Francis Mentges, afterwards an officer in our service, was the dancing performer. While he danced he assumed the name of Francis. Miss Cheer was the Lady Macbeth of the day, and Morris, the husband of the lady whose unfortunate fate we have stated, was the low comedian: his name is to be found in various companies, enacting old men, up to as late a period as 1800. Dunlap says, “Those that can look back to 1788 will remember him as a little, shrivelled old man, with a voice palsied with age, having for his second wife a tall, elegant woman, the favorite comedy lady, and the admiration of the public.”

The Presbyterian Synod, in July, 1759, formally addressed the governor and legislature to prevent the opening. The Friends made their application to Judge William Allen to suppress the representations. His reply was that “he had got more moral virtue from plays than he had from sermons.” As a sequel, it was long remembered and spoken of, that the night the theatre opened, and on which he intended to visit, he was called to mourn the death of his wife! The motto over the stage was:—

Totus mundis agit histrionem.

There are many persons who confound this with the third theatre, erected by Douglas. That no further doubt may exist upon its site, three brick buildings are situated, as stated, at the southwest corner of South and Vernon Streets.

Society Hill, which extended from Spruce Street (gradually rising, having its summit on Pine Street) to the Swedes’ Church, was the fashionable portion of the city. At that period they had “Cherry Garden” on Society Hill; the “Friends’ Meeting-House,” the “theatre,” “George Wells’s place.” They had also a flag-staff erected on Society Hill, under which Whitefield preached. This staff stood at the corner of Pine and Front Streets. Alderman Plumstead’s garden was situated in Union Street, and it was the admiration of the town.

In the year 1724 a slack- and tight-rope exhibition was given by a company of men and women, at the corner of South and Front Streets. They continued their antics for twenty nights to gaping crowds. This was the first exhibition of the kind ever given in the city.

Douglas, finding the more respectable portion of the community disposed to encourage theatricals, selected a more eligible site for the building of another theatre, and for that purpose fixed on a vacant lot situated at the southwest corner of South and Apollo Streets, above Fourth: hence the error of many historians who confound this with the one at the corner of Vernon Street. This theatre was erected in 1760. Little attention was paid to design in the building. The view from the boxes was intercepted by large pillars supporting the upper tier and roof. It was lighted by plain oil lamps, without glasses, a row of which was placed in front of the stage. The scenery was dingy,—chamber-scenes taken from descriptions of old castles; and altogether the whole presented a dark and sombre appearance. The stage-box on the east side in after-years was fitted up for President Washington, whenever he honored the theatre with his presence, at which time “The Poor Soldier” was played by “desire.”

Much was written and published at this time against the immoral tendency of the stage; and a cursory glance at the public papers would lead to a belief that the introduction of stage-plays was deprecated as being a greater evil than pestilence and famine. The fathers of the Church were quoted most appositely on the occasion, and the poor players were near being confounded with the weight of authority against them; for, unfortunately, they could not “quote Scripture for their purpose.” Occasionally some one was bold enough to raise his voice in their defence, but it was heard as the small note of the oaten reed amidst the braying of the warlike trumpet. More, however, is effected by steady perseverance than by violent measures. The players pursued the “even tenor of their way,” and as the mass of the people did not foresee the evil consequences which the more enlightened apprehended, they attracted full audiences, which kept up their spirits in spite of the papal bulls incessantly issued against them.

We have here to correct an error of Mr. J. F. Watson in his celebrated “Annals of Philadelphia.” In doing so, the writer of this would merely remark that this error of Watson’s evidently arises from his distaste to the subject of theatres; for had he exercised a twentieth part of his usual judgment in tracing past occurrences, incidents, &c., this would not have occurred. Page 471, first volume of Watson’s Annals, we find this paragraph:—“In 1760 a large building, constructed of wood, situated in South Street above Fourth Street, was opened,” &c. &c. “The managers were Hallam & Henry.”

Mr. John Henry, the partner of Hallam in after-years, arrived in New York from England in 1767, and made his first appearance at the John Street Theatre, New York, December 7 of that year. The company was still Douglas’s .

