phia, some citizens had proposed to raise a subscription for the purpose of exhibiting fireworks on the expected reduction of that place. "It will be time enough," said Franklin, "to prepare for rejoicing when we know we ought to rejoice." The implied prognostication gave offence, but the advices which came upon the heels of the purpose too well justified his sagacity; and he resolved to arouse the people to a new energy. A numerous volunteer association was formed; the assembly appropriated £60,000 to defray the expenses, and the proprietary added £5000 more; the governor invested Franklin with ample military powers, and the rank of colonel; his son, afterwards governor of Jersey, who had been an officer in the previous Canada war, became his aid-de-camp. Though there was no invasion by a foreign enemy, the Indians, at that period, very much harassed the frontier settlers, and in 1755, he marched in command of a detachment to Gnadenhutten, a Moravian settlement, where his faculties were called upon to establish discipline, and protect the frontiers against a crafty enemy. Here we find the future sage unfolding faculties which have not been noticed by any of his biographers, nor ever noted as of moment by himself. The facts are few, and the scene of action very limited, but such as it was, we find him at the moment of his appointment calling upon the resources of his own mind, to supply what previous inexperience and the novelty of his position required. The few facts here referred to are found in his own handwriting.

We find the following notes made immediately upon his appointment to the command:

"Considerations to be taken :

"What number of men?

"Should the post be fortified, and in what manner?

"How long to be continued there?

"Could they not be partly employed in raising their own provisions?

"Could they have some lots of land assigned them for their encouragement? "What their pay? and from what funds?

"How much the annual expense ?

"Is it certain that the late method of giving rewards for apprehending rioters will be effectual?

"To whom does the land belong?"

The commissioners to whom the charge of conducting the affairs with the Indians was intrusted, at this period, were, the well known in Pennsylvania history, Conrad Wifer, with Jonas Seely, and James Reed, Esqs., to whom the following letter was addressed :

B. Franklin to James Reed, Esq.

66

Philadelphia, Nov. 2, 1755,—5 o'clock P. M. "DEAR SIR,-I have your letter per Mr. Sea, and one just now by express. I am glad to hear the arms are well got up: they are the best that we could procure. I wish they were better; but they are well fortified, will bear a good charge, and I should imagine they would do good service with swan or buck-shot, if not so fit for single ball. I have been ill these eight days, confined to my room and bed most of the time, but am now getting better. I have however done what I could in sending about to purchase arms, &c. for the supply of the frontiers, and can now spare you fifty more, which I shall send up to-morrow

2*

with some flints, lead, swan-shot, and a barrel of gunpowder. The arms will be under your care and Mr. Wiser's, you being gentlemen in commission from the governor. Keep an account whose hands you put them into let them be prudent, sober, careful men, such as will not rashly hurt our friends with them, and such as will honestly return them when peace shall be happily restored. I sincerely commiserate the distress of your outsettlers. The assembly sit to-morrow, and there is no room to doubt of their hearty endeavours to do every thing necessary for the country's safety. I wish the same disposition may be found in the governor, and I hope it. I have put off my journey to Virginia, and you may depend on my best services for the common welfare, so far as my little influence extends.

"I am your affectionate kinsman and humble servant,

"B. FRANKLIN. "My best respects to Mr. Wiser; 900 arms with ammunition have been sent up by the Committee of Assembly, to different parts of the frontier."

This correspondence shows, that the Indians were not as docile and attached to the white people as is commonly supposed. The settlements were for many years unsafe on the frontier, and so continued down to the revolution.

B. Franklin to Messrs. Wiser, &c.

"EASTON, Dec. 30th, 1775.

"GENTLEMEN-We are just on the point of setting out for Bethlehem, in our way to Reading, where we propose to be (God willing) on Thursday evening. The commissioners are all well, and thank you for the concern you express for their welfare. We hope to have the pleasure of finding you well. No news this way, except that Aaron Dupuis's barn was burnt last week, the Indians still keeping near those parts.

"In haste, gentlemen, your humble servant,

"Messrs. Wiser, Seely, and Read.

"B. FRANKLIN.

"INSTRUCTIONS.

"Monday morning, 10 o'clock.

"The fifty arms now sent are all furnished with staples for sling straps, that if the governor should order a troop or company of rangers on horseback, the pieces may be slung at the horseman's back.

