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1 
 
amencan ^tatejsmen 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 JOHN T. MORSE, JR. 
 
 \ 
 
) 
 
 ?[merican ^tatc^nicn 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 
 
 JOHN T. MORSE, JR. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "life OF JOHN ADAMS, "" "LIFE OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS '' 
 "life of THOMAS JEFFERSON,"' ETC. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1891 
 

 Copyright, 1889, 
 By JOHN T. MORSE, JR. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 ^Tl% 
 
 '^V 
 
 """f 9 tm 
 
 Tlie Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.: 
 Electrotyped and Printed by II. 0. Houghton & Company. 
 
^ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Just as I am reading the last proof-sheet of 
 this volume, its publishers send me a catalogue 
 of their " Books of Biography." In it my eye in- 
 opportunely falls upon these discouraging words, 
 
 oted from the Hon. John Bigelow, concerning 
 arton's Life of Franklin: ''The delightful work 
 f Mr. Parton has left no place in English litera- 
 
 re for another biography of this most illustrious 
 of our countrymen." I am much of Mr. Bigelow's 
 opinion. Mr. Parton has given us such an admi- 
 rable biography, so exhaustive and so remarkably 
 happy in setting the real man vividly before the 
 reader, that I feel that I must give something be- 
 tween a reason and an apology for the existence of 
 this volume. The fact is simply this: without a 
 life »f Franklin this series would have appeared as 
 absurdly imperfect as a library of English fiction 
 with Scott or Thackeray absent from the shelves. 
 The volume was a necessity, and since Mr. Par- 
 ton's work, even if it could be borrowed or stolen, 
 would not fit the space, this little book has been 
 written. No poor genie of oriental magic was ever 
 squeezed into more disproportionately narrow quar- 
 
 ?o'o5't) 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 ters than is Franklin in these four hundred pages ; 
 but again necessity must bear the burden of re^ 
 sponsibility. 
 
 The edition of Franklin's works referred to in 
 this volume is that of Mr. John Bigelow, published 
 by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1887-88. 
 
 The edition of Bancroft's History of the United 
 States referred to is the earliest octavo edition. 
 
 JOHN T. MORSE, JR. 
 Bevekly Farms, August 9, 1889. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAFTEE PAGE 
 
 I. Early Years 1 
 
 II. A Citizen of Philadelphia: Concernment in 
 
 Public Affairs 17 
 
 III. Representative of Pennsylvania in England : 
 
 Return Home 58 
 
 IV. Life in Philadelphia ...... 85 
 
 V. Second Mission to England : 1 99 
 
 VI. Second Mission to England: II. . , . 141 
 VII. Second Mission to England : III The Hutchin- 
 son Letters : the Privy Council Scene : 
 
 Return Home 175 
 
 VIII. Services in the States . . . . . 202 
 IX. Minister to France : I. Deane and Beaumar- 
 
 chais : Foreign Officers 217 
 
 X. Minister to France : II. Prisoners : Trouble 
 
 WITH Lee and others 245 
 
 XI. Minister to France : III. Treaty with France : 
 
 More Quarrels 264 
 
 XII. Financiering . 300 
 
 XIII. Habits of Life and of Business : an Adams In- 
 
 cident 333 
 
 XIV. Peace Negotiations : Last Years in France . 352 
 XV. At Home : President of Pennsylvania : The 
 
 Constitutional Convention : Death . . 397 
 
BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A EAELY YEAKS. 
 
 It is a lamentable matter for any writer to find 
 himself compelled to sketch, however briefly, the 
 early years of Benjamin Franklin. That autobiog- 
 raphy, in which the story of those years is so inim- 
 itably told, by its vividness, its simplicity, even by 
 its straightforward vanity, and by the quaint charm 
 of its old-fashioned but well-nigh faultless style, 
 stands among the few masterpieces of English 
 prose. It ought to have served for the perpetual 
 protection of its subject as a copyright more sacred 
 than any which rests upon mere statutory law. 
 Such, however, has not been the case, and the nar- 
 rative has been rehearsed over and over a^ain till 
 the American who is not familiar with it is indeed 
 a curiosity. Yet no one of the subsequent narrators 
 has justified his undertaking. Therefore because 
 the tale has been told so often, and once has been 
 told so well, and also in order that the stone which 
 it is my lot to cast upon a cairn made up of so 
 many failures may at least be only a small pebble, 
 
2 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 I shall get forward as speedily as possible to that 
 point in Franklin's career where his important 
 public services begin, at the same time commending 
 every reader to turn again for further refreshment 
 of his knowledge to those pages which might well 
 have aroused the envy of Fielding and Defoe. 
 
 Franklin came from typical English stock. For 
 three hundred years, perhaps for many centuries 
 more, his ancestors lived on a small freehold at 
 Ecton in Northamptonshire, and so far back as 
 record or tradition ran the eldest son in each gen- 
 eration had been bred a blacksmith. But after the 
 strange British fashion there was intertwined with 
 this singular fixedness of ideas a stubborn inde- 
 pendence in thinking, courageously exercised in 
 times of peril. The Franklins were among the 
 early Protestants, and held their faith unshaken 
 by the terrors of the reign of Bloody Mary. By 
 the end of Charles the Second's time they w^ere 
 non-conformists and attendants on conventicles ; 
 and about 1682 Josiah Franklin, seeking the peace- 
 ful exercise of his creed, migrated to Boston, Mas- 
 sachusetts. His first wife bore him seven children, 
 and died. Not satisfied, he took in second nuptials 
 Abiah Folger, "daughter of Peter Folger, one of 
 the first settlers of New England, of whom hon- 
 orable mention is made by Cotton Mather," and 
 justly, since in those dark days he was an active 
 philanthropist towards the Indians, and an oppo- 
 nent of religious persecution.^ This lady outdid 
 
 ^ Parton's Life of Franklin^ i. 27- 
 
EARLY YEARS. 6 
 
 her predecessor, contributing no less than ten chil- 
 dren to expand tlie family circle. The eighth of 
 this second brood was named Benjamin, in memory 
 of his father's favorite brother. He was born in 
 a house on Milk Street, opposite the Old South 
 Church, January 6, old style, 17, new style, 1706. 
 Mr. Parton says that probably Benjamin " derived 
 from his mother the fashion of his body and the 
 cast of his countenance. There are lineal descend- 
 ants of Peter Folger who strikingly resemble Frank- 
 lin in these particulars ; one of whom, a banker of 
 New Orleans, looks like a portrait of Dr. Franklin 
 stepped out of its frame." ^ A more important in- 
 heritance was that of the humane and liberal traits 
 of his mother's father. 
 
