Benjamin Franklin Part 87

[Footnote 56: _The Interest of Great Britain Considered?_]

[Footnote 57: If ever written, not extant.]

[Footnote 58: Daughter of Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, Franklin's landlady at Number Seven, Craven Street, Strand, London. Miss Mary later married Dr. Hewson (see note 77, below).]

[Footnote 59: Dr. Thomas Bray's philanthropic schemes for education of Negroes is here referred to. See E. L. Pennington's "The Work of the Bray a.s.sociates in Pennsylvania" for Franklin's connection with this work. Mr. Wm. Strahan wished to prevail on Franklin to remove permanently to England. Franklin writes to Deborah, March 5, 1760 (_Writings_, IV, 9-10), offering two reasons for his veto of Strahan's plan: "One, my Affection to Pensilvania, and long established Friends.h.i.+ps and other connections there: The other, your invincible Aversion to Crossing the Seas." The remainder of the letter indicates, however, that he was not dead to the hope that his wife would relent.]

[Footnote 60: For Franklin's friends.h.i.+p with Ingersoll consult L. H.

Gipson's _Jared Ingersoll_. _A Study of American Loyalism in Relation to British Colonial Government_ (New Haven, 1920).]

[Footnote 61: Richard ("Omniscient") Jackson (d. 1787), member of Parliament, friend of the colonial cause. See _Dictionary of National Biography_, XXIX, 104-5.]

[Footnote 62: John Hawkesworth (1715?-1773). From 1752 to 1754 he edited the _Adventurer_, aided by Johnson, Bathurst, and Wharton. Edited Swift's writings in 1755, Swift's letters in 1766, and Cook's, Byron's, Carteret's, and Wallis's _Voyages_ in 1773. (_Dictionary of National Biography_, XXV, 203-5.)]

[Footnote 63: John Stanley (1714-1786). Blind organist who composed the music for Hawkesworth's oratorio, _Zimri_ (1760); and for his _The Fall of Egypt_ (1774). (_Dictionary of National Biography_, LIV, 74-5.)]

[Footnote 64: Benjamin West (1738-1820).]

[Footnote 65: James Ralph (d. 1762); see _Dictionary of National Biography_, XLVII, 221-4. His _Night: A Poem_ (London, 1728), dedicated to the Earl of Chesterfield, is a jejune imitation of Thomson's _Seasons_. He professes himself "a bigotted Admirer of the Antients, and all their Performances" (p. 197) in _The Touch-Stone ..._ (London, 1728): "My Design was, to animadvert upon the Standard Entertainments of the present Age, in Comparison with those of Antiquity" (p. 237). He aided Fielding in bringing out _The Champion_ (1741 ff.). Hallam characterized his _History of England_ (1744-1746) as one of the best accounts of the time of Charles II. Succinct survey of Ralph in M. K.

Jackson's _Outlines of the Literary History of Colonial Pennsylvania_, 37-42.]

[Footnote 66: John Fothergill (1712-1780). See _Dictionary of National Biography_ XX, 66-8. See J. C. Lettsom's _Memoirs of John Fothergill_ (4th ed., London, 1786) for a full treatment of his friends.h.i.+p with Franklin. J. J. Abraham's _Lettsom, His Life, Times, Friends and Descendants_ (London, 1933, chap. XVIII), contains an account of the "conciliation negotiations" between Hyde and Dartmouth (representing Lord North) and Barclay and Fothergill (representing Franklin and the colonial cause). Only George III could not be persuaded. Also see R. H.

Fox, _Dr. John Fothergill and His Friends ..._ (London, 1919).

For Franklin's quarrel with the Proprietors see _Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of Our Public Affairs_ (April 12, 1764, _Writings_, IV, 226-41). A month later he writes to Wm. Strahan: "Our petty publick affairs here are in the greatest confusion, and will never, in my opinion, be composed, while the Proprietary Government subsists"

(_ibid._, IV, 246).]

[Footnote 67: His son William Franklin (1731-1813), governor of New Jersey, and wife. See _Dictionary of American Biography_, VI, 600-1.]

[Footnote 68: The barbarities of the "Paxton boys" virtually "threatened a civil war, which Franklin and others averted. This episode marks the beginnings of the predominance of the Ulster Scotch and other Calvinists in Pennsylvania affairs, replacing the old Quaker supremacy." (A.

Nevins, _The American States During and After the Revolution_, 1775-1789, New York, 1924, 12.) This uprising, suggests Mr. Nevins, may be viewed as a fragment of that "struggle between East and West, Tidewater and Uplands" which "cut in the later Colonial period across the alignment between people and Crown" (_ibid._, 11).]

