Bernard Faÿ's Franklin : the apostle of modern times : with illustrations

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BOOK FOUR His Excellency , Doctor Franklin , the Patriarch 379

Bibliography 5T7

Index ->35

ILLUSTRATIONS

Portrait of Franklin made in France . Frontispiece

Portrait of Franklin in France made by the famous Carmontelle. Franklin has no wig. He is in the “plain Quaker dress” which so touched the tender hearts of France. On the table is seen a paper, the laws of Pennsylvania; in the background, a landscape with ships. Under the portrait is a translation of the famous Latin epigram on Franklin : Eripuit ccslo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis (“He snatches the thunder from the hands of the gods and the scepter from the hands of the tyrants”). See pages 381, 412, 436- 437, 480-481.

The Birth-Place of Franklin . 4

The house in which Franklin was born and in which his mother raised her large family. This drawing has been often reproduced since the beginning of the eighteenth century. It seems to be based on an old and very respectable tradition although we cannot find eighteenth-century evidence respecting it. See pages 3, 7.

Franklin’s Printing Press . 18

The printing press at which Franklin worked when he was an apprentice to his brother. In the possession of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, Boston. See pages 17, 29, 38.

The New England Courant of February ii, 1723 . 44

The issue of the New England Courant in which James Franklin announced to his readers that he had to give up publishing his paper, and in which Benjamin Franklin published his first editorial.

This sheet gives a good idea of an eighteenth-century newspaper in America. The printing of James Franklin was rather above the American average. See pages 44 and 60-64, but especially 57.

Cartoon of 1764 Depicting the Famous Election in which Franklin was Defeated .... 196

This cartoon, made in 1764 to depict the famous election in which Franklin and Galloway were defeated, shows how an election was conducted in Philadelphia and the bitterness of the political quarrels in the Quaker City between 1745 ar,d 1 775* 1° the f°re-

ground Franklin, surrounded by his friends and supporters, is

xiii

XIV

ILLUSTRATIONS listening to the Devil who whispers to him: “Thee shall be my Agent, BEN, for all my realms.” On the left a group of Quakers with their big hats are discussing their chances of winning the elec¬ tion. On the right the other friends of Franklin, Associators and Junto , come to his rescue. In the center is shown the City Hall where the balloting took place. In 1764 the tide was turned against Franklin, who was beaten principally because of the hos¬ tility of the democracy. Note that Franklin is shown bareheaded in this cartoon and in the other two. It shows that this habit of his had impressed his contemporaries. See page 197, and also pages 13, 198, 200, 207, 310.

Cartoon of 1764 Depicting Franklin and the Penn¬ sylvania Politicians ......

Franklin and the Pennsylvania politicians described by a con¬ temporary cartoon. Franklin says: “Fight Dog, Fight Bear, I am contented if I but get the Government.” He is getting the money and holding the bag, while his Quaker friends are smoking and scheming with the Devil. One of them, Pemberton, is very busy with an Indian girl. The cartoon was drawn in 1764, but gives a good idea of the political situation in Pennsylvania from 1750 to 1770. See pages 213-216, and also pages 112, 234-236, 251, 307, 308.

Cartoon Illustrating the Opposition between Political Parties in Pennsylvania from 1755 to

1775 ••••••••••

Franklin is shown holding a paper on which is written: “Re¬ solves, ye Proprietaries are knave and tyrant.” He is handing it to a Quaker (easy to recognize because of his big hat) who is riding on a Scotch-Irish man and leading a blindfolded German by a rope. On the German an Indian is riding. The package carried by the Indian bears two letters : I. P. (Indian Presents) because it seemed highly shocking to the Proprietary Party to have to make gifts to the Indians, and it was, on the contrary, one of the essential features of the Quaker policy followed by Franklin. See pages 256-257, 277-280, 304-306.

Franklin as a Middle-Aged Man .