 In that young, scrambling village in the new 
 country, where all material, human or otherwise, 
 was roughly and promptly utilized, the unproduc- 
 tive period of boyhood was cut very short. Frank- 
 lin's father speedily resolved to devote him, " as the 
 tithe of his sons, to the service of the church," and 
 so sent him to the grammar school. A droller 
 misfit than Franklin in an orthodox New England 
 pulpit of that era can hardly be imagined; but 
 since he was only seven years old when his father 
 endeavored to arrange his life's career, a misappre- 
 ciation of his fitnesses was not surprising. The 
 boy himself had the natural hankering of children 
 bred in a seaboard town for the life of a sailor. 
 It is amusing to fancy the discussions between this 
 
 ^ Parton's Life of Franklin, i. 31. 
 
4 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 babe of seven years and his father, concerning his 
 occupation in life. Certainly the babe had not 
 altogether the worst of it, for when he was eight 
 years old his father definitively gave up the notion 
 of making him a preacher of the Gospel. At the 
 ripe age of ten he was taken from school, and set 
 to assist his father in the trade of tallow-chandler 
 and soap-boiler. But dipping wicks and pouring 
 grease pleased him hardly better than reconciling 
 infant damnation and a red-hot hell with the love- 
 liness of Christianity. The lad remained discon- 
 tented. His chief taste seemed to be for reading, 
 and great were the ingenuity and the self-sacrifice 
 whereby he secured books and leisure to read them. 
 The resultant of these several forces was at last 
 a suggestion from his father that he should take 
 up, as a sort of quasi-literary occupation, the trade 
 of a printer. James Franklin, an older brother of 
 Benjamin, was already of that calling. Benjamin 
 stood out for some time, but at last reluctantly 
 yielded, and in the maturity of his thirteenth year 
 this child set his hand to an indenture of appren- 
 ticeship which formally bound him to his brother 
 for the next nine years of his life. 
 
 Handling the types aroused a boyish ambition to 
 see himself in print. He scribbled some ballads, 
 one about a shipwreck, another about the capture 
 of a pirate ; but he " escaped being a poet," as for- 
 tunately as he had escaped being a clergyman. 
 James Franklin seems to have trained his junior 
 with such fraternal cuffs and abuse as the elder 
 
EARLY TEARS. D 
 
 brothers of English biography and literature ap- 
 pear usually to have bestowed on the younger. 
 But this j^ounger one got his revenges. James pub- 
 lished the " New England Courant," and, inserting 
 in it some objectionable matter, was forbidden to 
 continue it. Thereupon he canceled the indenture 
 of apprenticeship, and the newspaper was thereaf- 
 ter published by Benjamin Franklin. A secret re- 
 newal- of the indenture was executed simultaneously. 
 This " flimsy scheme " gave the boy his chance. 
 Secure that the document would never be produced, 
 he resolved to leave the printing-house. But the 
 influence of James prevented his getting employ- 
 ment elsewhere in the town. Besides this, other 
 matters also harassed him. It gives an idea of the 
 scale of things in the little settlement, and of the 
 serious way in which life was taken even at its out- 
 set, to hear that this 'prentice lad of seventeen 
 years had already made himself " a little obnoxious 
 to the governing party," so as to fear that he might 
 soon " bring himself into scrapes." For the inher- 
 ited habit of freedom in religious speculation had 
 taken a new form in Franklin, who was already a 
 free-thinker, and by his " indiscreet disputations 
 about religion " had come to be "pointed at with 
 horror by good people as an infidel and atheist " — 
 compromising, even perilous, names to bear in that 
 Puritan village. Various motives thus combined 
 to induce migration. He stole away on board a 
 sloop bound for New York, and after three days 
 arrived there, in October, 1723. He had but a 
 
6 BENJAMIN FFANKLIN. 
 
 trifling sum of money, and he knew no one in the 
 strange city. He sought occupation in his trade, 
 hut got nothing better than advice to move on to 
 Philadel^^hia ; and thither he went. The story of 
 this journeying is delightfully told in the autobi- 
 ography, with the famous little scene wherein he 
 fig-ures with a loaf under each arm and munch- 
 ing a third while he walks " up Market Street, as 
 far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. 
 Read, my future wife's father ; when she, stand- 
 ing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as 
 I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appear- 
 ance." 
 
 In Philadelphia Franklin soon found opportunity 
 to earn a. living at his trade. There were then only 
 two printers in that town, ignorant men both, with 
 scant capacity in the technique of their calling. 
 His greater acquirements and ability, and superior 
 knowledge of the craft, soon attracted attention. 
 One day Sir William Keitli, governor of the Prov- 
 ince, appeared at the printing-office, inquired for 
 Franklin, and carried him off "to taste some ex- 
 cellent Madeira " with himself and Colonel French, 
 while employer Keimer, bewildered at the compli- 
 ment to his journeyman, " star'd like a pig i3oi- 
 son'd." Over the genial glasses the governor pro- 
 posed that Franklin should set up for himself, and 
 promised his own influence to secure for him the 
 public printing. Later he wrote a letter, intended 
 to induce Franklin's father to advance the necessary 
 funds. Equipped with this document, Franklin 
 
EARLY YEARS. 7 
 
 set out, in April, 1724, to seek his father's coopera- 
 tion, and surprised his family by appearing unan- 
 nounced among them, not at all in the classic garb 
 of the prodigal son, but " having a genteel new suit 
 from head to foot, a watch, and my pockets lin'd 
 with near five pounds sterling in silver." But 
 neither his prosperous appearance nor the flattering 
 epistle of the great man could induce his hard- 
 headed parent to favor a scheme " of setting a boy 
 up in business, who wanted yet three years of being 
 at man's estate." The independent old tallow- 
 chandler only concluded that the distinguished 
 baronet " must be of small discretion." So Frank- 
 lin returned with " some small gifts as tokens " of 
 parental love, much good advice as to " steady in- 
 dustry and prudent parsimony," but no cash in 
 hand. The gallant governor, however, said: " Since 
 he will not set you up, I will do it myself," and a 
 plan was soon concocted whereby Franklin was to 
 go to England and purchase a press and types with 
 funds to be advanced by Sir William. Everything 
 was arranged, only from day to day there was delay 
 in the actual delivery to Franklin of the letters of 
 introduction and credit. The governor was a very 
 busy man. The day of sailing came, but the docu- 
 ments had not come, only a message from the gov- 
 ernor that Franklin might feel easy at embarking, 
 for that the papers should be sent on board 
 at Newcastle, down the stream. Accordingly, at 
 the last moment, a messenger came hurriedly on 
 board and put the packet into the captain's hands. 
 
