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Histories of Lives
are seldom entertaining,

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unless they contain something
either admirable or exemplar.

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Know then, That I am an Enemy to Vice,

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and a Friend to Vertue.

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A mortal Enemy to arbitrary Government

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and unlimited Power.

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I am naturally very jealous

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for the Rights and Liberties
of my Country;

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and the least appearance of an Incroachment
on those invaluable Priviledges,

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is apt to make my Blood
boil exceedingly.

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Benjamin Franklin.

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Franklin is, by far,

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the most approachable of our Founders.

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He's not somebody made of stone,

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like a George Washington.

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Franklin was pretty simple
in his moral code.

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He was driven by a desire
to pour forth

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benefits for the common good.

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But there's a lot in Benjamin Franklin

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that makes you flinch,

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and we see Franklin
not as a perfect person,

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but somebody evolving to see

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if he could become more perfect.

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He was a teenage runaway

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who achieved such remarkable success

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that his example would be
handed down for generations

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as the embodiment
of the American dream.

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He was a printer, a publisher,
and a writer,

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producing everything from
essays on politics and religion

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to biting satires and words of wisdom

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that would endure forever.

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He was a prolific inventor

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and a scientist whose
pioneering discoveries

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would make him the most famous
American in the world.

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He was a civic leader,

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the founder of a library
and a college,

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who introduced a host of improvements

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that made the lives
of everyday people better.

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He embraced the Enlightenment belief

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in the perfectibility of human beings;

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but no one understood
their foibles and failings,

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including his own, better than he did.

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He also owned and enslaved
human beings

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and benefited from
the institution of slavery.

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He was a reluctant revolutionary

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who became an indispensable
founder of a new nation;

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helped craft the document

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that declared his
country's independence;

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and then did as much as anyone

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to secure the victory that assured it.

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And he guided
the complicated compromises

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that created his
nation's Constitution,

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then tried to rectify
its central failing.

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He constantly remade himself

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from apprentice,
to printer, to scientist,

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to government official, to
revolutionary, to abolitionist.

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He never was finished with himself.

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He always thought that
he was a work in progress.

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He could be funny and unforgiving;

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folksy and philosophical;

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generous and shrewdly calculating;

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broadminded, yet deeply prejudiced;

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a family man, who spent years
away from his wife

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and let political differences

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destroy his relationship with his son.

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He concealed those
contradictions behind

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a carefully crafted public image.

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He's a Puritan who then becomes

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the leading figure
in the Enlightenment.

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So that he stands astride

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so many contradictions
in his own life,

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that he understands them
and they don't become

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contradictions for him.

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They become some
seamless web of insight.

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He wrote so much.
He wrote so well.

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He's somebody that
we need to know about.

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He can put us in touch
with the sensibilities

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of the 18th century in a way
that makes it

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both accessible and, yet,
captures its remoteness.

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Franklin is endlessly,

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endlessly interesting.

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He is the only Founding Father who

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evidently had a sense of humor,

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who was evidently human,

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who evidently had a sex life.

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And there's so much
about him that makes him

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seem approachable, on the one hand,

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and super-human on the other hand.

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"Let all men know
thee," Benjamin Franklin said,

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"but no man
know thee thoroughly."

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I never intend
to wrap my Talent in a Napkin.

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To be brief; I am courteous
and affable, good humor'd

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unless I am first provok'd,

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and handsome, and sometimes witty.

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If you would not be forgotten,

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as soon as you are dead and rotten,

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either write things worth reading,

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or do things worth the writing.
Benjamin Franklin.

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Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston

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on January 17, 1706,

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the youngest son and 15th child
of Josiah Franklin,

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who had come from England

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to the Massachusetts Bay Colony
in 1683.

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Josiah made candles and soap

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and became a respected member
of South Church,

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one of the town's 3
congregations of Puritans.

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When his first wife
died in childbirth,

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Josiah married Abiah Folger
of Nantucket,

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who came from a family
of free-thinkers.

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Benjamin would be her eighth child.

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He grew up in a 4-room house

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where the dinner table
was always crowded,

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and often included friends his
pious and serious-minded father

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invited over for conversation.

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From the start,
the boy was precocious.

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He was reading the Bible by age 5.

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His sister Jane recalled
that he "studied incessantly"

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and "was addicted to
all kinds of reading."

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But he was also irreverent.

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He found the long prayers
before each meal tedious

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and suggested his father
simply say grace once

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over the entire winter's
supply of food.

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"It would be," young Benjamin
said, "a vast saving of time."

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He and his boyhood friends

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fished and frolicked in a nearby pond.

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An avid swimmer,
he designed rudimentary fins

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to propel himself faster
across the water;

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other times, he floated on his back

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and let himself be
pulled along by a kite.

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Josiah initially thought his son

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should study for the ministry

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and enrolled him at age 8
in the Boston school

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that prepared students
for Harvard College.

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But the academy proved too expensive,

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and eager to have
another set of hands,

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his father put him to work
in the family's candle shop.

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He was 10 years old;
his schooling was over.

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I think it was crucial
to Franklin's success

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that he had very little
formal education.

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When people go through formal schools,

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they learn what
you're supposed to know.

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They also learn what
you don't have to know.

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With Franklin, he never knew
what he didn't have to know,

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so, he assumed he had
to know everything.

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In 1718, at age 12,

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Franklin began the work
that would define

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the rest of his life.

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He signed a 9-year apprenticeship,

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legally indenturing himself
to his older brother James,

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who had opened
a printing shop in Boston.

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Printing was
an amazing business if you were

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both clever with your hands
and good at thinking.

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Printers are setting type
upside-down and backward.

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And you have to be really
hyper-literate to understand

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how language works that way,

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and to correct things as you go along,

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and get it right.

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Handling the heavy sets of lead type

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strengthened and broadened
his shoulders.

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Having access to books

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strengthened and liberated his mind.

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Often I sat up in my room

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reading the greatest part
of the night,

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when the book was borrowed
in the evening and had to be

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returned early in the morning
lest it should be missed.

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And all the little money
that came into my hands

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was ever laid out in books.

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Here was a kid who only had

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two years of formal education, ever.

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So, what did he do?
He taught himself how to write.

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He composed poetry--
including a ballad

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commemorating the recent killing
of Blackbeard the pirate.

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He read articles from "The Spectator,"

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a London periodical,

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and, on paper salvaged
from the print shop,

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attempted to reproduce them by memory.

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He stayed up late at night
and rose early each morning

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to continue his reading
before the shop opened.

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"I was," Franklin said,
"extremely ambitious."

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In 1721, his brother James
decided to publish

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his own weekly newspaper,
"The New-England Courant."

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From its inception,
the paper courted controversy.

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Its first issue
attacked Cotton Mather,

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Boston's pre-eminent preacher
and the colony's

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strict and severe moral authority.

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Mather called the newspaper wicked,

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filled with immorality, and lies.

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What James Franklin does is he creates

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the first real independent
newspaper in America.

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His paper, in Boston, is, quote,

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"Not published by Authority."

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All the others, you were
given a stamp of authority.

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On April 2, 1722, an essay appeared

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over the name of Silence Dogood,

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who claimed to be a widowed
woman from the countryside,

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and who had lots of homespun wisdom

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and sharp social critiques to share.

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It was an immediate hit.

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No one, including
James Franklin, had any idea

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that the real author
was a teenage boy,

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James's 16-year-old brother Benjamin,

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who had secretly slipped
the essay under the door.

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More of Silence Dogood's
articles began to appear.

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She offered irreverent
advice on funeral eulogies,

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advocated fiercely
for women's education,

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and in one dispatch
poked fun at Harvard

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and the wealthy parents who dreamed of

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sending their children
to the elite institution.

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Most of them
consulted their own Purses

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instead of their Childrens Capacities.

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At Harvard They learn little more than

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how to carry themselves handsomely,

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and enter a Room genteely...

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and from whence they return,

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after Abundance of Trouble and Charge,

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as great Blockheads as ever,

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only more proud and self-conceited.

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In the summer of 1722,

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James was jailed for 3 weeks
without trial

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for questioning the competence
of Cotton Mather

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and the colony's other leaders.

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Quoting from an article he had
read in a London newspaper,

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Benjamin, as Silence Dogood,
came to his brother's defense.

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Without Freedom of Thought,

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there can be no such Thing as Wisdom;

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and no such Thing as publick Liberty,

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without Freedom of Speech.

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Whoever would overthrow
the Liberty of a Nation,

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must begin by subduing
the Freeness of Speech.

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When James was released from jail

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and resumed putting out his newspaper,

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Benjamin confessed publicly
that he, in fact,

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was writing Silence Dogood's essays.

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Many cheered him for his artfulness,

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but James was jealous.

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They would argue--and it
sometimes came to blows.

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I fancy his harsh and tyrannical

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Treatment of me, might be a means of

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impressing me with that
Aversion to arbitrary Power

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that has stuck to me
thro' my whole Life.

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Franklin decided to run away,

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even if it meant breaking his
legal obligation to his brother.

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After selling some of his books
to pay for his passage,

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he slipped out of town
on a ship heading south,

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convincing the captain to keep
quiet under the false pretense

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that he had gotten a girl
pregnant and needed to leave.

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He was 17 years old.

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11 days later, on October 6, 1723,

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Franklin arrived at
the Market Street wharf

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on the Delaware River in Philadelphia,

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the City of Brotherly Love
founded by William Penn,

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a Quaker for whom the colony of
Pennsylvania was named.

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With 6,000 residents,
Philadelphia was now

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America's third-largest city
after Boston and New York.

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It was a thriving outpost
of the British Empire--

256
00:14:23,154 --> 00:14:27,164
its streets filled with both
newcomers and Native peoples,

257
00:14:27,325 --> 00:14:33,325
including the Lenape, on whose
land the city now stood.

258
00:14:33,498 --> 00:14:36,538
People are coming
from all sorts of backgrounds.

259
00:14:36,710 --> 00:14:38,590
There's Anglicans, there's Jews,

260
00:14:38,753 --> 00:14:40,963
there's slaves, freed slaves.

261
00:14:41,131 --> 00:14:43,761
There's the Germans coming in
and the Presbyterians

262
00:14:43,925 --> 00:14:46,385
and the Native Americans
who were there.

263
00:14:46,553 --> 00:14:49,893
And, unlike Puritan Boston,
where you have to follow

264
00:14:50,056 --> 00:14:53,266
the theocratic maxims
of the Mather family,

265
00:14:53,435 --> 00:14:58,515
people in Philadelphia
have a certain tolerance.

266
00:14:58,690 --> 00:15:01,530
Colonial Philadelphia
had a different vibe,

267
00:15:01,693 --> 00:15:03,323
a different flavor.

268
00:15:03,486 --> 00:15:07,946
Growing commerce, saloons and taverns,

269
00:15:08,116 --> 00:15:11,406
a sort of hospitable place,
but also a place in which

270
00:15:11,578 --> 00:15:15,168
people could find themselves
and create themselves.

271
00:15:15,332 --> 00:15:18,042
Franklin landing in
Philadelphia at this moment

272
00:15:18,209 --> 00:15:21,379
was perfect for him,
in terms of timing.

273
00:15:21,546 --> 00:15:25,466
He didn't have to be someone
who came from great wealth

274
00:15:25,634 --> 00:15:28,684
in order to find opportunity.

275
00:15:28,845 --> 00:15:31,055
He's just a kid.

276
00:15:31,222 --> 00:15:33,312
He's run away from his apprenticeship,

277
00:15:33,475 --> 00:15:35,475
so, he's scared, probably,
that they're going to

278
00:15:35,644 --> 00:15:36,904
track him down.

279
00:15:37,062 --> 00:15:40,482
He's not sure what comes next.

280
00:15:40,649 --> 00:15:43,279
"I was dirty from
my journey," Franklin wrote,

281
00:15:43,443 --> 00:15:46,823
"and I knew no soul
nor where to look for lodging.

282
00:15:46,988 --> 00:15:51,078
I was fatigued and very hungry."

283
00:15:51,242 --> 00:15:54,622
It was a Sunday, and he saw
a crowd of well-dressed people

284
00:15:54,788 --> 00:15:57,168
heading into a church.

285
00:15:57,332 --> 00:16:01,252
They were Quakers about to
attend their weekly service,

286
00:16:01,419 --> 00:16:05,129
marked by sitting in silence together.

287
00:16:07,425 --> 00:16:08,885
I sat down among them,

288
00:16:09,052 --> 00:16:11,222
and after looking round awhile

289
00:16:11,388 --> 00:16:12,888
and hearing nothing said,

290
00:16:13,056 --> 00:16:16,096
I fell fast asleep, and continued so

291
00:16:16,267 --> 00:16:20,647
till the meeting broke up, when
one was kind enough to rouse me.

292
00:16:23,566 --> 00:16:25,856
Walking up
Market Street, he passed a house

293
00:16:26,027 --> 00:16:28,857
and exchanged glances
with a 15-year-old girl

294
00:16:29,030 --> 00:16:31,990
standing in the doorway,
who, he was sure,

295
00:16:32,158 --> 00:16:34,868
"thought I made, as I certainly did,

296
00:16:35,036 --> 00:16:38,116
a most awkward,
ridiculous appearance."

297
00:16:39,457 --> 00:16:42,287
He went to work at one of
the city's print shops

298
00:16:42,460 --> 00:16:45,090
and eventually began
renting a room at the house

299
00:16:45,255 --> 00:16:48,085
he had passed that first morning.

300
00:16:49,342 --> 00:16:51,392
The girl he had seen was
his landlord's daughter--

301
00:16:51,553 --> 00:16:53,603
Deborah Read.

302
00:16:53,763 --> 00:16:55,313
They struck up a romance,

303
00:16:55,473 --> 00:17:00,023
and by the fall of 1724
were talking of marriage.

304
00:17:02,355 --> 00:17:04,725
Meanwhile, patrons of
the print shop had noticed

305
00:17:04,899 --> 00:17:07,359
Franklin's skill and diligence.

306
00:17:07,527 --> 00:17:10,737
One of them, Pennsylvania's
governor William Keith,

307
00:17:10,905 --> 00:17:15,615
offered what seemed to be
the opportunity of a lifetime.

308
00:17:15,785 --> 00:17:17,995
He would send Franklin to London

309
00:17:18,163 --> 00:17:20,673
with letters of introduction
and credit

310
00:17:20,832 --> 00:17:22,382
to purchase the equipment needed

311
00:17:22,542 --> 00:17:26,092
to start his own
print shop in Philadelphia.

312
00:17:28,256 --> 00:17:30,716
Marriage to Deborah
would have to wait.

313
00:17:30,884 --> 00:17:34,144
Benjamin was bound for England.

314
00:17:41,561 --> 00:17:43,231
The great center of England

315
00:17:43,396 --> 00:17:45,896
is the city of London
and parts adjacent.

316
00:17:46,066 --> 00:17:48,146
All that vast mass of buildings,

317
00:17:48,318 --> 00:17:51,318
and how much farther
it may spread, who knows?

318
00:17:51,488 --> 00:17:54,368
New squares and new streets
rising up every day

319
00:17:54,532 --> 00:17:57,332
to such a prodigy of buildings
that nothing in the world

320
00:17:57,494 --> 00:18:02,624
does, or ever did, equal it,
except old Rome.

321
00:18:02,791 --> 00:18:04,041
Daniel Defoe.

322
00:18:06,377 --> 00:18:08,297
With more than 600,000 residents,

323
00:18:08,463 --> 00:18:11,263
100 times the size of Philadelphia,

324
00:18:11,424 --> 00:18:14,344
London was the teeming hub
of an empire

325
00:18:14,511 --> 00:18:19,471
that considered its far-flung
colonists with mild disdain.

326
00:18:19,641 --> 00:18:23,771
They viewed Americans as
backwards suppliers of raw materials

327
00:18:23,937 --> 00:18:26,817
and as purchasers
of manufactured goods

328
00:18:26,981 --> 00:18:30,691
only England could provide.

329
00:18:30,860 --> 00:18:31,980
Coming out of the Provinces,

330
00:18:32,070 --> 00:18:34,280
he found a greater world.

331
00:18:34,447 --> 00:18:39,287
In England, he was
young and impressionable

332
00:18:39,452 --> 00:18:46,172
and able to make his way into
that huge metropolis of London

333
00:18:46,334 --> 00:18:49,464
from nothing but his ability.

334
00:18:49,629 --> 00:18:52,669
Upon his arrival,
Franklin learned too late that

335
00:18:52,841 --> 00:18:56,641
Governor Keith had
a reputation for unreliability.

336
00:18:56,803 --> 00:19:00,393
There were no letters of credit
or introduction.

337
00:19:00,557 --> 00:19:03,807
Once more, he would have
to fend for himself.

338
00:19:05,395 --> 00:19:07,515
For a year and a half,
he made the most of it.

339
00:19:07,689 --> 00:19:10,109
London had more print shops
than all of

340
00:19:10,275 --> 00:19:12,645
the American colonies combined,

341
00:19:12,819 --> 00:19:14,779
and he quickly found work,

342
00:19:14,946 --> 00:19:20,196
impressing his employers with
his strength and his sobriety.

343
00:19:20,368 --> 00:19:23,408
Unlike all the other workers,
he did not drink

344
00:19:23,580 --> 00:19:28,590
a pint of beer 6 different times
during the workday.

345
00:19:28,751 --> 00:19:31,881
I drank
only Water; the other Workmen

346
00:19:32,046 --> 00:19:33,166
wonder'd to see from this

347
00:19:33,339 --> 00:19:36,549
that the Water-American,
as they call'd me,

348
00:19:36,718 --> 00:19:38,758
was stronger than themselves.

349
00:19:40,805 --> 00:19:43,805
He spent his
free time poring through books,

350
00:19:43,975 --> 00:19:48,265
especially Enlightenment
treatises by Isaac Newton,

351
00:19:48,438 --> 00:19:52,228
René Descartes, John Locke,
and other philosophers

352
00:19:52,400 --> 00:19:55,400
who argued that truths
were to be found

353
00:19:55,570 --> 00:19:59,370
through the study of how things
work in the natural world.

354
00:20:03,244 --> 00:20:04,334
The Enlightenment.

355
00:20:04,495 --> 00:20:07,365
It's a commitment
to reason and science.

356
00:20:07,540 --> 00:20:09,540
It's a belief that
every problem can be solved

357
00:20:09,709 --> 00:20:13,089
and that every institution
can be reformed,

358
00:20:13,254 --> 00:20:14,804
that life on Earth is perfectible,

359
00:20:14,964 --> 00:20:17,684
at least up to a point,

360
00:20:17,842 --> 00:20:20,092
and maybe altogether.

361
00:20:20,261 --> 00:20:22,101
In London, Franklin also seemed

362
00:20:22,263 --> 00:20:23,933
to have forgotten Deborah

363
00:20:24,098 --> 00:20:26,268
and indulged in what he called

364
00:20:26,434 --> 00:20:29,154
"foolish intrigues
with low women."

365
00:20:29,312 --> 00:20:32,322
He wrote her only one letter.

366
00:20:32,482 --> 00:20:37,152
In his absence,
Deborah married someone else.

367
00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:39,110
But when a Quaker merchant

368
00:20:39,280 --> 00:20:41,530
offered Franklin a job as a clerk

369
00:20:41,699 --> 00:20:43,949
selling merchandise in a general store

370
00:20:44,118 --> 00:20:45,328
back in Philadelphia

371
00:20:45,495 --> 00:20:48,825
and then dangled
a potential partnership,

372
00:20:48,998 --> 00:20:50,998
he headed home.

373
00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:57,420
During the 12-week voyage,
Franklin wrote out a plan

374
00:20:57,590 --> 00:21:01,760
for future conduct,
with 4 basic rules:

375
00:21:01,928 --> 00:21:03,888
be "extremely frugal,"

376
00:21:04,055 --> 00:21:07,675
"endeavor to speak the truth
in every instance,"

377
00:21:07,850 --> 00:21:12,400
"apply myself industriously
to whatever business I take,"

378
00:21:12,563 --> 00:21:15,363
and "speak ill of
no man whatever."

379
00:21:17,986 --> 00:21:21,406
In Philadelphia, he threw
himself into his new job,

380
00:21:21,572 --> 00:21:25,582
becoming, he said,
an "expert at selling."

381
00:21:25,743 --> 00:21:29,373
But that winter, his employer
took ill and died.

