II.

Dr. Franklin informs us, in the very first paragraph of his Memoirs, that he had undertaken to prepare them for the edification of his family. The first eighty-seven pages of the MS., which embrace the first twenty-five years of his life down to his marriage, appear to have been written in 1771, during one of his visits to Twyford, the countryseat of Dr. Shipley, then Bishop of St. Asaph, and without any view to publication.*

The MS. of this part was shown to some of his friends, among others to Mr. Benjamin Vaughan, Mr. Abel James, and to M. le Veillard, who were all so pleased with it that they urged him to resume and publish them. He was persuaded to do so, and in 1784, while residing at Passy, then a suburb of Paris, wrote the succeeding pages of the MS. to page 104. The part written in England was followed with this memorandum, written, doubtless, when he revised the Memoirs in 1789:

"MEM. Thus far was written with the intention expressed in the beginning, and therefore contains several little family anecdotes of no importance to others. What follows was written many years after, and in compliance with the advice contained in these letters,† and accord

"Expecting," he says, “a week's uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement, I sit down to write them for you." The MS. shows that he had originally written it "for your perusal." "Perusal" was afterward stricken out, and "use" written after it. This word was also stricken out, and the phrase left as in the text. The editor of the edition of 1817 strikes out the words "to you" also.

The letters here referred to are from Messrs. Vaughan and James, and will be found in their proper place.

ingly intended for the public. The affairs of the Revolution occasioned the interruption."

Another reason for continuing his Memoirs, and giving them to the press, has been assigned by M. Castera, who published a French edition of some of Franklin's works in 1793. He attributes the Autobiography to a desire on the part of Franklin and his French friends to neutralize the pernicious influence of Rousseau's Confessions, which, during the latter part of Franklin's residence in Paris, were the topic of every salon. These friends thought that it would be curious to compare the history of a writer who seemed to have used his brilliant imagination merely to render himself miserable, with that of a philosopher who employed all the resources of an equally gifted intellect to assure his own happiness by contributing to the happiness of others.

* For the whole Preface, see Appendix, No. I. It is a curious circumstance that the copy of the Memoirs given in this collection of Castera was translated from an English edition, which was itself only a translation from the first French translation, thus removed by three translations from the original. The gossips of Paris used to circulate a story illustrative of Franklin's constitutional propensity to take cheerful views of things. The author of Correspondence secrète inédite sur Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, la Cour et la Ville, de 1777 à 1792, edited by M. Lescure, and published by M. Henri Plon in 1866, writing from Versailles the 6th February, 1777, says: "I fear to speak to you of the Americans. The British Minister represents them as beaten, destroyed, dispersed, annihilated even. Letters from St. Domingo, from our own ports and to M. Franklin, assure us on the contrary that the English are in a bad way; that Howe has been whipped, &c. We wait for confirmation of the news. Meantime I must tell you that Franklin is not the médecin tant pis. For whenever they speak to him at Paris of any check experienced by the Americans, he cries out, 'tant mieux,' the English will be caught at last." Vol. i. p. 18.

A comparison of dates will show that M. Castera's theory was purely imaginary.

*** The self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,

The apostle of affliction,

wrote the first part of his Confessions during his residence in England in the years 1766 and 1767. The second was composed in Dauphiny and at Trye in the years 1768 and 1770. It was his intention that they should not be printed until 1800, presuming that by that time all who figured in them would have ceased to live; but the period he had fixed for their publication was anticipated. The first part was printed in 1781, and the second in 1788. It is not likely that Franklin or any of his friends knew anything of them till the first part was published in 1781, and all of Franklin's Memoirs that Castera published or knew anything of had been written ten years before.

The Doctor returned to the United States in the summer of 1785. In the fall of that year he received a note from his friend, Mr. Edward Bancroft, the tenor of which is sufficiently explained in the following extract from the Doctor's reply:

"DEAR SIR:

"PHILADELPHIA, 26th November, 1785.

"I received your kind letter of September 5th, informing me of the intention Mr. Dilly has of printing a new edition of my writings, and of his desire that I would furnish him with such additions as I may think proper. At present all my papers and manuscripts are so mixed with other things, by the confusions occasioned in sudden and various removals during the late troubles, that I can hardly find anything. But having nearly finished an

addition to my house, which will afford me room to put all in order, I hope soon to be able to comply with such a request; but I hope Mr. Dilly will have a good understanding in the affair with Henry & Johnson, who, having risked the former impressions, may suppose they thereby acquired some right in the copy. As to the Life proposed to be written, if it be by the same hand who furnished a sketch to Dr. Lettsom, which he sent me, I am afraid it will be found too full of errors for either you or me to correct; and having been persuaded by my friends, Messrs. Vaughan and M. le Veillard, Mr. James, of this place, and some others, that such a Life written by myself may be useful to the rising generation, I have made some progress in it, and hope to finish it this winter; so I cannot but wish that project of Mr. Dilly's biographer may be laid aside. I am nevertheless thankful to you for your friendly offer of correcting it.

The Doctor's hopes of completing the Memoirs during the winter of 1785 were not realized, nor did he resume work upon them until three years later.

"As to the little history† I promised you," he writes to his friend, Le Veillard, the 15th April, 1787, "my purpose still continues of completing it, and I hoped to do it this summer, having built an addition to my house, in which I have placed my library, and where I can write without being disturbed by the noise of the children; but

* Sparks' Works of Franklin, vol. x. p. 240.

The only letter we have from M. le Veillard bears date, Passy, Oct. 9, 1785. He says, in allusion to this subject: "I hope you have been industrious during your passage, and that you have finished your Memoirs, and will send them to me." Sparks' Works of Franklin, vol. x. p. 231.

the General Assembly having lately desired my assistance at a great convention to be held in May next for amending the Federal Constitution, I begin to doubt whether I can make any progress in it till that business is over."

In the same letter he adds farther on:

"You blame me for writing three pamphlets and neglecting to write the little history: you should consider they were written at sea, out of my own head; the other could not so well be written there for want of the documents that could only be had here."

On the 24th of October, 1788, the Doctor writes to M. le Veillard as follows:

"I have been much afflicted the last summer with a long-continued fit of the gout, which I am not quite clear of, though much better; my other malady is not augmented. I have lately made great progress in the work you so urgently demand, and have come as far as my fiftieth year. Being now free from public business, as my term in the Presidentship is expired, and resolving to engage in no other public employment, I expect to have it finished in about two months, if illness or some unforeseen interruption does not prevent. I do not, therefore, send a part at this time, thinking it better to retain the whole till I can view it all together, and make the proper corrections."†

William Temple Franklin also writes on the 17th of November, 1788:

"Our new government goes on in its way. Many

* Le Veillard Collection. For the entire letter, see Appendix,

No. 2.

Ibid.

For the entire letter, see Appendix, No. 3.