to the dignity of a science. By a series of experiments, extending from
1747 to 1760, he established the fact that electricity is not created by
friction, but merely collected from its state of diffusion through other
matter to which it has been attracted. He showed further that all the
phenomena produced by electricity had their counterparts in lightning.
As it was obvious that thunder clouds contained an immense quantity of
the electrical element, he devised a means to draw it from the clouds by
rods erected on elevated buildings. As this was not sufficiently
demonstrative he succeeded at length in drawing the lightning from the
clouds by means of a kite and silken string, so as to ignite spirits and
other combustible substances by an electric spark similar to those from
a Leyden jar. To utilize his discovery of the identity of lightning with
electricity he erected lightning-rods to protect buildings, that is, to
convey the lightning from the overhanging clouds through conductors to
the ground. The importance of these lightning-rods was doubtless
exaggerated. It is now thought by high scientific authorities that tall
trees around a house are safer conductors in a thunder storm than
metallic rods; but his invention was universally prized most highly for
more than one hundred years, and his various further experiments and
researches raised his fame as a philosopher throughout Europe. His house
was a museum of electrical apparatus, and he became the foremost
electrician in the world. His essays on the subject were collected and
printed abroad, and translated into several languages, and among the
scientists and philosophers of Europe he was the best known American of
his time; while at home both Harvard and Yale Colleges conferred on this
self-educated printers-apprentice the degree of Master of Arts.
The inquiring mind of Franklin did not rest with experiments in the
heavens. As a wealthy and independent citizen of Philadelphia he
interested himself in all matters of public improvement. He founded a
philosophical society to spread useful knowledge of all kinds. He laid
the foundation of what is now the University of Pennsylvania, and
secured a charter from George II.; but he had little sympathy with the
teaching of dead languages, attaching much more importance to the
knowledge of French and Spanish than of Latin and Greek. We see in all
his public improvements the utilitarian spirit which has marked the
genius of this country, but a spirit directed into philanthropic
channels. Hence he secured funds to build a hospital, which has grown
into one of the largest in the United States. He established the first
fire company in Philadelphia, as well as the first fire insurance
company; he induced the citizens of Philadelphia to pave and sweep their
streets, which were almost impassable in rainy weather; he reorganized
the night-watch of the town; he improved the street-lighting; he was the
trustee of a society to aid German immigrants; he started a volunteer
military organization for defence of the State against the Indians; he
made a new fertilizer for the use of farmers; he invented the open
"Franklin stove" to save heat and remedy the intolerable smoky chimneys
which the large flues of the time made very common; he introduced into
Pennsylvania the culture of the vine; in short, he was always on the
alert to improve the material condition of the people. Nor did he
neglect their intellectual improvement, inciting them to the formation
of debating societies, and founding libraries. His intent, however, was
avowedly utilitarian, to "supply the vulgar wants of mankind," which he
placed above any form of spiritual philosophy,--inculcating always the
worldly expediency of good character and the poor economy of vice.
Herein he agreed with Macaulay's idea of progress as brought out in his
essay on Lord Bacon. He never soared beyond this theory in his views of
life and duty. The Puritanic idea of spiritual loftiness he never
reached and never appreciated.
But it was not as a public-spirited citizen, nor as a successful man of
business, nor even as a scientific investigator, that Franklin earned
his permanent fame. In each of these respects he has been surpassed by
men of whom little is known. These activities might have elevated him
into notice and distinction, but would not have made him an immortal
benefactor to his country. It was his services as a diplomatist and a
political oracle, united with his patriotism and wisdom, that gave to
him his extraordinary prominence in American history.
