Benny went to college in the next street to compleat his education, while my son’s son, Temple, went to look at his lands, a fine farm of 600 acres convey’d to him by his father when we were at Southampton. Temple dropped for the present his views of acting in the political line, and applied himself ardently to the study and practice of agriculture. He seems seriously intent upon a country life, which I much approve. I esteem it the most useful, the most independent, and therefore the noblest of employments. His lands are on navigable water, communicating with the Delaware, and but about 16 miles from Philadelphia, very convenient for bringing his produce to market. He has associated to himself a very skillful English farmer, who instructed him in the business and partakes for a term of the profits.
BUILDING IS AN AMUSEMENT IN OLD AGE
In 1786, I received the pleasing news that Mrs. Polly Hewson and her children had taken passage from England to Philadelphia, accompanied by the mother and sister of John Wilkes. We were extremely happy to see them and enjoy their sweet company again. At about this time, I received an offer from Mr. Daniel Roberdeau to sell me his plantation in this country; but not being in a condition to enjoy a country-seat, since my malady, the stone, does not permit me to ride either on horseback or in a wheel carriage, I have no inducement to purchase land but the prospect of its producing greater profit than money at interest; and having been inform’d of its qualities, quantity of acres, price, and rent it affords, I apprehended the purchase would not suit my views. Jean-Baptiste Leroy provided an account of the progress made in the art of ballooning, by the acquisition of a tight envelope, and the means of descending and rising without throwing out ballast, or letting out air. I have sometimes wished I had brought with me from France a balloon sufficiently large to raise me from the ground. In my malady it would have been the most easy carriage for me, being led by a string held by a man walking on the ground.
I began to build two good brick houses next to the street instead of three old ones which I pulled down. But my neighbour disputing my bounds, I was obliged to postpone till that dispute was settled by law. In the mean time, the workmen and materials being ready, I ordered an addition to the house I live in, being too small for our growing family. The affair involved many good hands, such as bricklayers, carpenters, stonecutters, plasterers, painters, glaziers, lime burners, timber merchants, coppersmiths, carters, laborers, etc. etc., which added not a little to the fatiguing business I went through in the last year. By this addition I have gain’d a large cellar for wood and a drawing room in which we can dine a company of 24 persons. It has 2 windows at each end, the north and south, which makes it an airy summer room, and for winters there is a good chimney in the middle made handsome with marble slabs. Over this room is my library of the same dimensions, with like windows at each end, and lin’d with books to the ceiling, where I can write without being disturb’d by the noise of the children. Over this are two lodging rooms, and overall a fine garret. I hardly know how to justify building a library at an age that will so soon oblige me to quit it; but we are apt to forget that we are grown old, and building is an amusement.
THE INVENTION WAS OF SOME USE TO THE INVENTOR
I found upon my return to this country that the number of lightning conductors has greatly increased, their utility having been made manifest by many instances of their good effect in preserving buildings from lightning. Among others, my own house, in my absence, had receiv’d a great stroke which was visible to the neighbours, who immediately ran in to see if any damage had been done, or any fire commenc’d which might by their assistance be extinguish’d. They found nothing disorder’d, and the family only much frighten’d by the loudness of the explosion. On making the addition to my house, the conductor was taken down to be remov’d, when I found that the copper point, which had been nine inches long, and in its thickest part about one third of an inch diameter, had been almost all melted and blown away. Very little of it remained attach’d to the iron rod. So at length the invention has been of some use to the inventor, and afforded an additional pleasure to that of having seen it useful to others.
The two new houses next to the street are three stories high besides the garrets, and an arch’d passage is left in the middle between them to come thro’ down to my dwelling, wide enough for a carriage, so that I have the old passage lot left free to build another house. The two houses are 24 feet from each, and 45 deep. In my new buildings, I have taken a few precautions, not generally us’d, to avoid the risk of fire; to wit, none of the wooden work of one room communicates with the wooden work of any other room; and all the floors and even the steps of the stairs are plastered close to the boards, besides the plastering on the laths under the joints. There are also trap doors to go out upon the roofs, that one may go out and wet the shingles in case of a neighbouring fire. But, indeed, I think the stair cases should be stone, and the floors tiled, as in Paris, and the roofs either tiled or slated.
When I look at these buildings, and compare them with that in which my good parents educated us, the difference strikes me with wonder, and fills me with humble thankfulness to that divine being who has graciously conducted my steps, and prospered me in this strange land to a degree that I could not rationally have expected, and can by no means conceive myself to have merited. I beg the continuance of his favour but submit to his will should a reverse be determin’d.
I SPENT THE TIME SO IDLY... I SHUFFLED THE CARDS AND BEGAN ANOTHER GAME
A long winter passed [1785-86], where I had public business enough to preserve me and private amusement besides in conversation, books, my garden, and cribbage. The companions of my youth are indeed almost all departed, but I find an agreeable society among their children and grandchildren. Considering our well-furnish’d plentiful market as the best of gardens, I turned mine, in the midst of which my house stands, into grass plots and gravel walks, with trees and flowering shrubs.
