CHAPTER V

Franklin's American Friends

The friends mentioned in the correspondence between Franklin and Deborah

were only some of the many friends with whom Franklin was blessed during

the course of his life. He had the same faculty for inspiring friendship

that a fine woman has for inspiring love. In reading his general

correspondence, few things arrest our attention more sharply than the

number of affectionate and admiring intimates, whose lives were in one way

or another interwoven with his own, and, over and over again, in reading

this correspondence, our attention is unexpectedly drawn for a moment to

some cherished friend of his, of whom there is scarcely a hint elsewhere in

his writings.

It was from real considerations of practical convenience that he sometimes

avoided the serious task of enumerating all the friends, to whom he wished

to be remembered, by sending his love to "all Philadelphia" or "all

Pennsylvania."

A dozen of his friends, as we have stated, accompanied him as far as

Trenton, when he was on his way to New York to embark upon his first

mission abroad in 1757. A cavalcade of three hundred of them accompanied

him for sixteen miles to his ship, when he was on his way down the Delaware

on his second mission abroad in 1764.

Remember me affectionately to all our good Friends who

contributed by their Kindness to make my Voyage

comfortable [he wrote to Deborah a little later from

London]. To Mr. Roberts, Mrs. Thompson, Mrs.

Smith, Mrs. Potts, Mrs. Shewell; Messrs.

Whartons, Capt. Falkner, Brothers & Sisters Reads &

Franklins, Cousin Davenport, and everybody.

When he returned from England in 1762, he was able to write to Strahan with

a flush of pardonable exultation that he had had the happiness to find that

Dr. Smith's reports of the diminutions of his friends were all false. "My

house," he said, "has been full of a succession of them from morning to

night, ever since my arrival, congratulating me on my return with the

utmost cordiality and affection." And, several years later, when the news

reached Philadelphia that he was again safely in England, the bells rang

until near midnight, and libations were poured out for his health, success

and every other happiness. "Even your old friend Hugh Roberts," said

Cadwallader Evans, who gave this information to Franklin, "stayed with us

till eleven o'clock, which you know was a little out of his common road,

and gave us many curious anecdotes within the compass of your forty years

acquaintance." This rejoicing, of course, was, to a considerable degree,

the result of political fermentation, and, if we say nothing of other

demonstrations, like the flourish of naked swords, which angered the

Proprietary so deeply, and made Franklin himself feel just a little

foolish, it is only because it is impossible to declare how far these

demonstrations were the tributes of personal friendship rather than of

public gratitude. In a letter to Doctor Samuel Johnson, of Connecticut,

Franklin tells him that he will shortly print proposals for publishing the

Doctor's pieces by subscription, and disperse them among his friends "along

the continent." This meant much to an author, coming as it did from a man,

of whom it might perhaps be said that he could have travelled all the way

from Boston to Virginia without ever being at a loss for the hospitable

roof of a friend to shelter him at night.

Nowhere outside of Pennsylvania did Franklin have warmer friends than in

New England, the land of his birth. He fled from Boston in 1723, and

returned to it on a brief visit in 1724. Aside from other occasional

returns, he afterwards revisited it at regular intervals of ten years in

1733, 1743, 1753 and 1763. Many pleasant hours were spent by him among his

wayside friends in New England on those postal and other journeys which

took him within her borders.

I left New England slowly, and with great reluctance

[he wrote to his friend Catherine Ray, afterwards

Greene, at Block Island in 1755]. Short day's journeys,

and loitering visits on the road, for three or four

weeks, manifested my unwillingness to quit a country,

in which I drew my first breath, spent my earliest and

most pleasant days, and had now received so many fresh

marks of the people's goodness and benevolence, in the

kind and affectionate treatment I had everywhere met

with. I almost forgot I had a _home_, till I was more

than half way towards it, till I had, one by one,

parted with all my New England friends, and was got

into the western borders of Connecticut, among mere

strangers. Then, like an old man, who, having buried

all he loved in this world, begins to think of heaven,

I began to think of and wish for home.

The only drawback to the pleasure of his New England journeys was the vile

roads of the time. In a letter to John Foxcroft, in the year 1773, in which

he refers to a fall which Foxcroft had experienced, he says, "I have had

three of those Squelchers in different Journeys, and never desire a

fourth." Two of these squelchers, we know, befell him on the rough roads of

New England, in the year 1763; for, in a letter from Boston to his friend

Mrs. Catherine Greene (formerly Ray), of that year, he writes to her that

he is almost ashamed to say that he has had another fall, and put his

shoulder out. "Do you think, after this," he added, "that even your kindest

invitations and Mr. Greene's can prevail with me to venture myself again on

such roads?" In August of the same year, Franklin informed Strahan that he

had already travelled eleven hundred and forty miles on the American

Continent since April, and that he would make six hundred and forty more

before he saw home. To this and other postal tours of inspection he owed in

part those friends "along the continent," to whom he proposed to appeal in

Dr. Johnson's behalf, as well as that unrivalled familiarity with American

colonial conditions, which stands out in such clear relief in his works. On

one occasion, the accidents by flood and field, to which he was exposed on

his American journeys, during the colonial era, resulted in a tie, which,

while not the tie of friendship, proved to his cost to be even more lasting

than that tie sometimes is. When he was about forty-three years of age, a

canoe, in which he was a passenger, was upset near Staten Island, while he

was endeavoring to board a stage-boat bound for New York. He was in no

danger, as he said to a friend forty years afterwards when recalling the

incident, for, besides being near the shore, he could swim like a duck or a

Bermudian. But, unfortunately for him, there was a Jew on the stage-boat

who chose to believe that he had saved Franklin's life by inducing the

stage-boat to stop, and take Franklin in. As far as the latter could learn,

he was not more indebted to the Jew than to the Jew's fellow-passengers for

being plucked from an element which he never wearied of asserting is not

responsible even for bad colds, and, in return for the consideration, that

he had received from the stage-boat, he dined all its passengers to their

general satisfaction, when he reached New York, at "The Tavern"; but the

Jew had no mind to allow the benefaction to sink out of sight for the

number of the benefactors.

This Hayes [Franklin wrote to the friend, who had

forwarded to him a letter from Hayes' widow] never saw

me afterwards, at New York, or Brunswick, or Phila'da

that he did not dun me for Money on the Pretence of his

being poor, and having been so happy as to be

Instrumental in saving my Life, which was really in no

Danger. In this way he got of me some times a double

Joannes, sometimes a Spanish Doubloon, and never less;

how much in the whole I do not know, having kept no

Account of it; but it must have been a very

considerable Sum; and he never incurr'd any Risque, nor

was at any Trouble in my Behalf, I have long since

thought him well paid for any little expence of

Humanity he might have felt on the Occasion. He seems,

however, to have left me to his Widow as part of her

Dowry.

This was about as far as the kindly nature of Franklin ever went in dealing

with a beggar or a bore.

In New York or New Jersey, he was little less at home than in Pennsylvania

or New England. In a letter to Deborah in 1763, after telling her that he

had been to Elizabeth Town, where he had found their children returned from

the Falls and very well, he says, "The Corporation were to have a Dinner

that day at the Point for their Entertainment, and prevail'd on us to stay.

There was all the principal People & a great many Ladies."

As we shall see, the foundations of his New Jersey friendships were laid

very early. In following him on his journeys through Maryland, we find him

entertained at the country seats of some of the most prominent gentlemen of

the Colony, as for instance at Colonel Tasker's and at Mr. Milligan's. He

was several times in Virginia in the course of his life, and it is an

agreeable thing to a Virginian, who recollects that a Virginian, Arthur

Lee, is to be reckoned among the contentious "bird and beast" people, for

whom Franklin had such a dislike, to recollect also that not only are

Washington and Jefferson to be reckoned among Franklin's loyal and admiring

friends, but that, after Franklin had been a few days in Virginia at Mr.

Hunter's, he expressed his opinion of both the country and its people in

these handsome terms: "Virginia is a pleasant Country, now in full Spring;

the People extreamly obliging and polite." There can be no better

corrective of the petty sectional spirit, which has been such a blemish on

our national history, and has excited so much wholly unfounded and

senseless local prejudice, than to note the appreciation which that open,

clear-sighted eye had for all that was best in every part of the American

Colonies. "There are brave Spirits among that People," he said, when he

heard that the Virginia House of Burgesses had appointed its famous

Committee of Correspondence for the purpose of bringing the Colonies

together for their common defense. He was never in the Carolinas or

Georgia, we believe, though he was for a time the Agent in England of

Georgia as well as other Colonies. But he had enough friends in Charleston,

at any rate, when he was on his first mission abroad, to write to his

Charleston correspondent, Dr. Alexander Garden, the eminent botanist from

whom Linnaeus borrowed a name for the gardenia, that he purposed, God

willing, to return by way of Carolina, when he promised himself the

pleasure of seeing and conversing with his friends in Charleston. And to

another resident of Charleston, Dr. John Lining, several highly interesting

letters of his on scientific subjects were written. For Henry Laurens, of

South Carolina, his fellow-commissioner for the purpose of negotiating the

treaty of peace with Great Britain, he entertained a warm feeling of esteem

and good will which was fully reciprocated by Laurens. It was a just remark

of Laurens that Franklin knew very well how to manage a cunning man, but

that, when he conversed or treated with a man of candor, there was no man

more candid than himself. For Colonel John Laurens, of South Carolina, the

son of Henry Laurens, the aide to Washington, and the intrepid young

soldier, who perished in one of the last conflicts of the Revolutionary

War, Franklin formed a strong sentiment of affection, when Laurens came to

France, at the instance of Washington, for the purpose of obtaining some

additional aids from the King for the prosecution of the war. In a letter

to him, signed "most affectionately yours," when Laurens was about to

return to America, Franklin inclosed him an order for another hundred louis

with an old man's blessing. "Take my Blessing with it," he said, "and my

Prayers that God may send you safe & well home with your Cargoes. I would

not attempt persuading you to quit the military Line, because I think you

have the Qualities of Mind and Body that promise your doing great service &

acquiring Honour in that Line."[29]

How profound was the mutual respect and affection that Washington and

Franklin entertained for each other, we have seen. It is an inspiring thing

to note how the words of the latter swell, as with the strains of some

heroic measure, when his admiration for the great contemporary, whose

services to "the glorious cause" alone exceeded his, lifts him up from the

lower to the higher levels of our emotional and intellectual nature.

Should peace arrive after another Campaign or two, and

afford us a little Leisure [he wrote to Washington from

Passy, on March 5, 1780], I should be happy to see your

Excellency in Europe, and to accompany you, if my Age

and Strength would permit, in visiting some of its

ancient and most famous Kingdoms. You would, on this

side of the Sea, enjoy the great Reputation you have

acquir'd, pure and free from those little Shades that

the Jealousy and Envy of a Man's Countrymen and

Cotemporaries are ever endeavouring to cast over living

Merit. Here you would know, and enjoy, what Posterity

will say of Washington. For 1000 Leagues have nearly

the same Effect with 1000 Years. The feeble Voice of

those grovelling Passions cannot extend so far either

in Time or Distance. At present I enjoy that Pleasure

for you, as I frequently hear the old Generals of this

martial Country (who study the Maps of America, and

mark upon them all your Operations) speak with sincere

Approbation and great Applause of your conduct; and

join in giving you the Character of one of the greatest

Captains of the Age.

The caprice of future events might well have deprived these words of some

of their rich cadence, but it did not, and, even the voice of cis-Atlantic

jealousy and envy seems to be as impotent in the very presence of

Washington, as at the distance of a thousand leagues away, when we place

beside this letter the words written by Franklin to him a few years later

after the surrender of Cornwallis:

All the world agree, that no expedition was ever better

planned or better executed; it has made a great

addition to the military reputation you had already

acquired, and brightens the glory that surrounds your

name, and that must accompany it to our latest

posterity. No news could possibly make me more happy.

The infant Hercules has now strangled the two serpents

(the several armies of Burgoyne and Cornwallis) that

attacked him in his cradle, and I trust his future

history will be answerable.[30]

Cordial relations of friendship also existed between Franklin and

Jefferson. In their versatility, their love of science, their speculative

freedom and their faith in the popular intelligence and conscience the two

men had much in common. As members of the committee, that drafted the

Declaration of Independence, as well as in other relations, they were

brought into familiar contact with each other; and to Jefferson we owe

valuable testimony touching matters with respect to which the reputation of

Franklin has been assailed, and also a sheaf of capital stories, that helps

us to a still clearer insight into the personal and social phases of

Franklin's life and character. One of these stories is the famous story of

Abbe Raynal and the Speech of Polly Baker, when she was prosecuted the

fifth time for having a bastard child.

