true that they were by lot. I was told that lots were used only in
particular cases; that generally, when a young man found himself
disposed to marry, he informed the elders of his class, who consulted
the elder ladies that governed the young women. As these elders of the
different sexes were well acquainted with the tempers and dispositions
of their respective pupils, they could best judge what matches were
suitable, and their judgments were generally acquiesced in; but if,
for example, it should happen that two or three young women were found
to be equally proper for the young man, the lot was then recurred to.
I objected, if the matches are not made by the mutual choice of the
parties, some of them may chance to be very unhappy. "And so they
may," answered my informer, "if you let the parties choose for
themselves;" which, indeed, I could not deny.
Being returned to Philadelphia, I found the association went on
swimmingly, the inhabitants that were not Quakers having pretty
generally come into it, formed themselves into companies, and chosen
their captains, lieutenants, and ensigns, according to the new law.
Dr. B. visited me, and gave me an account of the pains he had taken to
spread a general good liking to the law, and ascribed much to those
endeavors. I had had the vanity to ascribe all to my "Dialogue;"
however, not knowing but that he might be in the right, I let him
enjoy his opinion, which I take to be generally the best way in such
cases. The officers, meeting, chose me to be colonel of the regiment,
which I this time accepted. I forget how many companies we had, but we
paraded about twelve hundred well-looking men, with a company of
artillery, who had been furnished with six brass fieldpieces,[183]
which they had become so expert in the use of as to fire twelve times
in a minute. The first time I reviewed my regiment they accompanied me
to my house, and would salute me with some rounds fired before my
door, which shook down and broke several glasses of my electrical
apparatus. And my new honor proved not much less brittle; for all our
commissions were soon after broken by a repeal of the law in England.
During this short time of my colonelship, being about to set out on a
journey to Virginia, the officers of my regiment took it into their
heads that it would be proper for them to escort me out of town, as
far as the Lower Ferry. Just as I was getting on horseback they came
to my door, between thirty and forty, mounted, and all in their
uniforms. I had not been previously acquainted with the project, or I
should have prevented it, being naturally averse to the assuming of
state on any occasion; and I was a good deal chagrined at their
appearance, as I could not avoid their accompanying me. What made it
worse was that as soon as we began to move, they drew their swords and
rode with them naked all the way. Somebody wrote an account of this
to the proprietor, and it gave him great offense. No such honor had
been paid him when in the province, nor to any of his governors, and
he said it was only proper to princes of the blood royal; which may be
true for aught I know, who was, and still am, ignorant of the
etiquette in such cases.
This silly affair, however, greatly increased his rancor against me,
which was before not a little on account of my conduct in the Assembly
respecting the exemption of his estate from taxation, which I had
always opposed very warmly, and not without severe reflections on his
meanness and injustice of contending for it. He accused me to the
ministry as being the great obstacle to the king's service,
preventing, by my influence in the House, the proper form of the bills
for raising money; and he instanced this parade with my officers as a
proof of my having an intention to take the government of the province
out of his hands by force. He also applied to Sir Everard Fawkener,
the postmaster-general, to deprive me of my office; but it had no
other effect than to procure from Sir Everard a gentle admonition.
Notwithstanding the continual wrangle between the governor and the
House, in which I, as a member, had so large a share, there still
subsisted a civil intercourse between that gentleman and myself, and
we never had any personal difference. I have sometimes since thought
that his little or no resentment against me for the answers it was
known I drew up to his messages, might be the effect of professional
habit, and that, being bred a lawyer, he might consider us both as
merely advocates for contending clients in a suit, he for the
proprietaries and I for the Assembly. He would, therefore, sometimes
call in a friendly way to advise with me on difficult points, and
sometimes, though not often, take my advice.
