The True Benjamin Franklin Part 7

"5. FRUGALITY.--Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i. e. waste nothing.

"6. INDUSTRY.--Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

"7. SINCERITY.--Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and if you speak, speak accordingly.

"8. JUSTICE.--Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

"9. MODERATION.--Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

"10. CLEANLINESS.--Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.

"11. TRANQUILLITY.--Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

"12. CHASt.i.tY.--Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.

"13. HUMILITY.--Imitate Jesus and Socrates."

He thought that he could gradually acquire the habit of keeping all these virtues, and instead of attempting the whole at once, he fixed his attention on one at a time, and when he thought he was master of that, proceeded to the next, and so on. He had arranged them in the order he thought would most facilitate their gradual acquisition, beginning with temperance and proceeding to silence; for the mastery of those which were easiest would help him to attain the more difficult. He has, therefore, left us at liberty to judge which were his most persistent sins.

He had a little book with a page for each virtue, and columns arranged for the days of the week, so that he could give himself marks for failure or success. He began by devoting a week to each virtue, by which arrangement he could go through the complete course in thirteen weeks, or four courses in a year.

His intense moral earnestness and introspection were doubtless inherited from his New England origin. But when he was in the midst of all this creed- and code-making, he records of himself:

"That hard to be governed pa.s.sion of youth had hurried me frequently into intrigues with low women that fell in my way, which were attended with some expense and great inconvenience, besides a continual risk to my health by a distemper, which of all things I dreaded, though by great good luck I escaped it."

His biographer, Parton, reminds us that his liturgy has no prayer against this vice, and that about a year after the date of the liturgy his illegitimate son William was born. The biographer then goes on to say that Franklin was "too sincere and logical a man to go before his G.o.d and ask a.s.sistance against a fault which he had not fully resolved to overcome." There is, however, a prayer in the liturgy against lasciviousness. He had not yet paid Mr. Vernon the money he had embezzled, although he was the author of a prayer asking to be delivered from deceit and fraud, and another against unfaithfulness in trust.[10]

It is obvious that this inconsistency is very like human nature, especially youthful human nature. There is nothing wonderful in it. It was simply the struggle which often takes place in boys who are both physically and mentally strong. The only thing unusual is that the person concerned has made a complete revelation of it. Such things are generally deeply concealed from the public. But that curious frankness which was mingled with Franklin's astuteness has in his own case opened wide the doors.

It has been commonly stated in his biographies that he had but one illegitimate child, a son; but from a ma.n.u.script letter in the possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, written by John Foxcroft, February 2, 1772, and never heretofore printed, it appears that he had also an illegitimate daughter, married to John Foxcroft:

"PHILAD^A Feby 2d, 1772.

"DEAR SIR

"I have the happiness to acquaint you that your Daughter was safely brot to Bed the 20^th ulto and presented me with a sweet little girl, they are both in good spirits and are likely to do very well.

"I was seized with a Giddyness in my head the Day before yesterday wch alarms me a good deal as I had 20 oz of blood taken from me and took physick wch does not seem in the least to have relieved me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN FOXCROFT]

"I am hardly able to write this. Mrs F joins me in best affections to yourself and compts to Mrs Stevenson and Mr and Mrs Huson.

"I am D^r Sir "Yrs. affectionately "JOHN FOXCROFT.

"Mrs Franklin, Mrs Bache, little Ben & Family at Burlington are all well. I had a letter from ye Gov^r yesterday

J. F."

Among the Franklin papers in the State Department at Washington there are copies of a number of letters which Franklin wrote to Foxcroft, and in three of them--October 7, 1772, November 3, 1772, and March 3, 1773--he sends "love to my daughter." There is also in Bigelow's edition of his works[11] a letter in which he refers to Mrs. Foxcroft as his daughter. The letter I have quoted above was written while Franklin was in England as the representative of some of the colonies, and is addressed to him at his Craven Street lodgings. Foxcroft, who was postmaster of Philadelphia, seems to have been on friendly terms with the rest of Franklin's family.

Mrs. Bache, whom Foxcroft mentions in the letter, was Franklin's legitimate daughter, Sarah, who was married. The family at Burlington was the family of the illegitimate son, William, who was the royal governor of New Jersey. This extraordinarily mixed family of legitimates and illegitimates seems to have maintained a certain kind of harmony.

The son William, the governor, continued the line through an illegitimate son, William Temple Franklin, usually known as Temple Franklin. This condition of affairs enables us to understand the odium in which Franklin was held by many of the upper cla.s.ses of Philadelphia, even when he was well received by the best people in England and France.

In his writings we constantly find him encouraging early marriages; and he complains of the great number of bachelors and old maids in England.

"The accounts you give me," he writes to his wife, "of the marriages of our friends are very agreeable. I love to hear of everything that tends to increase the number of good people." He certainly lived up to his doctrine, and more.