Portrait made by Mason Chamberlin. Print made in France after 1776. It shows Franklin as he was between 1755 and 1775, with his wig and the rather elegant way of dressing he had adopted in England. (Compare with the simplicity of his dress in France, as shown in the Carmontelle drawing.) Through the window one sees a thunderstorm and a lightning rod. In the room behind Franklin is his library, and next to him, on his right, the famous electric bell he had invented and put in his Philadelphia home. It rang when the electricity was passing through it, and during Frank¬ lin’s stay in England Deborah was so scared to hear it ring day and night that it had to be dismantled. See page 271, and also pages 227, 231, 341, 344, 351-354-

ILLUSTRATIONS xv

The Famous Cartoon which Franklin had made at the Time of the Stamp Act .... 320

Franklin wrote his letters on the back of this cartoon during the time of the acute fight against the Stamp Act (January and Feb¬ ruary, 1766). The cartoon shows the state of England after it had succeeded in alienating completely the American Colonies by the Stamp Act. It was republished by the Political Register. See pages 321-322, and also pages 314-318.

Typical English Cartoon made by the Whigs and the Friends of the Americans to Celebrate the Repeal of the Stamp Act .... 324

This cartoon represents the funeral procession of Miss Americ- Stamp, who is going to join in their tomb the bodies of all the ob¬ noxious and discarded laws of England. George Grenville is carry¬ ing the coffin with great sadness, and he is followed by a group of Tory ministers who are crying, the most noticeable of them being Lord Bute with his Scotch kilt. (He was accused of having con¬ ceived and strongly backed the Stamp Act.) In the background are English ships and English warehouses ready to ship goods to America. See pages 322-323.

English Cartoon of 1770 . 362

A very pretty and naughty cartoon of 1770, made in England for the Whigs and the friends of America. It shows the English min¬ isters torturing America and obliging her to swallow English tea.

Great Britain is mourning on the right. On the left a Frenchman and a Spaniard are gesticulating with great pleasure and expec¬ tation. See pages 362, 369, 373-378.

Portrait of Franklin made in France . . . 406

A portrait of Franklin, with the fur cap, made in France a few months after his arrival (1777). Drawing by Desrayes, print by Lebeau. It gives an idea of the Franklin who was so much ad¬ mired by the ladies in Nantes, Paris and Passy as a “patriarch”, as a “ peasant”, and as the shrewdest of all diplomatists. See pages 407, 480-481.

Woodcut of Louis XVI Giving to the Americans a Paper on which is written “Liberty” . . 438

The King is trampling over a yoke and chains, while, on the right, the redcoats are fleeing, and young America with a pike and a liberty cap is binding fasces with a ribbon decorated with the French lilies. On the left Benjamin Franklin, followed by other Americans, is coming with great joy to receive from the King the precious paper. A palm tree on the right gives an exotic touch to the composition. This is one of the many popular woodcuts made

XVI

ILLUSTRATIONS in France in 1788 to celebrate the French-American Alliance. It was sold in the streets for a few cents. It is the only one actually known and is for the first time reproduced with permission of the Biblioth£que Nationale, where it is preserved in the Hennin col¬ lection. See pages 438-439, 480-481.

View of the Seine and Paris from Franklin’s Ter¬ race AT PASSY . 454

In the foreground are small Passy houses, a typical French gar¬ den of the time, on the Seine the ferryboat which bothered Franklin and Benny Bache so much when they went to swim in the river precisely at that place. Near to the ferryboat is the scaffold (on which a few years later so many of Franklin’s friends were going to be hanged by the crowd). In the sky a beautiful balloon, such as were made then, with the initials of the King : two interlaced L’s.

On the other bank of the Seine, from left to right, are to be seen the Invalides (Home for the Old Soldiers), the two towers of Notre Dame, the two towers of Saint Sulpice, one of them then in process of being repaired. Drawing made in 1783 apropos of the balloon experiments in La Muette and Passy. See pages 454-469,

479, 483-

Emblematical Portrait of Franklin . . . 512

Diogenes with his lantern is holding the portrait of Franklin.

(It is the portrait of Franklin by Van Loo.) He is glad to have found at last a MAN. Behind him a bird flies, after having escaped from a cage, and on a pike a liberty cap is raised. A book, prob¬ ably the laws of Pennsylvania, is open. In front of Franklin and Diogenes are to be seen some carrots, commemorating Diogenes’ and Franklin’s frugality, a broken yoke, evoking Franklin’s tri¬ umph over English despotism, and an eagle spreading thunder on a map of North America, as a symbol of Franklin’s emancipating influence in the New World. A Latin inscription announces : “Nations! Stop and wonder: Diogenes has found a man.”

