1721.

To free schools and colleges the periodical press had been added, and newspapers began their office in America as the ministers to curiosity and the guides and organs of opinion. On the twenty-fourth day of April, in 1704, the Boston "News-Letter," the first ever published on the western continent, saw the light in the metropolis of New England. In 1719, it obtained a rival at Boston, and was imitated at Philadelphia. In 1740, the number of newspapers in the English colonies on the continent had increased to eleven, of which one appeared in South Carolina, one in Virginia, three in Pennsylvania, one of them being in German,one in New York, and the remaining five in Boston. The sheet at first used was but of the foolscap size; and but one, or even but a half of one, was issued weekly. The papers sought support rather by modestly telling the news of the day, than by engaging in conflicts; they had no political theories to enforce, no revolutions in faith to hasten. At Boston, indeed, where the pulpit had marshalled Quakers and witches to the gallows, the New England" Courant," the fourth American periodical, was, in August, Aug. 21. 1721, established by James Franklin as an organ of independent opinion. Its temporary success was advanced by Benjamin, his brother and apprentice, a boy of fifteen, who wrote pieces for its columns, worked in composing the types as well as in printing off the sheets, and, as carrier, distributed the papers to the customers. The sheet satirized hypocrisy, and spoke of religious knaves as of all knaves the worst. This was described as tending "to abuse the ministers of religion in a manner which was intolerable." "I can well remember," writes Increase Mather, then more than fourscore years of age, "when the civil government would have taken an effectual course to suppress such a cursed libel." In July, 1722, a resolve passed the council, appointing a censor for the press of James Franklin; but the house refused its concurrence. ministers persevered; and in January, 1723, a committee of inquiry was raised by the legislature. Benjamin, being examined, escaped with an admonition; James, the publisher, refusing to discover the author of the offence, was

1722.

The

kept in jail for a month; his paper was censured as reflecting injuriously on the reverend ministers of the gospel; and, by vote of the house and council, he was forbidden to print it, "except it be first supervised."

Oct.

Vexed at the arbitrary proceedings; willing to 1723. escape from a town where good people pointed with horror at his freedom; indignant, also, at the tyranny of a brother, who, as a passionate master, often beat his apprentice, in October, 1723, Benjamin Franklin, then but seventeen years old, sailed clandestinely for New York; and, finding there no employment, crossed to Amboy; went on foot to the Delaware; for want of a wind, rowed in a boat from Burlington to Philadelphia; and bearing marks of his labor at the oar, weary, hungry, having for his whole stock of cash a single dollar, the runaway apprentice-the humble pupil of the free schools of Boston, rich in the boundless hope of youth and the unconscious power of genius which modesty adorned - stepped on shore to seek food and occupation.

On the deep foundations of sobriety, frugality, and industry, the young journeyman built his fortunes and fame; and he soon came to have a printing-office of his own. Toiling early and late, with his own hands he set types and worked at the press; with his own hands would trundle to the office in a wheelbarrow the reams of paper which he was to use. His ingenuity was such he could form letters, make types and woodcuts, and engrave vignettes in copper. The assembly of Pennsylvania chose him its printer. He planned a newspaper; and, when he became its proprietor and editor, he defended freedom of thought and speech, and the inalienable power of the people. He proposed improvements in the schools of Philadelphia, invented the system of subscription libraries, and laid the foundation of one that was long the most considerable library in America; he suggested the establishment of an academy, which has ripened into a university; he saw the benefit of concert in the pursuit of science, and gathered a philosophical society for its advancement. The intelligent and highly cultivated Logan bore testimony to his merits:

"Our most ingenious printer has the clearest understanding, with extreme modesty. He is certainly an extraordinary man;"" of a singularly good judgment, but of equal modesty;" "excellent, yet humble." "Do not imagine," he adds, "that I overdo in my character of Benjamin Franklin, for I am rather short in it." When the students of nature began to investigate the wonders of electricity, Franklin excelled all observers in the simplicity and lucid exposition of his experiments, and in "sagacity and power of scientific generalization." It was he who first suggested the explanation of thunder-gusts and the northern lights on electrical principles, and, in the summer of 1752, going out into the fields, with no instrument but a kite, no companion but his son, established his theory by obtaining a line of connection with a thunder-cloud. Nor did he cease till he had made the lightning a household pastime, taught his family to catch the subtile fluid in its leaps between the earth and the sky, and ascertained how it might be compelled to pass harmlessly over the dwellings of men.

