FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN

FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, one of the most distinguished of Americans, alike in science and in politics, was born at Boston in New England, Jan. 17 (N.S.) 1706. His paternal ancestors had lived for many generations on a small freehold in the village of Ecton in Northamptonshire. About the year 1682 his father, Josiah Franklin, in company with some of his neighbours, emigrated to New England, for the sake of that religious liberty which, as nonconformists, was denied them at home. Of seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest but two. He early displayed a strong taste for reading. At the age of eight he was sent to the grammar-school, his father intending to devote him, "as the tythe of his sons," to the church. The cares of a numerous family soon interfered with this design, and at the end of a year Benjamin was sent to another master to learn writing and arithmetic. When ten years old he was taken to assist his father in his business as a tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, a pursuit to which the aspiring boy soon manifested a strong repugnance. He was extremely desirous to go to sea, but the influence of his father, a man of strong judgment, who took great pains in the moral training of his family, prevailed to keep him at home. The boy's love of books found little scope in the small library of his father: it consisted chiefly of works of polemical theology, which were read through with little advantage, but contained, among other things, a copy of Plutarch's Lives, DeFoe's Essay on Projects, and Mather's Essay to do Good. The latter, Franklin thought, exercised considerable influence on his mind. Already in the practical and tangible, the inquiring but unimaginative mind of the boy, "father of the man," had found its congenial aliment.¹ His father at length determined to make Benjamin a printer; and in his twelfth year he was bound apprentice to his brother James. He soon became an excellent workman, and now found more access than ever to books, to which he devoted all his leisure hours. As is usual, even with the least poetical of youths, he essayed rhyme. One or two of his ballads sold well in the streets; but the sound advice of his father discouraged him from further attempts, and impressed him with the necessity of attention to prose composition. An odd volume of the Spectator furnished the stimulus to his first efforts, and the model of his style. By carefully cultivating the practice of composition, he at a comparatively early age acquired con-

siderable ease and dexterity in writing. His mature style was extremely clear and simple, generally nervous, often lively, and in rare instances touched with eloquence. The same practical sagacity which so early distinguished his intellectual efforts was manifested in his control over his passions. At the age of sixteen he met a book recommending a vegetable diet. He at once adopted it, saving time and money by the lightness of his meals, and devoting the gain in both to his one luxury of books.² About this time he read the Memorabilia of Xenophon. The Socratic method of reasoning greatly charmed him; and having already imbibed sceptical principles from Shaftesbury and Collins, he found it peculiarly suited to puzzle others without committing himself to positive assertions. Gradually, however, he left off this method, retaining only the habit of expressing himself with caution and diffidence, a habit of which his acute knowledge of human nature afterwards led him to see the great utility.

In 1721 his brother established a newspaper in Boston,³ and Benjamin was employed at once as a compositor, printer, and deliverer. Though thus abundantly occupied, he determined to try his hand also as a contributor, and accordingly sent in several anonymous essays. They were highly approved of; but when the authorship was discovered, his brother, apprehensive of Benjamin's becoming too vain, manifested some displeasure. From this time apparently mutual jealousies sprang up between them. Benjamin submitted impatiently to the domination of his brother. "Perhaps," he says, "this harsh and tyrannical treatment of me might be a means of impressing me with the aversion to arbitrary power which has stuck to me through my whole life." An opportunity soon occurred for a disruption. An article in the paper gave offence to the provincial government; James was censured, and imprisoned for a month, and ordered no longer to print his newspaper. To evade this order, it was determined to print the paper in Benjamin's name; and in order to overcome the legal difficulty, the apprentice's indenture was formally discharged, while a new one was privately signed, binding him to fulfil his engagement. On the breaking out of new differences with his brother, Benjamin unfairly took advantage of this compromise, and asserted his freedom. This he styles one of the first errata of his life. He is brother having warned all the printers of Boston against him, Benjamin determined to leave the city, and accordingly made his escape to New York, where he found himself, in his seventeenth year, with little money and no friends. Obtaining no employment, he set out for Philadelphia. His own account of this journey, and of his first appearance in the streets of Philadelphia, eating a halfpenny roll, with another under each arm, is one of the most interesting passages in his autobiography. Here he formed an engagement with a printer named Keimer, who had recently commenced business. Franklin's industry and frugality soon secured him a comfortable position. His abilities attracted the notice of Sir William Keith, the governor of the province, who encouraged him to set up as a printer on his own account, and even proposed that he should go to England to procure the necessary printing-stock. Franklin set sail, accompanied by his friend James Ralph,⁴ arrived in London on the 24th December 1724, and only then discovered that his patron's promises

