sorts of stories were spread concerning Franklin,—even that it was he who had "planned the Stamp Act;" and that he was endeavoring also to get the Test Act introduced into the colonies! A caricature represented the devil whispering into his ear: "Ben, you shall be my agent throughout my dominions."

Knowing Franklin's frame of mind, it is easy to fancy the surprise with which he learned of the spirit which had blazed forth in the colonies, and of the violent doings in many places; and we may imagine the pain and mortification with which he heard of the opinions expressed by his fellow citizens concerning his own action. He said little at the time, so far as we know; but many years afterwards he gave a narrative of his course in language which was almost apologetic and deprecatory. A pen in his fingers became a sympathetic instrument, and betrays sometimes what his moderate language does not distinctly state. The intense, bitter condemnation vented by his constituents, who so lately had been following his lead, but who now reviled a representative who had misrepresented them in so vital an affair, cut its way deep.

The gap between him and them did indeed seem a wide one. In the colonies there was universal wrath, oftentimes swelling into fury; in some places mobs, much sacking of houses, hangings and burnings in effigy; compulsion put upon king's officers publicly to resign their offices; wild threats and violence; obstruction to the distribution of the stamped paper; open menaces of forcible resistance, even of secession and rebellion; a careful estimating of the available armed forces among the colonies; the proposal for a congress of colonies to promote community of action, to protest, and to consult for the common cause; disobedient resolutions by legislatures; a spreading of the spirit of colonial union by the general cry of "Join or die;" agreements not to import or use articles of English manufacture, with other sunderings of commercial relations. Far behind this mad procession, of which the more moderate divisions were marshaled by Otis, Sam Adams, and Gadsden, and soon also by John Adams and Patrick Henry, and by many other well-known "patriots," Franklin appeared to be a laggard in the rear distance, with disregarded arguments and protests, with words of moderation, even counsels of submission, nay, actually with a sort of connivance in the measure by the nomination of an official under it.

Yet the intervening space was not so great as it appeared. There was nothing in the counsels of the reasonable and intelligent "patriots" which was repugnant to Franklin's opinions. So soon as he saw the ground upon which they had placed themselves, he made haste to come into position with them. It was fortunate indeed that the transient separation was closed again before it could lead to the calamity of his removal from his office. For no man or even combination of men, whom it was possible to send from the provinces, could have done them the services which Franklin was about to render. Besides the general power of his mind, he had peculiar fitnesses. He was widely known and very highly esteemed in England, where he moved in many circles. Among members of the nobility, among men high in office, among members of Parliament, among scientific men and literary men, among men of business and affairs, and among men who made a business of society, he was always welcome. In that city in which dinners constituted so important an element in life, even for the most serious purposes, he was the greatest of diners-out; while at the coffee-houses, clubs, and in the old-fashioned tavern circles no companion was more highly esteemed than he. He consorted not only with friends of the colonies, but was, and for a long time continued to be, on intimate terms of courteous intercourse also with those who were soon to be described as their enemies. Each and all, amid this various and extensive acquaintance, listened to him with a respect no tithe of which could have been commanded by any other American then living. The force of his intelligence, the scope of his understanding, the soundness of his judgment, had already been appreciated by men accustomed to study and to estimate the value of such traits. His knowledge of American affairs, of the trade and business of the provinces, of the characteristics of the people in different parts of the country, was very great, because of his habit of shrewd observation, of his taste for practical matters, and of his extensive travels and connections as postmaster. Add to this that he had a profound affection for the mother country, which was not only a tradition and a habit, but a warm and lively attachment nourished by delightful personal experience, by long residence and numerous friendships, by gratifying appreciation of and compliments to himself. No one could doubt his sincerity when he talked of his love for England as a real and influential sentiment. At the same time he was an American and a patriot. Though he had failed to anticipate the state of feeling which the Stamp Act begot, it was his only failure of this kind; generally he spoke the sentiments of the colonists with entire truth and sympathy. He was one who could combine force with moderation in the expression of his views, the force being all the greater for the moderation; he had an admirable head to conceive an argument, a tongue and pen to state it clearly and pointedly. He had presence of mind in conversation, was ready and quick at fence; he was widely learned; he was a sounder political economist than any member of the English government; above all, he had an unrivaled familiarity with the facts, the arguments, and the people on both sides of the controversy; he kept perfect control of his temper, without the least loss of earnestness; and had the rare faculty of being able to state his own side with plain force, and yet without giving offense. Such were his singular qualifications, which soon enabled him to perform the greatest act of his public life.

Matters came by degrees into better shape for the colonies. In politics any statesman has but to propose a measure to find it opposed by those who oppose him. So what had seemed an universal willingness to levy internal taxes upon the colonies soon lost this aspect. No sooner did the news from the angry colonies bring the scheme into prominence than the assaults upon it became numerous, and enemies of Grenville became friends of America. Arguments so obvious and so strong as those against the measure were eagerly made the most of by the opponents of the men who were in office. Among these opponents was Pitt, that formidable man before whom all trembled. Gout had disabled him, but who could tell when he might get sufficient respite to return and deal havoc? Yet in spite of all that was said, the ministry seemed impregnable. Grenville was very able, always of a stubborn temper, and in this especial case convinced to the point of intensity that the right lay with him; moreover, he was complete master in Parliament, where his authority seemed still to increase steadily. No man was sanguine enough to see hope for the colonies, when suddenly an occurrence, which in this age could not appreciably affect the power of an English premier, snapped Grenville's sway in a few days. This was only the personal pique of the king, irritated by complaints made by the Duke of Bedford about the favorite, Bute. For such a cause George III. drove out of office, upon grounds of his own dislike, a prime minister and cabinet with whom he was in substantial accord upon the most important public matters then under consideration, and although it was almost impossible to patch together any tolerably congruous or competent body of successors.

Pitt endeavored to form a cabinet, but was obliged, with chagrin, to confess his inability. At last the Duke of Cumberland succeeded in forming the so-called Rockingham Cabinet, a weak combination, but far less unfavorable than its predecessor towards America. The Marquis of Rockingham, as prime minister, had Edmund Burke as his private secretary; while General Conway, one of the very few who had opposed the Stamp Act, now actually received the southern department of state within which the colonies were included. Still there seemed little hope for any undoing of the past, which probably would never have been wrung from this or any British ministry so long as all the discontent was on the other side of three thousand miles of ocean. But this was ceasing to be the case. The American weapon of non-importation was proving most efficient. In the provinces the custom of wearing mourning was abandoned; no one killed or ate lamb, to the end that by the increase of sheep the supply of wool might be greater; homespun was now the only wear; no man would be seen clad in English cloth. In a word, throughout America there was established what would now be called a thorough and comprehensive "boycott" against all articles of English manufacture. So very soon the manufacturers of the mother country began to find themselves the only real victims of the Stamp Act. In America it was inflicting no harm, but rather was encouraging economy, enterprise, and domestic industry; while the sudden closing of so enormous a market brought loss and bankruptcy to many an English manufacturer and warehouseman. Shipping, too, was indirectly affected. An outcry for the change of a disastrous policy swelled rapidly in the manufacturing and trading towns; and erelong the battle of the colonists was being fought by allies upon English soil, who were stimulated by the potent impulse of self-preservation. These men cared nothing for the principle at stake, nothing for the colonists personally; but they cared for the business by which they sustained their own homes, and they were resolved that the destroying Stamp Act should be got out of their way. Such an influence was soon felt. Death also came in aid of the Americans, removing in good time the Duke of Cumberland, the merciless conqueror of Culloden, who now was all ready to fight it out with the colonies, and only thus lost the chance to do so.