382
00:21:30,665 --> 00:21:34,335
Franklin decided to return
to his old trade as a printer.

383
00:21:35,503 --> 00:21:38,013
In 1728, he opened

384
00:21:38,172 --> 00:21:40,432
his own shop on Market Street

385
00:21:40,591 --> 00:21:42,891
with a partner whose father underwrote

386
00:21:43,052 --> 00:21:45,932
the initial expenses.

387
00:21:46,097 --> 00:21:49,477
He had devised a foundry
for casting type,

388
00:21:49,642 --> 00:21:53,152
saving the cost of sending to
England for replacements,

389
00:21:53,313 --> 00:21:55,403
and won a contract to print

390
00:21:55,565 --> 00:21:58,475
the authorized history of the Quakers.

391
00:21:59,694 --> 00:22:01,404
When his new partner took to drinking,

392
00:22:01,571 --> 00:22:04,741
Franklin found other backers
to buy him out

393
00:22:04,907 --> 00:22:08,157
and continued as sole proprietor.

394
00:22:08,328 --> 00:22:10,538
In his drive to succeed,
he often worked

395
00:22:10,705 --> 00:22:12,325
until 11 at night

396
00:22:12,498 --> 00:22:15,378
and was back at his shop before dawn.

397
00:22:16,961 --> 00:22:19,461
I took care not only to be in Reality

398
00:22:19,630 --> 00:22:22,050
Industrious and frugal, but to avoid

399
00:22:22,216 --> 00:22:25,426
all Appearances of the Contrary.

400
00:22:25,595 --> 00:22:28,055
He made sure people noticed,

401
00:22:28,222 --> 00:22:31,772
and his business increased.

402
00:22:31,934 --> 00:22:34,654
He was a writer.
You know, writers invent.

403
00:22:34,812 --> 00:22:38,732
He might be his own best invention.

404
00:22:38,900 --> 00:22:42,700
Franklin is so relentless
in learning how to do things,

405
00:22:42,862 --> 00:22:46,322
learning how to do things
correctly in a certain way,

406
00:22:46,491 --> 00:22:48,531
how to write, how to dress, how to

407
00:22:48,701 --> 00:22:50,701
speak to different kinds of people.

408
00:22:50,870 --> 00:22:53,920
It's sort of impossible
to know what was there

409
00:22:54,082 --> 00:22:57,092
before he did all that
and invented himself.

410
00:22:59,837 --> 00:23:02,587
With 11 other up-and-coming tradesmen,

411
00:23:02,757 --> 00:23:05,757
Franklin formed a club
that met each Friday evening

412
00:23:05,927 --> 00:23:10,467
to socialize and forge
business connections.

413
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:13,230
But they also discussed current events

414
00:23:13,393 --> 00:23:16,903
and politely debated
a variety of topics--

415
00:23:17,063 --> 00:23:20,863
What is wisdom?
What defines good writing?

416
00:23:21,025 --> 00:23:24,445
Did importing indentured
and enslaved servants

417
00:23:24,612 --> 00:23:27,872
help or hurt the colonial economy?

418
00:23:29,367 --> 00:23:32,747
The official name of the group
was the Leather Apron Club.

419
00:23:32,912 --> 00:23:36,292
Informally, they
called themselves the Junto,

420
00:23:36,457 --> 00:23:39,667
from the Latin for
"joined together."

421
00:23:39,836 --> 00:23:43,296
At 21, Franklin was
its youngest member,

422
00:23:43,464 --> 00:23:47,594
but unquestionably its driving force.

423
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:51,680
Franklin believed
that the virtues and values

424
00:23:51,848 --> 00:23:53,718
of a working middle class

425
00:23:53,891 --> 00:23:57,191
were going to be the backbone
of American society.

426
00:23:57,353 --> 00:23:59,773
The artisans, the shopkeepers,

427
00:23:59,939 --> 00:24:02,779
the people who put on leather
aprons early in the morning

428
00:24:02,942 --> 00:24:05,742
to help serve the public.

429
00:24:05,903 --> 00:24:08,323
The Junto moved its meeting place

430
00:24:08,489 --> 00:24:11,159
from a local tavern to a rented house,

431
00:24:11,325 --> 00:24:13,155
and at Franklin's suggestion,

432
00:24:13,327 --> 00:24:15,247
each member brought some books

433
00:24:15,413 --> 00:24:17,503
that the other members could read.

434
00:24:20,585 --> 00:24:21,895
Eventually, they broadened the idea

435
00:24:21,919 --> 00:24:25,339
into the Library Company
of Philadelphia,

436
00:24:25,506 --> 00:24:27,756
America's first subscription library

437
00:24:27,925 --> 00:24:29,335
open to the public,

438
00:24:29,510 --> 00:24:32,180
who paid small dues
for the chance to borrow

439
00:24:32,346 --> 00:24:35,596
books imported from Europe.

440
00:24:35,766 --> 00:24:38,136
And, every year,
more and more books would be

441
00:24:38,311 --> 00:24:41,481
collected and extend knowledge.

442
00:24:41,647 --> 00:24:44,607
What was so important
about the Library Company

443
00:24:44,775 --> 00:24:50,525
was that it wasn't
just for wealthy, elite men.

444
00:24:50,698 --> 00:24:52,698
This Library afforded me

445
00:24:52,867 --> 00:24:56,617
the Means of Improvement
by constant Study,

446
00:24:56,787 --> 00:24:59,417
for which I set apart
an Hour or two each Day;

447
00:24:59,582 --> 00:25:01,752
and thus repair'd in some Degree

448
00:25:01,918 --> 00:25:04,338
the Loss of the Learned Education

449
00:25:04,504 --> 00:25:07,054
my Father once intended for me.

450
00:25:09,091 --> 00:25:10,721
He always looked
around wherever he was

451
00:25:10,885 --> 00:25:12,505
and said, "What needs to be done?

452
00:25:12,678 --> 00:25:14,068
"What's missing?
What are the things

453
00:25:14,096 --> 00:25:16,096
that a community ought to have?"

454
00:25:16,265 --> 00:25:19,685
He had read enough to know
that there was more elsewhere

455
00:25:19,852 --> 00:25:22,402
and he wanted to make
those good things happen

456
00:25:22,563 --> 00:25:24,613
to the community of Philadelphia.

457
00:25:26,067 --> 00:25:28,317
Self-reliance, which Franklin loved,

458
00:25:28,486 --> 00:25:30,856
and community engagement may seem like

459
00:25:31,030 --> 00:25:32,320
they oppose each other.

460
00:25:32,490 --> 00:25:35,370
But as Franklin repeatedly said,

461
00:25:35,535 --> 00:25:37,535
the good that we can do together

462
00:25:37,703 --> 00:25:40,583
surpasses the good we can do alone.

463
00:25:43,751 --> 00:25:46,551
Over the coming years,
Franklin and his Junto

464
00:25:46,712 --> 00:25:48,922
would turn to other civic projects

465
00:25:49,090 --> 00:25:51,720
to improve life in Philadelphia.

466
00:25:53,427 --> 00:25:55,257
Under their guidance, the city formed

467
00:25:55,429 --> 00:25:57,679
volunteer fire companies.

468
00:25:57,848 --> 00:26:00,138
They advocated for a police force

469
00:26:00,309 --> 00:26:02,979
paid by a property tax.

470
00:26:03,145 --> 00:26:04,895
And at one Junto meeting,

471
00:26:05,064 --> 00:26:09,114
Franklin raised the idea
of starting a college.

472
00:26:11,028 --> 00:26:13,028
When the Public Academy
of Philadelphia

473
00:26:13,197 --> 00:26:15,947
finally opened in 1751,

474
00:26:16,117 --> 00:26:19,907
Franklin would be elected
president of the board.

475
00:26:20,079 --> 00:26:24,039
It was the first non-sectarian
college in America

476
00:26:24,208 --> 00:26:28,498
and would later become
the University of Pennsylvania.

477
00:26:30,590 --> 00:26:32,170
Expanding on the Junto model,

478
00:26:32,341 --> 00:26:34,391
he proposed and organized

479
00:26:34,552 --> 00:26:37,682
the American Philosophical Society,

480
00:26:37,847 --> 00:26:41,137
whose members would be
scientists and intellectuals

481
00:26:41,309 --> 00:26:43,689
from throughout the colonies,

482
00:26:43,853 --> 00:26:47,483
who could share ideas
and scholarly papers by mail

483
00:26:47,648 --> 00:26:50,938
if they could not
come to meetings in person.

484
00:26:51,110 --> 00:26:55,410
It would become the colonies'
first learned society.

485
00:26:57,074 --> 00:26:59,834
And to build a new hospital,
he devised a plan

486
00:26:59,994 --> 00:27:04,714
that matched private donations
with public funds,

487
00:27:04,874 --> 00:27:08,464
giving people, he said,
"an additional motive to give,

488
00:27:08,628 --> 00:27:12,298
since every man's donation
would be doubled."

489
00:27:13,841 --> 00:27:15,401
He always believed
that if you just get a few

490
00:27:15,426 --> 00:27:17,756
good and interested men, always men,

491
00:27:17,928 --> 00:27:21,678
on any civic problem,
you can solve it.

492
00:27:21,849 --> 00:27:26,689
Ben Franklin is,
I think, emblematic of what

493
00:27:26,854 --> 00:27:30,444
America wanted to be,
should be, could be.

494
00:27:30,608 --> 00:27:34,068
The things that he spoke of,
the things that he wrote about,

495
00:27:34,236 --> 00:27:39,446
often missing are other people.

496
00:27:39,617 --> 00:27:42,577
Women, people of color, in particular,

497
00:27:42,745 --> 00:27:45,705
enslaved men and women, never had

498
00:27:45,873 --> 00:27:49,093
the opportunities that
a Ben Franklin had.

499
00:28:00,888 --> 00:28:03,138
Franklin's print shop was thriving.

500
00:28:03,307 --> 00:28:06,137
Pennsylvania's colonial
legislature awarded him

501
00:28:06,310 --> 00:28:09,770
the contract to print
its paper currency.

502
00:28:09,939 --> 00:28:11,399
When he learned that South Carolina

503
00:28:11,565 --> 00:28:13,315
was looking for a printer,

504
00:28:13,484 --> 00:28:15,534
he dispatched one of his employees

505
00:28:15,695 --> 00:28:18,155
to open a shop in Charleston.

506
00:28:20,116 --> 00:28:24,156
And on October 2, 1729,
he began publishing

507
00:28:24,328 --> 00:28:28,828
his own newspaper,
"The Pennsylvania Gazette."

508
00:28:28,999 --> 00:28:31,999
He filled its pages with
reports from other newspapers

509
00:28:32,169 --> 00:28:34,129
in America and England,

510
00:28:34,296 --> 00:28:36,256
along with crime stories,

511
00:28:36,424 --> 00:28:39,224
notices of fires and deaths,

512
00:28:39,385 --> 00:28:41,215
a moral advice column,

513
00:28:41,387 --> 00:28:46,017
funny tales he concocted that
flirted with sexual innuendo,

514
00:28:46,183 --> 00:28:50,693
and letters from readers,
including some he wrote himself,

515
00:28:50,855 --> 00:28:52,725
under tongue-in-cheek pseudonyms like

516
00:28:52,898 --> 00:28:57,108
Anthony Afterwit
and Alice Addertongue.

517
00:28:57,278 --> 00:28:59,988
"If you would make your
paper a vehicle of scandal,"

518
00:29:00,156 --> 00:29:02,696
Addertongue advised in one letter,

519
00:29:02,867 --> 00:29:05,867
"you would double the number
of your subscribers."

520
00:29:07,621 --> 00:29:09,421
The "Gazette" caught on.

521
00:29:10,791 --> 00:29:12,421
Ben Franklin understood the power

522
00:29:12,585 --> 00:29:15,165
of the printing press.

523
00:29:15,337 --> 00:29:19,047
He understood that
those who controlled words,

524
00:29:19,216 --> 00:29:23,426
those who are able to
disseminate information, um,

525
00:29:23,596 --> 00:29:25,056
had a certain amount of power.

526
00:29:25,222 --> 00:29:29,732
He could be the arbiter of
what was seen as important.

527
00:29:31,687 --> 00:29:33,557
The idea, first, was to engage people,

528
00:29:33,731 --> 00:29:35,571
to entertain people.

529
00:29:35,733 --> 00:29:37,173
Franklin understood that
if you could get people

530
00:29:37,193 --> 00:29:38,783
to laugh with you, you're halfway to

531
00:29:38,944 --> 00:29:41,614
getting them to agree with you.

532
00:29:41,781 --> 00:29:43,661
He also welcomed essays

533
00:29:43,824 --> 00:29:47,244
espousing opinions of all kinds.

534
00:29:47,411 --> 00:29:48,871
If all printers were determined

535
00:29:49,038 --> 00:29:50,708
not to print anything till they were

536
00:29:50,873 --> 00:29:52,833
sure it would offend nobody,

537
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,130
there would be very little printed.

538
00:29:56,378 --> 00:29:58,338
He said in the end you have to bear

539
00:29:58,506 --> 00:30:03,216
some responsibility for the type
of ideas that you put forward.

540
00:30:03,385 --> 00:30:05,675
And if they're really odious,
if they're really harmful,

541
00:30:05,846 --> 00:30:08,886
you have to curate them out.

542
00:30:09,058 --> 00:30:11,018
If you made a mistake, you could,

543
00:30:11,185 --> 00:30:16,145
as they always did in those
days, add an errata page.

544
00:30:16,315 --> 00:30:20,685
And you could fix anything
with that errata page.

545
00:30:22,238 --> 00:30:24,368
Local merchants advertised their goods

546
00:30:24,532 --> 00:30:25,872
in the "Gazette;"

547
00:30:26,033 --> 00:30:29,123
tradesmen advertised their services.

548
00:30:29,286 --> 00:30:32,866
Franklin also published
notices offering rewards

549
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:35,580
for runaway indentured servants,

550
00:30:35,751 --> 00:30:37,341
like he had once been,

551
00:30:37,503 --> 00:30:39,883
and slaves for sale.

552
00:30:42,007 --> 00:30:44,677
To be sold in Lots or singly,

553
00:30:44,844 --> 00:30:47,724
a choice parcel of Negroes
lately Imported,

554
00:30:47,888 --> 00:30:50,428
consisting chiefly of
young Men and Girls,

555
00:30:50,599 --> 00:30:52,769
bred to Plantation Business;

556
00:30:52,935 --> 00:30:55,765
also Jamaica Rum,
Sugar of sundry Sorts,

557
00:30:55,938 --> 00:30:58,858
Molasses, Cotton, and Pimento.

558
00:31:01,443 --> 00:31:04,993
Run away from the subscriber,
a Negroe lad called Ned,

559
00:31:05,155 --> 00:31:08,905
about 18 years of age,
5 feet 7 inches high,

560
00:31:09,076 --> 00:31:11,286
speaks pretty good English, but thick,

561
00:31:11,453 --> 00:31:14,873
has very thick lips, and is much
pitted with the small-pox;

562
00:31:17,167 --> 00:31:20,707
TO BE SOLD, A LIKELY young
breeding Negroe Woman,

563
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:23,670
speaks good English,
understands her Needle

564
00:31:23,841 --> 00:31:26,261
and any sort of Household Work,

565
00:31:26,427 --> 00:31:27,927
and has had the Small-Pox.

566
00:31:29,638 --> 00:31:31,388
Enquire of the Printer.

567
00:31:38,606 --> 00:31:39,726
When Benjamin Franklin

568
00:31:39,899 --> 00:31:41,819
had returned from England,

569
00:31:41,984 --> 00:31:44,614
he had fallen back into
some of the habits

570
00:31:44,778 --> 00:31:47,318
he had acquired in London.

571
00:31:47,489 --> 00:31:50,159
That hard-to-
be-govern'd Passion of Youth

572
00:31:50,326 --> 00:31:53,326
hurried me frequently into
Intrigues with low Women

573
00:31:53,495 --> 00:31:54,995
that fell in my Way,

574
00:31:55,164 --> 00:31:57,504
which were attended with some Expence.

575
00:31:57,666 --> 00:32:01,586
Besides a continual Risque
to my Health by a Distemper

576
00:32:01,754 --> 00:32:03,344
which of all Things I dreaded,

577
00:32:03,505 --> 00:32:06,675
tho' by great good Luck I escaped it.

578
00:32:08,427 --> 00:32:11,217
Now, as he became
a successful businessman,

579
00:32:11,388 --> 00:32:15,478
he decided he needed to
settle down and get married.

580
00:32:16,977 --> 00:32:19,977
Meanwhile, his former fiancée
Deborah Read

581
00:32:20,147 --> 00:32:22,777
had seen her marriage fall apart.

582
00:32:22,942 --> 00:32:27,362
Her husband had abandoned her
and fled to the West Indies.

583
00:32:27,529 --> 00:32:31,239
Reports came back that he
had died there in a brawl,

584
00:32:31,408 --> 00:32:33,198
but they were unconfirmed.

585
00:32:34,787 --> 00:32:38,367
In Quaker Pennsylvania,
Deborah was in a legal limbo.

586
00:32:38,540 --> 00:32:42,210
If she remarried and it
turned out he wasn't dead,

587
00:32:42,378 --> 00:32:46,258
she would be guilty of bigamy,
punishable at the time

588
00:32:46,423 --> 00:32:50,473
by 39 lashes and life imprisonment.

589
00:32:52,221 --> 00:32:54,101
She now lived with her widowed mother,

590
00:32:54,264 --> 00:32:57,394
who sold homemade remedies
to support them both

591
00:32:57,559 --> 00:33:00,309
in their house on Market Street.

592
00:33:00,479 --> 00:33:02,819
Franklin felt some responsibility

593
00:33:02,982 --> 00:33:05,732
for Deborah's unhappiness,
and he said,

594
00:33:05,901 --> 00:33:09,821
"our mutual affection
was revived."

595
00:33:09,989 --> 00:33:14,739
On September 1, 1730,
forgoing a legal wedding,

596
00:33:14,910 --> 00:33:17,000
they simply moved in together

597
00:33:17,162 --> 00:33:19,922
and entered into
a common-law marriage,

598
00:33:20,082 --> 00:33:23,342
a practice not all that uncommon.

599
00:33:24,753 --> 00:33:26,923
She prov'd
a good and faithful Helpmate.

600
00:33:27,089 --> 00:33:29,509
Assisted me much
by attending the Shop.

601
00:33:29,675 --> 00:33:33,215
We throve together, and have
ever mutually endeavour'd

602
00:33:33,387 --> 00:33:35,717
to make each other happy.

603
00:33:35,889 --> 00:33:38,309
I think he loved her.

604
00:33:38,475 --> 00:33:41,435
I think they rubbed on
together beautifully,

605
00:33:41,603 --> 00:33:44,063
as he would have said.

606
00:33:44,231 --> 00:33:45,831
I think during the time
that Franklin was

607
00:33:45,899 --> 00:33:47,859
an up-and-coming tradesman,

608
00:33:48,027 --> 00:33:51,357
it was a perfect union.

609
00:33:51,530 --> 00:33:55,330
She was an excellent
choice for a wife.

610
00:33:55,492 --> 00:33:59,502
She was well connected;
she belonged to Christ Church,

611
00:33:59,663 --> 00:34:02,123
which was the church in town.

612
00:34:02,291 --> 00:34:05,091
It was less of a romantic
relationship than it was

613
00:34:05,252 --> 00:34:09,012
a good, strong,
business-like partnership.

614
00:34:10,382 --> 00:34:12,342
But there was a complication.

615
00:34:12,509 --> 00:34:17,009
Franklin had recently fathered
a son with another woman.

616
00:34:17,181 --> 00:34:19,431
He never revealed
the mother's identity,

617
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:23,190
but Franklin wanted to take
custody of the child.

618
00:34:23,353 --> 00:34:25,863
Deborah agreed the boy
could live with them.

619
00:34:26,023 --> 00:34:29,033
He was named William.

620
00:34:29,193 --> 00:34:31,113
She takes in his son,
who is not her son,

621
00:34:31,278 --> 00:34:33,488
and raises him, not always happily.

622
00:34:35,115 --> 00:34:36,695
Benjamin and Deborah

623
00:34:36,867 --> 00:34:38,617
expanded the print shop to include

624
00:34:38,786 --> 00:34:41,076
sales of her mother's ointments,

625
00:34:41,246 --> 00:34:44,956
fine soap from Franklin's family
back in Boston,

626
00:34:45,125 --> 00:34:49,335
coffee, tea, chocolate,
and other items.