We acted in concert to supply Braddock's army with provisions; and
when the shocking news arrived of his defeat, the governor sent in
haste for me to consult with him on measures for preventing the
desertion of the back counties. I forget now the advice I gave; but I
think it was that Dunbar should be written to, and prevailed with, if
possible, to post his troops on the frontiers for their protection,
till, by reënforcements from the colonies, he might be able to proceed
on the expedition. And, after my return from the frontier, he would
have had me undertake the conduct of such an expedition with
provincial troops, for the reduction of Fort Duquesne, Dunbar and his
men being otherwise employed; and he proposed to commission me as
general. I had not so good an opinion of my military abilities as he
professed to have, and I believe his professions must have exceeded
his real sentiments; but probably he might think that my popularity
would facilitate the raising of the men, and my influence in Assembly,
the grant of money to pay them, and that, perhaps, without taxing the
proprietary estate. Finding me not so forward to engage as he
expected, the project was dropped, and he soon after left the
government, being superseded by Captain Denny.
Before I proceed in relating the part I had in public affairs under
this new governor's administration, it may not be amiss here to give
some account of the rise and progress of my philosophical reputation.
[Footnote 158: In 1752 the French began connecting their settlements
on the Lakes and on the Mississippi by a chain of forts on the Ohio.
The English warned off the intruders upon what they deemed their
territory, and sent General Braddock to the colonists' aid. War was
declared in 1756.]
[Footnote 159: A French fort upon the west side of Lake Champlain.]
[Footnote 160: That is, he was born in Boston.]
[Footnote 161: The estate of the Penn family.]
[Footnote 162: Through which the people loaned money to the government.]
[Footnote 163: A tax or duty on certain home productions.]
[Footnote 164: Gun carriages, transport wagons, etc.]
[Footnote 165: Of the government at London, as on p. 147.]
[Footnote 166: "Per diem," i.e., a day, or per day.]
[Footnote 167: Disinterested.]
[Footnote 168: A member of the light cavalry.]
[Footnote 169: "Carrying horses," i.e., carrying packs or burdens upon
the back.]
[Footnote 170: Junior and subordinate officers.]
[Footnote 171: Muscovado sugar is brown sugar.]
[Footnote 172: Upon the site of this fort Pittsburg is built. The French
were also fortified at Niagara and at Frontenac on Lake Ontario.]
[Footnote 173: The historian and philosopher. He was born in 1711 and
died in 1776.]
[Footnote 174: "Bought servants," i.e., those whose service had been
bought for a term of years (see Note 2, p. 69).]
[Footnote 175: This dialogue and the militia act are in the
Gentleman's Magazine for February and March, 1756.]
[Footnote 176: Fifty-five miles north of Philadelphia.]
[Footnote 177: Relieved one another in military duty.]
[Footnote 178: The exact location is not known.]
[Footnote 179: The powder used to fire the charge. It was ignited by a
spark from the flintlock.]
[Footnote 180: Pole.]
[Footnote 181: "Swivel gun," i.e., a gun turning upon a swivel or
pivot in any direction.]
[Footnote 182: Fund.]
[Footnote 183: Light cannon mounted on carriages.]
§ 9. THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENTS.
In 1746, being at Boston, I met there with a Dr. Spence, who was lately
arrived from Scotland, and showed me some electric experiments. They
were imperfectly performed, as he was not very expert; but, being on a
subject quite new to me, they equally surprised and pleased me. Soon
after my return to Philadelphia, our library company received from Mr.
Collinson, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, a present of a glass
tube, with some account of the use of it in making such experiments. I
eagerly seized the opportunity of repeating what I had seen at Boston;
and, by much practice, acquired great readiness in performing those,
also, which we had an account of from England, adding a number of new
ones. I say much practice, for my house was continually full, for some
time, with people who came to see these new wonders.