Beneath the pressure of these events concession began to be talked of, though at first of course its friends were few and its enemies many. Charles Townshend announced himself able to contemplate with equanimity the picture of the colonies relapsing "to their primitive deserts." But the trouble was that little deserts began to spot the face of England; and still the British merchant, who seldom speaks long in vain, was increasing his clamor, and did not fancy the prospect of rich trading fields reduced to desolation. In January, 1766, too, the dreaded voice of Pitt again made itself heard in St. Stephen's, sending forth an eloquent harangue for America: "The Americans are the sons, not the bastards, of England. As subjects they are entitled to the common right of representation, and cannot be bound to pay taxes without their consent. Taxation is no part of the governing power.[18] The taxes are a voluntary gift and grant by the Commons alone. In an American tax what do we do? We, your Majesty's Commons of Great Britain, give and grant to your Majesty—what? Our own property? No! we give and grant to your Majesty the property of your Majesty's commons in America. It is an absurdity in terms."[19] "The idea of a virtual representation of America in this House is the most contemptible that ever entered into the head of man." "I never shall own the justice of taxing America internally until she enjoys the right of representation." Not very many men in either house of Parliament would go the full logical length of Pitt's argument; but men who held views quite opposite to his as to the lawful authority of Parliament to lay this tax were beginning to feel that they must join him in getting it out of the way of domestic prosperity in England. It seemed to them a mistaken exercise of an unquestionable right. They were prepared to correct the mistake, which could be done without abandoning the right.

As this feeling visibly gained ground the ministry gathered courage to consider the expediency of introducing a bill to repeal the act. Could the king have had his way they would not have survived in office to do so. He would have had their ministerial heads off, as he had stricken those of their immediate predecessors. But efforts which he made to find successors for them were fruitless, and so they remained in places which no others could be induced to fill. Pitt was sounded, to see whether he would ally himself with them; but he would not. Had he been gained the fight would not have come simply upon the repeal of the act as unsatisfactory, but as being contrary to the constitution of England. The narrower battle-ground was selected by Rockingham.

The immediate forerunner in Parliament of the repeal of the Stamp Act was significant. A resolution was introduced into the House of Lords, February 3, 1766, that the "king in Parliament has full power to bind the colonies and people of America in all cases whatsoever." The debate which followed showed what importance this American question had assumed in England; the expression of feeling was intense, the display of ability very great. Lord Camden and Lord Mansfield encountered each other; but the former, with the best of the argument, had much the worst of the division. One hundred and twenty-five peers voted for the resolution, only five against it. In the Commons, Pitt assailed the resolution, with no better success than had attended Camden. No one knew how many voted Nay, but it was "less than ten voices, some said five or four, some said but three."[20] Immediately after this assertion of a principle, the same Parliament prepared to set aside the only application of it which had ever been attempted. It was well understood that the repeal of the Stamp Act was close at hand.

It was at this juncture that Franklin, who had been by no means idle during the long struggle, appeared as a witness in that examination which perhaps displayed his ability to better advantage than any other single act in his life. It was between February 3 and 13, 1766, that he and others were summoned to give testimony concerning the colonies at the bar of the House of Commons sitting in committee of the whole. The others have been forgotten, but his evidence never will be. The proceeding was striking; there were some of the cleverest and most experienced men in England to question him; no one of them singly was his match; but there were many of them, and they conducted an examination and a cross-examination both in one; that is to say, those who wished to turn a point against him might at any moment interpose with any question which might suddenly confuse or mislead him. But no man was ever better fitted than Franklin to play the part of a witness, and no record in politics or in law can compare with the report of his testimony. Some persons have endeavored to account for, which means of course to detract from, its extraordinary merit by saying that some of the questions and replies had been prearranged; but it does not appear that such prearrangement went further than that certain friendly interrogators had discussed the topics with him so as to be familiar with his views. Every lawyer does this with his witnesses. Nor can it be supposed that the admirable replies which he made to the enemies of America were otherwise than strictly impromptu. He had thorough knowledge of the subject; he was in perfect control of his head and his temper; his extraordinary faculty for clear and pithy statement never showed to better advantage; he was, as always, moderate and reasonable; but above all the wonderful element was the quick wit and ready skill with which he turned to his own service every query which was designed to embarrass him; and this he did not in the vulgar way of flippant retort or disingenuous twistings of words or facts, but with the same straightforward and tranquil simplicity of language with which he delivered evidence for the friendly examiners. Burke likened the proceeding to an examination of a master by a parcel of schoolboys.

Franklin used to say, betwixt plaint and humor, that it always seemed to him that no one ever gave an abbreviation or an abstract of anything which he had written, without very nearly spoiling the original. This would be preëminently true of an abstract of this examination; abbreviation can be only mutilation. It ranged over a vast ground,—colonial history and politics, political economy, theories and practice in colonial trade, colonial commerce and industry, popular opinions and sentiment, and the probabilities of action in supposed cases. His answers made a great stir; they were universally admitted to have substantially advanced the day of repeal. They constituted the abundant armory to which the friends of the colonies resorted for weapons offensive and defensive, for facts and for ideas. He himself, with just complacency, remarked: "The then ministry was ready to hug me for the assistance I afforded them." The "Gentleman's Magazine" said:—

"From this examination of Dr. Franklin the reader may form a clearer and more comprehensive idea of the state and disposition in America, of the expediency or inexpediency of the measure in question, and of the character and conduct of the minister who proposed it, than from all that has been written upon the subject in newspapers and pamphlets, under the titles of essays, letters, speeches, and considerations, from the first moment of its becoming the subject of public attention until now. The questions in general are put with great subtlety and judgment, and they are answered with such deep and familiar knowledge of the subject, such precision and perspicuity, such temper and yet such spirit, as do the greatest honor to Dr. Franklin, and justify the general opinion of his character and abilities."

Like praises descended from every quarter.

One interesting fact clearly appears from this examination: that Franklin now fully understood the colonial sentiment, and was thoroughly in accord with it. Being asked whether the colonists "would submit to the Stamp Act, if it were modified, the obnoxious parts taken out, and the duty reduced to some particulars of small moment," he replied with brief decision: "No, they will never submit to it." As to how they would receive "a future tax imposed on the same principle," he said, with the same forcible brevity: "Just as they do this: they would not pay it." Q. "Can anything less than a military force carry the Stamp Act into execution? A. I do not see how a military force can be applied to that purpose. Q. Why may it not? A. Suppose a military force sent into America, they will find nobody in arms. What are they then to do? They cannot force a man to take stamps who chooses to do without them. They will not find a rebellion; they may indeed make one. Q. If the act is not repealed, what do you think will be the consequences? A. A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to this country, and of all the commerce that depends on that respect and affection. 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. Q. Is it in their power to do without 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 until they are able to provide them among themselves; and the last, which are much the greatest part, they will strike off immediately." This view of the willingness and capacity of the colonists to forego English importations he elsewhere elaborated fully. The English merchants knew to their cost that he spoke the truth.

With reference to the enforcement of claims in the courts, he was asked whether the people would not use the stamps "rather than remain ... unable to obtain any right or recover by law any debt?" He replied: "It is hard to say what they would do. I can only judge what other people will think, and how they will act, by what I feel within myself. I have a great many debts due to me in America, and I would rather they should remain unrecoverable by any law than submit to the Stamp Act."

