I was sitting by Doctor Franklin [says Jefferson], and observed to him that I thought we should except books (from the obligations of the non-importation association formed in America to bring England to terms); that we ought not to exclude science, even coming from an enemy. He thought so too, and I proposed the exception, which was agreed to. Soon after it occurred that medicine should be excepted, and I suggested that also to the Doctor. "As to that," said he, "I will tell you a story. When I was in London, in such a year, there was a weekly club of physicians, of which Sir John Pringle was President, and I was invited by my friend Doctor Fothergill to attend when convenient. Their rule was to propose a thesis one week and discuss it the next. I happened there when the question to be considered was whether physicians had, on the whole, done most good or harm? The young members, particularly, having discussed it very learnedly and eloquently till the subject was exhausted, one of them observed to Sir John Pringle, that although it was not usual for the President to take part in a debate, yet they were desirous to know his opinion on the question. He said they must first tell him whether, under the appellation of physicians, they meant to include old women, if they did he thought they had done more good than harm, otherwise more harm than good."
This incident brings back to us, as it doubtless did to Franklin, the augurs jesting among themselves over religion.[31]
It is to be regretted that many other easy pens besides that of Jefferson have not preserved for us some of those humorous stories and parables of which Franklin's memory was such a rich storehouse. Doctor Benjamin Rush, one of his intimate friends, is said to have entertained the purpose of publishing his recollections of Franklin's table-talk. The purpose was never fulfilled, but the scraps of this talk which we find in Dr. Rush's diary are sufficient to show that, even in regard to medicine, Franklin had a stock of information and conclusions which were well worth the hearing.
As a member of the Continental Congress, Franklin was brought into close working intercourse with Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and formed a sincere sentiment of friendship for him, which was strengthened by the expedition that they made together to Canada, as two of the three commissioners appointed by Congress to win the Canadians over to the American cause. Samuel Chase, another Marylander, was the third commissioner, and the three were accompanied by John Carroll, the brother of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, whose character as a Catholic priest, it was hoped, would promote the success of the mission. On his way back to Philadelphia, in advance of his fellow-commissioners, Franklin acknowledged in grateful terms the help that he had received on his return journey from the friendly assistance and tender care of this good man, who became his firm friend, and was subsequently made the first Catholic Bishop of America upon his recommendation. William Carmichael, another Marylander, who was for a time the secretary of Silas Deane at Paris, was also one of Franklin's friends. There is a tinge of true affection about his letters to Carmichael, and the latter, in a letter written in the year 1777, while stating that Franklin's age in some measure hindered him from taking so active a part in the drudgery of business as his great zeal and abilities warranted, remarks, "He is the Master to whom we children in politics all look up for counsel, and whose name is everywhere a passport to be well received." When Carmichael was the American Secretary of Legation at Madrid, Franklin still remembered enough of his Spanish to request the former to send him the Gazette of Madrid and any new pamphlets that were curious. "I remember the Maxim you mention of Charles V, Yo y el Tiempo," he wrote to Carmichael on one occasion, "and have somewhere met with an Answer to it in this distich,
'I and time 'gainst any two,
Chance and I 'gainst Time and you.'
"And I think the Gentlemen you have at present to deal with, would do wisely to guard a little more against certain Chances." In another letter, Franklin, referring to his "Essay on Perfumes," dedicated to the Academy of Brussels, writes to Carmichael, "You do my little Scribblings too much honour in proposing to print them; but they are at your Disposition, except the Letter to the Academy which having several English Puns in it, can not be translated, and besides has too much grossièreté to be borne by the polite Readers of these Nations."
It was in Pennsylvania and New England, however, so far as America was concerned, that Franklin formed the intimate friendships which led him so often to say towards the close of his life, as one old friend after another dropped through the bridge of Mirzah, that the loss of friends is the tax imposed upon us by nature for living too long.
The closest friend of his early youth was his Boston friend, John Collins. The reader has already learnt how soon religious skepticism, drinking and gambling ate out the core of this friend's character.
With his intensely social nature, Franklin had hardly found employment in Philadelphia before in his own language he began to have some acquaintance among the young people of the town, that were lovers of reading, with whom he spent his evenings very agreeably. His first group of friends in Philadelphia was formed before he left Pennsylvania for London in 1724. In his pictorial way—for the Autobiography is engraved with a burin rather than written with a pen—Franklin brings the figures of this group before us with admirable distinctness. They were three in number, and all were lovers of reading. Two of them, Charles Osborne and Joseph Watson, were clerks to an eminent conveyancer in Philadelphia, Charles Brogden. The third, James Ralph, who has already been mentioned by us, was clerk to a merchant. Watson was a pious, sensible young man, of great integrity; the others were rather more lax in their principles of religion, particularly Ralph, who, as well as Collins, to quote the precise words of Franklin's confession, had been unsettled by him, "for which," he adds, "they both made me suffer."
Osborne [Franklin continues] was sensible, candid, frank; sincere and affectionate to his friends; but, in literary matters, too fond of criticising. Ralph was ingenious, genteel in his manners, and extremely eloquent; I think I never knew a prettier talker. Both of them great admirers of poetry, and began to try their hands in little pieces. Many pleasant walks we four had together on Sundays into the woods, near Schuylkill, where we read to one another, and conferr'd on what we read.