In addition to muskets, I suggested adding bows and arrows as good weapons, because a man may shoot as truly with a bow as with a common musket; he can discharge 4 arrows in the time of charging and discharging one bullet; his object is not taken from his view by the smoke of his own side; a flight of arrows seen coming upon them terrifies, and disturbs the enemy’s attention to his business; an arrow sticking in any part of a man, puts him hors du combat till ’tis extracted; and bows and arrows are more easily provided everywhere than muskets and ammunition.
We gave up our commerce with Britain; our last ships, 34 sail, left port the 9TH of September. And in our minds we gave up our sea coast to the barbarous ravages of English ships of war; but the internal country we promised to defend. It was, with our liberties, worth defending, and would itself by its fertility enable us to defend it. By cutting off our trade, Britain had thrown us to the Earth, whence, like Antaeus, we would rise yearly with fresh strength and vigour. Agriculture is the great source of wealth and plenty. As part of our defense, I designed chevaux de frise66 to hinder the approach of warships, a new invention which served to close ports. It had great effect, and the English were held up by it for seven weeks.
THE RATTLESNAKE AS A SYMBOL OF AMERICA: “DON’T TREAD ON ME”
I observed on one of the drums belonging to the Marines being raised that there was painted a rattlesnake, with this modest motto under it, “Don’t tread on me.” It occurred to me that the rattlesnake, being found in no other quarter of the world besides America, might therefore be chosen to represent her. Having frequently seen the rattlesnake, I ran over in my mind every property by which she was distinguished. I recollect that her eye excelled in brightness, that of any other animal, and that she has no eye-lids. She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance. She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders; she is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage. As if anxious to prevent all pretensions of quarrelling with her, the weapons with which nature has furnished her she conceals in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears to be a most defenseless animal, and even when those weapons are shown and extended for her defense, they appear weak and contemptible; but their wounds however small, are decisive and fatal. Conscious of this, she never wounds till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her.
I confess I was wholly at a loss what to make of the rattles, till I went back and counted them and found them just thirteen, exact the number of the colonies united in America; and I recollected too that this was the only part of the snake that increases in numbers; perhaps it might be only fancy, but, I conceited the painter had shown a half formed additional rattle, which, I suppose, might have been intended to represent the province of Canada.
’Tis curious and amazing to observe how distinct and independent of each other the rattles of this animal are, and yet how firmly they are united together, so as never to be separated but by breaking them to pieces. One of those rattles singly is incapable of producing sound, but the ringing of thirteen together is sufficient to alarm the boldest man living. The rattlesnake is solitary and associates with her kind only when it is necessary for their preservation. In winter, the warmth of a number together will preserve their lives, while singly they would probably perish. The power of fascination attributed to her, by a generous construction, may be understood to mean that those who consider the liberty and blessing which America affords, and once come over to her, never afterwards leave her, but spend their lives with her. She strongly resembles America in this, that she is beautiful in youth and her beauty increaseth with her age, “her tongue also is blue and forked as the lightning, and her abode is among impenetrable rocks.”
I communicated my sentiments to a neighbour of mine, who had a surprising readiness at guessing everything which related to public affairs. He instantly declared it as his sentiments that the Congress meant to allude to Lord North’s declaration in the House of Commons that he never would relax his measures until he had brought America to his feet, and to intimate to his Lordship that were she brought to his feet, it would be dangerous treading on her.
THIS BUSTLE IS UNSUITABLE TO AGE
I was as happy as I could be under the fatigue of more business than was suitable for my age at 70. I was immers’d in so much business that I had scarce time to eat or sleep. The greatest part of the year 1775 I was almost every day 10 or 12 hours of the day employ’d in business or consultation with many other persons sitting in a closed room, and had no leisure for exercise. The winter I promised myself to bring with it some relaxation with my family. Such bustle is unsuitable to age. I wrote Rev. Shipley how happy I was in the sweet retirement of Twyford, where my only business was a little scribbling in the garden study, writing my memoirs, and my pleasure of conversation with the Reverend and his amiable family!
In October 1775, I travelled with two other delegates of the Congress to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to confer with General Washington 67 on sundry matters. The General requested that the committee would represent to the Congress the necessity of having money constantly and regularly sent. For my own part I was for the most prudent parsimony of the public treasury. I was not terrified by the expense of this war. A little more frugality, or a little more industry would with ease defray it, I said. Suppose it cost £100,000 a month or £1,200,000 a year: If 500,000 families would each spend a shilling a week less, or earn a shilling a week more, they would pay the whole sum without otherwise feeling it. Forbearing to drink tea would save three fourths of the money; and 500,000 in a week would pay the rest.