Benjamin were entirely delusive.¹ He immediately found employ- Franklin. ment, however. At Palmer's, in Bartholomew's Close, he was engaged in printing the second edition of Wollaston's Religion of Nature. Some of the arguments appearing to him defective, he wrote and printed his remarks upon them under the title, A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. His aim was to prove that "whatever is right," and that virtue and vice are mere names. This pamphlet was the means of introducing him to several men of some note, among others to Dr Mandeville. Five years later he had come to very different conclusions on these subjects, and wrote a tract demonstrating the fallacy of his former opinions. Shortly after this he removed to a more extensive printing-house, where his temperance, intelligence, and industry, soon gained him respect and influence.

On the 23d July 1726 he left London in company with a Mr Denham, who was about to open a store in Philadelphia. With him he lived several months, assisting in the management of the business. About this time he established a club for mutual improvement and discussion, called the Junto, which existed for many years, and proved of no small public utility. On the death of Mr Denham, Franklin resumed his proper work, and again found employment with his former master, Keimer. He soon put the business on a good footing, and, besides his duties as printer and warehouseman, made ink, and even types, for the establishment. As the other hands improved under Franklin's management, Keimer thought he could do without him, and, after a quarrel, they separated. Soon after, however, Franklin was prevailed upon to assist Keimer in executing an order to print bank notes in New Jersey. His mechanical ingenuity here became available in the construction of a copperplate press—the first of its kind seen in America—and the cutting of ornaments for the bills. On leaving Keimer, he had resolved, with one of his fellow-workmen, Meredith, to set up an establishment of their own. Immediately on his return to Philadelphia this design was put into execution; and from that time the prudence, industry, and perseverance of Franklin were rewarded with steadily advancing prosperity. At this time there was but one newspaper in Pennsylvania. Franklin determined to start another. The design came to Keimer's ears, and he hastened to forestall it. After a few months of unsuccessful management he was glad to hand it over to Franklin, in whose skilful hands it became both influential and profitable. In 1729 the want of paper-money was much felt in the colony, and the subject was discussed in the Assembly. Franklin published a pamphlet urging the necessity of a fresh issue; and on the passing of a bill to that effect, he was rewarded by being employed to print the money. His business was now flourishing. On the 1st of September 1730 he married Miss Deborah Reid, to whom he had been engaged on leaving America for England. He neglected her during his absence, and she married another, who soon after separated from her. Franklin found in her a faithful and prudent helpmate during a period of forty-four years. At this time he tells us there was not a good bookseller's shop south of Boston. Lovers of literature were obliged to send to England for supplies. In 1731 Franklin set on foot a subscription for a library. The scheme began with fifty subscribers, mostly young tradesmen. It prospered, like all Franklin's undertakings; and in 1742 a charter was obtained for the "Philadelphia Library Company,"—the mother of all the North American libraries, now so nume-

rous.² His command of books was now greatly increased, and in the midst of unrelaxing application to business he daily devoted an hour or two to study. About this time Benjamin Franklin. he conceived the project (characteristic at once of the man and the age) of arriving at moral perfection, "to live without committing any fault at any time." His plan for attaining this happy result is described in his autobiography. While acknowledging that he never arrived at the perfection aimed at, he expresses his conviction that he was a better and a happier man from having made the attempt. He always intended to enlarge this scheme into a treatise, to be called The Art of Virtue, but never carried out his design. It was connected with an extensive project for the establishment of a universal society for the promotion of virtue. Even in his old age he does not seem to have regarded this scheme as chimerical.

