Part 11

=79. Franklin's Part in the Revolution.= Already we have seen that England and her colonies were beginning to quarrel. What wiser man could be sent to England to defend the colonies by tongue and pen than Benjamin Franklin? He made friends for America among the great men of England.

[Sidenote: =How Franklin helped the English understand the Stamp Act=]

When the Stamp Act was passed the members of Parliament asked him nearly two hundred questions about the effects of the Stamp Act on America. He wrote many letters to great men, and long articles to the English newspapers, explaining how the Stamp Act injured America. Both England and America rejoiced when the king and Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, and Franklin sent his wife a fine London gown in honor of the event.

[Sidenote: =Franklin and Pitt=]

For eight years more, while America was busy opposing the tax on tea, Franklin was in England trying to get Parliament and the king to give the Americans better treatment. But it was all in vain. He often talked with William Pitt, the great friend of America, who introduced into Parliament a plan for making friends between the two countries. But the plan was defeated.

[Sidenote: =Hastens home=]

Franklin saw that war would come, and hastened back to his beloved America, where he arrived just after the battle at Lexington and Concord (1775).

[Sidenote: =Franklin plans union=]

Pennsylvania sent him to the Congress of 1775, which, sitting in Philadelphia, made George Washington general of the Continental army. Franklin saw that if the thirteen scattered colonies were to defeat Great Britain they must unite. So he introduced into Congress a plan of union, but the other members were not ready for it.

[Sidenote: =Helps write the Declaration of Independence=]

Franklin was one of five men who were named by Congress to write the Declaration of Independence (1776).

[Sidenote: =Franklin in France=]

Soon after, Congress sent him to France to influence the king and the people of that country to aid America in winning independence. The French hated the English, but admired Benjamin Franklin. The king gave money secretly, and many French officers came to serve in the American army.

[Sidenote: =France sends aid=]

In 1778 Franklin influenced the King of France to take sides openly with the Americans. French warships and French soldiers by thousands now came to help fight our battles.

[Sidenote: =Treaty with England=]

After helping to make the treaty of peace with England in 1783, Franklin came home with many honors. Though nearly eighty years old, the people of Pennsylvania immediately elected him governor.

Franklin did one more great work for his country. In 1787 the states sent their wisest men to Philadelphia to make a constitution, or plan of government. Pennsylvania chose Franklin, with others, to meet with these men in Independence Hall.

[Sidenote: =Helps make our Constitution=]

[Sidenote: =Franklin signs the Constitution=]

George Washington, as we have seen, was the president of this meeting. Many speeches were made, and there was debating for many weeks. The meeting was always glad to hear Franklin speak, for he was a very wise man. As he had helped to make, and had signed, the Declaration of Independence, so now, after helping make the Constitution, he signed it. Many persons did not like the Constitution. Franklin said there were some things in the new plan which he did not like, but declared that he signed it because of the good things it did contain. He showed his wisdom, for it is one of the best plans of government ever made.

[Sidenote: =Died in 1790=]

Franklin spent his last days with his daughter, and, surrounded by his grandchildren, died in 1790, at the age of eighty-four.

SUGGESTIONS INTENDED TO HELP THE PUPIL

=The Leading Facts.= _1._ Franklin's parents were poor, had seventeen children; hence Benjamin, though a studious fellow, was put to the printer's trade. _2._ Franklin wrote the "Dogood Papers." Left home for New York, but went on to Philadelphia. _3._ Persuaded to go to London. He returned and married. _4._ Franklin started a circulating library, a school which became the University of Pennsylvania, and a society called the American Philosophical Society. _5._ He invented a stove, founded the first fire department in America, and printed _Poor Richard's Almanac_. _6._ Wrote the first plan of an American Union, and won degrees from English and Scotch universities. _7._ Franklin was one of the committee to write the Declaration of Independence. _8._ Was sent to France, where he won the help of France in the War of the Revolution. _9._ Franklin was governor of the state of Pennsylvania, was a delegate to help make the Constitution, and died at the age of 84.

=Study Questions.= _1._ How long ago was Franklin born? _2._ Tell of his school experiences. _3._ Why did Franklin not go to sea? _4._ Tell the story of his bargain with his brother. _5._ What did Franklin hear about the "Dogood Papers"? _6._ Tell the story of the "runaway printer." _7._ How did he save his time in Philadelphia? _8._ How did he happen to go to London the first time? _9._ What good example did he set to London printers? _10._ Why did he return to Philadelphia? _11._ What three great institutions did he found? _12._ Why did the people like _Poor Richard's Almanac_? _13._ What public offices did he hold? _14._ Picture Franklin proving that electricity and lightning are the same. _15._ What did he go to England a second time for? _16._ How did Franklin aid in the repeal of the Stamp Act? _17._ In what great events did he have a part? _18._ What was his work in France? _19._ What was his last great work? _20._ How did he spend his last days? _21._ Point out the obstacles he overcame all along in his career.

