Chapter V: Franklin's American Friends (1)

The friends mentioned in the correspondence between Franklin and Deborah were only some of the many friends with whom Franklin was blessed during the course of his life. He had the same faculty for inspiring friendship that a fine woman has for inspiring love. In reading his general correspondence, few things arrest our attention more sharply than the number of affectionate and admiring intimates, whose lives were in one way or another interwoven with his own, and, over and over again, in reading this correspondence, our attention is unexpectedly drawn for a moment to some cherished friend of his, of whom there is scarcely a hint elsewhere in his writings.

It was from real considerations of practical convenience that he sometimes avoided the serious task of enumerating all the friends, to whom he wished to be remembered, by sending his love to "all Philadelphia" or "all Pennsylvania."

A dozen of his friends, as we have stated, accompanied him as far as Trenton, when he was on his way to New York to embark upon his first mission abroad in 1757. A cavalcade of three hundred of them accompanied him for sixteen miles to his ship, when he was on his way down the Delaware on his second mission abroad in 1764.

Remember me affectionately to all our good Friends who
contributed by their Kindness to make my Voyage
comfortable [he wrote to Deborah a little later from
London]. To Mr. Roberts, Mrs. Thompson, Mrs.
Smith, Mrs. Potts, Mrs. Shewell; Messrs.
Whartons, Capt. Falkner, Brothers & Sisters Reads &
Franklins, Cousin Davenport, and everybody.

When he returned from England in 1762, he was able to write to Strahan with a flush of pardonable exultation that he had had the happiness to find that Dr. Smith's reports of the diminutions of his friends were all false. "My house," he said, "has been full of a succession of them from morning to night, ever since my arrival, congratulating me on my return with the utmost cordiality and affection." And, several years later, when the news reached Philadelphia that he was again safely in England, the bells rang until near midnight, and libations were poured out for his health, success and every other happiness. "Even your old friend Hugh Roberts," said Cadwallader Evans, who gave this information to Franklin, "stayed with us till eleven o'clock, which you know was a little out of his common road, and gave us many curious anecdotes within the compass of your forty years acquaintance." This rejoicing, of course, was, to a considerable degree, the result of political fermentation, and, if we say nothing of other demonstrations, like the flourish of naked swords, which angered the Proprietary so deeply, and made Franklin himself feel just a little foolish, it is only because it is impossible to declare how far these demonstrations were the tributes of personal friendship rather than of public gratitude. In a letter to Doctor Samuel Johnson, of Connecticut, Franklin tells him that he will shortly print proposals for publishing the Doctor's pieces by subscription, and disperse them among his friends "along the continent." This meant much to an author, coming as it did from a man, of whom it might perhaps be said that he could have travelled all the way from Boston to Virginia without ever being at a loss for the hospitable roof of a friend to shelter him at night.

Nowhere outside of Pennsylvania did Franklin have warmer friends than in New England, the land of his birth. He fled from Boston in 1723, and returned to it on a brief visit in 1724. Aside from other occasional returns, he afterwards revisited it at regular intervals of ten years in 1733, 1743, 1753 and 1763. Many pleasant hours were spent by him among his wayside friends in New England on those postal and other journeys which took him within her borders.

I left New England slowly, and with great reluctance
[he wrote to his friend Catherine Ray, afterwards
Greene, at Block Island in 1755]. Short day's journeys,
and loitering visits on the road, for three or four
weeks, manifested my unwillingness to quit a country,
in which I drew my first breath, spent my earliest and
most pleasant days, and had now received so many fresh
marks of the people's goodness and benevolence, in the
kind and affectionate treatment I had everywhere met
with. I almost forgot I had a _home_, till I was more
than half way towards it, till I had, one by one,
parted with all my New England friends, and was got
into the western borders of Connecticut, among mere
strangers. Then, like an old man, who, having buried
all he loved in this world, begins to think of heaven,
I began to think of and wish for home.

The only drawback to the pleasure of his New England journeys was the vile roads of the time. In a letter to John Foxcroft, in the year 1773, in which he refers to a fall which Foxcroft had experienced, he says, "I have had three of those Squelchers in different Journeys, and never desire a fourth." Two of these squelchers, we know, befell him on the rough roads of New England, in the year 1763; for, in a letter from Boston to his friend Mrs. Catherine Greene (formerly Ray), of that year, he writes to her that he is almost ashamed to say that he has had another fall, and put his shoulder out. "Do you think, after this," he added, "that even your kindest invitations and Mr. Greene's can prevail with me to venture myself again on such roads?" In August of the same year, Franklin informed Strahan that he had already travelled eleven hundred and forty miles on the American Continent since April, and that he would make six hundred and forty more before he saw home. To this and other postal tours of inspection he owed in part those friends "along the continent," to whom he proposed to appeal in Dr. Johnson's behalf, as well as that unrivalled familiarity with American colonial conditions, which stands out in such clear relief in his works. On one occasion, the accidents by flood and field, to which he was exposed on his American journeys, during the colonial era, resulted in a tie, which, while not the tie of friendship, proved to his cost to be even more lasting than that tie sometimes is. When he was about forty-three years of age, a canoe, in which he was a passenger, was upset near Staten Island, while he was endeavoring to board a stage-boat bound for New York. He was in no danger, as he said to a friend forty years afterwards when recalling the incident, for, besides being near the shore, he could swim like a duck or a Bermudian. But, unfortunately for him, there was a Jew on the stage-boat who chose to believe that he had saved Franklin's life by inducing the stage-boat to stop, and take Franklin in. As far as the latter could learn, he was not more indebted to the Jew than to the Jew's fellow-passengers for being plucked from an element which he never wearied of asserting is not responsible even for bad colds, and, in return for the consideration, that he had received from the stage-boat, he dined all its passengers to their general satisfaction, when he reached New York, at "The Tavern"; but the Jew had no mind to allow the benefaction to sink out of sight for the number of the benefactors.