In 1732 he first published the almanac which, under the name of Richard Saunders, or Poor Richard's Almanac, became so celebrated. Its great aim was, through choice aphorisms and proverbs, to inculcate industry and frugality, "as the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue." In the almanac for 1757 these sayings were collected into a discourse, which has been often reprinted and translated into many languages, under the title of "The Way to Wealth." Its influence in Pennsylvania was thought, Franklin says, to have been considerable, and there can be little doubt that the general character of his countrymen still bears testimony to their veneration for the precepts of Poor Richard. It is to be wished that his further advice on the exclusion of "all libelling and personal abuse" from newspapers were followed with equal fidelity. In 1733 he began to study languages. He soon mastered French, so far as to read it with ease. He next studied Italian and Spanish. These he found so helpful to the acquirement of Latin, that he concluded the modern practice of studying the dead language first to be grounded on a mistake.

Franklin's merits as a citizen now began to receive public recognition. In 1736 he was appointed clerk of the Assembly,² and in the following year deputy-postmaster-general of America. "I now began," he says, "to turn my thoughts to public affairs, beginning, however, with small matters." The reform of the city watch and the establishment of a fire company were his first services. In 1743 he drew up a plan for the establishment of an academy in Philadelphia. Finding obstacles in the way, he did not publish his views for some time. Six years after he was completely successful. The academy then established was the foundation of the University of Philadelphia. In 1744 he succeeded in establishing a scientific society, which, after various changes, became the American Philosophical Society, now the American Academy of Sciences. When war broke out in this year between Britain and France, the defence of the colony became a matter of serious anxiety. The governor had in vain striven to induce the Assembly (chiefly Quakers) to pass a militia bill. The practical energy of Franklin overcame the difficulty. As was his usual practice, he promulgated his views in a pamphlet, entitled Plain Truth, which produced an immediate effect. At a public meeting held soon after 1200 persons subscribed their names as members of a voluntary defence association. The number afterwards increased to 10,000. These were speedily formed into regiments, and provided themselves with arms. To defray the expense of erecting a battery below the town, Franklin proposed a lottery; and the

Benjamin scheme was immediately carried into execution.¹ Franklin now began to be looked upon as a man of public importance, and in all matters connected with the militia his advice was sought by the governor and his council.

The comparative leisure afforded by the increasing prosperity of his business Franklin now devoted to scientific pursuits, for which his extraordinary ingenuity, acuteness of observation, and sound judgment, peculiarly qualified him. Whilst visiting Boston in 1746, he heard a lecture on electricity, by a Dr Spence from Scotland. He became deeply interested in the subject, and thenceforth devoted much time to electrical experiments. Shortly afterwards Mr Collinson, F.R.S., presented a glass-tube to the Philadelphia Library Company, with directions for its use. To him, in March 1747, Franklin communicated the first results of those observations and experiments which contributed so much to his fame, and ranked his name among those of great discoverers. His views on the nature of electricity, as is not unusual in such cases, were treated at first by many of the learned with comparative contempt, afterwards opposed, and finally universally accepted and confirmed. The Royal Society, in which his first observations on the identity of lightning and electricity were laughed at, in 1753 conferred on him their highest distinction, the Copley medal, and afterwards elected him into their number without solicitation and free of expense. For a particular account of his electrical experiments, see ELECTRICITY.

Anxious as he was to enjoy leisure for the pursuit of his favourite studies, he now began to be in request for public business. He was made a justice of peace, town-councillor, alderman, and representative. The latter office, he says, he was glad to accept, as, besides his ambition to be of use to the public, he had begun to tire of the discussions in which, though compelled as clerk to be listener, he could take no part, and used to amuse himself in drawing magic squares or circles,² or anything to avoid weariness. Next year he was appointed with the speaker to negotiate a treaty with the Indians. In 1751 Dr Bond communicated to him his plan for the erection of a hospital in Philadelphia. Franklin took it up warmly, and it was speedily realized. In 1753 he was appointed joint postmaster-general. Under his management the American post-office flourished as it had never done before. In 1754 he attended as one of the Pennsylvanian commissioners at the congress held at Albany, to confer on the means of defence in the event of a rupture with France. Several of the commissioners came provided with plans for a union of all the colonies under one government, among the rest Franklin. His plan received the preference. It was rejected, however, by all the assemblies; and the Board of Trade, to whom it was submitted, did not think it worth recommending to the crown. The former thought there was too much prerogative in it, while in England it was thought too democratic.³ From this double objection Franklin argued that his plan had hit the true medium, which, if followed, would have prevented the subsequent revolution. In the following spring he rendered eminent service to General Braddock, in procuring wagons and provisions for his troops. With the ready public spirit which so marked his character, he advanced more than £1,000 of his own money for that pur-

pose. The thanks of the assembly were voted to him on his return from this expedition.