To divide a little this incumbrance among my friends, I caused a number
of similar tubes to be blown at our glasshouse, with which they
furnished themselves, so that we had at length several performers. Among
these, the principal was Mr. Kinnersley, an ingenious neighbor, who,
being out of business, I encouraged to undertake showing the experiments
for money, and drew up for him two lectures, in which the experiments
were ranged in such order, and accompanied with such explanations in
such method, as that the foregoing should assist in comprehending the
following. He procured an elegant apparatus for the purpose, in which
all the little machines that I had roughly made for myself were nicely
formed by instrument makers. His lectures were well attended, and gave
great satisfaction; and after some time he went through the colonies,
exhibiting them in every capital town, and picked up some money. In the
West India islands, indeed, it was with difficulty the experiments could
be made, from the general moisture of the air.
Obliged as we were to Mr. Collinson for his present of the tube, etc.,
I thought it right he should be informed of our success in using it,
and wrote him several letters containing accounts of our experiments.
He got them read in the Royal Society, where they were not at first
thought worth so much notice as to be printed in their "Transactions."
One paper, which I wrote for Mr. Kinnersley, on the sameness of
lightning with electricity, I sent to Dr. Mitchel, an acquaintance of
mine, and one of the members also of that society, who wrote me word
that it had been read, but was laughed at by the connoisseurs. The
papers, however, being shown to Dr. Fothergill, he thought them of too
much value to be stifled, and advised the printing of them. Mr.
Collinson then gave them to Cave[184] for publication in his
"Gentleman's Magazine;" but he chose to print them separately in a
pamphlet, and Dr. Fothergill wrote the preface. Cave, it seems, judged
rightly for his profit, for, by the additions that arrived afterward,
they swelled to a quarto volume, which has had five editions, and cost
him nothing for copy money.[185]
It was, however, some time before those papers were much taken notice
of in England. A copy of them happening to fall into the hands of the
Count de Buffon, a philosopher deservedly of great reputation in
France, and, indeed, all over Europe, he prevailed with M.[186]
Dalibard to translate them into French, and they were printed at
Paris. The publication offended the Abbé[187] Nollet, preceptor in
natural philosophy to the royal family and an able experimenter, who
had formed and published a theory of electricity which then had the
general vogue. He could not at first believe that such a work came
from America, and said it must have been fabricated by his enemies at
Paris, to decry his system. Afterward, having been assured that there
really existed such a person as Franklin at Philadelphia, which he had
doubted, he wrote and published a volume of "Letters," chiefly
addressed to me, defending his theory, and denying the verity of my
experiments, and of the positions deduced from them.
I once purposed answering the abbé, and actually began the answer;
but, on consideration that my writings contained a description of
experiments which any one might repeat and verify, and if not to be
verified, could not be defended; or of observations offered as
conjectures, and not delivered dogmatically, therefore not laying me
under any obligation to defend them; and reflecting that a dispute
between two persons writing in different languages might be lengthened
greatly by mistranslations, and thence misconceptions of one another's
meaning, much of one of the abbé's letters being founded on an error
in the translation, I concluded to let my papers shift for themselves,
believing it was better to spend what time I could spare from public
business in making new experiments, than in disputing about those
already made. I therefore never answered M. Nollet, and the event gave
me no cause to repent my silence; for my friend M. le Roy, of the
Royal Academy of Sciences, took up my cause and refuted him, my book
was translated into the Italian, German, and Latin languages, and the
doctrine it contained was by degrees universally adopted by the
philosophers of Europe, in preference to that of the abbé; so that he
lived to see himself the last of his sect, except Monsieur B----, of
Paris, his _élève_[188] and immediate disciple.
What gave my book the more sudden and general celebrity was the
success of one of its proposed experiments, made by Messrs. Dalibard
and De Lor at Marly, for drawing lightning from the clouds. This
engaged the public attention everywhere. M. de Lor, who had an
apparatus for experimental philosophy, and lectured in that branch of
science, undertook to repeat what he called the "Philadelphia
experiments," and, after they were performed before the king and
court, all the curious of Paris flocked to see them. I will not swell
this narrative with an account of that capital experiment, nor of the
infinite pleasure I received in the success of a similar one I made
soon after with a kite at Philadelphia, as both are to be found in the
histories of electricity.
