Franklin's British Friends
In Great Britain, Franklin had almost as many friends as in America. During
his missions to England, he resided at No. 7 Craven Street, London, the
home of Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, a widow, and the mother of "Polly," whose
filial relations to him constituted an idyll in his life. Into all the
interests and feelings of this home, he entered almost as fully and
sympathetically as he did into those of his own home in Philadelphia; as is
charmingly attested by his Craven Street _Gazette_. Mrs. Stevenson looked
after his clothing, attended to him when he was sick, and made the
purchases from time to time that the commissions of Deborah and Jane Mecom
called for. In one of his letters to Temple, written after his return from
his second mission to England, Franklin mentions a long letter that he had
received from her in the form of "a kind of Journal for a Month after our
Departure, written on different Days, & of different Dates, acquainting me
who has call'd, and what is done, with all the small News. In four or five
Places, she sends her Love to her dear Boy, hopes he was not very sick at
Sea, &c., &c." This journal doubtless set forth in a matter-of-fact way the
daily life of the Craven Street household, which Franklin idealized with
such captivating vivacity in the humorous pages of the Craven Street
_Gazette_. At the Craven Street house, he and his son lived in great
comfort, occupying four rooms, and waited upon by his man-servant, and
Billy's negro attendant; and, when he moved about the streets of London, it
was in a modest chariot of his own. Franklin's letters to Deborah
frequently conveyed affectionate messages from Mrs. Stevenson and Polly to
Deborah and her daughter Sally. Occasionally, too, presents of one kind or
another from Mrs. Stevenson found their way across the Atlantic to Deborah
and Sally. Altogether, the Craven Street house, if not a true home to
Franklin in every sense of the word, was a cheerful semblance of one. A
letter from Dr. Priestley to him, which he received shortly after his
return from Canada, during the American Revolution, bears witness to the
impression left by his amiable traits upon the memory of the good woman
with whom he had resided so long. After telling Franklin that Franklin's
old servant Fevre often mentioned him with affection and respect, Dr.
Priestley added, "Mrs. Stevenson is much as usual. She can talk about
nothing but you." The feeling was fully returned.
It is always with great Pleasure [he wrote to her from
Passy], when I think of our long continu'd Friendship,
which had not the least Interruption in the Course of
Twenty Years (some of the happiest of my Life), that I
spent under your Roof and in your Company. If I do not
write to you as often as I us'd to do, when I happen'd
to be absent from you, it is owing partly to the
present Difficulty of sure Communication, and partly to
an Apprehension of some possible Inconvenience, that my
Correspondence might occasion you. Be assured, my dear
Friend, that my Regard, Esteem, and Affection for you,
are not in the least impair'd or diminish'd; and that,
if Circumstances would permit, nothing would afford me
so much Satisfaction, as to be with you in the same
House, and to experience again your faithful, tender
Care, and Attention to my Interests, Health, and
Comfortable Living, which so long and steadily attach'd
me to you, and which I shall ever remember with
Gratitude.
And, when the news of Mrs. Stevenson's death was communicated to Franklin
by her daughter, the retrospect of the last twenty-five years that it
opened up to him framed itself into these tender words in his reply.
During the greatest Part of the Time, I lived in the
same House with my dear deceased Friend, your Mother;
of course you and I saw and convers'd with each other
much and often. It is to all our Honours, that in all
that time we never had among us the smallest
Misunderstanding. Our Friendship has been all clear
Sunshine, without the least Cloud in its Hemisphere.
Let me conclude by saying to you, what I have had too
frequent Occasions to say to my other remaining old
Friends, "The fewer we become, the more let us love one
another."
On the back of the last letter, dated July 24, 1782, that he received from
Mrs. Stevenson, he indorsed this memorandum: "This good woman, my dear
Friend, died the first of January following. She was about my Age."
But the closest friendship that Franklin formed in England was with Mary,
or Polly, Stevenson. To her, perhaps, the most delightful of all his
familiar letters were written--letters so full of love and watchful
interest as to suggest a father rather than a friend. It is not too much to
say that they are distinguished by a purity and tenderness of feeling
almost perfect, and by a combination of delicate humor and instructive
wisdom to which it would be hard to find a parallel. The first of them
bears date May 4, 1759, and the last bears date May 30, 1786. That the
letters, some forty-six in number, are not more numerous even than they are
is due to the fact that, during the period of their intercourse, the two
friends were often under the same roof, or, when they were not, saw each
other frequently.
In his first letter, addressed to "My Dear Child," Franklin tells Polly,
who was then about twenty years of age, that he had hoped for the pleasure
of seeing her the day before at the Oratorio in the Foundling Hospital, but
that, though he looked with all the eyes he had, not excepting even those
he carried in his pocket, he could not find her. He had, however, he said,
fixed that day se'nnight for a little journey into Essex, and would take
Mrs. Stevenson with him as far as the home of Mrs. Tickell, Polly's aunt,
at Wanstead, where Polly then was, and would call for Mrs. Stevenson there
on his return. "Will," he says in a postscript, "did not see you in the
Park." Will, of course, was his son. In the succeeding year, he writes to
Polly that he embraces most gladly his dear friend's proposal of a subject
for their future correspondence, though he fears that his necessary
business and journeys, with the natural indolence of an old man, will make
him too unpunctual a correspondent.
But why will you [he asks], by the Cultivation of your
Mind, make yourself still more amiable, and a more
desirable Companion for a Man of Understanding, when
you are determin'd, as I hear, to live single? If we
enter, as you propose, into _moral_ as well as natural
Philosophy, I fancy, when I have fully establish'd my
Authority as a Tutor, I shall take upon me to lecture
you a little on that Chapter of Duty.
He then maps out a course of reading for her, to be conducted in such a
manner as to furnish them with material for their letters. "Believe me
ever, my dear good Girl," he concludes, "your affectionate Friend and
Servant."
With his next letter, he sends her a gift of books, and begs her to accept
it, as a small mark of his esteem and friendship, and the gift is
accompanied with more specific advice as to the manner in which she was to
prosecute her studies, and obtain the benefit of his knowledge and counsel.
When he writes again, his letter discloses the fact that a brisk
interchange of ideas had been actually established between them. "'Tis a
very sensible Question you ask," he says, "how the Air can affect the
Barometer, when its Opening appears covered with Wood?" And her observation
on what she had lately read concerning insects is very just and solid too,
he remarks. The question he has no difficulty in answering, and the
observation on insects leads to some agreeable statements about the
silk-worm, the bee, the cochineal and the Spanish fly, and finally to an
interesting account of the way in which the great Swedish naturalist,
Linnaeus had been successfully called in by his King to suggest some means
of checking the ravages of the worm that was doing such injury to the
Swedish ships. Nor was all this mellifluous information imparted without a
timely caution.
There is, however [he concluded], a prudent Moderation
to be used in Studies of this kind. The Knowledge of
Nature may be ornamental, and it may be useful; but if,
to attain an Eminence in that, we neglect the Knowledge
and Practice of essential Duties, we deserve
Reprehension. For there is no Rank in Natural Knowledge
of equal Dignity and Importance with that of being a
good Parent, a good Child, a good Husband or Wife, a
good Neighbour or Friend, a good Subject or Citizen,
that is, in short, a good Christian. Nicholas Gimcrack,
therefore, who neglected the Care of his Family, to
Pursue Butterflies, was a just Object of Ridicule, and
we must give him up as fair Game to the satyrist.
A later letter is an amusing illustration of the manner in which he
occasionally reminded his pupil that she must not take herself and
Philosophy too seriously. Polly was at the time at the famous Wells of
Bristol about which so much of the social pageantry of the eighteenth
century centred.
Your first Question, _What is the Reason the Water at
this place, tho' cold at the Spring, becomes warm by
Pumping?_ it will be most prudent in me to forbear
attempting to answer [he said], till, by a more
circumstantial account, you assure me of the Fact. I
own I should expect that Operation to warm, not so much
the Water pump'd, as the Person pumping. The Rubbing of
dry Solids together has been long observ'd to produce
Heat; but the like Effect has never yet, that I have
heard, been produc'd by the mere Agitation of Fluids,
or Friction of Fluids with Solids.
He might have let the matter rest there but he did not. The occasion was
too opportune a one to impress upon Polly the importance of not jumping at
conclusions too quickly for him to refrain from borrowing an apt story from
Selden about a young woman who, finding herself in the presence of some
gentlemen, when they were examining what they called a Chinese shoe, and
carrying on a dispute about it, put in her word, and said modestly,
"Gentlemen, are you sure it is a Shoe? Should not that be settled first?"
Then he passes to a highly edifying explanation of tidal movements in
rivers, so simple that even a child, to say nothing of a bright-witted
girl, could experience no difficulty in understanding it, and ends with the
question:
After writing 6 Folio Pages of Philosophy to a young
Girl, is it necessary to finish such a Letter with a
Compliment? Is not such a Letter of itself a
Compliment? Does it not say, she has a Mind thirsty
after Knowledge, and capable of receiving it; and that
the most agreeable Things one can write to her are
those that tend to the Improvement of her
Understanding?
With his next letter, he enclosed a paper containing his views on several
points relating to the air and the evaporation of water, and informed Polly
that he would shortly accompany her good mother again to Wanstead, when
they could take a walk to some of Lord Tilney's ponds, and make a few
experiments there that would explain the nature of tides more fully.
"Adieu, my dear little Philosopher," he exclaims in another letter, after
suggesting that thirsty unfortunates at sea might be greatly relieved by
sitting in sea water, and declaring that wet clothes do not create colds,
whatever damp may do. No one catches cold by bathing, he said, and no
clothes can be wetter than water itself.
