The Women of The American Revolution, Vol. 1

by E. F. Ellet

XXV. SARAH BÂCHE.

* Mr. William Duane, to whose pen the reader is indebted for this sketch—is the grandson of Mrs. Bâche.

Sarah, the only daughter of Benjamin Franklin, was born at Philadelphia, on the eleventh of September, 1744. Of her early years no particulars can now be obtained; but from her father's appreciation of the importance of education, and the intelligence and information that she displayed through life, we may presume that her studies were as extensive as were then pursued by females in any of the American colonies.

In 1764, she was called to part with her father, sent to Europe for the first time in a representative capacity. The people of Pennsylvania were at that time divided into two parties—the supporters and the opponents of the proprietaries. The sons of Penn, as is known, had left the religion of their father, and joined the Church of England; and the bulk of that persuasion were of the proprietary party. The mass of the Quakers were in opposition, and with them Franklin had acted. After having been for fourteen years a member of the Assembly, he lost his election to that body in the autumn of 1764, by a few votes; but his friends being in the majority in the House, immediately elected him the agent of the province in England. The proprietary party made great opposition to his appointment; and an incident occurred in connection with it that shows us how curiously the affairs of Church and State were intermingled in those days. A petition or remonstrance to the Assembly against his being chosen agent, was laid for signature upon the communion-table of Christ Church, in which he was a pew-holder, and his wife a communicant. His daughter appears to have resented this outrage upon decency and the feelings of her family, and to have spoken of leaving the church in consequence; which gave occasion to the following dissuasive in the letter which her father wrote to her from Reedy Island, November 8th, 1764, on his way to Europe: "Go constantly to church whoever preaches. The act of devotion in the common prayer-book is your principal business there; and if properly attended to, will do more towards amending the heart than sermons generally can do; for they were composed by men of much greater piety and wisdom than our common composers of sermons can pretend to be; and therefore I wish you would never miss the prayer days. Yet I do not mean you should despise sermons, even of the preachers you dislike, for the discourse is often much better than the man, as sweet and clear waters come through very dirty earth. I am the more particular on this head, as you seemed to express a little before I came away some inclination to leave our church, which I would not have you do." *

* The manuscript letters from which extracts are made in this memoir, are in the possession of Mrs. Bache's descendants in Philadelphia.

The opinion entertained by many that a disposition to mobbing is of modern growth in this country is erroneous. In Colonial times outrages of this character were at least as frequent as now. Dr. Franklin had not been gone a year before his house was threatened with an attack. Mrs. Franklin sent her daughter to Governor Franklin's in Burlington, and proceeded to make preparation for the defence of her "castle." Her letter detailing the particulars may be found in the last edition of Watson's Annals of Philadelphia.

The first letter from Sarah Franklin to her father that has been preserved, was written after her return from this visit to Burlington. In it she says, "The subject now is Stamp Act, and nothing else is talked of. The Dutch talk of the 'Stamp tack,' the negroes of the 'tamp'—in short, every body has something to say." The commissions which follow for gloves, lavender, and tooth-powder, give us a humble idea of the state of the supplies in the Colonies at that day. The letter thus concludes: "There is not a young lady of my acquaintance but what desires to be remembered to you. I am, my dear, your very dutiful daughter,

"Sally Franklin."

In a letter dated on the 23d of the following March (1765), the Stamp Act is again mentioned: "We have heard by a round-about way that the Stamp Act is repealed. The people seem determined to believe it, though it came from Ireland to Maryland. The bells rung, we had bonfires, and one house was illuminated. Indeed I never heard so much noise in my life; the very children seem distracted. I hope and pray the noise may be true."