_The Tradesman becomes a Philosopher._
Franklin appointed Indian commissioner--Effects of
Rum--Indian logic--Accumulating honors--Benevolent
enterprises--Franklin's counsel to Tennent--Efforts for city
improvement--Anecdotes--Franklin appointed
postmaster--Rumors of War--England enlists the Six Nations
in her cause--Franklin plans a Confederacy of States--Plans
rejected--Electrical experiments--Franklin's increase of
income--Fearful experiments--The kite--New honors--Views of
the French philosopher--Franklin's Religious views--His
counsel to a young pleader--Post-office Reforms.
In the year 1740, Franklin, then forty-four years of age, was
appointed on a commission to form a treaty with the Indians at
Carlisle. Franklin, knowing the frenzy to which the savages were
plunged by intoxication, promised them that, if they would keep
entirely sober until the treaty was concluded, they should then have
an ample supply of rum. The agreement was made and faithfully kept.
"They then," writes Franklin, "claimed and received the rum.
This was in the afternoon. They were near one hundred men,
women and children, and were lodged in temporary cabins,
built in the form of a square, just without the town. In the
evening, hearing a great noise among them, the commissioners
walked to see what was the matter.
"We found that they had made a great bonfire in the middle of
the square; that they were all drunk, men and women
quarreling and fighting. Their dark-colored bodies,
half-naked, seen only by the gloomy light of the bonfire,
running after and beating one another with firebrands,
accompanied by their horrid yellings, formed a scene the most
resembling our ideas of hell, that could well be imagined.
There was no appeasing the tumult, and we returned to our
lodgings. At midnight a number of them came thundering at our
door demanding more rum, of which we took no notice.
"The next morning they all seemed very much ashamed of the
disgraceful orgies in which they had indulged. There was a
law written in their own hearts, which told them that they
had done wrong. Three chiefs were appointed to call upon the
commissioners with an humble apology. With downcast looks
they confessed their fault, and then with logic which more
intelligent men sometimes use, endeavored to throw the blame
upon God. In remarkable speech one of them said,
"'The Great Spirit, who made all things, made everything for
some use. Whatever use he designed anything for, that use it
should be always put to. Now, when he made rum, he said, "Let
this be for the Indians to get drunk with! and it must be
so."'"
The Governor at this time appointed Franklin a Justice of Peace.
Franklin says he was much flattered by these accumulating honors. Soon
he was elected to a seat, as one of the Legislators in the Assembly.
Mainly through his influence, a hospital for the sick was established
in Philadelphia. Though the measure encountered much opposition, he
carried it; and the institution proved of incalculable benefit.
The Rev. Gilbert Tennent solicited Franklin's aid in raising money for
building a Meeting House. As Franklin had been so continually engaged
in asking for money for various objects of benevolence, he was afraid
he should become obnoxious to his fellow-citizens, and declined. Mr.
Tennent then requested him to give him a list of the names of those
influential persons upon whom it would be well for him to call. Every
Christian minister who reads this, will appreciate the nature of his
embarrassment. Franklin says that he thought it would be unbecoming in
him, after having emptied the purses of his friends, to send other
beggars to them, with renewed importunities. This request he therefore
declined. Mr. Tennent then urged him to give him some advice.
Franklin replied,
"That I will willingly do. In the first place, I advise you to apply
to all those who you know will do something; next, to those who you
are uncertain whether they will give anything or not, and show them
the list of those who have given; and lastly, do not neglect those who
you are sure will give nothing, for in some of them you may be
mistaken."
Mr. Tennent laughed heartily, and declared that he would rigorously
follow out this advice. He did so. His success was wonderful; a much
larger sum was raised than he had anticipated, and soon a capacious
and beautiful Meeting House rose in Arch street.
The streets of Philadelphia, though laid out with great regularity,
were unpaved, and in wet weather were almost impassable quagmires.
Franklin, by talking with his friends, and by urging the subject in
his paper, at length succeeded in having a sidewalk paved with stone,
upon one of the most important streets. It gave great satisfaction,
but the rest of the street not being paved, the mud was thrown by
passing carriages upon it, and as the city employed no street
cleaners, the sidewalk soon ceased to afford a clean passage to
pedestrians.
Franklin found an industrious man who was willing to sweep the
pavement twice a week, carrying off the dirt from before all the
doors, for the sum of sixpence a month, to be paid by each house.
The philosophic Franklin then, having started this enterprise, printed
on a sheet of paper the great advantages of keeping the sidewalk
clean, and sent one of these papers to each house. He urged that much
of the soiling of the interior of the houses would thus be avoided,
that an attractive sidewalk would lure passengers to the shops; and
that, in windy weather, their goods would be preserved from the dust.
After a few days he called, in person, at each house and shop to see
who would subscribe sixpence a month. It was a great success. The
cleanliness of the pavement in the important streets surrounding the
market, greatly delighted the people, and prepared the way for
carrying a bill which Franklin presented to the Assembly for paving
and lighting all the important streets of the city.
A gentleman, by the name of John Clifton, had placed a lamp before his
door. This suggested the idea. Lamps were sent for from London. Globes
were furnished. They were expensive. The smoke circulated in the globe
and obstructed the light. They had to be wiped clean each day. An
accidental stroke demolished the whole globe. Franklin suggested four
flat panes. One might be broken, and easily replaced. Crevices were
left below to admit a current of air, and a funnel to draw off the
smoke. Thus for a long time the glass remained undimmed.
Wherever Franklin went, he carried with him this spirit of
improvement. When in London, he found the streets wretchedly dirty.
One morning he found a poor woman at his door in Craven street,
sweeping the sidewalk with a wretched broom. Her pallid and exhausted
appearance touched the sympathies of Franklin. He asked who employed
her. She replied:
"Nobody. I am poor and in distress. I sweeps before gentlefolks's
doors, and hopes they will give me something."
Franklin immediately engaged her to sweep the whole street. It was
nine o'clock in the morning. She was so languid and debilitated that
he thought it would take her nearly all day. But in three hours she
came for her shilling. Franklin thought she could not have done her
work faithfully. He sent his servant to examine. He reported that the
work was thoroughly done. A new problem rose before Franklin: If this
feeble woman could in so short a time sweep such a street, a strong
man, with a suitable broom, could certainly do it in half of the
time. He therefore drew up a plan for cleaning the streets of London
and Westminster, which was placed in the hands of one of the most
influential of the public-spirited men of London.
Franklin apologizes for speaking in his autobiography of such trifles.
Very truly, he says,
"Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of
good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages
that occur every day. Thus if you teach a poor young man to
shave himself and keep his razor in order, you may
contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving
him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the
regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it. But
in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of
waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers,
offensive breath, and dull razors. He shaves when most
convenient to him, and enjoys daily the pleasure of its
being done with a good instrument."
Nearly all the important offices in the colonies were filled by
appointments from the British Crown. For some time, Franklin had been
employed as an assistant to the Postmaster General, in simplifying and
bringing regularity into his accounts. Upon the death of the American
Postmaster, Franklin, in 1753, was appointed jointly with Sir William
Hunter to succeed him. The appointment was made by the Postmaster
General in England.
The post-office department had scarcely been self-supporting. It had
never paid anything to the crown. The salary offered to the two
postmasters was three thousand dollars a year each, if they could save
that sum from the profits of the office. Franklin writes,
"To do this a variety of improvements was necessary. Some of
these were inevitably, at first, expensive; so that in the
first four years, the office became above nine hundred
pounds in debt to us. But it soon after began to repay us.
And before I was displaced by a freak of the ministers, of
which I shall hereafter speak, we had brought it to yield
three times as much clear revenue to the crown as the
post-office of Ireland. Since that imprudent transaction,
they have received from it not one farthing."
Again there were menaces of war, insane and demoniac, to fill the
world with tears and woe. As we read the record of these horrid
outrages which through all the centuries have desolated this globe, it
would seem that there must be a vein of insanity as well as of
depravity, in the heart of fallen man. England and France were again
marshaling their armies, and accumulating their fleets, for the
terrible conflict.
It was certain that France, in Canada, and England, in her colonies,
could not live in peace here, while the volcanic throes of war were
shaking the island of Great Britain, and the Continent of Europe.
In the heart of New York, then almost an unbroken wilderness, there
were six exceedingly fierce and war-like tribes called the Six
Nations. Like the wolves they delighted in war. The greatness of a man
depended on the number of scalps with which he could fringe his dress.
These savage warriors were ready and eager to engage as the allies of
those who would pay them the highest price. Mercy was an attribute of
which they knew not even the name.
