The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (23 page)

This silly affair, however, greatly increased his rancour against me,
which was before not a little, on account of my conduct in the
Assembly respecting the exemption of his estate from taxation,
which I had always oppos'd very warmly, and not without severe
reflections on his meanness and injustice of contending for it.
He accused me to the ministry as being the great obstacle to
the king's service, preventing, by my influence in the House,
the proper form of the bills for raising money, and he instanced
this parade with my officers as a proof of my having an intention
to take the government of the province out of his hands by force.
He also applied to Sir Everard Fawkener, the postmaster-general,
to deprive me of my office; but it had no other effect than to procure
from Sir Everard a gentle admonition.

Notwithstanding the continual wrangle between the governor
and the House, in which I, as a member, had so large a share,
there still subsisted a civil intercourse between that gentleman
and myself, and we never had any personal difference. I have
sometimes since thought that his little or no resentment against me,
for the answers it was known I drew up to his messages, might be
the effect of professional habit, and that, being bred a lawyer,
he might consider us both as merely advocates for contending clients
in a suit, he for the proprietaries and I for the Assembly.
He would, therefore, sometimes call in a friendly way to advise
with me on difficult points, and sometimes, tho' not often,
take my advice.

We acted in concert to supply Braddock's army with provisions;
and, when the shocking news arrived of his defeat, the governor sent
in haste for me, to consult with him on measures for preventing
the desertion of the back counties. I forget now the advice
I gave; but I think it was, that Dunbar should be written to,
and prevail'd with, if possible, to post his troops on the frontiers
for their protection, till, by re-enforcements from the colonies,
he might be able to proceed on the expedition. And, after my return
from the frontier, he would have had me undertake the conduct
of such an expedition with provincial troops, for the reduction
of Fort Duquesne, Dunbar and his men being otherwise employed; and he
proposed to commission me as general. I had not so good an opinion
of my military abilities as he profess'd to have, and I believe his
professions must have exceeded his real sentiments; but probably he
might think that my popularity would facilitate the raising of the men,
and my influence in Assembly, the grant of money to pay them,
and that, perhaps, without taxing the proprietary estate. Finding me
not so forward to engage as he expected, the project was dropt,
and he soon after left the government, being superseded by Captain Denny.

Before I proceed in relating the part I had in public affairs under
this new governor's administration, it may not be amiss here to give
some account of the rise and progress of my philosophical reputation.

In 1746, being at Boston, I met there with a Dr. Spence, who was lately
arrived from Scotland, and show'd me some electric experiments.
They were imperfectly perform'd, as he was not very expert; but, being on
a subject quite new to me, they equally surpris'd and pleased me.
Soon after my return to Philadelphia, our library company receiv'd
from Mr. P. Collinson, Fellow of the Royal Society of London,
a present of a glass tube, with some account of the use of it
in making such experiments. I eagerly seized the opportunity
of repeating what I had seen at Boston; and, by much practice,
acquir'd great readiness in performing those, also, which we had
an account of from England, adding a number of new ones. I say
much practice, for my house was continually full, for some time,
with people who came to see these new wonders.

To divide a little this incumbrance among my friends, I caused
a number of similar tubes to be blown at our glass-house,
with which they furnish'd themselves, so that we had at length
several performers. Among these, the principal was Mr. Kinnersley,
an ingenious neighbor, who, being out of business, I encouraged
to undertake showing the experiments for money, and drew up for him
two lectures, in which the experiments were rang'd in such order,
and accompanied with such explanations in such method, as that
the foregoing should assist in comprehending the following.
He procur'd an elegant apparatus for the purpose, in which all
the little machines that I had roughly made for myself were nicely
form'd by instrument-makers. His lectures were well attended,
and gave great satisfaction; and after some time he went thro'
the colonies, exhibiting them in every capital town, and pick'd up
some money. In the West India islands, indeed, it was with difficulty
the experiments could be made, from the general moisture of the air.