In another letter, he makes some most readable observations upon the
evaporation of rivers and the relations of colors to heat. The ignorant, he
declared, suppose in some cases that a river loses itself by running
underground, whereas in truth it has run up into the air. And, with
reference to the interdependence of heat and color, he pursued this fresh
train of ideas:
What signifies Philosophy that does not apply to some
Use? May we not learn from hence, that black Clothes
are not so fit to wear in a hot Sunny Climate or
Season, as white ones; because in such Cloaths the Body
is more heated by the Sun when we walk abroad, and are
at the same time heated by the Exercise, which double
Heat is apt to bring on putrid dangerous Fevers? That
Soldiers and Seamen, who must march and labour in the
Sun, should, in the East or West Indies have an Uniform
of white? That Summer Hats, for Men or Women, should be
white, as repelling that Heat which gives Headaches to
many, and to some the fatal Stroke that the French call
the _Coup de Soleil_? That the Ladies' Summer Hats,
however, should be lined with Black, as not
reverberating on their Faces those Rays which are
reflected upwards from the Earth or Water? That the
putting a white Cap of Paper or Linnen _within_ the
_Crown_ of a black Hat, as some do, will not keep out
the Heat, tho' it would if placed _without_? That
Fruit-Walls being black'd may receive so much Heat from
the Sun in the Daytime, as to continue warm in some
degree thro' the Night, and thereby preserve the Fruit
from Frosts, or forward its Growth?--with sundry other
particulars of less or greater Importance, that will
occur from time to time to attentive Minds?
Sometimes he exchanges language like this for such bantering questions as
these: "Have you finish'd your Course of Philosophy? No more Doubts to be
resolv'd? No more Questions to ask? If so, you may now be at full Leisure
to improve yourself in Cards."
Another letter, dated June 7, 1762, was written in contemplation of the
fact that he was about to leave the Old World for the New.
I fancy I feel a little like dying Saints [he said],
who, in parting with those they love in this World, are
only comforted with the Hope of more perfect Happiness
in the next. I have, in America, Connections of the
most engaging kind; and, happy as I have been in the
Friendships here contracted, _those_ promise me greater
and more lasting Felicity. But God only knows whether
these Promises shall be fulfilled.
Then came the letter written to her from a "wretched inn" at Portsmouth
when he was on the point of embarking for America. It is none the less
noteworthy because it reveals the fact that the thought of a marriage
between Polly and his son had been a familiar one to him and her.
It (the paper on which he wrote) [he said] will tell my
Polly how much her Friend is afflicted, that he must,
perhaps, never again, see one for whom he has so
sincere an Affection, join'd to so perfect an Esteem;
who he once flatter'd himself might become his own, in
the tender Relation of a Child, but can now entertain
such pleasing Hopes no more. Will it tell _how much_ he
is afflicted? No, it can not.
Adieu, my dearest Child. I will call you so. Why should
I not call you so, since I love you with all the
Tenderness, All the Fondness of a Father? Adieu. May
the God of all Goodness shower down his choicest
Blessings upon you, and make you infinitely Happier,
than that Event could have made you.
No wonder that the fatherless girl should have felt from the day that she
received this letter until the day that she helped to assuage the pain of
Franklin's last hours by her loving ministrations that the heart in which
she was so deeply cherished was one of these blessings. A few months later,
Franklin writes to her from America a long, communicative letter, valuable
among other reasons for the evidence that it affords of the ready sympathy
with which he had entered into her circle of youthful friendships. He tells
her that he shares her grief over her separation from her old friend Miss
Pitt; "Pitty," he calls her in another place in this letter when he sends
his love to her. He congratulates her upon the recovery of her "dear
Dolly's" health. This was Dorothea Blount to whom he repeatedly refers in
his letters to her. "I love that dear good Girl myself, and I love her
other Friends," he said. Polly's statement in the letter, to which his
letter was a reply, that she had lately had the pleasure of spending three
days with Doctor and Mrs. Hawkesworth at the house of John Stanley, all
warm friends of his, elicits from him the exclamation, "It was a sweet
Society!"
These are but a few of the many details that make up this letter. Polly was
one of the stimulating correspondents who brought out all that was best in
Franklin's own intellectual resources, and the next time that he wrote to
her from America he used this appreciative and grateful language. "The
Ease, the Smoothness, the Purity of Diction, and Delicacy of Sentiment,
that always appear in your Letters, never fail to delight me; but the
tender filial Regard you constantly express for your old Friend is
particularly engaging."
In later letters to Polly, written after his return to England in 1764,
there are other lively passages like those that animated his letters to her
before his return to America. On one occasion he answers a letter from her
in verse.
A Muse, you must know, visited me this Morning! I see
you are surpriz'd, as I was. I never saw one before.
And shall never see another. So I took the Opportunity
of her Help to put the Answer into Verse, because I was
some Verse in your Debt ever since you sent me the last
Pair of Garters.
This letter is succeeded by a highly vivacious one from Paris where he
enjoyed the honor of conversing with the King and Queen while they sat at
meat. The latter letter is so full of sparkling fun that we cannot but
regret that Franklin did not leave behind him equally detailed narratives
of his travels in Germany and Holland, and over the face of Great Britain.
All the way to Dover, he said, he was engaged in perpetual disputes with
innkeepers, hostlers and postilions because he was prevented from seeing
the country by the forward tilt of the hoods of the post-chaises in which
he was driven; "they insisting that the Chaise leaning forward was an Ease
to the Horses, and that the contrary would kill them." "I suppose the
chaise leaning forward," he surmised, "looks to them like a Willingness to
go forward, and that its hanging back shows a Reluctance." He concludes a
humorous description of the seasickness of a number of green passengers
between Dover and Calais, who made a hearty breakfast in the morning,
before embarking, for fear that, if the wind should fail, they might not
get over till supper time, with the remark, "So it seems there are
Uncertainties, even beyond those between the Cup and the Lip." Impositions
suffered by Franklin on the journey, the smooth highways of France, the
contrast between the natural brunettes of Calais and Boulogne and the
natural blondes of Abbeville, the Parisian complexions to which nature in
every form was a total stranger, the _Grand Couvert_ where the Royal Family
supped in public, the magnificence of Versailles and Paris, to which
nothing was wanting but cleanliness and tidiness, the pure water and fine
streets of Paris, French politeness, the paintings, the plays and operas of
the gayest capital in the world all furnished topics for this delightful
letter, composed in the high spirits born of rapid movement from one novel
experience to another, and doubtless endued, when read, with the never
failing charm that belongs to foreign scenes, scanned by the eyes of those
we love. Franklin did not know which were the most rapacious, the English
or the French boatmen or porters, but the latter had with their knavery, he
thought, the most politeness. The only drawback about the roads in France,
paved with smooth stone-like streets for many miles together, and flanked
on each side with trees, was the labor which the peasants complained that
they had to expend upon them for full two months in the year without pay.
Whether this was truth, or whether, like Englishmen, they grumbled, cause
or no cause, Franklin had not yet been able to fully inform himself.
Passing over his speculations as to the origin of the fair complexions of
the women of Abbeville, where wheels and looms were going in every house,
we stop for a moment to reproduce this unsparing description of the manner
in which the women of Paris exercised the art which has never been known to
excite any form of approval except feminine self-approval.
As to Rouge, they don't pretend to imitate Nature in
laying it on. There is no gradual Diminution of the
Colour, from the full Bloom in the Middle of the Cheek
to the faint Tint near the Sides, nor does it show
itself differently in different Faces. I have not had
the Honour of being at any Lady's Toylette to see how
it is laid on, but I fancy I can tell you how it is or
may be done. Cut a hole of 3 Inches Diameter in a Piece
of Paper; place it on the Side of your Face in such a
Manner as that the Top of the Hole may be just under
your Eye; then with a Brush dipt in the Colour, paint
Face and Paper together; so when the Paper is taken off
there will remain a round Patch of Red exactly the Form
of the Hole. This is the Mode, from the Actresses on
the Stage upwards thro' all Ranks of Ladies to the
Princesses of the Blood, but it stops there, the Queen
not using it, having in the Serenity, Complacence, and
Benignity that shine so eminently in, or rather through
her Countenance, sufficient Beauty, tho' now an old
Woman, to do extreamly well without it.
In picturing the royal supper, with its gold service and its _A boire pour
le Roy_ and its _A boire pour la Reine_, Franklin even draws a sketch of
the table so that Polly can see just where the King and Queen and Mesdames
Adelaide, Victoria, Louise and Sophie sat, and just where Sir John Pringle
and himself stood, when they were brought by an officer of the court to be
talked to by the royal personages. This letter also contains what is
perhaps the handsomest compliment ever paid to French politeness: "It seems
to be a Point settled here universally, that Strangers are to be treated
with Respect; and one has just the same Deference shewn one here by being a
Stranger, as in England by being a Lady."
The grave statement in this letter that travelling is one way of
lengthening life, at least in appearance, is made the starting-point for
the laughing statement that the writer himself had perhaps suffered a
greater change in his own person than he could have done in six years at
home.
I had not been here Six Days [he declared] before my
Taylor and Perruquier had transform'd me into a
Frenchman. Only think what a Figure I make in a little
Bag-Wig and naked Ears! They told me I was become 20
Years younger, and look'd very _galante_; So being in
Paris where the Mode is to be sacredly follow'd I was
once very near making Love to my Friend's Wife.
The next words in the letter are also full of effervescing gaiety: "This
Letter shall cost you a Shilling, and you may consider it cheap, when you
reflect, that it has cost me at least 50 Guineas to get into the Situation,
that enables me to write it. Besides, I might, if I had staied at home,
have won perhaps two Shillings of you at Cribbidge."
Among the best of his subsequent letters is the one--instinct with his
usual wisdom and good feeling--in which he advises Polly to return to her
aunt, Mrs. Tickell, as soon as a temporary separation was at an end, and
continue by every means in her power, no matter how sorely tried by her
aunt's infirmities, to make the remainder of the latter's days as
comfortable as possible. Polly adopted the advice of this letter, and
reaped her reward not only in the gratified sense of duty, upon which the
letter laid such emphasis, but also in the fortune which she received upon
the death of Mrs. Tickell.