It was not doubted that France would immediately send her emissaries
from Canada to enlist these savages on her side. Awful would be the
woes with which these demoniac men could sweep our defenceless
frontiers; with the tomahawk and the scalping knife, exterminating
families, burning villages, and loading their pack-horses with
plunder. To forestall the French, and to turn these woes from our own
frontier to the humble homes of the Canadian emigrants, the English
government appointed a commissioner to visit the chiefs of these
tribes in the year 1754.
The all important council was to be held in Albany. Governor Hamilton
appointed four commissioners, of whom Franklin was one, to act in
behalf of Pennsylvania. They were furnished with rich gifts with which
to purchase the favor of the Indians. It was a long and tedious
journey from Philadelphia to Albany.
Franklin, on this journey, was deeply impressed with the importance of
a union of the colonies for self-defence. He therefore drew up a plan
for such union. Several gentlemen of the highest intelligence in New
York, having examined it, gave it their cordial approval. He
accordingly laid it before Congress.
There were several other persons in other colonies who were impressed
as deeply as Franklin with a sense of the importance of such a
confederacy, and they also sent in their suggestions.
Congress appointed a committee of one from each province, to consider
the several plans. The committee approved of Franklin's plan, and
reported accordingly. While the commissioners were conferring with the
Indians in Albany, Congress was engaged in discussing the plans of a
confederacy. Franklin's plan was finally rejected. It did not meet the
views either of the Assembly, or of the British Court. And here we
see, perhaps the germs of the great conflict which soon culminated in
the cruel war of the Revolution.
The Assembly objected to the plan as too aristocratic, conferring too
much power upon the crown. The court emphatically rejected it as too
democratic, investing the people with too much power. Franklin ever
affirmed that his plan was the true medium. Even the royalist governor
of Pennsylvania warmly commended the compromise he urged.
In visiting Boston he was shown an electric tube, recently sent from
England. With this tube some very surprising electrical experiments
were performed, ushering in a new science, of which then but very
little was known. Franklin became intensely interested in the subject.
Upon his return to Philadelphia, he devoted himself, with great
assiduity, to experimenting with electric tubes. At this time he wrote
to a friend,
"I never was before engaged in any study that so totally
engrossed my attention and my time, as this has lately done;
for what with making experiments when I can be alone, and
repeating them to my friends and acquaintances, who, from
the novelty of the thing, come continually in crowds to see
them, I have little leisure for anything else."
This was during the winter of 1746-7. Franklin suggested that the
electricity was collected, not created by friction. He also
propounded the theory of positive and negative electricity. He was, at
this time, comparatively a wealthy man, and consequently could afford
to devote his time to philosophical investigation. It is estimated
that his income, from his estates, amounted to about seven hundred
pounds a year; this was equal to about six or seven thousand dollars
at the present time. Mr. Parton writes,
"Besides this independence, Franklin was the holder of two
offices, worth together perhaps one hundred and fifty pounds
a year. His business, then more flourishing than ever,
produced an annual profit, as before computed, of two
thousand pounds; bringing up his income to the troublesome
and absurd amount of nearly three thousand pounds; three
times the revenue of a colonial governor."
Under these prosperous circumstances, Franklin withdrew from active
business, became a silent partner in the firm, and devoted nearly all
his time to the new science. He wrote, in the autumn of 1748, to his
friend Cadwallader Colden of New York,
"I have removed to a more quiet part of the town, where I am
settling my old accounts, and hope soon to be quite master
of my own time, and no longer, as the song has it, 'at every
one's call but my own.'
"Thus you see I am in a fair way of having no other tasks
than such as I shall like to give myself, and of enjoying
what I look upon as a great happiness, leisure to read,
study, make experiments, and converse at large with such
ingenious and worthy men, as are pleased to honor me with
their friendship or acquaintance, on such points as may
produce something for the common benefit of mankind,
uninterrupted by the cares and fatigues of business."
He wrote a treatise upon thundergusts, which displayed wonderful
sagacity, and which arrested the attention of nearly all the
philosophers in Europe and America. The all-important topics of this
exceedingly important document, were the power of points to draw off
electricity, and also the similarity of electricity and lightning. He
therefore urged that metallic rods might be attached to buildings and
ships, which, pushing their needle points above roofs and masts, might
draw the electric fire harmlessly from the clouds. He confesses that
he cannot imagine why the points should possess this curious power,
but urges that facts seem to demonstrate it.