It should be remarked, however, that before his diplomatic career began,
Franklin had become exceptionally familiar with the affairs of the
Colonies. We have already noted his appointment as postmaster of
Philadelphia in 1737. This experience led to his employment by the
Postmaster-General of the Colonies in regulating the accounts of that
widely extended department, and to Franklin's appointment in 1753 to the
head of it, which greatly increased his specific knowledge of men and
affairs throughout the whole land. Besides this, he had gained some
political experience as a member of the provincial General Assembly, of
which he had been clerk for twenty years, and thus was well acquainted
with public men and measures. The Assembly consisted of only forty
members, who were in constant antagonism with the governor, James
Hamilton, whom the Penns, the Proprietaries of the province, had
appointed to look after their interests. This official was a
narrow-minded, intriguing Englishman, while the sons of William Penn
themselves were selfish and grasping men, living in England, far distant
from their possessions, and regarding themselves simply as English
landlords of a vast estate. Under the royal charter granted by Charles
II. to William Penn, his heirs exacted £30,000 yearly from the farmers
as rent for their lands,--more than they could afford to pay. But when,
in 1756, at the beginning of the Seven Years' War, French and Indian
hostilities put the whole province in jeopardy, and it became necessary
for the Provincial Legislature to tax the whole population for the
common defence, the governor thought that the estates of the
Proprietaries should be exempted from this just tax. Hence a collision
between the legislature and the governor.
The Quakers themselves, in accordance with their peace principles, were
opposed to any war tax, but Franklin induced the Assembly to raise sixty
thousand pounds to support the war, then conducted by General Braddock,
while he himself secured a large number of wagons for the use of the
army across the wilderness.
Meanwhile the Assembly was involved in fresh disputes with the governor.
Although the Assembly taxed the Proprietaries but a small proportion for
the defence of their own possessions, the governor was unwilling to pay
even this small amount; which so disgusted Franklin that he lost his
usual placidity and poured out such a volley of angry remonstrances that
the governor resigned. His successor fared no better with the angry
legislature, and it became necessary to send some one to England to lay
the grievances of the Colonists before the government, and to obtain
relief from Parliament.
The fittest man for this business was Franklin, and he was sent as agent
of the Province of Pennsylvania to London, the Assembly granting fifteen
hundred pounds to pay his expenses, which, with his own private income,
enabled him to live in good style in London and set up a carriage. He
held no high diplomatic rank as yet, but was simply an accredited
business agent of the Province, which position, however, secured to him
an entrance into society to a limited extent, and many valuable
acquaintances. The brothers Penn, with whom his business was chiefly
concerned, were cold and haughty, and evaded the matter in dispute with
miserable quibbles. Franklin then resolved to appeal to the Lords of
Trade, who had the management of the American colonial affairs, and also
to the King's Privy Council.
This was in 1757, when William Pitt was at the height of his power and
fame, cold, reserved, proud, but intensely patriotic, before whom even
George III. was ill at ease, while his associates in the Cabinet were
simply his clerks, and servilely bent before his imperious will. To this
great man Franklin had failed to gain access, not so much from the
minister's disdain of the colonial agent, as from his engrossing cares
and duties. He had no time, indeed, for anybody, not even the peers of
the realm,--no time for pleasure or relaxation,--being devoted entirely
to public interests of the greatest magnitude; for on his shoulders
rested the government of the kingdom. What was the paltry dispute of a
few hundred pounds in a distant colony to the Prime Minister of
England! All that Franklin could secure was an interview with the great
man's secretaries, and they did little to help him.
But the time of the active-minded American was not wasted. He wrote for
the newspapers; he prosecuted his scientific inquiries; he became
intimate with many eminent men, chiefly scientists,--members of the
Royal Society like Priestley and Price, professors of political economy
like Adam Smith, historians like Hume and Robertson, original thinkers
like Burke, liberal-minded lawyers like Pratt. It does not seem that he
knew Dr. Johnson, and probably he did not care to make the acquaintance
of that overbearing Tory and literary dogmatist, who had little sympathy
with American troubles. Indeed his political associates among the great
were few, unless they were patrons of science, who appreciated his
attainments in a field comparatively new. Among these men he seems to
have been much respected, and his merits secured an honorary degree from
St. Andrew's. His eminent social qualities favored his introduction into
a society more cultivated than fashionable, and he was known as a
scientific rather than a political celebrity.