This Hayes [Franklin wrote to the friend, who had
forwarded to him a letter from Hayes' widow] never saw
me afterwards, at New York, or Brunswick, or Phila'da
that he did not dun me for Money on the Pretence of his
being poor, and having been so happy as to be
Instrumental in saving my Life, which was really in no
Danger. In this way he got of me some times a double
Joannes, sometimes a Spanish Doubloon, and never less;
how much in the whole I do not know, having kept no
Account of it; but it must have been a very
considerable Sum; and he never incurr'd any Risque, nor
was at any Trouble in my Behalf, I have long since
thought him well paid for any little expence of
Humanity he might have felt on the Occasion. He seems,
however, to have left me to his Widow as part of her
Dowry.

This was about as far as the kindly nature of Franklin ever went in dealing with a beggar or a bore.

In New York or New Jersey, he was little less at home than in Pennsylvania or New England. In a letter to Deborah in 1763, after telling her that he had been to Elizabeth Town, where he had found their children returned from the Falls and very well, he says, "The Corporation were to have a Dinner that day at the Point for their Entertainment, and prevail'd on us to stay. There was all the principal People & a great many Ladies."

As we shall see, the foundations of his New Jersey friendships were laid very early. In following him on his journeys through Maryland, we find him entertained at the country seats of some of the most prominent gentlemen of the Colony, as for instance at Colonel Tasker's and at Mr. Milligan's. He was several times in Virginia in the course of his life, and it is an agreeable thing to a Virginian, who recollects that a Virginian, Arthur Lee, is to be reckoned among the contentious "bird and beast" people, for whom Franklin had such a dislike, to recollect also that not only are Washington and Jefferson to be reckoned among Franklin's loyal and admiring friends, but that, after Franklin had been a few days in Virginia at Mr. Hunter's, he expressed his opinion of both the country and its people in these handsome terms: "Virginia is a pleasant Country, now in full Spring; the People extreamly obliging and polite." There can be no better corrective of the petty sectional spirit, which has been such a blemish on our national history, and has excited so much wholly unfounded and senseless local prejudice, than to note the appreciation which that open, clear-sighted eye had for all that was best in every part of the American Colonies. "There are brave Spirits among that People," he said, when he heard that the Virginia House of Burgesses had appointed its famous Committee of Correspondence for the purpose of bringing the Colonies together for their common defense. He was never in the Carolinas or Georgia, we believe, though he was for a time the Agent in England of Georgia as well as other Colonies. But he had enough friends in Charleston, at any rate, when he was on his first mission abroad, to write to his Charleston correspondent, Dr. Alexander Garden, the eminent botanist from whom Linnaeus borrowed a name for the gardenia, that he purposed, God willing, to return by way of Carolina, when he promised himself the pleasure of seeing and conversing with his friends in Charleston. And to another resident of Charleston, Dr. John Lining, several highly interesting letters of his on scientific subjects were written. For Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, his fellow-commissioner for the purpose of negotiating the treaty of peace with Great Britain, he entertained a warm feeling of esteem and good will which was fully reciprocated by Laurens. It was a just remark of Laurens that Franklin knew very well how to manage a cunning man, but that, when he conversed or treated with a man of candor, there was no man more candid than himself. For Colonel John Laurens, of South Carolina, the son of Henry Laurens, the aide to Washington, and the intrepid young soldier, who perished in one of the last conflicts of the Revolutionary War, Franklin formed a strong sentiment of affection, when Laurens came to France, at the instance of Washington, for the purpose of obtaining some additional aids from the King for the prosecution of the war. In a letter to him, signed "most affectionately yours," when Laurens was about to return to America, Franklin inclosed him an order for another hundred louis with an old man's blessing. "Take my Blessing with it," he said, "and my Prayers that God may send you safe & well home with your Cargoes. I would not attempt persuading you to quit the military Line, because I think you have the Qualities of Mind and Body that promise your doing great service & acquiring Honour in that Line."[29]

How profound was the mutual respect and affection that Washington and Franklin entertained for each other, we have seen. It is an inspiring thing to note how the words of the latter swell, as with the strains of some heroic measure, when his admiration for the great contemporary, whose services to "the glorious cause" alone exceeded his, lifts him up from the lower to the higher levels of our emotional and intellectual nature.

Should peace arrive after another Campaign or two, and
afford us a little Leisure [he wrote to Washington from
Passy, on March 5, 1780], I should be happy to see your
Excellency in Europe, and to accompany you, if my Age
and Strength would permit, in visiting some of its
ancient and most famous Kingdoms. You would, on this
side of the Sea, enjoy the great Reputation you have
acquir'd, pure and free from those little Shades that
the Jealousy and Envy of a Man's Countrymen and
Cotemporaries are ever endeavouring to cast over living
Merit. Here you would know, and enjoy, what Posterity
will say of Washington. For 1000 Leagues have nearly
the same Effect with 1000 Years. The feeble Voice of
those grovelling Passions cannot extend so far either
in Time or Distance. At present I enjoy that Pleasure
for you, as I frequently hear the old Generals of this
martial Country (who study the Maps of America, and
mark upon them all your Operations) speak with sincere
Approbation and great Applause of your conduct; and
join in giving you the Character of one of the greatest
Captains of the Age.

The caprice of future events might well have deprived these words of some of their rich cadence, but it did not, and, even the voice of cis-Atlantic jealousy and envy seems to be as impotent in the very presence of Washington, as at the distance of a thousand leagues away, when we place beside this letter the words written by Franklin to him a few years later after the surrender of Cornwallis:

All the world agree, that no expedition was ever better
planned or better executed; it has made a great
addition to the military reputation you had already
acquired, and brightens the glory that surrounds your
name, and that must accompany it to our latest
posterity. No news could possibly make me more happy.
The infant Hercules has now strangled the two serpents
(the several armies of Burgoyne and Cornwallis) that
attacked him in his cradle, and I trust his future
history will be answerable.[30]

Cordial relations of friendship also existed between Franklin and Jefferson. In their versatility, their love of science, their speculative freedom and their faith in the popular intelligence and conscience the two men had much in common. As members of the committee, that drafted the Declaration of Independence, as well as in other relations, they were brought into familiar contact with each other; and to Jefferson we owe valuable testimony touching matters with respect to which the reputation of Franklin has been assailed, and also a sheaf of capital stories, that helps us to a still clearer insight into the personal and social phases of Franklin's life and character. One of these stories is the famous story of Abbe Raynal and the Speech of Polly Baker, when she was prosecuted the fifth time for having a bastard child.

The Doctor and Silas Deane [Jefferson tells us] were in
conversation one day at Passy on the numerous errors in
the Abbe's "_Histoire des deux Indes_" when he happened
to step in. After the usual salutations, Silas Deane
said to him, "The Doctor and myself, Abbe, were just
speaking of the errors of fact into which you have been
led in your history." "Oh no, Sir," said the Abbe,
"that is impossible. I took the greatest care not to
insert a single fact, for which I had not the most
unquestionable authority." "Why," says Deane, "there is
the story of Polly Baker, and the eloquent apology you
have put into her mouth, when brought before a court of
Massachusetts to suffer punishment under a law which
you cite, for having had a bastard. I know there never
was such a law in Massachusetts." "Be assured," said
the Abbe, "you are mistaken, and that that is a true
story. I do not immediately recollect indeed the
particular information on which I quote it; but I am
certain that I had for it unquestionable authority."
Doctor Franklin, who had been for some time shaking
with unrestrained laughter at the Abbe's confidence in
his authority for that tale, said, "I will tell you,
Abbe, the origin of that story. When I was a printer
and editor of a newspaper, we were sometimes slack of
news, and to amuse our customers I used to fill up our
vacant columns with anecdotes and fables, and fancies
of my own, and this of Polly Baker is a story of my
making, on one of those occasions." The Abbe without
the least disconcert, exclaimed with a laugh, "Oh, very
well, Doctor, I had rather relate your stories than
other men's truths."

Another of Jefferson's stories, is the equally famous one of John Thompson, hatter.

When the Declaration of Independence [he says] was
under the consideration of Congress, there were two or
three unlucky expressions in it which gave offence to
some members. The words "Scotch and other foreign
auxiliaries" excited the ire of a gentleman or two of
that country. Severe strictures on the conduct of the
British King, in negativing our repeated repeals of the
law which permitted the importation of slaves, were
disapproved by some Southern gentlemen, whose
reflections were not yet matured to the full abhorrence
of that traffic. Although the offensive expressions
were immediately yielded, these gentlemen continued
their depredations on other parts of the instrument. I
was sitting by Doctor Franklin, who perceived that I
was not insensible to these mutilations. "I have made
it a rule," said he, "whenever in my power, to avoid
becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a
public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I
will relate to you. When I was a journeyman printer,
one of my companions, an apprentice hatter, having
served out his time, was about to open shop for
himself. His first concern was to have a handsome
signboard, with a proper inscription. He composed it in
these words, 'John Thompson, _Hatter, makes_ and _sells
hats_ for ready money,' with a figure of a hat
subjoined; but he thought he would submit it to his
friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to
thought the word '_Hatter_' tautologous, because
followed by the words 'makes hats' which showed he was
a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the
word '_makes_' might as well be omitted, because his
customers would not care who made the hats. If good and
to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He
struck it out. A third said he thought the words '_for
ready money_' were useless, as it was not the custom of
the place to sell on credit; everyone who purchased
expected to pay. They were parted with, and the
inscription now stood, 'John Thompson sells hats.'
'_Sells hats!_' says his next friend. 'Why nobody will
expect you to give them away; what then is the use of
that word?' It was stricken out, and '_hats_' followed
it, the rather as there was one painted on the board.
So the inscription was reduced ultimately to 'John
Thompson,' with the figure of a hat subjoined."

