one of the most distinguished men whom America has produced, was born at Boston in New England, North America, on the 17th of January 1706. His ancestors were petty freeholders at Eaton in Northamptonshire, and he was the youngest but two of a family of seventeen children. About the year 1682 his father emigrated to America, and commenced soap-boiler and tallow-chandler in the town of Boston.

Franklin, from his earliest years, discovered the strongest propensity towards literary pursuits, which determined his father to qualify him for the ministry; but he was thwarted in his designs by a numerous and increasing family, and therefore Benjamin was taken from the more learned seminary, and placed under a teacher of reading and writing, preparatory to his being bound to some handicraft trade. At ten years of age he was withdrawn from school to take part in the drudgery of his father's trade. This greatly mortified the aspiring mind of young Franklin, who would have preferred a seafaring life to such an employment; but from this he was dissuaded by the influence of his father, who was a man of considerable penetration and judgment. He made it his chief aim to inspire his children with the love of knowledge and the principles of moral rectitude. He had few books; yet from amongst these Benjamin selected a number of voyages and travels, as well as different histories, a species of reading for which he had a strong predilection. By going through a course of controversial divinity in this unaided manner, he greatly strengthened his argumentative powers, which was most probably all he had in view. Defoe upon Projects, according to his own account, made impressions upon his mind which in a great measure influenced the principal events of his subsequent career.

He was now chosen to an employment which accorded much better with the natural bent of his mind than the business of a tallow-chandler. A brother of his own had a printing office in Boston, and to him Benjamin was bound apprentice at twelve years of age. With the mechanical part of the business he was soon acquainted; and the opportunities thus afforded him of procuring new books to read were eagerly seized, and the greater part of the night frequently spent in the perusal of them. He soon became anxious to imitate the works which he most admired, and his first attempts were of a poetical nature. He composed and printed ballads, which were well received by those who love this species of reading; yet his father had the address to convince him that nature never designed him for a poet. He accordingly turned his whole attention to the cultivation of prose composition, in which he made great progress. He had a young friend with whom he kept up an epistolary dispute, which afforded him an admirable opportunity of exercising his pen. He also read with avidity and attention various works, particularly Xenophon's Memorabilia, which enabled him either to confute or confound an adversary by a number of questions. It is also certain that he became a sceptic as to the religion in which he had been educated, and propagated his unbelief with zeal and assiduity. The fatal consequences which this produced on the deportment of some of his intimate companions at length happily convinced him that it is extremely dangerous to destroy the salutary influence of religion, without being able to substitute anything in its place of equal importance and efficacy. He seems, however, to have continued a sceptic in his own mind; yet he still retained a love for moral rectitude, which led him to adopt honourable means in the prosecution of valuable ends. Much to his honour be it spoken, he acquired, at a very early period of life, that triumph over his sensual appetites, which is so essentially necessary to a life of dignity, usefulness, and Franklin's virtue. Having read Tyron's recommendation of a vegetable diet, at sixteen years of age, he abandoned the use of animal food; and on offering to his brother to support himself on half the money which was paid for his board, he was allowed to adopt his own plan, by which means he was enabled to save a considerable sum for the purchase of books. Although he relaxed considerably as to a vegetable diet, yet he thus acquired the habit of being satisfied with little; and a contempt of the gratifications of the palate was frequently of singular advantage to him throughout the whole of his life.

His brother having commenced a newspaper, Benjamin sent a number of pieces on various topics to be inserted, which met with the approbation of the most competent judges; a satisfaction he enjoyed without being known, as they were all anonymous. His brother treated him with the harshness of a master, which he bore with the utmost patience, as the public had already pronounced him to be possessed of merit. The states of America having prohibited James Franklin from publishing this paper, on account of some political offence, the name of Benjamin was employed as publisher, in consequence of which he procured his indentures, although he agreed privately with his brother to serve out his time. But having been harshly treated by his brother, he went to New York by sea, and from that place to Philadelphia, in the seventeenth year of his age. He himself acknowledges this to have been a fault, and has therefore averted that censure which he would otherwise have deserved. At Philadelphia he engaged with a printer of the name of Keimer, whose affairs he soon placed on a more respectable footing; and here also he became acquainted with several young men of a literary turn of mind, by whose company his taste was greatly improved.

