Osborne [Franklin continues] was sensible, candid, frank; sincere and affectionate to his friends; but, in literary matters, too fond of criticising. Ralph was ingenious, genteel in his manners, and extremely eloquent; I think I never knew a prettier talker. Both of them great admirers of poetry, and began to try their hands in little pieces. Many pleasant walks we four had together on Sundays into the woods, near Schuylkill, where we read to one another, and conferr"d on what we read.
Ralph had the most fatal of all gifts for a clever man--the gift of writing poetry tolerably well. Osborne tried to convince him that he had no genius for it, and advised him to stick to mercantile pursuits. Franklin conservatively approved the amusing one"s self with poetry now and then so far as to improve one"s language, but no farther.
Thus things stood when the friends proposed that each should produce at their next meeting a poetical version of the 18th Psalm. Ralph composed his version, showed it to Franklin, who admired it, and, being satisfied that Osborne"s criticisms of his muse were the suggestions of mere envy, asked Franklin to produce it at the next symposium of the friends as his own.
Franklin, who had a relish for practical jokes throughout his life, fell in readily with Ralph"s stratagem. But we shall let a writer, whose diction is as incompressible as water, narrate what followed in his own lively way:
We met; Watson"s performance was read; there were some beauties in it, but many defects. Osborne"s was read; it was much better; Ralph did it justice; remarked some faults, but applauded the beauties. He himself had nothing to produce. I was backward; seemed desirous of being excused; had not had sufficient time to correct, etc.; but no excuse could be admitted; produce I must.
It was read and repeated; Watson and Osborne gave up the contest, and join"d in applauding it. Ralph only made some criticisms, and propos"d some amendments; but I defended my text. Osborne was against Ralph, and told him he was no better a critic than poet, so he dropt the argument. As they two went home together, Osborne expressed himself still more strongly in favour of what he thought my production; having restrain"d himself before, as he said, lest I should think it flattery.
"But who would have imagin"d," said he, "that Franklin had been capable of such a performance, such painting, such force, such fire! He has even improv"d the original. In his common conversation he seems to have no choice of words; he hesitates and blunders; and yet, good G.o.d! how he writes!" When we next met, Ralph discovered the trick we had plaid him, and Osborne was a little laught at.
This transaction fixed Ralph in his resolution of becoming a poet. I did all I could to dissuade him from it, but he continued scribbling verses till _Pope_ cured him.[32]
Watson, we are told by Franklin, died in his arms a few years after this incident, much lamented, being the best of their set. Osborne went to the West Indies, where he became an eminent lawyer, and made money, but died young. "He and I," observes Franklin, "had made a serious agreement, that the one who happen"d first to die should, if possible, make a friendly visit to the other, and acquaint him how he found things in that separate state. But he never fulfill"d his promise."
This group of friends was succeeded on Franklin"s return from London by the persons who const.i.tuted with him the original members of the Junto: Joseph Breintnal, "a copyer of deeds for the scriveners," Thos. G.o.dfrey, the mathematical precisian, for whom Franklin had so little partiality, Nicholas Scull, "a surveyor, afterwards Surveyor-general, who lov"d books, and sometimes made a few verses," William Parsons, "bred a shoemaker, but, loving reading, had acquir"d a considerable share of mathematics, which he first studied with a view to astrology, that he afterwards laught at,"
William Maugridge, "a joiner, a most exquisite mechanic, and a solid, sensible man," Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb, journeymen printers, Robert Grace, "a young gentleman of some fortune, generous, lively, and witty; a lover of punning and of his friends," and William Coleman, then a merchant"s clerk about Franklin"s age, who had the coolest, clearest head, the best heart, and the exactest morals, Franklin declares, of almost any man he ever met with. Coleman subsequently became a merchant of great note, and a provincial judge; and the friendship between Franklin and himself continued without interruption until Coleman"s death, a period of more than forty years. Like Scull, Parsons also became Surveyor-General.
The reader will remember how, partly inspired by his affection for Robert Grace, and partly by resentment over a small office, Franklin applied the sharp edge of the _lex talionis_ to Jemmy Read. How both Coleman and Grace came to the aid of Franklin in an hour of dire distress, we shall see hereafter.
