I liked this book. Such a fulfilled life.

Anyone you talk with probably has some idea who Benjamin Franklin is. You know him either from his political work or inventions. But I didn’t know him. I thought he was the president of the United States and realized that was I was wrong and learned a lot about his life.

Even if you know him for one thing, There’s more to learn about his life. He had a life full of adventures and doing incredible job in various subjects. His story is a great inspiration showing how one can change the life around them. Reading his book was like watching a superhero movie.

Imagine how satisfied he was from his life that he says he would repeat the same again on the letter to his son.

That felicity, when I reflected on it, has induced me sometimes to say, that were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first. So I might, besides correcting the faults, change some sinister accidents and events of it for others more favourable. But though this were denied, I should still accept the offer. Since such a repetition is not to be expected, the next thing most like living one’s life over again seems to be a recollection of that life, and to make that recollection as durable as possible by putting it down in writing.

Franklin was born in Boston. He was put at grammar school and was fond of reading since childhood. This convinced his father to send him for apprenticeship with his brother James at the printing shop. During this time he learns to write by reconstructing what he read from memory.

About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator.18 It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them.

(This is what I’m trying to do. This book inspired me to spend more time reviewing books than I used to do.)

This becomes important later in his life as he acquires more skills in the printing press. And not only secures a job for himself for future years but he also gains the ability to print what he has to say. Later he publishes pamphlets in occasions to send a message to people. An example is after he wrote “A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of Paper Currency” he also printed the money himself.

Also if you, like me, are not familiar with how printing was done in 1730 watch this video. Franklin learned everything about printing. He even knew how to make the letters for printing. This knowledge came handy later in his life.

Our printing-house often wanted sorts, and there was no letter-founder in America; I had seen types cast at James’s in London, but without much attention to the manner; however, I now contrived a mould, made use of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supplied in a pretty tolerable way all deficiencies. I also engraved several things on occasion; I made the ink; I was warehouseman, and everything, and, in short, quite a factotum.

When reading this book I found Franklin taking on a lot of adventures. Learning languages and crafts, and writing. And almost all of this effort to be better and learn things paid off. He liked poetry as a child so he tried to learn poetry. Although he didn’t become a poet he used the prose skill during his life.

I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces; my brother, thinking it might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing occasional ballads. One was called “The Lighthouse Tragedy,” and contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters: the other was a sailor’s song, on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard) the pirate. They were wretched stuff, in the Grub-street-ballad style;17 and when they were printed he sent me about the town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the event being recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my vanity; but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one; but as prose writing has been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired what little ability I have in that way.

He tried a vegetarian diet, for money savings so he can buy more books.

When about sixteen years of age I happened to meet with a book, written by one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined to go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon’s manner of preparing some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making hasty pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my brother, that if he would give me, weekly, half the money he paid for my board, I would board myself. He instantly agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an additional fund for buying books.

At the age of 17 he stops working for his brother and moves to New York and then to Philadelphia. He broke his apprentice contract which stated that he should work with his brother until he’s 21.

In there he meets with William Keith who tells Franklin to move to London to acquire equipment to start a printing business in Philadelphia. Keith promised his own letters of credit and letters of recommendation, and kept postponing handing them over. On the ship Franklin found there was no letters addressing him. This lands Franklin at London with little money there.

He wish’d to please everybody; and, having little to give, he gave expectations.

This experience was not a success but it was not wasted. He continues working at two big printing offices there.

At London his coworkers are heavy beer drinkers. They thought this makes them stronger.

They wondered to see, from this and several instances, that the “Water-American,” as they called me, was stronger than themselves, who drank strong beer! We had an alehouse boy who attended always in the house to supply the workmen. My companion at the press drank every day a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six o’clock, and another when he had done his day’s work. I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he supposed, to drink strong beer, that he might be strong to labour. I endeavoured to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer.

(I like water and oats as a breakfast. It’s my favorite.)

In the end he returns to Philadelphia. He sits to think with himself to think about his actions and decisions. To not repeat the same mistakes. He also has a list of virtues to practice and live by:

1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. MODERATION. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Following all these at once is impossible. No one can change all the matter at once so he approaches it one by one.

