HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY SHELDON FUND Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1848, BY GEORGE F. COOLEDGE & BROTHER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern District of New York. m STEREOTYPED BY C. C. SAVAGE, 13 Chambers Street, N. Y. PREFACE. FRANKLIN'S Own narrative of his life extends only to the 27th of July, 1757, the day on which he reached London, on his first mission as agent of Pennsylvania to the British court. He was then but little more than fifty-one years of age, so that nearly thirty-three years, embracing the most conspicuous portion of his career, was left, with the exception of occasional passages in his private correspondence, untouched by his own graphic pen; and though that sequel has been ably related by Dr. Sparks, yet the two performances, valuable as they are universally acknowledged to be, are both strictly narrative, embracing little but the recital of external occurrences. Well done, therefore, as they are, still much of the most important portion of Franklin's actual life-that inner life which is made up of thoughts and feelings -the unseen workings of the mind, the exercise of the affections, the development of character, and the progress of opinion is either left out of the narration, or is so briefly noticed, that, without access to his correspondence as well as his more elaborate productions, but scanty means are supplied for making up a full and just estimate of the whole man, the wide range of his philosophical inquiries, or of his accumulations of various knowledge, or of the number and value of his political writings, or of the vast amount of public business he transacted, or of the great extent and importance of his services to his country. This is deemed to be especially true in relation to his political services and writings prior to the American revolution. Few, comparatively, of the present generation, it is believed, are aware of the position which Franklin really occupied during the twenty years preceding our revolutionary struggle, or of the high rank he held as a public man, and the extent to which the principles and arguments on which that struggle was based, proceeded from his mind, or were unfolded and enforced by his pen. Indeed, as to the community of this day, generally, it may, I suspect, be fairly said, that little more is known of Franklin than that he was a remarkably ingenious tradesman, who, having a turn for philo |