A few weeks later he wrote: "I have some little property in America. I will freely spend nineteen shillings in the pound to defend my right of giving or refusing the other shilling. And, after all, if I cannot defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and subsistence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." The picture of Dr. Franklin, the philosopher, at the age of sixty-one, "cheerfully" sustaining his family in the wilderness by the winnings of his rod and his rifle stirs one's sense of humor; but the paragraph indicates that he was in strict harmony with his countrymen, who were expressing serious resolution with some rhetorical exaggeration, in the American fashion.

The main argument of the colonies, that under the British constitution there could be no taxation without representation, was of course introduced into the examination; and Franklin seized the occasion to express his theory very ingeniously. Referring to the fact that, by the Declaration of Rights, no money could "be raised on the subject but by consent of Parliament," the subtle question was put: How the colonists could think that they themselves had a right to levy money for the crown? Franklin replied: "They understand that clause to relate only to subjects within the realm; that no money can be levied on them for the crown but by consent of Parliament. The colonies are not supposed to be within the realm; they have assemblies of their own, which are their parliaments." This was a favorite theory with him, in expounding which he likened the colonies to Ireland, and to Scotland before the union. Many sentences to the same purport occur in his writings; for example: "These writers against the colonies all bewilder themselves by supposing the colonies within the realm, which is not the case, nor ever was." "If an Englishman goes into a foreign country, he is subject to the laws and government he finds there. If he finds no government or laws there, he is subject there to none, till he and his companions, if he has any, make laws for themselves; and this was the case of the first settlers in America. Otherwise, if they carried the English laws and power of Parliament with them, what advantage could the Puritans propose to themselves by going?" "The colonists carried no law with them; they carried only a power of making laws, or adopting such parts of the English law or of any other law as they should think suitable to their circumstances."[21] Radical doctrines these, which he could not reasonably expect would find favor under any principles of government then known in the world. To the like effect were other assertions of his, made somewhat later: "In fact, the British Empire is not a single state; it comprehends many." "The sovereignty of the crown I understand. The sovereignty of the British legislature out of Britain I do not understand." "The king, and not the King, Lords, and Commons collectively, is their sovereign; and the king with their respective parliaments is their only legislator."[22] "The Parliament of Great Britain has not, never had, and of right never can have, without consent given either before or after, power to make laws of sufficient force to bind the subjects of America in any case whatever, and particularly in taxation." The singular phrase "the subjects of America" is worth noting. In 1769, still reiterating the same principle, he said: "We are free subjects of the king; and fellow subjects of one part of his dominions are not sovereigns over fellow subjects in any other part."

It is a singular fact that Franklin long cherished a personal regard towards the king, and a faith in his friendly and liberal purposes towards the colonies. Indignation against the Parliament was offset by confidence in George III. Even so late as the spring of 1769, he writes to a friend in America: "I hope nothing that has happened, or may happen, will diminish in the least our loyalty to our sovereign, or affection for this nation in general. I can scarcely conceive a king of better disposition, of more exemplary virtues, or more truly desirous of promoting the welfare of all his subjects. The experience we have had of the family in the two preceding mild reigns, and the good temper of our young princes, so far as can yet be discovered, promise us a continuance of this felicity." Of the British people too he thought kindly. But for the Parliament he could find no excuse. He admitted that it might be "decent" indeed to speak in the "public papers" of the "wisdom and the justice of Parliament;" nevertheless, the ascription of these qualities to the present Parliament certainly was not true, whatever might be the case as to any future one. The next year found him still counseling that the colonies should hold fast to their allegiance to their king, who had the best disposition towards them, and was their most efficient bulwark against "the arbitrary power of a corrupt Parliament." In the summer of 1773, he was seeking excuses for the king's adherence to the principle that Parliament could legally tax the colonies: "when one considers the king's situation," with all his ministers, advisers, judges, and the great majority of both houses holding this view, when "one reflects how necessary it is for him to be well with his Parliament," and that any action of his countenancing a doctrine contrary to that of both the Lords and the Commons "would hazard his embroiling himself with those powerful bodies," Franklin was of opinion that it seemed "hardly to be expected from him that he should take any step of that kind." But this was the last apology which he uttered for George III. He was about to reach the same estimation of that monarch which has been adopted by posterity. Only a very little later he writes: "Between you and me, the late measures have been, I suspect, very much the king's own, and he has in some cases a great share of what his friends call firmness." Thus tardily, reluctantly, and at first gently, the kindly philosopher began to admit to himself and others the truth as to his Majesty's disposition and character.

Some persons in England, affected by the powerful argument of non-representation, proposed that the colonies should be represented in Parliament; and about the time of the Stamp Act the possibility of such an arrangement was seriously discussed. Franklin was willing to speak kindly of a plan which was logically unobjectionable, and which involved the admission that the existing condition was unjust; but he knew very well that it would never develop into a practicable solution of the problem, and in fact it soon dropped out of men's minds. January 6, 1766, he wrote that in his opinion the measure of an Union, as he shrewdly called it, was a wise one; "but," he said, "I doubt it will hardly be thought so here until it is too late to attempt it. The time has been when the colonies would have esteemed it a great advantage, as well as honor, to be permitted to send members to Parliament, and would have asked for that privilege if they could have had the least hopes of obtaining it. The time is now come when they are indifferent about it, and will probably not ask it, though they might accept it, if offered them; and the time will come when they will certainly refuse it. But if such an Union were now established (which methinks it highly imports this country to establish), it would probably subsist so long as Britain shall continue a nation. This people, however, is too proud, and too much despises the Americans to bear the thought of admitting them to such an equitable participation in the government of the whole."[23]

Haughty words these, though so tranquilly spoken, and which must have startled many a dignified Briton: behold! a mere colonist, the son of a tallow chandler, is actually declaring that those puny colonies of simple "farmers, husbandmen, and planters" were already "indifferent" about, and would soon feel in condition to "refuse," representation in such a body as the Parliament of England; also that it "highly imported" Great Britain to seek amalgamation while yet it could be had! But Franklin meant what he said, and he repeated it more than once, very earnestly. He resented that temper, of which he saw so much on every side, and which he clearly described by saying that every individual in England felt himself to be "part of a sovereign over America."

Men of a different habit of mind of course reiterated the shallow and threadbare nonsense about "virtual," or as it would be called nowadays constructive, representation of the colonies, likening them to Birmingham, Manchester, and other towns which sent no members to Parliament—as if problems in politics followed the rule of algebra, that negative quantities, multiplied, produce a positive quantity. But Franklin concerned himself little about this unreasonable reasoning, which indeed soon had an effect eminently disagreeable to the class of men who stupidly uttered it. For it was promptly replied that if there were such large bodies of unrepresented Englishmen, it betokened a wrong state of affairs in England also. If English freeholders have not the right of suffrage, said Franklin, "they are injured. Then rectify what is amiss among yourselves, and do not make it a justification of more wrong."[24] Thus that movement began which in time brought about parliamentary reform, another result of this American disturbance which was extremely distasteful to that stratum of English society which was most strenuous against the colonists.

