17 - Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

Penned as a heartfelt letter to his son, Benjamin Franklins autobiography is not just a chronicle of his life, but also a pioneer in the self-help genre in America. The book is an intriguing blend of personal history and timeless advice on success, beautifully edited by Frank Woodworth Pine (1869-1919). Join us as we delve into Franklins wisdom-filled world. (Summary by Gary)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Chapter sixteen. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Frank Woodworth Pine,

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Chapter sixteen Braddock's expedition. The British Government, not choosing to
permit the union of the colonies as proposed at Albany,
and to trust that union with their defense, lest they
should thereby grow too military and feel their own strength,
suspicions and jealousies at this time being entertained of them,

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sent over General Braddock with two regiments of regular English
troops for that purpose. He landed at Alexandria in Virginia,
and thence marched to Frederictown in Maryland, where he halted
for carriages. Our assembly, apprehending from some information that he
had conceived violent prejudices against them as averse to the service,

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wished me to wait upon him as from them, but
as Postmaster General, under the guise of proposing to settle
with him the mode of conducting with most celerity and certainty.
The dispatches between him and the government of the several
provinces with whom he must necessarily have continual correspondence, and

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of which they supposed to pay the expense. My son
accompanied me on this journey. We found the General at Frederictown,
waiting impatiently for the return of those he had sent
through the back parts of Maryland and Virginia to collect wagons.
I stayed with him several days, dined with him daily,

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and had full opportunity of removing all his prejudices by
the information of what the Assembly had before his arrival
actually done and were still willing to do to facilitate
his operations. When I was about to depart, the returns
of wagons to be obtained were brought in, by which
it appeared that they amounted only to twenty five and

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not all of those were in serviceable condition. The General
and all the officers were surprised, declared the expedition was
then at an end, being impossible, and exclaimed against the
ministers for ignorantly landing them in a country destitute of
the means of conveying their stores, baggage, et cetera. Not
less than one hundred and fifty wagons being necessary I

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happened to say, I thought it was pity they had
not been landed rather in Pennsylvania, as in that country
almost every farmer had his wagon. The General eagerly laid
hold of my words and said, then, you, sir, who
are a man of interest, there can probably procure them
for us, and I beg you will undertake it. I
asked what terms were to be offered the owners of

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the wagons, and I was desired to put on paper
the terms that appeared to me necessary. This I did,
and they were agreed to, and a commission and instructions
accordingly prepared immediately. What those terms were will appear in
the advertisement I published as soon as I arrived at Lancaster, which,
being from the great and sudden effect, it produced a

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piece of some curiosity. I shall insert it at length
as follows. Advertisement, Lancaster, April twenty sixth, seventeen fifty five,
whereas one hundred and fifty wagons, with four horses to
each wagon, and fifteen hundred saddle or pack horses, are
wanted for the service of His Majesty's forces, now about

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to rendezvous at Will's Creek, and his Excellency General Braddock,
having been pleased to empower me to contract for the
hire of the same. I hereby give notice that I
shall attend for that purpose at Lancaster from this day
to next next Wednesday evening, and at York from next
Thursday morning till Friday evening, or I shall be ready

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to agree for wagons and teams or single horses on
the following terms. Feests. One that there shall be paid
for each wagon with four good horses and a driver
fifteen shillings per diem, and for each able horse with
a pack, saddle or other saddle and furniture two shillings

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per diem, and for each able horse without a saddle
eighteen pence per diem. Two that the pay commence from
the time of their joining the forces at Will's Creek,
which must be honor before the twenty ninth of May, ensuing,
And that a reasonable allowance be paid over and above
for the time necessary for their traveling to Will's Creek

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and home again after their discharge. Three. Each wagon and
team and every saddle or pack horse is to be
valued by indifferent persons chosen between me and the owner,
And in case of the loss of any wagons, team
or other horse, in the service. The price accordingly to
such valuation is to be allowed and paid. Four seven

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days pay is to be advanced and paid in hand
by me to the owner of each wagon and team
or horse at the time of contracting, if required, and
the remainder to be paid by General Braddock or by
the Paymaster of the Army at the time of their discharge,
or from time to time, as it shall be demanded.