Such letters from Franklin to Parsons, as have survived, bear the marks of intimate friendship. In one to him, when he was in command of a company at Easton, dated December 15, 1755, in which reference is made to arms and supplies, that had been forwarded for the defence of that town against the Indians, Franklin says, "Be of good Courage, and G.o.d guide you. Your Friends will never desert you." Four of the original members of the Junto were among the first members of the Philosophical Society, established by Franklin, Parsons, as Geographer, Thomas G.o.dfrey, as Mathematician, Coleman as Treasurer, and Franklin himself as Secretary. Parsons died during the first mission of Franklin to England, and, in a letter to Deborah the latter comments on the event in these words: "I regret the Loss of my Friend Parsons. Death begins to make Breaches in the little Junto of old Friends, that he had long forborne, and it must be expected he will now soon pick us all off one after another." In another letter, written some months later to Hugh Roberts, a member of the Junto, but not one of the original members, he inst.i.tutes a kind of Plutarchian contrast between Parsons and Stephen Potts, who is described in the _Autobiography_ as a young countryman of full age, bred to country work, of uncommon natural parts, and great wit and humor, but a little idle.
Two of the former members of the Junto you tell me [he said] are departed this life, Potts and Parsons. Odd characters both of them. Parsons a wise man, that often acted foolishly; Potts a wit, that seldom acted wisely.
If _enough_ were the means to make a man happy, one had always the _means_ of happiness, without ever enjoying the _thing_; the other had always the _thing_, without ever possessing the _means_. Parsons, even in his prosperity, always fretting; Potts, in the midst of his poverty, ever laughing. It seems, then, that happiness in this life rather depends on internals than externals; and that, besides the natural effects of wisdom and virtue, vice and folly, there is such a thing as a happy or an unhappy const.i.tution. They were both our friends, and loved us. So, peace to their shades. They had their virtues as well as their foibles; they were both honest men, and that alone, as the world goes, is one of the greatest of characters.
They were old acquaintances, in whose company I formerly enjoyed a great deal of pleasure, and I cannot think of losing them, without concern and regret.
The Hugh Roberts to whom this letter was written was the Hugh Roberts, who found such pleasure in the glad peal of bells, that announced the safe arrival of Franklin in England, and in his reminiscences of his friend of forty years" standing, that he quite forgot that it was his rule to be in bed by eleven o"clock. He was, if Franklin may be believed, an eminent farmer, which may account for the early hours he kept; and how near he was to Franklin the affectionate tone of this very letter abundantly testifies.
After expressing his grief because of their friend Syng"s loss of his son, and the hope that Roberts" own son might be in every respect as good and useful as his father (than which he need not wish him more, he said) Franklin takes Roberts gently to task for not attending the meetings of the Junto more regularly.
I do not quite like your absenting yourself from that Good old club, the Junto. Your more frequent presence might be a means of keeping them from being all engaged in measures not the best for public welfare. I exhort you, therefore, to return to your duty; and, as the Indians say, to confirm my words, I send you a Birmingham tile. I thought the neatness of the figures would please you.
Even the Birmingham tile, however, did not have the effect of correcting Roberts" remissness, for in two subsequent letters Franklin returns to the same subject. In the first, he tells Roberts that he had received his letter by the hands of Roberts" son in London, and had had the pleasure withal of seeing this son grow up a solid, sensible young man. He then reverts to the Junto. "You tell me you sometimes visit the ancient Junto. I wish you would do it oftener. I know they all love and respect you, and regret your absenting yourself so much. People are apt to grow strange, and not understand one another so well, when they meet but seldom." Then follow these words which help us to see how he came to declare so confidently on another occasion that, compared with the entire happiness of existence, its occasional unhappiness is but as the p.r.i.c.king of a pin.
Since we have held that Club, till we are grown grey together, let us hold it out to the End. For my own Part, I find I love Company, Chat, a Laugh, a Gla.s.s, and even a Song, as well as ever; and at the same Time relish better than I used to do the grave Observations and wise Sentences of old Men"s Conversation; so that I am sure the Junto will be still as agreeable to me as it ever has been. I therefore hope it will not be discontinu"d, as long as we are able to crawl together.
The second of the two letters makes still another appeal of the same nature.
I wish [Franklin said] you would continue to meet the Junto, notwithstanding that some Effects of our publick political Misunderstandings may sometimes appear there.
"Tis now perhaps one of the _oldest_ Clubs, as I think it was formerly one of the _best_, in the King"s Dominions. It wants but about two years of Forty since it was establish"d. We loved and still love one another; we are grown Grey together, and yet it is too early to Part. Let us sit till the Evening of Life is spent. The Last Hours are always the most joyous. When we can stay no longer, "tis time enough then to bid each other good Night, separate, and go quietly to bed.
When even the bed of death could be made to wear this smooth and peaceful aspect by such a genial conception of existence, it is not surprising that Catherine Shipley, a friend of later date, should have asked Franklin to instruct her in the art of procuring pleasant dreams. It was in this letter, too, that he told Roberts that he was pleased with his punning, not merely because he liked punning in general, but because he learned from the use of it by Roberts that he was in good health and spirits. Of Hugh Roberts it needs to be only further said that he was one of Franklin"s many friends who did what they could by courteous offices, when Franklin was abroad, to testify that they loved him too much to be unmindful that he had left a family behind him ent.i.tled to their protection and social attentions. For his visits to his family Franklin sometimes thanks him.
The Philip Syng mentioned in one of the letters to Hugh Roberts was another Philadelphia crony of Franklin"s. He was enough of an electrician to be several times given due credit by the unhesitating candor of Franklin for ideas which the public would otherwise, perhaps, have fathered upon Franklin himself, who was entirely too careless about his own fine feathers to have any desire for borrowed plumage.
Samuel Rhoads, also, was one of the intimate Philadelphia friends to whom Franklin was in the habit of sending his love. He, too, was an original member of the Philosophical Society established by Franklin and was set down as "Mechanician" on its roll of membership. At any rate, even if "Mechanician" was a rather pompous term for him, as "Geographer" was for William Parsons, the surveyor, he was enough of a builder to warrant Franklin in imparting to him many valuable points about the construction of houses, which were brought to the former"s attention when he was abroad. A striking proof, perhaps, of the strength of the attachment between the two is found in the fact that Rhoads built the new residence, previously mentioned by us, for Franklin without a rupture in their friendship; although there appears to have been enough of the usual provoking delays to cause Franklin no little dissatisfaction.
Rhoads was a man of considerable public importance in his time. He enjoyed the distinction of being one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Hospital, a conspicuous member of the a.s.sembly of Pennsylvania, and a Mayor of Philadelphia.
He was one, too, of the Committee of the a.s.sembly which audited Franklin"s accounts as the Agent of the Colony upon the latter"s return from England in 1762, and he was likewise a member of the Committee which had previously reported that the estates of the Proprietaries in Pennsylvania were not being unfairly taxed. In one of Franklin"s letters to him, there is a humorous reference to Rhoads" political career. "I congratulate you," he said, "on Your Retirement, and you being able to divert yourself with farming; "tis an inexhaustible source of perpetual Amus.e.m.e.nt. Your Country _Seat_ is of a more secure kind than _that_ in the a.s.sembly: and I hope not so much in the Power of the Mob to jostle you out of."
A golden sentence in this letter is one of the best that Franklin ever penned. "As long as I have known the World I have observ"d that Wrong is always growing more Wrong till there is no bearing it, and that right however oppos"d, comes right at last."
Rhoads, Syng and Roberts were all three included with Luke Morris, another old friend and an _et cetera_, intended to embrace other friends besides, in a letter which Franklin wrote from Pa.s.sy to Dr. Thomas Bond.
I thank you [he said] for the pleasing account you give me of the health and welfare of my old friends, Hugh Roberts, Luke Morris, Philip Syng, Samuel Rhoads, &c., with the same of yourself and family. Shake the old ones by the hand for me, and give the young ones my blessing. For my own part, I do not find that I grow any older. Being arrived at seventy, and considering that by travelling further in the same road I should probably be led to the grave, I stopped short, turned about, and walked back again; which having done these four years, you may now call me sixty-six.
Dr. Thomas Bond, the Physician of the Philosophical Society established by Franklin, to whom this letter was written, was also one of Franklin"s lifelong friends. He was the Doctor Bond, who found that he could make no headway with his hospital project until it was encouraged by a _ca ira_ from Franklin, something like that which he is said to have uttered many years afterwards in France when the issue of the American Revolution was uncertain. For the society of physicians and liberal-minded clergymen Franklin had a peculiar partiality. To the one cla.s.s he was attracted by both the scientific and humanitarian nature of their profession, to say nothing of the incessant intercourse with their fellow creatures, which makes all physicians more or less men of the world; and to the questioning spirit of the eighteenth century he was too true not to have a natural affinity for clergymen of the lat.i.tudinarian type. The ties between Dr.
Thomas Bond, Dr. John Bard and Dr. Benjamin Rush and himself were very close. He had such a high opinion of Dr. Bond"s pills that on one occasion he even writes to his wife from Virginia to send him some by post. On another occasion, when he was in England, he tells Deborah to thank Dr.
Bond for the care that he takes of her. In a letter to the Doctor himself, he remarks that he did not know why their school of physic in Philadelphia should not soon be equal to that in Edinburgh, an observation which seemed natural enough to later Philadelphians when it was not only considered throughout the United States a high compliment to say of a man that he was as clever as a Philadelphia lawyer, but a medical education was in a large part of the United States deemed incomplete unless it had received the finishing touch from the clinics of that city.
When Dr. John Bard removed to New York, where he became the first President of the New York Medical Society, Franklin stated in a letter to Cadwallader Colden that he esteemed Dr. Bard an ingenious physician and surgeon, and a discreet, worthy and honest man. In a letter to Dr. Bard and his wife in 1785, he used these tender words: "You are right in supposing, that I interest myself in everything that affects you and yours, sympathizing in your afflictions, and rejoicing in your felicities; for our friendship is ancient, and was never obscured by the least cloud."
Dr. Rush was such a fervid friend and admirer of Franklin that the latter found it necessary to request him, if he published his discourse on the Moral Sense, to omit totally and suppress that most extravagant encomium on his friend Franklin, which hurt him exceedingly in the unexpected hearing, and would mortify him beyond conception if it should appear from the press.
The doctor replied by saying that he had suppressed the encomium, but had taken the liberty of inscribing the discourse to Franklin by a simple dedication, and earnestly insisted upon the permission of his friend to send his last as he did his first publication into the world under the patronage of his name. In the "simple" dedication, the panegyric, which had made Franklin so uncomfortable, was moderated to such an extent that no character was ascribed to him more transcendent than that of the friend and benefactor of mankind.
To Dr. Rush we are under obligations for several stories about Franklin. He tells us that, when chosen by Congress to be one of our Commissioners to France, Franklin turned to him, and remarked: "I am old and good for nothing; but, as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, "I am but a f.a.g end, and you may have me for what you please."" No one doubts now that for the purpose of the French mission he was by far the best piece of goods in the shop. Another story, which came to Dr. Rush at second hand, sounds apocryphal. "Why do you wear that old coat today?" asked Silas Deane of Franklin, when they were on their way to sign the Treaty of Alliance with France. Deane referred to the coat, in which Franklin was clad, when Wedderburn made the rabid attack on him before the Privy Council, to which we shall refer later. "To give it its revenge," was the reply. Franklin may have said that, but it was not like him to say anything of the sort.
But we get back to the domain of unquestionable authenticity when we turn to Dr. Rush"s account of Franklin"s death-bed:
The evening of his life was marked by the same activity of his moral and intellectual powers which distinguished its meridian. His conversation with his family upon the subject of his dissolution was free and cheerful. A few days before he died, he rose from his bed and begged that it might be made up for him so _that he might die in a decent manner_. His daughter told him that she hoped he would recover and live many years longer. He calmly replied, "_I hope not._" Upon being advised to change his position in bed, that he might breathe easy, he said, "_A dying man can do nothing easy._" All orders and bodies of people have vied with each other in paying tributes of respect to his memory.
A Philadelphia friend, for whom Franklin entertained a peculiar affection, was John Bartram, the botanist. "Our celebrated Botanist of Pennsylvania,"
Franklin deservedly terms him in a letter to Jan Ingenhousz. In one letter Franklin addresses him as "My ever dear friend," in another as "My good and dear old friend" and in another as "My dear good old friend." In 1751, Bartram published his _Observations on the Inhabitants, Climate, Soil, Rivers, Productions, Animals, and other Matters worthy of Notice. Made by Mr. John Bartram in his Travels from Pensilvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and the Lake Ontario, in Canada_, and, in a letter to Jared Eliot, Franklin, after mentioning the fact that Bartram corresponded with several of the great naturalists in Europe, and would be proud of an acquaintance with him, said: "I make no Apologies for introducing him to you; for, tho" a plain illiterate Man, you will find he has Merit." "He is a Man of no Letters, but a curious Observer of Nature," was his statement in a subsequent letter to the same correspondent. Through the mediation of Franklin, Bartram was made the American botanist to the King, and given a pension for the fearless and tireless search for botanical specimens, which he had prosecuted, when American forest, savannah and everglade were as full of death as the berry of the nightshade. It was the thought of what he had hazarded that led Franklin to write to him in 1769: "I wish you would now decline your long and dangerous peregrinations in search of new plants, and remain safe and quiet at home, employing your leisure hours in a work that is much wanted, and which no one besides is so capable of performing; I mean the writing a Natural History of our country." The pension meant so much to Bartram that he found difficulty in a.s.suring himself that it would last. In one letter, Franklin tells him that he imagines that there is no doubt but the King"s bounty to him would be continued, but he must continue on his part to send over now and then a few such curious seeds as he could procure to keep up his claim. In another letter, he tells him that there is no instance in the then King"s reign of a pension once granted ever being taken away, unless for some great offence. Franklin himself was first of all a sower of seed, of that seed which produces the wholesome plants of benevolence and utility; so it seems quite in keeping to find him, when he was absent from America, maintaining a constant interchange of different sorts of seed with Bartram. If Bartram chooses to try the seed of naked oats and Swiss barley, six rows to one ear, he can get some, Franklin writes, by calling on Mrs. Franklin. In another letter, he acknowledges the receipt of seeds from Bartram, and, in return for it, sends him some of the true rhubarb seed which he desires; also some green dry peas, highly esteemed in England as the best for making pea soup; and also some caravances or beans, of which a cheese was made in China. Strangely enough, he could learn nothing about the seed of the lucerne or alfalfa plant, one of the oldest of forage plants, for which Bartram wrote. Later, he sends Bartram a small box of upland rice, brought from Cochin China, and also a few seeds of the Chinese tallow tree.
Another particular friend of Franklin was John Hughes of Philadelphia. This is the Hughes, out of whose debt as a correspondent Franklin, when in England, found it impossible to keep. He was a man of considerable political importance, for he served on the Committee of the a.s.sembly, which was charged with the expenditure of the 60,000 appropriated by the a.s.sembly, after Braddock"s defeat, mainly for the defence of the Province, and on the Committee of the a.s.sembly, which audited Franklin"s accounts after his return from England in 1762; and was also one of the delegates appointed by the a.s.sembly to confer with Teedyuscung, the King of the Delawares, at Easton in 1756. Even when Franklin, his party a.s.sociate, was defeated as a candidate for re-election to the a.s.sembly in 1764, Hughes contrived to clamber back into his own seat. The departure for England of Franklin, shortly after this election, was the signal for the most venomous of all the attacks made upon him by the cla.s.s of writers which he happily termed "bug-writers"; that is, writers, to use his words, who resemble "those little dirty stinking insects, that attack us only in the dark, disturb our Repose, molesting and wounding us, while our Sweat and Blood are contributing to their Subsistence." But the friendship of Hughes was equal to the emergency. Incensed at the outrageous nature of the attack, he published a card over his signature, in which he promised that, if Chief Justice Allen, or any gentleman of character, would undertake to justify the charges against Franklin, he would pay 10 to the Hospital for every one of these charges that was established; provided that the person, who made them, would pay 5 for every false accusation against Franklin that he disproved. The a.s.sailants endeavored to turn Hughes" challenge into ridicule by an anonymous reply, but Hughes rejoined with a counter-reply above his own signature, in which, according to William Franklin, he lashed them very severely for their baseness. This brought on a newspaper controversy, which did not end, until Chief Justice Allen, who was drawn into its vortex, was enraged to find that it had cost him 25. Later, the recommendation of Hughes by Franklin, as the Stamp Distributor for Pennsylvania and the Counties of New Castle, Kent and Suss.e.x, gave the worst shock to the popularity of the latter that it ever received. The fierce heat that colonial resentment kindled under the hateful office proved too much for even such a resolute inc.u.mbent as Hughes, but he was not long in finding a compensation in the somewhat lower temperature of the office of Collector of Customs for the Colonies, which he held until his death.
Thomas Hopkinson, of Philadelphia, too, was one of Franklin"s particular friends. He shared his enthusiasm for electrical experiments, and was the first President of the Philosophical Society established by him. With his usual generosity, Franklin took pains in a note to one of his scientific papers to publish the fact that the power of points to _throw off_ the electrical fire was first communicated to him by this friend, then deceased. Nor did he stop there, but referred to him at the same time as a man "whose virtue and integrity, in every station of life, public and private, will ever make his Memory dear to those who knew him, and knew how to value him." There is an amusing reference to Hopkinson in the _Autobiography_ in connection with the occasion on which Franklin himself was so transported by Whitefield"s eloquence as to empty his pockets, gold and all, into the collector"s dish. Disapproving of Whitefield"s desire to establish an orphan asylum in Georgia, and suspecting that subscriptions would be solicited by him for that object, and yet distrusting his own capacity to resist a preacher, by whom, in the language of Isaiah, the hearts of the people were stirred, as the trees of the wood are stirred with the wind, he took the precaution of emptying his pockets before he left home. But Whitefield"s pathos was too much for him also. Towards the conclusion of the discourse, he felt a strong desire to give, and applied to a Quaker neighbor, who stood near him, to borrow some money for the purpose. The application was unfortunately made, the _Autobiography_ says, 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._"
Anyone who enjoyed Franklin"s friendship experienced very little difficulty in pa.s.sing it on to his son at his death. Francis Hopkinson, the son of Thomas Hopkinson, and the author of _Hail Columbia_, is one example of this. Franklin"s letters to him are marked by every indication of affection, and he bequeathed to him all his philosophical instruments in Philadelphia, and made him one of the executors of his will with Henry Hill, John Jay and Mr. Edward Duffield, of Benfield, in Philadelphia County. In doing so, with his happy faculty for such things he managed to pay a twofold compliment to both father and son in one breath. After expressing in a letter to Francis Hopkinson his pleasure that Hopkinson had been appointed to the honorable office of Treasurer of Loans, he added: "I think the Congress judg"d rightly in their Choice, and Exactness in accounts and scrupulous fidelity in matters of Trust are Qualities for which your father was eminent, and which I was persuaded was inherited by his Son when I took the liberty of naming him one of the Executors of my Will." Franklin even had a mild word of commendation for Hopkinson"s political squibs, some of which, when on their way across the ocean to him, fell into the hands of the British along with Henry Laurens. The captors, it is safe to say, attached very different degrees of importance to the two prizes, and Hopkinson himself accepted the situation with the cheerful observation, "They are heartily welcome to any performance of mine in that way. I wish the dose was stronger and better for their sake." Several of the letters from Franklin to Francis Hopkinson bring out two of the most winning traits of the writer, his ability to find a sweet kernel under every rind however bitter, and his aversion to defamation, which led him to say truthfully on one occasion that between abusing and being abused he would rather be abused.
