performed and that he was never legally married. There is no record of
such a marriage in Christ Church, of which Mrs. Rogers was a member, and
the phrase used, "took her to wife," is supposed to show that they
simply lived together, fearing a regular ceremony, which, if Rogers was
alive, would convict them of bigamy. The absence of any record of a
ceremony is, however, not necessarily conclusive that there was no
ceremony of any kind; and the question is not now of serious importance,
for they intended marriage, always regarded themselves as man and wife,
and, in any event, it was a common-law marriage. Their children were
baptized in Christ Church as legitimate children, and in a deed executed
three or four years after 1730 they are spoken of as husband and wife.
A few months after the marriage his illegitimate son William was born,
and Mr. Bigelow has made the extraordinary statement, "William may
therefore be said to have been born in wedlock, though he was not
reputed to be the son of Mrs. Franklin."[12] This is certainly an
enlarged idea of the possibilities of wedlock, and on such a principle
marriage to one woman would legitimatize the man's illegitimate
offspring by all others. It is difficult to understand the meaning of
such a statement, unless it is an indirect way of suggesting that
William was the son of Mrs. Franklin; but of this there is no evidence.
Franklin always considered his neglect of Miss Read after he had
observed her affection for him one of the errors of his life. He had
almost forgotten her while in London, and after he returned appears to
have shown her no attention, until, by the failure of the match Mrs.
Godfrey had arranged for him, he was driven to the determination to
marry some one. He believed that he had largely corrected this error by
marrying her. "She proved a good and faithful helpmate," he says;
"assisted me much by attending the shop; we throve together, and have
ever mutually endeavored to make each other happy." She died in 1774,
while Franklin was in England.
There is nothing in anything he ever said to show that they did not get
on well together. On the contrary, their letters seem to show a most
friendly companionship. He addressed her in his letters as "my dear
child," and sometimes closed by calling her "dear Debby," and she also
addressed him as "dear child." During his absence in England they
corresponded a great deal. Her letters to him were so frequent that he
complained that he could not keep up with them; and his letters to her
were written in his best vein, beautiful specimens of his delicate
mastery of language, as the large collection of them in the possession
of the American Philosophical Society abundantly shows.
In writing to Miss Catharine Ray, afterwards the wife of Governor
Greene, of Rhode Island, who had sent him a cheese, he said,--
"Mrs. Franklin was very proud that a young lady should have so
much regard for her old husband as to send him such a present.
We talk of you every time it comes to the table. She is sure you
are a sensible girl, and a notable housewife, and talks of
bequeathing me to you as a legacy; but I ought to wish you a
better, and I hope she will live these hundred years; for we are
grown old together, and if she has any faults, I am so used to
them that I don't perceive them. As the song says,--
"'Some faults we have all, & so has my Joan,
But then they're exceedingly small;
And, now I'm grown used to them, so like my own,
I scarcely can see them at all,
My dear friends,
I scarcely can see them at all.'
"Indeed I begin to think she has none, as I think of you. And
since she is willing I should love you as much as you are
willing to be loved by me, let us join in wishing the old lady a
long life and a happy one."
While absent at an Indian conference on the frontier, he wrote
reprovingly to his wife for not sending him a letter:
"I had a good mind not to write to you by this opportunity; but
I never can be ill natured enough even when there is the most
occasion. I think I won't tell you that we are well, nor that we
expect to return about the middle of the week, nor will I send
you a word of news; that's poz. My duty to mother, love to the
children, and to Miss Betsey and Gracy. I am your loving
husband.
"P. S. I have _scratched out the loving words_; being writ in
haste by mistake when I forgot I was angry."
Mrs. Franklin was a stout, handsome woman. We have a description of her
by her husband in a letter he wrote from London telling her of the
various presents and supplies he had sent home:
"I also forgot, among the china, to mention a large fine jug for
beer, to stand in the cooler. I fell in love with it at first
sight; for I thought it looked like a fat jolly dame, clean and
tidy, with a neat blue and white calico gown on, good natured
and lovely, and put me in mind of somebody."
