All language subtitles for Benjamin.Franklin.S01E01.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG

MAN AS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN:
Histories of Lives
are seldom entertaining,

unless they contain something
either admirable or exemplar.

Know then, That I am
an Enemy to Vice,

and a Friend to Vertue.

A mortal Enemy
to arbitrary Government

and unlimited Power.

I am naturally very jealous

for the Rights and Liberties
of my Country;

and the least appearance
of an Incroachment on those
invaluable Priviledges,

is apt to make my Blood
boil exceedingly.

[THUNDER]
Benjamin Franklin.

♪

MAN: Franklin is, by far,

the most approachable
of our Founders.

He's not somebody made of stone,

like a George Washington.

Franklin was pretty simple
in his moral code.

He was driven by a desire
to pour forth

benefits for the common good.

But there's a lot
in Benjamin Franklin

that makes you flinch,

and we see Franklin
not as a perfect person,

but somebody evolving to see

if he could become more perfect.

NARRATOR: He was
a teenage runaway

who achieved such
remarkable success

that his example would be
handed down for generations

as the embodiment
of the American dream.

He was a printer, a publisher,
and a writer,

producing everything from
essays on politics and religion

to biting satires
and words of wisdom

that would endure forever.

[THUNDER]
He was a prolific inventor

and a scientist whose
pioneering discoveries

would make him the most famous
American in the world.

He was a civic leader,

the founder of a library
and a college,

who introduced a host
of improvements

that made the lives
of everyday people better.

He embraced
the Enlightenment belief

in the perfectibility
of human beings;

but no one understood
their foibles and failings,

including his own,
better than he did.

♪

He also owned and enslaved
human beings

and benefited from
the institution of slavery.

[GUNSHOT]
He was a reluctant revolutionary

who became an indispensable
founder of a new nation;

helped craft the document

that declared his
country's independence;

and then did as much as anyone

to secure the victory
that assured it.

And he guided
the complicated compromises

that created his
nation's Constitution,

then tried to rectify
its central failing.

MAN: He constantly
remade himself

from apprentice,
to printer, to scientist,

to government official, to
revolutionary, to abolitionist.

He never was
finished with himself.

He always thought that
he was a work in progress.

NARRATOR: He could be funny
and unforgiving;

folksy and philosophical;

generous
and shrewdly calculating;

broadminded, yet
deeply prejudiced;

a family man, who spent years
away from his wife

and let political differences

destroy his relationship
with his son.

He concealed those
contradictions behind

a carefully crafted
public image.

MAN: He's a Puritan
who then becomes

the leading figure
in the Enlightenment.

So that he stands astride

so many contradictions
in his own life,

that he understands them
and they don't become

contradictions for him.

They become some
seamless web of insight.

MAN: He wrote so much.
He wrote so well.

He's somebody that
we need to know about.

He can put us in touch
with the sensibilities

of the 18th century in a way
that makes it

both accessible and, yet,
captures its remoteness.

[THUNDER]
WOMAN: Franklin is endlessly,

endlessly interesting.

He is the only
Founding Father who

evidently had a sense of humor,

who was evidently human,

who evidently had a sex life.

And there's so much
about him that makes him

seem approachable,
on the one hand,

and super-human
on the other hand.

NARRATOR: "Let all men know
thee," Benjamin Franklin said,

"but no man
know thee thoroughly."

MAN AS FRANKLIN: I never intend
to wrap my Talent in a Napkin.

To be brief; I am courteous
and affable, good humor'd

unless I am first provok'd,

and handsome,
and sometimes witty.

If you would not be forgotten,

as soon as you are
dead and rotten,

either write things
worth reading,

or do things worth the writing.
Benjamin Franklin.

♪

♪

NARRATOR: Benjamin Franklin
was born in Boston

on January 17, 1706,

the youngest son and 15th child
of Josiah Franklin,

who had come from England

to the Massachusetts Bay Colony
in 1683.

Josiah made candles and soap

and became a respected member
of South Church,

one of the town's 3
congregations of Puritans.

When his first wife
died in childbirth,

Josiah married Abiah Folger
of Nantucket,

who came from a family
of free-thinkers.

Benjamin would be
her eighth child.

He grew up in a 4-room house

where the dinner table
was always crowded,

and often included friends his
pious and serious-minded father

invited over for conversation.

From the start,
the boy was precocious.

He was reading
the Bible by age 5.

His sister Jane recalled
that he "studied incessantly"

and "was addicted to
all kinds of reading."

But he was also irreverent.

He found the long prayers
before each meal tedious

and suggested his father
simply say grace once

over the entire winter's
supply of food.

"It would be," young Benjamin
said, "a vast saving of time."

♪

NARRATOR: He and his
boyhood friends

fished and frolicked
in a nearby pond.

An avid swimmer,
he designed rudimentary fins

to propel himself faster
across the water;

other times, he floated
on his back

and let himself be
pulled along by a kite.

Josiah initially thought his son

should study for the ministry

and enrolled him at age 8
in the Boston school

that prepared students
for Harvard College.

But the academy proved
too expensive,

and eager to have
another set of hands,

his father put him to work
in the family's candle shop.

He was 10 years old;
his schooling was over.

BRANDS: I think it was crucial
to Franklin's success

that he had very little
formal education.

When people go through
formal schools,

they learn what
you're supposed to know.

They also learn what
you don't have to know.

With Franklin, he never knew
what he didn't have to know,

so, he assumed he had
to know everything.

♪

NARRATOR: In 1718, at age 12,

Franklin began the work
that would define

the rest of his life.

He signed
a 9-year apprenticeship,

legally indenturing himself
to his older brother James,

who had opened
a printing shop in Boston.

Printing was
an amazing business if you were

both clever with your hands
and good at thinking.

Printers are setting type
upside-down and backward.

And you have to be really
hyper-literate to understand

how language works that way,

and to correct things
as you go along,

and get it right.

NARRATOR: Handling the heavy
sets of lead type

strengthened and broadened
his shoulders.

Having access to books

strengthened and liberated
his mind.

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
Often I sat up in my room

reading the greatest part
of the night,

when the book was borrowed
in the evening and had to be

returned early in the morning
lest it should be missed.

And all the little money
that came into my hands

was ever laid out in books.

WOMAN: Here was a kid
who only had

two years of
formal education, ever.

So, what did he do?
He taught himself how to write.

NARRATOR: He composed poetry--
including a ballad

commemorating the recent killing
of Blackbeard the pirate.

He read articles
from "The Spectator,"

a London periodical,

and, on paper salvaged
from the print shop,

attempted to
reproduce them by memory.

He stayed up late at night
and rose early each morning

to continue his reading
before the shop opened.

"I was," Franklin said,
"extremely ambitious."

In 1721, his brother James
decided to publish

his own weekly newspaper,
"The New-England Courant."

From its inception,
the paper courted controversy.

Its first issue
attacked Cotton Mather,

Boston's pre-eminent preacher
and the colony's

strict and severe
moral authority.

Mather called
the newspaper wicked,

filled with immorality,
and lies.

What James Franklin does
is he creates

the first real independent
newspaper in America.

His paper, in Boston, is, quote,

"Not published by Authority."

All the others, you were
given a stamp of authority.

NARRATOR: On April 2, 1722,
an essay appeared

over the name of Silence Dogood,

who claimed to be a widowed
woman from the countryside,

and who had lots of
homespun wisdom

and sharp social critiques
to share.

It was an immediate hit.

No one, including
James Franklin, had any idea

that the real author
was a teenage boy,

James's 16-year-old
brother Benjamin,

who had secretly slipped
the essay under the door.

More of Silence Dogood's
articles began to appear.

She offered irreverent
advice on funeral eulogies,

advocated fiercely
for women's education,

and in one dispatch
poked fun at Harvard

and the wealthy parents
who dreamed of

sending their children
to the elite institution.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: Most of them
consulted their own Purses

instead of their
Childrens Capacities.

At Harvard They learn
little more than

how to
carry themselves handsomely,

and enter a Room genteely...

and from whence they return,

after Abundance of
Trouble and Charge,

as great Blockheads as ever,

only more proud
and self-conceited.

[HORSE WHINNIES]
[DOOR CLOSES]

NARRATOR: In the summer of 1722,

James was jailed for 3 weeks
without trial

for questioning the competence
of Cotton Mather

and the colony's other leaders.

Quoting from an article he had
read in a London newspaper,

Benjamin, as Silence Dogood,
came to his brother's defense.

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
Without Freedom of Thought,

there can be no such
Thing as Wisdom;

and no such Thing
as publick Liberty,

without Freedom of Speech.

Whoever would overthrow
the Liberty of a Nation,

must begin by subduing
the Freeness of Speech.

NARRATOR: When James
was released from jail

and resumed putting out
his newspaper,

Benjamin confessed publicly
that he, in fact,

was writing
Silence Dogood's essays.

Many cheered him
for his artfulness,

but James was jealous.

They would argue--and it
sometimes came to blows.
[SLAP, SHOUTING]

MAN AS FRANKLIN: I fancy
his harsh and tyrannical

Treatment of me,
might be a means of

impressing me with that
Aversion to arbitrary Power

that has stuck to me
thro' my whole Life.

NARRATOR: Franklin decided
to run away,

even if it meant breaking his
legal obligation to his brother.

After selling some of his books
to pay for his passage,

he slipped out of town
on a ship heading south,

convincing the captain to keep
quiet under the false pretense

that he had gotten a girl
pregnant and needed to leave.

He was 17 years old.