=Suggested Readings.= FRANKLIN: Baldwin, _Four Great Americans_, 71-122; Hart, _Camps and Firesides of the Revolution_, 158-162; Hart, _Colonial Children_, 197-199, 210-214; Wright, _Children's Stories of Great Scientists_, 71-89; Bolton, _Famous American Statesmen_, 38-66; Brooks, _Century Book of Famous Americans_, 65-76.

PATRICK HENRY AND SAMUEL ADAMS, FAMOUS MEN OF THE REVOLUTION, WHO DEFENDED AMERICA WITH TONGUE AND PEN

PATRICK HENRY, THE ORATOR OF THE REVOLUTION

[Sidenote: =Why the king wished to tax America=]

=80. The Stamp Act.= The surrender of Quebec and the fall of New France caused great rejoicing among the thirteen colonies. But the long, hard war had left both England and her colonies deeply in debt. King George III, however, thinking only of England's debt, decided that England ought to tax the colonies to pay for an army which he wished to keep in America.

[Sidenote: =What the Stamp Act was=]

So the Parliament of England passed a law that all licenses to marry, all deeds to property, licenses to trade, newspapers, almanacs, and other pamphlets had to be printed on stamped paper. This paper ranged in value from a few cents to many dollars.

Leading men in every one of the thirteen colonies spoke and wrote against the Stamp Act. Of all the men who did so, Patrick Henry, of Virginia, was the most eloquent and fiery. He had been elected by the people of his county to go up to Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia, to help make the laws. There were many able men in that old House of Burgesses, but none of them wished to take the lead in opposing the king's plan of a stamp tax.

[Sidenote: =Patrick Henry in the House of Burgesses=]

One day young Henry, although a new member, snatched a blank leaf from a law book and wrote down a set of resolutions declaring that only the Virginia Assembly could tax Virginians, and that any one who asserted the contrary was an enemy of the colony.

[Sidenote: =Patrick Henry's famous speech=]

He backed up these resolutions with a speech that stirred the Burgesses. He was so fiery and bold that men almost held their breath while they listened to the young orator. He closed by declaring that George III was acting like a tyrant, and that "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third--" "Treason! treason!" shouted the Speaker of the House. Waiting a moment till the noise ceased, the orator, with a calm and steady voice, added, "may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it."

Henry's resolutions were passed, and were printed in almost every newspaper in the colonies. They made the people more determined than ever not to buy stamped paper.

Who was this young lawyer that stirred these dignified Virginia gentlemen in powdered hair, knee breeches, and silver buckles?

[Sidenote: =Patrick as a boy=]

=81. The Orator of the Revolution.= Patrick Henry was born in Virginia (1736). His father was a well-educated Scotchman, who taught school and became a lawyer. His mother was of Welsh blood. Young Patrick went to school, but he liked to hunt and fish far better than to study. He was a puzzle to his parents.

[Sidenote: =Early failures=]

By the time he was eighteen he had failed as a student, as a clerk, and as a storekeeper. He then married. The parents on both sides helped them to start farming with a few slaves. In two years Patrick Henry was forced to sell. Once more he tried keeping a country store. In three years the store closed its doors and Patrick Henry, aged twenty-three, was without an occupation.

[Sidenote: =Liked to study history and law=]

He now turned to the study of law. Although not in love with school when a boy, he loved to read the Bible. He also had a strong liking for history, and, in his youth, read the histories of Greece, of Rome, of England, and of the colonies. By a few months of hard study of the law he passed the examination. He succeeded from the first, and in less than four years had been engaged in more than one thousand cases.

[Sidenote: =Succeeded as a lawyer=]

[Sidenote: =Patrick's father the judge=]

=82. The Parsons' Case.= In 1763 Patrick Henry set all Virginia to talking about him as a lawyer. This colony had paid its clergymen from the beginning. Each one received a certain number of pounds of tobacco for his salary. But the price was now high and now low. A dispute arose because of this and was taken into court. But no great lawyer would take the people's side. Patrick Henry did. The courthouse was filled with people, many clergymen among them. In the judge's chair sat Patrick's own father.

