[28] This anecdote has had a wide circulation in the newspapers. Mr. William Cobbett inserts it in his “Works,” with the following comment, characteristic of the spirit of most of the higher class of Englishmen, in those days:
“Whether this anecdote record a truth or not I shall not pretend to say. But it must be confessed, that the expressions imputed to the two personages were strictly in character. In Gibbon, we see the faithful subject, and the man of candor and honor. In Franklin the treacherous and malicious old Zanga, of Boston.”—Works of William Cobbett. Vol. vii, p. 244.
[29] Works of John Adams, Vol. III, p. 220.
[30] This is a delicate subject, but it must not be ignored. Mr. Parton writes,—“One penny-a-liner informed the public that Dr. Franklin had a son, who, though illegitimate, was a much more honest man than his father. As to the mother of that son, nothing was known of her, except that her seducer let her die in the streets.”
There was no end to those attacks. They were attended by every exaggeration of malignity which hatred could engender. It is certain that Franklin would have been saved from these woes could he, as a young man, have embraced the faith of the religion of Jesus, and developed that faith in his practice.
[31] The wonderful achievements of this patriot are fully recorded in one of the volumes of this series.
[32] In reference to the promises contained in the letter, Franklin referred to a book which it was said George III. had carefully studied, called Arcana Imperii. A prince, to appease a revolt, had promised indemnity to the revolters. The question was submitted to the keepers of the king’s conscience, whether he were bound to keep his promises. The reply was,
“No! It was right to make the promises, because the revolt could not otherwise be suppressed. It would be wrong to keep them, because revolters ought to be punished.”
[33] Sparks’ Franklin, Vol. iii, p. 278.
[34] Mr. Jefferson, after an intimacy of seven months with John Adams, in Paris, wrote of him: “He is vain, irritable, and a bad calculator of the force and probable effect of the motives which govern men. This is all the ill which can possibly be said of him. He is as disinterested as the Being who made him.”
[35] Edmund Burke wrote to Dr. Franklin that “The motion was the declaration of two hundred and thirty four members; but it was the opinion, he thought, of the whole house.”
[36] Mr. Adams wrote, in his diary, November, 1782, “Mr. Jay don’t like any Frenchman. The Marquis de la Fayette is clever, but he is a Frenchman.”
[37] Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, V. viii, p. 209.
[38] Contemplate the still greater blunder of our civil war. It was forced upon the nation by the slave traders, that they might perpetuate slavery. And now after the infliction of woes which no finite imagination can gauge, these very slave-holders declare with one voice, that nothing would induce them to reinstate the execrable institution. How much misery would have been averted, and what a comparative paradise would our southern country now have been, if before, instead of after the war, the oppressed had been allowed to go free!
[39] Mr. Parton undoubtedly suggested the true reason for this strange refusal to seek divine guidance. He writes,
“I think it not improbable that the cause of this opposition to a proposal so seldom negatived in the United States, was the prevalence in the Convention of the French tone of feeling with regard to religious observances. If so, it was the more remarkable to see the aged Franklin, who was a deist at fifteen, and had just returned from France, coming back to the sentiments of his ancestors.”—Parton’s Franklin Vol. 2, p. 575.
[40] This reminds us of the exclamation of the Emperor Titus, who, at the close of a day in which he could not perceive that he had done any good, exclaimed, sadly, “Perdidi Diem.” I have lost a day. Beautifully has the sentiment been expressed in the words, which it would be well for all to treasure up,
“Count that day lost, whose low descending sun,
Views at thy hand no worthy action done.”
Minor changes have been made to correct obvious typesetters’ errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author’s words and intent.