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Five No drivers of wagons or persons taking care of
the hired horses are, on any account to be called
upon to do the duty of soldiers, or to be
otherwise employed than in conducting or taking care of their
carriages or horses. Six. All oats, indian corn, or other

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forage that wagons or horses bring to the camp, more
than is necessary for the subsistence of the horses, is
to be taken for the use of the Army, and
a reasonable price paid for the same. Note, My son
William Franklin is empowered to enter into like contracts with
any person in Cumberland County. B. Franklin to the inhabitants

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of the counties of Lancaster, York and Cumberland, friends and countrymen,
being occasionally at the camp of Frederick a few days since,
I found the General and officers extremely exasperated on account
of their not being supplied with horses and carriages, which
had been expected from this province as most able to

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furnish them. But though the dissensions between our Governor and Assembly,
money had not been provided, nor any steps taken for
that purpose. It was proposed to send an armed force
immediately into these counties to seize as many of the
best carriages and horses as should be wanted, and compel
as many persons into the service as would be necessary

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to drive and take care of them. I apprehended that
the progress of British soldiers through these counties on such
an occasion, especially considering the temper they are in and
their resentment against us, would be attended with many and
great inconveniences to the inhabitants, and therefore more willingly took
the trouble of trying first what might be done by

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fair and equitable means. The people of these back countries
have lately complained to the Assembly that a sufficient currency
was wanting. You have an opportunity of receiving and dividing
among you a very considerable sum for if the service
of this expedition should continue, as it is more than
probable it will, for one hundred and twenty days. The

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hire of these wagons and horses will amount to upward
of thirty thousand pounds, which will be paid to you
in silver and gold of the King's money. The service
will be light and easy, for the army will scarce
march above twelve miles per day, and the wagons and
baggage horses, as they carry those things that are absolutely
necessary for the welfare of the army, must march with

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the army and no faster, and are for the army's sake,
always placed where they can be most secure, whether in
a march or in a camp. If you are really,
as I believe you are, good and loyal subjects to
His Majesty, you may now do a most acceptable service
and make it easy for yourselves. For three or four

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of such as cannot separately spare from the business of
their plantations. A wagon and four horses and a driver
may do it together, one furnishing the wagon, another one
or two horses, and another the driver, and divide the
pay proportionally between you. But if you do not this

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service to your King and country voluntarily. When such good
pay and reasonable terms are offered you, your loyalty will
be strongly suspected. The King's business must be done. So
many brave troops come so far for your defense must
not stand idle through your backwardness to do what may
be reasonably expected from you. Wagons and horses must be had.

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Violent measures will probably be used, and you will be
left to seek for recompense where you can find it,
and your case perhaps be little pitied or regarded. I
have no particular interest in this affair, as accept the
satisfaction of endeavoring to do good. I shall have only
my labor for my pains. If this method of obtaining

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the wagons and horses is not likely to succeed, I
am obliged to send word to the General in fourteen days,
and I suppose Sir John Saint Clair, the Husser, with
a body of soldiers will immediately enter the province for
the purpose which I shall be sorry to hear, because
I am very sincerely and truly your friend and well wisher. B. Franklin.

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I received of the General about a eight hundred pounds
to be dispersed in advance money to the wagon owners,
et cetera. But the sum being insufficient, I advanced upward
of two hundred pounds more, and in two weeks the
one hundred and fifty wagons with two hundred and fifty
nine carriage horses were on the march for the camp.