The Doctor and Silas Deane [Jefferson tells us] were in

conversation one day at Passy on the numerous errors in

the Abbe's "_Histoire des deux Indes_" when he happened

to step in. After the usual salutations, Silas Deane

said to him, "The Doctor and myself, Abbe, were just

speaking of the errors of fact into which you have been

led in your history." "Oh no, Sir," said the Abbe,

"that is impossible. I took the greatest care not to

insert a single fact, for which I had not the most

unquestionable authority." "Why," says Deane, "there is

the story of Polly Baker, and the eloquent apology you

have put into her mouth, when brought before a court of

Massachusetts to suffer punishment under a law which

you cite, for having had a bastard. I know there never

was such a law in Massachusetts." "Be assured," said

the Abbe, "you are mistaken, and that that is a true

story. I do not immediately recollect indeed the

particular information on which I quote it; but I am

certain that I had for it unquestionable authority."

Doctor Franklin, who had been for some time shaking

with unrestrained laughter at the Abbe's confidence in

his authority for that tale, said, "I will tell you,

Abbe, the origin of that story. When I was a printer

and editor of a newspaper, we were sometimes slack of

news, and to amuse our customers I used to fill up our

vacant columns with anecdotes and fables, and fancies

of my own, and this of Polly Baker is a story of my

making, on one of those occasions." The Abbe without

the least disconcert, exclaimed with a laugh, "Oh, very

well, Doctor, I had rather relate your stories than

other men's truths."

Another of Jefferson's stories, is the equally famous one of John Thompson,

hatter.

When the Declaration of Independence [he says] was

under the consideration of Congress, there were two or

three unlucky expressions in it which gave offence to

some members. The words "Scotch and other foreign

auxiliaries" excited the ire of a gentleman or two of

that country. Severe strictures on the conduct of the

British King, in negativing our repeated repeals of the

law which permitted the importation of slaves, were

disapproved by some Southern gentlemen, whose

reflections were not yet matured to the full abhorrence

of that traffic. Although the offensive expressions

were immediately yielded, these gentlemen continued

their depredations on other parts of the instrument. I

was sitting by Doctor Franklin, who perceived that I

was not insensible to these mutilations. "I have made

it a rule," said he, "whenever in my power, to avoid

becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a

public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I

will relate to you. When I was a journeyman printer,

one of my companions, an apprentice hatter, having

served out his time, was about to open shop for

himself. His first concern was to have a handsome

signboard, with a proper inscription. He composed it in

these words, 'John Thompson, _Hatter, makes_ and _sells

hats_ for ready money,' with a figure of a hat

subjoined; but he thought he would submit it to his

friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to

thought the word '_Hatter_' tautologous, because

followed by the words 'makes hats' which showed he was

a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the

word '_makes_' might as well be omitted, because his

customers would not care who made the hats. If good and

to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He

struck it out. A third said he thought the words '_for

ready money_' were useless, as it was not the custom of

the place to sell on credit; everyone who purchased

expected to pay. They were parted with, and the

inscription now stood, 'John Thompson sells hats.'

'_Sells hats!_' says his next friend. 'Why nobody will

expect you to give them away; what then is the use of

that word?' It was stricken out, and '_hats_' followed

it, the rather as there was one painted on the board.

So the inscription was reduced ultimately to 'John

Thompson,' with the figure of a hat subjoined."

The next story has the same background, the Continental Congress.

I was sitting by Doctor Franklin [says Jefferson], and

observed to him that I thought we should except books

(from the obligations of the non-importation

association formed in America to bring England to

terms); that we ought not to exclude science, even

coming from an enemy. He thought so too, and I proposed

the exception, which was agreed to. Soon after it

occurred that medicine should be excepted, and I

suggested that also to the Doctor. "As to that," said

he, "I will tell you a story. When I was in London, in

such a year, there was a weekly club of physicians, of

which Sir John Pringle was President, and I was invited

by my friend Doctor Fothergill to attend when

convenient. Their rule was to propose a thesis one week

and discuss it the next. I happened there when the

question to be considered was whether physicians had,

on the whole, done most good or harm? The young

members, particularly, having discussed it very

learnedly and eloquently till the subject was

exhausted, one of them observed to Sir John Pringle,

that although it was not usual for the President to

take part in a debate, yet they were desirous to know

his opinion on the question. He said they must first

tell him whether, under the appellation of physicians,

they meant to include _old women_, if they did he

thought they had done more good than harm, otherwise

more harm than good."

This incident brings back to us, as it doubtless did to Franklin, the

augurs jesting among themselves over religion.[31]

It is to be regretted that many other easy pens besides that of Jefferson

have not preserved for us some of those humorous stories and parables of

which Franklin's memory was such a rich storehouse. Doctor Benjamin Rush,

one of his intimate friends, is said to have entertained the purpose of

publishing his recollections of Franklin's table-talk. The purpose was

never fulfilled, but the scraps of this talk which we find in Dr. Rush's

diary are sufficient to show that, even in regard to medicine, Franklin had

a stock of information and conclusions which were well worth the hearing.

As a member of the Continental Congress, Franklin was brought into close

working intercourse with Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and formed a

sincere sentiment of friendship for him, which was strengthened by the

expedition that they made together to Canada, as two of the three

commissioners appointed by Congress to win the Canadians over to the

American cause. Samuel Chase, another Marylander, was the third

commissioner, and the three were accompanied by John Carroll, the brother

of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, whose character as a Catholic priest, it

was hoped, would promote the success of the mission. On his way back to

Philadelphia, in advance of his fellow-commissioners, Franklin acknowledged

in grateful terms the help that he had received on his return journey from

the friendly assistance and tender care of this good man, who became his

firm friend, and was subsequently made the first Catholic Bishop of America

upon his recommendation. William Carmichael, another Marylander, who was

for a time the secretary of Silas Deane at Paris, was also one of

Franklin's friends. There is a tinge of true affection about his letters to

Carmichael, and the latter, in a letter written in the year 1777, while

stating that Franklin's age in some measure hindered him from taking so

active a part in the drudgery of business as his great zeal and abilities

warranted, remarks, "He is the Master to whom we children in politics all

look up for counsel, and whose name is everywhere a passport to be well

received." When Carmichael was the American Secretary of Legation at

Madrid, Franklin still remembered enough of his Spanish to request the

former to send him the _Gazette_ of Madrid and any new pamphlets that were

curious. "I remember the Maxim you mention of Charles V, _Yo y el Tiempo_,"

he wrote to Carmichael on one occasion, "and have somewhere met with an

Answer to it in this distich,

'I and time 'gainst any two,

Chance and I 'gainst Time and you.'

"And I think the Gentlemen you have at present to deal with, would do

wisely to guard a little more against certain Chances." In another letter,

Franklin, referring to his "Essay on Perfumes," dedicated to the Academy of

Brussels, writes to Carmichael, "You do my little Scribblings too much

honour in proposing to print them; but they are at your Disposition, except

the Letter to the Academy which having several English Puns in it, can not

be translated, and besides has too much _grossierete_ to be borne by the

polite Readers of these Nations."

It was in Pennsylvania and New England, however, so far as America was

concerned, that Franklin formed the intimate friendships which led him so

often to say towards the close of his life, as one old friend after another

dropped through the bridge of Mirzah, that the loss of friends is the tax

imposed upon us by nature for living too long.

The closest friend of his early youth was his Boston friend, John Collins.

The reader has already learnt how soon religious skepticism, drinking and

gambling ate out the core of this friend's character.

With his intensely social nature, Franklin had hardly found employment in

Philadelphia before in his own language he began to have some acquaintance

among the young people of the town, that were lovers of reading, with whom

he spent his evenings very agreeably. His first group of friends in

Philadelphia was formed before he left Pennsylvania for London in 1724. In

his pictorial way--for the _Autobiography_ is engraved with a burin rather

than written with a pen--Franklin brings the figures of this group before

us with admirable distinctness. They were three in number, and all were

lovers of reading. Two of them, Charles Osborne and Joseph Watson, were

clerks to an eminent conveyancer in Philadelphia, Charles Brogden. The

third, James Ralph, who has already been mentioned by us, was clerk to a

merchant. Watson was a pious, sensible young man, of great integrity; the

others were rather more lax in their principles of religion, particularly

Ralph, who, as well as Collins, to quote the precise words of Franklin's

confession, had been unsettled by him, "for which," he adds, "they both

made me suffer."

Osborne [Franklin continues] was sensible, candid,

frank; sincere and affectionate to his friends; but, in

literary matters, too fond of criticising. Ralph was

ingenious, genteel in his manners, and extremely

eloquent; I think I never knew a prettier talker. Both

of them great admirers of poetry, and began to try

their hands in little pieces. Many pleasant walks we

four had together on Sundays into the woods, near

Schuylkill, where we read to one another, and conferr'd

on what we read.

Ralph had the most fatal of all gifts for a clever man--the gift of writing

poetry tolerably well. Osborne tried to convince him that he had no genius

for it, and advised him to stick to mercantile pursuits. Franklin

conservatively approved the amusing one's self with poetry now and then so

far as to improve one's language, but no farther.

Thus things stood when the friends proposed that each should produce at

their next meeting a poetical version of the 18th Psalm. Ralph composed his

version, showed it to Franklin, who admired it, and, being satisfied that

Osborne's criticisms of his muse were the suggestions of mere envy, asked

Franklin to produce it at the next symposium of the friends as his own.

Franklin, who had a relish for practical jokes throughout his life, fell in

readily with Ralph's stratagem. But we shall let a writer, whose diction is

as incompressible as water, narrate what followed in his own lively way:

We met; Watson's performance was read; there were some

beauties in it, but many defects. Osborne's was read;

it was much better; Ralph did it justice; remarked some

faults, but applauded the beauties. He himself had

nothing to produce. I was backward; seemed desirous of

being excused; had not had sufficient time to correct,

etc.; but no excuse could be admitted; produce I must.

It was read and repeated; Watson and Osborne gave up

the contest, and join'd in applauding it. Ralph only

made some criticisms, and propos'd some amendments; but

I defended my text. Osborne was against Ralph, and told

him he was no better a critic than poet, so he dropt

the argument. As they two went home together, Osborne

expressed himself still more strongly in favour of what

he thought my production; having restrain'd himself

before, as he said, lest I should think it flattery.

"But who would have imagin'd," said he, "that Franklin

had been capable of such a performance, such painting,

such force, such fire! He has even improv'd the

original. In his common conversation he seems to have

no choice of words; he hesitates and blunders; and yet,

good God! how he writes!" When we next met, Ralph

discovered the trick we had plaid him, and Osborne was

a little laught at.

This transaction fixed Ralph in his resolution of

becoming a poet. I did all I could to dissuade him from

it, but he continued scribbling verses till _Pope_

cured him.[32]

Watson, we are told by Franklin, died in his arms a few years after this

incident, much lamented, being the best of their set. Osborne went to the

West Indies, where he became an eminent lawyer, and made money, but died

young. "He and I," observes Franklin, "had made a serious agreement, that

the one who happen'd first to die should, if possible, make a friendly

visit to the other, and acquaint him how he found things in that separate

state. But he never fulfill'd his promise."

This group of friends was succeeded on Franklin's return from London by the

persons who constituted with him the original members of the Junto: Joseph

Breintnal, "a copyer of deeds for the scriveners," Thos. Godfrey, the

mathematical precisian, for whom Franklin had so little partiality,

Nicholas Scull, "a surveyor, afterwards Surveyor-general, who lov'd books,

and sometimes made a few verses," William Parsons, "bred a shoemaker, but,

loving reading, had acquir'd a considerable share of mathematics, which he

first studied with a view to astrology, that he afterwards laught at,"

William Maugridge, "a joiner, a most exquisite mechanic, and a solid,

sensible man," Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb, journeymen

printers, Robert Grace, "a young gentleman of some fortune, generous,

lively, and witty; a lover of punning and of his friends," and William

Coleman, then a merchant's clerk about Franklin's age, who had the coolest,

clearest head, the best heart, and the exactest morals, Franklin declares,

of almost any man he ever met with. Coleman subsequently became a merchant

of great note, and a provincial judge; and the friendship between Franklin

and himself continued without interruption until Coleman's death, a period

of more than forty years. Like Scull, Parsons also became Surveyor-General.

