The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 2: Printer and Publisher, 173-1747

PART I

A New Life, Age 24 to 30 (1730–1736)

ONE

Personal and Business Life

I was not to expect Money with a Wife unless with such a one, as I should not otherwise think agreable.—A 70

REJECTED

WHAT WAS WRONG WITH BENJAMIN FRANKLIN? Philadelphia’s eligible young women refused his courtship overtures in 1728, 1729, and early 1730. His failure makes no sense. The evidence suggests that he did not court above his artisan class. No gossip at the time or later and no correspondence mention Franklin’s courtships. Had he expressed interest in one of Philadelphia’s fashionable young ladies—like a daughter of James Logan, Andrew Hamilton, Governor Patrick Gordon, or a Pemberton or Norris, records of his presumption would probably exist in the voluminous papers of the Logan, Norris, or Pemberton families—or in the backbiting comments of later enemies. The only person other than Deborah whom we know he courted was a relation of Thomas Godfrey’s wife. Godfrey was a genius, but he was a glass-maker, an artisan like Franklin. Though the identities of his wife and her relations are unknown, they were probably artisans also. Franklin reported that he made Overtures of Acquaintance to several young women—only to be discouraged by them or their families. His sister Sarah (Franklin) Davenport heard of his courting and wrote him on 15 May 1730 that rumor said he was about to marry, but Franklin replied in June that it was not so.

Dowries were normal, but Franklin found, I was not to expect Money with a Wife unless with such a one, as I should not otherwise think agreable. Since he was an eligible bachelor, his difficulties are surprising. He was healthy, hardworking, intelligent, honest, attractive, charming, friendly, and highly respected. He was a promising, suitable young bachelor. Franklin attempted to explain away the courting difficulties he experienced: the Business of a Printer was generally thought a poor one (A 70). Was it? To be sure, Samuel Keimer had failed in 1729 and gone to Barbados, and David Harry, who bought his press and types, failed in 1730 and followed Keimer there. But printer Andrew Bradford was successful. Three years earlier (3 October 1727), he had been elected a Philadelphia Common Councilman—a mark of achievement and success.

Despite his debts in 1729 and early 1730, as well as an unpromising partner (until 14 July 1730), Franklin had already achieved considerable success. He had won the profitable job as printer of Pennsylvania’s legislative minutes and its laws. He had edited and owned the Pennsylvania Gazette since the fall of 1729—a newspaper that had by mid-1730 become a challenge to Bradford’s American Weekly Mercury. His future should have seemed bright to prospective brides and prospective in-laws. Why did it not? When telling of his courtships in the Autobiography, Franklin concealed the reason for his rejections. He was most likely rejected because he had an illegitimate son, born probably in 1728, for whom he was caring. The existence of an illegitimate son and Franklin’s expectation that his future wife would help raise him explain why Franklin was not considered a highly eligible young bachelor.

MYSTERY: THE DATE OF WILLIAM’S BIRTH

No one knows when William Franklin was born. Franklin and his son, William, both repeatedly implied that William was born about 1731. Biographical accounts usually give 1731 as William’s date of birth.¹ Franklin said William was now 19 Years of Age in a letter to his mother, Abiah, on 12 April 1750. Franklin probably meant to suggest to his mother that William was his and Deborah’s legitimate son. William kept up the subterfuge to his death, when he was reported to be eighty-two, thus fixing the year of his birth at 1731. Carl Van Doren accepted the date of 1730 or early 1731.² In 1959, the editors of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin assigned his birth as c. 1731 (1:lxii). By 1961, however, the editors noted that William Franklin received an ensign’s commission on 9 June 1746 in the Pennsylvania troops. Had he been born in 1731, he would have been fifteen in 1746, which, they said, was unusually young for an officer, even in eighteenth-century America. Therefore, the editors revised their estimate, suggesting that William was born about 1729 (3:474n.).

William Franklin must have secured his father’s permission to join Captain John Diemer’s company in 1746; otherwise he could not have served as an ensign. It seems to me unlikely that Franklin would have given William permission unless he were about eighteen. He returned alone to Philadelphia in May 1747 to round up deserters from the Pennsylvania forces in order to bring them back to duty at Albany. The revised estimate of the editors of the Papers agrees with the major nineteenth-century Franklin biographer, James Parton, who thought William was born about 1729.³ I believe he was born around 1728.⁴ That would make him about eighteen when Franklin allowed him to join Captain Diemar and about nineteen when he returned to Philadelphia in 1747 to bring back deserters.

Who Was William’s Mother?

A few Franklinists, including Carl Van Doren, have thought that Deborah Read was the mother of William Franklin.⁵ Contemporary eighteenth-century gossips generally did not care or did not know that William was illegitimate until 1762, when he became royal governor of New Jersey. That caused a flurry of bitter comments from disappointed office seekers, from enemies of Benjamin Franklin, from those amused at the hypocrisy of the first two groups, and from persons who considered themselves morally superior.⁶ The earliest known reference to William Franklin’s illegitimacy occurred in Provost William Smith’s attack on him in the Pennsylvania Journal on 6 May 1756: The whole Circumstances of his [William Franklin’s] Life render him too despicable for Notice. After the spate of spiteful notices in 1762, the next known reference to William’s illegitimacy appeared in a pamphlet published during the 1764 election campaign. In the pamphlet, What Is Sauce for the Goose Is Also Sauce for a Gander (prior to October 1764), Hugh Williamson charged that William Franklin’s mother was a former prostitute named Barbara, who had been exploited all her life by the Franklins as a servant. (Had the charge any truth, others would have come forward with confirmation.) Williamson also claimed she had recently died and had been buried in a pauper’s grave.

Though the mid-nineteenth-century biographer James Parton reported that William was illegitimate and that he was born about 1729, he did not speculate about the identity of William’s mother. Jared Sparks, who edited Franklin’s writings in ten volumes from 1836 to 1840, was interested in the question. Edward D. Ingraham wrote to Sparks on 22 March 1838: Has Mr. W. B. Reed sent you word who Governor Franklin’s mother was? If not, I must do it for him as soon as he gets the information, which he is to have very soon. My old mother knew… never would tell me.⁷ Evidently neither Parton nor Sparks, both of whom knew persons who knew Franklin, ever learned the identity of William Franklin’s mother.

