A Benjamin Franklin Reader

by Walter Isaacson

  As to the freemasons, unless she will believe me when I assure her that they are in general a very harmless sort of people; and have no principles or practices that are inconsistent with religion or good manners, I know no way of giving my mother a better opinion of them than she seems to have at present, (since it is not allowed that women should be admitted into that secret society). She has, I must confess, on that account, some reason to be displeased with it; but for any thing else, I must entreat her to suspend her judgment till she is better informed, and in the mean time exercise her charity.

  My mother grieves that one of her sons is an Arian, another an Armenian. What an Armenian or an Arian is, I cannot say that I very well know; the truth is, I make such distinctions very little my study; I think vital religion has always suffered, when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. And the scripture assures me, that at the last day, we shall not be examined what we thought, but what we did; and our recommendation will not be that we said lord, lord, but that we did good to our fellow creatures. See Matth. 26.

  TO JANE MECOM, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 28, 1743

  Dearest Sister Jenny,

  I took your Admonition very kindly, and was far from being offended at you for it. If I say any thing about it to you, ’tis only to rectify some wrong opinions you seem to have entertained of me, and that I do only because they give you some uneasiness, which I am unwilling to be the occasion of. You express yourself as if you thought I was against worshipping of God, and believed Good Works would merit Heaven; which are both Fancies of your own, I think, without Foundation. I am so far from thinking that God is not to be worshipped, that I have composed and wrote a whole Book of Devotions for my own use: And I imagine there are few, if any, in the world, so weak as to imagine, that the little good we can do here, can merit so vast a reward hereafter. There are some Things in your New England doctrines and worship, which I do not agree with, but I do not therefore condemn them, or desire to shake your belief or practice of them. We may dislike things that are nevertheless right in themselves. I would only have you make me the same allowances, and have a better opinion both of morality and your brother. Read the Pages of Mr. Edwards’s late Book entitled Some Thoughts Concerning The Present Revival Of Religion In New England from 367 to 375; and when you judge of others, if you can perceive the fruit to be good, don’t terrify your self that the tree may be evil, but be assured it is not so; for you know who has said, Men do not gather Grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles. I have not time to add but that I shall always be,

  Your affectionate Brother

  P.S. It was not kind in you to imagine when your sister commended Good Works, she intended it a reproach to you. Twas very far from her thoughts.

  TO JOHN FRANKLIN, PHILADELPHIA, MAY, 1745

  …Our people are extremely impatient to hear of your success at Cape Breton. My shop is filled with thirty inquiries at the coming in of every post. Some wonder the place is not yet taken. I tell them I shall be glad to hear that news three months hence. Fortified towns are hard nuts to crack; and your teeth have not been accustomed to it. Taking strong places is a particular trade, which you have taken up without serving an apprenticeship to it. Armies and veterans need skilful engineers to direct them in their attack. Have you any? But some seem to think forts are as easy taken as snuff. Father Moody’s prayers look tolerably modest. You have a fast and prayer day for that purpose; in which I compute five hundred thousand petitions were offered up to the same effect in New England, which added to the petitions of every family morning and evening, multiplied by the number of days since January 25th, make forty-five millions of prayers; which, set against the prayers of a few priests in the garrison, to the Virgin Mary, give a vast balance in your favor.

  If you do not succeed, I fear I shall have but an indifferent opinion of Presbyterian prayers in such cases, as long as I live. Indeed, in attacking strong towns I should have more dependence on works, than on faith; for, like the kingdom of heaven, they are to be taken by force and violence; and in a French garrison I suppose there are devils of that kind, that they are not to be cast out by prayers and fasting, unless it be by their own fasting for want of provisions. I believe there is Scripture in what I have wrote, but I cannot adorn the margin with quotations, having a bad memory, and no Concordance at hand; besides no more time than to subscribe myself, &c.

  A Ballad for Deborah

  Although they shared values, Franklin was far more worldly and intellectual than his wife was, or ever wanted ever to be. During her adult life, Deborah never seems to have spent a night away from her home on Market Street within two blocks of the house where she was raised. Franklin, on the other hand, loved to travel, and although he would occasionally express some hope that she would accompany him, he knew that she was not so inclined. They respected each other’s independence, perhaps to a fault. For fifteen of the last seventeen years of Deborah’s life, Franklin would be away, including when she died. He would also, as we shall see, form close friendships and diverting flirtations with other women—though no committed romantic or sexual relationships—and his letters to Deborah, while frequent and chatty, were rarely emotionally or intellectually engaging.

  Nevertheless, their mutual affection, respect, loyalty and devotion—and their sense of partnership—would endure. The only extant painting of Deborah makes her seem like a sensible and determined woman, plump and plain but not unattractive. It was a relationship that did not inspire great romantic verse, but it did produce an endearing ballad that he put into the mouth of Poor Richard. In it Franklin paid tribute to “My Plain Country Joan,” his nickname for Deborah, and blessed the day he made her his own.