One day, for the entertainment of his friends, he had made
arrangements to kill a turkey with an electric shock. Two large jars
were heavily charged. Incautiously manipulating, he took the shock
himself. In the following language, he describes the effect:
"The flash was very great, and the crack was as loud as a
pistol; yet my senses being instantly gone, I neither saw
the one nor heard the other; nor did I feel the stroke on my
hand, though I afterwards found it raised a round swelling
where the fire entered, as big as half a pistol bullet.
"I then felt what I know not well how to describe, a
universal blow throughout my whole body from head to foot,
which seemed within as well as without; after which the
first thing I took notice of was a violent, quick shaking of
my body, which gradually remitting, my sense as gradually
returned, and then, I thought the bottle must be discharged,
but could not conceive how, till at last I perceived the
chain in my hand, and recollected what I had been about to
do.
"That part of my hand and fingers which held the chain, was
left white as though the blood had been driven out; and
remained so eight or ten minutes after, feeling like dead
flesh; and I had numbness in my arms and the back of my neck
which continued to the next morning, but wore off."
Franklin was much mortified at his awkwardness in this experiment. He
declared it to be a notorious blunder, and compared it with the folly
of the Irishman, who wishing to steal some gun-powder, bored a hole
through the cask with red hot iron. But notwithstanding this warning,
not long afterwards, in endeavoring to give a shock to a paralytic
patient, he received the whole charge himself, and was knocked flat
and senseless on the floor.
In the spring of 1752, Franklin tried his world renowned experiment
with the kite. A June thunder cloud was rising in all its majesty.
Franklin, accompanied by his son, repaired to a field secretly, being
afraid of the ridicule of the people. Here he raised the kite, made of
a large silk handkerchief. The top of the perpendicular stick was
pointed with a sharp metallic rod. The string was hemp with the
exception of the part held in the hand, which was silk; at the end of
the hempen string a common key was suspended. With intense anxiety and
no slight apprehension of danger, he held the line. Soon he observed
the fibres of the hempen string to rise and separate themselves, as
was the case of the hair on the head, when any one was placed on an
insulating stool. He applied his knuckle to the key, and received an
unmistakable spark. As the story is generally told, with occasionally
slight contradictions, he applied his knuckle again and again to the
key with a similar result. He charged a Leyden jar with the fluid and
both he and his son took a shock. He then drew in his kite, packed up
his apparatus and returned to his laboratory probably the most
exultant and happy man in this wide world.
Most of the English and many of the French philosophers were very
unwilling to believe that an obscure American, in what they deemed the
savage and uncultivated wilds of the New World, was outstripping them
in philosophical research. They were unwilling to acknowledge the
reality of his experiments; but in France, where an American would
receive more impartial treatment, three of the most eminent
philosophers, Count de Buffon, M. Dalibard and M. de Lor, at different
places, raised the apparatus Franklin had recommended to draw
electricity from the clouds. Their success was unmistakable; the
results of these experiments were proclaimed throughout Europe.
Franklin had now obtained renown. No one could deny that he merited a
high position among the most eminent philosophers. The experiments he
had suggested were tried by scientists in the philosophical circles of
every country in Europe.
Both Yale and Harvard, in this country, conferred upon him the
honorary degree of Master of Arts, and the Royal Society, in Europe,
by a unanimous vote, elected him a member, remitting the usual
initiation fee of five guineas, and the annual charge of two and a
half guineas. The next year this Society conferred upon him the Copley
medal.
For seven years Franklin continued to devote himself almost
exclusively to this science, and he became, without doubt, the most
accomplished electrician in the world. At the same time his mind was
ever active in devising new schemes for the welfare of humanity. The
most trivial events would often suggest to him measures conducive to
the most beneficial results. It is said that Franklin saw one day in a
ditch the fragments of a basket of yellow willow, in which some
foreign commodity had been imported to this country. One of the twigs
had sprouted. He planted it; and it became the parent of all the
yellow willows in our country.
Franklin was best loved where he was best known. And this was right;
for he was ever conferring deeds of kindness upon his neighbors. His
religious views excited sorrow among his Christian friends. Others,
composing perhaps a majority, cared nothing about what he believed. In
conversation he ever frankly avowed himself a deist, though generally
he made no attempt to convert others to his views. It is not
improbable that he was in some degree influenced by the beneficial
effect produced upon the popular mind by the preaching of his friend
Mr. Whitefield.
