4671Silence Dogood, No. 1, 2 April 1722 (Franklin Papers)
Printed in The New-England Courant , April 2, 1722. The first issue of James Franklin’s New-England Courant appeared on August 7, 1721, at the height of the inoculation controversy in Boston. Because the Mathers supported inoculation, the Courant opposed it; and the paper’s lively, combative essays and verses were soon directed also against the clergy, the magistrates, the postmaster, Harvard...
4672The Taking of Teach the Pirate, 1719 (Franklin Papers)
Not found The second ballad which Franklin wrote and hawked through the streets of Boston was “a Sailor Song on the Taking of Teach or Blackbeard the Pirate.” This may have been written in March 1719, after the Boston News-Letter carried a full account of the last fight and death of Captain Edward Teach on November 22, 1718. In the middle of the nineteenth century the Boston physician George...
4673The Lighthouse Tragedy, 1718 (Franklin Papers)
Not found As a lad of twelve or thirteen Franklin “took a Fancy to Poetry, and made some little Pieces.” One of these was a ballad he remembered as “the Light House Tragedy ,” inspired by the drowning on November 3, 1718, of George Worthylake, keeper of the light on Beacon Island, with his wife and daughter. (In the autobiography he remembered it incorrectly as Worthylake and his two...
4674Editorial Introduction (Franklin Papers)
These letters illustrate the complexities—perhaps increased by the writer’s nature—of trying to negotiate a transatlantic sale of land. Daniel Roberdeau wanted to dispose of his plantation in the Antilles; he believed that he had one potential buyer in London, and hoped that he might find several who would vie with each other. To save himself a journey to England he sent a power of attorney to...