"Men I find to be a sort of beings very badly constructed, as they are generally more easily provoked than reconciled, more disposed to do mischief to each other than to make reparation, much more easily deceived than undeceived, and having more pride and even pleasure in killing than in begetting one another; for without a blush they a.s.semble in great armies at noonday to destroy, and when they have killed as many as they can they exaggerate the number to augment the fancied glory; but they creep into corners or cover themselves with the darkness of night when they mean to beget, as being ashamed of a virtuous action." (Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. vii. p. 464.)

There has always been much speculation as to who was the mother of Franklin's son, William, the governor of New Jersey; but as the gossips of Philadelphia were never able to solve the mystery, it is hardly possible that the antiquarians can succeed. Theodore Parker a.s.sumed that he must have been the son of a girl whom Franklin would have married if her parents had consented. Her name is unknown, for Franklin merely describes her as a relative of Mrs. G.o.dfrey, who tried to make the match. Parker had no evidence whatever for his supposition. He merely thought it likely; and, as a Christian minister, it would perhaps have been more to his credit if he had abstained from attacking in this way the reputation of even an unnamed young woman. An English clergyman, Rev. Bennet Allen, writing in the London _Morning Post_, June 1, 1779, when the ill feeling of the Revolution was at its height, says that William's mother was an oyster wench, whom Franklin left to die of disease and hunger in the streets. The gossips, indeed, seem to have always agreed that the woman must have been of very humble origin.

The nearest approach to a discovery has, however, been made by Mr. Paul Leicester Ford, in his essay ent.i.tled "Who was the Mother of Franklin's Son?" He found an old pamphlet written during Franklin's very heated controversy with the proprietary party in Pennsylvania when the attempt was made to abolish the proprietorship of the Penn family and make the colony a royal province. The pamphlet, ent.i.tled "What is Sauce for a Goose is also Sauce for a Gander," after some general abuse of Franklin, says that the mother of his son was a woman named Barbara, who worked in his house as a servant for ten pounds a year; that he kept her in that position until her death, when he stole her to the grave in silence without a pall, tomb, or monument. This is, of course, a partisan statement only, and reiterates what was probably the current gossip of the time among Franklin's political opponents.

There have also been speculations in Philadelphia as to who was the mother of Franklin's daughter, the wife of John Foxcroft; but they are mere guesses unsupported by evidence.

From what Franklin has told us of the advice given him when a young man by a Quaker friend, he was at that time exceedingly proud, and also occasionally overbearing and insolent, and this is confirmed by various pa.s.sages in his early life. But in after-years he seems to have completely conquered these faults. He complains, however, that he never could acquire the virtue of order in his business, having a place for everything and everything in its place. This failing seems to have followed him to the end of his life, and was one of the serious complaints made against him when he was amba.s.sador to France.

But he believed himself immensely benefited by his moral code and his method of drilling himself in it.

"It may be well my posterity should be informed that to this little artifice, with the blessing of G.o.d, their ancestor owed the constant felicity of his life, down to his 79th year in which this is written.... To Temperance he ascribes his long continued health, and what is still left to him of a good const.i.tution; to Industry and Frugality, the early easiness of his circ.u.mstances and acquisition of his fortune, with all that knowledge that enabled him to be a useful citizen, and obtained for him some degree of reputation among the learned; to Sincerity and Justice, the confidence of his country, and the honorable employs it conferred upon him; and to the joint influence of the whole ma.s.s of the virtues, even in the imperfect state he was able to acquire then, all that evenness of temper and that cheerfulness in conversation, which makes his company still sought for and agreeable even to his younger acquaintances."

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM FRANKLIN, ROYAL GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY]

At the same time that he was trying to put into practice his moral code, he conceived the idea of writing a book called "The Art of Virtue," in which he was to make comments on all the virtues, and show how each could be acquired. Most treatises of this sort, he had observed, were mere exhortations to be good; but "The Art of Virtue" would point out the means. He collected notes and hints for this volume during many years, intending that it should be the most important work of his life; "a great and extensive project," he calls it, into which he would throw the whole force of his being, and he expected great results from it. He looked forward to the time when he could drop everything else and devote himself to this mighty project, and he received grandiloquent letters of encouragement from eminent men. His vast experience of life would have made it a fascinating volume, and it is to be regretted that public employments continually called him to other tasks.

A young man such as he was is not infrequently able to improve his morals more effectually by marrying than by writing liturgies and codes.

He decided to marry about two years after he had begun to discipline himself in his creed and moral precepts. The step seems to have been first suggested to him by Mrs. G.o.dfrey, to whom, with her husband, he rented part of his house and shop. She had a relative who, she thought, would make a good match for him, and she took opportunities of bringing them often together. The girl was deserving, and Franklin began to court her. But he has described the affair so well himself that it would be useless to try to abbreviate it.

