USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 41
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" Since my composing of the foregoing discourse the sagacious Mr. Franklin, born and brought up in Boston, but now living in Philadelphia, has greatly surprised and obliged the world with
his discoveries of the electrical substance, as one great and main instrument of lightning and thunder."- ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The dissensions between the Colonial Assembly and the hereditary proprietaries had risen to such a point of bitterness that the Assembly was driven to seek the interference of King George II. in their favor. They resolved to send an agent to London with this object in view, and their choice promptly fell upon Franklin.
Not only was this new task thoroughly Shilad Ocl. 9. 175 Jourmosthun Sen" franklin congenial to him, but it enabled him to re- visit the Old World, to commune with the / scientific spirits of other lands, and to enjoy the fame which had long spread be- yond his own conti- nent. He had prob- ably little idea when he arrived in London, in July, 1757, that his residence in England would continue eighteen years; but it was not until 1775, on the very eve of the outbreak of the Revolution, that he resumed his residence in his own country, though he meanwhile made a visit to his home in 1762. He entered at once into the negotiations for which he had been sent abroad. Before long, he added the duties of agent for Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts to those of agent for Pennsylvania. His advent attracted much attention in England, where both his scientific reputation and the importance of his mission made him a man of mark. He was soon brought into relations with Lords Granville, Shelburne, and Chatham, and other English statesmen; while men of learning and literary note wel- comed him to a cordial hospitality and most congenial companionship. Among these Lord Kames and David Hume became his cherished friends and correspondents.
Against the tyranny of the proprietaries, however, Franklin effected little. He found both the Ministers and Parliament averse to interference between these hereditary rulers and the subjects of the King. But his residence in London, his earnest and eloquent representations of the condi- tion of the colonies, his protestations against the Stamp Act and similar measures, and the weight given to his agency by his learned and distin- guished personal character, had at least the effect of opening the eyes of many Englishmen to the real state of affairs, and of strengthening the enlightened party which, under Lord Chatham's courageous lead, sturdily opposed the arbitrary course of the Grenville Cabinet. From the first, Franklin took the impregnable ground that the colonies owed their allegi- ance to the King, and not to Parliament; that Parliament had no right to
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levy internal taxes; that the right of representation was indissolubly bound to the liability to taxation; and that the colonies rightly resisted the im- position of the Stamp Act and like laws by the British government, the prohibition of the right to make paper money, the withdrawal of the safe- guard of trial by jury, and the refusal to receive their petitions.
In 1766 occurred Franklin's memorable examination at the bar of the House of Commons, "respecting the state of affairs in America." The public mind in England had become thoroughly alarmed at the signs of strenuous resistance in the colonies. A searching investigation had become necessary, and the new prime minister, the Marquis of Rockingham, who was disposed to be friendly with America, at once saw the utility of pro- ducing the evidence of the shrewd and thoroughly informed agent of Pennsylvania. Franklin appeared upon a full and deeply interested House, armed only with a few notes, in which he had set down the various statis- tical statements which he intended to make. One hundred and seventy-four searching interrogations were put to him, some by ministers, some by leaders of the opposition, some by private members of the Commons. His responses were marvellous for their promptness, fulness, shrewdness, pres- ence of mind, and wit. He presented in much detail a clear and exhaustive view of the condition of the colonies, pointed out boldly the injustices of which they complained, gave exact information respecting the American population, trade, resources, and finances ; boldly told the Commoners of England that the Americans would never pay the stamp duty, "unless compelled by force of arms;" that their temper towards Britain was "very much altered ; " and that the enforcement of the Stamp Act would result in "a total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to England." "What used to be the pride of the Americans ?" asked a friendly member. "To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain," was Franklin's reply. "What is now their pride ?" "To wear their old clothes over again, until they can make new ones."