Deborah Read was not his mother. According to her great-granddaughter, Deborah (Read) Franklin opposed William Franklin’s being a member of the household. But the tenderness of her husband towards herself at last overcame her objections, and her only child, Sarah,… was brought up to call him ‘brother.’⁸ The 1755 diary of Daniel Fisher confirms Deborah’s opposition to William. Fisher wrote that Deborah imagined Franklin sometimes favored William over Sarah, and she occasionally behaved like a jealous stepmother to William, even cursing him to strangers.⁹

Contemporaries of Franklin and his son William wondered about William’s mother’s identity. Replying to a question from a London acquaintance, George Roberts (the son of Franklin’s close friend Hugh Roberts) wrote on 9 October 1763: ’Tis generally known here his Birth is illegitimate and his mother not in good Circumstances, but the Report of her begging Bread in the Streets of this City is without the least foundation in Truth. I understand some small provision is made by him for her, but her being none of the most agreeable Women prevents particular Notice being shown, or the Father and Son acknowledging any Connection with her.¹⁰ Perhaps George Roberts wanted to seem knowledgeable and gave what he thought was a logical reply to the inquiry. He did not identify the mother, and his statement seems vague. The Maryland Loyalist Reverend Bennet Allen, an infamous slanderer, wrote a sketch of Franklin’s life in the London Morning Post on 1 June 1779, charging that Franklin had William by an oyster wench in Philadelphia, whom he left to die in the streets of disease and hunger.

As a port city with numerous transient sailors, Philadelphia naturally had a seamy side. Though the young Franklin, in Silence Dogood No. 13, gave a glimpse of Boston’s nightlife, complete with "Tarpolins and their Doxies and a bevy of prostitutes, he wrote little on the subject of Philadelphia’s vice. In a 1731 piece against Philadelphia’s fairs, he mentioned that they were a rendezvous for prostitutes; and on 3 January 1744/5, as a grand jury member, he listed ten Disorderly Houses in Philadelphia, some of them in the section of south Philadelphia near the water called Hell-Town." He said in the Autobiography that the inn at the Sign of the Three Mariners was not a reputable House (A 25). Franklin, like the young Quaker who advised him to avoid the Three Mariners, must quickly have learned which taverns were reputable and which unsavory. Because of Franklin’s account of his early amours, it is natural to suspect that his child resulted from that hard-to-be-govern’d Passion of Youth, which, as Franklin confessed, had hurried me frequently into Intrigues with low Women that fell in my Way, which were attended with Some Expense and great Inconvenience, besides a continual Risk to my Health by a Distemper which of all Things I dreaded, tho’ by great good Luck I escaped it (A 70). William Franklin’s best recent biographer wrote in 1990, Historians today lean toward the theory that William’s mother was one of the ‘low women’ whose company Franklin admitted frequenting in the period when he was casting about for a wife.¹¹

If however, William resulted from an affair with a prostitute or a low woman who was having affairs, how could Franklin have been certain of the infant’s paternity? He could not.¹² Unless the mother died in childbirth, she, like Franklin, kept William’s birth a secret all her life. It’s possible but unlikely that a poor, disagreeable woman (George Roberts’s description of the mother) would keep such a secret. After all, once Franklin became famous and his son became governor, would such a woman have remained quiet about her role? Franklin scholar Professor Carla Mulford has suggested that the mother may have been a woman of higher station than Franklin. That might explain how Franklin could be relatively certain that William was his son. I suspect she was the wife of one of Franklin’s friends who was away. (In the 18th century, merchants and others who journeyed abroad were often away for a year or more at a time.) Either possibility would explain why Franklin, rather than the mother with Franklin’s financial help, took the infant and reared him. These possibilities also might account for the reason that the identity of William’s mother was never revealed. Had the mother been a poor woman of the town whom Franklin occasionally helped, her identity would have been known, and Franklin’s acquaintances would have identified her. If, however, the revelation of William’s parentage would have ruined the mother, then Franklin and she both had a good reason for keeping the secret. There is no indication that William ever knew who his mother was.

Poor Richard said, Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

MARRIED

Illegitimate children were commonly brought up by their mothers; William Franklin was the exception. Historians have considered the plight of unmarried mothers, noting that infants born out of wedlock were not only a financial burden but also ruined any hope for a good marriage: Impoverished females faced serious obstacles to good marriages. Without dowries or resources, their chances of marrying above their station were virtually nonexistent…. Once identified as the mother of an illegitimate child, a woman’s chance of marrying respectably diminished ever more.¹³ A father bringing up an illegitimate child faced similarly diminished prospects of marriage.

The infant made Franklin’s dating difficult. Since Franklin and Deborah brought him up as their own son, Franklin evidently intended for whomever he married to act as William’s mother. Franklin’s intention to keep and raise William explains why Franklin was not to expect Money with a Wife unless with such a one, as I should not otherwise think agreable (A 70). The reason Franklin gave in the Autobiography—the supposedly poor business of printing—was a cover-up. Naturally Franklin did not insult his son by calling him an erratum. But William Franklin’s birth and parentage are surely among the most important events of Franklin’s life—and they are unmentioned in the Autobiography.

Though most eligible young women might have scorned Franklin, that was not the case with his former fiancée, Deborah Read Rogers. A friendly Correspondence as Neighbors and old Acquaintances, had continued between me and Deborah’s mother’s Family who all had a Regard for me from the time of my first Lodging in their House. I was often invited there and consulted in their Affairs, wherein I sometimes was of Service. I pitied poor Miss Read’s unfortunate Situation, who was generally dejected, seldom cheerful, and avoided Company. For the second time in the Autobiography, Franklin assumed the blame for Deborah’s marriage, never mentioning the briefness of the time that elapsed between his sailing from Philadelphia for London and her marriage. Our mutual Affection was revived, but there were now great Objections to our Union. Her earlier marriage was indeed look’d upon as invalid since John Rogers was believed to have a former wife living in England. Franklin emphasized this interpretation in the Autobiography by calling Deborah, in the quotation above, Miss Read. Though Rogers was now believed to have died, it was not certain. If he had died, he had left many Debts which his Successor might be call’d upon to pay. We ventured however, over all these Difficulties, and I took her to Wife Sept. 1, 1730 (A 71).

