Chapter IV: Franklin's Family Relations (2)

The apples are extremely welcome, and do bravely to eat
after our salt pork; the minced pies are not yet come
to hand, but I suppose we shall find them among the
things expected up from Bethlehem on Tuesday; the
capillaire is excellent, but none of us having taken
cold as yet, we have only tasted it.

Other letters of his written from Gnadenhutten testify that she missed no opportunity, so long as he was in the wilderness, to send him something better than the salt pork, to which her apples were such a brave sequel, to relieve the harsh privations of camp life for himself and his brother officers. He tells her in one of his letters that all the gentlemen send their compliments. "They drink your health at every meal, having always something on the table to put them in mind of you." Even when the Atlantic was between them, his life was kept continually refreshed by the same bountiful stream of supplies. A menu, made up of the items that she sent him, might well have softened the heart of even such a rank, swashbuckling enemy of the American Colonies as Dr. Johnson, who loved a good dinner even more than he hated the Americans. Dried venison, bacon, smoked beef, apples, cranberries, nuts, Indian and buckwheat meal, and peaches, dried with and without their skins, are all mentioned in his acknowledgments of her favors. Some of the nuts and apples he presented on one occasion to Lord and Lady Bathurst "a very great lady, the best woman in England," accompanied by a brief note which borrowed the point of its graceful pleasantry from the effort of Great Britain to tax the Colonies without their consent:

"Dr. Franklin presents his respectful compliments to Lord Bathurst, with some American nuts; and to Lady Bathurst, with some American apples; which he prays they will accept as a tribute from that country, small indeed, but _voluntary_."

Franklin's first absence from his wife in England lasted some five years, his second some ten; and such was Deborah's passionate attachment to him that it can scarcely be doubted that, if he had not, during these periods of absence, cheated himself and her from year to year with the idea that his business would soon permit him to return to Philadelphia, she would have joined him despite her aversion to the sea. This aversion was natural enough under the maritime conditions of that time; for even Franklin, whose numerous transatlantic voyages were usually attended by fair weather, and who was an uncommonly resourceful sailor, left behind him the statement that he never crossed the ocean without vowing that he would do so no more.[17] As it was, the frequently recurring expectation upon her part that a few months more would restore her husband to his home checked any thought that she may have had of making a voyage to England. There is no evidence that she ever harbored any such intention. An interesting feature of Franklin's life in England in his maturer years is the effort of his friend Strahan to induce Mrs. Franklin to come over to that country with Sally and to take up her permanent residence there with her husband. As to Sally, it began with the half jocular, half serious, proposal from Franklin to Strahan, before the former left Pennsylvania for London in 1757, that Sally, then but a mere child, and Strahan's son should make a match of it. "Please to acquaint him," Franklin asked of Strahan on one occasion, after saying that he was glad to hear so good a character of his son-in-law, "that his spouse grows finely and will probably have an agreeable person. That with the best natural disposition in the world, she discovers daily the seeds and tokens of industry, economy, and, in short, of every female virtue, which her parents will endeavour to cultivate for him." Some years later he added that Sally was indeed a very good girl, affectionate, dutiful and industrious, had one of the best hearts, and though not a wit, was, for one of her years, by no means deficient in understanding. Many years later, after time and the cares of motherhood had told on her, a keen observer, Manasseh Cutler, is so ungallant as to speak of this daughter as "a very gross and rather homely lady," but there is evidence that, even if she was never the superbly handsome woman that James Parton says she was, yet in the soft bloom of her young womanhood the prediction of her father that she would have an agreeable person was unquestionably fulfilled.

When Franklin passed over to England as the agent of the people of Pennsylvania, Strahan became so fond of him that an earnest effort to fix the whole family in England as a permanent place of residence followed almost as a matter of course, and he not only formally opened up his feelings on the subject to Franklin but indited a letter to Mrs. Franklin which he appears to have believed would prove an irresistible masterpiece of persuasive eloquence. This letter is one of the topics upon which Franklin repeatedly touches in his correspondence with Deborah. In a letter to her of January 14, 1758, he tells her that their friend Strahan had offered to lay him a considerable wager that a letter that Strahan had written would bring her immediately over to England, but that he had told Strahan that he would not pick his pocket, for he was sure that there was no inducement strong enough to prevail with her to cross the seas. Later he wrote to her, "Your Answer to Mr. Strahan was just what it should be. I was much pleas'd with it. He fancy'd his Rhetoric and Art would certainly bring you over." Finding that he was unable himself to persuade Mrs. Franklin to settle down in England, Strahan urged Franklin to try his hand, and the letter in which Franklin reports this fact to his wife makes it apparent enough that Strahan had the matter deeply at heart.

