INTRODUCTION

Perhaps the chief regret one feels in connection with the life of Benjamin Franklin is that he did not make it unnecessary for any other writer to complete the story of his remarkable career. The "Autobiography" breaks off about the middle of his life, with nearly all those achievements that were to give his name its imperishable place still to come. We are the poorer for his failure to recount these things. And yet, aside from its historical importance, it is doubtful whether the continuation of the memoirs would have rivaled the completed portion in its appeal, for in the biography of any outstanding figure the thoughtful reader is likely to be less interested in the great deeds themselves than in the influences and circumstances, the process of growth, that went to the formation of that greatness. In these particulars Franklin's book is probably the richest autobiography in the world.

To supply the more significant of those later facts that the author omitted is the main object of this introduction.

The matter that took Franklin to England in 1757, at which point the "Autobiography" ends, proved a long and complicated business. The proprietors of Pennsylvania displayed great obstinacy and subtlety in their efforts to keep their holdings exempt from taxation. After a long period

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of litigation, however, they agreed upon a compromise which amounted to an acceptance of the right of the province to tax their estate.

This five-year British residence had its importance in the evolution of Franklin's character. His friendly association with a number of the leading men of England, including Priestley, Hume, and Adam Smith, effectually dissipated whatever provincial traces he still retained, and he returned home a well-developed cosmopolitan. That his international prominence was recognized is seen in the two honorary doctor's degrees he was awarded during this time, one by St. Andrews University in Scotland and one by Oxford.

In 1764 Pennsylvania resolved to petition the king to substitute royal for proprietary rule of the province. Again the Assembly turned to the finest mind in America and sent Dr. Franklin as their representative. He thought to be gone ten months but his stay lengthened to ten years. He soon found himself involved in a more incendiary issue than the form of government in Pennsylvania. Shortly after he reached England Parliament passed the Stamp Act, and the colonies seethed with indignation. Franklin, while opposing the Act, urged the colonists to practice caution and moderation, and was thanked by being denounced as a traitor. Meanwhile the "traitor" was 'in a continual hurry from morning till night" laboring for the repeal of the law. Soon Parliament, suspecting it had made a tactical blunder, opened the subject for reconsideration. In February, 1766, Franklin was

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summoned to give testimony before the House, and for ten days was subject to the severest crossexamination that the most astute Parliamentarians could devise. Through it all he gave a superb exhibition of knowledge, clear-headedness, selfcontrol, and courage. His answers were unfailingly prompt, precise in their bearing on the questions, and astonishing in their grasp of colonial affairs. Edmund Burke likened the proceeding to the catechizing of a master by a parcel of schoolboys. Even at this distant date the "Examination of Dr. Franklin before the House of Commons"

is one of the most thrilling of colonial documents. In a few days the Stamp Act was repealed, and Philadelphia noisily acclaimed "our worthy and faithful agent, Dr. Franklin." Without his aid the repeal probably would have come, but it can scarcely be doubted that he materially hastened it.

Franklin now directed all his efforts toward maintaining amity between England and America. He did not desire a separation and he hated the thought of war. What he wrote toward the end of the Revolution he already strongly felt: 'I have been apt to think, that there never has been, nor ever will be, any such thing as a good war, or a bad peace." In March, 1775, being now persuaded that England was the enemy of his country and realizing that a breach was inevitable, he gave up his mission in despair and sailed for home.

While Franklin was on the high seas, the first blood was shed at Lexington and Concord. He found, not a quiet homeland where he might enjoy

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a leisurely old age, but a country flaming with the spirit of war, which at once drafted him for further duties. The day after his arrival he was chosen as one of the Pennsylvania deputies to the Continental Congress, in which capacity he was placed on half a score of the busiest and most important committees. He was unanimously elected Postmaster General of the United States. On July 4, 1776, he signed the Declaration of Independence, after having served on the committee which drew up that instrument.

But for Franklin's old age was reserved his greatest service to America. Late in 1776 he was sent by Congress as plenipotentiary to France on the delicate and important mission of inducing that country to enter into an alliance with the United States. He was the one logical man for this difficult position: no other American had had experience as a foreign diplomat, no other had a high reputation in Europe, and no other could be relied on to display his level-headedness and tact. On his arrival in Paris he was given such a reception as few men have ever been accorded. The greatest scientists and diplomats visited and honored him. His picture appeared everywhere. His jests traveled the length of France. On every hand he was hailed as the champion of liberty and the friend of mankind.

Writers on Franklin have sometimes conveyed the impression that his years in France were largely occupied with social diversion and with receiving the adulation of aristocratic women. It is true