The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
By Benjamin Franklin

Transcription, correction, editorial commentary, and markup by Faculty, librarians, and students of the University of Virginia , Ellen French, Andrew Michael, Natalie Thompson, Monica David, Spencer Brown, Lizzie Rusnak
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np np : manuscript, 1790 Franklin worked on his "life" or "autobiography" over the course of several decades, but did not complete the work before his death in 1790. The manuscript was printed in stages in the course of the first half of the nineteenth century, and did not take the form with which most readers are familiar until about the middle of that period. (It is an interesting story, but a more complicated one than is worth going into here.) Our text is based on the University of Virginia Library’s Electronic Text Center’s digital edition, created in the 1990s and early 2000s. This digital text was produced from the print edition edited by Charles Eliot and published by P. F. Collier and Son in New York in 1909. The page images are from the original manuscript that is held at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. The notes were added by faculty and students in the graduate program in English at the University of Virginia.

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Research informing these annotations draws on publicly-accessible resources, with links provided where possible. Annotations have also included common knowledge, defined as information that can be found in multiple reliable sources. If you notice an error in these annotations, please contact lic.open.anthology@gmail.com.

Original spelling is retained, but capitalization has been normalized in this case.

Hyphenation has not been retained, except where necessary for the sense of the word.

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Materials have been transcribed from and checked against first editions, where possible. See the Sources section.

 Literature in Context University of Virginia Department of English P. O. Box 400121 Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121 jobrien@virginia.edu

Citation

Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, manuscript, 1790 . Literature in Context: An Open Anthology. http://anthologydev.lib.virginia.edu/work/Franklin/franklin-autobiography. Accessed: 2024-04-24T03:27:53.868Z

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Footnotes

Franklin_ graphic The book that we know as Benjamin Franklin's "Autobiography" was composed in several stages over more than two decades, and was never published in Franklin's lifetime. And Franklin's conception of what this book was and what its purposes should be changed over the years during which he was writing it. The first section was composed in the summer of 1771, when Franklin, then living in London and serving as the representative for several of the American colonies, was on an extended visit to the country home of his friend Jonathan Shipley. The text, which Franklin thought of as his "memoir" or his "life," takes the form of a letter to his son William. But it becomes clear very quickly that this was never a "letter" in the conventional sense, one intended to go through the post to its recipient. The later sections, composed in stages in the 1780s, seem addressed to a more general audience; as Franklin notes at the end of section one, he imagined that the first part contained "family Anecodotes of no Importance to others" but that latter parts of the text were "intended for the Public." This change in potential audience might been the result of Franklin's estrangement from his son in the intervening years, but also perhaps because Franklin saw this book as an opportunity to address a larger audience than he had originally planned. The manuscript, titled "The Life of Benjamin Franklin" by an unknown hand, is unfinished. Franklin picked up the manuscript in late 1789 and early 1790, but died before completing his memoir, which only goes up to the 1760s. How the manuscript was eventually published is a long and complicated story (at one point, the only edition available in English was one that had been re-translated from a French version), and it was not for several decades that the "Autobiography" assumed the form and the title that it now generally bears. But since the middle of the nineteenth century, this has been a landmark of American literature, and is certainly the best-known autobiography by any American. Our edition includes page images of the original manuscript, which is housed at the Huntington Library in California. We have edited the text to make it legible to modern reader, expanding abbreviations and regularizing the spelling and typography. Our annotations are designed to provide important contextual information that Franklin's first readers would have known.
Shipley_Jonathan Shipley (1714-1788) was the bishop of St. Asaph in Wales, but he spent much of his time at Twyford House, a large Tudor-era mansion in Hampshire in the south of England that had been in his family for generations. Shipley became a good friend and correspondent of Franklin's. He was sympathetic to the cause of the American colonists in their conflict with the government in London. Franklin wrote the first section of this memoir while he was visiting Shipley and his family at Twyford House for several weeks in July and August 1771. graphic
William_William Franklin (c. 1730-1813) was Benjamin's Franklin's illegitimate son. His mother has never been identified with confidence; it might have been Franklin's common-law wife Deborah Read, but it also might have been another woman whose identity is lost to history. William worked with his father in London, when Benjamin Franklin was serving as the representative of several of the American colonies to the government in Westminster. In 1771, when this part of the narrative was written, William Franklin held the position of the royal governor of New Jersey. Father and son would soon be estranged over the American Revolutionary War; William remained loyal to the British crown and became a leading Loyalist opposing the American rebels. This of course included his father, who could not understand how his son could oppose him. William and Benjamin met a few times after the war, but never really reconciled. graphic
advantages_Franklin's figurative language wryly draws on his experience as a printer here and many times in the book, most obviously in his reflections on the "errata" or mistakes of his life, "errata" being a print-house term for a typographical error.
sinister_Prejudicial, adverse, unfavourable, darkly suspicious." (Source: Oxford English Dictionary)
Franklin_The word "franklin" was a class signifier in England from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries. A franklin was a free man ranking between the classes of serf and landed gentry. Franklins often owned land, but not enough to raise them anything close to the ranks of the gentry. The thirty acres that Benjamin Franklin describes as being owned by his ancestor was typical; it was enough of one's own land to survive, but not enough to become wealthy. For a classic literary example of a Franklin, see Geoffrey Chaucer's Franklin in The Canterbury Tales.
freehold"Permanent and absolute tenure of land or property with freedom to dispose of it at will." Source: Oxford English Dictionary
scrivener_A person employed to copy or transcribe documents, or to write documenets on behalf of someone else; a scribe, a copyiest; a clerk, a secretary." Source: Oxford English Dictionary
MS_that is, in manuscript
folio-quarto_"Folio," "quarto," and "octavo" denote sizes of books, determined by the standard size of paper used in a print shop. A folio is a large volume where the paper is folded once; a quarto (sized at one-fourth the sheet) is half that size, and an octavo (where each page one-eighth of the sheet) is half the size of that. This would have been a very substantial collection of pamphlets.
against popery_The Franklin family's story, as told here, was typical of that of many English families, as their religious faith intersected with and was shaped by political events. By "early in the Reformation," Franklin makes cleaer that his family left the Roman Catholic Church (mocked by many as "popery") not long after Henry VIII separated from Rome in 1534, founding the Church of England. When Henry's daughter Mary became Queen in 1553, she returned England to the religious jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church, and persecuted prominent Protestants.
