This may be, and has been characterized by some as, very worldly wisdom; but as Franklin himself has pointed out, it is a wisdom that lies necessarily at the root of much that is better and higher. It exhibits, moreover, only one phase of that general and practical wisdom with which he viewed every department of life, from the lowest to the highest.
Reference is made in the Autobiography to one or two of Franklin’s inventions, but nothing is said of the debt we owe to him in respect to the harmonica or musical glasses. He possessed considerable skill in music; and if he did not actually invent, he so far improved the harmonica as to develop it from a toy into an available instrument of music.
Franklin began to write the following account of his life in the form of a letter to his son, the Governor of New Jersey, in 1771, when on a visit to his friend, Dr. Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph. At this time he brought the Autobiography down to the period of his marriage. Nothing more was added until 1784, when he wrote another chapter while living at Passy. The remainder was written some four years later, at which time he had returned to Philadelphia, and was eighty-two years old.
While Franklin was in France as United States minister, he showed a copy of his Autobiography to some of his friends there, one of whom, M. Le Veillard, translated it into French. Shortly after Franklin’s death this translation was published in France. It was then retranslated into English and appeared in London, and was for a long time accepted both in England and the United States as though it were the author’s original work. Finally, however, the Autobiography was published by Franklin’s grandson, William Temple Franklin, from the original manuscript, and it is from this oopy, edited by Jared Sparks, that the present edition has been prepared.
Chapter I
First start in life
DEAR SON: 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 acquainted 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 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.
This good fortune, when I reflect on it (which is frequently the case), has induced me sometimes to say that, if it were left to my choice, I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end, requesting only the advantage authors have of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first. So would I also wish to change some incidents of it for others more favorable. Notwithstanding, if this condition was denied, I should still accept the offer of recommencing the same life. But as this repetition is not to be expected, that which resembles most living one’s life over again seems to be to recall all the circumstances of it, and, to render this remembrance more durable, to record them in writing.
In thus employing myself, I shall yield to the inclination so natural to old men, of talking of themselves and their own actions; and I shall indulge it without being tiresome to those who, from respect to my age, might conceive themselves obliged to listen to me, since they will be always free to read me or not. And, lastly (I may as well confess it, as the denial of it would be believed by nobody), I shall, perhaps, not a little gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I never heard or saw the introductory words, “Without vanity I may say,” etc., but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves, but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others who are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.
And now I speak of thanking God, I desire, with all humility, to acknowledge that I attribute the mentioned happiness of my past life to His divine providence, which led me to the means I used, and gave the success. My belief of this induces me to hope, though I must not presume, that the same goodness will still be exercised towards me in continuing that happiness, or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse, which I may experience as others have done; the complexion of my future fortune being known to Him only in whose power it is to bless us, even in our afflictions.
Some notes, which one of my uncles, who had the same curiosity in collecting family anecdotes, once put into my hands, furnished me with several particulars relative to our ancestors. From these notes I learned that they lived in the same village, Ecton, in Northamptonshire, on a freehold of about thirty acres, for at least three hundred years, and how much longer could not be ascertained.[1]
This small estate would not have sufficed for their maintenance without the business of a smith, which had continued in the family down to my uncle’s time, the eldest son being always brought up to that employment; a custom which he and my father followed with regard to their eldest sons. When I searched the registers at Ecton, I found an account of their marriages and burials from the year 1555 only, as the registers kept did not commence previous thereto. I, however, learned from it that I was the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back. My grandfather, Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at Ecton till he was too old to continue his business, when he retired to Banbury, in Oxfordshire, to the house of his son John, with whom my father served an apprenticeship. There my uncle died, and lies buried. We saw his gravestone in 1758. His eldest son Thomas lived in the house at Ecton, and left it, with the land, to his only daughter, who, with her husband, one Fisher, of Wellingborough, sold it to Mr. Isted, now lord of the manor there. My grandfather had four sons, who grew up; viz., Thomas, John, Benjamin, and Josiah. Being at a distance from my papers, I will give you what account I can of them from memory; and if my papers are not lost in my absence, you will find among them many more particulars.
Thomas, my eldest uncle, was bred a smith under his father, but, being ingenious, and encouraged in learning, as all his brothers were, by an Esquire Palmer, then the principal inhabitant of that parish, he qualified himself for the bar, and became a considerable man in the county; was chief mover of all public-spirited enterprises for the county or town of Northampton, as well as of his own village, of which many instances were related of him; and he was much taken notice of and patronized by Lord Halifax. He died in 1702, the 6th of January, four years, to a day, before I was born. The recital which some elderly persons made to us of his character, I remember struck you as something extraordinary, from its similarity with what you knew of me. “Had he died,” said you, “four years later, on the same day, one might have supposed a transmigration.”
John, my next uncle, was bred a dyer, I believe of wool. Benjamin was bred a silk dyer, serving an apprenticeship in London. He was an ingenious man. I remember, when I was a boy, he came to my father’s in Boston, and resided in the house with us for several years. There was always a particular affection between my father and him, and I was his godson. He lived to a great age. He left behind him two quarto volumes of manuscript, of his own poetry, consisting of fugitive pieces addressed to his friends. He had invented a shorthand of his own, which he taught me; but, not having practised it, I have now forgotten it. He was very pious, and an assiduous attendant at the sermons of the best preachers, which he reduced to writing according to his method, and had thus collected several volumes of them.
1
Perhaps from the time, when the name of Franklin, which before was the name of an order of people, was assumed by them for a surname, when others took surnames, all over the kingdom.
As a proof that Franklin was anciently the common name of an order or rank in England, see Judge Fortesue, De laudibus Legum Anglia, written about the year 1412, in which is the following passage, to show that good juries might easily be formed in any part of England—
“Moreover, the same country is so filled and replenished with landed menne, that therein so small a Thorpe cannot be found wherein dwelleth not a knight, an esquire. or such a householder, as is there commonly called a Franklin, enriched with great possessions; and also other freeholders, and many yeomen able for their livelihoods to make a jury in form aforementioned.”—
Chaucer, too, calls his Country Gentleman a
Again— —