Part 1 (1/2)

Franklin.

by John Bigelow.

FRANKLIN.

Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790), one of the most eminent journalists, diplomatists, statesmen, and philosophers of his time, was born in the city of Boston, and in the colony of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, on the 17th of January 1706. He was the youngest of ten children, and the youngest son for five consecutive generations. His father, who was born at Ecton, in Northamptons.h.i.+re, England, where the family may be traced back for some four centuries, married young, and emigrated to America with three children in 1682, From his parents, who never knew any illness save that of which they died (the father at eighty and the mother at eighty-five), he inherited an excellent const.i.tution, and a good share of those heroic mental and moral qualities by which a good const.i.tution is preserved. In his eighth year Benjamin, who never could remember when he did not know how to read, was placed at school, his parents intending him for the church, That purpose, however, was soon abandoned, and in his tenth year he was taken from school to a.s.sist his father, who, though bred a dyer, had taken up, on his arrival in New England, the business of tallow-chandler and soap-boiler. The lad worked at this, to him, most distasteful business, until his twelfth year, when he was apprenticed to his elder brother .James, then just returned from England with a new printing press and fount of type, with which he proposed to establish himself in the printing business. In 1720-31 James Franklin also started a newspaper, the second that was published in America, called _The New England Courant_. Benjamin's tastes inclined him rather to intellectual than to any other kind of pleasures, and his judgment in the selection of books was excellent. At an early age he had wade himself familiar with the _Pilgrim's Progress_, with Locke _On the Understanding_, and with some odd volumes of the _Spectator_, then the literary novelty of the day, which he turned to good account in forming the style which made him what he still remains, the most uniformly readable writer of English who has yet appeared on his side of the Atlantic. His success in reproducing articles he had read some days previously in the _Spectator_ led him to try his hand upon an original article for his brother's paper, which he sent to hire anonymously. It was accepted, and attracted some attention. The experiment was repeated until Benjamin had satisfied himself that his success was not an accident, when he threw off his disguise. He thought that his brother treated him less kindly after this disclosure; but that did not prevent James from publis.h.i.+ng his paper in Benjamin's name, when, in consequence of some unfortunate paragraphs which appeared in its columns, he could only obtain his release from prison, to which the colonial a.s.sembly had condemned him, upon on that he ”would no longer print the _New England Courant_.” The relations of the two brothers, however, gradually grew so inharmonious that Benjamin determined to quit his brother's employment and leave New England. He sold some of his books, and with the proceeds, in October 1723, he found his way to the city of Philadelphia, where, 400 miles from home, at the immature age of seventeen, without an acquaintance, and with only a few pence in his pocket, he was fortunate enough to get employment with a Jew printer named Keimer. Keimer was not a man of business, and knew very little of his trade, nor had he any very competent a.s.sistants.

Franklin, who was a rapid composer, ingenious and full of resources, soon came to be recognized by the public as the master spirit of the shop, and to receive flattering attentions from prominent citizens who had had opportunities of appreciating his cleverness. Among others, Sir William Keith, the governor of the province, who may have possessed all the qualifications for his station except every one of the few which are quite indispensable to a gentleman, took him under his patronage, and proposed to start him in business for himself, and to give hint the means of going to England and purchasing the material necessary to equip a new printing office. Franklin, rather against the advice of his father, whom he revisited in Boston to consult about it, embraced the governor's proposal, took pa.s.sage for London, which he paid with his own money (the governor being more ready with excuses than coin), and on reaching London in December 1724, where he had been a.s.sured he would find a draft to cover his expenses, discovered too late that he had been the dupe of Keith, and that he must rely upon his own exertions for his daily bread. He readily found employment at Palmer's, then a famous printer in Bartholomew Close, where, and afterwards at Wall's printing house, he continued to be employed until the 33d of July 1736, when he again set sail for Philadelphia in company with a Mr Dunham, whose acquaintance he had made on his voyage out, and who tempted him back by the offer of a position as clerk in a commercial business which he proposed to establish in Philadelphia. While in London Franklin had been engaged in setting up the type of a second edition of Wollaston's _Religion of Nature_. The perusal of this work led him toy write and print a small edition of a pamphlet, which he ent.i.tled _A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Paris_. Had he deferred printing it a few years, it would probably never have been heard of, for he lived to be rather ashamed of it. It procured him, however, the acquaintance of Dr Mandeville, author of the _Fable of the Bees_, whom he described as a most facetious and entertaining companion. Only a few months after Franklin's return to Philadelphia, the death of Mr Dunham put an end to his career as a merchant. While awaiting something more favourable, he was induced by large wages to return to his old employer Keimer. This led to his making the acquaintance of a young man of the name of Meredith, whom he afterwards described as a ”Welsh Pennsylvanian, thirty years of age, bred to country work, honest, sensible, who had a great deal of solid observation, was something of a reader, but given to drink.” He was learning the printer's art, and offered to furnish the capital to establish a new printing office--his father being a man of some means--if Franklin would join him and direct the business. This proposal was accepted, the types were sent for, a house was rented at 20 a year, part of which was sublet to a glazier who was to board them, and before the expiration of a year front his return to Philadelphia, Franklin, for the first time in his life, was in business for himself.