Dr. Wright, an English physician, when at Paris, wrote to a friend who
was of the Royal Society, an account of the high esteem my
experiments[n] were in among the learned abroad, and of their wonder
that my writings had been so little noticed in England. The society,
on this, resumed the consideration of the letters that had been read
to them; and the celebrated Dr. Watson drew up a summary account of
them, and of all I had afterward sent to England on the subject, which
he accompanied with some praise of the writer. This summary was then
printed in their "Transactions;" and some members of the society in
London, particularly the very ingenious Mr. Canton, having verified
the experiment of procuring lightning from the clouds by a pointed
rod,[189] and acquainting them with the success, they soon made me
more than amends for the slight with which they had before treated me.
Without my having made any application for that honor, they chose me a
member, and voted that I should be excused the customary payments,
which would have amounted to twenty-five guineas, and ever since have
given me their "Transactions" gratis. They also presented me with the
gold medal of Sir Godfrey Copley for the year 1753, the delivery of
which was accompanied by a very handsome speech of the president, Lord
Macclesfield, wherein I was highly honored.
Our new governor, Captain Denny, brought over for me the
before-mentioned medal from the Royal Society, which he presented to
me at an entertainment given him by the city. He accompanied it with
very polite expressions of his esteem for me, having, as he said, been
long acquainted with my character. After dinner, when the company, as
was customary at that time, were engaged in drinking, he took me aside
into another room, and acquainted me that he had been advised by his
friends in England to cultivate a friendship with me, as one who was
capable of giving him the best advice, and of contributing most
effectually to the making his administration easy; that he therefore
desired of all things to have a good understanding with me, and he
begged me to be assured of his readiness on all occasions to render me
every service that might be in his power. He said much to me, also, of
the proprietor's good disposition toward the province, and of the
advantage it might be to us all, and to me in particular, if the
opposition that had been so long continued to his measures was
dropped, and harmony restored between him and the people; in effecting
which it was thought no one could be more serviceable than myself, and
I might depend on adequate acknowledgments and recompenses, etc. The
drinkers, finding we did not return immediately to the table, sent us
a decanter of Madeira, which the governor made liberal use of, and in
proportion became more profuse of his solicitations and promises.
My answers were to this purpose: that my circumstances, thanks to God,
were such as to make proprietary favors unnecessary to me; and that,
being a member of the Assembly, I could not possibly accept of any;
that, however, I had no personal enmity to the proprietary, and that,
whenever the public measures he proposed should appear to be for the
good of the people, no one should espouse and forward them more
zealously than myself, my past opposition having been founded on this,
that the measures which had been urged were evidently intended to
serve the proprietary interest, with great prejudice to that of the
people; that I was much obliged to him (the governor) for his
professions of regard to me, and that he might rely on everything in
my power to make his administration as easy as possible, hoping at the
same time that he had not brought with him the same unfortunate
instructions his predecessor had been hampered with.
On this he did not then explain himself; but when he afterward came to
do business with the Assembly, they appeared again, the disputes were
renewed, and I was as active as ever in the opposition, being the
penman, first, of the request to have a communication of the
instructions, and then of the remarks upon them, which may be found in
the votes of the time, and in the "Historical Review" I afterward
published. But between us personally no enmity arose; we were often
together. He was a man of letters, had seen much of the world, and was
very entertaining and pleasing in conversation. He gave me the first
information that my old friend James Ralph was still alive; that he
was esteemed one of the best political writers in England; had been
employed in the dispute between Prince Frederic and the king, and had
obtained a pension of three hundred a year; that his reputation was
indeed small as a poet, Pope having damned his poetry in the
"Dunciad," but his prose was thought as good as any man's.
The Assembly, finally finding the proprietary obstinately persisted in
manacling their deputies[190] with instructions inconsistent not only
with the privileges of the people but with the service of the Crown,
resolved to petition the king against them, and appointed me their
agent to go over to England to present and support the petition. The
House had sent up a bill to the governor, granting a sum of sixty
thousand pounds for the king's use, (ten thousand pounds of which was
subjected to the orders of the then general, Lord Loudoun,) which the
governor absolutely refused to pass, in compliance with his
instructions.