The reader will remember how, partly inspired by his affection for Robert

Grace, and partly by resentment over a small office, Franklin applied the

sharp edge of the _lex talionis_ to Jemmy Read. How both Coleman and Grace

came to the aid of Franklin in an hour of dire distress, we shall see

hereafter.

Such letters from Franklin to Parsons, as have survived, bear the marks of

intimate friendship. In one to him, when he was in command of a company at

Easton, dated December 15, 1755, in which reference is made to arms and

supplies, that had been forwarded for the defence of that town against the

Indians, Franklin says, "Be of good Courage, and God guide you. Your

Friends will never desert you." Four of the original members of the Junto

were among the first members of the Philosophical Society, established by

Franklin, Parsons, as Geographer, Thomas Godfrey, as Mathematician, Coleman

as Treasurer, and Franklin himself as Secretary. Parsons died during the

first mission of Franklin to England, and, in a letter to Deborah the

latter comments on the event in these words: "I regret the Loss of my

Friend Parsons. Death begins to make Breaches in the little Junto of old

Friends, that he had long forborne, and it must be expected he will now

soon pick us all off one after another." In another letter, written some

months later to Hugh Roberts, a member of the Junto, but not one of the

original members, he institutes a kind of Plutarchian contrast between

Parsons and Stephen Potts, who is described in the _Autobiography_ as a

young countryman of full age, bred to country work, of uncommon natural

parts, and great wit and humor, but a little idle.

Two of the former members of the Junto you tell me [he

said] are departed this life, Potts and Parsons. Odd

characters both of them. Parsons a wise man, that often

acted foolishly; Potts a wit, that seldom acted wisely.

If _enough_ were the means to make a man happy, one had

always the _means_ of happiness, without ever enjoying

the _thing_; the other had always the _thing_, without

ever possessing the _means_. Parsons, even in his

prosperity, always fretting; Potts, in the midst of his

poverty, ever laughing. It seems, then, that happiness

in this life rather depends on internals than

externals; and that, besides the natural effects of

wisdom and virtue, vice and folly, there is such a

thing as a happy or an unhappy constitution. They were

both our friends, and loved us. So, peace to their

shades. They had their virtues as well as their

foibles; they were both honest men, and that alone, as

the world goes, is one of the greatest of characters.

They were old acquaintances, in whose company I

formerly enjoyed a great deal of pleasure, and I cannot

think of losing them, without concern and regret.

The Hugh Roberts to whom this letter was written was the Hugh Roberts, who

found such pleasure in the glad peal of bells, that announced the safe

arrival of Franklin in England, and in his reminiscences of his friend of

forty years' standing, that he quite forgot that it was his rule to be in

bed by eleven o'clock. He was, if Franklin may be believed, an eminent

farmer, which may account for the early hours he kept; and how near he was

to Franklin the affectionate tone of this very letter abundantly testifies.

After expressing his grief because of their friend Syng's loss of his son,

and the hope that Roberts' own son might be in every respect as good and

useful as his father (than which he need not wish him more, he said)

Franklin takes Roberts gently to task for not attending the meetings of the

Junto more regularly.

I do not quite like your absenting yourself from that

Good old club, the Junto. Your more frequent presence

might be a means of keeping them from being all engaged

in measures not the best for public welfare. I exhort

you, therefore, to return to your duty; and, as the

Indians say, to confirm my words, I send you a

Birmingham tile. I thought the neatness of the figures

would please you.

Even the Birmingham tile, however, did not have the effect of correcting

Roberts' remissness, for in two subsequent letters Franklin returns to the

same subject. In the first, he tells Roberts that he had received his

letter by the hands of Roberts' son in London, and had had the pleasure

withal of seeing this son grow up a solid, sensible young man. He then

reverts to the Junto. "You tell me you sometimes visit the ancient Junto. I

wish you would do it oftener. I know they all love and respect you, and

regret your absenting yourself so much. People are apt to grow strange, and

not understand one another so well, when they meet but seldom." Then follow

these words which help us to see how he came to declare so confidently on

another occasion that, compared with the entire happiness of existence, its

occasional unhappiness is but as the pricking of a pin.

Since we have held that Club, till we are grown grey

together, let us hold it out to the End. For my own

Part, I find I love Company, Chat, a Laugh, a Glass,

and even a Song, as well as ever; and at the same Time

relish better than I used to do the grave Observations

and wise Sentences of old Men's Conversation; so that I

am sure the Junto will be still as agreeable to me as

it ever has been. I therefore hope it will not be

discontinu'd, as long as we are able to crawl together.

The second of the two letters makes still another appeal of the same

nature.

I wish [Franklin said] you would continue to meet the

Junto, notwithstanding that some Effects of our publick

political Misunderstandings may sometimes appear there.

'Tis now perhaps one of the _oldest_ Clubs, as I think

it was formerly one of the _best_, in the King's

Dominions. It wants but about two years of Forty since

it was establish'd. We loved and still love one

another; we are grown Grey together, and yet it is too

early to Part. Let us sit till the Evening of Life is

spent. The Last Hours are always the most joyous. When

we can stay no longer, 'tis time enough then to bid

each other good Night, separate, and go quietly to bed.

When even the bed of death could be made to wear this smooth and peaceful

aspect by such a genial conception of existence, it is not surprising that

Catherine Shipley, a friend of later date, should have asked Franklin to

instruct her in the art of procuring pleasant dreams. It was in this

letter, too, that he told Roberts that he was pleased with his punning, not

merely because he liked punning in general, but because he learned from the

use of it by Roberts that he was in good health and spirits. Of Hugh

Roberts it needs to be only further said that he was one of Franklin's many

friends who did what they could by courteous offices, when Franklin was

abroad, to testify that they loved him too much to be unmindful that he had

left a family behind him entitled to their protection and social

attentions. For his visits to his family Franklin sometimes thanks him.

The Philip Syng mentioned in one of the letters to Hugh Roberts was another

Philadelphia crony of Franklin's. He was enough of an electrician to be

several times given due credit by the unhesitating candor of Franklin for

ideas which the public would otherwise, perhaps, have fathered upon

Franklin himself, who was entirely too careless about his own fine feathers

to have any desire for borrowed plumage.

Samuel Rhoads, also, was one of the intimate Philadelphia friends to whom

Franklin was in the habit of sending his love. He, too, was an original

member of the Philosophical Society established by Franklin and was set

down as "Mechanician" on its roll of membership. At any rate, even if

"Mechanician" was a rather pompous term for him, as "Geographer" was for

William Parsons, the surveyor, he was enough of a builder to warrant

Franklin in imparting to him many valuable points about the construction of

houses, which were brought to the former's attention when he was abroad. A

striking proof, perhaps, of the strength of the attachment between the two

is found in the fact that Rhoads built the new residence, previously

mentioned by us, for Franklin without a rupture in their friendship;

although there appears to have been enough of the usual provoking delays to

cause Franklin no little dissatisfaction.

Rhoads was a man of considerable public importance in his time. He enjoyed

the distinction of being one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Hospital,

a conspicuous member of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and a Mayor of

Philadelphia.

He was one, too, of the Committee of the Assembly which audited Franklin's

accounts as the Agent of the Colony upon the latter's return from England

in 1762, and he was likewise a member of the Committee which had previously

reported that the estates of the Proprietaries in Pennsylvania were not

being unfairly taxed. In one of Franklin's letters to him, there is a

humorous reference to Rhoads' political career. "I congratulate you," he

said, "on Your Retirement, and you being able to divert yourself with

farming; 'tis an inexhaustible source of perpetual Amusement. Your Country

_Seat_ is of a more secure kind than _that_ in the Assembly: and I hope not

so much in the Power of the Mob to jostle you out of."

A golden sentence in this letter is one of the best that Franklin ever

penned. "As long as I have known the World I have observ'd that Wrong is

always growing more Wrong till there is no bearing it, and that right

however oppos'd, comes right at last."

Rhoads, Syng and Roberts were all three included with Luke Morris, another

old friend and an _et cetera_, intended to embrace other friends besides,

in a letter which Franklin wrote from Passy to Dr. Thomas Bond.

I thank you [he said] for the pleasing account you give

me of the health and welfare of my old friends, Hugh

Roberts, Luke Morris, Philip Syng, Samuel Rhoads, &c.,

with the same of yourself and family. Shake the old

ones by the hand for me, and give the young ones my

blessing. For my own part, I do not find that I grow

any older. Being arrived at seventy, and considering

that by travelling further in the same road I should

probably be led to the grave, I stopped short, turned

about, and walked back again; which having done these

four years, you may now call me sixty-six.

Dr. Thomas Bond, the Physician of the Philosophical Society established by

Franklin, to whom this letter was written, was also one of Franklin's

lifelong friends. He was the Doctor Bond, who found that he could make no

headway with his hospital project until it was encouraged by a _ca ira_

from Franklin, something like that which he is said to have uttered many

years afterwards in France when the issue of the American Revolution was

uncertain. For the society of physicians and liberal-minded clergymen

Franklin had a peculiar partiality. To the one class he was attracted by

both the scientific and humanitarian nature of their profession, to say

nothing of the incessant intercourse with their fellow creatures, which

makes all physicians more or less men of the world; and to the questioning

spirit of the eighteenth century he was too true not to have a natural

affinity for clergymen of the latitudinarian type. The ties between Dr.

Thomas Bond, Dr. John Bard and Dr. Benjamin Rush and himself were very

close. He had such a high opinion of Dr. Bond's pills that on one occasion

he even writes to his wife from Virginia to send him some by post. On

another occasion, when he was in England, he tells Deborah to thank Dr.

Bond for the care that he takes of her. In a letter to the Doctor himself,

he remarks that he did not know why their school of physic in Philadelphia

should not soon be equal to that in Edinburgh, an observation which seemed

natural enough to later Philadelphians when it was not only considered

throughout the United States a high compliment to say of a man that he was

as clever as a Philadelphia lawyer, but a medical education was in a large

part of the United States deemed incomplete unless it had received the

finishing touch from the clinics of that city.

When Dr. John Bard removed to New York, where he became the first President

of the New York Medical Society, Franklin stated in a letter to Cadwallader

Colden that he esteemed Dr. Bard an ingenious physician and surgeon, and a

discreet, worthy and honest man. In a letter to Dr. Bard and his wife in

1785, he used these tender words: "You are right in supposing, that I

interest myself in everything that affects you and yours, sympathizing in

your afflictions, and rejoicing in your felicities; for our friendship is

ancient, and was never obscured by the least cloud."

Dr. Rush was such a fervid friend and admirer of Franklin that the latter

found it necessary to request him, if he published his discourse on the

Moral Sense, to omit totally and suppress that most extravagant encomium on

his friend Franklin, which hurt him exceedingly in the unexpected hearing,

and would mortify him beyond conception if it should appear from the press.

The doctor replied by saying that he had suppressed the encomium, but had

taken the liberty of inscribing the discourse to Franklin by a simple

dedication, and earnestly insisted upon the permission of his friend to

send his last as he did his first publication into the world under the

patronage of his name. In the "simple" dedication, the panegyric, which had

made Franklin so uncomfortable, was moderated to such an extent that no

character was ascribed to him more transcendent than that of the friend and

benefactor of mankind.

To Dr. Rush we are under obligations for several stories about Franklin. He

tells us that, when chosen by Congress to be one of our Commissioners to

France, Franklin turned to him, and remarked: "I am old and good for

nothing; but, as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, 'I am but

a fag end, and you may have me for what you please.'" No one doubts now

that for the purpose of the French mission he was by far the best piece of

goods in the shop. Another story, which came to Dr. Rush at second hand,

sounds apocryphal. "Why do you wear that old coat today?" asked Silas Deane

of Franklin, when they were on their way to sign the Treaty of Alliance

with France. Deane referred to the coat, in which Franklin was clad, when

Wedderburn made the rabid attack on him before the Privy Council, to which

we shall refer later. "To give it its revenge," was the reply. Franklin may

have said that, but it was not like him to say anything of the sort.

But we get back to the domain of unquestionable authenticity when we turn

to Dr. Rush's account of Franklin's death-bed:

The evening of his life was marked by the same activity

of his moral and intellectual powers which

distinguished its meridian. His conversation with his

family upon the subject of his dissolution was free and

cheerful. A few days before he died, he rose from his

bed and begged that it might be made up for him so

_that he might die in a decent manner_. His daughter

told him that she hoped he would recover and live many

years longer. He calmly replied, "_I hope not._" Upon

being advised to change his position in bed, that he

might breathe easy, he said, "_A dying man can do

nothing easy._" All orders and bodies of people have

vied with each other in paying tributes of respect to

his memory.