The next story has the same background, the Continental Congress.

I was sitting by Doctor Franklin [says Jefferson], and
observed to him that I thought we should except books
(from the obligations of the non-importation
association formed in America to bring England to
terms); that we ought not to exclude science, even
coming from an enemy. He thought so too, and I proposed
the exception, which was agreed to. Soon after it
occurred that medicine should be excepted, and I
suggested that also to the Doctor. "As to that," said
he, "I will tell you a story. When I was in London, in
such a year, there was a weekly club of physicians, of
which Sir John Pringle was President, and I was invited
by my friend Doctor Fothergill to attend when
convenient. Their rule was to propose a thesis one week
and discuss it the next. I happened there when the
question to be considered was whether physicians had,
on the whole, done most good or harm? The young
members, particularly, having discussed it very
learnedly and eloquently till the subject was
exhausted, one of them observed to Sir John Pringle,
that although it was not usual for the President to
take part in a debate, yet they were desirous to know
his opinion on the question. He said they must first
tell him whether, under the appellation of physicians,
they meant to include _old women_, if they did he
thought they had done more good than harm, otherwise
more harm than good."

This incident brings back to us, as it doubtless did to Franklin, the augurs jesting among themselves over religion.[31]

It is to be regretted that many other easy pens besides that of Jefferson have not preserved for us some of those humorous stories and parables of which Franklin's memory was such a rich storehouse. Doctor Benjamin Rush, one of his intimate friends, is said to have entertained the purpose of publishing his recollections of Franklin's table-talk. The purpose was never fulfilled, but the scraps of this talk which we find in Dr. Rush's diary are sufficient to show that, even in regard to medicine, Franklin had a stock of information and conclusions which were well worth the hearing.

As a member of the Continental Congress, Franklin was brought into close working intercourse with Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and formed a sincere sentiment of friendship for him, which was strengthened by the expedition that they made together to Canada, as two of the three commissioners appointed by Congress to win the Canadians over to the American cause. Samuel Chase, another Marylander, was the third commissioner, and the three were accompanied by John Carroll, the brother of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, whose character as a Catholic priest, it was hoped, would promote the success of the mission. On his way back to Philadelphia, in advance of his fellow-commissioners, Franklin acknowledged in grateful terms the help that he had received on his return journey from the friendly assistance and tender care of this good man, who became his firm friend, and was subsequently made the first Catholic Bishop of America upon his recommendation. William Carmichael, another Marylander, who was for a time the secretary of Silas Deane at Paris, was also one of Franklin's friends. There is a tinge of true affection about his letters to Carmichael, and the latter, in a letter written in the year 1777, while stating that Franklin's age in some measure hindered him from taking so active a part in the drudgery of business as his great zeal and abilities warranted, remarks, "He is the Master to whom we children in politics all look up for counsel, and whose name is everywhere a passport to be well received." When Carmichael was the American Secretary of Legation at Madrid, Franklin still remembered enough of his Spanish to request the former to send him the _Gazette_ of Madrid and any new pamphlets that were curious. "I remember the Maxim you mention of Charles V, _Yo y el Tiempo_," he wrote to Carmichael on one occasion, "and have somewhere met with an Answer to it in this distich,

'I and time 'gainst any two,
Chance and I 'gainst Time and you.'

"And I think the Gentlemen you have at present to deal with, would do wisely to guard a little more against certain Chances." In another letter, Franklin, referring to his "Essay on Perfumes," dedicated to the Academy of Brussels, writes to Carmichael, "You do my little Scribblings too much honour in proposing to print them; but they are at your Disposition, except the Letter to the Academy which having several English Puns in it, can not be translated, and besides has too much _grossierete_ to be borne by the polite Readers of these Nations."

It was in Pennsylvania and New England, however, so far as America was concerned, that Franklin formed the intimate friendships which led him so often to say towards the close of his life, as one old friend after another dropped through the bridge of Mirzah, that the loss of friends is the tax imposed upon us by nature for living too long.

The closest friend of his early youth was his Boston friend, John Collins. The reader has already learnt how soon religious skepticism, drinking and gambling ate out the core of this friend's character.

With his intensely social nature, Franklin had hardly found employment in Philadelphia before in his own language he began to have some acquaintance among the young people of the town, that were lovers of reading, with whom he spent his evenings very agreeably. His first group of friends in Philadelphia was formed before he left Pennsylvania for London in 1724. In his pictorial way--for the _Autobiography_ is engraved with a burin rather than written with a pen--Franklin brings the figures of this group before us with admirable distinctness. They were three in number, and all were lovers of reading. Two of them, Charles Osborne and Joseph Watson, were clerks to an eminent conveyancer in Philadelphia, Charles Brogden. The third, James Ralph, who has already been mentioned by us, was clerk to a merchant. Watson was a pious, sensible young man, of great integrity; the others were rather more lax in their principles of religion, particularly Ralph, who, as well as Collins, to quote the precise words of Franklin's confession, had been unsettled by him, "for which," he adds, "they both made me suffer."

Osborne [Franklin continues] was sensible, candid,
frank; sincere and affectionate to his friends; but, in
literary matters, too fond of criticising. Ralph was
ingenious, genteel in his manners, and extremely
eloquent; I think I never knew a prettier talker. Both
of them great admirers of poetry, and began to try
their hands in little pieces. Many pleasant walks we
four had together on Sundays into the woods, near
Schuylkill, where we read to one another, and conferr'd
on what we read.

