of that of Master of Arts for having distinguished himself in the same branches of knowledge.*

It was in this year (August 1762) he was appointed through the influence of Lord Bute, and without any solicitation on the part of his father,† Governor of New Jersey; previously undergoing, it is said, a close examination by Lord Halifax, Minister of American Affairs; deemed advisable perhaps on account of his colonial birth and youth, he at that time being only thirty years of age.

There were some persons who regarded this promotion of Mr. Franklin as an event deeply to be deprecated, and intimations are met with to the effect that it was only through the secresy observed by those concerned in obtaining the commission that remonstrance was not made and steps taken to counteract what was pronounced a dishonor and disgrace to the country.§ But I have failed to discover any deficiency in the abilities of Gov. ernor Franklin when compared with his predecessors, or any peculiarity in his political or private character that justifies the severity of these strictures. On the contrary the circumstances, above narrated, under which the appointment was made, are highly creditable to him—evincing as they do a confidence in his capacity for the office, and in his fidelity to the government, which was not wont to be reposed in those of colonial birth, unless some cogent reasons of policy prompted thereto, or strong claims to the preferment were presented;-and it is certain that the endeavors made to prejudice the people of New Jersey against their new Governor did not prevent his gathering around him as members of his Council gentlemen of the highest respectability and standing in the Province. It is not probable that such would have been the case had his talents and character been calculated only to entail misfortune on the people over whom he was placed.|| About the time of his appointment Governor Franklin married Miss Elizabeth Downs-of whom recollections are, or were,

"

* The New York Mercury of July 12th, 1762, thus announces this occurrence:'Oxford, April 30th. Dr. Franklin, eminent for his many extraordinary improve. ments in electrical experiments, was presented by this University to the honorary degree of Doctor in Civil Law. At the same time his son, who has also distinguished himself in the same branch of natural knowledge, was presented to the honorary degree of Master of Arts."-See Sparks' Franklin and Princeton Review, July 1847.

+ Life of Franklin by his Grandson. Vol. I. p. 309. (Edit. 1833.) Public Characters of Great Britain. Vol. IV.

§ See a Letter of John Penn's in Duer's Life of Lord Sterling-pp. 70, 71.

| Dr. Franklin in a letter to a friend dated Dec. 7th. 1762, says-"I thank you for your kind congratulations on my son's promotion and marriage. If he makes a

cherished by aged persons who knew her, as of an exceedingly amiable woman possessing many virtues and of very engaging manners. With her he arrived in the Delaware River in Feb. ruary 1763, and, after some detention from the ice, reached Philadelphia on the 19th, whence he started for New Jersey on the 23d. He slept at New Brunswick on the 24th, and arrived at Perth Amboy the following day.

He was escorted to the seat of government by numbers of the gentry, in sleighs, and by the Middlesex troop of horse; and was there received by Governor Hardy and the members of his Council. The weather was intensely cold, but that prevented not the administration of the oath of office and the proclamation of his commission in public, according to the usual forms;--a contemporary chronicler asserting that all was conducted" with as much decency and good decorum as the severity of the season could possibly admit of."*

A day or two afterward the Governor proceeded to Burlington to publish his commission there, according to the custom of the Province.t

Philadelphia having been the place of his previous residence, it was natural the Governor should find stronger attractions in West than in East Jersey, from the contiguity of former friends in the Province of Pennsylvania; he consequently, after some hesitation, secured lodgings at Burlington, and finally took up his permanent residence there until October 1774, when he removed to Perth Amboy, and became the occupant of the Proprietors' House, of late years enlarged, and improved, the residence of Mr. Matthias Bruen.

The Corporation of Burlington gave him a public entertainment before his removal to Amboy, and the following day presented their farewell address expressing their regard for him, thanking him for his kind deportment and courtesy shown during his stay,

good governor and husband (as I hope he will, for I know he has good principles, and a good disposition) these events will, both of them, give me continual pleasure." -Sparks' Franklin, VII. p. 242.] There can be but little doubt that the feeling manifested on the appointment of Governor Franklin was owing principally to the illegitimacy of his birth.

New York Gazette.

The usual addresses were presented. Those particularly noticed were from the Corporations of New Brunswick and Perth Amboy-the President and Trustees of the College, and a deputation of Presbyterian Ministers. The Governor, of course, would omit no opportunity of promoting the general interests of religion or of countenancing those of the particular profession of the gentlemen'-or, at least, said so. The Corporation of Elizabethtown gave a public entertainment to him and his lady at the Point, in June.-Sparks Franklin, VII. 254.

and regretting his departure. Neither the address nor the Governor's reply state why he left Burlington.

Almost immediately after his entrance upon his duties in New Jersey, the vexatious measures of the British ministry began to excite throughout the Colonies that abhorrence which eventually led to their separation from the mother country; and Governor Franklin-although favorably disposed towards the Colonies so long as no direct opposition to the authority of Parliament was manifested-advocated and enforced the views of the ministry with a devotion and energy worthy of a better cause.