Mr. Wemyss, in his Chronology of the American Stage, says that the John Street Theatre opened December 7, 1767, under the management of Hallam & Henry, and in the same book announces his first appearance in America, on that very evening, as Aimwell in The Beau Stratagem. Hallam & Henry did not form a partnership until the 21st of November, 1784. Douglas having gone to Jamaica, where he received a judgeship under the British crown, he relinquished the sceptre of the American company to Hallam, his step-son, who took for his partner John Henry. How our friend Wemyss could fall into so gross an error is entirely beyond our comprehension. The South Street Theatre opened under Hallam & Henry’s management in 1786.

The members of the old South Street company, in 1761, consisted of Messrs. Douglas, Hallam, Allyn, Morris, Quelch, Tomlinson, Street, Reed, Tremaine, and Master A. Hallam, Mesdames Douglas, Morris, Crane, Allyn, and Miss Hallam.

To the antiquarian the subject of our drama and stage would afford a wide range for the display of his genius in that line, as they embrace the very “Mémoires pour Servir” for a volume.

“POST TENEBRAS LUX.”

“After darkness comes light.”

We have referred to these reminiscences of the olden time simply to contrast the past with the present; for in tracing up the progress of any one institution connected with the government, it necessarily follows that every thing else must have a corresponding progressive interest. Reminiscences, however, are but retrogressive shadows that come over us in their gloom, as they conjure up the spirits of those who have long since passed away from the earth, as have all those scenes which the “Old Mortalities” of the present take delight in repainting. “Passing Away” is but the result of the onward march of Time:—

In 1753, on the death of the postmaster-general for America, Benjamin Franklin and Colonel William Hunter, of Virginia, by a joint commission from the English postmaster-general, were appointed to succeed him. The two American deputies were to have £600 per annum between them, provided they could raise the sum from the net proceeds of their office. The colonial post-office receipts had never been sufficient to pay a shilling of revenue into the English treasury; and to render them productive enough to yield the compensation mentioned, various reforms were necessary, and Franklin immediately set about introducing them. In the summer of 1753 he started out on a tour of inspection, and visited every post-office in the colony, except that of Charleston, infusing new vigor into the service, and putting the whole upon an improved footing.

After four years’ almost unremitting attention to the postal service, the new system began to tell, and the results were that the receipts soon yielded the salary of the postmaster, and considerably increased the revenue of the government. As he himself stated, it “yielded three times as much clear profit to the crown as the post-office of Ireland did.”

As the modern postal system was based in part upon that of Charles II.’s time, much of it remains to this day; but the vast improvements made give to the original plan what can be better expressed in the language of the Emperor Augustus: “I found Rome all brick, and left it all marble.” Thus the postal department, then in a debris state of chaotic confusion, presents at the present time an institution wherein order and system reign supreme.

Franklin made every department pay. The carrying of newspapers was made a source of revenue: previous to his administration they had been carried free. He charged each subscriber who received a newspaper by mail nine pence a year for fifty miles, and eighteen pence a year for one hundred miles. Post-riders received orders to take all newspapers offered, instead of only those issued by a postmaster. Franklin himself being both postmaster and newspaper publisher, this action on his part was considered worthy the man and his position. The speed of the post-riders was accelerated by his energy, and their number increased to meet the public demand.

In 1753 the delivery of letters by the penny post was first begun, and at the same time letters were regularly advertised. Letters from all the neighboring counties were sent to Philadelphia, and lay there until called for.

Our readers can form some idea of the mode of travelling between cities, when we state that Franklin improved on the old system by starting a mail from Philadelphia, to run three times a week in summer, to New York and Boston, and once a week in winter. To get an answer from Boston a Philadelphian had been obliged to wait six weeks. Franklin reduced the time to three. The rates of postage were also materially reduced. The rate across the ocean was fixed at one shilling, and, strange as it may seem, it has not changed since, although one hundred years have elapsed.

Most of the post-roads then were mere bridle-paths through forests. “Even,” says a writer, “between Amboy and Trenton, the very road along which Franklin the runaway apprentice had wearily trudged in the rain in 1723, had as late as 1775 a stake set up every two miles to keep the traveller from going astray.”

