Chapter VI: Franklin's British Friends (3)

"Dr. Fothergill, who was among the best men I have known, and a great promoter of useful projects," is the way in which Franklin alludes to the Doctor in the _Autobiography_. He then states in the same connection the plan that he submitted to the Doctor for "the more effectual cleaning and keeping clean the streets of London and Westminster"; but this plan, though not unworthy of the public zeal and ingenuity of its author, is too embryonic, when contrasted with modern municipal methods, and too tamely suggestive of the broom and dust-pan of ordinary domestic housekeeping, to deserve detailed attention.

Franklin was eminently what Dr. Johnson called a "clubable" man. When in England, he often dined at the London Coffee House in Ludgate Hill with the group of scientific men and liberal clergymen, who frequented the place, and of whom he spoke on one occasion as "that excellent Collection of good Men, the Club at the _London_." He also sometimes dined at St. Paul's Coffee House and the Dog Tavern on Garlick Hill, and with the Society of Friends to the Cause of Liberty at Paul's Head Tavern, Cateaton Street, where, upon every 4th day of November, the landing of King William and the Glorious Revolution were enthusiastically toasted. When he ate or drank at a club, he liked to do so in an atmosphere of free thought and free speech. Religion, spiced with heresy, and Politics flavored with liberalism, were the kinds of religion and politics that best suited his predilections. It was at St. Paul's Coffee House that he became acquainted with Dr. Richard Price, the celebrated clergyman and economist, who was then preaching every Sunday afternoon at Newington Green, where Franklin advised Sir John Pringle to go to hear in the Doctor a preacher of _rational_ Christianity. It is probable that Sir John, in inquiring of Franklin where he could go to hear such a preacher, was moved rather by curiosity than piety; for Franklin wrote to Dr. Price: "At present I believe he has no view of attending constantly anywhere, but now and then only as it may suit his convenience."

The acquaintance between Franklin and Doctor Price, once formed, became a deeply-rooted friendship, and on Franklin's part it was accompanied by a degree of admiration for the Doctor's abilities which hurried him on one occasion into language that had little in common with the sober language in which his judgments were usually pronounced. Of Doctor Price's _Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt_, he wrote to the author in the most enthusiastic terms, "it being in my Opinion," he said, "consider'g the profound Study, & steady Application of Mind that the Work required, & the sound Judgment with which it is executed, and its great and important Utility to the Nation, the foremost Production of human Understanding, that this Century has afforded us." And to Franklin on one occasion this friend wrote that he considered his friendship one of the honors and blessings of his life.

When the American controversy arose, Dr. Price zealously espoused the cause of the Colonies, and this still further strengthened the friendship between the two. For his _Observations on Civil Liberty and the Justice and Policy of the War with America_, the City of London presented him with the freedom of the city in a gold box of fifty pounds value; and so outspoken was he in the expression of his political convictions that Franklin wrote to John Winthrop in 1777 that "his Friends, on his Acct, were under some Apprehensions from the Violence of Government, in consequence of his late excellent Publications in favour of Liberty." Indeed, so near was he to making the American cause absolutely his own that Congress, while the American War was still raging, even invited him to become an American citizen and to assist in regulating the American finances, but that was one step further than he was willing to go. In a letter to Joseph Priestley, shortly after the Battle of Bunker's Hill, Franklin makes an amusing allusion to the mathematical genius of Dr. Price which was equal to the abstrusest problems involved in the calculation of annuities.

Britain [he said], at the expense of three millions,
has killed one hundred and fifty Yankees this campaign,
which is twenty thousand pounds a head; and at Bunker's
Hill she gained a mile of ground, half of which she
lost again by our taking post on Ploughed Hill. During
the same time sixty thousand children have been born in
America. From these _data_ his (Dr. Price's)
mathematical head will easily calculate the time and
expense necessary to kill us all, and conquer our whole
territory.

Always in the American controversy, Franklin relied upon the loins as well as the hands of the Colonists for the final victory.

While mentioning Priestley, we might recall the compliment in a letter from Franklin to Dr. Price, in which the former brought the names of Priestley and Price into a highly honorable conjunction. Speaking of dissensions in the Royal Society, he said, "Disputes even on small Matters often produce Quarrels for want of knowing how to differ decently; an Art which it is said scarce anybody possesses but yourself and Dr. Priestley." Dr. Price was one of the habitues of the London Coffee House, and, in Franklin's letters to him from Passy, there are repeated references to the happy hours that the writer had spent there. "I never think of the Hours I so happily spent in that Company," he said in one letter, "without regretting that they are never to be repeated: For I see no Prospect of an End to the unhappy War in my Time." In another letter, he concluded with a heartfelt wish that he might embrace Dr. Price once more, and enjoy his sweet society in peace among his honest, worthy, ingenious friends at the _London_. In another letter, after peace was assured, he said that he longed to see and be merry with the Club, and, in a still later letter, he told Dr. Price that he might "pop" in some Thursday evening when they least expected him. In enclosing, on one occasion, to Dr. Price a copy of his Rabelaisian _jeu d'esprit_ on "Perfumes," which was intended also for the eye of Priestley, Franklin cracks an obscene joke at the expense of Priestley's famous researches with regard to gases, but, when Dr. Price states in his reply, "We have been entertained with the pleasantry of it, and the ridicule it contains," we are again reminded that the eighteenth century was not the twentieth.

