True to His Home Part 40

"I only wish that I could have done more for our folks; and you, Ben--I can see you now as you were on that summer day--you have been true to your country."

"Jenny, do you remember the old writing-school master, George Brownell?

You do? Well, I have a great secret for you. I used to tell my affairs to you many years ago. I am in favor of the _independence_ of the colonies; and when Congress shall so declare, I shall put my name, that the old schoolmaster taught me to write, to the Declaration."

"Ben, it may cost you your life!"

"Then I will leave Uncle Ben's name in mine to the martyrs' list. I must be true to my country as you have been to your family--I must live for the things that live. I am Uncle Ben's pamphlet, Jenny. I know not what may befall me. This may be the last time that I shall ever visit Boston town--my beloved Boston--but I have found power with men by seeking their good, and my prayer is that I may one day meet you again, and have you say to me that I have honored Uncle Ben's name. I would rather have that praise from you than from any other person in the world: 'More than wealth, more than fame, more than anything, is the power of the human heart.'"

It was night. The camp of Washington was glimmering far away. Boston Neck was barricaded. There was a ship in the mouth of the Charles. A cannon boomed on Charlestown's hills.

"Jenny, I must go. When shall we meet again? Not until I have put Uncle Ben's name to the declaration of American liberty and independence is won. I must prepare the minds of the people to resolve to become an independent nation. My sister, my own true sister, what events may pa.s.s before we shall see each other again! When you were younger I made you a present of a spinning-wheel; later I sent you finery. I wish to leave you now this watch. The hours of the struggle for human liberty are at hand. Count the hours!"

They parted at the gate. The leaves were falling. It was the evening of the year. He looked back when he had taken a few steps. He was nearly seventy years of age. Yet his great work of life was before him--it was yet to do, while white-haired Jenny should count the hours on the clock of time.

Sam Adams had grasped the idea that the appeal to arms must end in the independence of the colonies. Franklin saw the rising star of the destiny of the union of the colonies to secure justice from the crown.

He left Boston to give his whole soul to this great end.

The next day they went out to Tuft's Hill and looked down on the encamped town, the war ships, and the sea. It was an Indian summer. The trees were scarlet, the orchards were laden with fruit, and the fields were yellow with corn.

Over the blue sea rose the Castle, now gone. The smoke from many British camps curled up in the still, sunny air.

The Providence House Indian (now at the farm of the late Major Ben Perley Poore) gleamed over the roofs of the State House and its viceregal signs, which are now as then. Boston was three hills then, and the whole of the town did not appear as clearly from the hills on the west--the Sunset Hills--as now.

"Jenny, liberty is the right of mankind, and the cause of liberty is the cause of mankind," said Franklin. "Why should England hold provinces in America to whom she will allow no voice in her councils, whose people she may tax and condemn to prisons and death at the will of the king? I have told you my heart. America has the right of freedom, and the colonies must be free!"

They walked along the cool hill ways, and he looked longingly back at the glimmering town.

"Beloved Boston!" he said. "So thou wilt ever be to me!" He turned to his sister: "I used to tell my day dreams to you--they have come true, in part. I have been thinking again. If the colonies could be made free, and I were to be left a rich man, I would like to make a gift to the schools of Boston, whose influence would live as long as they shall last. Sister, I was too poor in my boyhood to answer the call of the school bells. I would like to endow the schools there with a fund for gifts or medals that would make every boy happy who prepares himself well for the work of life, be he rich or poor. I would like also to establish there a fund to help young apprentices, and to open public places of education and enjoyment which would be free to all people."

"You are Silence Dogood still," said Mrs. Mecom. "Day dreams in your life change into realities. I believe that all you now have in your heart to do will be done. Benjamin, these are great dreams."

"It may be that I will be sent abroad again."

"Benjamin, we may be very old when we meet again. But the colonies will be made free, and you will live to give a medal to the schools of Boston town. I must prophesy for you now, for Uncle Benjamin is gone. I began life with you--you carried me in your arms and led me by the hand. We used to sit by the east windows together; may we some day sit down together by the windows of the west and review the book of life, and close the covers. We may then read in spirit the pamphlets of Uncle Ben."

There was a thunder of guns at the Castle. War ships were coming into the harbor from the bay. Franklin beheld them with indignation.

"The people must not only have justice," he said, "they must have liberty."

They returned by the Cambridge road under the bowery elms. It would be a long time before they would see each other again.

In such beneficent thoughts of Boston the Franklin medal had its origin.

It was coined out of his heart, that echoed wherever it went or was destined to go, "Beloved Boston!"

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.--A MYSTERY.

THE fame of Benjamin Franklin now filled America. On the continent of Europe he was held to be the first citizen of America. In France he was ranked among the sages and philosophers of antiquity, and his name a.s.sociated with the greatest benefactors of the human race. It was his electrical discovery that gave him this solid and universal fame, but his Poor Richard's proverbs, which had several times been translated into French, were greatly quoted on the continent of Europe, and made his popularity as unique as it was general.

The old Boston schoolmaster who probably taught little Ben to flourish with his pen could have little dreamed of the doc.u.ments of state to which this curious characteristic of the pen would be attached. Four of these doc.u.ments were papers that led the age, and became the charters of human freedom and progress and began a new order of government in the world. They were the Declaration of Independence, the Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace with England, and the draft of the Const.i.tution of the United States.

In his service as agent of the colonies and as a member of the Continental Congress his mind clearly saw how valuable to the American cause an alliance with France and other Continental powers would be.

While in Europe as an agent of the colonies he gave his energy and experience to a.s.sisting a secret committee to negotiate foreign aid in the war. It was a time of invisible ink, and Franklin instructed this committee how to use it. He saw that Europe must be engaged in the struggle to make the triumph of liberty in America complete and permanent.

It was 1776. Franklin was now seventy years old and was in America. The colonies had resolved to be free. A committee had been chosen by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to prepare a draft for a formal Declaration of Independence, a paper whose principles were destined to emanc.i.p.ate not only the united colonies but the world. The committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert R.

Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Mr. Jefferson was appointed by this committee to write the Declaration, and he made it a voice of humanity in the language of the sages. He put his own glorious thoughts of liberty into it, and he made these thoughts trumpet tones, and they, like the old Liberty Bell, have never ceased to ring in the events of the world.

When Jefferson had written the inspired doc.u.ment he showed it to Franklin and Adams, and asked them if they had any suggestions to offer or changes to make.

Franklin saw how grandly and adequately Jefferson had done the work. He had no suggestion of moment to offer. But the composition was criticised in Congress, which brought out Franklin's wit, as the following story told by an eye-witness will show:

"When the Declaration of Independence was under the consideration of Congress, there were two or three unlucky expressions in it which gave offense to some members. The words 'Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries' excited the ire of a gentleman or two of that country.

Severe strictures on the conduct of the British king in negativing our repeated repeals of the law which permitted the importation of slaves were disapproved by some Southern gentlemen, whose reflections were not yet matured to the full abhorrence of that traffic. Although the offensive expressions were immediately yielded, these gentlemen continued their depredations on other parts of the instrument. I was sitting by Dr. Franklin, who perceived that I was not insensible to ('_that I was writhing under_,' he says elsewhere) these mutilations.

"'I have made it a rule,' said he, 'whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprenticed hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words, _John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells Hats for ready Money_, with a figure of a hat subjoined. But he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word _hatter_ tautologous, because followed by the words _makes hats_, which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word _makes_ might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats; if good and to their mind they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words _for ready money_ were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with; and the inscription now stood, 'John Thompson sells hats.' '_Sells_ hats?' says his next friend; 'why, n.o.body will expect you to give them away. What, then, is the use of that word?'

It was stricken out, and _hats_ followed, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So his inscription was reduced ultimately to _John Thompson_, with the figure of a hat subjoined.'"

"We must all hang together," said Mr. Hanc.o.c.k, when the draft had been accepted and was ready to be signed.

"Or else we shall hang separately," Franklin is reported to have answered.

John Hanc.o.c.k, President of the Congress, put his name to the doc.u.ment in such a bold hand that "the King of England might have read it without spectacles." Franklin set his signature with its looped flourish among the immortals. In the same memorable month of July Congress appointed Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams to prepare a national seal.

The plan submitted by Franklin for the great seal of the United States was poetic and n.o.ble. It is thus described:

"Pharaoh sitting in an open chariot, a crown on his head and a sword in his hand, pa.s.sing through the divided waters of the Red Sea in pursuit of the Israelites. Rays from a pillar of fire in the cloud, expressive of the Divine presence and command, beaming on Moses, who stands on the sh.o.r.e, and, extending his hand over the sea, causes it to overflow Pharaoh. Motto: 'Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to G.o.d.'"

This device was rejected by Congress, which decided upon a more simple allegory, and the motto _E Pluribus Unum_.

It was a time of rejoicing in Philadelphia now, and of the great events Jefferson was the voice and Franklin was the soul.

The citizens, as we have shown, tore down all the king's arms and royal devices from the government houses, courtrooms, shops, and taverns. They made a huge pile of tar barrels and placed these royal signs upon them.

On a fiery July night they put the torch to the pile, and the flames curled up, and the black smoke rose in a high column under the moon and stars, and the last vestige of royalty disappeared in the bonfire.

Franklin heard the Liberty Bell ring out on the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by Congress. He saw the bonfire rise in the night of these eventful days, and heard the shouts of the people. He had set his hand to the Declaration. He desired next to set it to a treaty of alliance with France. Would this follow?

A very strange thing had happened in the colonies some seven months or more before--in November, 1775. A paper was presented to Congress, coming from a mysterious source, that stated that a stranger had arrived in Philadelphia who brought an important message from a foreign power, and who wished to meet a committee of Congress in secret and to make a confidential communication.

Congress was curious, but it at first took no official notice of the communication. But, like the c.u.maean sibyl to Tarquin, the message came again. It was not received, but it made an unofficial impression. It was repeated. Who was this mysterious stranger? Whence came he, and what had he to offer?

The curiosity grew, and Congress appointed a committee consisting of John Jay, Dr. Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to meet the foreigner and to receive his proposition.

The committee appointed an hour to meet the secret messenger, and a place, which was one of the rooms of Carpenters' Hall.