♪

11 days later,
on October 6, 1723,

Franklin arrived at
the Market Street wharf

on the Delaware River
in Philadelphia,

the City of Brotherly Love
founded by William Penn,

a Quaker for whom the colony of
Pennsylvania was named.

With 6,000 residents,
Philadelphia was now

America's third-largest city
after Boston and New York.

It was a thriving outpost
of the British Empire--

its streets filled with both
newcomers and Native peoples,

including the Lenape, on whose
land the city now stood.

ISAACSON: People are coming
from all sorts of backgrounds.

There's Anglicans, there's Jews,

there's slaves, freed slaves.

There's the Germans coming in
and the Presbyterians

and the Native Americans
who were there.

And, unlike Puritan Boston,
where you have to follow

the theocratic maxims
of the Mather family,

people in Philadelphia
have a certain tolerance.

WOMAN: Colonial Philadelphia
had a different vibe,

a different flavor.

Growing commerce,
saloons and taverns,

a sort of hospitable place,
but also a place in which

people could find themselves
and create themselves.

Franklin landing in
Philadelphia at this moment

was perfect for him,
in terms of timing.

He didn't have to be someone
who came from great wealth

in order to find opportunity.

MAN: He's just a kid.

He's run away from
his apprenticeship,

so, he's scared, probably,
that they're going to

track him down.

He's not sure what comes next.

NARRATOR: "I was dirty from
my journey," Franklin wrote,

"and I knew no soul
nor where to look for lodging.

I was fatigued and very hungry."

It was a Sunday, and he saw
a crowd of well-dressed people

heading into a church.

They were Quakers about to
attend their weekly service,

marked by sitting
in silence together.

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
I sat down among them,

and after looking round awhile

and hearing nothing said,

I fell fast asleep,
and continued so

till the meeting broke up, when
one was kind enough to rouse me.

[DOG BARKING]

NARRATOR: Walking up
Market Street, he passed a house

and exchanged glances
with a 15-year-old girl

standing in the doorway,
who, he was sure,

"thought I made,
as I certainly did,

a most awkward,
ridiculous appearance."

He went to work at one of
the city's print shops

and eventually began
renting a room at the house

he had passed
that first morning.

The girl he had seen was
his landlord's daughter--

Deborah Read.

They struck up a romance,

and by the fall of 1724
were talking of marriage.

Meanwhile, patrons of
the print shop had noticed

Franklin's skill and diligence.

One of them, Pennsylvania's
governor William Keith,

offered what seemed to be
the opportunity of a lifetime.

He would send Franklin to London

with letters of introduction
and credit

to purchase the equipment needed

to start his own
print shop in Philadelphia.

Marriage to Deborah
would have to wait.

Benjamin was bound for England.

♪

MAN AS DANIEL DEFOE:
The great center of England

is the city of London
and parts adjacent.

All that vast mass of buildings,

and how much farther
it may spread, who knows?

New squares and new streets
rising up every day

to such a prodigy of buildings
that nothing in the world

does, or ever did, equal it,
except old Rome.

Daniel Defoe.

NARRATOR: With more than
600,000 residents,

100 times the size
of Philadelphia,

London was the teeming hub
of an empire

that considered its far-flung
colonists with mild disdain.

They viewed Americans
as backwards suppliers
of raw materials

and as purchasers
of manufactured goods

only England could provide.

MAN: Coming out of
the Provinces,

he found a greater world.

In England, he was
young and impressionable

and able to make his way into
that huge metropolis of London

from nothing but his ability.

NARRATOR: Upon his arrival,
Franklin learned too late that

Governor Keith had
a reputation for unreliability.

There were no letters of credit
or introduction.

Once more, he would have
to fend for himself.

For a year and a half,
he made the most of it.

London had more print shops
than all of

the American colonies combined,

and he quickly found work,

impressing his employers with
his strength and his sobriety.

Unlike all the other workers,
he did not drink

a pint of beer 6 different times
during the workday.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: I drank
only Water; the other Workmen

wonder'd to see from this

that the Water-American,
as they call'd me,

was stronger than themselves.

NARRATOR: He spent his
free time poring through books,

especially Enlightenment
treatises by Isaac Newton,

René Descartes, John Locke,
and other philosophers

who argued that truths
were to be found

through the study of how things
work in the natural world.

♪

JENKINSON: The Enlightenment.

It's a commitment
to reason and science.

It's a belief that
every problem can be solved

and that every institution
can be reformed,

that life on Earth
is perfectible,

at least up to a point,

and maybe altogether.

NARRATOR: In London,
Franklin also seemed

to have forgotten Deborah

and indulged in what he called

"foolish intrigues
with low women."

He wrote her only one letter.

In his absence,
Deborah married someone else.

[DOG BARKING]
But when a Quaker merchant

offered Franklin a job
as a clerk

selling merchandise
in a general store

back in Philadelphia

and then dangled
a potential partnership,

he headed home.

During the 12-week voyage,
Franklin wrote out a plan

for future conduct,
with 4 basic rules:

be "extremely frugal,"

"endeavor to speak the truth
in every instance,"

"apply myself industriously
to whatever business I take,"

and "speak ill of
no man whatever."

In Philadelphia, he threw
himself into his new job,

becoming, he said,
an "expert at selling."

But that winter, his employer
took ill and died.

Franklin decided to return
to his old trade as a printer.

[BELL RINGS]
In 1728, he opened

his own shop on Market Street

with a partner
whose father underwrote

the initial expenses.

He had devised a foundry
for casting type,

saving the cost of sending to
England for replacements,

and won a contract to print

the authorized history
of the Quakers.

When his new partner
took to drinking,

Franklin found other backers
to buy him out

and continued as
sole proprietor.

In his drive to succeed,
he often worked

until 11 at night

and was back at his shop
before dawn.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: I took care
not only to be in Reality

Industrious and frugal,
but to avoid

all Appearances of the Contrary.

NARRATOR: He made sure
people noticed,

and his business increased.

CHAPLIN: He was a writer.
You know, writers invent.

He might be
his own best invention.

Franklin is so relentless
in learning how to do things,

learning how to do things
correctly in a certain way,

how to write, how to dress,
how to

speak to different kinds
of people.

It's sort of impossible
to know what was there

before he did all that
and invented himself.

NARRATOR: With 11 other
up-and-coming tradesmen,

Franklin formed a club
that met each Friday evening

to socialize and forge
business connections.

But they also discussed
current events

and politely debated
a variety of topics--

What is wisdom?
What defines good writing?

Did importing indentured
and enslaved servants

help or hurt
the colonial economy?

The official name of the group
was the Leather Apron Club.

Informally, they
called themselves the Junto,

from the Latin for
"joined together."

At 21, Franklin was
its youngest member,

but unquestionably
its driving force.

ISAACSON: Franklin believed
that the virtues and values

of a working middle class

were going to be the backbone
of American society.

The artisans, the shopkeepers,

the people who put on leather
aprons early in the morning

to help serve the public.

NARRATOR: The Junto
moved its meeting place

from a local tavern
to a rented house,

and at Franklin's suggestion,

each member brought some books

that the other members
could read.

Eventually, they broadened
the idea

into the Library Company
of Philadelphia,

America's first
subscription library

open to the public,

who paid small dues
for the chance to borrow

books imported from Europe.

DUNBAR: And, every year,
more and more books would be

collected and extend knowledge.

What was so important
about the Library Company

was that it wasn't
just for wealthy, elite men.

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
This Library afforded me

the Means of Improvement
by constant Study,

for which I set apart
an Hour or two each Day;

and thus repair'd in some Degree

the Loss of
the Learned Education

my Father once intended for me.

JENKINSON: He always looked
around wherever he was

and said,
"What needs to be done?

"What's missing?
What are the things

that a community ought to have?"

He had read enough to know
that there was more elsewhere

and he wanted to make
those good things happen

to the community
of Philadelphia.

ISAACSON: Self-reliance,
which Franklin loved,

and community engagement
may seem like

they oppose each other.

But as Franklin repeatedly said,

the good that we can do together

surpasses the good
we can do alone.

NARRATOR: Over the coming years,
Franklin and his Junto

would turn to other
civic projects

to improve life in Philadelphia.

Under their guidance,
the city formed

volunteer fire companies.

They advocated
for a police force

paid by a property tax.

And at one Junto meeting,

Franklin raised the idea
of starting a college.

When the Public Academy
of Philadelphia

finally opened in 1751,

Franklin would be elected
president of the board.

It was the first non-sectarian
college in America

and would later become
the University of Pennsylvania.

Expanding on the Junto model,

he proposed and organized

the American
Philosophical Society,

whose members would be
scientists and intellectuals

from throughout the colonies,

who could share ideas
and scholarly papers by mail

if they could not
come to meetings in person.

It would become the colonies'
first learned society.

And to build a new hospital,
he devised a plan

that matched private donations
with public funds,

giving people, he said,
"an additional motive to give,

since every man's donation
would be doubled."

He always believed
that if you just get a few

good and interested men,
always men,

on any civic problem,
you can solve it.

DUNBAR: Ben Franklin is,
I think, emblematic of what

America wanted to be,
should be, could be.

The things that he spoke of,
the things that he wrote about,

often missing are other people.

Women, people of color,
in particular,

enslaved men and women,
never had

the opportunities that
a Ben Franklin had.

♪

♪

NARRATOR: Franklin's
print shop was thriving.

Pennsylvania's colonial
legislature awarded him

the contract to print
its paper currency.

When he learned that
South Carolina

was looking for a printer,

he dispatched
one of his employees

to open a shop in Charleston.

