not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance; which implied his modest opinion, that there were some in his time so good, that they need not hear even him for improvement; but now-a-days we have scarce a little parson, that does not think it the duty of every man within his reach to sit under his petty ministrations; and that whoever omits them offends God." PART III. CHAPTER I. THE PUBLIC LAY HOLD OF FRANKLIN. FRANKLIN was not permitted long to devote his well-won leisure to reading, study, and conversation. Not long did he resist the importunities of those who wished to see him employed in the service of the public. His exertions to place the province of Pennsylvania in a condition to defend itself, had given particular delight, not only to the citizens in general, but to each class and party of the citizens, and to every branch of the administration. The Governor, who was wont to regard non-resistant Quakers as his natural enemies, was pleased to see them for once overcome and frustrated. The Governor's masters in England, the brothers Penn, were glad enough to have their province defended at small expense to themselves. The anti-Quaker minority in the Assembly were happy in beholding the broad-brimmed majority discomfited. The Quakers themselves were willing to have their property protected by cannons, provided their still more precious sectarian consistency was preserved intact. As to the people, Franklin had given them a triumph for which they had striven vainly for years, and which came home with equal effect to the prudent German and the pugnacious Briton. And so far as these events in remote Pennsylvania were known to the members of the home government, Franklin's part in them could not but have been approved. It so chanced, as we have before related, that the peace of Aixla-Chapelle, which delivered the colonies from apprehension, and Franklin's partnership with Hall, which gave leisure to the senior partner of that eminent firm, took place about the same time in the autumn of 1748. Despite his resolution to decline office, Franklin found himself, before many months had passed, immersed in pub lic business. "The public," he says, "now considering me as a man of leisure, laid hold of me for their purposes; every part of our civil government, and almost at the same time, imposing some duty upon me." The Governor appointed him a justice of the peace. The corporation of the city chose him, first, a member of the Common Council, and, soon after, alderman. The citizens elected him to represent them in the Assembly, and he did not decline the seat. We find him also a member of the commission to select a proper place for a bridge over the Schuylkill, which commission named the site of the present Market Street bridge, and there the bridge was built. Roman colonists did not more exactly reproduce in Gaul and Britain the institutions of Rome, than the English colonists in America the institutions of England. Philadelphia was, municipally speaking, a little London, with its Mayor, and Mayor's banquet, and Board of Aldermen, from whom and by whom the Mayor was annually elected. The defects of the London government were, of course, most scrupulously copied. In the Minutes of the City Council of that period, we frequently find entries stating that persons were fined for refusing to serve as Mayor. In October, 1745, Alderman Taylor was elected Mayor, and, refusing to serve, was fined thirty pounds. The Board then chose Alderman Turner, who also refused, and was fined thirty pounds. At length, Alderman James Hamilton was elected, who made a proposal which reveals the reason why the office of Mayor was so little desired. He announced his intention of giving one hundred and fifty pounds toward building the Exchange, in lieu of the banquet which it was customary for the Mayor to give to the corporation upon going out of office. The next year, the Alderman who was elected Mayor, ran away out of town, and could not be found by the Committee appointed to notify him of his election, and so he escaped both the fine and the office.* And this occurred just after it had been agreed to allow the Mayor a hundred pounds a year toward the support of his dignity. As the city was a little London, so the Assembly was a little Parliament; very little, for it consisted of less than forty members. This Assembly had once been an exceedingly simple and primitive *Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, i., 63. |