This letter is full of interesting details. He tells her of the regard
and friendship he meets with from persons of worth, and of his longing
desire to be home again. A full description of the articles sent would
be too long to quote entire, but some of it may be given as a glimpse of
their domestic life:
"I send you some English china; viz, melons and hams for a
dessert of fruit or the like; a bowl remarkable for the neatness
of the figures, made at Bow, near this city; some coffee cups of
the same; a Worcester bowl, ordinary. To show the difference of
workmanship, there is something from all the china works in
England; and one old true china bason mended, of an odd color.
The same box contains four silver salt ladles, newest but
ugliest fashion; a little instrument to core apples; another to
make little turnips out of great ones; six coarse diaper
breakfast cloths; they are to spread on the tea table, for
nobody breakfasts here on the naked table, but on the cloth they
set a large tea board with the cups. There is also a little
basket, a present from Mrs. Stevenson to Sally, and a pair of
garters for you, which were knit by the young lady, her
daughter, who favored me with a pair of the same kind; the only
ones I have been able to wear, as they need not be bound tight,
the ridges in them preventing their slipping. We send them
therefore as a curiosity for the form, more than for the value.
Goody Smith may, if she pleases, make such for me hereafter. My
love to her."
At the time of the Stamp Act, in 1765, when the Philadelphians were much
incensed against Franklin for not having, as they thought, sufficiently
resisted, as their agent in England, the passage of the act, the mob
threatened Mrs. Franklin's house, and she wrote to her husband:
[Illustration: MRS. FRANKLIN]
"I was for nine days kept in a continual hurry by people to
remove, and Sally was persuaded to go to Burlington for safety.
Cousin Davenport came and told me that more than twenty people
had told him it was his duty to be with me. I said I was pleased
to receive civility from anybody, so he staid with me some time;
towards night I said he should fetch a gun or two, as we had
none. I sent to ask my brother to come and bring his gun also,
so we turned one room into a magazine; I ordered some sort of
defense up stairs such as I could manage myself. I said when I
was advised to remove, that I was very sure you had done nothing
to hurt anybody, nor had I given any offense to any person at
all, nor would I be made uneasy by anybody, nor would I stir or
show the least uneasiness, but if any one came to disturb me I
would show a proper resentment. I was told that there were eight
hundred men ready to assist anyone that should be molested."
This letter is certainly written in a homely and pleasant way, not
unlike the style of her husband, and other letters of hers have been
published at different times possessing the same merit; but they have
all been more or less corrected, and in some instances rewritten, before
they appeared in print, for she was a very illiterate woman. I have not
access to the original manuscript of the letter I have quoted, but I
will give another, which is to be found in the collection of the
American Philosophical Society, exactly as she wrote it:
October ye 29, 1773.
"MY DEAR CHILD
"I have bin very much distrest a boute as I did not oney letter
nor one word from you nor did I hear one word from oney bodey
that you wrote to So I must submit and indever to submit to what
I ame to bair I did write by Capt Folkner to you but he is gone
doun and when I read it over I did not like it and so if this
dont send it I shante like it as I donte send you oney news nor
I donte go abrode.
"I shall tell you what consernes myself our yonegest Grandson is
the finest child as alive he has had the small Pox and had it
very fine and got abrod agen Capt All will tell you a boute him
Benj Franklin Beache but as it is so deficall to writ I have
desered him to tell you I have sente a squerel for your friend
and wish her better luck it is a very fine one I have had very
bad luck with two they one killed and another run a way allthou
they was bred up tame I have not a caige as I donte know where
the man lives that makes them my love to Sally Franklin--my
love to all our cousins as thou menthond remember me to Mr and
Mrs Weste due you ever hear aney thing of Ninely Evers as was.
* * * * *
"I cante write any mor I am your afeckthone wife
"D. FRANKLIN"
She was not a congenial companion for Franklin in most of his tastes and
pursuits, in his studies in science and history, or in his political and
diplomatic career. He never appears to have written to her on any of
these subjects. But she helped him, as he has himself said, in the early
days in the printing-office, buying rags for the paper and stitching
pamphlets. It was her homely, housewifely virtues, handsome figure, good
health, and wholesome common sense which appealed to him; and it was a
strong appeal, for he enjoyed these earthly comforts fully as much as he
did the high walks of learning in which his fame was won. He once wrote
to her, "it was a comfort to me to recollect that I had once been
clothed from head to foot in woolen and linen of my wife's manufacture,
and that I never was prouder of any dress in my life."
