MDXXXI: A THOUGHT CONCERNING THE SUGAR ISLANDS

Should it be agreed, and become a part of the law of nations, that the cultivators of the earth are not to be molested or interrupted in their peaceable and useful Edition: current; Page: [40] employment, the inhabitants of the sugar islands would come under the protection of such a regulation, which would be a great advantage to the nations who at present hold those islands; since the cost of sugar to the consumer in those nations consists, not only in the price he pays for it by the pound, but in the accummulated charge of all the taxes he pays in every war to fit out fleets and maintain troops for the defence of the islands that raise the sugar, and the ships that bring it home.

But the expenses of treasure is not all. A celebrated philosophical writer remarks, that when he considered the wars made in Africa for prisoners to raise sugar in America, the number slain in those wars, the numbers that, being crowded in ships, perish in the transportation, and the numbers that die under the severities of slavery, he could scarce look on a morsel of sugar without conceiving it spotted with human blood. If he had considered also the blood of one another which the white natives shed in fighting for those islands, he would have imagined his sugar not as spotted only, but as thoroughly dyed red.

On these accounts I am persuaded that the subjects of the Emperor of Germany, and the Empress of Russia, who have no sugar islands, consume sugar cheaper at Vienna and Moscow, with all the charge of transporting it, after its arrival in Europe, than the citizens of London and Paris. And I sincerely believe that, if France and England were to decide, by throwing dice, which should have the whole of the sugar islands, the loser in the throw would be the Edition: current; Page: [41] gainer. The future expense of defending them would be saved; the sugars would be bought cheaper by all Europe, if the inhabitants might make it without interruption; and, who ever imported the sugar, the same revenue might be raised by duties at the custom-house of the nation that consumed it. And, on the whole, I conceive it would be better for the nations now possessing sugar colonies, to give up their claim to them, let them govern themselves, and put them under the protection of all the Powers of Europe as neutral countries open to the commerce of all, the profit of the present monopolies being by no means equivalent to the expense of maintaining them.

MDXXXII: REFLECTIONS ON THE AUGMENTATION OF WAGES WHICH WILL BE OCCASIONED IN EUROPE BY THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION1

The independence and prosperity of the United States of America will raise the price of wages in Europe, an advantage of which I believe no one has yet spoken.

The low rate of wages is one of the greatest defects Edition: current; Page: [42] in the political associations of Europe, or rather of the old world.

If the term wages be taken in its widest signification, it will be found that almost all the citizens of a large State receive and pay wages. I shall confine my remarks, however, to one description of wages, the only one with which government should intermeddle, or which requires its care. I mean the wages of the lowest class, those men without property, without capital, who live solely by the labor of their hands. This is always the most numerous class in a state; and consequently, that cannot be pronounced happy in which, from the lowness and insufficiency of wages, the laboring class procure so scanty a subsistence that, barely able to provide for their own necessities, they have not the means of marrying and rearing a family, and are reduced to beggary whenever employment fails them, or age and sickness oblige them to give up work.

Further, the wages under consideration ought not to be estimated by their amount in money, but by the quantity of provisions, clothing, and other commodities which the laborer can procure for the money which he receives.

Unhappily, in all the political states of the old world, a numerous class of citizens have nothing to live upon but their wages, and these are inadequate to their support. This is the real cause of the misery of so many day laborers who work in the fields, or in manufactories in towns; of pauperism, an evil which is spreading every day, more and more, because governments attempt to check it by feeble Edition: current; Page: [43] remedies only; of depravity of morals; and of almost every crime. The policy of tyranny and of commerce has overlooked and disguised these truths. The horrible maxim that the people must be poor, in order that they may remain in subjection, is still held by many persons of hard hearts and perverted understanding, with whom it were useless to contend. Others, again, think that the people should be poor, from a regard of the supposed interests of commerce. They believe that to increase the rate of wages would raise the price of the productions of the soil, and especially of industry, which are sold to foreign nations, and thus that exportation and the profits arising from it would be diminished. But this motive is at once cruel and ill founded.

It is cruel; for, whatever may be the advantages of foreign commerce, if in order to possess them, half the nation must languish in misery, we cannot without crime endeavor to obtain them, and it becomes the duty of a government to relinquish them. To desire to keep down the rate of wages, with the view of favoring the exportation of merchandise, is to seek to render the citizens of a state miserable, in order that foreigners may purchase its productions at a cheaper rate; it is, at the most, attempting to enrich a few merchants by impoverishing the body of the nation; it is taking the part of the stronger in that contest, already so unequal, between the man who can pay wages, and him who is under the necessity of receiving them; it is, in one word, to forget that the object of every political society ought to be the happiness of the largest number.

This motive is, moreover, ill founded; for, in order to secure to a nation a profitable export for the products of its agriculture and manufactures, it is not necessary that the rate of wages should be reduced so extremely low as we find it in almost all the countries of Europe. It is not the wages of the workman, but the price of the merchandise, that should be lowered, in order that this merchandise may be sold to foreign nations. But men have always neglected to make this distinction. The wages of the laborer are the price of his day’s work. The price of merchandise is the sum it costs to gather the produce of the soil, or prepare any product of industry. The price of this production may be very moderate, while the laborer may receive good wages—that is, the means of procuring a comfortable subsistence. The labor necessary to gather or prepare the article to be sold may be cheap, and the wages of the workman good. Although the workmen of Manchester and Norwich, and those of Amiens and Abbeville, are employed in the same kind of labor, the former receive considerably higher wages than the latter; and yet the woollen fabrics of Manchester and Norwich, of the same quality, are not so dear as those of Amiens and Abbeville.

It would occupy too much time fully to develop this principle. I will only observe here, that it results in a great measure from the fact that the price of labor in the arts, and even in agriculture, is wonderfully diminished by the perfection of the machinery employed in them, by the intelligence and activity of the workmen, and by the judicious division of Edition: current; Page: [45] labor. Now these methods of reducing the price of manufactured articles have nothing to do with the low wages of the workman. In a large manufactory, where animals are employed instead of men, and machinery instead of animal power, and where that judicious division of labor is made which doubles, nay, increases tenfold, both power and time, the article can be manufactured and sold at a much lower rate than in those establishments which do not enjoy the same advantages; and yet the workmen in the former may receive twice as much as in the latter.

It is, undoubtedly, an advantage for a manufactory to obtain workmen at a moderate price; and excessively high wages are an obstacle to the foundation of large manufacturing establishments. This high price of wages, as I shall presently explain, is one reason for the opinion which is entertained, that it will be many years before the manufactures of the United States of America can rival those of Europe. But we must not conclude from this, that manufactures cannot prosper, unless the wages of the workmen are reduced as low as we find them in Europe. And, moreover, the insufficiency of wages occasions the decline of a manufactory, as its prosperity is promoted by a high rate of wages.

High wages attract the most skilful and most industrious workmen. Thus the article is better made; it sells better; and, in this way, the employer makes a greater profit than he could do by diminishing the pay of the workmen. A good workman spoils fewer tools, wastes less material, and works faster than one Edition: current; Page: [46] of inferior skill; and thus the profits of the manufacturer are increased still more.

The perfection of machinery in all the arts is owing, in a great degree, to the workmen. There is no important manufacture in which they have not invented some useful process, which saves time and materials, or improves the workmanship. If common articles of manufacture, the only ones worthy to interest the statesman, if woollen, cotton, and even silk stuffs, articles made of iron, steel, copper, skins, leather, and various other things, are generally of better quality, at the same price, in England than in other countries, it is because workmen are there better paid.

The low rate of wages, then, is not the real cause of the advantages of commerce between one nation and another; but it is one of the greatest evils of political communities.

Let us now inquire what is the situation of the United States in this respect. The condition of the day laborer, in these States, is infinitely better than in the wealthiest countries in the old world, and particularly England, where, however, wages are higher than in any other part of Europe. In the State of New York, the lowest class of workmen and those employed in the most ordinary kinds of labor usually gain “three shillings and sixpence currency, equal to two shillings sterling, a day; ship-carpenters, ten shillings and sixpence currency, with a pint of rum, equal in all to five shillings and sixpence sterling; house-carpenters and bricklayers, eight shillings currency, equal to four shillings and sixpence sterling; Edition: current; Page: [47] journeymen tailors, five shillings currency, equal to about two shillings and ten pence sterling.”

These prices, much higher than those of London, are quite as high in other parts of the United States as in New York. I have taken them from Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.1

An intelligent observer, who travelled through a part of the United States in 1780, gives us a still more favorable idea of the price that is paid there for work.

“At Farmington,” says he, “I saw them weaving a kind of camblet, and also a blue and white striped woollen cloth, for women’s clothing. These fabrics are all sold at three shillings and sixpence per ell,2 in the currency of the country, equal to about forty-five sous tournois. The sons and the grandsons of the master of the house were working at the business. One workman can easily make five ells of this cloth a day, and, as the original material costs but a shilling, he can earn ten or twelve shillings by his day’s labor.”

But this fact is so well known that it is superfluous to attempt to prove it by further examples.

The causes of the high price of labor in our American States must then continue to operate more and more powerfully, since agriculture and population advance there with such rapidity that labor of every description is increased in proportion.

Nor is this all. The high rate of wages paid them in money proves that they are even better than one would suppose them at first view; and in order to estimate them correctly, an important circumstance should be known. In every part of North America the necessities of life are cheaper than in England. Scarcity is unknown there. In the least productive seasons, the harvest is always sufficient for the supply of the inhabitants, and they are only obliged to diminish the exportation of their produce. Now, the price of labor in money being higher there than in England, and provisions cheaper, the actual wages, that is the amount of necessary articles which the day laborer can buy, is so much the greater.

It remains for me to show how the high rate of wages in America will increase their rate in Europe.

Two distinct causes will unite in producing this effect. The first is the greater quantity of labor that Europe will have to perform in consequence of the existence of another great nation in the commercial world, and of its continual increase; and the second, the emigration of European workmen, or the mere possibility of their emigrating, in order to go to America, where labor is better paid.

It is certain that the amount of labor in the various Edition: current; Page: [49] branches of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation must be augmented in Europe by the addition of several millions of men to the commercial world. Now the amount of manual labor being increased, labor will be somewhat better paid, and the rate of daily wages received by the workmen will be raised by this concurrence of circumstances. For example, if the additional supply of one hundred thousand pieces of cloth, twenty thousand casks of wine, and ten thousand casks of brandy, is to be furnished to the Americans, not only will the persons necessarily employed in the production or manufacture of these commodities receive higher wages, but the price of all other kinds of labor will be augmented.

The rate of wages in Europe will be raised by yet another circumstance with which it is important to be acquainted. I have already said that the value of wages ought not to be estimated solely by the amount of money, nor even by the quantity of subsistence which the workman receives per day, but also by the number of days in which he is employed; for it is by such a calculation alone that we can find out what he has for each day. Is it not evident that he who should be paid at the rate of forty pence a day, and should fail of obtaining work half the year, would really have but twenty pence to subsist upon, and that he would be less advantageously situated than the man who, receiving but thirty pence, could yet be supplied with work every day? Thus the Americans, occasioning in Europe an increased demand and necessity for labor, would also necessarily Edition: current; Page: [50] cause there an augmentation of wages, even supposing the price of the day’s work to remain at the same rate.