Oblig'd as we were to Mr. Collinson for his present of the tube, etc., I
thought it right he should be inform'd of our success in using it,
and wrote him several letters containing accounts of our experiments.
He got them read in the Royal Society, where they were not at first
thought worth so much notice as to be printed in their Transactions.
One paper, which I wrote for Mr. Kinnersley, on the sameness of
lightning with electricity, I sent to Dr. Mitchel, an acquaintance
of mine, and one of the members also of that society, who wrote me
word that it had been read, but was laughed at by the connoisseurs.
The papers, however, being shown to Dr. Fothergill, he thought them
of too much value to be stifled, and advis'd the printing of them.
Mr. Collinson then gave them to Cave for publication in his
Gentleman's Magazine; but he chose to print them separately in
a pamphlet, and Dr. Fothergill wrote the preface. Cave, it seems,
judged rightly for his profit, for by the additions that arrived
afterward they swell'd to a quarto volume, which has had five editions,
and cost him nothing for copy-money.

It was, however, some time before those papers were much taken notice
of in England. A copy of them happening to fall into the hands
of the Count de Buffon, a philosopher deservedly of great reputation
in France, and, indeed, all over Europe, he prevailed with M. Dalibard
to translate them into French, and they were printed at Paris.
The publication offended the Abbe Nollet, preceptor in Natural Philosophy
to the royal family, and an able experimenter, who had form'd and
publish'd a theory of electricity, which then had the general vogue.
He could not at first believe that such a work came from America,
and said it must have been fabricated by his enemies at Paris, to decry
his system. Afterwards, having been assur'd that there really existed
such a person as Franklin at Philadelphia, which he had doubted,
he wrote and published a volume of Letters, chiefly address'd to me,
defending his theory, and denying the verity of my experiments,
and of the positions deduc'd from them.

I once purpos'd answering the abbe, and actually began the answer;
but, on consideration that my writings contain'd a description
of experiments which any one might repeat and verify, and if not
to be verifi'd, could not be defended; or of observations offer'd
as conjectures, and not delivered dogmatically, therefore not
laying me under any obligation to defend them; and reflecting
that a dispute between two persons, writing in different languages,
might be lengthened greatly by mistranslations, and thence
misconceptions of one another's meaning, much of one of the abbe's
letters being founded on an error in the translation, I concluded
to let my papers shift for themselves, believing it was better
to spend what time I could spare from public business in making
new experiments, than in disputing about those already made.
I therefore never answered M. Nollet, and the event gave me no
cause to repent my silence; for my friend M. le Roy, of the Royal
Academy of Sciences, took up my cause and refuted him; my book
was translated into the Italian, German, and Latin languages;
and the doctrine it contain'd was by degrees universally adopted
by the philosophers of Europe, in preference to that of the abbe;
so that he lived to see himself the last of his sect, except Monsieur
B—-, of Paris, his eleve and immediate disciple.

What gave my book the more sudden and general celebrity,
was the success of one of its proposed experiments, made by Messrs.
Dalibard and De Lor at Marly, for drawing lightning from the clouds.
This engag'd the public attention every where. M. de Lor,
who had an apparatus for experimental philosophy, and lectur'd
in that branch of science, undertook to repeat what he called
the Philadelphia Experiments; and, after they were performed before
the king and court, all the curious of Paris flocked to see them.
I will not swell this narrative with an account of that capital
experiment, nor of the infinite pleasure I receiv'd in the success
of a similar one I made soon after with a kite at Philadelphia,
as both are to be found in the histories of electricity.

