Autobiography of Benjamin FranklinFranklin, Benjamin
History
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Franklin, Benjamin
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790; Statesmen -- United States -- Biography
One afternoon, in the height of this public quarrel, we met in the
street. "Franklin," says he, "you must go home with me and spend the
evening; I am to have some company that you will like;" and, taking me
by the arm, he led me to his house. In gay conversation over our wine,
after supper, he told us, jokingly, that he much admir'd the idea of
Sancho Panza,[93] who, when it was proposed to give him a government,
requested it might be a government of _blacks_, as then, if he could
not agree with his people, he might sell them. One of his friends, who
sat next to me, says, "Franklin, why do you continue to side with
these damn'd Quakers? Had not you better sell them? The proprietor
would give you a good price." "The governor," says I, "has not yet
_blacked_ them enough." He, indeed, had laboured hard to blacken the
Assembly in all his messages, but they wip'd off his colouring as fast
as he laid it on, and plac'd it, in return, thick upon his own face;
so that, finding he was likely to be negrofied himself, he, as well as
Mr. Hamilton, grew tir'd of the contest, and quitted the government.
These public quarrels[94] were all at bottom owing to the
proprietaries, our hereditary governors, who, when any expense was to
be incurred for the defense of their province, with incredible
meanness instructed their deputies to pass no act for levying the
necessary taxes, unless their vast estates were in the same act
expressly excused; and they had even taken bonds of these deputies to
observe such instructions. The Assemblies for three years held out
against this injustice, tho' constrained to bend at last. At length
Captain Denny, who was Governor Morris's successor, ventured to
disobey those instructions; how that was brought about I shall show
hereafter.
[93] The "round, selfish, and self-important" squire of
Don Quixote in Cervantes' romance of that name.
[94] My acts in Morris's time, military, etc.--_Marg.
note_.
But I am got forward too fast with my story: there are still some
transactions to be mention'd that happened during the administration
of Governor Morris.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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