Perhaps it will be objected to what I have said, that this new nation will contain within itself as many laboring people as it can employ, and that thus, adding nothing to the quantity of work to be performed in Europe, it will be no advantage to the men who perform this work. But I reply that it is impossible but that the United States of America, in their present condition, and much more when their population and wealth shall be doubled, nay quadrupled, should employ the labor of Europeans one way or another. It is impossible, because in this respect the Americans are not differently situated from other nations, who all have need of each other. The fertility of the American soil, the abundance and variety of its productions, the activity and industry of its inhabitants, and the unrestricted commerce, which will sooner or later be established in Europe in consequence of the American independence, secure the relations of America with other countries, because she will furnish to other nations such of her productions as they may require; and as each country possesses some productions peculiar to itself, the demand and advantage will be reciprocal.

The second cause, which I have said must cooperate in producing an augmentation of wages in Europe, is emigration, or the mere possibility of emigrating to America, where labor is better paid. It is easy to conceive that when this difference is generally known, it will draw to the United States Edition: current; Page: [51] many men, who, having no means of subsistence but their labor, will flock to the place where this labor is best recompensed. Since the last peace the Irish have been continually emigrating to America. The reason of this is, that in Ireland wages are much less than in England, and that the lower classes are consequently great sufferers. Germany has also furnished new citizens to the United States; and all these laborers must, by leaving Europe, have raised the price of work for those who remain.

This salutary effect will be produced even without emigration, and will result from the mere possibility of emigrating, at least in those states of Europe whose inhabitants are not compelled to leave their own country by excessive taxation, bad laws, and the intolerance of government.

In order to raise the rate of wages it is enough that higher wages can be obtained in any place to which the workman who depends upon them can remove. It has been wisely remarked in the discussions which have arisen upon the corn-trade, that the simple liberty of exporting grain would keep up and even raise its price without the actual exportation of a single bushel. The case is the same with wages. As European workmen can so easily remove to America to procure higher wages, they will oblige those who purchase their labor to pay them more for it.

Hence it follows, that these two causes of the rise of wages, actual emigration and the mere possibility of emigrating, will concur to produce the same effect. Each acting at first in an inconsiderable degree, there will be some emigration. Then wages will be Edition: current; Page: [52] raised, and the laborer, finding his gains increase, will no longer have a sufficiently powerful motive to emigrate.

But the rise of wages will not be equally felt by the different nations of Europe. It will be more or less considerable in proportion to the greater or less facilities for emigration which each affords. England, whose manners, language, and religion are the same with those of America, must naturally enjoy this advantage in a higher degree than any other European state. We may assert that she already owes much to America; for her relations with that country, the market which she has found there for her merchandise, and which has raised the wages of the day laborers employed in her agriculture and manufactures, are among the principal causes of her wealth, and of the political influence we find her exerting.

But, to say nothing of other advantages which may ultimately accrue from the rise of wages, this augmentation has already produced one most valuable result in England. It has ameliorated the condition of that class of men who live by the labor of their hands alone—that is, the most numerous portion of society. This class, elsewhere reduced to the most scanty subsistence, are much better off in England. They there obtain by their labor the necessaries of life in greater abundance than in many other parts of Europe; and there can be no doubt that this springs from the influence of American commerce on the rate of wages.

I know it may be said that, notwithstanding the Edition: current; Page: [53] increase of labor and of subsistence in Europe, and notwithstanding the emigration which may take place, the same causes which we have mentioned, and which have reduced wages so low, will continue to operate, because they are inherent in the constitutions of European states, whose defects will not be remedied by the liberty and prosperity of America. Perhaps it may be said, also, that the number of proprietors and capitalists, a number very small compared with that of the men who, having no landed property nor capital, are compelled to live upon wages, will remain the same, because the causes which accumulate landed property and capital in their hands will not change, and consequently that they will reduce, or rather keep wages very low. Finally, it may be said that the tyranny of the feudal laws, the mode of taxation, the excessive increase of the public revenue, and the laws of commerce, will always produce the same effect of diminishing wages, and that, should Europe derive any real advantage, in this respect, from American independence, it would not be permanent.

To these suggestions, many things may be said in reply. I will observe, in the first place, that, if the governments of Europe endeavor to counteract the salutary effects which the independence of America would naturally produce in respect to them, it is not the less interesting to endeavor to ascertain what these effects would be. Better days may come when, the true principles of the happiness of nations being better understood, there will be some sovereign sufficiently enlightened and just to put them in Edition: current; Page: [54] operation. The causes, which tend continually to accumulate and concentrate landed property and wealth in a few hands, may be diminished. The remains of the feudal system may be abolished, or, at least, rendered less oppressive. The mode of taxation may be changed, and its excess moderated. And, lastly, bad commercial regulations may be amended. The tendency of all these improvements will be to enable the working classes to profit by the favorable change which the American Revolution must naturally produce.

But, admitting that all the causes, which have just been mentioned, should concur to keep the wages, which the day laborer receives for his work in Europe, at a low rate, they could, however, only weaken the influence exerted by the prosperity of America, and not wholly destroy it. If every thing else remained in the same state, there would still be a greater consumption, and consequently more labor to be performed. Now, this consumption and labor continually increasing in the same ratio with the increase of population and wealth in the new world, an augmentation of wages in Europe will be the necessary result; for the counteracting causes will not operate more powerfully than they now do.1

MDXXXIII: OBSERVATIONS ON WAR

By the original law of nations, war and extirpation were the punishment of injury. Humanizing by degrees, it admitted slavery instead of death; a farther step was the exchange of prisoners, instead of slavery; another, to respect more the property of Edition: current; Page: [56] private persons under conquest, and be content with acquired dominion. Why should not this law of nations go on improving? Ages have intervened between its several steps; but as knowledge of late increases rapidly, why should not those steps be quickened? Why should it not be agreed to, as the future law of nations, that in any war hereafter, the following description of men should be undisturbed, have the protection of both sides, and be permitted to follow their employments in security? viz.:

1. Cultivators of the earth, because they labor for the subsistence of mankind.

2. Fishermen, for the same reason.

3. Merchants and traders in unarmed ships, who accommodate different nations by communicating and exchanging the necessaries and conveniences of life.

4. Artists and mechanics, inhabiting and working in open towns.

It is hardly necessary to add that the hospitals of enemies should be unmolested;—they ought to be assisted. It is for the interest of humanity in general, that the occasions of war, and the inducements to it, should be diminished. If rapine be abolished, one of the encouragements to war is taken away; and peace therefore more likely to continue and be lasting.

The practice of robbing merchants on the high seas—a remnant of the ancient piracy,—though it may be accidentally beneficial to particular persons, is far from being profitable to all engaged in it, or to the nation that authorizes it. In the beginning of a war, some rich ships are surprised and taken. This Edition: current; Page: [57] encourages the first adventurers to fit out more armed vessels, and many others to do the same. But the enemy at the same time become more careful, arm their merchant-ships better, and render them not so easy to be taken; they go also more under the protection of convoys. Thus, while the privateers to take them are multiplied, the vessels subject to be taken, and the chances of profit, are diminished; so that many cruises are made, wherein the expenses overgo the gains; and, as is the case in other lotteries, though particulars have got prizes, the mass of adventurers are losers, the whole expense of fitting out all the privateers during a war being much greater than the whole amount of goods taken.

Then there is the national loss of all the labor of so many men during the time they have been employed in robbing, who, besides, spend what they get in riot, drunkenness, and debauchery, lose their habits of industry, are rarely fit for any sober business after a peace, and serve only to increase the number of highwaymen and house-breakers. Even the undertakers, who have been fortunate, are by sudden wealth led into expensive living, the habit of which continues, when the means of supporting it cease, and finally ruins them; a just punishment for their having wantonly and unfeelingly ruined many honest, innocent traders and their families, whose substance was employed in serving the common interest of mankind.

MDXXXIV: THE CLAIMS OF THE AMERICAN LOYALISTS; AN APOLOGUE

Lion, king of a certain forest, had among his subjects a body of faithful dogs, in principle and affection strongly attached to his person and government, and through whose assistance he had extended his dominions, and had become the terror of his enemies.

Lion, however, influenced by evil councellors, took an aversion to the dogs, condemned them unheard, and ordered his tigers, leopards, and panthers to attack and destroy them.

The dogs petitioned humbly, but their petitions were rejected haughtily; and they were forced to defend themselves, which they did with bravery.

A few among them, of a mongrel race, derived from a mixture with wolves and foxes, corrupted by royal promises of great rewards, deserted the honest dogs and joined their enemies.

The dogs were finally victorious; a treaty of peace was made, in which Lion acknowledged them to be free, and disclaimed all future authority over them.

The mongrels, not being permitted to return among them, claimed of the royalists the reward that had been promised.

A council of the beasts was held to consider their demand.

The wolves and the foxes agreed unanimously that the demand was just, that royal promises ought to be Edition: current; Page: [59] kept, and that every loyal subject should contribute freely to enable his Majesty to fulfil them.

The horse alone, with a boldness and freedom that became the nobleness of his nature, delivered a contrary opinion.

“The king,” said he, “has been misled by bad ministers, to war unjustly upon his faithful subjects. Royal promises, when made to encourage us to act for the public good, should indeed be honorably acquitted; but if to encourage us to betray and destroy each other they are wicked and void from the beginning. The advisers of such promises, and those who murdered in consequence of them instead of being recompensed, should be severely punished. Consider how greatly our common strength is already diminished by the loss of the dogs. If you enable the king to reward these fratricides, you will establish a precedent that may justify a future tyrant in making like promises; and every example of such an unnatural brute rewarded will give them additional weight. Horses and bulls, as well as dogs, may thus be divided against their own kind, and civil wars produced at pleasure, till we are so weakened that neither liberty nor safety is any longer to be found in the forest, and nothing remains but abject submission to the will of a despot, who may devour us as he pleases.”

The council had sense enough to resolve,—That the demand be rejected.

MDXXXV: ANALYSIS OF THE AMERICAN LOYALISTS

. . . Two hundred and eighty-eight persons called Loyalists, and specified by name in the Morning Post, classed in the following manner:

MDXXXVI: CATALOGUE LIST OF BRITISH CRUELTIES1

. . . . . .

1. The burning of Charlestown, (date ——), a fine town by the waterside, being a port, but without any defence. A spire, rising among the houses, belonging to the House of Worship. A belfrey belonging to the Town House all in flames, the inhabitants had all left it.

2. The burning of Falmouth—date, November, 1775—a fine town and port, but without defence. Ships firing hot shot, and throwing bombs and carcases into the town; English colors. The houses partly in flames, sailors with torches setting fire to others.

The inhabitants flying out of it, carrying off the sick and aged. Women with children in their arms, some killed as they go off, and lying on the ground.

3. The burning of Norfolk, fine town and port, several churches, Town House. Inhabitants flying as above, and ships firing.

People flying, etc.

8. The putting prisoners to death in cold blood after having surrendered their arms, and demanded quarter. Baylor’s troop.

9. Prisoners dying in their gaols with hunger, cold, and want of fresh air.

10. Dunmore’s hiring the negroes to murder their master’s family.

A large house.

Blacks armed with guns and hangers. Master and his sons on the ground dead, wife and daughters lifted up in the arms of the negroes as they are carrying off.

11. Savages killing and scalping the frontier farmers and their families, women and children. English officers mixed with the savages, and giving them orders and encouraging them.

12. Governor Tomyn sitting in state, a table before him, his soldiers and savages bringing him scalps of the Georgia people, and presenting them. Money on the table with which he pays for them.

13. The commanding officer at Niagara, receiving in like manner the scalps of the Wyoming families.

14. The King of England, giving audience to his Secretary at War, who presents him a schedule entitled Acct. of Scalps. Which he receives very graciously.