Franklin's testimony undoubtedly had a direct and powerful influence on the repeal of the Stamp Act,1 which was effected about a month after, and on which event he "sent his wife a new dress." But the repeal by no means swept away the difficulties and disputes between the mother country and her colonies. A measure to quarter soldiers in the private towns of the colonists, passed soon after by Parliament, revived the ebbing discontent of Franklin's countrymen. But Franklin does not seem yet to have given over all hope of an abiding reconciliation. There is no doubt that at this time he shuddered at the prospect of revolt, and would have infinitely preferred to retain the connection with Great Britain, if it could be estab- lished on a just basis. He continued his indefatigable negotiations, now with the hostile Lord Hillsborough, now with the more friendly Dartmouth, Shelburne, Howe, and Chatham. At the same time he was busy strength-
1 [An interesting series of tracts on the tions, is noted in the Brinley Catalogue, No. Stamp Act, with Franklin's manuscript annota- 3218. - ED.]
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ening the cause of the colonies by the production of evidence in favor of their demands. Having procured a number of letters written by Governor Hutchinson, Lieut .- Governor Oliver, and other Massachusetts men who were hostile to the colonial cause, in which they outrageously misrepresented alike the condition, the feelings, and the character of the New England people, he promptly forwarded them to the Massachusetts Assembly, through which body they were published to the world. A petition to the King was at once adopted, begging him to remove the traducers of the Commonwealth from their offices. Thereupon Franklin was summoned before the Privy Council, sharply questioned as to his share in the publica- tion of the letters, and subjected to a most violent and slanderous attack by Sir Alexander Wedderburn, the solicitor-general, which Franklin bore with erect body and unmoved countenance. The same night he was dismissed from his office as postmaster-general of the colonies.
Not long before this event Franklin had made his first visit to Paris, where he was destined afterwards to reside in a diplomatic capacity. There he was received with most cordial welcome by the men of science, and was treated with marked attention by Louis XV. and his court. He was not slow to perceive that the leading French statesmen were eagerly watching the growing quarrel between Britain and her transatlantic colonies, and were hoping for an opportunity to fan the flame.
Franklin left the shores of England early in 1775, in despair at last of arranging just terms of settlement between the King and his American subjects, and looking towards the future with gloomy forebodings; and reached his native shores to hear that, a fortnight before, the battles of Lexington and Concord had been fought. Almost immediately after his arrival in Philadelphia he was chosen a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, then sitting in that city, His great fame, his age (for he was now nearly seventy), his patriotic and positive character, enabled him to take at once a leading position in that body. His counsels were still for moderation, and he advocated, even at that last moment, an " humble " petition to the King to relieve the wrongs under which the colonies suffered. But it is evident that he did not count upon its favorable reception. He wrote to Dr. Priestley that he concluded that England had lost her colonies forever, though " we have as yet resolved on only defensive measures."
Those defensive measures, however, were of the most vigorous; and Franklin's strong hand is clearly discernible in them. Besides his labors in the Congress, he was a member of the Committee of Public Safety, ap- pointed by the Pennsylvania Assembly to put the province in a state of defence. He arrived promptly at the meetings of this committee every morning at six, and went into the Congress at nine. This old man, afflicted by the gout, with many private affairs pressing upon him, was indefatigable in his public labors. In the spring of 1776 he went as a commissioner to Canada, to prevail on that province to join the rest of the colonies in their attitude of resistance; and on his return he opened personal negotiations
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with his old friend Lord Howe, who had come to America in command of the British fleet, in the feeble hope of yet effecting a reconciliation.
Franklin's appointment as a member of the illustrious committee of five to draught a Declaration of Independence put an end to these and all other negotiations for peace on his part. Sternly putting aside the scruples which had long made him reluctant to break with the mother country, he entered heart and soul into the heroic scheme of separation and resistance to the end. With Jefferson, John Adams, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sher- man, he supplied the great principles and formulated the thrilling sentences which were to summon the young "Hercules in his cradle," the nascent nation, to utmost effort in behalf of liberty. There is no doubt that many of Franklin's own suggestions were embodied in this imperishable instru- ment. Traces of opinions long held and announced by him may be found between its lines; his sage advice was certainly listened to and treasured up by Jefferson before he put his pen to paper to write the document. The noblest and most conspicuous scene in which Franklin was ever an actor was that in the Congress of Philadelphia, on the 4th of July, 1776, when he and his four colleagues stood up and presented the Declaration to be adopted and signed. It is worth noting that of this committee of five, three - Adams, Franklin, and Roger Sherman -were natives of Massa- chusetts, and self-made men.
