[33] This lady was drowned, together with her maid-servant, in the winter of 1767.
[34] A manuscript note in the file of the American Mercury, preserved in the City Library, says that Franklin wrote the first five numbers and part of the eighth of this series. The rest were written by J. B., probably Joseph Breintnail, a member of the junto, whom Franklin describes as a “good-natured, friendly, middle-aged man, a great lover of poetry, reading all he could meet with, and writing some that was tolerable; very ingenious in making little nicknackeries, and of sensible conversation.”
[35] As an improvement on the above, cartridge-paper of a peculiar kind was used in 1778. When the American army entered Philadelphia, in June, 1778, upon the evacuation of the English troops, there was a want of paper fitted for the construction of cartridges. It was advertised for, and but a small quantity procured. An order was then issued demanding its instant production by all people in that city who had it. This produced but little, and most probably on account of its scarcity. A file of soldiers was then ordered to make search for it in every place where any was likely to be found. Among other places visited in July, 1778, was a garret in a house in which Benjamin Franklin had previously had his printing-office. Here were discovered about twenty-five hundred copies of a sermon which the Rev. Gilbert Tennent had written (printed by Franklin) upon “Defensive War,” to rouse the colonists during the French troubles. They were all taken and used as cases for musket-cartridges, and at once sent to the army; and most of them were used at the battle of Monmouth. The requisites in cartridge-paper were, of course, thinness, strength, pliability, and inflammability; and such paper was necessarily scarce then.
[36] In 1776 was adopted the standard to be used by the commander-in-chief of the American navy, “being a yellow field, with a lively representation of a rattlesnake in the middle, in the attitude of striking;” underneath were the words, “Don’t tread on me.”
The same year the cruisers of the colony of Massachusetts hoisted a white flag, with a green pine-tree and the motto, “Appeal to Heaven.”
[37] The author is indebted for the chief sources of information contained in this table, to that admirable and useful annual entitled “The Old Franklin Almanac,” a title as modest as its contents are useful and instructing. It should be found in every house.
[38] This article appeared about the time Judge McLean was a candidate for the Presidency, and was brought out to bear upon his success. There is no denying the fact but what there was more truth than poetry in the charges.
[39] A man by the name of Carroll, residing in Charleston, South Carolina, was accused of being intimate with slaves, and also as a receiver of stolen goods, particularly the article of cotton. He was dragged from his house (August, 1835), and received twenty lashes; he was then stripped from his waist upwards, tarred and feathered; he was then marched in procession through the streets and lodged in the jail; he was also compelled to leave the city. The law, it seemed, sanctioned the action of the mob; for he was actually received in the prison from this self-constituted authority.
[40] Constitution of the United States, art. ii. sect. 2.
[41] This took place on the 1st of July, 1857, by which the mails were to be conveyed between Washington and New Orleans in four days and a half, by way of Richmond and Lynchburg, Virginia, Bristol, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Grand Junction, Tennessee, and Jackson, Mississippi,—all by railroad, with the exception of a gap of ninety miles in Mississippi.