Dr. Price was one of the correspondents to whom Franklin expounded his theory that England's only chance for self-reformation was to render all places unprofitable and the King too poor to give bribes and pensions.

Till this is done [he said], which can only be by a
Revolution (and I think you have not Virtue enough left
to procure one), your Nation will always be plundered,
and obliged to pay by Taxes the Plunderers for
Plundering and Ruining. Liberty and Virtue therefore
join in the call, _COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE_!

In a later letter, he returns to the same subject in these words so pregnant with meaning for a student of the political conditions which palsied the influence of Chatham and Burke in their effort to avert the American War:

As it seems to be a settled Point at present, that the
Minister must govern the Parliament, who are to do
everything he would have done; and he is to bribe them
to do this, and the People are to furnish the Money to
pay these Bribes; the Parliament appears to me a very
expensive Machine for Government, and I apprehend the
People will find out in time, that they may as well be
governed, and that it will be much cheaper to be
governed, by the Minister alone; no Parliament being
preferable to the present.

There are also some thoughtful observations in one of Franklin's letters to Dr. Price on the limited influence of Roman and Grecian oratory, as compared with the influence of the modern newspaper. "We now find," he observed, "that it is not only right to strike while the iron is hot, but that it may be very practicable to heat it by continually striking."

His last letter to Dr. Price was written less than a year before his own death. It refers to the death of the Bishop of St. Asaph's, and once more there is a mournful sigh from the Tree of Existence.

My Friends drop off one after another, when my Age and
Infirmities prevent my making new Ones [he groaned], &
if I still retained the necessary Activity and Ability,
I hardly see among the existing Generation where I
could make them of equal Goodness: So that the longer I
live I must expect to be very wretched. As we draw
nearer the Conclusion of Life, Nature furnishes with
more Helps to wean us from it, among which one of the
most powerful is the Loss of such dear Friends.

With Dr. Joseph Priestley, the famous clergyman and natural philosopher, Franklin was very intimate. The discoveries of Priestley, especially his discovery that carbonic acid gas is imbibed by vegetation, awakened Franklin's keenest interest, and, some years before Priestley actually received a medal from the Royal Society for his scientific achievements, Franklin earnestly, though vainly, endeavored to obtain one for him. "I find that you have set all the Philosophers of Europe at Work upon Fix'd Air," he said in one of his letters to Priestley, "and it is with great Pleasure I observe how high you stand in their Opinion; for I enjoy my Friend's fame as my own." And no one who knows his freedom from all petty, carking feelings of every sort, such as envy and jealousy, can doubt for a moment that he did. For a time, fixed air aroused so much speculation that it was thought that it might even be a remedy for putrid fevers and cancers. The absorption of carbonic acid gas by vegetation is all simple enough now, but it was not so simple when Priestley wrote to Franklin that he had discovered that even aquatic plants imbibe pure air, and emit it as excrementitious to them, in a dephlogisticated state. On one occasion, Franklin paid his fellow-philosopher the compliment of saying that he knew of no philosopher who started so much good game for the hunters after knowledge as he did.

For a time Priestley enjoyed the patronage of Lord Shelburne, who, desirous of having the company of a man of general learning to read with him, and superintend the education of his children, took Priestley from his congregation at Leeds, settled three hundred pounds a year upon him for ten years, and two hundred pounds for life, with a house to live in near his country seat. So Franklin stated in a letter to John Winthrop, when Priestley was engaged in the task of putting Lord Shelburne's great library into order. Subsequently patron and client separated amicably, but, before they did, Priestley consulted Franklin as to whether he should go on with the arrangement. The latter in a few judicious sentences counselled him to do so until the end of the term of ten years, and, by way of illustrating the frequent and troublesome changes, that human beings make without amendment, and often for the worse, told this story of his youth:

In my Youth, I was a Passenger in a little Sloop,
descending the River Delaware. There being no Wind, we
were obliged, when the Ebb was spent, to cast anchor,
and wait for the next. The Heat of the Sun on the
Vessel was excessive, the Company Strangers to me, and
not very agreeable. Near the river Side I saw what I
took to be a pleasant green Meadow, in the middle of
which was a large shady Tree, where it struck my Fancy
I could sit and read, (having a Book in my Pocket,) and
pass the time agreeably till the tide turned. I
therefore prevail'd with the Captain to put me ashore.
Being landed, I found the greatest part of my Meadow
was really a Marsh, in crossing which, to come at my
Tree, I was up to my knees in Mire; and I had not
placed myself under its Shade five Minutes, before the
Muskitoes in Swarms found me out, attack'd my Legs,
Hands, and Face, and made my Reading and my Rest
impossible; so that I return'd to the Beach, and
call'd for the Boat to come and take me aboard again,
where I was oblig'd to bear the Heat I had strove to
quit, and also the Laugh of the Company. Similar Cases
in the Affairs of Life have since frequently fallen
under my Observation.

Deterrent as was the advice, pointed by such a graphic story, Priestley did not take it, and, fortunately for him, the pleasant green meadow and large shady tree to which he retired did not prove such a deceptive mirage. After the separation, Lord Shelburne endeavored to induce him to renew their former relation, but he declined.

