The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1757-1790)

by Benjamin Franklin

  Chapter Ten

  The Creation of a New Nation, 1785–87

  We had a pleasant and not a long passage to America, in which there was but one day of violent storm. I purposed on my voyage to write the remaining notes of my life, but made no progress, for want of the documents that could only be had in Philadelphia. But I was not idle, writing three philosophical pieces, each of some length: one on nautical matters; another on chimneys (in France I was press’d by M. le Noir and M. Cadet to give a description of my stove for burning smoke, they conceiving that it might be useful to the citizens of Paris); and a third a description of my vase for consuming smoke, with directions for using it. The following year all were read to the Philosophical Society in Philadelphia and were printed in their journal.

  GOD BE PRAISED.... I ARRIVE IN DEAR PHILADELPHIA!

  On September 14, 1785, with the flood in the morning came a light breeze, which brought us above Gloucester Point, in full view of dear Philadelphia! We cast anchor to wait for the health officer, who, having made his visit and finding no sickness, gave us leave to land. I arrived with my two grandsons and cousin Jonathan Williams, thanks to God, after a pleasant passage of 5 weeks and 5 days from land to land. My son-in-law, Mr. Bache, came with a boat for us. We landed at Market Street wharf, where we were received by a crowd of people with huzzas, and accompanied with acclamations quite to my door, where I found my family well. God be praised and thanked for all his mercies!

  I was continually surrounded by congratulating friends, and the affectionate welcome I met with from my fellow-citizens was far beyond my expectations. To find it in the full enjoyment of peace and liberty makes me esteem the day of my arrival among the happiest of my life. I was now in the bosom of my family, and found four new little prattlers, who clung about the knees of their grand papa, and afforded me great pleasure.

  The vessel from Havre, after a long passage of about 12 weeks, arrived at last with all my things in pretty good order, and sundry parcels of books, &c., when I had almost given over all hopes of seeing them ever again; and with great satisfaction I was again drinking every day les eaux epurees de Passy, as they kept well, and seemed to be rendered more agreeable by the long voyage. I found myself happily situated in my own house, surrounded by my offspring, with all my playthings and amusements about me, and my malady not augmented, but still continuing tolerable.

  Statuary Mr. Houdon, whom Mr. Jefferson and myself arranged with to come over for the purpose of taking a bust of Gen. Washington, arrived with us in Philadelphia. But he was much perplex’d by the accident of leaving his materials and instruments in France, which he sent down the Seine from Paris; but they did not arrive at Havre before we sail’d, and he was oblig’d to leave them. However, he found in Philadelphia the tools and materials he wanted, and set out for General Washington’s. The bust of me, made by Houdon, was return’d perfectly safe, and continues to be the admiration of all that see it.

  I WROTE A TRUER STATE OF AFFAIRS IN OUR COUNTRY

  Upon my return, I found that the English newspapers, to please honest John Bull, had painted our situation in America in frightful colours, as if we were very miserable since we broke our connection with him. I wrote a piece on the internal state of America to convince the world that none of us are discontent with the revolution. I found all property in lands and houses augmented vastly in value since I left; that of houses and towns at least four-fold. The crops were plentiful, and yet the produce sold high in ready hard money, to the great profit of the farmer. At the same time all imported goods sold at low rates, some cheaper than the first cost. Working people had plenty of employ and high pay for their labour. Everybody was well cloth’d and well lodg’d, the poor provided for or assisted. And our commerce being no longer the monopoly of British merchants, we were well furnished with all the foreign commodities we needed, at much more reasonable rates than heretofore. These appeared to me as certain signs of public prosperity. Some traders indeed complained that trade was dead; but this pretended evil was not an effect of inability in the people to buy, pay for, and consume the usual articles of commerce, as far as they had occasion for them; it was owing merely to there being too many traders who had crowded hither from all parts of Europe with more goods than the natural demand of the country required. And what in Europe was called the debt of America is chiefly the debt of these adventurers and supercargoes to their principals, with which the settled inhabitants of America, who never paid better for what they want and buy, had nothing to do.

  INSTEAD OF A FAST THEY PROCLAIMED A THANKSGIVING

  There is a tradition that in the planting of New England, the first settlers met with many difficulties and hardships, as is generally the case when a civiliz’d people attempt to establish themselves in a wilderness country. Being so piously dispos’d, they sought relief from heaven by laying their wants and distresses before the Lord in frequent set days of fasting and prayer. Constant meditation and discourse on these subjects kept their minds gloomy and discontented, and like the children of Israel there were many dispos’d to return to the Egypt which persecution had induc’d them to abandon. At length, when it was proposed in the Assembly to proclaim another fast, a farmer of plain sense rose and remark’d that the inconveniences they suffer’d, and concerning which they had so often weary’d heaven with their complaints, were not so great as they might have expected, and were diminishing every day as the colony strengthen’d; that the earth began to reward their labour and furnish liberally for their subsistence; that their seas and rivers were full of fish, the air sweet, the climate healthy, and above all, they were in the full enjoyment of liberty, civil and religious. He therefore thought that reflecting and conversing on these subjects would be more comfortable and lead more to make them contented with their situation; and that it would be more becoming the gratitude they ow’d to the divine being, if instead of a fast they should proclaim a thanksgiving. His advice was taken, and from that day to this, they have in every year observ’d circumstances of public felicity sufficient to furnish employment for a Thanksgiving Day, which is therefore constantly ordered and religiously observed.