"If dogs are carried out with any party, they should be large, strong, and fierce; and every dog led in a slip string, to prevent their tiring themselves by running out and in, and discovering the party by barking at squirrels, &c. Only when the party come near thick woods and suspicious places, they should turn out a dog or two to search them. In case of meeting a party of the enemy, the dogs are all then to be turned loose and set on. They will be fresher and finer for having been previously confined, and will confound the enemy a good deal, and be very serviceable. This was the Spanish method of guarding their marches.

"A party on the scout should observe several rules to avoid being tracked and surprised in their encampments at night. This may be done sometimes when they come to a creek or run, by entering the run and travelling up the stream or

down the stream, in the water, a mile or two, and then encamp, the stream effacing the track, and the enemy at a loss to know whether the party went up or down. Suppose a party marching from A intends to halt at B, they do not go straight to B and stop there, but pass by at some little distance, and make a turn which brings them thither. Between B and C two or three sentinels are placed to watch the track, and give immediate notice at B, if they perceive any party pass by in pursuit, with an account of the number, &c., which enables the party of B to prepare and attack them if they judge that proper, or gives them time to escape. But I add no more of this kind, recollecting that Mr. Wiser must be much better acquainted with all these things than I am.

"Yours, &c.

"Would it not be better for the people in each district, township, or neighbourhood, to collect their families, stock, grain, and fodder, in some proper place in the neighbourhood, and make a stockaded enclosure, and remain there during the winter. I say, would not this be better than leaving every thing to be destroyed by the Indians, and coming down into the thicker settlements to beg for subsistence?

"You are to dispose of the arms for the best defence of the people, where they are most wanted, and with the governor's approbation. Half-past 12 P. M."

B. Franklin to Samuel Rhoads.

"FORT ALLEN, Jan. 26, 1756.

"DEAR FRIEND-I am extremely obliged by your kind concern expressed for my safety and welfare. We marched hither with the greatest caution, through some passes in the mountains that were very dangerous, if the enemy had opposed, and we had been careless. Hitherto God has blessed and preserved us. We have built one pretty strong fort, and by the end of next week, or in ten days, hope to finish two more, one on each side of this, and at fifteen miles distance. These, I suppose, will complete the projected line from Delaware to the Susquehanna. I then purpose, God willing, to return homewards, and enjoy the pleasures I promise myself, of finding my friends well. Till then adieu.

Yours affectionately,

"My love to all the Wrights."

B. FRANKLIN.

These prefatory notices are intended to elucidate the history and unfold the character of the American patriarch, as well as to bring new facts into view, and to combat prejudices which have prevailed in a most extraordinary manner, not only against his philosophical but his moral reputation; they are necessarily desultory, and without disregarding the order of time, are still governed more by subject than date. The controversies which arose between the proprietary government and the assembly, in the colonial period, had involved Franklin in the censure which opposing parties always bestow on each other; there his moderation and good temper had always neutralized; where, as may be seen in the appendix to his History of Pennsylvania, his talents and reputation caused him to be sent as agent of Pennsylvania near the British court. His conduct in England is exemplified throughout by sagacity, intelligence, and prudence, blended with courage of a rare kind; the confidence of the Earl of Chatham counterpoised the

hostility of the court; but his refusal of the place of under-secretary of state for the colonies, by showing that he was incorruptible, made him an object of abnorNo other evidence need be referred to, than the conduct of Wedderburne, on his appearance before the privy council, on the affair of the celebrated letters, see vol. I. p. 87 of this edition.

rence.

The constancy and courage of a man was never more steadfast than that of Dr. Franklin on this occasion. The malignity of Wedderburne sought to fix a stigma by resorting to a classical allusion, and attempting to transfer it to the man whose virtue had excited ministerial hatred. Though the allusion is well understood by men of erudition, it cannot be amiss, on this occasion, to give a concise explanation of it. Pliny, b. xviii. c. 3. reports an Athenian custom of branding slaves convicted of certain offences on the forehead; or if for theft, on the hand with which the theft was committed; those thus marked, as Pliny expresses it, were inscripti trium literarum—the man of three letters, referring to the three initial letters, IT L, impressed on the culprit. Besides the malignity of Wedderburne's invective, the inapplicability of the wretched pun made the cause of the government ridiculous in the eyes of all liberal men. The triumph of the republic was not necessary to counteract the malice; and time has testified to the uprightness of the American agent. It was known to the writer of this article in 1798, that those letters had been placed in the hands of the American agent by Dr. Williamson, who died a few years since at New York, and disclosed the fact before his death. The mission of Dr. Franklin to the court of France gave extreme mortification to the British ministers. Whether the attempts made to poison him by a present of wine, or the attempt to seduce him into a meeting at one of the churches, was the act of the ministers, or of some assassins, who sought the assassination under expectations of reward, cannot now be ascertained, nor indeed is it necessary; and the facts are noticed here only as they appear to have been in the same spirit which operated on the court of St. James's to retard negotiations, merely because Dr. Franklin, the trium literarum homo, must have been the negotiator. This difficulty was attempted to be explained away by the ministers, who alleged that there was no person in Europe accredited by full powers to conclude a treaty of peace.