Still another point which demanded elucidation was, why Parliament should not have the power to lay internal taxes just as much as to levy duties. Grenville said: "External and internal taxes are the same in effect, and only differ in name;" and the authority of Parliament to lay external taxes had never been called in question. Franklin's examiners tried him upon this matter: Can you show that there is any kind of difference between the two taxes, to the colony on which they are laid? He answered: "I think the difference is very great. An external tax is a duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is added to the first cost and other charges on the commodity, and, when it is offered for sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do not like it at that price, they refuse it; they are not obliged to pay for it. But an internal tax is forced from the people without their consent, if not laid by their own representatives. The Stamp Act says, we shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase, nor grant, nor recover debts; we shall neither marry nor make our wills; unless we pay such and such sums." It was suggested that an external tax might be laid on the necessaries of life, which the people must have; but Franklin said that the colonies were, or very soon would be, in a position to produce for themselves all necessaries. He was then asked what was the difference "between a duty on the importation of goods and an excise on their consumption?" He replied that there was a very material one; the excise, for reasons given, seemed unlawful. "But the sea is yours; you maintain by your fleets the safety of navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates; you may have, therefore, a natural and equitable right to some toll or duty on merchandises carried through that part of your dominions, towards defraying the expense you are at in ships to maintain the safety of that carriage." This was a rather narrow basis on which to build the broad and weighty superstructure of the British Custom House; but it was not to be expected that Franklin should supply any better arguments upon that side of the question. It was obvious that Grenville's proposition might lead to two conclusions. He said: External and internal taxation are in principle substantially identical; we have the right to the former; therefore we must have the right to the latter. It was a quick reply: Since you have not a right to the latter, you cannot have a right to the former. But Franklin, being a prudent man, kept within his intrenchments, and would not hazard increasing the opposition to the colonial claims by occupying this advanced ground. He hinted at it, nevertheless: "At present the colonists do not reason so; but in time they possibly may be convinced by these arguments;" and so they were.

Franklin also in his examination, and at many other times and places, had something to say as to the willingness of the colonies to bear their full share of public burdens. He spoke with warmth and feeling, but with an entire absence of boastfulness or rodomontade. He achieved his purpose by simply recalling such facts as that the colonies in the late war had kept 25,000 troops in the field; that they had raised sums of money so large that even the English Parliament had seen that they were exceeding any reasonable estimate of their capacity, and had voted some partial restitution to them; and that they had received thanks, official and formal yet apparently sincere, for their zeal and their services. Few Englishmen knew these things. So, too, he said, the Americans would help the mother country in an European war, so far as they could; for they regarded themselves as a part of the empire, and really had an affection and loyalty towards England.

On February 21, 1766, General Conway moved for leave to introduce into the House of Commons a bill to repeal the Stamp Act. The motion was carried. The next day the House divided upon the repealing bill: 275 for repeal, 167 against it. The minority were willing greatly to modify the act; but insisted upon its enforcement in some shape. The anxious merchants, who were gathered in throngs outside, and who really had brought about the repeal, burst into jubilant rejoicing. A few days later, March 4 and 5, the bill took its third reading by a vote of 250 yeas against 122 nays. In the House of Lords, upon the second reading, 73 peers voted for repeal, 61 against it. Thirty-three peers thereupon signed and recorded their protest. At the third reading no division was had, but a second protest, bearing 28 signatures, was entered. On March 18 the king, whose position had been a little enigmatical, but who at last had become settled in opposition to the bill, unwillingly placed his signature to it, and ever after regretted having done so.

When the good news reached the provinces great indeed was the gladness of the people. They heeded little that simultaneously with the repeal a resolve had been carried through declaratory of the principle on which the Stamp Act had been based. The assertion of the right gave them at this moment "very little concern," since they hugged a triumphant belief that no further attempt would be made to carry that right into practice. The people of Philadelphia seemed firmly persuaded that the repeal was chiefly due to the unwearied personal exertions of their able agent. They could not recall their late distrust of him without shame, and now replaced it with boundless devotion. In the great procession which they made for the occasion "the sublime feature was a barge, forty feet long, named FRANKLIN, from which salutes were fired as it passed along the streets."[25] That autumn the old ticket triumphed again at the elections for members of the Assembly. Franklin's own pleasant way of celebrating the great event was by sending to his wife "a new gown," with the message, referring, of course, to the anti-importation league: that he did not send it sooner, because he knew that she would not like to be finer than her neighbors, unless in a gown of her own spinning.

No American will find it difficult to conceive the utter ignorance concerning the colonies which then prevailed in England; about their trade, manufactures, cultivated products, natural resources, about the occupations, habits, manners, and ideas of their people, not much more was known than Americans now know concerning the boers of Cape Colony or the settlers of New Zealand. In his examination before the Commons, in many papers which he printed, by his correspondence, and by his conversation in all the various companies which he frequented, Franklin exerted himself with untiring industry to shed some rays into this darkness. At times the comical stories which he heard about his country touched his sense of humor, with the happy result that he would throw off some droll bit of writing for a newspaper, which would delight the friends of America and make its opponents feel very silly even while they could not help laughing at his wit. A good one of these was the paper in which he replied, among other things, to the absurd supposition that the Americans could not make their own cloth, because American sheep had little wool, and that little of poor quality: "Dear sir, do not let us suffer ourselves to be amused with such groundless objections. The very tails of the American sheep are so laden with wool that each has a little car or wagon on four little wheels to support and keep it from trailing on the ground. Would they caulk their ships, would they even litter their horses, with wool, if it were not both plenty and cheap? And what signifies the dearness of labor when an English shilling passes for five and twenty?" and so on. It is pleasant to think that then, as now, many a sober Britisher, with no idea that a satirical jest at his own expense was hidden away in this extravagance, took it all for genuine earnest, and was sadly puzzled at a condition of things so far removed from his own experience.

Very droll is the account of how nearly a party of clever Englishmen were taken in by the paper which purported to advance the claim of the king of Prussia to hold England as a German province, and to levy taxes therein, supported by precisely the same chain of reasoning whereby Britain claimed the like right in respect of the American colonies. This keen and witty satire had a brilliant success, and while Franklin prudently kept his authorship a close secret, he was not a little pleased to see how well his dart flew. In one of his letters he says:—

"I was down at Lord le Despencer's when the post brought that day's papers. Mr. Whitehead was there, too, who runs early through all the papers, and tells the company what he finds remarkable.... We were chatting in the breakfast parlor, when he came running in to us, out of breath, with the paper in his hand. 'Here,' says he, 'here's news for ye! Here's the king of Prussia claiming a right to this kingdom!' All stared, and I as much as anybody; and he went on to read it. When he had read two or three paragraphs, a gentleman present said: 'Damn their impudence! I daresay we shall hear by the next post that he is upon his march with 100,000 men to back this.' Whitehead, who is very shrewd, soon after began to smoke it, and looking in my face said, 'I'll be hanged if this is not some of your American jokes upon us.'"

Then, amid much laughter, it was admitted to be "a fair hit." Of a like nature was his paper setting out "Rules for reducing a great Empire to a small one," which prescribed with admirable satire such a course of procedure as English ministries had pursued towards the American provinces. Lord Mansfield honored it with his condemnation, saying that it was "very able and very artful indeed; and would do mischief by giving here a bad impression of the measures of government."