But the necessities of the colonies, now becoming more urgent every day, did not permit Franklin to remain at home as an actor in the drama of revolution. Much as his counsel and co-operation were needed in the Congress, his skill as a diplomatist, and the weight which his name had abroad, made it of paramount importance that he should serve his country beyond the ocean. He pleaded his age and infirmities, not so much as an excuse for remaining at home, but as reasons why he could not hope to be of use in other lands. But his reluctance was overruled, and in October, 1776, he set out for France as the American envoy to that country. The avowed purpose of his mission was to engage the material aid of the French king on behalf of the struggling colonies, - and it was now well known that such aid was likely to be forthcoming. Franklin's reception at Paris par- took of the nature of an ovation. He was received as a most distinguished personage, and the attentions which were lavished upon him might have made the ambassadors of great empires jealous. With him, as fellow envoys, were Silas Deane and Arthur Lee; but his were the brains and the activities which were relied on to effect the object in view. He took up his residence in a charming abode at Passy, one of the pleasantest of Parisian suburbs, and ,lost no time in putting himself in confidential relations with the Count de Vergennes, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and with Lafayette, one of America's most ardent friends. While negotiating with the French court, he busied himself in trying to effect an exchange of prisoners with the British ambassador; but Lord Stormont's insolence effectually broke off these attempts for the time. Though so busy with
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public tasks, Franklin found leisure to write to Priestley about the philos- opher's stone, to Mrs. Hewson about godsons and lotteries, to a friend about lightning conductors, and to Mr. Hutton about giving advice.
After a residence in France of about a year and a half, Franklin at last succeeded in negotiating a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance, which was signed and exchanged on the 6th of February, 1778. The immediate result of this treaty was the substantial aid given to the patriots by French troops, and the co-operation of such men as Lafayette and Rochambeau. It was concluded by Franklin amid many obstacles. Not the least of these was .the bitter jealousy of his colleague, Arthur Lee, who conceived himself ignored by Franklin, and who more than once seriously embarrassed the negotiations. The emissaries of England, too, were ceaselessly active to prevent the consummation of the alliance; and there were timid spirits at the French court who deprecated the open espousal of the American cause. It was only by infinite patience and tact, by a cool head, unfaltering activity, and the full use of his ample intellectual and social resources that Franklin effected this great diplomatic achievement. The arrival in France of John Adams, who was sent abroad by the Congress to negotiate peace with Great Britain, added to Franklin's embarrassments; for Adams soon became in- volved in a quarrel with Vergennes, which threatened at one moment to make a breach in the friendly relations of the allies.
The independence of the colonies having been acknowledged by France, Franklin was duly commissioned as minister plenipotentiary to the Court of Louis XVI. His appearance in the splendid circle of Versailles, in a plain but rich velvet suit, with his long hair unpowdered and without a queue ; his reception by the haughty Marie Antoinette and her attendant beauties ; the genial welcome accorded to him by the easy-going king, who respected him as much for his scientific attainments as in his official character, - this memorable scene has often been described. It was the first public official recognition of a new nation. It was the first greeting of the powers of the Old World to the young and rising power of the New.
It is interesting to read Franklin's description of himself at this period of his life. Writing to Mrs. Thompson shortly before the conclusion of the treaty, he says: "Figure me in your mind as jolly as formerly, and as strong and hearty, only a few years older; very plainly dressed, wearing my thin gray straight 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 powdered heads of Paris!" Not long after the treaty, the famous meeting between Franklin and Voltaire took place at the Academy of Sciences; on which occasion the two venerable philos- ophers embraced each other, and kissed each other on the cheek. "How charming it was," said one who witnessed this scene, "to see Solon embracing Sophocles !"