627
00:34:49,505 --> 00:34:52,045
Deborah purchased rags,
which mills throughout

628
00:34:52,216 --> 00:34:54,546
the colonies turned into paper,

629
00:34:54,718 --> 00:34:57,218
creating another profit center.

630
00:34:57,387 --> 00:35:00,057
She also managed the household,

631
00:35:00,224 --> 00:35:03,734
and at night bound books
by candlelight.

632
00:35:05,771 --> 00:35:09,151
Two years into their union, in 1732,

633
00:35:09,316 --> 00:35:12,276
they had a child
of their own, Francis.

634
00:35:12,444 --> 00:35:16,574
His proud and doting
father called him Franky.

635
00:35:17,908 --> 00:35:19,988
But just after his fourth birthday,

636
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:24,960
Franky came down with smallpox
and died.

637
00:35:25,124 --> 00:35:27,634
The huge tragedy of their lives

638
00:35:27,793 --> 00:35:30,383
was the death of Franky.

639
00:35:30,546 --> 00:35:33,796
Franklin was one of the few
people in the Colonies

640
00:35:33,966 --> 00:35:37,546
who was 100% behind inoculation.

641
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:41,009
But it was thought that because Franky

642
00:35:41,181 --> 00:35:43,231
had a very bad cold at the time,

643
00:35:43,392 --> 00:35:47,022
they should hold off
until he recovered enough

644
00:35:47,187 --> 00:35:49,857
to be able to withstand
the assault on his system

645
00:35:50,023 --> 00:35:52,653
that inoculation would provide.

646
00:35:52,818 --> 00:35:55,108
He never was inoculated.

647
00:35:55,279 --> 00:35:57,779
Franklin never forgave himself.

648
00:36:08,625 --> 00:36:10,145
Franklin's exposure to the writings of

649
00:36:10,210 --> 00:36:12,420
Europe's Enlightenment thinkers

650
00:36:12,588 --> 00:36:15,878
had led him to reject most of
the Puritan teachings

651
00:36:16,049 --> 00:36:18,509
of his family's church in Boston.

652
00:36:18,677 --> 00:36:21,887
He no longer worshipped
a God intimately connected

653
00:36:22,055 --> 00:36:23,675
with a person's daily life

654
00:36:23,849 --> 00:36:28,149
who answered private prayers
or sent down punishments.

655
00:36:30,314 --> 00:36:32,774
But he still believed in
a Supreme Being

656
00:36:32,941 --> 00:36:36,111
who had created the world.

657
00:36:36,278 --> 00:36:37,778
I believe He is pleased

658
00:36:37,946 --> 00:36:39,696
and delights in the happiness

659
00:36:39,865 --> 00:36:41,615
of those He has created;

660
00:36:41,783 --> 00:36:46,163
and since without virtue man can
have no happiness in this world,

661
00:36:46,330 --> 00:36:51,130
I firmly believe He
delights to see me virtuous.

662
00:36:51,293 --> 00:36:53,673
Avirtuous heretick shall be saved

663
00:36:53,837 --> 00:36:56,217
before a wicked Christian.

664
00:36:57,674 --> 00:36:59,724
No one feared for Benjamin's soul

665
00:36:59,885 --> 00:37:03,595
more than his pious parents
back in Boston,

666
00:37:03,764 --> 00:37:06,984
whose Calvinist Puritanism
espoused that salvation

667
00:37:07,142 --> 00:37:09,852
came solely through God's grace

668
00:37:10,020 --> 00:37:11,690
rather than good works

669
00:37:11,855 --> 00:37:14,605
and anyone who strayed
from that doctrine

670
00:37:14,775 --> 00:37:17,355
would be eternally damned.

671
00:37:18,654 --> 00:37:21,074
Benjamin, for whom tolerance
was becoming

672
00:37:21,240 --> 00:37:23,830
central to his evolving beliefs,

673
00:37:23,992 --> 00:37:26,662
tried to explain himself.

674
00:37:26,828 --> 00:37:29,748
Honored Father and Mother, I imagine

675
00:37:29,915 --> 00:37:32,415
a Man must have a good deal
of Vanity who believes

676
00:37:32,584 --> 00:37:35,634
that all the Doctrines
he holds, are true;

677
00:37:35,796 --> 00:37:38,256
and all he rejects, are false.

678
00:37:40,592 --> 00:37:43,392
I think vital Religion
has always suffer'd,

679
00:37:43,553 --> 00:37:47,643
when Orthodoxy is more
regarded than Virtue.

680
00:37:47,808 --> 00:37:51,438
And the Scripture assures me,
that at the last Day,

681
00:37:51,603 --> 00:37:54,733
we shall not be examin'd
by what we thought,

682
00:37:54,898 --> 00:37:56,278
but what we did.

683
00:38:00,862 --> 00:38:03,322
He's a man of
omnivorous curiosity, um,

684
00:38:03,490 --> 00:38:05,910
of endless invention,
of endless self-invention.

685
00:38:06,076 --> 00:38:07,786
He's so bent on self-improvement,

686
00:38:07,953 --> 00:38:10,333
on teaching himself
how to write properly,

687
00:38:10,497 --> 00:38:13,207
or cleansing himself
of his moral sins.

688
00:38:13,375 --> 00:38:15,665
He gives us this idea
that human nature

689
00:38:15,836 --> 00:38:17,126
may be flawed in some ways,

690
00:38:17,296 --> 00:38:19,796
but anything can be improved.

691
00:38:21,883 --> 00:38:24,513
In his constant
effort for self-improvement,

692
00:38:24,678 --> 00:38:27,718
Franklin made a list of 12 virtues

693
00:38:27,889 --> 00:38:32,309
that could lead him to what
he called "moral perfection":

694
00:38:32,477 --> 00:38:39,027
temperance, silence, order,

695
00:38:39,192 --> 00:38:44,702
resolution, frugality, industry,

696
00:38:44,865 --> 00:38:53,785
sincerity, justice,
moderation, cleanliness,

697
00:38:53,957 --> 00:38:57,247
tranquility, and chastity.

698
00:38:58,837 --> 00:39:00,957
Then he made a chart with 7 columns

699
00:39:01,131 --> 00:39:02,971
for each day of the week

700
00:39:03,133 --> 00:39:06,013
and rows labeled with each virtue

701
00:39:06,178 --> 00:39:08,348
and went to work on his progress,

702
00:39:08,513 --> 00:39:12,733
marking any infraction
with a black spot.

703
00:39:12,893 --> 00:39:16,773
"I was surprised," he said,
"to find myself much fuller

704
00:39:16,938 --> 00:39:19,518
of faults than I had imagined."

705
00:39:21,026 --> 00:39:24,276
Every week, Franklin
would make a chart and check,

706
00:39:24,446 --> 00:39:26,656
did he master the virtue?

707
00:39:26,823 --> 00:39:29,703
At one point, he said,
"I've mastered all the 12

708
00:39:29,868 --> 00:39:31,238
"virtues I had.

709
00:39:31,411 --> 00:39:33,791
"And I showed it around
with great pride.

710
00:39:33,955 --> 00:39:36,955
"And one of my friends said,
'Franklin, you're missing

711
00:39:37,125 --> 00:39:38,345
a virtue you might want
to try.'"

712
00:39:38,377 --> 00:39:40,207
And Franklin says,
"What's that?"

713
00:39:40,379 --> 00:39:41,839
And the friend says, "Humility.

714
00:39:42,005 --> 00:39:45,625
You might want to add
that one to your list."

715
00:39:45,801 --> 00:39:48,431
In reality,
there is perhaps no one of our

716
00:39:48,595 --> 00:39:52,845
natural Passions so hard
to subdue as Pride.

717
00:39:53,016 --> 00:39:55,766
Disguise it, struggle with it,
beat it down, stifle it,

718
00:39:55,936 --> 00:39:59,816
mortify it as much as one
pleases, it is still alive,

719
00:39:59,981 --> 00:40:03,991
and will every now and then
peep out and show itself.

720
00:40:04,152 --> 00:40:07,532
Even if I could conceive that
I had completely overcome it,

721
00:40:07,697 --> 00:40:12,037
I should probably be
proud of my Humility.

722
00:40:16,039 --> 00:40:19,289
7 years after the
death of their son Franky,

723
00:40:19,459 --> 00:40:24,169
Deborah gave birth to another
child, a daughter named Sarah.

724
00:40:24,339 --> 00:40:26,549
They called her Sally.

725
00:40:27,884 --> 00:40:30,604
Franklin's son William
was now a teenager,

726
00:40:30,762 --> 00:40:34,562
as restless as his father
had been at that age.

727
00:40:34,724 --> 00:40:37,604
Deborah treated him
with occasional coldness,

728
00:40:37,769 --> 00:40:40,729
but Franklin was indulgent
as a father,

729
00:40:40,897 --> 00:40:44,027
making sure the boy
got the formal education

730
00:40:44,192 --> 00:40:47,112
Franklin himself had been denied.

731
00:40:48,655 --> 00:40:51,445
At age 16, William enlisted
to fight against

732
00:40:51,616 --> 00:40:54,156
the French and their Indian allies

733
00:40:54,327 --> 00:40:57,287
in what was called King George's War,

734
00:40:57,456 --> 00:40:59,786
and quickly rose
to the rank of captain,

735
00:40:59,958 --> 00:41:03,628
tracking down deserters
in Pennsylvania.

736
00:41:03,795 --> 00:41:06,375
When he returned to Philadelphia,

737
00:41:06,548 --> 00:41:08,968
his father began to envision William

738
00:41:09,134 --> 00:41:11,934
rising in the ranks
of the British Empire

739
00:41:12,095 --> 00:41:16,515
and made plans for him
to study the law in England.

740
00:41:20,353 --> 00:41:24,193
Franklin had started
to acquire some wealth.

741
00:41:25,484 --> 00:41:28,204
Like many other
Colonial Pennsylvanians,

742
00:41:28,361 --> 00:41:31,071
he held a number of enslaved people,

743
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:33,579
up to 5 or 6, in his home,

744
00:41:33,742 --> 00:41:37,412
including a married couple,
Peter and Jemima.

745
00:41:37,579 --> 00:41:40,539
He was committed to slave labor.

746
00:41:40,707 --> 00:41:45,247
He used it alongside of
his business ventures

747
00:41:45,420 --> 00:41:47,840
in order to gain more wealth.

748
00:41:48,006 --> 00:41:49,546
At the time,

749
00:41:49,716 --> 00:41:52,086
nearly a tenth of
Philadelphia's residents

750
00:41:52,260 --> 00:41:53,510
were enslaved,

751
00:41:53,678 --> 00:41:57,388
toiling in homes and businesses.

752
00:41:57,557 --> 00:41:59,937
We tend to associate slavery with

753
00:42:00,101 --> 00:42:02,191
plantation labor in the South.

754
00:42:02,354 --> 00:42:04,984
But there were slaves all up
and down the Eastern Seaboard,

755
00:42:05,148 --> 00:42:07,278
every one of the 13 Colonies.

756
00:42:07,442 --> 00:42:09,342
And they did everything.
They served as domestic servants;

757
00:42:09,361 --> 00:42:12,911
they served as cooks;
um, they served as nursemaids;

758
00:42:13,073 --> 00:42:17,543
they served as dock workers;
they served as hired hands.

759
00:42:17,702 --> 00:42:21,582
The advantage was that
Africans couldn't leave.

760
00:42:21,748 --> 00:42:25,088
Indentured servants
filled out their time.

761
00:42:25,252 --> 00:42:27,672
Africans, you had for life.

762
00:42:28,922 --> 00:42:30,922
Many of Franklin's Quaker friends

763
00:42:31,091 --> 00:42:34,641
considered slavery a sin
that threatened to corrode

764
00:42:34,803 --> 00:42:38,223
the moral fiber of
the community at large.

765
00:42:38,390 --> 00:42:41,980
Franklin published some of
their anti-slavery tracts--

766
00:42:42,143 --> 00:42:45,403
though he intentionally
kept his own name as printer

767
00:42:45,564 --> 00:42:48,114
off the title page.

768
00:42:48,275 --> 00:42:51,145
Franklin lived in
a moment in which slavery was

769
00:42:51,319 --> 00:42:56,029
being challenged, pretty
constantly, in Philadelphia.

770
00:42:56,199 --> 00:42:59,739
He was very aware that this
was happening, yet he still

771
00:42:59,911 --> 00:43:03,161
made the decision to
hold onto his men and woman

772
00:43:03,331 --> 00:43:05,131
who were enslaved.

773
00:43:05,292 --> 00:43:07,172
He made a choice.

774
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:17,219
Franklin's publishing empire was

775
00:43:17,387 --> 00:43:20,427
expanding and making more money.

776
00:43:20,599 --> 00:43:22,599
He was named clerk of Pennsylvania's

777
00:43:22,767 --> 00:43:25,897
colonial assembly,
which didn't pay well,

778
00:43:26,062 --> 00:43:28,902
but had won the contract
to print their proceedings,

779
00:43:29,065 --> 00:43:31,065
which did.

780
00:43:31,234 --> 00:43:34,784
He made even more profits
printing the paper currency

781
00:43:34,946 --> 00:43:38,736
for Pennsylvania, Delaware,
and New Jersey.

782
00:43:38,908 --> 00:43:41,698
With former employees,
he would establish

783
00:43:41,870 --> 00:43:44,910
printing partnerships in
Newport, Rhode Island;

784
00:43:45,081 --> 00:43:48,841
New York City; and Antigua
in the West Indies;

785
00:43:49,002 --> 00:43:53,132
as well as the one in
Charleston, South Carolina.

786
00:43:53,298 --> 00:43:56,718
He published Bibles,
and Samuel Richardson's

787
00:43:56,885 --> 00:44:00,055
"Pamela," the first novel
printed in America,

788
00:44:00,221 --> 00:44:03,931
along with treaties with
Native peoples that were used

789
00:44:04,100 --> 00:44:09,020
to systematically dispossess
them of their lands.

790
00:44:09,189 --> 00:44:14,319
In 1737, he was appointed
Philadelphia's postmaster,

791
00:44:14,486 --> 00:44:16,906
giving him access to news from Europe

792
00:44:17,072 --> 00:44:21,952
and the rest of the Colonies
before his competitors.

793
00:44:22,118 --> 00:44:23,848
One of the advantages
of being a printer is that

794
00:44:23,870 --> 00:44:26,830
he is totally tuned into the news.

795
00:44:26,998 --> 00:44:29,078
He's totally tuned into
everything that's

796
00:44:29,250 --> 00:44:30,840
going on in North America.

797
00:44:31,002 --> 00:44:35,342
His vision is broader than
most of his neighbors.

798
00:44:35,507 --> 00:44:39,797
He had a kind of public opinion
embedded in his brain.

799
00:44:39,969 --> 00:44:43,219
And he knew that opinion
in the end was what would

800
00:44:43,390 --> 00:44:45,890
decide where power resided.

801
00:44:49,104 --> 00:44:51,614
Early to Bed, and early to rise,

802
00:44:51,773 --> 00:44:55,403
makes a Man healthy, wealthy and wise.

803
00:44:56,986 --> 00:44:59,156
By now, thousands of readers

804
00:44:59,322 --> 00:45:01,282
from South Carolina to New York

805
00:45:01,449 --> 00:45:05,159
were buying Franklin's
"Poor Richard's Almanack,"

806
00:45:05,328 --> 00:45:08,788
which he had launched in 1733.

807
00:45:08,957 --> 00:45:11,877
Many printers published almanacs.

808
00:45:12,043 --> 00:45:16,013
They outsold everything
in the colonies except Bibles

809
00:45:16,172 --> 00:45:18,512
and had the advantage
of requiring people

810
00:45:18,675 --> 00:45:22,215
to buy a new one each year.

811
00:45:22,387 --> 00:45:24,347
But Franklin's stood out.

812
00:45:24,514 --> 00:45:26,274
In addition to weather predictions,

813
00:45:26,433 --> 00:45:30,443
astronomical, astrological,
and other observations,

814
00:45:30,603 --> 00:45:35,403
he included aphorisms that
combined wisdom with humor,

815
00:45:35,567 --> 00:45:38,527
philosophy with word play.

816
00:45:38,695 --> 00:45:40,565
All of it was ostensibly written

817
00:45:40,739 --> 00:45:42,819
by the hapless Richard Saunders,

818
00:45:42,991 --> 00:45:45,121
who claimed he was writing his almanac

819
00:45:45,285 --> 00:45:48,785
simply because his wife
threatened to burn his books

820
00:45:48,955 --> 00:45:52,035
if he didn't earn something from them.

821
00:45:52,208 --> 00:45:54,088
Franklin got this from his reading

822
00:45:54,252 --> 00:45:55,672
of Jonathan Swift.

823
00:45:55,837 --> 00:45:57,227
Swift had produced
the "Bickerstaff Papers,"

824
00:45:57,255 --> 00:46:00,005
which was a parody of the almanac.

825
00:46:00,175 --> 00:46:04,425
And Franklin decides
to incorporate this style

826
00:46:04,596 --> 00:46:06,426
into Richard Saunders.

827
00:46:06,598 --> 00:46:08,348
And it was genius.

828
00:46:08,516 --> 00:46:10,536
People go to almanacs for
all sorts of important things--

829
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:11,850
when to plant potatoes or peas;

830
00:46:12,020 --> 00:46:14,810
when... what's the best time
to harvest--

831
00:46:14,981 --> 00:46:17,441
but they stayed
because these fillers were

832
00:46:17,609 --> 00:46:20,859
funny, witty, and useful.

833
00:46:21,029 --> 00:46:23,619
"Fish and visitors,"
Poor Richard wrote,

834
00:46:23,782 --> 00:46:26,282
"stink in 3 days."

835
00:46:26,451 --> 00:46:31,831
"He that lies down with dogs,
shall rise up with fleas."

836
00:46:31,998 --> 00:46:35,378
"God helps them
that help themselves."

837
00:46:35,543 --> 00:46:38,093
"Haste," he said, "makes waste."

838
00:46:38,254 --> 00:46:41,934
And "lost time is
never found again."

839
00:46:43,510 --> 00:46:47,310
God heals,
and the doctor takes the fees.

840
00:46:47,472 --> 00:46:49,772
A countryman between two lawyers

841
00:46:49,933 --> 00:46:53,353
is like a fish between two cats.

842
00:46:54,896 --> 00:46:57,606
The greatest monarch
on the proudest throne,

843
00:46:57,774 --> 00:47:00,904
is obliged to sit upon his own arse.

844
00:47:01,903 --> 00:47:05,243
Franklin is endlessly quotable.

845
00:47:05,406 --> 00:47:08,026
You could live your life,
I think, in Franklin aphorisms,

846
00:47:08,201 --> 00:47:10,481
most of which, we should say,
are stolen from other people

847
00:47:10,537 --> 00:47:12,537
but slightly reworked,
so in Franklin's version,

848
00:47:12,705 --> 00:47:14,745
they're in a better form.

849
00:47:14,916 --> 00:47:17,626
"Three can keep a secret,
if two of them are dead."

850
00:47:19,671 --> 00:47:22,551
I think one of
Franklin's great inventions is

851
00:47:22,715 --> 00:47:26,255
that American style of homespun humor,

852
00:47:26,427 --> 00:47:30,137
somebody who's pricking at
the pretensions of the elite,

853
00:47:30,306 --> 00:47:33,096
somebody who has sort of a
cracker barrel sensibility.

854
00:47:33,268 --> 00:47:36,648
This new style of humor
where people are poking fun

855
00:47:36,813 --> 00:47:38,823
at themselves indirectly.

856
00:47:38,982 --> 00:47:42,692
You see it in Mark Twain
and Will Rogers and others.

857
00:47:42,861 --> 00:47:44,821
I think it started with Franklin.

858
00:47:55,206 --> 00:47:56,876
The man who had
arrived in Philadelphia

859
00:47:57,041 --> 00:48:00,041
virtually penniless at age 17

860
00:48:00,211 --> 00:48:02,801
was now the city's largest bookseller,

861
00:48:02,964 --> 00:48:06,184
its most successful
printer and publisher,

862
00:48:06,342 --> 00:48:10,312
and the biggest paper merchant
in all the colonies.