And on October 2, 1729,
he began publishing

his own newspaper,
"The Pennsylvania Gazette."

He filled its pages with
reports from other newspapers

in America and England,

along with crime stories,

notices of fires and deaths,

a moral advice column,

funny tales he concocted that
flirted with sexual innuendo,

and letters from readers,
including some he wrote himself,

under tongue-in-cheek
pseudonyms like

Anthony Afterwit
and Alice Addertongue.

"If you would make your
paper a vehicle of scandal,"

Addertongue advised
in one letter,

"you would double the number
of your subscribers."

The "Gazette" caught on.

DUNBAR: Ben Franklin
understood the power

of the printing press.

He understood that
those who controlled words,

those who are able to
disseminate information, um,

had a certain amount of power.

He could be the arbiter of
what was seen as important.

BRANDS: The idea, first,
was to engage people,

to entertain people.

Franklin understood that
if you could get people

to laugh with you,
you're halfway to

getting them to agree with you.

NARRATOR: He also
welcomed essays

espousing opinions of all kinds.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: If all
printers were determined

not to print anything
till they were

sure it would offend nobody,

there would be
very little printed.

ISAACSON: He said
in the end you have to bear

some responsibility for the type
of ideas that you put forward.

And if they're really odious,
if they're really harmful,

you have to curate them out.

WOMAN: If you made
a mistake, you could,

as they always did in those
days, add an errata page.

And you could fix anything
with that errata page.

NARRATOR: Local merchants
advertised their goods

in the "Gazette;"

tradesmen advertised
their services.

Franklin also published
notices offering rewards

for runaway indentured servants,

like he had once been,

and slaves for sale.

MAN: To be sold
in Lots or singly,

a choice parcel of Negroes
lately Imported,

consisting chiefly of
young Men and Girls,

bred to Plantation Business;

also Jamaica Rum,
Sugar of sundry Sorts,

Molasses, Cotton, and Pimento.

Run away from the subscriber,
a Negroe lad called Ned,

about 18 years of age,
5 feet 7 inches high,

speaks pretty good English,
but thick,

has very thick lips, and is much
pitted with the small-pox;

TO BE SOLD, A LIKELY young
breeding Negroe Woman,

speaks good English,
understands her Needle

and any sort of Household Work,

and has had the Small-Pox.

Enquire of the Printer.

♪

NARRATOR: When Benjamin Franklin

had returned from England,

he had fallen back into
some of the habits

he had acquired in London.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: That hard-to-
be-govern'd Passion of Youth

hurried me frequently into
Intrigues with low Women

that fell in my Way,

which were attended
with some Expence.

Besides a continual Risque
to my Health by a Distemper

which of all Things I dreaded,

tho' by great good Luck
I escaped it.

NARRATOR: Now, as he became
a successful businessman,

he decided he needed to
settle down and get married.

Meanwhile, his former fiancée
Deborah Read

had seen her marriage
fall apart.

Her husband had abandoned her
and fled to the West Indies.

Reports came back that he
had died there in a brawl,

but they were unconfirmed.

In Quaker Pennsylvania,
Deborah was in a legal limbo.

If she remarried and it
turned out he wasn't dead,

she would be guilty of bigamy,
punishable at the time

by 39 lashes
and life imprisonment.

She now lived with
her widowed mother,

who sold homemade remedies
to support them both

in their house on Market Street.

Franklin felt
some responsibility

for Deborah's unhappiness,
and he said,

"our mutual affection
was revived."

On September 1, 1730,
forgoing a legal wedding,

they simply moved in together

and entered into
a common-law marriage,

a practice not
all that uncommon.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: She prov'd
a good and faithful Helpmate.

Assisted me much
by attending the Shop.

We throve together, and have
ever mutually endeavour'd

to make each other happy.

COHN: I think he loved her.

I think they rubbed on
together beautifully,

as he would have said.

I think during the time
that Franklin was

an up-and-coming tradesman,

it was a perfect union.

SKEMP: She was an excellent
choice for a wife.

She was well connected;
she belonged to Christ Church,

which was the church in town.

It was less of a romantic
relationship than it was

a good, strong,
business-like partnership.

NARRATOR: But there was
a complication.

Franklin had recently fathered
a son with another woman.

He never revealed
the mother's identity,

but Franklin wanted to take
custody of the child.

Deborah agreed the boy
could live with them.

He was named William.

She takes in his son,
who is not her son,

and raises him,
not always happily.

[DOOR OPENS]
[BELL RINGS]

NARRATOR: Benjamin and Deborah

expanded the print shop
to include

sales of her mother's ointments,

fine soap from Franklin's family
back in Boston,

coffee, tea, chocolate,
and other items.

Deborah purchased rags,
which mills throughout

the colonies turned into paper,

creating another profit center.

She also managed the household,

and at night bound books
by candlelight.

NARRATOR: Two years into
their union, in 1732,

they had a child
of their own, Francis.

His proud and doting
father called him Franky.

But just after
his fourth birthday,

Franky came down with smallpox
and died.

The huge tragedy of their lives

was the death of Franky.

Franklin was one of the few
people in the Colonies

who was 100% behind inoculation.

But it was thought
that because Franky

had a very bad cold at the time,

they should hold off
until he recovered enough

to be able to withstand
the assault on his system

that inoculation would provide.

He never was inoculated.

Franklin never forgave himself.

♪

NARRATOR: Franklin's exposure
to the writings of

Europe's Enlightenment thinkers

had led him to reject most of
the Puritan teachings

of his family's church
in Boston.

He no longer worshipped
a God intimately connected

with a person's daily life

who answered private prayers
or sent down punishments.

But he still believed in
a Supreme Being

who had created the world.

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
I believe He is pleased

and delights in the happiness

of those He has created;

and since without virtue man can
have no happiness in this world,

I firmly believe He
delights to see me virtuous.

Avirtuous heretick
shall be saved

before a wicked Christian.

NARRATOR: No one feared
for Benjamin's soul

more than his pious parents
back in Boston,

whose Calvinist Puritanism
espoused that salvation

came solely through God's grace

rather than good works

and anyone who strayed
from that doctrine

would be eternally damned.

Benjamin, for whom tolerance
was becoming

central to his evolving beliefs,

tried to explain himself.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: Honored
Father and Mother, I imagine

a Man must have a good deal
of Vanity who believes

that all the Doctrines
he holds, are true;

and all he rejects, are false.

I think vital Religion
has always suffer'd,

when Orthodoxy is more
regarded than Virtue.

And the Scripture assures me,
that at the last Day,

we shall not be examin'd
by what we thought,

but what we did.

SCHIFF: He's a man of
omnivorous curiosity, um,

of endless invention,
of endless self-invention.

He's so bent on
self-improvement,

on teaching himself
how to write properly,

or cleansing himself
of his moral sins.

He gives us this idea
that human nature

may be flawed in some ways,

but anything can be improved.

NARRATOR: In his constant
effort for self-improvement,

Franklin made a list
of 12 virtues

that could lead him to what
he called "moral perfection":

temperance, silence, order,

resolution, frugality, industry,

sincerity, justice,
moderation, cleanliness,

tranquility, and chastity.

Then he made a chart
with 7 columns

for each day of the week

and rows labeled
with each virtue

and went to work
on his progress,

marking any infraction
with a black spot.

"I was surprised," he said,
"to find myself much fuller

of faults than I had imagined."

ISAACSON: Every week, Franklin
would make a chart and check,

did he master the virtue?

At one point, he said,
"I've mastered all the 12

"virtues I had.

"And I showed it around
with great pride.

"And one of my friends said,
'Franklin, you're missing

a virtue you might want
to try.'"

And Franklin says,
"What's that?"

And the friend says, "Humility.

You might want to add
that one to your list."

MAN AS FRANKLIN: In reality,
there is perhaps no one of our

natural Passions so hard
to subdue as Pride.

Disguise it, struggle with it,
beat it down, stifle it,

mortify it as much as one
pleases, it is still alive,

and will every now and then
peep out and show itself.

Even if I could conceive that
I had completely overcome it,

I should probably be
proud of my Humility.

[BABY CRYING]

NARRATOR: 7 years after the
death of their son Franky,

Deborah gave birth to another
child, a daughter named Sarah.

They called her Sally.

Franklin's son William
was now a teenager,

as restless as his father
had been at that age.

Deborah treated him
with occasional coldness,

but Franklin was indulgent
as a father,

making sure the boy
got the formal education

Franklin himself
had been denied.

At age 16, William enlisted
to fight against

the French and their
Indian allies

in what was called
King George's War,

and quickly rose
to the rank of captain,

tracking down deserters
in Pennsylvania.

[GUNSHOT]
When he returned
to Philadelphia,

his father began
to envision William

rising in the ranks
of the British Empire

and made plans for him
to study the law in England.

DUNBAR: Franklin had started
to acquire some wealth.

Like many other
Colonial Pennsylvanians,

he held a number
of enslaved people,

up to 5 or 6, in his home,

including a married couple,
Peter and Jemima.

He was committed to slave labor.

He used it alongside of
his business ventures

in order to gain more wealth.

[HORSE NICKERS]
NARRATOR: At the time,

nearly a tenth of
Philadelphia's residents

were enslaved,

toiling in homes and businesses.

BROWN: We tend to associate
slavery with

plantation labor in the South.

But there were slaves all up
and down the Eastern Seaboard,

every one of the 13 Colonies.

And they did everything.
They served as
domestic servants;

they served as cooks;
um, they served as nursemaids;

they served as dock workers;
they served as hired hands.