I learned that there were as many cheerful countenances among those who were driven from house and home at Boston or lost their all at Charlestown, as among other people. Not a murmur was heard, that if they had been less zealous in the cause of liberty they might still have enjoy’d their possessions. During the hostilities, my sister Jane Mecom left her house lock’d up with the furniture in it, and moved to Warwick with Mrs. Greene. I purchased a carriage and horses with the intent of taking my sister home with me to Philadelphia.
THE REAL AUTHOR OF COMMON SENSE
In early 1776, I received a letter from Gen. Charles Lee in New York regarding a now famous pamphlet that made a great impression in America called Common Sense, which Mr. Lee called a “masterly, irresistible performance” in making the case for independence. I told Mr. Lee that Mr. Thomas Paine, an ingenious honest man, was the real author of Common Sense, and that Mr. Paine had requested a line of introduction to him, which I did willingly, knowing his sentiments were not very different from the General’s.
The ancient Roman and Greek orators could only speak to the number of citizens capable of being assembled within the reach of their voice: their writings had little effect because the bulk of the people could not read. Now, by the press, we can speak to nations; and good books and well written pamphlets have great and general influence. The facility with which the same truths may be repeatedly enforced by placing them daily in different lights in newspapers which are every where read, gives a great chance of establishing them. And we now found that it was not only right to strike while the iron was hot, but that it was very practicable to heat it by continually striking.
I always valu’d Mr. Paine’s friendship. Instead of repenting that I was his introducer into America, I valued myself on the share I had in procuring for it the acquisition of so useful and valuable a citizen, by which the revolution was greatly forwarded.
FROM THE PENNSYLVANIA ASSEMBLY TO CONGRESS
It would be a happiness to me if I could serve the public duly in all stations; but aged as I was, I felt myself unequal to so much business, and on that account thought it my duty to decline part of it, and therefore requested that the Pennsylvania Assembly dispense my further attendance as one of the Committee of Safety, tho’ remaining a delegate to Congress.
In Congress, I was made a member of the
Committee of Secret Correspondence. We immediately appointed Mr. Silas Deane to go to France to transact business, commercial and political, on behalf of the thirteen united colonies, and to meet with individuals friendly to our cause. Mr. Deane would appear in the character of a merchant and make immediate application to Monsieur de Vergennes, Minister des Affairs Etrangeres, and then acquaint him that the Congress, finding that it was not practicable for the continent of America to furnish the arms and ammunition necessary for its defense, Mr. Deane was dispatched by our authority to apply to France for a supply.
Silas Deane: “Finding that it was not practicable for the continent of America to furnish the arms and ammunition necessary for its defense, Mr. Deane was dispatched by our authority to apply to France for a supply.”
A TRIP TO CANADA
The Committee then reported that they had conferr’d with a person just arriv’d from Canada. He said that when the Canadians first heard of the dispute they were generally on the American side; but that by the influence of the Clergy and the Noblesse, who had been continually preaching and persuading them against America, they were brought into a state of suspense or uncertainty as to which side to follow. He thought it would be a great service if some persons from the Congress were sent to Canada, and the Congress thereby appointed three commissioners to go to Canada, of which number I was honoured to be one, along with Charles Carroll and Samuel Chase. Our purpose was to convince them of the uprightness of our intentions, and that the people of Canada should set up such a form of government to produce their happiness, and that it was our earnest desire to adopt them into our union as a sister colony. We set out the week of March 11 to Canada by way of New York, a journey of 500 miles. We were detain’d in Saratoga by the lakes in which the unthaw’d ice obstructed navigation, which caused me to undertake a fatigue that at my time of life proved almost too much for me. We were in a small open boat, where I was kept sitting without exercise for many days.
WE WERE IN A CRITICAL AND MOST IRKSOME SITUATION
After some difficulty and delay in getting thro’ the ice of Lake George, we arrived in Montreal in late April, and were very politely received by General Arnold, who commanded the post. The smallpox was in the army, and General Thomas68 had unfortunately never had it. It is impossible to give a just idea of the lowness of the Continental credit there from the want of hard money, and the prejudice it was to our affairs. Not the most trifling service could be procured without an assurance of instant pay in silver or gold. The inhabitants had experienced frequent breaches of promise and were determined to trust our people no farther. The general apprehension was that we would be driven out of the province as soon as the King’s troops arrived. We urged the forwarding of a large sum to Canada (we believed twenty thousand pounds would be necessary); otherwise it would be impossible to continue the war in this country, or to expect the continuance of our interest with the people there, who began to consider the Congress as bankrupt as their cause was desperate. I advanced to General Arnold and others £353 in gold out of my own pocket on the credit of Congress, which was of great service in procuring provisions for our army, but we concluded that till the arrival of more money, it seemed improper to propose the federal union of this province with the others, as the few friends we had there would scarce venture to exert themselves in promoting it, till they saw our credit recover’d, and a sufficient army arrived to secure the possession of the country. We reported that without a speedy supply of money, our forces would suffer exceedingly from the want of many necessaries, particularly flour. It was very difficult to keep soldiers under proper discipline without paying them regularly. We recommended that if hard money could not be procured and forwarded with dispatch to Canada, it would be advisable to withdraw our army and fortify the passes on the lakes to prevent the enemy, and the Canadians, if so inclined, from making irruptions into and depredations on our frontiers. We also learned that the army was entirely without surgeons. We had daily intimations of plots hatching and insurrections intended for expelling us, on the first news of the arrival of a British army. We were in a critical and most irksome situation, pestered hourly with demands great and small that we could not answer, in a place where our cause had the majority of enemies, the garrison weak, and a greater [demand] would, without money, increase our difficulties. Forwarding provisions was the absolute necessity, or the army must starve, plunder, or surrender.
