This kind of humorous good sense, was one of the marked peculiarities of his character; there was lurking wit and humor in all his acts, and in his gravest essays, of which his epigrammatic letter to his old friend Strahan, the king's printer, is a notable example.
The old house in which Franklin spent his boyhood is now a long distance from the water, and in the midst of a wilderness of brick and granite buildings, but he speaks of it as near the shore, and it was close by that he built the little wharf of stolen stones, which induced his father to impress upon him the great truth that "that which was not honest could not be truly useful."
Where the young apprentice lived when he was boarded out by his brother, and first "went in" to vegetarianism, we have not been able to ascertain; and, on his flight from Boston, in his seventeenth year, he does not appear to have remained long enough in New-York to have had a home. The first place he slept in, in Philadelphia, was a quaker meeting-house; but his first home in the city which he afterwards rendered famous, from having resided in it, was at a public house in Water-street, known as the Crooked Billet; not a very significant sign to us of the present generation.
Wherever Franklin went, or in whatever new sphere he applied himself to business, he immediately inspired confidence in his ability, and gained friends, as all able men do. The runaway boy of seventeen had hardly begun to put Bradford's printing office in order when he was called upon by Colonel French, and Sir William Keith, governor of the province, who invited him to a tavern, offered him a bottle of Madeira, and proposed to set him up in business; yet he was not of a glib tongue and a prepossessing appearance.
At the age of eighteen he made his first voyage to London, and lived in Little Britain with his friend Ralph at a cost of three shillings and sixpence a week. Franklin worked in Palmer's famous printing house in Bartholomew Close, near a year, and for the first and only time of his life was improvident and extravagant, spending his earnings at plays and public amusements, and neglecting to write to Miss Read in Philadelphia, with whom he had "exchanged promises." He worked diligently, though, and during that time wrote and published "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," This essay gained him the friendship of an author who took him to the Horns, a pale ale-house, introduced him to Dr. Mandeville and promised him a sight of Newton. He afterwards removed to lodgings in Duke-street, and occupied a room up three pairs of stairs, which he rented of a widow, who had an only daughter, with whom he used to sup on half an anchovy, a very small slice of bread and butter, and half a pint of ale between them. He remained eighteen months in England, and returned to Philadelphia with the expectation of entering into mercantile business with his friend Denman.
It was during his voyage from London to Philadelphia that he wrote out the plan for regulating his future conduct, which, he says, he had adhered to through life. The plan has not been preserved, but we have the life which was conformed to it, and can easily conceive what it was.
Fortunately for mankind his friend Denman died soon after the return of Franklin to Philadelphia, whereby his mercantile projects were frustrated, and he was compelled to return to his trade of printing; he was just turned of twenty-one, and not finding employment as a merchant's clerk, he undertook the charge of his former employer's printing office. Here his inventive genius was taxed, for he had to make both types and ink, as they could not be procured short of London. He also engraved the copper plates, from his own designs, for the paper money of New Jersey, and constructed the first copper plate press that had been seen in the country. He could not long remain in the employment of another, and, before the end of the year, had established himself in business as a printer, in partnership with his friend Meredith. His life now commenced in earnest, he was his own master, and held his fortune in his own hands; he had already discerned "that truth, sincerity, and integrity, were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life;" and day by day his genius ripened and his noble character was developed. In the year 1730, he was married to Miss Read, and laid the foundation of the Pennsylvania Library; the first public library that had been commenced in the country. The two succeeding years of his life were not marked by any striking event, but they were, perhaps, the two most important in his history, as during that time he schooled himself to virtue by a systematic course of conduct, the particulars of which he has given in his biography. At the end of this period he commenced his "Poor Richard's Almanac," the publication of which was continued by him twenty-five years. It was the first successful attempt in authorship on this side of the Atlantic. His first "promotion," as he calls it, meaning his first public employment, was on being chosen Clerk of the General Assembly; and the next year he was appointed Postmaster at Philadelphia. His private business all the time increased; he founded societies for philosophical purposes; continued to publish his paper; wrote innumerable pamphlets; was elected colonel of a regiment; invented his stove, and engaged in all manner of beneficial projects; he established hospitals and academies, made treaties with the Indians, became Postmaster General, and after devising means for cleaning the streets of Philadelphia, turned his attention to those of London and Westminster.
