OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. NOW FIRST EDITED FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS AND OTHER WRITINGS, BY JOHN BIGELOW. "Plurimæ consentiunt gentes populi primarium fuisse virum." FIFTH EDITion, revised and enriched. ILLUSTRATED. VOL. I. PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by JOHN BIGELOW, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washingtor Copyright, 1893, by John Bigelow. Copyright, 1898, by John Bigelow. Copyright, 1902, by John Bigelow. COPYRIGHT, 1905, by J. B. Lippincott CompaNY. COPYRIGHT, 1916, by GRACE BIGELOW. LIFE OF FRANKLIN-VOL. I. PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. In the original plan of this work it was my purpose to give, in Franklin's own language, a complete account of the salient features of his picturesque and useful life, and all matters pertaining to him that were ever likely to engage the attention of any but the special students of the history of his time. When the first edition appeared, now some thirty years past, I thought my purpose had been fully accomplished, and that the great deep of oblivion had nothing more from Franklin's fertile pen to surrender that would color or enlarge the dimensions of his varied career-as a journalist, as a municipal reformer, as a philosopher, as a diplomatist, or as a statesman. How utterly I was mistaken in these expectations has been manifested by the very considerable additions which I have been constrained to make to each of the three subsequent editions. What is more surprising, the accumulation of new material since the publication of the last edition, only six years ago—and without which this work would have been incomplete-is not only considerable in amount, but in some respects more important than that which prompted the revision of previous editions. Among these papers I may here refer to two or three, at least, which, I think, will prove a welcome surprise, even to those most familiar with the Franklin literature, and neither of which has appeared in any edition of his collected works. The first is a letter written before Franklin had retired from the editorial profession, and was unquestionably the original record of the rattle-snake story, to which Condorcet gave notoriety as an illustration of Franklin's mode of dealing with a pudding-headed minister of the Colonies. This paper for humor and logic will compare favorably with any of Swift's. The second is a satirical Address from the Throne on the Repeal of the Stamp Act," by Franklin. For both of these precious papers the public will be indebted to the sagacious researches of the late Paul Leicester Ford, whose premature and unnatural death is still deplored as an irreparable loss to both historical and romantic literature. 66 The most surprising novelty which will invite the reader's attention in this edition, however, is "A Speech intended to have been spoken on the Bill for Altering the Charter of Massachusetts Bay," published in London in 1774. No author's name is given in the pamphlet, although it rapidly passed through four editions. In the Catalogue of William George's sons, of Bristol, England, Bishop Jonathan Shipley is given as the author. My reasons for the conviction that in 1774 there was no man in England but Franklin who could have written that speech, will be found in Appendix B, on page 547 of Vol. II. It has also been my rare good fortune to secure for an illustration of this edition a copy of Sir Joshua |