On the 10TH of May, five ships of war arrived from Quebec, with an enemy of less than a thousand. Our forces were so dispersed that no more than two hundred could be collected at headquarters. In this situation a retreat was inevitable and made in the utmost confusion with the loss of our cannon on the batteries, provisions, five hundred stand of small arms, and a batteau load of powder. Two days later I took leave of the other two commissioners to return home, having grown daily more feeble, with symptoms of the gout. I was afflicted with a succession of boils, sometimes two or three together, each when heal’d left round about it spots of scurff, which obstinately continu’d. I could hardly have got along but for Mr. Carroll’s friendly assistance and tender care of me. It was with the utmost difficulty I got a conveyance, the country being all afraid to be known to assist us with carriages, but I arrived in New York safe on the evening of May 26. I met two officers from Philadelphia with a letter from the Congress to the commissioners, and a sum of hard money. I opened the letter and seal’d it again, directing them to carry it forward to Boston and Canada.
We were obliged to quit Canada, being too much of a bold thing to block up Quebec a whole winter with an army much inferior in numbers to the garrison, and our troops sent too late to support them, or having had the smallpox, being much disabled by that distemper.
I arrived home in Philadelphia, recovering from a severe fit of the gout, which kept me from Congress and company for a month, so I knew little of what had passed there. The Committee of Secret Correspondence instructed William Bingham to repair aboard a sloop on a voyage to the West Indies and endeavour to procure ten thousand good muskets, well fitted with bayonets.
IT IS THE NATURAL RIGHT OF MEN TO QUIT THE STATE
In June, I was asked to assist in the preparing of a declaration of independence before the Congress for a final separation from Great Britain. It has always been my opinion that it is the natural right of men to quit, when they please, the society or state, and the country in which they were born, and either join with another or form a new one as they may think proper. The Saxons thought they had this right when they quitted Germany and established themselves in England. I had written a draft of a resolution to Congress along these lines in late 1775, viz.:Whereas, whenever kings, instead of protecting the lives and property of their subjects, as is their bounded duty, do endeavour to perpetrate the destruction of either, they thereby cease to be kings, become tyrants, and dissolve all ties of allegiance between themselves and their people; we hereby further solemnly declare, that whenever it shall appear clearly to us, that the King’s troops and ships now in America, or hereafter to be brought there, do, by his Majesty’s orders, destroy any town or the inhabitants of any town or place in America, or that the savages have been by the same orders hired to assassinate our poor out-settlers and their families, we will from that time renounce all allegiance to Great Britain, so long as that kingdom shall submit to him, or any of his descendants, as its sovereign.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: WE HAZARD OUR LIVES AND FORTUNES
While recovering from boils and the gout, I was asked by Mr. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the draft of the declaration, to peruse it and suggest such alterations as necessary. I made some small revisions, striking the words “sacred and undeniable” and replacing them with “self evident” so as to read “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” However, when the Declaration of Independence was under the consideration of Congress, there were many more changes and depredations on the document, such as expressions on the Scotch and the importation of slaves, which gave
offense to some members, and were disapproved. I was sitting by Mr. Jefferson and saw that he was not insensible to these mutilations. I told him that I had made it a rule, whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I related to him.
When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprentice hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words, “John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money,” with a figure of a hat subjoined; but he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word “Hatter” tautologous, because followed by the words “makes hats,” which show he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word “makes” might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats. If good and to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words “for ready money” were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood, “John Thompson sells hats.” “Sells hats!” says his next friend. Why nobody will expect you to give them away, what then is the use of that word? It was stricken out, and “hats” followed it, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So the inscription was reduced ultimately to “John Thompson” with the figure of a hat subjoined.
The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1757-1790) Page 13