THE words of Solomon, "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall

attention of a Boston tallow-chandler's son, when he was yet in youthhood. That youth was the immortal Benjamin Franklin, who was born on the morning of the 17th of January, 1706, and was christened that afternoon. At the age of eight years he went to a grammar school; but at ten his services were required in his father's business, and his education was neglected. At the age of twelve years he was apprenticed to his brother James, a printer. He made great proficiency in his business, and a love for reading was gratified, often at the expense of half a night's sleep. The New England Courant, printed by his brother in 1721, was the third newspaper established in America. Young Franklin wrote several essays for it, which attracted much attention. The author was unknown and unsuspected. At about the same time he read the

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

productions of Shaftesbury and Collins, and he became a sceptic in religion, and a powerful disputant, by the use of the Socratic method of argument—asking questions. Because of his scepticism he became unpopular in Boston. This fact, and ill treatment by his brother, determined him to leave the place. He went to New York in a sloop, and from thence to Philadelphia, on foot, where he soon procured employment, as a printer, in the establishment of Mr. Keimer. His intelligence and good conduct attracted the attention of prominent men, among whom was Governor Keith, who advised him to go into business for himself. With promises of aid from the governor, he started for London to buy printing materials. The aid was withheld; and on his arrival, he sought employment for a livelihood. He was now only eighteen years of age. By the practice of the most rigid economy, he saved a greater part of his wages; and his influence among his fellow-workmen, against useless expenses for beer and other things, was beneficial. At night he used his pen; and by a Dissertation on Liberty, in which he contended that virtue and vice are nothing more than conventional distinctions, he made the acquaintance of Mandeville and other infidel writers. Franklin always looked back to these early efforts of his pen, in opposition to Christian ethics, with great regret.

Franklin returned to Philadelphia in the Autumn of 1726, as a merchant's clerk; but the death of his employer, the following year, induced him to work, again, for Mr. Keimer. His ingenuity was profitable to his employer, for he engraved devices on type metal, made printer's ink, and in various ways saved money to the establishment. In 1728, he formed a partnership in the printing business with Mr. Meredith, but it was dissolved the following year. He then purchased Keimer's miserably-conducted paper, issued it in a greatly improved style, uttered in it many of those aphorisms which have since become famous, and then laid the foundation of his future usefulness. He married in 1730, lived frugally, and in the course of three or four years began to save money. He opened a small shop for the sale of stationery, to which his pleasant and edifying conversation drew many of the men of literary taste in the town. A literary club was formed, in which questions were discussed which required reference to books. The members brought such as they needed, from time to time, and Franklin conceived the idea of forming a public library. It was popular; and in 1731, the foundation of that noble institution, the Philadelphia Library, was laid. The following year he commenced the publication of Poor Richard's Almanac. It was full of sound maxims, and its popularity was so great, that he sold ten thousand copies annually. He continued it until 1757, when the demands of public business upon his time, compelled him to relinquish it.

Franklin's first public employment was undertaken in 1736, when he was appointed clerk of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania. The following year he was appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia. He now began to be one of the most popular men in the province. The fact is demonstrated by the circumstance that, by his personal exertions, he obtained ten thousand names to a voluntary association for the defence of the province, in 1744, when an attempt to procure a militia law had failed. He was chosen a member of the Assembly in 1747, and was regularly re-elected for ten years. Although Franklin was no orator, yet no man possessed greater influence than he, in that body. Yet theso public employments did not draw his attention from books and scientific investigations. For a long time he held a theory that the electricity of the scientific

1. The association at first consisted of 40 members. The library was first established in the house of Franklin's warm friend, Robert Grace. In 1740, it was placed in the State House. In 1773, it was removed to Carpenter's Hall; and in 1790, the building erected for its use, was completed. The associa tion was incorporated in 1742, as The Library Company of Philadelphia.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

41

apparatus and the lightning of the clouds were identical; and in 1752, he demonstrated the truth of his theory by unmistakable experiments. He immediately applied the discovery to a practical use, by showing that pointed iron rods, extending from a distance above the highest part of a house to the ground, would preserve the house from lightning, by conducting it into the earth. The theory and its demonstration were made known in Europe, and Franklin's name became known and venerated throughout the scientific world.

In 1753, Franklin was made deputy postmaster-general of the British colonies in America, and the same year he projected and established the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia. In 1754, he was one of the colonial delegates who met in Congress at Albany to devise means of defence against the French; and there he submitted a plan of union, similar, in many respects, to our Federal Constitution, but it was rejected by the British government and the colonial assemblies for widely different reasons. Three years afterward, Franklin was sent to England as the agent of Pennsylvania, and was employed in the same capacity by three other colonies. There he associated with the greatest men of the time, and the poor journeyman printer of a few years before, "stood before kings," was caressed by men of learning, was made a member of the Royal Society, and honored with the degree of Doctor of Laws, by the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford. He returned to America in 1762, and resumed his seat in the Assembly; but two years afterward, the dispute between the colonies and the government having commenced in earnest, he was again sent as agent for Pennsylvania, to England. He remained abroad until 1775, during which time he visited the Continent, and became acquainted with the most learned men in Europe. On the day of his arrival in America, he was elected a member of the Continental Congress; and he was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence the following year. During the whole period of the revolution he was continually active in a civil capacity at home or abroad. Congress sent him as commissioner to the French court in 1776, and he was one of the most accomplished and adroit diplomatists at Versailles. Finally, when peace was determined upon, Franklin was one of the leading commissioners in forming those treaties with Great Britain and other powers, which secured the independence of the colonies. He was then appointed Minister Plenipotentiary at the French court, and "stood before kings" until, by his own request, another was appointed in his place, and he returned home. He arrived at Philadelphia carly in the Autumn of 1785, and was received with the highest republican honors. In 1787, he was a leading man in the convention which formed the Federal Constitution; and the following year he withdrew from public life, being then eighty-two years of age. On the 17th of April, 1790, that great Philosopher, Statesman, and Sage, was undressed for the grave; and beneath a neat marble slab, in the burial-ground of Christ Church, Philadelphia, rest his mortal remains.

