Lot Essay
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), American statesman and scientist. He was born in Boston the youngest son and fifteenth child of a family of seventeen. He was apprenticed to his brother James a printer who had started a newspaper, the New England Courant in 1709 and later ran the paper while his brother was imprisoned by the Assembly for his outspoken criticism of the Assembly. Benjamin moved to Philadelphia where he found work as a printer and travelled to London between 1724-26 where he also worked as a printer. He returned to Philadelphia and established his own successful printing company and purchased the Pennsylvania Gazette. In 1732, he began the publication of Poor Richard's Almanac which attained unprecedented publication. In 1736, Franklin was appointed clerk of the Assembly, in 1737 postmaster of Philadelphia and in 1754, deputy postmaster-general for the colonies. In 1746, he began his researches into electricity which made him a F.R.S. and he made the full distinction between positive and negative electricity and proved that lightning and electricity are identical. He also suggested that buildings should be fitted with lightning-conductors. In 1757 he was sent to England to insist upon the right of the provinces to tax the proprietors of land held under the Penn charter for the cost of defending it from the French and Indians. Franklin was sent to England again in 1764 to contest the pretensions of Parliament to tax the American colonies without representation. The differences were too wide to be reconciled by negotiation and he returned to America in 1775 and was actively involved in the deliberations which led to the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776. To secure foreign assistance in the war, Franklin was sent to Paris in 1776 and on 6 February 1778, he had signed a treaty of alliance while munitions of war and money were sent from France. On 3 September 1783 his mission was crowned with success through England's recognition of the independence of the United States. Franklin was US minister in Paris until 1785 when he returned to Philadephia and was elected president of the state of Pennsylvania, a post to which he was twice re-elected. He was also a delegate to the convention which framed the constitution of the U.S.A. He retired from public life in 1788.