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.
[Note 3: _Works_, x. 192.]
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.
[Note 4: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, i. 47.]
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 manoeuvres, 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 "manoeuvre" 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.
[Note 5: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ iv. 176.]
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]
[Note 6: Bancroft, _Hist. U. S._ iv. 182.]
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.