In the disputes which for some years back had been growing ever more serious between the Pennsylvanian Assembly and the proprietaries,⁴ Franklin, as might be expected, was one of the strongest opponents of what he considered the unjust and selfish claims of the latter, and gradually came to be looked upon as the leader of the opposition. He spoke seldom, and briefly, but always to the point, and with effect. An appropriate anecdote or apologue was one of his favourite and most effective means of persuasion. About this time he introduced and carried a bill for the establishment of a voluntary militia. While the organization was going on, he undertook, on the solicitation of the governor, to place the north-western frontier in a state of defence. He soon raised a body of 560 men; and in about six weeks accomplished his somewhat difficult and dangerous commission with perfect success, erecting three wooden forts, which at the end of that time he handed over manned and armed to the charge of a military officer. On his return he was chosen colonel of the Philadelphia regiment, and received such marks of honour as gave considerable offence to the proprietors. The assembly having at length resolved to petition the king against the proprietary government, Franklin was deputed as their agent to Britain, and on the 27th July 1757 arrived in London.

Here he found strong obstacles and prejudices to contend against, the assembly and people of Pennsylvania being generally represented by the press as the selfish and refractory opponents of their rightful governors. He found that little was to be expected in the way of concession from the proprietors, while the eyes of the ministry and people of England were too intently directed to Germany (where the Seven Years' War was just going on), to heed much the rising of the little cloud that foreshadowed so great a tempest in the west. Franklin took every opportunity to dispossess the public mind of the unfavourable opinions propagated against his countrymen. Early in 1759 appeared a work entitled An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania. Though betraying a strong party bias it gave a clear view of the subject, and being written with point and vigour, produced a considerable effect. It had been composed under the direction and with the assistance of Franklin.⁵ His business, meantime, made little progress. He wished much to see Pitt, but that great statesman was then too much occupied to be accessible. Franklin's experience and sagacity were duly valued by the government. Whether or not it be true that Wolfe's successful expedition to Canada was suggested by him, it is certain that he was deeply impressed with the importance of these colonies to Britain, and was zealous in inculcating his views.⁶ In 1760, when the question of retaining them was under discussion, he wrote an able pamphlet on the subject, which probably contributed to influence the ministerial decision. In the summer of that year he visited Scotland, where he experienced a most cordial and distinguished reception, and formed a lasting friendship with some of the most eminent men then to be found in Edinburgh, such as Hume, Kames, and Robertson.⁷

After a delay of nearly three years, he succeeded in bringing his business to a comparatively successful termination; an act of the Pennsylvanian Assembly for raising a tax of £100,000, from which the proprietary estates were not exempted, having, under certain limitations, received the royal assent in June 1760. The principle for which the Pennsylvanians had contended was so far conceded.¹ Some financial business still detained him. In the summer of 1761 he visited Holland and Flanders. Meanwhile his scientific pursuits were not neglected. Among other results of his ingenuity was the construction of a musical instrument² (the Armonica), which was for some time very fashionable. Before leaving England he received the degree of a doctor of laws from Edinburgh and Oxford. St Andrews had conferred the same honour on him some time before. The government about the same time testified their sense of his merits by appointing his son governor of New Jersey.³

On his return to Philadelphia (November 1762), he received the thanks of the Assembly, and a grant of £3000 for his services. The next public transaction in which his ability and influence were exhibited, in strong contrast to the weakness of the provincial government, was the alarming insurrection subsequent to what were called "The Paxton Murders." By his prompt and judicious interference a large body of citizens was armed, and the insurgents were persuaded to retire peaceably. Meantime the contest with the proprietaries had waxed more bitter than ever. The Assembly, exasperated beyond endurance, at length passed a series of resolutions in favour of transferring the government entirely to the crown. Franklin strongly advocated this scheme. A large majority resolved to petition the king. The petition drawn up by Franklin was signed by him as speaker, to which office he had just been chosen. At the next election of representatives, Franklin lost his seat by a trifling minority, after having held it for fourteen years without asking a vote. His party, however, triumphed in the Assembly, and to the disgust of his opponents, Franklin was appointed their special agent to defend the petition at the court of Britain. He arrived in London on the 10th of December.