But, it is with the "Homes" of Franklin that our limited space must be occupied, and not with his life and actions. Although he occupied, at various times, almost as many different houses as there are headquarters of Washington, yet there are few of them now left; living always in cities, the houses he inhabited have been destroyed by the irresistible march of improvement. In his fifty-first year, he was sent to London by the General Assembly to present a petition to the king, and to act as the agent of Pennsylvania in England. He sailed from New-York and arrived in London in July, 1757, and at this point of his life his autobiography ends. From an original letter of his in our possession, written on the eve of his departure from Philadelphia, he directs that letters must be sent to him in London at the Pennsylvania Coffee House, in Birchin Lane, where he doubtless lived on his first arrival, but his permanent home in London, during fifteen years, was at Mrs. Stevenson's in Craven-street. He travelled much in Great Britain and on the continent, was present at the coronation of George III., and returned to America in 1762, having stopped awhile at Madeira on the voyage. He went to England again in 1764, and after a brilliant and most serviceable career abroad, returned to his native home in season to sign his name to the Declaration of Independence, giving a greater weight of personal character, and a more potent popular influence to the cause than any other of the immortal participators in that glorious act. He died in the year 1790, on the 17th of April, at 11 o'clock at night, in his 85th year, in his house in Market-street, Philadelphia, which he had built for his own residence. His remains lie by the side of his wife's, in the burying ground of Christ Church, covered by a simple marble slab, in conformity with his directions. There is a small granite pyramid in the Granary burying ground in Boston, which the economical citizens make do double duty, as a memorial of the greatest name of which their city can boast, and a monument to his parents.
JEFFERSON
Jefferson would have been a notable man in any country and any age, because he possessed both genius and character. Without the former he could never have succeeded, as he did, in moulding the opinions of his contemporaries and successors, and without the latter, he would not have been, as he was, bitterly hated by his enemies and cordially loved by his friends. His genius, however, was not of that kind which in the ardor of its inspiration intoxicates the judgment; nor was his character, on the other hand, of the sort which moves an admiration so profound, unquestioning and universal, as to disarm the antagonism its very excellence provokes. There was enough error and frailty, therefore, mingled with his eminent qualities both of mind and heart, to involve him in seeming contradictions, and to expose his life to double construction and controversy. At the same time, it has happened to him as it has often happened in human history, that the hostility awakened by his acts during his life, has dwindled with the lapse of time, while his fame has grown brighter and broader with every renewal of the decisions of posterity. No man, we may now safely say, who has figured on the theatre of events in this country, with the single exception of Washington, occupies a larger share of the veneration of Americans.
JEFFERSON
Jefferson would have been a notable man in any country and any age, because he possessed both genius and character. Without the former he could never have succeeded, as he did, in moulding the opinions of his contemporaries and successors, and without the latter, he would not have been, as he was, bitterly hated by his enemies and cordially loved by his friends. His genius, however, was not of that kind which in the ardor of its inspiration intoxicates the judgment; nor was his character, on the other hand, of the sort which moves an admiration so profound, unquestioning and universal, as to disarm the antagonism its very excellence provokes. There was enough error and frailty, therefore, mingled with his eminent qualities both of mind and heart, to involve him in seeming contradictions, and to expose his life to double construction and controversy. At the same time, it has happened to him as it has often happened in human history, that the hostility awakened by his acts during his life, has dwindled with the lapse of time, while his fame has grown brighter and broader with every renewal of the decisions of posterity. No man, we may now safely say, who has figured on the theatre of events in this country, with the single exception of Washington, occupies a larger share of the veneration of Americans.
He was born at Shadwell, in Albemarle county, Virginia, in 1743. His father, dying when he was twelve years of age, left him a large inheritance. He was educated at the College of William and Mary, studied law under the celebrated George Wythe, began the practice of it in 1767, and in 1769 was chosen a member of the provincial legislature, where his first movement an unsuccessful one was for the emancipation of the slaves. But a greater question soon engrossed his mind. Already a spirit of opposition had been excited in the colonies to the arbitrary measures of the parliament of Great Britain, that very legislature was dissolved by the Governor, in consequence of the sympathy displayed by its leading members with the patriotic proceedings of Massachusetts, it appealed to the constituency, and was triumphantly returned, and then in 1773, its more active spirits organized, in a room of a tavern at Raleigh, a system of correspondence, designed to inflame the zeal and unite the efforts of the colonists against the encroachments of power. As a result of this activity, a convention was called in Virginia for the purpose of choosing delegates to a more general Congress. Jefferson was a member of it, but not being able, on account of ill-health, to attend, drew up a paper on the Rights of British America, which the convention did not adopt, but which it published; "the leap he proposed," as he says, "being too long for the mass of the citizens," and which Edmund Burke in England caused to run through several editions. The pamphlet procured him reputation, and the more honorable distinction of having his name placed in a bill of attainder, moved in one of the houses of Parliament. Thus early was he identified with the champions of liberty in the new world.