”We had scarce opened our letters and put our press in order,” he says, ”before George House, an acquaintance of mine, brought a countryman to us whom he had met in the street inquiring for a printer. All our cash was now expended in the variety of particulars we had been obliged to procure, and this countryman's five s.h.i.+llings, being our first-fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave us more pleasure than any crown I have since earned, and the grat.i.tude I felt towards House has made me often more ready than perhaps I should otherwise leave been to a.s.sist young beginners.”

Almost simultaneously, in September 1729, he bought for a nominal price the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, a newspaper which Keimer had started nine months before to defeat a similar project of Franklin's which accidentally came to his knowledge. It had only 90 subscribers. His superior arrangement of the paper, his new type, some spirited remarks on a controversy then waging between the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sembly and Governor Burnet (a son of the celebrated Bishop Gilbert Burnet) brought his paper into immediate notice, and his success, both as a printer and as a journalist, was from that time forth a.s.sured and complete. The influence which he was enabled to exert by his pen through his paper, and by his industry and good sense, bore abundant fruit during the next seventeen years, during which he was at the head of journalism in America. In 1731 he established the first circulating library on the continent; in 1732 he published the first of the _Poor Richard's Almanacs_, a publication which was continued for twenty-five years, and attained a marvellous popularity. The annual sale was about 10,000 copies, at that time far in excess of any other publication in the colonies, and equivalent to a sale at the present time of not less than 300,000. In the next ten years he acquired a convenient familiarity with the French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin languages.

In 1736 Franklin was chosen a clerk of the general a.s.sembly, and was re-elected the following year. He was then elected a member of a.s.sembly, to which dignity he was re-elected for ten successive years, and was appointed one of the commissioners to treat with the Indians at Carlisle. In 17 37 Colonel Spotswood, then postmaster-general, appointed him deputy postmaster at Philadelphia. About this time he organized the first police force and fire company in the colonies, and a few years later initiated the movements which resulted in the foundation of the university of Pennsylvania and of the American Philosophical Society, in the organization of a militia force, in the paving of the streets, and in the foundation of a hospital; in fact, he furnished the impulse to nearly every measure or project which contemplated the welfare and prosperity of the city in which he lived. It was during this period, and in the midst of these very miscellaneous avocations, that he made the discoveries in electricity which have secured him undisputed rank among the most eminent of natural philosophers. He was the first to demonstrate that lightning and electricity were one. The Royal Society, when an account of his experiments, which had been transmitted to a scientific friend in England, was laid before it, made sport of them, and refused to print them. Through the recommendation of his friend they were printed, however, in an extra number of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, of which the publisher ultimately sold five editions. A copy chancing to fall into the hands of Buffon, he saw their value, and advised their translation and publication in France, where they immediately attracted attention. The ”Philadelphia experiments,” as they were called, were performed in the presence of the royal family in Paris, and became the sensation of the period. The Royal Society of London found it necessary to reconsider its action, published a summary of the experiments in its _Transactions_, and, as Franklin afterwards averred, more than made him amends for the slight with which it had before treated him, by electing him an honorary member, exempting him from the customary payments, and sending him for the rest of his life a copy of the _Transactions_. Since the introduction of the art of printing, it would be difficult to name any discovery which has exerted a more important influence upon the industries and habits of mankind.