Though charged with a special commission, he had instructions to use his efforts against the passing of the Stamp Act, "the mother of mischief," as in one of his letters he designated it. These efforts, though zealous and unremitting, were in vain. The question of repealing the act came before parliament early in 1766; and Franklin was summoned to give evidence on the subject at the bar of the House of Commons. His perfect knowledge of the subject in question, the clearness and readiness of his replies, and the manly dignity of his bearing, produced a profound impression on the house, and contributed much both to heighten the public estimate of himself, and to hasten the decision of parliament. In the summer of this year he visited Germany

in company with his friend Sir John Pringle. At this time Benjamin Franklin seems to have studied the whole subject of the mutual relations of Britain and the colonies with much attention, and to have arrived at those conclusions which guided his future conduct in the struggle. The question was mooted about this time, whether a representation of the colonies in the Imperial Parliament might not tend to promote union. This, in Franklin's opinion, afforded the only sure basis of a permanent reconciliation.⁴ In the following autumn he visited Paris, where he was received with flattering distinction. He was introduced to the king and royal family, and made the acquaintance of the most distinguished Frenchmen of the time. He was now desirous to return to America, seeing no hope of drawing the attention of government to the object of his mission. He was detained, however, by a letter informing him of his having been appointed agent for Georgia. In the following year he received a similar charge from the state of New Jersey; and in 1770 from that of Massachusetts. His well-known views on the subject of America, and the freedom with which he was in the habit of expressing them, made him obnoxious to many of the ministers, and particularly to the colonial secretary, Lord Hillsborough.⁵ Rumours had at various times come to his ears of an intention to deprive him of his office of postmaster-general. Whether true or false, they affected him little. He was equally indifferent to the counter-reports of an intention to raise him to some more important office.⁶ The occasion of his actual dismissal from office was a transaction which, though dictated on his part by what he considered a sense of duty, subjected him at the time to the severest obloquy. In December 1772, there were put into his hands certain letters from the governor and lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, to Mr Thomas Whately, a member of parliament connected with the government, representing the people of that province as purely factious in their opposition to the government imposts, and recommending those coercive measures which produced such mischievous results. Franklin having hitherto attributed these obnoxious measures to the home government, and expressed himself accordingly in his letters to America, thought it his duty to communicate these documents to the Assembly, whose interests they so much concerned. The Assembly petitioned the Board of Trade to remove the authors of the letters from office. Counsel was engaged on both sides, and the case came before the privy-council at a very full meeting on the 29th January 1774. The solicitor-general, Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough, conducted the defence, and made it the occasion of a bitterly sarcastic and abusive attack on the character of Franklin, who stood by apparently unmoved, while their lordships testified their satisfaction by laughter and cheers. The petition was rejected as "groundless, vexatious, and scandalous," and next

Benjamin Franklin was informed that his services as postmaster-general were no longer required. Though it is certain that he deeply resented the insult offered to him on this occasion,¹ there is no good ground for assuming that it altered in any degree his views of the question between Britain and America. He had long been convinced of the hopelessness of a reconciliation. After this he had no further intercourse with the ministry; and he now resolved to return home as soon as possible. He was advised, however, to await the issue of the Congress about to be held in America. The petition of Congress to the king arrived in December. All the colonial agents, except Franklin and two others, declined to present it. Their request to be heard in support of it at the bar of the House of Commons was refused, and the petition was rejected by an overwhelming majority. After this Franklin still occupied himself, at the solicitation of his friends Dr Fothergill and Mr Barclay, in drawing up a plan of reconciliation. It was shown to Lord Howe, and several other ministers, but the terms were considered inadmissible, and the affair dropped. Towards the end of the year he had frequent interviews with Lord Chatham, who was then preparing a bill for the settlement of the American difficulty. In reply to an insinuation of Lord Sandwich, in the debate of January 20, 1775, that great man pronounced a high eulogium on Franklin, and ended by declaring that he was "an honour not to the English nation only but to human nature!"

