In another letter to the same lady, after alluding to the study of entomology, and illustrating its importance by an anecdote, he advises a prudent moderation in the pursuit, lest more important things be sacrificed; "for," he says, "there is no rank in natural knowledge of equal dignity and importance with that of being a good parent, a good child, a good husband or wife, a good subject or citizen, - that is, in short, a good Christian. Nicholas Gimcrack, therefore, who neglected the care of his family to pursue butterflies, was a just object of ridicule, and we must give him up as fair game to the satirist." After being present, by invitation, at the Commencement at Cambridge, the beginning of July, 1758, Franklin went through Huntingdonshire into Northumberlandshire, in search of some of his own and his wife's English relatives. Although they were all in humble spheres of life, he seems to have taken genuine pleasure in finding them out and making himself known. "At Wellingborough," he says, in a letter to his wife, "on inquiry, we found still living Mary Fisher, whose maiden name was Franklin, daughter and only child of Thomas Franklin, my father's eldest brother; she is five years older than Sister Douse, and remembers her going away with my father and his then wife, and two other children, to New England, about the year 1685. We have had no correspondence with her since my Uncle Benjamin's death, now near thirty years. I knew she had lived at Wellingborough, and had married there to one Mr. Richard Fisher, a grazier and tanner, about fifty years ago, but did not expect to see either of them alive, so inquired for their posterity. I was directed to their house, and we found them both alive, but weak with age,- very glad, however, to see us; she seems to have been a very smart, sensible woman. They are wealthy, have left off business, and live comfortably." From Wellingborough, Franklin and his son went to Ecton, about three or four miles, where his father was born, and his father, grandfather and greatgrandfather, had lived. He visited the old family house, which he describes as "a decayed old stone building, but still known by the name of Franklin House." Here he made the acquaintance of the rector of the village and his wife, a good-natured, chatty old lady," who remembered a good deal about the family. She led the way into the church-yard, "and showed us several grave-stones, which were so covered with moss that we could not read the letters till she ordered a hard brush and basin of water, with which Peter scoured them clean, and then Billy copied them." A group for a picture this! Franklin, his son, and the chatty old lady," and Peter scrubbing the moss and dust from the grave-stones of the philosopher's ancestors, rude forefathers of the hamlet"! "the The rector's wife told diverting stories of Thomas Franklin, Mrs. Fisher's father, who was a conveyancer and a bit of a lawyer, and was looked upon as something of a conjurer by some of the villagers. He was a leading man in county affairs, set on foot a subscription for having chimes in the steeple, proposed an easy method to prevent the village meadows from being submerged, and, in short, exhibited many of the traits afterwards more conspicuously developed in the character of his illustrious nephew. "He died," says Franklin, "just four years before I was born, on the same day of the same month." Perhaps a notion of transmigration slid into Franklin's brain, as he noted this coincidence. From Ecton, he went to Birmingham, where, upon inquiry, he found out some of his wife's, "and Cousin Wilkinson's, and Cousin Cash's relations." One was a buttonmaker, and another a turner; and one was a "lively, active man, with six children;" and they were all very glad to see any person that knew their relatives in America; and Franklin was well pleased with them and with his visit. Returning to London, he found out a daughter of his father's only sister, very old, and never married; "a good, clever woman, but poor, though vastly contented with her situation, and very cheerful." Happening to hear that the child of a distant relation was in a destitute state, he took her home, and educated and maintained her till she was married. In February, 1759, the University of St. Andrew's conferred upon Franklin the degree of Doctor of Laws; and in the summer of that year, accompanied by his son, he made a visit to Scotland, with which he seems to have been highly gratified. He here formed the acquaintance of David Hume and Dr. Robertson, the historians, Lord Kames and other eminent scholars and writers. In a letter some months afterwards to Lord Kames, he alludes to his six weeks spent in Scotland as a period of "the densest happiness" he had met with in any part of his life; and he adds: "The agreeable and instructive society we found there in such plenty has left so pleasing an impression on my memory, that, did not strong connections draw me elsewhere, I believe Scotland would be the country I should choose to spend the remainder of my days in." On hearing that Franklin was about to return to America, David Hume wrote to him: "I am very sorry that you intend soon to leave our hemisphere. America has sent us many good things, gold, silver, sugar, tobacco, indigo (?), &c.; but you are the first philosopher, and, indeed, the first great man of letters, for whom we are beholden to her." During a second visit to Scotland, in 1771, Franklin passed some three weeks in Edinburgh, during which he lodged with David Hume. Academic honors, similar to those awarded by the University of St. Andrew's, were conferred on Franklin by the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh; and, by the former of these last, the degree of Master of Arts was conferred on his son William. Another distinction awaited the latter. Through the influence of Lord Bute, he was appointed Governor of New Jersey.