A Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and of Washington and Patrick Henry. L. Carroll Judson
Читать онлайн книгу.
that body before unknown.
During the years he was serving his country in the assembly, he also served in the fields of experimental philosophy, and explained many of the mysterious phenomena of nature, that spread his fame to the remotest bounds of the civilized world. His discoveries in electricity alone, were sufficient to have immortalized his name. He was the first man on record who imparted magnetism to steel—melted metals, killed animals, and fired gunpowder by means of electricity; and the first who conceived and reduced to practice, the method of conducting lightning from the clouds to the points of steel rods, and, by them, harmless to the ground. All the elements and fluids, the air, sea, and land, underwent the close investigation of his vast, his philosophic mind.
In 1758, he was sent to Carlisle to conclude a treaty with the Indians; and in the following year, to Albany, to meet a congress of commissioners, to arrange means of defence against the threatened hostilities of the French and savages. He there submitted a plan that met with the unanimous approbation of the commissioners, but was so republican in its features, as to be rejected by those who had at heart the interests of their king more than the happiness of the colonists.
On the decease of the deputy post-master general of America, Franklin succeeded him, and raised the department from a state of embarrassment and expense, to a fruitful source of revenue to the crown.
About this time difficulties arose between the proprietors and government in the province of Pennsylvania, which were finally referred to the mother country for adjustment, and Franklin was sent to England in June, 1757, as advocate for the province. With his usual industry and address, he performed the duties of his mission, the difficulties were adjusted, and in 1762, he returned, received a vote of thanks from the assembly, and a compensation of five hundred pounds. He was now variously employed in regulating the post-office department, making treaties with the Indians, and devising means of defence on the frontiers: every department of government feeling his beneficial influence. New difficulties arose between the assembly and the proprietors, and, in 1764, Franklin again sailed for England, with instructions to obtain the entire abolishment of proprietary authority. On his arrival there, he was called upon to perform more important and perilous duties. The plan for taxing the colonies had been long agitated, and was now matured by the British ministry. This project Franklin had opposed from the beginning, and he was now arraigned to answer numerous accusations brought against him by the enemies of liberty. On the 3d of February, 1766, he appeared before the House of Commons to undergo a public examination. He was found equal to the task; his enemies were astounded at his logic, boldness, dignity, and skill; and his friends were filled with admiration at the able manner he confuted every accusation, and defended the rights and interests of his native country. Amidst the attacks of artifice and insolence of power, he stood unmoved, and firm as a marble statue. He remained in England eleven years as the agent of the colonies, opposing the encroachments of the crown upon the rights of Americans; and, during the whole time, all the combined efforts of malice, flattery, and intrigue, were unable to ensnare or intimidate him. He became acquainted with the etiquette, corruptions, and devices of diplomacy; but never bent his knee to Baal, or kissed the hand of a crowned head.
Matters had now arrived at a crisis that induced his departure for his long neglected home. His personal safety in England, and the need of his public services in his own country, admonished him to return. He accordingly embarked, and arrived at Philadelphia in the beginning of May, 1775. He was received with marked attention and esteem, and immediately elected to the continental congress, adding new lustre and dignity to that august body, and enrolling his name among the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Notwithstanding he had used every exertion to reconcile difficulties with Great Britain, and believed his country was yet too weak to achieve its independence, his course was now onward, resolved, with his patriotic colleagues, on liberty or death.
The talents of Franklin were now had in constant requisition, both by his own state and in the general congress. He was always selected to meet the agents of the crown, who were at various times commissioned to offer terms of inglorious peace. They always found in him the firm uncompromising advocate of liberty; the shrewd and wary politician; the bold and zealous defender of the rights of his bleeding country. The disasters of the American army during the campaign of 1778, induced congress to apply to France for assistance. All eyes were turned on Franklin to perform this important mission. In October, 1776, he embarked upon this delicate embassy, and, after a most vigilant intercession, succeeded in concluding a treaty of alliance with that nation, on the 6th of February, 1778, to the great joy of himself and his suffering countrymen. When the news of this alliance reached England, the ministry were much alarmed, and despatched messengers to Paris to endeavour to induce Franklin to enter into a compromise. All was in vain. To Mr. Hutton and others, who came to him with the olive branch of peace, he replied: “I never think of your ministry and their abettors, but with the image strongly painted in my view of their hands red and dropping with the blood of my countrymen, friends and relations. No peace can be signed by those hands, unless you drop all pretensions to govern us, meet us on equal terms, and avoid all occasions of future discord.”
He met all their intrigues at the threshold, and they became convinced that the hardy yeomanry of America were not to be dragooned, flattered, or driven from the bold position they had assumed. During the numerous interviews he had with these emissaries, (I can call them by no milder term,) Franklin was cautioned by Mr. Heartley to beware of his personal safety, which had been repeatedly threatened. He thanked his friend and assured him he felt no alarm, that he had nearly finished a long life, and that the short remainder was of no great value. He ironically remarked: “Perhaps the best use such an old fellow can be put to, is to make a martyr of him.”
If it required much skill and perseverance to negociate an alliance with France, it required more to preserve it. A republican form of government is ever repugnant to kingly power. That the French in America would imbibe liberal principles, was a matter of course. That the thrones of Europe would be endangered on their return, was truly predicted. By this course of ingenious reasoning, the British ministers exerted a powerful influence against the continuation of the alliance. But the eagle eye of Franklin penetrated, anticipated, and frustrated all their dark schemes of intrigue; and, in the event, they were compelled to comply with his terms of peace, acknowledge the independence of the colonies, and retire, defeated, disgraced, and humbled. In the arduous duties of settling definitive preliminaries of peace, Franklin was aided by Messrs. Adams, Jay, and Laurens. These duties were closed, and a definitive treaty concluded with Great Britain and the United States at Paris on the 3d of September, 1783.
Although anxious to be discharged from further public service, it was not until 1785, that Franklin was permitted to return to his beloved country, where he could breathe the pure air of republican freedom, no longer polluted by kingly power. During this time he had concluded treaties between the United States and the kings of Sweden and Prussia. On his departure from Europe every mark of respect was paid to him by kings, by courts, by the literati, and by all classes of society that the most towering ambition could desire. He was clothed with the mantle of love and unfading glory. His reputation was perched sublimely on the loftiest pinnacle fame could rear. He had been a pillow of fire to the American cause, and a pillar of smoke to the enemies of human rights.
At the age of eighty years, borne down by fatigue and disease, he returned to Philadelphia. He was hailed with enthusiastic joy, esteem, and respect by all the friends of liberty, from the humblest citizen up to the illustrious Washington.
Notwithstanding his advanced age, and his great anxiety to retire from the public gaze, he was soon appointed Governor of Pennsylvania—and subsequently, in 1787, elected a delegate to the convention that framed the federal constitution. Many of the bright traits of that matchless instrument received their finishing stroke from his master hand. Early in 1790, his infirmities of body confined him to his room, but his immortal mind remained unimpaired. When approaching rapidly the confines of eternity, he still looked with anxious solicitude upon the interests of the young republic. He still continued to benefit mankind by his writings and counsels. Some of the strongest and most vivid productions from his pen were written during his confinement. His diseases continued to increase, and on the 17th of April, 1790, calm and resigned, cool and collected, peaceful and happy, he resigned his spirit into the hands of his Creator—quitted