This print was made and presented to Franklin in July, 1780.

MAPS

The Town of Boston During Franklin’s Youth Philadelphia and Parts Adjacent, 1750 .

London, 1767 .

Paris and Environs, 1781 .

Passy and Auteuil

7 1 1 1

4°3

Book One The Rearing Of An Xviiith Century Radical

I

The month of January, 1706, in the distant colony of New England was a bitter one, and the little city of Boston, squeezed between the Atlantic and the marshes, had all it could do to resist the storms and the rigorous cold. The weather was very disagreeable with its brusque alternations of intense frosts, hurricanes, snow and thaws; the last part of December was one continual tempest. At the beginning of January, the weather improved slightly and there were a few mild hours, but, starting on the fourteenth, the cold struck in again with a blizzard, bringing back suffering and danger. John Coleburn of Dedham lost himself in the snow and his corpse was found near Roxbury. In the taverns where men got together to drink rum they hardly spoke about anything but the precautions they had to take in driving their ox-carts and sleighs over the snowy countryside, when they were look¬ ing for firewood, or carrying provisions to the farms of the interior.

Then, too, they gossiped a little about their neighbors. A son had just been born to Josiah Franklin, the tallow-chandler at the Sign of the Blue Ball, on Milk Street, — a big boy named Benjamin. He was born on the sixth, a Sunday, so of course he would be lucky. He would be a good Christian, too, and a good Whig; his parents had had him baptized im¬ mediately in the neighboring church, Old South, thus making one more Presbyterian for the city. And the drinkers laughed in whispering that Old Josiah wasn’t leading such a dull life; his wife was pretty and he wasn’t losing his time, fourteen children already. And no doubt they wouldn’t be all. Well, such families would provide soldiers for Queen Anne and her great general, Marlborough. They would be needed with all those men killed now in Flanders, Germany and America, and with all the epidemics that had swept the country. For the moment, there were more than enough people, but in 1703 nearly three hundred persons had died of smallpox.

Life wasn’t easy with such three enemies as the Winter, the French and the Devil. Ever since the Puritans, Children of God and Preservers of Holy Tradition, had gained the desert and founded their pious colony in distant America, these three enemies had persisted against them. The Puritans had never confessed themselves conquered, but, in spite of the vig¬ ilance of their pastors, the Devil was always prowling around the pious people and their dwellings. In 1692, hadn t he come to attack them directly and in person by loosing those horrible witches whom the virtuous Mr. Mather denounced and had put to death ? With a little courage and firmness, the Devil had been vanquished, a few executions had sufficed, and the People of God, after some hours of anguish, had found their peace once more. But the Devil hadn’t given up, after all; now he employed devices and ruses less direct.

The city grew, it became a kind of capital, and some even said it included four thousand houses and eighteen thousand inhabitants. No doubt they exaggerated, but really to remain pure in this port filled with sailors, young exiled craftsmen, out¬ laws, merchants from all countries, and Negro slaves, was not always easy, and the Devil had his due. How many young men were enticed and carried away by the sailors who never gave them up, how many little children were born five or six months after their parents’ marriage, and how many times men left home to warm themselves on winter evenings at the tavern and returned, late and drunk, to beat their wives !

No doubt there remained some good customs and apostles. No doubt the Sabbath was still enforced by the law and one could not, under pain of the most severe punishments, either walk about, swim or travel on Sunday. The faithful had, besides their sermons on Sunday, the “lectures ” on Thursday, when their devoted pastors informed them of God’s word. And these latter, no doubt, let no occasion such as catastro¬ phes, national or royal anniversaries, or public executions, slip