English_Bible_A Bible translated into English. The Roman church had preferred to use the Bible in Latin, but after the Reformation, there was a new emphasis on individuals being able to read the Bible for themselves, and a spate of translations into English emerged, such as the one done by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale, available by the late 1530s; the Franklin family Bible might have been this edition.
non-conformity_Non-conformity: Refusal to conform to the doctrine, discipline, or usages of the Church of England, or of any established church, etc.; the principles or practice of nonconformists. Now usually: Protestant dissent; the body of nonconformists or nonconformist opinion. Conventicle: A meeting of (Protestant) Nonconformists or Dissenters from the Church of England for religious worship, during the period when such meetings were prohibited by the law. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Folger_Peter Folger (1617-1690): Folger, born in Norwich, migrated to Massachusetts in 1635. He learned the Algonquian language and became an interpreter and “intermediary with the American Indian population” on the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. He also worked other jobs such as teacher, surveyor, farmer, and clerk of courts. His was a prominent family that produced “American scientists, merchants, and politicians, the most famous of whom was Benjamin Franklin, Folger’s grandson.” Source: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Mather_Cotton Mather, born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1663 to one of the city's most influential families, became arguably the most prominent minister in the American colonies. graphic Indeed, his influence was so widely felt he could be described as one of the major transatlantic figures of the time. Ordained at Boston's North Church, he served there as minister for the entirety of his career. However, Mather's influence was not only limited to religion. He was politically active, and he studied science as well, eventually gaining admittance to London's Royal Society. A prolific author, he published approximately 380 texts, including Magnalia Christi Americana (on the movement of Christianity from Europe to America) and Bonifacius, Essays to do Good. By the end of his life, Mather’s influence on Christianity in the colonies laid the groundwork for religious figures such as Jonathan Edwards. Mather died in February 1728 at the age of 65. Mather’s works were wide-reaching, so it is unsurprising that Franklin felt his influence—most notably through Mather’s Essays to do Good. While working as an apprentice in his brother’s print shop in 1722, sixteen-year-old Franklin wrote essays under the pseudonym of Silence Dogood—the surname "Dogood" was surely taken directly from Mather’s title. The persona Franklin assumed as Silence Dogood was a middle-aged minister’s widow who wrote on a variety of social topics such as politics, fashion, and education. Franklin silently slid these essays under the door of his brother’s business, hoping for publication. His ploy worked, and Franklin's pseudonymous works were published until October of 1722. Some critics have suggested that the the pseudonym and some of the essays were actually a mockery of Mather since the initial run of essays from Silence Dogood appeared at approximately the same time as widespread debates surrounding inoculation, a practice opposed by James Franklin, Benjamin’s brother and owner of The New England Courant. For his part, Mather was a strong proponent of inoculation to the extent that in 1721, Mather and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston inoculated over 200 people during a smallpox epidemic, in the process eliciting a certain amount of public outcry. At the same time, James Franklin published numerous articles against inoculation in the Courant. Years later, and after his own child contracted smallpox, Franklin changed his position on inoculation, regretting his failure to inoculate his son. Though Mather and Benjamin Franklin held opposing views upon various matters, there is no doubt that Mather exerted major influence upon Franklin. For instance, Essays to do Good provides practical tips for how to “do good” for the “Saviour, and for His People in the world.” The book is short and easily read, and its practicality and warmth made it popular throughout the colonies and in England. Franklin appears to have extrapolated not only the form, but the ethical substance from the book, publishing his own Poor Richard's Almanac, an annual journal consisting of practical tips, witty sayings, and household advice. In the Autobiography, he notes that his father’s library held a copy of Mather's book, and that reading it “perhaps gave me a Turn of Thinking that had an Influence on some of the principal future Events of my Life.” In a letter written to Mather’s son Samuel in 1773, Franklin acknowledged Mather’s influence: "When I was a boy, I met with a book, entitled “Essays to do good,” which, I think, was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by a former possessor, that several leaves of it were torn out: but the remainder gave me such a turn, for thinking, as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good, than any other kind of reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book."
school_Under the system of primogeniture that governed the inheritance of property in the landowning classes of Anglo-America, only the oldest son could inherit his father's land. Because of this, the younger sons were often sent off to practice law, join the military, or become ministers in the church. This trend extended into the middle class as well, as often the younger sons were sent, as here, as a "tithe" to the church for both religious and practical reasons.
Brownell_Brownell was born in London and arrived in the North American colonies around 1703. By 1712 he and his wife were running a boarding school for boys in Boston. Franklin attended Brownell's school from 1715 to 1716, at which point the cost apparently became too great for his family to sustain.
sea_Sons leaving home for adventure and quick profit was a common trope in the literature of this period due to the increase in England's colonial presence throughout the century. Robinson Crusoe presents one such example, but the ocean as a metaphor for both empire and capitalist gains was present in many eighteenth century stories.
emmets_ants. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Burton_"Richard Burton" or "RB" were pseudonyms for Nathaniel Crouch (c. 1632-1725), who published dozens of popular histories in the second half of the 1600s, books that went through many editions. Most of these were pretty much plagiarized from the works of other writers, but many readers, like the young Franklin, learned a good deal of history through his inexpensive digests of longer works.
Defoe_Daniel Defoe's An Essay upon Projects, published in 1697, outlines a number of plans for organizing associations to improve English society, including special courts for merchants and an early form of life insurance.
Essays_As noted above, Mather was an important influence on Franklin whose persona of "Silence Dogood" in his first published essays allude to the title of Mather's book.
twenty-one-years-of-age_It is worth noting that this is an unusually long apprenticeship; most apprenticeships were for seven rather than nine years. We do not know why Benjamin's apprenticeship was stipulated to be that long. The provision that he get "journeyman's wages," that is, the salary of a flully-fledged printer, might have been offered as a compromise. The fact of Franklin's apprenticeship, and his early departure from his brother's ship, which is coming up in in a few pages, informs much of this early part of the narrative. During his trip from Boston to Philadelphia Franklin recounts being wary about attracting attention, noting, “it seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance, that I might be some runaway.” This statement seems odd, considering Franklin technically was a runaway—he had left his apprenticeship with his brother against the will of the family. Why did Franklin not consider himself classed with other young runaways, when he did fear being mistaken for one and returned to Boston? He certainly had run away from Boston, knowing that if he left openly, “means would be used to prevent [him].” Yet Franklin was in a somewhat unique position: he had technically run away without his brother’s permission, yet he knew that he would not be treated as a common runaway apprentice. Apprenticeship in the American colonies had its roots in the practices of the English system, which dates back to the middle ages. One of the major pieces of legislation governing apprenticeship was the English Statute of Artificers (1563), which required parents who did not otherwise provide for the education of their sons to bind them to a trade or the agricultural system. The seven year term, longer than the normal length of apprenticeship in France and Germany, “was designed to ensure English supremacy in handmade manufactures and to discourage the wandering and strolling that had characterized earlier periods of English life.” Another aspect of English law and custom that influenced apprenticeship in the colonies was the English Poor Law (1601) which required local authorities to bind poor or orphaned children into apprenticeship if their parents did not do so. Benjamin Franklin belonged to the class of apprentices who bound themselves “by their own free will and consent” to a master to learn his trade, not the apprentices involuntarily bound under the auspices of the Poor Law. These English statutes applied to the American colonies in theory. However, these laws and customs depended on the medieval guild system for enforcement—a system which never developed in the colonies. Eighteenth-century colonial America did not have the deep pool of skilled laborers that characterized the guild system and had no enforcement mechanism to monitor quality of work, admit members to the status of journeyman or master, or standardize apprentice training. In the colonies, “anyone could call himself a master artisan, and any such artisan could take an apprentice”—or many apprentices at once. During Franklin’s boyhood in Boston, the real wages of artisans were falling and apprenticeship contracts often did not demand fees from parents, except for those in high-status crafts. It was guild enforcement that kept wages high and ensured quality craft in the English system, because it created a closed labor market—no artisan could work without permission from his guild. In England, if an apprentice ran away from his master, there was an ironclad system in place to keep him from practicing his craft anywhere in the country. The guild system ensured that jurisdiction rules were enforced, and any new practitioner would have to be an approved guild member. In America, runaway penalties did not extend beyond the borders of each colony, and, as Franklin’s narrative attests, the demand for skilled labor meant even a partially-trained apprentice would likely be hired, perhaps even with the status of a journeyman (though this label did not hold the weight it would in England). If an American apprentice ran away, his master would circulate a description of the runaway with an offer of reward, and if returned, the apprentice would have to serve for a longer period. The reward was the enforcement mechanism, meaning citizens might be on the lookout for apparent runaways. Technically, to be legal, an apprenticeship contract (called an “indenture”) had to be registered with municipal authorities so it could be used as evidence in case of disputes. This was true even in the colonies. However, the nature of indenture papers meant that possession of one’s half of the contract should have constituted evidence without consulting town records: “indenture” papers were indented on both halves of the document so they could later be identified as one contract. Benjamin Franklin’s original contract with his brother would probably have been properly registered—but the second set of indentures, which were secret, would only have been held by the master and the apprentice. James probably could have proved that Benjamin was his apprentice by comparing the two halves of the indenture, but once his brother was out of Boston, this means of redress was impractical at best. And of course, in attempting to regain his apprentice, James would have had to admit his real ownership of the Courant.