Yet this English indifference to transatlantic facts could not always be met in a laughing mood. It was too serious, too unfortunate, too obstinately persisted in to excite only ridicule. It was deplorable, upon the very verge of war, and incredible too, after all the warnings that had been had, that there should be among Englishmen such an utter absence of any desire to get accurate knowledge. In 1773 Franklin wrote: "The great defect here is, in all sorts of people, a want of attention to what passes in such remote countries as America; an unwillingness to read anything about them, if it appears a little lengthy; and a disposition to postpone a consideration even of the things which they know they must at last consider." Such ignorance, fertilized by ill will, bore the only fruit which could grow in such soil: abuse and vilification. Yet all the while the upper classes in France, with their eyes well open to a condition of things which seemed to threaten England, were keen enough in their desire for knowledge, translating all Franklin's papers, and keeping up constant communication with him through their embassy. Patient in others of those faults of vehemence and prejudice which had no place in his own nature, Franklin endured long the English provocations and retorted only with a wit too perfect to be personal, with unanswerable arguments, and with simple recitals of facts. But we shall see, later on, that there came an occasion, just before his departure, when even his temper gave way. It was not surprising, for the blood-letting point had then been reached by both peoples.

Franklin's famous examination and his other efforts in behalf of the colonies were appreciated by his countrymen outside of Pennsylvania. He was soon appointed agent also for New Jersey, Georgia, and Massachusetts. The last office was conferred upon him in the autumn of 1770, by no means without a struggle. Samuel Adams, a man as narrow as Franklin was broad, as violent as Franklin was calm, as bigoted a Puritan as Franklin was liberal a Free-thinker, felt towards Franklin that distrust and dislike which a limited but intense mind often cherishes towards an intellect whose vast scope and noble serenity it cannot comprehend. Adams accordingly strenuously opposed the appointment. It was plausibly suggested that Franklin already held other agencies, and that policy would advise "to enlarge the number of our friends." It was meanly added that he held an office under the crown, and that his son was a royal governor. Other ingenious, insidious, and personal objections were urged. Fortunately, however, it was in vain to array such points against Franklin's reputation. Samuel Cooper wrote to him that, though the House had certainly been much divided, "yet such was their opinion of your abilities and integrity, that a majority readily committed the affairs of the province at this critical season to your care." By reason of this combination of agencies, besides his own personal capacity and prestige, Franklin seemed to become in the eyes of the English the representative of all America. In spite of the unpopularity attaching to the American cause, the position was one of some dignity, greatly enhanced by the respect inspired by the ability with which Franklin filled it, ability which was recognized no less by the enemies than by the friends of the provinces. It was also a position of grave responsibility; and it ought to have been one of liberal emolument, but it was not. The sum of his four salaries should have been £1200; but only Pennsylvania and New Jersey actually paid him. Massachusetts would have paid, but the bills making the appropriations were obstinately vetoed by the royalist governor.[26]

Yet this matter of income was important to him, and it was at no slight personal sacrifice that he was now serving his country. He had a moderate competence, but his expenses were almost doubled by living thus apart from his family, while his affairs suffered by reason of his absence. For a while he was left unmolested in the post-mastership, and in view of all the circumstances it must be confessed that the ministry behaved very well to him in this particular. Rumors which occasionally reached his ears made him uncomfortably aware how precarious his tenure of this position really was. His prolonged absence certainly gave an abundantly fair pretext for his removal; still advantage was not taken of it. Some of his enemies, as he wrote in December, 1770, by plentiful abuse endeavored to provoke him to resign; but they found him sadly "deficient in that Christian virtue of resignation." It was not until 1774, after the episode of the Hutchinson letters and the famous hearing before the privy council, that he was actually displaced. If this forbearance of the ministry was attributable to magnanimity, it stands out in prominent inconsistence with the general course of official life in England at that time. Probably no great injustice would be done in suggesting a baser motive. The ministry doubtless aimed at one or both of two things: to keep a certain personal hold upon him, which might, insensibly to himself, mollify his actions; and to discredit him among his countrymen by precisely such fleers as had been cast against him in the Massachusetts Assembly. More than once they sought to seduce him by offers of office; it was said that he could have been an under-secretary of state, had he been willing to qualify himself for the position by modifying his views on colonial questions. More than once, too, gossip circulated in America that some such bargain had been struck, a slander which was cruel and ignoble indeed, when the opportunity and temptation may be said to have been present any and every day during many years without ever receiving even a moment of doubtful consideration. Yet for this the English ministry are believed not to have been wholly responsible, since some of these tales are supposed to have been the unworthy work of Arthur Lee of Virginia. This young man, a student at one of the Inns of Court in London, was appointed by the Massachusetts Assembly as a successor to fill Franklin's place whenever the latter should return to Pennsylvania. For at the time it was anticipated that this return would soon occur; but circumstances interfered and prolonged Franklin's usefulness abroad during several years more. The heir apparent, who was ambitious, could not brook the disappointment of this delay; and though kindly treated and highly praised by the unsuspicious Franklin, he gave nothing but malice in return. It is perhaps not fully proved, yet it is certainly well suspected by historians, that his desire to wreak injury upon Franklin became such a passion as caused him in certain instances to forget all principles of honor, to say nothing of honesty.

[CHAPTER VI]

SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND, II

In order to continue the narrative of events with due regard to chronological order it is necessary to revert to the repeal of the Stamp Act. The repealing act was fully as unpopular in England as the repealed act had been in America. It was brought about by no sense of justice, by no good will toward the colonists, but solely by reason of the injury which the law was causing in England, and which was forced upon the reluctant consideration of Parliament by the urgent clamor of the suffering merchants; also perhaps in some degree by a disinclination to send an army across the Atlantic, and by the awkward difficulty suggested by Franklin when he said that if troops should be sent they would find no rebellion, no definite form of resistance, against which they could act. The repeal, therefore, though carried by a large majority, was by no means to be construed as an acknowledgment of error in an asserted principle, but only as an unavoidable admission of a mistake in the application of that principle. The repealing majority grew out of a strange coalition of men of the most opposite ways of thinking concerning the fundamental question. For example, Charles Townshend was a repealer, yet all England did not hold a man who was more wedded than was Townshend to the idea of levying internal taxes in the colonies by act of Parliament. The notion had been his own mischievous legacy to Grenville, but he now felt that it had been clumsily used by his legatee. Many men agreed with him, and the prevalence of this opinion was made obvious by the passage, almost simultaneously, of the resolution declaratory of the right of parliamentary taxation. But the solace of an empty assertion was wholly inadequate to heal the deep wound which English pride had received. The great nation had been fairly hounded into receding before the angry resistance of a parcel of provincials dwelling far away across the sea; the recession was not felt to be an act of magnanimity or generosity or even of justice, but only a bitter humiliation and indignity. Poor Grenville, the responsible adviser of the blundering and unfortunate measure, lost almost as much prestige as Franklin gained. It was hard luck for him; he was as honest in his convictions as Franklin was in the opposite faith, and he was a far abler minister than the successor charged to undo his work. But his knowledge of colonial facts was very insufficient, and the light in which he viewed them was hopelessly false. Franklin had a knowledge immeasurably greater, and was almost incapable of an error of judgment; of all the reputation which was won or lost in this famous contest he gathered the lion's share; he was the hero of the colonists; his ability was recognized impartially by both the contending parties in England, and he was marked as a great man by those astute French statesmen who were watching with delight the opening of this very promising rift in the British Empire.

