[233] When young men like Franklin were pondering on Collins and Shaftesbury, liberalism was alarming.
[234] April 2, 1720.
[235] Josiah Quincy’s History of Harvard University, i. ch. xi.
[236] Cf. Perry’s Amer. Episc. Church, i. ch. xiv.; and monograph vi. by E. E. Beardsley in the same. Sprague’s Amer. Annals, v. 50.
[237] Douglass claims that it was he who drew the attention of that “credulous vain creature, Mather, jr.,” to the account of inoculations in the Philosophical Transactions, xxxii. 169.
[238] Mass. Hist. Coll., xxxviii. 448, 449.
[239] The inoculation controversy produced a crowd of tracts. Cf. Haven’s bibliog. in Thomas, ii. pp. 388-393, 395, 420-422, 444, 456, 515,—extending over thirty years; Brinley Catal., no. 1,645, etc.; Hutchinson, ii. 248; Barry, ii. 115; Mem. Hist. Boston, iv. 535. Franklin wrote Some account of the success of inoculation for the small-pox in England and America, which was printed in London in 1758 (8 pp.), and is reprinted in the Mass. Hist. Coll., xvii. 7.
[240] The most distinguished of the Boston printers was Bartholomew Green, who died in 1733. Cf. Thomas’ Hist. of Printing, and ch. vii. and viii. of Bishop’s Hist. of Amer. Manufactures (1861).
[241] Franklin’s paper, however, did much to arouse the ministers to the conception of the fact that there was a force in the public press to direct the public sense, superior to the power of the pulpit, which must perforce be content with a diminishing power.
[242] This was published in London and Boston, 1721 (again Boston, 1721, 1768, and London, 1765). Sabin, v. no. 21,197; Carter-Brown, iii. 300. Tyler (Am. Lit., ii. 119) is in error in placing its publication in 1728. The tract has been greatly praised. James Otis referred to it with commendation in his great Writs-of-Assistance speech. John Adams (Works, x. 343) calls it “one of our most classical American productions.” Tudor (Life of Otis, ch. vi.) thinks that in point of style it vies with any writing before the Revolution. Grahame (iii. 72) says it has a great deal of interesting information and ingenious argument. Bancroft (revised ed., ii. 247) gives it credit for influence, and makes a synopsis.