Michael Foster wrote:
As an interesting side note, it's quite possible the the American
revolution would not have succeeded without the existence of this
book. Franklin's credibility as ambassador to France was based
almost entirely on European acceptance of his electrical experiments
and theories.
I never thought of that! How true.
Although he was intensely curious about nature, Franklin wanted to
see a useful result from his research. He fretted about his
electrical experiments until he discovered the lightning rod. That
made the whole project pay off in a practical way. I wonder if it
ever occurred to him that it paid off a second time with his
successful diplomacy in France? I'll be that thought did cross his
mind! He worked through problems and strategy down to the fine ramifications.
This came up because I am reading a remarkable book "The
Americanization of Benjamin Franklin," by Gordon Wood. There are a
zillion biographies of Franklin but this one has some unique
perspectives and it answers many questions the others fail to answer,
especially: Why was he so much in favor of the British Empire and so
out of touch with the revolution until the last minute? He was
politically very conservative in many ways. It would not have been
surprising if he had ended up a Tory like his son, who was the Royal
Governor of New Jersey, or his friend Hutchinson, the Royal Governor
of Massachusetts.
He was an immensely complicated person, even more than Jefferson, the
great American sphinx. On the surface he was a joiner,
go-with-the-crowd, hail-fellow-well-met bonhomme Richard, but
actually he seldom shared his feelings or let others see his true
thoughts. He resembled FDR in that respect. He had an amazing ability
to see all sides of a political issue or a scientific problem. He had
many pen names and he sometimes published a letter or editorials on
one side of an issue, and then another editorial on the other side.
At age 16 he successfully published letters in the newspaper
impersonating at middle-aged widow, fooling his own older brother --
the publisher. How many 16-year-old boys do you know who could pull that off?
He was also an immensely talented businessman. I did not realize how
much so until I read this book. He hired clever, hard-working young
men for his printing business, made sure they were skilled and
honest, and then franchised them all up and down the coast. He took
30% of their profit for 6 years. A very reasonable deal. He owned 18
paper mills, making him "probably" the largest paper dealer in the
British Empire. He had real estate all over America. His income
eventually reached 2000 pounds per year, at a time when
"manufacturers in England made about 40 pounds a year and lawyers
about 200 pounds."
- Jed
