Franklin's Autobiography Part 10

"He [Pythagoras, who lived in the sixth century B.C.] requires also that this examination be daily repeated. The time which he recommends for this work is about even or bedtime, that we may conclude the action of the day with the judgment of conscience, making the examination of our conversation an evening song to G.o.d. Wherein have I transgressed? What have I done? What duty have I omitted? So shall we measure our lives by rules.

"We should have our parents and relations in high esteem, love and embrace good men, raise ourselves above corporeal affections, everywhere stand in awe of ourselves, carefully observe justice, consider the frailty of riches and momentary life, embrace the lot which falls to us by divine judgment, delight in a divine frame of spirit, convert our mind to what is most excellent, love good discourses, not lie open to impostures, not be servilely affected in the possession of virtue, advise before action to prevent repentance, free ourselves from uncertain opinions, live with knowledge, and lastly, that we should adapt our bodies and the things without to the exercise of virtue. These are the things which the lawgiving mind has implanted in the souls of men."]

[Footnote 112: It is dated July 1, 1733.]

[Footnote 113: "O philosophy, thou guide of life! O thou searcher after virtue and banisher of vice! One day lived well and in obedience to thy precepts should be preferred to an eternity of sin."]

[Footnote 114: FRANKLIN'S NOTE.--Nothing so likely to make a man's fortune as virtue.]

[Footnote 115: Thus far written at Pa.s.sy, 1784.]

[Footnote 116: The Revolution.]

[Footnote 117: Almanacs were the first issues of the American press.

It is not easy in our day to understand their importance to the early colonists, and their consequent popularity. The makers, philomaths ("lovers of learning") as Franklin called them, set out their wares in every attractive form the taste and ingenuity of the age could devise.

They made them a diary, a receipt book, a jest book, and a weather prophet, as well as a calendar book of dates. The household was poor indeed which could not sc.r.a.pe up a twopence or a sixpence for the annual copy. Once bought, it hung by the big chimney-piece, or lay upon the clock shelf with the Bible and a theological tract or two. It was read by the light that shone from the blazing logs of the fireplace or the homemade tallow dip. Its recipes helped the mother in her dyeing or weaving or cooking. Its warnings of "cold storms,"

"flurries of snow," cautioned the farmer against too early planting of corn; and its perennial jokes flavored the mirth of many a corn husking or apple paring.]

[Footnote 118: See p. 201.]

[Footnote 119: See pp. 193-200.]

[Footnote 120: A sheet printed on one side only and without arrangement in columns.]

[Footnote 121: Statement.]

[Footnote 122: Departure from the faith held by the members of the synod or a.s.sembly.]

[Footnote 123: "Pro and con," i.e., for and against.]

[Footnote 124: Vaccination was not at this time known. By inoculation the smallpox poison was introduced into the arm, and produced a milder form of the disease.]

-- 6. ENTERS PUBLIC LIFE.

My first promotion was my being chosen, in 1736, clerk of the General a.s.sembly. The choice was made that year without opposition; but the year following, when I was again proposed, (the choice, like that of the members, being annual,) a new member made a long speech against me, in order to favor some other candidate. I was, however, chosen, which was the more agreeable to me as, besides the pay for the immediate service as clerk, the place gave me a better opportunity of keeping up an interest among the members, which secured to me the business of printing the votes, laws, paper money, and other occasional jobs for the public, that, on the whole, were very profitable.

I therefore did not like the opposition of this new member, who was a gentleman of fortune and education, with talents that were likely to give him, in time, great influence in the House; which, indeed, afterward happened. I did not, however, aim at gaining his favor by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some time, took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favor of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I returned it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favor. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friends.h.i.+p continued to his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says: "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged." And it shows how much more profitable it is prudently to remove, than to resent, return, and continue, inimical proceedings.

