profound knowledge of the law rendered him an object of universal
respect to the profession; whilst his patience, conciliatory manners,
and rigid impartiality engaged the good opinion of all classes of men.
As a proof of this, it is said that as he successively removed from the
Court of Common Pleas to the Exchequer, and from thence to the King’s
Bench, the mass of business always followed him; so that the court in
which he presided was constantly the favourite one with counsel,
attorneys, and parties. Perhaps indeed no judge has ever been so
generally and unobjectionably popular. His address was copious and
impressive, but at times slow and embarrassed: Baxter says “he was a man
of no quick utterance, and often hesitant; but spake with great reason.”
This account of his mode of speaking is confirmed by Roger North, who
adds, however, that “his stop for a word by the produce always paid for
the delay; and on some occasions he would utter sentences heroic.” His
reputation as a legal and constitutional writer is in no degree inferior
to his character as a judge. From the time it was published to the
present day, his history of the Pleas of the Crown has always been
considered as a book of the highest authority, and is referred to in
courts of justice with as great confidence and respect as the formal
records of judicial opinions. His Treatises on the Jurisdiction of the
Lords’ House of Parliament, and on Maritime Law, which were first
published by Mr. Hargrave more than a century after Sir Matthew Hale’s
death, are works of first-rate excellence as legal arguments, and are
invaluable as repositories of the learning of centuries, which the
industry and research of the author had collected.
After his retirement from public life, he wrote his great work called
‘The primitive Origination of Mankind, considered and examined according
to the light of nature.’ Various opinions have been formed upon the
merits of this treatise. Roger North depreciates the substance of the
book, but commends its style; while Bishop Burnet and Dr. Birch greatly
praise its learning and force of reasoning.
Sir Matthew Hale was twice married. By his first wife, who was a
daughter of Sir Henry Moore of Faley in Berkshire, he had ten children,
most of whom turned out ill. His second wife, according to Roger North,
was “his own servant maid;” and Baxter says, “some made it a scandal,
but his wisdom chose it for his convenience, that in his age he married
a woman of no estate, to be to him as a nurse.” Hale gives her a high
character in his will, as “a most dutiful, faithful, and loving wife,”
making her one of his executors, and intrusting her with the education
of his grand-children. He bequeathed his collection of manuscripts,
which he says had cost him much industry and expense, to the Society of
Lincoln’s Inn, in whose library they are carefully preserved.
The published biographies of Hale are extremely imperfect, none of them
containing a particular account of his personal history and character.
Bishop Burnet’s Life is the most generally known, and, though far too
panegyrical and partial, is perhaps the most complete; it has been
closely followed by most of his subsequent biographers. In Baxter’s
Appendix to the Life of Hale, and in his account of his own Life, the
reader will find some interesting details respecting his domestic and
personal habits; and Roger North’s Life of Lord Guilford contains many
amusing, though ill-natured and sarcastic anecdotes of this admirable
judge.
[Illustration: View of Alderley Church.]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Thomson._
FRANKLIN.
_From an original Picture by J. A. Duplesis in the possession of M.
Barnet
Consul General for the United States of America at Paris._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall
East._
]
[Illustration]
FRANKLIN.
Benjamin Franklin was born at Boston in New England, January 6, 1706.
His father was a non-conformist, who had emigrated in 1682, and followed
the trade of a tallow-chandler. Benjamin was one of the youngest of
fourteen children, and, being intended for the ministry, was sent for a
year to the Boston Grammar School; after which, poverty compelled his
father to remove him, at ten years old, to assist in his business. The
boy disliked this occupation so much, that he was bound apprentice to an
elder brother, who was just established at Boston as a printer. Though
but twelve years of age, he soon learnt all his brother could teach him;
but the harsh treatment he met with, which he says first inspired him
with a hatred for tyranny, made him resolve to emancipate himself on the
first opportunity. All his leisure time was spent in reading; and having
exhausted his small stock of books, he resorted to a singular expedient
to supply himself with more. Having been attracted by a treatise on the
advantages of a vegetable diet, he determined to adopt it, and offered
to provide for himself, on condition of receiving half the weekly sum
expended on his board. His brother willingly consented; and by living
entirely on vegetables he contrived to save half his pittance to gratify
his voracious appetite for reading. He continued the practice for
several years, and attributes to it his habitual temperance and
indifference to the delicacies of the table.