Priestley was one of the witnesses of the baiting, to which Franklin was subjected at the Cockpit, on account of the Hutchinson letters, on the famous occasion, of which it could be well said by every thoughtful Englishman a little later in the words of the ballad of Chevy-Chase,

"The child may rue that is unborne
The hunting of that day."

Or "the speaking" of that day, as Lord Campbell has parodied the lines.

Priestley was also among those eye-witnesses of the scene, who testified to the absolutely impassive countenance with which Franklin bore the ordeal. As he left the room, however, he pressed Priestley's hand in a way that indicated much feeling. The next day, they breakfasted together, and Franklin told Priestley "that, if he had not considered the thing for which he had been so much insulted, as one of the best actions of his life, and what he should certainly do again in the same circumstances, he could not have supported it."

To Priestley also the world was first indebted for knowledge of the fact that, when Franklin afterwards came to sign in France the Treaty of Alliance between that country and the United States, he took pains to wear the same suit of spotted Manchester velvet that he wore when he was treated with such indecency at the Cockpit.

From France Franklin wrote to Priestley a letter expressing the horror--for no other term is strong enough to describe the sentiment--in which he held the unnatural war between Great Britain and her revolted Colonies.

The Hint you gave me jocularly [he said], that you did
not quite despair of the Philosopher's Stone, draws
from me a Request, that, when you have found it, you
will take care to lose it again; for I believe in my
conscience, that Mankind are wicked enough to continue
slaughtering one another as long as they can find Money
to pay the Butchers. But, of all the Wars in my time,
this on the part of England appears to me the
wickedest; having no Cause but Malice against Liberty,
and the Jealousy of Commerce. And I think the Crime
seems likely to meet with its proper Punishment; a
total loss of her own Liberty, and the Destruction of
her own Commerce.

But Franklin was not too incensed to have his joke in this same letter over even such a grim subject for merriment as powder. "When I was at the camp before Boston," he declared, "the Army had not 5 Rounds of Powder a Man. This was kept a Secret even from our People. The World wonder'd that we so seldom fir'd a Cannon; we could not afford it."

Another English friend of Franklin was Benjamin Vaughan, the son of a West Indian planter, and at one time the private secretary of Lord Shelburne. His family was connected with the House of Bedford, and his wife, Sarah Manning, was an aunt of the late Cardinal Manning. To Vaughan the reputation of Franklin is doubly indebted. In 1779, he brought out a new edition of Franklin's writings, and it was partly the entreaties of Abel James and himself which induced Franklin to continue the _Autobiography_, after work on it had been long suspended by its author because of the demands of the Revolution on his time. The spirit, in which the edition of Franklin's writings was prepared, found expression in the preface. "Can _Englishmen_," Vaughan asked, "read these things and not sigh at reflecting that the _country_ which could produce their author, was once without controversy _their own_!"

Before Franklin left France he longed to pay another visit to England, and this matter is touched upon in a letter to Vaughan which sheds a sidelight upon the intimacy which existed between the two men.

By my doubts of the propriety of my going soon to
London, [he said], I meant no reflection on my friends
or yours. If I had any call there besides the pleasure
of seeing those whom I love, I should have no doubts.
If I live to arrive there, I shall certainly embrace
your kind invitation, and take up my abode with you.

Some of the sagest observations ever made by Franklin are found in his letters to Vaughan, and several of his happy stories. The following reflections, prompted by English restraints upon commerce, were not intended to be taken literally, but they contain profound insight enough to merit transcription.

It is wonderful how preposterously the affairs of this
world are managed. Naturally one would imagine, that
the interest of a few individuals should give way to
general interest; but individuals manage their affairs
with so much more application, industry, and address,
than the public do theirs, that general interest most
commonly gives way to particular. We assemble
parliaments and councils, to have the benefit of their
collected wisdom, but we necessarily have, at the same
time, the inconvenience of their collected passions,
prejudices, and private interests. By the help of
these, artful men overpower their wisdom, and dupe its
possessors; and if we may judge by the acts, _arrets_,
and edicts, all the world over, for regulating
commerce, an assembly of great men is the greatest fool
upon earth.

When Franklin sat down to write this letter, Vaughan had asked him what remedy he had for the growing luxury of his country which gave so much offence to all English travellers without exception. In replying to this rather tactless question, Franklin's pen ran on until he had completed not so much a letter as an economic essay.

Our People [he begins] are hospitable, and have indeed
too much Pride in displaying upon their Tables before
Strangers the Plenty and Variety that our Country
affords. They have the Vanity, too, of sometimes
borrowing one another's Plate to entertain more
splendidly. Strangers being invited from House to
House, and meeting every Day with a Feast, imagine what
they see is the ordinary Way of living of all the
Families where they dine; when perhaps each Family
lives a Week after upon the Remains of the Dinner
given. It is, I own, a Folly in our People to give
_such Offence to English Travellers_. The first part of
the Proverb is thereby verified, that _Fools make
Feasts_. I wish in this Case the other were as true,
_and Wise Men eat them_. These Travellers might, one
would think, find some Fault they could more decently
reproach us with, than that of our excessive Civility
to them as Strangers.

With this introduction, he proceeds to say a good word for luxury. "Is not the Hope of one day being able to purchase and enjoy Luxuries a great Spur to Labour and Industry?" he asked. And this question brought up one of the inevitable stories.