863
00:48:10,471 --> 00:48:13,981
He considered himself
prosperous enough to retire

864
00:48:14,142 --> 00:48:18,352
from the day-to-day running
of his businesses in 1748,

865
00:48:18,521 --> 00:48:21,151
at age 42.

866
00:48:21,316 --> 00:48:24,486
"I would rather have it said,
'He lived usefully, '"

867
00:48:24,652 --> 00:48:29,322
Franklin wrote his mother,
"than 'He died rich.'"

868
00:48:29,490 --> 00:48:31,330
I am in a fair Way of having

869
00:48:31,492 --> 00:48:35,582
no other Tasks than such as I
shall like to give my Self,

870
00:48:35,747 --> 00:48:40,417
and of enjoying what I look upon
as a great Happiness,

871
00:48:40,585 --> 00:48:43,915
Leisure to read, make Experiments,

872
00:48:44,088 --> 00:48:47,798
and converse at large with such
ingenious and worthy Men

873
00:48:47,967 --> 00:48:49,717
as are pleas'd to honor me

874
00:48:49,886 --> 00:48:52,306
with their friendship
and Acquaintance,

875
00:48:52,472 --> 00:48:54,142
on such points as may produce

876
00:48:54,307 --> 00:48:58,387
something for
the common benefit of mankind,

877
00:48:58,561 --> 00:49:02,191
uninterrupted by the
little cares and fatigues

878
00:49:02,357 --> 00:49:03,687
of business.

879
00:49:05,485 --> 00:49:06,495
There was something
in Franklin that always

880
00:49:06,527 --> 00:49:07,947
wanted a little bit more.

881
00:49:08,112 --> 00:49:09,912
He wanted to learn more.
He wanted to go

882
00:49:10,073 --> 00:49:11,873
to more interesting places.

883
00:49:12,033 --> 00:49:14,243
He wanted to have a broader influence.

884
00:49:14,410 --> 00:49:16,790
Despite his lack of
a formal education,

885
00:49:16,955 --> 00:49:19,035
Franklin had turned himself

886
00:49:19,207 --> 00:49:22,337
into an influential
writer and thinker.

887
00:49:22,502 --> 00:49:24,172
Now, with more time to pursue

888
00:49:24,337 --> 00:49:27,547
whatever intrigued his
restless imagination,

889
00:49:27,715 --> 00:49:31,965
he would become better known
as a scientist and inventor.

890
00:49:35,056 --> 00:49:36,976
He studied the earth's rotation;

891
00:49:37,141 --> 00:49:39,941
conducted experiments
showing that dark cloths

892
00:49:40,103 --> 00:49:43,023
absorb more heat than bright fabrics;

893
00:49:43,189 --> 00:49:45,779
and became fascinated
by the human body's

894
00:49:45,942 --> 00:49:48,152
circulatory system.

895
00:49:48,319 --> 00:49:51,909
He loved anatomy, he loved botany,

896
00:49:52,073 --> 00:49:54,783
he loved the way leaves had veins.

897
00:49:54,951 --> 00:49:58,161
He was most curious to know
everything you can know about

898
00:49:58,329 --> 00:50:00,499
everything that was possibly knowable.

899
00:50:00,665 --> 00:50:05,245
Wanting to know everything
is a key to his creativity.

900
00:50:05,420 --> 00:50:07,300
He observed weather patterns

901
00:50:07,463 --> 00:50:10,723
and correctly deduced
that the coastal storms

902
00:50:10,883 --> 00:50:12,803
now called Nor'easters

903
00:50:12,969 --> 00:50:15,929
actually moved in from the south.

904
00:50:16,097 --> 00:50:18,347
For an ailing brother, he fashioned

905
00:50:18,516 --> 00:50:21,186
a more comfortable catheter.

906
00:50:21,352 --> 00:50:25,572
And he designed a metal stove
to fit into a hearth,

907
00:50:25,732 --> 00:50:29,942
improving on the ones many
German immigrants were using.

908
00:50:30,111 --> 00:50:33,281
Franklin's radiated more heat
out into the room

909
00:50:33,448 --> 00:50:36,408
and had an opening for those
who still wished

910
00:50:36,576 --> 00:50:39,196
to bask in the fire's glow.

911
00:50:39,370 --> 00:50:42,290
An ironworker who was
a fellow Junto member

912
00:50:42,457 --> 00:50:46,837
began manufacturing them,
and they sold for 5 pounds each

913
00:50:47,003 --> 00:50:49,263
throughout the northeast.

914
00:50:49,422 --> 00:50:51,552
When Franklin was urged to take out

915
00:50:51,716 --> 00:50:57,846
a potentially lucrative patent
on his invention, he declined.

916
00:50:58,014 --> 00:50:59,894
As we enjoy great advantages

917
00:51:00,058 --> 00:51:01,728
from the invention of others,

918
00:51:01,893 --> 00:51:05,403
we should be glad of
an opportunity to serve others

919
00:51:05,563 --> 00:51:07,193
by an invention of ours,

920
00:51:07,356 --> 00:51:11,936
and this we should do
freely and generously.

921
00:51:14,405 --> 00:51:16,565
But nothing he did as a scientist

922
00:51:16,741 --> 00:51:18,831
would do more to serve others,

923
00:51:18,993 --> 00:51:20,753
and bring him more fame,

924
00:51:20,912 --> 00:51:25,422
than his work in the fledgling
field of electricity.

925
00:51:25,583 --> 00:51:29,423
"I never was before engaged
in any study," Franklin wrote,

926
00:51:29,587 --> 00:51:34,257
"that so totally engrossed
my attention and my time."

927
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:38,300
Franklin had become
interested in electricity,

928
00:51:38,471 --> 00:51:41,181
which, at the time,
was certainly not understood,

929
00:51:41,349 --> 00:51:43,229
but it was also
sort of a parlor trick.

930
00:51:43,392 --> 00:51:45,232
People would come in
with a--with a glass rod

931
00:51:45,394 --> 00:51:48,694
and some silk and shock
each other and lift

932
00:51:48,856 --> 00:51:50,066
pieces of paper.

933
00:51:50,233 --> 00:51:51,863
He and his Junto friends

934
00:51:52,026 --> 00:51:54,526
staged electricity parties

935
00:51:54,695 --> 00:51:58,315
in which they used a charge
to ring bells

936
00:51:58,491 --> 00:52:03,201
and make a toy he called an
electrical spider jump around.

937
00:52:03,371 --> 00:52:07,541
Men and women exchanged
electrical kisses.

938
00:52:07,708 --> 00:52:09,538
Franklin also electrified

939
00:52:09,710 --> 00:52:13,420
a gilt-edged portrait of
King George II that created

940
00:52:13,589 --> 00:52:16,089
what he called a high-treason shock

941
00:52:16,259 --> 00:52:20,599
if someone touched his crown.

942
00:52:20,763 --> 00:52:23,933
He used a more powerful shock
to kill a turkey and reported

943
00:52:24,100 --> 00:52:26,640
that it seemed uncommonly tender

944
00:52:26,811 --> 00:52:30,571
compared to one slaughtered
the conventional way.

945
00:52:30,731 --> 00:52:33,991
He kept saying,
"We have to find useful things

946
00:52:34,152 --> 00:52:36,572
to do with this electricity."

947
00:52:36,737 --> 00:52:38,757
He said one of the only useful
things in his first year

948
00:52:38,781 --> 00:52:41,621
of experiments was that
he would get shocked

949
00:52:41,784 --> 00:52:44,454
and knock him down; and he said,
"Electricity was useful

950
00:52:44,620 --> 00:52:47,250
for making
a vain person humble."

951
00:52:47,415 --> 00:52:50,245
As his studies turned more serious,

952
00:52:50,418 --> 00:52:53,208
and he began documenting
his observations,

953
00:52:53,379 --> 00:52:55,459
he came up with new terms to describe

954
00:52:55,631 --> 00:52:58,261
electricity's mysterious properties.

955
00:53:00,094 --> 00:53:02,014
It had two charges, he wrote,

956
00:53:02,180 --> 00:53:04,220
positive and negative,

957
00:53:04,390 --> 00:53:08,900
and it could travel by what
he called a conductor.

958
00:53:09,061 --> 00:53:12,361
He grouped a collection of
glass containers together,

959
00:53:12,523 --> 00:53:14,653
each possessing an electrical charge,

960
00:53:14,817 --> 00:53:19,067
and named it a battery,
using the military term

961
00:53:19,238 --> 00:53:22,368
for an array of cannons.

962
00:53:22,533 --> 00:53:24,163
Benjamin Franklin
comes up with the most

963
00:53:24,327 --> 00:53:27,077
important theory of the era, which is

964
00:53:27,246 --> 00:53:29,246
the Single Fluid Theory
of Electricity,

965
00:53:29,415 --> 00:53:32,995
which is that it's not some substance,

966
00:53:33,169 --> 00:53:34,439
but it's a positive and a negative.

967
00:53:34,462 --> 00:53:37,672
And it flows from
positive to negative.

968
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:41,090
But pure science
had less appeal to Franklin

969
00:53:41,260 --> 00:53:43,350
than putting it to practical use.

970
00:53:45,598 --> 00:53:48,678
Lightning was seen as being
Divine Retribution.

971
00:53:48,851 --> 00:53:51,231
Of course, the irony was that
most of the buildings

972
00:53:51,395 --> 00:53:53,475
that were destroyed by lightning
were churches

973
00:53:53,648 --> 00:53:55,728
'cause in a lot of communities
in the 18th century,

974
00:53:55,900 --> 00:53:57,180
they were the highest structure.

975
00:53:58,903 --> 00:54:01,533
Franklin is convinced that lightning

976
00:54:01,697 --> 00:54:05,867
bears a similarity
to an electrical spark.

977
00:54:06,035 --> 00:54:07,745
He's looking at electric sparks,

978
00:54:07,912 --> 00:54:10,542
he's looking at lightning,
and he puts in his notebook

979
00:54:10,706 --> 00:54:14,166
all the similarities
and at the end of the page,

980
00:54:14,335 --> 00:54:16,495
he says, "Let the experiment
be made."

981
00:54:19,298 --> 00:54:20,758
Franklin detailed his theory

982
00:54:20,925 --> 00:54:23,085
that lightning was electricity

983
00:54:23,261 --> 00:54:26,681
and that metal objects
could draw off a charge.

984
00:54:26,847 --> 00:54:30,767
He proposed an experiment
that involved placing a person

985
00:54:30,935 --> 00:54:33,095
in what he called a sentry box

986
00:54:33,271 --> 00:54:35,311
on a high tower or hilltop

987
00:54:35,481 --> 00:54:38,151
and raising a sharply pointed iron rod

988
00:54:38,317 --> 00:54:41,237
when storm clouds approached.

989
00:54:41,404 --> 00:54:44,454
He shared his observations
with a London scientist,

990
00:54:44,615 --> 00:54:47,905
Peter Collinson, who had
supplied him with equipment

991
00:54:48,077 --> 00:54:50,407
for his electrical studies.

992
00:54:50,579 --> 00:54:53,459
Franklin was planning
to conduct the experiment

993
00:54:53,624 --> 00:54:56,714
on the new steeple of
Christ Church off Market Street

994
00:54:56,877 --> 00:54:59,877
as soon as its
construction was completed.

995
00:55:00,047 --> 00:55:04,677
But the work went slowly
and Franklin grew impatient.

996
00:55:04,844 --> 00:55:06,934
He then came up with
an alternative way

997
00:55:07,096 --> 00:55:08,966
to test his theory.

998
00:55:09,140 --> 00:55:11,140
He was less confident in this method

999
00:55:11,309 --> 00:55:13,559
and decided to do it in secret,

1000
00:55:13,728 --> 00:55:17,228
trusting only his son William
to take part.

1001
00:55:18,649 --> 00:55:22,819
In June of 1752,
with storm clouds threatening,

1002
00:55:22,987 --> 00:55:26,367
he and William went to a field
with a silk kite,

1003
00:55:26,532 --> 00:55:30,332
to which Franklin had attached
a sharp-pointed wire.

1004
00:55:31,704 --> 00:55:34,584
Dangling at the end of
the kite's long twine string

1005
00:55:34,749 --> 00:55:36,919
was a metal key.

1006
00:55:37,084 --> 00:55:40,924
They got the kite aloft
and Franklin maneuvered it

1007
00:55:41,088 --> 00:55:43,758
toward the approaching clouds.

1008
00:55:43,924 --> 00:55:45,934
What he was showing
was that the atmosphere

1009
00:55:46,093 --> 00:55:47,973
became electrified,

1010
00:55:48,137 --> 00:55:50,927
not that the kite had to be
struck by a lightning bolt,

1011
00:55:51,098 --> 00:55:54,388
which is often the way it's
depicted in illustrations.

1012
00:55:54,560 --> 00:55:55,980
Franklin suddenly noticed

1013
00:55:56,145 --> 00:55:57,935
the individual strands of hemp

1014
00:55:58,105 --> 00:55:59,185
along the kite's string

1015
00:55:59,357 --> 00:56:02,227
stiffening and standing on end.

1016
00:56:02,401 --> 00:56:04,531
He moved his free hand toward the key

1017
00:56:04,695 --> 00:56:08,025
and felt a mild shock on his knuckle.

1018
00:56:08,199 --> 00:56:10,029
When the rain began, and water

1019
00:56:10,201 --> 00:56:12,331
started streaming down the twine,

1020
00:56:12,495 --> 00:56:14,955
sparks flew off the key.

1021
00:56:15,122 --> 00:56:17,502
Franklin was exultant.

1022
00:56:17,666 --> 00:56:20,666
"Thereby," he wrote of his experiment,

1023
00:56:20,836 --> 00:56:24,216
"the sameness of electrical
matter with that of lightning

1024
00:56:24,382 --> 00:56:26,882
has been
completely demonstrated."

1025
00:56:29,470 --> 00:56:31,140
Meanwhile, the theories

1026
00:56:31,305 --> 00:56:33,135
he had shared with Collinson

1027
00:56:33,307 --> 00:56:34,637
had been published,

1028
00:56:34,809 --> 00:56:37,439
and unbeknownst to him,
other scientists

1029
00:56:37,603 --> 00:56:40,983
were already
testing and verifying them.

1030
00:56:41,148 --> 00:56:44,738
Experiments using his original
sentry box proposal

1031
00:56:44,902 --> 00:56:49,822
had been taking place
all over England and Europe.

1032
00:56:49,990 --> 00:56:53,290
"Monsieur Franklin's idea,"
a French physicist wrote,

1033
00:56:53,452 --> 00:56:55,292
"has ceased to be a conjecture;

1034
00:56:55,454 --> 00:56:58,794
here it has become a reality."

1035
00:56:58,958 --> 00:57:01,288
The kite experiment, that really was

1036
00:57:01,460 --> 00:57:03,960
the symbol of his breakthrough.

1037
00:57:04,130 --> 00:57:07,760
It showed that the atmosphere
was electrified,

1038
00:57:07,925 --> 00:57:11,385
that thus thunder and lightning
were electrical forces.

1039
00:57:11,554 --> 00:57:14,774
And it overthrew
centuries of superstition

1040
00:57:14,932 --> 00:57:18,102
and scientific confusion about
what this might be.

1041
00:57:19,687 --> 00:57:20,997
He made a really
fundamental contribution

1042
00:57:21,021 --> 00:57:23,151
to basic science.

1043
00:57:23,315 --> 00:57:25,685
And the fact that
he did it as an American,

1044
00:57:25,860 --> 00:57:28,700
coming out of the wilds
of, uh, of America,

1045
00:57:28,863 --> 00:57:33,533
in the European eyes, made him,
uh, instantly world famous.

1046
00:57:33,701 --> 00:57:36,411
There's a hilarious little piece

1047
00:57:36,579 --> 00:57:38,499
in the "Gentleman's Magazine"
in London

1048
00:57:38,664 --> 00:57:40,584
where this commentator
says that "Now we know

1049
00:57:40,749 --> 00:57:42,789
"that Mr. Franklin's
theories about

1050
00:57:42,960 --> 00:57:45,670
"emptying the clouds of
electricity are actually true;

1051
00:57:45,838 --> 00:57:48,118
"whereas, once upon a time,
we didn't even think there was

1052
00:57:48,257 --> 00:57:50,507
such a person as Mr. Franklin."

1053
00:57:50,676 --> 00:57:52,276
'Cause it does seem
incredibly improbable

1054
00:57:52,344 --> 00:57:54,934
that the reigning expert on

1055
00:57:55,097 --> 00:57:57,767
an enormous attribute of Nature

1056
00:57:57,933 --> 00:58:00,643
would come from Philadelphia,
wherever the hell that was.

1057
00:58:02,062 --> 00:58:03,862
Benjamin Franklin had unlocked

1058
00:58:04,023 --> 00:58:05,773
the mystery of electricity,

1059
00:58:05,941 --> 00:58:09,951
but he still wanted
to put his discovery to work.

1060
00:58:10,112 --> 00:58:12,532
In Germany during the mid-century,

1061
00:58:12,698 --> 00:58:16,488
386 churches had been
struck by lightning

1062
00:58:16,660 --> 00:58:19,870
and more than 100 bell ringers killed.

1063
00:58:20,039 --> 00:58:22,919
In Italy, hundreds more
people perished

1064
00:58:23,083 --> 00:58:27,633
when a bolt hit a building that
had gunpowder stored in it.

1065
00:58:27,796 --> 00:58:30,506
Franklin concluded that lightning

1066
00:58:30,674 --> 00:58:32,894
seeks the path of least resistance

1067
00:58:33,052 --> 00:58:34,892
to connect with the ground.

1068
00:58:35,054 --> 00:58:36,394
Providing a better conductor

1069
00:58:36,555 --> 00:58:39,975
might safely divert the charge.

1070
00:58:40,142 --> 00:58:43,402
He then arranged for
what he called lightning rods

1071
00:58:43,562 --> 00:58:46,232
to be placed atop
Pennsylvania's State House

1072
00:58:46,398 --> 00:58:48,568
and his college building--

1073
00:58:48,734 --> 00:58:53,454
the first such devices
ever erected in the world.

1074
00:58:53,614 --> 00:58:55,744
Lightning bolts aren't there

1075
00:58:55,908 --> 00:58:57,408
sent by an angry god.

1076
00:58:57,576 --> 00:58:59,366
It's not something you can just

1077
00:58:59,537 --> 00:59:02,667
try to pray and it goes away.

1078
00:59:02,831 --> 00:59:05,501
You have to find practical,
scientific solutions

1079
00:59:05,668 --> 00:59:09,088
that help us understand our cosmos.

1080
00:59:09,255 --> 00:59:11,625
The lightning rod changes the world.

1081
00:59:11,799 --> 00:59:13,469
It's one of the most
important inventions

1082
00:59:13,634 --> 00:59:15,074
of the Enlightenment and, of course,

1083
00:59:15,094 --> 00:59:16,224
he won't patent it.

1084
00:59:16,387 --> 00:59:17,967
He believes a good idea

1085
00:59:18,138 --> 00:59:19,558
belongs to humankind.

1086
00:59:19,723 --> 00:59:21,603
Some religious leaders objected

1087
00:59:21,767 --> 00:59:24,397
that Franklin was
attempting to interfere

1088
00:59:24,562 --> 00:59:30,072
with one of God's most effective
methods of punishing sinners.

1089
00:59:30,234 --> 00:59:31,904
Surely the
Thunder of Heaven is no more

1090
00:59:32,069 --> 00:59:36,779
supernatural than the Rain,
Hail or Sunshine of Heaven,

1091
00:59:36,949 --> 00:59:39,449
against the Inconvenience
of which we guard

1092
00:59:39,618 --> 00:59:42,078
by Roofs & Shades without Scruple.

1093
00:59:44,039 --> 00:59:46,829
Scientists in America and Europe

1094
00:59:47,001 --> 00:59:50,131
were hailing him for his
achievements in electricity.

1095
00:59:50,296 --> 00:59:54,466
Harvard, Yale, and the College
of William and Mary in Virginia

1096
00:59:54,633 --> 00:59:57,643
gave him honorary degrees.

1097
00:59:57,803 --> 01:00:00,893
London's Royal Society
made him the first person

1098
01:00:01,056 --> 01:00:03,476
living outside of Britain to receive

1099
01:00:03,642 --> 01:00:06,812
its prestigious Copley Medal.