In 1765 Mrs. Franklin, writing to her husband, then in England, says, “The Southern mail has not come in, nor has the Virginia mail, for more than two months.” Little intercourse at that period. The name of Franklin in connection with science, and his being deputy postmaster-general, was not only a household word from Boston to Charleston, but was also extensively known in Europe. Only two American names were then familiar to the Old World,—Jonathan Edwards in the religious world, and Benjamin Franklin in the circle of science. Jonathan Edwards was born at Windsor, in the province of Connecticut, in 1703. He graduated at Yale College, and afterwards was a tutor in the establishment. He was ordained in the ministry in 1727. His chief works are a “Treatise on the Religious Affections,” “An Enquiry into the Notion of Freedom of Will,” “A Treatise on Original Sin,” “Religious Narratives,” &c.

In 1756 an attempt was made, instigated by some political enemies, to induce the postmaster-general to remove Franklin from office, as being a “factious and troublesome man.” As the cause assigned was so trifling, the postmaster-general sent his “deputy” a letter of reprimand, or rather one of gentle reproof. So the matter ended.

A copy of the “Gazette” bearing date 1747 is in the possession of a gentleman of this city. Published by B. Franklin, Postmaster, and D. Hall. All post-office notices and letters remaining in the post-office were published in the “Gazette.”

In 1774 Benjamin Franklin was very summarily dismissed from the office of postmaster. The letter from the postmaster-general stated simply “that the king had found it necessary to dismiss him from the office of deputy postmaster-general of America.”

It is not necessary for us to give the readers the reasons for this act, as the history of Franklin in connection with the events preceding the Revolution will fully explain them. The colonies were in a state of incipient revolution.

The course pursued by the British Government was such that, under the excitement arising from its acts, the colonies declared themselves constitutionally exempt from all obedience to the measures of the British Parliament, and that the government of the provinces was in fact dissolved.

Thus, the Congress held in Philadelphia on the 5th of September, 1774, will ever be remembered and celebrated in the annals of history as the first page dedicated to liberty. It was a congress of men who met to decide the question whether one man had the power and the right to rule the million, or the million the right to govern themselves. The success of our Revolution decided the question; and counter-rebellions and revolutions can never change that base, upon which is erected Liberty’s throne.

Franklin arrived in Philadelphia, from England, on the evening of May 5, 1775, and the very next day the Assembly of Pennsylvania, then in session, appointed him a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, which was to convene in Philadelphia four days after. The people of America had everywhere become exasperated beyond all further forbearance. The blood of their countrymen had been wantonly shed by British troops, at Lexington and Concord, in April; and the call to arms was now ringing through the land.

The second Congress, held May 10, 1775, was remarkable for its action at a moment when liberty was as a “waif” in the political world, liable at every breeze to be lost in the vortex of its revolutions. It set the seal on British rule in the colonies forever! It was the first move morally and physically made against tyranny and usurpation, and was only surpassed by that which inaugurated the Fourth of July, 1776, as the birthday of freedom!

One of the acts of its members was to adopt the armies of New England, and elect General George Washington commander-in-chief, and also to adopt a platform which made colonial resistance, to use a modern term, “a military necessity.”

Another of their measures was to correct the postal department, which during Franklin’s absence had been somewhat neglected. A committee was appointed, of which Franklin was made chairman, to consider the best means of establishing posts for the conveyance of letters and intelligence throughout the country. Franklin was at home in this employment, having served a long apprenticeship and studied its workings both theoretically and practically. He drew up a plan for the purpose, and laid it before the committee, who approved of it at once; and it was eventually the same as that upon which the post-office of America is now conducted.