In 1770, she was married to Dr. William Hewson, a brilliant physician, who
was prematurely cut off by surgical infection, leaving her the mother of
three young children. It was probably of him that she wrote to Franklin
from Margate in the year preceding her marriage with him that she had met
with a very sensible physician the day before and would not have Franklin
or her mother surprised if she should run off with this young man. To be
sure, this would be an imprudent step at the discreet age of thirty; but
there was no saying what one should do, if solicited by a man of an
insinuating address and good person, though he might be too young for one,
and not yet established in his profession. The letter began with a welcome
to Franklin, who had just returned from the Continent, and he was quick to
respond with a pleasantry to her communication about the young physician.
There are certain circumstances in Life, sometimes [he
said], wherein 'tis perhaps best not to hearken to
Reason. For instance; possibly, if the Truth were
known, I have Reason to be jealous of this same
insinuating, handsome young Physician; but as it
flatters more my Vanity, and therefore gives me more
Pleasure, to suppose you were in Spirits on acct of
my safe Return, I shall turn a deaf Ear to Reason in
this Case, as I have done with Success in twenty
others.
In a subsequent letter, Franklin tells Polly that her mother has been
complaining of her head more than ever before.
If she stoops, or looks, or bends her Neck downwards,
on any occasion, it is with great Pain and Difficulty,
that she gets her Head up again. She has, therefore,
borrowed a Breast and Neck Collar of Mrs. Wilkes, such
as Misses wear, and now uses it to keep her Head up.
Mr. Strahan has invited us all to dine there to-morrow,
but she has excused herself. Will you come, and go with
me? If you cannot well do that, you will at least be
with us on Friday to go to Lady Strachans.
His own head, he says, is better, owing, he is fully persuaded, to his
extreme abstemiousness for some days past at home, but he is not without
apprehensions that, being to dine abroad that day, the next day, and the
day after, he may inadvertently bring it on again, if he does not think of
his little monitor and guardian angel, and make use of the proper and very
pertinent clause she proposes in his grace. This clause was doubtless
suggested by his previous letter about the insinuating, handsome physician
in which he had written to his little monitor that he had just come home
from a venison feast, where he had drunk more than a philosopher ought. His
next letter warily refrains from giving his flat approval to Dr. Hewson's
proposal. His attitude towards Mrs. Greene's marriage had been equally
cautious. He was probably of the opinion that, along with the other good
advice, that finds its way to the moon, is not a little relating to nuptial
engagements. The whole letter is stamped with the good sense and wholesome
feeling which such situations never failed to evoke from him.
I assure you [he said] that no Objection has occurr'd
to me. His Person you see; his Temper and his
Understanding you can judge of; his Character, for
anything I have ever heard, is unblemished; his
Profession, with the Skill in it he is suppos'd to
have, will be sufficient to support a Family, and,
therefore, considering the Fortune you have in your
Hands (tho' any future Expectation from your Aunt
should be disappointed) I do not see but that the
Agreement may be a rational one on both sides.
I see your Delicacy, and your Humility too; for you
fancy that if you do not prove a great Fortune, you
will not be lov'd; but I am sure that were I in his
situation in every respect, knowing you so well as I
do, and esteeming you so highly, I should think you a
Fortune sufficient for me without a Shilling.
Having thus expressed his concern, equal to any father's, he said, for her
happiness, and dispelled the idea on her part that he did not favor the
proposal, because he did not immediately advise its acceptance, he left, he
concluded, the rest to her sound judgment, of which no one had a greater
share, and would not be too inquisitive as to her particular reasons,
doubts and fears.
They were married only to share the bright vision of unclouded married
happiness for some four years, and then to be separated by that tragic
agency which few but Franklin have ever been able to invest with the
peaceful radiance of declining day. A letter from Franklin to Mrs. Hewson,
written shortly after the marriage, laughs as it were through its tears
over the mournful plight in which Dolly and he have been left by her
desertion, but it shows that he is beginning to get into touch with all the
changes brought about by the new connection. We have already seen how fully
his heart went out to his godson who sprang from the union. He has a word
to say about him in another letter to Mrs. Hewson after a jest at the
expense of Mrs. Stevenson's Jacobite prejudices.
I thank you [he said] for your intelligence about my
Godson. I believe you are sincere, when you say you
think him as fine a Child as you wish to see. He had
cut two Teeth, and three, in another Letter, make five;
for I know you never write Tautologies. If I have
over-reckoned, the Number will be right by this Time.
His being like me in so many Particulars pleases me
prodigiously; and I am persuaded there is another,
which you have omitted, tho' it must have occurr'd to
you while you were putting them down. Pray let him have
everything he likes; I think it of great Consequence
while the Features of the Countenance are forming; it
gives them a pleasant Air, and, that being once become
natural and fix'd by Habit, the Face is ever after the
handsomer for it, and on that much of a Person's good
Fortune and Success in Life may depend. Had I been
cross'd as much in my Infant Likings and Inclinations
as you know I have been of late Years, I should have
been, I was going to say, not near so handsome; but as
the Vanity of that Expression would offend other Folk's
Vanity, I change it out of regard to them, and say, a
great deal more homely.
His next letter is written to Mrs. Hewson, then a widow, from Philadelphia,
after his return from his second mission to England, and tells her that the
times are not propitious for the emigration to America, which she was
contemplating, but expresses the hope that they might all be happy together
in Philadelphia a little later on.
When he next writes, it is from Paris on January 12, 1777. "My Dear, Dear
Polly," he begins, "Figure to yourself an old Man, with grey Hair Appearing
under a Martin Fur Cap, among the Powder'd Heads of Paris. It is this odd
Figure that salutes you, with handfuls of Blessings on you and your dear
little ones." He had failed to bring about a union between Polly and his
son, but, inveterate matchmaker that he was, this letter shows that he
still had, as a grandfather, the designs on Eliza, Polly's daughter, that
he had disclosed in his previous letter to Polly, when he expressed the
hope that he might be alive to dance with Mrs. Stevenson at the wedding of
Ben and this child. "I give him (Ben)," it said, with a French grimace
between its lines, "a little French Language and Address, and then send him
over to pay his Respects to Miss Hewson." In another letter, he tells Polly
that, if she would take Ben under her care, as she had offered to do, he
would set no bad example to her _other_ children. Two or three years later,
he wrote to her from Philadelphia that Ben was finishing his studies at
college, and would, he thought, make her a good son. Indeed a few days
later he referred to Ben in another letter as "your son Ben."
"Does my Godson," he asked in a letter from France to Mrs. Hewson, along
with many affectionate inquiries about his "dear old Friend," Mrs.
Stevenson, and other English friends of theirs, "remember anything of his
Doctor Papa? I suppose not. Kiss the dear little Fellow for me; not
forgetting the others. I long to see them and you." Then in a postscript he
tells Mrs. Hewson that, at the ball in Nantes, Temple took notice that
there were no heads less than five, and that there were a few seven lengths
of the face above the forehead. "You know," he observes with the old
sportive humor, "that those who have practis'd Drawing, as he has, attend
more to Proportions, than People in common do." In another letter from
Passy, he asks Mrs. Hewson whether Jacob Viny, who was in the wheel
business, could not make up a coach with the latest useful improvements and
bring them all over in it. In the same letter, he inserts a word to relieve
Mrs. Stevenson of her anxiety about her swelled ankles which she attributed
to the dropsy; and the paragraph ends with the words, "My tender Love to
her."
As Polly's children grew older, the references to them in Franklin's
letters to the mother became more and more frequent and affectionate.
You cannot be more pleas'd [he wrote to her from
Passy], in talking about your Children, your Methods of
Instructing them, and the Progress they make, than I am
in hearing it, and in finding, that, instead of
following the idle Amusements, which both your Fortune
and the Custom of the Age might have led you into, your
Delight and your Duty go together, by employing your
Time in the Education of your Offspring. This is
following Nature and Reason, instead of Fashion; than
which nothing is more becoming the Character of a Woman
of Sense and Virtue.
Repeatedly Franklin sends little books to Mrs. Hewson's children, and on
one occasion he sends two different French grammars, one of which, after
the French master of her children had taken his choice, was to be given to
his godson, as his New Year's gift, together with the two volumes of
_Synonymes Francaises_. At one time before he left France, he thought of
visiting Mrs. Hewson in England and asked her advice about doing so in the
existing state of the British temper. When she counselled him against the
journey, he wrote to her, "Come, my dear Friend, live with me while I stay
here, and go with me, if I do go, to America." As the result of this
invitation, Mrs. Hewson and her children spent the winter of 1784-85 with
him at Passy, and his first letter to her, after she returned to England,
bears indications in every line of the regret inspired by his loss of her
society, after, to use his own words, he had passed a long winter in a
manner that made it appear the shortest of any he ever spent. One of his
peculiarities was to make a point of telling a friend anything of a
pleasant nature that he had heard about him. Since her departure, M.
LeVeillard in particular, he said, had told him at different times what
indeed he knew long since, "_C'est une bien digne Femme, cette Madame
Hewson, une tres amable Femme._" The letter then terminates with the
request that, when she prayed at church for all that travelled by land or
sea, she would think of her ever affectionate friend, but starts up again
in a postscript, in which he sends his love to William, Thomas and Eliza,
Mrs. Hewson's children, and asks their mother to tell them that he missed
their cheerful prattle. Temple being sick, and Benjamin at Paris, he had
found it very _triste_ breakfasting alone, and sitting alone, and without
any tea in the evening. "My love to every one of the Children," is his
postscript to his next letter, in which, when he was on the eve of leaving
France, he told Mrs. Hewson that he said nothing to persuade her to go with
him or to follow him, because he knew that she did not usually act from
persuasion, but judgment. In nothing was he wiser than in his reserve about
giving advice when the persons to be advised were themselves in possession
of all the facts of the case essential to a proper decision. When he
touched at Southampton, Mrs. Hewson was not yet resolved to sever the ties
that connected her with England, but subsequently she did come over with
her children to Philadelphia, and made it her home for the rest of her
life. The last letter but one that Franklin wrote to her before she sailed
is among the most readable letters in the correspondence. Referring to
three letters of hers, that had not reached him until nearly ten years
after they were written, he said:
This pacquet had been received by Mr. Bache, after my
departure for France, lay dormant among his papers
during all my absence, and has just now broke out upon
me, _like words_, that had been, as somebody says,
_congealed in northern air_. Therein I find all the
pleasing little family history of your children; how
William had begun to spell, overcoming, by strength of
memory, all the difficulty occasioned by the common
wretched alphabet, while you were convinced of the
utility of our new one; how Tom, genius-like, struck
out new paths, and, relinquishing the old names of the
letters, called U _bell_ and P _bottle_; how Eliza
began to grow jolly, that is, fat and handsome,
resembling Aunt Rooke, whom I used to call _my lovely_.