Before bureaucracies kept track of every individual’s life, many people faced situations similar to that of Deborah Read and Franklin. Her husband, John Rogers, was rumored to have been married before and now was rumored to have died, but if Deborah married, and if Rogers were alive and had not married previously, then she would be a bigamist. Another consideration was that if Franklin married Deborah, John Rogers’s creditors might try to sue Franklin for his debts. (Rogers absconded in debt, stealing a slave when he fled in December 1727.) Since an official marriage was impossible, Franklin and Deborah invited their friends and their families to a ceremony on Tuesday, 1 September 1730, and announced that for the future, they would live together as wife and husband. Ledger A&B, which Franklin began keeping on 4 July 1730, contains the memorandum D Read came into the House Sept 23.¹⁴ If they joined together on 1 September, one wonders why she did not move in with him then, instead of waiting for more than three weeks. One possible reason is that the house was not ready.

Common-law marriages were not rare in colonial America. Everyone accepted the Franklins’ status as a married couple, and not even Franklin’s later bitter enemies aspersed him because of his common-law marriage. The Franklins’ ritual was common, unlike the ceremony Franklin noticed in the Gazette the following year: a Widow of this Town was married in her Shift, without any other Apparel; upon a Supposition that such a Procedure would secure her Husband in the Law from being sued for any Debts of his Predecessor (27 February 1731). Years later in the Autobiography, Franklin assessed his marriage: None of the Inconveniencies happened that we had apprehended. That is, John Rogers never appeared, and his creditors never tried to sue Franklin.

Presumably Franklin worked on the morning of his marriage, for several entries in the accounts are recorded under 1 September. The account books contain no entries for the next two days, but the Pennsylvania Gazette appeared as usual on Thursday, 3 September, so if Franklin took off any time after the unofficial ceremony on Tuesday afternoon, it was only that afternoon and the following day. Deborah was probably chagrined when her sister Frances borrowed five shillings from Franklin on the day of the marriage. Perhaps Deborah spoke to her sister about it. Though Frances’s husband, John Croker, often appears in the accounts, that was the only time that Frances Croker ever did.

Deborah had neither Franklin’s ambition nor his intellectual gifts, but she was handsome, hardworking, and loyal. She had her own set of old friends, including Debby Norris, the daughter of Isaac Norris I and sister of the Speaker Isaac Norris II. She had been an early playmate and remained a close friend till death. Though Debby Norris was among the city’s gentry, she probably attended the Franklins’ ceremony on 1 September 1730, and Deborah Franklin attended her funeral on 18 May 1767. In the Autobiography Franklin praised Deborah: "she prov’d a good and faithful Helpmate, assisted me much by attending the Shop, we throve together, and have ever mutually endeavour’d to make each other happy.—Thus I corrected that great Erratum as well as I could. Here Franklin again exonerated Deborah from marrying John Rogers with another reference to his great Erratum" in writing her a letter saying he could not soon return to Pennsylvania (A 71).

Deborah was "as much dispos’d to Industry and Frugality as myself.¹⁵ She assisted me cheerfully in my Business, folding and stitching Pamphlets, tending Shop, purchasing old Linen Rags for the Paper makers, etc., etc. (A 76). The accounts show that Debby, as Franklin called his wife, commonly kept the shop while Franklin printed upstairs. The shop began as a stationery store but gradually added books, clothing, food, and some hardware. In 1736 Deborah was probably responsible for adding materials for dressmakers and tailors. Deborah kept a record of her credit sales, and it confirms Franklin’s appreciation. She generally managed the shop while Franklin printed upstairs, and the shop book entries are primarily in her hand. Franklin wrote a wedding anniversary song for her that said: Her compassionate Breast feels for all the distress’d, and the accounts support it: she gave credit to a person identified only as my madman" several times.¹⁶ She also helped by maintaining a household in which one or two persons often roomed and boarded with the Franklins.

Deborah enjoyed entertaining and was known as a good cook. According to Franklin’s song, she chearfully spends, and smiles on the Friends / I’ve the Pleasure to entertain. Franklin reported from the frontier on 25 January 1756 that her roast beef and veal were the best that ever were. During the period after Franklin’s retirement as a printer, Deborah was the leader of a group of Philadelphia ladies, turning up often in the diary of Charlotte Brown, a key administrator of the hospital maintained by the British forces in America, 1754–56.¹⁷ During Franklin’s years abroad, Deborah frequently entertained their old friends. She reported to Franklin on 3 November 1765 that when she had the contractor Samuel Rhoads and his family for tea, we had the bested Buckwheat Kakes that ever I maid. Thay sed I had ought dun [outdone] my one ought doings.¹⁸

Deborah identified with and loved her husband, and he seems rarely to have been disappointed in his marriage or in her abilities and character. While Franklin was in England, enemies accused him of supporting the stamp duties and threatened their home on 16 September 1765. Deborah sent away their daughter Sarah, but she herself remained, ready to face the mob and defend their home. Franklin revealed on numerous times that he was proud of her. She was loyal and faithful. From Franklin’s account in the Autobiography, the marriage was happy. But one bit of hitherto unremarked contemporary evidence suggests that they might have initially had trouble adjusting to marriage.

RULES AND MAXIMS FOR PROMOTING MATRIMONIAL HAPPINESS

Just over a month after Franklin and Deborah joined in common-law marriage, he published on 8 October 1730 Rules and Maxims for promoting Matrimonial Happiness. Address’d to all Widows, Wives, and Spinsters. One cannot help but suspect that Franklin wrote it for Deborah—and for himself. He began by celebrating the happy State of Matrimony but added, Notwithstanding, such is the Perverseness of human Nature… that by the Folly and Ill-behaviour of those who enter into it, this is very often made a State of the most exquisite Wretchedness and Misery. The virtuous of both Sexes, by the Prudence of their Conduct, should attempt to restore the institution of matrimony to the Honour and Esteem it merits, by endeavouring to make each other as happy as they can (W 152).

Franklin said that he was addressing women, not that I suppose their Sex more faulty than the other… for I assure them, upon my Honour, I believe the quite contrary, but because I esteem them better disposed to receive and practice it, and therefore am willing to begin, where I may promise myself the best Success. He rounded off the introduction with a punning risqué proverb: "Besides, if there is any Truth in Proverbs, Good Wives usually make Good Husbands." He used the more common form of the proverb in Poor Richard for 1736: "Good wives and good plantations are made by good husbands. The first rule for promoting matrimonial happiness was fundamental: The likeliest Way, either to obtain a good Husband, or to keep one so, is to be Good yourself. The third was: Avoid, both before and after Marriage, all Thoughts of managing your Husband. Never endeavour to deceive or impose on his Understanding: nor give him Uneasiness (as some do very foolishly) to try his Temper; but treat him always beforehand with Sincerity, and afterwards with Affection and Respect" (W 153).