It is well known that Dr. Franklin however strongly impressed he may have been with the incorrectness of the doctrines ad vanced by the British Parliament in relation to the Colonies, was far from advocating immediate independence. In his views he was not singular. There were few, if any, prior to 1775 who regarded such a remedy as necessary; and Franklin presumed that the yearly increasing importance of America to the various mercantile and manufacturing interests of Great Britain would at last work out for her that relief which was so earnestly desired. But, when convinced that nothing was to be hoped for from the delay, he became an ardent and uncompromising sup porter of the Colonial cause.

**

*

Under date of October 6th, 1773, he thus states his own position and that of his sons. Referring to some letters of his which Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts had represented to be advisatory of immediate independence, he says: "I shall be able at any time to justify every thing I have written, the purport being uniformly this, that they should carefully avoid all tumults and every violent measure, and content themselves with verbally keeping up their claim, and holding forth their rights whenever occasion requires. * From a long and thorough consideration of the subject I am indeed of opinion that the Parliament has no right to make any law whatever binding on the Colonies. That the King, and not the King, Lords and Commons collectively, is their sovereign; and that the King, with their respective parliaments, is their only legislator. I know your sentiments [he was writing to the Governor] differ from mine on these subjects. You are a thorough government man, which I do not wonder at, nor do I aim at converting you, I only wish you to act uprightly and steadily, avoiding that duplicty which in Hutchinson, adds contempt to indignation. If you can promote the prosperity of your people, and leave them happier than you found them, whatever your political principles are, your memory will be honored."

Upon this letter the Doctor's grandson bases a refutation of the belief generally entertained that he endeavored to persuade the Governor to withdraw from the royal cause ;* but an aged gentleman, who knew the facts, assured me some years since, that, when confirmed in his own course, and after his return to America in 1775, the Doctor visited his son at Perth Amboy, and strove zealously to draw him over to the side of the colonies; -that their conversations were sometimes attended with exhibitions of warmth not very favorable to continued harmonious intercourse, but each failed to convince the other of the impropriety of the course he was pursuing; and it is not probable the Doctor would have expressed his displeasure subsequently in such decided terms had not the Governor slighted his council. His son certainly followed his advice in "avoiding duplicity," for he did not hesitate to give manifest tokens of his determination to rise or fall with the royal cause.

One cannot help contrasting this visit of Doctor Franklin to Amboy and its attending circumstances with the one he had made half a century before. Then, a poor and unknown lad, seeking a place where he might earn his daily bread by laborious exertion, he had passed within the limits of the ancient city a night of feverishness and unrest, after a day of abstinence and exposure; and left it to prosecute on foot his journey of fifty miles to Burlington-drenched in rain and subjected to injurious suspicions.† Now, the man of science and the statesman, whose fame had extended to both hemispheres, came from a sojourn in foreign lands and from intercourse with the wise and great of the earth, to confer with his son-become a representative of royalty-in the very place from which he had made so miserable an exit.

Although the conspicuous part performed in the revolutionary drama by Governor Franklin constitutes the most important feature of his administration, yet he was too long in the executive chair not to contract a greater attachment to the Province than his flitting predecessors had done, and to become acquainted with the wants and aware of the evils under which its population labored. He appears in consequence to have exerted himself in a laudable manner to promote its prosperity. At different times he brought to the notice of the Assembly, and encouraged legislation relating to, the improvement of roads, the fostering of agriculture by the bestowment of bounties, the melioration of the laws prescribing imprisonment for debt; and it is thought, proved himself an active and efficient Governor, although in other respects

* Life of Franklin, Vol. I. p. 310. Franklin's Writings. Vol. I. 231.

than in approving the course of the British Ministry he failed to secure the approbation of the people; yet his known adherence to principles which were deemed inimical to popular rights was probably the foundation of most, if not all, the opposition shown to him.

It would however trench too much upon the province of his tory to narrate here the circumstances which called forth this opposition; it will suffice to remark, as illustrative of the character of the man apart from his public station-the principal aim of this sketch-that at these periods Governor Franklin while he evinced a determination to persevere in the course dictated by his sense of duty, does not seem to have acted in a way to at. tach any discredit to himself, other than that which accrues to the politician from acting contrary to the views of his opponents. At times, indeed, he sacrificed his own official popularity to the claims of personal friendship, and when assured of the correct. ness of his opinions, allowed no apprehensions of personal safety or of prejudice to his interests to interfere with their adaptation in practice to the promotion of the public welfare as understood by him.

During the entire period from the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, until the receipt of Lord North's Declaratory project, the Governor, so far as his communications have come under my notice, observed a commendable prudence in his intercourse with the representatives of the people and with the people themselves; saying nothing which, considering his relations to the Crown, they could not excuse or extenuate; and we find consequently that a due degree of respect continued to be shown to him and his authority. Even at as late a period as February 1775, the representatives of the people were warm in their expression of attachment to the government of Great Britain. "We do solemnly, and with great truth assure your Majesty, that we have no thoughts injurious to the allegiance which, as subjects, we owe to you as our sovereign; that we abhor the idea of setting ourselves up in a state of independency, and we know of no such design in others." And again in November of that year the Assembly passed resolutions adverse to independence and directing the delegates of the Province in the Continental Congress to oppose any proposition of the kind. But they were called to act upon the measure proposed by Lord North, at a time when they had too recently seen the blood of friends and countrymen shed at Lexington, for them to regard it with the forbearance