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The advertisement promised payment according to the valuation in case
any wagon or horse should be lost. The owners, however,
alleging they did not know General Braddock or what dependence
might be had on his promise, insisted on my bond
for the performance, which I accordingly gave them. While I
was at the camp supping one evening with the officers

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of Colonel Dunbar's regiment, he represented to me his concern
for the subalterns, who he said were generally not in
affluence and could ill afford in this dear country to
lay in the stores that might be necessary for so
long a march through a wilderness where nothing was to
be purchased. Commiserated their care and resolved to endeavor procuring

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them some relief. I said nothing, however, to him, of
my intention, but wrote the next morning to the Committee
of the Assembly, who had the disposition of some public money,
warmly recommending the case of these officers to their consideration,
and proposing that a present should be sent them of
necessaries and refreshments. My son, who had some experience of

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a camp life and of its wants, drew up a
list from me, which I enclosed in my letter. The
committee approved and used such diligence that conducted by my son.
The stores arrived at the camp as soon as the wagons.
They consisted of twenty parcels, each containing six pounds of
sugar loaf, six pounds of good muscovado, one pound good

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green tea, one pound good bohea doo, six pounds loaf sugar,
six pounds good muscovado, one pound good green tea, one
pound good bohee, six pounds good ground coffee, six pounds chocolate,
one to two hundredweight best white biscuit, one to two

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pounds pepper, one quart best white wine vinegar, one Gloucester cheese,
one cake containing twenty pounds good butter, two dozen old
Madeira wine, two gallons Jamaican spirits, one bottle flour of mustard,
two well cured hams, one to two dozen dried tongues,

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six pounds rice, six pounds of raisins. These twenty parcels,
well packed, were placed on as many horses each parcel,
with the horse being intended as a present for one officer.
They were very thankfully received, and the kindness acknowledged by
letters to me from the kernels of both regiments in
the most grateful terms. The General too was highly satisfied

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with my conduct in procuring him the wagons, et cetera,
and readily paid my account of disbursements, thanking me repeatedly
and requesting my further assistance in sending provisions after him.
I undertook this also, and was busily employed in it
till we heard of his defeat, advancing for the service

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of my own money upwards of one thousand pounds sterling,
of which I sent him an account. It came to
his hands, luckily for me, a few days before the battle,
and he returned me immediately an order on the paymaster
for the round sum of one thousand pounds, leaving the
remainder to the next account. I considered this payment as

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good luck, having never been able to obtain that remainder,
of which more hereafter. The General was I think a
brave man, and might probably have made a figure as
a good officer in some European war. But he had
too much self confidence, too high an opinion of the
validity of regular troops, and to mean a one of
both Americans and Indians. George Crohan, our Indian interpreter, joined

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him on his march with one hundred of those people
who might have been of great use to his army
as guides, scouts, et cetera, if he had treated them kindly.
But he slighted and neglected him, and they gradually left him.
In conversation with him, one day he was giving me
some account of his intended progress after taking Fort Decainne,

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says he, I am to proceed to Niagara, and having
taken that to Fontanac, if the season will allow me,
and I suppose it will, for Ducaine can hardly retain
me above three or four days. And I see nothing
that can obstruct my march to Niagara, having before revolved
in my mind the long line his army must take

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in the march by a very narrow road to be
cut for them through the woods and bushes, and also
what I had read of a former defeat of fifteen
hundred French who invaded the Iroquois country. I had conceived
some doubts and some fears for the event of the campaign.
But I ventured only to say, to be sure, sir,

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if you arrive well before Ducaine, with these fine troops
so well provided with artillery, that place not yet completely fortified,
and as we here with no very strong garrison, can
probably make but a short resistance. The only danger I
apprehend of obstruction to your march is from ambuscades of Indians,

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who by constant practice are dexteris in laying and executing them.
And the slender line near four miles long, which your
army must make may expose it to be attacked by
surprise in its flanks, and to be cut like a
thread into several pieces, which, from their distance cannot come

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up in time to support each other. He smiled at
my ignorance, and replied, these savages may indeed be a
formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon on
the King's regular and disciplined troops, Sir, it is impossible
they should make any impression. I was conscious of an
impropriety in my disputing with a military man in matters