  I saw in the public papers of different states frequent complaints of hard times, deadness of trade, scarcity of money, &c. &c. It was not my intention to assert or maintain that these complaints are entirely without foundation; there can be no country or nation existing in which there will not be some people so circumstanc’d as to find it hard to gain a livelihood, people who are not in the way of any profitable trade, and with whom money is scarce because they have nothing to give in exchange for it. And it is always in the power of a small number to make a great clamour. But let us take a cool view of the general state of our affairs, and perhaps the prospect will appear less gloomy than has been imagined.

  NO PART ARE SO WELL FED, WELL CLOTH’D, WELL LODG’D AND WELL PAID

  The great business of the continent is agriculture. For one artisan or merchant we have at least 100 farmers, by far the greatest part cultivators of their own fertile lands, from whence many of them draw not only the food necessary for their subsistence, but the materials of their clothing, so as to have little occasion for foreign supplies, while they have a surplus of production to dispose of, whereby wealth is gradually accumulated. Such has been the goodness of divine providence to these regions, and so favourable the climate, that since the three or four years of hardship in the first settlement of our fathers here, a famine or scarcity has never been heard of among us; on the contrary, tho’ some years may have been more, and others less plentiful, there has always been provision enough for ourselves, and a quantity to spare for exportation. And altho’ the crops of 1784 were generally good, never was the farmer better paid for the part he could spare to commerce, as the published prices abundantly testified. The lands he possesses are also continually rising in value with the increase of population. And on the whole he is enabled to give such good wages to those who work for him, that all who are acquainted with the old
world must agree that in no part of it are the labouring poor so well fed, so well cloth’d, well lodg’d and well paid as in the United States of America.

  If we enter the cities, we find there too that since the revolution the owners of houses and lots of ground have had their interest vastly augmented in value; rents have risen to an astonishing height, and thence encouragement to increase building, which gives employment to an abundance of workmen, as does also the increas’d luxury and splendor of living of the inhabitants thus made richer. These workmen all demand and obtain much higher wages than any other part of the world would afford them, and they are paid in ready money. This rank of people therefore do not, or ought not, complain of hard times, and they comprise a very considerable part of the city inhabitants.

  At the distance I live from our American fisheries I cannot speak of them with any certainty; but I have not heard that the labour of the valuable race of men employ’d in them is worse paid or that they meet with less success than before the revolution. The whalemen indeed have been depriv’d of one market for their oil, but another opened up for them. And the demand is constantly increasing for their spermaceti candles, which therefore bear a much higher price than formerly.

  There remain the merchants and the shopkeepers. Of these, tho’ they make but a small part of the whole nation, the number is considerable, too great indeed for the business they are employ’d in, for the consumption of goods in every country has its limits. The faculties of the people—that is, their ability to buy and pay—is equal only to a certain quantity of merchandise. If merchants calculate amiss on this proposition, and import too much, they will of course find the sale dull for the overplus, and some of them will say that trade languishes. They should, and doubtless will, grow wiser by experience, and import less. If too many artificers in town and farmers from the country flatter themselves with the idea of leading easier lives by turning shopkeepers, the whole natural quantity of business dividend among them all may afford too small a share for each, and occasion complaints that trading is dead; these may also suppose that it is owing to the scarcity of money while in fact, it is not so much from the fewness of buyers as from the excessive number of sellers, that the mischief arises; and if every shopkeeper, farmer and mechanic would return to the use of his plough and working tools, there would remain of widows and other women shopkeepers sufficient for that business, which might then afford them a comfortable maintenance.

  NO NATION ENJOYS A GREATER SHARE OF HUMAN FELICITY

  Whoever has travelled thro’ the various parts of Europe, and observed how small is the proportion of people in affluence or easy circumstances there, compar’d with those in poverty and misery; the few rich and haughty landlords; the multitude of poor, abject and rack’d tenants; and the half-paid and half-starv’d ragged labourers; and viewed here the happy mediocrity that so generally prevails throughout these states, where the cultivator works for himself, and supports his family in decent plenty, will, methinks, see abundant reason to bless divine Providence for the evident and great difference in our favour, and be convinc’d that no nation that is known to us enjoys a greater share of human felicity.

  It is true that in some of our states there are parties, and discords; but let us look back and ask if we were ever without them? Such will exist wherever there is liberty; and perhaps they help to preserve it. By the collision of different sentiments, sparks of truth strike out, and political light is obtained. The different factions which at present divide us aim all at the public good; the differences are only about the various modes of promoting it. Things, actions, measures and objects of all kinds present themselves to the minds of men in such a variety of lights that it is not possible we should all think alike at the same time on every subject, when hardly the same man retains at all times the same idea of it. Parties are therefore the common lot of humanity, and ours are by no means more mischievous or less beneficial than those of other countries, nations and ages, enjoying in the same degree the great blessing of political liberty.