Ralph had the most fatal of all gifts for a clever man--the gift of writing poetry tolerably well. Osborne tried to convince him that he had no genius for it, and advised him to stick to mercantile pursuits. Franklin conservatively approved the amusing one's self with poetry now and then so far as to improve one's language, but no farther.

Thus things stood when the friends proposed that each should produce at their next meeting a poetical version of the 18th Psalm. Ralph composed his version, showed it to Franklin, who admired it, and, being satisfied that Osborne's criticisms of his muse were the suggestions of mere envy, asked Franklin to produce it at the next symposium of the friends as his own. Franklin, who had a relish for practical jokes throughout his life, fell in readily with Ralph's stratagem. But we shall let a writer, whose diction is as incompressible as water, narrate what followed in his own lively way:

We met; Watson's performance was read; there were some
beauties in it, but many defects. Osborne's was read;
it was much better; Ralph did it justice; remarked some
faults, but applauded the beauties. He himself had
nothing to produce. I was backward; seemed desirous of
being excused; had not had sufficient time to correct,
etc.; but no excuse could be admitted; produce I must.
It was read and repeated; Watson and Osborne gave up
the contest, and join'd in applauding it. Ralph only
made some criticisms, and propos'd some amendments; but
I defended my text. Osborne was against Ralph, and told
him he was no better a critic than poet, so he dropt
the argument. As they two went home together, Osborne
expressed himself still more strongly in favour of what
he thought my production; having restrain'd himself
before, as he said, lest I should think it flattery.
"But who would have imagin'd," said he, "that Franklin
had been capable of such a performance, such painting,
such force, such fire! He has even improv'd the
original. In his common conversation he seems to have
no choice of words; he hesitates and blunders; and yet,
good God! how he writes!" When we next met, Ralph
discovered the trick we had plaid him, and Osborne was
a little laught at.

This transaction fixed Ralph in his resolution of
becoming a poet. I did all I could to dissuade him from
it, but he continued scribbling verses till _Pope_
cured him.[32]

Watson, we are told by Franklin, died in his arms a few years after this incident, much lamented, being the best of their set. Osborne went to the West Indies, where he became an eminent lawyer, and made money, but died young. "He and I," observes Franklin, "had made a serious agreement, that the one who happen'd first to die should, if possible, make a friendly visit to the other, and acquaint him how he found things in that separate state. But he never fulfill'd his promise."

This group of friends was succeeded on Franklin's return from London by the persons who constituted with him the original members of the Junto: Joseph Breintnal, "a copyer of deeds for the scriveners," Thos. Godfrey, the mathematical precisian, for whom Franklin had so little partiality, Nicholas Scull, "a surveyor, afterwards Surveyor-general, who lov'd books, and sometimes made a few verses," William Parsons, "bred a shoemaker, but, loving reading, had acquir'd a considerable share of mathematics, which he first studied with a view to astrology, that he afterwards laught at," William Maugridge, "a joiner, a most exquisite mechanic, and a solid, sensible man," Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb, journeymen printers, Robert Grace, "a young gentleman of some fortune, generous, lively, and witty; a lover of punning and of his friends," and William Coleman, then a merchant's clerk about Franklin's age, who had the coolest, clearest head, the best heart, and the exactest morals, Franklin declares, of almost any man he ever met with. Coleman subsequently became a merchant of great note, and a provincial judge; and the friendship between Franklin and himself continued without interruption until Coleman's death, a period of more than forty years. Like Scull, Parsons also became Surveyor-General. The reader will remember how, partly inspired by his affection for Robert Grace, and partly by resentment over a small office, Franklin applied the sharp edge of the _lex talionis_ to Jemmy Read. How both Coleman and Grace came to the aid of Franklin in an hour of dire distress, we shall see hereafter.

Such letters from Franklin to Parsons, as have survived, bear the marks of intimate friendship. In one to him, when he was in command of a company at Easton, dated December 15, 1755, in which reference is made to arms and supplies, that had been forwarded for the defence of that town against the Indians, Franklin says, "Be of good Courage, and God guide you. Your Friends will never desert you." Four of the original members of the Junto were among the first members of the Philosophical Society, established by Franklin, Parsons, as Geographer, Thomas Godfrey, as Mathematician, Coleman as Treasurer, and Franklin himself as Secretary. Parsons died during the first mission of Franklin to England, and, in a letter to Deborah the latter comments on the event in these words: "I regret the Loss of my Friend Parsons. Death begins to make Breaches in the little Junto of old Friends, that he had long forborne, and it must be expected he will now soon pick us all off one after another." In another letter, written some months later to Hugh Roberts, a member of the Junto, but not one of the original members, he institutes a kind of Plutarchian contrast between Parsons and Stephen Potts, who is described in the _Autobiography_ as a young countryman of full age, bred to country work, of uncommon natural parts, and great wit and humor, but a little idle.