8 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Afterward, when during the leisure hours of the 
 voyage the letters were sorted, none was found for 
 Franklin. His patron had simply broken an in- 
 convenient promise. It was indeed a "pitiful 
 trick " to " impose so grossly on a poor innocent 
 boy." Yet Franldin, in his broad tolerance of all 
 that is bad as well as good in human nature, spoke 
 with good-tempered indifference, and with more of 
 charity than of justice, concerning the deceiver. 
 *' It was a habit he had acquired. He wish'd to 
 please everybody; and, having little to give, he 
 gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenious, 
 sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good gov- 
 ernor for the people. . . . Several of our best laws 
 were of his planning, and passed during his ad- 
 ministration." 
 
 None the less it turned out that this contemptible 
 governor did Franklin a good turn in sending him 
 to London, though the benefit came in a fashion 
 not anticipated by either. For Franklin, not yet 
 much wiser than the generality of mankind, had to 
 go through his period of youthful folly, and it was 
 good fortune for him that the worst portion of this 
 period fell within the eighteen months which he 
 passed in England. Had this part of his career 
 been run in Philadelphia its unsavory aroma might 
 have kept him long in ill odor among his fellow- 
 townsmen, then little tolerant of profligacy. But 
 the " errata " of a journeyman printer in London 
 were quite beyond the ken of provincial gossips. 
 
EARLY YEARS. 9 
 
 He easily gained employment In his trade, at wages 
 which left him a little surplus beyond his mainte- 
 nance. This surplus, during most of the time, he 
 and his comrades squandered In the pleasures of < 
 the town. Yet In one matter his good sense showed 
 Itself, for he kept clear of drink ; Indeed, his real 
 nature asserted Itself even at this time, to such a 
 degree that we find him waging a temperance cru- 
 sade In his printing-house, and actually weaning 
 some of his fellow compositors from their dearly 
 loved "beer." One of these, David Hall, afterward 
 became his able partner In the printing business in 
 Philadelphia. Amid much bad companionship he 
 fell In with some clever men. His friend James 
 Ralph, though a despicable, bad fellow, had brains 
 and some education. At this time, too, Franklin 
 was In the proselyting stage of infidelity. He pub- 
 lished " A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, 
 Pleasure and Pain," and the pamphlet got him 
 some little notoriety among the free-thinkers of 
 London, and an introduction to some of them, but 
 chiefly of the class who love to sit In taverns and 
 blow clouds of words. Their society did him no 
 good, and such effervescence was better blown off 
 In London than In Philadelphia. 
 
 But after tlie novelty of London life had worn off. 
 It ceased to be to Franklin's taste. He began to 
 reform somewhat, to retrench and lay by a little 
 money ; and after eighteen months he eagerly seized 
 an opportunity which offered for returning home. 
 
10 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 This was opened to him by a Mr. Denham, a 
 good man and prosperous merchant, then engaged 
 in England in purchasing stock for his store in 
 Philadelphia. Franklin was to be his managing 
 and confidential clerk, with the prospect of rapid 
 advancement. At the same time Sir William 
 Wyndham, ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, en- 
 deavored to persuade Franklin to open a swimming 
 school in London. He promised very aristocratic 
 patronage ; and as an opening for money-getting 
 this plan was perhaps the better. Franklin almost 
 closed with the proposition. He seems, however, 
 to have had a little touch of homesickness, a pre- 
 ference, if not quite a yearning, for the colonies, 
 which sufficed to turn the scale. Such was his 
 third escape ; he might have passed his days in in- 
 structing the scions of British nobility in the art of 
 swimming ! He arrived at home, after a tedious 
 voyage, October 11, 1726. But almost immedi- 
 ately fortune seemed to cross him, for Mr. Denham 
 and he were both taken suddenly ill. Denham 
 died ; Franklin narrowly evaded death, and fancied 
 himself somewhat disappointed at his recovery, " re- 
 gretting in some degree that [hej must now some- 
 time or other have all that disagreeable work to go 
 over again." He seems to have become sufficiently 
 interested in what was likely to follow his decease, 
 in this world at least, to compose an epitaph which 
 has become world-renowned, and has been often 
 imitated : — 
 
EARLY YEARS. 11 
 
 THE BODY 
 OF 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 
 
 (OKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK, 
 
 ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT, 
 
 AND 8TRIPT OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDING,) 
 
 LIES HERE, FOOD FOR WORMS, 
 
 YET THE WORK ITSELF SHALL NOT BE LOST, 
 
 FOR IT WILL, AS HE BELIEVED, APPEAR ONCE MORE, 
 
 IN A NEW 
 
 AND MORE BEAUTIFUL EDITION, 
 
 CORRECTED AND AMENDED 
 
 BY 
 
 THE Author. 
 
 But there was no use for this graveyard literature ; 
 Franklin got well, and recurred again to his proper 
 trade. Being expert with the composing-stick, he 
 was readily engaged at good wages by his old em- 
 ployer, Keimer. Franklin, however, soon suspected 
 that this man's purpose was only to use him tem- 
 porarily for instructing some green hands, and for 
 organizing the printing-office. Naturally a quarrel 
 soon occurred. But Franklin had proved his capa- 
 city, and forthwith the father of one Meredith, a 
 fellow-journeyman under Keimer, advanced suffi- 
 cient money to set up the two as partners in the 
 printing business. Franklin managed the office, 
 showing admirable enterprise, skill, and industry. 
 Meredith drank. This allotment of functions soon 
 produced its natural result. iTwo friends of Frank- 
 lin lent him what capital he needed ; he bought out 
 Meredith and had the wliole business for himself. 
 
12 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 His zeal increased ; he won good friends, gave gen- 
 eral satisfaction, and absorbed all the best business 
 in the Province. 
 
 At the time of the formation of the partnership 
 the only newspaper of Pennsylvania was published 
 by Bradford, a rival of Keimer in the printing busi- 
 ness. It was "a paltry thing, wretchedly man- 
 aged, no way entertaining, and yet was profitable 
 to him." Franklin and Meredith resolved to start 
 a competing sheet ; but Keimer got wind of their 
 plan, and at once " published proposals for printing 
 one himself." He had got ahead of them, and they 
 had to desist. But he was ignorant, shiftless, and 
 incompetent, and after carrying on his enterprise 
 for '* three quarters of a year, with at most only 
 ninety subscribers," he sold out his failure to Frank- 
 lin and Meredith "for a trifle." To them, or 
 rather to Franklin, " it prov'd in a few years ex- 
 tremely profitable." Its original name, " The 
 Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, and 
 Pennsylvania Gazette" was reduced by the ampu- 
 tation of the first clause, and, relieved from the 
 burden of its trailing title, it circulated actively 
 throughout the Province, and further. Number 
 40, Franklin's first number, appeared October 2, 
 1729. Bradford, who was postmaster, refused to 
 allow his post-riders to carry any save his own 
 newspaper. But Franklin, whose morality was 
 nothing if not practical, fought the devil with 
 fire, and bribed the riders so judiciously that his 
 newspaper penetrated whithersoever they went. 
 
