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FRANKING LETTERS FRANKLIN. 



FRANKING LETTERS. See Post-Office. 



FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, a distinguished Ameri- 

 can philosopher and statesman, was born in Boston, 

 January 17, 1706. His father, an English noncon- 

 formist, who had emigrated to America to enjoy 

 religious freedom, was a tallow chandler and soap- 

 Iwiler. Benjamin, the fifteenth of seventeen chil- 



age of eight years ; and, from the talents he dis- 

 played in learning, his father conceived the notion 

 of educating him for the ministry. But, as he was 

 unable to meet the expense, he took him home, and 

 employed him in cutting wicks, filling moulds, and 

 running errands. The boy was disgusted with this oc- 

 cupation, and was soon after placed with his brother, 

 a printer, to serve an apprenticeship to that trade. 

 His early passion for reading was now in some mea- 

 sure gratified, and he devoted his nights to perusing 

 such books as his limited resources enabled him to ob- 

 tain. Defoe's Essay on Projects, and doctor Mather's 

 On doing Good, were among his earliest studies. The 

 style of the Spectator, with which he early became 

 acquainted, delighted him. He gives an account of 

 his exertions to imitate it, in his memoirs of himself. 

 As he had failed entirely in arithmetic while at 

 school, he now borrowed a little treatise, which he 

 mastered without any assistance, and studied naviga- 

 tion. At the age of sixteen, he read Locke on the 

 Understanding, the Port-Royal Logic, and Xeno- 

 phon's Memorabilia. Happening to meet with a 

 work which recommended vegetable diet, he deter- 

 mined to abstain from flesh ; and we now find the 

 philosophic printer and newspaper carrier purchasing 

 books with the little sums he was enabled to save by 

 the frugality of his diet. From Shaftesbury and 

 Collins he imbibed those sceptical notions which he 

 is known to have held during a part of his life. 

 His brother published a newspaper, which was the 

 second that had as yet appeared in America. Frank- 

 lin having secretly written some pieces for it, had 

 the satisfaction to find them well received ; but, on its 

 coming to the knowledge of his brother, he was 

 severely lectured for his presumption, and treated 

 with great harshness. One of the political articles in 

 the journal having offended the general court of the 

 colony, the publisher was imprisoned, and forbidden 

 to continue it. To elude this prohibition, young 

 Franklin was made the nominal editor, and his inden- 

 tures were ostensibly cancelled. 



After the release of his brother, he took advantage 

 of this act to assert his freedom, and thus escape 

 from the ill treatment which he suffered. His father's 

 displeasure, his brother's enmity, and the odium to 

 which his sceptical notions subjected him, left him 

 no alternative but a retreat to some other city. He 

 therefore secretly embarked aboard a small vessel 

 bound to New York, without means or recommenda- 

 tions ; and, not finding employment there, he set out 

 for Philadelphia, where he arrived on foot, with his 

 pockets stuffed with shirts and stockings, a roll of 

 bread under his arm, and one dollar in his purse. 

 " Who would have dreamed (says Brissot de War- 

 ville) that this poor wanderer would become one of 

 the legislators of America, the ornament of the new 

 world, the pride of modern philosophy?" Here he 

 obtained employment as a compositor, and, having 

 attracted the notice of Sir William Keith, the gover- 

 nor of Pennsylvania, was induced by his promises to 

 go to England, for the purpose of purchasing types 

 to establish himself in business. 



On arriving in London (1725), he found that the 

 letters, which had been delivered him, had no refer- 

 ence to him or his affairs ; and he was once more in 

 a strange place, without credit or acquaintance, and 

 with little means. But he soon succeeded in getting 



business, and, although at one time guilty of some 

 excesses, he afterwards became a model of industry 

 and temperance, and even reformed his brother prin- 

 ters by his example and exhortation. While in 

 London, he continued to devote his leisure hours to 

 study, and wrote a small pamphlet himself, on Liberty 

 and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. After a residence 

 of eighteen months in London, he returned to Phila- 

 delphia, in his twenty-first year, in the capacity oi 

 clerk to a dry-goods shop ; but he soon returned to 

 liis trade, and in a short time formed an establish- 

 ment in connexion with a person who supplied the 

 necessary capital. They printed a newspaper, which 

 was managed with much ability, and acquired Frank- 

 lin much reputation. 



It is impossible for us to trace all the steps of his 

 progress to distinction. His industry, frugality, 

 activity, intelligence; his plans for improving the 

 condition of the province, for introducing better sys- 

 tems of education ; his municipal services, made 

 him an object of attention to the whole community. 

 His advice was asked by the governor and council on 

 all important occasions, and he was elected a mem- 

 ber of the provincial assembly. He had begun to 

 print his Poor Richard's Almanac in 1732 ; and the 

 aphorisms which he prefixed to that for 1757 are well 

 known. At the age of twenty-seven, he undertook 

 to learn French, Italian, and Spanish, and, after hav- 

 ing made some progress in those languages, he 

 applied himself to the Latin. He was the founder of 

 the university of Pennsylvania, and of the American 

 philosophical society, and one of the chief promoters 

 of the Pennsylvania hospital. In 1741, he began to 

 print The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle. 

 In 1742, he invented the Franklin stove (see Fire- 

 place), for which he refused a patent, on the ground, 

 that such inventions ought to be made at once sub- 

 servient to the common good of mankind. We might 

 continue this chronological notice of his services, and 

 it would show the remarkable versatility of his mind, 

 but our space forbids us. Being in Boston in 1746, 

 he saw, for the first time, some experiments in elec- 

 tricity, which, though imperfectly performed, were 

 the origin of the most brilliant discoveries which had 

 been made in natural philosophy ; for an account of 

 which we must refer to the article Electricity. We 

 cannot avoid being struck with the immediate practi- 

 cal application he made of his new discovery, in the 

 invention of the lightning-rod. 



Franklin had ever shown himself a zealous advo- 

 cate for the rights of the colonies, and, it having been 

 determined to hold a general congress at Albany, to 

 arrange a common plan of defence, he was named a 

 deputy. On his route, he projected a scheme of 

 union, embracing the regulation of all the great 

 political interests of the colonies and the mother 

 country. The Albany plan, as it was called, after it 

 was adopted by the congress, proposed a general 

 government for the provinces, to be administered by 

 a president appointed by the crown, and a grand 

 council, chosen by the provincial assemblies : the 

 council was to lay taxes for all the common exigen- 

 cies. The plan, though unanimoxisly sanctioned by 

 the congress, was rejected by the board of trade, as 

 savouring too much of the democratic, and by the 

 assemblies, as having too much of prerogative in it. 

 In 1751, he was appointed deputy postmaster-general, 

 and, in this capacity, advanced large sums of his own 

 money to general Braddock, the result of whose 

 expedition he foresaw, and in regard to which he 

 made some fruitless suggestions to that general. 

 After the defeat of Braddock, he introduced a bill for 

 establishing a volunteer militia ; and, having received 

 a commission as a commander, he raised a corps of 

 560 men, and went through a laborious campaign. 



