Bonaparte was then at the head of an resigned, leaving France without an execuarmy in the East. His brothers informed tive authority, and Bonaparte with its him of the state of affairs at home, and strong arm, the military, firmly in his he suddenly appeared in Paris with a few grasp. The Council of the Ancients, defollowers, where he was hailed as the good ceived by a trick, assembled at St. Cloud genius of the republic. With his brother the next day. Bonaparte appeared before Lucien, then president of the Council of them to justify his conduct. Perceiving Five Hundred, and the Abbé Sieyès, one of their enmity, he threatened them with arthe Directory, and of great influence in rest by the military if they should decide the Council of the Ancients, he conspired against him. Meanwhile Lucien had read for the overthrow of the government and the letters of resignation of the three the establishment of a new one. Sieyès directors to the Council of Five Huninduced the Council of the Ancients to dred. A scene of terrible excitement ocplace Bonaparte in command of the mili- curred. There were shouts of "No Cromtary of Paris, Nov. 9, 1799. Then Sieyes well! no dictator! the constitution forand two other members of the Directory ever!" Bonaparte entered that chamber with four grenadiers, and attempted to and paused; and, through letters to speak, but was interrupted by cries and Pinchon (August and September, 1798), execrations. The members seemed about information was conveyed to the United to offer personal violence to the bold sol- States government that the Directory dier, when a body of troops rushed in and were ready to receive advances from the bore him off. A motion was made for his former for entering into negotiations. outlawry, which Lucien refused to put, Anxious for peace, President Adams, and left the chair. He went out and ad- without consulting his cabinet or the nadressed the soldiers. At the conclusion tional dignity, nominated to the Senate of his speech, Murat entered with a body William Vans Murray (then United of armed men, and ordered the council States diplomatic agent at The Hague) to disperse. The members replied with as minister plenipotentiary to France. defiant shouts and execrations. The This was a concession to the Directory drums were ordered to be beaten; the which neither Congress nor the people soldiers levelled their muskets, when all approved, and the Senate refused to but about fifty of the Council escaped by ratify the nomination. This advance, the windows. These, with the Ancients, after unatoned insults from the Directory, passed a decree making Sieyès, Bona- seemed like cowardly cringing before a parte, and Ducros provisional consuls. half-relenting tyrant. After a while the In December, Bonaparte was made first President consented to the appointment consul, or supreme ruler, for life. New of three envoys extraordinary, of which American envoys had just reached Paris Murray should be one, to settle all disat this crisis, and very soon Bonaparte putes between the two governments. concluded an amicable settlement of all Oliver Ellsworth and William R. Davie difficulties between the two nations. were chosen to join Murray. The latter Peace was established; the envoys re- did not proceed to Europe until assur MEDAL AWARDED BY CONGRESS IN COMMEMORATION OF THE CAPTURE OF LA VENGEANCE BY THE CONSTELLATION. turned home; and the provisional army of the United States which had been organized was disbanded. Circumstances humbled the pride of the French Directory, and the wily Talleyrand began to think of reconciliation with the United States. He saw the unity of the people with Washington as leader, The ances were received from France of their supreme ruler, of the nation. The en- 1814 they published the American Medivoys were cordially received by Talley- cal and Philosophical Register. He ocrand, in the name of the first consul, and all difficulties between the two nations were speedily adjusted. A convention was signed at Paris (Sept. 30, 1800) by the three envoys and three French commissioners which was satisfactory to both parties. The convention also made a decision contrary to the doctrine avowed and practised by the English government, that free ships make free goods." This affirmed the doctrine of Frederick the Great, enunciated fifty years before, and denied that of England in her famous "rule of 1756." cupied the chair of materia medica in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and, visiting Europe, was a pupil of the celebrated Abernethy. After filling various professorships until 1826, he devoted himself to the practice of his profession and to literary pursuits. Dr. Francis was probably the author of more biographies and memoirs than any American of his time, and was active, as one of the founders, in the promotion of the