[Sidenote: =Henry's first great speech=]

[Sidenote: =The people overjoyed=]

Henry began his speech in an awkward way. The clergymen felt encouraged, while his friends and father felt uneasy. Soon he began to warm up. His words came more freely, and his gestures grew more graceful. The people began to listen, and then to lean forward spellbound by the charm of his eloquence and the power of his argument. The clergy grew angry and left the room. His father, forgetting that he was judge, cried for joy. When Henry finished, the people seized him and carried him on their shoulders from the court room and around the yard, shouting and cheering all the while.

[Sidenote: =Elected a lawmaker=]

Patrick Henry was now the people's hero. At the election the following year his friends chose him to go to the House of Burgesses, and there, in 1765, he made his stirring speech against the Stamp Act.

[Sidenote: =The Stamp Act repealed=]

Many great Englishmen, such as William Pitt and Edmund Burke, opposed the Stamp Tax. Finally, King George and his Parliament repealed the unpopular act. The Americans were happy when they heard of its repeal.

[Sidenote: =The Americans angry over the Tea Tax=]

=83. New Taxes.= As if the king and Parliament could learn nothing, they passed a Tea Tax the very next year, placing a tax on all the tea imported into the colonies. Then the Americans everywhere refused to buy the tea and pay the tax. When the tea ships came to America the people of New York and Philadelphia sent them back, and the "Sons of Liberty" at Annapolis burned a ship full of tea. The king's governor at Boston refused to permit the ships to carry the tea back to England, but the people, one night, threw the tea into the sea. King George grew angry at such "tea parties," and had laws passed to punish Boston. More British soldiers were sent there to force the people to obey these detested laws.

[Sidenote: =Patrick Henry meets Samuel Adams at the great Congress=]

The colonies, more excited than ever, decided to hold a great Congress in Philadelphia (1774). Virginia, like the others, sent her best men. There in Carpenter's Hall, a building still standing, Henry made friends of leading men of other colonies. There he met Samuel Adams, who was doing with his pen what Henry was doing with his tongue, and they became life-long friends.

[Sidenote: =A new sentiment=]

One day, when speaking in favor of united action, Patrick Henry declared: "The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American."

As Patrick Henry talked with men from other colonies and heard how the king's troops were acting at Boston, he was convinced that war must come. He went home and urged the people of Virginia to arm for the coming struggle. The king's governor refused to permit meetings in the old capitol at Williamsburg, so they were held in St. John's Church, Richmond, a church still standing.

[Sidenote: =Patrick Henry's new resolutions=]

Here Patrick Henry offered resolutions declaring that Virginia should arm herself for the coming war. It was a serious time, and these were serious resolutions. Should the thirteen colonies go to war with one of the greatest nations in the world? Would it not be wise to send more petitions to the king? Some of the ablest men in Virginia opposed Henry's resolutions.

[Sidenote: =Patrick Henry's greatest speech=]

[Sidenote: =War is inevitable=]

=84. Patrick Henry Defends his Resolutions.= Patrick Henry listened to the speeches with smothered excitement. When he rose to defend his resolutions his face was pale and his voice was trembling. But soon his audience forgot what other men had said. They leaned forward and listened as if no other man had spoken. He stirred their deepest feelings when he declared: "We must fight! I repeat it, Sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and the God of Hosts is all that is left to us. They tell us, Sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of Nature hath placed in our power. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable, and let it come! I repeat it, Sir: Let it come!--The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brothers are already in the field! Why stand we here idle! Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death."

[Sidenote: =What a listener in St. John's Church saw and heard=]

One who heard this speech says that when the orator spoke the words "chains and slavery," he stood like a slave with his body bent, his wrists crossed, as if bound by chains, and that his face looked like that of a hopeless slave. After a solemn pause he raised his eyes and chained hands toward heaven, and said, as if in prayer: "Forbid it, Almighty God!" He then slowly bent his body still nearer the floor, looking like a man oppressed, heart-broken, and helpless, and said: "I know not what course others may take." Then, rising grandly and proudly, with every muscle strained, as if he would break his imaginary chains, he exclaimed: "Give me liberty, or give me death!"

[Sidenote: =What Washington saw in Boston in 1775=]

The men who heard this great speech never forgot it. The people of Virginia now pushed forward the work of arming her men. And when her own Washington went to take command of the army at Boston he found Virginia soldiers there wearing on their hunting shirts the words "Liberty or death!"

[Sidenote: =Patrick Henry loved by Virginians=]

From this time on Patrick Henry was in the forefront of the struggle with England. Virginia sent him to Congress, then she made him an officer in the army, and finally not only made him the first governor after independence was declared, but elected him to that office three times in succession, and offered him the same office three times more.

After independence was won Patrick Henry opposed the adoption of our constitution, although Washington, Madison, and many of his friends were in favor of it. When, however, he saw that the new constitution was a good one, he gave his support to his friend, President Washington.