THE BIRTH-PLACE O F FRANKLIN,

WHICH STOOD IN MILE STREET, OPPOSITE THE ODD SOUTH CHURCH, B08T0N

THE BIRTH-PLACE OF FRANKLIN by without commenting on them in the pulpit or accompany¬ ing them with a sermon. Some of them were well attended, in particular those which were pronounced before the executions. But also what backsliding in the city and in the entire colony ! Since the king had changed the charter, it sufficed to be rich to vote ; a prospective citizen no longer had to undergo a public conversion, or prove that he was a member of the Calvinist Church. The king delegated his authority to a governor chosen by himself and not by the pious Christians. Massa¬ chusetts had no longer a government elected by unaided dev¬ otees, but it was submitted to the influence of rich men, merchants, ungodly and indifferent. Even the college, this Harvard, founded to educate pastors and to be a sanctuary of pure religion, forsook its traditions more and more. The young men drank every day, and sang often, even on Sunday. The most strict and pious pastors had been rejected and the presidency refused to the venerable Mr. Mather. A layman, Mr. Leverett, was going to direct this institution, formerly so holy.

Was it surprising that God should punish New England for its infidelity ? That He should unloose Indians and French against them ? Had he not once armed the Philistines against the guilty Israelites in the same way ? And every Sunday, every Thursday, in the pulpits of New England, along with pressing invitations to become converted, violent invectives were hurled against Louis XIV, this “detestable old tyrant, this persecutor of God, this new Nebuchadnezzar, surrounded by his courtesans, his illegitimate children, the glorification of his sins and the pagan pomp of Catholic civilization. His death was predicted and his defeats celebrated, as on the twentyfourth of January, 1706, when the governor ordered a great thanksgiving festival in honor of Marlborough s victories in Flanders. However, the people still trembled a little from fear. Canada was so close and the French privateers so often laid hold on the English vessels.

In 1707 they went to see a fair-sized fleet brought together in the harbor of Boston for the purpose of attacking the French.

Preparations and defense were necessary. They could never forget that danger was always pressing. The people hoped for victory ; Louis was growing old, and all of Europe, including the Empire, Holland, Portugal, Savoy and England, were armed against him, endeavoring to wrest Spain from his grasp, a country he wanted to give to his grandson, as well as the world scepter he also sought for him.

But he was always feared and his court remained the center of the civilized world. What stories were told about the luxury of the court, its unheard-of bursts of debauchery ! From far off it was vaguely fascinating and those who saw it closely and without illusion were dazzled.

The Due de Saint Simon Pair de France, an exact observer, and not very favorable to his king, noted in his diary for the first weeks of 1706 :

I do not know whether the misfortunes of the year just ended and the great enterprises being planned for the coming one, have not but inclined the King to the pleasures of winter as a policy to cheer his realm and show his enemies how slightly he is disturbed by their prosperity. However it came about, we were surprised to hear him announce that, beginning the first day of the year up to Lent, there would be balls held at Marly at all his appearances there. At the same time he named the men and women to dance at them and said that he would be well pleased if impromptu balls should be given at Versailles in honor of Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne. Also many balls were given for him and there were masquerades at Marly from time to time. One day the King even desired that the oldest and most serious men of his court, here at Marly, as well as the women, attend the ball, masked : he, himself, in order to do away with all exception and all restraint, came and remained throughout with a robe of gauze over his garments.

The glory of the King of France was so sparkling that he had to veil it in order not to blind his subjects. Even in the midst of trials and clouds it shone at a distance, symbol of absolute monarchy, of the divine right of kings, of Catholicism, of classic Greek art, of pagan elegance, of all this aristocratic old Roman Europe, which Boston, new and far-away, hated and feared.

The Town of Boston during Franklin’s youth, from the map of Captain Bonner {1722). According to -Bonner the city had then: “Streets 42, Lanes 36, Alleys 22. Houses near 3,000. 1,000 Brick, rest Timber. Near 12,000 People.”

A. The Old Church, 1630, the oldest in Boston.

B. The Old North Church, 1650.

C. The Old South Church, 1660, the one in which Franklin was baptized, and where as a boy he often heard Cotton Mather speak.