In 1775, Jefferson took his seat for the first time in the Continental Congress, whither he carried the same decided and liberal tone which had marked his legislative efforts. He was soon appointed on the most important committees, and especially on that, which, on the motion of the delegates of Virginia, was raised to prepare a Declaration of Independence for the colonies. It was a measure carried only after a strenuous and hot debate, but it was finally carried by a large majority; and to Jefferson was assigned the task, by his associates, of preparing the document destined to inaugurate a new era in the history of mankind. How he executed the duty the world knows; for this paper became the charter of freedom to a whole continent; and annually to this day, millions of people read it with gratitude, reverence, joy, and praise to God. For a second time, then, we behold our Jefferson, a chosen champion of liberty, linking his name, not with a bill of attainder this time; but with the most signal event in the destiny of his country, and one, second to none in the political fortunes of humanity.
The Declaration proclaimed, Mr. Jefferson retired from his place in the Congress to resume his seat in the legislature of his native State; where, an imperfect Constitution having been adopted, during his absence, he was immediately involved in the most indefatigable labors for its reform. In connection with Wythe, Mason, Pendleton, and Lee, he prepared no less than 136 different acts, from which were derived all the most liberal features of the existing laws of the Commonwealth. They laid the foundation, in fact, of the code of Virginia, as a mere monument of industry, they were a most extraordinary work, but when we consider the importance of some of the principles of legislation which they introduced, sufficient in themselves to have immortalized the name of any man. Among these principles, were provisions for the abrogation of the laws of entail and primogeniture, for the establishment of religious freedom, for a complete amelioration of the criminal code, including the abolition of capital punishments in all cases, except of treason and murder, for the emancipation, at a certain age, of all slaves born after the passage of the act, for the division of the counties into wards and towns, and the establishment thereby of free municipal institutions, and for the introduction of a system of popular education, providing for schools in each town, academies in each county, and a University for the State. The three first were carried into effect; but the others, in consequence of his personal absence on other duties, failed. But what a different destiny would have been that of Virginia if they had not failed! How intrepid, too, the mind which could conceive and urge such measures at that time! Society in Virginia was then divided into three classes, the land and slave-owners, the yeomanry, and the laboring people. Jefferson was by birth and position of the first class, but his chief associations had been among the second class, while his sympathies were with the third class, or rather with all classes. Had his suggestions been adopted, these distinctions would have been destroyed, and Virginia raised to the first place among the free nations of the earth. Thus, for a third time, we find Jefferson among the foremost advocates of the liberty and advancement of the people.
In 1779 he was chosen the successor of Patrick Henry, as the Governor of the State; but war having been declared, and a military invasion being at hand, he resigned the position on account of his want of military talents, in favor of General Nelson. He had barely time to escape with his family before the enemy entered his house. Congress twice solicited him to go abroad, first to negotiate a peace, and then a treaty of alliance and commerce with France, but as "the laboring oar," in his own language, "was at home," it was not until the year 1782, when the assurance that a general peace would be concluded, became stronger, that he consented to quit his country. The preliminary articles of a peace, however, were received before the time of his departure, and the objects of his mission being thus accomplished, he was again chosen to Congress in 1783.
The great question then, was the formation of a better government for the colonies, than the weak and ill-jointed confederation of the time had afforded. Jefferson was prepared to enter into its discussion with ardor, bringing to the task that keen sagacity and that stern republican spirit, which were among his chief characteristics, when he was joined to Adams and Franklin in a commission for negotiating treaties of commerce with foreign nations. He arrived in Paris in June of 1785. His practical insight into affairs, his vast information, and his determined will, made him a valuable acquisition even to the distinguished abilities of his colleagues. His labors were incessant, and yet he found time to participate, as far as his diplomatic functions allowed, in the stirring and brilliant scenes then going forward on the theatre of Europe. The part that he had performed in the great battles for liberty in America, attracted towards him the regards and the confidence of all the prominent actors of the revolutionary drama of France. It was at his house that the patriots most frequently met; it was in his house that the Declaration of Rights which preceded the first French Constitution was drafted; it was at his house that the First Constitution was proposed; it was from him that Lafayette received many of his best and noblest impulses, and to him that the earlier leaders of the struggle looked for sympathy, concurrence, and direction. In after years, in the bitter political contests of the day, it was a topic of reproach that he was under French influence, but the truth was, as some one has sagaciously remarked, that the French had been brought under an American influence. He simply continued to be abroad what he had always been at home, the pioneer and consistent friend of popular rights, the unflinching supporter of popular liberty.