[Footnote 69: Pope's translation. Franklin omits lines not essential to the thought in a particular sequence.]

[Footnote 70: From Herodotus refracted through Rabelais? See C. E.

Jorgenson's "Benjamin Franklin and Rabelais."]

[Footnote 71: For Franklin's activities in behalf of the repeal of the Stamp Act see especially _The Examination of Dr. B. F. Etc. in the British House of Commons, Relative to the Repeal of the American Stamp Act, in 1766_ (_Writings_, IV, 412-48).]

[Footnote 72: A. F. Tytler, in _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Honourable Henry Home of Kames ..._ (2d ed., Edinburgh, 1814, II, 99, 112), suggests that this letter never reached its destination, but "was in all probability intercepted." Brackets in excerpt from letter to Lord Kames, June 2, 1765, pp. 318-21 above, are the result of Smyth's collation of Tytler's and Sparks's versions.]

[Footnote 73: Sir John Pringle (1707-1782). Physician (student of Albinus and Boerhaave) whose "great work in life was the reform of military medicine and sanitation" (_Dictionary of National Biography_, XLVI, 386-8). From 1772 to 1778 he was President of the Royal Society.

In 1778 he was made one of the eight foreign members of the Academy of Sciences at Paris. Since Pringle was physician to the queen, Parton thinks it probable that he was used by Franklin "to forward to the king such papers and doc.u.ments as tended to show how loyal to his person and his throne were the vast majority of the American colonists" (_op.

cit._, I, 506). George III, having sided with Dr. Wilson who championed _blunt_ lightning rods, asked Pringle to use his influence to have the Royal Society rescind its opinion in favor of _pointed_ ones. Pringle's answer "was to the effect that duty as well as inclination would always induce him to execute his majesty's wishes to the utmost of his power: but 'Sire,' said he, 'I cannot reverse the laws and operations of nature'" (_ibid._, II, 217 note).]

[Footnote 74: The full t.i.tle of Dupont de Nemours's work is _Physiocratie, ou const.i.tution naturelle du gouvernement le plus avantageux au genre humain_. 2 vols. Leyden and Paris, 1767, 1768. Peter Templeman (1711-1769) was Secretary of the London Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce and in 1762 corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris (_Dictionary of National Biography_, LVI, 53-4). "Ami des hommes" is the Marquis de Mirabeau (1715-1789) who wrote _L'Ami des hommes, ou traite de la population_. [1756] 5th ed., Hamburg, 1760, 4 vols. The "crowning work" of the Physiocrats is Francois Quesnay's _Tableau economique_. Published by the British Economic a.s.sociation, London, 1894.

Dupont's letter of May 10, 1768, to which Franklin's is an answer, is printed in _Writings_, V, 153-4. From London (Oct. 2, 1770) Franklin writes to Dupont: "Would to G.o.d I could take with me [to America]

Messrs. du Pont, du Bourg, and some other French Friends with their good Ladies! I might then, by mixing them with my Friends in Philadelphia, form a little happy Society that would prevent my ever wis.h.i.+ng again to visit Europe" (_Writings_, V, 282). Elision marks in letter of July 28 are Franklin's own.]

[Footnote 75: John Alleyne. See his The _Legal Degrees of Marriage Stated and Considered ..._, London, 1774. The second edition (London, 1775) includes Franklin's letter to Alleyne, Appendix, pp. 1-2.]

[Footnote 76: Compare _To the Printer of the London Public Advertiser_ (August 25, 1768; _Writings_, V, 162-5): "And what are we to gain by this war, by which our trade and manufactures are to be ruined, our strength divided and diminished, our debt increased, and our reputation, as a generous nation, and lovers of liberty, given up and lost? Why, we are to convert millions of the King's loyal subjects into rebels, for the sake of establis.h.i.+ng a new claimed power in P---- to tax a distant people, whose abilities and circ.u.mstances they cannot be acquainted with, who have a const.i.tutional power of taxing themselves; who have never refused to give us voluntarily more than we can ever expect to wrest from them by force; and by our trade with whom we gain millions a year!" (_Ibid._, 164-5.)]

[Footnote 77: William Hewson (1739-1774). He was married to Miss Stevenson in 1770. Hewson received the Copley medal in 1769 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1770. (_Dictionary of National Biography_, XXVI, 312-3.)]

[Footnote 78: Daughter of Jonathan s.h.i.+pley, Bishop of St. Asaph, who wrote _A Speech Intended to have been Spoken on the Bill for Altering the Charters of the Colony of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay_. New York. Ed.