EARLY YEARS. 13 
 
 He says of it : '^ Our first papers made a quite dif- 
 ferent appearance from any before in the Province ; 
 a better type, and better printed ; but some spirited 
 remarks of my writing, on the dispute then going 
 on between Governor Burnet and the Massachu- 
 setts Assembly, struck the principal people, occa- 
 sioned the paper and the manager of it to be much 
 talked of, and in a few weeks brought them all to 
 be our subscribers." Later his articles in favor of 
 the issue of a sum of paper currency were so largely 
 instrumental in carrying that measure that the 
 profitable job of printing the money became his 
 reward. Thus advancing in prestige and prosper- 
 ity, he was able to discharge by installments his in- 
 debtedness. " In order to secure," he says, " my 
 credit and character as a tradesman, I took care to 
 be not only in reality industrious and frugal, but to 
 avoid all appearances to the contrary." A charac- 
 teristic remark. With Franklin every virtue had 
 its market value, and to neglect to get that value 
 out of it was the part. of folly. 
 
 About this time the wife of a glazier, who occu- 
 pied part of Franklin's house, began match-making 
 in behalf of a ^' very deserving " girl ; and Franklin, 
 nothing loath, responded with " serious courtship." 
 He intimated his willingness to accept the maiden's 
 hand, provided that its fellow hand held a dowry, 
 and he named an hundred pounds sterling as his 
 lowest figure. The parents, on the other part, said 
 that they had not so much ready money. Franklin 
 civilly suggested that they could get it by raortgag- 
 
14 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 ing their liouse ; they firmly declined. The nego- 
 tiation thereu2)on was abandoned. " This affair," 
 Franklin continues, "having turned my thoughts 
 to marriage, I look'd round me and made overtures 
 of acquaintance in other places ; but soon found 
 that, the business of a printer being generally 
 thought a poor one, I was not to expect money with 
 a wife, unless with such a one as I should not 
 otherwise think agreeable." Finding such difficul- 
 ties in the way of a financial alliance, Franklin 
 appears to have bethought him of affection as a 
 substitute for dollars ; so he blew into the ashes of 
 an old flame, and aroused some heat. Before going 
 to England he had engaged himself to Miss Deb- 
 orah Read ; but in London he had pretty well for- 
 gotten her, and had written to her only a single 
 letter. Many years afterward, writing to Catharine 
 Ray in 1755, he said : " The cords of love and 
 friendship .... in times past have drawn me . . . 
 back from England to Philadelphia." If the re- 
 mark referred to an affection for Miss Read, it was 
 probably no more trustworthy than are most such 
 allegations made when lapsing years have given 
 a fictitious coloring to a remote past. If indeed 
 Franklin's profligacy and his readiness to marry 
 any girl financially eligible were symptoms attend- 
 ant upon his being in love, it somewhat taxes the 
 imagination to fancy how he would have conducted 
 himself had he not been the victim of romantic 
 passion. Miss Read, meanwhile, apparently about 
 as much in love as her lover, had wedded another 
 
EARLY TEARS. 15 
 
 man, " one Rogers, a potter," a good workman but 
 worthless fellow, who soon took fliglit from his 
 bride and his creditors. Her position had since 
 become somewhat questionable ; for there was ' a 
 story that her husband had an earlier wife living, 
 in which case of course her marriage with him was 
 null. There was also a story that he was dead. 
 But there was little evidence of the truth of either 
 tale. Franklin, therefore, hardly knew what he 
 was wedding, a maid, a widow, or another man's 
 wife. Moreover the runaway husband " had left 
 many debts, which his successor might be call'd 
 upon to pay." Few men, even if warmly enamored, 
 would have entered into the matrimonial contract 
 under circumstances so discouraging ; and there are 
 no indications save the marriage itself that Frank- 
 lin was deeply in love. Yet on September 1, 1730, 
 the pair were wedded. Mrs. Franklin survived for 
 forty years thereafter, and neither seems ever to 
 have regretted the step. " None of the inconven- 
 iences happened that we had apprehended," wrote 
 Franklin ; " she proved a good and faithful help- 
 mate ; assisted me much by attending the shop ; we 
 throve together, and have ever mutually endeavored 
 to make each other happy." A sensible, comfort- 
 able, satisfactory union it was, showing how much 
 better is sense than sensibility as an ingredient in 
 matrimony. Mrs. Franklin was a handsome woman, 
 of comely figure, yet nevertheless an industrious 
 and frugal one ; later on in life Franklin boasted 
 that he had " been clothed from head to foot in 
 
16 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 linen of [his] wife's manufacture." An early contri- 
 bution of his own to the domestic menage was his 
 illegitimate son, William, born . soon after his wed- 
 ding, of a mother of whom no record or tradition 
 remains. It was an unconventional wedding gift 
 to bring home to a bride ; but Mrs. Franklin, with 
 a breadth and liberality of mind akin to her hus- 
 band's, readily took the babe not only to her home 
 but really to her heart, and reared him as if he had 
 been her own offspring. Mr. Parton thinks that 
 Franklin gave this excellent wife no further cause 
 for suspicion or jealousy. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA : CONCERNMENT IN 
 PUBLIC AFFAIRS. 
 
 So has ended the first stage, in the benign pres- 
 ence of Hymen. The period of youth may be re- 
 garded as over ; but the narrative thereof, briefly as 
 it has been given, is not satisfactory. One longs to 
 help out the outline with color, to get the expres- 
 sion as well as merely the features of the young 
 man who is going to become one of the greatest 
 men of the nation. Many a writer and speaker 
 has done what he could in this task, for Franklin 
 has been for a century a chief idol of the American 
 people. The Boston boy, the boy printer, the run- 
 away apprentice, the young journeyman, friend- 
 less and penniless in distant London, are pictures 
 which have been made familiar to many genera- 
 tions of schoolboys ; and the trifling anecdote of 
 the bread rolls eaten in the streets of Philadelphia 
 has for its only rival among American historical 
 traditions the more doubtful story about George 
 Washington, the cherry-tree, and the little hatchet. 
 