The committee recommended that a postmaster-general be appointed for the United States, who should hold his office at Philadelphia, and be allowed a salary of one thousand dollars for himself, and three hundred and forty dollars per annum for a secretary and controller, “with power to appoint such and so many deputies as to him may seem proper and necessary;” that a line of posts should be appointed, under the direction of the postmaster-general, from Falmouth, in New England, to Savannah, in Georgia, “with as many cross-posts as he shall think fit; that the allowance of the deputies in lieu of salary and all contingent expenses shall be twenty per cent. on the sums they collect and pay into the general post-office, annually, when the whole is under, or not exceeding, one thousand dollars, and ten per cent. for all sums above that amount a year; that the several departments account quarterly with the general post-office, and the postmaster-general annually with the Continental treasurers, when he shall pay into the receipt of the said treasurers the profits of the post-office, and if the necessary expenses of this establishment should exceed the produce of it, the deficiency shall be made good by the United Colonies, and paid to the postmaster-general by the Continental treasurers.”

This plan, and resolutions accompanying it, were submitted to Congress, who adopted it, and, taking into consideration the interest Franklin had always taken in the department, and also his summary dismissal under the “British dynasty,” unanimously elected Benjamin Franklin, Esq., postmaster-general for one year, and until another Congress assembled. Eighteen months had passed since his dismissal, when he now found himself reinstated in office with higher rank and augmented authority. Nay, more: he was postmaster-general under a new ruling power,—a power that was uprising like the glorious sun from the mists and the gloom of a long, dreary night of wrong and oppression. It was now the dawn of a new era in the history of men and of nations. It was the dawn of freedom!

The people made a law; and as there cannot be rational freedom where there are arbitrary restraints, they adopted Cicero’s maxim, and proclaimed liberty as the law of the land:—

“Libertas est potestas faciendi id quod jure liceat.”

One of the strongest tests by which the progressive prosperity of a country may be ascertained is that of its postal department. It forms a chain which links together all private and public interests; it links state to state, countries to countries, nations to nations. It is the alphabet of the world!

Benjamin Franklin appointed Richard Bache, his son-in-law, deputy postmaster. They established mail-riders to carry the mails, and stationed them at distances of twenty-five miles, to deliver from one to the other and return to their starting-places: they travelled night and day, and were men selected for their honesty and sobriety.

At the same time it was ordered that three advice-boats should be established, “one to ply between North Carolina and such ports as shall be most convenient to the place where Congress shall be sitting,” one other between the State of Georgia and the same port. The boats to be armed, and to be freighted by individuals for the sake of diminishing the public expense.

The state of the country was such that it became necessary to enlist the services of the most prominent men in its cause, both at home and abroad; and who so popular then as Benjamin Franklin? A writer speaking of him and the period says, “With a fame unequalled in brilliancy by that of any other man of those times, not only as a philosopher and sage, but as a profound political thinker, and an undaunted asserter of the rights and liberties of his country, Franklin’s name was now familiarly known and revered throughout all Europe.”

Is it to be wondered at, therefore, that he should have been appointed one of the commissioners to France? The commissioners first appointed for this purpose, on the 26th of September, 1776, were Franklin, Silas Dean, and Thomas Jefferson. The last, however, declined, and Arthur Lee, of Virginia, was put in his place. Mr. Lee and Mr. Dean were both in Europe, the former having been employed several years in England as a colonial agent, and the latter having been sent out in the preceding March by the committee of secret correspondence, with a view to diplomatic as well as commercial objects; and Franklin, after a boisterous voyage in the United States sloop-of-war Reprisal, Captain Wickes, and after escaping from the guns of several British cruisers, met them in Paris in the latter part of December, 1776. This portion of history is familiar to all.

In the absence of Franklin, Richard Bache attended to the post-office business, and in all respects carried out his father-in-law’s plans.

In March, 1777, Franklin received from Congress a commission as minister to Spain.

After residing in Europe nearly nine years, acting in the capacities named, he returned to America, and arrived in Philadelphia on the 14th of September, 1785. His return was greeted with every mark of personal regard and public respect.

We will close this portion of our postal history, and Franklin’s connection with it, by the following letter, which he wrote to Mr. Thomson shortly after his return home. It is to be regretted that it is a finale which reflects but little credit on our government at that time, and gives occasion for our opponents to repeat the old saying that “republics are ungrateful.” Nor is Franklin’s case an isolated one.