1774. (Cf. _Writings_, I, 164-6.) Urging that "the true art of government consists in NOT GOVERNING TOO MUCH" (cited in Parton, _op. cit._, I, 549), s.h.i.+pley lent sanction to colonial resistance. Franklin writes to Thomas Cus.h.i.+ng (London, Oct. 6, 1774): "The Bishop of St. Asaph's intended speech, several Copies of which I send you, and of which many Thousands have been printed and distributed here has had an extraordinary Effect, in changing the Sentiments of Mult.i.tudes with regard to America" (_Writings_, VI, 250).

Mungo was a "fine large grey Squirrel" which Deborah sent to her husband (_ibid._, VI, 16).]

[Footnote 79: Printed in _Experiments and Observations on Electricity_.

London, 1769.]

[Footnote 80: Printed in _ephemerides du Citoyen_ (edited by Dupont after 1767), periodical of the French Physiocrats; and in the _London Chronicle_ in 1766.]

[Footnote 81: J. Parton observes that this brilliant ill.u.s.tration of Franklin's use of Swiftian hoax and irony "was the nine-days' talk of the kingdom" (_op. cit._, I, 518).]

[Footnote 82: See R. M. Bache, in Bibliography. In addition, article in New York _Times_, Dec. 3, 1896, and notes in E. P. Buckley's "The Library of a Philadelphia Antiquarian," _Magazine of American History_, XXIV, 388-98 (1890). Mr. Buckley reviews the making of the prayer book; "Column after column of the calendar disappeared with a single stroke of the pen--nearly the whole of the Exhortation, a portion of the Confession, all the Absolution, nearly all the Venite, exultemus Domino.

Likewise, the Te Deum, and all the Canticle. Of the Creed all he retained was the following: 'I believe in G.o.d the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ His Son our Lord. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the forgiveness of sins, and the life everlasting, Amen'" (_ibid._, 393). Franklin collaborated with Lord Le Despencer in this work. For Franklin's own comments see _Writings_, IX, 358-9, 556.

Smyth brackets parts of the _Preface_ found in an incomplete MS draft.]

[Footnote 83: Date unknown. For history of this hoax see _Writings_, I, 179-81, and L. S. Livingston, _Benjamin Franklin's Parable against Persecution_. _With an Account of the Early Editions_ (Cambridge, Ma.s.s., 1916).]

[Footnote 84: Date unknown.]

[Footnote 85: This letter was never sent.]

[Footnote 86: A. H. Smyth thinks that the friend might have been David Hartley.]

[Footnote 87: A photostat in the W. S. Mason Collection from the Huntington Library gives the date as July 20, 1776.]

[Footnote 88: Time and place of first publication unknown. For an interesting discussion of this piece, see M. C. Tyler's _Literary History of the American Revolution_, II, 367-80. "A British magazine of 1786, says that there was then a transfer made at the Bank of England of 471,000 to Mr. Van Otten on account of the Landgrave of Hesse, for so much due for Hessian soldiers lost in the American war, at 30 a head, thus making the total number lost to be 15,700 men." (Cited in J. F.

Watson, _Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania_, Philadelphia, 1857, II, 294.)]

[Footnote 89: He writes to M. Lith (April 6, 1777); "If I were to practise giving Letters of Recommendation to Persons of whose Character I knew no more than I do of yours, my Recommendations would soon be of no Authority at all" (_Writings_, VII, 39); and to George Was.h.i.+ngton (June 13, 1777), apropos of foreign applicants for American posts: "I promise nothing" (VII, 59). In another letter (Oct. 7, 1777) he admitted that "the Numbers we refuse" are "incredible" (VII, 66). Elsewhere he confesses that "These Applications are my perpetual Torment" (VII, 81).

Consult E. Repplier, "Franklin's Trials as a Benefactor" (in Bibliography).]

[Footnote 90: This controversy evoked the following verse:

"While you, great George, for safety hunt, And sharp conductors change for blunt, The Empire's out of joint.

Franklin a wiser course pursues, And all your thunder fearless views, By keeping to the _point_."

(Cited in Parton, _op. cit._, II, 217.)]

[Footnote 91: Son of the philosopher, David Hartley. Hartley the younger (1732-1813) met Franklin about 1759. A Lord Rockingham man, he opposed the war with the colonies. He and Franklin drew up the Peace Treaty of 1783. See _Dictionary of National Biography_, XXV, 68-9.]

[Footnote 92: A. H. Smyth thinks that this dialogue was "written soon after Franklin's arrival in France" (_Writings_, VII, 82 note).]