Shortly after his arrival he became acquainted with Sir William Keith, at that period governor of the province, who was struck with the composition and penmanship of young Franklin, and strenuously advised him to commence business on his own account, promising to use his influence in his favour. Encouraged by this gentleman to adopt such a plan, he set out for Boston on a visit to his parents, in order to procure from them some pecuniary aid; but a welcome reception was all he could obtain. Having returned to Philadelphia without accomplishing his object, Sir William offered to take the whole burden upon himself, and advised Franklin to make a voyage to England in order to procure every thing necessary for establishing a printing-office. He accordingly set sail in the year 1725, and took with him his intimate companion Ralph, who has been celebrated in the Dunciad. Unfortunately for Franklin, Sir William Keith, on whose letters of recommendation and credit he entirely relied, deceived him, and he was compelled to work as a journeyman in London for his immediate subsistence. His friend Ralph could only live by his head, and his income of consequence was extremely circumscribed, as well as precarious, which made him a heavy burden upon Franklin. In the dissolute metropolis the one forgot his wife and child in America, and the other the solemn promises of fidelity which he had made to a Miss Read prior to his departure, another step of his conduct which he himself severely censures. By a dissertation on liberty and necessity, pleasure and pain, he acquired considerable reputation; and it was the means of introducing him to the celebrated Dr Mandeville, author of the Fable of the Bees. In the second printing-office in which he worked, he laboured incessantly to convince his fellow-workmen that a pint of porter does not contain half so much nourishment as a penny roll, for which he obtained the ludicrous epithet of the American aquatic; yet he was finally enabled to make many converts to his doctrine; Franklin, a proof that he possessed strong persuasive powers, when we consider the deep-rooted attachment of those with whom he had to treat to their favourite beverage.

After eighteen months residence in London, he returned to Philadelphia in the year 1726, and became clerk to Mr Denham, a man of respectability, who had opened a warehouse in that city. He soon became acquainted with the principles of commerce, and led a very happy life in this new situation, till the connection was dissolved by the death of Mr Denham, which happened the following year. This again obliged him to become journeyman printer, and he was afterwards overseer in the office of Keimer his former master.

Keimer having engaged Franklin solely with the view of having his apprentices so far initiated in the art that he could dispense with their instructor's services, took the first occasion to quarrel with him when he thought he had sufficiently attained his object. Upon their separation, one of Keimer's apprentices, named Meredith, who, like all the others, had conceived a great veneration for Franklin, proposed that they should enter into partnership together, Meredith's friends undertaking to furnish the capital necessary for purchasing the materials, &c. This offer was too advantageous to be refused; and types, a press, and other things, were forthwith commissioned from London; but whilst preparing to put their plan into execution, Franklin was induced, during the interval, to return again to Keimer, at the urgent solicitation of the latter. The motive for this humble entreaty was that individual's having taken a contract for the printing of some paper-money for the state of New Jersey, requiring a variety of new cuts and types, which he knew well nobody in that place but Franklin could supply. This also presents us with a very striking instance of Franklin's remarkable gift of invention. "To execute the order," says he, "I constructed a copperplate printing-press, the first that had been seen in the country. I engraved various ornaments and vignettes for the bills, and we repaired to Burlington together, where I executed the whole to the general satisfaction, and he (Keimer) received a sum of money for this work which enabled him to keep his head above water for a considerable time longer."

At Burlington, Franklin formed acquaintance with all the principal personages of the province, who were attracted by his superior abilities and intelligence. Amongst these was the inspector-general, Isaac Decon, "who," says Franklin, "was a shrewd and subtle old man. He told me that his first employment had been that of carrying clay to the brick-makers; that he did not learn to write till he was somewhat advanced in life; that he was afterwards employed as underling to a surveyor, who taught him his trade; and that, by industry, he had at last acquired a competent fortune. 'I foresee,' said he, 'that you will soon supplant this man (speaking of Keimer), and get a fortune in the business at Philadelphia.' He was wholly ignorant at the time of my intention of establishing myself there, or anywhere else."