The Skipper of a Shallop, employed between Cape May and
Philadelphia, had done us some small Service, for which
he refused Pay. My Wife, understanding that he had a
Daughter sent her as a Present a new-fashioned Cap.
Three Years After, this Skipper being at my House with
an old Farmer of Cape May, his Passenger, he mentioned
the Cap, and how much his Daughter had been pleased
with it. "But," says he, "it proved a dear Cap to our
Congregation." "How so?" "When my Daughter appeared in
it at Meeting, it was so much admired, that all the
Girls resolved to get such Caps from Philadelphia, and
my Wife and I computed, that the whole could not have
cost less than a hundred Pound." "True," says the
Farmer, "but you do not tell all the Story. I think the
Cap was nevertheless an Advantage to us, for it was the
first thing that put our Girls upon Knitting worsted
Mittens for Sale at Philadelphia, that they might have
wherewithal to buy Caps and Ribbands there, and you
know that that Industry has continued, and is likely to
continue and increase to a much greater Value, and
answer better Purposes." Upon the whole, I was more
reconciled to this little Piece of Luxury, since not
only the Girls were made happier by having fine Caps,
but the Philadelphians by the Supply of warm Mittens.

Then he argues still further as follows that luxury may not always be such an evil as it seems:

A Shilling spent idly by a Fool, may be picked up by a
Wiser Person, who knows better what to do with it. It
is therefore not lost. A vain, silly Fellow builds a
fine House, furnishes it richly, lives in it
expensively, and in few years ruins himself; but the
Masons, Carpenters, Smiths, and other honest Tradesmen
have been by his Employ assisted in maintaining and
raising their Families; the Farmer has been paid for
his labour, and encouraged, and the Estate is now in
better Hands.

There were exceptional cases, of course. "If there be a Nation, for Instance, that exports its Beef and Linnen, to pay for its Importation of Claret and Porter, while a great Part of its People live upon Potatoes, and wear no Shirts, wherein does it differ from the Sot, who lets his Family starve, and sells his Clothes to buy Drink." He meant Ireland, it is needless to add. A little in this way, he confessed, was the exchange of American victuals for West Indian rum and sugar.

The existence of so much want and misery in the world, he thought, was due to the employment of men and women in works that produce neither the necessaries nor the conveniences of life. Such people, aided by those who do nothing, consume the necessaries raised by the laborious. This idea, he developed with his inborn lucidity, ending, however, of course, with the reflection that we should naturally expect from a man, who was so thoroughly in touch with his kind, that, upon the whole, the quantity of industry and prudence among mankind exceeded the quantity of idleness and folly.

This "long, rambling Letter" he called it--this "brief, pointed and masterly letter," we term it--concludes quite in the style of one of Poor Richard's dissertations:

Almost all the Parts of our Bodies require some
Expence. The Feet demand Shoes; the Legs, Stockings;
the rest of the Body, Clothing; and the Belly, a good
deal of Victuals. _Our_ Eyes, tho' exceedingly useful,
ask, when reasonable, only the cheap Assistance of
Spectacles, which could not much impair our Finances.
But _the Eyes of other People_ are the Eyes that ruin
us. If all but myself were blind, I should want neither
fine Clothes, fine Houses, nor fine Furniture.

Another letter to Vaughan is really an essay on the Criminal Laws and the practice of privateering. And a wise, humane and sprightly essay it is, fully worthy of a man, who was entirely too far in advance of his age to approve the savage English laws, which hanged a thief for stealing a horse, and had no better answer to make to the culprit, when he pleaded that it was hard to hang a man for _only_ stealing a horse, than the reply of Judge Burnet: "Man, thou art not to be hanged _only_ for stealing, but that horses may not be stolen." Not unworthy either was this essay of a man whose benevolence was too clear-sighted and generous to be cheated by the pretence that the practice of privateering has its root in anything better than the rapacity of the highwayman. A highwayman, he said, was as much a robber, when he plundered in a gang, as when single; and a nation, that made an unjust war, was only a great gang. How could England, which had commissioned no less than seven hundred gangs of privateering robbers, he asked, have the face to condemn the crime of robbery in individuals, and hang up twenty criminals in a morning. It naturally put one in mind of a Newgate anecdote. "One of the Prisoners complain'd, that in the Night somebody had taken his Buckles out of his Shoes; 'What, the Devil!' says another, 'have we then _Thieves_ among us? It must not be suffered, let us search out the Rogue, and pump him to death."

Vaughan was a prolix correspondent, and in reading his letters we cannot but be reminded at times of the question put to him by Franklin, when inveighing against the artifices adopted by booksellers for the purpose of padding books. After remarking that they were puffed up to such an extent that the selling of paper seemed the object, and printing on it, only the pretence, he said, "You have a law, I think, against butchers blowing of veal to make it look fatter; why not one against booksellers' blowing of books to make them look bigger."

Vaughan was among the friends who did not fail to hasten to Southampton when Franklin touched there on his return from France to America.

In what affectionate esteem Franklin held his two English friends, Dr. John Hawkesworth, the author and writer of oratorios, and John Stanley, the blind musician and organist of the Society of the Inner Temple, we have already seen. Stanley composed the music for Dr. Hawkesworth's oratorios _Zimri_ and _The Fall of Egypt_, and like music and words the two friends themselves were blended in the mind of Franklin. Writing in the latter years of his life to another English friend of his, Thomas Jordan, the brewer, who had recently sent him a cask of porter, he had this to say about them, in connection with the two satellites of Georgium Sidus, which Herschel had just discovered.