As to the Friends and Enemies you just mention [he declared in one of them], I have hitherto, Thanks to G.o.d, had Plenty of the former kind; they have been my Treasure; and it has perhaps been of no Disadvantage to me, that I have had a few of the latter. They serve to put us upon correcting the Faults we have, and avoiding those we are in danger of having. They counteract the Mischief Flattery might do us, and their Malicious Attacks make our Friends more zealous in serving us, and promoting our Interest. At present, I do not know of more than two such Enemies that I enjoy, viz. Lee and Izard. I deserved the Enmity of the latter, because I might have avoided it by paying him a Compliment, which I neglected. That of the former I owe to the People of France, who happen"d to respect me too much and him too little; which I could bear, and he could not. They are unhappy, that they cannot make everybody hate me as much as they do; and I should be so, if my Friends did not love me much more than those Gentlemen can possibly love one another.
Every ugly witch is but a transfigured princess. This idea is one that was readily adopted by Franklin"s amiable philosophy of life. The thought that enemies are but wholesome mortifications for the pride of human flesh is a thought that he often throws out in his letters to other persons besides Hopkinson. In one to the gallant Col. Henry Bouquet, who was also, it may be said in pa.s.sing, a warm friend of Franklin, the pen of the latter halts for a moment to parenthesize the fact that G.o.d had blessed him with two or three enemies to keep him in order.
But there were few facts in which Franklin found more satisfaction than the fact that all his enemies were mere political enemies, that is to say, enemies like Dr. William Smith, who shot poisoned arrows at him, when he was living, and fired minute guns over his grave, when he was dead.
You know [he wrote to his daughter Sally from Reedy Island, when he was leaving America on his second mission to England], I have many enemies, all indeed on the public account (for I cannot recollect that I have in a private capacity given just cause of offence to any one whatever), yet they are enemies, and very bitter ones; and you must expect their enmity will extend in some degree to you, so that your slightest indiscretions will be magnified into crimes, in order the more sensibly to wound and afflict me.
The same distinction between personal and political hostility is drawn by him in a letter to John Jay of a much later date in which he uses the only terms of self-approval, so far as we can recollect, that a biographer might prefer him never to have employed.
I have [he said], as you observe, some enemies in England, but they are my enemies as an _American_; I have also two or three in America; who are my enemies as a _Minister_; but I thank G.o.d there are not in the whole world any who are my Enemies as a _Man_; for by his grace, thro" a long life, I have been enabled so to conduct myself, that there does not exist a human Being who can justly say, "Ben. Franklin has wrong"d me."
This, my friend, is in old age a comfortable Reflection.
In one of the letters to Hopkinson, mentioned by us, he tells Hopkinson that he does well to refrain from newspaper abuse. He was afraid, he declared, to lend any American newspapers in France until he had examined and laid aside such as would disgrace his countrymen, and subject them among strangers to a reflection like that used by a gentleman in a coffee-house to two quarrelers, who, after a mutually free use of the words, _rogue_, _villain_, _rascal_, _scoundrel_, etc., seemed as if they would refer their dispute to him. "I know nothing of you, or your Affair,"
said he; "I only perceive _that you know one another_."
The conductor of a newspaper, he thought, should consider himself as in some degree the guardian of his country"s reputation, and refuse to insert such writings as might hurt it. If people will print their abuses of one another, let them do it in little pamphlets, and distribute them where they think proper, instead of troubling all the world with them, he suggested.
In expressing these sentiments, Franklin was but preaching what he had actually practised in the management of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. This fact imparts additional authority to the pungent observations on the liberty of the press contained in one of the last papers that he ever wrote, namely, his _Account of the Supreme Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz.: the Court of the Press_. In this paper, he arraigns the license of the press in his half-serious, half-jocular fashion with undiminished vigor, and ends with the recommendation to the Legislature that, if the right of retaliation by the citizen was not to be left unregulated, it should take up the consideration of both liberties, that of the press and that of the cudgel, and by an explicit law mark their extent and limits.
Doctor Cadwallader Evans of Philadelphia was also on a sufficiently affectionate footing with Franklin for the latter to speak of him as his "good old friend." When news of his death reached Franklin in London in 1773, the event awakened a train of reflection in his mind which led him to write to his son that, if he found himself on his return to America, as he feared he would do, a stranger among strangers, he would have to go back to his friends in England.