 Yet, if plain truth is to be told, there was noth- 
 ing unusual about this sunrise, no rare tints of 
 divine aii^'ury ; the luminary came up in «v^ry-day 
 
18 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 fasliion. Franklin had done much reading ; he had 
 taken pains to cultivate a good style in writing Eng- 
 lish ; he had practiced himself in dispute ; he had 
 adopted some odd notions, for example vegetarian- 
 ism in diet ; he had at times acquired some influ- 
 ence among his fellow-journeymen, and had used it 
 for good ; he had occasionally fallen into the society 
 of men of good social position ; he had kept clear 
 of the prevalent habit of excessive drinking ; some- 
 times he had lived frugally and had laid up a little 
 money ; more often he had been wasteful ; he had 
 been very dissolute, and in sowing his wild oats he 
 had gone down into the mud. His autobiography 
 gives us a simple, vivid, strong picture, which we 
 accept as correct, though in reading it one sees that 
 the lapse of time since the occurrences narrated, to- 
 gether with his own success and distinction in life, 
 have not been without their obvious effect. By the 
 time he thought it worth while to write those pages, 
 Franklin had been taught to think very well of 
 himself and his career. For this reason he was, 
 upon the one hand, somewhat indifferent as to set- 
 ting down what smaller men would conceal, confi- 
 dent that hi& fame would not stagger beneath the 
 burden of youthful wrong - doing ; on the other 
 hand, he deals rather gently, a little ideally, with 
 himself, as old men are wont to acknowledge with 
 condemnation tempered with mild forgiveness the 
 foibles of their early days. It is evident that, as 
 a young man, Franklin intermingled sense with 
 folly, correct living with dissipation, in a, manner 
 
A CITIZEN OF PniLADELPHIA. 19 
 
 that must have made it difficult for an observer 
 to forecast the final outcome, and which makes it 
 almost equally impossible now to form a satisfac- 
 tory idea of him. He is not to be disposed of by 
 placing him in any ready-made and familiar class. 
 If he had turned out a bad man, there would have 
 been abundance in his early life to point the moral- 
 ist's warning tale ; as he turned out a very repu- 
 table one, there is scarcely less abundance for 
 panegyrists to expatiate upon. Certainly he was 
 a man to attract some attention and to carry some 
 weight, yet not more than many another of whom 
 the world never hears. At the time of his mar- 
 riage, however, he is upon the verge of develop- 
 ment ; a new period of his life is about to begin ; 
 what had been dangerous and evil in his ways dis- 
 appears ; the breadth, originality, and practical 
 character of his mind are about to show them- 
 selves. He has settled to a steady occupation ; he 
 is industrious and thrifty ; he has gathered much 
 information, and may be regarded as a well-edu- 
 cated man ; he writes a plain, forcible style ; he 
 has enterprise and shrewdness in matters of busi- 
 ness, and good sense in all matters, — that is the 
 chief point, his sound sense has got its full growth 
 and vigor, and of sound sense no man ever had 
 more. Very soon he not only prospers financially, 
 but begins to secure at first that attention and soon 
 afterward that influence which always follow close 
 upon success in practical affairs. He becomes the 
 public-spirited citizen ; scheme after scheme of so- 
 
20 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 cial and public improvement is suggested and car- 
 ried forward by him, until he justly comes to be 
 one of the foremost citizens of Philadelphia. The 
 enumeration of what he did within a few years in 
 this small new town and poor community will be 
 found surprising and admirable. 
 
 His first enterprise, of a quasi public nature, was 
 the establishment of a library. There were to be 
 fifty subscribers for fifty years, each paying an en- 
 trance fee of forty shillings and an annual due of 
 ten shillings. He succeeded only with difficulty 
 and delay, yet he did succeed, and the results were 
 important. Later a charter was obtained, and the 
 number of subscribers was doubled. " This," he 
 says, " was the mother of all the North American 
 subscription libraries, now so numerous. . . . These 
 libraries have improved the general conversation of 
 the Americans, made the common traders and farm- 
 ers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other 
 countries, and perhaps have contributed in some 
 degree to the stand so generally made throughout 
 the colonies in defence of their privileges." 
 " Reading became fashionable," he adds. But it 
 was not difficult to cultivate the desire for reading ; 
 that lay close to the surface. The boon which 
 Franklin conferred lay rather in setting the ex- 
 ample of a scheme by which books could be cheaply 
 obtained in satisfactory abundance. 
 
 From the course of this business he drew one of 
 those shrewd, practical conclusions which aided 
 him so much in life. He says that he soon felt 
 
A CITIZEN OF PniLADELPIHA. 21 
 
 "the impropriety of presenting one's self as the 
 proposer of any useful project that might be sup- 
 posed to raise one's reputation in the smallest de- 
 gree above that of one's neighbors, when one has 
 need of their assistance to accomplish that project. 
 I therefore put myself as much as I could out of 
 sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of 
 friends^ who had requested me to go about and 
 propose it." This method he found so well suited 
 to the production of results that he habitually fol- 
 lowed it in his subsequent undertakings. It was 
 sound policy ; the self-abnegation hel^Dcd success ; 
 the success secured personal prestige. It was soon 
 observed that when " a number of friends " or " a 
 few gentlemen " were represented by Franklin, 
 their purpose was usually good and was pretty sure 
 to be carried through. Hence came reputation and 
 influence. 
 
 In December, 1732, he says, " I first published 
 my Almanack, under the name of Richard Saim- 
 ders,^^ price five pence, thereby falling in with a 
 common custom among the colonial printers. 
 Within the month three editions were sold ; and it 
 was continued for twenty-five years thereafter with 
 an average sale of 10,000 copies annually, until 
 " Poor Richard " became a nom de j^^^me as re- 
 nowned as any in English literature. The publi- 
 cation ranks as one of the most influential in the 
 world. Its " proverbial sentences, chiefly such as 
 inculcated industry and frugality as the means of 
 procuring wealth and thereby securing virtue," 
 
22 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 were sown like seed all over the land. The al- 
 manac went year after year, for quarter of a cen- 
 tury, into the house of nearly every shopkeeper, 
 planter, and farmer in the American provinces. 
 Its wit and humor, its practical tone, its shrewd 
 maxims, its worldly honesty, its morality of com- 
 mon sense, its useful information, all chimed well 
 with the national character. It formulated in 
 homely phrase and with droll illustration what the 
 colonists more vaguely knew, felt, and believed 
 upon a thousand points of life and conduct. In so 
 doing it greatly trained and invigorated the natural 
 mental traits of the people. " Poor Richard " was 
 the revered and popular schoolmaster of a young 
 nation during its period of tutelage. His teatjh- 
 ings are among the powerful forces which have 
 gone to shaping the habits of Americans. His 
 terse and picturesque bits of the wisdom and the 
 virtue of this world are familiar in our mouths to- 
 day ; they moulded our great - grandparents and 
 their children ; they have informed our popular 
 traditions ; they still influence our actions, guide 
 our ways of thinking, and establish our points of 
 view, with the constant control of acquired habits 
 which we little suspect. If we were accustomed 
 still to read the literature of the almanac, we should 
 be charmed with its humor. The world has not 
 yet grown away from it, nor ever will. Addison 
 and Steele had more polish but vastly less humor 
 than Franklin. " Poor Richard " has found eter- 
 nal life by passing into the daily speech of the peo- 
 
