Before he was eighteen he decided to leave Boston in order to improve his financial status and went to New York, and from there he went to Philadelphia. In Philadelphia he made the acquaintance of the then Governor of the State, William Keith, who took a fancy to the youth and suggested that Franklin go to London in order that he might buy type and other printing equipment, and set up a printing plant in Philadelphia.

He arrived in London safely, but found himself without funds. This, for a strange youth in a big city, should have been a tragedy, but proved to be most fortunate. He obtained work in the printing house then known as Palmer's. While working there he made the acquaintance of a second-hand book dealer named Wilcox, who not only loaned him books on subjects in which he was interested, but made him acquainted with men who influenced his entire life, and as a result of which he became the world famous philosopher and statesman.

By the fall of 1726, then a youth of but twenty, Franklin was back in Philadelphia; young in years, aged in knowledge and experience. Here he engaged himself to manage a printing plant owned by a Mr. Keimer. He not only managed the plant, but invented new kinds of ink and new methods for making type. It was while he was employed in this shop that he organized a club then known as the Juno, which a little later became the American Philosophical Society.

After leaving the employ of Keimer, when twenty-four years of age, he, together with a partner, opened their own printing shop, but did not well agree, and he later became the sole owner of the plant. Shortly after this he bought a small newspaper known as The Pennsylvania Gazette. As editor of this paper, Franklin, for all his mildness, instituted and fought for many needed reforms. Through his efforts an academy was organized which later became the University of Pennsylvania, and later a hospital was established.

In 1733, Franklin began the publication of Poor Richard's Almanack, which soon became a best seller and brought him fame throughout the world. It was no longer necessary for him to be a vegetarian in order to save a few pennies, but Franklin had found a philosophy which eschewed warm-blooded foods, and he continued the diet to which he had become accustomed.

Franklin next started The Philadelphia-Zeitung, the first foreign language newspaper to be published in America, and in 1741, he began the publication of a magazine called the General Magazine and Historical Quarterly.

By the time Franklin was thirty-five, printing and publishing took a secondary place in his mind, and he turned to experimenting. He first invented an efficient safe stove, but being a public benefactor by nature, he refused a patent or any profits from it. He next experimented with electricity, based on theories he had learned from French friends while in London.

When forty-two years of age Franklin retired from business to devote himself entirely to studies that might lead to knowledge and inventions for the good of the mass. Self-taught after the manner of Randolph later, Franklin was at home with philosophers, scientists, diplomats and politicians.

As a result of acquaintances made when in London as a mere youth, he was made a member of the Royal Society of London, founded by members of the Initiate Orders and of which many continued as members. Later the University of St. Andrews of Scotland conferred upon him the degree Doctor of Law.

In 1757, thirty-three years after his first visit to London, Franklin returned to London, this time not as a strange, penniless youth of teenage, but as a shrewd diplomat, a politician whose nature was not of graft; as an agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly.

Franklin was generally successful in whatever mission he undertook. This was for the reason that his innate honesty was felt. It was quickly recognized that here was a man who could not be bought, browbeaten or eliminated by unfair means; a man who would fight for what he believed right, yet too great by nature to take advantage of any one either for self-benefit or benefit of constituency; nor did he hesitate to confound his own family when he felt them to be in the wrong.

In 1775 Franklin was chosen a member of the Continental Congress, and he, with others of like nature who thought the freedom of man of greater importance than life itself, became one of the leaders. In 1773-74, Franklin was one of the members of the Great Council of the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis held in Philadelphia, which was later woven into a Legend by George Lippard.

When the Continental troops were defeated in 1776, and Congress decided to ask Europe for aid, it was Franklin, because of his known connections with the Friends of Freedom in France, who was sent to France in an effort to obtain the needed help.

Franklin reached Paris, December 21, 1776, and immediately set about to accomplish his mission which was, first of all, to win over the members of the French Court. This to any other than Franklin might have been a difficult task. However, several factors were in his favor. First of all and greatest, was the fact that Nature had created him a gentleman; kindly, cordial, friendly, honest, upright to such a degree that effort or make-believe was unnecessary. To meet him was to like him and all who met him were drawn to him.... Secondly, he already had many friends, i.e., brethren among the Friends of Freedom in France, who were members of the Court of high standing.

These men he met secretly as an Unknown; but later as a member of the lodge of Nine Sisters of Paris, wherein he became a sponsor for membership of Voltaire. Many of the members of the Lodge La Humanidad were Philosophic Initiates, or Rose Cross, and members of L’Ordre du Lis.

Franklin, a Friend, did not possess a shred of hypocrisy in his nature. He was himself, and because of this people first trusted him and then loved him. Even while in Paris on his most important mission, a mission upon the success of which depended the freedom of the new nation, he refused to do “as others do” in order to win their favor.

Moving among a court dressed in embroidery, lace, wigs and powder, he always appeared in his brown coat and round hat, hair unpowdered, person unperfumed; a strange but powerful figure, yet a successful one; sectarian, Mason, a commoner. He negotiated the Franco-American Treaty of alliance, and saw it signed on February 6, 1778.

This was only the beginning of his efforts for the creation of a Free Nation of which free men might be citizens. He now began his efforts to persuade the French Government to not only continue their assistance, but to grant loan upon loan, until the New Republic owed France 20,000,000 francs. He further obtained French arms, a French Army and a French fleet, all of this help ready to meet and defeat the then enemy at Yorktown in 1781.

Franklin now was called upon to be the peacemaker, a part which belonged to him by nature. In the spring of 1782, he opened negotiations with the British, and in the fall of 1782 the treaty between the British and American nation was signed.

After the treaty was signed, Franklin was chosen president of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania and served for three years as Governor of the State.

Freeman by nature, American by birth and choice, Franklin was, nevertheless, a cosmopolitan, and his heart was with all free people. As a member of the Royal Society and during his fifteen years in England, he devoted many hours to the study of Arcane philosophy in the presence of the Brethren of the Rosy Cross and in the meetings of the Order of the Rose. He also spent other hours with the members of La Humanidad, Philosophic Initiates and L’Ordre du Lis. During his more than seven years in France, he had come to love the French people and held for them as deep an affection as was in his heart for his own countrymen, many of whom had not shown him too great a friendliness.

Franklin, though by adherence a sectarian, nevertheless believed in Reincarnation—a return of the Soul to earth to perfect itself—as is clearly indicated in the epitaph he himself prepared:

Benjamin Franklin, philosopher, diplomat, scientist, inventor; Philosophic Initiate, Ambassador for the Rosy Cross from the New World of free men, to the old world of spiritual understanding, honored by the brethren of the Order of the Rose, and L’Ordre
du Lis, passed from labor to a period of rest, April 17, 1790.