Let us hope, my friend, that, when free from these
bodily embarrassments, we may roam together through
some of the systems he has explored, conducted by some
of our old companions already acquainted with them.
Hawkesworth will enliven our progress with his
cheerful, sensible converse, and Stanley accompany the
music of the spheres.

Several times, in his letter, Franklin refers to Hawkesworth as the "good Doctor Hawkesworth," and it was from him that he learned to call Strahan "Straney."

Another English friend of Franklin was John Sargent, a London merchant, a director of the Bank of England, and a member of Parliament. The friendship was shared by Mrs. Sargent, "whom I love very much," Franklin said in one of his letters to her husband. After his return from his second mission to England, he wrote to Sargent, asking him to receive the balance due him by Messrs. Browns and Collinson, and keep it for him or his children. "It may possibly," he declared, "soon be all I shall have left: as my American Property consists chiefly of Houses in our Seaport Towns, which your Ministry have begun to burn, and I suppose are wicked enough to burn them all." In connection with Sargent, it may also be mentioned that he was one of the applicants with Franklin for the Ohio grant, and that it was at his country seat at Halstead, in Kent, that Lord Stanhope called for the purpose of taking Franklin to Hayes, the country seat of Chatham, where Chatham and Franklin met for the first time.

Another English friend of Franklin was John Canton, who was, however, rather a scientific than a social comrade, though a fellow-tourist of his on one of his summer excursions; and still another was Dr. Alexander Small, for whom he cherished a feeling of real personal affection. In one letter to Small, he tells him that he had found relief from the gout by exposing his naked foot, when he was in bed, and thereby promoting the process of transpiration. He gave the fact, he said, to Small, in exchange for his receipt for tartar emetic, because the commerce of philosophy as well as other commerce was best promoted by taking care to make returns. In another letter to Small, there is a growl for the American Loyalists.

As to the Refugees [he observed], whom you think we
were so impolitic in rejecting, I do not find that they
are miss'd here, or that anybody regrets their Absence.
And certainly they must be happier where they are,
under the Government they admire; and be better
receiv'd among a People, whose Cause they espous'd and
fought for, than among those who cannot so soon have
forgotten the Destruction of their Habitations, and the
spilt Blood of their dearest Friends and near
Relations.

Then there is a reference in this letter to the learned and ingenious friends, who had left Dr. Small and himself to join the majority in the world of spirits.

Every one of them [he said] now knows more than all of
us they have left behind. It is to me a comfortable
Reflection, that, since we must live forever in a
future State, there is a sufficient Stock of Amusement
in reserve for us, to be found in constantly learning
something new to Eternity, the present Quantity of
human Ignorance infinitely exceeding that of human
Knowledge. Adieu, my dear Friend, and believe me, in
whatever World, yours most affectionately.

In a subsequent letter, there is a softer word for the Loyalists. He believed, he said, that fear and error rather than malice occasioned their desertion of their country's cause and the adoption of the King's. The public resentment against them was then so far abated that none, who asked leave to return, were refused, and many of them then lived in America much at their ease. But he thought that the politicians, who were a sort of people that loved to fortify themselves in their projects by precedent, were perhaps waiting, before they ventured to propose the restoration of the confiscated estates of the Loyalists, to see whether the English Government would restore the forfeited estates in Scotland to the Scotch, those in Ireland to the Irish and those in England to the Welsh! He was glad that the Loyalists, who had not returned to America, had received, or were likely to receive, some compensation for their losses from England, but it did not seem so clearly consistent with the wisdom of Parliament for it to provide such compensation on behalf of the King, who had seduced these Loyalists by his proclamations. Some mad King, in the future, might set up such action on the part of Parliament as a precedent, as was realized by the Council of Brutes in the old fable, a copy of which he enclosed. The fable, of course, was not an old fable at all, but one of his own productions, in which the horse with the "boldness and freedom that became the nobleness of his nature," succeeded in convincing the council of the beasts, against the views of the wolves and foxes, that the lion should bestow no reward upon the mongrels, who, sprung in part from wolves and foxes, and corrupted by royal promises of great rewards, had deserted the honest dogs, when the lion, notwithstanding the attachment of these dogs to him, had, under the influence of evil counsellors, contracted an aversion to them, condemned them unheard and ordered his tigers, leopards and panthers to attack and destroy them. In this letter, there is another reference to the reformed prayer-book which Dr. Small and good Mrs. Baldwin had done him the honor, as we have seen, to approve. The things of this world, he said, took up too much of the little time left to him for him to undertake anything like a reformation in matters of religion. When we can sow good seed, we should, however, do it, and await with patience, when we can do no better, Nature's time for their sprouting.

A later letter assured Dr. Small that Franklin still loved England, and wished it prosperity, but it had only another growl for the Loyalists. Someone had said, he declared, that we are commanded to forgive our enemies, but that we are nowhere commanded to forgive our friends. The Loyalists, after uniting with the savages for the purpose of burning the houses of the American Whigs, and murdering and scalping their wives and children, had left them for the Government of their King in England and Nova Scotia. "We do not miss them," he said, "nor wish their return; nor do we envy them their present happiness."[36]

This letter also mildly deprecates the honor that Small did him in naming him with Timoleon. "I am like him only in retiring from my public labours," he declared, "which indeed my stone, and other infirmities of age, have made indispensably necessary."