A Philadelphia friend, for whom Franklin entertained a peculiar affection,

was John Bartram, the botanist. "Our celebrated Botanist of Pennsylvania,"

Franklin deservedly terms him in a letter to Jan Ingenhousz. In one letter

Franklin addresses him as "My ever dear friend," in another as "My good and

dear old friend" and in another as "My dear good old friend." In 1751,

Bartram published his _Observations on the Inhabitants, Climate, Soil,

Rivers, Productions, Animals, and other Matters worthy of Notice. Made by

Mr. John Bartram in his Travels from Pensilvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and

the Lake Ontario, in Canada_, and, in a letter to Jared Eliot, Franklin,

after mentioning the fact that Bartram corresponded with several of the

great naturalists in Europe, and would be proud of an acquaintance with

him, said: "I make no Apologies for introducing him to you; for, tho' a

plain illiterate Man, you will find he has Merit." "He is a Man of no

Letters, but a curious Observer of Nature," was his statement in a

subsequent letter to the same correspondent. Through the mediation of

Franklin, Bartram was made the American botanist to the King, and given a

pension for the fearless and tireless search for botanical specimens, which

he had prosecuted, when American forest, savannah and everglade were as

full of death as the berry of the nightshade. It was the thought of what he

had hazarded that led Franklin to write to him in 1769: "I wish you would

now decline your long and dangerous peregrinations in search of new plants,

and remain safe and quiet at home, employing your leisure hours in a work

that is much wanted, and which no one besides is so capable of performing;

I mean the writing a Natural History of our country." The pension meant so

much to Bartram that he found difficulty in assuring himself that it would

last. In one letter, Franklin tells him that he imagines that there is no

doubt but the King's bounty to him would be continued, but he must continue

on his part to send over now and then a few such curious seeds as he could

procure to keep up his claim. In another letter, he tells him that there is

no instance in the then King's reign of a pension once granted ever being

taken away, unless for some great offence. Franklin himself was first of

all a sower of seed, of that seed which produces the wholesome plants of

benevolence and utility; so it seems quite in keeping to find him, when he

was absent from America, maintaining a constant interchange of different

sorts of seed with Bartram. If Bartram chooses to try the seed of naked

oats and Swiss barley, six rows to one ear, he can get some, Franklin

writes, by calling on Mrs. Franklin. In another letter, he acknowledges the

receipt of seeds from Bartram, and, in return for it, sends him some of the

true rhubarb seed which he desires; also some green dry peas, highly

esteemed in England as the best for making pea soup; and also some

caravances or beans, of which a cheese was made in China. Strangely enough,

he could learn nothing about the seed of the lucerne or alfalfa plant, one

of the oldest of forage plants, for which Bartram wrote. Later, he sends

Bartram a small box of upland rice, brought from Cochin China, and also a

few seeds of the Chinese tallow tree.

Another particular friend of Franklin was John Hughes of Philadelphia. This

is the Hughes, out of whose debt as a correspondent Franklin, when in

England, found it impossible to keep. He was a man of considerable

political importance, for he served on the Committee of the Assembly, which

was charged with the expenditure of the L60,000 appropriated by the

Assembly, after Braddock's defeat, mainly for the defence of the Province,

and on the Committee of the Assembly, which audited Franklin's accounts

after his return from England in 1762; and was also one of the delegates

appointed by the Assembly to confer with Teedyuscung, the King of the

Delawares, at Easton in 1756. Even when Franklin, his party associate, was

defeated as a candidate for re-election to the Assembly in 1764, Hughes

contrived to clamber back into his own seat. The departure for England of

Franklin, shortly after this election, was the signal for the most venomous

of all the attacks made upon him by the class of writers which he happily

termed "bug-writers"; that is, writers, to use his words, who resemble

"those little dirty stinking insects, that attack us only in the dark,

disturb our Repose, molesting and wounding us, while our Sweat and Blood

are contributing to their Subsistence." But the friendship of Hughes was

equal to the emergency. Incensed at the outrageous nature of the attack, he

published a card over his signature, in which he promised that, if Chief

Justice Allen, or any gentleman of character, would undertake to justify

the charges against Franklin, he would pay L10 to the Hospital for every

one of these charges that was established; provided that the person, who

made them, would pay L5 for every false accusation against Franklin that he

disproved. The assailants endeavored to turn Hughes' challenge into

ridicule by an anonymous reply, but Hughes rejoined with a counter-reply

above his own signature, in which, according to William Franklin, he lashed

them very severely for their baseness. This brought on a newspaper

controversy, which did not end, until Chief Justice Allen, who was drawn

into its vortex, was enraged to find that it had cost him L25. Later, the

recommendation of Hughes by Franklin, as the Stamp Distributor for

Pennsylvania and the Counties of New Castle, Kent and Sussex, gave the

worst shock to the popularity of the latter that it ever received. The

fierce heat that colonial resentment kindled under the hateful office

proved too much for even such a resolute incumbent as Hughes, but he was

not long in finding a compensation in the somewhat lower temperature of the

office of Collector of Customs for the Colonies, which he held until his

death.

Thomas Hopkinson, of Philadelphia, too, was one of Franklin's particular

friends. He shared his enthusiasm for electrical experiments, and was the

first President of the Philosophical Society established by him. With his

usual generosity, Franklin took pains in a note to one of his scientific

papers to publish the fact that the power of points to _throw off_ the

electrical fire was first communicated to him by this friend, then

deceased. Nor did he stop there, but referred to him at the same time as a

man "whose virtue and integrity, in every station of life, public and

private, will ever make his Memory dear to those who knew him, and knew how

to value him." There is an amusing reference to Hopkinson in the

_Autobiography_ in connection with the occasion on which Franklin himself

was so transported by Whitefield's eloquence as to empty his pockets, gold

and all, into the collector's dish. Disapproving of Whitefield's desire to

establish an orphan asylum in Georgia, and suspecting that subscriptions

would be solicited by him for that object, and yet distrusting his own

capacity to resist a preacher, by whom, in the language of Isaiah, the

hearts of the people were stirred, as the trees of the wood are stirred

with the wind, he took the precaution of emptying his pockets before he

left home. But Whitefield's pathos was too much for him also. Towards the

conclusion of the discourse, he felt a strong desire to give, and applied

to a Quaker neighbor, who stood near him, to borrow some money for the

purpose. The application was unfortunately made, the _Autobiography_ says,

to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not to be

affected by the preacher. His answer was, "_At any other time, Friend

Hopkinson, I would lend to thee freely; but not now, for thee seems to be

out of thy right senses._"

Anyone who enjoyed Franklin's friendship experienced very little difficulty

in passing it on to his son at his death. Francis Hopkinson, the son of

Thomas Hopkinson, and the author of _Hail Columbia_, is one example of

this. Franklin's letters to him are marked by every indication of

affection, and he bequeathed to him all his philosophical instruments in

Philadelphia, and made him one of the executors of his will with Henry

Hill, John Jay and Mr. Edward Duffield, of Benfield, in Philadelphia

County. In doing so, with his happy faculty for such things he managed to

pay a twofold compliment to both father and son in one breath. After

expressing in a letter to Francis Hopkinson his pleasure that Hopkinson had

been appointed to the honorable office of Treasurer of Loans, he added: "I

think the Congress judg'd rightly in their Choice, and Exactness in

accounts and scrupulous fidelity in matters of Trust are Qualities for

which your father was eminent, and which I was persuaded was inherited by

his Son when I took the liberty of naming him one of the Executors of my

Will." Franklin even had a mild word of commendation for Hopkinson's

political squibs, some of which, when on their way across the ocean to him,

fell into the hands of the British along with Henry Laurens. The captors,

it is safe to say, attached very different degrees of importance to the two

prizes, and Hopkinson himself accepted the situation with the cheerful

observation, "They are heartily welcome to any performance of mine in that

way. I wish the dose was stronger and better for their sake." Several of

the letters from Franklin to Francis Hopkinson bring out two of the most

winning traits of the writer, his ability to find a sweet kernel under

every rind however bitter, and his aversion to defamation, which led him to

say truthfully on one occasion that between abusing and being abused he

would rather be abused.

As to the Friends and Enemies you just mention [he

declared in one of them], I have hitherto, Thanks to

God, had Plenty of the former kind; they have been my

Treasure; and it has perhaps been of no Disadvantage to

me, that I have had a few of the latter. They serve to

put us upon correcting the Faults we have, and avoiding

those we are in danger of having. They counteract the

Mischief Flattery might do us, and their Malicious

Attacks make our Friends more zealous in serving us,

and promoting our Interest. At present, I do not know

of more than two such Enemies that I enjoy, viz. Lee

and Izard. I deserved the Enmity of the latter, because

I might have avoided it by paying him a Compliment,

which I neglected. That of the former I owe to the

People of France, who happen'd to respect me too much

and him too little; which I could bear, and he could

not. They are unhappy, that they cannot make everybody

hate me as much as they do; and I should be so, if my

Friends did not love me much more than those Gentlemen

can possibly love one another.

Every ugly witch is but a transfigured princess. This idea is one that was

readily adopted by Franklin's amiable philosophy of life. The thought that

enemies are but wholesome mortifications for the pride of human flesh is a

thought that he often throws out in his letters to other persons besides

Hopkinson. In one to the gallant Col. Henry Bouquet, who was also, it may

be said in passing, a warm friend of Franklin, the pen of the latter halts

for a moment to parenthesize the fact that God had blessed him with two or

three enemies to keep him in order.

But there were few facts in which Franklin found more satisfaction than the

fact that all his enemies were mere political enemies, that is to say,

enemies like Dr. William Smith, who shot poisoned arrows at him, when he

was living, and fired minute guns over his grave, when he was dead.

You know [he wrote to his daughter Sally from Reedy

Island, when he was leaving America on his second

mission to England], I have many enemies, all indeed on

the public account (for I cannot recollect that I have

in a private capacity given just cause of offence to

any one whatever), yet they are enemies, and very

bitter ones; and you must expect their enmity will

extend in some degree to you, so that your slightest

indiscretions will be magnified into crimes, in order

the more sensibly to wound and afflict me.

The same distinction between personal and political hostility is drawn by

him in a letter to John Jay of a much later date in which he uses the only

terms of self-approval, so far as we can recollect, that a biographer might

prefer him never to have employed.

I have [he said], as you observe, some enemies in

England, but they are my enemies as an _American_; I

have also two or three in America; who are my enemies

as a _Minister_; but I thank God there are not in the

whole world any who are my Enemies as a _Man_; for by

his grace, thro' a long life, I have been enabled so to

conduct myself, that there does not exist a human Being

who can justly say, "Ben. Franklin has wrong'd me."

This, my friend, is in old age a comfortable

Reflection.

In one of the letters to Hopkinson, mentioned by us, he tells Hopkinson

that he does well to refrain from newspaper abuse. He was afraid, he

declared, to lend any American newspapers in France until he had examined

and laid aside such as would disgrace his countrymen, and subject them

among strangers to a reflection like that used by a gentleman in a

coffee-house to two quarrelers, who, after a mutually free use of the

words, _rogue_, _villain_, _rascal_, _scoundrel_, etc., seemed as if they

would refer their dispute to him. "I know nothing of you, or your Affair,"

said he; "I only perceive _that you know one another_."

The conductor of a newspaper, he thought, should consider himself as in

some degree the guardian of his country's reputation, and refuse to insert

such writings as might hurt it. If people will print their abuses of one

another, let them do it in little pamphlets, and distribute them where they

think proper, instead of troubling all the world with them, he suggested.

In expressing these sentiments, Franklin was but preaching what he had

actually practised in the management of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. This

fact imparts additional authority to the pungent observations on the

liberty of the press contained in one of the last papers that he ever

wrote, namely, his _Account of the Supreme Court of Judicature in

Pennsylvania, viz.: the Court of the Press_. In this paper, he arraigns the

license of the press in his half-serious, half-jocular fashion with

undiminished vigor, and ends with the recommendation to the Legislature

that, if the right of retaliation by the citizen was not to be left

unregulated, it should take up the consideration of both liberties, that of

the press and that of the cudgel, and by an explicit law mark their extent

and limits.

Doctor Cadwallader Evans of Philadelphia was also on a sufficiently

affectionate footing with Franklin for the latter to speak of him as his

"good old friend." When news of his death reached Franklin in London in

1773, the event awakened a train of reflection in his mind which led him to

write to his son that, if he found himself on his return to America, as he

feared he would do, a stranger among strangers, he would have to go back to

his friends in England.