1100
01:00:06,979 --> 01:00:09,479
And one English scientist
called his work

1101
01:00:09,648 --> 01:00:11,978
"the greatest discovery
that has been made

1102
01:00:12,151 --> 01:00:15,401
since the time
of Sir Isaac Newton."

1103
01:00:15,571 --> 01:00:20,201
In Germany, the Enlightenment
philosopher Immanuel Kant said

1104
01:00:20,367 --> 01:00:24,867
Franklin had stolen the fire
of heaven and called him

1105
01:00:25,039 --> 01:00:26,789
the "modern Prometheus."

1106
01:00:37,301 --> 01:00:39,391
By the collision
of different sentiments,

1107
01:00:39,553 --> 01:00:42,063
sparks of truth are struck,

1108
01:00:42,222 --> 01:00:45,182
and political light is obtained.

1109
01:00:46,644 --> 01:00:48,604
He had a kind of social intelligence

1110
01:00:48,771 --> 01:00:52,151
that matched his
book learning intelligence.

1111
01:00:52,316 --> 01:00:55,106
He really was an American
genius, but part of his genius

1112
01:00:55,277 --> 01:00:58,907
lay in his ability
to get people to work with him

1113
01:00:59,073 --> 01:01:00,393
and to move things in a direction

1114
01:01:00,491 --> 01:01:02,241
he wanted them to go.

1115
01:01:02,409 --> 01:01:04,829
Franklin's
involvement in civic affairs

1116
01:01:04,995 --> 01:01:08,075
took a new political turn
when he was elected to

1117
01:01:08,248 --> 01:01:13,248
Pennsylvania's colonial
Assembly in 1751.

1118
01:01:13,420 --> 01:01:15,590
I conceived my becoming a member

1119
01:01:15,756 --> 01:01:19,126
would enlarge my power of doing good.

1120
01:01:19,301 --> 01:01:21,851
I would not however insinuate
that my ambition was not

1121
01:01:22,012 --> 01:01:24,722
flattered by all these promotions.

1122
01:01:24,890 --> 01:01:26,560
It certainly was.

1123
01:01:26,725 --> 01:01:28,725
For considering my low beginning

1124
01:01:28,894 --> 01:01:31,234
they were great things to me.

1125
01:01:34,483 --> 01:01:37,113
He worked on
everything from regulations

1126
01:01:37,277 --> 01:01:39,147
on the size of bread loaves

1127
01:01:39,321 --> 01:01:41,871
to a tax on dogs;

1128
01:01:42,032 --> 01:01:44,372
pushed through a plan
to pave Market Street

1129
01:01:44,535 --> 01:01:46,905
and keep it swept of dust;

1130
01:01:47,079 --> 01:01:49,459
then gained approval
to install newly designed

1131
01:01:49,623 --> 01:01:51,583
street lamps in the city

1132
01:01:51,750 --> 01:01:54,420
with 4 replaceable glass panes

1133
01:01:54,586 --> 01:01:57,166
that made them easier to repair.

1134
01:01:58,799 --> 01:02:01,889
In 1752, the British
government appointed

1135
01:02:02,052 --> 01:02:03,762
the 46-year-old Franklin

1136
01:02:03,929 --> 01:02:06,849
to the top postal job in America,

1137
01:02:07,015 --> 01:02:09,435
sharing the title of deputy postmaster

1138
01:02:09,601 --> 01:02:11,941
with a man from the South.

1139
01:02:12,104 --> 01:02:14,654
Franklin immediately started
making the colonies'

1140
01:02:14,815 --> 01:02:17,895
mail service more efficient.

1141
01:02:18,068 --> 01:02:20,988
He established the first
home-delivery system

1142
01:02:21,155 --> 01:02:23,615
and cut the time it took
for a letter to get from

1143
01:02:23,782 --> 01:02:27,952
Philadelphia to New York City
to one day.

1144
01:02:28,120 --> 01:02:30,500
On an inspection tour
that took him through

1145
01:02:30,664 --> 01:02:33,384
Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia,

1146
01:02:33,542 --> 01:02:38,052
he learned more about the
colonies south of Pennsylvania.

1147
01:02:38,213 --> 01:02:41,093
The American identity begins to form

1148
01:02:41,258 --> 01:02:44,678
when Franklin creates a Postal
System that allows people

1149
01:02:44,845 --> 01:02:47,845
to communicate up and down the coast.

1150
01:02:48,015 --> 01:02:49,885
Most of the Colonies
thought of themselves

1151
01:02:50,058 --> 01:02:51,638
closer to London.

1152
01:02:51,810 --> 01:02:53,940
Even letters would go,
from Charleston,

1153
01:02:54,104 --> 01:02:56,444
if it had to go to Boston,
it would go to London,

1154
01:02:56,607 --> 01:02:58,937
and then back to Boston.

1155
01:02:59,109 --> 01:03:01,239
So, by doing a Postal Road
up and down the coast,

1156
01:03:01,403 --> 01:03:05,573
he helps knit the American
Colonies together.

1157
01:03:05,741 --> 01:03:08,451
The future prosperity
of the British Empire,

1158
01:03:08,619 --> 01:03:10,449
Franklin wrote in one essay,

1159
01:03:10,621 --> 01:03:13,541
lay in the American colonies.

1160
01:03:13,707 --> 01:03:15,917
Because of the abundance of land,

1161
01:03:16,084 --> 01:03:18,714
he predicted the white
population would double

1162
01:03:18,879 --> 01:03:21,629
every 20 years, and within a century

1163
01:03:21,799 --> 01:03:24,639
would even surpass England's.

1164
01:03:24,802 --> 01:03:28,762
All of this disregarded the
sovereignty of Native peoples,

1165
01:03:28,931 --> 01:03:31,811
whose land it had been for millennia.

1166
01:03:34,061 --> 01:03:35,691
In the same essay, he argued,

1167
01:03:35,854 --> 01:03:38,324
strictly on economic grounds,

1168
01:03:38,482 --> 01:03:42,992
that the importation of black
slaves diminished a nation

1169
01:03:43,153 --> 01:03:45,073
because "The Whites who have Slaves"

1170
01:03:45,239 --> 01:03:49,739
are "enfeebled" by
not working themselves.

1171
01:03:49,910 --> 01:03:52,330
He is combining racism

1172
01:03:52,496 --> 01:03:56,246
and opposition to the
slave trade, simultaneously.

1173
01:03:56,416 --> 01:03:58,786
Some of the initial efforts

1174
01:03:58,961 --> 01:04:03,631
to stop the slave trade
to North America

1175
01:04:03,799 --> 01:04:04,589
originated in concern that there were

1176
01:04:04,758 --> 01:04:07,048
too many black people there.

1177
01:04:07,219 --> 01:04:10,969
It was an immigration problem,
rather than a moral problem.

1178
01:04:13,267 --> 01:04:15,887
He also worried
about the influx of immigrants

1179
01:04:16,061 --> 01:04:19,571
he described as having
"a swarthy complexion,"

1180
01:04:19,731 --> 01:04:22,571
including Spaniards, Italians,

1181
01:04:22,734 --> 01:04:26,614
French, Russians, and Swedes--

1182
01:04:26,780 --> 01:04:28,740
even the Germans, who now represented

1183
01:04:28,907 --> 01:04:31,787
a third of his own colony.

1184
01:04:31,952 --> 01:04:34,452
"Why," he wrote, "should Pennsylvania,

1185
01:04:34,621 --> 01:04:39,171
"founded by the English,
become a Colony of Aliens,

1186
01:04:39,334 --> 01:04:43,424
"who will shortly be so numerous
as to Germanize us

1187
01:04:43,589 --> 01:04:46,969
instead of our Anglifying them."

1188
01:04:48,552 --> 01:04:50,802
We have so fair an Opportunity,

1189
01:04:50,971 --> 01:04:53,521
by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys,

1190
01:04:53,682 --> 01:04:57,102
of increasing the lovely
White and Red.

1191
01:04:57,269 --> 01:05:00,979
But perhaps I am partial to
the Complexion of my Country,

1192
01:05:01,148 --> 01:05:05,238
for such Kind of Partiality
is natural to Mankind.

1193
01:05:06,612 --> 01:05:09,322
In the middle decades
of the 18th century,

1194
01:05:09,489 --> 01:05:13,159
notions of racial inferiority
were so deeply embedded

1195
01:05:13,327 --> 01:05:16,497
that the unusual fact
of this document, actually,

1196
01:05:16,663 --> 01:05:20,463
is how he says, at the end,
"Or maybe I'm just biased

1197
01:05:20,626 --> 01:05:23,546
in favor of people like myself."

1198
01:05:23,712 --> 01:05:27,632
Franklin doesn't deserve
particular praise for that.

1199
01:05:27,799 --> 01:05:32,139
But it is unusual in the sense of

1200
01:05:32,304 --> 01:05:35,314
he's being self-reflective
about his own prejudices.

1201
01:05:35,474 --> 01:05:38,484
It's the self-reflective part
which is slightly unusual.

1202
01:05:38,644 --> 01:05:40,354
The prejudices are not.

1203
01:05:44,942 --> 01:05:48,242
In 1754, increased white settlement

1204
01:05:48,403 --> 01:05:49,863
in the Ohio River Valley

1205
01:05:50,030 --> 01:05:52,740
ignited another struggle with France

1206
01:05:52,908 --> 01:05:55,078
for control of Native lands--

1207
01:05:55,243 --> 01:05:59,583
what would come to be called
the French and Indian War.

1208
01:05:59,748 --> 01:06:03,248
Franklin was chosen as one of
4 Pennsylvania delegates

1209
01:06:03,418 --> 01:06:06,758
to meet with representatives
from 6 other colonies

1210
01:06:06,922 --> 01:06:11,132
in Albany, New York, to
negotiate with Native Americans

1211
01:06:11,301 --> 01:06:15,311
they hoped would side with
England in the conflict.

1212
01:06:15,472 --> 01:06:18,142
He was familiar with
the way the Iroquois nations

1213
01:06:18,308 --> 01:06:21,808
had formed a confederation,
the Haudenosaunee,

1214
01:06:21,979 --> 01:06:23,729
more than a century earlier

1215
01:06:23,897 --> 01:06:26,227
that promoted unity through consensus

1216
01:06:26,400 --> 01:06:29,360
on matters that affected them all.

1217
01:06:29,528 --> 01:06:32,528
It gave him an idea.

1218
01:06:32,698 --> 01:06:34,828
It would be a very strange thing,

1219
01:06:34,992 --> 01:06:37,202
if 6 nations of ignorant
savages should be

1220
01:06:37,369 --> 01:06:40,289
capable of forming a scheme
for such a union,

1221
01:06:40,455 --> 01:06:42,785
and be able to execute it
in such a manner

1222
01:06:42,958 --> 01:06:45,628
as that it has subsisted for ages,

1223
01:06:45,794 --> 01:06:48,304
and appears indissoluble;

1224
01:06:48,463 --> 01:06:51,973
and yet that a like union
should be impracticable

1225
01:06:52,134 --> 01:06:55,054
for 10 or a dozen English colonies,

1226
01:06:55,220 --> 01:06:58,060
to whom it is more necessary,

1227
01:06:58,223 --> 01:07:01,063
and must be more advantageous.

1228
01:07:02,269 --> 01:07:04,019
Franklin urged his fellow delegates

1229
01:07:04,187 --> 01:07:07,107
to consider creating their own charter

1230
01:07:07,274 --> 01:07:10,284
to encourage the colonies
to work together.

1231
01:07:10,444 --> 01:07:14,364
He and Thomas Hutchinson,
an ally from Massachusetts,

1232
01:07:14,531 --> 01:07:17,741
spearheaded a committee
that drew up what was called

1233
01:07:17,909 --> 01:07:21,079
the Albany Plan of Union.

1234
01:07:21,246 --> 01:07:24,366
It proposed a Grand Council
for the Colonies,

1235
01:07:24,541 --> 01:07:27,461
empowered to make treaties
with Indians,

1236
01:07:27,627 --> 01:07:32,377
regulate trade, oversee
land sales on the frontier,

1237
01:07:32,549 --> 01:07:36,009
build forts and raise troops
for common defense,

1238
01:07:36,178 --> 01:07:38,718
and enact whatever taxes and duties

1239
01:07:38,889 --> 01:07:41,269
were needed for it all.

1240
01:07:41,433 --> 01:07:44,313
Individual colonies would
keep their own authority

1241
01:07:44,478 --> 01:07:49,108
over everything else
under their own constitutions.

1242
01:07:49,274 --> 01:07:51,744
In an article in
the "Gazette," he attached

1243
01:07:51,902 --> 01:07:54,742
a drawing showing a dismembered snake

1244
01:07:54,905 --> 01:07:56,905
representing the colonies.

1245
01:07:57,074 --> 01:08:00,334
At the bottom was a dire warning.

1246
01:08:00,494 --> 01:08:03,334
It says,
"Join or die."

1247
01:08:03,497 --> 01:08:07,037
And it's his way of saying
that we have to come together

1248
01:08:07,209 --> 01:08:10,589
to have one national sensibility.

1249
01:08:10,754 --> 01:08:12,304
So, he's the great visionary

1250
01:08:12,464 --> 01:08:13,974
that sees that we have to

1251
01:08:14,132 --> 01:08:16,552
knit the Colonies together,

1252
01:08:16,718 --> 01:08:19,388
rather than have each of
the Colonies think of themselves

1253
01:08:19,554 --> 01:08:23,144
as sort of a separate entity
reporting back to London.

1254
01:08:23,308 --> 01:08:25,518
On both sides of the Atlantic,

1255
01:08:25,685 --> 01:08:30,065
the Albany Plan
was considered too radical.

1256
01:08:30,232 --> 01:08:31,942
Its Fate was singular.

1257
01:08:32,109 --> 01:08:33,899
The Assemblies did not adopt it,

1258
01:08:34,069 --> 01:08:37,359
as they all thought there was
too much Prerogative in it;

1259
01:08:37,531 --> 01:08:42,161
and in England it was judg'd to
have too much of the democratic.

1260
01:08:42,327 --> 01:08:43,747
Despite all the failure, and it was

1261
01:08:43,912 --> 01:08:46,412
a total failure,

1262
01:08:46,581 --> 01:08:50,211
it did possibly plant
some kind of seed

1263
01:08:50,377 --> 01:08:54,917
for future organization
among the Colonies.

1264
01:08:58,218 --> 01:09:01,048
In 1755, Franklin met with

1265
01:09:01,221 --> 01:09:03,141
Major General Edward Braddock,

1266
01:09:03,306 --> 01:09:05,636
who had arrived in America boasting

1267
01:09:05,809 --> 01:09:09,599
that he and his British redcoats
would have little trouble

1268
01:09:09,771 --> 01:09:13,481
defeating the French and their
Native American allies.

1269
01:09:13,650 --> 01:09:17,450
Franklin warned the general
against overconfidence.

1270
01:09:17,612 --> 01:09:20,992
On July 9, 1755,

1271
01:09:21,158 --> 01:09:23,328
8 miles from Fort Duquesne,

1272
01:09:23,493 --> 01:09:25,953
where the Monongahela
and Allegheny rivers

1273
01:09:26,121 --> 01:09:28,371
join to form the Ohio,

1274
01:09:28,540 --> 01:09:31,330
Braddock's forces
stumbled into an ambush

1275
01:09:31,501 --> 01:09:35,631
and were routed by
French and Indian soldiers.

1276
01:09:35,797 --> 01:09:39,507
Nearly 1,000 of the British
were killed or wounded;

1277
01:09:39,676 --> 01:09:44,346
most of the officers died,
including Braddock.

1278
01:09:44,514 --> 01:09:47,894
In the battle, two horses
were shot out from underneath

1279
01:09:48,059 --> 01:09:49,519
a young lieutenant colonel

1280
01:09:49,686 --> 01:09:52,266
and land speculator from Virginia,

1281
01:09:52,439 --> 01:09:55,439
and 4 bullets pierced his coat.

1282
01:09:55,609 --> 01:10:01,239
But somehow, 23-year-old
George Washington survived.

1283
01:10:02,991 --> 01:10:04,661
The French and Indians soon pushed

1284
01:10:04,826 --> 01:10:06,446
farther into Pennsylvania,

1285
01:10:06,620 --> 01:10:10,370
burning houses,
killing and capturing settlers,

1286
01:10:10,540 --> 01:10:13,210
spreading panic across the colony.

1287
01:10:13,376 --> 01:10:16,626
In Philadelphia,
the Assembly seemed paralyzed.

1288
01:10:16,796 --> 01:10:21,716
Dominated by Quaker pacifists,
it resisted raising an army.

1289
01:10:23,178 --> 01:10:24,758
Meanwhile, the governor, appointed by

1290
01:10:24,930 --> 01:10:26,930
William Penn's sons in England,

1291
01:10:27,098 --> 01:10:29,268
steadfastly rejected any tax

1292
01:10:29,434 --> 01:10:32,024
on the family's lands in Pennsylvania

1293
01:10:32,187 --> 01:10:35,477
to help defend the colony.

1294
01:10:35,649 --> 01:10:38,149
Vassals fight at their lord's expense;

1295
01:10:38,318 --> 01:10:40,448
but our lord would have us
defend his estate

1296
01:10:40,612 --> 01:10:42,362
at our own expense!

1297
01:10:42,530 --> 01:10:45,830
It is even more slavish
than slavery itself.

1298
01:10:47,577 --> 01:10:49,157
When a raiding party
struck a settlement

1299
01:10:49,329 --> 01:10:52,209
only 75 miles north of Philadelphia,

1300
01:10:52,374 --> 01:10:54,714
Franklin led a force of militiamen,

1301
01:10:54,876 --> 01:10:59,126
including his son William,
over rough terrain to the scene,

1302
01:10:59,297 --> 01:11:00,837
where they buried the dead

1303
01:11:01,007 --> 01:11:02,427
and began to build

1304
01:11:02,592 --> 01:11:04,012
a series of forts.

1305
01:11:05,387 --> 01:11:07,887
The winter weather was cold and wet.

1306
01:11:08,056 --> 01:11:10,176
Franklin spent his 50th birthday

1307
01:11:10,350 --> 01:11:13,060
encamped at Lehigh Gap.

1308
01:11:15,438 --> 01:11:18,358
But the immediate crisis had been met.

1309
01:11:18,525 --> 01:11:22,645
In Philadelphia,
Franklin was hailed as a hero.

1310
01:11:22,821 --> 01:11:26,951
"The people," he wrote
a friend, "happen to love me."

1311
01:11:30,620 --> 01:11:34,170
In June of 1757, Franklin once more

1312
01:11:34,332 --> 01:11:37,842
found himself on a ship
bound for England.

1313
01:11:38,003 --> 01:11:41,383
The Assembly had sent him on
a mission to try to negotiate

1314
01:11:41,548 --> 01:11:43,968
with the Penn family in person

1315
01:11:44,134 --> 01:11:46,644
about their refusal to be taxed.

1316
01:11:48,138 --> 01:11:51,098
He brought his son William
along as his assistant,

1317
01:11:51,266 --> 01:11:54,306
but Deborah and Sally stayed behind.

1318
01:11:54,477 --> 01:11:56,397
Deborah worried that
her husband's ship

1319
01:11:56,563 --> 01:11:58,823
might be attacked by the French

1320
01:11:58,982 --> 01:12:02,492
or go down in the dangerous
waters of the North Atlantic.

1321
01:12:04,696 --> 01:12:05,986
I have been in much pain

1322
01:12:06,156 --> 01:12:08,696
for some days on account
of my Husband,

1323
01:12:08,867 --> 01:12:11,947
for by this time he is, as I suppose,

1324
01:12:12,120 --> 01:12:14,710
near the Land's End of England,

1325
01:12:14,873 --> 01:12:17,753
and of course in danger of
being taken,

1326
01:12:17,917 --> 01:12:20,957
which I pray God prevent.

1327
01:12:21,129 --> 01:12:24,299
I am not able to bear
the least thing in the world

1328
01:12:24,466 --> 01:12:27,466
and I find myself very weak indeed.

1329
01:12:30,597 --> 01:12:31,967
Approaching the coast of England,

1330
01:12:32,140 --> 01:12:34,560
Franklin's ship was nearly

1331
01:12:34,726 --> 01:12:35,726
wrecked on the rocks,

1332
01:12:35,894 --> 01:12:37,904
just as his wife had feared,

1333
01:12:38,063 --> 01:12:41,613
but finally landed safely.