The enthusiasm of the French people had drawn so freely upon the heroes of antiquity for a parallel to him that Dr. Small, perhaps, had to put up with Timoleon in default of a better classical congener.

Other English friends of Franklin were John Alleyne, Edward Bridgen, Edmund Burke, Mrs. Thompson, John Whitehurst, Anthony Tissington, Thomas Viny and Caleb Whitefoord. Our attention has already been called to his pithy reflections on early marriages in one of his letters to John Alleyne.

Treat your Wife [he said, in the concluding sentences
of this admirable letter] always with Respect; it will
procure Respect to you, not from her only but from all
that observe it. Never use a slighting Expression to
her, even in jest, for Slights in Jest, after frequent
bandyings, are apt to end in angry earnest. Be studious
in your Profession, and you will be learned. Be
industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober
and temperate, and you will be healthy. Be in general
virtuous, and you will be happy. At least, you will, by
such Conduct, stand the best Chance for such
Consequences.

In another letter to Alleyne, with his unerring good sense, he makes short work of the perverse prejudice against intermarriage with a deceased wife's sister which was destined to die so hard in the English mind.

To Edward Bridgen, a merchant of London, Franklin referred in a letter to Governor Alexander Martin of North Carolina as "a particular Friend of mine and a zealous one of the American Cause." The object of the letter was to reclaim from confiscation property in that state belonging to Bridgen. And it was to Bridgen that Franklin made the suggestion that, instead of repeating continually upon every half penny the dull story that everybody knew (and that it would have been no loss to mankind if nobody had ever known) that George III. was King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, etc., etc., there should be inscribed on the coin some important proverb of Solomon, some pious moral, prudential or economical precept, calculated to leave an impression upon the mind, especially of young persons, such as on some, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom"; on others, "Honesty is the best Policy"; on others, "He that by the plow would thrive, himself must either hold or drive"; on others, "Keep thy Shop, and thy Shop will keep thee"; on others, "A penny saved is a penny got"; on others, "He that buys what he has no need of, will soon be forced to sell his necessaries"; and on others, "Early to bed and early to rise, will make a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."

With Edmund Burke Franklin does not appear to have been intimate, but they knew each other well enough for the former in a letter to the latter to term the friendship between them an "old friendship." It was Burke who remarked, when Franklin was examined before the House of Commons on American affairs, that it was as if a school-master was being catechized by his pupils. For every reason, the judgment of so great a man about such an incident has its value, but among other reasons because Burke was accounted one of the best-informed men in England in relation to American affairs.

The only glimpse we obtain of Mrs. Thompson is in a letter written to her by Franklin from Paris, shortly after his arrival in France in 1776, but the raillery of this letter is too familiar in tone to have marked the course of anything but real intimacy.

You are too early, _Hussy_ [he wrote], (as well as too
saucy,) in calling me _Rebel_; you should wait for the
Event, which will determine whether it is a _Rebellion_
or only a _Revolution_. Here the Ladies are more civil;
they call us _les Insurgens_, a Character that usually
pleases them: And methinks all other Women who smart,
or have smarted, under the Tyranny of a bad Husband,
ought to be fixed in Revolution Principles, and act
accordingly.

Then Mrs. Thompson is told some gossipy details about a common friend whom Franklin had seen during the preceding spring at New York, and these are succeeded by some gay sallies with regard to Mrs. Thompson's restlessness.

Pray learn [he said], if you have not already learnt,
like me, to be pleased with other People's Pleasures,
and happy with their Happiness, when none occur of your
own; and then perhaps you will not so soon be weary of
the Place you chance to be in, and so fond of Rambling
to get rid of your _Ennui_. I fancy you have hit upon
the right Reason of your being Weary of St. Omer's,
viz. that you are out of Temper, which is the effect of
full Living and Idleness. A Month in Bridewell, beating
Hemp, upon Bread and Water, would give you Health and
Spirits, and subsequent Cheerfulness and Contentment
with every other Situation. I prescribe that Regimen
for you, my dear, in pure good will, without a Fee. And
let me tell you, if you do not get into Temper, neither
Brussels nor Lisle will suit you. I know nothing of the
Price of Living in either of those Places; but I am
sure a single Woman, as you are, might with Economy
upon two hundred Pounds a year maintain herself
comfortably anywhere, and me into the Bargain. Do not
invite me in earnest, however, to come and live with
you; for, being posted here, I ought not to comply, and
I am not sure I should be able to refuse.

This letter was written shortly after Franklin's arrival in France, but he had already caught the infection of French gallantry. It closes with a lifelike portrait of himself.

I know you wish you could see me [he said], but, as you
can't, I will describe myself to you. Figure me in your
mind as jolly as formerly, and as strong and hearty,
only a few years older; very plainly dress'd, wearing
my thin gray strait hair, that peeps out under my only
Coiffure, a fine Fur Cap, which comes down my Forehead
almost to my Spectacles. Think how this must appear
among the Powder'd Heads of Paris! I wish every
gentleman and Lady in France would only be so obliging
as to follow my Fashion, comb their own Heads as I do
mine, dismiss their _Friseurs_, and pay me half the
Money they paid to them. You see, the gentry might well
afford this, and I could then enlist those _Friseurs_,
who are at least 100,000, and with the Money I would
maintain them, make a Visit with them to England, and
dress the Heads of your Ministers and Privy
Counsellors; which I conceive to be at present _un peu
derangees_. Adieu, Madcap; and believe me ever, your
affectionate Friend and humble Servant.

