military companies of Philadelphia, numbering twelve hundred men, immediately elected him their colonel, and he accepted the honor. A grand parade of these companies, their artillery drawn by "some of the largest and most stately horses in the province," occurred at Philadelphia, a few weeks after his return. It was a great day for Philadelphia and for Franklin. "When the regiment came opposite to the colonel's door" (on its return from the review), "they were again drawn up in battalion, and made one general discharge of small arms, and several discharges of cannon. Then the several companies marched off to their respective places of rendezvous, and saluted their captains, on being dismissed, with a discharge of their fire-arms. The whole was conducted with the greatest order and regularity, and, notwithstanding the vast concourse of people, not the least accident happened to any one. It is allowed, on all hands, that most of the platoon firings, the general fire of the regiment, and the discharge of the artillery, were nearly as well performed as they could be by any troops whatever. And it is likewise agreed, that so grand an appearance was never before seen in Pennsylvania."*

Franklin mentions in his autobiography that this general discharge of small arms and cannon, broke several glasses of his electrical apparatus. "And my new honor," he adds, "proved not much less brittle, for all our commissions were soon after broken by a repeal of the law in England."

To complete the military part of Franklin's history, it may be proper to add, that one cold day in November, 1756, nine months after Franklin had left the frontier, while part of the garrison of Fort Allen were skating on the River Lehigh, a body of Indians rushed upon the fort, killed or captured the inmates, frightened away the skaters, and burnt again the village, as well as the stockade built by Franklin to defend it. Several years, indeed, were yet to elapse before the frontiers of Pennsylvania were safe from the savage foe. But Franklin was called to labor for the defense of the province in other scenes.

* Philadelphia Gazette, March 25th, 1756.

+ Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, ii., 206

CHAPTER IV.

THE OLD DISPUTE REACHES A CRISIS.

THE Assembly was again embroiled with the governor. Even the five thousand pounds granted by the proprietaries proved to be only a new cause of exasperation, for it soon appeared that it was to be paid in driblets, as it could be wrung from farmers whose quit-rents were in arrears.

Perhaps here, as conveniently as anywhere, may be stated the few essential facts of this acrimonious controversy, which occupied the mind and pen of Franklin during the first fifteen years of his public life, and which may be regarded as the rehearsal of the grander drama of a later day. I again remark that it was Franklin who chiefly educated the colonies in a knowledge of their rights. He did this in many ways; by his Junto, by his newspaper, by his conversation, by the libraries founded through him, by the taste for science which he communicated; but especially by the ardor and ability with which he waged this long warfare against arrogant Stupidity, embodied in the degenerate offspring of William Penn.

"This day," wrote William Penn, January 5th, 1681, "my country was confirmed to me by the name of Pennsylvania, a name the King (Charles II.) would give it in honor of my father. I chose New Wales, being as this a pretty hilly country. ** I proposed (when the Secretary, a Welshman, refused to have it called New Wales) Sylvania, and they added Penn to it; and though I much opposed it, and went to the king to have it struck out and altered, he said 'twas past, and would take it upon him: nor would twenty guineas move the under-secretaries to vary the name-for I feared lest it should be looked upon as a vanity in me, and not as a respect in the king, as it truly was to my father, whom he often mentions with praise."

In return for this grant of twenty-six million acres of the best land in the universe, William Penn was to deliver, annually, at Windsor Castle, two beaver skins, pay into the king's treasury one-fifth of the gold and silver which the province might yield, govern the province in conformity with the laws of England, and as became a liege of England's king. Penn was the captain-general

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of the province, with power to treat with savage tribes and make war upon them. He was to appoint judges and magistrates; could pardon all crimes, except murder and treason; and whatsoever things he could lawfully do himself, he could empower a deputy to do-he and his heirs for ever. But he could lay no impost, no customs, no tax, nor enact a law, without the consent of the freemen of the province in Assembly represented. Of the land he was absolute proprietor; nor would he dispose of any of it absolutely. He sold great tracts at forty shillings per hundred acres, all subject to an annual quit-rent of one shilling per hundred acres. He also reserved manors, city lots, and various portions of territory; either holding them against a rise in value, or letting them to tenants. Thus was founded an estate, which, in 1755, was estimated to be worth ten millions sterling, and which then produced a clear annual revenue of thirty thousand pounds-magnified in popular belief to one hundred thousand.