Together with all the _then_ news of Lady Blount's
having produced at length a boy; of Dolly's being well,
and of poor good Catherine's decease; of your affairs
with Muir and Atkinson, and of their contract for
feeding the fish in the channel; of the Vinys and their
jaunt to Cambridge in the long carriage; of Dolly's
journey to Wales with Mrs. Scott; of the Wilkeses, the
Pearces, Elphinstones, &c.;--concluding with a kind of
promise, that, as soon as the ministry and Congress
agreed to make peace, I should have you with me in
America. That peace has been some time made; but, alas!
the promise is not yet fulfilled.
Rarely, indeed, we imagine has one person, even though a father, or a
husband, ever enveloped the life of another with such an atmosphere of
pure, caressing, intimate sympathy and affection as surrounds these
letters. Perhaps, our review of them would be incomplete, if we did not
also recall the comments made by Franklin to Polly upon the death of her
mother, and Polly's own comments upon the close of his life.
The Departure of my dearest Friend [he wrote to Polly
from Passy], which I learn from your last Letter,
greatly affects me. To meet with her once more in this
Life was one of the principal Motives of my proposing
to visit England again, before my Return to America.
The last Year carried off my Friends Dr. Pringle, and
Dr. Fothergill, Lord Kaims, and Lord le Despencer. This
has begun to take away the rest, and strikes the
hardest. Thus the Ties I had to that Country, and
indeed to the World in general, are loosened one by
one, and I shall soon have no Attachment left to make
me unwilling to follow.
This is the description given by Mrs. Hewson of his last years after
stating that during the two years that preceded his death he did not
experience so much as two months of exemption from pain, yet never uttered
one repining or peevish word.
When the pain was not too violent to be amused, he
employed himself with his books, his pen, or in
conversation with his friends; and upon every occasion
displayed the clearness of his intellect, and the
cheerfulness of his temper. Even when the intervals
from pain were so short, that his words were frequently
interrupted, I have known him to hold a discourse in a
sublime strain of piety. I never shall forget one day
that I passed with our friend last summer (1789). I
found him in bed in great agony; but, when that agony
abated a little, I asked him if I should read to him.
He said, "Yes," and the first book I met with was
"Johnson's Lives of the Poets." I read the "Life of
Watts," who was a favorite author with Dr. Franklin;
and instead of lulling him to sleep, it roused him to a
display of the powers of his memory and his reason. He
repeated several of Watts's "Lyric Poems," and
descanted upon their sublimity in a strain worthy of
them and of their pious author.
Sublime or not, it cannot be denied that the poems of Dr. Watts have been a
staff of comfort and support to many a pilgrim on his way to the "fields of
endless light where the saints and angels walk."
Another very dear English friend of Franklin was William Strahan, King's
Printer, the partner at one time of Thomas Cadell the Elder, and the
publisher of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. The frequent
references in Franklin's letters to him to Madeira wine would seem to
indicate that, if it had been possible for such a temperate man as Franklin
to have what is known as a boon companion, Strahan would have been he. On
one occasion, Franklin writes to him that he has a great opinion of his
wisdom (Madeira apart), on another, after twitting him good-humoredly with
the restless condition of England, he observes: "You will say my _Advice_
'smells of _Madeira_.' You are right. This foolish Letter is mere chitchat
_between ourselves_ over the _second bottle_."
The friendship between the two began before they had even seen each other.
From writing to each other from time to time, in the course of business,
about books and stationery, they finally came to feel as if they really
knew each other, and to exchange familiar messages on that footing. In his
earliest letter to Strahan, Franklin signs himself, "Your humble servant
unknown," but, before he has even carried into execution the floating
intention of going over to England, which, again and again, manifests
itself in his letters to Strahan, his spouse is corresponding with Mrs.
Strahan, and he has arranged a match between Sally and Master Billy, one of
Strahan's sons. "My compliments to Mrs. Strahan, and to your promising son,
perhaps one day mine," he wrote to Strahan several years before his first
mission to England, "God send our children good and suitable matches, for I
begin to feel a parents' cares in that respect, and fondly wish to see them
well settled before I leave them." A little later, he has arranged the
match so entirely to his satisfaction, and, as the event proved, to that of
Strahan too, that he writes glibly to Strahan of William Strahan as "our
son Billy" and of Sally as "our daughter Sally." The same letter
foreshadows the mission to England that brought the two friends for the
first time face to face. "Our Assembly," it said, "talk of sending me to
England speedily. Then look out sharp, and if a fat old fellow should come
to your printing-house and request a little smouting, depend upon it 'tis
your affectionate friend and humble servant."
The earlier cis-Atlantic letters of Franklin to Strahan are mainly letters
of business over which we need not linger here; but they contain some
paragraphs of general interest besides those relating to Sally and Master
Billy. In one place, Franklin declares that he is glad that the Polybius,
which he had ordered from Strahan, did not come; it was intended for his
son, who was, when the order was given, in the army, and apparently bent
on a military life, but that, as peace had cut off the prospect of
advancement in that way, his son would apply himself to other business. In
any event, Polybius would appear to have been a rather pedantic authority
for the military operations of the American backwoods. The other business
to which William Franklin had decided to apply himself was that of the
profession, which, in the opinion of the general public, approximates most
nearly to a state of warfare--the law, and, in the letters from Franklin to
Strahan, William's altered plans are brought home to us in the form of
orders for law books and the request that Strahan would have William
entered as a student at the Inns of Court.
These earlier letters also contain some piquant comments on colonial
conditions. Such are the remarks prompted by Pope's sneer in the _Dunciad_
at the supposed popularity of the poetaster, Ward, in "ape-and-monkey
climes."
That Poet has many Admirers here, and the Reflection he
somewhere casts on the Plantations as if they had a
Relish for such Writers as Ward only, is injurious.
Your Authors know but little of the Fame they have on
this side of the Ocean. We are a kind of Posterity in
respect to them. We read their Works with perfect
impartiality, being at too great distance to be byassed
by the Factions, Parties and Prejudices that prevail
among you. We know nothing of their Personal Failings;
the Blemishes in their Character never reaches (sic)
us, and therefore the bright and amiable part strikes
us with its full Force. They have never offended us or
any of our Friends, and we have no competitions with
them, therefore we praise and admire them without
Restraint. Whatever Thomson writes send me a dozen
copies of. I had read no poetry for several years, and
almost lost the Relish of it, till I met with his
Seasons. That charming Poet has brought more Tears of
Pleasure into my Eyes than all I ever read before. I
wish it were in my Power to return him any Part of the
Joy he has given me.
Many years later, some appreciative observations of the same critic on the
poetry of Cowper were to make even that unhappy poet little less proud than
the girl in the Tatler with the new pair of garters.
The friendship, initiated by the early letters of Franklin to Strahan,
ripened fast into the fullest and freest intimacy when Franklin went over
to England in 1757. They were both printers, to begin with, and were both
very social in their tastes. Strahan was besides no mean political _quid
nunc_, and Franklin was all his life an active politician. So interesting
were the reports that he made to Franklin at the latter's request on
political conditions in England, after Franklin returned to America from
his first mission to that country, that Franklin acknowledged his debt in
these flattering terms:
Your accounts are so clear, circumstantial, and
complete, that tho' there is nothing too much, nothing
is wanting to give us, as I imagine, a more perfect
knowledge of your publick affairs than most people have
that live among you. The characters of your speakers
and actors are so admirably sketch'd, and their views
so plainly opened, that we see and know everybody; they
all become of our acquaintance. So excellent a manner
of writing seems to me a superfluous gift to a mere
printer. If you do not commence author for the benefit
of mankind, you will certainly be found guilty
hereafter of burying your talent. It is true that it
will puzzle the Devil himself to find anything else to
accuse you of, but remember he may make a great deal of
that. If I were king (which may God in mercy to us all
prevent) I should certainly make you the
historiographer of my reign. There could be but one
objection--I suspect you might be a little partial in
my favor.
"Straney" was the affectionate nickname by which Franklin addressed Strahan
after he came into personal contact with him, and, as usual, the
friendship that he formed for the head of the family drew all the other
members of the family within its folds. His friendship was rarely, we
believe, confined to one member of a family. That was the reason why, in
one of his last letters to Mrs. Hewson, he could picture his condition in
Philadelphia in these terms: "The companions of my youth are indeed almost
all departed, but I find an agreeable society among their children and
grandchildren." And so, in Franklin's relations with the Strahans, we find
his affection taking in all the members of the household. "My dear Love to
Mrs. Strahan," he says in a letter to Strahan from Philadelphia in 1762,
"and bid her be well for all our sakes. Remember me affectionately to
Rachey and my little Wife and to your promising Sons my young Friends
Billy, George and Andrew." A similar message in another letter to Strahan
is followed by the statement, "I hope to live to see George a Bishop," and,
a few days afterwards, Franklin recurs to the subject in these terms: "Tell
me whether George is to be a Church or Presbyterian parson. I know you are
a Presbyterian yourself; but then I think you have more sense than to stick
him into a priesthood that admits of no promotion. If he was a dull lad it
might not be amiss, but George has parts, and ought to aim at a mitre."
There are other repeated references in Franklin's letters to Strahan's
daughter whom Franklin called his wife. "I rejoice to hear," he says in one
of them, "that Mrs. Strahan is recovering; that your family in general is
well, and that my little woman in particular is so, and has not forgot our
tender connection." In a letter, which we have already quoted, after
charging Strahan with not being as good-natured as he ought to be, he says,
"I am glad, however that you have this fault; for a man without faults is a
hateful creature. He puts all his friends out of countenance; but I love
you exceedingly."