Having at length wound up his business in England, Franklin sailed for America, and arrived at Philadelphia on the 5th of May. He was chosen a member of Congress next day, and thenceforward he was extensively occupied in all its most important business. On the establishment of a new post-office, he was appointed postmaster-general. In March 1776 he was sent as one of the commissioners to negotiate for the co-operation of Canada, an unsuccessful journey, the fatigues of which proved seriously injurious to his health. When the question of independence came to be discussed, he was among the most emphatic in the affirmative, and was selected as one of the five to prepare the declaration.² Soon after he was appointed President of the Convention appointed to frame a new constitution for Pennsylvania. The most remarkable feature in this constitution (afterwards changed), viz., a single legislative assembly, is supposed to have originated with him—this having always been one of his favourite political theories. In the futile attempt at negotiation with Lord Howe in the spring of 1776 he bore a leading part. Towards the end of the year the Congress resolved to seek assistance from the European powers, and especially France. Franklin was specially qualified for such an embassy, and though adverse to the policy of seeking foreign alliances, which he opposed in Congress, he was unanimously nominated commissioner-plenipotentiary, in conjunction with two others, to the court of France. Before sailing he put three or four thousand pounds, all the money at his command, at the disposal of Congress as a loan.

He arrived in Paris on the 21st December, and shortly after removed to the suburban village of Passy. Here he resided while in France, an object of interest and reverence to the lively citizens of Paris; adapting himself with easy

tact to the national tastes and habits, while his personal peculiarities derived piquancy by contrast. To the brilliant intellectual circle with whom he associated it was specially charming to find in the scientific sage, whose primitive aspect and homely wisdom seemed fresh from antique times, not only an exponent, but a living illustration, of those wonder-working "ideas" by which the new Millennium of "Humanity" was to be achieved. His negotiation was eminently successful. The result of the campaign of 1777, to use the words of Franklin's grandson and biographer, fixed the French nation in their attachment to the infant republic. On the 6th February 1778 the treaties were signed, and on the 20th of March the American plenipotentiaries were received in due form at Versailles. The other commissioners were recalled in the following year, and Franklin was appointed sole minister-plenipotentiary of the United States at the Court of France. The heavy and important duties connected with that office he discharged for the next six years. Attempts were made more than once to have him recalled, but the value of his services was too notorious to give much weight to the charge brought against him of neglecting the interests of his country and being too subservient in his relations to the French cabinet. In addition, moreover, to his proper official work, he carried on an extensive correspondence, and was incessantly harassed by visits, proposals, and applications of the most miscellaneous character.³ Science, too, continued still to occupy some of his time. He frequently attended the meetings of the Academy, of which (as of the principal learned societies in Europe) he was a member; and in 1779 read a paper on the Aurora Borealis. In 1784 he was appointed to the head of the commission for inquiring into the nature of the experiments then extensively practised by Mesmer and his disciples, and by them attributed to animal magnetism. For that delusive term Franklin substituted the word imagination. His concern for the interests of science was nobly displayed in his sending, on his own authority, a circular to all the commanders of American cruisers requesting them to offer no molestation to the ship of Captain Cook.⁴ As ambassador he was much occupied in negotiating treaties with the principal European powers, a service in which his extreme foresight, tact, and firmness enabled him to secure signal advantages to his country. The provisional treaty with Britain was signed November 30, 1782, and a treaty with Sweden in the following spring. In 1781 Franklin had requested to be relieved from his office; the Congress declined to accept his resignation, but complied, on a repetition of his request in 1785. His last official act was the signing of a treaty with Prussia, containing a new article framed by himself against privateering in time of war.⁵