15. American prisoners, put on board men-of-war, and whipped to make them fight against their countrymen and relations.

16. Americans put on board ships in irons to be carried to the East Indies, and Senegal, where they die with misery and the unwholesomeness of the climate.

17. Burning the wounded with straw at the Crooked Billet, small place in Pennsylvania.

18. ——prisoners killed and roasted for a great Festival where the Canadi [mutilated in MS.] Indians are eating American flesh, Colonel Butler an English officer sitting at table.

19. British officers who, being prisoners on parole, are well received in the best American families, and take that opportunity of corrupting negroes and engaging them to desert from the house, to rob, and even murder their masters.

20. American officers who, as they arrive in the British camp, are insulted by an enraged soldiery—their money, their cockades, their sword, and all their clothes taken away from them.

21. A duty prison-ship where American officers are confined without being at liberty to take the air, and so crowded that they can live but a few days. British officers come to laugh at them and insult their miseries —— of ———.

22. British officers plundering with their own hands from houses, abusing the old people of the house, insulting the young landlady, and frightening the children.

23. An honorable captain coming last spring in the house of a gentleman called Mr. West at White Marsh, rushing in the room where Miss West and another young lady were sleeping, at two o’clock in the morning. The captain and soldiers jump to the beds of the two ladies and with fixed bayonets upon their breasts, make several enquiries and laugh at their dreadful situation in the most abusive manner.

24. An other right honorable captain going out on a detachment and killing defenceless people.

25. General Gage’s perfidy to the inhabitants of Boston.

26. Counterfeiting the paper money.

MDXXXVII: THE PROSPECT FOR EMIGRANTS TO AMERICA

Your queries concerning the value of land in different circumstances and situations, modes of settlement, etc., etc., are quite out of my power to answer; having while I lived in America been always an inhabitant of capital cities, and not in the way of learning any thing correctly of country affairs. There is a book lately published in London written by Mr. Hector St. John, its title, Letters from an American Farmer, which contains a good deal of information on those subjects; and as I know the author to be an observing, intelligent man, I suppose the information to be good as far as it goes, and I recommend the book to your perusal.

There is no doubt but great tracts may be purchased on the frontiers of Virginia and the Carolinas, at moderate rates. In Virginia it used to be at £5 sterling the 100 acres. I know not the present price, but do not see why it should be higher.

Emigrants arriving pay no fine or premium for being admitted to all the privileges of citizens. Those are acquired by two years’ residence.

No rewards are given to encourage new settlers to come among us, whatever degree of property they Edition: current; Page: [65] may bring with them, nor any exemptions from common duties. Our country offers to strangers nothing but a good climate, fertile soil, wholesome air, free governments, wise laws, liberty, a good people to live among, and a hearty welcome. Those Europeans who have these or greater advantages at home, would do well to stay where they are.

MDXLIV: OBSERVATIONS RELATIVE TO THE INTENTIONS OF THE ORIGINAL FOUNDERS OF THE ACADEMY IN PHILADELPHIA, JUNE, 1789

As the English school in the Academy has been, and still continues to be, a subject of dispute and Edition: current; Page: [75] discussion among the trustees since the restitution of the charter, and it has been proposed that we should have some regard to the original intention of the founders in establishing that school, I beg leave, for your information, to lay before you what I know of that matter originally, and what I find on the minutes relating to it, by which it will appear how far the design of that school has been adhered to or neglected.

Having acquired some little reputation among my fellow-citizens, by projecting the public library in 1732, and obtaining the subscriptions by which it was established, and by proposing and promoting, with success, sundry other schemes of utility in 1749, I was encouraged to hazard another project, that of a public education for our youth. As in the scheme of the library I had provided only for English books, so in this new scheme my ideas went no further than to procure the means of a good English education. A number of my friends, to whom I communicated the proposal, concurred with me in these ideas; but Mr. Allen, Mr. Francis, Mr. Peters, and some other persons of wealth and learning, whose subscriptions and countenance we should need, being of opinion that it ought to include the learned languages, I submitted my judgment to theirs, retaining, however, a strong prepossession in favor of my first plan, and resolving to preserve as much of it as I could, and to nourish the English school by every means in my power.

Before I went about to procure subscriptions, I thought it proper to prepare the minds of the people Edition: current; Page: [76] by a pamphlet, which I wrote, and printed, and distributed with my newspapers gratis. The title was, Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania. I happen to have preserved one of them; and, by reading a few passages, it will appear how much the English learning was insisted upon in it; and I had good reasons to know that this was a prevailing part of the motives for subscribing with most of the original benefactors.1 I met with but Edition: current; Page: [77] few refusals in soliciting the subscriptions; and the sum was the more considerable, as I had put the contribution on this footing, that it was not to be Edition: current; Page: [78] immediate, and the whole paid at once, but in parts, a fifth annually during five years. To put the machine in motion, twenty-four of the principal Edition: current; Page: [79] subscribers agreed to take upon themselves the trust; and a set of constitutions for their government, and for the regulation of the schools, were Edition: current; Page: [80] drawn up by Mr. Francis and myself, which were signed by us all, and printed, that the public might know what was to be expected. I wrote also a Edition: current; Page: [81] paper, entitled Idea of an English School, which was printed, and afterwards annexed to Mr. Peters’ sermon, preached at the opening of the Academy. This paper was said to be for the consideration of the trustees; and the expectation of the public that the idea might in a great measure be carried into execution, contributed to render the subscriptions more liberal as well as more general. I mention my concern in these transactions, to show the opportunity I had of being well informed in the points I am relating.

These constitutions are upon record in your minutes; Edition: current; Page: [82] and, although the Latin and Greek are by them to be taught, the original idea of a complete English education was not forgotten, as will appear by the following extracts.

Page 1. “The English tongue is to be taught grammatically, and as a language.”

Page 4. In reciting the qualification of the person to be appointed rector, it is said, “that great regard is to be had to his polite speaking, writing, and understanding the English tongue.”

“The rector was to have two hundred pounds a year, for which he was to be obliged to teach twenty boys, without any assistance (and twenty-five more for every usher provided for him), the Latin and Greek languages; and at the same time instruct them in history, geography, chronology, logic, rhetoric, and the English tongue.”

“The rector was also, on all occasions consistent with his duty in the Latin school, to assist the English master in improving the youth under his care.”

Page 5. “The trustees shall, with all convenient speed, contract with any person that offers, whom they shall judge most capable of teaching the English tongue grammatically and as a language, history, geography, chronology, logic, and oratory; which person shall be styled the English master.”

The English master was to have one hundred pounds a year, for which he was to teach, without any assistance, forty scholars the English tongue grammatically; and at the same time instruct them in history, geography, chronology, logic, and oratory; Edition: current; Page: [83] and sixty scholars more for every usher provided for him.

It is to be observed in this place, that here are two distinct courses in the same study, that is, of the same branches of science, viz., history, geography, chronology, logic, and oratory, to be carried on at the same time, but not by the same tutor or master. The English master is to teach his scholars all those branches of science, and also the English tongue grammatically as a language. The Latin master is to teach the same sciences to his boys, besides the Greek and Latin. He was also to assist the English master occasionally, without which, and his general care in the government of the schools, the giving him double salary seems not well accounted for. But here are plainly two distinct schools or courses of education provided for. The Latin master was not to teach the English scholars logic, rhetoric, etc.; that was the duty of the English master; but he was to teach those sciences to the Latin scholars. We shall see, hereafter, how easily this original plan was defeated and departed from.

When the constitution was first drawn, blanks were left for the salaries, and for the number of boys the Latin master was to teach. The first instance of partiality in favor of the Latin part of the institution, was in giving the title of rector to the Latin master, and no title to the English one. But the most striking instance was, when we met to sign, and the blanks were first to be filled up, the votes of a majority carried it to twice as much salary to the Latin master as to the English, and yet require twice Edition: current; Page: [84] as much duty from the English master as from the Latin, viz., £200 to the Latin master to twenty boys; £100 to the English master to teach forty! However, the trustees who voted these salaries being themselves by far the greatest subscribers, though not the most numerous, it was thought they had a kind of right to predominate in money matters; and those who had wished an equal regard might have been shown to both schools, submitted, though not without regret, and at times some little complaining, which, with their not being able in nine months to find a proper person for English master, who would undertake the office for so low a salary, induced the trustees at length, viz., in July, 1750, to offer £50 more.

Another instance of the partiality above mentioned was in the March preceding, when £100 sterling was voted to buy Latin and Greek books, maps, drafts, and instruments for the use of the Academy, and nothing for the English books.

The great part of the subscribers, who had the English education chiefly in view, were, however, soothed into a submission to these partialities, chiefly by the expectation given them by the Constitution, viz., that the trustees would make it their pleasure, and in some degree their business, to visit the Academy often, to encourage and countenance the youth, look on the students as in some measure their own children, treat them with familiarity and affection; and, when they have behaved well, gone through their studies, and are to enter the world, the trustees shall zealously unite, and make all the Edition: current; Page: [85] interest that can be made, to promote and establish them, whether in business, offices, marriages, or any other thing for their advantage, preferable to all other persons whatsoever, even of equal merit.

These splendid promises dazzled the eyes of the public. The trustees were most of them the principal gentlemen of the province. Children taught in other schools had no reason to expect such powerful patronage. The subscribers had placed such entire confidence in them as to leave themselves no power of changing them, if their conduct of the plan should be disapproved; and so, in hopes of the best, all these partialities were submitted to.

Near a year passed before a proper person was found to take charge of the English school. At length Mr. Dove, who had been many years master of a school in England, and had come hither with an apparatus for giving lectures in experimental philosophy, was prevailed with by me, after his lectures were finished, to accept that employment for the salary offered, though he thought it too scanty. He had a good voice, read perfectly well, with proper accent and just pronunciation, and his method of communicating habits of the same kind to his pupils was this: When he gave a lesson to one of them, he always first read it to him aloud, with all the different modulations of voice that the subject and sense required. These the scholars, in study and repeating the lesson, naturally endeavored to imitate; and it was really surprising to see how soon they caught his manner, which convinced me and others who frequently attended his school that though bad Edition: current; Page: [86] tones and manners in reading are, when once acquired, rarely, with difficulty, if ever cured, yet, when none have been already formed, good ones are as easily learned as bad. In a few weeks after opening his school, the trustees were invited to hear the scholars read and recite. The parents and relations of the boys also attended. The performers were surprisingly good, and of course were admired and applauded; and the English school thereby acquired such reputation that the number of Mr. Dove’s scholars soon amounted to upwards of ninety, which number did not diminish as long as he continued master, viz., upwards of two years; but, he finding the salary insufficient, and having set up a school for girls in his own house to supply the deficiency, and quitting the boys’ school somewhat before the hour to attend the girls, the trustees disapproved of his so doing, and he quitted their employment, continued his girls’ school, and opened one for boys on his own account. The trustees provided another English master; but though a good man, yet not possessing the talents of an English schoolmaster in the same perfection with Mr. Dove, the school diminished daily, and soon was found to have but about forty scholars left. The performances of the boys in reading and speaking were no longer so brilliant; the trustees of course had not the same pleasure in hearing them, and the monthly visitations, which had so long afforded a delightful entertainment to large audiences, became less and less attended, and at length discontinued; and the English school has never since recovered its original reputation.

Thus, by our injudiciously starving the English part of our scheme of education, we only saved fifty pounds a year, which was required as an additional salary to an acknowledged excellent English master, which would have equalled his encouragement to that of the Latin master; I say, by saving the £50 we lost fifty scholars, which would have been £200 a year, and defeated, besides, one great end of the institution.