His mission, then, was up-hill work. The Penns stood upon their
prerogatives, and the Lords of the Committee for Plantations were
unfriendly or dilatory. It was nearly three years before they gave
their decision, and this was adverse to the Pennsylvania Assembly. The
Privy Council, however, to whom the persistent agent appealed, composed
of the great dignitaries of the realm, decided that the proprietary
estates of the Penns should contribute their proportion of the public
revenue. On this decision, Franklin, feeling that he had accomplished
all that was possible, returned home in 1762, little more than a year
after the accession of George III. Through the kindness of Lord Bute,
the king's favorite, Franklin also secured the appointment of his son to
the government of New Jersey. This appointment created some scandal, and
the Penns rolled up their eyes, not at the nepotism of Franklin, but
because he had procured the advancement of his illegitimate son.
Franklin, during his absence of more than five years, had been regularly
re-elected a member of the Assembly, and he was received on his return
with every possible public and private attention. He had hoped now for
leisure to pursue his scientific investigations, and had accordingly
taken a new and larger house. But before long new political troubles
arose between the governor of Pennsylvania and the legislature, and what
was still more ominous, troubles in New England respecting the taxation
of the Colonies by the British government, at the head of which was
Grenville, an able man but not far-sighted, who in March, 1764,
announced his intention of introducing into Parliament the bill known as
the Stamp Act.
To this famous bill there was not great opposition, since a large
majority of the House of Commons believed in the right of taxing the
Colonies. Lord Camden, a great lawyer, took different views. Burke and
Pitt admitted the right of taxation, but thought its enforcement
inexpedient, as likely to alienate the Colonies and make them enemies
instead of loyal subjects.
At this crisis appeared in America a group of orators who at once
aroused and intensified the prevailing discontents by their inflammatory
speeches, in much the same manner that Wendell Phillips and Wm. Lloyd
Garrison, seventy years later, aroused public sentiment in reference to
slavery. James Otis, the lawyer from Barnstable on the shores of Cape
Cod, who had opposed the Writs of Assistance, "led the van of these
patriots,--an impassioned orator, incapable of cold calculation, now
foaming with rage, and then desponding, not steadfast in conduct, yet by
flashes of sagacity lighting the people along their perilous ways,
combining legal learning with speculative opinion." He eloquently
maintained that "there is no foundation for distinction between external
and internal taxes; that the imposition of taxes in the Colonies whether
on trade, on land, or houses, or floating property, is absolutely
irreconcilable with the rights of the Colonists as British subjects or
as men, and that Acts of Parliament against the fundamental principles
of the British Constitution are void."
More influential, and more consistent than Otis, was Samuel Adams, a
lawyer of Boston, a member of the Massachusetts Assembly, at that time
about forty years of age, a political agitator, a Puritan of the
strictest creed, poor and indifferent to money, an incarnation of zeal
for liberty, a believer in original, inherent rights which no Parliament
can nullify,--a man of the keenest political sagacity in management, and
of almost unlimited influence in Massachusetts from his long and notable
services in town-meeting, Colonial Assembly, as writer in the journals
of the day, and actor in every public crisis. Eleven years younger than
he, was his cousin John Adams, a lawyer in Quincy, the leading
politician of the colony, able and ambitious, patriotic and honest, but
irascible and jealous, of whom I shall have more to say hereafter. Of
about the same age as John Adams was Patrick Henry, of Virginia, a born
orator, but of limited education. He espoused the American cause with
extraordinary zeal, and as in the matter of the Virginia tax law, was
vehement in opposition to the Stamp Act, as an unconstitutional statute,
which the Colonies were not bound to obey. Christopher Gadsden, of So.
Carolina, too, was early among the prominent orators who incited
opposition to the Stamp Act and other oppressive measures.
These men were the great pioneers of American Independence, by their
ceaseless agitation of popular rights, and violent opposition to English
schemes of taxation. They were not, indeed, the equals of Franklin, then
the agent of Pennsylvania in London. They had not his catholicity, his
breadth of knowledge, his reputation, or his genius; but they were
nevertheless foremost among American political orators, and had great
local influence.
The first overt act of hostility on the part of the English government
in coercing the Colonies was to send to Boston, the seat of
disaffection, a large body of soldiers. In 1768 there were four
regiments of British troops in Boston, doubtless with the view of
intimidation, and to enforce the collection of duties.