He was very urgent with me [says Franklin] to stay in
England and prevail with you to remove hither with
Sally. He propos'd several advantageous Schemes to me,
which appear'd reasonably founded. His Family is a very
agreeable one; Mrs. Strahan a sensible and good Woman,
the Children of amiable Characters, and particularly
the young Man (who is) sober, ingenious and
industrious, and a (desirable) Person. In Point of
Circumstances there can be no Objection; Mr. Strahan
being (now) living in a Way as to lay up a Thousand
Pounds every Year from the Profits of his Business,
after maintaining his Family and paying all Charges. I
gave him, however, two Reasons why I could not think of
removing hither, One, my Affection to Pennsilvania and
long established Friendships and other connections
there: The other, your invincible Aversion to crossing
the Seas. And without removing hither, I could not
think of parting with my Daughter to such a Distance. I
thank'd him for the Regard shown us in the Proposal,
but gave him no Expectation that I should forward the
Letters. So you are at liberty to answer or not, as you
think proper. Let me however know your Sentiments. You
need not deliver the Letter to Sally, if you do not
think it proper.

She did answer, but we are left to infer from a subsequent letter from Franklin to her, in which he alludes to this letter of hers, that, if Strahan was disappointed by his failure to bring about the migration of the Franklins, his disappointment was largely swallowed up in the shock experienced by his literary vanity in finding that his elaborate appeal had not drawn her over. We cannot share his disappointment, whatever it was, when we recollect that to Sally's marriage to Richard Bache we are indebted for more than one descendant of Franklin whose talents and public services have won an honorable place in the history of the nation.

It is gratifying to state that no one can read either Franklin's letters to Deborah or to other persons without feeling unqualifiedly assured that he entertained a sincere and profound affection for the good wife whose heart was for nearly fifty years fastened upon him and his every want with such solicitous tenderness. His married life was distinguished to such an eminent degree by the calm, pure flow of domestic happiness that for that reason, if for no other, we find it impossible to reconcile ourselves to the protean facility with which, in his old age, he yielded to the seductions of French love-making. The interval, to say the least, is long between the honest apples, which his own good American wife sent him from time to time, when he was in London, and the meretricious apples which Madame Brillon thought that "King John" i. e. M. Brillon might be decent enough to offer to some extent to his neighbors when they were all together in Paradise where we shall want for nothing. If one wishes fully to realize how little fettered was the mind of Franklin by local ideals and conventions and how quick it was, like the changeful face of the sea, to mirror all its external relations, one has but to read first Franklin's letters to his wife, as thoroughly Anglo-Saxon as any ever penned in an English manse, and then his letters to Madame Brillon, and the exquisite bagatelle, as thoroughly French as the Abbe Morellet's "Humble Petition presented to Madam Helvetius by her Cats," in which he told Madame Helvetius of the new connection formed by Deborah with M. Helvetius in the Elysian Fields. There is every reason to believe that Franklin's marriage vow was never dishonored during Deborah's life, lax as his conduct was before his marriage and lax as his diction at least was after her death. In the Diary from which we have already quoted quite liberally, Fisher, after narrating the extraordinary manner in which Deborah bewailed the troubles of her "Pappy," observes, "Mr. Franklin's moral character is good, and he and Mrs. Franklin live irreproachably as man and wife." Franklin's loyalty to his wife is also evidenced by a letter from Strahan to Deborah in which he uses these words:

For my own part, I never saw a man who was, in every
respect, so perfectly agreeable to me. Some are amiable
in one view, some in another, he in all. Now Madam, as
I know the ladies here consider him in exactly the same
light I do, upon my word I think you should come over,
with all convenient speed, to look after your interest;
not but that I think him as faithful to his Joan as any
man breathing; but who knows what repeated and strong
temptation may in time, and while he is at so great a
distance from you, accomplish?

This interrogatory was, perhaps, the rhetorical stroke upon which Strahan relied to give the _coup de grace_ to Mrs. Franklin's abhorrence of the sea. It was certainly calculated to set a jealous-minded wife to thinking. But it seems to have had as little effect upon Deborah as the other artifices of this masterly letter. The terms "his Joan" in it were doubtless suggested by Franklin's song, _My Plain Country Joan_, one verse of which, as good, or rather as bad, as the rest, was as follows:

"Some faults we have all, and so has my Joan,
But then they're exceedingly small;
And, now I am used, they are like my own,
I scarcely can see 'em at all,
My dear friends,
I scarcely can see 'em at all."

Another indication of the marital fidelity of which Strahan speaks is found in a letter from Franklin to Deborah after his second return from England in which he said: "I approve of your opening all my English Letters, as it must give you Pleasure to see that People who knew me there so long and so intimately, retain so sincere a Regard for me." But it would be grossly unjust to Franklin to measure the degree of his attachment to his Joan by the fact merely that he preserved inviolate the nuptial pledge which a man of honor can fairly be expected as a matter of course to observe scrupulously. Not only the lines just quoted by us but the general character of his married life demonstrates that the only thing that he ever regretted about his intercourse with Deborah was that his own censurable conduct should have made her for a time the wife of anyone but himself.

In his correspondence with his friend Catherine Ray, there are two pleasing references to Deborah.