Franklin, speaking of unrequited services to his friend, says,—

“I see by the minutes,” speaking of Congress, “that they have allowed Mr. Lee handsomely for his services in England before his appointment to France, in which services I and Mr. Bollan co-operated with him, and have had no such allowance, and since his return he has been very properly rewarded with a good place, as well as my friend Mr. Jay,—though these are trifling compensations in comparison with what was granted by the king to Mr. Gerard on his return to America. But how different is what happened to me! On my return from England, in 1775, the Congress bestowed on me the office of postmaster-general, for which I was very thankful. It was, indeed, an office I had some kind of right to, as having previously greatly enlarged the revenue of the post by the regulations I had contrived and established while I possessed it under the crown. When I was sent to France, I left it in the hands of my son-in-law, who was to act as my deputy. But soon after my departure it was taken from him and given to Mr. Hazzard. When the English ministry thought fit to deprive me of the office (that of postmaster), they left me, however, the privilege of receiving and sending my letters free of postage, which is the usage when a postmaster is not displaced for misconduct in the office; but in America I have ever since had the postage demanded of me, which since my return from France has amounted to about fifty pounds, much of it occasioned by my having acted as minister there.”

There are so many incidents connected with Benjamin Franklin—incidents associated alike with our country’s history, its literature, art, and science—that we are not at all surprised at the many editions and variety of style of works written expressly to connect his name with them. We annex a pleasing little sketch of some of the early scenes of his life, from notes furnished by Thomas J. Wharton, Esq., to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in 1830:—

“The year 1719 deserves particular remembrance in the annals of Pennsylvania, as that in which the first newspaper was printed in the State. These potent engines exercise so vast an influence for good or evil over men’s minds and actions in the present age, that a particular history of their rise and progress would be no idle or unprofitable task, though out of place here. The first number of the ‘American Weekly Mercury,’ as it was called, appeared on the 22d of December, 1719, on a half-sheet of the quarto size, and purported to be printed ‘by Andrew Bradford at the Second Street,’ and to be sold by him and by John Copson in Market Street. The price was ten shillings per annum; and this was quite as much as it deserved. Extracts from foreign journals generally about six months old, and two or three badly-printed advertisements, formed the substance of the journal. The office of the editor was a sinecure,—at least his pen seems to have been seldom employed, and little information can be derived from the journal concerning the existing condition of Philadelphia. Occasionally a bill of mortality tells us that one adult and one child died during a certain week, and even that is beyond the usual number; for some weeks appear to have passed without a single death. From the following advertisement, which appears in No. 17, something of the customs and state of things at the period may be gathered:—‘These are to give notice that Matthew Cowley, a skinner by trade, is removed from Chestnut Street to dwell in Walnut Street, near the Bridge, where all persons may have their buck and doeskins dressed, &c.’ ‘He also can furnish you with bindings, &c.’ What new ideas of Walnut Street does not this hint about a bridge give us! and how plenty must deer have been in those times, when all persons are invited to have their skins dressed by Matthew Cowley! And then what a familiar and village-sort of acquaintance with everybody does not the transition at the end, from the third to the second person plural, imply! ‘He also can furnish you with bindings, &c.’

“Nine years after the appearance of the American Mercury, the Philadelphia press was delivered of a second newspaper, to which the modest title was given of ‘The Universal Instructor of all Arts and Sciences, and Pennsylvania Gazette.’ In his inimitable autobiography Franklin has immortalized Keimer, the eccentric publisher of this journal, whose vanity and selfishness, whose wild notions upon religion and morals, and whose turn for poetry and gluttony are so happily and graphically delineated. Franklin, from whom Keimer had stolen the idea of a second newspaper, attacked it in a series of papers published in Bradford’s journal and called The Busy-Body.34 The ‘Universal Instructor’ soon fell into decay, and then into Franklin’s hands, by whom it was very skilfully managed, both for his own profit and for the interest and edification of the public. An editorial notice in one of Franklin’s papers proves, in rather a ludicrous way, how badly Philadelphia was supplied at the time (1736) with printing-presses. What was called the outer form was printed reversely or upside down to the inner form, and the following apology is offered:—‘The printer hopes the irregular publication of this paper will be excused a few times by his town readers, in consideration of his being at Burlington with the press, laboring for the public good to make money more plentiful.’