Dr. Wright, an English physician, when at Paris, wrote to a friend,
who was of the Royal Society, an account of the high esteem my
experiments were in among the learned abroad, and of their wonder
that my writings had been so little noticed in England. The society,
on this, resum'd the consideration of the letters that had been read
to them; and the celebrated Dr. Watson drew up a summary account
of them, and of all I had afterwards sent to England on the subject,
which be accompanied with some praise of the writer. This summary
was then printed in their Transactions; and some members of the society
in London, particularly the very ingenious Mr. Canton, having verified
the experiment of procuring lightning from the clouds by a pointed rod,
and acquainting them with the success, they soon made me more than
amends for the slight with which they had before treated me.
Without my having made any application for that honor, they chose me
a member, and voted that I should be excus'd the customary payments,
which would have amounted to twenty-five guineas; and ever since
have given me their Transactions gratis. They also presented
me with the gold medal of Sir Godfrey Copley for the year 1753,
the delivery of which was accompanied by a very handsome speech
of the president, Lord Macclesfield, wherein I was highly honoured.

Our new governor, Captain Denny, brought over for me the before-mentioned
medal from the Royal Society, which he presented to me at an
entertainment given him by the city. He accompanied it with very
polite expressions of his esteem for me, having, as he said, been long
acquainted with my character. After dinner, when the company,
as was customary at that time, were engag'd in drinking, he took
me aside into another room, and acquainted me that he had been
advis'd by his friends in England to cultivate a friendship with me,
as one who was capable of giving him the best advice, and of
contributing most effectually to the making his administration easy;
that he therefore desired of all things to have a good understanding
with me, and he begg'd me to be assur'd of his readiness on all
occasions to render me every service that might be in his power.
He said much to me, also, of the proprietor's good disposition
towards the province, and of the advantage it might be to us all,
and to me in particular, if the opposition that had been so long
continu'd to his measures was dropt, and harmony restor'd between
him and the people; in effecting which, it was thought no one could
be more serviceable than myself; and I might depend on adequate
acknowledgments and recompenses, etc., etc. The drinkers,
finding we did not return immediately to the table, sent us
a decanter of Madeira, which the governor made liberal use of,
and in proportion became more profuse of his solicitations and promises.

My answers were to this purpose: that my circumstances, thanks to God,
were such as to make proprietary favours unnecessary to me;
and that, being a member of the Assembly, I could not possibly accept
of any; that, however, I had no personal enmity to the proprietary,
and that, whenever the public measures he propos'd should appear
to be for the good of the people, no one should espouse and forward
them more zealously than myself; my past opposition having been
founded on this, that the measures which had been urged were evidently
intended to serve the proprietary interest, with great prejudice
to that of the people; that I was much obliged to him (the governor)
for his professions of regard to me, and that he might rely on every
thing in my power to make his administration as easy as possible,
hoping at the same time that he had not brought with him the same
unfortunate instruction his predecessor had been hamper'd with.

On this he did not then explain himself; but when he afterwards came
to do business with the Assembly, they appear'd again, the disputes
were renewed, and I was as active as ever in the opposition,
being the penman, first, of the request to have a communication
of the instructions, and then of the remarks upon them, which may
be found in the votes of the time, and in the Historical Review I
afterward publish'd. But between us personally no enmity arose;
we were often together; he was a man of letters, had seen much of
the world, and was very entertaining and pleasing in conversation.
He gave me the first information that my old friend Jas. Ralph was
still alive; that he was esteem'd one of the best political writers
in England; had been employ'd in the dispute between Prince Frederic
and the king, and had obtain'd a pension of three hundred a year;
that his reputation was indeed small as a poet, Pope having damned
his poetry in the Dunciad; but his prose was thought as good as any
man's.

[16]
The Assembly finally finding the proprietary obstinately persisted
in manacling their deputies with instructions inconsistent not only
with the privileges of the people, but with the service of the crown,
resolv'd to petition the king against them, and appointed me their
agent to go over to England, to present and support the petition.
The House had sent up a bill to the governor, granting a sum
of sixty thousand pounds for the king's use (ten thousand pounds
of which was subjected to the orders of the then general,
Lord Loudoun), which the governor absolutely refus'd to pass,
in compliance with his instructions.