Mrs. Franklin [one reads] was very proud, that a young
lady should have so much regard for her old husband, as
to send him such a present (a cheese). We talk of you
every time it comes to table. She is sure you are a
sensible girl, and a notable housewife, and talks of
bequeathing me to you as a legacy; but I ought to wish
you a better, and hope she will live these hundred
years; for we are grown old together, and if she has
any faults, I am so used to 'em that I don't perceive
'em; as the song says [and then, after quoting from his
_Plain Country Joan_ the stanza which we have quoted,
he adds:]. Indeed, I begin to think she has none, as I
think of you. And since she is willing I should love
you, as much as you are willing to be loved by me, let
us join in wishing the old lady a long life and a
happy.

The other reference to Deborah occurs in a letter to Miss Ray, written after Franklin's return from a recent visit to New England, in which he describes his feelings before reaching Philadelphia. "As I drew nearer," he said, "I found the attraction stronger and stronger. My diligence and speed increased with my impatience. I drove on violently, and made such long stretches, that a very few days brought me to my own house, and to the arms of my good old wife and children."

It is to Franklin's own letters to his wife, however, that we must resort to appreciate how fully he reciprocated her affection. Illiterate as her letters were, they were so full of interest to him that he seems to have re-read as well as read them. In one letter to her, for example, after his arrival in England in 1757, he tells her, "I have now gone through all your agreeable letters, which give me fresh pleasure every time I read them." And that he was quick to feel the dearth of such letters we have testimony in the form of a playful postscript to one of his letters to her of the preceding year when he was at Easton, Pennsylvania. The special messenger, he said, that had been dispatched to Philadelphia with a letter from him to her, as well as letters from other persons to their wives and sweethearts, had returned "without a scrap for poor us."

The messenger says [he continues] he left the letters
at your house, and saw you afterwards at Mr. Duche's,
and told you when he would go, and that he lodged at
Honey's, next door to you, and yet you did not write;
so let Goody Smith (a favorite servant of theirs) give
one more just judgment, and say what should be done to
you. I think I won't tell you that we are well, nor
that we expect to return about the middle of the week,
nor will I send you a word of news; that's poz.

The letter ends, "I am your _loving_ husband"; and then comes the postscript: "I have _scratched out the loving words_, being writ in haste by mistake, _when I forgot I was angry_."

His letters to her bear all the tokens of conjugal love and of a deep, tranquil domestic spirit. At times, he addresses her as "My Dear Debby," and once as "My Dear Love," but habitually as "My Dear Child." This was the form of address in the first of his published letters to her dated December 27, 1755, and in his last, dated July 22, 1774. "I am, dear girl, your loving husband," "I am, my dear Debby, your ever loving husband," are among the forms of expression with which he concludes. The topics of his letters are almost wholly personal or domestic. They illustrate very strikingly how little dependent upon intellectual congeniality married happiness is, provided that there is a mutual sense of duty, mutual respect and a real community of domestic interests.

In one of his London letters, he informs her that another French translation of his book had just been published, with a print of himself prefixed, which, though a copy of that by Chamberlin, had so French a countenance that she would take him for one of that lively nation. "I think you do not mind such things," he added, "or I would send you one."[18] To politics he rarely refers except to reassure her when uneasiness had been created in her mind by one of the reckless partisan accusations which husbands in public life soon learn to rate at their real value but their wives never do. "I am concern'd that so much Trouble should be given you by idle Reports concerning me," he says on one occasion. "Be satisfied, my dear, that while I have my Senses, and God vouchsafes me this Protection, I shall do nothing unworthy the Character of an honest Man, and one that loves his Family."

As a rule his letters to Deborah have little to say about the larger world in which he moved when he was in England. If he refers to the Royal Family, it is only to mention that the Queen had just been delivered of another Prince, the eighth child, and that there were now six princes and two princesses, all lovely children. After the repeal of the Stamp Act lifted the embargo laid by patriotic Americans on importations of clothing from England, he wrote to Deborah that he was willing that she should have a new gown, and that he had sent her fourteen yards of Pompadour satin. He had told Parliament, he stated, that, before the old clothes of the Americans were worn out, they might have new ones of their own making. "And, indeed," he added, "if they had all as many old Cloathes as your old Man has, that would not be very unlikely, for I think you and George reckon'd when I was last at home at least 20 pair of old Breeches." To his own fame and the social attentions which he received from distinguished men abroad he makes only the most meagre allusion.

The agreeable conversation I meet with among men of
learning, and the notice taken of me by persons of
distinction, are the principal things that soothe me
for the present, under this painful absence from my
family and friends. Yet those would not keep me here
another week, if I had not other inducements; duty to
my country, and hopes of being able to do it service.