She bore him two children. The first was a son, Francis Folger Franklin,
an unusually bright, handsome boy, the delight of all that knew him.
Franklin had many friends, and seems to have been very much attached to
his wife, but this child was the one human being whom he loved with
extravagance and devotion. Although believing in inoculation as a remedy
for the small-pox, he seems to have been unable to bear the thought of
protecting in this way his favorite son; at any rate, he neglected to
take the precaution, and the boy died of the disease when only four
years old. The father mourned for him long and bitterly, and nearly
forty years afterwards, when an old man, could not think of him without
a sigh.
[Illustration: MRS. SARAH BACHE]
The other child was a daughter, Sarah, also very handsome, who married
Richard Bache and has left numerous descendants. His illegitimate son,
William, was brought home when he was a year old and cared for along
with his other children; and William's illegitimate son, Temple
Franklin, was the companion and secretary of his grandfather in England
and France. The illegitimate daughter was apparently never brought home,
and is not referred to in his writings, except in those occasional
letters in which he sends her his love. According to the letter already
mentioned as in the collection of the Pennsylvania Historical Society,
she was married to John Foxcroft, who was deputy colonial postmaster in
Philadelphia. It was well that she was kept away from Franklin's house,
for the presence of William appears to have given trouble enough. A
household composed of legitimate and illegitimate children is apt to be
inharmonious at times, especially when the mother of the legitimate
children is the mistress of the house.
Franklin's biographies tell us that Mrs. Franklin tenderly nurtured
William. This may be true, and, judging from expressions in her printed
letters, she seems to have been friendly enough with him. But from other
sources we find that as William grew up she learned to hate him, and
this, with some other secrets of the Franklin household, has been
described in the diary of Daniel Fisher:
"As I was coming down from my chamber this afternoon a
gentlewoman was sitting on one of the lowest stairs which were
but narrow, and there not being room enough to pass, she rose up
& threw herself upon the floor and sat there. Mr. Soumien & his
Wife greatly entreated her to arise and take a chair, but in
vain, she would keep her seat, and kept it, I think, the longer
for their entreaty. This gentlewoman, whom though I had seen
before I did not know, appeared to be Mrs. Franklin. She assumed
the airs of extraordinary freedom and great Humility, Lamented
heavily the misfortunes of those who are unhappily infected with
a too tender or benevolent disposition, said she believed all
the world claimed a privilege of troubling her Pappy (so she
usually calls Mr. Franklin) with their calamities and
distresses, giving us a general history of many such wretches
and their impertinent applications to him." (Pennsylvania
Magazine of History, vol. xvii. p. 271.)
In the pamphlet called "What is Sauce for a Goose is also Sauce for a
Gander," already alluded to, Franklin is spoken of as "Pappy" in a way
which seems to show that the Philadelphians knew his wife's nickname for
him and were fond of using it to ridicule him.
Afterwards, Daniel Fisher lived in Franklin's house as his clerk, and
thus obtained a still more intimate knowledge of his domestic affairs.
"Mr. Soumien had often informed me of great uneasiness and
dissatisfaction in Mr. Franklin's family in a manner no way
pleasing to me, and which in truth I was unwilling to credit,
but as Mrs. Franklin and I of late began to be Friendly and
sociable I discerned too great grounds for Mr. Soumien's
Reflections, arising solely from the turbulence and jealousy and
pride of her disposition. She suspecting Mr. Franklin for having
too great an esteem for his son in prejudice of herself and
daughter, a young woman of about 12 or 13 years of age, for whom
it was visible Mr. Franklin had no less esteem than for his son
young Mr. Franklin. I have often seen him pass to and from his
father's apartment upon Business (for he does not eat, drink, or
sleep in the House) without the least compliment between Mrs.