  I SING MY PLAIN COUNTRY JOAN, C. 1742

  Of their Chloes and Phillisses Poets may prate

  I sing my plain Country Joan

  Now twelve Years my Wife, still the Joy of my Life

  Blest Day that I made her my own,

  My dear Friends

  Blest Day that I made her my own.

  Not a word of her shape, or her face, or her eyes,

  Of flames or of darts shall you hear:

  Though I beauty admire, ’tis virtue I prize,

  Which fades not in seventy years,

  My dear Friends

  In Health a Companion delightful and dear,

  Still easy, engaging, and Free,

  In Sickness no less than the faithfullest Nurse

  As tender as tender can be,

  My dear Friends

  In peace and good order my household she guides,

  Right careful to save what I gain;

  Yet cheerfully spends, and smiles on the friends

  I’ve the pleasure to entertain,

  My dear Friends

  She defends my good Name ever where I’m to blame,

  Friend firmer was ne’er to Man giv’n,

  Her Compassionate Breast, feels for all the Distrest,

  Which draws down the Blessing from Heavn,

  My dear Friends

  Am I laden with Care, she takes off a large Share,

  That the Burthen ne’er makes to reel,

  Does good Fortune arrive, the Joy of my Wife,

  Quite Doubles the Pleasures I feel

  My dear Friends

  In Raptures the giddy Rake talks of his Fair,

  Enjoyment shall make him Despise,

  I speak my cool sense, that long Experience,

  And Enjoyment have changd in no wise,

  My dear Friends

  The best have some faults, and so has my Joan,

  But then they’re exceedingly small,

  And now, I’m used to ’em, they’re so like my own,

  I can scarcely feel them at all,

  My dear Friends

  I can scarcely see them at all.

  Were the fairest young Princess, with Million in Purse

  To be had in Exchange for my Joan,

  She could not be a better Wife, mought be a Worse,

  So I’d s
tick to my Joggy alone

  My dear Friends

  I’d cling to my lovely old Joan.

  Reasons to Choose an Older Mistress

  Throughout his life, Franklin was an unabashed admirer of women, and never prudish. His list of bawdy reasons for preferring older women as mistresses is now, at least in some circles, one of Franklin’s most famous pieces, but it was suppressed by his grandson and other compilers of his papers throughout the nineteenth century as being too indecent to print.

  OLD MISTRESSES APOLOGUE, JUNE 25, 1745

  My dear friend,

  I know of no medicine fit to diminish the violent natural inclinations you mention; and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper remedy. It is the most natural state of man, and therefore the state in which you are most likely to find solid happiness. Your reasons against entering into it at present, appear to me not well-founded. The circumstantial advantages you have in view by postponing it, are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the man and woman united that make the complete human being. Separate, she wants his force of body and strength of reason; he, her softness, sensibility and acute discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the world. A single man has not nearly the value he would have in that state of union. He is an incomplete animal. He resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors. If you get a prudent healthy wife, your industry in your profession, with her good economy, will be a fortune sufficient.

  But if you will not take this counsel, and persist in thinking a commerce with the sex inevitable, then I repeat my former advice, that in all your amours you should prefer old women to young ones. You call this a paradox, and demand my reasons. They are these:

  1. Because as they have more knowledge of the world and their minds are better stored with observations, their conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreeable.

  2. Because when women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their influence over men, they supply the diminution of beauty by an augmentation of utility. They learn to do a 1000 services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old woman who is not a good woman.

  3. Because there is no hazard of children, which irregularly produced may be attended with much inconvenience.

  4. Because through more experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an intrigue to prevent suspicion. The commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the affair should happen to be known, considerate people might be rather inclined to excuse an old woman who would kindly take care of a young man, form his manners by her good counsels, and prevent his ruining his health and fortune among mercenary prostitutes.

  5. Because in every animal that walks upright, the deficiency of the fluids that fill the muscles appears first in the highest part: the face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the neck; then the breast and arms; the lower parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: so that covering all above with a basket, and regarding only what is below the girdle, it is impossible of two women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all cats are gray, the pleasure of corporal enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every knack being by practice capable of improvement.

  6. Because the sin is less. The debauching a virgin may be her ruin, and make her for life unhappy.

  7. Because the compunction is less. The having made a young girl miserable may give you frequent bitter reflections; none of which can attend the making an old woman happy.

  8thly and lastly they are so grateful!!

  Thus much for my paradox. But still I advise you to marry directly; being sincerely your affectionate friend.