Thus he wrote to his wife about four months after he arrived in England in 1757. A few weeks later, he said:

I begin to think I shall hardly be able to return
before this time twelve months. I am for doing
effectually what I came about; and I find it requires
both time and patience. You may think, perhaps, that I
can find many amusements here to pass the time
agreeable. 'Tis true, the regard and friendship I meet
with from persons of worth, and the conversation of
ingenious men, give me no small pleasure; but at this
time of life, domestic comforts afford the most solid
satisfaction, and my uneasiness at being absent from my
family, and longing desire to be with them, make me
often sigh in the midst of cheerful company.[19]

The real interest of Franklin's correspondence with his wife consists in the insight that it gives us into his private, as contrasted with his public, relations. His genius, high as it rose into the upper air of human endeavor, rested upon a solid sub-structure of ordinary stone and cement, firmly planted in the earth, and this is manifest in his family history as in everything else. The topics, with which he deals in his letters to Deborah, are the usual topics with which a kind, sensible, practical husband and householder, without any elevated aspirations of any kind, deals in his letters to his wife. There was no lack of common ground on which she and he could meet in correspondence after the last fond words addressed by him to her just before he left New York for England in 1757 had been spoken, "God preserve, guard and guide you." First of all, there was his daughter Sally to whom he was lovingly attached. In a letter to his wife, shortly before he used the valedictory words just quoted, he said: "I leave Home, and undertake this long Voyage more chearfully, as I can rely on your Prudence in the Management of my Affairs, and Education of my dear Child; and yet I cannot forbear once more recommending her to you with a Father's tenderest Concern." From this time on, during his two absences in England, Sally seems to have ever been in his thoughts. There are several references to her in one of his earliest letters to Deborah after he reached England in 1757.

I should have read Sally's French letter with more
pleasure [he said], but that I thought the French
rather too good to be all her own composing.... I send
her a French Pamela. I hear [he further said] there has
a miniature painter gone over to Philadelphia, a
relation to John Reynolds. If Sally's picture is not
done to your mind by the young man, and the other
gentleman is a good hand and follows the business,
suppose you get Sally's done by him, and send it to me
with your small picture, that I may here get all our
little family drawn in one conversation piece.

This idea was not carried out because, among other reasons, as he subsequently informed Deborah, he found that family pieces were no longer in fashion.[20] In this same letter there is a gentle caress for Sally.

Had I been well [he said], I intended to have gone
round among the shops and bought some pretty things for
you and my dear good Sally (whose little hands you say
eased your headache) to send by this ship, but I must
now defer it to the next, having only got a crimson
satin cloak for you, the newest fashion, and the black
silk for Sally; but Billy (William Franklin) sends her
a scarlet feather, muff, and tippet, and a box of
fashionable linen for her dress.

In other letters there are repeated indications of the doting persistency with which his mind dwelt upon his daughter. But the softest touch of all is at the end of one of them. After speaking of the kindness, with which Mrs. Stevenson, Polly Stevenson's mother, had looked after his physical welfare, he adds: "But yet I have a thousand times wish'd you with me, and my little Sally with her ready Hands and Feet to do, and go, and come, and get what I wanted." All these allusions to Sally are found in his letters to Deborah during his first mission to England. But little Sally was growing apace, and, when he returned to England on his second mission in 1764, there was soon to be another person with an equal, if not a superior, claim upon her helpful offices. We have already quoted from his letter to Deborah warning her against "an expensive feasting wedding." In this letter he says of Sally's fiance, Richard Bache:

I know very little of the Gentleman or his Character,
nor can I at this Distance. I hope his Expectations are
not great of any Fortune to be had with our Daughter
before our Death. I can only say, that if he proves a
good Husband to her, and a good Son to me, he shall
find me as good a Father as I can be:--but at present I
suppose you would agree with me, that we cannot do more
than fit her out handsomely in Cloaths and Furniture,
not exceeding in the whole Five Hundred Pounds, of
Value. For the rest, they must depend as you and I did,
on their own Industry and Care: as what remains in our
Hands will be barely sufficient for our Support, and
not enough for them when it comes to be divided at our
Decease.

Hardly, however, had the betrothal occurred before it was clouded by business reverses which had overtaken the prospective son-in-law. These led to a suggestion from the father that may or may not have been prompted by the thought that a temporary separation might bring about the termination of an engagement marked by gloomy auspices.

In your last letters [he wrote to Deborah], you say
nothing concerning Mr. Bache. The Misfortune that has
lately happened to his Affairs, tho' it may not lessen
his Character as an honest or a Prudent man, will
probably induce him to forbear entering hastily into a
State that must require a great Addition to his
Expence, when he will be less able to supply it. If you
think that in the meantime it will be some Amusement to
Sally to visit her Friends here (in London) and return
with me, I should have no Objection to her coming over
with Capt. Falkener, provided Mrs. Falkener comes at
the same time as is talk'd of. I think too it might be
some Improvement to her.