In the meantime our favors were showered upon the Latin part; the number of teachers was increased, and their salaries from time to time augmented, till, if I mistake not, they amounted in the whole to more than £600 a year, though the scholars hardly ever exceeded sixty; so that each scholar cost the funds £10 per annum, while he paid but £4, which was a loss of £6 every one of them.

The monthly visitations of the schools by the trustees having been long neglected, the omission was complained of by the parents as a breach of original promise; whereupon the trustees, July 11, 1755, made it a law, that “they should meet on the second Tuesday in every month at the Academy, to visit the schools, examine the scholars, hear their public exercises, etc.” This good law, however, like many others, was not long observed; for I find by a minute of December 14, 1756, that the examination of the schools by the trustees had been long neglected, and it was agreed that it should thereafter be done on the first Monday in every month; and yet, notwithstanding this new rule, the neglect returned, so that we are informed by another minute Edition: current; Page: [88] of January, 1761, “that for five months past there had not been one meeting of the trustees.” In the course of fourteen years several of the original trustees, who had been disposed to favor the English school, deceased, and others not so favorable were chosen to supply their places; however, it appears by the minutes that the remainder had sometimes weight enough to recall the attention of their colleagues to that school, and obtain acknowledgments of the unjust neglect it had been treated with. Of this the following extracts from the minutes are authentic proofs, viz. (Minute Book, Vol. I., February 8, 1763): “The state of the English school was taken into consideration, and it was observed, that Mr. Kinnersley’s time was entirely taken up in teaching little boys the elements of the English language (this is what it dwindled into, a school similar to those kept by old women, who teach children their letters); and that speaking and rehearsing in public were totally disused, to the great prejudice of the other scholars and students, and contrary to the original design of the trustees in the forming of that school; and, as, this was a matter of great importance, it was particularly recommended to be fully considered by the trustees at their next meeting.” At their next meeting it was not considered; but this minute contains full proof of the fact, that the English education had been neglected, and it contains an acknowledgment that the conduct of the English school was contrary to the original design of the trustees in forming it.

In the same book of minutes we find the following, Edition: current; Page: [89] of April 12, 1763: “The state of the English school was again taken into consideration; and it was the opinion of the trustees that the original design should be prosecuted, of teaching the scholars (of that and the other schools the elegance of the English language, and giving them a proper pronunciation; and that the old method of hearing them read and repeat in public should be again used. And a committee was appointed to confer with Mr. Kinnersley how this might best be done, as well as what assistance would be necessary to give Mr. Kinnersley to enable him to attend this necessary service, which, was indeed the proper business of his professorship.”

In this minute we have another acknowledgment of what was the original design of the English school; but here are some words thrown in to countenance an innovation, which had been for some time practised. The words are “and the other schools.” Originally, by the constitutions, the rector was to teach the Latin scholars their English. The words of the constitution are: “The rector shall be obliged, without the assistance of any usher, to teach twenty scholars the Latin and Greek languages, and the English tongue.” To enable him to do this, we have seen that some of his qualifications, indispensably required, were, his polite speaking, writing, and understanding the English tongue. Having these, he was enjoined, on all occasions consistent with his other duties, to assist the English master in improving the boys under his care; but there is not a word obliging the English master to teach the Latin boys English. Edition: current; Page: [90] However, the Latin masters, either unable to do it, or unwilling to take the trouble, had got him up among them, and employed so much of his time, that this minute owns he could not, without further assistance, attend the necessary service of his own school, which, as the minute expressly says, “was indeed the proper business of his professorship.”

Notwithstanding this good resolution of the trustees, it seems the execution of it was neglected; and, the public not being satisfied, they were again haunted by the friends of the children with the old complaint, that the original constitutions were not complied with in regard to the English school. Their situation was unpleasant. On the one hand there were still remaining some of the first trustees, who were friends to the scheme of English education, and these would now and then be remarking that it was neglected, and would be moving for a reformation; the constitutions at the same time, staring the trustees in the face, gave weight to these remarks. On the other hand, the Latinists were combined to decry the English school as useless. It was without example, they said, as indeed they still say, that a school for teaching the vulgar tongue, and the sciences in that tongue, was ever joined with a college, and that the Latin masters were fully competent to teach the English.

I will not say that the Latinists looked on every expense upon the English school as so far disabling the trustees from augmenting their salaries, and therefore regarding it with an evil eye; but, when I find the minutes constantly filled with their applications Edition: current; Page: [91] for higher wages, I cannot but see their great regard for money matters, and suspect a little their using their interest and influence to prevail with the trustees not to encourage that school. And, indeed, the following minute is so different in spirit and sentiment from all that last recited, that one cannot avoid concluding that some extraordinary pains must have been taken with the trustees between the two meetings of April 12th and June 13th, to produce a resolution so very different, which here follows in this minute, viz., “June 13, 1763; some of the parents of the children in the Academy having complained that their children were not taught to speak and read in public, and having requested that this useful part of education might be more attended to, Mr. Kinnersley was called in, and desired to give an account of what was done in this branch of his duty; and he declared that this was well taught, not only in the English school, which was more immediately under his care, but in the philosophy classes regularly every Monday afternoon, and as often at other times as his other business would permit. And it not appearing to the trustees that any more could at present be done, without partiality and great inconvenience, and that this was all that was ever proposed to be done, they did not incline to make any alteration, or to lay any further burthen on Mr. Kinnersley.” Note here, that the English school had not for some years preceding been visited by the trustees. If it had, they would have known the state of it without making this inquiry of the master. They might have judged, whether the children more immediately Edition: current; Page: [92] under his care were in truth well taught, without taking his word for it, as it appears they did. But it seems he had a merit, which, when he pleaded it, effectually excused him. He spent his time when out of the English school in instructing the philosophy classes who were of the Latin part of the institution. Therefore they did not think proper to lay any further burthen upon him.

It is a little difficult to conceive how these trustees could bring themselves to declare, that “No more could be done in the English school than was then done, and that it was all that was ever proposed to be done”; when their preceding minute declares that “the original design was teaching scholars the elegance of the English language, and giving them a proper pronunciation; and that hearing them read and repeat in public was the old method, and should be again used.” And, certainly, the method that had been used might be again used, if the trustees had thought fit to order Mr. Kinnersley to attend his own school, and not spend his time in the philosophy classes, where his duty did not require his attendance. What the apprehended partiality was, which the minute mentions, does not appear, and cannot now be easily imagined; and the great inconvenience of obliging him to attend his own school could only be by depriving the Latinists of his assistance, to which they had no right.

The trustees may possibly have supposed, that by this resolution they had precluded all future attempts to trouble them with respect to their conduct of the English school. The parents indeed, despairing of Edition: current; Page: [93] any reformation, withdrew their children and placed them in private schools, of which several now appeared in the city, professing to teach what had been promised to be taught in the Academy; and they have since flourished and increased by the scholars the Academy might have had if it had performed its engagements. But the public was not satisfied; and we find, five years after, the English school appearing again, after five years’ silence, haunting the trustees like an evil conscience, and reminding them of their failure in duty. For, of their meetings Jan. 19, and 26, 1768, we find these minutes: “Jan. 19, 1768: It having been remarked that the schools suffer in the public esteem by the discontinuance of public speaking, a special meeting is to be called on Tuesday next, to consider the state of the English school, and to regulate such matters as may be necessary.” “Jan. 26th: A special meeting. It is agreed to give Mr. Jon. Easton and Mr. Thomas Hall, at the rate of twenty-five pounds per annum each, for assisting Mr. Kinnersley in the English school, and taking care of the same when he shall be employed in teaching the students, in the philosophy classes and grammar school, the art of public speaking. A committee, Mr. Peters, Mr. Coxe, and Mr. Duché, with the masters, was appointed to fix rules and times for employing the youth in public speaking. Mr. Easton and Mr. Hall are to be paid out of a fund to be raised by some public performance for the benefit of the college.”

It appears from these minutes, 1. That the reputation of the Academy had suffered in the public Edition: current; Page: [94] esteem by the trustees’ neglect of that school. 2. That Mr. Kinnersley, whose sole business it was to attend it, had been called from his duty and employed in the philosophy classes and Latin grammar school, teaching the scholars there the art of public speaking, which the Latinists used to boast they could teach themselves. 3. That the neglect for so many years of the English scholars, by this subtraction of their master, was now acknowledged, and proposed to be remedied for the future by engaging two persons, Mr. Hall and Mr. Easton, at twenty-five pounds per annum, to take care of those scholars, while Mr. Kinnersley was employed among the Latinists.

Care was however taken by the trustees not to be at any expense for this assistance to Mr. Kinnersley; for Hall and Easton were only to be paid out of the uncertain fund of money to be raised by some public performance for the benefit of the college.

A committee was however now appointed to fix rules and times for employing the youth in public speaking. Whether any thing was done in consequence of these minutes, does not appear, no report of the committee respecting their doings being to be found on the records, and the probability is that they did, as heretofore, nothing to the purpose. For the English school continued to decline, and the first subsequent mention we find made of it, is in the minute of March 21, 1769, when the design began to be entertained of abolishing it altogether, whereby the Latinists would get rid of an eyesore, and the trustees of what occasioned them such frequent Edition: current; Page: [95] trouble. The minute is this: “The state of the English school is to be taken into consideration at next meeting, and whether it be proper to continue it on its present footing or not.” This consideration was, however, not taken at the next meeting, at least nothing was concluded so as to be minuted; nor do we find any further mention of the English school till the 18th of July, when the following minute was entered—viz.: “A special meeting is appointed to be held on Monday next, and notice to be given, that the design of this meeting is to consider whether the English school is to be longer continued.”

This special meeting was accordingly held on the 23d of July, 1769, of which date is the following minute and resolution, viz.: “The trustees at this meeting, as well as several former ones, having taken into their serious consideration the state of the English school, are unanimously of opinion, that as the said school is far from defraying the expense at which they now support it, and not thinking that they ought to lay out any great part of the funds intrusted to them on this branch of education, which can so easily be procured at other schools in this city, have resolved that from and after the 17th of October next Mr. Kinnersley’s present salary do cease, and that from that time the said school, if he shall be inclined to keep it, shall be on the following footing, viz., that he shall have the free use of the room where he now teaches, and also the whole tuition-money arising from the boys that may be taught by him, and that he continue professor of English and Edition: current; Page: [96] oratory, and, as such, have the house he lives in rent free, in consideration of his giving two afternoons in the week as heretofore, for the instruction of the students belonging to the college in public speaking, agreeable to such rules as are or shall be made for that purpose by the trustees and faculty. It is further ordered by this regulation, that the boys belonging to his school shall be still considered as part of the youth belonging to the college, and under the same general government of the trustees and faculty; and such of his scholars as may attend the mathematical or any other master having a salary from the college, for any part of their time, shall pay proportionably into the fund of the trustees, to be accounted for by Mr. Kinnersley, and deducted out of the twenty pounds per quarter now paid by the English scholars.”

The trustees hope this regulation may be agreeable to Mr. Kinnersley, as it proceeds entirely from the reasons set forth above, and not from any abatement of that esteem which they have always retained for him during the whole course of his services in college.