wretched-stuff_Neither of these poems has survived. But what Franklin was doing was a fairly typical thing in this period; newspapers were often filled with poems about recent events, particularly events as notable and spectacular as the two mentioned here. The death by drowning of George Worthilake, his wife and daughter (Franklin misremembers this as having been two daughters) as they were returning from church by boat to the lighthouse that Worthilake was in charge of in Novenber 1716 became known as the "Lighthouse Tragedy." Edward Teach, the pirate known as Blackbeard, was killed in a firefight with ships from the Royal Navy off the coast of North Carolina on November 22, 1718. The "Grub Street-ballad-style" that Franklin laments using here was nothing to be ashamed of; many authors in this period wrote popular ballads published in the kind of popular journals that became associated with "Grub Street," the physical home of mass market printing in London.
pointing_punctuation
Spectator_The Spectator was a newspaper created by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele that ran from March 3, 1711 to December 6, 1712. It consisted of a series of essays that were for the most part written by either Steele or Addison, but they assumed the viewpoint of the persona of “Mr. Spectator.” “Mr. Spectator” was a quiet observer of English society who commented on politics, fashion, and social issues through these essays, which were widely popular in both England and the colonies. They were read as models of good English style, and also as guides for civilized, middle-class behavior. Benjamin Franklin was influenced by Spectator's prose style. And the persona of "Silence Dogood" that he would use in his own periodical essays was clearly influenced by the silent "Mr. Spectator" of Addison and Steele's influential journal.
third_ Given Franklin's later interest in public finance, it is striking to see that the particular essay of the Spectatorthat he remembers as his introduction to the series is a famous piece by Addison on the topic of "public credit."
vegetable_Thomas Tryon's The Way to Health, Long Life, and Happiness, graphicpublished in 1691, advocated a vegetarian diet. Which was unusual in this period; vegetarianism was rare, and it cannot have been easy to get enough nutrition through a vegetarian diet in colonial New England in this period, especially given the difficulty of finding fresh vegetables in the winter season. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
hasty pudding_Hasty pudding was a grain porridge; in the American colonies, it was usually made of corn, but could also be made of wheat, oats, or some other grain.
Cocker_Edward Cocker's textbook, first published in 1677 under the title Cocker's Arithmetick: being a plain and familiar method suitable to the meanest capacity for the full understanding of that incomparable art, as it is now taught by the ablest school-masters in city and country, and then republished under various titles for decades to come, became the standard book for learning basic arithmetic in the eighteenth-century Anglophone world. It would have been comparatively easy for Franklin to have come across a copy of this book, which went through scores of editions.
Seller's_Practical Navigation: or an Introduction to the Whole Art, first published in London in 1669, was a widely-reprinted text in the period; its author, John Seller (1632-1697) was a mapmaker and cartographer who was awarded with the title of "hydrophager to the king." Samuel Sturmy (1633-1669) was the author of The Mariner's Magazine, first published in 1669 and, like Seller's book, reprinted several times in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This was a large and ambitious text, with sections on navigation and math, but also on things like nautical weaponry.
Locke_The English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) published An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1690. Locke's philosophical skepticism and strong endorsement of religious toleration seem to have found a strong positive response in Franklin. Locke's book is still considered a foundational text in the philosophical tradition of English empiricism.
Port-RoyalLogic, or, The Art of Thinking written by Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, was published in French in 1662, and soon thereafter translated into English and other languages. Known familiarly as the "Port Royal Logic," this, like Locke's book, was a highly influential text for centuries, and is still read by historians of philosophy. Source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/port-royal-logic/
Greenwood_The book that Franklin thinks that he is remembering is James Greenwood's An Essay towards a Practical English Grammar, first published in 1711. But he is probably misremembering here, since that book does not have the Socratic dialogue to which he refers. He is more likely thinking of A Grammar of the English Tongue, written by Charles Gildon in 1712, but published anonymously. That book concludes with an essay called "Of the Socratic Method in Disputing," that describes and then models a method of debating controversial topics by means of open-ended, non-confrontational questions. Franklin says that he took this kind of method to heart, training himself to handle disputes by avoiding dogmatic statements of his own position and instead asking careful questions so as better to learn the positions of others.
Xenophon_Xenophon (430-354 B.C.E.) was an ancient Greek historian whose writings included the "Memorabilia," a text containing many Socratic-style dialogues. Source: http://www.iep.utm.edu/xenophon/
Shaftesbury-and-Collins_Franklin is referring to works by Anthony Ashley Cooper, the earl of Shaftesbury, and Anthony Collins. Both authors were well known in this period for their philosophical skepticism and their classification as "deists." They believed that although a deity of some sort existed and had created the known universe, he, or perhaps better, it was not much concerned with the everyday doings of that creation. Franklin seems to have a read a lot of deist philosophy, which was widely influential in this period.
judiciously_These lines are from the 1711 poem "An Essay on Criticism" by Alexander Pope, though Franklin slightly misquotes, probably relying on his memory.
The-New-England-Courant_Franklin is misremembering here, as there were other newspapers before these. But The New England Courant was indeed a landmark in newspaper publication in the American colonies, as it included poetry, opinion pieces, and other kinds of content beyond the official news. graphicAnd it was the place where Benjamin Franklin's first surviving publications, his essays published in the Courant under the pseudonym "Silence Dogood" reached print. James Franklin ran afoul of the government several times in the course of publishing the newspaper (at one point, Benjamin took over as the official editor while his brother was in jail), and it was eventually suppressed, ceasing publication in June 1726.
anonymous_Franklin is referring to the first of his essays published under the name "Silence Dogood." Writing in imitation of The Spectator, Franklin did something quite original in taking on the voice and persona of a woman, here an old widow who, in the course of the series, made observations on contemporary life.
_William Bradford (1663-1752), was one of the earliest printers in the American colonies. Born in England, he came to Pennsylvania in the 1680s and established the first printing office there. When he ran afoul of the political authorities in Pennsylvania in the 1690s, he moved to New York, and set up a print shop in the city, which he ran until the 1740s. He had government contracts for printing forms, paper money, and the proceedings of the New Jersey Assembly, and also issued the usual fare of printers in this period: religious tracts, almanacs, and eventually a newspaper, the New-York Gazette, the first newspaper published in the city.
Amboy_Perth Amboy, New Jersey, at the southern end of the Arthur Kill (see below), and facing out on the Outer Harbor of New York City.