Poor Richard had incurred considerable risks when he selected his own mate, and, all things considered, he acquiesced gracefully enough in the betrothal of his daughter to a man of whom he knew practically nothing except circumstances that were calculated to bring to his memory many pat proverbs about the folly of imprudent marriages. If, therefore, his idea was to enlist the chilling aid of absence in an effort to bring the engagement to an end, fault can scarcely be found with him. We know from one of William Franklin's letters that the friends of the family had such misgivings about the union as to excite the anger of Deborah. The suggestion that Sally should be sent over to England did not find favor with her, and in a later letter Franklin writes to her, "I am glad that you find so much reason to be satisfy'd with Mr. Bache. I hope all will prove for the best." And all did prove for the best, as the frequency with which Richard Bache's name occurs in Franklin's will, to say nothing more, sufficiently attests. When the marriage was solemnized, Franklin's strong family affection speedily crowned it with his full approval. In due season, the fact that the contract was a fruitful one is brought to our notice by a letter from him to his wife in which he tells his "Dear Child," then his wife for nearly forty years, that he had written to Sally by Captain Falkener giving her Sir John Pringle's opinion as to the probability of Sally's son having been rendered exempt from the smallpox by inoculation. Thenceforth there is scarcely a letter from the grandfather to the grandmother in which there is not some mention made of this grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, the rabid Jeffersonian and editor of after years, whose vituperative editorials in the Aurora recall Franklin's statement in the latter part of his life that the liberty of the press ought to be attended by the ancient liberty of the cudgel. "I am glad your little Grandson," says one letter, "recovered so soon of his Illness, as I see you are quite in Love with him, and your Happiness wrapt up in his; since your whole long Letter is made up of the History of his pretty Actions." In a subsequent letter to Deborah, he passes to the boy's father, who had come over to England, where his mother and sisters resided, and was on the point of returning to Philadelphia. "Mr. Bache is about returning. His Behaviour here has been very agreeable to me. I have advis'd him to settle down to Business in Philadelphia, where I hope he will meet with Success. I mentioned to you before, that I saw his Mother and Sisters at Preston, who are genteel People, and extreamly agreeable." In the same letter, he tells Deborah that he has advised Bache to deal in the ready money way though he should sell less.

He may keep his Store [he said] in your little North
Room for the present. And as he will be at no expence
while the Family continues with you, I think he may,
with Industry and Frugality, get so forward, as at the
end of his Term, to pay his Debts and be clear of the
World, which I much wish to see. I have given him L200
Sterl'g to add something to his Cargo.

It is not long before he is writing to Deborah about "Sister Bache and her amiable Daughters." Like the commerce of material gifts, which his wife and himself kept up with each other, when separated, are the details about his godson, William Hewson, the son of his friend Polly, which he exchanges with Deborah for details about his grandson, who came to be known, it seems, as "the Little King Bird," and the "Young Hercules."

In Return for your History of your _Grandson_ [he wrote
to her on one occasion], I must give you a little of
the History of my _Godson_. He is now 21 Months old,
very strong and healthy, begins to speak a little, and
even to sing. He was with us a few Days last Week, grew
fond of me, and would not be contented to sit down to
Breakfast without coming to call _Pa_, rejoicing when
he had got me into my Place. When seeing me one Day
crack one of the Philada Biscuits into my Tea with the
Nut-crackers, he took another and try'd to do the same
with the Tea-Tongs. It makes me long to be at home to
play with Ben.

Indeed, by this time, Franklin had become such a fatuous grandfather that he ceases to call his grandson Ben and speaks of him as "Benny Boy" when he does not speak of him as "the dear boy."

In the fulness of time, Richard and Sally Bache were destined to be the parents of numerous children. When Franklin returned from his mission to France, the youngest of them soon became as devoted to him as had been Billy Hewson, or the youthful son of John Jay, whose singular attachment to him is referred to in one of his letters to Jay. In the same description, in which Manasseh Cutler speaks in such sour terms of the person of Mrs. Bache, he tells us that, when he saw her at Franklin's home in Philadelphia, she had three of her children about her, over whom she seemed to have no kind of command, but who appeared to be excessively fond of their grandpapa. Indeed, all children who were brought into close companionship with Franklin loved him, and instinctively turned to him for responsive love and sympathy. Men may be the best judges of the human intellect, but children are the best judges of the human heart.

Francis Folger, the only legitimate child of Franklin except Sally, is not mentioned in his correspondence with his wife. The colorless Franky who is was not this child. Franklin's son was born a year after the marriage of Franklin and Deborah in 1730, and died, when a little more than four years of age, and therefore long before the date of the earliest letter extant from Franklin to Deborah. Though warned but a few years previously by an epidemic of smallpox in Philadelphia, which had been accompanied by a high rate of mortality, Franklin could not make up his mind to subject the child to the hazards of inoculation. The consequence was that, when a second epidemic visited the city, Francis contracted the disease, and died. Franklin, to use his own words to his sister Jane Mecom, long regretted him bitterly, and also regretted that he had not given him the disease by inoculation.

All, who have seen my grandson [he said in another
letter to his sister] agree with you in their accounts
of his being an uncommonly fine boy, which brings often
afresh to my mind the idea of my son Franky, though now
dead thirty-six years, whom I have seldom since seen
equaled in every thing, and whom to this day I cannot
think of without a sigh.

But Sally and his grandson were far from being the only persons who furnished material for Franklin's letters to his wife. These letters also bring before us in many ways other persons connected with him and Deborah by ties of blood, service or friendship. He repeatedly sends his "duty" to his mother-in-law, Mrs. Read, and when he is informed of the death of "our good mother," as he calls her, he observes, "'Tis, I am sure, a Satisfaction to me, that I cannot charge myself with having ever fail'd in one Instance of Duty and Respect to her during the many Years that she call'd me Son." "My love to Brother John Read and Sister, and cousin Debbey, and young cousin Johnny Read, and let them all know, that I sympathize with them all affectionately," was his message to her relations in the same letter.