In 1737, Colonel Spotswood, late governor of Virginia, and then postmaster-general, being dissatisfied with the conduct of his deputy at Philadelphia respecting some negligence in rendering and inexact.i.tude of his accounts, took from him the commission and offered it to me. I accepted it readily, and found it of great advantage; for, though the salary was small, it facilitated the correspondence that improved my newspaper and increased the number demanded, as well as the advertis.e.m.e.nts to be inserted, so that it came to afford me a considerable income. My old compet.i.tor's newspaper declined proportionably, and I was satisfied without retaliating his refusal, while postmaster, to permit my papers being carried by the riders.

Thus he suffered greatly from his neglect in due accounting; and I mention it as a lesson to those young men who may be employed in managing affairs for others, that they should always render accounts and make remittances with great clearness and punctuality. The character of observing such a conduct is the most powerful of all recommendations to new employments and increase of business.

I began now to turn my thoughts a little to public affairs, beginning, however, with small matters. The city watch was one of the first things that I conceived to want regulation. It was managed by the constables of the respective wards in turn. The constable warned a number of housekeepers to attend him for the night. Those who chose never to attend, paid him six s.h.i.+llings a year to be excused, which was supposed to be for hiring subst.i.tutes, but was, in reality, much more than was necessary for that purpose, and made the constables.h.i.+p a place of profit; and the constable, for a little drink, often got such ragam.u.f.fins about him as a watch that respectable housekeepers did not choose to mix with them.[n] Walking the rounds, too, was often neglected, and most of the nights spent in tippling. I thereupon wrote a paper to be read in Junto, representing these irregularities, but insisting more particularly on the inequality of this six-s.h.i.+lling tax of the constables respecting the circ.u.mstances of those who paid it, since a poor widow housekeeper, all whose property to be guarded by the watch did not perhaps exceed the value of fifty pounds, paid as much as the wealthiest merchant, who had thousands of pounds' worth of goods in his stores.

On the whole, I proposed as a more effectual watch the hiring of proper men to serve constantly in that business; and as a more equitable way of supporting the charge, the levying a tax that should be proportioned to the property. This idea, being approved by the Junto, was communicated to the other clubs, but as arising in each of them; and though the plan was not immediately carried into execution, yet, by preparing the minds of people for the change, it paved the way for the law obtained a few years after, when the members of our clubs were grown into more influence.

About this time I wrote a paper, (first to be read in Junto, but it was afterward published,) on the different accidents and carelessnesses by which houses were set on fire, with cautions against them, and means proposed of avoiding them. This was much spoken of as a useful piece, and gave rise to a project which soon followed it, of forming a company for the more ready extinguis.h.i.+ng of fires, and mutual a.s.sistance in removing and securing of goods when in danger.

a.s.sociates in this scheme were presently found, amounting to thirty.

Our articles of agreement obliged every member to keep always in good order, and fit for use, a certain number of leather buckets, with strong bags and baskets (for packing and transporting of goods), which were to be brought to every fire; and we agreed to meet once a month and spend a social evening together, in discoursing and communicating such ideas as occurred to us upon the subject of fires as might be useful in our conduct on such occasions.

The utility of this inst.i.tution soon appeared,[n] and many more desiring to be admitted than we thought convenient for one company, they were advised to form another, which was accordingly done; and this went on, one new company being formed after another, till they became so numerous as to include most of the inhabitants who were men of property; and now, at the time of my writing this, though upward of fifty years since its establishment, that which I first formed, called the "Union Fire Company," still subsists and flourishes, though the first members are all deceased but myself and one who is older by a year than I am. The small fines that have been paid by members for absence from the monthly meetings have been applied to the purchase of fire engines, ladders, fire hooks, and other useful implements for each company, so that I question whether there is a city in the world better provided with the means of putting a stop to beginning conflagrations; and, in fact, since these inst.i.tutions, the city has never lost by fire more than one or two houses at a time, and the flames have often been extinguished before the house in which they began, has been half consumed.