[Footnote 184: The publisher, Edward Cave (1691-1754), was the founder
of the Gentleman's Magazine, the earliest literary journal of the kind.]
[Footnote 185: "Copy money," i.e., money paid for the copy or article.]
[Footnote 186: Monsieur.]
[Footnote 187: A title formerly assumed in France by a class of men
who had slight connections with the church, and were employed as
teachers or engaged in some literary pursuit.]
[Footnote 188: Pupil.]
[Footnote 189: The iron rod was on the kite which Franklin flew in a
thunderstorm in 1752. A hemp cord conducted the electricity to a key
near his hand, and from this he received the shock which proved the
truth of his theory that lightning and electricity are one and the
same.]
[Footnote 190: See Note 2, p. 151.]
§ 10. MISSION TO ENGLAND.
I had agreed with Captain Morris, of the packet[191] at New York, for
my passage, and my stores were put on board, when Lord Loudoun arrived
at Philadelphia, expressly, as he told me, to endeavor an
accommodation between the governor and Assembly, that his Majesty's
service might not be obstructed by their dissensions. Accordingly, he
desired the governor and myself to meet him, that he might hear what
was to be said on both sides. We met and discussed the business. In
behalf of the Assembly, I urged all the various arguments that may be
found in the public papers of that time, which were of my writing, and
are printed with the minutes of the Assembly; and the governor pleaded
his instructions, the bond he had given to observe them, and his ruin
if he disobeyed, yet seemed not unwilling to hazard himself if Lord
Loudoun would advise it. This his lordship did not choose to do,
though I once thought I had nearly prevailed with him to do it; but
finally he rather chose to urge the compliance of the Assembly, and he
entreated me to use my endeavors with them for that purpose, declaring
that he would spare none of the king's troops for the defense of our
frontiers, and that, if we did not continue to provide for that
defense ourselves, they must remain exposed to the enemy.
I acquainted the House with what had passed, and, presenting them with
a set of resolutions I had drawn up, declaring our rights, and that we
did not relinquish our claims to those rights, but only suspended the
exercise of them on this occasion through force, against which we
protested, they at length agreed to drop that bill, and frame another,
conformable to the proprietary instructions. This of course the
governor passed, and I was then at liberty to proceed on my voyage.
But, in the mean time, the packet had sailed with my sea stores, which
was some loss to me, and my only recompense was his lordship's thanks
for my service, all the credit of obtaining the accommodation falling
to his share.
He set out for New York before me; and, as the time for dispatching
the packet boats was at his disposition, and there were two then
remaining there, one of which, he said, was to sail very soon, I
requested to know the precise time, that I might not miss her by any
delay of mine. His answer was: "I have given out that she is to sail
on Saturday next; but I may let you know, _entre nous_,[192] that if
you are there by Monday morning, you will be in time, but do not delay
longer." By some accidental hindrance at a ferry, it was Monday noon
before I arrived, and I was much afraid she might have sailed, as the
wind was fair; but I was soon made easy by the information that she
was still in the harbor, and would not move till the next day.
One would imagine that I was now on the very point of departing for
Europe. I thought so; but I was not then so well acquainted with his
lordship's character, of which indecision was one of the strongest
features. I shall give some instances. It was about the beginning of
April that I came to New York, and I think it was near the end of June
before we sailed. There were then two of the packet boats, which had
been long in port, but were detained for the general's letters, which
were always to be ready to-morrow. Another packet arrived; she too was
detained; and, before we sailed, a fourth was expected. Ours was the
first to be dispatched, as having been there longest. Passengers were
engaged in all, and some extremely impatient to be gone, and the
merchants uneasy about their letters and the orders they had given for
insurance (it being war time) for fall goods; but their anxiety
availed nothing; his lordship's letters were not ready; and yet
whoever waited on him found him always at his desk, pen in hand, and
concluded he must needs write abundantly.