John Whitehurst, who was a maker of watches and philosophical instruments, and the author of an _Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of the Earth_, and his friend, Anthony Tissington, were residents of Derbyshire. Some of Whitehurst's letters to Franklin are still in existence, but none from Franklin to Whitehurst are. A letter from Franklin to Tissington has preserved one of the writer's characteristic stories. After speaking of the rheumatic pains, to which Mrs. Tissington was subject, he said:

'Tis a most wicked Distemper, & often puts me in mind
of the Saying of a Scotch Divine to some of his
Brethren who were complaining that their Flocks had of
late been infected with _Arianism_ and _Socinianism_.
Mine, says he, is infected with a worse ism than either
of those.--Pray, Brother, what can that be?--It is, the
_Rheumatism_.

Thomas Viny was a wheel manufacturer of Tenterden, Kent. In a letter to him, Franklin tells him that he cannot without extreme reluctance think of using any arguments to persuade him to remove to America, because of the pain that the removal would occasion to Viny's brother. Possibly, however, he added, Viny might afterwards judge it not amiss, when the many children that he was likely to have, were grown up, to plant one of them in America, where he might prepare an asylum for the rest should any great calamity, which might God avert, befall England. A man he knew, who had a number of sons, used to say that he chose to settle them at some distance from each other, for he thought they throve better, as he remarked that cabbages, growing too near together, were not so likely to come to a head.

I shall be asleep before that time [Franklin
continued], otherwise he might expect and command my
best Advice and Assistance. But as the Ancients who
knew not how to write had a Method of transmitting
Friendships to Posterity; the Guest who had been
hospitably entertain'd in a strange Country breaking a
Stick with every one who did him a kindness; and the
Producing such a Tally at any Time afterwards, by a
Descendant of the Host, to a Son or Grandson of the
Guest, was understood as a good Claim to special Regard
besides the Common Rights of Hospitality: So if this
Letter should happen to be preserv'd, your Son may
produce it to mine as an Evidence of the Good will that
once subsisted between their Fathers, as an
Acknowledgment of the Obligations you laid me under by
your many Civilities when I was in your Country and a
Claim to all the Returns due from me if I had been
living.

Another letter from Franklin to Viny was written at Passy. He joined most heartily he said with Viny in his prayers that the Almighty, who had favored the just cause, would perfect his work, and establish freedom in the New World as an asylum for those of the Old who deserved it. He thought the war a detestable one, and grieved much at the mischief and misery it was occasioning to many; his only consolation being that he did all in his power to prevent it. What a pleasure it would be to him on his return to America to see his old friend and his children settled there! "I hope," Franklin concluded, "he will find Vines and Fig-trees there for all of them, under which we may sit and converse, enjoying Peace and Plenty, a good Government, good Laws, and Liberty, without which Men lose half their Value."

Caleb Whitefoord resided at No. 8 Craven Street, London, or next door to Mrs. Stevenson's, where Franklin resided during his two missions to England, and the friendship between Franklin and himself, though very cordial on Whitefoord's part, would seem to have been on Franklin's part, though cordial, the friendship mainly of mere propinquity.[37]

Far more significant were the ties which bound Franklin to such English friends as Peter Collinson, the Rev. George Whitefield, Lord Le Despencer, James Hutton, David Hartley and George Whatley.

Peter Collinson was a London mercer who had a considerable correspondence with America. He not only enjoyed an acquaintance with men of prominence and influence in the Colonies, but he earnestly interested himself in promoting the production of American flax, hemp, silk and wine. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, besides being one of the founders of the Society of Antiquaries, and it was directly due to the electric tube sent over by him to the Library Company of Philadelphia that Franklin entered upon those experiments in electricity which he communicated to Collinson in a series of memorable letters, that brought lasting renown to their author when given to the world by Collinson. In a letter to Michael Collinson, Franklin speaks of Peter Collinson as our "dear departed Friend," and pays a feeling tribute to his unselfish patronage of the Library at Philadelphia. He alludes to the valuable presents made to the Library by Collinson and others, whose generosity had been kindled by Collinson's zeal, and he states the remarkable fact that for more than thirty years successively Collinson had participated in the annual selection of books for the Library, and had shouldered the whole burden of buying them in London, and shipping them to Philadelphia without ever charging or even accepting any consideration for his trouble. Nay more, during the same time, he had transmitted to the directors of the Library Company the earliest account of every new European improvement in Agriculture and the Arts, or discovery in Philosophy. Curious in botany as Collinson may have been, it is not hazardous to say that he never gathered or sowed any seed more fruitful than these benefactions, and we can readily understand how deeply his friendship must have been cherished by a spirit so congenial with his as that of Franklin. They were friends before they ever met, but it was not until Franklin arrived in London on his first mission to England that they greeted each other face to face. Franklin's first letter to America, written the day after he reached London, was hastily penned at Collinson's house, and, the next day, John Hanbury, the great Virginia merchant, by an arrangement with Collinson, called for Franklin in his carriage, and conveyed him to the house of Lord Granville for an interview with that nobleman. The letters from Franklin to Collinson on the subject of electricity are, we hardly need say, the most important of the former's letters to him, but very valuable, too, are some of his observations in other letters to his correspondent on political conditions in Pennsylvania and the relations between the Colonies and the mother country. To the scientific letters and to these observations we shall have occasion to revert further on. Beyond a reference to some black silk, sent by Collinson to Deborah, with a generous disregard of the fact that the fowl meadow grass seed that Franklin had sent to him from America never came up, the correspondence between Collinson and Franklin is marked by few intimate features. It was, however, on the back of a letter from Franklin to Collinson, in which the former condoled with the latter on the loss of his wife, that this good man, for such we must believe Collinson to have been, indorsed these singular comments, the offspring probably of purely morbid self-reproach:

There was no occasion of any Phylosophy on this ever to
be lamented occasion. Peter Collinson had few feelings
but for Himself. The same Principle that led him to
deprive his son of his Birthright when that son lay in
the Agonies of Death and knew not what he put his hand
to, supported Peter Collinson in the loss of the best
of Women in a manner that did no Honour to his
Feelings, his Gratitude or his Humanity.

The eye of the reader has already been drawn to the Rev. George Whitefield, whose eloquence, we are told by Franklin in the _Autobiography_, "had a wonderful power over the hearts and purses of his hearers." After the death of Whitefield, Franklin paid this handsome tribute to him in a letter to Robert Morris and Thomas Leach. "I knew him intimately upwards of thirty years. His Integrity, Disinterestedness, and indefatigable Zeal in prosecuting every good Work, I have never seen equalled, I shall never see exceeded." To Franklin, too, we are indebted for a striking description of his characteristics as an orator, when he came over to Philadelphia from Ireland, and, after being at first permitted to preach in some churches, was later compelled to preach in the fields, because the clergy took a dislike to him, and refused him their pulpits.

He had a loud and clear voice, and articulated his
words and sentences so perfectly, that he might be
heard and understood at a great distance, especially as
his auditories, however numerous, observ'd the most
exact silence. He preach'd one evening from the top of
the Court-house steps, which are in the middle of
Market-Street, and on the west side of Second-Street,
which crosses it at right angles. Both streets were
fill'd with his hearers to a considerable distance.
Being among the hindmost in Market-Street, I had the
curiosity to learn how far he could be heard, by
retiring backwards down the street towards the river;
and I found his voice distinct till I came near
Front-Street, when some noise in the street obscur'd
it. Imagining then a semi-circle, of which my distance
should be the radius, and that it were fill'd with
auditors, to each of whom I allow'd two square feet, I
computed that he might well be heard by more than
thirty thousand. This reconcil'd me to the newspaper
accounts of his having preach'd to twenty-five thousand
people in the fields, and to the antient histories of
generals haranguing whole armies, of which I had
sometimes doubted.

By experience, Franklin came to distinguish easily between Whitefield's newly composed sermons and those which he had often preached in the course of his travels.

His delivery of the latter was so improv'd by frequent
repetitions that every accent, every emphasis, every
modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turn'd and
well plac'd, that, without being interested in the
subject, one could not help being pleas'd with the
discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind with that
receiv'd from an excellent piece of musick.

Notwithstanding the extraordinary influence of Whitefield's oratory over his auditors, to which Franklin testifies so unqualifiedly, it is obvious enough, as we have seen, that a nature so little given to extreme forms of enthusiasm as that of Franklin could not but regard the hysteria produced by it with some degree of contemptuous amusement.

Who [he asked in his Essay on "Shavers and Trimmers,"
in the _Pennsylvania Gazette_], has been more notorious
for shaving and fleecing, than that Apostle of
Apostles, that Preacher of Preachers, the Rev. Mr. G.
W.? But I forbear making farther mention of this
spiritual Shaver and Trimmer, lest I should affect the
Minds of my Readers as deeply as his Preaching has
affected their Pockets.

This was mere jesting on the part of a man to whom everything had its humorous as well as its serious side. Very different in spirit are some of the passages in Franklin's letters to Whitefield.

I am glad to hear [he wrote on one occasion] that you
have frequent opportunities of preaching among the
great. If you can gain them to a good and exemplary
life, wonderful changes will follow in the manners of
the lower ranks; for _ad exemplum regis_, etc. On this
principle, Confucius, the famous Eastern reformer,
proceeded. When he saw his country sunk in vice, and
wickedness of all kinds triumphant, he applied himself
first to the grandees; and having, by his doctrine, won
_them_ to the cause of virtue, the commons followed in
multitudes. The mode has a wonderful influence on
mankind; and there are numbers who, perhaps, fear less
the being in hell, than out of the fashion. Our most
western reformations began with the ignorant mob; and
when numbers of them were gained, interest and party
views drew in the wise and great. Where both methods
can be used, reformations are likely to be more speedy.
O that some method could be found to make them lasting!
He who discovers that will, in my opinion, deserve
more, ten thousand times, than the inventor of the
longitude.

Another letter from Franklin to Whitefield is not only distinguished by the same missionary accent but also by the deep-seated loyalty to the English Crown which was so slow in yielding first to disillusionment and then to detestation. Alluding to Whitefield's desire to be the chaplain of an American army, he said that he wished that they could be jointly employed by the Crown to settle a colony on the Ohio.