In 1739 arrived among us from Ireland the Rev. Mr. Whitefield,[125]

who had made himself remarkable there as an itinerant preacher. He was at first permitted to preach in some of our churches; but the clergy, taking a dislike to him, soon refused him their pulpits, and he was obliged to preach in the fields. The mult.i.tudes of all sects and denominations that attended his sermons were enormous, and it was matter of speculation to me, who was one of the number, to observe the extraordinary influence of his oratory on his hearers, and how much they admired and respected him, notwithstanding his common abuse of them by a.s.suring them they were naturally "half beasts and half devils." It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street.

And, it being found inconvenient to a.s.semble in the open air, subject to its inclemencies, the building of a house to meet in was no sooner proposed, and persons appointed to receive contributions, but sufficient sums were soon received to procure the ground and erect the building, which was one hundred feet long and seventy broad, about the size of Westminster Hall;[126] and the work was carried on with such spirit as to be finished in a much shorter time than could have been expected. Both house and ground were vested in trustees, expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion who might desire to say something to the people of Philadelphia; the design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect, but the inhabitants in general; so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.

Mr. Whitefield, in leaving us, went preaching all the way through the colonies to Georgia. The settlement of that province had lately been begun, but, instead of being made with hardy, industrious husbandmen, accustomed to labor,--the only people fit for such an enterprise,--it was with families of broken shopkeepers and other insolvent debtors, many of indolent and idle habits, taken out of the jails, who, being set down in the woods, unqualified for clearing land and unable to endure the hards.h.i.+ps of a new settlement, perished in numbers, leaving many helpless children unprovided for.[127] The sight of their miserable situation inspired the benevolent heart of Mr. Whitefield with the idea of building an orphan house[128] there, in which they might be supported and educated. Returning northward, he preached up this charity, and made large collections, for his eloquence had a wonderful power over the hearts and purses of his hearers, of which I myself was an instance.

I did not disapprove of the design, but, as Georgia was then dest.i.tute of materials and workmen, and it was proposed to send them from Philadelphia at a great expense, I thought it would have been better to have built the house here, and brought the children to it. This I advised; but he was resolute in his first project, rejected my counsel, and I therefore refused to contribute. I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers.

Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all. At this sermon there was also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments respecting the building in Georgia, and suspecting a collection might be intended, had, by precaution, emptied his pockets before he came from home. Toward the conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a strong desire to give, and applied to a neighbor who stood near him, to borrow some money for the purpose. The application was unfortunately to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. His answer was: "At any other time, friend Hopkinson, I would lend to thee freely; but not now, for thee seems to be out of thy right senses."

Some of Mr. Whitefield's enemies affected to suppose that he would apply these collections to his own private emolument; but I, who was intimately acquainted with him, being employed in printing his sermons and journals, etc., never had the least suspicion of his integrity, but am to this day decidedly of opinion that he was in all his conduct a perfectly honest man; and methinks my testimony in his favor ought to have the more weight as we had no religious connection. He used, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but he never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard. Ours was a mere civil friends.h.i.+p, sincere on both sides, and lasted to his death.

The following instance will show something of the terms on which we stood. Upon one of his arrivals from England at Boston, he wrote to me that he should come soon to Philadelphia, but knew not where he could lodge when there, as he understood his old friend and host, Mr.

Benezet, was removed to Germantown. My answer was: "You know my house; if you can make s.h.i.+ft with its scanty accommodations, you will be most heartily welcome." He replied that if I made that kind offer for Christ's sake I should not miss of a reward; and I returned: "Don't let me be mistaken; it was not for Christ's sake, but for your own sake." One of our common acquaintance remarked that, knowing it to be the custom of the saints, when they received any favor, to s.h.i.+ft the burden of the obligation from off their own shoulders and place it in heaven, I had contrived to fix it on earth.

The last time I saw Mr. Whitefield was in London, when he consulted me about his orphan house concern, and his purpose of appropriating it to the establishment of a college.

