Benjamin Franklin's Alter Egos Gave Him the Most Freedom

What most biographies forget to mention is that Franklin was also member of the Hellfire club, which is described as [1],

> Members would drink vast quantities of alcohol and gorge themselves on food. Drunkenness was a prerequisite of The Hellfire Club. They’d dabble in most of the seven deadly sins to be honest – with gluttony, greed and lust being regular activities. Add in a smattering of gambling, fornicating and blasphemy, and you get the idea of a night at the Hellfire Club.

And,

> When we say ‘poking fun’, they were all about dressing as monks, performing parodies of religious ceremonies and making mock sacrifices to Bacchus and Venus. Along with that there was huge amounts of boozing, feasting, entertaining prostitutes and sharing pornographic materials.

[1]: https://www.walks.com/blog/hellfire-club-london/

An interesting new biography on Benjamin Franklin just came out:

"He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada" by Madelaine Drohan[1].

There is no shortage of American biographies of Franklin that sometimes border on hagiography. This one, which is well-timed thanks to current events, is from a Canadian historian and perspective. Drohan makes the case that this perspective has been lacking until now. Victors usually write the history, but Franklin was no victor when it came to his many failed attempts to incorporate Canada into the U.S.. Franklin spent a rather large portion of his life in this endeavour and failed continually. He deserves to be portrayed a bit more honestly by the side that won by remaining free of U.S. control.

Throughout his newspaper career Franklin railed against the evils of papist Canada, whipping up fear and aggression whenever it was convenient or beneficial to himself, despite having no problems living with a Catholic landlady when he was in Britain. This biography goes into considerable detail about Franklin's early career as a newspaper man and how he parlayed this into influence into political power, with the help of good ol' anti-Canadian outrage now and then! He led the occupation of Montreal during the American revolution, but failed to secure the supplies or money his forces needed and resorted to thievery, which got him promptly kicked out. As an elder statesman he tried to negotiate a peace with Britain and France that would have left Canada in the U.S.'s hands, but again, failed.

While he was a talented polymath, Franklin's most exceptional talent was self-promotion. He is admired by Americans, in large part, because of his own portrayal of himself. Yet, Canada remains independent.

[1]https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2025/12/how-vain-an-attempt...

alts are underrated

i know some very very interesting people whose x is anon

When Benjamin Franklin launched Poor Richard’s Almanack in 1733 under the fake identity of “Richard Saunders,” he needed a way to get attention in Philadelphia’s crowded almanac market. So he decided to kill off one of his established competitors.

Franklin announced that Titan Leeds would soon die: “He dies, by my Calculation... on Oct. 17. 1733. 3 ho. 29 m. P.M.”

Leeds, inconveniently, did not die.

Instead, he published another almanac and attacked Poor Richard as a “false Predicter,” an “Ignorant,” a “conceited Scribler,” a “Fool, and a Lyar.”

Franklin responded that there was “the strongest Probability that my dear Friend is no more,” because the real Leeds was far too well bred to say such awful things about his friend Richard Saunders. Therefore somebody must simply be publishing an almanac under the dead man’s name.

The next year Franklin stopped even pretending there was much doubt. He complained about receiving abuse from “the Ghost of Titan Leeds, who pretends to be still living.”

And then he actually tried to prove Leeds was dead from Leeds’ own words, concluding: “he is dead now, to all Intents and Purposes, any thing he may say to the contrary notwithstanding.”

This went on for years.

Then, in 1738, Titan Leeds actually died.

At this point Franklin could have admitted that perhaps predicting a man’s death five years early represented a minor error in his astrological calculations.

Instead, Franklin escalated.

In the 1740 Poor Richard’s Almanack he claimed that Leeds’ ghost had appeared and left him a letter. The now genuinely dead Leeds supposedly wrote: “I did actually die at that time,” explaining that Poor Richard’s original prediction had been off by only “5 min. 53 sec.”