As for Strahan, he loved Franklin so exceedingly that in his effort to
bring Deborah over to England he did not stop short, as we have seen, of
letting her know that, when she arrived, there would be a ready-made
son-in-law to greet her. Indeed the idea of fixing Franklin in England
appears to have been the darling project of his heart if we are to judge by
the frequency with which Franklin had to oppose Deborah's fear of the sea
to his importunity. More than once it must have appeared to him as if the
eloquence on which he prided himself so greatly would bear down all
difficulties. After Franklin in 1762 had been for two nights on board of
the ship at Portsmouth which was to take him to America, but was kept in
port by adverse winds, he wrote to Strahan:
The Attraction of Reason is at present for the other
side of the Water, but that of Inclination will be for
this side. You know which usually prevails. I shall
probably make but this one Vibration, and settle here
forever. Nothing will prevent it, if I can, as I hope I
can, prevail with Mrs. F. to accompany me.
That, he said in a subsequent letter, would be the great difficulty. The
next year, he even wrote to Strahan from America, after his journey of
eleven hundred and forty miles on the American continent that year, that no
friend could wish him more in England than he did himself, though, before
he went, everything, in which he was concerned, must be so settled in
America as to make another return to it unnecessary. But, in the course of
his life, Franklin, with his sensibility to social attentions and freedom
from provincial restrictions, professed his preference for so many parts of
the world as a place of residence that statements of this kind should not
be accepted too literally.
In one of his letters to Strahan, before his return to England, on his
second mission, there is a sly stroke that gives us additional insight
into the intimate relations which the two men had contracted with each
other.
You tell me [Franklin said] that the value I set on
your political letters is a strong proof that my
judgment is on the decline. People seldom have friends
kind enough to tell them that disagreeable truth,
however useful it might be to know it; and indeed I
learn more from what you say than you intended I
should; for it convinces me that you had observed the
decline for some time past in other instances, as 'tis
very unlikely you should see it first in my good
opinion of your writings.
With Franklin's return to England on his second mission, the old friendly
intercourse between Strahan and himself was resumed, but it came wholly to
an end during the American Revolution; for Strahan was the King's Printer,
an inveterate Tory, and one of the ministerial phalanx, which followed
George III. blindly. When the dragon's teeth sown by the King began to
spring up in serried ranks, Franklin wrote, but did not send, to Strahan
the letter, which is so well known as to almost make transcription
unnecessary.
MR. STRAHAN,
You are a Member of Parliament, and one of that
Majority which has doomed my Country to
Destruction.--You have begun to burn our Towns, and
murder our People.--Look upon your Hands! They are
stained with the Blood of your Relations!--You and I
were long Friends:--You are now my Enemy,--and I am
Yours,
B. FRANKLIN.
In this instance, also, Franklin was but true to his practice of sometimes
inserting a quip or a quirk into even the gravest contexts.
Not until December 4, 1781, does the silence between the two friends,
produced by the Revolution, appear to have been really broken. On that
date, Franklin wrote to Strahan a formal letter, addressing him no longer
as "Dear Straney," but as "Dear Sir," and concluding with none of the
former affectionate terminations, but in the stiffest terms of obsequious
eighteenth century courtesy. The ostensible occasion for the letter was a
package of letters which he asked Strahan to forward to Mrs. Strange, the
wife of Robert Strange, the celebrated engraver, whose address he did not
remember. He also asked Strahan for a copy of the _Tully on Old Age_, which
Franklin had printed in Philadelphia many years before, and had endeavored
to sell in part in London through Strahan. Well maintained as the reserve
of this letter is, it is plainly enough that of a man, who is feeling his
way a little cautiously, because he does not know just how his approaches
will be received. Between the lines, we can see that the real object of the
requests about the package of letters and the Latin classic was to find out
whether Franklin's treason had killed all desire on Straney's part to open
a second bottle with him. There is a by-reference to Didot le Jeune, who
was bidding fair to carry the art of fine printing to a high pitch of
perfection, and an expression of pleasure that Strahan had married his
daughter happily, and that his prosperity continued. "I hope," Franklin
said, "it may never meet with any Interruption having still, tho' at
present divided by public Circumstances, a Remembrance of our ancient
private Friendship." Nor did he fail to present his affectionate respects
to Mrs. Strahan and his love to Strahan's children. The olive branch was
distinctly held out, but, just about the time that this letter reached
Strahan, the ministry, of which he was such an unfaltering adherent,
suffered a defeat on the American question, and the Tully was transmitted
by Mrs. Strange's husband with the statement that he really believed that
Strahan himself would have written to Franklin but for the smart of the
Parliamentary disaster of that morning. Several years later, there came to
Franklin an acknowledgment by Strahan of the very friendly and effectual
patronage which had been afforded to a distant kinswoman of his at
Philadelphia by Franklin's family. The letter also eagerly urged Franklin
to come to England once more, and with Franklin's reply, signed "yours ever
most affectionately," the old _entente_ was fully re-established. In the
high animal spirits, aroused by the renewal of the former relationship, he
fell back upon the technical terms of the printing house, so familiar to
the two friends, for the purpose of illustrating his pet proposition that
England would never be at rest until all the enormous salaries, emoluments
and patronage of her great offices were abolished, and these offices were
made, instead of places of profit, places of expense and burthen.
Ambition and avarice [he said] are each of them strong
Passions, and when they are united in the same Persons,
and have the same Objects in view for their
Gratification, they are too strong for Public Spirit
and Love of Country, and are apt to produce the most
violent Factions and Contentions. They should therefore
be separated, and made to act one against the other.
Those Places, to speak in our old stile (Brother Type)
may be for the good of the _Chapel_, but they are bad
for the Master, as they create constant Quarrels that
hinder the Business. For example, here are near two
Months that your Government has been employed _in
getting its form to press_; which is not yet fit to
_work on_, every Page of it being _squabbled_, and the
whole ready to fall into _pye_. The Founts too must be
very scanty, or strangely _out of sorts_, since your
_Compositors_ cannot find either _upper_ or _lower case
Letters_ sufficient to set the word ADMINISTRATION, but
are forc'd to be continually _turning for them_.
However, to return to common (tho' perhaps too saucy)
Language, don't despair; you have still one resource
left, and that not a bad one, since it may reunite the
Empire. We have some Remains of Affection for you, and
shall always be ready to receive and take care of you
in Case of Distress. So if you have not Sense and
Virtue enough to govern yourselves, e'en dissolve your
present old crazy Constitution, and _send members to
Congress_.
This is the letter that Franklin said was mere chitchat between themselves
over the second bottle. Where America was concerned, Strahan was almost
credulous enough to have even swallowed the statement in Franklin's
humorous letter "To the Editor of a Newspaper," written about the time of
the Stamp Act in ridicule of English ignorance respecting America, that the
grand leap of the whale in his chase of the cod up the Fall of Niagara was
esteemed by all who had seen it as one of the finest spectacles in Nature.
In 1783, Captain Nathaniel Falconer, another faithful friend of Franklin,
wrote to him with the true disregard of an old sea-dog for spelling and
syntax: "I have been over to your old friends Mr. Strawns and find him just
the same man, believes every Ly he hears against the United States, the
French Army and our Army have been killing each other, and that we shall be
glad to come to this country again." In reply, Franklin said: "I have still
a regard for Mr. Strahan in remembrance of our ancient Friendship, tho'
he has as a Member of Parliament dipt his Hands in our Blood. He was always
as credulous as you find him." And, if what Franklin further says in this
letter is true, Strahan was not only credulous himself but not above
publishing mendacious letters about America as written from New York, which
in point of fact were fabricated in London. A little over a year later,
when the broken bones of the ancient friendship had reknit, Franklin had
his chance to remind Strahan of the extent to which he and those of the
same mind with him had been deceived by their gross misconceptions of
America. His opportunity came in the form of a reply to a letter from
Strahan withholding his assent from the idea of Franklin, so utterly
repugnant to the working principles of Strahan's party associates, that
public service should be rendered gratuitously. "There are, I make no
doubt," said Franklin "many wise and able Men, who would take as much
Pleasure in governing for nothing, as they do in playing Chess for nothing.
It would be one of the noblest of Amusements." Then, when he has fortified
the proposition by some real or fancied illustrations, drawn from French
usages, he proceeds to unburden his mind to Strahan with a degree of candor
that must have made the latter wince a little at times.
I allow you [he said] all the Force of your Joke upon
the Vagrancy of our Congress. They have a right to sit
_where_ they please, of which perhaps they have made
too much Use by shifting too often. But they have two
other Rights; those of sitting _when_ they please, and
as _long_ as they please, in which methinks they have
the advantage of your Parliament; for they cannot be
dissolved by the Breath of a Minister, or sent packing
as you were the other day, when it was your earnest
desire to have remained longer together.
You "fairly acknowledge, that the late War terminated
quite contrary to your Expectation." Your expectation
was ill founded; for you would not believe your old
Friend, who told you repeatedly, that by those Measures
England would lose her Colonies, as Epictetus warned in
vain his Master that he would break his Leg. You
believ'd rather the Tales you heard of our Poltroonery
and Impotence of Body and Mind. Do you not remember the
Story you told me of the Scotch sergeant, who met with
a Party of Forty American Soldiers, and, tho' alone,
disarm'd them all, and brought them in Prisoners? A
Story almost as Improbable as that of the Irishman, who
pretended to have alone taken and brought in Five of
the Enemy by _surrounding_ them. And yet, my Friend,
sensible and Judicious as you are, but partaking of the
general Infatuation, you seemed to believe it.