Some of his letters conveyed much agreeable information to Deborah about his and her English relations. Of these we shall have something to say in another connection.

"Billy," William Franklin, is mentioned in his father's letters to Deborah on many other occasions than those already cited by us; for he was his father's intimate companion during the whole of the first mission to England. He appears to have truly loved his sister, Sally, and is often mentioned in Franklin's letters to Deborah as sending Sally his love or timely gifts. If he really presented his duty to his mother half as often as Franklin reported, she had no cause to complain of his lack of attention. That her earlier feelings about him had undergone a decided change, before he went to England with his father, we may infer from one of Franklin's letters in which, in response to her "particular inquiry," he tells her that "Billy is of the Middle Temple, and will be call'd to the Bar either this Term or the next." Some seven years later, he tells her that it gave him pleasure to hear from Major Small that he had left her and Sally and "our other children" well also.

Mention of Peter, his negro servant, is also several times made in Franklin's letters to Deborah. In one letter, written when he was convalescing after a severe attack of illness, he tells Deborah that not only had his good doctor, Doctor Fothergill, attended him very carefully and affectionately, and Mrs. Stevenson nursed him kindly, but that Billy was of great service to him, and Peter very diligent and attentive. But a later letter does not give quite so favorable a view of Peter, after the latter had inhaled a little longer the free air of England.

Peter continues with me [said Franklin] and behaves as
well as I can expect, in a Country where they are many
Occasions of spoiling servants, if they are ever so
good. He has a few Faults as most of them, and I see
with only one Eye, and hear only with one Ear; so we
rub on pretty comfortably.

These words smack of the uxorious policy recommended to husbands by Poor Richard. The same letter gives us a glimpse of another negro servant, who was even more strongly disposed than Peter to act upon the statement in Cowper's _Task_ that slaves cannot breathe in England.

King, that you enquire after [says Franklin], is not
with us. He ran away from our House, near two Years
ago, while we were absent in the Country; But was soon
found in Suffolk, where he had been taken in the
Service of a Lady, that was very fond of the Merit of
making him a Christian, and contributing to his
Education and Improvement. As he was of little Use, and
often in Mischief, Billy consented to her keeping him
while we stay in England. So the Lady sent him to
School, has taught him to read and write, to play on
the Violin and French Horn, with some other
Accomplishments more useful in a Servant. Whether she
will finally be willing to part with him, or persuade
Billy to sell him to her, I know not. In the meantime
he is no Expence to us.

And that was certainly something worth noting about a servant who could play upon the French horn.

But it is of Goody Smith, the servant in the Franklin household at Philadelphia, whose judgment was invoked upon the failure of Deborah to answer her husband's letter from Easton, that mention is most often made in the portions of Franklin's letters to his wife which relate to servants. In a letter to Deborah from Easton, he expresses his obligations to Goody Smith for remembering him and sends his love to her. In another letter to Deborah, when he was on his way to Williamsburg in Virginia, he says, "my Duty to Mother, and love to Sally, Debby, Gracey, &c., not forgetting the Goodey." Subsequently, when in England, he tells Deborah:

I have order'd two large print Common Prayer Books to
be bound on purpose for you and Goodey Smith; and that
the largeness of the Print may not make them too
bulkey, the Christnings, Matrimonies, and everything
else that you and she have not immediate and constant
Occasion for, are to be omitted. So you will both of
you be repriev'd from the Use of Spectacles in Church a
little longer.

In another letter from England, Franklin mentions that he sends Deborah a pair of garters knit by Polly Stevenson who had also favored him with a pair. "Goody Smith may, if she pleases," he adds, "make such for me hereafter, and they will suit her own fat Knees. My Love to her." And love to her he sends again when he hears that she is recovering from an illness. Franklin likewise refers several times in his letters to Deborah to another servant, John, who accompanied him on his return to England in 1764, but the behavior of this servant seems to have been too unexceptionable for him to be a conspicuous figure in his master's letters. They were evidently a kind master and mistress, Franklin and Deborah. "I am sorry for the death of your black boy," he wrote to her on one occasion from London, "as you seem to have had a regard for him. You must have suffered a good deal in the fatigue of nursing him in such a distemper."