objects of the New York Historical Society and of other institutions. He was the first president of the New York France, THREATENING ATTITUDE OF. See Academy of Medicine, and was a member ADAMS, JOHN. Franchere, GABRIEL, pioneer; born in Montreal, Canada, Nov. 3, 1786; was connected with the American fur company organized by John Jacob Astor, and did much to develop the fur trade in the Rocky Mountains and the northern Pacific coast. He published a History of the Astor Expeditions, in French, which was the first work containing detailed accounts of the Northwest Territory. When he died, in St. Paul, Minn., in 1856, he was the last survivor of the Astor expedition. Franchise. See ELECTION BILL, FEDERAL; ELECTIVE FRANCHISE; SUFFRAGE. Francis, CONVERS, clergyman; born in West Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 9, 1785; graduated at Harvard in 1815; became pastor of the Unitarian Church in Watertown, Mass., in 1819. Among his writings are Historical Sketch of Watertown; Life of John Eliot in Sparks's American Biographies; Memoirs of Rev. John Allyn, Dr. Gamaliel Bradford, Judge Davis, etc. He died in Cambridge, Mass., April 7, 1863. Francis, DAVID ROWLAND, merchant; born in Richmond, Ky., Oct. 1, 1850; graduated at Washington University, St. Louis, in 1870; governor of Missouri in 1889-93; appointed Secretary of the Interior in 1896; president Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission in 1904. of numerous scientific and literary societies. He died in New York City, Feb. 8, 1861. Francis, JoSEPH, inventor; born in Boston, Mass., March 12, 1801; invented a number of life-boats, life-cars, and surfboats, which came into general use. In 1850, when the British ship Ayrshire was wrecked off New Jersey, 200 persons were saved by means of his life-car. He died in Cooperstown, N. Y., May 10, 1893. Francis, TURBUTT, soldier; born in Maryland in 1740; a son of the noted Tench Francis; was a colonel in the British army previous to the Revolutionary War, but resigned to fight on the side of the Americans. He died in 1797. Frankfort Land Company. See Franking Privilege, THE, was a privilege of sending and receiving letters post free given to members of the British Parliament and of the Congress of the United States, and to certain public functionaries. This privilege was abused, and it was abolished in Great Britain in 1840. Congress bestowed upon Washington, on his retirement from the office of President of the republic, the privilege of free postage for the remainder of his life. This privilege has been extended to all subsequent Presidents, and also to their widFrancis, JOHN WAKEFIELD, physician; ows. The franking privilege was abolished born in New York City, Nov. 17, 1789; in the United States in 1873, and each of graduated at Columbia College in 1809; the executive departments was supplied began business life as a printer, but with a special set of postage-stamps for commenced the study of medicine, in its official communications. 1810, under Dr. Hosack, and was his also was abolished, and now official compartner until 1820. From 1810 until munications are sent by the departments This plan in unstamped 66 penalty" envelopes, and return to their duty; and the Assembly Senators and Representatives are per- passed an act of oblivion as to all who mitted to have mail packages forwarded should submit. But the provisional consimply bearing their name or frank. Let- stitution of Frankland, based upon that ters of soldiers and sailors in active ser- of North Carolina, was adopted (Novem vice or inconvenient stations are forward- ber, 1785) as a permanent one, and the ed free of postage, when properly marked. new State entered upon an independent Frankland. In 1784, North Carolina ceded her western lands to the United States. The people of east Tennessee, piqued at being thus disposed of, and feeling the burdens of State taxation, alleging that no provision was made for their defence or the administration of justice, assembled in convention at Jonesboro, to take measures for organizing a new and independent State. The North Carolina Assembly, willing to compromise, repealed the act of cession the same year, made the Tennessee counties a separate military district, with John Sevier as brigadiergeneral, and also a separate judicial district, with proper officers. But ambitious men urged the people forward, and at a second convention, at the same place, Dec. 14, 1784, they resolved to form an independent State, under the name of Frankland. A provisional government was formed; Sevier was chosen governor (March, 1785); the machinery of an independent State was put in motion, and the governor of North Carolina (Martin) was informed that the counties of Sullivan, Washington, and Greene were no longer a part of the State of North Carolina. Martin issued a