In 1754 a war with France was impending, and Franklin, who by this time had become the most important man in the colony of Pennsylvania, was sent to a congress of commissioners from the different colonies, ordered by the Lords of Trade to convene at Albany, to confer with the chiefs of the Six Nations for their common defence. Franklin there submitted a plan for organizing a system of colonial defence which was adopted and reported; it provided for a president-general of all the colonies to be appointed by the crown, and a grand council to be chosen by the representatives of the people of the several colonies. The colonies so united, he thought, would be sufficiently strong to defend themselves; and there would then be no need of troops from England. Had this course been pursued, the subsequent pretence for taxing America would not have been furnished, and the b.l.o.o.d.y contest it occasioned might have been avoided. The Lords of Trade, however, feared that any such union of the colonies would reveal to them their strength; and the project of union, though accompanied with a recommendation from the governor of the province of Pennsylvania, when it was brought into the a.s.sembly, as it was during Franklin's casual absence from the hall, was rejected. This Franklin thought a mistake. ”But such mistakes,” he said, ”are not new; history is full of the errors of states and princes. Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are there fore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.” Instead of allowing the colonists to unite and defend themselves, the home Government sent over General Braddock with two regiments of regular English troops, whom the colonists were expected to maintain. The proprietaries, Thomas and Richard Penn, sons of William Penn, and the hereditary governors of the colonies, however, ”with incredible meanness,” instructed their deputies--the governors they seat out--to pa.s.s no act for levying the necessary taxes unless their vast estates were in the same act exempt. They even took bonds of their deputies to observe these instructions. The a.s.sembly finally, ”finding the proprietaries obstinately persisted in manacling their deputies with instructions inconsistent not only with the privileges of the people but with the service of the crown,”--we are quoting the language of Franklin,--”resolved to pet.i.tion the king against them,” and appointed Franklin as their agent to go to England and present their pet.i.tion. He arrived in London on the 27th July 1757, not this time as a poor printer's boy, but as a messenger to the most powerful sovereign in the world from a corporate body of some of his most loyal subjects.

Franklin lost no time, after reaching London, in waiting upon Lord Grenville, then president of the council, and held with him a conversation which he deemed of so much importance that he made a record of it immediately upon returning to his lodgings. Nor did he exaggerate its importance, for in it were the germs of the revolt and independence of the North American colonies. ”You Americans,” said Grenville, ”have wrong ideas of the nature of your const.i.tution; you contend that the king's instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion. But those instructions are not like the pocket instructions given to a minister going abroad for regulating his conduct in some trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges learned in the law; they are then considered, debated, and perhaps amended in council, after which they are signed by the king. They are then, so far as they relate to you, the _law of the land_, for the king is the legislature of the colonies.” Franklin frankly told his lords.h.i.+p that this was new doctrine,--that he understood from the colonial charters that the laws of the colonies were to be made by their a.s.semblies, approved by the king, and when once approved the king alone could neither alter nor amend them. Franklin admits that he was alarmed by this conversation, but he was not as much alarmed as he had reason to be, for it distinctly raised the issue between the king and a fraction of his people which was to require a seven years' war to decide. Franklin next sought an interview with the brothers Penn to lay before them the grievances of the a.s.sembly. Finding them entirely inaccessible to his reasonings, he supplied the material for an historical review of the controversy between the a.s.sembly and the proprietaries, which made an octavo volume of 500 pages. The success of Franklin's mission thus far was not encouraging, for he appealed to a cla.s.s largely interested in the abuses of which he complained. Meantime, Governor Denny, who had been recently sent out to the province by the proprietaries, tired of struggling with the public opinion which was surging about him in Pennsylvania, and in disregard of his instructions, a.s.sented to the pa.s.sing of laws which taxed equally the entire landed property of the province, and a.s.sumed that the a.s.sembly was the proper judge of the requirements of the people it represented. An equivalent in paper money was issued upon the faith of this tax. The proprietaries were very angry with the governor, recalled him, and threatened to prosecute him for a breach of his instructions. But they never carried their threat into execution.

The subject of ”taxing all estates,” after a careful discussion by counsel on both sides in London, was finally referred to a committee of the privy council for plantations, who reported adversely to the pet.i.tioners whom Franklin represented. Disappointed, but not discouraged, he suggested a compromise involving a personal engagement on his part that, among other things, the a.s.sembly should pa.s.s an act exempting from taxation the _unsurveyed_ waste lands of the Penn's'

estate, and secure the a.s.sessment of the surveyed waste lands at the usual rate at which other property of that description was a.s.sessed.

Upon this proposal, to the infinite disgust of the Penns, a favourable report was made, and approved by the king, George II., then within a few weeks of his death. ”Thus,” wrote Franklin, a few days later, to Lord Kames, ”the cause is at length ended, and in a great degree to our satisfaction.” Franklin's stipulation gave to the Penns nothing, in fact, which they had not always had, and therefore the a.s.sembly never pa.s.sed the superfluous act for securing it. They did, however, relieve Pennsylvania from the financial embarra.s.sments that must have followed the repeal of a money bill which had already been a year in operation, and it established the principle till then denied by the proprietaries, that their estates were subject to taxation. The success of his first foreign mission, therefore, was substantial and satisfactory.