1334
01:12:41,775 --> 01:12:44,235
"Were I a Roman Catholic,"
he wrote Deborah,

1335
01:12:44,402 --> 01:12:47,282
"perhaps I should on this occasion

1336
01:12:47,447 --> 01:12:50,277
"vow to build a chapel to some saint;

1337
01:12:50,450 --> 01:12:53,620
"but as I am not,
if I were to vow at all,

1338
01:12:53,787 --> 01:12:56,367
it should be to build
a lighthouse."

1339
01:12:58,083 --> 01:13:01,923
In London, he found lodging
at a home on Craven Street,

1340
01:13:02,087 --> 01:13:04,917
a short walk from
the British government offices

1341
01:13:05,090 --> 01:13:06,760
at Whitehall.

1342
01:13:06,925 --> 01:13:09,005
When he gets to
London, Franklin tries to

1343
01:13:09,177 --> 01:13:11,677
recreate his family life.

1344
01:13:11,846 --> 01:13:14,426
And, so, he finds a landlady
who's quite like

1345
01:13:14,599 --> 01:13:17,309
Deborah Franklin,
named Margaret Stevenson,

1346
01:13:17,477 --> 01:13:19,647
who has a daughter named Polly.

1347
01:13:19,813 --> 01:13:22,363
And they set up
on Craven Street a replica

1348
01:13:22,524 --> 01:13:25,244
of what he had back in Philadelphia.

1349
01:13:27,695 --> 01:13:29,775
Franklin and William had brought along

1350
01:13:29,948 --> 01:13:36,408
two enslaved men, known only as
Peter and King, as servants.

1351
01:13:36,579 --> 01:13:39,289
"Peter behaves very well
to me in general,"

1352
01:13:39,457 --> 01:13:41,207
Franklin wrote home to Deborah,

1353
01:13:41,376 --> 01:13:46,626
"and begins to know the town so
as to go anywhere on errands."

1354
01:13:46,798 --> 01:13:49,508
But King, sensing
an opportunity for freedom

1355
01:13:49,676 --> 01:13:54,096
in his new surroundings, ran away.

1356
01:13:54,264 --> 01:13:56,724
What we know about these men

1357
01:13:56,891 --> 01:13:58,601
is relatively little.

1358
01:13:58,768 --> 01:14:02,608
What we do know is that,
while Ben Franklin's

1359
01:14:02,772 --> 01:14:05,822
feelings or opinions about slavery

1360
01:14:05,984 --> 01:14:08,404
may have changed over time,

1361
01:14:08,570 --> 01:14:14,740
he doesn't set his slaves free, ever.

1362
01:14:14,909 --> 01:14:17,699
They run off and he doesn't
necessarily pursue them,

1363
01:14:17,871 --> 01:14:21,211
perhaps, with as much
vigor as he might have.

1364
01:14:21,374 --> 01:14:23,174
And they die off.

1365
01:14:23,334 --> 01:14:27,344
But at no moment do we really
see Franklin step out front

1366
01:14:27,505 --> 01:14:30,005
and say, "I am setting an example

1367
01:14:30,175 --> 01:14:32,085
by setting my slaves free."

1368
01:14:34,721 --> 01:14:36,681
When Franklin
met with the Penn family,

1369
01:14:36,848 --> 01:14:39,678
they categorically dismissed
the notion that they should

1370
01:14:39,851 --> 01:14:42,271
pay any taxes at all.

1371
01:14:42,437 --> 01:14:44,187
They saw the colony solely as

1372
01:14:44,355 --> 01:14:47,475
a source of wealth and power for them,

1373
01:14:47,650 --> 01:14:50,650
and declared Franklin
a malicious villain.

1374
01:14:52,238 --> 01:14:54,528
Franklin decided to change tactics.

1375
01:14:54,699 --> 01:14:56,829
He thought he might be
able to persuade

1376
01:14:56,993 --> 01:14:59,543
King George II and his ministers

1377
01:14:59,704 --> 01:15:03,294
to declare Pennsylvania
a Crown colony,

1378
01:15:03,458 --> 01:15:05,628
like most of the others in America,

1379
01:15:05,793 --> 01:15:09,053
where governors were appointed
by the King.

1380
01:15:11,090 --> 01:15:13,590
He let Deborah know he would
not be returning as quickly

1381
01:15:13,760 --> 01:15:16,350
as the two of them had planned.

1382
01:15:16,513 --> 01:15:19,643
Franklin was enjoying London.

1383
01:15:23,770 --> 01:15:25,810
London was
the greatest city in the world

1384
01:15:25,980 --> 01:15:27,150
at the time.

1385
01:15:27,315 --> 01:15:28,645
It was filled with coffee shops

1386
01:15:28,816 --> 01:15:33,656
and had a thriving
intellectual middle class.

1387
01:15:33,821 --> 01:15:35,461
And Franklin goes around
with his friends,

1388
01:15:35,490 --> 01:15:37,620
mainly scientists and writers,

1389
01:15:37,784 --> 01:15:40,084
and they spend their afternoons
in the coffee shops

1390
01:15:40,245 --> 01:15:42,245
discussing new ideas.

1391
01:15:42,413 --> 01:15:44,333
That glittering, sophisticated world

1392
01:15:44,499 --> 01:15:46,629
was made for Ben Franklin.

1393
01:15:46,793 --> 01:15:49,803
He was made for a dinner party
and conversation.

1394
01:15:49,963 --> 01:15:51,923
Philadelphia might have
been extraordinary

1395
01:15:52,090 --> 01:15:54,930
for the New World,
but it couldn't compare

1396
01:15:55,093 --> 01:16:00,103
to the absolute sophistication
of the Old World.

1397
01:16:00,265 --> 01:16:02,975
There were people who
shared his views on science;

1398
01:16:03,142 --> 01:16:05,442
there were people who shared
his broadminded view

1399
01:16:05,603 --> 01:16:08,363
of all sorts of human institutions.

1400
01:16:08,523 --> 01:16:11,113
He made friends very easily.

1401
01:16:11,276 --> 01:16:13,896
In fact, if Debbie

1402
01:16:14,070 --> 01:16:18,740
had been willing to relocate
from Philadelphia to London,

1403
01:16:18,908 --> 01:16:20,408
Franklin might very well

1404
01:16:20,577 --> 01:16:22,907
have become a permanent
resident of London.

1405
01:16:23,079 --> 01:16:26,169
In England, as he had in America,

1406
01:16:26,332 --> 01:16:30,002
Franklin forged intellectual
and affectionate relationships

1407
01:16:30,169 --> 01:16:31,629
with a number of young women

1408
01:16:31,796 --> 01:16:34,506
whose intelligence he appreciated--

1409
01:16:34,674 --> 01:16:37,474
exchanging letters, providing advice,

1410
01:16:37,635 --> 01:16:40,385
and encouraging their ambitions;

1411
01:16:40,555 --> 01:16:42,515
the kind of attention
he neglected to give

1412
01:16:42,682 --> 01:16:44,642
his own daughter Sally.

1413
01:16:46,853 --> 01:16:49,903
Sally was born at a bad time, I think,

1414
01:16:50,064 --> 01:16:53,234
just as Benjamin Franklin
became involved in politics

1415
01:16:53,401 --> 01:16:55,321
and was away most of the time.

1416
01:16:55,486 --> 01:16:56,506
And, so, I don't think she ever really

1417
01:16:56,529 --> 01:16:58,159
got to know her father.

1418
01:16:58,323 --> 01:17:00,453
And her father didn't
seem particularly interested

1419
01:17:00,617 --> 01:17:03,747
in knowing her in those days.

1420
01:17:03,911 --> 01:17:05,431
She wanted the education
that her brother had

1421
01:17:05,455 --> 01:17:06,705
and never got it.

1422
01:17:06,873 --> 01:17:08,273
She wanted to go to England with him;

1423
01:17:08,291 --> 01:17:10,421
that never happened.

1424
01:17:10,585 --> 01:17:11,955
With William by his side,

1425
01:17:12,128 --> 01:17:16,168
Franklin traveled beyond London
whenever possible.

1426
01:17:16,341 --> 01:17:18,511
A friend reported to Deborah that

1427
01:17:18,676 --> 01:17:21,796
"William is daily
in the company of his father,

1428
01:17:21,971 --> 01:17:25,561
"who is at the same time
his friend, his brother,

1429
01:17:25,725 --> 01:17:28,685
his intimate,
and easy companion."

1430
01:17:32,523 --> 01:17:34,483
In Edinburgh, they socialized with

1431
01:17:34,651 --> 01:17:37,071
two of the Enlightenment's
leading thinkers,

1432
01:17:37,236 --> 01:17:42,826
the economist Adam Smith
and the philosopher David Hume.

1433
01:17:42,992 --> 01:17:45,412
At St. Andrews,
the university placed

1434
01:17:45,578 --> 01:17:48,498
a crimson and white robe
over Franklin's shoulder

1435
01:17:48,665 --> 01:17:50,535
and presented him, a man with

1436
01:17:50,708 --> 01:17:53,538
only two years of formal education,

1437
01:17:53,711 --> 01:17:56,011
with an honorary doctorate.

1438
01:17:56,172 --> 01:17:59,512
From that moment on,
most people referred to him

1439
01:17:59,676 --> 01:18:01,716
as Doctor Franklin.

1440
01:18:05,932 --> 01:18:07,892
One evening in Cambridge, he attended

1441
01:18:08,059 --> 01:18:09,439
a concert of sorts,

1442
01:18:09,602 --> 01:18:11,812
where the rims of wine glasses

1443
01:18:11,979 --> 01:18:14,769
were rubbed to produce musical notes.

1444
01:18:16,776 --> 01:18:18,316
Franklin looked at that
and he thought,

1445
01:18:18,486 --> 01:18:21,986
"Now, that's just inefficient."

1446
01:18:22,156 --> 01:18:26,076
Why move your arms to that degree?

1447
01:18:26,244 --> 01:18:29,334
Why not take the glasses
and have them move

1448
01:18:29,497 --> 01:18:32,127
and your hand stay still?

1449
01:18:32,291 --> 01:18:34,251
He hired a London
glassblower to create

1450
01:18:34,419 --> 01:18:40,759
a series of 36 glass bowls, to
specific thicknesses and sizes.

1451
01:18:43,386 --> 01:18:46,306
And rather than having your fingers

1452
01:18:46,472 --> 01:18:48,022
move around the glass,

1453
01:18:48,182 --> 01:18:49,522
the glasses rotated,

1454
01:18:49,684 --> 01:18:51,444
and he wet his fingers

1455
01:18:51,602 --> 01:18:52,942
and played it like a keyboard.

1456
01:19:00,445 --> 01:19:02,945
He named his
new invention the armonica,

1457
01:19:03,114 --> 01:19:05,834
after the Italian word for harmony,

1458
01:19:05,992 --> 01:19:09,702
and charmed visitors
with performances on it.

1459
01:19:09,871 --> 01:19:12,041
Soon, more of the instruments
were being

1460
01:19:12,206 --> 01:19:15,916
manufactured and sold,
though Franklin again refused

1461
01:19:16,085 --> 01:19:18,835
to patent or profit
from his invention.

1462
01:19:20,882 --> 01:19:22,552
What pleased him most was that,

1463
01:19:22,717 --> 01:19:24,387
in musical circles throughout

1464
01:19:24,552 --> 01:19:26,182
England and Europe,

1465
01:19:26,345 --> 01:19:27,345
the armonica

1466
01:19:27,513 --> 01:19:28,893
created a sensation.

1467
01:19:32,310 --> 01:19:33,810
In Austria, Franklin's invention

1468
01:19:33,978 --> 01:19:37,058
provided the music
for a royal wedding.

1469
01:19:37,231 --> 01:19:39,031
Even Mozart and Beethoven

1470
01:19:39,192 --> 01:19:42,572
would compose chamber pieces for it.

1471
01:19:44,614 --> 01:19:48,494
The sound it made was described as

1472
01:19:48,659 --> 01:19:50,909
celestial ravishment.

1473
01:20:05,468 --> 01:20:07,178
I have long been of the opinion

1474
01:20:07,345 --> 01:20:08,675
that the foundations of

1475
01:20:08,846 --> 01:20:10,596
the future grandeur and stability

1476
01:20:10,765 --> 01:20:14,095
of the British Empire lie in America,

1477
01:20:14,268 --> 01:20:17,898
broad and strong enough
to support the greatest

1478
01:20:18,064 --> 01:20:21,734
political structure
human wisdom ever yet erected.

1479
01:20:25,404 --> 01:20:30,124
By 1761, the French
and Indian War had exploded

1480
01:20:30,284 --> 01:20:33,914
into a global conflict
called the Seven Years' War,

1481
01:20:34,080 --> 01:20:37,170
involving all the European powers.

1482
01:20:37,333 --> 01:20:41,003
In North America, England
had won a decisive victory

1483
01:20:41,170 --> 01:20:44,720
against the French
by capturing Quebec.

1484
01:20:46,092 --> 01:20:48,262
No one can rejoice more sincerely

1485
01:20:48,427 --> 01:20:52,557
than I do on the possible
addition of Canada;

1486
01:20:52,723 --> 01:20:55,353
and this not
merely as I am a colonist,

1487
01:20:55,518 --> 01:20:58,808
but as I am a Briton.

1488
01:21:00,857 --> 01:21:02,777
Franklin is one of
the earliest to say,

1489
01:21:02,942 --> 01:21:05,702
"Look, the weight of the British world

1490
01:21:05,862 --> 01:21:08,572
is going to be
in North America."

1491
01:21:08,739 --> 01:21:11,659
And he put himself
at the center of it.

1492
01:21:11,826 --> 01:21:16,156
He imagined himself as being
the kind of linchpin between

1493
01:21:16,330 --> 01:21:20,750
these--this emerging empire
in North America

1494
01:21:20,918 --> 01:21:23,498
and the seat of power in London.

1495
01:21:23,671 --> 01:21:27,171
By this time,
William Franklin had completed

1496
01:21:27,341 --> 01:21:28,591
his legal studies

1497
01:21:28,759 --> 01:21:31,009
and enjoyed socializing with

1498
01:21:31,178 --> 01:21:34,308
wealthy friends in the upper class.

1499
01:21:34,473 --> 01:21:36,603
William also took up with

1500
01:21:36,767 --> 01:21:39,687
women from London's high society,

1501
01:21:39,854 --> 01:21:44,034
and others with
less sterling reputations.

1502
01:21:44,191 --> 01:21:48,201
Just like his own father,
he sired a son out of wedlock.

1503
01:21:48,362 --> 01:21:51,872
Unlike his father, William
arranged for the baby boy

1504
01:21:52,033 --> 01:21:56,163
to be secretly placed
in a foster home.

1505
01:21:59,332 --> 01:22:02,172
On September 22, 1761,

1506
01:22:02,335 --> 01:22:05,665
hundreds of England's
well-born and well-connected

1507
01:22:05,838 --> 01:22:07,668
gathered in Westminster Hall

1508
01:22:07,840 --> 01:22:10,090
for the coronation of a new monarch:

1509
01:22:10,259 --> 01:22:12,969
King George III.

1510
01:22:13,137 --> 01:22:15,257
Among those present for the occasion

1511
01:22:15,431 --> 01:22:18,681
were two staunch defenders
of the Empire--

1512
01:22:18,851 --> 01:22:21,521
Benjamin and William Franklin.

1513
01:22:23,147 --> 01:22:26,777
From the balcony, Benjamin
watched the lavish ritual.

1514
01:22:28,069 --> 01:22:30,399
On the hall's floor, his son William

1515
01:22:30,571 --> 01:22:32,371
stood with a more privileged crowd

1516
01:22:32,531 --> 01:22:34,991
of nobles and high officials.

1517
01:22:37,036 --> 01:22:39,156
Then William marched
in a small procession

1518
01:22:39,330 --> 01:22:41,580
into Westminster Abbey,
where the crown

1519
01:22:41,749 --> 01:22:44,999
was to be placed on George's head.

1520
01:22:52,885 --> 01:22:55,095
Benjamin, not part of
that select group,

1521
01:22:55,262 --> 01:22:58,682
walked back to Craven Street alone.

1522
01:23:01,310 --> 01:23:03,980
Franklin's efforts to
elevate his son's station

1523
01:23:04,146 --> 01:23:06,016
were paying off.

1524
01:23:06,190 --> 01:23:07,950
William had caught
the attention of ministers

1525
01:23:08,109 --> 01:23:10,189
in the new king's government

1526
01:23:10,361 --> 01:23:13,611
who decided that he, though
barely into his early thirties,

1527
01:23:13,781 --> 01:23:16,161
was a natural leader.

1528
01:23:16,325 --> 01:23:18,405
With their support, William Franklin

1529
01:23:18,577 --> 01:23:23,617
was chosen to be the next
royal governor of New Jersey.

1530
01:23:23,791 --> 01:23:26,041
And there was other good news.

1531
01:23:26,210 --> 01:23:29,130
William had fallen in love
with Elizabeth Downes,

1532
01:23:29,296 --> 01:23:30,966
the daughter of a wealthy owner of

1533
01:23:31,132 --> 01:23:33,682
sugar plantations in Barbados,

1534
01:23:33,843 --> 01:23:36,433
and they were now engaged.

1535
01:23:36,595 --> 01:23:39,425
Benjamin Franklin had been
gone from Philadelphia

1536
01:23:39,598 --> 01:23:41,478
for 5 years.

1537
01:23:41,642 --> 01:23:47,902
He was now 56, and still
captivated by life in England.

1538
01:23:48,065 --> 01:23:49,815
Why should this island,

1539
01:23:49,984 --> 01:23:52,364
which compared to America is but like

1540
01:23:52,528 --> 01:23:54,698
a stepping stone in a brook,

1541
01:23:54,864 --> 01:23:57,744
enjoy in almost every neighborhood

1542
01:23:57,908 --> 01:24:01,788
more sensible, virtuous,
and elegant minds

1543
01:24:01,954 --> 01:24:08,094
than we can collect in ranging
100 leagues of our vast forests?

1544
01:24:10,046 --> 01:24:11,876
In the summer of 1762,

1545
01:24:12,048 --> 01:24:14,628
he booked passage for Philadelphia,

1546
01:24:14,800 --> 01:24:18,100
determined to convince Deborah
to come back with him,

1547
01:24:18,262 --> 01:24:20,142
and promising his English friends

1548
01:24:20,306 --> 01:24:24,186
he intended to return
to London permanently.

1549
01:24:25,811 --> 01:24:27,401
In two Years at farthest

1550
01:24:27,563 --> 01:24:30,403
I hope to settle all my Affairs
in such a Manner,

1551
01:24:30,566 --> 01:24:34,396
as that I may then conveniently
remove to England,

1552
01:24:34,570 --> 01:24:38,370
provided we can persuade the
good Woman to cross the Seas.

1553
01:24:38,532 --> 01:24:41,162
That will be the great Difficulty.

1554
01:24:42,912 --> 01:24:43,662
Franklin would be at sea

1555
01:24:43,829 --> 01:24:45,249
when William was married

1556
01:24:45,414 --> 01:24:48,584
in St. George's Church
in London,

1557
01:24:48,751 --> 01:24:50,671
and when he bowed to George III

1558
01:24:50,836 --> 01:24:52,796
in St. James's Palace,

1559
01:24:52,963 --> 01:24:55,223
kissed the new king's ring,

1560
01:24:55,382 --> 01:24:59,722
and swore his eternal allegiance
to the crown.

1561
01:25:05,267 --> 01:25:07,977
On November 1, 1762,

1562
01:25:08,145 --> 01:25:11,565
Benjamin Franklin arrived
back in Philadelphia.

1563
01:25:11,732 --> 01:25:14,282
It wasn't a teeming
metropolis like London,

1564
01:25:14,443 --> 01:25:17,993
but with a population
of nearly 25,000,

1565
01:25:18,155 --> 01:25:20,485
it had surpassed Boston and New York

1566
01:25:20,658 --> 01:25:24,328
as the largest city
in the American colonies.

1567
01:25:24,495 --> 01:25:29,035
Deborah and 19-year-old Sally
welcomed him home.

1568
01:25:29,208 --> 01:25:31,958
A few months later,
William arrived from England

1569
01:25:32,128 --> 01:25:34,128
with his new wife Elizabeth,

1570
01:25:34,296 --> 01:25:37,376
and Franklin accompanied them
across the Delaware River

1571
01:25:37,550 --> 01:25:40,430
to New Jersey, where Benjamin
watched proudly

1572
01:25:40,594 --> 01:25:44,224
as his son became that colony's
ninth governor.

