Franklin's Autobiography Part 1

Franklin's Autobiography.

by Benjamin Franklin.

INTRODUCTION.

When Franklin was born, in 1706, Queen Anne was on the English throne, and Swift and Defoe were pamphleteering. The one had not yet written "Gulliver's Travels," nor the other "Robinson Crusoe;" neither had Addison and Steele and other wits of Anne's reign begun the "Spectator." Pope was eighteen years old.

At that time ships bringing news, food and raiment, and laws and governors to the ten colonies of America, ran grave chances of falling into the hands of the pirates who infested the waters of the sh.o.r.es.

In Boston Cotton Mather was persecuting witches. There were no stage coaches in the land,--merely a bridle path led from New York to Philadelphia,--and a printing press throughout the colonies was a raree-show.

Only six years before Franklin's birth, the first newspaper report for the first newspaper in the country was written on the death of Captain Kidd and six of his companions near Boston, when the editor of the "News-Letter" told the story of the hanging of the pirates, detailing the exhortations and prayers and their taking-off. Franklin links us to another world of action.

His boyhood in Boston was a stern beginning of the habit of hard work and rigid economy which marked the man. For a year he went to the Latin Grammar School on School Street, but left off at the age of ten to help his father in making soap and candles. He persisted in showing such "bookish inclination," however, that at twelve his father apprenticed him to learn the printer's trade. At seventeen he ran off to Philadelphia and there began his independent career.

In the main he led such a life as the maxims of "Poor Richard"[1]

enjoin. The pages of the Autobiography show few deviations from such a course. He felt the need of school training and set to work to educate himself. He had an untiring industry, and love of the approval of his neighbor; and he knew that more things fail through want of care than want of knowledge. His practical imagination was continually forming projects; and, fortunately for the world, his great physical strength and activity were always setting his ideas in motion. He was human-hearted, and this strong sympathy of his, along with his strength and zeal and "projecting head" (as Defoe calls such a spirit), devised much that helped life to amenity and comfort. In politics he had the outlook of the self-reliant colonist whose devotion to the mother inst.i.tutions of England was finally alienated by the excesses of a power which thought itself all-powerful.

In this Autobiography Franklin tells of his own life to the year 1757, when he went to England to support the pet.i.tion of the legislature against Penn's sons. The grievance of the colonists was a very considerable one, for the proprietaries claimed that taxes should not be levied upon a tract greater than the whole State of Pennsylvania.

Franklin was received in England with applause. His experiments in electricity and his inventions had made him known, and the sayings of "Poor Richard" were already in the mouths of the people. But he waited nearly three years before he could obtain a hearing for the matter for which he had crossed the sea.

During the delay he visited the ancient home of his family, and made the acquaintance of men of mark, receiving also that degree of Doctor of Civil Law by which he came to be known as Dr. Franklin. In this time, too, he found how prejudiced was the common English estimate of the value of the colonies. He wrote Lord Kames in 1760, after the defeat of the French in Canada: "No one can more sincerely rejoice than I do on the reduction of Canada; and this is not merely as I am a colonist, but as I am a Briton. I have long been of opinion that the _foundations of the future grandeur and stability of the British empire lie in America_; and though, like other foundations, they are low and little now, they are, nevertheless, broad and strong enough to support the greatest political structure that human wisdom ever yet erected. I am, therefore, by no means for restoring Canada. If we keep it all the country from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi will in another century be filled with British people. Britain itself will become vastly more populous by the immense increase of its commerce; the Atlantic sea will be covered with your trading ships; and your naval power, thence continually increasing, will extend your influence round the whole globe and awe the world!... But I refrain, for I see you begin to think my notions extravagant, and look upon them as the ravings of a madman."

At last Franklin won the king's signature to a bill by the terms of which the surveyed lands of the proprietaries should be a.s.sessed, and, his business accomplished, he returned to Philadelphia. "You require my history," he wrote to Lord Kames, "from the time I yet sail for America. I left England about the end of August, 1762, in company with ten sail of merchant ships, under a convoy of a man-of-war. We had a pleasant pa.s.sage to Madeira.... Here we furnished ourselves with fresh provisions, and refreshments of all kinds; and, after a few days, proceeded on our voyage, running southward until we got into the trade winds, and then with them westward till we drew near the coast of America. The weather was so favorable that there were few days in which we could not visit from ship to ship, dining with each other and on board of the man-of-war; which made the time pa.s.s agreeably, much more so than when one goes in a single ship; for this was like traveling in a moving village, with all one's neighbors about one.

"On the 1st of November I arrived safe and well at my own home, after an absence of near six years, found my wife and daughter well,--the latter grown quite a woman, with many amiable accomplishments acquired in my absence,--and my friends as hearty and affectionate as ever, with whom my house was filled for many days to congratulate me on my return. I had been chosen yearly during my absence to represent the city of Philadelphia in our Provincial a.s.sembly; and on my appearance in the House, they voted me three thousand pounds sterling for my services in England, and their thanks, delivered by the Speaker. In February following, my son arrived with my new daughter; for, with my consent and approbation, he married, soon after I left England, a very agreeable West India lady, with whom he is very happy. I accompanied him to his government [New Jersey], where he met with the kindest reception from the people of all ranks, and has lived with them ever since in the greatest harmony. A river only parts that province and ours, and his residence is within seventeen miles of me, so that we frequently see each other.

"In the spring of 1763 I set out on a tour through all the northern colonies to inspect and regulate the post offices in the several provinces. In this journey I spent the summer, traveled about sixteen hundred miles, and did not get home till the beginning of November.