Immediately after Franklin's return from Burlington, the types arrived from London, and the partners commenced business. They were at once successful, and by his unwearied industry Franklin obtained great credit amongst his townsmen, and at last found himself in circumstances to attempt a newspaper, always a favourite speculation of his. The intention of the partners, however, having been incautiously divulged, their old master Keimer took steps to establish a paper of his own, and issued a prospectus to that effect. Franklin defeated his object by the strenuous support which he gave to the paper which was then in existence. He published in it a series of amusing articles, in which Keimer's proposals were burlesqued and ridiculed. The paper, however, was published, but after a short time it passed into the hands of Franklin, by whom it was very ably conducted. In the mean time the partnership between him and Meredith was dissolved; but, by the generous aid of friends, Franklin was enabled to take the whole business upon himself, to which he added that of a stationer. When the increase of paper-money engaged the attention of the American government, Franklin wrote an anonymous pamphlet in defence of the measure, by which he acquired considerable reputation, and the countenance of men in power. In the mean time, Miss Read, the person to whom he had been engaged, was married to another individual, in consequence of his neglect. But a report having gone abroad that the lady's husband was married to another woman, he retired to the West Indies, where he died, and Franklin at last espoused the object of his first love.

To him we are to ascribe the establishment of a public library at Philadelphia, which he accomplished in the year 1731. His Poor Richard's Almanac was begun in 1732, and became remarkable for the many prudential maxims with which it abounded; and the proverbial manner in which they were expressed made them take fast hold on the memory. His political career commenced in 1736, when he was chosen clerk to the general assembly of Pennsylvania, to which he was re-elected for several years; and at last became a representative. In 1737 he was made postmaster of Philadelphia; and in the subsequent year he greatly improved the police of the city, by the formation of a fire-company, and afterwards an insurance-company against losses by fire. In the war with France, which broke out in 1744, when the best means of defending the province against the inroads of the enemy were in discussion, and when the militia bill was thrown aside from its being obnoxious to the people, Franklin suggested the idea of a voluntary association for defence, which was instantly signed by 1200 persons, and 10,000 subscriptions were obtained in a short time by circulating the proposal through the province. By this and similar means America had an opportunity of ascertaining her own strength, and how to make use of it with advantage in cases of emergency.

About this time he began his interesting experiments on electricity, by the result of which he gained an immortal name in the annals of science. The library society of Philadelphia having received from Mr Peter Collinson, in the year 1745, an account of the facts respecting electricity, which at that time engrossed the attention of philosophers in Europe, Franklin set about studying the subject with the greatest assiduity. He gave the account of his researches the title of New Experiments and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphia in America, and addressed it to Mr Collinson, in the form of letters, bearing date from 1747 to 1754. They were everywhere read with avidity, and universally admired, though not at first very generally in England. Dr Priestley speaks of them in the following terms. "It is not easy to say whether we are most pleased with the simplicity and perspicuity with which the author proposes every hypothesis of his own, or the noble frankness with which he relates his mistakes when they were corrected by subsequent experiments." It is unnecessary to enter into a detailed account of all his discoveries; we shall therefore content ourselves with mentioning the most interesting of them all, namely, that lightning and electricity are identically the same. This identity had begun to be suspected, and experiments had been made in France to ascertain the fact; but it was reserved to Franklin to demonstrate it by his own experiments. He obtained his first decisive proof in the month of June 1752, by setting up a silken kite into the air with a point of iron, and a key fastened to the end of the hempen string by which he held it. In this manner he drew down from a thunder-cloud a sufficient quantity of electric fire to emit sensible sparks from the key. By means of an insulated iron rod which he fixed upon his house, he drew down the lightning, and was thus furnished with an opportunity of discovering whether it was positive or negative. As he firmly believed that philosophical discoveries were only valuable in so far as they could be productive of benefit to man, he made them subservient to the protection of buildings from the effects of lightning; which are frequently alarming in North America. He applied physics to the purposes of common life; and in 1745 invented his Pennsylvania fireplaces, in which the qualities of an open grate were combined with that of a stove.