Upon this and some of the preceding minutes may be observed: 1. That the English school having been long neglected, the scholars were so diminished in number as to be far from defraying the expense in supporting it. 2. That the instruction they received there, instead of a complete English education, which had been promised to the subscribers by the original constitutions, were only such as might easily be procured at other schools in this city. 3. That this unprofitableness of the English school, Edition: current; Page: [97] owing to neglect of duty in the trustees, was now offered as a reason for demolishing it altogether. For it was easy to see that after depriving the master of his salary he could not long afford to continue it. 4. That if the insufficiency of the tuition money in the English school to pay the expense, and the ease with which the scholars might obtain equal instruction in other schools, were good reasons for depriving the master of his salary and destroying that school, they were equally good for dismissing the Latin masters, and sending their scholars to other schools; since it is notorious that the tuition money of the Latin school did not pay much above a fourth part of the salaries of the masters. For such reasons the trustees might equally well have got rid of all the scholars and all the masters, and remained in full possession of all the college property, without any future expense. 5. That by their refusing any longer to support, instead of reforming, as they ought to have done, the English school, they shamefully broke through and set at nought the original constitutions, for the due execution of which the faith of the original trustees had been solemnly pledged to the public, and diverted the revenues proceeding from much of the first subscriptions to other purposes than those which had been promised. Had the Assembly, when disposed to disfranchize the trustees, set their foot upon this ground, their proceeding to declare the forfeiture would have been more justifiable; and it may be hoped care will now be taken not to give any future Assembly the same handle.

It seems, however, that this unrighteous resolve did not pass the trustees without a qualm in some of them. For at the next meeting a reconsideration was moved, and we find the following minute under the date of August 1, 1769: “The minute of last meeting relative to the English school was read, and after mature deliberation and reconsidering the same, it was voted to stand as it is, provided it should not be found any way repugnant to the first charter granted to the Academy, a copy of which was ordered to be procured out of the rolls office.”

One might have thought it natural for the trustees to have consulted this charter before they took the resolution, and not only the first charter, but the original constitutions; but, as it seems they had lost the instrument containing the charter, and, though it had been printed, not one of them was furnished with a copy to which he might refer, it is no wonder that they had forgot the constitutions made twenty years before, to which they do not seem to have in the least adverted.

Probably, however, the trustees found, when they came to examine original papers, that they could not easily get entirely rid of the English school, and so concluded to continue it. For I find in a law for premiums, minuted under the date of January 29, 1770, that the English and mathematical school is directed to be examined the third Tuesday in July, and a premium book of the value of one dollar was to be given to him that reads best, and understands best the English grammar, etc. This is very well; but to keep up the old partiality in favor of the Latin Edition: current; Page: [99] school, the premium to its boys was to be of the value of two dollars. In the premiums for best speaking they were, indeed, put upon an equality.

After reading this law for premiums I looked forward to the third Tuesday in July with some pleasing expectation of their effect on the examination required for that day. But I met with only this further record of the inattention of the trustees to their new resolutions and even laws, when they contained any thing favorable to the English school. The minute is only this: “July, August, September, October, no business done.”

On the 20th of November, however, I find there was an examination of the Latin school, and premiums, with pompous inscriptions, afterwards adjudged to Latin scholars; but I find no mention of any to the English, or that they were even examined. Perhaps there might have been none to examine, or the school discontinued; for it appears by a minute of July 21st, following, that the provost was desired to advertise for a master able to teach English grammatically, which it seems was all the English master was now required to teach, the other branches originally promised being dropped entirely.

In October, 1772, Mr. Kinnersley resigned his professorship, when Dr. Peters and others were appointed to consider on what footing the English school shall be put for the future, that a new master may be thought of, and Mr. Willing to take care of the school for the present at fifty pounds per annum. It is observable here that there is no mention of putting it on its original footing, and the salary is Edition: current; Page: [100] shrunk amazingly; but this resignation of Mr. Kinnersley gave occasion to one testimony of the utility of the English professor to the institution, notwithstanding all the partiality, neglect, slights, discouragements, and injustice that school had suffered. We find it in the minutes of a special meeting on the 2d of February, 1773, present Dr. Peters, Mr. Chew, Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Willing, Mr. Trettel, and Mr. Inglis, and expressed in these strong terms:

“The college suffers greatly since Mr. Kinnersley left it for want of a person to teach public speaking, so that the present classes have not those opportunities of learning to declaim and speak which have been of so much use to their predecessors, and have contributed greatly to raise the credit of the institution.”

Here is another confession that the Latinists were unequal to the task of teaching English eloquence, though on occasion the contrary is still asserted.

I flatter myself, gentlemen, that it appears by this time pretty clearly from our own minutes, that the original plan of the English school has been departed from; that the subscribers to it have been disappointed and deceived, and the faith in the trustees not kept with them; that the public have been frequently dissatisfied with the conduct of the trustees, and complained of it; and, by the niggardly treatment of good masters, they have been driven out of the school, and the scholars have followed, while a great loss of revenue has been suffered by the Academy; so that the numerous schools now in the city owe their rise to our mismanagement, and that Edition: current; Page: [101] we might as well have had the best part of the tuition-money paid into our treasury, that now goes into private pockets; that there has been a constant disposition to depress the English school in favor of the Latin; and that every means to procure a more equitable treatment has been rendered ineffectual; so that no more hope remains while they continue to have any connection. It is, therefore, that, wishing as much good to the Latinists as their system can honestly procure for them, we now demand a separation, and without desiring to injure them; but claiming an equitable partition of our joint stock, we wish to execute the plan they have so long defeated, and afford the public the means of a complete English education.

I am the only one of the original trustees now living, and I am just stepping into the grave myself. I am afraid that some part of the blame incurred by the trustees may be laid on me, for having too easily submitted to the deviations from the constitution, and not opposing them with sufficient zeal and earnestness; though indeed my absence in foreign countries at different times for near thirty years, tended much to weaken my influence. To make what amends are yet in my power, I seize this opportunity, the last I may possibly have, of bearing testimony against those deviations. I seem here to be surrounded by the ghosts of my dear departed friends, beckoning and urging me to use the only tongue now left us, in demanding that justice to our grandchildren, that to our children has been denied. And I hope they will not be sent away discontented.

The origin of Latin and Greek schools among the different nations of Europe is known to have been this: that until between three and four hundred years past there were no books in any other language; all the knowledge then contained in books, viz., the theology, the jurisprudence, the physic, the art-military, the politics, the mathematics and mechanics, the natural and moral philosophy, the logic and rhetoric, the chemistry, the pharmacy, the architecture, and every other branch of science, being in those languages, it was of course necessary to learn them, as the gates through which men must pass to get at that knowledge.

The books then existing were manuscript, and these consequently so dear that only the few wealthy inclined to learning could afford to purchase them. The common people were not even at the pains of learning to read, because, after taking that pains, they would have nothing to read that they could understand without learning the ancient’s languages, nor then without money to purchase the manuscripts. And so few were the learned readers sixty years after the invention of printing, that it appears by letters still extant between the printers in 1499, that they could not throughout Europe find purchasers for more than three hundred copies of any ancient authors. But, printing beginning now to make books cheap, the readers increased so much as to make it worth while to write and print books in the vulgar tongues. At first these were chiefly books of devotion and little histories. Gradually several branches of science began to appear in the Edition: current; Page: [103] common languages, and at this day the whole body of science, consisting not only of translations from all the valuable ancients, but of all the new modern discoveries, is to be met with in those languages; so that learning the ancient for the purpose of acquiring knowledge is become absolutely unnecessary.

But there is in mankind an unaccountable prejudice in favor of ancient customs and habitudes, which inclines to a continuance of them after the circumstances which formerly made them useful cease to exist. A multitude of instances might be given, but it may suffice to mention one. Hats were once thought a useful part of dress; they kept the head warm and screened it from the violent impression of the sun’s rays, and from the rain, snow, hail, etc. Though, by the way, this was not the more ancient opinion or practice; for among all the remains of antiquity, the bustos, statues, basso-relievos, medals, etc., which are infinite, there is no representation of a human figure with a cap or hat on, nor any covering for the head, unless it be the head of a soldier, who has a helmet; but that is evidently not a part of dress for health, but as a protection from the strokes of a weapon.

At what time hats were first introduced we know not, but in the last century they were universally worn throughout Europe. Gradually, however, as the wearing of wigs, and hair nicely dressed prevailed, the putting on of hats was disused by genteel people, lest the curious arrangements of the curls and powdering should be disordered, and umbrellas began to supply their place; yet still our considering Edition: current; Page: [104] the hat as a part of dress continues so far to prevail, that a man of fashion is not thought dressed without having one, or something like one, about him, which he carries under his arm. So that there are a multitude of the politer people in all the courts and capital cities of Europe, who have never, nor their fathers before, worn a hat otherwise than as a chapeau bras, though the utility of such a mode of wearing it is by no means apparent, and it is attended not only with some expense, but with a degree of constant trouble.

The still prevailing custom of having schools for teaching generally our children, in these days, the Latin and Greek languages, I consider therefore, in no other light than as the chapeau bras of modern literature.

Thus the time spent in that study might, it seems, be much better employed in the education for such a country as ours; and this was, indeed, the opinion of most of the original trustees.

MDXLVI: HINTS FOR CONSIDERATION RESPECTING THE ORPHAN SCHOOLHOUSE IN PHILADELPHIA

Charitable institutions, however originally well intended and well executed at first for many years, are subject to be in course of time corrupted, mismanaged, their funds misapplied or perverted to private purposes. Would it not be well to guard against Edition: current; Page: [106] these by prudent regulations respecting the choice of managers, and establishing the power of inspecting their conduct in some permanent body, as the monthly or quarterly meeting?

Would it not be more respectable for the institution, if the appearance of making a profit of the labor of orphans were avoided, and the dependence for funds to be wholly on charitable contributions? If this should be concluded, then it may be proper to open an account with each orphan on admission; the orphans to have credit for any subsistence brought in with them, and for the profit made of it and of their labor, and made debtors for their maintenance and education. And at their discharge on coming of age, to be paid the balance, if any, in their favor, or remain debtors for the balance, if against them, which they may be exhorted to pay, if ever able, but not to be compelled. Such as receive a balance may be exhorted to give back a part in charity to the institution that has taken such kind care of them, or at least to remember it favorably, if hereafter God should bless them with ability, either in benefaction while living, or a legacy on decease. The orphans, when discharged, to receive, besides decent clothing and some money, a certificate of their good behavior, if such it has been, as a recommendation; and the managers of the institution should still consider them as their children, so far as to counsel them in their affairs, encourage and promote them in their business, watch over and kindly admonish them when in danger of misconduct.

MDXLVII: CONTEMPLATED RESTRAINT UPON EMIGRATION

There are, I understand, some apprehensions that your Ministers may procure a law to restrain the emigration of manufacturers: but I think that, weak and wicked as they are, and tyrannical as they are disposed to be, they will hardly venture upon an act that shall make a prison of England, to confine men for no other crime but that of being useful and industrious, and to discourage the learning of useful mechanic arts, by declaring that as soon as a man is master of his business he shall lose his liberty, and become a prisoner for life; while they suffer their idle and extravagant gentry to travel and reside abroad at their pleasure, spending the incomes of their estates, racked from the laborious, honest tenants, in foreign follies, and among French and Italian whores and fiddlers. Such a law would be too glaringly unjust to be borne with.

I wish you success in what you may resolve to undertake; and you will find me ever, your assured friend and humble servant,

MDXLVIII: WAIL OF A PROTECTED MANUFACTURER

I am a manufacturer and was a petitioner for the act to encourage and protect the manufacturers of this state. I was very happy when Edition: current; Page: [108] the act was obtained, and I immediately added to the price of my manufactures as much as it would bear so as to be a little cheaper than the same article-imported and paying the duty. By this addition I hoped to grow richer. But as every other manufacturer whose wares are under the protection of that act, has done the same, I begin to doubt whether, considering the whole years’ expenses of my family, with all these separate additions which I pay to other manufacturers I am at all a gainer. And I confess I cannot but wish that except the protecting duty on my own manufacture, all duties of the kind were taken off and abolished. This, however, I must submit to the better judgment of our legislators. Yours, etc.