Franklin revealed the common sense that characterized his assessment of the world: "4. Be not over sanguine before Marriage, nor promise your self Felicity without Alloy, for that’s impossible to be attain’d in this present State of Things. Consider beforehand, that the Person you are going to spend your Days with, is a Man, and not an Angel; and if, when you come together, you discover any Thing in his Humour or Behaviour that is not altogether so agreeable as you expected, pass it over as a humane Frailty." The married state could not preclude the normal causes of unhappiness between persons, and each partner should try to help the other (W 153).

Some rules seem to anticipate Franklin’s Art of Virtue (i.e., part 2 of the Autobiography giving Franklin’s supposed plan for moral perfection): 6. Resolve every Morning to be good-natur’d and CHEERFUL that Day: and if any Accident should happen to break that Resolution, suffer it not to put you out of Temper with every Thing besides, and especially with your Husband. He also asked that the couple find satisfaction in helping one another: 8. Be assured, a Woman’s Power, as well as Happiness, has no other Foundation but her Husband’s Esteem and Love, which consequently it is her undoubted Interest by all Means possible to preserve and increase. Do you, therefore, study his Temper, and command your own; enjoy his Satisfaction with him, share and sooth his Cares, and with the utmost Diligence conceal his Infirmities (W 153–54).

The list also revealed the economic practicality that Franklin tried (especially early in life, when it was the more necessary) to follow: 13. Have you any Concern for your own Ease, or for your Husband’s esteem? then, have a due Regard to his Income and Circumstances in all your Expenses and Desires: For if Necessity should follow, you run the greatest Hazard of being deprived of both. The Hazard referred to imprisonment for debt—a common punishment in the eighteenth century. Eight months later, Franklin dramatized the dangers of violating the thirteenth rule in his Anthony Afterwit skit on 10 July 1732. The last rule stressed the self-examination that was part of the New England Puritan inheritance—and that he included in his chart of a day’s activities (daily Examination) in The Art of Virtue (A 81): 14. Let not many Days pass together without a serious Examination how you have behaved as a Wife, and if upon Reflection you find your self guilty of any Foibles or Omissions, the best Atonement is, to be exactly careful of your future Conduct.

Finally, because the rules were one-sided, he recurred to the opening—they were as necessary for husbands as for wives: "I am fully persuaded, that a strict Adherence to the foregoing Rules would equally advance the Honour of Matrimony, and the Glory of the Fair Sex: And since the greatest Part of them, with a very little Alteration, are as proper for Husbands as for Wives to practice, I recommend them accordingly to their Consideration, and hope, in a short time, to receive Acknowledgments from married Persons of both Sexes for the Benefit they receive thereby" (W 154–55). If he wrote the rules for Deborah, he nevertheless knew that they were as important for him as for her. The conclusion contained a typical ironic quip. He knew that people would not follow the rules—and that no one would thank him for them.

APOLOGY FOR PRINTERS

In May 1731, Franklin brought on himself a maelstrom of criticism. He printed a handbill advertising that a ship would sail for Barbados in a few days and requesting that passengers or freight should come and discuss terms with the captain. Franklin printed dozens of such separate advertisements every month. But this time, perhaps to gain more attention for it, perhaps as a joke, or perhaps to express his irreverence, he and the captain added, "N.B. No Sea Hens nor Black Gowns will be admitted on any Terms." The quip backfired. Most persons in the seaport town of Philadelphia knew that sea hens were noisy, disagreeable birds (and slang for prostitutes)¹⁹ while black gowns of course were ministers. Coupling the two made the insult to the clergy worse. Naturally Philadelphia’s ministers were furious with the ship captain and with Franklin. But the captain sailed off to Barbados and Franklin faced the criticism.

Franklin apologized on the front page of the Gazette on 10 June 1731. Being frequently censur’d and condemn’d by different Persons for printing Things which they say ought not to be printed, I have sometimes thought it might be necessary to make a standing Apology for my self, and publish it once a Year, to be read upon all Occasions of that Nature. Much Business has hitherto hindered the execution of this Design; but having very lately given extraordinary Offence by printing an Advertisement with a certain N.B. at the End of it, I find an Apology more particularly requisite at this Juncture, tho’ it happens when I have not yet Leisure to write such a thing in the proper Form, and can only in a loose manner throw those Considerations together which should have been the Substance of it. Franklin’s introduction undercut the sincerity of the apology. Printers were so often criticized that he needed a standing apology that could be read on all Occasions.

Establishing the ethos of his persona, Franklin portrayed himself as a humble, hardworking printer without leisure to write, even in his own defense. His apology contained six parts: the above introduction; ten general considerations defending the freedom of the press; a brief discussion of the offending advertisement; twelve reasons for printing it; a fable; and a conclusion. The ten general considerations are all related in a serious, high-minded tone. The first was "That the Opinions of Men are almost as various as their Faces; an Observation general enough to become a common Proverb, So many Men so many Minds" (1:194).

Since Printing has chiefly to do with Mens Opinions, the peculiar Unhappiness of printing as a profession is that scarcely anything can be published which shall not probably give Offence to some, whereas a Merchant may buy and sell with Jews, Turks, Hereticks, and Infidels of all sorts, and get Money by every one of them, without giving Offence to the most orthodox, of any sort; or suffering the least Censure or Ill-will on the Account from any Man whatever. Franklin said that for anyone to expect to be pleased with every thing that is printed was as unreasonable as to think that nobody ought to be pleased but themselves. In a sentence echoing the thesis of Milton’s Areopagitica (1644), Franklin wrote: Printers are educated in the belief that when men differ in opinion, both sides ought equally to have the advantage of being heard by the public; and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter. One may well question whether most printers really thought so. Franklin, however, no doubt had read the Areopagitica and probably did idealistically want to subscribe to the belief. He claimed, Hence they chearfully serve all contending Writers that pay them well, without regarding on which side they are of the Question in Dispute (1:194–95).