Politics also engaged a considerable share of his attention. He was chosen a representative of the city of Philadelphia for the provincial assembly in 1747. At this time a contest subsisted between the assembly and the proprietaries, as to the claim of the latter to be exempted from public burdens. Franklin took the popular side of the question, by which he acquired great influence, and was regarded as the head of the opposition. This was not the offspring of eloquence; for he seldom spoke, and never in the form of a harangue; but his pointed observations, and his unadorned good sense, frequently destroyed the effect of elaborate orations.

He drew up the plan of an academy to be founded at Philadelphia, from a conviction that education is of the utmost importance. It was carried into effect in the year 1750, by virtue of a subscription, to which the proprietors afterwards liberally contributed. He discharged the duties of his office as postmaster of Philadelphia with so much punctuality that he was appointed deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies in 1753, and the revenue was greatly augmented by his exertions. A plan for conciliating the Indians, and forming an alliance with them, was drawn up by Franklin in 1754, to which the commissioners at Albany agreed; and a copy of it was transmitted to the British privy council. It is a singular circumstance that this plan was rejected by the assemblies, as giving too much power to the crown; while the British ministry declared that it gave too much influence to the representatives of the people. In the year 1757 Franklin set sail for London, as agent for Pennsylvania, the assembly of that province being involved in disputes with the proprietary. It was agreed by the privy council that landholders should pay their share of the public burdens, on condition that Franklin would engage they should be fairly proportioned. He continued at the British court as agent for his province, and acquired so great reputation that the same trust was reposed in him for Massachusetts, Maryland, and Georgia. His merit as a philosopher was now justly appreciated in Europe; and he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of London. The degree of LL.D. was also conferred upon him at St Andrews, Edinburgh, and Oxford.

In the year 1762 he returned to America, where he received the thanks of the assembly of Pennsylvania, and a handsome recompense in money, for his services. When the stamp-act occasioned so much disturbance in America, Dr Franklin was summoned to the bar of the House of Commons to give evidence respecting the dispositions of the people, whether he thought they could be induced to submit to it; and the energy and clearness of his representations were instrumental in procuring the repeal of that obnoxious measure.

On the commencement of hostilities between Great Britain and the colonies in 1775, he returned to America, and was chosen a delegate to congress by the legislature of Pennsylvania. In 1776 he treated with Lord Howe on the subject of a reconciliation; and in one of his letters described in strong terms the temper of the British nation, to which he imputed the fatal extremity which had arrived. When the question of independence came to be discussed, he was decidedly in favour of the measure, and Franklin was highly instrumental in bringing over the public mind to the same opinion. When a negotiation with France was opened, he was chosen one of the personages to reside at that court. His political abilities eminently qualified him for such a station; and his character as a philosopher gained him great esteem in a country where science was revered. He brought about a treaty with France of an offensive and defensive nature in 1778, the immediate consequence of which was a war with Britain. He was one of those who signed the provisional treaty the year following. Prior to his leaving Europe he concluded a treaty with Sweden and Prussia. He was recalled from this station in 1785, and chosen president of the supreme executive council. His increasing infirmities made him withdraw from all public business in 1788; and on the 17th of April 1790 he terminated his active and useful life, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

Perhaps no man ever exceeded Dr Franklin in that solid practical wisdom which consists in pursuing valuable ends by the most appropriate means. His cool temper and sound judgment secured him from unreasonable expectations. He saw things in their true light, and predicted consequences with nearly a prophetic spirit. He said of himself, "I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good, than any other kind of reputation." In 1779, his Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces were published in 4to and 8vo. His Essays, humorous, moral, and literary, were published after his death, in two small volumes, and have frequently been reprinted.

He was by no means inattentive to his own interest, of which his advancement in life furnishes an ample proof; yet he never neglected the interest of his country, or the good of mankind in general. The delicate situations in which he frequently stood unavoidably exposed him to the censure of enemies; but his general conduct has long ago received the approbation of his countrymen. When we view him as a philosopher, we must ascribe his chief merit to his electrical discoveries; yet on many other topics, such as meteorology and mechanics, he evinced himself a man of great penetration. As a political writer, his chief merit is clearness, energy, and simplicity; and as a miscellaneous author he possesses a fund of humour which cannot fail to be at once both entertaining and impressive, and a sagacity which never fails to instruct.

Franklin is the name of several counties in America, which will be found noticed under the heads of the different states in which they are situated.