Anger, like water, subsides quickly after the tempest ceases. As each day in its flight carried the Stamp Act and the repeal more remotely into past history, the sanguine and peaceably minded began to hope that England and the colonies might yet live comfortably in union. It only seemed necessary that for a short time longer no fresh provocation should revive animosities which seemed composing themselves to slumber. The colonists tried to believe that England had learned wisdom; Englishmen were cautious about committing a second blunder. In such a time Franklin was the best man whom his countrymen could have had in England. His tranquil temperament, his warm regard for both sides, his wonderful capacity for living well with men who could by no means live well with each other, his social tact, and the respect which his abilities inspired, all combined to enable him now more than ever to fill admirably the position of colonial representative. The effect of such an influence is not to be seen in any single noteworthy occurrence, but is known by a thousand lesser indications, and it is unquestionable that no American representative even to this day has ever been held in Europe in such estimation as was accorded to Franklin at this time. He continued writing and instructing upon American topics, but to what has already been said concerning his services and opinions abroad, there is nothing of importance to be added occurring within two or three years after the repeal. While, however, he played the often thankless part of instructor to the English, he had the courage to assume the even less popular rôle of a moderator towards the colonists. He made it his task to soothe passion and to preach reason. He did not do this as a trimmer; never was one word of compromise uttered by him throughout all these alarming years. But he dreaded that weakness which is the inevitable reaction from excess; and he was supremely anxious to secure that trustworthy strength which is impossible without moderation. What he profoundly wished was that the "fatal period" of war and separation should be as much as possible "postponed, and that whenever this catastrophe shall happen it may appear to all mankind that the fault has not been ours." Yet he fell far short of the Christian principle of turning to the smiter the other cheek. He wished the colonists to keep a steady front face, and only besought them not to rush forward so foolishly fast as to topple over, of which ill-considered violence there was much danger. Of course the usual result of such efforts overtook him. He wrote somewhat sadly, in 1768: "Being born and bred in one of the countries, and having lived long and made many agreeable connections of friendship in the other, I wish all prosperity to both; but I have talked and written so much and so long on the subject, that my acquaintance are weary of hearing and the public of reading any more of it, which begins to make me weary of talking and writing; especially as I do not find that I have gained any point in either country, except that of rendering myself suspected by my impartiality;—in England of being too much an American, and in America of being too much an Englishman." More than once he repeated this last sentence with much feeling. But whatever there was of personal discouragement or despondency in this letter was only a temporary frame of mind. Dr. Franklin never really slackened his labors in a business which he had so much at heart as this of the relationship of the colonies to the mother country. Neither, it is safe to say, did he ever bore any one by what he wrote or by what he said, though his witty effusions in print were usually anonymous, and only some of his soberer and argumentative papers announced their paternity.

The agony with which the repeal of the Stamp Act was effected racked too severely the feeble joints of the Rockingham ministry, and that ill-knit body soon began to drop to pieces. A new incumbent was sought for the department which included the colonies, but that position seemed to be shunned with a sort of terror; no one loved office enough to seek it in this niche; no one could expect comfort in a chamber haunted by such restless ghosts. Early in July, at the earnest solicitation of the king, Pitt endeavored not so much to form a new ministry as to revamp the existing one. He partially succeeded, but not without difficulty. The result seemed to promise well for the colonies, since the new cabinet contained their chief friends: Pitt himself, Shelburne, Camden, Conway, names all justly esteemed by America. Yet all these were fully offset by the audacious Charles Townshend, the originator and great apostle of the scheme of colonial taxation, whom Pitt, much against his will, had been obliged to place in the perilous post of chancellor of the exchequer. It was true that Lord Shelburne undertook the care of the colonies, and that no Englishman cherished better dispositions towards them; but he had to encounter two difficulties, neither of which could be overcome. The one was that Townshend's views were those which soon proved not only to be coincident with those of the king, but also to be popular in Parliament; the other was that, while he had the administration of colonial affairs, Townshend had the function of introducing schemes of taxation. So long as he remained in office he administered all the business of the colonies in the spirit of liberal reform. No reproach was ever brought against his justice, his generosity, his enlightened views of government. But unfortunately all that he had to do, being strictly in the way of administration, such as the restraining over-loyal governors, the amelioration of harsh legislation, and universal moderation in language and behavior, could avail comparatively little so long as Townshend, whom Pitt used to call "the incurable," could threaten and bring in obnoxious revenue measures.

Shelburne had the backing of Pitt; but, by ill luck, so soon as the cabinet was formed, Pitt ceased to be Pitt, and became the Earl of Chatham; and with the loss of his own name he lost also more than half of his power. Moreover the increasing infirmities of his body robbed him of efficiency and impaired his judgment. He was utterly unable to keep in subordination his reckless chancellor of the exchequer, betwixt whom and himself no good will had ever existed. On the other hand, this irrepressible Townshend had a far better ally in George III., who sympathized in his purposes, gave him assistance which was none the less powerful for being indirect and occult, and who hated and ingeniously thwarted Shelburne. Moreover, as has been said, it was a popular delusion that Townshend had exceptionally full and accurate knowledge concerning American affairs. His self-confident air, making assurance of success, won for him one half of the battle by so sure a presage of victory. He lured the members of the House by showing them a considerable remission in their own taxes, provided they would stand by his scheme of replacing the deficit by an income from the colonies; and he boldly assured his delighted auditors that he knew "the mode by which a revenue could be drawn from America without offense." He was of the thoughtless class which learns no lesson. He still avowed himself "a firm advocate of the Stamp Act," and with cheerful scorn he "laughed at the absurd distinction between internal and external taxes." He did not expect, he merrily said, alluding to the distinction just conferred upon Chatham, to have his statue erected in America. The reports of his speeches kept the colonial mind disquieted. The act requiring the provinces in which regiments were quartered to provide barracks and rations for the troops at the public expense was a further irritation. Shelburne sought to make the burden as easy as possible, but Townshend made Shelburne's duties as hard as possible. Of what use were the minister's liberality and moderation, when the chancellor of the exchequer evoked alarm and wrath by announcing insolently that he was for governing the Americans as subjects of Great Britain, and for restraining their trade and manufactures in subordination to those of the mother country! So the struggle went on within the ministry as well as without it; but the opponents of royal prejudice were heavily handicapped; for the king, though stupid in general, had some political skill and much authority. His ill-concealed personal hostility to his "enemy," as he called Shelburne, threatened like the little cloud in the colonial horizon. Nor was it long before Chatham, a dispirited wreck, withdrew himself entirely from all active participation in affairs, shut himself up at Hayes, and refused to be seen by any one who wished to talk on business.

On May 13, 1767, colonial agents and merchants trading to America were refused admission to hear the debates in the House of Commons. Upon that day Townshend was to develop his scheme. By way, as it were, of striking a keynote, he proposed that the province of New York should be restrained from enacting any legislation until it should comply with the "billeting act," against which it had heretofore been recalcitrant. He then sketched a scheme for an American board of commissioners of customs. Finally he came to the welcome point of the precise taxes which he designed to levy: he proposed duties on wine, oil, and fruits, imported directly into the colonies from Spain and Portugal; also on glass, paper, lead, colors, and china, and three pence per pound on tea. The governors and chief justices, most of whom were already appointed by the king, but who got their pay by vote of the colonial assemblies, were hereafter to have fixed salaries, to be paid by the king from this American revenue. Two days later the resolutions were passed, directing the introduction of bills to carry out these several propositions, and a month later the bills themselves were passed.

Meantime the cabinet was again getting very rickety, and many heads were busy with suggestions for patching it in one part or another. With Chatham in retreat and the king in the ascendant, it seemed that Townshend had the surest seat. But there is one risk against which even monarchs cannot insure their favorites, and that risk now fell out against Townshend. He died suddenly of a fever, in September, 1767. Lord North succeeded him, destined to do everything which his royal master desired him to do, and bitterly to repent it. A little later, in December, the king scored another success; Shelburne was superseded in the charge of the colonies by the Earl of Hillsborough, who reëntered the board of trade as first commissioner, and came into the cabinet with the new title of secretary of state for the colonies.

Hillsborough was an Irish peer, with some little capacity for business, but of no more than moderate general ability. He also was supposed, altogether erroneously, to possess a little more knowledge, or, as it might have been better expressed, to be shackled with a little less ignorance, concerning colonial affairs than could be predicated of most of the noblemen who were eligible for public office. America had acquired so much importance that the reputation of familiarity with its condition was an excellent recommendation for preferment. Franklin wrote that this change in the ministry was "very sudden and unexpected;" and that "whether my Lord Hillsborough's administration will be more stable than others have been for a long time, is quite uncertain; but as his inclinations are rather favorable towards us (so far as he thinks consistent with what he supposes the unquestionable rights of Britain), I cannot but wish it may continue."

It was Franklin's temperament to be hopeful, and he also purposely cultivated the wise habit of not courting ill fortune by anticipating it. In this especial instance, however, he soon found that his hopefulness was misplaced. Within six months he discovered that this new secretary looked upon the provincial agents "with an evil eye, as obstructors of ministerial measures," and would be well pleased to get rid of them as "unnecessary" impediments in the transaction of business. "In truth," he adds, "the nominations, particularly of Dr. Lee and myself, have not been at all agreeable to his lordship." It soon appeared that his lordship had the Irish quickness for taking a keen point of law; he broached the theory that no agent could lawfully be appointed by the mere resolution of an assembly, but that the appointment must be made by bill. The value of this theory is obvious when we reflect that a bill did not become law, and consequently an appointment could not be completed, save by the signature of the provincial governor. "This doctrine, if he could establish it," said Franklin, "would in a manner give to his lordship the power of appointing, or, at least, negativing any choice of the House of Representatives and Council, since it would be easy for him to instruct the governor not to assent to the appointment of such and such men, who are obnoxious to him; so that if the appointment is annual, every agent that valued his post must consider himself as holding it by the favor of his lordship;" whereof the consequences were easy to be seen.

There was a lively brush between the noble secretary and Franklin, when the former first propounded this troublesome view. It was in January, 1771, that Franklin called upon his lordship—

"to pay my respects ... and to acquaint him with my appointment by the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay to be their agent here." But his lordship interrupted:—

"I must set you right there, Mr. Franklin; you are not agent.

"Why, my lord?

"You are not appointed.

"I do not understand your lordship; I have the appointment in my pocket.

"You are mistaken; I have later and better advices. I have a letter from Governor Hutchinson; he would not give his assent to the bill.

"There was no bill, my lord; it was a vote of the House.

"There was a bill presented to the governor for the purpose of appointing you and another, one Dr. Lee I think he is called, to which the governor refused his assent.

"I cannot understand this, my lord; I think there must be some mistake in it. Is your lordship quite sure that you have such a letter?

"I will convince you of it directly; Mr. Pownall will come in and satisfy you."

So Mr. Pownall, invoked by the official bell, appeared upon the scene. But he could not play his part; he was obliged to say that there was no such letter. This was awkward; but Franklin was too civil or too prudent to triumph in the discomfiture of the other. He simply offered the "authentic copy of the vote of the House" appointing him, and asked if his lordship would "please to look at it." His lordship took the paper unwillingly, and then, without looking at it, said:—

"An information of this kind is not properly brought to me as secretary of state. The board of trade is the proper place.

"I will leave the paper then with Mr. Pownall to be—

"(Hastily.) To what end would you leave it with him?

"To be entered on the minutes of the board, as usual.

"(Angrily.) It shall not be entered there. No such paper shall be entered there while I have anything to do with the business of that board. The House of Representatives has no right to appoint an agent. We shall take no notice of any agents but such as are appointed by acts of Assembly, to which the governor gives his assent. We have had confusion enough already. Here is one agent appointed by the Council, another by the House of Representatives.[27] Which of these is agent for the province? Who are we to hear in provincial affairs? An agent appointed by act of Assembly we can understand. No other will be attended to for the future, I can assure you.

"I cannot conceive, my lord, why the consent of the governor should be thought necessary to the appointment of an agent for the people. It seems to me that—

"(With a mixed look of anger and contempt.) I shall not enter into a dispute with you, Sir, upon this subject.

"I beg your lordship's pardon; I do not mean to dispute with your lordship. I would only say that it appears to me that every body of men who cannot appear in person, where business relating to them may be transacted, should have a right to appear by an agent. The concurrence of the governor does not seem to be necessary. It is the business of the people that is to be done; he is not one of them; he is himself an agent.

"(Hastily.) Whose agent is he?

"The king's, my lord.

"No such matter. He is one of the corporation by the province charter. No agent can be appointed but by an act, nor any act pass without his assent. Besides, this proceeding is directly contrary to express instructions.

"I did not know there had been such instructions. I am not concerned in any offense against them, and—

"Yes, your offering such a paper to be entered is an offense against them. No such appointment shall be entered. When I came into the administration of American affairs I found them in great disorder. By my firmness they are now something mended; and while I have the honor to hold the seals I shall continue the same conduct, the same firmness. I think my duty to the master I serve, and to the government of this nation, requires it of me. If that conduct is not approved, they may take that office from me when they please: I shall make them a bow and thank them; I shall resign with pleasure. That gentleman [Mr. Pownall] knows it; but while I continue in it I shall resolutely persevere in the same firmness."

Speaking thus, his lordship seemed warm, and grew pale, as if "angry at something or somebody besides the agent, and of more consequence to himself." Franklin thereupon, taking back his credentials, said, speaking with an innuendo aimed at that which had not been expressed, but which lay plainly visible behind his lordship's pallor and excitement:—

"I beg your lordship's pardon for taking up so much of your lordship's time. It is, I believe, of no great importance whether the appointment is acknowledged or not, for I have not the least conception that an agent can, at present, be of any use to any of the colonies. I shall therefore give your lordship no further trouble."

Therewith he made his exit, and went home to write the foregoing sketch of the scene. Certainly throughout so irritating an interview he had conducted himself with creditable self-restraint and moderation, yet with his closing sentence he had sent home a dart which rankled. He soon heard that his lordship "took great offense" at these last words, regarding them as "extremely rude and abusive," and as "equivalent to telling him to his face that the colonies could expect neither favor nor justice during his administration." "I find," adds Franklin, with placid satisfaction in the skill with which he had shot his bolt, "I find he did not mistake me."

So Franklin retained the gratification which lies in having administered a stinging and appreciated retort; a somewhat empty and entirely personal gratification, it must be admitted. Hillsborough kept the substance of victory, inasmuch as he persisted in refusing to recognize Franklin as the agent of the Massachusetts Bay. Yet in this he did not annihilate, indeed very slightly curtailed, Franklin's usefulness. It merely signified that Franklin ceased to be an official conduit for petitions and like communications. His weight and influence, based upon his knowledge and prestige, remained unimpugned. In a word, it was of little consequence that the lord secretary would not acknowledge him as the representative of one province, so long as all England practically treated him as the representative of all America.

From this time forth, of course, there was warfare between the secretary and the unacknowledged agent. Franklin began to entertain a "very mean opinion" of Hillsborough's "abilities and fitness for his station. His character is conceit, wrong-headedness, obstinacy, and passion. Those who speak most favorably of him allow all this; they only add that he is an honest man and means well. If that be true, as perhaps it may, I only wish him a better place, where only honesty and well-meaning are required, and where his other qualities can do no harm.... I hope, however, that our affairs will not much longer be perplexed and embarrassed by his perverse and senseless management." But for the present Franklin was of opinion that it would be well "to leave this omniscient, infallible minister to his own devices, and be no longer at the expense of sending any agent, whom he can displace by a repeal of the appointing act."