D. The Baptist Church, 1680.

E. The Church of England, 1688.

F. Brattle Street Church. 1699.

G. The Quaker Meeting. 1710.

K. The French Church. 1716.

L. The New North Church. 1721.

a. The Town House. The shop of Checkley and the Tavern of Richard Hall were in King Street near the Town House. The shop of James Franklin and the printing press of the New England Courant were near by in Queen Street, on the other side of the Cornhill. The jail was in Queen Street, next door.

b. The Governor’s House.

c. The South Grammar School.

g. Aim’s House.

h. Bridewell. , ,

X The house of Josiah Franklin opposite the Old South Church. Franklin was born

in this house in 1706 and lived there until 1712.

+ The house and shop of Josiah Franklin, at the ensign of the Blue Ball, where the

Franklin family lived after 1712.

.

II

There was not a more convinced Whig nor a more fervent Protestant in Boston than Josiah Franklin, tallow-chandler of Milk Street. He was a strong, energetic and skillful man who raised his numerous family with firmness and happiness. Al¬ though he had arrived but a few years before, he had acquired an estimable position in the commerce of the city. The family belonged, really, to the lower middle-class, characteristic peasants of Renaissance England. The Franklins had long been blacksmiths and farmers in their village of Ecton, North¬ amptonshire (one of the counties of central England). They had become Protestants early, at a time when it was not always without danger to admit belonging to the reformed religion. There was still to be seen in their house the large Bible fastened under the seat of a taboret, to be used at critical periods. When the seat was lifted, the Bible was turned up to the light and services were held around this strange pulpit which shut up instantly, hiding the Forbidden Book when the neighbors uttered the cry agreed upon to announce the arrival of soldiers. One of the Franklin brothers had become a solicitor and a con¬ siderable citizen in the community, but the others scarcely distinguished themselves except by their honesty, th^ al¬ terity of their fingers, their intelligence and industry. Of the nine children, three had adopted the trade of dyer, Jo n, Josiah and Benjamin. All three were established at Banbury in Oxfordshire and were married there. The most tender intimacy united Josiah and Benjamin, both of them strong¬ headed and both of whom had abandoned the Church of Eng¬ land to join the dissenters. But King Charles II, who reigned then, looked with disfavor upon the independent sectarians and Josiah, rather than drag through a difficult and dangerous life in England, came to establish himself at Boston, with his wife and three children. He left behind him Benjamin, who could hardly manage to make a fortune in England in spite of his active mind, and who was not at all happy in his home despite his good disposition. He lost his wife and all but one of his ten children. To console himself, he read the Bible, a great many sermons, some ancient philosophers, and sent letters in verse to his brother.

Josiah had not wasted his time. He established himself im¬ mediately (1685), quit the trade of dyer which was too refined for such a new city, and became a maker and seller of candles, which was a suitable trade for a city with long winters and dark taverns, and for a man blessed by heaven with a very numerous family, to help him fill the candle molds, dip the meshes and make deliveries at the various houses. Family and candles had prospered : almost every year a new child was born ; after Elizabeth (1678), Samuel (1681) ; after Samuel, Hannah (1683); after Hannah, Josiah (1685) (the voyage not having retarded the zeal of the father and mother) ; after Josiah, Joseph (1688) ; but after Joseph, Mrs. Franklin died. Josiah remarried without delay, after less than nine months had passed. His new wife was Abiah Folger, the daughter of Peter Folger of Nantucket, where the Folger family was re¬ spected for its honor, size, taciturnity and its spirit of liberal¬ ism. Abiah Folger Franklin was as good a mother as was Josiah’s first wife. She had ten children; John (1690), Peter (1692), Mary (1694), James (1697), Sarah (1699), Ebenezer (1701), Thomas (1703), Benjamin (1706), Lydia (1708), and Jane (1712), the last of all, prettiest and the favorite of her parents and her brothers.

All this little world swarmed in the house on Milk Street, which the family left in 1712 for a home on Union Street. There had been some setbacks ; three children had died at an early age, another had left home very young, attracted by the invincible fascination of the sea or the sailors. But the others remained close to their parents, a clamorous band, healthy and quarrelsome, which the father held with firm dis¬ cipline and instructed in common sense. He did not have to give them all the worldly wisdom, subtle and refined logic, extensive understanding and artistic tastes which properly be¬ longed to the upper classes, brought up by teachers under French influences. The Bible, some good preachers, the rules he had heard in his parents’ house, their remarks and those of the friends often invited to come and share their frugal repasts, — such was the substance of this instruction. Josiah devel¬ oped in his children, first, religious sense, then common sense, then a taste for work and for simplicity. Food and drink were unimportant. He taught them to despise luxury and to de¬ test frills. He sang sometimes, having a pleasant voice, and played a few simple and popular tunes on the violin. This plebeian took pride only in his rectitude and his simplicity.