Some time before this the elder Franklin had set up a newspaper, the
second ever published in America, which eventually gave Benjamin a
pretext for breaking through the trammels of his apprenticeship. In
consequence of some remarks which gave offence to the provincial
authorities, the former was imprisoned under a warrant from the Speaker
of the Assembly; and his discharge was accompanied with an order, that
“James Franklin should no longer print the New England Courant.” In this
dilemma the brothers agreed that it should be printed for the future in
Benjamin’s name; and to avoid the censure that might fall on the elder
as printing it by his apprentice, the old indenture was cancelled, and a
new one signed which was to be kept secret; but fresh disputes arising,
Benjamin took advantage of the transaction to assert his freedom,
presuming that his brother would not dare to produce the secret
articles. Expostulation was vain; but the brother took care to spread
such reports as prevented him from getting employment at Boston. He
determined therefore to go elsewhere; and, having sold his books to
raise a little money, he set off without the knowledge of his friends,
and wandered by way of New York to Philadelphia, where he found himself
at seventeen with a single dollar in his pocket, friendless and unknown.
He succeeded, however, at last in procuring employment with a printer of
the name of Keimer, with whom he remained seven months. By some accident
he was thrown in the way of the Governor, Sir William Keith, who
promised to be of service to him in his business, if he could persuade
his father to establish him in Philadelphia. His father, however,
refused to advance any money, thinking him too young to be established
in a concern of his own. He therefore once more engaged himself with
Keimer, and remained with him a year and a half.
The favour of the Governor, who promised him introductions and a letter
of credit, led Franklin to undertake a voyage to England, with a view of
improving himself in his trade, and procuring a set of types. But he was
severely disappointed, when, at the end of the voyage, upon applying to
the Captain who carried the Governor’s despatches, he learnt that there
were no letters for him, and that Governor Keith was one of that large
class of persons who are more ready to excite expectations than to
fulfil them. He soon however got employment, and, with frugality,
contrived to maintain both himself and his friend Ralph, who had
accompanied him to England on a literary speculation, which, after many
failures in verse and prose, procured him at last a nook in the Dunciad,
and a pension from the Prince of Wales, whose cause he had espoused in
print against George II.
During his voyage he attracted the notice of a merchant named Denham,
who, again meeting him in London, became fond of him, and engaged his
services as a clerk. After remaining a year and a half in London, he
returned with Mr. Denham to Philadelphia. During this voyage he drew up
a scheme for self-examination, and several prudent rules for the
guidance of his future conduct, to which he steadily adhered through
life. Indeed the remarkable success of most of his undertakings may be
traced in a great measure to this faculty of profiting early by the
lessons of experience, and abiding rigorously by a resolution once made.
He had scarcely returned half a year when his patron died, leaving him
again on the world at the age of twenty-one. But he had now acquired so
much skill in his business, that he was gladly received at advanced
wages into Keimer’s printing-house.
About this time he set on foot a club, called “The Junto,” consisting of
twelve persons of his own age, most of whom proved eminent men in
after-life. This association had much influence on his fortunes,
particularly when, having quarrelled with Keimer, he was induced to
establish himself in partnership with a fellow-journeyman named
Meredith, and needed both interest and money. By 1729 he had saved
enough to buy out his partner, and make himself sole proprietor of the
printing-house. In the following year he married a young woman named
Reade, to whom he had been attached before he went to England.
In 1732 he began to publish ‘Poor Richard’s Almanack.’ It was
interspersed with many prudential maxims, which were printed with
additions, in a collected form, in 1757, and have been translated into
many languages. The annual sale of this Almanack reached 10,000 copies,
and, as it was continued for twenty-five years, was very profitable to
the author.
In 1736 he was appointed Clerk to the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and
obtained their printing. The next year he was made Deputy Postmaster,
and introduced so many judicious reforms into his department, that it
began to bring in a considerable revenue, though up to that time it had
before barely paid its own expenses. He also carried into effect many
improvements at Philadelphia, as his credit with his fellow-townsmen
increased; invariably taking care to introduce them as “the idea of a
few friends,” or “the plan of some public spirited persons,” thus
avoiding the odium which attaches to the corrector of abuses, and
eventually securing the credit of having made useful suggestions. In
these schemes he was well seconded by the “Junto.” Some of them
were—Institutions for watching, paving, and lighting the city; the Union
Fire Company, still, we believe, in useful operation; a Philosophical
Society; an Academy for Education, now grown up into the University of
Pennsylvania; and the City Hospital. But many of these improvements were
brought forward at a later period; for until 1748, when he took a
partner, his time was almost exclusively occupied in his
printing-office.
Being now, comparatively, a man of leisure, he devoted more attention to
philosophical pursuits and to public business, for which his
fellow-citizens began to find his habits and talents exceedingly well
suited. He became, in succession, magistrate, alderman, and member of
the Assembly; and nothing of importance was transacted without his
assistance or advice.
The first public mission in which he was engaged, was to a tribe of
Indians in 1750, which was successful. In 1753 he was appointed
Postmaster-General, with a salary of £300 a year.
The next year he produced a plan for the union of the American
Provinces, for mutual defence against an apprehended invasion by the
French from the Canada frontier. This seems to have been the first time
that such an idea was broached; and, as he was fond of saying, like all
good motions it was kept alive, though not carried into effect at the
time.