William Penn, twice married, left six children. The province of Pennsylvania be bequeathed to the three sons of his second marriage, John, Thomas, and Richard, giving to the eldest a double portion. John, who thus became the proprietor of onehalf of the province, died in 1746, and left his whole estate to his brother Thomas. In Franklin's day, therefore, the proprietaries were two in number, Thomas Penn, who owned three-fourths of the province, and Richard Penn, who owned one-fourth. Penn was a man of business, careful, saving, and methodical. Thomas Richard Penn was a spendthrift. Both were men of slender abilities, and not of very estimable character. They had done some liberal acts for the province, such as sending over presents to the library of books and apparatus, and cannon for the defense of Philadelphia. If the Pennsylvanians had been more submissive, they would doubtless have continued their benefactions. But, unhappily, they cherished those erroneous, those tory notions of the rights of sovereignty which Lord Bute infused into the contracted mind of George III., and which cost that dull and obstinate monarch, first, his colonies, and then his senses. rooted in the British mind, that a land-owner is entitled to the It is also particular respect of his species. These Penns, in addition to the pride of possessing acres by the million, felt themselves to be the lords of the land they owned, and of the people who dwelt upon

it. And, it must be confessed, they were long upheld in this belief by the Pennsylvanians themselves. When one of the proprietaries deigned to visit the province, he received addresses, as a king might from his subjects, and replied to them with a brevity more than royal. Franklin, once, in his leather-apron days, wrote an eloquent address, asking one of the Penns to take the infant library under his distinguished patronage. Franklin's address fills three-quarters of a column in the Gazette. The high and mighty Penn replied in three lines and a half. That was the way of the world then, and Thomas and Richard Penn were of a caliber to be as completely taken in by it as George III. was. The tone and style of all their later communications to the Pennsylvanians were those of offended lords to contumacious vassals. And yet, at home, as William Franklin wrathfully records, they were so insignificant as "hardly to be found in the herd of gentry: not in court, not in office, not in parliament."

These gentlemen ruled their province by a deputy governor, an official whose life, as we have already seen, was not a happy one. If among the millions who have tried to serve two masters, not one has succeeded, how hopeless the case of a governor who was required to serve three, namely, the proprietaries who could take away his office, the Assembly who could withhold his salary, and the king of England who could cut off his head. This was the real difficulty. The poor governor was so trammeled by instructions, that he could only comply with the demands of the Assembly by forfeiting his place, and he could only obey his instructions by risking his salary; while, occasionally, would come over the express commands of the king, requiring him to do something which he could only do by mortally offending one of his other masters. The instructions of the proprietaries were minute and stringent, covering all topics liable to create controversy. The governor's hands were so ignominiously tied, that he was ashamed to exhibit his instructions, and, consequently, for many years, the Assembly could seldom be sure whether it was the folly of the proprietaries or the obstinacy of their deputy that was the real obstacle to the harmonious government of the province. Once, indeed, a governor, on returning a bill to the House, frankly wrote: "You will be pleased to observe how I am circumstanced, and that I cannot recede from my instructions without risking both my honor and

fortune, which, I am persuaded, you, gentlemen, are too equitable to desire."

Franklin, in one of his numberless essays on this inexhaustible subject, gives an amusing example of what he calls "the commerce" between the Governor and the Assembly. Sundry bills having been long in the hands of the Governor awaiting his signature, the House appointed a committee to jog his excellency's memory. The Governor replied, that he had had the bills under consideration, and "waited the result in the House." These enigmatic words were understood by the Assembly, who immediately resolved to take the matter of the Governor's support into consideration. Some progress was made toward the passage of the bill for his supply. Still, no money was voted. The next morning the Governor sent a message to the House, informing them that, " as he had received assurances of a good disposition" on their part, he was willing to sign the bills without amendment. But the bills were not signed. A few days after, the House resolved that, on the passage of the bills then before the Governor, orders on the Treasurer for fifteen hundred pounds be presented to his excellency, for his support during the year. "The orders," says Franklin, "were accordingly drawn; with which being acquainted, he appointed a time to pass the bills; which was done with one hand, while he received the orders in the other; and then, with the utmost politeness he thanked the House for the fifteen hundred pounds, as if it had been a pure free gift, and a mere mark of their respect and affection. 'I thank you, gentlemen,' says he, 'for this instance of your regard, which I am the more pleased with, as it gives an agreeable prospect of future harmony between me and the representatives of the people.' ”*

This occurred in peaceful times, and the story was told as a mere state-house joke. "It is a happy country," remarks Franklin in commenting upon it, "where justice, and what was your own before, can be had for ready money. It is another addition to the value of money, and of course another spur to industry. Every land is not so blessed. There are countries where the princely proprietor claims to be lord of all property, where what is your own shall not only be wrested from you, but the money you give to have it

* Sparks, iv., 103.