Two of the former members of the Junto you tell me [he
said] are departed this life, Potts and Parsons. Odd
characters both of them. Parsons a wise man, that often
acted foolishly; Potts a wit, that seldom acted wisely.
If _enough_ were the means to make a man happy, one had
always the _means_ of happiness, without ever enjoying
the _thing_; the other had always the _thing_, without
ever possessing the _means_. Parsons, even in his
prosperity, always fretting; Potts, in the midst of his
poverty, ever laughing. It seems, then, that happiness
in this life rather depends on internals than
externals; and that, besides the natural effects of
wisdom and virtue, vice and folly, there is such a
thing as a happy or an unhappy constitution. They were
both our friends, and loved us. So, peace to their
shades. They had their virtues as well as their
foibles; they were both honest men, and that alone, as
the world goes, is one of the greatest of characters.
They were old acquaintances, in whose company I
formerly enjoyed a great deal of pleasure, and I cannot
think of losing them, without concern and regret.

The Hugh Roberts to whom this letter was written was the Hugh Roberts, who found such pleasure in the glad peal of bells, that announced the safe arrival of Franklin in England, and in his reminiscences of his friend of forty years' standing, that he quite forgot that it was his rule to be in bed by eleven o'clock. He was, if Franklin may be believed, an eminent farmer, which may account for the early hours he kept; and how near he was to Franklin the affectionate tone of this very letter abundantly testifies. After expressing his grief because of their friend Syng's loss of his son, and the hope that Roberts' own son might be in every respect as good and useful as his father (than which he need not wish him more, he said) Franklin takes Roberts gently to task for not attending the meetings of the Junto more regularly.

I do not quite like your absenting yourself from that
Good old club, the Junto. Your more frequent presence
might be a means of keeping them from being all engaged
in measures not the best for public welfare. I exhort
you, therefore, to return to your duty; and, as the
Indians say, to confirm my words, I send you a
Birmingham tile. I thought the neatness of the figures
would please you.

Even the Birmingham tile, however, did not have the effect of correcting Roberts' remissness, for in two subsequent letters Franklin returns to the same subject. In the first, he tells Roberts that he had received his letter by the hands of Roberts' son in London, and had had the pleasure withal of seeing this son grow up a solid, sensible young man. He then reverts to the Junto. "You tell me you sometimes visit the ancient Junto. I wish you would do it oftener. I know they all love and respect you, and regret your absenting yourself so much. People are apt to grow strange, and not understand one another so well, when they meet but seldom." Then follow these words which help us to see how he came to declare so confidently on another occasion that, compared with the entire happiness of existence, its occasional unhappiness is but as the pricking of a pin.

Since we have held that Club, till we are grown grey
together, let us hold it out to the End. For my own
Part, I find I love Company, Chat, a Laugh, a Glass,
and even a Song, as well as ever; and at the same Time
relish better than I used to do the grave Observations
and wise Sentences of old Men's Conversation; so that I
am sure the Junto will be still as agreeable to me as
it ever has been. I therefore hope it will not be
discontinu'd, as long as we are able to crawl together.

The second of the two letters makes still another appeal of the same nature.

I wish [Franklin said] you would continue to meet the
Junto, notwithstanding that some Effects of our publick
political Misunderstandings may sometimes appear there.
'Tis now perhaps one of the _oldest_ Clubs, as I think
it was formerly one of the _best_, in the King's
Dominions. It wants but about two years of Forty since
it was establish'd. We loved and still love one
another; we are grown Grey together, and yet it is too
early to Part. Let us sit till the Evening of Life is
spent. The Last Hours are always the most joyous. When
we can stay no longer, 'tis time enough then to bid
each other good Night, separate, and go quietly to bed.

When even the bed of death could be made to wear this smooth and peaceful aspect by such a genial conception of existence, it is not surprising that Catherine Shipley, a friend of later date, should have asked Franklin to instruct her in the art of procuring pleasant dreams. It was in this letter, too, that he told Roberts that he was pleased with his punning, not merely because he liked punning in general, but because he learned from the use of it by Roberts that he was in good health and spirits. Of Hugh Roberts it needs to be only further said that he was one of Franklin's many friends who did what they could by courteous offices, when Franklin was abroad, to testify that they loved him too much to be unmindful that he had left a family behind him entitled to their protection and social attentions. For his visits to his family Franklin sometimes thanks him.

The Philip Syng mentioned in one of the letters to Hugh Roberts was another Philadelphia crony of Franklin's. He was enough of an electrician to be several times given due credit by the unhesitating candor of Franklin for ideas which the public would otherwise, perhaps, have fathered upon Franklin himself, who was entirely too careless about his own fine feathers to have any desire for borrowed plumage.

Samuel Rhoads, also, was one of the intimate Philadelphia friends to whom Franklin was in the habit of sending his love. He, too, was an original member of the Philosophical Society established by Franklin and was set down as "Mechanician" on its roll of membership. At any rate, even if "Mechanician" was a rather pompous term for him, as "Geographer" was for William Parsons, the surveyor, he was enough of a builder to warrant Franklin in imparting to him many valuable points about the construction of houses, which were brought to the former's attention when he was abroad. A striking proof, perhaps, of the strength of the attachment between the two is found in the fact that Rhoads built the new residence, previously mentioned by us, for Franklin without a rupture in their friendship; although there appears to have been enough of the usual provoking delays to cause Franklin no little dissatisfaction.