Kill_The Arthur Kill, a body of water that runs between Staten Island and New Jersey, terminating at Perth Amboy. By "Long Island," Franklin is probably referring to the coastline of what is now Brooklyn, or perhaps the long peninsula now called the Rockaways.
shock pate_The pate is the crown of your head, and a "shock" is a crop of hair, so the sense is that the Dutchman had a thick mass of hair to grab.
cuts_Copper cut illustrations or engravings, which were expensive to produce. They would have been much more detailed and finer than the woodcuts used for cheap books.
Cruso_Daniel Defoe (c.1660-1731), famous now as the author of Robinson Crusoe and other novels such as Moll Flanders, was at least as well known to readers in the period for his "conduct manuals"--guides to the proper way to live--such as The Family Instructor (1715)and Religious Courtship (1722), both of which went through multiple editions in the eighteenth century.
Richardson_Samuel Richardson's 1740 epistolary novel Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded was one of the most popular novels of the period in the English-speaking world, and was also widely translated into other European languages. Franklin published an edition of the novel in 1742 in Philadelphia, which he labelled the "fifth edition" of the work without any authorization at all. (Image courtesy the American Antiquarian Society) graphicHe was simply reprinting a copy of the book that had been obtained for him in London. The evidence suggests that it was not a great success commercially; novels remained suspect to many readers until well into the nineteenth century, and Franklin did not follow this up with other such piracies.
itinerant_That is, a traveling doctor. Nothing is known of Dr. John Browne's career as a physician except for what is recorded here. When Browne met Franklin, he was fifty-six years old and running an inn in Bordentown, New Jersey.
travestie_A travesty is a parody, and doggerel verse would be deliberately bad, comically irregular verse designed to mock its subject. The English poet Charles Cotton (1630-1687) published "Scarronides, or, Virgil Travestie" in 1664 and 1665, a parody of Virgil's classical epic the Aeneid. Franklin is right; Browne's parodic version of the Bible does not appear ever to have been published.
Keimer_Born in England in 1689, Samuel Keimer ran a printing business in London in the 1710s, publishing a variety of things, including plays by Susanna Centlivre, essays by Daniel Defoe, and a newspaper. He also publishes several religious works, including some that testify to his affiliation with the "French Prophets," a millenarian group that preached in London in the early part of the eighteenth century (about which more below). Keimer was jailed in 1715 for seditious libel; the best guess is that he printed something in support of a failed Jacobite uprising in that year, but we cannot be sure. He moved to the American colonies sometime around 1720, and by 1723 he was once again printing, this time in Philadelphia. Much of what we know of Keimer's career in Philadelphia comes from Franklin, who, as we will see, was often dismissive of his abilities as a printer and his character. After going bankrupt in Philadelphia, Keimer ended up in Barbados, and founded the first newspaper there, the Barbados Gazette. He died in Barbados in 1742. Source: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Elegy_This broadside elegy for Aquila Rose, the young poet and printer whose death at the age of 28 was the reason why William Bradford had recommended Franklin to come to Philadelphia in the first place, is the first thing that Franklin printed in the city. The broadside was lost for decades, but a single copy was rediscovered just in the last few years, and is owned by the University of Pennsylvania Library: graphic
compositor_That is, Keimer knew how to "compose"--to set type on a compositing stick and arrange lines on a form--but didn't know how to ink a page or otherwise use a printing press. Given that Keimer had been through London printing apprenticeship and had run print shops of his own, Keimer's apparent ignorance of these crucial tasks is surprising, and we only have Franklin's word to go on. It is possible that Keimer was a better printer than Franklin was willing to acknowledge, even if he did not have the kind of financial success that would come to Franklin later.
prophets_The French Prophets, also known as the Camisards, were a millenarian sect who preached in London, and, then, other parts of England in the early part of the eighteenth century. They were begun by a small group of Huguenots, French Protestants who had fled persecution there by emigrating to England in 1706. They preached the imminent coming of the Messiah, and attracted a number of followers including, apparently for a while, Keimer. Like many people in this period, Franklin was suspicious of the kind of religious intensity displayed by Keimer and other millenarians, what Franklin calls "enthusiasm"; it shows up soon in his response, later, to the similarly intense preaching of George Whitfield, the evangelist and Methodist.
Keith_Sir William Keith (c. 1669–1749) graphicwas granted the position of surveyor-general of the customs in the southern colonies of North America in 1713 by Robert Harley, then the leading minister in the government in Westminster. After his dismissal in July 1715 in a political purge, he persuaded William Penn, the proprietor of Pennsylvania, to appoint him to the position of deputy governor (this was in effect the leading executive power in the colony, since the monarch had the official title of governor). When Penn died in 1718, Keith tried to gain more power by creating a power base in the assembly. A political falling out took place when Keith sided with tradesmen and merchants on the issue of paper currency in 1723. Because of this, Keith's political opponents worked to oust him, and he was dismissed from the governorship in 1726. After this, Keith returned to England to appeal to the king for the governorship of the three lower colonies, but he was unsuccessful. He also attempted a few other political maneuvers, including an attempt at the governorship of New Jersey and the creation of a new colony called Georgia. He was unsuccessful at these as well. Penn found himself in financial trouble which led to a case against him, and he spent 1734 and 1735 in debtor's prison. After this, he became a journalist, and he died on November 18, 1749 in London. Source: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
French_Colonel John French was the speaker of the Delaware Assembly. "Madeira" is a fortified wine (that is, a wine with additional alcohol added to stabilize it) produced in the Madeira Islands, Portuguese-held islands off the west coast of Africa. Because this was the closest place to the American colonies where wine was made, Madeira wine was very popular there in the eighteenth century. But, expensive and taxed, Madeira wine was a luxury item, and would have been quite a treat for a seventeen-year-old, which is perhaps why Franklin remembers it so clearly.
shoal_A sand bank or a place where the waters are shallow. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
fortnight_A fortnight consists of two weeks. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
raree-show_A raree or "rarity" show would have been a small box carried by a traveling showman that had interesting images and scenes to be looked at, often through a small opening or peephole. They varied from perspective scenes of interesting places to, in some cases, pornography, and are the origins of the modern "peep show."
Collins_John Collins. Little is known of him beyond what Franklin says about in this memoir.
lampooning_Harshly satirizing someone or something in writing. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
strumpets_Prostitues or unchaste women. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Burnet_William Burnet (1699-1729) was at this time the colonial governor of New York and New Jersey. His father Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715) was an important philosopher, cleric, and historian, whose multivolume History of the Reformation in England (1679-81) was a landmark history of the English church. Gilbert Burnet became an ally of both Charles II and William III, the latter of whom made him the Bishop of Salisbury.
dramming_Drinking or alcohol consumption. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
errata_An error or mistake. Once again Franklin is using the language of printing to describe the course of his own life. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
one-hundred-pounds-sterling_Directly converting 18th century currency into its modern equivalent is a problematic enterprise which relies on a variety of different methods (various sources gave numbers between $10,000 and $30,000 as a conversion for this hundred pounds). To better contextualize this number, a 1750s schoolmaster in America would earn around sixty pounds annually, while the British National Archives say that 100 pounds would buy you either 14 horses or 21 cows in the 1730s. These numbers are further complicated by the shortage of money in the colonies during the time, leading later in this piece to Franklin printing significant amounts of paper currency to fill the gap left by silver and gold.