The advantage was that
Africans couldn't leave.

Indentured servants
filled out their time.

Africans, you had for life.

NARRATOR: Many of Franklin's
Quaker friends

considered slavery a sin
that threatened to corrode

the moral fiber of
the community at large.

Franklin published some of
their anti-slavery tracts--

though he intentionally
kept his own name as printer

off the title page.

DUNBAR: Franklin lived in
a moment in which slavery was

being challenged, pretty
constantly, in Philadelphia.

He was very aware that this
was happening, yet he still

made the decision to
hold onto his men and woman

who were enslaved.

He made a choice.

NARRATOR: Franklin's
publishing empire was

expanding and making
more money.

He was named
clerk of Pennsylvania's

colonial assembly,
which didn't pay well,

but had won the contract
to print their proceedings,

which did.

He made even more profits
printing the paper currency

for Pennsylvania, Delaware,
and New Jersey.

With former employees,
he would establish

printing partnerships in
Newport, Rhode Island;

New York City; and Antigua
in the West Indies;

as well as the one in
Charleston, South Carolina.

He published Bibles,
and Samuel Richardson's

"Pamela," the first novel
printed in America,

along with treaties with
Native peoples that were used

to systematically dispossess
them of their lands.

In 1737, he was appointed
Philadelphia's postmaster,

giving him access to news
from Europe

and the rest of the Colonies
before his competitors.

One of the advantages
of being a printer is that

he is totally tuned
into the news.

He's totally tuned into
everything that's

going on in North America.

His vision is broader than
most of his neighbors.

He had a kind of public opinion
embedded in his brain.

And he knew that opinion
in the end was what would

decide where power resided.

♪

MAN AS FRANKLIN: Early to Bed,
and early to rise,

makes a Man healthy,
wealthy and wise.

NARRATOR: By now,
thousands of readers

from South Carolina to New York

were buying Franklin's
"Poor Richard's Almanack,"

which he had launched in 1733.

Many printers
published almanacs.

They outsold everything
in the colonies except Bibles

and had the advantage
of requiring people

to buy a new one each year.

But Franklin's stood out.

In addition to
weather predictions,

astronomical, astrological,
and other observations,

he included aphorisms that
combined wisdom with humor,

philosophy with word play.

All of it was ostensibly written

by the hapless Richard Saunders,

who claimed he was
writing his almanac

simply because his wife
threatened to burn his books

if he didn't earn something
from them.

JENKINSON: Franklin got
this from his reading

of Jonathan Swift.

Swift had produced
the "Bickerstaff Papers,"

which was a parody
of the almanac.

And Franklin decides
to incorporate this style

into Richard Saunders.

And it was genius.

People go to almanacs for
all sorts of important things--

when to plant potatoes or peas;

when...what's the best time
to harvest--

but they stayed
because these fillers were

funny, witty, and useful.

NARRATOR: "Fish and visitors,"
Poor Richard wrote,

"stink in 3 days."

"He that lies down with dogs,
shall rise up with fleas."

"God helps them
that help themselves."

"Haste," he said, "makes waste."

And "lost time is
never found again."

MAN AS FRANKLIN: God heals,
and the doctor takes the fees.

A countryman between two lawyers

is like a fish between two cats.

The greatest monarch
on the proudest throne,

is obliged to sit upon
his own arse.

SCHIFF: Franklin
is endlessly quotable.

You could live your life,
I think, in Franklin aphorisms,

most of which, we should say,
are stolen from other people

but slightly reworked,
so in Franklin's version,

they're in a better form.

"Three can keep a secret,
if two of them are dead."

ISAACSON: I think one of
Franklin's great inventions is

that American style of
homespun humor,

somebody who's pricking at
the pretensions of the elite,

somebody who has sort of a
cracker barrel sensibility.

This new style of humor
where people are poking fun

at themselves indirectly.

You see it in Mark Twain
and Will Rogers and others.

I think it started
with Franklin.

♪

NARRATOR: The man who had
arrived in Philadelphia

virtually penniless at age 17

was now the city's
largest bookseller,

its most successful
printer and publisher,

and the biggest paper merchant
in all the colonies.

He considered himself
prosperous enough to retire

from the day-to-day running
of his businesses in 1748,

at age 42.

"I would rather have it said,
'He lived usefully,'"

Franklin wrote his mother,
"than 'He died rich.'"

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
I am in a fair Way of having

no other Tasks than such as I
shall like to give my Self,

and of enjoying what I look upon
as a great Happiness,

Leisure to read,
make Experiments,

and converse at large with such
ingenious and worthy Men

as are pleas'd to honor me

with their friendship
and Acquaintance,

on such points as may produce

something for
the common benefit of mankind,

uninterrupted by the
little cares and fatigues

of business.

BRANDS: There was something
in Franklin that always

wanted a little bit more.

He wanted to learn more.
He wanted to go

to more interesting places.

He wanted to have
a broader influence.

NARRATOR: Despite his lack of
a formal education,

Franklin had turned himself

into an influential
writer and thinker.

Now, with more time to pursue

whatever intrigued his
restless imagination,

he would become better known
as a scientist and inventor.

He studied the earth's rotation;

conducted experiments
showing that dark cloths

absorb more heat
than bright fabrics;

and became fascinated
by the human body's

circulatory system.

ISAACSON: He loved anatomy,
he loved botany,

he loved the way
leaves had veins.

He was most curious to know
everything you can know about

everything that was
possibly knowable.

Wanting to know everything
is a key to his creativity.

NARRATOR: He observed
weather patterns

and correctly deduced
that the coastal storms

now called Nor'easters

actually moved in
from the south.

For an ailing brother,
he fashioned

a more comfortable catheter.

And he designed a metal stove
to fit into a hearth,

improving on the ones many
German immigrants were using.

Franklin's radiated more heat
out into the room

and had an opening for those
who still wished

to bask in the fire's glow.

An ironworker who was
a fellow Junto member

began manufacturing them,
and they sold for 5 pounds each

throughout the northeast.

When Franklin was urged
to take out

a potentially lucrative patent
on his invention, he declined.

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
As we enjoy great advantages

from the invention of others,

we should be glad of
an opportunity to serve others

by an invention of ours,

and this we should do
freely and generously.

NARRATOR: But nothing he did
as a scientist

would do more
to serve others,

and bring him more fame,

than his work in the fledgling
field of electricity.

"I never was before engaged
in any study," Franklin wrote,

"that so totally engrossed
my attention and my time."

JENKINSON: Franklin had become
interested in electricity,

which, at the time,
was certainly not understood,

but it was also
sort of a parlor trick.

People would come in
with a--with a glass rod

and some silk and shock
each other and lift

pieces of paper.

NARRATOR: He and his
Junto friends

staged electricity parties

in which they used a charge
to ring bells

and make a toy he called an
electrical spider jump around.

Men and women exchanged
electrical kisses.

Franklin also electrified

a gilt-edged portrait of
King George II that created

what he called
a high-treason shock

if someone touched his crown.
[ZAP]

He used a more powerful shock
to kill a turkey and reported

that it seemed
uncommonly tender

compared to one slaughtered
the conventional way.

ISAACSON: He kept saying,
"We have to find useful things

to do with this electricity."

He said one of the only useful
things in his first year

of experiments was that
he would get shocked

and knock him down; and he said,
"Electricity was useful

for making
a vain person humble."

NARRATOR: As his studies
turned more serious,

and he began documenting
his observations,
[ZAP]

he came up with new terms
to describe

electricity's mysterious
properties.

[ZAP]

It had two charges, he wrote,

positive and negative,

and it could travel by what
he called a conductor.

He grouped a collection of
glass containers together,

each possessing
an electrical charge,

and named it a battery,
using the military term

for an array of cannons.

ISAACSON: Benjamin Franklin
comes up with the most

important theory of the era,
which is

the Single Fluid Theory
of Electricity,

which is that it's not
some substance,

but it's a positive
and a negative.

And it flows from
positive to negative.

NARRATOR: But pure science
had less appeal to Franklin

than putting it
to practical use.

[THUNDER]

MAN: Lightning was seen as being
Divine Retribution.

Of course, the irony was that
most of the buildings

that were destroyed by lightning
were churches

'cause in a lot of communities
in the 18th century,

they were the highest structure.

[THUNDER]

ISAACSON: Franklin is
convinced that lightning

bears a similarity
to an electrical spark.

He's looking at electric sparks,

he's looking at lightning,
and he puts in his notebook

all the similarities
and at the end of the page,

he says, "Let the experiment
be made."

[THUNDER]

NARRATOR: Franklin detailed
his theory

that lightning was electricity

and that metal objects
could draw off a charge.

He proposed an experiment
that involved placing a person

in what he called a sentry box

on a high tower or hilltop

and raising a sharply pointed
iron rod

when storm clouds approached.

He shared his observations
with a London scientist,

Peter Collinson, who had
supplied him with equipment

for his electrical studies.

Franklin was planning
to conduct the experiment

on the new steeple of
Christ Church off Market Street

as soon as its
construction was completed.

But the work went slowly
and Franklin grew impatient.

He then came up with
an alternative way

to test his theory.

He was less confident
in this method

and decided to do it in secret,

trusting only his son William
to take part.

In June of 1752,
with storm clouds threatening,

he and William went to a field
with a silk kite,

to which Franklin had attached
a sharp-pointed wire.

Dangling at the end of
the kite's long twine string

was a metal key.

They got the kite aloft
and Franklin maneuvered it

toward the approaching clouds.