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of his profession, and said no more. The enemy, however,
did not take the advantage of his army, which I
apprehended its long line of march exposed it to but
let it advance without an interruption till within nine miles
of the place, and then when more in a body,
for it had just passed river where the front had halted,

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till all were come over, and in a more open
part of the woods than any it had passed, attacked
its advanced guard by heavy fire from behind trees and bushes,
which was the first intelligence the general had of an
enemy's being near him. This guard being disordered, the general
hurried his troops up to their assistance, which was done

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in great confusion though wagons, baggage and cattle, and presently
the fire came upon their flank. The offer officers, being
on horseback, were more easily distinguished, picked out as marks,
and fell very fast, and the soldiers were crowded together
in a huddle, having or hearing no orders, and standing
to be shot at till two thirds of them were killed,

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and then being seized with a panic, the whole fled
with precipitation. The wagoners took each horse out of its
team and scampered. Their example was immediately followed by others,
so that all the wagons, provisions, artillery, and stores were
left to the enemy. The general, being wounded, was brought
off with difficulty. His secretary, mister Shirley, was killed by

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his side, and out of eighty six officers, sixty three
were killed or wounded, and seven hundred and fourteen men killed.
Out of the eleven hundred, these eleven hundred had been
picked men from the whole army. The rest had been
left behind with Colonel Dunbar, who was to follow with
the heavier part of the stores, provisions, and baggage. The fliers,

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not being pursued, arrived at Dunbar's camp, and the panic
they brought with them instantly seized him and all his people.
And though he had now above one thousand men, and
the enemy who had beaten Braddock did not at most
exceed four hundred Indians and French together. Instead of proceeding
and endeavoring to recover some of the lost honor, he

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ordered all the stores, ammunition, et cetera to be destroyed,
that he might have more horses to assist his flight
towards the settlements and less lumber to remove. He was
there met with requests from the governors of Virginia, Maryland,
and Pennsylvania that he should post his troops on the
frontier so as to afford some protection to the inhabitants.

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But he continued his hasty march through all the country,
not thinking himself safe, till he arrived at Philadelphia, where
the inhabitants could protect him. This whole transaction gave US
Americans the first suspicion that are exalted eye ideas of
the power of British regulars had not been well founded

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again footnote. Other accounts of this expedition and defeat may
be found in fisks Washington and His Country or Lodges
George Washington, Volume one, end footnote. In the first march, too,
from their landing till they got beyond the settlements, they
had plundered and stripped the inhabitants, totally ruining some poor families,

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besides insulting, abusing, and confining the people. If they remonstrated,
this was enough to put us out of conceit of
such defenders, if we had really wanted any How, different
was the conduct of our French friends in seventeen eighty one, who,
during a march through the most inhabited part of our

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country from Rhode Island to Virginia, near seven hundred miles,
occasioned not the smallest complaint for the loss of a pig,
a chicken, or even an apple. Captain Ormey, who was
one of the generals de camp, and being grievously wounded,
was brought off with him, and continued with him to
his death, which happened in a few days. Told me

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that he was totally silent all the first day, and
at night only said who would have thought it? That?
He was silent again the following day, saying only at
last we shall better know how to deal with them
another time, and died in a few minutes. After the
Secretary's papers, with all the General's orders, instructions and correspondents

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falling into the enemy's hands, they selected and translated into
French a number of articles which they printed to prove
the hostile intentions of the British court before the declaration
of war. Among these I saw some letters of the
General to the Ministry, speaking highly of the great service
I had rendered the army, and recommending me to their notice.