MDXLIX: ON SENDING FELONS TO AMERICA1

We may all remember the time when our mother country, as a mark of her parental tenderness, emptied her gaols into our habitations, “for the better peopling,” as she expressed it, “of the colonies.” It is certain that no due returns have yet been made for these valuable consignments. We are therefore much in her debt on that account; and as she is of late clamorous for the payment of all we owe her, and some of our debts are of a kind not so easily discharged, I am for doing however what is in Edition: current; Page: [109] our power. It will show our good-will as to the rest. The felons she planted among us have produced such an amazing increase, that we are now enabled to make ample remittance in the same commodity. And since the wheelbarrow law is not found effectually to reform them, and many of our vessels are idle through her restraints on our trade, why should we not employ those vessels in transporting the felons to Britain?

I was led into this thought by perusing the copy of a petition to Parliament, which fell lately by accident into my hands. It has no date, but I conjecture from some circumstances, that it must have been about the year 1767 or 1768. (It seems, if presented, it had no effect, since the act passed.) I imagine it may not be unacceptable to your readers, and therefore transcribe it for your paper, viz.:

The petition, I am informed, was not received by the House, and the act passed.

On second thoughts, I am of opinion, that besides employing our own vessels, as above proposed, every English ship arriving in our ports with goods for sale, should be obliged to give bond, before she is permitted to trade, engaging that she will carry back to Britain at least one felon for every fifty tons of her burthen. Thus we shall not only discharge sooner our debts, but furnish our old friends with the means of “better peopling,” and with more expedition, their promising new colony of Botany Bay. I am yours, etc.,

MDL: THE RETORT COURTEOUS

“John Oxly, pawnbroker of Bethnal Green, was indicted for assaulting Jonathan Boldsworth on the highway, putting him in fear, and taking from him one silver watch, value 5l. 5s. The prisoner pleaded, that, having sold the watch to the prosecutor, and being immediately after informed by a person who knew him, that he was not likely to pay Edition: current; Page: [112] for the same, he had only followed him and taken the watch back again. But, it appearing on the trial, that, presuming he had not been known when he committed the robbery, he had afterwards sued the prosecutor for the debt, on his note of hand, he was found guilty, death.”—Old Bailey Sessions Paper, 1747.

I chose the above extract from the proceedings of the Old Bailey in the trial of criminals, as a motto or text on which to amplify in my ensuing discourse. But on second thoughts, having given it forth, I shall, after the example of some other preachers, quit it for the present, and leave my readers, if I should happen to have any, the task of discovering what relation there may possibly be between my text and my sermon.

During some years past the British newspapers have been filled with reflections on the inhabitants of America for not paying their old debts to English merchants. And from these papers the same reflections have been translated into foreign prints and circulated throughout Europe; whereby the American character, respecting honor, probity, and justice in commercial transactions, is made to suffer in the opinion of strangers, which may be attended with pernicious consequences.

At length we are told that the British court has taken up the complaint, and seriously offered it as a reason for refusing to evacuate the frontier posts according to treaty. This gives a kind of authority to the charge, and makes it now more necessary to examine Edition: current; Page: [113] the matter thoroughly; to inquire impartially into the conduct of both nations; take blame to ourselves where we have merited it; and, where it may be fairly done, mitigate the severity of the censures that are so liberally bestowed upon us.

We may begin by observing, that before the war our mercantile character was good. In proof of this (and a stronger proof can hardly be desired), the votes of the House of Commons in 1774-5 have recorded a petition signed by the body of the merchants of London trading to North America, in which they expressly set forth, not only that the trade was profitable to the kingdom, but that the remittances and payments were as punctually and faithfully made, as in any other branch of commerce whatever. These gentlemen were certainly competent judges, and as to that point could have no interest in deceiving the government.

The making of these punctual remittances was, however, a difficulty. Britain, acting on the selfish, and perhaps mistaken, principle of receiving nothing from abroad that could be produced at home, would take no articles of our produce that interfered with any of her own; and what did not interfere she loaded with heavy duties. We had no mines of gold or silver. We were therefore obliged to run the world over, in search of something that would be received in England. We sent our provisions and lumber to the West Indies, where exchange was made for sugars, cotton, etc., to remit. We brought molasses from thence, distilled it into rum, with which we traded in Africa, and remitted the gold Edition: current; Page: [114] dust to England. We employed ourselves in the fisheries, and sent the fish we caught, together with quantities of wheat, flour, and rice, to Spain and Portugal, from whence the amount was remitted to England in cash or bills of exchange. Great quantities of our rice, too, went to Holland, Hamburg, etc., and the value of that was also sent to Britain. Add to this, that contenting ourselves with paper, all the hard money we could possibly pick up among the foreign West India Islands, was continually sent off to Britain, not a ship going thither from America without some chests of those precious metals.

Imagine this great machine of mutually advantageous commerce, going roundly on, in full train; our ports all busy, receiving and selling British manufactures, and equipping ships for the circuitous trade, that was finally to procure the necessary remittances; the seas covered with those ships, and with several hundred sail of our fishermen, all working for Britain; and then let us consider what effect the conduct of Britain, in 1774 and 1775 and the following years, must naturally have on the future ability of our merchants to make the payments in question.

We will not here enter into the motives of that conduct; they are well enough known, and not to her honor. The first step was shutting up the port of Boston by an act of Parliament; the next, to prohibit by another the New England fishery. An army and a fleet were sent to enforce these acts. Here was a stop put at once to all the mercantile operations of one of the greatest trading cities of Edition: current; Page: [115] America; the fishing vessels all laid up, and the usual remittances, by way of Spain, Portugal, and the Straits, rendered impossible. Yet the cry was now begun against us: These New England people do not pay their debts!

The ships of the fleet employed themselves in cruising separately all along the coast. The marine gentry are seldom so well contented with their pay, as not to like a little plunder. They stopped and seized, under slight pretences, the American vessels they met with, belonging to whatever colony. This checked the commerce of them all. Ships, loaded with cargoes destined either directly or indirectly to make remittance in England, were not spared. If the differences between the two countries had been then accommodated, these unauthorized plunderers would have been called to account, and many of their exploits must have been found piracy. But what cured all this, set their minds at ease, made short work, and gave full scope to their piratical disposition, was another act of Parliament, forbidding any inquisition into those past facts, declaring them all lawful, and all American property to be forfeited, whether on sea or land, and authorizing the king’s British subjects to take, seize, sink, burn, or destroy whatever they could find of it. The property suddenly, and by surprise taken from our merchants by the operation of this act, is incomputable. And yet the cry did not diminish: These Americans don’t pay their debts!

Had the several States of America, on the publication of this act, seized all British property in their Edition: current; Page: [116] power, whether consisting of lands in their country, ships in their harbors, or debts in the hands of their merchants, by way of retaliation, it is probable a great part of the world would have deemed such conduct justifiable. They, it seems, thought otherwise, and it was done only in one or two States, and that under particular circumstances of provocation. And not having thus abolished all demands, the cry subsists that the Americans should pay their debts!

General Gage, being with his army (before the declaration of open war) in peaceable possession of Boston, shut its gates, and placed guards all around to prevent its communication with the country. The inhabitants were on the point of starving. The general, though they were evidently at his mercy, fearing that, while they had any arms in their hands, frantic desperation might possibly do him some mischief, proposed to them a capitulation, in which he stipulated that if they would deliver up their arms they might leave the town with their family and goods. In faith of this agreement they delivered their arms. But when they began to pack up for their departure they were informed that, by the word goods, the general understood only household goods, that is, their beds, chairs, and tables, not merchant goods; those, he was informed, they were indebted for to the merchants of England, and he must secure them for the creditors. They were accordingly all seized, to an immense value, what had been paid for not excepted. It is to be supposed, though we have never heard of it, that this very honorable general, when he returned home made a just distribution of Edition: current; Page: [117] those goods, or their value, among the said creditors. But the cry nevertheless continued: These Boston people do not pay their debts!

The army, having thus ruined Boston, proceeded to different parts of the continent. They got possession of all the capital trading towns. The troops gorged themselves with plunder. They stopped all the trade of Philadelphia for near a year, of Rhode Island longer, of New York near eight years, of Charleston in South Carolina, and Savannah in Georgia, I forget how long. This continued interruption of their commerce ruined many merchants. The army also burnt to the ground the fine towns of Falmouth and Charlestown near Boston, New London, Fairfield, Norwalk, Esopus, Norfolk, the chief trading town in Virginia, besides innumerable tenements and private farm-houses. This wanton destruction of property operated doubly to the disabling of our merchants, who were importers from Britain, in making their payments, by the immoderate loss they sustained themselves, and also the loss suffered by their country debtors, who had bought of them the British goods, and who were now rendered unable to pay. The debts to Britain of course remained undischarged, and the clamor continued: These knavish Americans will not pay us!

Many of the British debts, particularly in Virginia and the Carolinas, arose from the sales made of negroes in those provinces by the British Guinea merchants. These, with all before in the country, were employed when the war came on, in raising tobacco and rice for remittance in payment of British Edition: current; Page: [118] debts. An order arrives from England, advised by one of their most celebrated moralists, Dr. Johnson, in his Taxation no Tyranny, to excite these slaves to rise, cut the throats of their purchasers, and resort to the British army, where they should be rewarded with freedom. This was done, and the planters were thus deprived of near thirty thousand of their working people. Yet the demand for those sold and unpaid still exists; and the cry continues against the Virginians and Carolinians, that they do not pay their debts!

Virginia suffered great loss in this kind of property by another ingenious and humane British invention. Having the small-pox in their army while in that country, they inoculated some of the negroes they took as prisoners belonging to a number of plantations, and then let them escape, or sent them, covered with the pock, to mix with and spread the distemper among the others of their color, as well as among the white country people; which occasioned a great mortality of both, and certainly did not contribute to the enabling debtors in making payment. The war too having put a stop to the exportation of tobacco, there was a great accumulation of several years’ produce in all the public inspecting warehouses and private stores of the planters. Arnold, Phillips, and Cornwallis, with British troops, then entered and overran the country, burnt all the inspecting and other stores of tobacco, to the amount of some hundred ship-loads; all of which might, on the return of peace, if it had not been thus wantonly destroyed, have been remitted to British creditors. Edition: current; Page: [119] But these d—d Virginians, why don’t they pay their debts?

Paper money was in those times our universal currency. But, it being the instrument with which we combated our enemies, they resolved to deprive us of its use by depreciating it; and the most effectual means they could contrive was to counterfeit it. The artists they employed performed so well, that immense quantities of these counterfeits, which issued from the British government in New York, were circulated among the inhabitants of all the States, before the fraud was detected. This operated considerably in depreciating the whole mass, first, by the vast additional quantity, and next by the uncertainty in distinguishing the true from the false; and the depreciation was a loss to all and the ruin of many. It is true our enemies gained a vast deal of our property by the operation; but it did not go into the hands of our particular creditors; so their demands still subsisted, and we were still abused for not paying our debts!