1573
01:25:46,475 --> 01:25:48,685
As deputy postmaster of His Majesty's

1574
01:25:48,853 --> 01:25:50,443
colonies in North America,

1575
01:25:50,604 --> 01:25:53,864
Franklin embarked on another
inspection tour

1576
01:25:54,024 --> 01:25:56,154
that took him through 6 colonies,

1577
01:25:56,318 --> 01:25:58,898
all the way to New Hampshire.

1578
01:25:59,071 --> 01:26:03,081
The trip lasted 5 months.

1579
01:26:03,242 --> 01:26:05,332
Franklin sees the many different

1580
01:26:05,494 --> 01:26:07,164
American styles.

1581
01:26:07,329 --> 01:26:09,079
There's a Northern community;

1582
01:26:09,248 --> 01:26:10,078
there's a New England community;

1583
01:26:10,249 --> 01:26:11,669
there are the Middle Colonies;

1584
01:26:11,834 --> 01:26:13,384
the Upper South;
the Lower South.

1585
01:26:13,544 --> 01:26:16,884
He begins to understand
the vast complexity

1586
01:26:17,047 --> 01:26:18,547
of the Colonial situation.

1587
01:26:18,716 --> 01:26:20,216
And nobody else did.

1588
01:26:20,384 --> 01:26:23,434
He was the best-informed
person in the New World

1589
01:26:23,596 --> 01:26:26,426
about the diversity of
geography, of economy,

1590
01:26:26,599 --> 01:26:31,559
of social structure, and he
also saw discontentments.

1591
01:26:31,729 --> 01:26:34,769
There was concern
about representation;

1592
01:26:34,940 --> 01:26:38,110
there was concern about
arbitrary economic tariffs

1593
01:26:38,277 --> 01:26:40,397
that were being imposed by Britain,

1594
01:26:40,571 --> 01:26:42,571
and the increasing sense
that the British

1595
01:26:42,740 --> 01:26:45,370
don't really understand us

1596
01:26:45,534 --> 01:26:49,374
and they're also using us
as an extraction machine

1597
01:26:49,538 --> 01:26:50,748
for British wealth.

1598
01:26:50,915 --> 01:26:52,035
And, even though they will

1599
01:26:52,208 --> 01:26:53,998
say we're British citizens,

1600
01:26:54,168 --> 01:26:56,088
they're not treating us
with full respect

1601
01:26:56,253 --> 01:26:58,593
that an Englishman deserves.

1602
01:27:02,551 --> 01:27:05,471
I went to hear the Negro
children at Church.

1603
01:27:06,722 --> 01:27:10,812
There were 17 that answered
very prettily indeed,

1604
01:27:10,976 --> 01:27:16,816
and 5 or 6 that were too little,
but all behaved very decently.

1605
01:27:16,982 --> 01:27:20,692
It gave me a great deal of
Pleasure, and I shall send

1606
01:27:20,861 --> 01:27:22,281
Othello to the School.

1607
01:27:23,739 --> 01:27:26,369
Deborah Franklin had enrolled Othello,

1608
01:27:26,533 --> 01:27:29,083
an enslaved child
in the Franklin household,

1609
01:27:29,245 --> 01:27:31,745
in a new school in Philadelphia,

1610
01:27:31,914 --> 01:27:35,634
part of an effort to educate
Black children in North America

1611
01:27:35,793 --> 01:27:39,003
that Benjamin Franklin had endorsed.

1612
01:27:39,171 --> 01:27:41,421
At Deborah's urging, her husband

1613
01:27:41,590 --> 01:27:44,800
made a personal visit to the school.

1614
01:27:44,969 --> 01:27:47,599
I was on the whole much pleas'd,

1615
01:27:47,763 --> 01:27:51,273
and from what I then saw, have
conceiv'd a higher Opinion

1616
01:27:51,433 --> 01:27:54,103
of the natural Capacities
of the black Race,

1617
01:27:54,270 --> 01:27:57,400
than I had ever before entertained.

1618
01:27:57,564 --> 01:28:01,904
Their Apprehension seems as
quick, their Memory as strong,

1619
01:28:02,069 --> 01:28:04,199
and their Docility in every Respect

1620
01:28:04,363 --> 01:28:07,283
equal to that of white Children.

1621
01:28:09,076 --> 01:28:12,826
You will wonder perhaps
that I should ever doubt it,

1622
01:28:12,997 --> 01:28:16,787
and I will not undertake
to justify all my Prejudices,

1623
01:28:16,959 --> 01:28:18,629
nor to account for them.

1624
01:28:20,045 --> 01:28:23,045
I think a major
turning point in Franklin's life

1625
01:28:23,215 --> 01:28:27,885
was when he visited that classroom.

1626
01:28:28,053 --> 01:28:31,973
He did not like Black people
when he was a young man.

1627
01:28:32,141 --> 01:28:33,541
There's no way of getting around that.

1628
01:28:33,559 --> 01:28:37,899
It's very distasteful
to say, but it's true.

1629
01:28:38,063 --> 01:28:43,653
He had once written that the
hardest thing for a man to do

1630
01:28:43,819 --> 01:28:49,369
is to change long-standing
prejudices of belief.

1631
01:28:49,533 --> 01:28:54,203
But to succeed in doing it
is a test of one's humanity.

1632
01:29:05,924 --> 01:29:08,594
If an Indian
injures me, does it follow

1633
01:29:08,761 --> 01:29:13,471
that I may revenge that
injury on all Indians?

1634
01:29:13,640 --> 01:29:17,270
These poor People have
been always our Friends.

1635
01:29:17,436 --> 01:29:20,146
Their Fathers received ours,
when Strangers here,

1636
01:29:20,314 --> 01:29:23,234
with Kindness and Hospitality.

1637
01:29:23,400 --> 01:29:26,150
Behold the Return we have made them!

1638
01:29:27,654 --> 01:29:28,864
Native Americans

1639
01:29:29,031 --> 01:29:30,741
had been completely left out

1640
01:29:30,908 --> 01:29:34,288
of the treaty negotiations
between France and Britain

1641
01:29:34,453 --> 01:29:36,963
that ended the Seven Years' War.

1642
01:29:37,122 --> 01:29:40,962
As white settlements continued
to push onto their homelands,

1643
01:29:41,126 --> 01:29:44,586
Indians from the Great Lakes
to Western Pennsylvania

1644
01:29:44,755 --> 01:29:46,295
fought back.

1645
01:29:46,465 --> 01:29:51,295
On December 14, 1763, 50 frontiersmen

1646
01:29:51,470 --> 01:29:54,220
from the town of Paxton, Pennsylvania

1647
01:29:54,390 --> 01:29:57,310
swarmed into the small village
of Conestoga

1648
01:29:57,476 --> 01:29:59,436
and slaughtered the 6 unarmed

1649
01:29:59,603 --> 01:30:02,903
Susquehannock Indians
they found there.

1650
01:30:03,065 --> 01:30:06,605
The mob moved on to Lancaster,
where they murdered 14 more

1651
01:30:06,777 --> 01:30:10,317
defenseless men, women, and children.

1652
01:30:11,782 --> 01:30:14,452
Though the Susquehannocks
were known to be friendly,

1653
01:30:14,618 --> 01:30:18,658
the so-called Paxton Boys
had killed them anyway.

1654
01:30:18,831 --> 01:30:21,881
Public opinion about
the massacre was split--

1655
01:30:22,042 --> 01:30:25,092
between the Quakers, guided by
William Penn's advice

1656
01:30:25,254 --> 01:30:27,884
to be friends of the Indians,

1657
01:30:28,048 --> 01:30:29,588
and the newer immigrants, mostly

1658
01:30:29,758 --> 01:30:32,428
Scots-Irish and Germans
from the backcountry,

1659
01:30:32,594 --> 01:30:35,104
who accused the Quaker-led assembly

1660
01:30:35,264 --> 01:30:38,234
of coddling native peoples.

1661
01:30:38,392 --> 01:30:40,892
Benjamin Franklin
called the perpetrators

1662
01:30:41,061 --> 01:30:42,481
"barbarous Men"

1663
01:30:42,646 --> 01:30:44,766
who had brought "eternal disgrace"

1664
01:30:44,940 --> 01:30:47,070
to their race and religion.

1665
01:30:48,735 --> 01:30:51,315
The Paxton Boys then marched
on Philadelphia,

1666
01:30:51,488 --> 01:30:55,988
where more than 100 Indians had
been brought for their safety.

1667
01:30:56,160 --> 01:30:59,160
Franklin helped
raise a militia to stop them

1668
01:30:59,329 --> 01:31:02,499
and negotiated an end to the crisis.

1669
01:31:02,666 --> 01:31:05,746
But his outspokenness
created a backlash,

1670
01:31:05,919 --> 01:31:08,799
especially among the settlers
of the backcountry,

1671
01:31:08,964 --> 01:31:11,974
which the Penn family exploited.

1672
01:31:12,134 --> 01:31:15,804
They slandered Franklin's
son William as illegitimate,

1673
01:31:15,971 --> 01:31:18,141
falsely claiming that his birth mother

1674
01:31:18,307 --> 01:31:20,677
had starved to death,
and that Benjamin

1675
01:31:20,851 --> 01:31:24,521
had hidden her body
in an unmarked grave.

1676
01:31:26,440 --> 01:31:27,190
In all the controversy,

1677
01:31:27,357 --> 01:31:29,647
Franklin lost his Assembly seat.

1678
01:31:29,818 --> 01:31:32,778
But the legislature now
adopted his position

1679
01:31:32,946 --> 01:31:35,946
that Pennsylvania should be
a Crown colony

1680
01:31:36,116 --> 01:31:40,366
and reappointed him
as their agent in London.

1681
01:31:40,537 --> 01:31:43,617
After only two years in Philadelphia,

1682
01:31:43,790 --> 01:31:46,500
Franklin was going back to England.

1683
01:31:47,961 --> 01:31:50,801
Deborah had made it clear
she intended to stay;

1684
01:31:50,964 --> 01:31:54,594
they were building a new home
just off Market Street.

1685
01:31:54,760 --> 01:31:58,140
He promised he wouldn't be gone long.

1686
01:32:05,812 --> 01:32:07,312
Coming out of the Seven Years' War,

1687
01:32:07,481 --> 01:32:10,861
Britain is on top of the world.

1688
01:32:11,026 --> 01:32:12,786
They had acquired a huge
amount of territory,

1689
01:32:12,819 --> 01:32:16,279
all the territory up to
the Mississippi River.

1690
01:32:16,448 --> 01:32:17,908
It was expensive to maintain

1691
01:32:18,075 --> 01:32:19,655
and, so, you needed to tax it.

1692
01:32:19,826 --> 01:32:21,746
Franklin certainly went along with it.

1693
01:32:21,912 --> 01:32:24,212
And he said,
"Well, empires cost money."

1694
01:32:24,373 --> 01:32:26,213
And, much to his chagrin,

1695
01:32:26,375 --> 01:32:28,625
he found himself going the wrong way,

1696
01:32:28,794 --> 01:32:31,214
out of touch with
American public opinion.

1697
01:32:31,380 --> 01:32:33,380
The recent war with France

1698
01:32:33,549 --> 01:32:38,429
had expanded England's empire,
but left its treasury depleted.

1699
01:32:39,555 --> 01:32:41,635
In the spring of 1765,

1700
01:32:41,807 --> 01:32:44,057
the king's ministers and Parliament

1701
01:32:44,226 --> 01:32:46,476
came up with
a new way to raise more money

1702
01:32:46,645 --> 01:32:48,725
from the American colonies.

1703
01:32:51,108 --> 01:32:56,198
Now all legal documents,
newspapers, books, almanacs,

1704
01:32:56,363 --> 01:33:01,243
even decks of playing cards,
would need official stamps,

1705
01:33:01,410 --> 01:33:03,790
purchased from the government.

1706
01:33:03,954 --> 01:33:06,544
In Virginia, Patrick Henry
denounced the act

1707
01:33:06,707 --> 01:33:10,707
as taxation without representation.

1708
01:33:10,877 --> 01:33:14,297
Riots broke out in New York;
New London, Connecticut;

1709
01:33:14,464 --> 01:33:16,804
Annapolis, Maryland.

1710
01:33:16,967 --> 01:33:20,757
In Boston, a group calling
themselves the Sons of Liberty

1711
01:33:20,929 --> 01:33:25,559
hanged and burned the stamp
commissioner in effigy.

1712
01:33:25,726 --> 01:33:27,596
Then the mob destroyed the mansion

1713
01:33:27,769 --> 01:33:29,899
of Lieutenant Governor
Thomas Hutchinson,

1714
01:33:30,063 --> 01:33:34,443
who had worked with Franklin
back in 1754

1715
01:33:34,610 --> 01:33:37,700
to propose the Albany Plan of Union.

1716
01:33:37,863 --> 01:33:41,033
The leaders of the protests
had appropriated the motto

1717
01:33:41,199 --> 01:33:43,119
Franklin had used at the time

1718
01:33:43,285 --> 01:33:48,825
to encourage the colonies to act
TOGETHER: "join or die."

1719
01:33:48,999 --> 01:33:52,339
Franklin didn't like
the Stamp Act either,

1720
01:33:52,502 --> 01:33:55,212
but from London advised Pennsylvanians

1721
01:33:55,380 --> 01:33:57,630
against over-reacting.

1722
01:34:00,218 --> 01:34:03,968
His political enemies back home
now spread false rumors

1723
01:34:04,139 --> 01:34:06,429
that he helped write the Stamp Act

1724
01:34:06,600 --> 01:34:11,730
and had been bribed by promises
of a higher royal appointment.

1725
01:34:11,897 --> 01:34:13,647
When a mob threatened to attack

1726
01:34:13,815 --> 01:34:16,275
the Franklin home in Philadelphia,

1727
01:34:16,443 --> 01:34:18,743
Deborah wouldn't budge.

1728
01:34:20,364 --> 01:34:21,414
I said when I was advised

1729
01:34:21,573 --> 01:34:23,583
to remove that I was very sure

1730
01:34:23,742 --> 01:34:26,292
you had done nothing to hurt anybody,

1731
01:34:26,453 --> 01:34:30,753
and I had not given any offense
to any person at all.

1732
01:34:30,916 --> 01:34:35,706
I sent to ask my brother
to come and bring his gun.

1733
01:34:35,879 --> 01:34:38,379
If any one came to disturb me,

1734
01:34:38,548 --> 01:34:41,008
I would show a proper resentment.

1735
01:34:42,636 --> 01:34:45,846
Shocked at the reports
of mob violence in the colonies,

1736
01:34:46,014 --> 01:34:48,314
Franklin wrote William that unless

1737
01:34:48,475 --> 01:34:50,345
some compromise could be found

1738
01:34:50,519 --> 01:34:52,019
to ease the tensions,

1739
01:34:52,187 --> 01:34:54,397
events were "laying the Foundation

1740
01:34:54,564 --> 01:34:57,784
of a future total Separation."

1741
01:34:57,943 --> 01:35:00,493
He flooded London newspapers
with letters

1742
01:35:00,654 --> 01:35:03,664
arguing that the Stamp Act was unfair,

1743
01:35:03,824 --> 01:35:05,954
that the recent riots
did not represent

1744
01:35:06,118 --> 01:35:09,828
the attitude of
a majority of the colonists.

1745
01:35:09,996 --> 01:35:13,416
He circulated a political
cartoon illustrating that,

1746
01:35:13,583 --> 01:35:15,503
if the crisis escalated,

1747
01:35:15,669 --> 01:35:19,169
the Empire would be dismembered.

1748
01:35:19,339 --> 01:35:25,009
On February 13, 1766, Franklin
appeared before Parliament,

1749
01:35:25,178 --> 01:35:29,558
patiently answering questions
posed by its members.

1750
01:35:29,725 --> 01:35:31,725
Could an army make
the colonists comply,

1751
01:35:31,893 --> 01:35:34,603
he was asked.

1752
01:35:34,771 --> 01:35:35,771
Suppose a military force

1753
01:35:35,814 --> 01:35:38,154
is sent into America.

1754
01:35:38,316 --> 01:35:40,436
What are they then to do?

1755
01:35:40,610 --> 01:35:42,490
They cannot force a man to take stamps

1756
01:35:42,654 --> 01:35:45,574
who chooses to do without them.

1757
01:35:45,741 --> 01:35:48,241
They will not find a rebellion;

1758
01:35:48,410 --> 01:35:50,580
they may indeed make one.

1759
01:35:52,330 --> 01:35:54,880
The Stamp Act was repealed.

1760
01:35:55,041 --> 01:35:57,881
But the Privy Council,
the King's top advisors,

1761
01:35:58,044 --> 01:36:00,844
had refused to act on
Franklin's petition

1762
01:36:01,006 --> 01:36:04,836
to make Pennsylvania a Crown colony.

1763
01:36:05,010 --> 01:36:08,890
Franklin decided to remain
in England anyway.

1764
01:36:09,055 --> 01:36:11,845
There were hints that he might
be in line for a high post

1765
01:36:12,017 --> 01:36:16,687
in the ministry responsible
for the American provinces.

1766
01:36:16,855 --> 01:36:18,975
And he used his connections
to begin lobbying

1767
01:36:19,149 --> 01:36:22,649
on behalf of William
and a group of speculators

1768
01:36:22,819 --> 01:36:25,989
to acquire millions of acres
of Indian land

1769
01:36:26,156 --> 01:36:28,236
along the Ohio River,

1770
01:36:28,408 --> 01:36:33,158
then sell it in small parcels to
settlers for an immense profit--

1771
01:36:33,330 --> 01:36:35,330
and create a new colony.

1772
01:36:37,417 --> 01:36:40,417
Meanwhile, Franklin put his
scientific skills

1773
01:36:40,587 --> 01:36:42,627
to work for the empire.

1774
01:36:42,798 --> 01:36:44,468
He helped install lightning rods

1775
01:36:44,633 --> 01:36:46,933
on St. Paul's Cathedral;

1776
01:36:47,093 --> 01:36:49,553
came up with a hot-water piping system

1777
01:36:49,721 --> 01:36:52,561
to keep the House of Commons warm;

1778
01:36:52,724 --> 01:36:54,524
and, working with a cousin,

1779
01:36:54,684 --> 01:36:56,734
a whaling captain from Nantucket,

1780
01:36:56,895 --> 01:36:58,855
he created the first chart

1781
01:36:59,022 --> 01:37:01,612
of what was called the Gulph Stream,

1782
01:37:01,775 --> 01:37:05,945
which helped explain why ships
going from London to America

1783
01:37:06,112 --> 01:37:09,282
took longer than those
going the other way.

1784
01:37:12,536 --> 01:37:13,596
Yesterday I had the pleasure

1785
01:37:13,620 --> 01:37:15,580
to receive your letter.

1786
01:37:15,747 --> 01:37:17,617
I had not heard one word about you

1787
01:37:17,791 --> 01:37:20,341
since the latter end of August,

1788
01:37:20,502 --> 01:37:23,672
which was near 5 months,

1789
01:37:23,839 --> 01:37:26,839
but I shall not dwell on that
at this time.

1790
01:37:29,261 --> 01:37:30,931
Back in Philadelphia, as she had

1791
01:37:31,096 --> 01:37:34,216
always done during
Benjamin's long absences,

1792
01:37:34,391 --> 01:37:37,771
Deborah Franklin took care
of everything.

1793
01:37:37,936 --> 01:37:41,016
She managed her husband's
many business enterprises

1794
01:37:41,189 --> 01:37:43,609
and supervised the myriad details

1795
01:37:43,775 --> 01:37:46,145
of the new home they were building.

1796
01:37:46,319 --> 01:37:49,819
All the while, she waited
for his promised return.

1797
01:37:52,033 --> 01:37:55,703
In the fall of 1767,
their daughter Sally married

1798
01:37:55,871 --> 01:37:58,961
a Philadelphia merchant,
Richard Bache,

1799
01:37:59,124 --> 01:38:03,174
and in 1769 she gave birth
to a baby boy,

1800
01:38:03,336 --> 01:38:06,546
whom she named after his grandfather.

1801
01:38:06,715 --> 01:38:08,965
They called him Benny.