Printers, Franklin asserted, are employed in serving all parties, so they learn to care little about the right or wrong opinions in what they print. They print things full of Spleen and Animosity, with the utmost Calmness and Indifference, and without the least Ill-will to the Persons reflected on; who nevertheless unjustly think the Printer as much their Enemy as the Author, and join both together in their Resentment. Printers do not approve of everything they print, for they print opposite and contradictory opinions. Some persons unreasonably say "That Printers ought not to print any Thing but what they approve, but if all printers did so, there would be an end to free writing, and the World would afterwards have nothing to read but what happen’d to be the Opinions of Printers" (1:195).

Franklin added an ironic touch concerning human nature: if all Printers were determin’d not to print any thing till they were sure it would offend no body, there would be very little printed. If they sometimes print vicious or silly things… it may not be because they approve such things themselves, but because the People are so viciously and corruptly educated that good things are not encouraged. In a last general consideration, Franklin said that he and other printers continually discouraged reproducing numerous bad things: I my self have constantly refused to print any thing that might countenance Vice, or promote Immorality; tho’ by complying in such Cases with the corrupt Taste of the Majority, I might have got much Money. He refused to print pieces that would do real Injury to any Person, no matter how much money he could have made by printing them and no matter how much Ill-will he received by his refusal. In this Manner I have made my self many Enemies, and the constant Fatigue of denying is almost insupportable. But the Publick being unacquainted with all this, whenever the poor Printer happens either through Ignorance or much Persuasion, to do any thing that is generally thought worthy of Blame, he meets with no more Friendship or Favour on the above Account, than if there were no Merit in’t at all (1:195–96).

Lewis P. Simpson wrote that Franklin’s Apology for Printers was both practical and symbolic, an announcement of a clear differentiation of the Third Realm in Colonial American history. From this point on, a colonial press—although it was always affected by governmental censorship—would provide for the localization of the politics of literacy in America. American political literature of the eighteenth century reflected the beliefs of the Commonwealth men of England and transformed their ideals into more popular and more democratic forms, first in the newspapers and pamphlets of colonial America, and then in the forms of government during and after the American Revolution. Walter Isaacson, a leading journalist of our time, believed that the Apology is among "the best and most forceful defenses of a free press.²⁰

Finally taking up the offending advertisement, Franklin tried to depreciate the deliberate insult and to portray himself as an unwitting accomplice. "I come now to the particular Case of the N.B. above mentioned, about which there has been more Clamour against me, than ever before on any other Account. In the Hurry of other Business an Advertisement was brought to me to be printed; it signified that such a Ship lying at such a Wharff, would sail for Barbadoes in such a Time, and that Freighters and Passengers might agree with the Captain at such a Place; so far is what’s common: But at the Bottom this odd Thing was added, N.B. No Sea Hens nor Black Gowns will be admitted on any Terms. I printed it, and receiv’d my Money; and the Advertisement was stuck up round the Town as usual. I had not so much Curiosity at that time as to enquire the Meaning of it, nor did I in the least imagine it would give so much Offence" (1:197).

Several persons were angry with Franklin for printing the bill. They said he had too much sense not to know what the words implied. They claimed that if they were printers they would not have printed it, despite the payment. They said that the advertisement showed Franklin’s abundant malice against religion and the clergy. They therefore declared that they would not subscribe to the Gazette, nor have any dealings with Franklin and would try to warn others not to give him any business. All this, wrote Franklin, is very hard! (1:197).

Franklin then directly apologized, but he treated the insult to the clergy as if it were not very serious. I believe it had been better if I had refused to print the said Advertisement. However, ’tis done and cannot be revok’d. I have only the following few Particulars to offer, some of them in my Behalf, by way of Mitigation, and some not much to the Purpose; but I desire none of them may be read when the Reader is not in a very good Humour. He changed from a serious and formal tone in the ten general defenses above to collegial amusement in the twelve particular justifications.

He began with two evident falsehoods. "1. That I really did it without the least Malice, and imagin’d the N.B. was plac’d there only to make the Advertisement star’d at, and more generally read." (He often satirized the clergy, however, and it seems impossible to imagine that he did not recognize the N.B. as a criticism.) "2. That I never saw the Word Sea-Hens before in my Life; nor have I yet ask’d the meaning of it. But the word was well-known to seamen and others who lived by the ocean. Franklin, a verbal genius, must have known it. He then tried to limit the black gowns satirized to Anglican ministers; of course, it referred at least to all the clergy who wore black gowns and, actually, to ministers in general. He also attempted to discount the seriousness of the insult. And tho’ I had certainly known that Black Gowns in that Place signified the Clergy of the Church of England, yet I have that confidence in the generous good Temper of such of them as I know, as to be well satisfied such a trifling mention of their Habit gives them no Disturbance (1:197–98). Franklin claimed in his third defense that the clergy in Pennsylvania and the surrounding area were his customers and some my very good Friends; and I must be very malicious indeed, or very stupid, to print this thing for a small Profit, if I had thought it would have given them just Cause of Offence." Here he echoed James Franklin in the 4 December 1721 New-England Courant, wherein his older brother had said that a number of ministers subscribed to the Courant, something they would not do if he were really prejudiced against them.

In the fourth numbered defense, Franklin could not help but use occultatio to deride the clergy. He was foolish and amazingly bold in satirizing clergy while ostensibly apologizing. The attack showed that the twenty-six-year-old printer was still the saucy iconoclast of Boston and London—without discretion and without emotional maturity: That if I have much Malice against the Clergy, and withal much Sense; ’tis strange I never write or talk against the Clergy my self. Some have observed that ’tis a fruitful Topic, and the easiest to be witty upon of all others. I can print any thing I write at less Charge than others; yet I appeal to the Publick that I am never guilty this way, and to all my Acquaintance as to my Conversation (1:198).

The next three reasons were without substance. 5. That if a Man of Sense had Malice enough to desire to injure the Clergy, this is the foolishest Thing he could possibly contrive for that Purpose. 6. That I got Five Shillings by it. 7. That none who are angry with me would have given me so much to let it alone. After several more excuses, he indirectly asked to be forgiven because he was young and impulsive, and he simultaneously claimed that he had offended less than any previous Pennsylvania printer. In fact, he had already repeatedly given offense to numerous persons, though (thanks perhaps to his patron, Speaker Andrew Hamilton) he had not been prosecuted by the government. His final defense claimed that he had printed more than a thousand advertisements that caused no offense, and this being the first Offence, I have the more Reason to expect Forgiveness (1:198–99).

