A PICTURE OF THE
STRUGGLES OF OUR INFANT NATION,
ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
“Print me as I am.”—Cromwell.
ILLUSTRATED.
751 Broadway.
Copyright,
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY.
1876
Next to George Washington, we must write, upon the Catalogue ofAmerican Patriots, the name of Benjamin Franklin. He had so manyvirtues that there is no need of exaggerating them; so fewimperfections that they need not be concealed. The writer hasendeavored to give a perfectly accurate view of his character, and ofthat great struggle, in which he took so conspicuous a part, whichsecured the Independence of the United States. Probably there can nowhere be found, within the same limits, so vivid a picture of Life inAmerica, one hundred years ago, as the career of Franklin presents.
This volume is the twelfth of the Library Series of Pioneers andPatriots. The series presents a graphic history of our country fromits discovery.
1. Christopher Columbus reveals to us the West Indies, and gives anarrative of wonders unsurpassed in fact or fable.
2. De Soto conducts us to Florida, and leads us through scenes ofromance, crime, blood and woe—through many Indian tribes, across thecontinent, to the Mississippi, where he finds his melancholy grave.
3. La Salle, and his heroic companions, traversed thousands of milesof majestic lakes and unknown rivers, and introduces us to innumerablebarbaric tribes. There is no other writer, who, from his own personalobservation, can give one so vivid an idea of Life in the Indianvillage and wigwam.
4. Miles Standish was the Captain of the Pilgrims. He conducts us inthe May Flower, across the Atlantic, lands us at Plymouth, and tellsthe never to be forgotten story of the heroism of our fathers inlaying the foundations of this great republic.
5. Captain Kidd, and the Buccaneers, reveal to us the awfulcondition of North and South America, when there was no protecting lawhere, and when pirates swept sea and land, inflicting atrocities, thenarrative of which causes the ear which hears it to tingle.
6. Peter Stuyvesant takes us by the hand, and introduces us to theDutch settlement at the mouth of the Hudson, conveys us, in hisschooner, up the solitary river, along whose forest-covered banksIndian villages were scattered; and reveals to us all the struggles,by which the Dutch New Amsterdam was converted into the English NewYork.
7. Benjamin Franklin should chronologically take his place here.There is probably not, in the compass of all literature, a biographymore full of entertainment and valuable thought, than a truthfulsketch of the career of Benjamin Franklin. He leads us toPhiladelphia, one hundred and fifty years ago, and makes us perfectlyfamiliar with life there and then. He conducts us across the Atlanticto the Court of St. James, and the Court of Versailles. There is nowriter, French or English, who has given such vivid sketches of thescenes which were witnessed there, as came from the pen of BenjaminFranklin. For half a century Franklin moved amid the most stupendousevents, a graphic history of which his pen has recorded.
8. George Washington has no superior. Humanity is proud of his name.He seems to have approached as near perfection as any