Cards are sometimes played here in the evenings. It is as they play chess, not for money but for honour or the pleasure of beating one another. I passed a winter agreeably in that manner in Passy a few years ago when Polly Stevenson visited us from London. I have indeed now and then a little compunction in reflecting that I spend time so idly: but another reflection comes to relieve me, whispering, “You know the soul is immortal; why then should you be such a niggard of a little time when you have a whole eternity before you?” So being easily convinc’d, and, like other reasonable creatures, satisfy’d with a small reason, when it is in favour of doing what I have a mind to do, I shuffle the cards again, and begin another game.
As to public amusements, we have neither plays nor operas, but we had recently a kind of oratorio. We have assemblies, balls and concerts, besides little parties at one another’s houses, in which there is sometimes dancing, and frequently good music, so that we job on in life as pleasantly as they do in London, where they have plays perform’d by good actors: that is, I think, the only advantage London has over Philadelphia, however.
EXERCISE SHOULD PRECEDE MEALS...
During the long winter, I wrote the following piece, “The Art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams,” at the request of Catherine Shipley,130 which I print in part:As a great part of our life is spent in sleep, during which we have sometimes pleasing and sometimes painful dreams, it becomes of some consequence to obtain the one kind and avoid the other. To this end it is in the first place necessary to be careful in preserving health by due exercise and great temperance; for in sickness the imagination is disturb’d; and sometimes disagreeable and terrible ideas are apt to present themselves. Exercise should precede meals, not immediately follow them: the first promotes, the latter obstructs digestion. If after exercise we feed sparingly, the digestion will be easy and good, the body lightsome, the temper cheerful, and all the animal functions perform’d agreeably. Sleep when it follows will be natural and undisturb’d, while indolence with full feeding occasions nightmares and horrors inexpressible; we fall from precipices; are assaulted by wild be
asts, murderers, or demons; and we experience at times every variety of distress. Observe, however, that the quantities of food and exercise are relative things; those who move much may, and indeed ought, to eat more; those who use little exercise should eat little. In general mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eat about twice as much as nature requires. Suppers are not bad if we have not din’d, but restless nights naturally follow hearty suppers after full dinners. Indeed, as there is a difference in constitutions, some rest well after those meals: it costs them only a frightful dream and an apoplexy, after which they sleep till doomsday. Nothing is more common in the newspapers than instances of people, who after eating a hearty supper, are found dead in a bed in the morning.
Another means of preserving health is having a constant supply of fresh air in the bed chamber. It has been a great mistake sleeping in rooms exactly clos’d and in beds surrounded by curtains. No outward air that may come into you is so unwholesome as the unchang’d air often breath’d of a close chamber. A number of persons crowded into a small room thus spoil the air in a few minutes and even render it mortal, as in the Black Hole at Calcutta. It is recorded of Methuselah, who being the longest liver may be supposed to have best preserved his health, that he slept always in the open air. Physicians, after having for ages contended that the sick should not be indulg’d with fresh air, have at length discover’d that it may do them good. It is therefore to be hop’d they may in time discover likewise, that it is not hurtful to those who are in health; and that we may then be cured of the Aerophobia that at present distresses weak minds, and make them choose to be stifled and poison’d, rather than leave open the window of a bedchamber, or put down the glass of a coach.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH OLD FRIENDS IN EUROPE
I often think with great pleasure on the happy days I pass’d in England with my learned and ingenious friends, who have left us to join the majority in the world of spirits. Everyone of them now knows more than all of us they have left behind.
The world suffer’d a great loss in the death of Mr. Oswald, who negotiated the peace treaty. Mr. Grand’s mention of the malady of M. de Vergennes afflicted me, and much more the news of his death. So wise and so good a man taken away from the station he fill’d is a great loss not only to France but to Europe in general, to America, and to mankind. Being depriv’d of dear friends and relations one after another is a very severe tax we pay for living a great while ourselves.
I wish to hear from my friends by every packet, and presume they may excuse me if I write once a year. The only apology I can make, and that not a very good one, is that indolence is natural to age and that I am too much engag’d in business. Their continued kindness toward me express’d in their letters affects me much; and I never peruse those letters but with fresh pleasure, mix’d with the remembrance of the many delightful hours I pass’d in that sweet society, and the regret with which I find myself forever separated from it.
But tho’ I could not leave that dear nation without regret, I certainly did right in coming home. I am here in my niche, in my own house, in the bosom of my family, my daughter and grandchildren all about me, among my old friends or the sons of my friends who equally respect me, and who all speak and understand the same language with me; and if a man desires to be useful by the exercise of his mental faculties, he loses half that force when in a foreign country, where he can only express himself in a language with which he is not well acquainted. I wrote a French letter to Mademoisselle Chaumont, but it cost me too much time to write in that language, and after all ’tis very bad French, and I therefore wrote others in English in hope that it could be interpreted. In short, I enjoy every opportunity of doing good, and everything else I could wish for except repose; and that [repose] I may soon expect, either by the cessation of my office, which cannot last more than 3 years, or by ceasing to live.