The English did not overrate the bravery of their troops or the
abilities of their generals, but they did underrate the difficulties in
conquering a population scattered over a vast extent of territory. They
did not take into consideration the protecting power of nature, the
impenetrable forests to be traversed, the mighty rivers to be crossed,
the mountains to be climbed, and the coasts to be controlled. Nor did
they comprehend the universal spirit of resistance in a vast country,
and the power of sudden growth in a passion for national independence.
They might take cities and occupy strong fortifications, but the great
mass of the people were safe on their inland farms and in their
untrodden forests. The Americans may not have been unconquerable, but
English troops were not numerous enough to overwhelm them in their
scattered settlements. It would not pay to send army after army to be
lost in swamps or drowned in rivers or ambushed and destroyed
in forests.
It was in the earlier stages of the revolt against taxation, in the
autumn of 1764, that Benjamin Franklin was again sent to England to
represent the province of Pennsylvania in the difficulties which hung as
a dark cloud over the whole land. He had done well as a financial agent;
he might do still better as a diplomatist, since he was patient,
prudent, sagacious, intelligent, and accustomed to society, besides
having extraordinary knowledge of all phases of American affairs. And he
probably was sincere in his desire for reconciliation with the
mother-country, which he still deemed possible. He was no political
enthusiast like Samuel Adams, desirous of cutting loose entirely from
England, but a wise and sensible man, who was willing to wait for
inevitable developments; intensely patriotic, but armed with the weapons
of reason, and trusting in these alone until reconciliation should
become impossible.
As soon as Franklin arrived in England he set about his difficult task
to reason with infatuated ministers, and with all influential persons so
far as he had opportunity. But such were the prevailing prejudices
against the Colonists, and such was the bitterness of men in power that
he was not courteously treated. He was even grossly insulted before the
Privy Council by the Solicitor-General, Wedderburn,--one of those
browbeating lawyers so common in England one hundred years ago, who made
up in insolence what was lacking in legal ability. Grenville, the
premier, was civil but stubborn, and attempted to show that there was no
difference between the external, indirect taxation by duties on
importations, and the direct, internal taxation proposed by the Stamp
Act,--both being alike justifiable.
In March, 1765, the bill was passed by an immense majority. Then blazed
forth indignation from every part of America, and the resolute Colonists
set themselves to nullify the tax laws by refraining from all taxable
transactions.
Franklin, undismayed, sedulously went about working for a repeal of the
odious stamp law, and at length got a hearing at the bar of the House of
Commons, where he was extensively and exhaustively examined upon
American affairs. In this famous examination he won respect for the
lucidity of his statements and his conciliatory address. It soon became
evident that the Stamp Act could not be enforced. No one could be
compelled to buy stamps or pay tariff taxes if he preferred to withdraw
from all business transactions, wear homespun, do without British
manufactures, and even refrain from eating lamb that flocks of sheep
might be increased and the wool used for homespun cloth.
It was in March, 1766, that Franklin, after many months of shrewd, wise,
and extraordinarily skilful work with tongue and pen and social
influence, had the satisfaction of seeing the Stamp Act repealed by
Parliament and the bill signed by the unwilling king. Although he was at
all possible disadvantage, as being merely the insignificant agent of
distant and despised Colonists, his influence in the matter cannot be
exaggerated. He made powerful friends and allies, and never failed to
supply them with ample ammunition with which to fight their own
political battles in which his cause was involved.
On the repeal of the Stamp Act, Grenville was compelled to resign, and
his place was taken by Lord North, an amiable but narrow-minded man,
utterly incapable of settling the pending difficulties. Lord Shelburne,
a friend of the Colonies, of which he had the charge, was superseded by
Lord Hillsborough, an Irish peer of great obstinacy, who treated
Franklin very roughly, and of whom the king himself soon tired. Lord
Dartmouth, who succeeded him, might have arranged the difficulties had
he not been hampered by the king, who was inflexibly bent on taxation in
some form, and on pursuing impolitic measures, against the exhortations
of Chatham, Barré, Conway, Camden, and other far-reading statesmen, who
foresaw what the end would be.