Pennsylvania was then ruled by an Assembly elected annually, and a
Governor appointed by the descendants of William Penn, who resided in
England, and were the feudal lords of the soil. This anomalous kind of
government naturally led to misunderstandings, which were among the
causes that mainly contributed to alienate the affections of the
provinces from the mother country. The Proprietaries, as they were
called, laid claim to immunity from taxation, upon grounds which the
Assembly refused to admit; and the Governor and his officers taking part
with the Proprietaries, to whom they were indebted for their
appointments, a controversy grew up, which was never entirely disposed
of while the connexion with Great Britain subsisted. In this dispute
Franklin took an active share, and sided with the opposition, rejecting
frequent overtures from the government; with which, however, he
continued to keep on good terms, never losing sight of the duty of a
citizen, in supporting the authority of the laws, and defending the
state against its foreign and domestic enemies by his writings and
example. In following this course on various occasions, especially that
of the French invasion from Canada, he not only warmly exerted himself
in person, but advanced a good deal of money, which, to the disgrace of
the British Government, was never wholly repaid.
In 1757 he was appointed to manage the controversy with the
Proprietaries in England. Thither he accordingly repaired after some
vexatious delays, and proceeded in the object of his mission with his
accustomed energy; and though he met with many obstacles, his efforts
were at length successful, and the Penns gave up their claim to be
exempt from contributing to the burdens of the state. But they still
held the power of appointing the Governor, which the Province wished to
be transferred to the Crown, and the dispute was afterwards renewed. The
conduct of Franklin in this affair gained him so much credit in America,
that he received the additional appointments of Agent for Maryland,
Massachusetts, and Georgia, each of which provinces had grievances of
its own requiring redress.
During this absence in England, Franklin was presented by the
Universities of St. Andrew’s and Oxford with the degree of D.C.L., and
took his place as Fellow of the Royal Society, which honour, with many
similar distinctions, had been conferred upon him some years before for
his discoveries in electricity. The chief of these were, the identity of
electricity with lightning, and the mode of protecting buildings by
pointed metallic conductors. The simplification which he effected in the
theory of electricity, by showing how all the phenomena are explicable
by the hypothesis of a single electric fluid, forms a remarkable example
of philosophical generalization, and a lasting monument of its author’s
genius[3]. He was also consulted on American affairs by Lord Chatham,
who, by his advice, as it is believed, withdrew a part of the British
force then acting with the King of Prussia, and directed it with so much
secrecy and success against Canada, that the French had no intelligence
of the danger of the province till they heard of its irretrievable loss.
Footnote 3:
See the Library of Useful Knowledge—Treatise on Electricity, § 48, &c.
In the summer of 1762 he returned to Philadelphia, where he received
public thanks, and a grant of £5000 for his services. His popularity was
such, that he had been re-elected annually to the Assembly, and he
immediately resumed the active part which he had formerly taken in its
proceedings.
Among other projects for reform, that relating to the appointment of
Governor, which the Proprietaries seem to have exercised with very
little regard to the public interest, gave rise to much stormy
discussion during the next two years. Franklin’s share in it procured
him many enemies, who succeeded in preventing his election in 1764. Yet,
a strong petition to the Crown on the subject having been disregarded,
he was a second time appointed agent for enforcing the views of the
Assembly upon the authorities in England. When there, he by no means
limited his exertions to this narrow point: minor dissensions were now
merging in the final struggle for national independence, to which the
passing of the Grenville Stamp Act in 1763 gave the immediate impulse.
Franklin reprobated this tax as arbitrary and illegal, when it was first
reported to the Assembly; and his writings in the papers against it with
his examination in Parliament, are thought to have contributed much to
its repeal under the Rockingham administration, in 1766.
In this and the three next years he paid several visits to the
Continent, where he was received with much distinction. He began already
to record his observations upon the part the different powers would be
likely to take in case of a rupture between England and her colonies: an
event which a thorough knowledge of the temper of both led him, even
thus early, to contemplate as by no means improbable. The closure of the
port of Boston in 1773, and the quartering of troops in the town, filled
up the measure of discontent. Franklin was then agent for three
provinces besides Pennsylvania; and their remonstrances, which he lost
no opportunity of forcing on the attention of the English public as well
as the Government, found in him a most efficient supporter. At length,
finding all his efforts to bring about a reconciliation entirely
fruitless, and having met with much misconstruction and personal
indignity at the hands of successive administrations, he resigned his
agencies and set sail for Philadelphia, where he arrived in the spring
of 1775, after an absence of eleven years.
