From the original by Jean Baptiste Greuze, in the Boston Public Library. It was painted for Benjamin Franklin as a gift to Richard Oswald, the English commissioner associated with him in the peace negotiations of 1782. Gardner Brewer of Boston bought the painting in 1872 and presented it to the Library. Autograph from the Declaration of Independence. The vignette of Independence Hall is after a drawing in the possession of the American Bank Note Co., Philadelphia. COUNT VERGENNES From the frontispiece to Doniol, "Histoire de la Participation de la France a l'Establissement des Etats-Unis d'Amerique," Paris, 1886, 5 vols., 4to. vol. i.; an engraving by Vangelisti, from the original painting by Antoine Francois Callet. Autograph from same book. LORD HILLSBOROUGH (Born Wills Hill; afterwards Marquis of Downshire) From a painting by J. Rising, owned by Lord Salisbury. Autograph from MS. collection in the New York Public Library, Lenox Building. PAUL JONES From the original portrait by C. W. Peale in Independence Hall. Autograph from MS. collection in Library of Boston Athenaeum. SEA-FIGHT BETWEEN THE SERAPIS AND BON HOMME RICHARD Off Flamborough Head, September 3, 1779. Paul Jones's ship, in compliment to the author of "Poor Richard's Maxims," was named "Bon Homme Richard." Captain Pearson, who commanded the Serapis, was knighted for his heroic resistance. Paul Jones, tradition says, on hearing of the honor conferred on Pearson, good-naturedly observed, "If I ever meet him again, I'll make a lord of him." BENJAMIN FRANKLIN CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS It is a lamentable matter for any writer to find himself compelled to sketch, however briefly, the early years of Benjamin Franklin. That autobiography, in which the story of those years is so inimitably told, by its vividness, its simplicity, even by its straightforward vanity, and by the quaint charm of its old-fashioned but well-nigh faultless style, stands among the few masterpieces of English prose. It ought to have served for the perpetual protection of its subject as a copyright more sacred than any which rests upon mere statutory law. Such, however, has not been the case, and the narrative has been rehearsed over and over again till the American who is not familiar with it is indeed a curiosity. Yet no one of the subsequent narrators has justified his undertaking. Therefore because the tale has been told so often, and once has been told so well, and also in order that the stone which it is my lot to cast upon a cairn made up of so many failures may at least be only a small pebble, I shall get forward as speedily as possible to that point in Franklin's career where his important public services begin, at the same time commending every reader to turn again for further refreshment of his knowledge to those pages which might well have aroused the envy of Fielding and Defoe.