A CITIZEN OF PniLADELPniA. 23 
 
 pie, while the " Spectator " is fast being crowded 
 out of the hands of all save scholars in literature. 
 At this period of his life he wrote many short fugi- 
 tive pieces, which hold some of the rarest wit that 
 an American library contains. Few people sus- 
 pect that the ten serious and grave-looking octavos, 
 imprinted " The Works of Benjamin Franklin," 
 hide much of that delightful kind of wit that can 
 never grow old, but is as charming to-day as when 
 it came damp from the press a century and more 
 ago. How much of " Poor Eichard " was actually 
 original is a sifting not worth while to make. 
 Franklin said ; " I was conscious that not a tenth 
 part of the wisdom was my own which he ascribed 
 to me, but rather the gleanings that I had made of 
 the sense of all ages and nations." No profound 
 wisdom is really new, but only the expression of 
 it; and all that of ''Poor Richard" had been fuseel 
 in the crucible of Franklin's brain. 
 
 But the famous almanac was not the only pulpit 
 whence Franklin preached to the people. He had 
 an excellent ideal of a newspaper. He got new^s 
 into it, which was seldom done in those days, and 
 which made it attractive ; he got advertisements 
 into it, which made it pay, and which also was a 
 novel feature ; indeed, Mr. Parton says that he 
 ••' originated the modern system of business advertis- 
 ing ; " he also discussed matters of public interest. 
 Thus he anticipated the modern newspaper, but in 
 some respects improved in advance upon that which 
 he anticipated. He made his *' Gazette " a vehicle 
 
24 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 for disseminating information and morality, and he 
 carefully excluded from it "all libeling and per- 
 sonal abuse." The sheet in its every issue was 
 doing the same sort of work as " Poor Richard." 
 In a word, Franklin was a born teacher of men, 
 and what he did in this way in these his earlier 
 days gives him rank among the most distinguished 
 moralists who have ever lived. 
 
 What kind of morality he taught is well known. 
 It was human ; he kept it free from entangling 
 alliances with any religious creed ; its foundations 
 lay in common sense, not in faith. His own na- 
 ture in this respect is easy to understand but dif- 
 ficult to describe, since the words which must be 
 used convey such different ideas to different per- 
 sons. Thus, to say that he had the religious tem- 
 perament, though he was skeptical as to all the 
 divine and supernatural dogmas of the religions of 
 mankind, will seem to many a self-contradiction, 
 while to others it is entirely intelligible. In his 
 boyhood one gets a flavor of irreverence which was 
 slow in disappearing. When yet a mere child he 
 suggested to his father the convenience of saying 
 grace over the whole barrel of salt fish, in bulk, as 
 the mercantile phrase would be. By the time that 
 he was sixteen, Shaftesbury and Collins, efficiently 
 aided by the pious writers who had endeavored to 
 refute them, had made him " a real doubter in many 
 points of our religious doctrine ; " and while he was 
 still his brother's apprentice in Boston, he fell into 
 disrepute as a skeptic. Apparently he gathered 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 25 
 
 momentum in movlns: alono- this line of thouoht, 
 until in England his disbelief took on for a time 
 an extreme and objectionable form. His opinions 
 then were " that nothing could possibly be wrong 
 in the world ; and that vice and virtue were empty 
 distinctions, no such things existing." But the 
 pamphlet, already mentioned, in which he expressed 
 these views, was the outburst of a youthful free- 
 thinker not yet accustomed to his new ideas ; not 
 many years passed over his head before it " appear'd 
 not so clever a performance as [he] once thought 
 it;" and in his autobiography he enumerates it 
 among the " errata " of his life. 
 
 It was not so very long afterward that he busied 
 himself in composing prayers, and even an entire 
 litany, for his own use. No Christian could have 
 found fault with the morals therein embodied ; but 
 Christ was entirely ignored. He even had the 
 courage to draw up a new version of the Lord's 
 Prayer ; and he arranged a code of thirteen rules 
 after the fashion of the Ten Commandments ; of 
 these the last one was : " Imitate Jesus and So- 
 crates." Except during a short time just preced- 
 ing and during his stay in London he seems never 
 to have been an atheist ; neither was he ever quite 
 a Christian ; but as between atheism and Chris- 
 tianity he was very much further removed from 
 the former than from the latter. He used to call 
 himself a deist, or theist ; and said that a deist 
 was as much like an atheist as chalk is like char- 
 coal. The evidence is abundant that he settled 
 
26 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 down into a belief in a personal God, who was 
 good, who concerned himself with the affairs of 
 men, who was pleased with good acts and dis- 
 pleased with evil ones. He believed also in im- 
 mortality and in rewards in a life to come. But 
 he supported none of these beliefs upon the same 
 basis on which Christians support them. 
 
 Unlike the infidel school of that day he had no 
 antipathy even to the mythological portions of the 
 Christian religion, no desire to discredit it, nor 
 ambition to distinguish himself in a crusade against 
 it. On the contrary, he was always resolute to live 
 well with it. His mind was too broad, his habit of 
 thought too tolerant, to admit of his antagonizing 
 so good a system of morals because it was inter- 
 twined with articles of faith which he did not be- 
 lieve. He went to church frequently, and always 
 paid his contribution towards the expenses of the 
 society; but he kept his commendation only for 
 those practical sermons which showed men how to 
 become virtuous. In like manner the instruction 
 which he himself inculcated was strictly confined 
 to those virtues which promote the welfare and 
 happiness of the individual and of society. In fact 
 he recognized none other ; that which did not ad- 
 vance these ends was but a spurious pretender to 
 the title of virtue. 
 
 One is tempted to make many quotations from 
 Franklin's writings in this connection; but two 
 or three must suffice. In 1743 he wrote to his 
 sister ; — 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPniA. 27 
 
 " There are some things in your New England doc- 
 trme and worship which I do not agree with ; but I do 
 not therefore condemn them, or desire to shake your 
 belief or practice of them. We may dislike things that 
 are nevertheless right in themselves. I would only have 
 you make me the same allowance, and have a better 
 oi)inion both of morality and your brother." 
 