The Word _general_ puts me in mind of a General, your
General Clarke, who had the Folly to say in my hearing
at Sir John Pringle's, that, with a Thousand British
grenadiers, he would undertake to go from one end of
America to the other, and geld all the Males, partly by
force and partly by a little Coaxing. It is plain he
took us for a species of Animals, very little superior
to Brutes. The Parliament too believ'd the stories of
another foolish General, I forget his Name, that the
Yankeys never _felt bold_. Yankey was understood to be
a sort of Yahoo, and the Parliament did not think the
Petitions of such Creatures were fit to be received and
read in so wise an Assembly. What was the consequence
of this monstrous Pride and Insolence? You first sent
small Armies to subdue us, believing them more than
sufficient, but soon found yourselves obliged to send
greater; these, whenever they ventured to penetrate our
Country beyond the Protection of their Ships, were
either repulsed and obliged to scamper out, or were
surrounded, beaten and taken Prisoners. An America
Planter, who had never seen Europe, was chosen by us to
Command our Troops, and continued during the whole War.
This Man sent home to you, one after another, five of
your best Generals baffled, their Heads bare of
Laurels, disgraced even in the opinion of their
Employers.
Your contempt of our Understandings, in Comparison with
your own, appeared to be not much better founded than
that of our Courage, if we may judge by this
Circumstance, that, in whatever Court of Europe a
Yankey negociator appeared, the wise British Minister
was routed, put in a passion, pick'd a quarrel with
your Friends, and was sent home with a Flea in his Ear.
But after all, my dear Friend, do not imagine that I am
vain enough to ascribe our Success to any superiority
in any of those Points. I am too well acquainted with
all the Springs and Levers of our Machine, not to see,
that our human means were unequal to our undertaking,
and that, if it had not been for the Justice of our
Cause, and the consequent Interposition of Providence,
in which we had Faith, we must have been ruined. If I
had ever before been an Atheist, I should now have been
convinced of the Being and Government of a Deity! It is
he who abases the Proud and favours the Humble. May we
never forget his Goodness to us, and may our future
Conduct manifest our Gratitude.
It was characteristic of Franklin to open his heart to a friend in this
candid way even upon sensitive topics, and there can be no better proof of
the instinctive confidence of his friends in the essential good feeling
that underlay such candor than the fact that they never took offence at
utterances of this sort. They knew too well the constancy of affection and
placability of temper which caused him to justly say of himself in a letter
to Strahan, "I like immortal friendships, but not immortal enmities."
The retrospective letter from which we have just quoted had its genial
afterglow as all Franklin's letters had, when he had reason to think that
he had written something at which a relative or a friend might take
umbrage.
But let us leave these serious Reflections [he went
on], and converse with our usual Pleasantry. I remember
your observing once to me as we sat together in the
House of Commons, that no two Journeymen Printers,
within your Knowledge, had met with such Success in the
World as ourselves. You were then at the head of your
Profession, and soon afterwards became a Member of
Parliament. I was an Agent for a few Provinces, and now
act for them all. But we have risen by different Modes.
I, as a Republican Printer, always liked a Form well
_plain'd down_; being averse to those _overbearing_
Letters that hold their Heads so _high_, as to hinder
their Neighbours from appearing. You, as a Monarchist,
chose to work upon _Crown_ Paper, and found it
profitable; while I work'd upon _pro patria_ (often
call'd _Fools Cap_) with no less advantage. Both our
_Heaps hold out_ very well, and we seem likely to make
a pretty good day's Work of it. With regard to Public
Affairs (to continue in the same stile) it seems to me
that the Compositors in your Chapel do not _cast off
their Copy_ well, nor perfectly understand _Imposing_;
their _Forms_, too, are continually pester'd by the
_Outs_ and _Doubles_, that are not easy to be
corrected. And I think they were wrong in laying aside
some _Faces_, and particularly certain _Headpieces_,
that would have been both useful and ornamental. But,
Courage! The Business may still flourish with good
Management; and the Master become as rich as any of the
Company.
Less than two years after these merry words were penned, Franklin wrote to
Andrew Strahan, Strahan's son, saying, "I condole with you most sincerely
on the Departure of your good Father and Mother, my old and beloved
Friends."
Equally dear to Franklin, though in a different way, was Jonathan Shipley,
the Bishop of St. Asaph's, whom he termed in a letter to Georgiana, one of
the Bishop's daughters, "that most honoured and ever beloved Friend." In
this same letter, Franklin speaks of the Bishop as the "good Bishop," and
then, perhaps, not unmindful of the unflinching servility with which the
Bench of Bishops had supported the American policy of George III.,
exclaims, "Strange, that so simple a Character should sufficiently
distinguish one of that sacred Body!"
During the dispute with the Colonies, the Bishop was one of the wise
Englishmen, who could have settled the questions at issue between England
and America, to the ultimate satisfaction of both countries, with little
difficulty, if they had been given a _carte blanche_ to agree with Franklin
on the terms upon which the future dependence of America was to be based.
Two productions of his, the "Sermon before the Society for Propagating the
Gospel in Foreign Parts" and his "Speech intended to have been spoken on
the Bill for Altering the Charters of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay,"
were among the compositions which really influenced the course of the
events that preceded the American Revolution. We know from Franklin's pen
that the sermon was for a time "universally approved and applauded," and,
in letters to Thomas Cushing, he said that the speech was admired in
England as a "Masterpiece of Eloquence and Wisdom," and "had an
extraordinary Effect, in changing the Sentiments of Multitudes with regard
to America." For both sermon and speech the Bishop was all the more to be
honored by Americans, because, as Franklin observed to Galloway of the
sermon, the Bishop's censure of the mother country's treatment of the
Colonies, however tenderly expressed, could not recommend him at court or
conduce in the least to his promotion. On the contrary, it probably cost
him the most splendid temporal reward that could be conferred upon a
Churchman, the Archbishopric of Canterbury; for, when Charles James Fox was
desirous of elevating him to that exalted office, the King defeated his
intentions by hastily appointing another person to it.
At Chilbolton, by Twyford, the country seat of the Bishop, some of the most
pleasant days that Franklin spent in England were passed. So fond of
Franklin were the Bishop and his wife that the latter carried in her memory
even the ages of all Franklin's children and grandchildren. As he was on
the point of leaving Twyford, at the end of the three weeks' visit, during
which he began the _Autobiography_, she insisted on his remaining that day,
so that they might all celebrate the anniversary of Benjamin Bache's birth
together. Accordingly, at dinner there was among other things a floating
island, such as the hosts always had on the several birthdays of their own
six children; all of whom, with one exception, were present as well as a
clergyman's widow upwards of one hundred years old. The story is thus told
by Franklin to his wife:
The chief Toast of the Day was Master Benjamin Bache,
which the venerable old Lady began in a Bumper of
Mountain. The Bishop's Lady politely added, _and that
he may be as good a Man as his Grandfather_. I said I
hop'd he would be _much better_. The Bishop, still more
complaisant than his Lady, said, "We will compound the
Matter, and be contented, if he should not prove
_quite_ so good." This Chitchat is to yourself only,
in return for some of yours about your Grandson, and
must only be read to Sally, and not spoken of to
anybody else; for you know how People add and alter
Silly stories that they hear, and make them appear ten
times more silly.
The room at the Bishop's home, in which the _Autobiography_ was begun, was
ever subsequently known as Franklin's room. After his return to America
from France, Catherine Louisa Shipley, one of the Bishop's daughters, wrote
to him, "We never walk in the garden without seeing Dr. Franklin's room and
thinking of the work that was begun in it." In a letter to the Bishop in
1771, Franklin says:
I regret my having been oblig'd to leave that most
agreeable Retirement which good Mrs. Shipley put me so
kindly in possession of. I now breathe with Reluctance
the Smoke of London, when I think of the sweet Air of
Twyford. And by the Time your Races are over, or about
the Middle of next Month (if it should then not be
unsuitable to your Engagements or other Purposes) I
promise myself the Happiness of spending another Week
or two where I so pleasantly spent the last.
Close behind this letter, went also one of his "books," which he hoped that
Miss Georgiana, another daughter of the Bishop, would be good enough to
accept as a small mark of his "Regard for her philosophic Genius," and a
quantity of American dried apples for Mrs. Shipley. A month later, he
writes to the Bishop that he had been prevented from coming to Twyford by
business, but that he purposed to set out on the succeeding Tuesday for
"that sweet Retreat." How truly sweet it was to him a letter that he
subsequently wrote to Georgiana from Passy enables us in some measure to
realize. Among other things, it contained these winning and affecting
words:
Accept my Thanks for your Friendly Verses and good
Wishes. How many Talents you possess! Painting,
Poetry, Languages, etc., etc. All valuable, but your
good Heart is worth the whole.
Your mention of the Summer House brings fresh to my
mind all the Pleasures I enjoyed in the sweet Retreat
at Twyford: the Hours of agreeable and instructive
Conversation with the amiable Family at Table; with its
Father alone; the delightful Walks in the Gardens and
neighbouring Grounds. Pleasures past and gone forever!
Since I have had your Father's Picture I am grown more
covetous of the rest; every time I look at your second
Drawing I have regretted that you have not given to
your Juno the Face of Anna Maria, to Venus that of
Emily or Betsey, and to Cupid that of Emily's Child, as
it would have cost you but little more Trouble. I must,
however, beg that you will make me up a compleat Set of
your little Profiles, which are more easily done. You
formerly obliged me with that of the Father, an
excellent one. Let me also have that of the good
Mother, and of all the Children. It will help me to
fancy myself among you, and to enjoy more perfectly in
Idea, the Pleasure of your Society. My little
Fellow-Traveller, the sprightly Hetty, with whose
sensible Prattle I was so much entertained, why does
she not write to me? If Paris affords anything that any
of you wish to have, mention it. You will oblige me. It
affords everything but _Peace_! Ah! When shall we again
enjoy that Blessing.
Previously he had written to Thomas Digges that the portrait of the Bishop
mentioned by him had not come to hand; nor had he heard anything of it, and
that he was anxious to see it, "having no hope of living to see again the
much lov'd and respected original." His request for the little profiles of
the Shipleys was complied with, we know, because in a letter to the Bishop
some two years afterwards he said: "Your Shades are all plac'd in a Row
over my Fireplace, so that I not only have you always in my Mind, but
constantly before my Eyes." This letter was written in reply to a letter
from the Bishop which was the first to break the long silence that the war
between Great Britain and America had imposed upon the two friends. "After
so long a Silence, and the long Continuance of its unfortunate Causes,"
Franklin began, "a Line from you was a Prognostic of happier Times
approaching, when we may converse and communicate freely, without Danger
from the Malevolence of Men enrag'd by the ill success of their distracted
Projects."