Annis_Thomas Annis was the Captain of the London Hope, which sailed from Philadelphia to London once a year to carry the mail. It usually left in the fall; this year, the ship sailed in November.
becalm_In the case of a ship: motionless due to a lack of wind. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
treppan_To lure, inveigle (into or to a place, course of action, etc., to do something, etc.). Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Mosaic_The ancient law of the Hebrews, contained in the Pentateuch. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Seventh_That is, he takes Saturday as the Sabbath, like a member of the Jewish faith. Keimer may have started this (and growing out his beard, which was unusual in this era) when he considered himself to be a follower of the French Prophets.
flesh-pots_In the book of Exodus, Moses tells the Israelites not to eat meat while in the desert, leading them to wish that they could return to the pots of meat they had left behind in Egypt.
Charles_As with a number of people in Franklin's early life, pretty much the only things we know about Charles Osborne and Joseph Watson come via Franklin. Charles Osborne eventually became a lawyer and moved to the Caribbean, where he died. Joseph Watson died just a few years after the events described here, in April 1727, in Franklin's arms. We know the most about James Ralph, because he became a prolific author once he moved to London. Ralph (d. 1762) was probably born between 1695 and 1710, perhaps in the environs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or perhaps in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. He never returned to America after the journey Franklin describes here. In 1727, he began to publish poetry, notably The Tempest, or, The Terrors of Death (1727) and Night (1728). In 1728 his blank verse polemic, Sawney, an Heroic Poem Occasion’d by the Dunciad was published, resulting in his inclusion in Alexander Pope’s second edition of the Dunciad (which may have been his intention). Ralph became a friend of Henry Fielding when Fielding was a leading figure in the London theater, and tried his hand as a playwright. But Ralph had his greatest financial success when he became a political journalist. Beginning in the 1730s, he was a contributor to a number of London newspapers. His most important works are The History of England during the reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and King George I, with an introductory review of the reigns of the royal brothers Charles and James (1744–6) and The Case of the Authors by Profession or Trade Stated (1758). Source: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Schuylkill_The Schuylkill River runs through eastern Pennsylvania, meeting the Delaware River at Philadelphia. graphicIn this 1752 map, it forms the western limit of the city's grid of streets. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
Pope_Alexander Pope mocked James Ralph in the 1742 version of his mock-epic poem The Dunciad: "Silence, ye Wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls/And makes Night hideous--Answer him ye Owls!" The lines are directed at Ralph's poem Night, but Pope was also getting revenge for the way that Ralph had mocked Pope in his 1728 poem Sawney.
Mr._Andrew Hamilton (c.1676–1741) was a prominent lawyer in the American colonies in the first half of the eighteenth century. Born in Scotland, Hamilton arrived in Virginia around 1698. In 1717, he was appointed attorney general of Pennsylvania and later served on the Privy Council and as Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. By 1727, he assisted in legal resolutions between the Pennsylvania colony and London. He also gained fame from a seditious libel case in which a publisher named John Zenger was charged with libel by William Cosby, governor of New York. Because of his defense, Zenger was acquitted, and the case is still remembered as an important landmark in establishing the freedom of the press. He was well-respected lawyer and businessman, owning 19,000 acres of land at the time of his death in August 1741. Source: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Little_Little Britain is a street in the City of London, on the border of the Smithfield Market. More broadly, the term "Little Britain" came to be used for the cluster of streets and alleyways around that area. In Franklin's day, Little Britain was a center of the print and book trades.
Wilkes_This would have been Robert Wilks (c1665-1732), who had been a star on the London stage for decades by this time. In the 1720s, Wilks was, with Barton Booth and Colley Cibber, one of the triumvirate of actor-managers who were running the Drury Lane Theatre company. The theatrical managers had a tremendous amount of power; if you wanted to work in the London theater at this time, you had to have the approval of one of them, and Wilks here was essentially putting a veto on Ralph's chances of a theatrical career. After Wilks's death in 1732, Ralph became friends with Henry Fielding, who was the leading playwright of the 1730s in London, and Ralph tried again to work in the theater, but he only found comparatively modest success in journalism and history-writing.
hackney_A writer for hire, willing to produce whatever text someone wanted. The phrase "hackney writer" lives on in the term "hack," which remains a derogatory word for a writer in the mass media.
Palmer_Samuel Palmer (1692-1732) opened a print shop in what had once been a chapel in the medieval monestary next to St. Bartholomew-the-Great church in late 1723; the space had been refitted for commercial purposes, and there was apparently a tavern and a shop that made printer's type on the premises as well. Franklin worked for Palmer from January to November 1725, when he moved to the much larger shop run by James Watts, where he worked until he returned to Philadelphia in July 1726.
A-Dissertation_The Religion of Nature Delineated, by the philosopher William Wollaston, was a significant work in its day; that there was demand for a third edition just weeks after it was first published is testimony to the surprising popularity of a work that offers a complicated articulation of how a system of ethics can be derived purely by studying the natural world, without invoking a supernatural being (while still believing that such a being existed), one filled with untranslated quotations from Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Franklin's only printed one hundred copies of his essay A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain and it seems to have embarrassed him later, as he tried to get back and destroy as many copies as he could.
Lyons_William Lyons, the author of The Infallibility of Human Judgmenta book that went through several reprintings in the early 1720s, but that is all but completely unknown today but for its presence in Franklin's book. Nothing else seems to be known of its author, either.
Lane_Franklin left a blank space here; it seems likely that he could not remember the name of the street while he was writing, and expected to fill it in later when the name came him, but it never did.
Dr._The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Publick Benefits (1714), by Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733), was one of the most famous and controversial books of the period. First published as a poem entitled "The Grumbling Hive" in 1705, the book took off when Mandeville added a prose gloss on the poem that made his thesis explicit. Mandeville scandalized people by arguing that individuals pursuing their own self-interest could lead to benefits for the society as a whole. This idea now is usually a central and uncontroversial assumption of modern capitalism, but in the early eighteenth century, his argument seemed outrageously cynical to many readers. The book was delared a public nuisance by a grand jury in Middlesex in 1723, and Mandeville was mocked as the "Man-Devil" by his detractors. But to other readers, like the young Franklin, Mandeville's cheerful brio about his argument and his brutal frankness was deeply appealing. At the time of this meeting, Mandeville was at the height of his fame and notoriety.
Sir_Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753) graphicwas a physician and naturalist who built one of the largest collection of antiquities and curiosities of anyone in this period. After his death in 1753, he willed the collection to the nation, and it became the core of the British Museum. By the 1720s, Sloane's interest in collecting things was well known and he had correspondents around the world sending him seeds, plants, geological specimens, and other curiosities. His house in Bloomsbury had also become a magnet for curiosity-seekers like Franklin. The asbestos purse that Sloane purchased from Franklin is now in the collection of the Natural History Museum in London. graphicWhat must have made the purse interesting to Sloane is that asbestos, while a naturally-occuring mineral, is hard to weave because it is so fine and delicate in its natural state. Years later, Franklin explained to the Finnish naturalist Pehr Kalm that if you left asbestos outside in the cold, the fibers would stiffen enough to be woven. It's possible that Franklin brought the purse to London for the purposes of selling it someone like Sloane. (Source: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Image source Wikimedia Commons). A great recent study of Hans Sloane is James Delbourgo's Collecting the World: Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Museum (Harvard University Press, 2017).
milliner_A milliner sells women's apparel, hats in particular. A cloister is a walkway or other building attached to a monastery; the "Cloisters" referred to here is the same commercial space that in this time was located in the remains of the St. Bartholemew property where Samuel Palmer's print shop, where Franklin was working at the time, was located.
_Franklin is slyly mocking his friend Ralph by sending him verses copied out from Edward Young's contemporary satires on the pitfalls of pursuing fame. These were published as separate poems between 1725 and 1728 under the title "The Universal Passion," and were then collected in book form and re-published in 1728 as Love of Fame, the Universal Passion. These poems, which were very popular in period, mock worldly ambition through a series of character studies. (Young, like Ralph, had sought fame in the theater, without a lot of success.) The popularity of these poems ironically made Young (1685-1765) one of the most famous poets of the period. Young is most remembered now for his poem The Complaint, or Night Thoughts (1742-46) a long meditation on loss and immortality, prompted, many critics believe, by the death of his wife in 1740. Best known as "Night Thoughts," this poem became one of the most popular works of the century.graphic[Image: Edward Young, painted by Joseph Highmore (Wikimedia Commons)]
Watt_John Watts (d.1763) did have a much larger printing shop than Samuel Palmer, employing about fifty workers at the time Franklin joined as a journeyman printer. Watts's shop seems to have had two floors, with pressmen working on the ground floor and compositors setting type a floor above them. Watts printed almost exclusively for the Tonson family, then the largest and most prestigious booksellers in London. (Source: Hazel Wilkinson, "Benjamin Franklin's London Printing, 1725-26," PBSA 110:2 (2016): 139-180. Franklin's description in what follows of the day-to-day life of a London print shop in this period is a valuable record of the social relationships in such workplaces.
bien_A "bienvenue" from the French for "welcome," was a fee extracted from new workers in an organized shop, here to buy beer for the group. Franklin is probably right to feel that he is being exploited, even hazed as a newcomer.
by_"Sorts" were the pieces of type that a compositor used to make a line, and then a page, of type; "matter" would be a page of type fully set and ready for the press.
chappel_"Chappel" or "chapel" is a print-shop term that means the assembly of workers in a particular shop, who made their own house rules--sort of like a union. Here we see that the chappel at Watt's shop exacted a "bienvenue" from new workers, hazed those who failed to pay up, and pretended that there was a ghost to disclaim any responsibility.
porringer_A "porriger" is a small bowl with a handle that could be used for soup or broth, or, as here, gruel, which is a dish of grain that has been boiled in water or milk, like a watery oatmeal or rice pudding. This beautiful silver porriger was made around 1710 by the silversmith John Coney; it is now in the Birmingham Museum of Art.graphic(Image source: Photographed by Sean Pathasema/Birmingham Museum of Art, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
jocular_Joking or jesting. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
making_In this period, it was typical for workers in a print-shop or other worksite to slack off or even not show up for work on Mondays, when few projects were urgent. Sometimes hang-overs needed to be nursed as well.
Duke-street_Duke Street, a short street connected to Lincoln's Inn Fields, was later renamed Sardinia Street. It was destroyed in 1905 as part of a large scale project of urban road construction.
garret_An attic room. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
gratis_Free. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Saint-Veronica_The story of Veronica's veil is a Christian myth, found nowhere in the Bible, that goes back to at least the twelfth century, and perhaps much earlier. In the story, Veronica gave a piece of her veil to Jesus so that he could wipe the sweat off his face while he was carrying the cross to his crucifixion, and an image of his face remained on the cloth. By the eighteenth century, representations of the veil had become widely-issued devotional images, particularly for Catholics.
Chelsea_Chelsea is a neighborhood in London, on the river Thames about four miles to the west of Franklin's lodgings, so it would have made sense to take a boat there. The "College" to which Franklin refers is actually the Royal Hospital, built on the site of a closed theological college. The Royal Hospital, which is still in existence, was founded in 1682 as a home for veterans. The Chelsea Pensioners, as the residents of the Hospital are known, continue to wear the distinctive scarlet uniforms that were first issued in the early eighteenth century. "Don Saltero's" was a coffee house on Cheyne Walk run by James Salter, who had been Sir Hans Sloane's servant. Salter opened a barber shop in 1695, and began displaying curiosities there that were passed down by Sloane (items included taxidermy animals like crocodiles and snakes as well as oddities like pieces of the True Cross, petrified peaches and pears, a piece of Queen Catherine's skin, and a vial with the "tears of Job.") The collection grew and attracted sightseers, leading Salter to find bigger premises nearby and reopen his business as a coffee shop/museum. Salter was dubbed "Don Saltero" by Richard Steele in the Tatler in 1709, and the nickname stuck. Don Saltero's, pictured here in an 1850 drawing, remained a going business and tourist attraction well into the nineteenth century, long after Salter's death in 1728.graphic (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
Chelsea-to_This is an impressive swim, about three and a half miles.
ThevenotgraphicMelchisedeck de Thevenot's The Art of Swimming: Illustrated by Proper Figures With Advice for Bathing...Done out of French (London, 1699) was published in France in 1696 and translated in 1699. It includes 39 plates to illustrate various strokes, such as this one illustrating how to move forward while holding one leg. Franklin was unusual in his love for swimming; most people in this period did not know how to swim, and feared the water.
compounded_To settle (a debt) by agreement for partial payment; to discharge (a recurrent charge or subscription) by paying a lump sum. (Oxford English Dictionary
one_This son of Sir William Wyndham was Charles Wyndham (1710-1763), who was Secretary of State for the Southern Department from 1761-1763, which made him the government's chief minister responsible for overseeing the American colonies. In that role, Wyndham was part of the negotiations for ending the Seven Years' War, and Franklin would have met with him in his role as agent for the Pennsylvania colony. At this point in his composition of the autobiography, Franklin was hoping to continue to the narrative at least up until 1771, but the manuscript ends in 1757, so he never got to include any anecdotes about his interactions with Wyndham.
seeing_What might Franklin have seen in these months? We have no way of knowing which of these plays he attended, but this is the roster of things that were on the London stage in June and July 1726: The King's Alexander by Paolo Rolli, an opera about one of Alexander the Great's military conquests; Love's Contrivance by Susanna Centlivre, a comedy with xenophobic tones; A Fond Husband by Thomas D'Urfey, q comedy about a wife and her lover who continually thwarp attempts by others to divulge their relationship to her husband; Tunbridge-Walks by Thomas Baker, a comedy about the society of Britain at the time with the sudden influx of foreigners. The play riffs on the intermingling of all the different cultures and social classes; The Man's the Master by William Davenant, a tragi-comedy about jealousy, passion, lovers, and arranged marriages; Epsom Wells by Thomas Shadwell, a comedy of life in Epsom with a focus on lust and the townspeople's various sexual escapades.
pleurisy_An abcess of the ribs or inner surface of the chest (obsolete); a pain in the chest or the side, esp. when stabbing in nature and exacerbated by inspiration of coughing; an instance of this; any disease resulting in such pain. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
nuncupative_A will or testament declared orally. Source: Oxford English Dictionary. This sentence is one of the examples the Oxford English Dictionary offers for the term. Denham died in July 1728, but Franklin had already returned to work for Samuel Keimer in the fall of 1727; perhaps Denham was too sick to carry on the shop by that point. Denham's will, among other things, forgave Franklin's debt of £10 for his passage to return from London to Philadephia.
player_An actor.
crimp_Crimp: A person who procures seamen, soldiers, etc., without licence, esp. by entrapping or coercing them. Source: Oxford English Dictionary. The crimp's bill here offered so opportunely to George Webb most likely painted a glowing picture of the benefits men willing to become indentured servants in America would accrue. That the bill is offered to Webb when he is a hungry vagrant underlines the dubious nature of a crimp's bill and the crimp's tendency to profit by appealing to men too greatly in need of a job (or too thirsty for change and adventure) to inquire closely into its particulars or the reality behind what was most likely a "hit list" of a job's perks.
sorts_The printing characters or letters that make up a font and are used in composing. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
letter-founder_A person who makes metal types for printing. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
struck_The matrices are the molds used to create the sorts. They were struck in lead because lead expands so that the letters can fill a line. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
factotum_A jack-of-all-trades. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
captious_Disposed to find faults. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
paper_Although it had been used in other places in the world, particularly in China, paper currency was only introduced to European societies in the late seventeenth century, a time when there was a perceived shortage of gold and silver currency. These shortages were particularly acute in the American colonies. As early as 1690, the Massachusetts Bay Colony issued paper money. But paper currency remained deeply suspect to many Europeans and the residents of their colonial outposts. Presses in this period were not generally able to print notes that were distinctive enough that they could not easily be counterfeited. (As we shall see, Franklin come up with ingenious solutions to combat counterfeiting.) And it was possible for too many notes, real and counterfeit, to end up in circulation, causing inflation. Franklin became a strong advocate of paper money nonetheless, seeing it, probably correctly, as a important spur to commercial activity. It would also become a significant part of his printing business, so he had a self-interest in New Jersey and other colonies using paper currency.
Copper_Franklin is describing intaglio printing, which is the process of creating raised patterns into the paper and using those patterns to hold the ink. Metal plates such as copper plates are carved by a sharp instrument with the pattern or lines of text. The plate is then covered in ink, and wiped down to ensure that ink is only within the grooves of the plate. Next, damp paper (damp to make it easier to press and manipulate into the cuts) is laid atop the plate with a towel on top of it. The paper is then run through the press where even, strong pressure is applied across the sheet pushing it into the grooves. Once ran through the press once, a printed sheet is made. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intaglio
surveyor-general_In this period, surveying land was a major preoccupation of European settlers, who were trying to stake claims on what they considered the frontier, and the chief land-surveyer of a colony had a great deal of power.
wheeling_To shape clay on a wheel. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Deism_The religious and philsophical movement known as "Deism" was much debated in the early years of the eighteenth century and continued to resonate for decades after that. It was never one thing, and people who thought of themselves as Deists disagreed on a lot of issues. But typically Deists rejected the authority of scripture, which they saw as incompatible with human reason. In an era when experimental science was enabling people to understand fundamental forces of the universe like gravity, thanks to the work of Isaac Newton, it seemed ridiculous to Deists continue to believe in miracles, for example, which now looked like a vestige of a superstitious past that the modern age was overcoming. Deists sometimes used the metaphor of God as a clockmaker, imagining him as having created a universe that could in effect run on its own, without his personal intervention at every step. During its heyday, which was right in the period when Franklin was growing up, Deism was also frequently attacked by orthodox Christian clerics, as in the books that Franklin is referring to here.
Boyle_The Anglo-Irish nobleman Robert Boyle (1627-1691) was a pioneer of experimental philosophy. In his will, he left and endowment to support a lecture series (still ongoing) that explored the relationship between religious faith and "natural philosophy," what we think of as the sciences. Boyle's intention was largely to demonstrate how modern science affirmed the divinity of God and his creation. Though he was not trying to refute Deists himself (since it was a minor movement in his lifetime), it sounds as though the books that fell into Franklin's hands at this point used points raised in some of these annual lectures to argue against Deist thought.
My-London_The London pamphlet is, of course Franklin's Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, which he had published during his time in London in 1725. Writing from memory here in his memoir, Franklin misquotes by conflating lines from John Dryden's play Oedipus with lines from Alexander Pope's An Essay on Man. He had gotten the full quotation from Dryden correctly in the original pamphlet.
glazier_One engaged in the manufacture of glass, a glass-maker. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
croakers_One who talks dismally or despondingly, one who forebodes or prophesies evil. Source: Oxford English Dictionary. This passage of Franklin's autobiography is cited by the OED as an illustration of the word's use.
fallacious_Containing fault or fallacy. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
pecuniary_Monetary. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Joseph_Joseph Breintnal (died 1746), was the first Secretary of the Library Company of Philadelphia. While mainly a merchant, Breintnal enjoyed doing work as a naturalist. Franklin's idea to cut leaves into currency to foil counterfeits probably was inspired by Breintnal's prints of leaves, which he made by treating leaves like paper, inking them and pressing them between blank sheets.graphic [Image source: Wikimedia Commons]
I-immediately_"Pi" or "pie" is when you spill all the type and it's a total mess and you have to start all over.
He-began_Keimer began his paper, "The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences: and Pennsylvania Gazette," in December of 1728. However, the paper received little to no attention until Franklin and Meredith took it over in October of 1729. The pair shortened the name to "The Pennsylvania Gazette" and soon it became one of the most read and notable papers in the colonies. Franklin retired from printing in 1748, letting others run his business interests, and eventually cut ties with the newspaper in 1766. Source: http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/pennsylvania-gazette/
Our_The dispute was over whether Governor Burnet of Massachusetts would received a fixed annual salary (as he insisted) or whether his pay would be determined annually by the Assembly. Burnet died before the issue was settled, but the dispute continued because Burnet had insisted that the salary extend to his potential successors, and his immediate successor, acting Governor William Dummer, quickly took up the issue with the Assembly. In the manuscript, Franklin writes "Insert these Remarks in a Note," but he never got to include them in a finished text. Here, then, is Franklin's attempt to intervene from the distance in the dispute, which brought to light issues about the relationship betwee the colonists and their colonial governors that would ultimately lead to revolution several decades later. Franklin's remarks were published in the Pennsylvania Gazette for October 9, 1729: "His Excellency Governor Burnet died unexpectedly about two Days after the Date of this Reply to his last Message: And it was thought the Dispute would have ended with him, or at least have lain dormant till the Arrival of a new Governor from England, who possibly might, or might not be inclin'd to enter too rigorously into the Measures of his Predecessor. But our last Advices by the Post acquaint us, that his Honour the Lieutenant Governour (on whom the Government immediately devolves upon the Death of absence of the Commander in Chief) has vigorously renew'd the Struggle on his own Account; of which the Particulars will be seen in our next. Perhaps some of our Readers may not fully understand the Original or Ground of this warm Contest between the Governour and Assembly.--It seems, that People have for these Hundred Years past, enjoyed the Privilege of Rewarding the Governour for the Time being, according to their Sense of his Merit and Services; and few or none of their Governors have hitherto complain'd, or had Reason to complain, of a too scanty Allowance. But the late Gov. Burnet brought with him Instructions to demand a settled Salary of 1000 £. per Annum, Sterling, on him and all his Successors, and the Assembly were required to fix it immediately. He insisted on it strenously to the last, and they as constantly refused it. It appears by their Votes and Proceedings, that they thought it an Imposition, contrary to their own Charter, and to Magna Charta; and they judg'd that by the Dictates of Reason there should be a mutual Dependence between the Governor and the Governed, and that to make an Governour independent of his People, would be dangerous, and destructive of their Liberties, and the ready Way to establish Tyranny: They thought likewise, that the Prince was not the less dependent on the Crown of Great-Britain, by the Governour's depending immediately on them and hjis own good Conduct for an ample Support, because all Acts and Laws which me might be induc'd to pass, must neverless be constantly sent Home for Approbation in Order to continue in Force. Many other Reasons were given and Arguments us'd in the Course of the Controversy, needless to particularlize here, because the material Papers relating to it, have been inserted already in our Public News. Much deserved Praise has the deceas'd Governour received, for his steady Integrity in adhering to his Intructions, notwithstanding the great Difficulty and Opposition he met with, and the strong Temptations offer'd from tim to time to induce him to give up the Point.--And yet perhaps something is due to the Assembly (as the Love and Zeal of the Country for the present Estalishment is too well known to suffer any Suspicion of Want of Loyalty) who continue thus resolutely to Abide by what treahey Think their Right, and that of the People they represent, maugre all the Arts and Menaces of a Governour fam'd for his Cunning and Politicks, back'd with Instructions from Home, and powerfully aided by the great Advantage such an Officer always has of engaging the principal Men of a Place in his Party, by conferring where he pleases so many Posts of Profit and Honour. Their happy Mother Country will perhaps observe with Pleasure, that tho' her gallnt Cocks and matchless Dogs abate their native Fire and Intrepidity when transported to a Foreign Clime (as the common Notion is) yet her SONS in the remotest Part of the Earth, and even to the third and fourth Descent, still retain that ardent Spirit of Liberty, and that undaunted Courge in the Defense of it, which has in every Age so gloriously distinguished BRITONS and ENGLISHMEN from all the Rest of Mankind."
Mr.-HamiltonIn the margin, Franklin writes "I got his Son once 500£." Andrew Hamilton was the Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly in this period; his son James became a friend of Franklin's and later served a couple of terms as Governor of Pennsylvania. We cannot be certain what Franklin is referring to when he talks about the £500 in his note, but Lemay and Zall observe in the Norton critical edition that in 1754, William Franklin got his salary, of precisely that amount, which had been disputed by the Pennsylvania Assembly. They suggest that Franklin may have intervened behind the scenes to make it happen.
extant_Existing. Source: Oxford English Dictionary. As already noted, the shortfall of currency was endemic in the colonies. In the period that Franklin is recalling (accurately) here, the situtation was about to be exacerbated by the fact that some of the paper currency that had been issued a few years earlier was supposed to be withdrawn from circulation, or "sunk," according to the original terms of its issuance.
The-Nature_When paper currency was introduced in Pennsylvania in 1723, many believed that it helped the area prosper, while others grew concerned over inflation and depreciation. The Assembly and the governor debated the topic in hopes of compromise. In 1729, Franklin anonymously published a pamphlet that argued in favor of the circulation of paper money. He argued that paper money is necessary for a community’s economy and the ways in which regulation and security of the money should be enacted. Here is a copy: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0041. Franklin was not completely disintersted on this topic; he would soon secure the contract to print paper money in Pennsylvania as he was already doing in Delaware.
correctest_Adhering perfectly to the standards of what stationary should look like. Source: Oxford English Dictionary
However_Bradford's control of the post office was a big deal. As Franklin points out, it put Bradford in position to get a great deal of news earlier than anyone else, and, even better, to be perceived as a source of breaking news. It is here that we can begin to understand why the post office became so central to Franklin's entire career. For many decades, Franklin had important roles in the post office, first in colonial America and then in the early United States. Franklin first became the deputy Postmaster General for Pennsylvania in 1737, when he took the job after Bradford had been shown to be derelict in his official duties. In 1753, Franklin and William Hunter of Virginia were appointed by the British government as Deputy Postmasters General for the American colonies; it was a job that Franklin had been lobbying for for a couple of years. Franklin continued in the position until 1774, when the government in London fired him for disloyalty and took direct control over the post. Upon his return to Philadelphia in 1775, Franklin was appointed by the Continental Congress to be the Postmaster General of the new Continental Post, a system that was now to be run independently of the Crown. Why would Franklin have sought out this position, and why did he want to hold it for so long? graphic It is first important to recognize both how new and how significant the whole idea of the post office was in eighteenth-century Anglo-America. Up until the middle of the seventeenth century, mail delivery was largely private and was not particularly systematic. The King and the government obviously had to get their messages distributed throughout the realm. But if a private person wanted to send a letter, they typically had to find a courier. After the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, mail distribution began to be at least somewhat more systematic. The most important development took place in 1710, when the Act of Queen Anne established the official roles of the Postmaster General and of his deputies throughout Britain and colonial America, funded the improvement of “post roads” to facilitate timely delivery, established uniform pricing, and (at least in theory) established a government monopoly on mail. The result was that the Post Office became the central institution for distributing information throughout the Anglosphere, effecting, as William Warner has put it, “as fundamental a mutation in communication practices as the Internet has in our own day.” For colonial America in particular, the development of the post office’s ability to distribute information was one of the reasons why white settlers scattered across a very big geographical area were able to imagine and then fight for political independence. When he became co-Deputy Postmaster General in 1753, Franklin undertook a long tour of regional post offices to survey the workings of the system, and then published a set of rules designed to increase its efficiency. Franklin’s reforms were sometimes ignored—it was easy for local postmasters, far from the central office in Philadelphia, to distribute mail on the side for a fee, and many reports from the time suggest that mail was in many places fairly easily stolen or diverted. But Franklin and Hunter did significantly improve the functioning of the colonial post office, and the proof of that was in the profits that they began to make. Franklin noted that he and Hunter had taken a loss of over 900 pounds during the first three years of their tenure, but he considered that to be a worthwhile investment; past that point, their positions became a steady source of income for them--generally 300 pounds a year for each--and revenue for the British crown. Franklin gained some ancillary benefits from his position. As Postmaster General, Franklin could assure that his newspapers and magazines were distributed as efficiently as possible. This had sometimes been a problem when Bradford had held the job of Philadelphia postmaster; Bradford had not always allowed Franklin to distribute his Pennsylvania Gazette through the post, forcing Franklin to bribe the post riders to deliver it. Franklin claims here that when became postmaster, he took care “never to imitate” Bradford’s practice in showing bias towards some publishers over others. But the evidence suggests that he sometimes did just that, and that he did in fact retaliate against Bradford by limiting the access to the post of Bradford’s newspapers. The close relationship between the newspaper and the post in this period is indicated by how many newspapers carried the words “Post” or “Mail” in their titles. There were many practical advantages that would motivate a newspaper publisher to have control over the postal system. But it seems clear that Franklin also believed in the mission of the Post Office at a fundamental level. Until well into middle age, Franklin imagined himself as a loyal member of the British empire, and imagined America’s best future as part of a global empire with Britain at its center. He came comparatively late to the cause of revolution; even as he started writing the essays that we now call the autobiography, he was doing so in an England that he thought of as home. The postal service was a powerful way to bind the Anglophone world together, as English-speaking people across the Atlantic would be able to create what Benedict Anderson has memorably called an “imagined community” through written correspondence and printed media. Franklin’s desire to improve and sustain the colonial post was, as often in his life, a situation where high-minded ideology and self-interest were mutually sustained. [Image source: Wikimedia Commons]
I-took_Deborah Read, as we have seen, graphicwas disappointed in the way that Franklin ignored her after he left for London, sending her only one letter from there, and not a particularly warm one at that. She married John Rogers, a potter who, it turned out, already had a wife in England. Rogers abandoned Deborah as well, running away to the Caribbean to escape his creditors; he was never heard from again. But because there was no way of proving that Roberts had been married before, Deborah and Franklin would have been liable to the charge of bigamy (which carried a possible penalty of thirty-nine lashes and life imprisonment) had they gotten legally married, so this common-law marriage was the most practical option available to them. [Image source: Wikimedia Commons]
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