His manual skill was unusual and valuable in a city where there was a lack of machinery ; his intellectual ability, which was above the average and which the Puritans appreciated, gave him a very worthy position, but he knew well that he could never be one of the great ones of this world. Between the old families, established for more than sixty years, the Clergy who maintained social preeminence, and the merchants who owed their newly acquired importance to their riches, a newcomer, not at all rich and knowing no Latin or Hebrew or fine manners, was destined to obscurity. But he was not at all unhappy. He was well thought of in the neighborhood, and for the present his position, his fortune, his wife, sufficed for him. For the future his children would be his triumph.

In New England at the commencement of the eighteenth century the difficulty was not at all in placing children, but, on the contrary, in keeping them. Everything lured them away ; the boys were drawn by the sea, by commerce, by the excite¬ ment of pushing inland. The girls in these regions, where there were more men than women, were asked in marriage continu¬ ally, especially when they were strong and pretty like the Franklin girls, Jane in particular. The only means of keeping the children was to give them a good trade which would attach them to the soil or to the city. Josiah Franklin set himself to do this.

IO

Of all his sons he preferred his tenth, Sunday’s child, Benja¬ min, a tiny fellow, plump and broad-backed, with bright eyes and a round face, who very soon showed especial intelligence. Everything that went on around him impressed him and inter¬ ested him.

And during these years Boston certainly had lessons and sights to offer to a little boy. While across the Atlantic Louis XIV fought against the whole of Europe and his armies yielded under the blows of the Duke of Marlborough, losing Spanish Flanders bit by bit in such battles as Ramillies and Oudenarde, and the fortresses of northern France surrendered one by one, in America the struggle continued doubtful and equal.

Boston had seen, in 1711, the great fleet of Sir Howenden Walker with its fifteen warships and its forty transports carry¬ ing five thousand English soldiers. In New England they had even formed two regiments to bear down upon the French and attack them at Quebec. But all had been in vain. Nothing had been accomplished and danger was always at the door.

God vented His wrath on His elected. The same year a great fire destroyed a hundred houses and deprived one hundred and ten families of their shelter. In 1714 an epidemic ravaged the city, followed by a summer of intolerable heat and a scarcity of wheat. Pious people lifted up their heads and from the height of the pulpit the old and venerable Increase Mather consoled his flock by announcing the death of “ that wicked old persecutor of God’s people, Lewis the Fourteenth.”

But the child played in front of his father’s store, admiring the gold-braided uniforms, circling the officers and listening to all remarks. He revealed already a rapid and ironic intelli¬ gence. At five years of age he was already reading the Bible, at seven he knew how to write. He was courageous, active and clever, rather than firm in his principles. His father laughed one day to hear himself advised by the young Benjamin to lose less time in giving the daily blessing, to replace it with a great general blessing pronounced once for all on the cupboard of provisions. He admired his son’s courage without blaming him when he saw him fight in the dust with his little comrades,

AN XVIIITH CENTURY RADICAL n whom he never spared the finishing blow, or swim in the river or the sea where he trained them and guided them. He rejoiced to see him take charge in the games and the expeditions.

However, he found it necessary to show anger sometimes. The day Benjamin, who was amusing himself catching the small fish left in pools of water on the beaches by the low tide, had the idea of fetching stones from a house under construction to use in building a little dike which would make it possible for his playmates to catch fish without wetting their feet, Josiah Franklin had to teach him the meaning of the seventh com¬ mandment. This caused a memorable scene.

Another day when Benjamin had been given several pennies, he devoted them to the purchase of a trifling whistle, rude and without value but which made a great deal of noise and split the heads of his parents.

They laughed at him: “So you give ten pennies for a whistle worth but two!”