Franklin and him or any sort of notice taken of each other, till
one Day as I was sitting with her in the passage when the young
Gentleman came by she exclaimed to me (he not hearing):--
"'Mr. Fisher there goes the greatest Villain upon Earth.'
"This greatly confounded & perplexed me, but did not hinder her
from pursuing her Invectives in the foulest terms I ever heard
from a Gentlewoman." (Pennsylvania Magazine of History, vol.
xvii. p. 276.)
Fisher's descriptions confirm the gossip which has descended by
tradition in many Philadelphia families. He found Mrs. Franklin to be a
woman of such "turbulent temper" that this and other unpleasant
circumstances forced him to leave. Possibly these were some of the
faults which her husband speaks of as so exceedingly small and so like
his own that he scarcely could see them at all. The presence of her
husband's illegitimate son must have been very trying, and goes a long
way to excuse her.
All that Franklin has written about himself is so full of a serene
philosophic spirit, and his biographers have echoed it so faithfully,
that, in spite of his frankness, things are made to appear a little
easier than they really were. His life was full of contests, but they
have not all been noted, and the sharpness of many of them has been worn
off by time. In Philadelphia, where he was engaged in the most bitter
partisan struggles, where the details of his life were fully known,--his
humble origin, his slow rise, his indelicate jokes, and his illegitimate
children,--there were not a few people who cherished a most relentless
antipathy towards him which neither his philanthropy nor his
philosophic and scientific mind could soften. This bitter feeling
against the "old rogue," as they called him, still survives among some
of the descendants of the people of his time, and fifty or sixty years
ago there were virtuous old ladies living in Philadelphia who would
flame into indignation at the mention of his name.
Chief-Justice Allen, who was his contemporary and opponent in politics,
described him as a man of "wicked heart," and declared that he had often
been a witness of his "envenomed malice." In H. W. Smith's "Life of Rev.
William Smith" a great deal of this abuse can be found. Provost Smith
and Franklin quarrelled over the management of the College of
Philadelphia, and on a benevolent pamphlet by the provost Franklin wrote
a verse from the poet Whitehead:[13]
"Full many a peevish, envious, slanderous elf
Is in his works, Benevolence itself
For all mankind, unknown his bosom heaves,
He only injures those with whom he lives.
Read then the man. Does truth his actions guide?
Exempt from petulance, exempt from pride?
To social duties does his heart attend--As
son, as father, husband, brother, friend?
Do those who know him love him? If they do
You have my permission--you may love him too."
(Smith's Life of Rev. William Smith, vol. i. p. 341.)
Provost Smith's biographer resents this attack by giving contemporary
opinions of Franklin; and a paragraph omitted in the regular edition
(page 347 of volume i.), but printed on an extra leaf and circulated
among the author's friends, may be quoted as an example. It was,
however, not original with Smith's biographer, but was copied with a few
changes from Cobbett's attack on Franklin:
"Dr. Benjamin Franklin has told the world in poetry what, in his
judgment, my ancestor was. His venerable shade will excuse me,
if I tell in prose what, in the judgment of men who lived near a
century ago, Dr. Smith was not: He was no almanack maker, nor
quack, nor chimney-doctor, nor soap boiler, nor printer's devil,
neither was he a deist; and all his children were born in
wedlock. He bequeathed no old and irrecoverable debts to a
hospital. He never cheated the poor during his life nor mocked
them in his death. If his descendants cannot point to his statue
over a library, they have not the mortification of hearing him
daily accused of having been a fornicator, a hypocrite, and an
infidel."
Some of the charges in this venomous statement are in a sense true, but
are exaggerated by the manner in which they are presented, an art in
which Cobbett excelled. I have in the preceding chapters given
sufficient details to throw light on many of them. Franklin was an
almanac-maker, a chimney-doctor, and a soap-boiler, but in none of these
is there anything to his discredit. As to his irrecoverable debts, it is
true that he left them to the Pennsylvania Hospital, saying in his will
that, as the persons who owed them were unwilling to pay them to him,
they might be willing to pay them to the hospital as charity. They were
a source of great annoyance to the managers, and were finally returned
to his executors. The statement that he cheated the poor during his life
and mocked them in his death is entirely unjustified. He was often
generous with his money to people in misfortune, and several such
instances can be found in his letters. It is also going too far to say
that he was a quack and a hypocrite.