  NO REVENUE IS SUFFICIENT WITHOUT ECONOMY

  Indeed some among us are not so much griev’d for the present state of our affairs as apprehensive for the future. The growth of luxury alarms them, and they think we are, from that alone, on the high road to ruin. They observe that no revenue is sufficient without economy, and that the most plentiful income of a whole people from natural productions of their country may be dissipated in vain and needless expenses, and poverty be introduc’d in the place of affluence. This may be possible; it however rarely happens, for there seems to be in every nation a greater proportion of industry and frugality which tend to enrich, than idleness and prodigality, which occasions poverty, so that upon the whole there is a continual accumulation. Reflect what Spain, Gaul, Germany and Britain were in the times of the Romans, inhabited by people little richer than our savages, and consider the wealth they at present possess, in numerous well built cities, improv’d farms, rich moveables, magazines stor’d with valuable manufactures, to say nothing of plate, jewels, and ready money; all this notwithstanding their bad, wasteful plundering governments, and their mad destructive wars; and yet luxury and extravagant living has never suffer’d much restraint in those countries. Then consider the great proportion of industrious frugal farmers inhabiting the interior part of these American states, and of whom the body of our nation consists; and judge whether it is probable the luxury of our seaports can be sufficient to ruin such a country. If the importation of foreign luxuries could ruin a people we should probably have been ruin’d long ago; for the British nation claim’d a right, and practis’d it, of importing among us not only the superfluities of their production, but those of every nation under heaven; we bought and consum’d them and yet we flourish’d and grew rich.

  The agriculture and fisheries of the United States are the great sources of our increasing wealth. He that puts a seed into the earth is recompenc’d perhaps by receiving twenty out of it; and he who draws a fish out of our waters draws up a piece of silver. Let us (and there is no doubt but we shall) be attentive to these, and then the power of rivals, with all their restraining and prohibiting acts, cannot hurt us. We are sons of the earth and seas, and like Anteus, if in wrestling with Hercules we now and then receive a fall, the touch of our parents will communicate to us fresh strength and ability to renew the contest. Be quiet and thankful.

  THE EXTRAVAGANT REJOICINGS EVERY 4TH OF JULY

  I think myself happy in returning to live under the free constitution of this commonwealth, and hope that we and our posterity may long enjoy it. The laws governing justice are well administered, and property is as secure as in any country on the globe. Our wilderness lands are daily being bought up by new settlers, and our settlements extend rapidly to the westward. When I read in all the papers of the extravagant rejoicings every 4TH of July, the day on which was signed the Declaration of Independence, I am convinced of the universal satisfaction of the people with the revolution and its grand principles. Their unbound respect for all who were principally concern’d in it, whether as warriors or statesmen, and the enthusiastic joy with which the day of the Declaration of Independence is everywhere annually celebrated are indisputable proofs of this truth.

  It was my intention to avoid all public business upon my return to America. I wrote four philosophical papers, which were chiefly speculative and hypothetical, which, except the description of the long arm, a new instrument for taking down books from high shelves, contained little of practical utility. But I had not firmness enough to resist the unanimous desire of my country-folks, and I was plung’d again into public business as deep as ever. They engross’d the prime of my life: they have eaten my flesh and seem resolv’d now to pick my bones. (When I inform’d good friend Dr. Cooper that I was order’d to France being then 70 years old, and made this same observation, that the public having as it were eaten my flesh, seem’d now resolv’d to pick my bones, he replied that he approved their taste, for the nearer the bone the
sweeter the meat!) My fellow citizens having in a considerable body express’d their desire that I would still take a post in their public councils, assuring me that it was the unanimous wish of the different parties that divide the state (the constitutionalists and anti-constitutionalists), from an opinion that I might find some means of reconciling them; I had not sufficient firmness to refuse their request of permitting their voting for me as chair of government for the state of Pennsylvania.

  I think we are in the right road of improving our governments. I do not oppose all that seems wrong, for the multitude are more effectually set right by experience than kept from going wrong by reasoning with them. And I think we are daily more and more enlightened: So that I have no doubt of our obtaining in a few years as much public felicity as good government is capable of affording. The English newspapers were fill’d with fictitious accounts of anarchy, confusion, distresses and miseries we were suppos’d to be involv’d in, as consequences of the revolution; and the few remaining friends of the old government among us took pains to magnify every little inconvenience. I assur’d my friends in England that all the stories spread in the English papers were as chimerical as the history of my being in chains at Algiers. The great body of our nation find themselves happy in the change, and have not the slightest inclination to return to the domination of Britain. There could not be a stronger proof of the general approbation of the measures that promote change than has been given by the Assembly and Council of this state, in the nearly unanimous choice of me as their governor; the Assembly being themselves the unbrib’d choice of the people. I say nearly unanimous because there were only my own and one other vote in the negative.