1. He sent up an iron-pointed kite toward a hovering thunder cloud, and held it by a silken string, attached to the long hempen one. To the silken end was fastened an iron key, and when the cloud passed over, he touched the key with his knuckles, and received a spark. It was a bold but successful experiment. 2. According to his directions, the only inscription on the broad slab is,

Many years before, he wrote the following epitaph for himself:

The body of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Printer, Like the cover of an oll Book, Its contents torn out, (And stripped of its lettering and gilding,) Lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be lost, For it will (as he believed) appear once more, In a new and more elegant edition, Revised and corrected, by THE AUTHOR."

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NATHANIEL BACON.

OF

NATHANIEL BACON.

FTEN, in men's estimation, success makes effort a virtue, but failure makes it a crime. A successful blow at tyranny is called patriotism; an unsuccessful one is branded as rebellion. Nathaniel Bacon lifted his arm for popular freedom, failed, and history recorded his name among traitors. He was a young man of great boldness and energy of character. His birth-place was in Suffolk county, England, and in London he was educated for the legal profession. He came to America during Cromwell's rule in England, and was soon called to a seat in the council of Governor Berkeley. Thoroughly democratic in his views, Bacon often crossed the official path of the haughty cavalier, as an assertor of popular rights, especially after the restoration of Charles the Second made the Virginia loyalists insolent and tyrannical. The assembly, under the influence of the governor, abridged the liberties of the people, propagated the vipers of intolerance, and imposed heavy fines upon Baptists and Quakers. The people soon learned to despise the name of king, and a strong republican party was formed.

Circumstances soon favored a demonstration of republican strength. Some Indian tribes commenced depredations upon the settlements in the upper part of Virginia, and they finally penetrated as far as Bacon's plantation in the vicinity of Richmond. Berkeley appeared indifferent, and the planters asked the privilege of protecting themselves. The governor refused; when at least five hundred men collected together, chose Bacon for commander, and drove the Indians back to the Potomac. Berkeley was jealous of Bacon, proclaimed him a traitor, and sent troops to pursue and arrest him. The people arose in rebellion, the aristocratic assembly was dissolved and a republican one elected; universal suffrage was restored; Bacon was chosen commander-in-chief of the military, and a commission for him was demanded of the governor. That official was alarmed and promised compliance, not, however, until Bacon, with a large force, approached Jamestown. He was compelled to attest the bravery and loyalty of Bacon; and on the 4th of July, 1676, just a hundred years before the colonies were declared free states, a more liberal and enlightened legislation commenced in Virginia. That day was truly the harbinger of 'American independence and nationality.

Again the Indians approached, and Bacon proceeded to drive them back. As soon as he had departed, Berkeley treacherously published a proclamation, reversing the proceedings of the assembly, repudiating Bacon's commission, and declaring him a traitor. Back to Jamestown the indignant patriot marched, and lighted a civil war. The governor and adhering loyalists were driven beyond the York river, and the wives of many were detained as hostages for peace. Troops came from England to support Berkeley; and when rumor told of their march up the peninsula, Bacon applied the torch and laid Jamestown in ashes. He then crossed the York to drive the enemies of popular freedom entirely out of the old dominion, but there he met a foe to his life more deadly than royalists or the Indians. The malaria from the low lands infused its poison into his veins, and at the house of Dr. Green, in Gloucester county, the brave republican died, on the 1st of October, 1676, at the age of about thirty-seven years. Berkeley assumed power immediately, and Bacon's followers were terribly persecuted. Twenty were hanged, scores were imprisoned, and much property was confiscated. Because the patriots were unsuccessful, this episode in Virginia history is known as "BACON'S REBELLION."

Jon Trumbull

JONATHAN TRUMBULL.

ONE of the main pillars of support upon which General Washington relied

during the War for Independence, was Jonathan Trumbull, then Governor of Connecticut. He was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, on the 21st of June, 1710, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1727. His serious mind turned to theology as a profession, and he commenced its study with the Rev. Solomon Williams, of Lebanon. The death of an elder brother, who was engaged in mercantile business with his father, caused Jonathan to change his intentions and become a merchant. When only twenty-three years of age, he was elected a member of the Connecticut Assembly, where he soon became distinguished as one of its most active committee men. In 1766, he was elected lieutenantgovernor of the colony, and became ex-officio chief justice of the superior court. He espoused the patriot cause very early; and in 1768, he took the bold step of refusing to take the oath, which enjoined almost unconditional submission to