Visit to the Continent.-True Relations of America to England.— Visits Paris.-Changes in the Cabinet.-Lord Hillsborough.-Visit to Ireland.-Lightning rods for Powder Magazines. He advises Firmness and Moderation in America.-The Hutchinson Letters.- THE LIFE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. CHAPTER I. HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. No man, probably, was ever more eminently and uniformly successful, throughout the whole of a very long life, in attaining the chief objects of human pursuit, than Benjamin Franklin. Of humble origin, with no early opportunities of education beyond the simplest rudiments of knowledge, bred a tradesman, and compelled by the narrowness of his circumstances to labor with his own hands for his daily bread, he nevertheless won for himself an ample estate, an illustrious reputation, and distinguished public honors. Nor was his success the result, in any proper sense, of what is commonly called accident, or mere good fortune, any more than it was the consequences of advantages derived from high birth and powerful connections. It was, on the contrary, in a remarkable degree, the direct and visible effect of those causes, chiefly of a moral kind, which, for the encouragement of honest effort and virtuous enterprise, a wise Providence has established as the most worthy and legitimate means of attaining success in this life; for he was, through the favor with which that Providence regards such means, the founder and builder of his own prosperity. His success in the acquisition of property was the just recompense of his vigorous industry, his frugality, temperance, prudence, integrity, punctuality, enlightened and sound judgment, civil manners, respect for himself as well as for others, and his frank and manly deportment. All these qualities marked his conduct in the transaction of business, and in his general intercourse with his fellow-men; and by securing general confidence, esteem, and good will, they were all instrumental to his prosperity. His success in the pursuit of literature and science, and in the acquisition of fame as a philosopher, was also the consequence, at least in part, of some of the same qualities. For, although he could not have attained the high distinction he ultimately enjoyed as a writer and a philosopher, without the great natural abilities with which he was endowed, yet, without his active and persevering spirit, his industrious, frugal, temperate, methodical, and time-saving habits, even his great talents would have been far less available, and his philosophical genius could not have accomplished so much. His success in political affairs, and in the acquisition of public honors, was also the natural result, not merely of his talents associated with the other attributes already mentioned, but also of additional causes inherent in his character-of his genuine public spirit, his zeal in applying himself to understand the real condition of public affairs, and the intelligence and fidelity with which he performed the duties of every public station in which he was placed; of his thorough comprehension of the political and civil rights and privileges of the BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. 11 people whom he served, his sagacious and sound views of their true interests, and the steady firmness with which he maintained and promoted those interests; of his moderation, candor, and love of truth and justice; his respect for law and for all lawful authority; his stanch patriotism, and the unsurpassed moral weight and influence of his character. Such were the sources of his success, and the elements of his greatness. Such were the causes of that steady, rapid, and almost wholly uninterrupted advance from poverty to wealth, from obscurity to renown, by which his career was so remarkably distinguished; and which not only rendered that career, during its progress, so honorable to himself and so useful to his country and mankind, but have for ever sealed it as an example, especially to his own countrymen, rich beyond parallel in lessons of practical wisdom for all, of every age, calling, and condition in life, public and private, in every coming generation. Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 6th of January, old style, equivalent to the 17th of that month, according to the present reckoning of time or the new style, in the year 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a native of the village of Ecton, in Northamptonshire, England; but he married his first wife, at an early age, in Banbury, in the neighboring county of Oxford, where he served his apprenticeship as a wool-dyer, with his uncle John Franklin, and where his first three children were born. In the year 1684, or early in 1685, in consequence of the intolerant and oppressive laws of that country respecting religion and public worship, he emigrated with his family to Boston, Massachusetts, where four more children were borne to him by the same wife. After her decease, he married Abiah Folger, born August 15th, 1667, the ninth child, but the seventh daughter, of Peter Folger and his wife Mary, in the town of Sherburn, on the island of Nantucket. By this second wife, Josiah Franklin had ten children, making the whole number seventeen; ten of whom were sons, and seven daughters. Of these, Benjamin was the fifteenth child and the youngest son; and in the very entertaining and instructive narrative of his life, written by himself as far as to the fifty-first year of his age, he states the interesting and uncommon fact, that, of those seventeen children, he had seen sitting together at his father's table thirteen, who all grew up to years of maturity and were married. According to the wise and wholesome usage of those times, the nine elder sons, as they successively arrived at a proper age, were bound by their father as apprentices to different trades, though by no means to the neglect of such instruction in the elements of useful knowledge, as could be imparted in those schools which it was the early care of the founders of New England to establish. With Benjamin, however, it was his father's original intention to take a different course. The boy had exhibited a rare facility in learning to read. His proficiency in this particular was so remarkable, that he states, at the age of sixty-five years, in his own account of his life, that he was unable to recollect a time when he could not read. His fondness for books, together with his eagerness for knowledge and other indications of bright parts, prompted a disposition in his father "to devote Benjamin, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the church." With this view, Benjamin, at the age of eight years, was sent to a grammar-school, where his progress was such as to justify the impression his early docility had made upon his friends; for, in less than a year, having risen from the middle of the class |