On this occasion it was that a man of some celebrity, but who merited much more than has been rendered him, volunteered to clear away this pretext. Thomas Pownall, who had been some time governor of Massachusetts,—who knew America well and Franklin intimately, had the courage to apprize the ministry that there was a man in Europe ready and willing, and duly authorized to treat for peace. This was done in a memorial, dated at Richmond, Jan. 1, 1782, and contains this striking paragraph:

"Your memorialist, from his experience in the business, from information of the state of things, being convinced that a preliminary negotiation may be commenced; from his knowledge of the persons with whom such matters must be negotiated, as men with whom it was once his duty to act, with whom he has acted, with whom he has negotiated business of the crown, and whom, however habile and dexterous he found them, he always experienced to be of good faith; as men who have known your memorialist in business, and will have that confidence in him which is necessary to the gestion of affairs."

Governor Pownall was not listened to, though no man was better qualified to

advise by experience in American affairs and upright disposition. In a memorial which he had previously published concerning America, he predicted the progress, and growth, and grandeur of the United States. "He who has observed the progress of the new world," said Governor Pownall, "will know that this is true, and will have seen many a real philosopher, a politician, and a warrior emerge out of this wilderness, as the seed riseth out of the ground, where the grain lies buried for a season. I hope no one will so misunderstand this, as to take it for a fancy drawing of what may be; it is a lineal and exact portrait of what actually exists."

In the printed preface to this memorial, the governor has taken care to be more explicit. After discussing the evils of a bad administration, and the benefits which flow from good great men in authority, he says, 66 It is for that reason I will set Henry IV. of France at the head of the list; one has heard of a Tully, a Fleury, a Clarendon, a Somers, a De Witt, and a ; and for the good of mankind,

one would hope that such men, in all countries where they can act, may never be wanting to continue the list."

On the margin of the printed page in which this passage appears, the space in a ruled line is filled up with the word FRANKLIN, and below in the governor's handwriting, these words :-" I have written in the name which was intended for

Among the moral allegories in this and in former editions, is a parable very much celebrated, and justly, from the force and delicacy of its application: it is that of Abraham and the Stranger. Very soon after the revolution had terminated in a peace, and while yet the resentments of those who had been self-exiled by hostility to the freedom of their country were still fresh and rancorous, several publications of a criminatory and vituperative kind were published in England. Two works of this description, both written by clergymen, appeared; the first, a memoir of the Life of Dr. Franklin, professing to be a continuation of the memoirs by himself; this was published in French, and distributed in France for political purposes, in which odium theologicum was so extravagant as to furnish its own antidote. The second was entitled, "A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution, by Jonathan Boucher, M. A." &c., in which the parable against persecution was charged upon the venerable Franklin as a palpable plagiarism; copied from the Polemical Discourses of Jeremy Taylor, folio 1674, p. 1078. The editor of a recent English epitome of Franklin's memoirs has renewed the story, with an expression of surprise that his grandson should not have rectified the error.

Perhaps the present occasion may be a suitable one to place this matter on its proper foundation. The general source of misapprehension on this topic, arises out of the assumption that Dr. Franklin premeditatedly published this parable as an original composition of his own. Upon this point it would be enough to say, that Dr. Franklin never published any edition of his own productions; that those editions which appeared at various times were issued by other persons, to whom, when asked, he communicated whatever was sought and within his power; deriving no emolument whatever from any of them.

In the works of Lord Kaimes, in a chapter on education, he published a version of the parable on persecution. Parson Boucher first alleged that "Franklin claimed it as his own." This allegation is a mere assumption; there is nothing to