Over and over again in his letters to Deborah, Franklin approves himself a "lover of his friends" like his friend Robert Grace. He sends his love to them individually, and he sends his love to them collectively. Even during a brief absence, as when he was off on his military expedition, his letters to Deborah are sprinkled with such messages as "our Compliments to Mrs. Masters and all enquiring Friends," "My Love to Mr. Hall" (his business partner), "Give my hearty Love to all Friends," "Love to all our friends and neighbours." During another brief absence in Virginia, he sends his respects to "Mrs. Masters and all the Officers and in short to all Philadelphia." In a later letter to Deborah, written from Utrecht, the form of his concluding words on the previous occasion is made still more comprehensive. "My Love," he said, "to my dear Sally, and affectionate Regards to all Pennsylvania." In one of his letters from England, he wrote, "Pray remember me kindly to all that love us, and to all that we love. 'Tis endless to name names," and on still another occasion, in asking Deborah to thank all his friends for their favors, which contributed so much to the comfort of his voyage, he added, "I have not time to name Names: You know whom I love and honour." He had such troops of friends that he might well shrink from the weariness of naming them all. Indeed, he scarcely writes a letter to Deborah that does not bear witness to the extent and warmth of his friendships. When he left Philadelphia for England in 1757, about a dozen of his friends accompanied him as far as Trenton, but, in the letter to Deborah which informs us of this fact, he does not give us the names of any of them. This letter was written from Trenton. Mrs. Grace and "Dear Precious Mrs. Shewell," Mrs. Masters, "Mrs. Galloway & Miss," Mrs. Redman, Mrs. Graeme, Mrs. Thomson, Mrs. Story, Mrs. Bartram, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Hilborne all come in at one time, as well as other ladies whom he does not name, for his best respects, in return for friendly wishes that they had transmitted to him through Deborah. In another letter he sends his love to "our dear precious Polly Hunt and all our kind inquiring friends." Friends escorted him to Trenton when he was on his way to England in 1757, friends bestowed all sorts of gifts on him to render his voyage comfortable, Mr. Thomas Wharton even lending him a woollen gown which he found a comfortable companion in his winter passage; friends did him the honor to drink his health in the unfinished kitchen of the new house built in his absence; and friends "honored" the dining-room in this home "with their Company." When he heard of the convivial gathering in the unfinished kitchen, he wrote to Deborah, "I hope soon to drink with them in the Parlour," but there is a tinge of dissatisfaction in his observations to Deborah on the gathering in the dining-room.

It gives me Pleasure [he said] that so many of my
Friends honour'd our new Dining Room with their
Company. You tell me only of a Fault they found with
the House, that it was too little, and not a Word of
anything they lik'd in it: Nor how the Kitchen Chimneys
perform; so I suppose you spare me some Mortification,
which [he adds with a slight inflection of sarcasm] is
kind.

His dear friend, Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Wharton, Mr. Roberts, Mr. and Mrs. Duffield, Neighbor Thomson, Dr. and Mrs. Redman, Mrs. Hopkinson, Mr. Duche, Dr. Morgan and Mr. Hopkinson are other friends mentioned in a later letter of his to Deborah. In the same letter, he rejoices that his "good old Friend, Mr. Coleman, is got safe home, and continues well." Coleman, as we shall see, was one of the two friends who had come to his aid in his early manhood when he was sued and threatened with ruin by his creditors. The death of the dear, amiable Miss Ross, "our Friend Bond's heavy loss," the disorder that had befallen "our friend Kinnersley" and other kindred facts awaken his ready sympathy; presents of books, seeds and the like, as well as messages of love and respect, remind his friends how freshly green his memory of them is.

The letters have much to say, too, about the presents to Deborah and Sally which were almost incessantly crossing the outflowing currents of apples and buckwheat meal from Philadelphia. These presents are far too numerous to be all specified by us, but some perhaps it may not be amiss to recall. In one letter, he writes to Deborah that he is sending her a large case marked D. F. No. 1 and a small box marked D. F. No. 2, and that in the large case is another small box containing some English china, viz.: melons and leaves for a dessert of fruit and cream, or the like; a bowl remarkable for the neatness of the figures, made at Bow near London, some coffee cups of the same make, and a Worcester bowl, ordinary. In the same box, to show the difference of workmanship, he said, there was something from all the china works in England and one old true china basin mended of an odd color, four silver salt ladles, newest but ugliest fashion, a little instrument to core apples, another to make little turnips out of great ones and six coarse diaper breakfast cloths. The latter, he stated, were to be spread on the tea table, for nobody breakfasted in London on the naked table but on the cloth set a large tea board with the cups. In the large case were likewise some carpeting for a best room floor, and bordering to go along with it, also two large fine Flanders bed-ticks, two pair of large superfine fine blankets, two fine damask table-cloths and napkins, and forty-three ells of Ghentish sheeting Holland, all of which Deborah had ordered of him; also fifty-six yards of cotton, printed curiously from copper plates, a new invention, to make bed and window curtains, and seven yards of chair bottoms printed in the same way very neat. "These were my Fancy," Franklin remarks, "but Mrs. Stevenson tells me I did wrong not to buy both of the same Colour." In the large case, too, were seven yards of printed cotton, blue ground, to make Deborah a gown.

I bought it by Candlelight, and lik'd it then [the
letter said], but not so well afterwards. If you do not
fancy it, send it as a Present from me to sister Jenny.
There is a better Gown for you, of flower'd Tissue, 16
yards, of Mrs. Stevenson's Fancy, cost 9 Guineas; and I
think it a great Beauty. There was no more of the Sort,
or you should have had enough for a _Negligee_ or Suit.

There is also Snuffers, Snuff Stand, and Extinguisher
of Steel, which I send for the Beauty of the Work. The
Extinguisher is for Spermaceti Candles only, and is of
a new Contrivance, to preserve the Snuff upon the
Candle.