Rhoads was a man of considerable public importance in his time. He enjoyed the distinction of being one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Hospital, a conspicuous member of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and a Mayor of Philadelphia.

He was one, too, of the Committee of the Assembly which audited Franklin's accounts as the Agent of the Colony upon the latter's return from England in 1762, and he was likewise a member of the Committee which had previously reported that the estates of the Proprietaries in Pennsylvania were not being unfairly taxed. In one of Franklin's letters to him, there is a humorous reference to Rhoads' political career. "I congratulate you," he said, "on Your Retirement, and you being able to divert yourself with farming; 'tis an inexhaustible source of perpetual Amusement. Your Country _Seat_ is of a more secure kind than _that_ in the Assembly: and I hope not so much in the Power of the Mob to jostle you out of."

A golden sentence in this letter is one of the best that Franklin ever penned. "As long as I have known the World I have observ'd that Wrong is always growing more Wrong till there is no bearing it, and that right however oppos'd, comes right at last."

Rhoads, Syng and Roberts were all three included with Luke Morris, another old friend and an _et cetera_, intended to embrace other friends besides, in a letter which Franklin wrote from Passy to Dr. Thomas Bond.

I thank you [he said] for the pleasing account you give
me of the health and welfare of my old friends, Hugh
Roberts, Luke Morris, Philip Syng, Samuel Rhoads, &c.,
with the same of yourself and family. Shake the old
ones by the hand for me, and give the young ones my
blessing. For my own part, I do not find that I grow
any older. Being arrived at seventy, and considering
that by travelling further in the same road I should
probably be led to the grave, I stopped short, turned
about, and walked back again; which having done these
four years, you may now call me sixty-six.

Dr. Thomas Bond, the Physician of the Philosophical Society established by Franklin, to whom this letter was written, was also one of Franklin's lifelong friends. He was the Doctor Bond, who found that he could make no headway with his hospital project until it was encouraged by a _ca ira_ from Franklin, something like that which he is said to have uttered many years afterwards in France when the issue of the American Revolution was uncertain. For the society of physicians and liberal-minded clergymen Franklin had a peculiar partiality. To the one class he was attracted by both the scientific and humanitarian nature of their profession, to say nothing of the incessant intercourse with their fellow creatures, which makes all physicians more or less men of the world; and to the questioning spirit of the eighteenth century he was too true not to have a natural affinity for clergymen of the latitudinarian type. The ties between Dr. Thomas Bond, Dr. John Bard and Dr. Benjamin Rush and himself were very close. He had such a high opinion of Dr. Bond's pills that on one occasion he even writes to his wife from Virginia to send him some by post. On another occasion, when he was in England, he tells Deborah to thank Dr. Bond for the care that he takes of her. In a letter to the Doctor himself, he remarks that he did not know why their school of physic in Philadelphia should not soon be equal to that in Edinburgh, an observation which seemed natural enough to later Philadelphians when it was not only considered throughout the United States a high compliment to say of a man that he was as clever as a Philadelphia lawyer, but a medical education was in a large part of the United States deemed incomplete unless it had received the finishing touch from the clinics of that city.

When Dr. John Bard removed to New York, where he became the first President of the New York Medical Society, Franklin stated in a letter to Cadwallader Colden that he esteemed Dr. Bard an ingenious physician and surgeon, and a discreet, worthy and honest man. In a letter to Dr. Bard and his wife in 1785, he used these tender words: "You are right in supposing, that I interest myself in everything that affects you and yours, sympathizing in your afflictions, and rejoicing in your felicities; for our friendship is ancient, and was never obscured by the least cloud."

Dr. Rush was such a fervid friend and admirer of Franklin that the latter found it necessary to request him, if he published his discourse on the Moral Sense, to omit totally and suppress that most extravagant encomium on his friend Franklin, which hurt him exceedingly in the unexpected hearing, and would mortify him beyond conception if it should appear from the press. The doctor replied by saying that he had suppressed the encomium, but had taken the liberty of inscribing the discourse to Franklin by a simple dedication, and earnestly insisted upon the permission of his friend to send his last as he did his first publication into the world under the patronage of his name. In the "simple" dedication, the panegyric, which had made Franklin so uncomfortable, was moderated to such an extent that no character was ascribed to him more transcendent than that of the friend and benefactor of mankind.

To Dr. Rush we are under obligations for several stories about Franklin. He tells us that, when chosen by Congress to be one of our Commissioners to France, Franklin turned to him, and remarked: "I am old and good for nothing; but, as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, 'I am but a fag end, and you may have me for what you please.'" No one doubts now that for the purpose of the French mission he was by far the best piece of goods in the shop. Another story, which came to Dr. Rush at second hand, sounds apocryphal. "Why do you wear that old coat today?" asked Silas Deane of Franklin, when they were on their way to sign the Treaty of Alliance with France. Deane referred to the coat, in which Franklin was clad, when Wedderburn made the rabid attack on him before the Privy Council, to which we shall refer later. "To give it its revenge," was the reply. Franklin may have said that, but it was not like him to say anything of the sort.