While in England he associated on the most intimate terms with eminent
literary and scientific men. Distinguished travellers from the Continent
called on him to pay their respects. He stayed at noblemen's
country-seats and with the Bishop of St. Asaph. He corresponded with all
these people in the most friendly and easy manner; they were delighted
with his conversation and could never see enough of him. In France
everybody worshipped him, and the court circles received him with
enthusiasm. But in Philadelphia the colonial aristocracy were not on
friendly terms with him. He had, of course, numerous friends, including
some members of aristocratic families; but we find few, if any,
evidences of that close intimacy and affection which he enjoyed among
the best people of Europe.
This hostility was not altogether due to his humble origin or to the
little printing-office and stationery store where he sold goose-feathers
as well as writing material and bought old rags. These disadvantages
would not have been sufficient, for his accomplishments and wit raised
him far above his early surroundings, and the colonial society of
Philadelphia was not illiberal in such matters. The principal cause of
the hostility towards him was his violent opposition to the proprietary
party, to which most of the upper classes belonged, and, having this
ground of dislike, it was easy for them to strengthen and excuse it by
the gossip about his illegitimate son and the son's mother kept as a
servant in his house. They ridiculed the small economies he practised,
and branded his religious and moral theorizing as hypocrisy.
He was very fond of broad jokes, which have always been tolerated in
America under certain circumstances; but the man who writes them,
especially if he also writes and talks a great deal about religion and
undertakes to improve prayer-books, gives a handle to his enemies and an
opportunity for unfavorable comment. The _Portfolio_, a Philadelphia
journal, of May 23, 1801, representing more particularly the upper
classes of the city, prints one of his broad letters, and takes the
opportunity to assail him for "hypocrisy, hackneyed deism, muck-worn
economy," and other characteristics of what it considers humbug and
deceit. It has been suggested that far back in the past one of
Franklin's ancestors might have been French, for his name in the form
Franquelin was at one time not uncommon in France. This might account
for his easy brightness and vivacity, and also, it may be added, for
such letters as he sometimes wrote:
"TO Mr. JAMES READ
"Saturday morning Aug 17 '45.
"DEAR J.
"I have been reading your letter over again, and since you
desire an answer I sit me down to write you; yet as I write in
the market, will I believe be but a short one, tho' I may be
long about it. I approve of your method of writing one's mind
when one is too warm to speak it with temper: but being myself
quite cool in this affair I might as well speak as write, if I
had opportunity. Your copy of Kempis must be a corrupt one if
it has that passage as you quote it, _in omnibus requiem
quaesivi, sed non inveni, nisi in angulo cum libello_. The good
father understood pleasure (_requiem_) better, and wrote _in
angulo cum puella_. Correct it thus without hesitation."
* * * * *
(Portfolio, vol. i. p. 165.)
The letter continues the jest in a way that I do not care to quote; but
the last half of it is full of sage and saintly advice. It is perhaps
the only letter which gives at the same time both sides of Franklin's
character. But Sparks and Bigelow in their editions of his works give
the last half only, with no indication that the first half has been
omitted.
In the same year that he wrote this letter he also wrote his letter of
advice to a young man on the choice of a mistress, a copy of which is
now in the State Department at Washington, while numerous copies taken
from it have been circulated secretly all over the country. This year
(1745) seems to have been his reckless period, for it was about that
time that he published "Polly Baker's Speech," which will be given in
another chapter. In the State Department at Washington is also preserved
his letter on Perfumes to the Royal Academy of Brussels, which cannot be
published under the rules of modern taste, and, in fact, Franklin
himself speaks of it as having "too much _grossièreté_" to be borne by
polite readers.[14] I shall, however, give as much of the letter on the
choice of a mistress as is proper to publish.
"June 25th, 1745.
"MY DEAR FRIEND: