REFRAIN FROM ALL IDLE, USELESS AMUSEMENTS
In December 1766, I was asked to recommend two young sons of my friends in Philadelphia to the study of physic [medicine] in Edinburgh. Herein is a letter I sent to them.
To Benjamin Rush and Jonathan Potts
London, Dec. 20, 1766
Gentlemen,
With this I send you letters for several of my friends at Edinburgh. It will be a pleasure to me if they prove of use to you.
But you will be your own best friends, if you apply diligently to your studies, refraining from all idle, useless amusements that are apt to lessen or withdraw the attention from your main business. This, from the characters you bear in the letters you brought me, I am persuaded you will do. Letters of recommendation may serve a stranger for a day or two, but where he is to reside for years, he must depend on his own conduct, which will either increase or totally destroy the effect of such letters. I take the freedom therefore of counselling you to be very circumspect and regular in your behaviour at Edinburgh (where the people are very shrewd and observing), that doing so you may bring from thence as good a character as you carry thither, and in that respect not be inferior to any American in going to study at Edinburgh at this time, where there happens to be collected a set of as truly great professors of the several branches of knowledge, as have ever appeared in any age or country. I recommend one thing particularly to you, that besides the study of medicine, you endeavour to obtain a thorough knowledge of natural philosophy35 in general. You will from thence draw great aids in judging well both of diseases and remedies, and avoid many errors. I mention this, because I have observed that a number of physicians, here as well as in America, are miserably deficient in it. I wish you all happiness and success in your undertakings, and remain, your friend and humble servant
B FRANKLIN
MY LONG PARTNERSHIP EXPIRES
In 1748, at the age of 42, I took the proper measures for obtaining leisure to enjoy life and my friends more than heretofore, and put my printing house under the care of my partner, Mr. David Hall, absolutely leaving off bookselling, &c. In 1767, my long partnership of the printing business with Mr. Hall expired, wherein a great source of my income was cut off. My family’s subsistence was thereby reduced to our rent and interest of money, which meant by no means could I afford the chargeable housekeeping and entertaining I had been used to; for my own part I lived in London as frugally as possible not to be destitute of the comforts of life, making no dinners for any body, and contenting myself with a single dish when I dined at home; and yet such was the dearness of living in every article that my expenses amazed me. I saw, too, that in my absence my wife’s expenses were very great. Her situation was very much sensible that naturally occasioned a great many visitors, which expense was not easily avoided, especially when one has been long in the practice and habit of it. But when people’s incomes are lessened, if they cannot proportionately lessen their outgoings, they must come to poverty. If we were young enough to begin business again, it might have been another matter, but I doubt not we were passed it; and business not well managed ruins one faster than no business. In short, with frugality and prudent care we may subsist decently on what we have, and leave it entire to our children; but without such care, we shall not be able to keep it together; it will melt away like butter in the sunshine; and we may live long enough to feel the miserable consequences of our indiscretion. Therefore, I had to limit payments to my wife to the sum of thirty pounds per month, making 360 pounds a year, and receiving the rents of seven or eight houses besides, which might be sufficient for the maintenance of my family in Philadelphia. I judged such a limitation the more necessary, as my wife was not very attentive to money-matters in her best days, and I did not like her going about among my friends to borrow money.
AN “UNPROMISING” MARRIAGE SURVIVES AND PROSPERS
At the same time, Deborah inform’d me that our daughter Sally had become engag’d to a gentleman, Richard Bache. I at first could say nothing agreeable about the marriage, writing him that I loved my daughter perhaps as well as ever a parent did a child; but being that my estate was small, scarce a sufficiency for the support of me and my wife, who were growing old and could not bustle for a living as we had done, that little could therefore be spared out of it while we lived. Moreover, I thought the step Mr. Bache had taken to engage himself in the charge of a family, while his affairs bore so unpromising an aspect with regard to the probable means of maintaining it, was a very rash and precipitate one. I could not therefore but be dissatisfy’d with it, and displeas’d with him whom I look’d upon as an instrument of bringing future unhappiness on my child, by involving her in the difficulty and distress that seem’d connected with his circumstances, his having not merely nothing beforehand, but being besides greatly in debt. Nevertheless, time and his better prospects in business made me easier, and I gave them my best wishes; that if he proved a good husband to her, and a good son to me, he would find me as an affectionate father. Soon they gave birth to a son, Benjamin Franklin Bache. All who saw my grandson Benny agreed of his being an uncommonly fine boy, which brought often afresh to my mind the idea of my son Franky, tho’ dead many years ago, whom I have seldom since seen equal’d in every thing, and whom to this day I cannot think of without a sigh.
ANY PROFESSION IS PREFERABLE TO AN OFFICE HELD AT PLEASURE
In December 1771, I found Mr. Bache at his mother and sister’s house in Preston, England. I very much liked his behaviour. We spent two days in Preston and I brought him to London with me, where I introduced him to Mrs. Stevenson and her daughter Polly. Mr. Bache had some views of obtaining an office in America, but I dissuaded him from the application and advis’d him to settle down to business in Philadelphia where he would always be with Sally; that it would have been wrong for Sally to leave her mother. Industry and frugality would pay his debts and get him forward in the world. I am of the opinion that almost any profession a man has been educated in is preferable to an office held at pleasure, as rendering him more independent, more a freeman and less subject to the caprices of superiors. I advis’d Sally to learn accounts and keep a store, and thereby be serviceable to him as my wife was to me. Till my return, I offer’d them no expense for rent, so that they might attend my dear wife as she grew infirmed, and she could take delight in their company and the child’s. I gave him £200 sterling as good luck.
I was happy to learn from my sister Jane Mecom that a good understanding continued between her and my folks upon her visit to Philadelphia. My father, a very wise man, us’d to say nothing was more common than for those who lov’d one another at a distance, to find many causes of dislike when they came together; and therefore he did not approve of visits to relations in distant places, which could not well be short enough for them to part good friends. I saw a proof of it, in the disgusts between him and his brother Benjamin; and tho’ I was a child I still remember how affectionate their correspondence was while they were separated, and the disputes and misunderstandings they had when they came to live some time together in the same house.
SEEKING A LAND GRANT
I often wish’d that I were employ’d by the Crown to settle a colony in Ohio, that we could do it effectually and without putting the nation to much expense. What a glorious thing it would have been to settle in that fine country a large strong body of religious and industrious people! What a security to the other colonies, and advantage to Britain by increasing her people, territory, strength and commerce. Might it not have greatly facilitated the introduction of pure religion among the heathen, if we could, by such a colony, show them a better sample of Christians than they commonly saw in our Indian traders, the most vicious and abandoned wretches of our nation? In such an enterprise I could have spent the remainder of my life with pleasure.
In 1769, I joined with Thomas Walpole, Richard Jackson, and others in the Grand Ohio Company to apply for a grant of 2,400,000 acres of land in the territory on the Ohio purchased of the I
ndians, which land was to be settled by people from the neighboring provinces, and that would be of great advantage in a few years to the undertakers [of the project], an opportunity of making a considerable addition to our fortunes, as the expense was a trifle. Each share was equal to 40,000 acres. The application was raised to twenty million acres in January 1770. We were daily amus’d with expectations that it would be compleated at this and t’other time, but I saw no progress made in it. And I think more and more that I was right in never placing any great dependence on it. The Ohio affair always seemed near a conclusion, but so difficult was it to get business forwarded in London, in which some party purpose was not to be served, that as to our prospect of success, many things slip between cup and lip. The affair of the grant dragged on but slowly, and I began to be a little of the sailor’s mind when they were handing a cable out of a store into a ship, and one of them said, “’Tis a long heavy cable; I wish we could see the end of it.” “D—n me,” says another, “if I believe it has any end: Somebody has cut it off.”
Years later, in 1774, I was told that some persons in administration had suggested that my conduct in affairs between England and North America had entitled me to a mark of favour in the granting of lands on the Ohio. I never considered the purchase of these lands as a favour from the government, nor a great bargain to the purchasers; the agreement for them was fair and public, at a price fully adequate to their value. I nevertheless wrote a letter to Thomas Walpole desiring that my name be struck out of the list of associates, and wished them all success in their hazardous undertaking.36
SOME LATE INCIDENTS BETWEEN PARLIAMENT AND THE COLONIES
In 1767, some incidents revived the contest between the two countries, creating great disorder in public affairs. In the same session with the Stamp Act, an act had been pass’d to regulate the quartering of soldiers in America, with a clause directing that empty houses, barns, &c. should be hired for them; and that the respective provinces where they were should pay the expense, and furnish the firing, bedding, drink, and some other articles to the soldiers, gratis. But the New York Assembly refus’d to do it, which caused great mischief and alienation of the affection of the people of America toward the British empire.
It was a common but mistaken notion in Britain that the colonies were planted at the expense of Parliament, and that therefore the Parliament had a right to tax them, &c. The truth is, they were planted at the expense of private adventurers, who went over to America to settle, with leave of the King given by charter. On receiving this leave and these charters, the adventurers voluntarily engag’d to remain the King’s subjects, though in a foreign country, a country which had not been conquer’d by either King or Parliament, but was possess’d by a free people. When our planters arriv’d, they purchas’d the lands of the natives without putting King or Parliament to any expense. Parliament had no hand in their settlement, was never so much as consulted about their constitution, and took no kind of notice of them till many years after they were established; but nothing was more common at this time in England than to talk of the sovereignty of Parliament, and the sovereignty of that nation over the colonies.
AMERICA IS FAVOURED BY NATURE
Upon the whole, I had lived so much of my life in Britain, and formed so many friendships in it, that I said at the time that I loved it and wished its prosperity and its union secur’d and establish’d. But as to America, the advantages of such a union to her were not so apparent. Scotland and Ireland were differently circumstanc’d. Confin’d by sea, they could scarcely increase in numbers, wealth and strength so as to overbalance England. But America, an immense territory, favour’d by nature with all advantages of climate, soil, great navigable rivers and lakes, &c., was destined to become a great country, populous and mighty; and would in a less time than was generally conceiv’d be able to shake off any shackles that might be impos’d on her, and perhaps place them on the impostors. In the mean time, every act of oppression soured their tempers, lessened greatly if not annihilated the profits of British commerce with them, and hastened their final revolt: For the seeds of liberty are universally sown there, and nothing could eradicate them.