Among the entries in the desultory Journal that Franklin kept of his return
from France to America, are these relating to the visit paid him at
Southampton by the Bishop: "Wrote a letter to the Bishop of St. Asaph,
acquainting him with my arrival, and he came with his lady and daughter,
Miss Kitty, after dinner, to see us; they talk of staying here as long as
we do. Our meeting was very affectionate." For two or three days, the
reunited friends all lodged at the Star, at Southampton, and took their
meals together. The day before his ship sailed, Franklin invited the Bishop
and his wife and daughter to accompany him on board, and, when he retired,
it was with the expectation that they would spend the night on the ship,
but, when he awoke the next morning, he found that they had thoughtfully
left the ship, after he retired, to relieve the poignancy of the farewell,
and that he was off on his westward course.
In his last letter to the Bishop, Franklin expresses his regret that
conversation between them at Southampton had been cut short so frequently
by third persons, and thanks him for the pleasure that he derived from the
copy of Paley's _Moral Philosophy_, given to him by the Bishop there. Along
with the usual contradiction of the English and Loyalist view at this time
of our national condition, and the usual picture of himself encircled by
his grandchildren, he indulges in these striking reflections about the
chequered fate of parental expectations:
He that raises a large Family does, indeed, while he
lives to observe them, _stand_, as Watts says, _a
broader Mark for Sorrow_; but then he stands a broader
Mark for Pleasure too. When we launch our little Fleet
of Barques into the Ocean, bound to different Ports, we
hope for each a prosperous Voyage; but contrary Winds,
hidden Shoals, Storms, and Enemies come in for a Share
in the Disposition of Events; and though these occasion
a Mixture of Disappointment, yet, considering the
Risque where we can make no Insurance, we should think
ourselves happy if some return with Success.
Timed as they were, the force of these reflections were not likely to be
lost upon the Bishop. Some years before, Georgiana had married with his
bitter disapproval Francis Hare-Naylor, the writer of plays and novels, and
author of the _History of the Helvetic Republics_, who was so unfortunate
as to be arrested for debt during his courtship, while in the episcopal
coach of the Bishop with Georgiana and her parents. After the Bishop
refused to recognize the husband, the Duchess of Devonshire settled an
annuity of three hundred pounds a year upon the couple, and among the wise,
weighty letters of Franklin is one that he wrote from France to Georgiana,
after her marriage, in which he replies to her inquiries about the opening
that America would afford to a young married couple, and refers to this
annuity. The concluding portion of this letter also has its value as
another illustration of the calm manner in which Franklin looked forward to
his end. He tells Georgiana that, if he should be in America, when they
were there, his best counsels and services would not be wanting, and that
to see her happily settled and prosperous there would give him infinite
pleasure, but that, of course, if he ever arrived there, his stay could be
but short.
Franklin survived the Bishop, and his letter to Catherine, in reply to
hers, announcing the death of her father, is in his best vein.
That excellent man has then left us! His departure is a
loss, not to his family and friends only, but to his
nation, and to the world; for he was intent on doing
good, had wisdom to devise the means, and talents to
promote them. His "Sermon before the Society for
Propagating the Gospel," and his "Speech intended to
have been spoken," are proofs of his ability as well as
his humanity. Had his counsels in those pieces been
attended to by the ministers, how much bloodshed might
have been prevented, and how much expense and disgrace
to the nation avoided!
Your reflections on the constant calmness and composure
attending his death are very sensible. Such instances
seem to show, that the good sometimes enjoy in dying a
foretaste of the happy state they are about to enter.
According to the course of years, I should have quitted
this world long before him. I shall however not be long
in following. I am now in my eighty-fourth year, and
the last year has considerably enfeebled me; so that I
hardly expect to remain another. You will then, my dear
friend, consider this as probably the last line to be
received from me, and as a taking leave. Present my
best and most sincere respects to your good mother, and
love to the rest of the family, to whom I wish all
happiness; and believe me to be, while I _do_ live,
yours most affectionately.
His friendship in this instance, as usual, embraced the whole family. In a
letter in 1783 to Sir William Jones, the accomplished lawyer and Oriental
scholar, who married Anna Maria, one of the Bishop's daughters, he said
that he flattered himself that he might in the ensuing summer be able to
undertake a trip to England for the pleasure of seeing once more his dear
friends there, among whom the Bishop and his family stood foremost in his
estimation and affection.
To the Bishop himself he wrote from Passy in the letter which mentioned the
shades of the Shipleys above his fireplace: "Four daughters! how rich! I
have but one, and she, necessarily detain'd from me at 1000 leagues
distance. I feel the Want of that tender Care of me, which might be
expected from a Daughter, and would give the World for one."
And later in this letter he says with the bountiful affection, which made
him little less than a member of the families of some of his friends,
"Please to make my best Respects acceptable to Mrs. Shipley, and embrace
for me tenderly all our dear Children."
At the request of Catherine, he wrote the _Art of Procuring Pleasant
Dreams_ in which hygiene and the importance of preserving a good conscience
are so gracefully blended, and received from her a reply, in which, after
declaring that it flattered her exceedingly that he should employ so much
of his precious time in complying with her request, she put to him the
question, "But where do you read that Methusaleh slept in the open air? I
have searched the Bible in vain to find it."
When Sir William Jones was on the eve of being married to Anna Maria, and
of sailing away to India, where he was to win so much distinction, Franklin
wrote to him the letter already mentioned, joining his blessing on the
union with that of the good Bishop, and expressing the hope that the
prospective bridegroom might return from that corrupting country with a
great deal of money honestly acquired, and with full as much virtue as he
carried out.
The affection that he felt for Catherine and Georgiana, his letters to
them, from which we have already quoted, sufficiently reveal. Of the four
daughters, Georgiana was, perhaps, his favorite, and she is an example with
Mary Stevenson of the subtle magnetism that his intellect and nature had
for feminine affinities of mind and temperament. It was to Georgiana, when
a child, that he wrote his well-known letter containing an epitaph on her
squirrel, which had been dispatched by a dog. The letter and epitaph are
good enough specimens of his humor to be quoted in full:
DEAR MISS,
I lament with you most sincerely the unfortunate end of
poor Mungo. Few squirrels were better accomplished; for
he had had a good education, had travelled far, and
seen much of the world. As he had the honor of being,
for his virtues, your favourite, he should not go, like
common skuggs, without an elegy or an epitaph. Let us
give him one in the monumental style and measure,
which, being neither prose nor verse, is perhaps the
properest for grief; since to use common language would
look as if we were not affected, and to make rhymes
would seem trifling in sorrow.
EPITAPH
Alas! poor Mungo!
Happy wert thou, hadst thou known
Thy own felicity.
Remote from the fierce bald eagle,
Tyrant of thy native woods,
Thou hadst nought to fear from his piercing talons,
Nor from the murdering gun
Of the thoughtless sportsman.
Safe in thy wired castle,
GRIMALKIN never could annoy thee.
Daily wert thou fed with the choicest viands,
By the fair hand of an indulgent mistress;
But, discontented,
Thou wouldst have more freedom.
Too soon, alas! didst thou obtain it;
And wandering,
Thou art fallen by the fangs of wanton, cruel Ranger!
Learn hence,
Ye who blindly seek more liberty,
Whether subjects, sons, squirrels or daughters,
That apparent restraint may be real protection;
Yielding peace and plenty
With security.
You see, my dear Miss, how much more decent and proper
this broken style is, than if we were to say, by way of
epitaph,
Here SKUGG
Lies snug,
As a bug
In a rug.
and yet, perhaps, there are people in the world of so
little feeling as to think that this would be a
good-enough epitaph for poor Mungo.
If you wish it, I shall procure another to succeed him;
but perhaps you will now choose some other amusement.
Two of Georgiana's letters to Franklin, after his arrival in France, are
very interesting, and one of them especially could not have been written by
any but a highly gifted and accomplished woman. In this letter, the first
of the two, she begins by expressing her joy at unexpectedly receiving a
letter from him.
How good you were [she exclaimed] to send me your
direction, but I fear I must not make use of it as
often as I could wish, since my father says it will be
prudent not to write in the present situation of
affairs. I am not of an age to be so very prudent, and
the only thought that occurred to me was your
suspecting that my silence proceeded from other
motives. I could not support the idea of your believing
that I love and esteem you less than I did some few
years ago. I therefore write this once without my
father's knowledge. You are the first man that ever
received a private letter from me, and in this instance
I feel that my intentions justify my conduct; but I
must entreat that you will take no notice of my
writing, when next I have the happiness of hearing from
you.
She then proceeds to tell Franklin all about her father, her mother, her
sister Emily and Emily's daughter, "a charming little girl, near fifteen
months old, whom her aunts reckon a prodigy of sense and beauty." The rest
of her sisters, she said, continued in _statu quo_. Whether that proceeded
from the men being difficult or from _their_ being difficult, she left him
to determine.
His friends all loved him almost as much as she did; as much she would not
admit to be possible. Dr. Pringle had made her extremely happy the
preceding winter by giving her a print of her excellent friend, which, was
certainly very like him, although it wanted the addition of his own hair to
make it complete; but, as it was, she prized it infinitely, now that the
dear original was absent. She then has a word to say about Smith's _Wealth
of Nations_, Gibbon's _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_
and the _Economics_, which she had read with great attention, as indeed
everything else she could meet with relative to Socrates; for she fancied
she could discover in each trait of that admirable man's character a strong
resemblance between him and her much-loved friend--the same clearness of
judgment, the same uprightness of intention and the same superior
understanding. Other words are bestowed on the account which Sir William
Hamilton had lately given her of a new electrical machine invented in
Italy, the happiness that she would enjoy, if Franklin were in England to
explain it to her, and the envy excited in her by the opportunities that
his grandson had for showing him kindness and attention. "Did my family,"
she further declares, "know of my writing, my letter would scarce contain
the very many things they would desire me to say for them. They continue to
admire and love you as much as they did formerly, nor can any time or event
in the least change their sentiments."
