INTRODUCTION.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S Autobiography ends with the year 1757, when he was sent to England as representative of the Assembly of Philadelphia. His services were found to be so valuable that he was appointed agent also for the States of Massachusetts, Maryland, and Georgia. The Royal Society of England not only made him one of its Fellows, in the manner described on page 180 of this volume, but also awarded to him a gold medal. He received honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, and St. Andrews; and he was made an Associate of the Academy of Paris. Having returned to America in 1762, he was again sent to England to assist in labouring to avert war between the mothe country and the transatlantic colonies. After strenuous efforts, that were made in vain, Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1775, and was thenceforth active among those leaders of opinion who secured the Declaration of Independence of the thirteen United States on the 4th of July, 1776. Franklin then went to Paris as minister for the United States of America

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In Paris he secured the aid of France in the coming struggle. When the struggle ended with the signing of a treaty of peace that conceded independence, Franklin, then seventy-six years old, signed for the United States the treaty which he had assisted in negotiating. Three years later he went back to America, where he took part in the revision of the Articles of Union. He died full of years and honours on the 17th of April, 1790, at the age of eighty-four.

After his death a general mourning for two months was ordered by Congress, as a tribute to the memory of one of the best and wisest of those who had assisted in the forming of the thirteen States into a nation.

Franklin began to write this Autobiography in the form of a letter to his son, the Governor of New Jersey, in 1771, when he was sixty-five years old, and

holiday-guest in Hampshire, at the house of his friend, Dr. Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph's. He had brought the account down to the time of his marriage when the holiday was over. After thirteen years another chapter was written, at Passy, in 1784. The rest was added in 1788, when Franklin was eighty-two years old.

H. M.

THE

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

CHAPTER I.

I HAVE ever had a pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes of my ancestors. You may remember the inquiries I made among the remains of my relations when you were with me in England, and the journey I undertook for that purpose. Imagining it may be equally agreeable to you to learn the circumstances of my life, many of which you are unacquainted with; and expecting the enjoyment of a few weeks' uninterrupted leisure, I sit down to write them. Besides, there are some other inducements that excite me to this undertaking. From the poverty and obscurity in which I was born, and in which I passed my earliest years, I have raised myself to a state of affluence and some degree of celebrity in the world. As constant good fortune has accompanied me even to an advanced period of life, my posterity will perhaps be desirous of learning the means which I employed, and which, thanks to Providence, so well succeeded with me. They may also deem them fit to be imitated, should any of them find themselves in similar circumstances.