Franklin added the jest book fable of the farmer, his son, and the ass going to town.²¹ When the farmer rode the ass, a passerby called out that he was selfish to make the boy walk. They both rode the ass, and the next passerby criticized them for overworking the animal. When the son rode the ass, another person on the road called out that the boy had no respect for his aged father. Then the two walked beside the ass, and a company on the road said they were fools for not riding the ass. Consequently, they resolved to throw the ass over the next bridge. Franklin drew a moral: Had the old Man been seen acting this last Resolution, he would probably have been call’d a Fool for troubling himself about the different Opinions of all that were pleas’d to find Fault with him: Therefore, tho’ I have a Temper almost as complying as his, I intend not to imitate him in this last Particular. I consider the Variety of Humours among Men, and despair of pleasing every Body; yet I shall not therefore leave off Printing. I shall continue my Business. I shall not burn my Press and melt my Letters (1:199).

It was a strange apology. From a serious, even lofty, defense of the freedom of the press, Franklin went on to satirize ministers even while apologizing for doing so. He concluded by resolving to continue in his own way. And why would he not? Though he had probably lost a few subscribers, the Pennsylvania Gazette was doing better all the time, and so was his business. He apologized—after a fashion.

SAWDUST PUDDING

Robert Vaux, the grandson of Franklin’s good friend Hugh Roberts, recorded the following anecdote. Though probably apocryphal, it illustrates an aspect of the young Franklin’s reputation:

My grandfather & Philip Sing & Luke Morris & some other members of the Junto felt a deep interest in Franklin’s success, having many complaints of his tone [in the Pennsylvania Gazette], met one day to consider the propriety of advising him to greater moderation. The consultation resulted in the selection of two of them to call on the Editor, & administer a caution on this head. They found Franklin with his sleeves rolled up busy at his press, & on mentioning the purpose of their visit he excused himself from want of time then to hear them, but named an early evening when they, & their constituents should take supper with him, & talk over the matter at leisure. On the appointed night they assembled at his house & some time was spent in communicating their opinions. At length, Franklin’s wife made her appearance; she set out a table, covered it with a course tow cloth—placed a trencher & spoon, & a penny porringer for each guest, & having deposited on one end of the board a large pudding, & on the other a stone pitcher filled with water she retired. The Philosopher begged his friends to be seated. To each he served a slice of pudding with some water, & bid them to enjoy themselves. He supplied himself largely and ate heartily, occasionally saying, Come gentlemen help yourselves we have another pudding in the pot. But his friends tasted, and endeavored in vain to eat their fare.

Finally they looked toward him and were about to leave when Franklin rose and said, "I am happy to have had your Company & to listen to your suggestions—some of you have been my benefactors—your advice is well meant I know, but I do not think with you on this particular subject. You see upon what humble food I can live, & he who can subsist upon saw dust pudding [a name sometimes used for wheat-bran pudding]²² & water, as can Benjamin Franklin, needs not the patronage of any one." Hereupon they parted cordially shaking hands and never more interfered with the intrepid editor.

Isaiah Thomas, the first historian of American printing, recorded a similar anecdote. Though Thomas knew persons who had known Franklin, this anecdote also seems apocryphal. Shortly after Franklin undertook the Pennsylvania Gazette, a person brought him a piece to publish in the paper. Franklin looked at it briefly and asked him to return the following day. When he came the next day, Franklin told him, I have perused your piece, and find it to be scurrilous and defamatory. To determine whether I should publish it or not, I went home in the evening, purchased a twopenny loaf at the baker’s, and with water from the pump made my supper; I then wrapped myself up in my great-coat, and laid down on the floor and slept till morning, when, on another loaf and a mug of water, I made my breakfast. From this regimen I feel no inconvenience whatever. Finding I can live in this manner, I have formed a determination never to prostitute my press to the purposes of corruption, and abuse of this kind, for the sake of gaining a more comfortable subsistence.²³

ESTABLISHED CITIZEN

When did Franklin first vote? As suggested earlier (Volume 1, Chapter 15), he may have done so in 1730, but he surely had by 1 October 1731. He was twentyfive years old, married, and owned his own business, including a thriving newspaper. He was the colony’s printer, a member of the Freemasons since February (and a junior warden since June), and the projector (in July 1731) of the Library Company of Philadelphia. He had become a solid citizen and was expected to vote. He was probably first invited to the annual mayor’s feast on Tuesday, 5 October 1731. The former mayor, Thomas Griffiths, made a very splendid Entertainment, at which were present His Honour our Governor, several Gentlemen of the Council, and most of the Gentlemen of this City. Though Franklin was an artisan rather than a gentleman, his ability to write pamphlets (A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency), editorials, and newspaper essays made him one of Philadelphia’s most important young men.

Three years later, his election as grand master of the Pennsylvania Freemasons certified him as an enterprising and promising young man. As grand master, he gave his own public entertainment on Monday, 24 June 1734, providing a very elegant Entertainment attended by the Proprietor, the Governor, and several other Persons of Distinction. His feast, however, was not to be compared to the sumptuous celebration given two years later by his fellow Freemason, William Allen, when leaving the office of mayor. Franklin reported in the 20 September 1736 paper: Thursday last William Allen, Esq; Mayor of this City for the Year past, made a Feast for his Citizens at the Statehouse, to which all the Strangers in Town of Note were also invited. Those who are Judges of such Things, say, That considering the Delicacy of the Viands, the Variety and Excellency of the Wines, the great Number of Guests, and yet the Easiness and Order with which the whole was conducted, it was the most grand and the most elegant Entertainment that has been made in these Parts of America. By that date, Philadelphia’s leading citizens expected Franklin’s presence.

LANGUAGES

Though Franklin wrote in the Autobiography that he began to study languages in 1733, he actually started several years earlier, perhaps even before he left Boston. The account in the Autobiography describes his learning to read the modern romance languages French, Italian, and Spanish before Latin, which was then easy to learn. Franklin omits German. It would not help in learning Latin, and listing it in addition to several Romance languages might have made his accomplishments seem quite extraordinary, and Franklin consistently understated his achievements.