My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judg’d it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro’ the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arrang’d them with that view, as they stand above. Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head, which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and guard maintained against the unremitting

When he gets back to Philadelphia, he starts working for Keimer who had a printing office. They work for some time until Franklin Quarrels with him. So they depart ways and Franklin starts his own printing office with another business partner.

He started printing a yearly booklet with a calendar. When I was a kid these kinds of calendar was popular. My dad always got one as advertisement and I used it as scratchpad when learning. What Franklin was making is very similar to what I had as a kid. It’s amazing that something created at that time was still so popular when I was a kid. It’s not printed anymore these days because no one bothers with paper anymore. The idea is still valuable though.

I endeavored to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand, that I reaped considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand. And observing that it was generally read, scarce any neighborhood in the province being without it, I considered it as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who bought scarcely any other books; I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality, as the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want, to act always honestly, as, to use here one of those proverbs, it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.

At some point Philadelphia is short on currency and he advocated for paper money by writing pamphlets. After it’s approved he also prints the paper currency. These works help him to get a good fortune.

After he made enough money from printing business he decides to spend rest of his time on science. At this time he buys equipment to pursue his electrical experiments.

I flattered myself that, by the sufficient though moderate fortune I had acquired, I had secured leisure during the rest of my life for philosophical studies 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; but the public, now considering me as 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. 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.

The electrical experiments he talks about leads to the kite experiment that showed lightning contains electricity.

But the public does not let him go. They see he does not have a job and must be free all the time so they try to recruit him for multiple positions at once and fill up his time. After this most of his time is occupied by the work from the Assembly. Assembly was the group that proposed laws in Pennsylvania. Nonetheless he makes a lot of progress on science. Maybe he would have done more if he was less busy. But he did good in any way he was going.

Help with creating an academy to educate people.

There being no provision for defense, nor for a complete education of youth; no militia, nor any college. I therefore, in 1743, drew up a proposal for establishing an academy

During one of his trips to London he sees a person has paved the street in front of the house and there’s lighting. This inspires him with the idea to do it for the whole city. His careful with attributing what others had done to others throughout the book.

but with an additional provision for lighting as well as paving the streets, which was a great improvement. It was by a private person, the late Mr. John Clifton, his giving a sample of the utility of lamps, by placing one at his door, that the people were first impressed with the idea of enlighting all the city. The honour of this public benefit has also been ascribed to me, but it belongs truly to that gentleman.

He invented Franklin stove to save on fuel usage. Although it’s named after him it’s not patented by him. Franklin did not like patents. He was doing open source before open source existed.

That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.

Of course, someone who only cared about the money made a worse version Franklin’s invention and patented it to make money. It does not come shocking as same thing happens today as well.

An ironmonger in London however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, and making some small changes in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it.

Franklin helped with fundraising for a hospital in Philadelphia. He turned to the Assembly for more money but they were not interested. Their reasoning was that, if Philadelphia’s people are not supportive of this act to pay money why would we pay for it. After all the benefit of the hospital is for the city people.

Franklin then proposed a new law, that if Philadelphia can raise two thousand ponds then the assembly must match the donations and pay two thousand more. Donation matching is a common practice these days but was not at the time. And it worked. People had more motivation to donate when their money was doubled.

This condition carried the bill through; for the members, who had opposed the grant, and now conceived they might have the credit of being charitable without the expense, agreed to its passage; and then, in soliciting subscriptions among the people, we urged the conditional promise of the law as an additional motive to give, since every man’s donation would be doubled; thus the clause worked both ways. The subscriptions accordingly soon exceeded the requisite sum, and we claimed and received the public gift, which enabled us to carry the design into execution.

And although this technique worked. Franklin was not happy with manipulation of others for his goal. He did not want to do this again and forgive himself for this time.

The institution has by constant experience been found useful, and flourishes to this day; and I do not remember any of my political manoeuvers, the success of which gave me at the time more pleasure, or wherein, after thinking of it, I more easily excused myself for having made some use of cunning.

After his success for fundraising, others came to him asking for money for their projects. when Gilbert Tennent asked for this favor He declined.

Unwilling to make myself disagreeable to my fellow-citizens by too frequently soliciting their contributions, I absolutely refus’d… I thought it would be unbecoming in me, after their kind compliance with my solicitations, to mark them out to be worried by other beggars…

He didn’t want to use his influence too many times. So people would lost trust. He didn’t give list of the donors to protect them from floods of such requests. He told Tennet to go ask, and don’t skip asking people who you think will not donate. In the end it worked out and Tennet also raised enough money for the new building.

George Whitefield a preacher went to Philadelphia for preaching. He was a famous person with many people listening to him. Franklin claims that his voice can be heard by up to thirty thousand people. This shocks me that without any speakers a persons voice be reach that many people.

Imagining then a semicircle, of which my distance should be the radius, and that it were filled with auditors, to each of whom I allowed two square feet, I computed that he might well be heard by more than thirty thousand. This reconciled me to the newspaper accounts of his having preached to twenty-five thousand people in the fields, and to the ancient histories of generals haranguing whole armies, of which I had sometimes doubted.

Later they build a building to build a hall. That any preacher could come and give talks. The surprising part is that this was not reserved for any particular religion and anyone could use the building.

so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service.

This is much more religion openness than I’ve seen growing up!

He gets a job at the Assembly as a clerk. During this time someone gave a speech against choosing Franklin. It did not happen and Franklin got the job again. But Franklin still wanted to be friends with this man. It was not wise to have enemies for himself there. (I’m using too many buts maybe I can write in different forms?) Normally you would think doing someone a favor makes them like you. He had another idea. Franklin knew he had a rare book in his library, so he requested to borrow the book. After a week he returned the book and thanked the man warmly. The man changed his attitude toward Franklin and they became friends.

He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.

This trick to get the person to do a small favor for you and then they develop a good relation with you (because they did something good for you) is called Ben Franklin effect. This part reminded me of the How to Win Friends and Influence People book.

During a war between England and French over the control of North America Franklin was helping with logistics of the war. At the time England was defending the borders and the colonies didn’t invest on defense and relied on England.

This part of the book bothers me the most since Franklin helps a lot of the war but in the end they lost. First thing, the army didn’t have enough horses and carriages. The generals plan was to take farmers horses from them for the war. Franklin argued that he can instead offer people a deal. The deal was that people can bring their horses and goods to army and in return they receive a bond from Franklin as insurance. This ensures that if they loose their wealth in war there’s an insurance. Also helped the army because they didn’t have to seek and take people’s horses.

After the army is ready for the war they start on the journey. Their path was through a mountain pass. Franklin told the general that passing through here is dangerous because the head of the army is far from the back of it and Indians can ambush our army and we don’t have time to get everyone together. The general dismissed his suggestion and Franklin didn’t insist on it since he had less military experience.

In the end they manage to pass through that area but right after the head of the army gets attacked. They don’t manage to get there fast enough and back of the army fled.

The war was a disaster for England. And prompts Franklin to strengthen the army and build forts and train militia.

In a note from one of the treaty conversations with Indians he notes that the tribes could not resist Rum and would show up drunk if Rum was handed to them. They offered Indians that if they conduct the meetings sober they would receive the rum after it’s over. It all went smoothly and Franklin describes the scene after.

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 dark-coloured 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 sentence makes me believe that the rum was a tool they used to rule over them.

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 seacoast.

He went to London with his friend James Ralph. Who was a good writer and wanted to become a poet. Franklin tells Ralph that he should leave poetry. Later Pope mocks him in the Dunciad. But he became a prose writer in England.

They are friends until Franklin makes a mistake to get closer to the girl who Ralph is in relationship at London.

In the meantime, Mrs. T——, having on his account lost her friends and business, was often in distresses, and used to send for me and borrow what I could spare to help her out of them. I grew fond of her company, and, being at that time under no religious restraint, and presuming upon my importance to her, I attempted familiarities (another erratum) which she repulsed with a proper resentment, and acquainted him with my behaviour. This made a breach between us; and, when he returned again to London, he let me know he thought I had cancelled all the obligations he had been under to me. So I found I was never to expect his repaying me what I lent to him or advanced for him. This, however, was not then of much consequence, as he was totally unable; and in the loss of his friendship I found myself relieved from a burden. I now began to think of getting a little money beforehand, and, expecting better work, I left Palmer’s to work at Watts’s, near Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a still greater printing-house.42 Here I continued all the rest of my stay in London.

(As Eminem says it “And you don’t fuck with no man’s girl, even I know that¹”.)

If you made it this far read his note On Slave Trade. This is his last published work, it’s fun.