On the 14th September 1785 he arrived in Philadelphia. On the voyage he had occupied himself in writing on "Improvements in Navigation," on "Smoky Chimneys," and in renewed experiments to ascertain by the temperature the course of the Gulf Stream. He was received with every demonstration of joy, and congratulations from all the public bodies. Next day he was appointed a member of the supreme executive council of Philadelphia, and soon after president of the state. Surrounded by his offspring, at the

Benjamin head of a community which looked up to him with the Franklin. deepest veneration, enjoying comparative leisure for the cultivation of the pursuits which still formed his chief delight, the few remaining years of his life passed happily away, despite the gradual inroads of disease. In May 1787 he was chosen a member of the convention appointed to frame the constitution of the United States.¹ His motion for prayers in the convention is the most remarkable record of his share in its proceedings, and affords an impressive proof of that religious feeling in which he has often, but unjustly, been regarded as wholly deficient. The conduct of the Congress, in neglecting to settle his accounts, and bestow some adequate compensation for his long and faithful services, seems to have wounded his spirit not a little. To the last he was occupied in works of usefulness and philanthropy. The improvement of the condition of the negroes, and the alleviation of the miseries of public prisons, engaged much of his attention. His last public act was to sign a memorial to Congress as President of the Abolition Society of Pennsylvania. The last paper he wrote, twenty-four days before his death, was an ingenious and spirited parody on a speech delivered in Congress in defence of slavery. For many years he had suffered severely from gout and stone. About the beginning of April 1790 he was attacked by fever, and on the 17th he expired, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. He was buried with great solemnity amidst an immense concourse of people. Congress went into mourning for a month. The National Assembly of France, on the motion of Mirabeau, put on mourning for three days; and numerous other testimonies of respect were offered to his memory in the French metropolis. No monument has yet been raised to him by the citizens of Philadelphia.

America has produced men of genius and ability whose names rank high in science, literature, and politics, but no man in all respects so remarkable as Benjamin Franklin, the first of her citizens who won a European fame. Embodying as he did in a high degree those qualities which have raised the American nation to so commanding a position among modern states, his influence over the character of that race has been greater than that of any other man born in America. His most obvious characteristic was common sense, sagacity, practical wisdom in the management of affairs, whether small or great. In all things he was a man of business; and as he attempted no enterprise which his quick discernment, calculating prudence, and sound judgment did not approve as feasible, his industry, tact, and indomitable firmness crowned all his undertakings with complete success. In his private life he was the personification of frugality; but while he ever kept a steady eye to his personal interests, no man excelled him in public spirit, and his devotion to the service of his country was genuine and unswerving. Passions and affections were less strong with him than intelligence and prudence, but neither was his heart cold nor were his sympathies narrow; and though eminently worldly wise, he was not less conspicuously distinguished by zeal for the good of his fellow men. On the side of imagination, and in all that connects man with the infinite, the mysterious, and the beautiful, he was signal deficient. Utility was to him the test of all human things and pursuits; in the world of practical life he lived and moved and had his being; and in that world reason wielded the empire over faith, and reverence shrank into littleness before the

ambition of independence. Yet it would be extreme injustice to Franklin to say that his thoughts and feelings were bounded by the narrow limits of a sordid utilitarianism. His devotion to science alone would suffice to prove the opposite; for though all his researches were guided by a practical aim, if he had not loved truth for her own sake he could never have won from her such secrets as he did.² As a statesman and diplomatist, he carried into the high sphere of national policy, and with similar results, those qualities which had stamped success on all his private undertakings. No Briton, indeed, can look back with admiration to that inveterate hostility of his which scrupled not at devices for subjecting to the foot of foreign invaders the country that nursed his fathers and taught them how freedom may be kept or won. Yet it is but just to remember that that enmity was provoked by contemptuous rejection of long advice, and the oppression that makes wise men mad, and that its object was not the people of Britain, but the rulers for whose obstinate folly they were made to suffer. At this date, at least, it is only extreme prejudice that will deny the merit of rare felicity to the epigram of Turgot—Eripuit celo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis.

The most complete edition of Franklin's works is that of Jared Sparks, in 10 vols. 8vo, Boston 1840, containing numerous letters and papers not included in that published by his grandson, William Temple Franklin, in 1817, London, 6 vols. 8vo. (A. N.)