proclamation, exhorting all engaged in the movement to FRANKLIN, career. Very soon rivalries and jealousies appeared. Parties arose and divided the people, and at length a third party, favoring adherence to North Carolina, led by Colonel Tipton, showed much and increasing strength. The new State sent William Cocke as a delegate to the Congress, but he was not received, while the North Carolina party sent a delegate to the legislature of that State. Party spirit ran high. Frankland had two sets of officers, and civil war was threatened. Collisions be came frequent. The inhabitants of southwestern Virginia sympathized with the revolutionists, and were inclined to secede from their own State. Finally an armed collision between men under Tipton and Sevier took place. The latter were de fcated, and finally arrested, and taken to prison in irons. Frankland had received its death-blow. The Assembly of North Carolina passed an act of oblivion, and offered pardon for all offenders in Frankland in 1788, and the trouble ceased. Virginia, alarmed by the movement, hastened to pass a law subjecting to the penalties of treason any person who should attempt to erect a new State in any part of her territory without previous permission of her Assembly. See SEVIER; TENNESSEE. BENJAMIN printing material. He was deceived, and remained there eighteen months, working as a journeyman printer in London. He returned to Philadelphia late in 1726, and Franklin, BENJAMIN, statesman; born in Boston, Jan. 17, 1706. His father was from England; his mother was a daughter of Peter Folger, the Quaker poet of Nantucket. He learned the art of printing in 1729 established himself there as a with his brother; but they disagreeing, Benjamin left Boston when seventeen years of age, sought employment in New York, but, not succeeding, went to Philadelphia, and there found it. He soon attracted the attention of Governor Keith as a very bright lad, who, making him a promise of the government printing, induced young Franklin, at the age of eighteen, to go to England and purchase printer. He started the Pennsylvania Gazette, and married Deborah Read, a young woman whose husband had absconded. For many years he published an almanac under the assumed name of Richard Saunders. It became widely known as Poor Richard's Almanac, as it contained many wise and useful maxims, mostly from the ancients. Franklin was soon marked as a wise, prudent, and saga. cious man, full of well-directed public spirit. He was the chief founder of the Philadelphia Library in 1731. He became clerk of the Provincial Assembly in 1736, and postmaster of Philadelphia the next year. He was the founder of the University of Pennsylvania and the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia in 1744, and was elected a member of the Provincial Assembly in 1750. In 1753 he was appointed deputy postmaster for the English-American colonies; and in 1754 he was a delegate to the Colonial Congress of Albany, in which he prepared a plan of union for the colonies, which was the basis of the Articles of Confederation (see CONFEDERATION, ARTICLES OF) adopted by Congress more than twenty years afterwards. Franklin had begun his investigations and experiments in electricity, by which he demonstrated its identity with lightning as early as 1746. The publication of his account of these experiments procured for him membership in the Royal Society, the Copley gold medal, and the degree of LL.D. from Oxford and Edinburgh in 1762. Harvard and Yale colleges had previously conferred upon him the degree of Mas ter of Arts. Franklin was for many years a member of the Assembly and advocated the rights of the people in opposition to the claims of the proprietaries; and in 1764 he was sent to England as agent of the colonial legislature, in which capacity he afterwards acted for several other colonies. His representation to the British ministry, in 1765-66, of the temper of the Americans on the subject of taxation by Parliament did much in effecting the re peal of the Stamp Act. He tried to avert the calamity of a rupture between Great Britain and her colonies; but, failing in this, he returned to America in 1775, after which he was constantly employed at home and abroad in the service of his countrymen struggling for political independence. In Congress, he advocated, helped to prepare and signed the Declaration of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Independence; and in the fall of 1776 he was sent as ambassador to France, as the colleague of Silas Deane and Arthur Lee. To him was chiefly due the successful negotiation of the treaty of alliance with France, and he continued to represent his country there until 1785, when he returned home. While he was in France, and residing at Passy in 1777, a medallion likeness of him was made in the red clay of that region. The |