During this sojourn of five years in England, Franklin made many valuable friends outside court and political circles, among whom the names of Hume, Robertson, and Adam Smith are conspicuous. In the spring of 1759 he received the degree of doctor of laws from the Scottish university of St Andrews. He also made active use of his marvellous and unsurpa.s.sed talent for pamphleteering. He wrote for the _Annual Register_, of which young Edmund Burke was then editor, and with whom, at a later day, he was destined to have closer relations, a paper ”On the Peopling of Countries,” traces of which may readily be discerned in the first book of The _Wealth of Nations_. In this paper Franklin combated the popular delusion that the people and wealth of the colonies were necessarily so much population and wealth abstracted from the mother country, and he estimated that the population of the colonies, by doubling once in every twenty-five years, would, at the end of a century, give a larger English population beyond the Atlantic than in England, without at all interfering with the growth of England in either direction. Franklin's conjecture, that the population of the colonies would double every twenty-five years, commended itself to the judgment of Adam Smith, who adopted it; and it has thus far been vindicated by the census.

On the 25th of October 1760 King George II. died, and his grandson ascended the throne. A clamour for peace followed. Franklin was for a vigorous prosecution of the war then pending with France, and wrote what purported to be a chapter from an old book, which he said was written by a Spanish Jesuit to all ancient king of Spain, ent.i.tled, _On the Means of disposing the Enemy to Peace_. It was ingenious and had a great effect, and, like everything Franklin wrote, is about as readable to-day as when first printed. Soon after the capture of Quebec, Franklin wrote a more elaborate paper, ent.i.tled, _The Interests of Great Britain considered with regard to her Colonies and the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadeloupe_. Its purpose was to show that, while Canada remained French, the English colonies of North America could never be safe nor peace in Europe permanent. Tradition reports that this pamphlet had great weight in determining the ministry to retain Canada, which, thanks in a large degree to his foresight and activity, is to-day one of the brightest jewels in the English crown. ”I have long been of opinion,” he wrote about this time to Lord Kames, ”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 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. Britain will become vastly more populous by the immense increase of its commerce. The Atlantic sea will be covered with your trading s.h.i.+ps; and your naval power, thence continually increasing, will extend your influence round the whole globe and awe the world.”

What Englishman can read these papers to-day without a feeling of regret that Franklin was not permitted to occupy a seat in parliament as one of the representatives of the British colonies, so that England and the world might have had the advantage in a larger measure of his rare wisdom, sagacity, and patriotism?

Franklin sailed again for America in August 1762, after an absence of five years, during which he had found an opportunity of visiting large portions of the Continent, and of acquiring information about European affairs both in and out of England, which made him more than ever an enlightened and trustworthy authority in America upon all foreign questions affecting the interests of the colonists. The peace with the proprietary government was only temporary. The question of taxing their estates had come up in a new form, and finally resulted in a pet.i.tion from the a.s.sembly drawn by Franklin himself for a charge of government for Pennsylvania. The election which took place in the fall of 1764 turned upon the issue raised in this pet.i.tion, and the proprietary party succeeded, by a majority of 28 votes out of 4000, in depriving Franklin of the seat to which he had been chosen for fourteen successive years in the provincial a.s.sembly. The victory, however, was a barren one, for no sooner did the a.s.sembly convene than it resolved again to send Franklin as its special agent to England to take charge of their pet.i.tion for a change of government, and to look after the interests of the province abroad. On the 7th of November following his defeat, he was again on his way across the Atlantic. We may as well here say at once that the pet.i.tion which he brought with him for a change of government came to nothing. Franklin presented and the Penns opposed it; but matters of so much graver consequence continually arose between 1765, when it was presented, and 1775, when the revolution began, that it was left to the final disposition of time. The Penns at last had the sagacity to sell betimes what they were not wise enough to keep. The State of Pennsylvania gave them 130,000 for their interest in its soil, and the British Government settled upon the head of the family a pension of 4000 a year.