 In 1756 he wrote to a friend : — 
 
 " He that for giving a draught of water to a thirsty 
 person should expect to be paid with a good plantation, 
 would be modest in his demands compared with those 
 who think they deserve Heaven for the little good they 
 do on earth. . . . For my own part, I have not the vanity 
 to think I deserve it, the folly to expect it, nor the am- 
 bition to desire it ; but content myself in submitting to 
 the will and disposal of that God who made me, who 
 hitherto has preserved and blessed me, and in whose 
 fatherly goodness I may well confide. . . . 
 
 " The faith you mention has doubtless its use in the 
 world ; I do not desire it to be diminished, nor would I 
 endeavor to lessen it in any man. But I wish it were 
 more productive of good works than I have generally 
 seen it. I mean real good works, — works of kindness, 
 charity, mercy, and public spirit ; not holiday-keeping, 
 sermon-reading or hearing, performing church ceremo- 
 nies, or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and 
 compliments despised even by wise men and much less 
 capable of pleasing the Deity. The worship of God is 
 a duty, the hearing and reading of sermons may be use- 
 ful ; but if men rest in hearing and praying, as too many 
 do, it is as if a tree should value itself in being watered 
 and putting forth leaves, tho' it never produced any 
 fruit." 
 
28 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Througliout his life he may be said to have very 
 slowly moved nearer and nearer to the Christian 
 faith, until at last he came so near that many of 
 those somewhat nondescript persons who call them- 
 selves '' libera] Christians " might claim him as one 
 of themselves. But if a belief in the divinity of 
 Christ is necessary to make a " Christian," it does 
 not appear that Franklin ever fully had the quali- 
 fication. When he was an old man, in 1790, Pres- 
 ident Stiles of Yale College took the freedom of 
 interrogating him as to his religious faith. It was 
 the first time that any one had ever thus ventured. 
 His reply ^ is interesting : " As to Jesus of Naza- 
 reth," he says, "I think his system of morals and 
 his religion, as he left them to us, the best the 
 world ever saw, or is like to see." But he thinks 
 they have been corrupted. '' I have, with most of 
 the present dissenters in England, some doubts as 
 to his divinity ; though it is a question I do not 
 dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think 
 it needless to busy myself with it now, when I 
 expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth 
 with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its 
 being believed, if that belief has the good conse- 
 quences, as probably it has, of making his doctrines 
 more respected and more observed ; especially as I 
 do not see that the Supreme takes it amiss by dis- 
 tinguishing the unbelievers in his government of 
 the world with any peculiar marks of his displeas- 
 ure." His God was substantially the God of 
 1 Works, X. 192. 
 
A CITIZEN OF rniLADELPniA. 29 
 
 Clnistianity ; but concerning Christ he was gen- 
 erally reticent and non-committal. 
 
 Whatever were his own opinions, which un- 
 doubtedly underwent some changes during his life, 
 as is the case with most of us, he never introduced 
 Christianity, as a faith, into any of liis moral writ- 
 ings. A broad human creature, with a marvelous 
 knowledge of mankind, with a tolerance as far- 
 reaching as his knowledge, with a kindly liking 
 for all men and women ; withal a prudent, shrewd, 
 cool-headed observer in affairs, he was content to 
 insist that goodness and wisdom were valuable, as 
 means, towards good repute and well-being, as ends. 
 He urges upon his nephew, about to start in busi- 
 ness as a goldsmith, "pe/'/ec^ honesty;^'* and the 
 reason he gives for his emphasis is, that the busi- 
 ness is i^eculiarly liable to suspicion, and if a man is 
 " once detected in the smallest fraud ... at once 
 he is ruined." The character of his argument was 
 always simple. He usually began with some such 
 axiom as the desirability of success in one's enter- 
 prises, or of health, or of comfort, or of ease of 
 mind, or a sufficiency of money ; and then he showed 
 that some virtue, or collection of virtues, would pro- 
 mote this result. He advocated honesty upon the 
 same principle upon which he advocated that women 
 should learn to keep accounts, or that one should 
 hold one's self in the background in the presenta- 
 tion of an enterprise such as his public library ; 
 that is to say, his advocacy of a cardinal virtue, of 
 acquiring a piece of knowledge, or of adoptijig a 
 
30 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 certain method of procedure in business, ran upon 
 the same line, namely, the practical usefulness of 
 the virtue, the knowledge, or the method, for in- 
 creasing- the probability of a practical success in 
 worldly affairs. Among the articles inculcating 
 morality which he used to put into his newspaper 
 was a Socratic Dialogue, ''tending to prove that 
 whatever might be his parts and abilities, a vicious 
 man could not properly be called a man of sense." 
 He was forever at this business ; it was his nature 
 to teach, to preach, to moralize. With creeds he 
 had no concern, but took it as his function in life 
 to instruct in what may be described as useful 
 morals, the gospel of good sense, the excellence of 
 common humanity. About the time in his career 
 which we have now reached this tendency of his 
 had an interesting development in its relationship 
 to his own character. He " conceiv'd the bold and 
 arduous project of arriving at moral perfection." 
 It is impossible to recite the details of his scheme, 
 but the narration constitutes one of the most enter- 
 taining and characteristic parts of the autobiogra- 
 13hy. Such a plan could not long be confined in its 
 operation to himself alone ; the teacher must teach ; 
 accordingly he designed to write a book, to be 
 called " The Art of Virtue," a title with which he 
 was greatly pleased, as indicating that .the book was 
 to show " the means and manner of obtaining vir- 
 tue " as contradistinguished from the " mere exhor- 
 tation to be good, that does not instruct or indicate 
 the means." A receipt book for virtues ! Practi- 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 31 
 
 cal instructions for acquiring goodness ! Nothing 
 could have been more characteristic. One of his 
 Busy-Body papers, February 18, 1728, begins with 
 the statement that : '' It is said that the Persians, 
 in their ancient constitution, had public schools in 
 which virtue was taught as a liberal art, or science ; " 
 and he goes on to laud the plan highly. Perhaps 
 this was the origin of the idea which subsequently 
 became such a favorite with him. It was his 
 
 "design to explain and enforce this doctrine: that 
 vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbid- 
 den, but forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature 
 of man alone considered; that it was therefore every 
 one's interest to be virtuous who wished to be happy 
 even in this world ; and I should . . . have endeavored 
 to convince young persons that no qualities were so 
 likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of probity 
 and integrity." 
 