"The old folks encouraged me by continual invitations to supper, and by leaving us together, till at length it was time to explain. Mrs. G.o.dfrey managed our little treaty. I let her know that I expected as much money with their daughter as would pay off my remaining debt for the printing-house, which I believe was not then above a hundred pounds. She brought me word they had no such sum to spare; I said they might mortgage their house in the loan office. The answer to this, after some days, was, that they did not approve the match; that, on inquiry of Bradford, they had been informed the printing business was not a profitable one; the types would soon be worn out, and more wanted; that S. Keimer and D. Harry had failed one after the other, and I should probably soon follow them; and, therefore, I was forbidden the house and the daughter shut up."

This the young printer thought was a mere artifice, the parents thinking that the pair were too fond of each other to separate, and that they would steal a marriage, in which event the parents could give or withhold what they pleased. He resented this attempt to force his hand, dropped the whole matter, and as a consequence quarrelled with Mrs.

G.o.dfrey, who with her husband and children left his house.

The pa.s.sage which follows in Franklin's Autobiography implies that his utter inability at this period to restrain his pa.s.sions directed his thoughts more seriously than ever to marriage, and he was determined to have a wife. It may be well here to comment again on his remarkable frankness. There have been distinguished men, like Rousseau, who were at times morbidly frank. Their frankness, however, usually took the form of a confession which did not add to their dignity. But Franklin never confessed anything; he told it. His dignity was as natural and as instinctive as Washington's, though of a different kind. His supreme intellect easily avoided all positions in which he would have to confess or make admissions; and, as there was nothing morbid in his character, so there was nothing morbid in his frankness.

The frankness seems to have been closely connected with his serenity and courage. There never was a man so little disturbed by consequences or possibilities. He was quick to take advantage of popular whims, and he would not expose himself unnecessarily to public censure. His letter to President Stiles, of Yale, is an example. Being asked for his religious opinion, he states it fully and without reserve, although knowing that it would be extremely distasteful to the man to whom it was addressed, and, if made public, would bring upon him the enmity of the most respectable people in the country, whose good opinion every one wishes to secure. The only precaution he takes is to ask the president not to publish what he says, and he gives his reasons as frankly as he gives the religious opinion. But if the letter had been published before his death, he would have lost neither sleep nor appet.i.te, and doubtless, by some jest or appeal to human sympathy, would have turned it to good account.

Since his time there have been self-made men in this country who have advanced themselves by professing fulsome devotion to the most popular forms of religion, and they have found this method very useful in their designs on financial inst.i.tutions or public office. We would prefer them to take Franklin for their model; and they may have all his failings if they will only be half as honest.

But to return to his designs for a wife, which were by no means romantic. Miss Read, for whom he had a partiality, had married one Rogers during Franklin's absence in London. Rogers ill treated and deserted her, and, dejected and melancholy, she was now living at home with her mother. She and Franklin had been inclined to marry before he went to London, but her mother prevented it. According to his account, she had been in love with him; but, although he liked her, we do not understand that he was in love. He never seems to have been in love with any woman in the sense of a romantic or exalted affection, although he flirted with many, both young and old, almost to the close of his life.

But now, on renewing his attentions, he found that her mother had no objections. There was, however, one serious difficulty, for Mr. Rogers, although he had deserted her, was not known to be dead, and divorces were but little thought of at that time. Franklin naturally did not want to add bigamy to his other youthful offences, and it would also have required a revision of his liturgy and code. Rogers had, moreover, left debts which Franklin feared he might be expected to pay, and he had had enough of that sort of thing. "We ventured, however," he says, "over all these difficulties, and I took her to wife September 1, 1730." None of the inconveniences happened, for neither Rogers nor his debts ever turned up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM TEMPLE FRANKLIN]

Franklin's detractors have always insisted that no marriage ceremony was performed and that he was never legally married. There is no record of such a marriage in Christ Church, of which Mrs. Rogers was a member, and the phrase used, "took her to wife," is supposed to show that they simply lived together, fearing a regular ceremony, which, if Rogers was alive, would convict them of bigamy. The absence of any record of a ceremony is, however, not necessarily conclusive that there was no ceremony of any kind; and the question is not now of serious importance, for they intended marriage, always regarded themselves as man and wife, and, in any event, it was a common-law marriage. Their children were baptized in Christ Church as legitimate children, and in a deed executed three or four years after 1730 they are spoken of as husband and wife.

A few months after the marriage his illegitimate son William was born, and Mr. Bigelow has made the extraordinary statement, "William may therefore be said to have been born in wedlock, though he was not reputed to be the son of Mrs. Franklin."[12] This is certainly an enlarged idea of the possibilities of wedlock, and on such a principle marriage to one woman would legitimatize the man's illegitimate offspring by all others. It is difficult to understand the meaning of such a statement, unless it is an indirect way of suggesting that William was the son of Mrs. Franklin; but of this there is no evidence.