Early in the year of 1764 Grenville, the prime minister, had sent for the agents of the American colonies resident in London, and told them that the war with France which had just terminated had left upon England a debt of 73,000,000 sterling, and that he proposed to lay a portion of this burthen upon the shoulders of the colonists by means of a stamp duty, unless the colonists could propose some other tax equally productive and less inconvenient. He directed the agents to write to their several a.s.semblies for instructions upon this point. The a.s.sembly of Pennsylvania, which expressed the sentiment of all the colonies, was decidedly of the opinion that to tax the colonies, which were already taxed beyond their strength, and which were surrounded by aboriginal enemies and exposed to constant expenditures for defence, was cruel, but to tag them by a parliament in which they were not represented was an indignity. While such was their feeling, they allowed it to be understood that they would not reject any requisition of their king for aid, and if he would only signify his needs in the usual way, the a.s.sembly would do their utmost for him. These views were summed up in a ”resolution” thus expressed: ”that, as the a.s.sembly always had, so they always should think it their duty to grant aid to the crown, according to their abilities, whenever required of them in the usual manner.” To prevent the introduction of such a bill as the ministry proposed, and which Franklin characterized as ”the mother of mischief,” he left no stone unturned, by personal intercession, by private correspondence, and through the press. At last, in despair, he, with his a.s.sociate agents, sought an interview with the minister. They found him inexorable. The Government wanted the money, and it did not wish to recognize the principle upon which the colonists resisted the Government method of obtaining it. The bill was introduced, and was promptly pa.s.sed, only 50 voting against it in the Commons, and the Lords not dividing upon it.

The sum expected from this tax being only 100,000, it was thought the colonists would soon be reconciled to it. This was evidently Franklin's hope, which he did his utmost to realize. Writing home to a friend shortly after the pa.s.sage of the Act he said, ”The tide was too strong for us. We might as well have hindered the sun's setting; but since it is down, my friend, and it may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a night of it as we can. We may still light candles.

Frugality and industry will go a great way towards indemnifying us.

Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliament.”

But when the news of the pa.s.sage of the Stamp Act reached the colonies, and its provisions came to be scanned,[1] the indiscretion of those who advised it was manifest. Meetings were held in all the colonies, where resolves were pa.s.sed unanimously to consume no more British manufactures until the hateful Act was repealed. For simply recommending a trusty person to collect the tax, Franklin himself was denounced, and his family in Philadelphia was in danger of being mobbed. The Act not only failed of its purpose in producing a revenue, but before it went into operation a formidable agitation for its repeal had already commenced.

[1] One clause of the Act provided that the Americans shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase, nor grant, nor recover debts; they shall neither marry nor make their wills unless they pay such and such sums in specie for the stamps which are to give validity to the proceedings.

Franklin testified under oath before a committee of parliament that such a tax would drain the Government of all their specie in a single year.

The succeeding session of parliament, which began in December 1765, is specially memorable for Franklin's examination before a committee of the House on the effects of the Stamp Act; for the magnificent parliamentary debut of Edmund Burke, whose speeches for the repeal, said Dr Johnson, ”filled the town with wonder;” and for the repeal of the offensive Act by a majority of 108. The first six weeks of this session were devoted to taking testimony at the bar of the house on American affairs, and especially upon the probable advantages and disadvantages of the Stamp Act. Franklin was the only one of the witnesses who lifted a voice that could be heard by posterity. Burke said the scene reminded him of a master examined by a parcel of schoolboys. George Whitfield, the great field preacher, wrote--”Our trusty friend, Dr Franklin, has gained immortal honour by his behaviour at the bar of the House. The answer was always found equal to the questioner. He stood unappalled, gave pleasure to his friends, and did honour to his country.” The examination was first published in 1767, without the name of printer or of publisher, and the following remarks upon it appeared in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for July of that year ”From this examination of Dr Franklin the reader may form a clearer and more comprehensive idea of the state and disposition of America, of the expediency or inexpediency of the measure in question, and of the character and conduct of the minister who proposed it, than from all that has been written upon the subject in newspapers and pamphlets, under the t.i.tles of essays, letters, speeches, and considerations, from the first moment of its becoming the object of public attention till now. The questions in general were put with great subtlety and judgment, and they are answered with such deep and familiar knowledge of the subject, such precision and perspicuity, such temper and yet such spirit, as do the greatest honour to Dr Franklin, and justify the general opinion of his character and abilities.”