“It is not generally known that this venerable journal survived till within a year or two of the present time, under the name of ‘The Pennsylvania Gazette.’ The third newspaper published in Pennsylvania was ‘The Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser,’ the first number of which appeared on the 2d of December, 1742; and several other journals shortly afterwards arose, with various success. In 1760 five newspapers were published in the State, all weekly,—three of them printed in the city, one in Germantown, and one in Lancaster. In 1810 the number had increased to sixty-six, of which thirteen were published in Philadelphia; and in 1824 an official return to the postmaster-general stated the number at one hundred and ten, of which eighteen were published in Philadelphia, eleven of them daily: a prodigious increase, which argues that the appetite for this food has increased in full proportion with the population. It is perhaps worth adding that the first daily newspaper that appeared on the continent of America was published in Philadelphia.

“There are few persons on record to whose individual genius and exertions a community has owed so much as to Dr. Franklin. If William Penn was the political founder of the province, Franklin may perhaps be denominated the architect of its literature, the gifted author of many of its best institutions, and the father of some of the finest features of our character. It is seldom, however, that Providence has vouchsafed such a length of years to such an intellect, and still more seldom that such events occur as those which developed the powers and capacities of Franklin’s mind. The name of this illustrious man is closely connected with the literary history of Pennsylvania; but his life and actions are too well known to require that any elaborate notice of them should be given here. Referring, therefore, to his own invaluable memoirs for the events of his personal and political history, I shall content myself with a short sketch of the principal features of his literary career. The year 1723 was that in which Franklin first set his foot in Philadelphia. As he landed on Market Street wharf, and walked up that street, an obscure and almost penniless boy, devouring a roll of bread, and ignorant where he could find a lodging for the night, little could he or any one who then saw him anticipate that later advent, when, sixty years afterwards, he landed upon the same wharf, amid the acclamations of thousands of spectators, on his return from an embassy in which he had dictated to his former king the terms of peace for the confederated republics, of one of which he was placed at the head, and not merely distinguished as a politician, but covered with literary honors and distinctions from every country in Christendom by which genius and public virtue were held in estimation. And yet the change was scarcely greater for Franklin than for Philadelphia. The petty provincial village, with its scattered houses dotted over the bank of the Delaware, had become a magnificent metropolis, distinguished for the wisdom and liberality of its institutions, and as the seat of a general and republican government, which at the former period could scarcely have entered into his dreams.

“At the time of Franklin’s arrival in Philadelphia there were two printing-offices in operation. Keimer, the proprietor of one of them, had but one press and a few worn-out types, with which, when Franklin visited him, he was composing an elegy, literally of his own composition, for it had never gone through the usual process in this manufacture, of pen and ink, but flowed at once from his brain to the press. The subject of these typographical stanzas was Aquila Rose, an apprentice in the office, whose surname naturally suggested to the mind of Keimer some touching figures. If we may judge from some specimens of his poetry which Thomas has preserved in his History of Printing, the province lost little by Keimer’s emigration to Bermuda, which took place shortly afterwards.”

Perhaps, if we except his scientific and political labors,—labors which won him a name while living and honored when dead,—there was no other department wherein business and tact were so united to effect a great national reform as in that of the post-office.

And yet historians pass over that portion of his life with a mere dash of the pen, and seem to consider it a dry episode in his otherwise eventful career. Had they gone into the history of this connection, the business of the postal department would have loomed up before them a splendid subject to descant upon. It would have shown them how out of chaos came forth, under Franklin’s control, a form perfect in shape and gigantic in its proportions. It would tower a giant above the many lesser subjects he wrote pages upon, and give to the world a leaf in our book on political economy which is now—at least as far as this department is concerned—a blank page.

Benjamin Franklin, at the head of the postal department under the colonial government, was the great pioneer in the cause of letters: he mapped the length and breadth of their extent; brought distant places together by the speed of horses, as he did in after-years by electric power the lightning from the surcharged clouds to our very feet.