DRAY: What he was showing
was that the atmosphere

became electrified,
[THUNDER]

not that the kite had to be
struck by a lightning bolt,

which is often the way it's
depicted in illustrations.

NARRATOR:
Franklin suddenly noticed

the individual strands of hemp

along the kite's string

stiffening and standing on end.

He moved his free hand
toward the key

and felt a mild shock
on his knuckle.

When the rain began, and water

started streaming
down the twine,

sparks flew off the key.
[ZAPPING]

Franklin was exultant.

"Thereby," he wrote
of his experiment,

"the sameness of electrical
matter with that of lightning

has been
completely demonstrated."

[THUNDER]
Meanwhile, the theories

he had shared with Collinson

had been published,

and unbeknownst to him,
other scientists

were already
testing and verifying them.

Experiments using his original
sentry box proposal

had been taking place
all over England and Europe.

"Monsieur Franklin's idea,"
a French physicist wrote,

"has ceased to be a conjecture;

here it has become a reality."

DRAY: The kite experiment,
that really was

the symbol of his breakthrough.

[THUNDER]
It showed that the atmosphere
was electrified,

that thus thunder and lightning
were electrical forces.

And it overthrew
centuries of superstition

and scientific confusion about
what this might be.

MAN: He made a really
fundamental contribution

to basic science.

And the fact that
he did it as an American,

coming out of the wilds
of, uh, of America,

in the European eyes, made him,
uh, instantly world famous.

CHAPLIN: There's
a hilarious little piece

in the "Gentleman's Magazine"
in London

where this commentator
says that "Now we know

"that Mr. Franklin's
theories about

"emptying the clouds of
electricity are actually true;

"whereas, once upon a time,
we didn't even think there was

such a person as Mr. Franklin."

'Cause it does seem
incredibly improbable

that the reigning expert on

an enormous attribute of Nature

would come from Philadelphia,
wherever the hell that was.

NARRATOR: Benjamin Franklin
had unlocked

the mystery of electricity,

but he still wanted
to put his discovery to work.

In Germany during
the mid-century,

386 churches had been
struck by lightning

and more than 100
bell ringers killed.
[THUNDER]

In Italy, hundreds more
people perished

when a bolt hit a building that
had gunpowder stored in it.

[THUNDER]
Franklin concluded
that lightning

seeks the path
of least resistance

to connect with the ground.

Providing a better conductor

might safely divert the charge.

He then arranged for
what he called lightning rods

to be placed atop
Pennsylvania's State House

and his college building--

the first such devices
ever erected in the world.

[THUNDER]
ISAACSON: Lightning bolts
aren't there

sent by an angry god.

It's not something you can just

try to pray and it goes away.

You have to find practical,
scientific solutions

that help us understand
our cosmos.

[THUNDER]
JENKINSON: The lightning rod
changes the world.

It's one of the most
important inventions

of the Enlightenment
and, of course,

he won't patent it.

He believes a good idea

belongs to humankind.

NARRATOR: Some religious
leaders objected

that Franklin was
attempting to interfere

with one of God's most effective
methods of punishing sinners.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: Surely the
Thunder of Heaven is no more

supernatural than the Rain,
Hail or Sunshine of Heaven,

against the Inconvenience
of which we guard

by Roofs & Shades
without Scruple.

[THUNDER]

NARRATOR: Scientists
in America and Europe

were hailing him for his
achievements in electricity.

Harvard, Yale, and the College
of William and Mary in Virginia

gave him honorary degrees.

London's Royal Society
made him the first person

living outside of Britain
to receive

its prestigious Copley Medal.

And one English scientist
called his work

"the greatest discovery
that has been made

since the time
of Sir Isaac Newton."

In Germany, the Enlightenment
philosopher Immanuel Kant said

Franklin had stolen the fire
of heaven and called him

the "modern Prometheus."

[THUNDER]

♪

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
By the collision
of different sentiments,

sparks of truth are struck,

and political light is obtained.

BRANDS: He had a kind of
social intelligence

that matched his
book learning intelligence.

He really was an American
genius, but part of his genius

lay in his ability
to get people to work with him

and to move things
in a direction

he wanted them to go.

NARRATOR: Franklin's
involvement in civic affairs

took a new political turn
when he was elected to

Pennsylvania's colonial
Assembly in 1751.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: 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.

NARRATOR: He worked on
everything from regulations

on the size of bread loaves

to a tax on dogs;

pushed through a plan
to pave Market Street

and keep it swept of dust;

then gained approval
to install newly designed

street lamps in the city

with 4 replaceable glass panes

that made them easier to repair.

In 1752, the British
government appointed

the 46-year-old Franklin

to the top postal job
in America,

sharing the title
of deputy postmaster

with a man from the South.

Franklin immediately started
making the colonies'

mail service more efficient.

He established the first
home-delivery system

and cut the time it took
for a letter to get from

Philadelphia to New York City
to one day.

On an inspection tour
that took him through

Delaware, Maryland,
and Virginia,

he learned more about the
colonies south of Pennsylvania.

ISAACSON: The American
identity begins to form

when Franklin creates a Postal
System that allows people

to communicate
up and down the coast.

Most of the Colonies
thought of themselves

closer to London.

Even letters would go,
from Charleston,

if it had to go to Boston,
it would go to London,

and then back to Boston.

So, by doing a Postal Road
up and down the coast,

he helps knit the American
Colonies together.

NARRATOR: The future
prosperity of
the British Empire,

Franklin wrote in one essay,

lay in the American colonies.

Because of the abundance
of land,

he predicted the white
population would double

every 20 years,
and within a century

would even surpass England's.

All of this disregarded the
sovereignty of Native peoples,

whose land it had been
for millennia.

In the same essay, he argued,

strictly on economic grounds,

that the importation of black
slaves diminished a nation

because "The Whites
who have Slaves"

are "enfeebled" by
not working themselves.

BROWN: He is combining racism

and opposition to the
slave trade, simultaneously.

Some of the initial efforts

to stop the slave trade
to North America

originated in concern
that there were

too many black people there.

It was an immigration problem,
rather than a moral problem.

NARRATOR: He also worried
about the influx of immigrants

he described as having
"a swarthy complexion,"

including Spaniards, Italians,

French, Russians, and Swedes--

even the Germans,
who now represented

a third of his own colony.

"Why," he wrote,
"should Pennsylvania,

"founded by the English,
become a Colony of Aliens,

"who will shortly be so numerous
as to Germanize us

instead of our Anglifying them."

[DOG BARKING]

MAN AS FRANKLIN: We have
so fair an Opportunity,

by excluding all Blacks
and Tawneys,

of increasing the lovely
White and Red.

But perhaps I am partial to
the Complexion of my Country,

for such Kind of Partiality
is natural to Mankind.

BROWN: In the middle decades
of the 18th century,

notions of racial inferiority
were so deeply embedded

that the unusual fact
of this document, actually,

is how he says, at the end,
"Or maybe I'm just biased

in favor of people like myself."

Franklin doesn't deserve
particular praise for that.

But it is unusual
in the sense of

he's being self-reflective
about his own prejudices.

It's the self-reflective part
which is slightly unusual.

The prejudices are not.

[BIRDS SINGING]

NARRATOR: In 1754,
increased white settlement

in the Ohio River Valley

ignited another struggle
with France

for control of Native lands--

what would come to be called
the French and Indian War.

Franklin was chosen as one of
4 Pennsylvania delegates

to meet with representatives
from 6 other colonies

in Albany, New York, to
negotiate with Native Americans

they hoped would side with
England in the conflict.

He was familiar with
the way the Iroquois nations

had formed a confederation,
the Haudenosaunee,

more than a century earlier

that promoted
unity through consensus

on matters that
affected them all.

It gave him an idea.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: It would be
a very strange thing,

if 6 nations of ignorant
savages should be

capable of forming a scheme
for such a union,

and be able to execute it
in such a manner

as that it has
subsisted for ages,

and appears indissoluble;

and yet that a like union
should be impracticable

for 10 or a dozen
English colonies,

to whom it is more necessary,

and must be more advantageous.

NARRATOR: Franklin urged
his fellow delegates

to consider creating
their own charter

to encourage the colonies
to work together.

He and Thomas Hutchinson,
an ally from Massachusetts,

spearheaded a committee
that drew up what was called

the Albany Plan of Union.

It proposed a Grand Council
for the Colonies,

empowered to make treaties
with Indians,

regulate trade, oversee
land sales on the frontier,

build forts and raise troops
for common defense,

and enact whatever
taxes and duties

were needed for it all.

Individual colonies would
keep their own authority

over everything else
under their own constitutions.

In an article in
the "Gazette," he attached

a drawing showing
a dismembered snake

representing the colonies.

At the bottom
was a dire warning.

ISAACSON: It says,
"Join or die."

And it's his way of saying
that we have to come together

to have one
national sensibility.

So, he's the great visionary

that sees that we have to

knit the Colonies together,

rather than have each of
the Colonies think of themselves

as sort of a separate entity
reporting back to London.

NARRATOR: On both sides
of the Atlantic,

the Albany Plan
was considered too radical.

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
Its Fate was singular.

The Assemblies did not adopt it,

as they all thought there was
too much Prerogative in it;

and in England it was judg'd to
have too much of the democratic.

Despite all
the failure, and it was

a total failure, [LAUGHS]

it did possibly plant
some kind of seed

for future organization
among the Colonies.

♪

NARRATOR: In 1755,
Franklin met with

Major General Edward Braddock,

who had
arrived in America boasting

that he and his British redcoats
would have little trouble

defeating the French and their
Native American allies.

