I WAS ELECTED TO THE ASSEMBLY
While I was on the sea, my fellow citizens had, at the annual election, chosen me unanimously, as they had done every year while I was in England, to be their representative in Assembly; and would, they said, if I had not disappointed them by coming privately to town before they heard of my landing, have met me with 500 horses. I had been chosen yearly during my absence to represent the city of Philadelphia in our provincial assembly, and on my appearance in the House they voted me £3000 sterling for my services in England and their thanks delivered by the Speaker. It had been industriously reported that I had lived very extravagantly in England, and wasted a considerable sum of the public money which I had received out of the Treasury for the province; but the Assembly, when they came to examine my accounts and allow me for my services, found themselves two thousand two hundred and fourteen pounds 10s.7d. sterling to my debt.
In February following, my son arriv’d, with my new daughter, for, with my consent and approbation he married soon after I left England, 28 a very agreeable West Indian lady, with whom he is very happy. I accompanied him to his government in New Jersey,29 where he met with the kindest reception from the people of all ranks.
A TOUR OF THE POST OFFICES
In the spring of 1763 I set out on a tour thro’ all the northern colonies, to inspect and regulate the post offices in the several provinces, we being under the necessity of making frequent and long journeys in person to see things with our own eyes, regulate what was amiss, and direct the necessary improvements. One of our goals was to expedite the communication between Boston and New York, as we had already that between New York and Philadelphia, by making the mails travel by night as well as day. It passes now between Philadelphia and New York so quick that a letter can be sent from one place to another, and an answer received the day following, which before took a week. In this journey I spent the summer, traveled about 1600 miles, and did not get home till the beginning of November.
THE SIMPLE BEAUTY OF SCOTTISH TUNES
Having return’d home my daughter Sally endeavored to collect some of the music of this country production, to send to Miss Janet Dick in Scotland, in return for her most acceptable present of Scotch songs, music being a new art with us. Sally sang the songs to her harpsichord, and I played some of the softest tunes on my armonica, with which entertainment our people were quite charmed, and conceived the Scottish tunes to be the finest in the world. And indeed, there is so much simple beauty in many of them that it is my opinion they will never die, but in all ages find a number of admirers among those whose taste is not debauch’d by art.
I give it my opinion that the reason why the Scotch tunes have lived so long, and will probably live forever (if they escape being stifled in modern affected ornament) is merely this, that they are really compositions of melody and harmony united, or rather that their melody is harmony. By this I mean the simple tunes sung by a single voice. As this will appear paradoxical I must explain my meaning. In common acceptation, only an agreeable succession of sounds is called melody, and only the co-existence of agreeing sounds, harmony. But since the memory is capable of retaining for some moments a perfect idea of the pitch of a past sound, so as to compare it with it the pitch of a succeeding sound, and judge truly of their agreement or disagreement, there may and does arise from thence a sense of harmony between present and past sounds, equally pleasing with that between two present sounds. Now the construction of the old Scotch tunes is that almost every succeeding emphatic note, is a third, a fifth, an octave, or in short some note that is in concord with the preceding note. Thirds are chiefly used, which are very pleasing concords.
A HIGHER OPINION OF THE BLACK RACE
While home, I also visited the Negro School in Philadelphia in company with the Reverend Mr. Sturgeon, and had the children thoroughly examin’d. They appear’d all to have made considerably progress in reading for the time they had respectively been in the school, and most of them answer’d readily and well the questions of the Catechism; they behav’d very orderly, showed a proper respect and ready obedience to the mistress, and seem’d very attentive to, and a good deal affected by, a serious exhortation with which Mr. Sturgeon concluded our visit. I was on the whole much pleas’d, and from what I then saw, have conceiv’d a higher opinion of the natural capacities of the black race, than I had ever before entertained. Their apprehension seems as quick, their memory as strong, and their docility in every respect equal to that of white children.
Just before I left London, a gentleman requested I would sit for a picture to be drawn of me for him by a painter of his choosing. I did so, and the portrait was reckon’d a very fine one.30 Since I came to Philadelphia, the painter had a print done for it, of which he sent a parcel to America for sale. I took a dozen of them and sent them to friends in Boston, which I believed would be the only way which I would likely visit them.
The Assembly sitting thro’ the following winter, and warm disputes arising between them and the governor, I became wholly engag’d in public affairs. Our old Speaker, Mr. Isaac Norris, had been long declining in his health. During the winter session he was unable to come to the statehouse, and the House met at his lodging. After some days he wrote to the House that he could no longer meet with them, and requested they choose another Speaker, upon which they were pleas’d unanimously to choose your humble servant.
Besides my duty as an assemblyman, I had another trust to execute, that of being one of the commissioners appointed by law to dispose of the public money appropriate to the raising and paying an army to act against the Indians and defend the frontiers. It was well known that I had no love of the governor, and he did not love me. Our totally different tempers forbid it. And yet I consider’d government as government, paid him all respect, gave him on all occasions my best advice, and promoted in the Assembly a ready compliance with everything he propos’d or recommended.
THE PAXTON BOYS AND THE INDIAN MASSACRES
Then in December 1763 we had two insurrections of the back inhabitants of our province, by whom 20 poor Indians were murdered who had from the first settlement of the province lived among us and under the protection of our government. On Wednesday, the 14TH of December, 1763, fifty-seven men from some of our frontier townships came, all well-mounted and armed with firelocks, hangers and hatchets, having travelled through the country in the night, to Conestogoe Manor. There they surrounded the small village of Indian huts, and just at break of day broke into them all at once. Only three men, two women, and a boy were found at home. These poor defenseless creatures were immediately fired upon, stabbed and hatcheted to death. All of them were scalped, and otherwise horribly mangled. Then their huts were set on fire and most of them burnt down. When the shocking news arrived in town, a proclamation was issued by the governor, forbidding all persons to molest or injure the Indians. Notwithstanding this proclamation, those cruel men again assembled themselves, and hearing that the remaining fourteen Indians were in the workhouse at Lancaster, went directly to the workhouse, and by violence broke open the door, and entered with the utmost fury in their countenances. When the poor wretches saw they had no protection nigh, nor could possibly escape, and being without the least weapon for defense, they divided into their little families, the children clinging to the parents; they fell on their knees, protesting their innocence, declaring their love to the English, and that, in their whole lives, they had never done them injury; and in this posture they all received the hatchet. Men, women and little children were every one inhumanly murdered in cold blood.
As the rioters threatened further mischief, and their actions seem’d to be approv’d by an increasing party, I wrote a pamphlet entitled A Narrative of the Late Massacres31 to strength the hands of our weak government, by rendering the proceedings of the rioters unpopular and odious. This had a good effect; and afterwards when a great body of them with arms march’d towards the capital in defiance of the government, with an avowed resolution to put to death 140 In
dian converts then under its protection, I form’d an association at the governor’s request, for his and their defense, we having no militia. Near 1,000 of the citizens accordingly took arms; the governor offer’d me the command of them, but I chose to carry a musket, and strengthened his authority by setting an example of obedience to his orders. Governor Penn made my house for some time his head quarters, and did everything by my advice, so that for about 48 hours I was a very great man, as I had been once some years before in a time of public danger. I was a common soldier, a counsellor, a kind of dictator, an ambassador to the country mob, and on their returning home, nobody again. All this happened in a few weeks!
But the fighting face we put on, and the reasonings we us’d with the insurgents (for I went at the request of the governor and council with three others to meet and discourse them) having turn’d them back, and restor’d quiet to the city, I became a less man than ever: for I had by these transactions made myself many enemies among the populace; and the governor (with whose family our public disputes had long plac’d me in an unfriendly light, and the services I had lately render’d him not being the kind that make a man acceptable) thinking it a favourable opportunity, join’d the whole weight of the proprietary interest to vote me out of the Assembly, which was accordingly effected at the last election, by a “majority” of about 25 in 4,000 voters.
THE PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT WAS WEAK
The House, however, when they met in October, approv’d of my resolutions when I was Speaker to petition the Crown for a change of government, having given up all hope of the proprietary government serving the people. The Assembly’s petition was as follows:To the King’s most excellent majesty, in council: The petition of the representatives of the freemen of the province of Pennsylvania, in General Assembly met,
Most humbly sheweth
That the government of this province by proprietaries has by long experience been found inconvenient, attended with many difficulties and obstructions to your Majesty’s service, arising from the intervention of the proprietary private interests in public affairs, and disputes concerning those interests.
That the said proprietary government is weak, unable to support its own authority and maintain the common internal peace of the province, great riots having lately arisen therein, armed mobs marching from place to place, and committing violent outrages, and insults on the government with impunity, to the great terror of your Majesty’s subjects. And these evils are not likely to receive any remedy here, the continual disputes between the proprietaries and people, and the mutual jealousies and dislikes preventing.
We do therefore most humbly pray that your Majesty would be graciously pleased to resume the government of this province, making such compensation to the proprietaries for the same as to your Majesty’s wisdom and goodness shall appear just and equitable, and permitting your dutiful subjects therein to enjoy under your Majesty’s more immediate care and protection, the privileges that have been granted to them, by and under your royal predecessors.
Signed by Order of the House
For my own part, I thought it impossible to go longer with the proprietary government. Thus the Assembly requested me to return to England to prosecute that petition; which service I accordingly undertook, and embark’d the beginning of November 1764, being accompany’d to the ship, 16 miles, by a cavalcade of three hundred of my friends, who fill’d our sails with good wishes.
RETURN TO LONDON
When in America, I promised myself the pleasure of a regular correspondence with many of the ingenious gentlemen that composed the Club of Honest Whigs. But after so long an absence from my family and affairs, I found so much occupation that philosophical matters could not be attended to; and my last summer was almost wholly taken up in long journeys. I wrote letters to Mr. Strahan and others expressing my interest to conveniently remove to England, but I was never able to persuade the good woman to cross the seas, she always having an invincible aversion to it, even with the help of friends.
Chapter Three
Second Mission to England, 1764–75
OLD FRIENDS IN LONDON
On sea we had terrible weather, and I often was thankful that my dear daughter Sally was not with me. Arriving in Portsmouth after 30 days, I traveled 72 miles to London in a short winter day, and think I must have practis’d flying. But the roads in England were so good, with post chaises and fresh horses every ten or twelve miles, that it was no difficult matter. A lady that I know came from Edinburgh to London, being 400 miles, in three days and half.
I once more had the pleasure of living at Craven Street. Mrs. Stevenson was not home, and the maid could not tell where to find her, so I sat me down and waited her return, and when she arrived she was a good deal surpris’d to find me in her parlour. I had the pleasure of finding my old friend Strahan and all his family well and happy. Those of my old friends who were in town gave me a most cordial welcome, but many were yet in the country, the Parliament not meeting till the 10TH of January.
GOD IS VERY GOOD TO US IN MANY RESPECTS
Immediately upon my arrival, for 10 or 12 days I was severely handled by a most violent cold that worried me extremely. By February, I was almost well, with the cough quite gone, and my arms continued mending,32 so that I could put on and off my clothes, though it still hurt a little. I also had a visitation from that friend (or enemy), the gout, that confin’d me near a fortnight. By June I was in perfect health and wrote my dear Debby on the great share of health we had both enjoyed, tho’ going in the fourth score.
I wrote, “God has been very good to us in many respects. Therefore, let us enjoy his favours with a thankful and cheerful heart; and, as we can make no direct return to him, show our sense of his goodness to us, by continuing to do good to our fellow creatures, without regarding the returns they make us, whether good or bad. For they are all his children, tho’ they may sometimes be our enemies. The friendships of this world are changeable, uncertain transitory things; but his favour, if we can secure it, is an inheritance forever.”
MAGIC SQUARES... AND MAGIC CIRCLES
In my younger days, having once some leisure (which I still think I might have employed more usefully), I had amused myself in making magic squares, and, at length, had acquired such a knack of it, that I could fill the cells of any magic square of reasonable size, with a series of numbers as fast as I could write them, disposed in such a manner as that the sums of every row, horizontal, perpendicular, or diagonal, should be equal; I enclose one of 4 on the next page.
But not being satisfied with these, which I looked on as common and easy things, I had imposed on myself more difficult tasks, and succeeded in making other magic squares, with a variety of properties, and much more curious. I did not, however, end with squares, but composed also a magic circle, consisting of 8 concentric circles and 8 radial rows, filled with a series of numbers, from 12 to 75, inclusive, so disposed as that the numbers of each circle, or each radial row, being added to the central number 12, they made exactly 360, the number of degrees in a circle; and this circle had, moreover, all the properties of the square of 8. I enclose this magical circle of circles.
A “magic square” I devised.
At Craven Street, in correspondence with friends in Pennsylvania, I revis’d the magic circles I had made many years before, and with some improvements. I made it as distinct as I could, by using inks of different colours for the several sets of interwoven circles; and yet the whole made so complex an appearance, that I doubted whether the eyes could in all cases easily trace the circle of numbers one might examine, through the maze of circles intersected by it: I therefore, in the middle circle, marked the centers of the green, red, yellow, and blue sets, so that when the numbers in any circle of any of those colours were cast up, if one fixed one foot of the compass in the center of the same colour, and extended the other foot to any number in that circle, it would pass round over all the rest successively. This magic circle had more properties than are mention’d i
n the description of it, some of them curious and even surprising; but I could not mark them all without occasioning more confusion in the figure, nor easily describe them without too much writing.
“At Craven Street, in correspondence with friends in Pennsylvania, I revis’d the magic circles I had made many years before, and with some improvements.”
THE STAMP ACT, THE MOTHER OF MISCHIEF
As to business, I was immediately engag’d in public affairs related to America and in the petition to change the government in Pennsylvania. But the unsettled state of the ministry ever since the Parliament passed the Stamp Act had stop’d all proceedings in public affairs and ours among the rest. Every step in the law, every newspaper, advertisement and Almanac was to be severely tax’d, falling particularly hard on us lawyers and printers.
At first I was not much alarm’d about Parliament’s schemes of raising money on the colonies, thinking that the government would take care for their own sakes not to lay greater burdens on us than we could bear; for they could not hurt us without hurting themselves. All our profits centered with England, and the more they took from us, the less we could lay out to them.
HOW THE STAMP ACT CAME TO BE
The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1757-1790) Page 5