And when at the head of the department, under the States united forming a Union that has made us a nation among nations, to be honored, respected, and feared, he carried out his plans, based upon a principle that has governed the operations of the postal department to this day.

Franklin died April 17, 1790. In his will, dated July 17, 1788, he simply expressed his wish to have his body buried with as little expense or ceremony as might be. But in the codicil, dated June 23, 1789, but a few months before his death, we find this clause:—

“I wish to be buried by the side of my wife, if it may be, and that a marble stone, to be made by Chambers, six feet long, four feet wide, plain, with only a small moulding round the upper ledge, and this inscription:—

to be placed over us both.”

In the graveyard belonging to Christ Church in this city, situated at the southeast corner of Arch and Fifth Streets, this plain slab, with the above inscription, is still to be seen.

The man to whose memory it is dedicated, in immediate expectation of death (as is shown by the fact that the codicil was made in June, 1789, and the figures 178-are so arranged by him that unless he died in that very year they would be useless), had calmly and deliberately selected the spot where he wished his corpse to repose. There rest the remains of one whose name, though simply recorded on a piece of marble, lives in memory while reason holds its throne in the immortal mind.

There is in the simple gray stone which now covers the breasts of “Benjamin Franklin and Deborah his wife” more attraction and genuine respectability than could be found in the loftiest pillar ever reared to gratify mere ambition.

Richard Bache had acted as postmaster up to 1776, when he was succeeded by Ebenezer Hazard. Hazard’s name is better known as an editor than as a postmaster, as he subsequently compiled the valuable historical collections bearing his name. He held the office of postmaster until the inauguration of President Washington’s administration. The succession of postmaster-generals since the adoption of the Federal Constitution will be given in its proper place.

X.

Reminiscences.

MAD ANTHONY WAYNE AND JEMMY THE ROVER.

In the year 1776 authority was given to employ extra post-riders between the armies from the head-quarters to Philadelphia. These post-riders ran many risks, as refugees were not rare at that day: hence the danger was materially increased in consequence. The letters of General Wayne were interrupted, as were those of others, and the utmost caution was necessary for the purpose of securing a safe conveyance. Various plans were adopted, and the postmaster was active in establishing a postal communication with the armies. There was another mode, however, which was even more successful, but equally dangerous to the parties engaged: this was the spy system. Much valuable information was conveyed to the commanders of the armies by it, which could not have reached them through the regular post. In one of General Wayne’s letters, addressed to his family in 1781, he makes allusion to one “Jemmy the Rover,” whom he had employed as a spy. While our army was encamped at Valley Forge, Jemmy was repeatedly sent within the British lines, and always returned with correct and important information. With him originated the appellation of “Mad Anthony” as applied to the general. “Jemmy the Rover” was an Irishman by birth, and was a regularly-enlisted soldier in the Pennsylvania line. The real name of Jemmy is not known. He was subject to, or at least feigned, occasional fits of craziness, in which state he often proved very noisy and troublesome, and in one instance was ordered to the guard-house. Whilst the sergeant with a file of men was conducting him thither, Jemmy suddenly halted, and asked the sergeant by whose orders he was arrested. “By those of the general,” was the reply. “Then forward!” said the Rover. In the course of a few hours he was released. In the act of taking his departure, he asked the sergeant whether Anthony (this being the only name he gave General Wayne) was mad or in fun when he placed him under arrest. The answer was, “The general has been much displeased with your disorderly conduct, and a repetition of it will be followed not only by confinement, but by twenty-nine well laid on.” “Then,” exclaimed Jemmy, “Anthony is mad: farewell to you; clear the coast for the commodore, Mad Anthony’s friend!” He suddenly disappeared from the camp. In a postscript to a letter General Wayne wrote to his family, he says, “Jemmy the Rover, alias the commodore, has absented himself from this detachment of the army. Should he in his rambles pass your way, I hope that you will extend towards him every hospitality which may be most likely to minister to his comfort. I am convinced that, whether in his hours of sanity or insanity, he would cheerfully lay down his life for either me or any of my family.”

It is said by some who knew Jemmy that he was a man of good education and extraordinary shrewdness: in fact, it was much doubted whether or not Jemmy feigned derangement.