She then concludes partly in French and partly in English in these words:
Adieu, mon cher Socrate; conservez-vous pour l'amour de
moi, et pour mille autres raisons plus importants. Je
ne vous en dirai pas d'advantage pour aujourd'hui, mais
je veux esperer de vous entretenir plus a mon aise,
avant que soit longue. Pray write whenever a safe
conveyance opens, since the receiving letters is
reckoned very different from answering them. I must
once more repeat nobody knows of this scroll; "a word
to the wise,"--as Poor Richard says.
In her second letter, Georgiana speaks of the difficulty she experienced in
having her letters conveyed safely to Passy. "Strange," she declared, "that
I should be under the necessity of concealing from the world a
correspondence which it is the pride and glory of my heart to maintain."
His _Dialogue with the Gout_, she said, was written with his own cheerful
pleasantry, and _La belle et la mauvaise Jambe_ recalled to her mind those
happy hours they once passed in his society, where they were never amused
without learning some useful truth, and where she first acquired a taste
_pour la conversation badinante and reflechie_. Her father grew every year
fonder of the peace of Twyford; having found his endeavors to serve his
country ineffectual, he had yielded to a torrent which it was no longer in
his power to control. Sir John Pringle (Franklin's friend) had left London
and gone to reside in Scotland; she feared that he was much straitened in
his circumstances; he looked ill and was vastly changed from what he
remembered him; Dr. Priestley (another friend of Franklin) was then on a
short visit to his friends in town; good Dr. Price (another friend of
Franklin) called on them often, and gave them hopes of a visit to Twyford.
The letter also informed Franklin that the first opportunity that they had
of sending a parcel to Paris he might expect _all_ their shades; and
expressed her gratitude to Mr. Jones for undertaking the care of her
letter, and giving her an opportunity of assuring Franklin how much she did
and ever should continue to love him.
Catherine Ray was not far wrong when she spoke of Franklin as a conjurer.
Catherine Shipley's letter to him, after she had parted with him at
Southampton, though without the romantic flush of these two letters, spoke
the same general language of deep-seated affection. She was quite provoked
with herself, she said, when she got to Southampton that she had not
thought of something, such as a pincushion, to leave with him, that might
have been useful to him during the voyage to remind him of her. "Did you
ever taste the ginger cake," she asked, "and think it had belonged to your
fellow-traveller? In short, I want some excuse for asking whether you ever
think about me." And from this letter it appears that he had a place in the
hearts of Emily and Betsey too. She had had a letter from Emily, Catherine
further said, the night after she got home, to inquire whether his stay at
Southampton would allow time for her coming to see him. Betsey regretted
much that she had lost that happiness, and the writer had written to dear
Georgiana a long account of him, for she knew every circumstance would be
interesting to her. "Indeed, my dear sir," the letter ended, "from my
father and mother down to their _youngest child_, we all respect and love
you."[34]
When Franklin was told by Georgiana that Sir John Pringle was pinched by
poverty, and looked ill, he must have been sorely distressed; for Sir John
he once described as his "steady, good friend." A pupil of Boerhaave, a
high authority upon the application of sanitary science to the prevention
of dysentery and hospital fevers, physician to the Queen, and President of
the Royal Society, Dr. Pringle was one of the distinguished men of his
time. What churchmen were to the preservation of classical learning, before
teaching became a special calling, physicians were to general scientific
knowledge before science became such; and, among these physicians, he
occupied an honorable position.[35] "His speech in giving the last medal,
(of the Royal Society) on the subject of the discoveries relating to the
air," Franklin wrote to Jan Ingenhousz, "did him great honour." He was
quite unlike the courtiers who sought to convince King Canute that he could
stay the incoming tide by his command, as George III. found out when he
asked him, after the outbreak of the American Revolution, to pronounce an
opinion in favor of the substitution of blunt for pointed lightning rods on
Kew Palace. The laws of nature, Sir John hinted, were not changeable at
royal pleasure, but positions of honor and profit he soon learnt, if he did
not know it before, were; for he fell into such disfavor with the King that
he had to resign as President of the Royal Society, and was deprived of his
post as physician to the Queen. The circumstances in which his disgrace
originated leave us at but little loss to understand why the King should
have become such a dogged partisan of blunt conductors. Prior to the
Revolution, Franklin had been consulted by the British Board of Ordnance as
to the best means of protecting the arsenals at Purfleet from lightning,
and, after he had visited the powder magazine there, the Royal Society,
too, was asked by the Board for its opinion. The Society accordingly
appointed a committee of learned men, including Cavendish and Franklin, to
make a report on the subject. All of the committee except Benjamin Wilson,
who dissented, reported in favor of pointed conductors as against blunt
ones, and Franklin, the inventor of pointed lightning rods, drew up the
report. The scientific controversy that followed soon assumed a political
character, when Franklin dropped the philosophical task of snatching the
lightning from the skies for the rebellious task of snatching the sceptre
from a tyrant. When he heard that George III. was, like Ajax, obstinate
enough to defy even the lightning, he wrote to an unknown correspondent:
The King's changing his _pointed_ conductors for
_blunt_ ones is, therefore, a matter of small
importance to me. If I had a wish about it, it would be
that he had rejected them altogether as ineffectual.
For it is only since he thought himself and family safe
from the thunder of Heaven, that he dared to use his
own thunder in destroying his innocent subjects.
Dr. Ingenhousz, however, was not so self-contained, and made such an angry
attack on Wilson that Franklin, who invariably relied in such cases upon
silence and the principle that Truth is a cat with nine lives to defend
him, laughingly remarked, "He seems as much heated about this _one point_,
as the Jansenists and Molinists were about the _five_." As for King George,
he had at least the satisfaction of realizing that his people still had a
ready fund of wit for timely use. One homely couplet of the period,
referring to Franklin's famous kite, ran in this way:
"He with a kite drew lightning from the sky,
And like a kite he pecked King George's eye."
Another more polished poet penned these neat lines:
"While you, great George, for knowledge hunt,
And sharp conductors change for blunt,
The Empire's out of joint.
Franklin another course pursues
And all your thunder heedless views
By keeping to the point."
If we may believe Franklin, Sir John held the efficacy of the healing art
in very moderate esteem. The reader has already been told of the humorous
manner in which he let it be known that, in his opinion, of the two
classes of practitioners, old women and regular physicians, the former had
done the most to save the honor of the profession. Franklin also informed
Dr. Rush that Sir John "once told him 92 fevers out of 100 cured
themselves, 4 were cured by Art, and 4 proved fatal." But many people must
have had a more favorable opinion of the professional value of Sir John
than Sir John himself had, for his "Conversations" were in high repute. On
this point, there is some evidence in a letter from Franklin to Dr. Thomas
Bond, who was desirous of giving his son Richard the benefit of a foreign
medical education. Referring to Sir John, Franklin wrote:
Every Wednesday Evening he admits young Physicians and
Surgeons to a Conversation at his House, which is
thought very improving to them. I will endeavour to
introduce your Son there when he comes to London. And
to tell you frankly my Opinion, I suspect there is more
valuable knowledge in Physic to be learnt from the
honest candid Observations of an old Practitioner, who
is past all desire of more Business, having made his
Fortune, who has none of the Professional Interest in
keeping up a Parade of Science to draw Pupils, and who
by Experience has discovered the Inefficacy of most
Remedies and Modes of Practice, than from all the
formal Lectures of all the Universities upon Earth.
That Dr. John cured at least one patient, we are told by Dr. Rush on the
authority of Franklin, but it was Only himself of a tremor, and that by
simply ceasing to take snuff. Dr. Pringle and himself, Franklin told Dr.
Rush, observed that tremors of the hands were more frequent in France than
elsewhere, and probably from the excessive use of snuff. "He concluded,"
says Dr. Rush, "that there was no great advantage in using tobacco in any
way, for that he had kept company with persons who used it all his life,
and no one had ever advised him to use it. The Doctor in the 81st year of
his age declared he had never snuffed, chewed, or smoked."
Among the persons who sought Sir John's professional advice was Franklin
himself. It was in relation to a cutaneous trouble which vexed him for some
fourteen years, and broke out afresh when he was in his eighty-third year.
But the best medicine that Franklin ever obtained from Sir John was his
companionship upon two continental tours, one of which was inspired by the
latter's desire to drink the waters at Pyrmont, and the other by the
attractions of the French capital. When the news of Sir John's death
reached Franklin at Passy he paid the usual heartfelt tribute. "We have
lost our common Friend," he wrote to Jan Ingenhousz, "the excellent
Pringle. How many pleasing hours you and I have pass'd together in his
Company!"
Another English physician, for whom Franklin entertained a feeling of deep
affection, was the Quaker Dr. John Fothergill. After the death of this
friend, in a letter to Dr. John Coakley Lettsom, still another friend of
his, and one of the famous English physicians of the eighteenth century, he
expressed this extraordinary opinion of Dr. Fothergill's worth: "If we may
estimate the goodness of a man by his disposition to do good, and his
constant endeavours and success in doing it, I can hardly conceive that a
better man has ever existed." No faint praise to be uttered by the founder
of the Junto and one who valued above all things the character of a doer of
good! Like Sir John Pringle, Dr. Fothergill belonged to the class of
physicians who pursued medicine, as if it were a mistress not to be wooed
except with the favor of the other members of the scientific sisterhood. He
was an ardent botanist, and his collection of botanical specimens and
paintings on vellum of rare plants was among the remarkable collections of
his age. Two of his correspondents were the Pennsylvania botanists, John
Bartram and Humphrey Marshall, who brought to his knowledge a flora in
many shining instances unknown to the woods and fields of the Old World.
His medical writings were held in high esteem, and were published after his
death under the editorial supervision of Dr. Lettsom.
As a practitioner, he was eminently successful, and numbered among his
patients many representatives of the most powerful and exclusive circles in
London. What the extent of his practice was we can infer from a question
put to him by Franklin in 1764.