The writer was once, in Paris, conversing with one of the most
illustrious of the French philosophers. He said to the philosopher, "I
am much interested to ascertain the views of gentlemen of your
intellectual position respecting the Christian religion." He with
perfect frankness replied, "I think that there are no men of high
culture in France, with a few exceptions, who believe in the divine
origin of Christianity. But there is no philanthropist who will say
so. We have been taught, by the horrors of the French Revolution, that
the masses of the people can only be restrained from violence by the
superstitious restraints which Christianity presents. We therefore
think that every man, who is a gentleman, will do what he can to
sustain the church and the clergy. Men of culture and refinement, are
governed by principles of honor, and they do not need the
superstitious motives of Christianity to influence them."
I may remark, in passing, that this gentlemanly philosopher had
abandoned his own wife, and was then living with the wife of another
man. It is not improbable that Franklin, as he looked upon the
tumultuous and passion-tossed young men of Philadelphia, did not deem
it expedient to say to them,
"The Bible is a fable. The Sabbath is no more sacred than any other
day. The church is merely a human club without any divine authority.
Marriage is an institution which is not founded upon any decree which
God has issued, but one of the expediency of which each individual
must judge for himself. The Sacraments of Baptism, and the Lord's
Supper, are mere human contrivances. The preaching of the Gospel had
better be laid aside for literary and scientific disquisitions."
With the eye of a benevolent philosopher, Franklin, as we have seen,
had watched the effect of the preaching of Mr. Whitefield, and had
candidly acknowledged its power in reforming society. It is improbable
that, in his heart, he felt that the preaching of pure deism could
ever secure such results. In 1753 he wrote to Mr. Whitefield, in reply
to a communication from him upon the Christian faith:
"The faith you mention certainly has its use in the world. I
do not desire to see it diminished, nor would I endeavor to
lessen it in any man."
Franklin had resolved to decline all office, that he might devote
himself to his studies. But his reputation for wisdom was such, that
he found it very difficult to persevere in this plan. Menaces of war
were continually arising. The majority of the members, in the
Assembly, were Quakers. It was a small body consisting of but forty
delegates. The Quakers opposed every measure for public defence.
Franklin, as we have mentioned, became a Justice of the Peace. Soon
after he was an Alderman, and then he took his seat in the General
Assembly.
"I was a bad speaker," he writes, "never eloquent; subject to much
hesitation in the choice of words; and yet I generally carried my
point."
He adds, in language which every young man should treasure up in his
memory, "I retained the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest
diffidence; never using, when I advanced anything that might possibly
be disputed, the words, _certainly_, _undoubtedly_, or any others that
give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather, I _conceive_,
or _apprehend_ a thing to be so and so. _It appears to me_, or, _I
should not think it so for such and such reasons_, or, _I imagine it
to be so_, or, _It is so if I am not mistaken_. This habit, I believe,
has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to
inculcate my opinions; and to persuade men into measures that I have
been from time to time proposing."
When Franklin assumed the charge of the post-office, the department
was in a feeble and peculiar condition. As late as the year 1757, the
mail-bag in Virginia was passed from planter to planter. Each one was
required to forward it promptly, under the penalty of forfeiting a
hogshead of tobacco. Every man took, from the bag, what belonged to
his family, and sent on the rest. The line of post-offices then
extended from Boston, Mass., to Charleston, S. C. It was twenty years
after this, before any governmental mail penetrated the interior.
In the year 1753, Franklin visited every post-office excepting that
of Charleston. His wisdom introduced reforms, some of which have
continued to the present day. A newspaper was charged nine pence
a year, for a distance of fifty miles, and eighteen pence for
one hundred miles or more. In the large towns a penny post was
established, and all letters left remaining in the office were
advertised.
A mail was conveyed from Philadelphia to New York once a week in
summer, and once in two weeks in winter. Franklin started a mail to
leave each of these cities three times a week in summer, and twice in
winter. It generally required six weeks to obtain an answer from a
letter sent to Boston. Most of the roads, into the interior, consisted
of narrow passages, cut through the forest, called Bridle Paths,
because the pack horses were led through them, in single file by the
bridle.