Pierre himself, however, lived but a short time after his arrival at Boston, and his eldest son, James, was left at the age of seventeen years, with the charge of maintaining a mother, a younger brother, and two sisters, in a strange land.

The energy, perseverance, and success with which this trying responsibility was met and was discharged by James Bowdoin (the first of that name in America,) is sufficiently attested by the fact, that he soon rose to the very first rank among the merchants of Boston, that he was chosen a member of the Colonial Council for several years before his death, and that he left to his children, as the fruit of a long life of industry and integrity, the greatest estate which had ever been possessed, at that day, by any one person in Massachusetts; an estate which I have seen estimated at from fifty to one hundred thousand pounds sterling.

Of the two sons, who succeeded equally to the largest part of this estate, James Bowdoin, who will form the principal subject of this discourse, was the youngest.

He was born in Boston on the 7th of August, 1726, and after receiving the rudiments of his education at the South Grammar School of that town, under Master Lovell, he was sent to Harvard College, where he was graduated a Bachelor of Arts in 1745. The death of his father occurred about two years later, and he was thus left with an independent estate just as he had attained to his majority,

It is hardly to be presumed that a young man of twenty-one years of age, of a liberal education, and an ample fortune, would devote himself at once and exclusively to mere mercantile pursuits. Nor am I inclined to believe that he ever gave much practical attention to them. But the earliest letter directed to him, which I find among the family papers, proves that he must have been, at least nominally, engaged in commercial business. It is directed to "Mr. James Bowdoin, Merchant."

This letter, however, has a far higher interest than as merely designating an address. It is dated Philadelphia, Oct. 25, 1750, and is in the following words:

"Sir,- Enclosed with this I send you all my Electrical papers fairly transcribed, and I have, as you desired, examined the copy, and find it correct. I shall be glad to

have your observations on them; and if in any part I have not made myself well understood, I will no notice endeavor to explain the obscure passages by letter. "My compliments to Mr. Cooper and the other gentleman who were with you here. I hope you all got safe home.

"I am, Sir, your most humble servant,

"B. FRANKLIN."

The young Bowdoin, it seems, who at the date of this letter was but four-and-twenty years old,- had made a journey to Philadelphia, (a journey at that day almost equal to a voyage to London at this,) in company with his friend and pastor, the Reverend Samuel Cooper, afterwards the celebrated Dr. Cooper of Brattle Street Church, and having there sought the acquaintance of Dr. Franklin, had so impressed himself upon his regard and respect, that Franklin, in transmitting to him his electrical papers, takes occasion to invite his observations upon them.

Franklin was then at the age of forty-four years, and in the very maturity of his powers. Although he was at this time holding an office connected with the post-office department of the Colonies, as the frank on the cover of this letter indicates, he was already deeply engaged in those great philosophical inquiries and experiments which were soon to place him on the highest pinnacle of fame.

The acquaintance between Franklin and Bowdoin, which had thus been formed at Philadelphia, was rapidly ripened into a most intimate and enduring friendship; and with this letter commenced a correspondence which terminated only with their lives.

At the outset of this correspondence, Bowdoin appears to have availed himself of the invitation to make observations on Franklin's theories and speculations, with somewhat more of independence of opinion than might have been expected from the disparity of their ages. One of his earliest letters (21st Dec. 1751) suggested such forcible objections to the hypothesis, that the sea was the grand source of electricity, that Franklin was led to say in his reply, (24th January, 1752,) — “I grow more doubtful of my former supposition, and more ready to allow weight to that objection, (drawn from the activity of the electric fluid and the readiness of water to conduct,) which you have indeed stated with great strength and clearness." In the

following year Franklin retracted this hypothesis altogether. The same letter of Bowdoin's contained an elaborate explication of the cause of the crooked direction of lightning, which Franklin pronounced, in his reply, to be "both ingenious and solid," adding, "when we can account as satisfactorily for the electrification of clouds, I think that branch of natural philosophy will be nearly complete."

In a subsequent letter, Bowdoin suggested a theory in regard to the luminousness of water under certain circumstances, ascribing it to the presence of minute phosphorescent animals, of which Franklin said, in his reply, (13th Dec. 1753,)-"The observations you made of the sea water emitting more or less light in different tracts passed through by your boat, is new, and your mode of accounting for it ingenious. It is, indeed, very possible, that an extremely small animalcule, too small to be visible even by our best glasses, may yet give a visible light." This theory has since been very generally received.

Franklin soon after paid our young philosopher the more substantial and unequivocal compliment of sending his letters to London, where they were read at the Royal Society, and published in a volume with his own. The Royal Society, at a later day, made Bowdoin one of their fellows; and Franklin, writing to Bowdoin from London, Jan. 13, 1772, says: "It gives me great pleasure that my book afforded any to my friends. I esteem those letters of yours among its brightest ornaments, and have the satisfaction to find that they add greatly to the reputation of American philosophy."

But the sympathies of Franklin and Bowdoin were not destined to be long confined to philosophical inquiries. There were other clouds than those of the sky, gathering thickly and darkly around them, and which were about to require another and more practical sort of science, to break their force and rob them of their fires. "Eripuit cælo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis" is the proud motto upon one of the medals which were struck in honor of Franklin. Bowdoin, we shall see, was one of his counsellors and coadjutors in both the processes which secured for him this enviable ascription.

Bowdoin entered into political life in the year 1753, as one of the four representatives of Boston, in the Provincial Legislature of Massachusetts, and remained a member of the House for three years, having been reëlected by the same constituency in 1754 and 1755.

The American Colonies were, at this moment, mainly engaged in resisting the encroachments of the French upon their boundaries. The Colony of Massachusetts Bay devoted itself, with especial zeal, to this object. It was said, and truly said, by their Councillors in 1755, in an answer to one of Governor Shirley's Messages, "that since the peace of Aix la Chapelle (1748) we have been at more expense for preventing and removing the French encroachments, we do not say than any other Colony, but than all His Majesty's Colonies besides."

Bowdoin appears from the journals to have coöperated cordially in making provision for the expeditions to Nova Scotia and Crown Point, and in all the military measures of defence. He seems, however, to have been more particularly interested in promoting that great civil or political measure of safety and security which was so seriously agitated at this time, the Union of the Colonies.

In June, 1754, a convention of delegates from the various Colonies was held at Albany, under Royal authority and recommendation, to consider a plan of uniting the Colonies in measures for their general defence. Of this convention Franklin was a member, and a plan of general union, known afterwards as the Albany plan of union, but of which he was the projector and proposer, was conditionally adopted by the unanimous vote of the delegates. The condition was, that it should be confirmed by the various Colonial Assemblies.

In December, 1754, the measure was largely debated in the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, and on the 14th day of that month, the House came to a vote on the three following questions:

1. "Whether the House accept of the general plan of union as reported by the commissioners convened at Albany in June last." This was decided in the negative.

2. "Whether the House accept of the partial plan of union

reported by the last committee of both Houses, appointed on the Union." This, also, was decided in the negative.

3. Whether it be the mind of the House, that there be a General Union of his Majesty's Colonies on this Continent, except those of Nova Scotia and Georgia." This proposition was decided in the affirmative by a large majority.

The proceedings of the legislative bodies of the Colonies, and indeed of all other legislative bodies, wherever they existed throughout the world, were at that time conducted in secrecy. As late as 1776, Congress discussed every thing with closed doors, and we are indebted to Mr. Jefferson's Notes for all that we know of the debates on the Declaration of Independence. Even to this day, there is no authority for the admission either of reporters or listeners to the halls of the British Parliament. A single member may demand, at any moment, that the galleries be cleared, and may insist on the execution of the demand. Practically, however, the proceedings of Parliament and of almost all other legislative bodies are now public, and no one can over-estimate the importance of the change.

Doubtless, when debates were conducted with closed doors, there were no speeches for Buncombe, no clap-traps for the galleries, no flourishes for the ladies, and it required no hour-rule, perhaps, to keep men within some bounds of relevancy. But one of the great sources of instruction and information, in regard both to the general measures of government, and to the particular conduct of their own representatives, was then shut out from the people, and words which might have roused them to the vindication of justice or to the overthrow of tyranny were lost in the utterance. The perfect publicity of legislative proceedings is hardly second to the freedom of the press, in its influence upon the progress and perpetuity of human liberty, though, like the freedom of the press, it may be attended with inconveniences and abuses.

It is a most significant fact in this connection, that the earliest instance of authorized publicity being given to the deliberations of a legislative body in modern days, was in this same House of Representatives of Massachusetts, on the 3d day of June, 1766, when, upon motion of James Otis, and during the debates