* * Franklin was subjected to some uncharitable attacks in consequence of this appointment. A caricature of him, published in Philadelphia, contained these lines: "All his designs concentre in himself, For building castles and amassing pelf; False in spirit and in fact, these lines indicate the malevolence of his enemies, and the abuse to which Franklin, in common with Washington and other great men, was subjected. William Franklin was born in 1731. He was a captain in the French and English war, and fought bravely under Abercrombie at Ticonderoga. He was for a time popular as Governor of New Jersey; but, taking sides with the ministry, he was declared by the Congress of New Jersey to be an enemy to liberty, and was seized in his own house at Perth Amboy, and conveyed a prisoner to Connecticut. In 1778, he was exchanged and released. He went to England at the close of the war, where he resided until his death, in November, 1813, in the receipt of a pension from the III. AFTER a sojourn of more than five years in England, Franklin sailed for home, the latter part of August, 1762. His vessel, being under convoy of a man-of-war, was obliged to touch at Madeira, and remained there a few days; so that it was the first of November before he arrived in Philadelphia. He was welcomed with enthusiasm by his many political and personal friends. He found his wife and daughter well; "the latter grown quite a woman, with many amiable accomplishments acquired in my absence, and my friends as hearty and affectionate as ever; with whom my house was filled for many days, to congratulate me on my return." During his absence he had been annually elected a member of the Assembly; and now that body passed a vote of thanks "as well for the faithful discharge of his duty to that province in particular, as for the many and important services done to America in general, during his residence in Great Britain." They voted him also a more substantial testimonial, in a compensation of three thousand pounds sterling for his six years' service. John Penn, son and presumptive heir of Richard Penn, one of the joint proprietors, succeeded Hamilton as governor in October, 1763. He entered upon his official duties at a time when the back settlers of Pennsylvania were in a state of great excitement, because of the depredations of the confederated tribes of Indians, under the instigation of Pontiac, upon the frontiers of that province; hundreds of persons had been plundered and slain, families driven from their homes, and a state of constant disquiet and alarm produced among the settlers, who were goaded to exasperation by the cruelties that had been practised. The Pennsylvania borderers were chiefly Presbyterians of Scotch and Irish descent, and religious antipathy and fanaticism concurred to inflame their resentment. The scriptural British government of four thousand dollars per annum. He left a son, William Temple Franklin, who edited his grandfather's works, and died at Paris in 1823. In his will, after making a few inconsiderable bequests to his son, Franklin remarks: "The part he acted against me in the late war, which is of public notoriety, will account for my leaving him no more of an estate he endeavored to deprive me of." command, that Joshua should destroy the heathen, was conveniently construed into an injunction to Pennsylvanians to exterminate the Indians. In December, 1763, a band of Indian haters from Paxton, a little town on the east bank of the Susquehannah, made an excursion to Conestoga, some distance above, and slaughtered, in cold blood, six poor Indians, chiefly women and old men, belonging to a remnant of twenty of the Iroquois tribe, living in a peaceable manner under the superintendence of Moravian missionaries. After this outrage, the other Indians belonging to the settlement, and who did not happen to be in the village at the time of the massacre, were lodged for safety in Lancaster jail. The Governor issued a proclamation denouncing the massacre, and offering a reward for the guilty parties. But the Paxton men, instead of being intimidated, ventured upon an aggravation of their crime. On the 27th of December, a party of about fifty ruffians rode at a gallop into Lancaster, broke into a yard adjacent to the jail where the Indians were assembled, and slaughtered them all, without regard to age or sex. Another proclamation was issued by the Governor; but so audacious had the rioters become, that a number of them marched in arms to Philadelphia to pursue some other friendly Indians, who had taken refuge in that city. This was towards the end of January, 1764. The detachment of rioters numbered from five to fifteen hundred men. They were inflamed by exasperation at once against the Indians and the Quakers, looking upon the latter, through their opposition to defensive measures, as aiders and abettors of the barbarities inflicted by the former. There was a considerable class in Philadelphia who sympathized with the rioters. Franklin was now, as ever, found arrayed on the side of humanity and justice. The persecuted and detested Indians found in him a zealous champion and protector. He wrote a pamphlet, giving a narrative of the massacre, and calling earnestly on "all good men" to "join heartily and unanimously in support of the laws." The Assembly having passed a vote extending the English riot-act to the province, he organized, at the Governor's request, military companies composed of the citizens, and exerted himself most effectually in giving the right direction to a divided |