But we get back to the domain of unquestionable authenticity when we turn to Dr. Rush's account of Franklin's death-bed:

The evening of his life was marked by the same activity
of his moral and intellectual powers which
distinguished its meridian. His conversation with his
family upon the subject of his dissolution was free and
cheerful. A few days before he died, he rose from his
bed and begged that it might be made up for him so
_that he might die in a decent manner_. His daughter
told him that she hoped he would recover and live many
years longer. He calmly replied, "_I hope not._" Upon
being advised to change his position in bed, that he
might breathe easy, he said, "_A dying man can do
nothing easy._" All orders and bodies of people have
vied with each other in paying tributes of respect to
his memory.

A Philadelphia friend, for whom Franklin entertained a peculiar affection, was John Bartram, the botanist. "Our celebrated Botanist of Pennsylvania," Franklin deservedly terms him in a letter to Jan Ingenhousz. In one letter Franklin addresses him as "My ever dear friend," in another as "My good and dear old friend" and in another as "My dear good old friend." In 1751, Bartram published his _Observations on the Inhabitants, Climate, Soil, Rivers, Productions, Animals, and other Matters worthy of Notice. Made by Mr. John Bartram in his Travels from Pensilvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and the Lake Ontario, in Canada_, and, in a letter to Jared Eliot, Franklin, after mentioning the fact that Bartram corresponded with several of the great naturalists in Europe, and would be proud of an acquaintance with him, said: "I make no Apologies for introducing him to you; for, tho' a plain illiterate Man, you will find he has Merit." "He is a Man of no Letters, but a curious Observer of Nature," was his statement in a subsequent letter to the same correspondent. Through the mediation of Franklin, Bartram was made the American botanist to the King, and given a pension for the fearless and tireless search for botanical specimens, which he had prosecuted, when American forest, savannah and everglade were as full of death as the berry of the nightshade. It was the thought of what he had hazarded that led Franklin to write to him in 1769: "I wish you would now decline your long and dangerous peregrinations in search of new plants, and remain safe and quiet at home, employing your leisure hours in a work that is much wanted, and which no one besides is so capable of performing; I mean the writing a Natural History of our country." The pension meant so much to Bartram that he found difficulty in assuring himself that it would last. In one letter, Franklin tells him that he imagines that there is no doubt but the King's bounty to him would be continued, but he must continue on his part to send over now and then a few such curious seeds as he could procure to keep up his claim. In another letter, he tells him that there is no instance in the then King's reign of a pension once granted ever being taken away, unless for some great offence. Franklin himself was first of all a sower of seed, of that seed which produces the wholesome plants of benevolence and utility; so it seems quite in keeping to find him, when he was absent from America, maintaining a constant interchange of different sorts of seed with Bartram. If Bartram chooses to try the seed of naked oats and Swiss barley, six rows to one ear, he can get some, Franklin writes, by calling on Mrs. Franklin. In another letter, he acknowledges the receipt of seeds from Bartram, and, in return for it, sends him some of the true rhubarb seed which he desires; also some green dry peas, highly esteemed in England as the best for making pea soup; and also some caravances or beans, of which a cheese was made in China. Strangely enough, he could learn nothing about the seed of the lucerne or alfalfa plant, one of the oldest of forage plants, for which Bartram wrote. Later, he sends Bartram a small box of upland rice, brought from Cochin China, and also a few seeds of the Chinese tallow tree.

Another particular friend of Franklin was John Hughes of Philadelphia. This is the Hughes, out of whose debt as a correspondent Franklin, when in England, found it impossible to keep. He was a man of considerable political importance, for he served on the Committee of the Assembly, which was charged with the expenditure of the L60,000 appropriated by the Assembly, after Braddock's defeat, mainly for the defence of the Province, and on the Committee of the Assembly, which audited Franklin's accounts after his return from England in 1762; and was also one of the delegates appointed by the Assembly to confer with Teedyuscung, the King of the Delawares, at Easton in 1756. Even when Franklin, his party associate, was defeated as a candidate for re-election to the Assembly in 1764, Hughes contrived to clamber back into his own seat. The departure for England of Franklin, shortly after this election, was the signal for the most venomous of all the attacks made upon him by the class of writers which he happily termed "bug-writers"; that is, writers, to use his words, who resemble "those little dirty stinking insects, that attack us only in the dark, disturb our Repose, molesting and wounding us, while our Sweat and Blood are contributing to their Subsistence." But the friendship of Hughes was equal to the emergency. Incensed at the outrageous nature of the attack, he published a card over his signature, in which he promised that, if Chief Justice Allen, or any gentleman of character, would undertake to justify the charges against Franklin, he would pay L10 to the Hospital for every one of these charges that was established; provided that the person, who made them, would pay L5 for every false accusation against Franklin that he disproved. The assailants endeavored to turn Hughes' challenge into ridicule by an anonymous reply, but Hughes rejoined with a counter-reply above his own signature, in which, according to William Franklin, he lashed them very severely for their baseness. This brought on a newspaper controversy, which did not end, until Chief Justice Allen, who was drawn into its vortex, was enraged to find that it had cost him L25. Later, the recommendation of Hughes by Franklin, as the Stamp Distributor for Pennsylvania and the Counties of New Castle, Kent and Sussex, gave the worst shock to the popularity of the latter that it ever received. The fierce heat that colonial resentment kindled under the hateful office proved too much for even such a resolute incumbent as Hughes, but he was not long in finding a compensation in the somewhat lower temperature of the office of Collector of Customs for the Colonies, which he held until his death.