was the beginning of the system of colonial agencies which so efficiently aided the progress of the Revolution.
In Philadelphia, as in other commercial towns, opposition to the Stamp Act was a prevailing sentiment. Intelligence of its enactment, and the king's assent, produced great excitement; and, as the day on which it was to go into effect approached, open hostility became more and more manifest. Party spirit, at that time, was peculiarly rancorous in Pennsylvania, and the political opposers of Dr. Franklin asserted that he was in favor of the odious act. The fact that he had procured the office of stamp-master for Philadelphia for his friend John Hughes (as he did for Ingersoll of Connecticut), gave a coloring of truth to the charge, and his family and property were menaced with injury. * He was lampooned by caricatures ** and placards; but they had little effect upon the great mass of the people, by whom he was admired and confided in.
The store-keepers of Philadelphia resolved to cease importing British goods while the Stamp Act was in force; the people resolved to abstain from mutton, so that wool for the purpose of domestic manufacture might be increased; and among other resolves concerning frugality in living, they determined to restrain the usual expenses of funerals. Benjamin Price, Esq., was buried in an oaken coffin and iron handles; and Alderman Plumstead was conveyed to the grave without a pall or mourning-dresses. When the commission for Hughes and the stamps arrived, all the bells were muffled and tolled; the colors were hoisted half mast, and signs of a popular outbreak appeared. The house of Hughes was guarded by his friends; but the current of popular feeling ran so high and menacing that he resigned his office. As in New York, the odious act was printed and hawked about the streets, headed The Folly of England, and the Ruin of America. *** The newspaper of William Bradford, **** the leading printer in Philadelphia, teemed with denunciations of the act; and on the
* His wife, in a letter written on the 22d of September! 1765, from "near Philadelphia," informs him that a mob was talked of; that several houses were indicated for destruction; and that she was advised to remove to Burlington for safety. "It is Mr. S. S." she said, "that is setting the people mad, by telling them that it was you that had planned the Stamp Act, and that you are endeavoring to get the Test Act brought over here." The courageous woman declared she would not stir from her dwelling, and she remained throughout the election (the immediate cause of excitement at that time) unharmed.
** In one of these, called The Medley, Franklin is represented among the electors, accompanied by the Devil, who is whispering in his ear, "Thee shall be agent, Ben, for all my realm." In another part of the caricature is the following verse:
"All his designs concenter in himself,
For building castles and amassing pelf.
The public! 'tis his wit to sell for gain,
Whom private property did ne'er maintain."
*** Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, ii., 271.
**** William Bradford was a grandson of William Bradford, the first printer who settled in the colony. * He went to England in 1741, and the next year returned with printing materials and books. In December, 1742, he published the first number of the Pennsylvania Journal, which was continued until about the close of the century, when his son Thomas, who was his business partner, changed its name to the True American. While carrying on the printing business, he opened, in 1754, at the corner of Market and Front Streets, "The London Coffee-house," and in 1762 a marine insurance office, with Mr. Kydd. His republican bias was manifested during the Stamp Act excitement; and when the war of the Revolution began, he joined the Pennsylvania militia. As a major and colonel, he fought in the battles of Trenton and Princeton, and was at Fort Mifflin, below Philadelphia, when it was attacked. After the British army left Philadelphia, he returned with a broken constitution and a shattered fortune. A short time before his death, a paralytic shock gave him warning of its approach. To his children he said, "Though I bequeath you no estate, I leave you in the enjoyment of liberty." He died on the 25th of September, 1791, aged seventy-two years.
* His son, Andrew, was also a printer, and carried on business in Philadelphia after his father had retired to New York on a pension from government of sixty pounds a year. In a poetic effusion printed by Keimer, the first employer of Dr. Franklin, in 1731, is the following allusion to the Bradfords:
"In Penn's wooden country type feels no disaster,
The printers grow rich; one is made their postmaster.
His father, a printer, is paid for his work,
And wallows in plenty, just now, in New York.
Though quite past his labor, and old as my gran'mum,
The government pays him pounds sixty per annum."