  Polly Baker’s Trial

  “The Speech of Miss Polly Baker” is a tale of sex and woe told from a woman’s point of view, a literary device often used by Franklin that displayed his ability to appreciate the other sex. It purports to recount the speech of a young woman on trial for having a fifth illegitimate child. The light humor of the piece hides the fact that it is actually a sharp attack on hypocritical customs and unfair attitudes toward women and sex. Franklin, who had fathered an illegitimate child before his marriage but taken responsibility for it, is particularly scathing about the double standard that subjects her, but not the men who had sex with her, to humiliation. First published in London, it was then frequently reprinted in England and America without people realizing that it was fiction. Only thirty years later did Franklin reveal that he had written it as a hoax.

  THE GENERAL ADVERTISER, APRIL 15, 1747

  The Speech of Miss Polly Baker, before a Court of Judicature,

  At Connecticut near Boston in New England; where she

  was prosecuted the fifth time, for having a bastard child: which

  influenced the court to dispense with her punishment,

  and induced one of her judges to marry her the next day.

  May it please the honorable bench to indulge me in a few words: I am a poor unhappy woman, who have no money to fee lawyers to plead for me, being hard put to it to get a tolerable living. I shall not trouble your honors with long speeches; for I have not the presumption to expect, that you may, by any means, be prevailed on to deviate in your sentence from the law, in my favor. All I humbly hope is, that your honors would charitably move the governors’ goodness on my behalf, that my fine may be remitted.

  This is the fifth time, gentlemen, that I have been dragged before your court on the same account; twice I have paid heavy fines, and twice have been brought to public punishment, for want of money to pay those fines. This may have been agreeable to the laws, and I don’t dispute it; but since laws are sometimes unreasonable in themselves, and therefore repealed, and others bear too hard on the subject in particular circumstances; and therefore there is left a power somewhat to dispense with the execution of them; I take the liberty to say, that I think this law, by which I am punished, is both unreasonable in itself, and particularly severe with regard to me, who have always lived an inoffensive life in the neighborhood where I was born, and defy my enemies (if I have any) to say I ever wronged man, woman, or child. Abstracted from the law, I cannot conceive (may it please your honors) what the nature of my offence is. I have brought five fine children into the world, at the risk of my life; I have maintained them well by my own industry, without burdening the township, and would have done it better, if it had not been for the heavy charges and fines I have paid.

  Can it be a crime (in the nature of things I mean) to add to the number of the king’s subjects, in a new country that really wants people? I own it, I should think it a praise-worthy, rather than a punishable action. I have debauched no other woman’s husband, nor enticed any youth; these things I never was charged with, nor has any one the least cause of complaint against me, unless, perhaps, the minister, or justice, because I have had children without being married, by which they have missed a wedding fee. But, can ever this be a fault of mine? I appeal to your honors.

  You are pleased to allow I don’t want sense; but I must be stupefied to the last degree, not to prefer the honorable state of wedlock, to the condition I have lived in. I always was, and still am willing to enter into it; and doubt not my behaving well in it, having all the industry, frugality, fertility, and skill in economy, appertaining to a good wife’s character. I defy any person to say, I ever refused an offer of that sort: on the contrary, I readily consented to the only proposal of marriage that ever was made me, which was when I was a virgin; but too easily confiding in the person’s sincerity that made it, I unhappily lost my own honor, by trusting to his; for he got me with child, and then forsook me: that very person you all know; he is now become a magistrate of this country; and I had hopes he would have appeared this day on the bench, and have
endeavored to moderate the court in my favor; then I should have scorned to have mentioned it; but I must now complain of it, as unjust and unequal, that my betrayer and undoer, the first cause of all my faults and miscarriages (if they must be deemed such) should be advanced to honor and power in the government, that punishes my misfortunes with stripes and infamy.

  I should be told, ’tis like, that were there no act of assembly in the case, the precepts of religion are violated by my transgressions. If mine, then, is a religious offence, leave it to religious punishments. You have already excluded me from the comforts of your church-communion. Is not that sufficient? You believe I have offended heaven, and must suffer eternal fire: will not that be sufficient? What need is there, then, of your additional fines and whipping? I own, I do not think as you do; for, if I thought what you call a sin, was really such, I could not presumptuously commit it. But, how can it be believed, that heaven is angry at my having children, when to the little done by me towards it, God has been pleased to add his divine skill and admirable workmanship in the formation of their bodies, and crowned it, by furnishing them with rational and immortal souls.

  Forgive me, gentlemen, if I talk a little extravagantly on these matters; I am no divine, but if you, gentlemen, must be making laws, do not turn natural and useful actions into crimes, by your prohibitions. But take into your wise consideration, the great and growing number of bachelors in the country, many of whom from the mean fear of the expenses of a family, have never sincerely and honorably courted a woman in their lives; and by their manner of living, leave unproduced (which is little better than murder) hundreds of their posterity to the thousandth generation. Is not this a greater offence against the public good, than mine? Compel them, then, by law, either to marriage, or to pay double the fine of fornication every year.