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 auditors, however numerous, observed the most exact silence. He preached one evening from the top of the courthouse 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 filled 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 backward down the street toward the river; and I found his voice distinct till I came near Front Street, when some noise in that street obscured it. Imagining then a semicircle, of which my distance should be the radius, and that it were filled with auditors, to each of whom I allowed two square feet, I computed that he might well be heard by more than thirty thousand.

This reconciled me to the newspaper accounts of his having preached to twenty-five thousand people in the fields, and to the ancient histories of generals haranguing whole armies, of which I had sometimes doubted.

By hearing him often, I could distinguish easily between sermons newly composed and those which he had often preached in the course of his travels. His delivery of the latter was so improved by frequent repet.i.tions that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turned and well placed that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind with that received from an excellent piece of music. This is an advantage itinerant preachers have over those who are stationary, as the latter cannot well improve their delivery of a sermon by so many rehearsals.

His writing and printing from time to time gave great advantage to his enemies. Unguarded expressions and even erroneous opinions, delivered in preaching, might have been afterward explained or qualified by supposing others that might have accompanied them, or they might have been denied; but _litera scripta manet_.[129] Critics attacked his writings violently, and with so much appearance of reason as to diminish the number of his votaries and prevent their increase; so that I am of opinion if he had never written anything, he would have left behind him a much more numerous and important sect, and his reputation might in that case have been still growing, even after his death; as, there being nothing of his writing on which to found a censure and give him a lower character, his proselytes would be left at liberty to feign for him as great a variety of excellences as their enthusiastic admiration might wish him to have possessed.

My business was now continually augmenting, and my circ.u.mstances growing daily easier, my newspaper having become very profitable, as being for a time almost the only one in this and the neighboring provinces. I experienced, too, the truth of the observation that "after getting the first hundred pounds it is more easy to get the second," money itself being of a prolific nature.

The partners.h.i.+p at Carolina having succeeded, I was encouraged to engage in others, and to promote several of my workmen who had behaved well, by establis.h.i.+ng them with printing houses in different colonies, on the same terms as that in Carolina. Most of them did well, being enabled at the end of our term, six years, to purchase the types of me and go on working for themselves, by which means several families were raised. Partners.h.i.+ps often finish in quarrels; but I was happy in this, that mine were all carried on and ended amicably, owing, I think, a good deal to the precaution of having very explicitly settled, in our articles, everything to be done by or expected from each partner, so that there was nothing to dispute, which precaution I would therefore recommend to all who enter into partners.h.i.+p; for, whatever esteem partners may have for and confidence in each other at the time of the contract, little jealousies and disgusts may arise, with ideas of inequality in the care and burden of the business, etc., which are attended often with breach of friends.h.i.+p and of the connection, perhaps with lawsuits and other disagreeable consequences.

I had, on the whole, abundant reason to be satisfied with my being established in Pennsylvania. There were, however, two things which I regretted,--there being no provision for defense, nor for a complete education of youth; no militia, nor any college. I therefore, in 1743, drew up a proposal for establis.h.i.+ng an academy, and at that time thinking the Rev. Mr. Peters, who was out of employ, a fit person to superintend such an inst.i.tution, I communicated the project to him; but he, having more profitable views in the service of the proprietaries, which succeeded, declined the undertaking; and, not knowing another at that time suitable for such a trust, I let the scheme lie awhile dormant. I succeeded better the next year, 1744, in proposing and establis.h.i.+ng a philosophical society.[130] The paper I wrote for that purpose will be found among my writings when collected.

With respect to defense,--Spain having been several years at war against Great Britain, and being at length joined by France, which brought us into great danger, and the labored and long-continued endeavor of our governor, Thomas, to prevail with our Quaker a.s.sembly[131] to pa.s.s a militia law and make other provisions for the security of the province, having proved abortive,--I determined to try what might be done by a voluntary a.s.sociation of the people. To promote this I first wrote and published a pamphlet ent.i.tled "Plain Truth," in which I stated our defenseless situation in strong lights, with the necessity of union and discipline for our defense, and promised to propose in a few days an a.s.sociation, to be generally signed for that purpose. The pamphlet had a sudden and surprising effect. I was called upon for the instrument of a.s.sociation, and having settled the draft of it with a few friends, I appointed a meeting of the citizens in the large building before mentioned. The house was pretty full. I had prepared a number of printed copies, and provided pens and ink dispersed all over the room. I harangued them a little on the subject, read the paper and explained it, and then distributed the copies, which were eagerly signed, not the least objection being made.

When the company separated and the papers were collected, we found above twelve hundred hands; and, other copies being dispersed in the country, the subscribers amounted at length to upward of ten thousand. These all furnished themselves as soon as they could with arms, formed themselves into companies and regiments, chose their own officers, and met every week to be instructed in the manual exercise and other parts of military discipline. The women, by subscriptions among themselves, provided silk colors, which they presented to the companies, painted with different devices and mottoes which I supplied.

The officers of the companies composing the Philadelphia regiment, being met, chose me for their colonel; but, conceiving myself unfit, I declined that station, and recommended Mr. Lawrence, a fine person and man of influence, who was accordingly appointed. I then proposed a lottery[132] to defray the expense of building a battery below the town, and furnis.h.i.+ng it with cannon. It filled expeditiously, and the battery was soon erected, the merlons[133] being framed of logs and filled with earth. We bought some old cannon from Boston, but, these not being sufficient, we wrote to England for more, soliciting at the same time our proprietaries for some a.s.sistance, though without much expectation of obtaining it.

Meanwhile Colonel Lawrence, William Allen, Abram Taylor, Esq., and myself were sent to New York by the a.s.sociators, commissioned to borrow some cannon of Governor Clinton. He at first refused us peremptorily; but at dinner with his council, where there was great drinking of Madeira wine, as the custom of that place then was, he softened by degrees, and said he would lend us six. After a few more b.u.mpers he advanced to ten, and at length he very good-naturedly conceded eighteen.

They were fine cannon, eighteen-pounders, with their carriages, which we soon transported and mounted on our battery, where the a.s.sociators kept a nightly guard while the war lasted, and among the rest I regularly took my turn of duty there as a common soldier.

My activity in these operations was agreeable to the governor and council; they took me into confidence, and I was consulted by them in every measure wherein their concurrence was thought useful to the a.s.sociation. Calling in the aid of religion, I proposed to them the proclaiming a fast, to promote reformation and implore the blessing of Heaven on our undertaking. They embraced the motion; but as it was the first fast ever thought of in the province, the secretary had no precedent from which to draw the proclamation. My education in New England, where a fast is proclaimed every year, was here of some advantage. I drew it in the accustomed style. It was translated into German, printed in both languages, and divulged through the province.

This gave the clergy of the different sects an opportunity of influencing their congregations to join in the a.s.sociation, and it would probably have been general among all but Quakers if the peace had not soon intervened.

It was thought by some of my friends that by my activity in these affairs I should offend that sect, and thereby lose my interest in the a.s.sembly of the province, where they formed a great majority. A young gentleman who had likewise some friends in the House, and wished to succeed me as their clerk, acquainted me that it was decided to displace me at the next election, and he therefore, in good will, advised me to resign, as more consistent with my honor than being turned out. My answer to him was, that I had read or heard of some public man who made it a rule never to ask for an office and never to refuse one when offered to him. "I approve," says I, "of his rule, and will practice it with a small addition: I shall never ask, never refuse, nor ever resign an office. If they will have my office of clerk to dispose of to another, they shall take it from me. I will not, by giving it up, lose my right of some time or other making reprisals[134] on my adversaries." I heard, however, no more of this; I was chosen again unanimously, as usual, at the next election.