Franklin warned the general
against overconfidence.

[GUNFIRE]
On July 9, 1755,

8 miles from Fort Duquesne,

where the Monongahela
and Allegheny rivers

join to form the Ohio,

Braddock's forces
stumbled into an ambush

and were routed by
French and Indian soldiers.

Nearly 1,000 of the British
were killed or wounded;

most of the officers died,
including Braddock.

In the battle, two horses
were shot out from underneath

a young lieutenant colonel

and land speculator
from Virginia,

and 4 bullets pierced his coat.

But somehow, 23-year-old
George Washington survived.

The French
and Indians soon pushed

farther into Pennsylvania,

burning houses,
killing and capturing settlers,

spreading panic
across the colony.

In Philadelphia,
the Assembly seemed paralyzed.

Dominated by Quaker pacifists,
it resisted raising an army.

Meanwhile, the governor,
appointed by

William Penn's sons in England,

steadfastly rejected any tax

on the family's lands
in Pennsylvania

to help defend the colony.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: Vassals
fight at their lord's expense;

but our lord would have us
defend his estate

at our own expense!

It is even more slavish
than slavery itself.

NARRATOR: When a raiding party
struck a settlement

only 75 miles north
of Philadelphia,

Franklin led a force
of militiamen,

including his son William,
over rough terrain to the scene,

where they buried the dead

and began to build

a series of forts.

The winter weather was
cold and wet.

Franklin spent his 50th birthday

encamped at Lehigh Gap.

But the immediate crisis
had been met.

In Philadelphia,
Franklin was hailed as a hero.

"The people," he wrote
a friend, "happen to love me."

NARRATOR: In June of 1757,
Franklin once more

found himself on a ship
bound for England.

The Assembly had sent him on
a mission to try to negotiate

with the Penn family in person

about their refusal to be taxed.

He brought his son William
along as his assistant,

but Deborah and Sally
stayed behind.

Deborah worried that
her husband's ship

might be attacked by the French

or go down in the dangerous
waters of the North Atlantic.

WOMAN AS DEBORAH FRANKLIN:
I have been in much pain

for some days on account
of my Husband,

for by this time he is,
as I suppose,

near the Land's End of England,

and of course in danger of
being taken,

which I pray God prevent.

I am not able to bear
the least thing in the world

and I find myself
very weak indeed.

NARRATOR: Approaching
the coast of England,

Franklin's ship was nearly

wrecked on the rocks,

just as his wife had feared,

but finally landed safely.

"Were I a Roman Catholic,"
he wrote Deborah,

"perhaps I should
on this occasion

"vow to build a chapel
to some saint;

"but as I am not,
if I were to vow at all,

it should be to build
a lighthouse."

In London, he found lodging
at a home on Craven Street,

a short walk from
the British government offices

at Whitehall.

ISAACSON: When he gets to
London, Franklin tries to

recreate his family life.

And, so, he finds a landlady
who's quite like

Deborah Franklin,
named Margaret Stevenson,

who has a daughter named Polly.

And they set up
on Craven Street a replica

of what he had
back in Philadelphia.

NARRATOR: Franklin and William
had brought along

two enslaved men, known only as
Peter and King, as servants.

"Peter behaves very well
to me in general,"

Franklin wrote home to Deborah,

"and begins to know the town so
as to go anywhere on errands."

But King, sensing
an opportunity for freedom

in his new surroundings,
ran away.

DUNBAR: What we know
about these men

is relatively little.

What we do know is that,
while Ben Franklin's

feelings or opinions
about slavery

may have changed over time,

he doesn't set his
slaves free, ever.

They run off and he doesn't
necessarily pursue them,

perhaps, with as much
vigor as he might have.

And they die off.

But at no moment do we really
see Franklin step out front

and say, "I am setting
an example

by setting my slaves free."

NARRATOR: When Franklin
met with the Penn family,

they categorically dismissed
the notion that they should

pay any taxes at all.

They saw the colony solely as

a source of wealth and power
for them,

and declared Franklin
a malicious villain.

Franklin decided
to change tactics.

He thought he might be
able to persuade

King George II and his ministers

to declare Pennsylvania
a Crown colony,

like most of the others
in America,

where governors were appointed
by the King.

He let Deborah know he would
not be returning as quickly

as the two of them had planned.

Franklin was enjoying London.

♪

ISAACSON: London was
the greatest city in the world

at the time.

It was filled with coffee shops

and had a thriving
intellectual middle class.

And Franklin goes around
with his friends,

mainly scientists and writers,

and they spend their afternoons
in the coffee shops

discussing new ideas.

That glittering,
sophisticated world

was made for Ben Franklin.

He was made for a dinner party
and conversation.

Philadelphia might have
been extraordinary

for the New World,
but it couldn't compare

to the absolute sophistication
of the Old World.

BRANDS: There were people who
shared his views on science;

there were people who shared
his broadminded view

of all sorts of
human institutions.

He made friends very easily.

In fact, if Debbie

had been willing to relocate
from Philadelphia to London,

Franklin might very well

have become a permanent
resident of London.

NARRATOR: In England,
as he had in America,

Franklin forged intellectual
and affectionate relationships

with a number of young women

whose intelligence
he appreciated--

exchanging letters,
providing advice,

and encouraging their ambitions;

the kind of attention
he neglected to give

his own daughter Sally.

SKEMP: Sally was born
at a bad time, I think,

just as Benjamin Franklin
became involved in politics

and was away most of the time.

And, so, I don't think
she ever really

got to know her father.

And her father didn't
seem particularly interested

in knowing her in those days.

She wanted the education
that her brother had

and never got it.

She wanted to go
to England with him;

that never happened.

NARRATOR: With William
by his side,

Franklin traveled beyond London
whenever possible.

A friend reported
to Deborah that

"William is daily
in the company of his father,

"who is at the same time
his friend, his brother,

his intimate,
and easy companion."

[CHURCH BELL RINGS]

In Edinburgh,
they socialized with

two of the Enlightenment's
leading thinkers,

the economist Adam Smith
and the philosopher David Hume.

At St. Andrews,
the university placed

a crimson and white robe
over Franklin's shoulder

and presented him, a man with

only two years
of formal education,

with an honorary doctorate.

From that moment on,
most people referred to him

as Doctor Franklin.

One evening
in Cambridge, he attended

a concert of sorts,

where the rims of wine glasses

were rubbed to produce
musical notes.

COHN: Franklin looked at that
and he thought,

"Now, that's just inefficient."

Why move your arms
to that degree?

Why not take the glasses
and have them move

and your hand stay still?

NARRATOR: He hired a London
glassblower to create

a series of 36 glass bowls, to
specific thicknesses and sizes.

COHN: And rather than
having your fingers

move around the glass,

the glasses rotated,

and he wet his fingers

and played it like a keyboard.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: He named his
new invention the armonica,

after the Italian word
for harmony,

and charmed visitors
with performances on it.

Soon, more of the instruments
were being

manufactured and sold,
though Franklin again refused

to patent or profit
from his invention.

What pleased him most was that,

in musical circles throughout

England and Europe,

the armonica

created a sensation.

In Austria, Franklin's invention

provided the music
for a royal wedding.

Even Mozart and Beethoven

would compose chamber pieces
for it.

COHN: The sound it made
was described as

celestial ravishment.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[THUNDER]
[BIRDS SINGING]

MAN AS FRANKLIN: I have long
been of the opinion

that the foundations of

the future
grandeur and stability

of the British Empire
lie in America,

broad and strong enough
to support the greatest

political structure
human wisdom ever yet erected.

[THUNDER]
[EXPLOSIONS]

NARRATOR: By 1761, the French
and Indian War had exploded

into a global conflict
called the Seven Years' War,

involving all
the European powers.

In North America, England
had won a decisive victory

against the French
by capturing Quebec.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: No one
can rejoice more sincerely

than I do on the possible
addition of Canada;

and this not
merely as I am a colonist,

but as I am a Briton.

BROWN: Franklin is one of
the earliest to say,

"Look, the weight of
the British world

is going to be
in North America."

And he put himself
at the center of it.

He imagined himself as being
the kind of linchpin between

these--this emerging empire
in North America

and the seat of power in London.

NARRATOR: By this time,
William Franklin had completed

his legal studies

and enjoyed socializing with

wealthy friends
in the upper class.

William also took up with

women from London's
high society,

and others with
less sterling reputations.

Just like his own father,
he sired a son out of wedlock.

Unlike his father, William
arranged for the baby boy

to be secretly placed
in a foster home.

♪

On September 22, 1761,

hundreds of England's
well-born and well-connected

gathered in Westminster Hall

for the coronation of
a new monarch:

King George III.
[CHURCH BELL RINGS]

Among those present
for the occasion

were two staunch defenders
of the Empire--

Benjamin and William Franklin.

From the balcony, Benjamin
watched the lavish ritual.

On the hall's floor,
his son William

stood with a more
privileged crowd

of nobles and high officials.

Then William marched
in a small procession

into Westminster Abbey,
where the crown

was to be placed
on George's head.

♪

Benjamin, not part of
that select group,

walked back to
Craven Street alone.

Franklin's efforts to
elevate his son's station

were paying off.

William had caught
the attention of ministers

in the new king's government

who decided that he, though
barely into his early thirties,

was a natural leader.

With their support,
William Franklin

was chosen to be the next
royal governor of New Jersey.

And there was other good news.

William had fallen in love
with Elizabeth Downes,

the daughter of a wealthy
owner of

sugar plantations in Barbados,

and they were now engaged.

Benjamin Franklin had been
gone from Philadelphia

for 5 years.

He was now 56, and still
captivated by life in England.

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
Why should this island,

which compared to America
is but like

a stepping stone in a brook,

enjoy in almost
every neighborhood

more sensible, virtuous,
and elegant minds

than we can collect in ranging
100 leagues of our vast forests?

NARRATOR: In the summer of 1762,

he booked passage
for Philadelphia,

determined to convince Deborah
to come back with him,

and promising his
English friends

he intended to return
to London permanently.

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
In two Years at farthest

I hope to settle all my Affairs
in such a Manner,

as that I may then conveniently
remove to England,

provided we can persuade the
good Woman to cross the Seas.

That will be
the great Difficulty.

NARRATOR: Franklin would
be at sea

when William was married

in St. George's Church
in London,

and when he bowed to George III

in St. James's Palace,

kissed the new king's ring,

and swore his eternal allegiance
to the crown.

♪

NARRATOR: On November 1, 1762,

Benjamin Franklin arrived
back in Philadelphia.

It wasn't a teeming
metropolis like London,

but with a population
of nearly 25,000,

it had surpassed
Boston and New York

as the largest city
in the American colonies.

Deborah and 19-year-old Sally
welcomed him home.

A few months later,
William arrived from England

with his new wife Elizabeth,

and Franklin accompanied them
across the Delaware River

to New Jersey, where Benjamin
watched proudly

as his son became that colony's
ninth governor.

As deputy postmaster
of His Majesty's

colonies in North America,

Franklin embarked on another
inspection tour

that took him through
6 colonies,

all the way to New Hampshire.

The trip lasted 5 months.
[HORSE WHINNIES]

JENKINSON: Franklin sees
the many different

American styles.

There's a Northern community;

there's a New England community;

there are the Middle Colonies;

the Upper South;
the Lower South.

He begins to understand
the vast complexity

of the Colonial situation.

And nobody else did.

He was the best-informed
person in the New World

about the diversity of
geography, of economy,

of social structure, and he
also saw discontentments.

There was concern
about representation;

[ROOSTER CLUCKS]
there was concern about
arbitrary economic tariffs

that were being imposed
by Britain,

and the increasing sense
that the British

don't really understand us

and they're also using us
as an extraction machine

for British wealth.

And, even though they will

say we're British citizens,

they're not treating us
with full respect

that an Englishman deserves.

♪

WOMAN AS DEBORAH FRANKLIN:
I went to hear the Negro
children at Church.

There were 17 that answered
very prettily indeed,

and 5 or 6 that were too little,
but all behaved very decently.

It gave me a great deal of
Pleasure, and I shall send

Othello to the School.

NARRATOR: Deborah Franklin
had enrolled Othello,

an enslaved child
in the Franklin household,

in a new school in Philadelphia,

part of an effort to educate
Black children in North America

that Benjamin Franklin
had endorsed.

At Deborah's urging, her husband

made a personal visit
to the school.

MAN AS FRANKLIN: I was
on the whole much pleas'd,

and from what I then saw, have
conceiv'd a higher Opinion

of the natural Capacities
of the black Race,

than I had
ever before entertained.

Their Apprehension seems as
quick, their Memory as strong,

and their Docility
in every Respect

equal to that of white Children.

You will wonder perhaps
that I should ever doubt it,

and I will not undertake
to justify all my Prejudices,

nor to account for them.

COHN: I think a major
turning point in Franklin's life

was when he visited
that classroom.

He did not like Black people
when he was a young man.

There's no way of
getting around that.

It's very distasteful
to say, but it's true.

He had once written that the
hardest thing for a man to do

is to change long-standing
prejudices of belief.

But to succeed in doing it
is a test of one's humanity.

♪

MAN AS FRANKLIN: If an Indian
injures me, does it follow

that I may revenge that
injury on all Indians?

These poor People have
been always our Friends.

Their Fathers received ours,
when Strangers here,

with Kindness and Hospitality.

Behold the Return
we have made them!

[BIRD CRIES]
NARRATOR: Native Americans

had been completely left out

of the treaty negotiations
between France and Britain

that ended the Seven Years' War.

As white settlements continued
to push onto their homelands,

Indians from the Great Lakes
to Western Pennsylvania

fought back.

On December 14, 1763,
50 frontiersmen

from the town of
Paxton, Pennsylvania

swarmed into the small village
of Conestoga

and slaughtered the 6 unarmed

Susquehannock Indians
they found there.

The mob moved on to Lancaster,
where they murdered 14 more

defenseless men, women,
and children.

Though the Susquehannocks
were known to be friendly,

the so-called Paxton Boys
had killed them anyway.

Public opinion about
the massacre was split--

between the Quakers, guided by
William Penn's advice

to be friends of the Indians,

and the newer immigrants, mostly

Scots-Irish and Germans
from the backcountry,

who accused
the Quaker-led assembly

of coddling native peoples.

Benjamin Franklin
called the perpetrators

"barbarous Men"

who had brought
"eternal disgrace"

to their race and religion.

The Paxton Boys then marched
on Philadelphia,

where more than 100 Indians had
been brought for their safety.

Franklin helped
raise a militia to stop them

and negotiated
an end to the crisis.

But his outspokenness
created a backlash,

especially among the settlers
of the backcountry,

which the Penn family exploited.

They slandered Franklin's
son William as illegitimate,

falsely claiming that
his birth mother

had starved to death,
and that Benjamin

had hidden her body
in an unmarked grave.

In all the controversy,

Franklin lost his Assembly seat.

But the legislature now
adopted his position

that Pennsylvania should be
a Crown colony

and reappointed him
as their agent in London.

After only two years
in Philadelphia,

Franklin was going back
to England.

Deborah had made it clear
she intended to stay;

they were building a new home
just off Market Street.

He promised
he wouldn't be gone long.

♪

WOOD: Coming out of
the Seven Years' War,

Britain is on top of the world.

They had acquired a huge
amount of territory,

all the territory up to
the Mississippi River.

It was expensive to maintain

and, so, you needed to tax it.

Franklin certainly
went along with it.

And he said,
"Well, empires cost money."

And, much to his chagrin,

he found himself
going the wrong way,

out of touch with
American public opinion.

[MEN SHOUT INDISTINCTLY]
NARRATOR: The recent war
with France

had expanded England's empire,
but left its treasury depleted.

In the spring of 1765,

the king's ministers
and Parliament

came up with
a new way to raise more money

from the American colonies.

Now all legal documents,
newspapers, books, almanacs,

even decks of playing cards,
would need official stamps,

purchased from the government.

In Virginia, Patrick Henry
denounced the act

as taxation
without representation.

Riots broke out in New York;
New London, Connecticut;

Annapolis, Maryland.

In Boston, a group calling
themselves the Sons of Liberty

hanged and burned the stamp
commissioner in effigy.

Then the mob
destroyed the mansion

of Lieutenant Governor
Thomas Hutchinson,

who had worked with Franklin
back in 1754

to propose
the Albany Plan of Union.

The leaders of the protests
had appropriated the motto

Franklin had used at the time

to encourage the colonies to act
TOGETHER: "join or die."

Franklin didn't like
the Stamp Act either,

but from London
advised Pennsylvanians

against over-reacting.

His political enemies back home
now spread false rumors

that he helped write
the Stamp Act

and had been bribed by promises
of a higher royal appointment.

When a mob threatened to attack

the Franklin home
in Philadelphia,

Deborah wouldn't budge.

WOMAN AS DEBORAH FRANKLIN:
I said when I was advised

to remove that I was very sure

you had done nothing
to hurt anybody,

and I had not given any offense
to any person at all.

I sent to ask my brother
to come and bring his gun.

If any one came to disturb me,

I would show
a proper resentment.

NARRATOR: Shocked at the reports
of mob violence in the colonies,

Franklin wrote William
that unless

some compromise could be found

to ease the tensions,

events were
"laying the Foundation

of a future total Separation."

He flooded London newspapers
with letters

arguing that the Stamp Act
was unfair,

that the recent riots
did not represent

the attitude of
a majority of the colonists.

He circulated a political
cartoon illustrating that,

if the crisis escalated,

the Empire would be dismembered.

On February 13, 1766, Franklin
appeared before Parliament,

patiently answering questions
posed by its members.

Could an army make
the colonists comply,

he was asked.
[MAN SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY]

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
Suppose a military force

is sent into America.

What are they then to do?

They cannot force a man
to take stamps

who chooses to do without them.

They will not find a rebellion;

they may indeed make one.

NARRATOR: The Stamp Act
was repealed.

But the Privy Council,
the King's top advisors,

had refused to act on
Franklin's petition

to make Pennsylvania
a Crown colony.

Franklin decided to remain
in England anyway.

There were hints that he might
be in line for a high post

in the ministry responsible
for the American provinces.

And he used his connections
to begin lobbying

on behalf of William
and a group of speculators

to acquire millions of acres
of Indian land

along the Ohio River,

then sell it in small parcels to
settlers for an immense profit--

and create a new colony.

[HORSE WHINNIES]

Meanwhile, Franklin put his
scientific skills

to work for the empire.

He helped install lightning rods

on St. Paul's Cathedral;

came up with a hot-water
piping system

to keep
the House of Commons warm;

and, working with a cousin,

a whaling captain
from Nantucket,

he created the first chart

of what was called
the Gulph Stream,

which helped explain why ships
going from London to America

took longer than those
going the other way.

WOMAN AS DEBORAH FRANKLIN:
Yesterday I had the pleasure

to receive your letter.

I had not heard
one word about you

since the latter end of August,

which was near 5 months,

but I shall not dwell on that
at this time.

NARRATOR: Back in
Philadelphia, as she had

always done during
Benjamin's long absences,

Deborah Franklin took care
of everything.

She managed her husband's
many business enterprises

and supervised
the myriad details

of the new home
they were building.

All the while, she waited
for his promised return.

In the fall of 1767,
their daughter Sally married

a Philadelphia merchant,
Richard Bache,

and in 1769 she gave birth
to a baby boy,

whom she named
after his grandfather.

They called him Benny.

That same year,
Deborah suffered a stroke

that left her incapacitated
for months.

As she recovered,
she wrote her husband

that her worries about him

had been at least
partly responsible.

WOMAN AS DEBORAH FRANKLIN:
I often tell my friends
I was not sick,

it was only more
than I could bear.

And so I fell down
and could not get up again.

But I had taken up a resolution

never to make
any complaint to you

or give you any disquiet.

♪

NARRATOR: Even though the
Stamp Act had been repealed,

the colonies were still expected

to help pay off war debts;

Parliament now imposed
import duties

on glass and china,
paint and tea.

When the Massachusetts
Assembly passed a resolution

objecting to the new measures--

and called on other colonial
legislatures to do the same--

Britain sent 15 warships
and 1,000 troops to Boston.

Their presence,
Franklin wrote from London,

"seems like setting up
a blacksmith's forge

in a magazine of gunpowder."

He redoubled his efforts
to find a compromise between

the hard-liners on
both sides of the Atlantic.

BROWN: He sees the issue
as one of respect.

What holds an empire together
is a sense of common feeling.

Right? Of common
economic interest,

of interdependence,
of identification.

The power doesn't reside
in the capacity

to make people do what
you want them to do.

ISAACSON: Benjamin Franklin
keeps trying to hold

the British Empire together.

Trying to figure out
some middle ground

in which the Colonies
get to control themselves

through their own
assemblies and legislatures,

but still loyal to
the Crown of England.

And that was Franklin's hope,
that somehow

he could keep together
what he called

this "fragile, noble vase."

'Cause he said,
"Once it gets broken,

you're not going to put it
back together."

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
Being born and bred

in one of the countries,

and having lived long
in the other,

I wish all prosperity to both.

But I do not find
that I have gained

any point in either country,

except that of rendering myself
suspected by my impartiality:

in England of being
too much an American,

and in America of being
too much an Englishman.

NARRATOR: As the political
crisis continued to build,

Franklin spent part of
the summer of 1771

at a friend's estate
southwest of London.

He was 65 years old
and decided to make

an accounting of his life,

something, he wrote,
"my posterity may like to know."

It was filled with stories
of how, in his words,

"I emerged from
the poverty and obscurity

"in which I was born and bred,

"to a state of affluence
and some degree

of reputation in the world."

It was the beginning
of what would become

one of the most-read
and influential

autobiographies ever written.

ISAACSON: He begins with
two very interesting words:

"Dear Son."

And he's addressing it
to William, or at least

pretending he's
addressing it to William.

'Cause he's trying to say,
"Remember where we come from.

"We're working class
and middle class.

We're not trying
to be aristocratic."

NARRATOR: But he soon put
his memoir aside;

world affairs were overtaking
both Benjamin Franklin--

now the agent representing
several colonies in England--

and William Franklin--the royal
governor of New Jersey.

MAN AS FRANKLIN:
It is very uncertain what Turn

American Affairs will take here.

The Friends of both Countries
wish a reconciliation;

the Enemies of either,
endeavor to widen the Breach;

God knows how it will end.

♪

He was never thinking,

we need to be independent.

He was always thinking,
if we can just

work out a few
fundamental problems

between us
and the British Ministry,

that things are
going to be fine.

He probably could have been
won over to the British side

as a Loyalist, like his son,

if things had gone
slightly differently.

NARRATOR:
Tensions between England
and the colonies worsened,

especially after
British soldiers fired on

a Massachusetts mob in 1770,

killing 5 Americans--
the Boston Massacre.

Franklin's position was becoming
increasingly untenable.

He was trying to represent
the interests of Massachusetts,

New Jersey, and Georgia,
in addition to Pennsylvania.

In 1772, Franklin was shown
confidential letters

written by his old ally
Thomas Hutchinson,

now the governor
of Massachusetts.

The only way to quell
colonial unrest,

Hutchinson had advised London,

was through harsher measures,
including, he suggested,

"an abridgment of liberties."

Franklin surreptitiously
sent copies of the letters

to the leaders of
the Massachusetts Assembly.

He hoped that
the firebrands in Boston

would turn their anger from
Parliament to Hutchinson,

blaming his bad advice
for the crisis with Britain,

making room for cooler heads
to broker a reconciliation.

Instead, it only
inflamed passions.

The letters were leaked
to newspapers,

sparking an uproar
throughout the colonies.

The Massachusetts
Assembly drafted

an angry petition to the king,

demanding that Hutchinson
be removed.

As the Assembly's agent,
Franklin would have to be

the one to present that petition

before the King's Privy Council.

To make matters worse,
Franklin had felt

obligated to admit
that he was the one

who had originally shared
Hutchinson's letters.

And, so, Franklin was
seen as this person who

stole other people's mail,

which was quite
an egregious offense

for someone
who was a postmaster.

NARRATOR: Just a few days
before Franklin was scheduled

to appear before the Privy
Council in January of 1774,

news arrived from America
that changed everything.

The Sons of Liberty,
dressed as Indians,

had boarded 3 ships
in Boston Harbor

and dumped 46 tons--
342 crates--

of English tea into the sea.

Officials in London
were still seething

at that act of defiance

when, on January 29,
Franklin entered

a meeting room at Whitehall
called the Cockpit,

where Henry VIII had once
staged cockfights.

To the Privy Council,
and the crowd of spectators

gathered there, Franklin was
now the face

of an insolent
American uprising,

although Franklin considered
the Boston Tea Party

an "act of violent injustice
on our part"--

the very kind of provocation
he had always counseled against.

Alexander Wedderburn,
the sharp-tongued

and politically ambitious
solicitor general,

who considered the recent
events in Boston treasonous,

made clear from the start
that the hearing

would be an attack
on Franklin's character.

MAN AS WEDDERBURN:
Your Lordships will not wonder

that I consider Dr. Franklin not
so much in the light of an agent

for the Assembly's purpose,
as in that of a first mover

and prime conductor of it
for his own as the actor...

NARRATOR: Wedderburn spoke
for a solid hour,

sometimes pounding on the table
as he berated Franklin

with one denunciation
after another,

sometimes using sarcasm
that prompted

the nobles and high
officials in the audience

to snicker and jeer
as they urged him on.

Throughout it all,
Franklin stood stock still,

refusing to show any emotion.

MAN AS WEDDERBURN:
...answerable to the law.

The good men of Boston have
lately held their meetings...

ISAACSON: They're accusing
Benjamin Franklin of

fomenting this Revolution

and he just stays there, silent,

and treats them
with silent contempt.

NARRATOR: When Wedderburn
finally finished his diatribe,

he asked if Franklin had
a statement to make

or would take questions.

Franklin refused.

The hearing was over.

♪

London newspapers now
referred to Franklin as

"old Doubleface,"
a "grand incendiary,"

and a "gray-headed traitor."

Americans, the essayist
Samuel Johnson wrote,

"have been taught by
some master of mischief

how to put in motion the engine
of political electricity."

Two days after his humiliation
in the Cockpit,

Franklin was informed
that he had been dismissed

as deputy postmaster
for North America.

Any hopes he had for
a higher post also evaporated,

as did his dreams for the vast
land scheme along the Ohio.

Franklin walked into
the Cockpit an Englishman

and walked out of the Cockpit
an American

because it became
very clear to Franklin

that he, as an American,
would never receive

the respect that
he believed he was due.

At that point, Franklin
realized there is no future

for me or for people like me
within the British Empire.

NARRATOR: On December 14, 1774,

Deborah Franklin
had another stroke,

more massive than
the one 5 years earlier.

She lingered on for a few days,

then died on the 19th,

still waiting for her husband,

who had been away for 15
of the last 17 years,

to return to her and the new
house on Market Street

he had never seen.

SCHIFF: He's away from Deborah
for the last
10 years of her life.

He knows she's ill.

And he doesn't come back.

If Franklin gets
failing grades in any subject,

it's the family relations,
both in terms of the marriage

and in terms of his son.

MAN AS WILLIAM FRANKLIN:
Philadelphia, December 24, 1774.

Honored Father,
I came here on Thursday last

to attend the Funeral
of my poor old Mother.

I heartily wish you had
happened to have

come over in the Fall,

as I think her Disappointment
in that respect

preyed a good deal
on her Spirits.

I cannot help being
concerned to find that

you postpone your
Return to your Family.

You have had by this Time
pretty strong Proofs

that you are look'd upon with
an evil Eye in that Country.

You had certainly better return

to a Country where
the People revere you,

and are inclined to pay
a Deference to your Opinions.

I am ever, Honored Sir,
Your dutiful Son William.

NARRATOR: For Franklin,
his breach with England

was complete.

Now a political rift
seemed to be growing

between him and his son.

In the coming year,
a revolution would begin,

unlikely alliances
would be forged,

loyalties would be tested,

families would be torn apart,

and Benjamin Franklin would be
in the middle of it all.

♪

♪