1749.

Franklin looked quietly and deeply into the secrets of nature. His clear understanding was never perverted by passion nor corrupted by the pride of theory. The son of a rigid Calvinist, the grandson of a tolerant Quaker, he had from boyhood been familiar not only with theological subtilties, but with a catholic respect for freedom of mind. Skeptical of tradition as the basis of faith, he respected reason rather than authority; and, after a momentary lapse into fatalism, he gained with increasing years an increasing trust in the overruling providence of God. Adhering to none of all the religions in the colonies, he yet devoutly, though without form, adhered to religion. But though famous as a disputant, and having a natural aptitude for metaphysics, he obeyed the tendency of his age, and sought by observation to win an insight into the mysteries of being. The best observers praise his method most. He so sincerely loved truth, that in his pursuit of her she met him half-way. Without prejudice and without bias, he discerned intuitively the identity of the laws of nature with

those of which humanity is conscious; so that his mind was like a mirror, in which the universe, as it reflected itself, revealed her laws. His morality, repudiating ascetic severities, and the system which enjoins them, was indulgent to appetites of which he abhorred the sway; but his affections were of a calm intensity; in all his career, the love of man held the mastery over personal interest. He had not the imagination which inspires the bard or kindles the orator; but an exquisite propriety, parsimonious of ornament, gave ease, correctness, and graceful simplicity even to his most careless writings. In life, also, his tastes were delicate. Indifferent to the pleasures of the table, he relished the delights of music and harmony, of which he enlarged the instruments. His blandness of temper, his modesty, the benignity of his manners, made him the favorite of intelligent society; and, with healthy cheerfulness, he derived pleasure from books, from philosophy, from conversation, now administering consolation to the sorrower, now indulging in light-hearted gayety. In his intercourse, the universality of his perceptions bore, perhaps, the character of humor; but, while he clearly discerned the contrast between the grandeur of the universe and the feebleness of man, a serene benevolence saved him from contempt of his race or disgust at its toils. To superficial observers, he might have seemed as an alien from speculative truth, limiting himself to the world of the senses; and yet, in study, and among men, his mind always sought to discover and apply the general principles by which nature and affairs are controlled, now deducing from the theory of caloric improvements in fireplaces and lanterns, and now advancing human freedom by firm inductions from the inalienable rights of man. Never professing enthusiasm, never making a parade of sentiment, his practical wisdom was sometimes mistaken for the offspring of selfish prudence; yet his hope was steadfast, like that hope which rests on the Rock of Ages, and his conduct was as unerring as though the light that led him was a light from Heaven. He never antici pated action by theories of self-sacrificing virtue; and yet, in the moments of intense activity, he from the abodes of

ideal truth brought down and applied to the affairs of life the principles of goodness, as unostentatiously as became the man who with a kite and hempen string drew the lightning from the skies. He separated himself so little from his age that he has been called the representative of materialism; and yet, when he thought on religion, his mind passed beyond reliance on sects to faith in God; when he wrote on politics, he founded freedom on principles that know no change; when he turned an observing eye on nature, he passed from the effect to the cause, from individual appearances to universal laws; when he reflected on history, his philosophic mind found gladness and repose in the clear anticipation of the progress of humanity.

Nor may it be omitted that Thomas Godfrey, of Philadelphia, was the first to invent the instrument by which the mariner can take the altitude of the sun on the roughest sea.

America, by its increase in population and by the genius of its sons, ripened for independence; but still there was no union: neither danger from abroad, nor English invasions of liberty, had as yet roused the colonies to common action. Not even the proposal to abrogate charters could excite a united opposition. Public sentiment in America so little respected the proprietary governments that in 1720 the three New England charter governments were left to contend for their privileges alone. The relations with the Iroquois had a greater tendency to effect a concert of action; they interested New England on the east; and in 1722, at a congress in Albany, Virginia, as well as Pennsylvania, was represented by its governor.

In the separate colonies, the spirit of liberty and the desire of self-direction everywhere prevailed. In Pennsylvania, there existed the fewest checks on the power of the people. "Popular zeal raged as high there as in any country;" and Logan wrote despondingly to the proprietary: "Faction prevails among the people; 'liberty and privileges' are ever the cry.' "This government under you is not possibly tenable without a miracle." The world was inexperienced in the harmlessness of the ferment of the public mind, where that mind deliberates, decides, and gov