The a.s.sembly sitting through the following winter, and warm disputes arising between them and the governor, I became wholly engaged in public affairs; for, besides my duty as an a.s.semblyman, I had another trust to execute, that of being one of the commissioners appointed by law to dispose of the public money appropriated to the raising and paying an army to act against the Indians and defend the frontiers.

And then, in December, we had two insurrections of the back inhabitants of our province.... Governor Penn made my house for some time his headquarters, and did everything by my advice; so that for about forty-eight hours I was a very great man, as I had been once some years before, in a time of public danger.[2]

"But the fighting face we put on and the reasoning we used with the insurgents ... having turned them back and restored quiet to the city, I became a less man than ever; for I had by this transaction made myself many enemies among the populace; and the governor, ... thinking it a favorable opportunity, joined the whole weight of the proprietary interest to get me out of the a.s.sembly; which was accordingly effected at the last election by a majority of about twenty-five in four thousand voters. The House, however, when they met in October, approved of the resolutions taken, while I was Speaker, of pet.i.tioning the Crown for a change of government, and requested me to return to England to prosecute that pet.i.tion; which service I accordingly undertook, and embarked at the beginning of November last, being accompanied to the ship, sixteen miles, by a cavalcade of three hundred of my friends, who filled our sails with their good wishes, and I arrived in thirty days at London."

Instead of giving his efforts to the proposed change of government Franklin found greater duties. The debt which England had incurred during the war with the French in Canada she now looked to the colonists for aid in removing. At home taxes were levied by every device. The whole country was in distress and laborers starving. In the colonies there was the thrift that comes from narrowest means; but the people refused to answer parliamentary levies and claimed that they would lay their own taxes through their own legislatures. They resisted so successfully the enforcement of the Stamp Act that Parliament began to discuss its repeal. At this juncture Franklin was examined before the Commons in regard to the results of the act.

_Q._ Do you not think the people of America would submit to pay the stamp duty if it was moderated?

_A._ No, never, unless compelled by force of arms....

_Q._ What was the temper of America toward Great Britain before the year 1763?[3]

_A._ The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the government of the Crown, and paid, in their courts, obedience to the acts of Parliament. Numerous as the people are in the several old provinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons, or armies, to keep them in subjection. They were governed by this country at the expense only of a little pen, ink, and paper; they were led by a thread. They had not only a respect but an affection for Great Britain, for its laws, its customs and manners, and even a fondness for its fashions that greatly increased the commerce.

Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an "Old England man" was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us.

_Q._ And what is their temper now?

_A._ Oh, very much altered....

_Q._ If the Stamp Act should be repealed, would it induce the a.s.semblies of America to acknowledge the right of Parliament to tax them, and would they erase their resolutions?

_A._ No, never.

_Q._ Are there no means of obliging them to erase those resolutions?

_A._ None that I know of; they will never do it unless compelled by force of arms.

_Q._ Is there a power on earth that can force them to erase them?

_A._ No power, how great soever, can force men to change their opinions....

_Q._ What used to be the pride of the Americans?

_A._ To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain.

_Q._ What is now their pride?

_A._ To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make new ones.

After the repeal of the act, Franklin wrote to his wife: "I am willing you should have a new gown, which you may suppose I did not send sooner as I knew you would not like to be finer than your neighbors unless in a gown of your own spinning. Had the trade between the two countries totally ceased, it was a comfort to me to recollect that I had once been clothed from head to foot in woolen and linen of my wife's manufacture, that I never was prouder of any dress in my life, and that she and her daughter might do it again if it was necessary."

Franklin stayed ten years in England. In 1774 he presented to the king the pet.i.tion of the first Continental Congress, in which the pet.i.tioners, who protested their loyalty to Great Britain, claimed the right of taxing themselves. But, finding this and other efforts at adjustment of little avail, he returned to Philadelphia in May, 1775.

On the 5th of July he wrote to Mr. Strahan, an old friend in London: "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."

After the Declaration of Independence and the establishment of the States as a nation, Franklin was chosen as representative to France.

"I am old and good for nothing," he said, when told of the choice, "but, as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, I am but a f.a.g-end; you may have me for what you please."

It was a most important post. France was the ancient enemy of England, and the contingent of men and aid of money which Franklin gained served to the successful issue of the Revolution. He lived while in France at Pa.s.sy, near Paris, from which he wrote to a friend in England: "You are too early ... in calling me rebel; you should wait for the event which will determine whether it is a rebellion or only a revolution.... I know you wish you could see me; but, as you cannot, I will describe myself to you. Figure me in your mind as jolly as formerly, and as strong and hearty, only a few years older; very plainly dressed, wearing my thin, gray, straight hair, that peeps out under my only coiffure, a fine fur cap which comes down my forehead almost to my spectacles. Think how this must appear among the powdered heads of Paris! I wish every lady and gentleman in France would only be so obliging as to follow my fashion, comb their own heads as I do mine, dismiss their friseurs, and pay me half the money they pay to them."

At last, in 1785, he came home, old and broken in health. He was chosen president, or governor, of Pennsylvania, and the faith of the people in his wisdom made him delegate to the convention which framed the Const.i.tution in 1787. He died in 1790, and was buried by his wife in the graveyard of Christ Church, Philadelphia.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

-- 1. PARENTAGE AND BOYHOOD.

TWYFORD,[4] _at the Bishop of St. Asaph's, 1771_.

Dear Son:[5] I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes of my ancestors. You may remember the inquiries I made among the remains of my relations when you were with me in England, and the journey I undertook for that purpose. Imagining it may be equally agreeable to you to know the circ.u.mstances of my life, many of which you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment of a week's uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement, I sit down to write them for you. To which I have besides some other inducements.

Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity, the conducing means I made use of, which with the blessing of G.o.d so well succeeded, my posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.