Dr. Evans' idea of establishing a medical library at the Hospital was so

grateful to Franklin's untiring public spirit that, as soon as he heard of

it from Dr. Evans, he sent him at once the only medical book that he had,

and took steps to solicit other donations of such books for the purpose in

England. There are some instructive observations on political and medical

subjects in his earlier letters to Dr. Evans, but his later ones are mainly

given over to the movement for the production of silk in Pennsylvania in

which Dr. Evans was deeply interested. The industry, intelligence and

enthusiasm with which Franklin seconded his efforts to make the exotic

nursling a success is one of the many laudable things in his career.

Another close friend of Franklin was Abel James, a Quaker, and an active

member of the society in Pennsylvania for the manufacture of silk, or the

Filature, as it was called. When he returned to England in 1764, Abel

James, Thomas Wharton and Joseph Galloway were the friends who were so

loath to part with him that they even boarded his ship at Chester, and

accompanied him as far as New Castle. The enduring claim of James upon the

attention of posterity consists in the fact that he was so lucky, when the

books and papers, entrusted by Franklin to the care of Joseph Galloway were

raided, as to recover the manuscript of the first twenty-three pages of the

_Autobiography_, which brought the life of Franklin down to the year 1730.

Subsequently he sent a copy to "his dear and honored friend," with a letter

urging him to complete the work. "What will the world say," he asked, "if

kind, humane and benevolent Ben. Franklin should leave his friends and the

world deprived of so pleasing and profitable a work; a work which would be

useful and entertaining not only to a few, but to millions?"

The names of Thomas Wharton and Samuel Wharton, two Philadelphia friends of

Franklin, are more than once coupled together in Franklin's letters. Thomas

Wharton was a partner of Galloway and Goddard in the establishment of the

_Philadelphia Chronicle_. It was his woollen gown that Franklin found such

a comfortable companion on his winter voyage. He would seem to have been

the same kind of robust invalid as the neurasthenic who insisted that he

was dying of consumption until he grew so stout that he had to refer his

imaginary ill-health to dropsy.

Our friend W---- [Franklin wrote to Dr. Evans], who is

always complaining of a constant fever, looks

nevertheless fresh and jolly, and does not fall away in

the least. He was saying the other day at Richmond,

(where we were together dining with Governor Pownall)

that he had been pestered with a fever almost

continually for these three years past, and that it

gave way to no medicines, all he had taken, advised by

different physicians, having never any effect towards

removing it. On which I asked him, if it was not now

time to inquire, whether he had really any fever at

all. He is indeed the only instance I ever knew, of a

man's growing fat upon a fever.

It was with the assistance of Thomas Wharton that Thomas Livezy, a

Pennsylvania Quaker, sent Franklin a dozen bottles of wine, made of the

"small wild grape" of America, accompanied by a letter, which Franklin with

his _penchant_ for good stories, must have enjoyed even more than the wine.

Referring to the plan of converting the government of Pennsylvania from a

Proprietary into a Royal one, Livezy wrote that, if it was true that there

would be no change until the death of Thomas Penn, he did not know but that

some people in the Province would be in the same condition as a German's

wife in his neighborhood lately was "who said nobody could say she wished

her husband dead, but said, she wished she could see how he would look when

he was dead." "I honestly confess," Livezy went on to say, "I do not wish

him (Penn) to die against his will, but, if he could be prevailed on to die

for the good of the people, it might perhaps make his name as immortal as

Samson's death did his, and gain him more applause here than all the acts

which he has ever done in his life."

The humor of Franklin's reply, if humor it can be termed, was more

sardonic.

The Partizans of the present [he said] may as you say

flatter themselves that such Change will not take

place, till the Proprietor's death, but I imagine he

hardly thinks so himself. Anxiety and uneasiness are

painted on his brow and the woman who would like to see

how he would look when dead, need only look at him

while living.

With Samuel Wharton, Franklin was intimate enough to soothe his gout-ridden

feet with a pair of "Gouty Shoes" given or lent to him by Wharton. This

Wharton was with him one of the chief promoters of the Ohio settlement, of

which the reader will learn more later, and the project was brought near

enough to success by Franklin for his over-zealous friends to sow the seeds

of what might have been a misunderstanding between him and Wharton, if

Franklin had not been so healthy-minded, by claiming that the credit for

the prospective success of the project would belong to Wharton rather than

to Franklin. But, as Franklin said, many things happen between the cup and

the lip, and enough happened in this case to make the issue a wholly vain

one. Subsequently we know that Franklin in one letter asked John Paul Jones

to remember him affectionately to Wharton and in another referred to

Wharton as a "particular friend of his." His feelings, it is needless to

say, underwent a decided change when later the fact was brought to his

attention that Wharton had converted to his own use a sum of money placed

in his hands by Jan Ingenhousz, one of the most highly-prized of all

Franklin's friends.

There is a thrust at Parliament in a letter from Franklin to Samuel

Wharton, written at Passy, which is too keen not to be recalled. He is

describing the Lord George Gordon riots, during which Lord Mansfield's

house was destroyed.

If they had done no other Mischief [said Franklin], I

would have more easily excused them, as he has been an

eminent Promoter of the American War, and it is not

amiss that those who have approved the Burning our poor

People's Houses and Towns should taste a little of the

Effects of Fire themselves. But they turn'd all the

Thieves and Robbers out of Newgate to the Number of

three hundred, and instead of replacing them with an

equal Number of other Plunderers of the Publick, which

they might easily have found among the Members of

Parliament, they burnt the Building.

The relations between Franklin and Ebenezer Kinnersley, who shared his

enthusiasm for electrical experiments, John Foxcroft, who became his

colleague, as Deputy Postmaster-General for America after the death of

Colonel Hunter, and the Rev. Thomas Coombe, the assistant minister of

Christ Church and St. Peter's in Philadelphia, were of an affectionate

nature, but there is little of salient interest to be said about these

relations. Malice has asserted that Franklin did not give Kinnersley due

credit for ideas that he borrowed from him in his electrical experiments.

If so, Kinnersley must have had a relish for harsh treatment, for in a

letter to Franklin, when speaking of the lightning rod, he exclaimed, "May

it extend to the latest posterity of mankind, and make the name of FRANKLIN

like that of NEWTON _immortal_!"

James Wright, and his sister, Susannah Wright, who resided at Hempfield,

near Wright's Ferry, Pennsylvania, were likewise good friends of Franklin.

Part at any rate of the flour, on which Braddock's army subsisted, was

supplied by a mill erected by James Wright near the mouth of the Shawanese

Run. Susannah Wright was a woman of parts, interested in silk culture, and

fond of reading. On one occasion, Franklin sends her from Philadelphia a

couple of pamphlets refuting the charges of plagiarism preferred by William

Lauder against the memory of Milton and a book or tract entitled

_Christianity not Founded on Argument_. On another occasion, in a letter

from London to Deborah, he mentions, as part of the contents of a box that

he was transmitting to America, some pamphlets for the Speaker and "Susy"

Wright. Another gift to her was a specimen of a new kind of candles, "very

convenient to read by." She would find, he said, that they afforded a clear

white light, might be held in the hand even in hot weather without

softening, did not make grease spots with their drops like those made by

common candles, and lasted much longer, and needed little or no snuffing.

A sentiment of cordial friendship also existed between Franklin and

Anthony Benezet, a Philadelphia Quaker, born in France, who labored

throughout his life with untiring zeal for the abolition of the Slave

Trade. This trade, in the opinion of Franklin, not only disgraced the

Colonies, but, without producing any equivalent benefit, was dangerous to

their very existence. When actually engaged in business, as a printer, no

less than two books, aimed at the abolition of Slavery, one by Ralph

Sandyford, and the other by Benjamin Lay, both Quakers, were published by

him. The fact that Sandyford's book was published before 1730 and Lay's as

early as 1736, led Franklin to say in a letter to a friend in 1789, when

the feeling against Slavery was much more widespread, that the headway,

which it had obtained, was some confirmation of Lord Bacon's observation

that a good motion never dies--the same reflection, by the way, with which

he consoled himself when his abridgment of the Book of Common Prayer fell

still-born.

When Franklin took a friend to his bosom, it was usually, as he took

Deborah, for life. But Joseph Galloway, one of his Philadelphia friends,

was an exception to this rule. When Galloway decided to cast his lot with

the Loyalists, after Franklin, in a feeling letter to him, had painted

their "rising country" in auroral colors, Franklin simply let him lapse

into the general mass of detested Tories. Previously, his letters to

Galloway, while attended with but few personal details, had been of a

character to indicate that he not only entertained a very high estimate of

Galloway's abilities but cherished for him the warmest feeling of

affection. Indeed, in assuring Galloway of this affection, he sometimes

used a term as strong as "unalterable." When Galloway at the age of forty

thought of retiring from public life, Franklin told him that it would be in

his opinion something criminal to bury in private retirement so early all

the usefulness of so much experience and such great abilities. Several

years before he had written to Cadwallader Evans that he did not see that

Galloway could be spared from the Assembly without great detriment to their

affairs and to the general welfare of America. Among the most valuable of

his letters, are his letters to Galloway on political conditions in England

when the latter was the Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly. In one he

expresses the hope that a few months would bring them together, and hazards

the belief that, in the calm retirement of Trevose, Galloway's country

place, they might perhaps spend some hours usefully in conversation over

the proper constitution for the American Colonies. When Franklin learned

from his son that hints had reached the latter that Galloway's friendship

for Franklin had been chilled by the fear that he and Franklin would be

rivals for the same office, Franklin replied by stating that, if this

office would be agreeable to Galloway, he heartily wished it for him.

No insinuations of the kind you mention [he said],

concerning Mr. G.,--have reached me, and, if they had,

it would have been without the least effect; as I have

always had the strongest reliance on the steadiness of

his friendship, and on the best grounds, the knowledge

I have of his integrity, and the often repeated

disinterested services he has rendered me.

In another letter to his son, he said, "I cast my eye over Goddard's Piece

against our friend Mr. Galloway, and then lit my Fire with it."

The shadow of the approaching cloud is first noticed in a letter to

Galloway in 1775, in which Franklin asks him for permission to hint to him

that it was whispered in London by ministerial people that he and Mr. Jay

of New York were friends to their measures, and gave them private

intelligence of the views of the Popular Party. While at Passy, Franklin

informed the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs that General and

Lord Howe, Generals Cornwallis and Grey and other British officers had

formally given it as their opinion in Parliament that the conquest of

America was impracticable, and that Galloway and other American Loyalists

were to be examined that week to prove the contrary. "One would think the

first Set were likely to be the best Judges," he adds with acidulous

brevity. Later on, he did not dispose of Galloway so concisely. In a letter

to Richard Bache, after suggesting that some of his missing letter books

might be recovered by inquiry in the vicinity of Galloway's country seat,

he says, smarting partly under the loss of his letter books, and partly

under the deception that Galloway had practised upon him:

I should not have left them in his Hands, if he had not

deceiv'd me, by saying, that, though he was before

otherwise inclin'd, yet that, since the King had

declar'd us out of his Protection, and the Parliament

by an Act had made our Properties Plunder, he would go

as far in the Defence of his Country as any man; and

accordingly he had lately with Pleasure given Colours

to a Regiment of Militia, and an Entertainment to 400

of them before his House. I thought he was become a

stanch Friend to the glorious Cause. I was mistaken. As

he was a Friend of my Son's, to whom in my Will I had

Left all my Books and Papers, I made him one of my

Executors, and put the Trunk of Papers into his Hands,

imagining them safer in his House (which was out of the

way of any probable March of the enemies' Troops) than

in my own.

The correspondence between Franklin and Galloway is enlivened by only a

single gleam of Franklin's humor. This was kindled by the protracted

uncertainty which attended the application of his associates and himself to

the British Crown for the Ohio grant.

The Affair of the Grant [Franklin wrote to Galloway]

goes on but slowly. I do not yet clearly see Land. I

begin to be a little of the Sailor's Mind when they

were handing a Cable out of a Store into a Ship, and

one of 'em said: "Tis a long, heavy Cable. I wish we

could see the End of it." "D--n me," says another, "if

I believe it has any End; somebody has cut it off."[33]

James Logan, the accomplished Quaker scholar, David Hall, Franklin's

business partner, and Charles Thomson, the Secretary of Congress, were

other residents of Pennsylvania, with whom Franklin was connected by ties

of friendship, and we shall have occasion to speak of them again when we

come to his business and political career. "You will give an old man leave

to say, My Love to Mrs. Thompson," was a closing sentence in one of his

letters to Charles Thomson.