Meantime, in 1770, Franklin was appointed agent also for Massachusetts
Bay, and about the same time for New Jersey and Georgia. Schemes for
colonial taxation were rife, and, although the Stamp Act had been
withdrawn as impracticable, the principle involved was not given up by
the English government nor accepted by the American people. Franklin was
kept busy.
In 1773 Franklin was further impeded in his negotiations by mischievous
letters which Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts had written to the
Colonial office. This governor was an able man, a New Englander by
birth, but an inveterate Tory, always at issue with the legislature,
whose acts he had the power to veto. Indiscreetly, rather than
maliciously, he represented the prevailing discontents in the worst
light, and considerably increased the irritation of the English
government. Franklin in some way got possession of these inflammatory
letters, and transmitted a copy to a leading member of the
Massachusetts General Court, as a matter of information, but with the
understanding that it should be kept secret. It leaked out however, of
course, and the letters were printed. A storm of indignation in
Massachusetts resulted in a petition for the removal of Governor
Hutchinson and Lieutenant-Governor Oliver, which was sent by the House
of Representatives to Franklin for presentation to the government;
while, on the other hand, a torrent of obloquy overwhelmed the
diplomatist in England, who was thought to have stolen the letters,
although there was no evidence to convict him.
Franklin's situation in London now became uncomfortable; he was deprived
of his office of deputy Postmaster-General of the Colonies, which he had
held since 1753, was virtually discredited, and generally snubbed. His
presentation of the petition afforded an opportunity for his being
publicly insulted at the hearing appointed before the Committee for
Plantation Affairs, while the press denounced him as a fomenter of
sedition. His work in England was done, and although he remained there
some time longer, on the chance of still being of possible use, he
gladly availed himself of an opportunity, early in 1775, to return to
America. Before his departure, however, Lord Chatham had come to his
rescue when he was one day attacked with bitterness in the House of
Lords, and pronounced upon him this splendid eulogium: "If," said the
great statesman, "I were prime minister and had the care of settling
this momentous business, I should not be ashamed to call to my
assistance a person so well acquainted with American affairs,--one whom
all Europe ranks with our Boyles and Newtons, as an honor, not to the
English nation only, but to human nature itself."
From this time, 1775, no one accused Franklin of partiality to England.
He was wounded and disgusted, and he now clearly saw that there could be
no reconciliation between the mother-country and the Colonies,--that
differences could be settled only by the last appeal of nations. The
English government took the same view, and resorted to coercion, little
dreaming of the difficulties of the task. This is not the place to
rehearse those coercive measures, or to describe the burst of patriotic
enthusiasm which swept over the Colonies to meet the issue by the sword.
We must occupy ourselves with Franklin.
On his return to Philadelphia, at the age of sixty-nine, he was most
cordially welcomed. His many labors were fully appreciated, and he was
immediately chosen a member of the second Continental Congress, which
met on the 10th of May, 1775. He was put on the most important
committees, and elected Postmaster-General. He was also selected as one
of the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. It does not
appear that he was one of the foremost speakers. He was no orator, but
his influence was greater than that of any other one man in the
Congress. He entered heart and soul into the life-and-death struggle
which drew upon it the eyes of the whole civilized world. He was
tireless in committee work; he made long journeys on the business of the
Congress,--to Montreal, to Boston, to New York; he spent the summer of
1776 as chairman of the first Constitutional Convention of the State of
Pennsylvania: on every hand his resources were in demand and were
lavishly given.
It was universally felt at the beginning of the struggle that unless the
Colonies should receive material aid from France, the issue of the
conflict with the greatest naval and military power in Europe could not
succeed. Congress had no money, no credit, and but scanty military
stores. The Continental troops were poorly armed, clothed, and fed.
Franklin's cool head, his knowledge, his sagacity, his wisdom, and his
patriotism marked him out as the fittest man to present the cause in
Europe, and in September, 1776, he was sent to France as an envoy to
negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce between France and the United
States. With him were joined Arthur Lee and Silas Deane, the latter
having been sent some months previously in a less formal way, to secure
the loan of money, ammunition, and troops.