As every thing having any connection with the events of 1776, which led to our independence, must be of interest, it may not be out of place here to introduce the following remarkable prophecy, made in the eighth century by Merlin, the celebrated Welsh astrologer. Its fulfilment in almost every particular renders it the more interesting, as evidenced in the American Revolution, to which reference seems to have been made. Had this prophecy been published subsequent to the Revolution, its authenticity might have been doubted, or at least questioned. But it is copied from Hawkins’s work, published in the year 1530.

In connection with the prophecy, we also give the key, furnished by an old citizen of Philadelphia to the editors of the “Columbian Magazine,” published in this city, in the March number, 1787:—

“SIBYLLINE ORACLE.

“Uttered by Merlin, some time during the eighth century, in Wales, of which he was a native.

Verse 1.—The settlement of America by a civilized nation is very clearly alluded to in the first line. The frantic mother is Britain. America still feels the wounds she has received from her.

Verse 2.—The Cock is France, the Dove is America, Columbia; their union is the epocha when America shall cease to love Britain.

Verse 3.—In many parts of Europe there are subterranean works carried on by persons who never see the light of day. But perhaps the solution may more particularly be referred to the siege of York, in Virginia, where the approaches were carried on by working in the earth. In the second line there is another equivoque. We are told by Mr. Addison, in his “Spectator,” that a lion will not hurt a true maid. This, at first view, seems to be contradicted by the prophecy; but, on examination, the epocha referred to, the virgin, Columbia (or, perhaps, Virginia, by which name all North America was called in the days of Queen Elizabeth), shall wound the lion,—that is, Britain,—which shows the precise time when the oracle should be accomplished.

Verse 4 clearly alludes to the successes of the united forces of America and France against those of Britain.

Verse 5.—For the solution of this oracle, as well as all the rest, we are indebted to the engraving of the arms of the United States in the “Columbian Magazine” for September, 1786. America is clearly designated by the eagle’s nest, as it is the only part of the globe where the bald eagle (the arms of the United States) is to be found. Thus, this hitherto inexplicable prophecy may now be easily understood as meaning that when the cock—that is, France—shall protect America (as she did during the late war), the stars—that is, the standard of the American empire—shall rise in this western hemisphere.

Verse 6.—It is very remarkable that the first discovery of the amazing properties of inflammable air, by means of which men have been able to explore a region till then impervious to them, happened in the same year when Britain’s strength was so reduced as to oblige her to acknowledge the independence of America. The boats in which the adventurous aeronauts traversed the upper regions are the ships here referred to.

Thus far the prophecy seems to have been already fully and literally accomplished: it is to be hoped that the accomplishment of those which remain is not far remote.

Verse 7 I understand to mean that when the sea (Neptune’s back) is red with the American stripes, the naval power of Britain shall decline. A proper exertion in the art of ship-building would soon produce this effect; and whenever Congress is vested with the power of regulating the commerce of America, we may hope to see the full accomplishment of this prediction.

Verse 8.—This oracle clearly alludes to an epocha not far removed, as we may hope; for when the thirteen United States shall, under the auspices of the present federal convention, have strengthened and cemented their union by a proper revisal of the articles of confederation, so as to be really but ONE NATION, Britain will no longer be able to maintain that rank and consequence among the nations of the earth which she had hitherto done.

Since the publication of this explanation, the fulfilment of the two last has become a part and portion of our history. That Neptune’s back is red with the stripes and, we may add, stars, every child knows; and the sickly lion already hides his head, not only beneath the folds of our flag, but plays second fiddle to the cock of France.

The eighth is fully accomplished, and ’76, as well as seven and six, form a pleasing illustration of the prophecy, as they do one of the most interesting incidents in our history. The thirteen States (seven and six) have multiplied nearly thrice since the Declaration of Independence, and are now, as then, but one, and that one a nation.

Walter Scott, speaking of Merlin, or the Savage, as he was called, says, “The particular spot in which he is buried is still shown, and appears, from the following quotation, taken from a description of Tweeddale, 1715,to have partaken of his prophetic qualities:—