FRANCE: A PRESTIGIOUS MIXTURE OF MAGNIFICENCE AND NEGLIGENCE
I stayed too long in London, and made a trip with Sir John Pringle into France in August. At Dover we embark’d for Calais. Various impositions we suffer’d from boatmen, porters, &c on both sides the water. I knew not which were more rapacious, the English or the French; but the latter have with their knavery the most politeness. The roads we found equally good with the English, in some places pav’d for many miles together with smooth stone like the new streets in London, and rows of trees on each side, and yet there were no turnpikes. But then the poor peasants complain’d to us grievously, that they were oblig’d to work upon the roads full two months in the year without being paid for their labour; whether this is truth, or whether, like Englishmen, they grumble cause or no cause, I was not able fully to inform myself.
There were fair women in Paris who, I thought, were not whiten’d by art. As to rouge, they didn’t pretend to imitate nature in laying it on. This was the mode, from the actresses on the stage upward thro’ all ranks of ladies to the princesses of the blood, but it stopped there, the Queen not using it, having in the serenity, complacency and benignity that shone so eminently in or rather through her countenance, sufficient beauty, tho’ then an old woman, to do extremely well without it. I speak of the Queen as if I had seen her, and so I had, at Court. We went to Versailles on a Sunday, and had the honour of being presented to the King [Louis XV], who spoke to both of us very graciously and cheerfully. He was a handsome man, had a very lively look, and appeared younger than he was. In the evening we were at the Grand Couvert, where the royal family supped in public. An officer of the Court brought us up thro’ the crowd of spectators, and plac’d Sir John so as to stand between the King and Madame Adelaide, and me between the Queen and Madame Victoire. The King talk’d a good deal to Sir John, asking many questions about the Royal family; and did me too the honour of taking some notice of me.
Versailles had infinite sums laid out in building it and supplying it with water: Some say the expense exceeded 80 millions sterling. The range of building was immense, the garden front most magnificent, all of hewn stone; the number of statues, figures, urns, &c in marble and bronze of exquisite workmanship was beyond conception. But the waterworks were out of repair, when we were there, and so was a great part of the front next to the town, looking with its shabby half brick walls and broken windows not much better than the houses in Durham Yard. There was, in short, both at Versailles and Paris, a prestigious mixture of magnificence and negligence, with every kind of eloquence except that of cleanliness, and what we call tidiness. Tho’ I must do Paris the justice to say that in two points of cleanliness they exceeded us: The water they drank, tho’ from the river, they rendered as pure as that of the best spring, by filtering it thro’ cisterns fill’d with sand; and the streets by constant sweeping were fit to walk in tho’ there was no pav’d foot path. Accordingly many well dress’d people were constantly seen walking in them. The crowds of coaches and chairs for that reason were not so great; men as well as women carried umbrellas in their hands, which they extended in case of rain or too much sun.
The civilities we every where received gave us the strongest impressions of the French politeness. It seemed to be a point settled universally that strangers were to be treated with respect, and one had just the same deference shown one in France by being a stranger as in England by being a lady. The custom house officers at Port St. Denis, as we enter’d Paris, were about to seize 2 doz. of excellent bourdeaux wine given us at Boulogne, and which we brought with us; but as soon as they found we were strangers, it was immediately remitted on that account. At the Church of Notre Dame, when we went to see a magnificent illumination with figures &c for the deceas’d Dauphiness, we found an immense crowd who were kept out by guards; but the officer being
told that we were strangers from England, he immediately admitted us, accompanied and show’d us everything. Every night, Sundays not excepted, were plays and operas; and tho’ the weather was hot, and the houses full, one is not incommoded by the heat so much as with us in winter. They must have had some way of changing the air that we are not acquainted with.
Travelling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance. It had been but a fortnight since we left London; but the variety of scenes we had gone through made it seem equal to six months living in one place. Perhaps I had suffered a greater change too in my own person than I could have done in six years at home. I had not been there six days before my tailor and peruquier had transform’d me into a Frenchman. Only think what a figure I made in a little bag wig and naked ears! They told me that I was become 20 years younger, and look’d very galante; so being in Paris where the mode was to be sacredly follow’d, I was once very near making love to my friend’s wife, Mrs. Dalibard, which made a lasting impression on my memory. In our return home, we were detained a week at Calais by contrary winds and stormy weather, which was the more mortifying to me when I reflected that I might have enjoy’d Paris and my friends there all that time. I returned to London safe and well, having had an exceedingly pleasant journey, and quite recover’d my health. But the time I spent as a stranger in Paris, in the improving conversation and agreeable society of so many learned and ingenious men, seemed now to me like a pleasing dream, from which I was sorry to be awakened by finding myself again at London.
The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1757-1790) Page 7