Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed, Volume 1 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own WritingsBruce, Wiliam Cabell
History
Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed, Volume 1 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own Writings
Bruce, Wiliam Cabell
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790
He may keep his Store [he said] in your little North
Room for the present. And as he will be at no expence
while the Family continues with you, I think he may,
with Industry and Frugality, get so forward, as at the
end of his Term, to pay his Debts and be clear of the
World, which I much wish to see. I have given him L200
Sterl'g to add something to his Cargo.
It is not long before he is writing to Deborah about "Sister Bache and her
amiable Daughters." Like the commerce of material gifts, which his wife and
himself kept up with each other, when separated, are the details about his
godson, William Hewson, the son of his friend Polly, which he exchanges
with Deborah for details about his grandson, who came to be known, it
seems, as "the Little King Bird," and the "Young Hercules."
In Return for your History of your _Grandson_ [he wrote
to her on one occasion], I must give you a little of
the History of my _Godson_. He is now 21 Months old,
very strong and healthy, begins to speak a little, and
even to sing. He was with us a few Days last Week, grew
fond of me, and would not be contented to sit down to
Breakfast without coming to call _Pa_, rejoicing when
he had got me into my Place. When seeing me one Day
crack one of the Philada Biscuits into my Tea with the
Nut-crackers, he took another and try'd to do the same
with the Tea-Tongs. It makes me long to be at home to
play with Ben.
Indeed, by this time, Franklin had become such a fatuous grandfather that
he ceases to call his grandson Ben and speaks of him as "Benny Boy" when
he does not speak of him as "the dear boy."
In the fulness of time, Richard and Sally Bache were destined to be the
parents of numerous children. When Franklin returned from his mission to
France, the youngest of them soon became as devoted to him as had been
Billy Hewson, or the youthful son of John Jay, whose singular attachment to
him is referred to in one of his letters to Jay. In the same description,
in which Manasseh Cutler speaks in such sour terms of the person of Mrs.
Bache, he tells us that, when he saw her at Franklin's home in
Philadelphia, she had three of her children about her, over whom she seemed
to have no kind of command, but who appeared to be excessively fond of
their grandpapa. Indeed, all children who were brought into close
companionship with Franklin loved him, and instinctively turned to him for
responsive love and sympathy. Men may be the best judges of the human
intellect, but children are the best judges of the human heart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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