The light thrown upon colonial affairs by Franklin's examination, more probably than all other causes combined, determined parliament to repeal the bill almost as soon as it was to have gone into operation, and immediately upon the conclusion of Franklin's examination. It was to Franklin a never-to-be-forgotten triumph. He celebrated it characteristically. ”As the Stamp Act,” he wrote to his wife, ”is at length repealed, 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 neighbours 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 woollen and linen of my wife's manufacture, that I never was prouder of my dress in my life, and that she and her daughter might do it again if it was necessary. I told the parliament that it was my opinion, before the old clothes of the Americans were worn out, they might have new ones of their own making, I have sent you a fine piece of Pompadour satin, 14 yards, cost 11s. a yard; a silk negligee and petticoat of brocaded lute string, for my dear Sally [his daughter]; with two dozen gloves, four bottles of lavender water, and two little reels.”

The news of the repeal filled the colonists with delight, and restored Franklin to their confidence and affection. From that time until the end of his days he was, on the whole, the most popular man in America.

Unhappily the repeal of the Stamp Act was a concession to the commercial interests of the mother country not to the political dogmas of the colonists. The king's party was more irritated than instructed by its defeat, and instead of surrendering any of its pretensions to tax the colonies, almost immediately brought in a bill, which was pa.s.sed, a.s.serting the absolute supremacy of parliament over the colonies, and in the succeeding parliament another bill, which also pa.s.sed, imposing duties on the paper, paints, gla.s.s, and tea imported by the colonies.

This tax was resented by the colonies with no less bitterness and determination than they had resented the Stamp Act. It conveyed sterility into their recent triumph, and aroused a feeling akin to disloyalty. It made the minor differences among the colonists disappear, and crystallized public opinion with marvellous rapidity around the principle of ”no taxation without representation,”--a principle which it was impossible to make acceptable to the king, whose old-fas.h.i.+oned notions of the royal prerogative had only been confirmed and strengthened by the irritating pertinacity of the colonists. Thus the issue was gradually made up between the mother country and its American dependencies. Each party felt that its first duty was to be firm, and that any concession would be disastrous as well as dishonourable. Such a state of feeling could terminate but in one way. It is now clear to all, as it was then clear to a few, that the pa.s.sing of the tea and paper bill, made the difference between the crown and the colonists irreconcilable, and that nothing but the death of the king could prevent a war. The nine succeeding years were spent by the contending parties in struggling for position,--the colonies becoming more indifferent to the mother country, and the mother country less disposed to put up with the pretensions of her offspring. Franklin, when he went to London in 1764, confidently expected to return in the following year; but he was not destined to leave England till ten years later, and then with the depressing suspicion that the resources of diplomacy were exhausted.

Meantime he remitted no effort to find some middle ground of conciliation. Equipped with the additional authority derived from commissions to act as the agent of the provinces of Ma.s.sachusetts, of New Jersey, and of Georgia, and with a social influence never possessed probably by any other American representative at the English court, he would doubtless have prevented the final alienation of the colonies, if such a result, under the circ.u.mstances, had been possible. But it was not. The colonists were Englishmen for the most part, and they could not be brought to make concessions which would have dishonoured them; and Franklin was not the man to ask of them such concessions. He took the position that ”the parliament had no right to make any law whatever binding the colonies; that the king, and not the king, Lords, and Commons collectively, was their sovereign; and that the king, with _their_ respective parliaments, is their only legislator.” In other words, he asked only what England has since granted to all her colonies, and what, but for the fatuous obstinacy of the king, who at this time was rather an object of commiseration than of criticism, she would undoubtedly have yielded. But under the pressure of the crown, negotiation and debate seemed rather to aggravate the differences than to remove them. The solemn pet.i.tions of the colonists to the throne were treated with neglect or derision, and their agents with contumely, and Franklin was openly insulted in the House of Lords, was deprived of his office of deputy-postmaster, and was scarcely safe from personal outrage. Satisfied that his usefulness in England was at an end, he placed his agencies in the hands of Arthur Lee, an American lawyer practising at the London bar, and on the 21st of March 1775, again set sail for Philadelphia. On reaching home his last hope of maintaining the integrity of the empire was dissipated by the news which awaited him of collisions which had occurred, some two weeks previous, between the people and the royal troops at Concord and at Lexington. He found the colonies in flagrant rebellion, and himself suddenly transformed from a peacemaker into a warmaker.

The two years which followed were among the busiest of his life. The very morning of his arrival he was elected, by the a.s.sembly of Pennsylvania, a delegate to that continental congress then sitting in Philadelphia which consolidated the armies of the colonies, placed George Was.h.i.+ngton in command of them, issued the first continental currency, and a.s.sumed the responsibility of resisting the imperial government. In this congress he served on not less than ten committees.