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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

SELF-REVEALED

A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL STUDY BASED MAINLY ON HIS OWN WRITINGS

BY

WILLIAM CABELL BRUCE

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOLUME I

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
_The Knickerbocker Press_
1917

COPYRIGHT, 1917
BY
W. CABELL BRUCE

_The Knickerbocker Press, New York_




CONTENTS


                                                        PAGE

INTRODUCTION                                               1

CHAPTER

I.--FRANKLIN'S MORAL STANDING AND SYSTEM                  12

II.--FRANKLIN'S RELIGIOUS BELIEFS                         51

III.--FRANKLIN, THE PHILANTHROPIST AND CITIZEN           102

IV.--FRANKLIN'S FAMILY RELATIONS                         198

V.--FRANKLIN'S AMERICAN FRIENDS                          310

VI.--FRANKLIN'S BRITISH FRIENDS                          372

VII.--FRANKLIN'S FRENCH FRIENDS                          473




Benjamin Franklin

Self-Revealed




Introduction


In reading the life of Benjamin Franklin, the most lasting impressions left
upon the mind are those of versatility and abundance. His varied genius
lent itself without effort to the minutest details of such commonplace
things as the heating and ventilation of rooms, the correction of smoky
chimneys and naval architecture and economy. His severely practical turn of
mind was disclosed even in the devices with which he is pictured in his old
age as relieving the irksomeness of physical effort--the rolling press with
which he copied his letters, the fan which he worked with his foot in warm
weather as he sat reading, the artificial hand with which he reached the
books on the upper shelves of his library. But, sober as Franklin's genius
on this side was, it proved itself equal to some of the most exacting
demands of physical science; and above all to the sublime task, which
created such a world-wide stir, of reducing the wild and mysterious
lightning of the heavens to captivity, and bringing it down in fluttering
helplessness to the earth. It was a rare mind indeed which could give happy
expression to homely maxims of plodding thrift, and yet entertain noble
visions of universal philanthropy. The stretch between Franklin's weighty
observations on Population, for instance, and the bright, graceful
bagatelles, with which his pen occasionally trifled, was not a short one;
but it was compassed by his intellect without the slightest evidence of
halting facility. It is no exaggeration to say that this intellect was an
organ lacking in no element of power except that which can be supplied by a
profound spiritual insight and a kindling imagination alone. _The
Many-Sided Franklin_, the title of the essay by Paul Leicester Ford, is a
felicitous touch of description. The life, the mind, the character of the
man were all manifold, composite, marked by spacious breadth and freedom.
It is astonishing into how many different provinces his career can be
divided. Franklin, the Man of Business, Franklin, the Philosopher,
Franklin, the Writer, Franklin, the Statesman, Franklin, the Diplomatist,
have all been the subjects of separate literary treatment. As a man of
business, he achieved enough, when the limitations of his time and
environment are considered, to make him a notable precursor of the strong
race of self-created men, bred by the later material expansion of America.
As a scientist, his brilliant electrical discoveries gave him for a while,
as contemporary literature so strikingly evinces, a position of
extraordinary pre-eminence. As a writer, he can claim the distinction of
having composed two productions, _The Autobiography_ and _The Way to
Wealth_, which are read the world over. Of his reputation as a statesman it
is enough to remark that his signature is attached to the Declaration of
Independence, the Treaty of Alliance between the United States and France,
the Treaty of Peace between Great Britain and the United States, and the
Federal Constitution. Of his labors as a diplomatist it may be said that,
if it is true that, without the continuous assistance of France, our
independence would not have been secured, it is perhaps equally true that,
without his wisdom, tact and European prestige, we should never have
retained this assistance, so often imperilled by the jealousy and vanity of
his colleagues as well as by the usual accidents of international
intercourse. His life was like a full five-act play--prophetic prologue and
stately epilogue, and swelling scene imposed upon swelling scene, until the
tallow chandler's son, rising from the humblest levels of human fortune to
the highest by uninterrupted gradations of invincible success, finally
becomes the recipient of such a degree of impressive homage as has rarely
been paid to anyone by the admiration and curiosity of mankind.

To such a diversified career as this the element of mere longevity was, of
course, indispensable. Renown so solid and enduring as that of Franklin and
acquired in so many different fields was not a thing to be achieved by a
few fortunate strokes. He did not awake one morning, as did Byron, to find
himself famous; though his fame in the province of electrical science
travelled fast when it once got under way. Such a full-orbed renown could
be produced only by the long gestation of many years of physical vigor and
untiring activity. With the meagre opportunities afforded by colonial
conditions for the accumulation of wealth, there had to be an extended
period of unflagging attention to Poor Richard's saying: "Many a little
makes a mickle." To this period belong some things that the self-revelation
of the _Autobiography_, unselfish as it is, cannot dignify, or even redeem
from moral squalor, and other things which even the frankness itself of the
_Autobiography_ is not frank enough to