In 1779, which revolutionary leader and American Founding Father wrote a treatise, ‘The Morals of Chess’?

Benjamin Franklin as an American revolutionary leader and Founding Father, scientist, author and statesman, born in Boston and raised in Philadelphia. He was also a capable chess player who wrote of competing in the board game as early as 1733.

As an ambassador from the newly independent and established country, he spent a number of years in France as ambassador, where he frequented various Parisian locales honing his skills of the game.

Franklin saw a mirror of life in the game of chess and preached its virtues in his treatise ‘The Morals of Chess’, written in 1779. It was first published in London, England and then reproduced in the United States in the city of Philadelphia in the ‘Columbia Magazine’ in 1786.

Many of the maxims in his treatise were widely quoted at home and abroad, even becoming in 1791, the first chess-related book to ever appear in Russia.

Specifically, Franklin argued that chess “strengthened…several very valuable qualities of the mind”. Later in his treatise, he identified circumspection, caution, and perseverance as a few of the qualities demonstrated in the game and needed in one’s life in general.

In 1999, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame.