Benjamin Franklin was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706.
His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who married twice,
and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest son. His
schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice to his
brother James, a printer, who published the "New England Courant." To
this journal he became a contributor, and later was for a time its
nominal editor. But the brothers quarreled, and Benjamin ran away, going
first to New York, and thence to Philadelphia, where he arrived in
October, 1723. He soon obtained work as a printer, but after a few
months he was induced by Governor Keith to go to London, where, finding
Keith's promises empty, he again worked as a compositor till he was
brought back to Philadelphia by a merchant named Denman, who gave him a
position in his business. On Denman's death he returned to his former
trade, and shortly set up a printing house of his own from which he
published "The Pennsylvania Gazette," to which he contributed many
essays, and which he made a medium for agitating a variety of local
reforms. In 1732 he began to issue his famous "Poor Richard's Almanac"
for the enrichment of which he borrowed or composed those pithy
utterances of worldly wisdom which are the basis of a large part of his
popular reputation. In 1758, the year in which he ceased writing for the
Almanac, he printed in it "Father Abraham's Sermon," now regarded as the
most famous piece of literature produced in Colonial America.
Meantime Franklin was concerning himself more and more with public
affairs. He set forth a scheme for an Academy, which was taken up later
and finally developed into the University of Pennsylvania; and he
founded an "American Philosophical Society" for the purpose of enabling
scientific men to communicate their discoveries to one another. He
himself had already begun his electrical researches, which, with other
scientific inquiries, he carried on in the intervals of money-making and
politics to the end of his life. In 1748 he sold his business in order
to get leisure for study, having now acquired comparative wealth; and in
a few years he had made discoveries that gave him a reputation with the
learned throughout Europe. In politics he proved very able both as an
administrator and as a controversialist; but his record as an
office-holder is stained by the use he made of his position to advance
his relatives. His most notable service in home politics was his reform
of the postal system; but his fame as a statesman rests chiefly on his
services in connection with the relations of the Colonies with Great
Britain, and later with France. In 1757 he was sent to England to
protest against the influence of the Penns in the government of the
colony, and for five years he remained there, striving to enlighten the
people and the ministry of England as to Colonial conditions. On his
return to America he played an honorable part in the Paxton affair,
through which he lost his seat in the Assembly; but in 1764 he was again
despatched to England as agent for the colony, this time to petition the
King to resume the government from the hands of the proprietors. In
London he actively opposed the proposed Stamp Act, but lost the credit
for this and much of his popularity through his securing for a friend
the office of stamp agent in America. Even his effective work in helping
to obtain the repeal of the act left him still a suspect; but he
continued his efforts to present the case for the Colonies as the
troubles thickened toward the crisis of the Revolution. In 1767 he
crossed to France, where he was received with honor; but before his
return home in 1775 he lost his position as postmaster through his share
in divulging to Massachusetts the famous letter of Hutchinson and
Oliver. On his arrival in Philadelphia he was chosen a member of the
Continental Congress, and in 1777 he was despatched to France as
commissioner for the United States. Here he remained till 1785, the
favorite of French society; and with such success did he conduct the
affairs of his country that when he finally returned he received a place
only second to that of Washington as the champion of American
independence. He died on April 17, 1790.
The first five chapters of the Autobiography were composed in England in
1771, continued in 1784-5, and again in 1788, at which date he brought
it down to 1757. After a most extraordinary series of adventures, the
original form of the manuscript was finally printed by Mr. John Bigelow,
and is here reproduced in recognition of its value as a picture of one
of the most notable personalities of Colonial times, and of its
acknowledged rank as one of the great autobiographies of the world.