Hillsborough's theory was adopted by the board of trade, and Franklin therefore remained practically stripped of the important agency for Massachusetts. He anticipated that this course would soon put an end to all the colonial agencies; but he said that the injury would be quite as great to the English government as to the colonies, for the agents had often saved the cabinet from introducing, through misinformation, "mistaken measures," which it would afterward have found to be "very inconvenient." He expressed his own opinion that when the colonies "came to be considered in the light of distinct states, as I conceive they really are, possibly their agents may be treated with more respect and considered more as public ministers." But this was a day-dream; the current was setting in quite the opposite direction.

In point of fact, Massachusetts seems to have taken no detriment from this foolish and captious bit of chicanery. All the papers and arguments which she had occasion to have presented always found their way to their destination as well as they would have done if Franklin had been acknowledged as the quasi public minister, which he conceived to be his proper character.

Franklin perfectly appreciated that Hillsborough retained his position by precarious tenure. He shrewdly suspected that if the war with Spain, which then seemed imminent, were to break out, Hillsborough would at once be removed. For in that case it would be the policy of the government to conciliate the colonies, at any cost, for the time being. This crisis passed by, fortunately for the secretary and unfortunately for the provinces. Yet still the inefficient and ill-friended minister remained very infirm in his seat. An excuse only was needed to displace him, and by a singular and unexpected chance Franklin furnished that excuse. It was the humble and discredited colonial agent who unwittingly but not unwillingly gave the jar which toppled the great earl into retirement. His fall when it came gave general satisfaction. His unfitness for his position had become too obvious to be denied; he had given offense in quarters where he should have made friends; he had irritated the king and provoked the cabinet. Franklin, with his observant sagacity, quickly divined that George III. was "tired" of Hillsborough and "of his administration, which had weakened the affection and respect of the colonies for a royal government;" and accordingly he "used proper means from time to time that his majesty should have due information and convincing proofs" of this effect of his lordship's colonial policy.

It was, however, upon a comparatively trifling matter that Hillsborough finally lost his place. It has been already mentioned that many years before this time Franklin had urged the establishment of one or two frontier, or "barrier," provinces in the interior. He had never abandoned this scheme, and of late had been pushing it with some prospect of success; for among other encouraging features he astutely induced three privy councilors to become financially interested in the project. The original purpose of the petitioners had been to ask for only 2,500,000 acres of land; but Hillsborough bade them ask for "enough to make a province." This advice was grossly disingenuous; for Hillsborough himself afterward admitted that from the beginning he had intended to defeat the application, and had put the memorialists "upon asking so much with that very view, supposing it too much to be granted." But they, not suspecting, fell into the trap and increased their demand to 23,000,000 acres, certainly a sufficient quantity to call for serious consideration. When the petition came before the board of trade, Lord Hillsborough, who was president of the board, took upon himself the task of rendering a report. To the surprise of the petitioners, who had reason to suppose him well inclined, he replied adversely. The region was so far away, he said, that it would not "lie within the reach of the trade and commerce of this kingdom;" so far, also, as not to admit of "the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction ... necessary for the preservation of the colonies in due subordination to and dependence upon the mother country." The territory appeared, "upon the fullest evidence," to be "utterly inaccessible to shipping," and therefore the inhabitants would "probably be led to manufacture for themselves, ... a consequence ... to be carefully guarded against." Also part belonged to the Indians, who ought not to be disturbed, and settlements therein would of course lead to Indian wars and to "fighting for every inch of the ground." Further, the occupation of this tract "must draw and carry out a great number of people from Great Britain," who would soon become "a kind of separate and independent people, ... and set up for themselves," meeting their own wants and taking no "supplies from the mother country nor from the provinces" along the seaboard. At so great a distance from "the seat of government, courts, magistrates, etc.," the territory would "become a receptacle and kind of asylum for offenders," full of crime itself, and encouraging crime elsewhere. This disorderly population would soon "become formidable enough to oppose his majesty's authority, disturb government, and even give law to the other or first-settled part of the country, and thus throw everything into confusion." Such arguments were as feeble as they were bodeful. The only point which his lordship really scored was in reply to Franklin's theory of the protection against the Indians which these colonies would afford to those on the seaboard. Hillsborough well said that the new settlements themselves would stand most in need of protection. It was only advancing, not eliminating, a hostile frontier.

Evidently it required no very able reasoning, coming from the president of the board, to persuade his subordinates; and this foolish report was readily adopted. But Franklin was not so easily beaten; the privy council furnished one more stage at which he could still make a fight. He drew up a reply to Lord Hillsborough's paper and submitted it to that body. It was a long and very carefully prepared document; it dealt in facts historical and statistical, in which the report was utterly deficient; it furnished evidence and illustration; in arguing upon probabilities it went far toward demolishing the theories advanced by the president of the board. The two briefs were laid before a tribunal in which three men sat who certainly ought not to have been sitting in this cause, since Franklin's interest was also their own; but probably this did not more than counterbalance the prestige of official position in the opposite scale. Certainly Franklin had followed his invariable custom of furnishing his friends with ample material to justify them in befriending him. In this respect he always gallantly stood by his own side. The allies whom at any time he sought he always abundantly supplied with plain facts and sound arguments, in which weapons he always placed his chief trust. So at present, whatever was the motive which induced privy councilors to open their ears to what Franklin had to say, after they had heard him they could not easily decide against him. Nor had those of them who were personally disinterested any great inducement to do so, since, though some of them may have disliked him, none of them had any great liking for his noble opponent. So they set aside the report of the board of trade.[28]

Upon this Lord Hillsborough fell into a hot rage, and sent in his resignation. It was generally understood that he had no notion that it would be accepted, or that he would be allowed to leave upon such a grievance. He fancied that he was establishing a dilemma which would impale Franklin. But he was in error; he himself was impaled. No one expostulated with him; he was left to exercise "the Christian virtue of resignation" without hindrance. Franklin said that the anticipation of precisely this result, so far from being an obstacle in the way of his own success, had been an additional incitement to the course taken by the council.

So the earl, the enemy of America, went out; and the colonial agent had shown him the door, with all England looking on. It was a mortification which Hillsborough could never forgive, and upon four occasions, when Franklin made the conventional call to pay his respects, he did not find his lordship at home. At his fifth call he received from a lackey a very plain intimation that there was no chance that he ever would find the ex-secretary at home, and thereafter he desisted from the forms of civility. "I have never since," he said, "been nigh him, and we have only abused one another at a distance." Franklin had fully balanced one account at least.

So far as the special matter in hand was concerned, the worsting of Hillsborough, though a gratification, did not result in the bettering of Franklin and his co-petitioners. April 6, 1773, he wrote: "The affair of the grant goes on but slowly. I do not yet clearly see land. I begin to be a little of the sailor's mind, when they were landing a cable out of a store into a ship, and one of 'em said: ''T is a long heavy cable, I wish we could see the end of it.' 'Damn me,' says another, 'if I believe it has any end; somebody has cut it off.'" A cable twisted of British red tape was indeed a coil without an end. In this case, before the patent was granted, Franklin had become so unpopular, and the Revolution so imminent, that the matter was dropped by a sort o£ universal consent.