1802
01:38:11,136 --> 01:38:13,676
That same year,
Deborah suffered a stroke

1803
01:38:13,847 --> 01:38:17,017
that left her incapacitated
for months.

1804
01:38:17,183 --> 01:38:19,603
As she recovered,
she wrote her husband

1805
01:38:19,769 --> 01:38:21,859
that her worries about him

1806
01:38:22,022 --> 01:38:24,982
had been at least partly responsible.

1807
01:38:26,985 --> 01:38:29,985
I often tell my friends
I was not sick,

1808
01:38:30,155 --> 01:38:32,905
it was only more than I could bear.

1809
01:38:33,074 --> 01:38:37,584
And so I fell down
and could not get up again.

1810
01:38:37,746 --> 01:38:39,536
But I had taken up a resolution

1811
01:38:39,706 --> 01:38:41,576
never to make any complaint to you

1812
01:38:41,750 --> 01:38:44,090
or give you any disquiet.

1813
01:38:48,548 --> 01:38:50,678
Even though the
Stamp Act had been repealed,

1814
01:38:50,842 --> 01:38:52,552
the colonies were still expected

1815
01:38:52,719 --> 01:38:55,599
to help pay off war debts;

1816
01:38:55,764 --> 01:38:58,024
Parliament now imposed import duties

1817
01:38:58,183 --> 01:39:03,273
on glass and china, paint and tea.

1818
01:39:03,438 --> 01:39:05,978
When the Massachusetts
Assembly passed a resolution

1819
01:39:06,149 --> 01:39:08,359
objecting to the new measures--

1820
01:39:08,526 --> 01:39:12,486
and called on other colonial
legislatures to do the same--

1821
01:39:12,656 --> 01:39:18,076
Britain sent 15 warships
and 1,000 troops to Boston.

1822
01:39:18,244 --> 01:39:20,414
Their presence,
Franklin wrote from London,

1823
01:39:20,580 --> 01:39:23,670
"seems like setting up
a blacksmith's forge

1824
01:39:23,833 --> 01:39:26,423
in a magazine of gunpowder."

1825
01:39:26,586 --> 01:39:29,916
He redoubled his efforts
to find a compromise between

1826
01:39:30,090 --> 01:39:34,300
the hard-liners on
both sides of the Atlantic.

1827
01:39:34,469 --> 01:39:38,519
He sees the issue as one of respect.

1828
01:39:38,682 --> 01:39:43,852
What holds an empire together
is a sense of common feeling.

1829
01:39:44,020 --> 01:39:46,060
Right? Of common
economic interest,

1830
01:39:46,231 --> 01:39:50,071
of interdependence, of identification.

1831
01:39:50,235 --> 01:39:52,235
The power doesn't reside
in the capacity

1832
01:39:52,404 --> 01:39:55,124
to make people do what
you want them to do.

1833
01:39:58,201 --> 01:39:59,721
Benjamin Franklin keeps trying to hold

1834
01:39:59,869 --> 01:40:01,789
the British Empire together.

1835
01:40:01,955 --> 01:40:04,205
Trying to figure out
some middle ground

1836
01:40:04,374 --> 01:40:07,134
in which the Colonies
get to control themselves

1837
01:40:07,293 --> 01:40:10,213
through their own
assemblies and legislatures,

1838
01:40:10,380 --> 01:40:13,380
but still loyal to
the Crown of England.

1839
01:40:13,550 --> 01:40:16,090
And that was Franklin's hope,
that somehow

1840
01:40:16,261 --> 01:40:17,851
he could keep together what he called

1841
01:40:18,013 --> 01:40:21,103
this "fragile, noble vase."

1842
01:40:21,266 --> 01:40:23,226
'Cause he said, "Once it gets broken,

1843
01:40:23,393 --> 01:40:25,943
you're not going to put it
back together."

1844
01:40:26,104 --> 01:40:26,774
Being born and bred

1845
01:40:26,938 --> 01:40:28,898
in one of the countries,

1846
01:40:29,065 --> 01:40:31,025
and having lived long in the other,

1847
01:40:31,192 --> 01:40:34,242
I wish all prosperity to both.

1848
01:40:34,404 --> 01:40:36,414
But I do not find that I have gained

1849
01:40:36,573 --> 01:40:38,913
any point in either country,

1850
01:40:39,075 --> 01:40:43,865
except that of rendering myself
suspected by my impartiality:

1851
01:40:44,039 --> 01:40:46,499
in England of being
too much an American,

1852
01:40:46,666 --> 01:40:50,956
and in America of being
too much an Englishman.

1853
01:40:52,630 --> 01:40:55,180
As the political
crisis continued to build,

1854
01:40:55,341 --> 01:40:59,891
Franklin spent part of
the summer of 1771

1855
01:41:00,055 --> 01:41:02,675
at a friend's estate
southwest of London.

1856
01:41:04,350 --> 01:41:06,730
He was 65 years old
and decided to make

1857
01:41:06,895 --> 01:41:09,105
an accounting of his life,

1858
01:41:09,272 --> 01:41:13,112
something, he wrote,
"my posterity may like to know."

1859
01:41:14,486 --> 01:41:17,196
It was filled with stories
of how, in his words,

1860
01:41:17,363 --> 01:41:20,033
"I emerged from
the poverty and obscurity

1861
01:41:20,200 --> 01:41:22,290
"in which I was born and bred,

1862
01:41:22,452 --> 01:41:25,502
"to a state of affluence
and some degree

1863
01:41:25,663 --> 01:41:28,003
of reputation in the world."

1864
01:41:29,501 --> 01:41:31,341
It was the beginning
of what would become

1865
01:41:31,503 --> 01:41:33,923
one of the most-read and influential

1866
01:41:34,089 --> 01:41:37,379
autobiographies ever written.

1867
01:41:37,550 --> 01:41:40,390
He begins with
two very interesting words:

1868
01:41:40,553 --> 01:41:43,313
"Dear Son."

1869
01:41:43,473 --> 01:41:45,273
And he's addressing it
to William, or at least

1870
01:41:45,433 --> 01:41:47,443
pretending he's
addressing it to William.

1871
01:41:47,602 --> 01:41:51,232
'Cause he's trying to say,
"Remember where we come from.

1872
01:41:51,397 --> 01:41:53,107
"We're working class and middle class.

1873
01:41:53,274 --> 01:41:56,904
We're not trying
to be aristocratic."

1874
01:41:57,070 --> 01:41:59,700
But he soon put his memoir aside;

1875
01:41:59,864 --> 01:42:03,584
world affairs were overtaking
both Benjamin Franklin--

1876
01:42:03,743 --> 01:42:08,713
now the agent representing
several colonies in England--

1877
01:42:08,873 --> 01:42:13,043
and William Franklin--the royal
governor of New Jersey.

1878
01:42:14,671 --> 01:42:15,921
It is very uncertain what Turn

1879
01:42:16,089 --> 01:42:18,679
American Affairs will take here.

1880
01:42:18,842 --> 01:42:23,602
The Friends of both Countries
wish a reconciliation;

1881
01:42:23,763 --> 01:42:27,483
the Enemies of either,
endeavor to widen the Breach;

1882
01:42:27,642 --> 01:42:29,482
God knows how it will end.

1883
01:42:36,025 --> 01:42:37,105
He was never thinking,

1884
01:42:37,277 --> 01:42:39,527
we need to be independent.

1885
01:42:39,696 --> 01:42:42,156
He was always thinking, if we can just

1886
01:42:42,323 --> 01:42:44,333
work out a few fundamental problems

1887
01:42:44,492 --> 01:42:46,872
between us and the British Ministry,

1888
01:42:47,036 --> 01:42:48,536
that things are going to be fine.

1889
01:42:48,705 --> 01:42:51,785
He probably could have been
won over to the British side

1890
01:42:51,958 --> 01:42:53,208
as a Loyalist, like his son,

1891
01:42:53,376 --> 01:42:56,416
if things had gone
slightly differently.

1892
01:42:56,588 --> 01:42:59,468
Tensions between England
and the colonies worsened,

1893
01:42:59,632 --> 01:43:02,592
especially after
British soldiers fired on

1894
01:43:02,760 --> 01:43:05,310
a Massachusetts mob in 1770,

1895
01:43:05,471 --> 01:43:09,481
killing 5 Americans--
the Boston Massacre.

1896
01:43:10,894 --> 01:43:14,774
Franklin's position was becoming
increasingly untenable.

1897
01:43:14,939 --> 01:43:17,689
He was trying to represent
the interests of Massachusetts,

1898
01:43:17,859 --> 01:43:22,609
New Jersey, and Georgia,
in addition to Pennsylvania.

1899
01:43:22,780 --> 01:43:27,240
In 1772, Franklin was shown
confidential letters

1900
01:43:27,410 --> 01:43:30,660
written by his old ally
Thomas Hutchinson,

1901
01:43:30,830 --> 01:43:33,330
now the governor of Massachusetts.

1902
01:43:33,499 --> 01:43:36,129
The only way to quell colonial unrest,

1903
01:43:36,294 --> 01:43:38,594
Hutchinson had advised London,

1904
01:43:38,755 --> 01:43:42,125
was through harsher measures,
including, he suggested,

1905
01:43:42,300 --> 01:43:45,430
"an abridgment of liberties."

1906
01:43:45,595 --> 01:43:48,465
Franklin surreptitiously
sent copies of the letters

1907
01:43:48,640 --> 01:43:51,980
to the leaders of
the Massachusetts Assembly.

1908
01:43:52,143 --> 01:43:54,443
He hoped that the firebrands in Boston

1909
01:43:54,604 --> 01:43:57,694
would turn their anger from
Parliament to Hutchinson,

1910
01:43:57,857 --> 01:44:00,897
blaming his bad advice
for the crisis with Britain,

1911
01:44:01,069 --> 01:44:06,029
making room for cooler heads
to broker a reconciliation.

1912
01:44:06,199 --> 01:44:09,869
Instead, it only inflamed passions.

1913
01:44:11,371 --> 01:44:13,581
The letters were leaked to newspapers,

1914
01:44:13,748 --> 01:44:18,038
sparking an uproar
throughout the colonies.

1915
01:44:18,211 --> 01:44:19,671
The Massachusetts Assembly drafted

1916
01:44:19,837 --> 01:44:21,967
an angry petition to the king,

1917
01:44:22,131 --> 01:44:25,431
demanding that Hutchinson be removed.

1918
01:44:25,593 --> 01:44:28,643
As the Assembly's agent,
Franklin would have to be

1919
01:44:28,805 --> 01:44:30,765
the one to present that petition

1920
01:44:30,932 --> 01:44:33,272
before the King's Privy Council.

1921
01:44:33,434 --> 01:44:36,444
To make matters worse,
Franklin had felt

1922
01:44:36,604 --> 01:44:39,194
obligated to admit that he was the one

1923
01:44:39,357 --> 01:44:43,437
who had originally shared
Hutchinson's letters.

1924
01:44:43,611 --> 01:44:46,071
And, so, Franklin was
seen as this person who

1925
01:44:46,239 --> 01:44:49,119
stole other people's mail,

1926
01:44:49,284 --> 01:44:51,954
which was quite an egregious offense

1927
01:44:52,120 --> 01:44:54,370
for someone who was a postmaster.

1928
01:44:56,040 --> 01:44:58,540
Just a few days
before Franklin was scheduled

1929
01:44:58,710 --> 01:45:03,460
to appear before the Privy
Council in January of 1774,

1930
01:45:03,631 --> 01:45:07,391
news arrived from America
that changed everything.

1931
01:45:08,845 --> 01:45:11,215
The Sons of Liberty,
dressed as Indians,

1932
01:45:11,389 --> 01:45:14,349
had boarded 3 ships in Boston Harbor

1933
01:45:14,517 --> 01:45:18,807
and dumped 46 tons-- 342 crates--

1934
01:45:18,980 --> 01:45:21,400
of English tea into the sea.

1935
01:45:22,692 --> 01:45:24,822
Officials in London
were still seething

1936
01:45:24,986 --> 01:45:26,606
at that act of defiance

1937
01:45:26,779 --> 01:45:30,329
when, on January 29, Franklin entered

1938
01:45:30,491 --> 01:45:33,791
a meeting room at Whitehall
called the Cockpit,

1939
01:45:33,953 --> 01:45:38,423
where Henry VIII had once
staged cockfights.

1940
01:45:38,583 --> 01:45:41,343
To the Privy Council,
and the crowd of spectators

1941
01:45:41,502 --> 01:45:44,342
gathered there, Franklin was
now the face

1942
01:45:44,505 --> 01:45:47,255
of an insolent American uprising,

1943
01:45:47,425 --> 01:45:50,465
although Franklin considered
the Boston Tea Party

1944
01:45:50,636 --> 01:45:53,716
an "act of violent injustice
on our part"--

1945
01:45:53,890 --> 01:45:58,350
the very kind of provocation
he had always counseled against.

1946
01:46:00,396 --> 01:46:02,726
Alexander Wedderburn,
the sharp-tongued

1947
01:46:02,899 --> 01:46:05,399
and politically ambitious
solicitor general,

1948
01:46:05,568 --> 01:46:09,028
who considered the recent
events in Boston treasonous,

1949
01:46:09,197 --> 01:46:11,487
made clear from the start
that the hearing

1950
01:46:11,657 --> 01:46:14,737
would be an attack
on Franklin's character.

1951
01:46:16,120 --> 01:46:17,870
Your Lordships will not wonder

1952
01:46:18,039 --> 01:46:21,749
that I consider Dr. Franklin not
so much in the light of an agent

1953
01:46:21,918 --> 01:46:25,838
for the Assembly's purpose,
as in that of a first mover

1954
01:46:26,005 --> 01:46:29,545
and prime conductor of it
for his own as the actor...

1955
01:46:29,717 --> 01:46:31,717
Wedderburn spoke for a solid hour,

1956
01:46:31,886 --> 01:46:35,346
sometimes pounding on the table
as he berated Franklin

1957
01:46:35,515 --> 01:46:39,095
with one denunciation after another,

1958
01:46:39,268 --> 01:46:41,848
sometimes using sarcasm that prompted

1959
01:46:42,021 --> 01:46:44,401
the nobles and high
officials in the audience

1960
01:46:44,565 --> 01:46:48,485
to snicker and jeer
as they urged him on.

1961
01:46:48,653 --> 01:46:51,453
Throughout it all,
Franklin stood stock still,

1962
01:46:51,614 --> 01:46:53,744
refusing to show any emotion.

1963
01:46:53,908 --> 01:46:55,788
...answerable to the law.

1964
01:46:55,952 --> 01:46:58,142
The good men of Boston have
lately held their meetings...

1965
01:46:58,162 --> 01:47:00,252
They're accusing Benjamin Franklin of

1966
01:47:00,415 --> 01:47:04,085
fomenting this Revolution

1967
01:47:04,252 --> 01:47:06,382
and he just stays there, silent,

1968
01:47:06,546 --> 01:47:09,586
and treats them with silent contempt.

1969
01:47:09,757 --> 01:47:12,467
When Wedderburn
finally finished his diatribe,

1970
01:47:12,635 --> 01:47:15,095
he asked if Franklin had
a statement to make

1971
01:47:15,263 --> 01:47:17,473
or would take questions.

1972
01:47:17,640 --> 01:47:19,770
Franklin refused.

1973
01:47:19,934 --> 01:47:21,734
The hearing was over.

1974
01:47:29,193 --> 01:47:32,323
London newspapers now
referred to Franklin as

1975
01:47:32,488 --> 01:47:36,198
"old Doubleface,"
a "grand incendiary,"

1976
01:47:36,367 --> 01:47:39,697
and a "gray-headed traitor."

1977
01:47:39,871 --> 01:47:43,421
Americans, the essayist
Samuel Johnson wrote,

1978
01:47:43,583 --> 01:47:46,713
"have been taught by
some master of mischief

1979
01:47:46,878 --> 01:47:51,418
how to put in motion the engine
of political electricity."

1980
01:47:53,885 --> 01:47:56,715
Two days after his humiliation
in the Cockpit,

1981
01:47:56,888 --> 01:47:59,678
Franklin was informed
that he had been dismissed

1982
01:47:59,849 --> 01:48:03,849
as deputy postmaster
for North America.

1983
01:48:04,020 --> 01:48:07,860
Any hopes he had for
a higher post also evaporated,

1984
01:48:08,024 --> 01:48:13,284
as did his dreams for the vast
land scheme along the Ohio.

1985
01:48:13,446 --> 01:48:16,366
Franklin walked into
the Cockpit an Englishman

1986
01:48:16,532 --> 01:48:18,832
and walked out of the Cockpit
an American

1987
01:48:18,993 --> 01:48:21,873
because it became
very clear to Franklin

1988
01:48:22,038 --> 01:48:25,458
that he, as an American,
would never receive

1989
01:48:25,625 --> 01:48:28,915
the respect that
he believed he was due.

1990
01:48:29,086 --> 01:48:31,916
At that point, Franklin
realized there is no future

1991
01:48:32,089 --> 01:48:36,299
for me or for people like me
within the British Empire.

1992
01:48:39,805 --> 01:48:42,595
On December 14, 1774,

1993
01:48:42,767 --> 01:48:45,477
Deborah Franklin had another stroke,

1994
01:48:45,645 --> 01:48:49,145
more massive than
the one 5 years earlier.

1995
01:48:49,315 --> 01:48:51,315
She lingered on for a few days,

1996
01:48:51,484 --> 01:48:53,574
then died on the 19th,

1997
01:48:53,736 --> 01:48:55,696
still waiting for her husband,

1998
01:48:55,863 --> 01:48:59,663
who had been away for 15
of the last 17 years,

1999
01:48:59,825 --> 01:49:02,995
to return to her and the new
house on Market Street

2000
01:49:03,162 --> 01:49:05,292
he had never seen.

2001
01:49:06,541 --> 01:49:08,561
He's away from Deborah
for the last 10 years of her life.

2002
01:49:08,584 --> 01:49:10,094
He knows she's ill.

2003
01:49:10,253 --> 01:49:12,513
And he doesn't come back.

2004
01:49:12,672 --> 01:49:14,322
If Franklin gets
failing grades in any subject,

2005
01:49:14,340 --> 01:49:17,180
it's the family relations,
both in terms of the marriage

2006
01:49:17,343 --> 01:49:19,303
and in terms of his son.

2007
01:49:22,098 --> 01:49:26,638
Philadelphia, December 24, 1774.

2008
01:49:26,811 --> 01:49:30,861
Honored Father,
I came here on Thursday last

2009
01:49:31,023 --> 01:49:34,693
to attend the Funeral
of my poor old Mother.

2010
01:49:34,860 --> 01:49:36,780
I heartily wish you had
happened to have

2011
01:49:36,946 --> 01:49:38,486
come over in the Fall,

2012
01:49:38,656 --> 01:49:40,616
as I think her Disappointment
in that respect

2013
01:49:40,783 --> 01:49:43,703
preyed a good deal on her Spirits.

2014
01:49:45,871 --> 01:49:47,831
I cannot help being
concerned to find that

2015
01:49:47,999 --> 01:49:51,539
you postpone your
Return to your Family.

2016
01:49:52,920 --> 01:49:55,130
You have had by this Time
pretty strong Proofs

2017
01:49:55,298 --> 01:49:58,378
that you are look'd upon with
an evil Eye in that Country.

2018
01:49:58,551 --> 01:50:00,391
You had certainly better return

2019
01:50:00,553 --> 01:50:02,973
to a Country where
the People revere you,

2020
01:50:03,139 --> 01:50:07,439
and are inclined to pay
a Deference to your Opinions.

2021
01:50:07,602 --> 01:50:13,322
I am ever, Honored Sir,
Your dutiful Son William.

2022
01:50:15,192 --> 01:50:17,782
For Franklin, his breach with England

2023
01:50:17,945 --> 01:50:19,445
was complete.

2024
01:50:19,614 --> 01:50:22,374
Now a political rift
seemed to be growing

2025
01:50:22,533 --> 01:50:24,793
between him and his son.

2026
01:50:27,204 --> 01:50:31,504
In the coming year,
a revolution would begin,

2027
01:50:31,667 --> 01:50:34,377
unlikely alliances would be forged,

2028
01:50:34,545 --> 01:50:36,705
loyalties would be tested,

2029
01:50:36,881 --> 01:50:40,011
families would be torn apart,

2030
01:50:40,176 --> 01:50:44,926
and Benjamin Franklin would be
in the middle of it all.