THE LAST TWELVE YEARS OF MY LIFE WERE EMPLOYED IN MATTERS OF THE GREATEST IMPORTANCE
I am grown so old as to have buried most of my friends of my youth, and I now often hear persons whom I knew when children called old Mr. such-a-one to distinguish them from their sons, now men grown and in business; so that by living so long I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity, when I ought to have been abed and asleep. Yet had I gone at seventy it would have cut off twelve of the most active years of my life, employed too in matters of the greatest importance; but whether I have been doing good or mischief is for time to discover. I only know that I intended well, and I hope all will end well.
I wrote a letter of recommendation to Thomas Jefferson and other friends in France on behalf of Mr. Thomas Paine, the author of the celebrated piece entitled Common Sense, published in America with prodigious effect on the minds of the people at the beginning of the revolution. He is an ingenious and skillful artist who carried with him to France the model of a bridge of new construction, his own invention. I requested the Duke de La Rochefoucauld to procure him a sight of the models and drafts in the repository of the Ponts and Chaussees.
I also received a letter from the astronomer Sir William Herschel, together with his catalogue of 1,000 new nebulae and clusters of stars, which I immediately communicated to our Philosophical Society. I congratulated him on his important new discovery of the two satellites revolving round the Georgian planet [Uranus]. Mr. Herschel has wonderfully extended the power of human vision and is daily making us acquainted with regions of the universe totally unknown to mankind in former ages. When free from these bodily embarrassments, I hope to roam through some of the systems he has explored! Had fortune plac’d him in this part of America, his progress in these discoveries might have been still more rapid, as from the more frequent clearness of our air, we have nearly one third more in the year of good observing days than there are in England.
Not having found the cares of government so burdensome as I apprehended, I consented to a second year, and was chosen unanimously by the junction of all parties, so that there was but one negative voice, viz., my own, and that given for modesty sake. The Assembly of this state granted me 3,000 acres of their land, to be located when I can find any vacant.
I also received a letter from William Cocke acquainting me with the honour of naming an intended new state Franklin, having understood at first that it was called Frank Land.131 Having resided some years in Europe, and being lately arrived from there, I had not had an opportunity of being inform’d of the points of dispute between Mr. Cocke and the state of North Carolina, and said I thought they were perfectly right in resolving to submit them to the decision of Congress, and to abide by their determination.
SHAYS’S REBELLION, THAT DANGEROUS INSURRECTION
In the state of Pennsylvania, the government, not withstanding our parties, went very smoothly. We had two parties, one for preserving the Constitution as it was, and the other for adding an upper house as a check to the Assembly. But having try’d it seven years, the strongest party was for continuing it as it is. The constitution of Massachusetts is, I think, one of the best in the union, perhaps I might say in the world. But it was disturbed by some disorderly people. Fortunately, Mr. Shays and the insurgents were quelled, and I believe a great majority of that people approved the measures of government in reducing them. I congratulated James Bowdoin, governor of Massachusetts, on the happy success attending the wise and vigorous measures taken for the suppression of that dangerous insurrection. As the president of the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council, we proclaimed an act in cooperation with the State of Massachusetts and agreeable to the Articles of Confederation, that rewards the commonwealth in apprehending the proclaimed rebels Daniel Shays, Luke Day, Adam Wheeler and Eli Parsons, that they might be dealt with according to the law.
TOO MUCH PAPER MONEY IS MISCHIEVOUS
The rest of the states went on pretty well, except some dissensions in Rhode Island and Maryland respecting paper money. Paper money in moderate quantities has been found beneficial; but when more than the occasions of commerce require,
it depreciates and is mischievous, and the populace are apt to demand more than is necessary. In the state of Pennsylvania, we have some, and it is useful, and I do not hear any clamour for more. Our paper money is not well understood. It was made before my arrival, and not being a legal tender,132 can do no injustice to anybody, nor does anyone here complain of it, tho’ many are justly averse to an increase of the quantity at this time, there being a great deal of real money in the country, and our bank in good credit. I myself purchased ten actions in it, which at least shows my good opinion of it. However, the bank here in Philadelphia [Bank of North America] met with great opposition, partly from envy and partly from those who wish an emission of more paper money, which they think the bank opposes. But it has stood all attacks, and went on well, notwithstanding the assembly repealed its charter, but a new Assembly restored it. The management is so prudent, the dividend has never been less than six percent, and their notes are always instantly paid on demand, and passed on all occasions as readily as silver, because they will always produce silver.
When there is a free government, and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money. It is no more so than compelling a man by law to take his own note. But it is unjust to pay strangers with such money against their will. The making of paper money with such a sanction is a folly, since, although you may by law oblige a citizen to take it for his goods, you cannot fix his prices; and his liberty of rating them as he pleases, which is the same thing as setting what value he pleases on your money, defeats your sanction.
The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1757-1790) Page 35