David Rittenhouse, of Philadelphia, the celebrated astronomer was also a

dear friend of his.

Of his New York friends, John Jay was the one, of whom he was fondest, and

this friendship included the whole of Jay's family. In a letter from Passy

to Jay, shortly after Jay arrived at Madrid, as our minister

plenipotentiary to Spain, he tells him that he sends for Mrs. Jay at her

request a print of himself.

The Verses at the bottom [he wrote] are truly

extravagant. But you must know, that the Desire of

pleasing, by a perpetual rise of Compliments in this

polite Nation, has so us'd up all the common

Expressions of Approbation, that they are become flat

and insipid, and to use them almost implies Censure.

Hence Musick, that formerly might be sufficiently

prais'd when it was called _bonne_, to go a little

farther they call'd it _excellente_, _then superbe_,

_magnifique_, _exquise_, celeste, all which being in

their turns worn out, there only remains _divine_; and,

when that is grown as insignificant as its

Predecessors, I think they must return to common Speech

and common Sense; as from vying with one another in

fine and costly Paintings on their Coaches, since I

first knew the Country, not being able to go farther in

that Way, they have returned lately to plain Carriages,

painted without Arms or Figures, in one uniform Colour.

In a subsequent letter, Franklin informs Jay that, through the assistance

of the French Court, he is in a position to honor the drafts of Jay to the

extent of $25,000. "If you find any Inclination to hug me for the good News

of this Letter," he concluded, "I constitute and appoint Mrs. Jay my

Attorney, to receive in my Behalf your embraces."

Afterwards Jay was appointed one of our Commissioners to negotiate the

treaty of peace with Great Britain, and he and his family settled down

under the same roof with Franklin at Passy. The result was a mutual feeling

of attachment, so strong that when Jay returned to America Franklin could

write to him of a kind letter that he had received from him: "It gave me

Pleasure on two Accounts; as it inform'd me of the public Welfare, and that

of your, I may almost say _our_ dear little Family; for, since I had the

Pleasure of their being with me in the same House, I have ever felt a

tender Affection for them, equal I believe to that of most Fathers." In

other letters to Jay, there are repeated references by Franklin to the

child of Jay mentioned above whose singular attachment to him, he said, he

would always remember. "Embrace my little Friend for me," he wrote to Jay

and his wife, when he was wishing them a prosperous return voyage to

America, and, in a later letter, after his own return to America, to the

same pair, he said he was so well as to think it possible that he might

once more have the pleasure of seeing them both at New York, with his dear

young friend, who, he hoped, might not have quite forgotten him.

Beyond the Harlem River, his friends were only less numerous than they

were in Pennsylvania. Among the most conspicuous were Josiah Quincy, John

Winthrop, Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard

College, and Dr. Samuel Cooper, the celebrated clergyman and patriot. We

mention these three Boston friends of his first because they were feelingly

grouped in a letter that he wrote to James Bowdoin, another valued Boston

friend of his, towards the close of his life. In this letter, he tells

Bowdoin that it had given him great pleasure to receive his kind letter, as

it proved that all his friends in Boston were not estranged from him by the

malevolent misrepresentations of his conduct that had been circulated

there, but that one of the most esteemed still retained a regard for him.

"Indeed," Franklin said, "you are now almost the only one left me by

nature; Death having, since we were last together, depriv'd me of my dear

Cooper, Winthrop, and Quincy." Winthrop, he had said, in an earlier letter

to Dr. Cooper, was one of the old friends for the sake of whose society he

wished to return from France and spend the small remnant of his days in New

England. The friendship between Quincy and Franklin began when Franklin was

a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and had its origin in the sum of ten

thousand pounds, which Quincy, as the agent of the Colony of Massachusetts,

obtained through the assistance of Franklin from the Colony of Pennsylvania

for the military needs of the former colony. Quincy, Franklin said in the

_Autobiography_, returned thanks to the Assembly in a handsome memorial,

went home highly pleased with the success of his embassy, and ever after

bore for him the most cordial and affectionate friendship.

For Quincy's highly promising son, Josiah, who died at sea at the early age

of thirty-five, Franklin formed a warm regard when Josiah came over to

London during the second mission of Franklin to England. To the father he

wrote of the son in terms that were doubtless deeply gratifying to him,

and, in a letter to James Bowdoin, he said: "I am much pleased with Mr.

Quincy. It is a thousand pities his strength of body is not equal to his

strength of mind. His zeal for the public, like that of David for God's

house, will, I fear, eat him up." Later, when the younger Quincy's zeal had

actually consumed him, Franklin wrote to the elder Quincy:

The epitaph on my dear and much esteemed young Friend,

is too well written to be capable of Improvement by any

Corrections of mine. Your Moderation appears in it,

since the natural affection of a Parent has not induced

you to exaggerate his Virtues. I shall always mourn his

Loss with you; a Loss not easily made up to his

Country.

And then, referring to some of the falsehoods in circulation about his own

conduct as Commissioner, he exclaimed: "How differently constituted was his

noble and generous Mind from that of the miserable Calumniators you

mention! Having Plenty of Merit in himself, he was not jealous of the

Appearance of Merit in others, but did Justice to their Characters with as

much Pleasure as these People do Injury."

When he sat down at Saratoga to write to a few friends by way of farewell,

fearing that the mission to Canada at his time of life would prove too much

for him, Quincy was the first of his New England friends to whom he sent an

adieu.

To Dr. Samuel Cooper, Franklin wrote some of the most valuable of all his

political letters, but the correspondence between them is marked by few

details of a personal or social nature. It was upon the recommendation of

Franklin that the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon Cooper by

the University of Edinburgh. "The Part I took in the Application for your

Degree," he wrote to Dr. Cooper, "was merely doing justice to Merit, which

is the Duty of an honest Man whenever he has the Opportunity." That Dr.

Cooper was duly grateful, we may infer, among other things, from a letter

in which Franklin tells his sister Jane that he is obliged to good Dr.

Cooper for his prayers. That he was able to hold his own even with such a

skilful dispenser of compliments as Franklin himself we may readily believe

after reading the letter to Franklin in which he used these words: "You

once told me in a letter, as you were going to France, the public had had

the eating your flesh and seemed resolved to pick your bones--we all agree

the nearer the bone the sweeter the meat." It was to Dr. Cooper that

Franklin expressed the hope that America would never deserve the reproof

administered to an enthusiastical knave in Pennsylvania, who, when asked by

his creditor to give him a bond and pay him interest, replied:

No, I cannot do that; I cannot in conscience either

receive or pay Interest, it is against my Principle.

You have then the Conscience of a Rogue, says the

Creditor: You tell me it is against your Principle to

pay Interest; and it being against your Interest to pay

the Principal, I perceive you do not intend to pay me

either one or t'other.

The letters of Franklin to James Bowdoin are full of interest, but the

interest is scientific.

Another Boston friend of Franklin was Mather Byles. In a letter to him,

Franklin expresses his pleasure at learning that the lives of Byles and his

daughters had been protected by his "points," and his regret that

electricity had not really proved what it was at first supposed to be--a

cure for the palsy.

It is however happy for you [Franklin said], that, when

Old Age and that Malady have concurr'd to infeeble you,

and to disable you for Writing, you have a Daughter at

hand to nurse you with filial Attention, and to be your

Secretary, of which I see she is very capable, by the

Elegance and Correctness of her Writing in the Letter I

am now answering.

Other letters from Franklin to Byles have unhappily perished. This fact is

brought to our knowledge by a letter from him to Elizabeth Partridge, which

shows that even the famous letter to her, in which he spoke of the end of

his brother as if he had gone off quietly from a party of pleasure in a

sedan chair, led for a time a precarious existence. If this was the letter,

he said, of which she desired a copy, he fancied that she might possibly

find it in Boston, as Dr. Byles once wrote to him that many copies had been

taken of it. Then follows this playful and characteristic touch. "I too,

should have been glad to have seen that again, among others I had written

to him and you. But you inform me they were eaten by the Mice. Poor little

innocent Creatures, I am sorry they had no better Food. But since they like

my Letters, here is another Treat for them."

Another Massachusetts friend of Franklin was Samuel Danforth, the President

of its Colonial Council. "It gave me great pleasure," Franklin wrote to

this friend on one occasion, "to receive so chearful an Epistle from a

Friend of half a Century's Standing, and to see him commencing Life anew in

so valuable a Son." When this letter was written, Franklin was in his

sixty-eighth year, but how far he was from being sated with the joy of

living other passages in it clearly manifest.

I hope [he said] for the great Pleasure of once more

seeing and conversing with you: And tho' living-on in

one's Children, as we both may do, is a good thing, I

cannot but fancy it might be better to continue living

ourselves at the same time. I rejoice, therefore, in

your kind Intentions of including me in the Benefits of

that inestimable Stone, which, curing all Diseases

(even old Age itself) will enable us to see the future

glorious state of our America, enjoying in full

security her own Liberties, and offering in her Bosom

a Participation of them to all the oppress'd of other

Nations. I anticipate the jolly Conversation we and

twenty more of our Friends may have 100 Years hence on

this subject, over that well replenish'd Bowl at

Cambridge Commencement.

In Connecticut, too, Franklin had some highly prized friends. Among them

were Jared Eliot, the grandson of Apostle Eliot, and the author of an essay

upon _Field Husbandry in New England_, Ezra Stiles, President of Yale

College, Dr. Samuel Johnson and Jared Ingersoll. The letters from Franklin

to Eliot are a charming _melange_ of what is now known as Popular Science

and Agriculture. To Franklin there was philosophy even in the roasting of

an egg, and for agriculture he had the partiality which no one, so close to

all the pulsations of nature as he was, can fail to entertain. When he

heard from his friend Mrs. Catherine Greene that her son Ray was "smart in

the farming way," he wrote to her, "I think agriculture the most honourable

of all employments, being the most independent. The farmer has no need of

popular favour, nor the favour of the great; the success of his crops

depending only on the blessing of God upon his honest industry." Franklin,

of course, was writing before the day of the trust, the high protective

tariff, the San Jose scale and the boll weevil.

In one letter to Eliot he gossips delightfully upon such diverse topics as

the price of linseed oil, the kind of land on which Pennsylvania hemp was

raised, the recent weather, northeast storms, the origin of springs,

sea-shell strata and import duties. Something is also said in the letter

about grass seed, and it is curious to note that apparently Franklin was

not aware that in parts of New England timothy has always been known as

herd's-grass. And this reminds us that he repeatedly in his later life

protested against the use in New England of the word "improve" in the

sense of "employ" as a barbarous innovation, when in point of fact the word

had been used in that sense in a lampoon in the _Courant_, when that lively

sheet was being published under his youthful management. In another letter,

written probably in the year 1749, Franklin tells Eliot that he had

purchased some eighteen months before about three hundred acres of land

near Burlington, and was resolved to improve it in the best and speediest

manner. "My fortune, (thank God)," he said, "is such that I can enjoy all

the necessaries and many of the Indulgences of Life; but I think that in

Duty to my children I ought so to manage, that the profits of my Farm may

Balance the loss my Income will Suffer by my retreat to it." He then

proceeds to narrate to Eliot what he had done to secure this result; how he

had scoured up the ditches and drains in one meadow, reduced it to an

arable condition, and reaped a good crop of oat fodder from it, and how he

had then immediately ploughed the meadow again and harrowed it, and sowed

it with different kinds of grass seed. "Take the whole together," he said

with decided satisfaction, "it is well-matted, and looks like a green

corn-field." He next tells how he drained a round pond of twelve acres, and

seeded the soil previously covered by it, too. Even in such modest

operations as these the quick observation and precise standards of a man,

who was perhaps first of all a man of science, are apparent. He noted that

the red clover came up in four days and the herd's-grass in six days, that

the herd's-grass was less sensitive to frost than the red clover, and that

the thicker grass seed is sown the less injured by the frost the young

grass is apt to be. By actual experiment, he found that a bushel of clean

chaff of timothy or salem grass seed would yield five quarts of seed. In

another letter to Eliot he has a word to say about the Schuyler copper mine

in New Jersey (the only valuable copper mine in America that he knew of)

which yielded good copper and turned out vast wealth to its owners. And

then there is a ray from the splendor in which the lordly Schuylers lived

in this bit of descriptive detail:

Col. John Schuyler, one of the owners, has a deer park

five miles round, fenced with cedar logs, five logs

high, with blocks of wood between. It contains a

variety of land, high and low, woodland and clear.

There are a great many deer in it; and he expects in a

few years to be able to kill two hundred head a year,

which will be a very profitable thing. He has likewise

six hundred acres of meadow, all within bank.

