After, I was imprisoned in Lancaster, but when I had been in gaol twenty weeks was released on King Charles being satisfied of my innocency.  Then I was tried at Leicester and found guilty, but was set at liberty suddenly.  And at Lancaster I was tried because when they tendered me the oaths of allegiance and supremacy I would not take any oath at all, and there I was a prisoner in the castle for Christ’s sake, but was never called to hear sentence given, but was removed by an order from the king and council.  And afterwards I lay a year in Scarborough gaol, but was discharged by order of the king as a man of peaceable life.

And on the 2nd of the second month of the year 1674 I was brought to trial at Worcester, and during my imprisonment there I wrote several books for the press, and this imprisonment so much weakened me that I was long before I recovered my natural strength again, and in later years my body was never able to bear the closeness of cities long.

* * * * *

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Autobiography

Benjamin Franklin, a great and typical American, and one of the most influential founders of the young republic, was born at Boston, Mass., on January 17, 1706.  The story of his first fifty years is related in the vigorous and inspiring “Autobiography,” published in 1817.  But the book does not carry the story further than the year 1758, which was just the time when he took a foremost place in world-politics, as official representative of the New World in the Old World.  He came in that year to England, where he remained five years as agent of the colony of Pennsylvania.  Again in London, as agent for several colonies, from 1764 to 1775, Franklin fought for their right not to be taxed by the home country without having a voice in matters which concerned themselves; and from 1776 to 1785 he represented his country in Paris, obtaining the assistance of the French government in the War of Independence.  On his return to America in 1785 Franklin was chosen President of the State of Pennsylvania.  He died on April 17, 1790.  Franklin’s correspondence, during these important years in Europe, as well as the letters of the last five years of his life, have been ably edited by John Bigelow, and form, in some sort, a continuation of the “Autobiography,” published in 1874.  The “Autobiography” is published in a number of inexpensive forms.

I.—­Early Education

Our family had lived in the village of Ecton, Northamptonshire, for 300 years, the eldest son being always bred to the smith’s business.  I was the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back.  My father married young, and carried his wife and three children to New England, about 1682, in order that they might there enjoy their Non-conformist religion with freedom.  He married a second time, and had in all seventeen children.