Small box No. 2 contained cut table glass of several sorts. After stating its contents, Franklin adds, "I am about buying a compleat Set of Table China, 2 Cases of silver handled Knives and Forks, and 2 pair Silver Candlesticks; but these shall keep to use here till my Return, as I am obliged sometimes to entertain polite Company."

But there is nothing in this letter equal in interest to the paragraph that brings to our mental eye the handsome, buxom figure of Deborah herself.

I forgot to mention another of my Fancyings, _viz._: a
Pair of Silk Blankets, very fine. They are of a new
kind, were just taken in a French Prize, and such were
never seen in England before: they are called Blankets,
but I think will be very neat to cover a Summer Bed,
instead of a Quilt or Counterpain. I had no Choice, so
you will excuse the Soil on some of the Folds; your
Neighbour Forster can get it off. I also forgot, among
the China, to mention a large fine Jugg for Beer, to
stand in the Cooler. I fell in Love with it at first
Sight; for I thought it look'd like a fat jolly Dame,
clean and tidy, with a neat blue and white Calico Gown
on, good natur'd and lovely, and put me, in mind
of--Somebody. It has the Coffee Cups in its Belly,[21]
pack'd in best Chrystal Salt, of a peculiar nice
Flavour, for the Table, not to be powder'd.

The receipt of such a case and box as these was doubtless an event long remembered in the Franklin home at Philadelphia. In a subsequent letter from Franklin to Deborah, the following gifts to Sally are brought to our attention:

By Capt. Lutwidge I sent my dear Girl a newest
fashion'd white Hat and Cloak, and sundry little
things, which I hope will get safe to hand. I now send
her a pair of Buckles, made of French Paste Stones,
which are next in Lustre to Diamonds. They cost three
Guineas, and are said to be cheap at that Price.

These were but a few of the many gifts that Deborah and Sally received from Franklin, when he was in London. In their relations to their own households, philosophers are frequently not unlike the ancient one, who, when told by a messenger that his house was on fire, looked up for a minute from his task to say impatiently that his wife attended to all his domestic affairs. This is not true of Franklin, who was wholly free from the crass ignorance and maladroit touch which render many husbands as much out of place in their own houses as the officious ass in AEsop's fable was in his master's dining-hall. Even the fences, the well and the vegetable garden at times are mentioned in his letters to Deborah, and his mechanical skill stood him in good stead as a householder. He knew how the carpets should be laid down, what stuff should be purchased for curtains in the blue chamber, and by what kind of hooks they should be fastened to the curtain rails, and the number of curtains at each window that the London fashions required. In one letter he gives Deborah minute instructions as to how the blue room in his Philadelphia home was to be painted and papered. In a subsequent letter, after saying that he was glad to hear that certain pictures were safe arrived at Philadelphia, he adds, "You do not tell me who mounted the great one, nor where you have hung it up."

In his relations to his home, at any rate, we can discern nothing of the lack of order, with which he was so frank in reproaching himself. During the time that he was detained in New York by Lord Loudon, he several times had occasion to send a message to his wife about something that he had left behind in his house at Philadelphia, or in his house at Woodbridge in New Jersey, and nothing could be more exact than his recollection as to just where each thing was. He writes for his best spectacles; he had left them on the table, he said, meaning at Woodbridge. In the right hand little drawer under his desk in Philadelphia was some of the Indian Lady's gut-cambric; it was to be rolled up like a ribbon, wrapt in paper and placed in the Indian seal skin hussiff, with the other things already in it, and the hussiff was to be forwarded to him. It would be an acceptable present to a gimcrack great man in London that was his friend. In certain places on his book-shelves at Woodbridge, which he precisely locates, were the _Gardener's Dictionary_, by P. Miller, and the _Treatise on Cydermaking_. They were to be delivered to Mr. Parker.

Occasional shadows, of course, fall across the happy and honored life reflected in Franklin's letters to Deborah. We cannot have the evening, however soft and still, without its fading light; or, as Franklin himself put it in one of these letters, "we are not to expect it will be always Sunshine." Strenuous and absorbing as were his public tasks during each of his missions to England; signalized as the latter were by the honors conferred on him by ancient seats of learning, and the attentions paid him by illustrious men; charming and refreshing as were his excursions for health and recreation about the British Islands and on the Continent, and his hours of social relaxation in the country houses of England, Scotland and Ireland; supplied as he was at No. 7 Craven Street with every domestic comfort that the assiduous management of Mrs. Stevenson--who even took care that his shirts should be well-aired as Deborah directed--could provide, his thoughts, now and then, as we have seen, tristfully reverted to his home on the other side of the Atlantic. Some six months after his arrival in England in 1757, he expressed the hope that, if he stayed another winter, it would be more agreeable than the greatest part of the time that he had spent in England. Some two months after his return to England in 1764, he writes to Deborah that he hopes that a few months--the few months slid into ten years--will finish affairs in England to his wish, and bring him to that retirement and repose, with his little family, so suitable to his years, and which he has so long set his heart upon. Some four years later, he wrote to Deborah: