Richard Webster

“ In spite of the opposition in the colonies to the Declaratory Act, the Townshend Acts and the tea tax, Franklin continued to assure the British ministry and the British public of the loyalty of the colonists. He tried to find some middle ground of reconciliation, and kept up his quiet work of informing England as to the opinions and conditions of the colonies, and of moderating the attitude of the colonies toward the home government; so that, as he said, he was accused in America of being too much an Englishman, and in England of being too much an American. ”

“ A summary of so versatile a genius is impossible. His services to America in England and France rank him as one of the heroes of the American War of Independence and as the greatest of American diplomats. Almost the only American scientist of his day, he displayed remarkably deep as well as remarkably varied abilities in science and deserved the honours enthusiastically given him by the savants of Europe.
Bibliography.—Franklin’s works were not collected in his own lifetime, and he made no effort to publish his writings. ”

“ After the British Act of 1750 forbidding the erection or the operating of iron or steel mills in the colonies, Franklin wrote Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind and the Peopling of Countries (1751) ; its thesis was that manufactures come to be common only with a high degree of social development and with great density of population, and that Great Britain need not, therefore, fear the industrial competition of the colonies, but it is better known for the estimate (adopted by Adam Smith) that the population of the colonies would double every quarter-century ”

“ Franklin as a scientist [13] and as an inventor has been decried by experts as an amateur and a dabbler; but it should be remembered that it was always his hope to retire from public life and devote himself to science. ”

“ Franklin, appealed to by the governor, raised a troop sufficient to frighten away the “Paxton boys,” and for the moment there seemed a possibility of an understanding between Franklin and the proprietors. But the question of taxing the estates of the proprietors came up in a new form, and a petition from the assembly was drawn by Franklin, requesting the king “to resume the government” of Pennsylvania. In the autumn election of 1764 the influence of the proprietors was exerted against Franklin, and by an adverse majority of 25 votes in 4000 he failed to be re-elected to the assembly. ”

“ Franklin reached London in December 1724, and found employment first at Palmer’s, a famous printing house in Bartholomew Close, and afterwards at Watts’s Printing House. At Palmer’s he had set up a second edition of Wollaston’s Religion of Nature Delineated. To refute this book and to prove that there could be no such thing as religion, he wrote and printed a small pamphlet, A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain, which brought him some curious acquaintances, and of which he soon became thoroughly ashamed. ”

“ If a collection could be made of all the gazettes of Europe, for the latter half of the 18th century, a greater number of panegyrical paragraphs upon le grand Franklin would appear, it is believed, than upon any other man that ever lived. ”

“ Franklin’s position in France was a difficult one from the start, because of the delicacy of the task of getting French aid at a time when France was unready openly to take sides against Great Britain. But on the 6th of February 1778, after the news of the defeat and surrender of Burgoyne had reached Europe, a treaty of alliance and a treaty of amity and commerce between France and the United States were signed at Paris by Franklin, Deane and Lee. ”

“ Closely related to Franklin’s political pamphlets are his writings on economics, which, though undertaken with a political or practical purpose and not in a purely scientific spirit, rank him as the first American economist. He wrote in 1729 A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency, which argued that a plentiful currency will make rates of interest low and will promote immigration and home manufactures, and which did much to secure the further issue of paper money in Pennsylvania. ”

“ This pamphlet answered the argument that it would be unsafe to keep Canada because of the added strength that would thus be given to any possible movement for independence in the English colonies, by urging that so long as Canada remained French there could be no safety for the English colonies in North America, nor any permanent peace in Europe. ”

“ When the formal negotiations began Franklin held closely to the instructions of Congress to its commissioners, that they should maintain confidential relations with the French ministers and that they were “to undertake nothing in the negotiations for peace or truce without their knowledge and concurrence,” and were ultimately to be governed by “their advice and opinion.” ”

“ With Benjamin Harrison, John Dickinson, Thomas Johnson and John Jay he was appointed in November 1775 to a committee to carry on a secret correspondence with the friends of America “in Great Britain, Ireland and other parts of the world.” He planned an appeal to the king of France for aid, and wrote the instructions of Silas Deane who was to convey it. In April 1776 he went to Montreal with Charles Carroll, Samuel Chase and John Carroll, as a member of the commission which conferred with General Arnold, and attempted without success to gain the co-operation of Canada. ”

“ He was agent now, not only of Pennsylvania, but also of New Jersey, of Georgia and of Massachusetts. Hillsborough, who became secretary of state for the colonies in 1768, refused to recognize Franklin as agent of Massachusetts, because the governor of Massachusetts had not approved the appointment, which was by resolution of the assembly. Franklin contended that the governor, as a mere agent of the king, could have nothing to do with the assembly’s appointment of its agent to the king; that “the King, and not the King, Lords, and Commons collectively, is their sovereign ”

“ For Franklin this was a great triumph, and the news of it filled the colonists with delight and restored him to their confidence and affection. Another bill (the Declaratory Act) , however, was almost immediately passed by the king’s party, asserting absolute supremacy of parliament over the colonies, and in the succeeding parliament, by the Townshend Acts of 1767, duties were imposed on paper, paints and glass imported by the colonists; a tax was imposed on tea also. ”

“ Franklin noted the phenomenon with disapproval in his advocacy of increased population; Malthus with approval in his search for means to decrease population. ↑ The title of philosopher as used in Franklin’s lifetime referred neither in England nor in France to him as author of moral maxims, but to him as a scientist—a “natural philosopher.” ”

“ When he was sixteen he became a vegetarian for a time, rather to save money for books than for any other reason, and he always preached moderation in eating, though he was less consistent in his practice in this particular than as regards moderate drinking. ”

“ But Benjamin’s management of the paper, and particularly his free-thinking, displeased the authorities; the relations of the two brothers gradually grew unfriendly, possibly, as Benjamin thought, because of his brother’s jealousy of his superior ability; and Benjamin determined to quit his brother’s employ and to leave New England. He made his way first to New York City, and then (October 1723) to Philadelphia, where he got employment with a printer named Samuel Keimer. [1]
A rapid composer and a workman full of resource, Franklin was soon recognized as the master spirit of the shop. ”

“ One barrel went to the mill. The others, it was found, contained papers belonging to Franklin, and this important collection was bought and presented to the university of Pennsylvania. The valuable Frankliniana collected by Henry Stevens were purchased by Congress in 1885. These MS. collections were first carefully gone over for the edition of the Works by A. H. Smyth. Franklin’s Autobiography was begun in 1771 as a private chronicle for his son, Governor William Franklin ”

“ Balzac said of him that he “invented the lightning-rod, the hoax (’le canard’) and the republic.” Among his more famous hoaxes were the “Edict of the King of Prussia” (1773) , already described; the fictitious supplement to the Boston Chronicle, printed on his private press at Passy in 1782, and containing a letter with an invoice of eight packs of 954 cured, dried, hooped and painted scalps of rebels, men, women and children, taken by Indians in the British employ ”