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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 100
of 154
"I being thy servant, why did thee not order me to come down? But thee was
willing enough that I should stay and help to fight the ship when thee thought
there was danger."
My being many years in the Assembly, the majority of which were constantly
Quakers, gave me frequent opportunities of seeing the embarrassment given them
by their principle against war, whenever application was made to them, by order
of the crown, to grant aids for military purposes. They were unwilling to offend
government, on the one hand, by a direct refusal; and their friends, the body of
the Quakers, on the other, by a compliance contrary to their principles; hence a
variety of evasions to avoid complying, and modes of disguising the compliance
when it became unavoidable. The common mode at last was, to grant money under
the phrase of its being "for the king's use," and never to inquire how it was
applied.
But, if the demand was not directly from the crown, that phrase was found not so
proper, and some other was to be invented. As, when powder was wanting (I think
it was for the garrison at Louisburg), and the government of New England
solicited a grant of some from Pennsilvania, which was much urg'd on the House
by Governor Thomas, they could not grant money to buy powder, because that was
an ingredient of war; but they voted an aid to New England of three thousand
pounds, to he put into the hands of the governor, and appropriated it for the
purchasing of bread, flour, wheat, or other grain. Some of the council, desirous
of giving the House still further embarrassment, advis'd the governor not to
accept provision, as not being the thing he had demanded; but be reply'd, "I
shall take the money, for I understand very well their meaning; other grain is
gunpowder," which he accordingly bought, and they never objected to it.(10)
It was in allusion to this fact that, when in our fire company we feared the
success of our proposal in favour of the lottery, and I had said to my friend
Mr. Syng, one of our members, "If we fail, let us move the purchase of a
fire-engine with the money; the Quakers can have no objection to that; and then,
if you nominate me and I you as a committee for that purpose, we will buy a
great gun, which is certainly a fire-engine." "I see," says he, "you have
improv'd by being so long in the Assembly; your equivocal project would be just
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