The fact that Col. John Schuyler had six hundred acres of meadow land

within bank was not lost on Eliot; for later Franklin writes to him again

promising to obtain from Colonel Schuyler a particular account of the

method pursued by him in improving this land. "In return," said Franklin,

"(for you know there is no Trade without Returns) I request you to procure

for me a particular Acct of the manner of making a new kind of Fence we saw

at Southhold, on Long Island, which consists of a Bank and Hedge." With the

exactitude of an experimental philosopher, he then details the precise

particulars that he desired, disclosing in doing so the fact that

Pennsylvania was beginning in many places to be at a loss for wood to fence

with. This statement need not surprise the reader, for in his _Account of

the New-Invented Pennsylvanian Fireplaces_, published some six years

before, Franklin informs us that wood, at that time the common fuel, which

could be formerly obtained at every man's door, had then to be fetched near

one hundred miles to some towns, and made a very considerable article in

the expense of families. From this same essay, we learn that it was deemed

uncertain by Franklin whether "Pit-Coal" would ever be discovered in

Pennsylvania! In another letter from Franklin to Eliot, along with some

items about Peter Collinson, "a most benevolent, worthy man, very curious

in botany and other branches of natural history, and fond of improvements

in agriculture, &c.," Hugh Roberts' high opinion of Eliot's "Pieces,"

ditching, the Academy, barometers, thermometers and hygrometers, Franklin

has some sprightly observations to make upon the love of praise. Rarely, we

venture to say, have more winning arguments ever been urged for the

reversal of the world's judgment upon any point.

What you mention concerning the love of praise is

indeed very true; it reigns more or less in every

heart; though we are generally hypocrites, in that

respect, and pretend to disregard praise, and our nice,

modest ears are offended, forsooth, with what one of

the ancients calls _the sweetest kind of music_. This

hypocrisy is only a sacrifice to the pride of others,

or to their envy; both which, I think, ought rather to

be mortified. The same sacrifice we make, when we

forbear to _praise ourselves_, which naturally we are

all inclined to; and I suppose it was formerly the

fashion, or Virgil, that courtly writer, would not have

put a speech into the mouth of his hero, which

now-a-days we should esteem so great an indecency;

"Sum pius AEneas ...

... fama super aether a notus."

One of the Romans, I forget who, justified speaking in

his own praise by saying, _Every freeman had a right to

speak what he thought of himself as well as of others_.

That this is a natural inclination appears in that all

children show it, and say freely, _I am a good boy; Am

I not a good girl?_ and the like, till they have been

frequently chid, and told their trumpeter is dead; and

that it is unbecoming to sound their own praise, &c.

But _naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret_.

Being forbid to praise themselves, they learn instead

of it to censure others; which is only a roundabout way

of praising themselves; for condemning the conduct of

another, in any particular, amounts to as much as

saying, _I am so honest, or wise, or good, or prudent,

that I could not do or approve of such an action_. This

fondness for ourselves, rather than malevolence to

others, I take to be the general source of censure and

back biting; and I wish men had not been taught to dam

up natural currents, to the overflowing and damage of

their neighbour's grounds.

* * * * *

Another advantage, methinks, would arise from freely

speaking our good thoughts of ourselves, viz. if we

were wrong in them, somebody or other would readily set

us right; but now, while we conceal so carefully our

vain, erroneous self-opinions, we may carry them to our

grave, for who would offer physic to a man that seems

to be in health? And the privilege of recounting freely

our own good actions might be an inducement to the

doing of them, that we might be enabled to speak of

them without being subject to be justly contradicted or

charged with falsehood; whereas now, as we are not

allowed to mention them, and it is an uncertainty

whether others will take due notice of them or not, we

are perhaps the more indifferent about them; so that,

upon the whole, I wish the out-of-fashion practice of

praising ourselves would, like other old fashions, come

round into fashion again. But this I fear will not be

in our time, so we must even be contented with what

little praise we can get from one another. And I will

endeavour to make you some amends for the trouble of

reading this long scrawl, by telling you, that I have

the sincerest esteem for you, as an ingenious man and a

good one, which together make the valuable member of

society.

It is letters like this that cause us to feel that, if it were known that

the lost letters of Franklin were somewhere still in existence, the world

might well organize another company of Argonauts to find them.

In a subsequent letter to Eliot, Franklin thanks him for his gift of Merino

wool, and tells him that it was one Mr. Masters who made dung of leaves,

and not Mr. Roberts. In the same letter, he takes occasion to let Eliot

know that Peter Collinson has written to him that the worthy, learned and

ingenious Mr. Jackson, who had been prevailed on to give some dissertations

on the husbandry of Norfolk for the benefit of the Colonies, admired

Eliot's agricultural tracts. In still another letter to Eliot, Franklin,

true to the brief that he held for love of praise, writes to him in these

terms of unreserved gratification:

The _Tatler_ tells us of a Girl, who was observed to

grow suddenly proud, and none cou'd guess the Reason,

till it came to be known that she had got on a new Pair

of Garters. Lest you should be puzzled to guess the

Cause, when you observe any Thing of the kind in me, I

think I will not hide my new Garters under my

Petticoats, but take the Freedom to show them to you,

in a paragraph of our friend Collinson's Letter,

viz.--But I ought to mortify, and not indulge, this

Vanity; I will not transcribe the Paragraph, yet I

cannot forbear.

He then transcribes the paragraph in which Collinson had informed him that

the Grand Monarch of France had commanded the Abbe Mazeas to write a letter

in the politest terms to the Royal Society, to return the King's thanks and

compliments in an express manner to Mr. Franklin of Pennsylvania for his

useful discoveries in electricity, and the application of pointed rods to

prevent the terrible effect of thunderstorms. "I think, now I have stuck a

Feather in thy Cap," ended Collinson, "I may be allowed to conclude in

wishing thee long to wear it."

On reconsidering this Paragraph [continued Franklin], I

fear I have not so much Reason to be proud as the Girl

had; for a Feather in the Cap is not so useful a Thing,

or so serviceable to the Wearer, as a Pair of good silk

Garters. The Pride of Man is very differently

gratify'd; and, had his Majesty sent me a marshal's

staff, I think I should scarce have been so proud of

it, as I am of your Esteem.

There were many principles of congeniality at work to cause Franklin to

open his heart so familiarly to Eliot, but one of the most active doubtless

was their common love of good stories. "I remember with Pleasure the

cheerful Hours I enjoy'd last Winter in your Company," he wrote to Eliot,

after his visit to New England in 1754, "and would with all my heart give

any ten of the thick old Folios that stand on the Shelves before me, for a

_little book_ of the Stories you then told with so much Propriety and

Humor."

We have already referred to the famous letter, in which, Franklin, a few

weeks before his death, stated his religious creed with such unfaltering

clearness and directness to Dr. Ezra Stiles, who had written to him, saying

that he wished to know the opinion of his venerable friend concerning Jesus

of Nazareth, and expressing the hope that he would not impute this to

impertinence or improper curiosity in one, who, for so many years, had

continued to love, estimate and reverence his abilities and literary

character with an ardor and affection bordering on adoration. In his reply,

Franklin declared that he had never before been questioned upon religion,

and he asked Dr. Stiles not to publish what he had written.

I have ever [he said] let others enjoy their religious

Sentiments, without reflecting on them for those that

appeared to me unsupportable and even absurd. All Sects

here, and we have a great Variety, have experienced my

good will in assisting them with Subscriptions for

building their new Places of Worship; and, as I have

never opposed any of their Doctrines, I hope to go out

of the World in Peace with them all.

This letter is so full of interest for the reader that it is to be

regretted that Dr. Stiles did not oftener indulge the national weakness for

asking questions before his aged correspondent went out of the world in

peace with the sects, which most assuredly would have followed him with a

shower of stones as thick as that which overwhelmed St. Stephen, if they

had known that the discreet old philosopher, who contrived to keep on such

comfortable working terms with every one of them, doubted all the while the

divinity of our Lord. This letter also has a readable word to say in

response to the honor that Dr. Stiles proposed to do Franklin by placing

his portrait in the same room at Yale with that of Governor Yale, whom

Franklin pronounced "a great and good man." Yale College, Franklin

gratefully recalled, was the first learned society that took notice of him,

and adorned him with its honors, though it was from the University of St.

Andrews that he received the title which made him known to the world as

"Dr. Franklin."

Dr. Samuel Johnson has been termed "the venerable father of the Episcopal

Church of Connecticut and the apostle of sound learning and elegant

literature in New England," and it is not surprising that Franklin should

have strained his dialectical skill almost to the point of casuistry in an

effort to meet the various reasons which the Doctor gave him for his

hesitation about accepting the headship of the Academy, such as his years,

his fear of the small-pox, the politeness of Philadelphia and his imagined

rusticity, his diffidence of his powers and his reluctance about drawing

off parishioners from Dr. Jenney, the rector of Christ Church and St.

Peters. As we have seen, even the multiplying effect of setting up more

than one pigeon box against a house was ineffective to lure the

apprehensive churchman to Philadelphia. In one of his letters to Dr.

Johnson, the enthusiasm of Franklin over the Academy project endows his

words with real nobility of utterance.

I think with you [he said], that nothing is of more

importance for the public weal, than to form and train

up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are,

in my opinion, the _strength_ of a state far more so

than riches or arms, which, under the management of

Ignorance and Wickedness, often draw on destruction,

instead of providing for the safety of a people. And

though the culture bestowed on _many_ should be

successful only with a _few_, yet the influence of

those few and the service in their power may be very

great. Even a single woman, that was wise, by her

wisdom saved a city.

I think also, that general virtue is more probably to

be expected and obtained from the _education_ of youth,

than from the _exhortation_ of adult persons; bad

habits and vices of the mind being, like diseases of

the body, more easily prevented than cured. I think,

moreover, that talents for the education of youth are

the gift of God; and that he on whom they are bestowed,

whenever a way is opened for the use of them, is as

strongly _called_ as if he heard a voice from heaven.

Remarkable words these to fall from a man who, some two months later, in

another letter to Dr. Johnson, modestly declared himself to be unfit to

sketch out the idea of the English School for the Academy, having neither

been educated himself (except as a tradesman) nor ever been concerned in

educating others, he said.

Nobody would imagine [said Dr. Johnson, after reading

the sketch,] that the draught you have made for an

English education was done by a Tradesman. But so it

sometimes is, a true genius will not content itself

without entering more or less into almost everything,

and of mastering many things more in spite of fate

itself.

The friendship between Franklin and Jared Ingersoli is preserved in a

single letter only, the one from which we have already quoted in which

Franklin had his good-natured jest at the expense of the doleful New

England Sunday.

All of these friends were men, but in Catherine Ray, afterwards the wife of

Governor William Greene of Rhode Island, and the mother of Ray Greene, one

of the early United States Senators from that State, Franklin had a friend

whose sex gave a different turn of sentiment and expression to his pen. His

first letter to this young woman ("Dear Katy" is the way he addresses her)

was written after his return to Philadelphia from a journey to New England

in 1754. She then lived on Block Island, and, when he last saw her, she was

fading out of sight on the ocean on her way to that island from the

mainland.

I thought too much was hazarded [he wrote], when I saw

you put off to sea in that very little skiff, tossed by

every wave. But the call was strong and just, a sick

parent. I stood on the shore, and looked after you,

till I could no longer distinguish you, even with my

glass; then returned to your sister's, praying for your

safe passage.

These words are followed by the paragraph already quoted, in which Franklin

acknowledged the affectionate hospitality of New England and the paragraph,

already quoted, too, in which he spoke of his being restored to the arms of

his good old wife and children.

Persons subject to the _hyp_ [he continued] complain of

the northeast wind, as increasing their malady. But

since you promised to send me kisses in that wind, and

I find you as good as your word, it is to me the gayest

wind that blows, and gives me the best spirits. I write

this during a northeast storm of snow, the greatest we

have had this winter. Your favours come mixed with the

snowy fleeces, which are as pure as your virgin

innocence, white as your lovely bosom, and--as cold.

But let it warm towards some worthy young man, and may

Heaven bless you both with every kind of happiness.

The letter concludes with these words:

I desired Miss Anna Ward to send you over a little book

I left with her, for your amusement in that lonely

island. My respects to your good father, and mother,

and sister. Let me often hear of your welfare, since

it is not likely I shall ever again have the pleasure

of seeing you. Accept mine, and my wife's sincere

thanks for the many civilities I receiv'd from you and

your relations; and do me the justice to believe me,

dear girl, your affectionate, faithful, friend, and

humble servant.

