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
I never knew an apprentice [he said] contented with the
clothes allowed him by his master, let them be what
they would. Jemmy Franklin, when with me, was always
dissatisfied and grumbling. When I was last in Boston,
his aunt bid him go to a shop and please himself, which
the gentleman did, and bought a suit of clothes on my
account dearer by one half than any I ever afforded
myself, one suit excepted; which I don't mention by way
of complaint of Jemmy, for he and I are good friends,
but only to show you the nature of boys.
What a good friend he proved to Jemmy, when the latter became his own
master, we have seen. The _erratum_ of which Franklin was guilty in his
relations to his brother James was fully corrected long before he left a
will behind him conferring upon James' descendants the same measure of his
remembrance as that conferred by him upon the descendants of his brother
Samuel and his sisters.
Four of Franklin's brothers died young, and Josiah, his sea faring brother,
perished at sea not long after he excited the dudgeon of his uncle Benjamin
by his indifference to his uncle's line of thanksgiving.
As long as Franklin's brothers John and Peter were engaged, as their father
had been, in the business of making soap and candles, Franklin assisted
them by obtaining consignments of their wares from them, and advertising
these wares in his newspaper, and selling them in his shop. Later, when he
became Deputy Postmaster-General of the Colonies, he made John postmaster
at Boston and Peter postmaster at Philadelphia. Referring to a visit that
he paid to John at Newport, Franklin says in the _Autobiography_, "He
received me very affectionately, for he always lov'd me." When John died in
1756 at the age of sixty-five, some years after his brother Benjamin had
thoughtfully devised a special catheter for his use, the latter wrote to
his sister Jane, "I condole with you on the loss of our dear brother. As
our number grows less, let us love one another proportionably more."
John's widow he made postmistress at Boston in her husband's place.
Peter Franklin died in 1766 in the seventy-fourth year of his age. As soon
as the news of Peter's death reached Franklin in London, he wrote a most
feeling letter to Peter's widow, Mary.
It has pleased God at length [he said] to take from us
my only remaining Brother, and your affectionate
Husband, with whom you have lived in uninterrupted
Harmony and Love near half a Century.
Considering the many Dangers & Hardships his Way of
Life led him into, and the Weakness of his
Constitution, it is wonderful that he lasted so long.
It was God's Goodness that spared him to us. Let us,
instead of repining at what we have lost, be thankful
for what we have enjoyed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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