Franklin's next great service to his country was his negotiation and conclusion of the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United
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States, in conjunction with John Adams, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Laurens. The negotiation began, informally, with friendly letters which passed between Franklin and his English friend, David Hartley, in 1778. This correspondence continued without important results for several years. In it, Franklin formulated in the clearest and fullest manner the just terms upon which his country was resolved to insist. In 1781, being seventy-five years of age, and tortured with the gout, he begged to be relieved of his functions at the French court; but to this the Congress would not listen. On the contrary, he was appointed one of the commissioners to make peace with England. Events were hastened by the surrender of Cornwallis; but it was not until the mid-summer of 1782 that the basis of a treaty was agreed upon. Franklin has left a minute and exhaustive journal of the negotiations, resulting in definite articles, which were agreed to in Novem- ber, 1782. The treaty was not finally signed, however, until September, 1783, and was not duly ratified by the British king until April, 1784.
Once more Franklin asked to be relieved, and to be permitted to return home; but it was not until the spring of 1785 that Thomas Jefferson was commissioned as his successor. On the 12th of July in that year Franklin took a final leave of Paris and France, and reached Philadelphia in the following September.
At the age of seventy-nine, and with a record of political services which in value and in length of period were greater than those of any living American, Franklin ardently longed to rest from his labors, and to enjoy amid relatives and friends, and with his philosophical studies, a well-earned repose. Nothing was further from his desire or expectation than to resume office of any sort. But his fellow-citizens would not yet permit him to rest. Almost immediately after his arrival he was chosen President (or, as we should now say, Governor) of Pennsylvania, by a vote in the Assembly of seventy-six to one. In this post, in which his great administrative ability showed itself unimpaired by age and labor, he was continued for three years, the limit of the period for which any person was eligible to hold it. He was chosen to represent Pennsylvania in the Convention to frame the constitution of the United States; and in that body no man's influence was greater or more thoroughly impressed upon the instrument which it finally adopted. One of his first acts was to move that the Convention be opened daily with prayer. He advocated the popular, or democratic, suggestions and amendments ; and while, at the conclusion of the labors of the Convention, he declared that he did not entirely approve of the new constitution, he yet, in a speech full of sententious pith and vigor, urged every member to sign it and every State to adopt it.
The last public act of Benjamin Franklin was worthy of his broad, benevolent, and far-seeing spirit. In 1787, three years before his death, he founded a society for the abolition of African slavery, of which he was chosen the first president; and early in the very year of his death, 1790, a petition, drawn by his still skilful hand, for the abolition of the slave-trade
VOL. II. - 37.
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and the emancipation of slaves, was presented to the Congress of the United States. The fierce opposition aroused by this petition called forth from Franklin the last production of his pen, - a newspaper satire, " in defence of the enslavement of Christians." Says Theodore Parker, " It was one of
FRANKLIN STATUE.1 4
1 [This statue, the work of Richard S. Green- ough, now stands in front of the City Hall in School Street. It was erected in 1856, and dedicated on the 17th of September in that year, when the Hon. R. C. Winthrop delivered a
memorial oration, which in 1857 was printed in a Memorial of the Inauguration of the Statue of Franklin. This volume contains a steel engrav- ing of the statue, which is eight feet high, stand- ing upon a verd-antique pedestal which rests
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the most witty, brilliant, and ingenious things that came from his mind." This satire was written within less than a month of his death.
Although Franklin retained, almost to his last day, his clear and vigorous mental faculties, his cheerful disposition, and his keen interest in the welfare alike of his friends and of the world at large, he had for some years suffered with varying severity from the gout; to which, for eight years, had been added the tortures of the stone. These distempers wore out his otherwise stalwart and well-preserved constitution. Early in April, 1799, he was seized with a fever, having for some months already been most of the time confined to his bed. On the 17th of April, at eleven at night, he quietly passed out of earthly existence.