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David Hume, too, who was some years after Secretary to
Lord Hertford, then ministered to France, and after to General Conway,
when Secretary of State told me he had seen among
the papers in that office letters from Braddock highly recommending me.
But the expedition having been unfortunate, my service, it seems,

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was not thought of much value. For those recommendations were
never of any use to me. As to rewards for myself,
I asked only one, which was that he would give
orders to his officers not to enlist any more of
our bought servants, and that he would discharge such as
had been already enlisted. This he readily granted, and several

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were accordingly returned to their masters on my application. Dunbar,
when the command devolved on him, was not so generous.
He being at Philadelphia on his retreat, or rather flight,
I applied to him for the discharge of the servants
of three poor farmers in Lancaster County that he had enlisted,
reminding him of the late General's orders on that head.

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He promised me that if the masters would come to
him at Trenton, where he should be in a few
days on his march to New York, he would there
deliver their men to them. They accordingly were at the
expense and trouble of going to Trenton, and there he
refused to perform his promise, to their great loss and disappointment.
As soon as the loss of the wagons and horses

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was generally known, all the owners came upon me for
the valuation which I had given Bond to pay. The
demands gave me a great deal of trouble my acquainting
them that the money was ready in the paymaster's hands,
but that orders for paying it must first be obtained
from General Shirley, and by assuring them that I had
applied to that General by letter, but he being at

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a distance, an answer could not soon be received, and
they must have patience. All this was not sufficient to satisfy,
and some began to sue me. General Shirley at length
relieved me from this terrible situation by appointing commissioners to
examine the claims and ordering payment. They amounted to near
twenty thousand pounds, which to pay would have ruined me.

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Before we had the news of this defeat, the two
doctors Bond came to me with a subscription paper for
raising money to defray the expense of a grand firework,
which it was intended to exhibit at a rejoicing. On
receipt of the news of our taking Fort Decaye, I
looked grave and said, it would I thought be time

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enough to prepare for the rejoicing when we knew we
should have occasion to rejoice. They seemed surprised that I
did not immediately comply with their approval. Why the devil,
says one of them, You surely don't suppose that the
fort will not be taken. I don't know that it
will not be taken, but I know that the events

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of war are subject to great uncertainty. I gave them
the reasons of my doubting. The subscription was dropped, and
the projectors thereby missed the mortification they would have undergone
if the firework had prepared. Doctor Bond, on some other
occasion afterward, said that he did not like Franklin's forebodings.

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Governor Morris, who had continually worried the Assembly with message
after message before the defeat of Braddock to beat them
into the making of acts to raise money for the
defense of the province without taxing, among others, the proprietary estates,
and had rejected all their bills for not having such
an exempting clause now redoubled his attacks with more hope

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of success, the danger and necessity of being greater. The Assembly, however,
continued firm, believing they had justice on their side, and
that it would be giving up an essential right if
they suffered the Governor to amend their money bills. In
one of the last indeed, which was for granting fifty
thousand pounds, his proposed amendment was only of a single word.

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The bill expressed that all estates real and personal were
to be taxed those of the proprietaries not accepted. His
amendment was for not read only a small but very
material alteration. However, when the news of this disaster reached England,
our friends there, whom we had taken care to furnish

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with all the Assembly's answers to the Governor's messages, raised
a clamor against the proprietaries for their meanness and injustice
in giving their governor such instructions, some going so far
as to say that by obstructing the defense of their
province they forfeited their right to it. They were intimidated
by this and sent orders to their Receiver General to

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add five thousand pounds of their money to whatever sum
might be given by the Assembly for such purpose. This
being notified to the House, was accepted in lieu of
their share of a general tax, and a new bill
was formed with an exempting clause, which passed accordingly. But
by this act I was appointed one of the commissioners
for disposing of the money sixty thousand pounds. I had

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been active in modeling the bill and procuring its passage,
and had at the same time drawn a bill for
establishing and disciplining a volunteer militia, which I carried through
the House without much difficulty, as care was taken in
it to leave the Quakers at their liberty. To promote
the association necessary to form the militia, I wrote a

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dialog stating and answering all the objections I could think
of for such a militia, which was printed and had,
as I thought, great effect, end of Chapter sixteen