[Sidenote: =Patrick Henry in his old age=]

Patrick Henry finally retired to his plantation and refused all offers of office. Many old friends and many great strangers went to visit him in his old age as one of the great men of the American Revolution. In the year of his death (1799), when some danger threatened Virginia, Patrick Henry came forth at Washington's request, old and feeble as he was, and aroused the people once more with his burning words. They elected him to the House of Burgesses by a great majority, but he did not live to take office.

SAMUEL ADAMS, THE FIREBRAND OF THE REVOLUTION

[Sidenote: =Samuel Adams the pen of the Revolution=]

=85. Samuel Adams.= While Patrick Henry was stirring the feelings of the people by his fiery eloquence, Samuel Adams was stirring them by strong arguments in his writings, to oppose the acts of king and of Parliament.

[Sidenote: =A student=]

Samuel Adams was born in Massachusetts (1722). While he loved school and books he cared very little for spending his time in outdoor amusements. At eighteen Samuel was graduated from Harvard College. His parents hoped that he would be a minister, but he began to study law. His mother was so opposed to his becoming a lawyer that he gave up the study and turned to business. He set up in business for himself, but, like Patrick Henry, soon lost all. He next went into business with his father, but in that, too, he failed. Finally Samuel Adams turned to politics.

[Sidenote: =Early love for politics=]

While a student in Harvard he had debated the question whether it was right to resist the king to save the country from ruin. He took an active part in debating clubs and very soon began to write for the newspapers, encouraging resistance. He never hesitated to take what he thought the right side of any question.

[Sidenote: =Why Adams opposed the Stamp Act=]

Speaking before a meeting of Boston people, Samuel Adams boldly declared that if England could tax the business of the colonies, then, "why not tax our lands and everything we possess or make use of?" Such taxes, he said, would make the colonists slaves.

In a short time the people of Boston were reading in the papers the fiery resolutions and the still more fiery speech of Patrick Henry. Samuel Adams seized his pen and also began to pour hot shot into the Stamp Act.

[Sidenote: =How he opposed the Stamp Act=]

The Boston people elected him to be their representative in the Massachusetts Assembly. More and more he took the lead in the movement against the Stamp Act. He went about the shops, into the stores, wherever he found people to listen to him.

He helped them form a society, called the Sons of Liberty, which destroyed the hated stamps as soon as they arrived. He talked with the merchants, and they signed a pledge not to buy any more goods from England until the Stamp Act was repealed. At this the British merchants felt the loss of trade and joined in the cry against the Stamp Act.

=86. The Tea Tax.= We have seen that Parliament, after the Stamp Act was repealed, passed the famous Tea Act. The Americans were angry again, and the Sons of Liberty declared that no tea should be landed. The merchants took the pledge again to buy no more English goods, and patriotic women began to make tea out of the leaves of other plants.

[Sidenote: =Samuel Adams writes the "Circular Letter"=]

Samuel Adams again sharpened his pen, and wrote the famous old "Circular Letter," which urged all the colonies to unite and stand firm in opposing the tax on tea. This letter made King George very angry, but Samuel Adams only wrote the more.

Night after night as the people passed his window they saw by his lamp that he was busy with his pen, and said to one another: "Samuel Adams is hard at work writing against the Tories." People in England and America who took the king's side in these disputes were called Tories.

[Sidenote: =Conflicts between people and soldiers=]

The king now sent two regiments of soldiers to Boston to force the people to pay the Tea Tax. There were frequent quarrels between the soldiers and the people. One evening in a street quarrel the soldiers killed three men and wounded eight others (1770). Immediately the fire bells rang and great crowds of angry people filled the streets. The next day they filled to overflowing Faneuil Hall, the "Cradle of Liberty." A still larger meeting in the Old South Church cried out that both regiments of soldiers must leave town.

[Sidenote: =Samuel Adams and the people drive the soldiers out of Boston=]

Adams and other leaders were sent to the king's officers to tell them what the people had said. Before the governor and the general, backed by the king's authority and by two regiments, stood plain Samuel Adams, with only the voice of the people to help him.

The governor, unwilling to obey the demand of the people, said he would send one regiment away. But Samuel Adams stood firm, and said: "Both regiments or none!" The governor finally gave up, and Samuel Adams, the man of the people, was a greater leader than ever before.

The king now tried to trick the Americans into paying the tax by making tea cheaper in America than in England, but leaving on the tax. But the people everywhere declared that they did not object to the price, but to the tax.

[Sidenote: =The tea ships guarded while town meetings are held=]