By the seventh article of the treaty of peace, it was solemnly stipulated, that the king’s troops, in evacuating their posts in the United States, should not carry away with them any negroes. In direct violation of this article, General Carleton, in evacuating New York, carried off all the negroes that were with his army, to the amount of several hundreds. It is not doubted that he must have had secret orders to justify him in this transaction; but the reason given out was, that, as they had quitted their masters and joined the King’s troops on the faith of proclamations Edition: current; Page: [120] promising them their liberty, the national honor forbade returning them into slavery. The national honor was, it seemed, pledged to both parts of a contradiction, and its wisdom, since it could not do it with both, chose to keep faith rather with its old black, than its new white, friends; a circumstance demonstrating clear as daylight, that, in making a present peace, they meditated a future war, and hoped, that, though the promised manumission of slaves had not been effectual in the last, in the next it might be more successful; and that, had the negroes been forsaken, no aid could be hereafter expected from those of the color in a future invasion. The treaty however with us was thus broken almost as soon as made, and this by the people who charge us with breaking it by not paying perhaps for some of the very negroes carried off in defiance of it. Why should England observe treaties, when these Americans do not pay their debts?

Unreasonable, however, as this clamor appears in general, I do not pretend, by exposing it, to justify those debtors who are still able to pay, and refuse it on pretence of injuries suffered by the war. Public injuries can never discharge private obligations. Contracts between merchant and merchant should be sacredly observed, where the ability remains, whatever may be the madness of ministers. It is therefore to be hoped the fourth article of the treaty of peace which stipulates, that no legal obstruction shall be given to the payment of debts contracted before the war, will be punctually carried into execution, and that every law in every State, which impedes it, may Edition: current; Page: [121] be immediately repealed. Those laws were indeed made with honest intentions, that the half-ruined debtor, not being too suddenly pressed by some, might have time to arrange and recover his affairs so as to do justice to all his creditors. But, since the intention in making those acts has been misapprehended, and the acts wilfully misconstrued into a design of defrauding them, and now made a matter of reproach to us, I think it will be right to repeal them all. Individual Americans may be ruined, but the country will save by the operation; since these unthinking, merciless creditors must be contented with all that is to be had, instead of all that may be due to them, and the accounts will be settled by insolvency. When all have paid that can pay, I think the remaining British creditors, who suffered by the inability of their ruined debtors, have some right to call upon their own government (which by its bad projects has ruined those debtors) for a compensation. A sum given by Parliament for this purpose would be more properly disposed, than in rewarding pretended loyalists, who fomented the war. And the heavier the sum the more tendency it might have to discourage such destructive projects hereafter.

Among the merchants of Britain, trading formerly to America, there are to my knowledge many considerate and generous men, who never joined in this clamor, and who, on the return of peace, though by the treaty entitled to an immediate suit for their debts, were kindly disposed to give their debtors reasonable time for restoring their circumstances, Edition: current; Page: [122] so as to be able to make payment conveniently. These deserve the most grateful acknowledgments. And indeed it was in their favor, and perhaps for their sakes in favor of all other British creditors, that the law of Pennsylvania, though since much exclaimed against, was made, restraining the recovery of old debts during a certain time. For this restraint was general, respecting domestic as well as British debts, it being thought unfair, in cases where there was not sufficient for all, that the inhabitants, taking advantage of their nearer situation, should swallow the whole, excluding foreign creditors from any share. And in cases where the favorable part of the foreign creditors were disposed to give time, with the views above-mentioned, if others less humane and considerate were allowed to bring immediate suits and ruin the debtor, those views would be defeated. When this law expired in September, 1784, a new one was made, continuing for some time longer the restraint with respect to domestic debts, but expressly taking it away where the debt was due from citizens of the State to any of the subjects of Great Britain1; which shows Edition: current; Page: [123] clearly the disposition of the Assembly, and that the fair intentions above ascribed to them in making the former act, are not merely the imagination of the writer.

Indeed, the clamor has been much augmented by numbers joining it, who really had no claim on our country. Every debtor in Britain, engaged in whatever trade, when he had no better excuse to give for delay of payment, accused the want of returns from America. And the indignation thus excited against us now appeared so general among the English that one would imagine their nation, which is so exact in expecting punctual payment from all the rest of the world, must be at home the model of justice, the very pattern of punctuality. Yet, if one were disposed to recriminate, it would not be difficult to find sufficient matter in several parts of their conduct. But this I forbear. The two separate nations are now at peace, and there can be no use in mutual provocations to fresh enmity. If I have shown clearly that the present inability of many American merchants to discharge their debts, contracted before the war, is not so much their fault as the fault of the crediting nation, who, by making an unjust war on them, obstructing their commerce, plundering and devastating their country, were the cause of that inability, I have answered the purpose of writing this paper. How far the refusal of the British court to execute the treaty in delivering up the frontier posts may, on account of that deficiency of payment, be justifiable, is cheerfully submitted to the world’s impartial judgment.

MDLII: INSCRIPTION FOR THE PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY

Rd. Wells presents his best respects to Dr. Franklin, and takes the liberty of suggesting something of the substance of what he believes would give general satisfaction. As it is well known to the present inhabitants of this city how much they are indebted to Dr. Franklin for the first idea, as well as execution of the plan of a Public Library, Rd. Wells is very certain it would be the general wish to perpetuate a grateful remembrance of it.

Be it Remembered

in Honour of the Philadelphian Youth

[then chiefly artificers]

that, in M,DCC,XXXII,

they cheerfully, at the instance of one of their

number,

instituted the Philadelphia Library,

which, tho’ small at first,

is become highly valuable

and extensively useful;

and which the Walls of this Edifice

are now destined to Contain and Preserve.

The First Stone of whose Foundation

was here placed

the 31st Day of August,

M,DCC,LXXXIX

MDLIII: ON A LATE AUSPICIOUS MARRIAGE

• Our noble founder spread, with liberal hand,
• Rights, privileges, favors o’er his land;
• Edition: current; Page: [127]
• The father’s virtues bury’d on his grave,
• His niggard son reclaims whate’er he gave,
• Yet they may rise again.
• The grandsire in the grandson oft is seen,
• Tho’ no resembling features come between;
• And the lost spirit of the gallant bird,
• By generous blood commixt, is to his race restor’d.
• So that fam’d Spanish river,1 from his source
• Rolls, plenty-spreading where he bends his course;
• Then lost, beneath the earth runs many a mile,
• While the parched surface mocks the farmer’s toil;
• At length, resurging, bursts th’ incumbent clay
• Strong with augmented wave, revisits day,
• And flows beneficent, quite to the sea;
• Glad Nature smiles again, and all is seen
• Fresh, blooming, fruitful, flourishing and green.

MDLV: AN ACCOUNT OF THE SUPREMEST COURT OF JUDICATURE IN PENNSYLVANIA, VIZ., THE COURT OF THE PRESS1

MDLVIII: TO THE FRENCH MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Though I have not the vanity to suppose that I have any influence with your Excellency, yet I cannot at the request of Mr. Le Roy de Chaumont, Jr., refuse him this testimony of my regard. He has resided in this country near four years, during which time he has constantly conducted himself with so much probity and discretion as to gain the esteem of all ranks, and by his living in the house of M. de Marbois, Consul of France at this port, who has occasionally employed him in the duties of that office, he has thereby acquired a knowledge of that business, sufficient to enable him to execute it. Should it please your Excellency to appoint him in the room of M. de Marbois, who, as I understand, is likely to be otherwise provided for, by Mr. de Chaumont’s knowledge of the business, the language of the country, and the high esteem in which he is held here, I am confident that his appointment would be both useful to his sovereign and agreeable to the government and citizens of this State. I hope your Excellency will excuse the liberty I have taken, and believe me, with great respect, sir, your Excellency, etc.

MDLXXIX: QUERIES AND REMARKS RESPECTING ALTERATIONS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF PENNSYLVANIA1

Allah Bismillah, etc. God is great, and Mahomet is his Prophet

Have these Erika considered the consequences of granting their petition? If we cease our cruises against the Christians, how shall we be furnished with the commodities their countries produce, and which are so necessary for us? If we forbear to make slaves of their people, who in this hot climate are to cultivate our lands? Who are to perform the common labors of our city, and in our families? Must we not then be our own slaves? And is there not more compassion and more favor due to us as Mussulmen than to these Christian dogs? We have now above fifty thousand slaves in and near Algiers. This number, if not kept up by fresh supplies, will soon diminish, and be gradually annihilated. If we then cease taking and plundering the infidel ships, and making slaves of the seamen and passengers, our lands will become of no value for want of cultivation; the rents of houses in the city will sink one half; and the revenue of government arising from its share of prizes be totally destroyed! And for what? To gratify the whims of a whimsical sect, who would have us not only forbear making more slaves, but even manumit those we have.

But who is to indemnify their masters for the loss? Will the state do it? Is our treasury sufficient? Will the Erika do it? Can they do it? Or would they, to do what they think justice to the slaves, Edition: current; Page: [190] do a greater injustice to the owners? And if we set our slaves free, what is to be done with them? Few of them will return to their countries; they know too well the greater hardships they must there be subject to; they will not embrace our holy religion; they will not adopt our manners; our people will not pollute themselves by intermarrying with them. Must we maintain them as beggars in our streets, or suffer our properties to be the prey of their pillage? For men accustomed to slavery will not work for a livelihood when not compelled. And what is there so pitiable in their present condition? Were they not slaves in their own countries?

Are not Spain, Portugal, France, and the Italian states governed by despots, who hold all their subjects in slavery, without exception? Even England treats its sailors as slaves; for they are, whenever the government pleases, seized, and confined in ships of war, condemned not only to work, but to fight, for small wages, or a mere subsistence, not better than our slaves are allowed by us. Is their condition then made worse by their falling into our hands? No; they have only exchanged one slavery for another, and I may say a better; for here they are brought into a land where the sun of Islamism gives forth its light, and shines in full splendor, and they have an opportunity of making themselves acquainted with the true doctrine, and thereby saving their immortal souls. Those who remain at home have not that happiness. Sending the slaves home then would be sending them out of light into darkness.

I repeat the question, What is to be done with them? I have heard it suggested that they may be planted in the wilderness, where there is plenty of land for them to subsist on, and where they may flourish as a free state; but they are, I doubt, too little disposed to labor without compulsion, as well as too ignorant to establish a good government, and the wild Arabs would soon molest and destroy or again enslave them. While serving us, we take care to provide them with every thing, and they are treated with humanity. The laborers in their own country are, as I am well informed, worse fed, lodged, and clothed. The condition of most of them is therefore already mended, and requires no further improvement. Here their lives are in safety. They are not liable to be impressed for soldiers, and forced to cut one another’s Christian throats, as in the wars of their own countries. If some of the religious mad bigots, who now tease us with their silly petitions, have in a fit of blind zeal freed their slaves, it was not generosity, it was not humanity, that moved them to the action; it was the conscious burthen of a load of sins, and a hope, from the supposed merits of so good a work, to be excused from damnation.

How grossly are they mistaken to suppose slavery to be disallowed by the Alcoran! Are not the two precepts, to quote no more, “Master, treat your slaves with kindness; Slaves, serve your masters with cheerfulness and fidelity,” clear proofs to the contrary? Nor can the plundering of infidels be in that sacred book forbidden, since it is well known from it, Edition: current; Page: [192] that God has given the world, and all that it contains, to his faithful Mussulmen, who are to enjoy it of right as fast as they conquer it. Let us then hear no more of this detestable proposition, the manumission of Christian slaves, the adoption of which would, by depreciating our lands and houses, and thereby depriving so many good citizens of their properties, create universal discontent, and provoke insurrections, to the endangering of government and producing general confusion. I have therefore no doubt but this wise council will prefer the comfort and happiness of a whole nation of true believers to the whim of a few Erika, and dismiss their petition.

The result was, as Martin tells us, that the Divan came to this resolution: “The doctrine that plundering and enslaving the Christians is unjust, is at best problematical; but that it is the interest of this state to continue the practice, is clear; therefore let the petition be rejected.”

And it was rejected accordingly.

And since like motives are apt to produce in the minds of men like opinions and resolutions, may we not, Mr. Brown, venture to predict, from this account, that the petitions to the Parliament of England for abolishing the slave trade, to say nothing of other legislatures, and the debates upon them will have a similar conclusion? I am, sir, your constant reader and humble servant,

CODICIL

I, Benjamin Franklin, in the foregoing or annexed last will and testament named, having further considered the same, do think proper to make and publish the following codicil or addition thereto.

It having long been a fixed political opinion of mine, that in a democratical state there ought to be no offices of profit, for the reasons I had given in an article of my drawing in our Constitution, it was my intention when I accepted the office of President, to devote the appointed salary to some public uses. Accordingly, I had already, before I made my will in July last, given large sums of it to colleges, schools, building of churches, etc.; and in that will I bequeathed two thousand pounds more to the State for the purpose of making the Schuylkill navigable. But understanding since that such a sum will do but little towards accomplishing such a work, and that the project is not likely to be undertaken for many years to come, and having entertained another idea, that I hope may be more extensively useful, I do hereby revoke and annul that bequest, and direct that the certificates I have for what remains due to me of that salary be sold, towards raising the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, to be disposed of as I am now about to order.

It has been an opinion, that he who receives an estate from his ancestors is under some kind of obligation to transmit the same to their posterity. This Edition: current; Page: [214] obligation does not lie on me, who never inherited a shilling from any ancestor or relation. I shall, however, if it is not diminished by some accident before my death, leave a considerable estate among my descendants and relations. The above observation is made merely as some apology to my family for making bequests that do not appear to have any immediate relation to their advantage.

I was born in Boston, New England, and owe my first instructions in literature to the free grammar-schools established there. I have, therefore, already considered these schools in my will. But I am also under obligations to the State of Massachusetts for having, unasked, appointed me formerly their agent in England, with a handsome salary, which continued some years; and although I accidentally lost in their service, by transmitting Governor Hutchinson’s letters, much more than the amount of what they gave me, I do not think that ought in the least to diminish my gratitude.

I have considered that, among artisans, good apprentices are most likely to make good citizens, and, having myself been bred to a manual art, printing, in my native town, and afterwards assisted to set up my business in Philadelphia by kind loans of money from two friends there, which was the foundation of my fortune, and of all the utility in life that may be ascribed to me, I wish to be useful even after my death, if possible, in forming and advancing other young men, that may be serviceable to their country in both those towns. To this end, I devote two thousand pounds sterling, of which I give one thousand Edition: current; Page: [215] thereof to the inhabitants of the town of Boston, in Massachusetts, and the other thousand to the inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia, in trust, to and for the uses, intents, and purposes hereinafter mentioned and declared.

The said sum of one thousand pounds sterling, if accepted by the inhabitants of the town of Boston, shall be managed under the direction of the selectmen, united with the ministers of the oldest Episcopalian, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches in that town, who are to let out the sum upon interest at five per cent. per annum, to such young married artificers, under the age of twenty-five years, as have served an apprenticeship in the said town, and faithfully fulfilled the duties required in their indentures, so as to obtain a good moral character from at least two respectable citizens, who are willing to become their sureties, in a bond with the applicants, for the repayment of the moneys so lent, with interest, according to the terms hereinafter prescribed; all which bonds are to be taken for Spanish milled dollars, or the value thereof in current gold coin; and the managers shall keep a bound book or books, wherein shall be entered the names of those who shall apply for and receive the benefits of this institution, and of their sureties, together with the sums lent, the dates, and other necessary and proper records respecting the business and concerns of this institution. And as these loans are intended to assist young married artificers in setting up their business, they are to be proportioned by the discretion of the managers, so as not to exceed sixty pounds Edition: current; Page: [216] sterling to one person, nor to be less than fifteen pounds; and if the number of appliers so entitled should be so large as that the sum will not suffice to afford to each as much as might otherwise not be improper, the proportion to each shall be diminished so as to afford to every one some assistance. These aids, may therefore, be small at first, but, as the capital increases by the accumulated interest, they will be more ample. And in order to serve as many as possible in their turn, as well as to make the repayment of the principal borrowed more easy, each borrower shall be obliged to pay, with the yearly interest, one tenth part of the principal, which sums of principal and interest, so paid in, shall be again let out to fresh borrowers.

And, as it is presumed that there will always be found in Boston virtuous and benevolent citizens, willing to bestow a part of their time in doing good to the rising generation, by superintending and managing this institution gratis, it is hoped that no part of the money will at any time be dead, or be diverted to other purposes, but be continually augmenting by the interest; in which case there may, in time, be more than the occasions in Boston shall require, and then some may be spared to the neighboring or other towns in the said State of Massachusetts, who may desire to have it; such towns engaging to pay punctually the interest and the portions of the principal, annually, to the inhabitants of the town of Boston.

If this plan is executed, and succeeds as projected without interruption for one hundred years, the sum will then be one hundred and thirty-one thousand Edition: current; Page: [217] pounds; of which I would have the managers of the donation to the town of Boston then lay out, at their discretion, one hundred thousand pounds in public works, which may be judged of most general utility to the inhabitants, such as fortifications, bridges, aqueducts, public buildings, baths, pavements, or whatever may make living in the town more convenient to its people, and render it more agreeable to strangers resorting thither for health or a temporary residence. The remaining thirty-one thousand pounds I would have continued to be let out on interest, in the manner above directed, for another hundred years, as I hope it will have been found that the institution has had a good effect on the conduct of youth, and been of service to many worthy characters and useful citizens. At the end of this second term, if no unfortunate accident has prevented the operation, the sum will be four millions and sixty-one thousand pounds sterling, of which I leave one million sixty-one thousand pounds to the disposition of the inhabitants of the town of Boston, and three millions to the disposition of the government of the State, not presuming to carry my views farther.

All the directions herein given, respecting the disposition and management of the donation to the inhabitants of Boston, I would have observed respecting that to the inhabitants of Philadelphia, only, as Philadelphia is incorporated, I request the corporation of that city to undertake the management agreeably to the said directions; and I do hereby vest them with full and ample powers for that purpose. And, having considered that the covering a ground Edition: current; Page: [218] plat with buildings and pavements, which carry off most of the rain and prevent its soaking into the earth and renewing and purifying the springs, whence the water of wells must gradually grow worse, and in time be unfit for use, as I find has happened in all old cities, I recommend that at the end of the first hundred years, if not done before, the corporation of the city employ a part of the hundred thousand pounds in bringing, by pipes, the water of Wissahickon Creek into the town, so as to supply the inhabitants, which I apprehend may be done without great difficulty, the level of the creek being much above that of the city, and may be made higher by a dam. I also recommend making the Schuylkill completely navigable. At the end of the second hundred years, I would have the disposition of the four million and sixty-one thousand pounds divided between the inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia and the government of Pennsylvania, in the same manner as herein directed with respect to that of the inhabitants of Boston and the government of Massachusetts.

It is my desire that this institution should take place and begin to operate within one year after my decease, for which purpose due notice should be publicly given previous to the expiration of that year, that those for whose benefit this establishment is intended may make their respective applications. And I hereby direct my executors, the survivors or survivor of them, within six months after my decease, to pay over the said sum of two thousand pounds sterling to such persons as shall be duly appointed Edition: current; Page: [219] by the selectmen of Boston and the corporation of Philadelphia, to receive and take charge of their respective sums, of one thousand pounds each, for the purposes aforesaid.

Considering the accidents to which all human affairs and projects are subject in such a length of time, I have, perhaps, too much flattered myself with a vain fancy that these dispositions, if carried into execution, will be continued without interruption and have the effects proposed. I hope, however, that if the inhabitants of the two cities should not think fit to undertake the execution, they will, at least, accept the offer of these donations as a mark of my good-will, a token of my gratitude, and a testimony of my earnest desire to be useful to them after my departure. I wish, indeed, that they may both undertake to endeavor the execution of the project, because I think that, though unforeseen difficulties may arise, expedients will be found to remove them, and the scheme be found practicable. If one of them accepts the money, with the conditions, and the other refuses, my will then is, that both sums be given to the inhabitants of the city accepting, the whole to be applied to the same purposes, and under the same regulations directed for the separate parts; and, if both refuse, the money of course remains in the mass of my estate, and is to be disposed of therewith according to my will made the seventeenth day of July, 1788.1

I wish to be buried by the side of my wife, if it may be, and that a marble stone, to be made by Chambers, six feet long, four feet wide, plain, with only a small moulding round the upper edge, and this inscription:

to be placed over us both.

My fine crab-tree walking-stick, with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of the cap of liberty, I give to my friend, and the friend of mankind, General Washington. If it were a sceptre, he has merited Edition: current; Page: [221] it, and would become it. It was a present to me from that excellent woman, Madame de Forbach, the Dowager Duchess of Deux-Ponts, connected with some verses which should go with it.

I give my gold watch to my son-in-law, Richard Bache, and also the gold watch chain of the Thirteen United States, which I have not yet worn. My timepiece, that stands in my library, I give to my grandson, William Temple Franklin. I give him also my Chinese gong. To my dear old friend, Mrs. Mary Hewson, I give one of my silver tankards marked Edition: current; Page: [222] for her use during her life, and after her decease I give it to her daughter Eliza. I give to her son, William Hewson, who is my godson, my new quarto Bible, Oxford edition, to be for his family Bible, and also the botanic description of the plants in the Emperor’s garden at Vienna, in folio, with colored cuts.

And to her son, Thomas Hewson, I give a set of Spectators, Tatlers, and Guardians handsomely bound.

There is an error in my will, where the bond of William Temple Franklin is mentioned as being four thousand pounds sterling, whereas it is but for three thousand five hundred pounds.

I give to my executors, to be divided equally among those that act, the sum of sixty pounds sterling, as some compensation for their trouble in the execution of my will; and I request my friend, Mr. Duffield, to accept moreover my French wayweiser, a piece of clockwork in brass, to be fixed to the wheel of any carriage; and that my friend, Mr. Hill, may also accept my silver cream-pot, formerly given to me by the good Doctor Fothergill, with the motto, Keep bright the chain. My reflecting telescope, made by Short, which was formerly Mr. Canton’s, I give to my friend, Mr. David Rittenhouse, for the use of his observatory.

My picture, drawn by Martin, in 1767, I give to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, if they shall be pleased to do me the honor of accepting it and placing it in their chamber.

Since my will was made I have bought some more city lots, near the centre part of the estate of Joseph Dean. I would have them go with the other lots, disposed Edition: current; Page: [223] of in my will, and I do give the same to my son-in-law, Richard Bache, to his heirs and assigns forever.

In addition to the annuity left to my sister in my will, of fifty pounds sterling during her life, I now add thereto ten pounds sterling more, in order to make the sum sixty pounds. I give twenty guineas to my good friend and physician, Dr. John Jones.

With regard to the separate bequests made to my daughter Sarah in my will, my intention is, that the same shall be for her sole and separate use, notwithstanding her coverture, or whether she be covert or sole; and I do give my executors so much right and power therein as may be necessary to render my intention effectual in that respect only. This provision for my daughter is not made out of any disrespect I have for her husband.

And lastly, it is my desire that this, my present codicil, be annexed to, and considered as part of, my last will and testament to all intents and purposes.