This letter was dated March 4, 1755, and was in reply to one from Miss Ray

which, though dated as far back as January of the same year, had just

reached him.

His next letter was dated September 11, 1755, not long after he rendered

his unavailing services to Braddock, and was a reply to three other letters

of hers of March 3, March 30 and May 1 of that year. It begins: "Begone,

business, for an hour, at least, and let me chat a little with my Katy,"

and apologizes for his belated reply.

Equal returns [he declares], I can never make, tho' I

should write to you by every post; for the pleasure I

receive from one of yours is more than you can have

from two of mine. The small news, the domestic

occurrences among our friends, the natural pictures you

draw of persons, the sensible observations and

reflections you make, and the easy, chatty manner in

which you express everything, all contribute to

heighten the pleasure; and the more as they remind me

of those hours and miles, that we talked away so

agreeably, even in a winter journey, a wrong road, and

a soaking shower.

In answer to Miss Ray's inquiry about his health, he tells her that he

still relishes all the pleasures of life that a temperate man can in reason

desire, and, through favor, has them all in his power. In answer to her

question as to whether everybody loved him yet, and why he made them do so,

he replied:

I must confess (but don't you be jealous), that many

more people love me now, than ever did before; for

since I saw you I have been enabled to do some general

services to the country, and to the army, for which

both have thanked and praised me, and say they love me.

They say so, as you used to do; and if I were to ask

any favours of them, they would, perhaps, as readily

refuse me; so that I find little real advantage in

being beloved, but it pleases my humor.... I long to

hear, [he says in another part of the same letter]

whether you have continued ever since in that monastery

(Block Island); or have broke into the world again,

doing pretty mischief; how the lady Wards do, and how

many of them are married, or about it; what is become

of Mr. B---- and Mr. L----, and what the state of your

heart is at this instant? But that, perhaps, I ought

not to know; and, therefore, I will not conjure, as you

sometimes say I do. If I could conjure, it should be to

know what was that _oddest question about me that ever

was thought_ of, which you tell me a lady had just sent

to ask you.

I commend your prudent resolutions, in the article of

granting favours to lovers. But, if I were courting

you, I could not hardly approve such conduct. I should

even be malicious enough to say you were too _knowing_,

and tell you the old story of the Girl and the Miller.

I enclose you the songs you write for, and with them

your Spanish letter with a translation. I honour that

honest Spaniard for loving you. It showed the goodness

of his taste and judgment. But you must forget him, and

bless some worthy young Englishman.

Then comes the reference to his Joan (Deborah) which we have quoted in

another place. She sends her respectful compliments to Miss Ray, he states;

and lastly in a postscript he gives Miss Ray this caution: "As to your

spelling, don't let those laughing girls put you out of conceit with it. It

is the best in the world, for every letter of it stands for something."

The sincerity of this conviction he proved at least once on another

occasion by himself spelling his Katy's first name with a C instead of a K.

It is to be feared that Miss Ray was a lively flirt, and it is hard to read

Franklin's frequent allusions to Deborah in his letters to her without

suspecting that he found it necessary at times to use his wife just a

little as a shield.

The next letter from Franklin to Miss Ray is marked by the understrain of

coarse license, which ran through his character, and was partly the note of

his age, and partly the note of overflowing vital force.

I hear you are now in Boston [he said], gay and lovely

as usual. Let me give you some fatherly Advice. Kill no

more Pigeons than you can eat--Be a good Girl and don't

forget your Catechism.--Go constantly to Meeting--or

church--till you get a good Husband,--then stay at

home, & nurse the Children, and live like a

Christian--Spend your spare Hours, in sober Whisk,

Prayers, or learning to cypher--You must practise

_addition_ to your Husband's Estate, by Industry &

Frugality; _subtraction_ of all unnecessary Expenses;

_Multiplication_ (I would gladly have taught you that

myself, but you thought it was time enough, & wou'dn't

learn) he will soon make you a Mistress of it. As to

_Division_, I say with Brother Paul, _Let there be no

Division among ye_. But as your good Sister Hubbard (my

love to her) is well acquainted with _The Rule of Two_,

I hope you will become an expert in the _Rule of

Three_; that when I have again the pleasure of seeing

you, I may find you like my Grape Vine, surrounded with

Clusters, plump, juicy, blushing, pretty little rogues,

like their Mama. Adieu. The Bell rings, and I must go

among the Grave ones, and talk Politics.

Passages like these are among the things which really tarnish the

reputation of Franklin, and make us feel at times that, essentially

admirable as he was, in some respects he was compounded of pipe, and not of

porcelain, clay. The postscript to this letter, too, is flavored with the

rude gallantry of the husking-bee. "The Plums," it said, "came safe, and

were so sweet from the Cause you mentioned, that I could scarce taste the

Sugar." But when Deputy-Postmaster Franklin next writes to Miss Ray it is

with the light, playful grace of his best hours.

Your Apology [he said] for being in Boston, "_that you

must visit that Sister once a year_" makes me suspect

you are here for some other Reason; for why should you

think your being there would need an Excuse to me when

you knew that I knew how dearly you lov'd that Sister?

Don't offer to hide your Heart from me. You know I can

conjure.--Give my best respects, to yr Sister, &

tell her and all your other Sisters and Brothers, that

they must behave very kindly to you, & love you dearly;

or else I'll send a young Gentleman to steal & run away

with you, who shall bring you to a Country from whence

they shall never hear a word of you, without paying

Postage. Mrs. Franklin joins in Love to you & sincere

wishes for your welfare, with dear good Girl, your

affectionate Friend.

Some six months later, when Franklin is on the eve of leaving America on

his first mission to England, he writes briefly to Miss Ray again, and

tells her he cannot go without taking leave of his dear friend, and is

ashamed of having allowed her last letter to remain unanswered so long.

Present my best compliments [he adds] to your good

mamma, brother and sister Ward, and all your other

sisters, the agreeable Misses Ward, Dr. Babcock and

family, the charitable Misses Stanton, and, in short,

to all that love me. I should have said all that love

you, but that would be giving you too much trouble.

Adieu, dear good girl, and believe me ever your

affectionate friend.

On the return of Franklin from England, he resumed his correspondence with

Miss Ray; but Miss Ray she was no longer, for the divination of the

conjurer had not failed him, and she was then married to William Greene. In

a letter to Mrs. Greene, dated January 23, 1763, this fact leads to another

smutty joke on Franklin's part over the arithmetic of matrimony, the worse

for being jestingly ascribed to Mrs. Franklin, who, he said, accepted Mrs.

Greene's apology for dropping the correspondence with her, but hoped that

it would be renewed when Mrs. Greene had more leisure. That the joke should

be debited to the manners of the day fully as much as to Franklin himself,

is made clear enough by the fact that it is immediately followed by the

assurance that he would not fail to pay his respects to Mr., as well as

Mrs., Greene when he came their way. "Please to make my Compliments

acceptable to him," he added. The conclusion of this letter is in the

former affectionate vein. "I think I am not much alter'd; at least my

Esteem & Regard for my Katy (if I may still be permitted to call her so) is

the same, and I believe will be unalterable whilst I am B. Franklin."

That they did prove unalterable it is hardly necessary to say. Some

twenty-six years after the date of this letter, Franklin writes to Mrs.

Greene: "Among the felicities of my life I reckon your friendship, which I

shall remember with pleasure as long as that life lasts." And, in the

meantime, he had given Mrs. Greene the proof of affectionate interest

which, of all others, perhaps, is most endearing in a friend; that is he

had taken her children as well as herself to his heart. After a brief visit

with Sally to the Greenes in 1763, he wrote to Mrs. Greene, "My Compliments

too to Mr. Merchant and Miss Ward if they are still with you; and kiss the

Babies for me. Sally says, & _for me too_." This letter ends, "With perfect

Esteem & Regard, I am, Dear Katy (I can't yet alter my Stile to Madam) your

affectionate friend." In another letter to Mrs. Greene, about a month

later, he says, "My best respects to good Mr. Greene, Mrs. Ray, and love to

your little ones. I am glad to hear they are well, and that your Celia goes

alone." The last two letters mentioned by us were written from Boston.

Franklin's next letter to Mrs. Greene was written from Philadelphia,

condoles with her on the death of her mother, tells her that his dame sends

her love to her with her thanks for the care that she had taken of her old

man, and conveys his love to "the little dear creatures." "We are all glad

to hear of Ray, for we all love him," he wrote to Mrs. Greene from Paris.

In the same letter, he said, "I live here in great Respect, and dine every

day with great folks; but I still long for home & for Repose; and should be

happy to eat Indian Pudding in your Company & under your hospitable Roof."

Hardly had he arrived in America on his return from France before he sent

this affectionate message to Mrs. Greene and her husband: "I seize this

first Opportunity of acquainting my dear Friends, that I have once more the

great Happiness of being at home in my own Country, and with my Family,

because I know it will give you Pleasure." As for Mrs. Greene, Jane Mecom

informed him that, when she heard of his arrival, she was so overjoyed that

her children thought she was afflicted with hysteria.

The friendship which existed between Franklin and the Greenes also existed

between them and his sister Jane, who was a welcome guest under their roof.

"I pity my poor old Sister, to be so harassed & driven about by the enemy,"

he wrote to Mrs. Greene from Paris in 1778, "For I feel a little myself the

Inconvenience of being driven about by my friends."

FOOTNOTES:

[29] The death of John Laurens in an obscure skirmish, almost at the very

end of the Revolutionary War, after a brief career, distinguished by rare

intellectual promise and daring valor is one of the most painful tragedies

of that war. "He had not a fault that I could discover," Washington said of

him, "unless it were intrepidity bordering on rashness."

[30] It may be said of the fame of Washington in his own land, with

something like approximate accuracy, that a file of wild geese winging its

flight along the Atlantic Seaboard from Maine to the alluvial meadows of

the Roanoke in Southern Virginia, is, for but brief periods only out of

sight of some statue or monument erected in his honor by his grateful

countrymen. The fame of Franklin in America is but little less strikingly

attested. As long ago as 1864, Parton could say this of it: "As there are

few counties in the Union which have not a town named Franklin, so there

are few towns of any magnitude, which do not possess a Franklin Street, or

a Franklin Square, a Franklin hotel, a Franklin bank, a Franklin

fire-engine, a Franklin Lyceum, a Franklin lodge, or a Franklin charitable

association. His bust and his portrait are only less universal than those

of Washington, and most large cities contain something of the nature of a

monument to Franklin." How little this fame has died down since these words

were written was seen in the pomp and splendor with which the second

centenary of the birth of Franklin was celebrated in the United States and

France in 1906.

[31] Another story of Franklin's told by Jefferson is good enough at any

rate for a footnote. At parties at the French Court he sometimes had a game

of chess with the old Duchess of Bourbon. Happening once to put her king

into prize, he took it. "Ah," said she, "we do not take kings so." "We do

in America," said he.

[32] It may be said of Ralph that few names are surer of immortality than

his, though not for the reasons upon which he founded his deceitful hopes.

Between the _Autobiography_ and the _Dunciad_ he is, not unlike a mummy,

preserved long beyond the date at which, in the ordinary course of things,

he would have been overtaken by oblivion. This is one of the couplets that

Pope bestowed upon him in the _Dunciad_:

"Silence, ye Wolves! While Ralph to Cynthia howls,

And makes night hideous--answer him, ye owls."

The couplet was accompanied by a still more venomous sting in prose: "James

Ralph, a name inserted after the first editions, not known till he writ a

swearing-piece called _Sawney_, very abusive of Dr. Swift, Mr. Gay, and

myself. These lines allude to a thing of his entitled _Night_, a poem. This

low writer attended his own works with panegyrics in the Journals, and once

in particular praised himself highly above Mr. Addison, in wretched remarks

upon that author's account of English poets, printed in a London Journal,

September, 1728. He was wholly illiterate and knew no language, not even

French. Being advised to read the rules of dramatic poetry before he began

a play, he smiled and replied 'Shakspeare writ without rules.' He ended at

last in the common sink of all such writers, a political newspaper, to

which he was recommended by his friend Arnal, and received a small pittance

for pay; and being detected in writing on both sides on one and the same

day, he publicly justified the morality of his conduct." Another couplet of

the _Dunciad_ is this:

"And see! the very Gazetteers give o'er,

Ev'n Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more."

[33] "The ship Ohio still aground," is the manner in which Franklin

communicated on one occasion to Galloway the slow progress that the

application for the Ohio grant was making.