In the preceding autumn a Congress of delegates from the Assemblies of
all the provinces, the idea of which seems to have originated with
Franklin, had met at Philadelphia; and their first act was to sign a
Declaration of Rights, which had been transmitted to Franklin and the
other agents for presentation. The day after his return he was himself
elected to serve in this Congress for Pennsylvania, and was intrusted
with the management of several important negotiations. In the mean time
collisions had taken place between the troops at Boston and the
inhabitants, which led to the actions of Lexington and Bunker’s Hill.
These events quickened the deliberations of the Congress; and after one
more fruitless petition for redress, the Declaration of Independence was
published, July 4, 1776, and warlike preparations were actively
commenced. The English Ministry now sent out Lord Howe, with full powers
to concede every thing but absolute independence; but as the
Commissioners appointed to confer with him, of whom Franklin was one,
were instructed to treat upon no other terms, the negotiation abruptly
terminated.
After his return from a short but unsuccessful mission to Canada, Dr.
Franklin had been appointed President of the Convention for settling the
constitution of Pennsylvania; but he had not long held the office before
his services were again put in requisition by the Congress, as head of
the Commission to the Court of France, with powers to negotiate loans,
purchase stores, and grant letters of marque. He consented, with all the
alacrity of youth, to undertake this charge, though in his 71st year;
and, crossing the Atlantic for the fourth time, arrived in France with
his colleagues before the end of 1776, and took up his residence at
Passy, a village near Paris. The nation at large received the Commission
with open arms, and rendered them much assistance, in which the
Government secretly participated. But it was not till the surrender of
Burgoyne’s army, in October 1777, that the reluctance of the Court to
hazard a war with England was overcome. The treaty of alliance, and
recognition of the United States, was signed in February 1778, and war
immediately was declared against England.
The principal object of the Commission being thus gained, Franklin still
continued in France with the character of plenipotentiary during the
seven remaining years of the war, till 1783, when England consented to
recognize the independence of her late colonies. The definitive treaty
for that purpose was signed by himself, and on the part of England by
David Hartley, September 3, 1783.
He had of late years been afflicted with those painful disorders the
gout and stone, and at last received permission to return, of which he
availed himself the following spring, having just completed his 79th
year. He was, as may be supposed, most enthusiastically received at
Philadelphia, after an absence of eight years and a half; but the
Congress, with an ingratitude which has often been justly laid to the
charge of republics, made him no acknowledgment or compensation for his
long and arduous services; and he felt the neglect rather keenly.
In a very short time we find him again busily engaged in public
employments; first as a member of the Supreme Executive Council, and of
the Commission for the settlement of the National Confederacy, and soon
afterwards as President of the state of Pennsylvania, which he retained
for the full legal period of three years. He was also a leading member
in several societies for public and charitable purposes. One of the
latter was a Society for the Abolition of Slavery, and his last public
act was a memorial to Congress on this subject. He then wholly retired
from public employments, after a life spent in labours through which
nothing could have supported him but a consciousness of the high
responsibilities of a mind gifted like his own, and the magnitude of the
cause for which his powerful advocacy was so long engaged. He died about
two years after his retirement, at the age of eighty-four, in the full
enjoyment of all his faculties. Few men ever possessed such
opportunities or talents for contributing to the welfare of mankind;
fewer still have used them to better purpose: and it is pleasant to
know, on his own authority, that such extensive services were rendered
without any sacrifice of his own happiness. In his later correspondence
he frequently alludes with complacency to a favourite sentiment which he
has also introduced into his Memoirs;—“That he would willingly live over
again the same course of life, even though not allowed the privilege of
an author, to correct in a second edition the faults of the first.”
His remarkable success in life and in the discharge of his public
functions is not to be ascribed to genius, unless the term be extended
to that perfection of common sense and intimate knowledge of mankind
which almost entitled his sagacity to the name of prescience, and made
‘Franklin’s forebodings’ proverbially ominous among those who knew him.
His preeminence appears to have resulted from the habitual cultivation
of a mind originally shrewd and observant, and gifted with singular
powers of energy and self-control. There was a business-like alacrity
about him, with a discretion and integrity which conciliated the respect
even of his warmest political foes; a manly straight-forwardness before
which no pretension could stand unrebuked; and a cool tenacity of temper
and purpose which never forsook him under the most discouraging
circumstances, and was no doubt exceedingly provoking to his opponents.
Indeed his sturdiness, however useful to his country in time of need,
was perhaps carried rather to excess; his enemies called it obstinacy,
and accused him of being morose and sullen. No better refutation of such
a charge can be wished for than the testimony borne to his disposition
by Priestley (Monthly Magazine, 1782), a man whom Franklin was justly
proud to call his friend. In private life he was most estimable; two of
his most favourite maxims were, never to exalt himself by lowering
others, and in society to enjoy and contribute to all innocent
amusements without reserve. His friendships were consequently lasting,
and chosen at will from among the most amiable as well as the most
distinguished of both sexes, wherever his residence happened to be
fixed.