He learned German because so many Pennsylvanians were German (locally called Pennsylvania Dutch) and the language would be useful to him in his personal and business life. He published two books in German in 1730. He probably knew German by then and set Conrad Beissel’s books in type. Before 1732, he read German fluently. He translated a letter by some German Palatines who had been mistreated by the ship captain and crew bringing them to America, but did not immediately publish it because he awaited proof that the charges of brutality and starvation were true. Meanwhile, Andrew Bradford secured a copy of Franklin’s translation and printed it in the 8 February 1731/2 American Weekly Mercury—scooping Franklin with his own work! Irritated, Franklin retranslated the piece, making it more agreeable to the rude Simplicity of Language and Incoherence of Narrative in the Original. He published it in the Pennsylvania Gazette on 15 February 1731/2, along with an account of Bradford’s plagiarism (though Franklin did not call it that).

On 6 May 1732, Franklin started America’s first German-language newspaper, Philadelphische Zeitung. Though Louis Timothée, rather than Franklin, edited it and set in type, Franklin no doubt reviewed its contents. Like many of his ventures, the paper failed. At various later times he again attempted to bring out German newspapers. He printed hundreds of German advertisements separately and often in the Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin no doubt translated some of them into German, as he did the 1755 advertisement (discussed in Volume 3) for General Braddock’s wagons. Franklin printed a German pamphlet or book about every other year, but in 1742 he brought out an extraordinary sixteen German imprints. On 14 September 1752 he asked Cadwallader Colden to send him the German translation of Colden’s Explication of the First Causes of Action in Matter, saying that he would peruse and return it. He frequently used the German language from 1732 until he left Pennsylvania in 1757. Since he rarely used it thereafter, he had lost his fluency in reading German by 1781 (35:549).

Franklin began studying French about 1730. Two years later, he translated a short French tale to prove his thesis that Men are Naturally Benevolent as Well as Selfish (30 November 1732). On 5 July 1733 he wrote an essay on the advantages of A Scolding Wife in the Gazette, containing a translation of a French poem by Jean Passerat (1534–1602). The editors of the Papers identified the source as Abel Boyer, The Compleat French-Master, for Ladies and Gentlemen (1729). Boyer, then, was among the texts Franklin studied to learn French. His copy of Andrew Michael Ramsay’s Les voyages de Cyrus (London, 1727), signed in an early hand, is in the Library Company.²⁴ So too are copies of Bergerac’s Histoire comique (Lyon, 1672) and Jean-Baptiste Labat’s four-volume Voyage du chevalier des marchais en Guinée (Amsterdam, 1731), plus many from his time in France.²⁵ As part of the propaganda for the Associator militia on 5 December 1747 Franklin translated from French the story of atrocities that the French and Spanish had committed at Portobello. His linguistic ability was well-known to members of the Pennsylvania Assembly. On 14 February 1754, they considered Governor James Hamilton’s report that Major George Washington had visited the fort built on the Ohio by the French and that its commandant had declared that "his Orders from the King of France are to build more Forts, take Possession of all the Country, and oppose all who shall resist, English as well as Indians." The report included a letter of 15 December 1753 by the commandant at Fort Le Boeuf, which Franklin translated for his assembly colleagues (4:160).

Franklin read and conversed in French during his two trips to France (28 August–8 October 1767 and 14 July–23 August 1769) and, of course, throughout his mission to France (1777–85). During this last French stay, he wrote numerous letters and literary works, including bagatelles, in French, though he had his French friends correct them, especially in the first few years. We know that he spoke conversational French by 1769, for he and his traveling companion, Dr. John Pringle, were presented at court on 9 September 1769, when Louis XV talked with Franklin during dinner.

After learning French, Franklin studied Italian. He wrote in the Autobiography that a friend (possibly David Martin, who became rector of the Philadelphia Academy) was also studying Italian, and the two frequently played chess. Finding that it took up too much of the Time I had to spare for Study, I at length refus’d to play anymore, unless on this Condition, that the Victor in every Game, should have a Right to impose a Task, either in Parts of the Grammar to be got by heart, or in Translation, etc., which Tasks the Vanquish’d was to perform upon Honor before our next Meeting. As we play’d pretty equally we thus beat one another into that Language (A 82).

Various bits of evidence confirm Franklin’s knowledge of Italian. On 19 May 1749 he thanked James Logan for loaning him both Alessandro Marchetti’s Italian translation of Lucretius and Gregorio Leti’s Vita di Sisto V., Pontefice Romano. He evidently read Machiavelli in Italian (one of the few foreign-language books in the 1741 Library Company Catalogue, p. 15). The best evidence for his knowledge of Italian is his correspondence with the Italian scientist Giambatista Beccaria. On 29 May 1766 Franklin wrote Beccaria that he read Italian though he did not write it: We can therefore correspond with greater facility, if it pleases you, each of us writing in his own language. They frequently corresponded in this manner until Beccaria’s death in 1781. Luigi Pio, chargé d’affaires of the Kingdom of Naples in Paris, wrote Gaetano Filangieri on 11 September 1781 that Mr. Franklin reads Italian rather slowly, but he understands it perfectly well. And Franklin wrote in Italian to correspondents who did not read English. His written Italian was far from perfect, but he was able to express his thoughts with sufficient clarity.²⁶

After learning French and Italian, Franklin turned to Spanish, noting that with a little Pains-taking [I] acquir’d as much of the Spanish as to read their Books also (A 97). Franklin probably read Don Quixote in Spanish (the Library Company bought a copy before 1741 [Catalogue, p. 52]). When Philadelphia’s most successful privateer, Captain John Sibbald, seized the ship "La Nostra Se-nora de Soledad, alias The Prince of Austria," Franklin reported its capture (6 October 1743) and evidently translated the papers found on the ship, which appeared in the next week’s Gazette. His Rhode Island friend Catharine Ray knew he read Spanish and sent him a courtship letter addressed to her from Laureano Donado de el Castillo. He translated it and returned it to her with his letter of 11 September 1755. Years later, writing I read Spanish a little, he requested on 27 January 1781 that William Carmichael, who was in Madrid, send him the Spanish newspapers and any new Pamphlets that are curious. When Carmichael quoted a Spanish proverb, Franklin translated and wrote a reply to it on 12 April 1781.²⁷

Franklin had occasion to use several modern languages and recommended that they be taught before Latin: I have already mention’d that I had only one Years Instruction in a Latin School, and that when very young, after which I neglected that Language entirely.—But when I had attained an Acquaintance with the French, Italian and Spanish, I was surpriz’d to find, on looking over a Latin Testament, that I understood so much more of that Language than I had imagined; which encouraged me to apply my self again to the Study of it, and I met with the more Success, as those preceding Languages had greatly smooth’d my Way (A 97–98). I suspect that he had studied Latin on his own even before he left Boston and that he exaggerated his early ignorance of Latin in order to urge that persons begin with the study of modern languages and then go on, if they wished, to classical Latin. Latin quotations, especially mottos, occur frequently in Franklin’s writing throughout his life. He even seems to have created some original ones for the Association flags in 1748,²⁸ and he often translated bits of Latin into English during the 1730s. Playing on the saying that poets are born, not made, he concocted a self-satirical joke in Latin (20 October 1737) that almanac makers were born not fit, "almanackorum scriptor nascitur not fit (W 272). Knowing that his neighbor James Read avidly read Thomas à Kempis, Franklin punned in Latin on a passage in à Kempis in a letter to Read on 17 August 1745.²⁹ The classical scholar Richard M. Gummere suspected that Franklin was much more at home in Latin than has been supposed."³⁰

There can be no doubt that Franklin read Latin fluently when he was older. He cited Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae in Plain Truth (1747), both on the title page and in the woodcut, and he provided a translation (3:204). He said of the Greek Orthodox priest Samuel Dömjen, whom he knew in 1748, that he spoke and wrote Latin very readily and correctly (5:522). Perhaps most telling are Franklin’s corrections of Giambatista Beccaria’s Latin treatise on electricity (29 May 1766). Perhaps, though, there was some truth to his statement that he again studied Latin after learning several modern Romance languages. He mentioned to Dr. Benjamin Rush on 12 June 1789 that after learning French, Italian, and Spanish he learned Latin, which he acquired with great ease.

SECOND VISIT TO NEW ENGLAND, 1733

In 1733 Franklin made his second visit to New England. He had previously returned at age eighteen, in 1724, with Governor Keith’s letter of recommendation, to ask his father to sponsor him in business. In June 1730 he wrote that he intended to visit Boston the following spring, but he was evidently too busy. In early September 1733, the twenty-seven-year-old returned as a successful young businessman. He recalled that he had become more easy in my Circumstances and so made the journey to visit my Relations, which I could not sooner well afford (A 98). Another reason for visiting was business. He was already exchanging newspapers with all the editors in New York and Boston. His accounts reveal he had established business relations with the Boston printer Thomas Fleet, formerly one of the Couranteers, and with the newspaper editor and postmaster Ellis Huske, but a personal visit would help promote further contacts. By 1733 Franklin must have been employing at least two journeymen printers. Their names are unknown, but Franklin left one in charge. That person, as we shall see, proved inadequate.

Franklin probably traveled overland to Boston, visiting the New York printers and booksellers on his way. The traveling salesman must have carried sample publications with him, such as copies of his first Poor Richard (1732), Isaac Watts’s slow-selling Psalms (1729), which he no doubt hoped would do better in the Boston market, and The Honour of the Gout (1732). In Boston, he presumably stayed with his parents. They would have had at least one festive family dinner for him—just as they had done years before when the wayward sailor son, Josiah, Jr., briefly visited. Franklin surely spent time with his sisters Jane Mecom, Elizabeth Douse, and Mary Homes, and his brothers Peter Franklin, a shipmaster, and John, a tallow-chandler and entrepreneur. Franklin arranged to sell some of John’s Superfine Crown Soap (advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette on 16 November). He no doubt called on all the Boston printers and booksellers, learning of their latest ventures and enjoying the company of persons with whom he was now doing business like Thomas Fleet.

A standard Boston tourist attraction for intellectuals was a visit to the studio of the artist John Smibert (1688–1751). The ever-curious Franklin probably saw Smibert on one or more of his Boston trips, if not in 1733 then in 1743 or 1746. Franklin may have visited the Boston Freemasons, though there is no record of his doing so at this time. And surely he looked up some old childhood acquaintances, like schoolmates from the South Grammar School, perhaps Dr. William Clark, Joseph Green, Jeremiah Gridley, and Edmund Quincy, and those who had been involved in the New-England Courant’s wars: Nathaniel Gardner, the Reverend Mather Byles, the Harvard scientist Isaac Greenwood (whom he had seen in London in 1725 and 1726), and the Reverend Samuel Mather. He would have heard anecdotes about the wit of the Reverend Mather Byles and about Byles’s poetic nemesis, Joseph Green, and perhaps been given copies of some writings by Gridley, Byles, and Green. The talented former Couranteer, Nathaniel Gardner (1692–1770), had presumably stopped writing for the public.

On the way back to Philadelphia, in October 1733, Franklin visited his brother James in Newport, Rhode Island. He and James had been doing business together for at least the previous two years. Franklin had advertised James Franklin’s edition of Robert Barclay’s Apology for the True Christian Divinity (1729), both in the Gazette on 21 December 1731 and at the end of his edition of Alexander Arscott’s Some Considerations Relating to… the Christian Religion (1732). Franklin’s accounts show he sold numerous Barclays. James had recently initiated a friendly literary exchange: he recognized his brother’s style in the Anthony Afterwit essay (10 July 1732); realized that Franklin probably remembered Abigail Afterwit (one of James Franklin’s pseudonyms) from the New-England Courant (29 January 1722); reprinted the Anthony Afterwit essay in the Rhode Island Gazette (25 January 1733); and replied to it in the same paper as Patience Teacraft. Franklin joined in the intercolonial fun and reprinted Patience Teacraft in the 31 May 1733 Pennsylvania Gazette. James Franklin’s essay, describing a faithful wife who reclaims her drunken husband by making him a devotee of the tea table, is not as dramatic or as interesting as Franklin’s Anthony Afterwit, but the exchange reveals that in addition to financial dealings, the two brothers established friendly relations at least six months before Franklin visited Newport in early October 1733.

Franklin recalled in the Autobiography: "Our former Differences were forgotten, and our Meeting was very cordial and affectionate. He was fast declining in his Health, and requested of