and amusements. I purchased all Dr. Spence's apparatus, who had come from England to lecture here, and I proceeded in my electrical experiments with great alacrity.

[Up to 1745 the science of electricity had made but very slight progress, but that year a Dutch gentleman, while experimenting at Leyden, Holland, with an electrified bottle of water, received, says Parton, "An Electric Shock, the first ever given to mortal man by artificial means." This suggested the invention of the Leyden jar or "magical bottle" as it was then often called a contrivance for storing electricity which led to great advances in the science.

Franklin was never weary of experimenting with this wonderful jar, and in 1748 wrote to his friend Collinson, describing some of the things he did for the entertainment of himself and friends. He had contrived a picture of King George II. ("God preserve him!") with a little movable gilt crown. When the picture was electrified, any one attempting to remove the crown received, as Franklin said, "a terrible blow," so that "if the picture were highly charged, the consequences might perhaps be as fatal as that of high treason."

He closes the letter with an account of a proposed electrical feast, in which he says, "A turkey is to be killed for our dinner by the electrical shock, and roasted by the electrical jack [a revolving spit] before a fire kindled by the electrified bottle [Leyden jar]; when the healths of all the famous electricians of Holland, England, France, and Germany are to be drunk in electrified bumpers, under the discharge of guns from the electrical battery."

Writing at a later date, Franklin says: "I have lately made an experiment in electricity that I desire never to

... I

repeat. Two nights ago, being about to kill a turkey by the shock from two large glass jars, containing as much electrical fire as forty common phials, I inadvertently took the whole through my arms and body.... The company present . . . say that the flash was very great, and the crack as loud as a pistol; yet, my senses being instantly gone, I neither saw the one nor heard the other, nor did I feel the stroke on my hand. . . by which you may judge of the quickness of electrical fire, which by this instance seems to be greater than that of sound, light, or animal sensation.... What I can remember of the matter is, that I was about to try whether the bottle or jar were fully charged. then felt what I know not well how to describe, a universal blow throughout my whole body, from head to foot, which seemed within as well as without; after which, the first thing I took notice of was a violent quick shaking of my body, which gradually remitting, my senses as gradually returned. . . . That part of my hand and finger which held the chain [connected with the jar] was left white, as though the blood had been driven out, and remained so eight or ten minutes after, feeling like dead flesh; and I had a numbness in my arms and the back of my neck which continued till the next morning. You may communicate this to Mr. Bowdoin, as a caution to him, but do not make it more public, for I am ashamed to have been guilty of so notorious a blunder; a match for that of the Irishman . . . who, being about to steal powder, made a hole in the cask with a hot iron!" - Sparks's Edition of Franklin's Works.]

The public, now considering me a man of leisure, laid hold of me for their purposes, every part of our civil government, and almost at the same time, imposing some duty upon me.

§ 9. Franklin chosen a Member of the Legislature.

The governor put me into the commission of the peace; the corporation of the city chose me of the common council, and soon after an alderman; and the citizens at large chose me a burgess1 to represent them in Assembly. This latter station was the more agreeable to me, as I was at length tired with sitting there to hear debates, in which, as clerk, I could take no part, and which were often so unentertaining that I was induced to amuse myself with making magic squares or circles,2 or any thing to avoid weariness; and I conceived my becoming a member would enlarge my power of doing good. I would not, however, insinuate that my ambition was not flattered by all these promotions; it certainly was; for, considering my low beginning, they were great things to me; and they were still more pleasing, as being so many spontaneous testimonies of the public good opinion, and by me entirely unsolicited.

The office of justice of the peace I tried a little, by attending a few courts, and sitting on the bench to hear causes; but finding that more knowledge of the common law than I possessed was necessary to act in that station with credit, I gradually withdrew from it, excusing myself by my being obliged to attend the higher duties of a legislator in the Assembly. My election to this trust was repeated every year for ten years, without my ever asking

1 Burgess: here, a member of the legislature.

2 Magic squares or circles: a series of numbers arranged in columns in a square, and so disposed that the sums of each row taken in any direction are equal. The circles were arranged on a similar plan, but with the numbers disposed in circles one within the other.

any elector for his vote, or signifying, either directly or indirectly, any desire of being chosen. On taking my seat in the House, my son was appointed their clerk.

The year following, a treaty being to be held with the Indians at Carlisle, the governor sent a message to the House, proposing that they should nominate some of their members, to be joined with some members of council, as commissioners for that purpose. The House named the speaker (Mr. Norris) and myself; and, being commissioned, we went to Carlisle, and met the Indians accordingly.

As those people are extremely apt to get drunk, and, when so, are very quarrelsome and disorderly, we strictly forbade the selling any liquor to them; and when they complained of this restriction, we told them that if they would continue sober during the treaty, we would give them plenty of rum when business was over. They promised this, and they kept their promise, because they could get no liquor, and the treaty was conducted very orderly, and concluded to mutual satisfaction. They then claimed and received the rum; this was in the afternoon: they were near one hundred men, women, and children, and were lodged in temporary cabins, built in the form of a square, just without the town. In the evening, hearing a great noise among them, the commissioners walked out to see what was the matter. We found they had made a great bonfire in the middle of the square; they were all drunk, men and women, quarreling and fighting. Their darkcolored bodies, half-naked, seen only by the gloomy light of the bonfire, running after and beating one another with firebrands, accompanied by their horrid yellings, formed a scene the most resembling our ideas of hell that

could well be imagined; there was no appeasing the tumult, and we retired to our lodging. At midnight a number of them came thundering at our door, demanding more rum, of which we took no notice.

The next day, sensible they had misbehaved in giving us that disturbance, they sent three of their old counselors to make their apology. The orator acknowledged the fault, but laid it upon the rum; and then endeavored to excuse the rum by saying, "The Great Spirit, who made all things, made every thing for some use, and whatever use he designed any thing for, that use it should always be put

Now, when he made rum, he said, 'Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with,' and it must be so." And, indeed, if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make room for cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited the sea-coast.

In 1751, Dr. Thomas Bond, a particular friend of mine, conceived the idea of establishing a hospital in Philadelphia (a very beneficent design which has been ascribed to me, but was originally his), for the reception and cure of poor sick persons, whether inhabitants of the province or strangers. He was zealous and active in endeavoring to procure subscriptions for it, but the proposal being a novelty in America, and at first not well understood, he met with but small success.

At length he came to me with the compliment that he found there was no such thing as carrying a public-spirited project through without my being concerned in it. "For," says he, "I am often asked by those to whom I propose subscribing, Have you consulted Franklin upon