In spite of the troubled career which he had led as a boy in his native town, Franklin never lost his affection for Boston, and often referred to his early experience there as the discipline that formed his sturdy, shrewd, and enterprising character. He made it a point, in after years, to visit Boston every ten years; and this habit he kept up, without omission, for no less than forty years. In a letter written from Passy, in 1784, to Samuel Mather, a son of Cotton Mather, he says: "I long much to see again my native place, and to lay my bones there. I left it in 1723; I visited it in 1733, 1743, 1753, and 1763. In 1773 I was in England ; in 1775 I had a sight of it, but could not enter, it being in possession of the enemy. I did hope
upon a base of granite. It also gives, p. 109, a representation of the monumental urn which was erected in 1793 to his memory in the elliptical enclosure which formerly made the centre of Franklin Street. The first suggestion of the statue was in a lecture on " Archimedes and Franklin," delivered by Mr. Winthrop in 1853, and which may be found in his Addresses and Speeches, 1852-1867, p. 138. The memorial vol- ume already referred to contains an ample " history of the statue."
There are in the Public Library two original portraits of Franklin. One of them, by Duples- sis (well known by engravings), was bought in Paris by Mr. Edward Brooks of Boston, and by him given to the Library in 1858. (Another likeness by Duplessis, - a pastel, -drawn in 1783, is engraved in Bigelow's edition of the Autobiography.) The other, painted by Greuze, was presented in 1872 by Gardner Brewer, Esq., and its history is told in a paper by the late Charles Sumner in the twentieth Annual Report of the Library, p. 86. It was painted for Oswald, who negotiated with Franklin the provisional articles of peace of Nov. 30, 1782. There is also a picture in the Boston Art Museum closely re- sembling the Duplessis of the Public Library, for which the claim is made that it was painted by Greuze. President Jefferson once owned it, and said it was painted for the Abbé Verri. It descended to the late Joseph Coolidge, Esq., and passed from him to the Athenaeum. The
picture of Franklin at twenty, painted in London, and which is engraved in both Sparks's and Parton's Lives of Franklin, was given by him to John Franklin of Newport, who married the grandmother of the wife of Thomas W. Sumner, Esq., of Brookline ; and passed from this gentle- man to Dr. John C. Warren, who had a special interest in the fame of Franklin, as he was the first, as a Boston scholar, to receive a medal, provided for by Franklin in his will. It was bequeathed by Dr. Warren to Harvard College, and now hangs in. Memorial Hall. The portrait in the hall of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is a copy, by Ordway, from Mr. Healy's copy of the portrait in the Louvre. (Boston Daily Advertiser, 1853, copied in the Crayon, New York, 1858, p. 330.) Within a year a very considerable collection of books and tracts on Franklin (one hundred and thirty-five in all), together with eighty-seven varieties of portraits and other engravings, have been given to the Public Library by Dr. Samuel A. Green ; and to this collection some important addi- tions have been made by William S. Appleton, Esq. (Report of Mellen Chamberlain, Librarian of the Public Library, 18So, p. . 17.) A photo- graph from a portrait by Gainsborough is preserved in the Massachusetts Historical So ciety's gallery, Proceedings, January, 1869, p. 412. One of the earliest engravings of him issued in Boston is that in the Boston Magazine, 1784. - ED.]
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to have been there in 1783, but could not obtain my demission from this employment here; and now I fear I never shall have that happiness." To John Lathrop he wrote from Philadelphia, four years later: "It would certainly be a very great pleasure to me if I could once again visit my native town, and walk over the grounds I used to frequent when a boy, and where I enjoyed many of the innocent pleasures of youth, which would be so brought to my remembrance; and where I might find some of my old acquaintance to converse with." He feared, however, lest he should find but few of his old friends living. "But," he adds, "I enjoy the company and conversation of its inhabitants when any of them are so good as to visit me ; for, besides their general good sense which I value, the Boston manner, turn of phrase, and even tone of voice and accent in pronunciation, all please and seem to refresh and revive me."
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