 Long years afterward, in 1760, he wrote about 
 it to Lord Kames : — 
 
 " Many people lead bad lives that would gladly lead 
 good ones, but do not know hoiv to make the change. . . . 
 To expect people to be good, to be just, to be temperate, 
 etc., without shoiving them hoio they should become so 
 seems like the ineffectual charity mentioned by the 
 apostle, which consists in saying to the hungry, the cold, 
 and the naked, ' Be ye fed, be ye warmed, be ye clothed,' 
 without showing them how they should get food, fire, or 
 clothing. ... To acquire those [virtues] that are want- 
 ing, and secure what we acquire, as well as those we 
 have naturally, is the subject of an art. It is as prop- 
 
32 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 erly an art as painting, navigation, or architecture. If a 
 man would become a painter, navigator, or architect, it 
 is not enough that he is advised to be one, that he is 
 convinced by the arguments of his adviser that it would 
 be for his advantage to be one, and that he resolves to 
 be one ; but he must also be taught the principles of the 
 art, be shown all the methods of working, and how to 
 acquire the habit of using properly all the instruments. 
 . . . My ' Art of Virtue ' has also its instruments, and 
 teaches the manner of using them." 
 
 He was then full of zeal to give this instruction. 
 A year later he said : " You will not doubt my 
 being serious in the intention of finishing my " Art 
 of Virtue." It is not a mere ideal work. I planned 
 it first in 1732. . . .The materials have been grow-. 
 ing ever since. The form only is now to be given." 
 He even says that " experiments " had been made 
 *' with success ; " one wonders how ; but lie gives 
 no explanation. Apparently Franklin never defi- 
 nitely abandoned this pet design ; one catches 
 glimpses of it as still alive in his mind, until it seems 
 to fade away in the dim obscurity of extreme old age. 
 He said of it that it was only part of " a great and 
 extensive project that required the whole m,an to 
 execute," and his countrymen never allowed Frank- 
 lin such uninterrupted possession of himself. 
 
 A matter more easy of accomplishment was the 
 drawing up a creed which he thought to contain 
 " the essentials of every known religion," and to 
 be " free of everything that might shock the pro- 
 fessors of any religion." He intended that this 
 
A CITIZEN OF PniLADELPHIA. 83 
 
 should serve as the basis of a sect, which should 
 practice his rules for self-improvement. It was at 
 first to consist of " young and single men only," 
 and great caution was to be exercised in the admis- 
 sion of members. The association was to be called 
 the " Society of the Free and Easy ; " " free, as 
 being, by the general practice and habit of the 
 virtues, free from the dominion of vice ; and par- 
 ticularly by the practice of industry and frugality 
 free from debt, which exposes a man to confine- 
 ment and a species of slavery to his creditors." It 
 is hardly surprising to hear that this was one of the 
 very few failures of Franklin's life. In 1788 he 
 professed himself " still of the opinion that it was 
 a practicable scheme." One hardly reads it with- 
 out a smile nowadays, but it was not so out of keep- 
 ing with the spirit and habits of those times. It in- 
 dicates at least Franklin's appreciation of the power 
 of fellowship, of association. No man knew better 
 than he what stimulus comes frotfTthe seiise^;?^L 
 membership in a society, esjoiecially a secret sociei^^\ 
 He had a great fondness for oriiaiiizin^^en.fiftto;^3| 
 associations, and a singular aptkude fOT^creating,^ J 
 conducting, and perpetuat^gp^ such bodies. The 
 Junto, a child of his active 'bi?aifijAfeiAjUDft^ !a pow«r 
 in local public affairs, though organizea and con- 
 ducted strictly as a " club of mutual improvement." 
 He formed it among his "ingenious acquaintance " 
 for the discussion of "queries on any point of 
 morals, politics, or natural philosophy." He found 
 his model, without doubt, in the "neighborhood 
 
84 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 benefit societies," established by Cotton Mather, 
 during Franklin's boyhood, among the Boston 
 churches, for mutual improvement among the mem- 
 bers.^ In time there came a great pressure for an 
 increase of the number of members ; but Franklin 
 astutely substituted a plan whereby each member 
 was to form a subordinate club, similar to the orig- 
 inal, but having no knowledge of its connection 
 with the Junto. Thus sprang into being five or six 
 more, " The Vine, The Union, The Band, etc.," 
 "answering, in some considerable degree, our views 
 of influencing the public opinion upon particular 
 occasions." When Franklin became interested in 
 any matter, he had but to introduce it before the 
 Junto for discussion ; straightway each member 
 who belonged to any one of the other societies 
 brought it up in that society. Thus through so 
 many active-minded and disputatious young men 
 interest in the subject speedily percolated through 
 a community of no greater size than Philadelphia. 
 Franklin was the tap-root of the whole growth, and 
 sent his ideas circulating throughout all the wide- 
 spreading branches. He tells us that in fact he 
 often used this efficient machinery to much advan- 
 tage in carrying through his public and qtiasi j^ub- 
 lic measures. Thus he anticipated more j)owerful 
 mechanisms of the like kind, such as the Jacobin 
 Club ; and he himself, under encouraging circum- 
 stances, might have wielded an immense power as 
 the creator and occult, inspiring influence of some 
 great political society. 
 
 1 Parton's Life of Franklin, i. 47. 
 
 I 
 
A CITIZEN OF PniLADELPHTA. 35 
 
 Besides his didactic newspaper, his ahnanac even 
 more didactic, the Junto, the subscription library, 
 the Society of the Free and Easy, his system of 
 religion and moi^als, and his scheme for acquiring 
 all the virtues, Franklin was engaged in many other 
 matters. He learned French, Italian, and Spanish ; 
 and in so doing evolved some notions which are 
 now beginning to find their way into the system of 
 teaching languages in our schools and colleges. In 
 1736 he was chosen clerk to the General Assembly, 
 and continued to be reelected during the next 
 fourteen years, until he was chosen a member of the 
 legislature itself. In 1737 he was appointed post- 
 master of Philadelphia, an office which he found 
 " of great advantage, for, tho' the salary was small, 
 it facilitated the correspondence that improv'd my 
 newspaper, increased the number demanded, as well 
 as the advertisements to be inserted, so that it came 
 to afford me a considerable income. My old com- 
 petitor's newspaper declined proportionably, and I 
 was satisfied without retaliating his refusal, while 
 postmaster, to permit my papers being carried by 
 the riders." 
 
 Soon afterward he conferred a signal benefit on 
 his countrymen by inventing an " open stove for 
 the better warming of rooms, and at the same time 
 saving fuel," — the Franklin stove, or, as he called it, 
 " the Pennsylvania fireplace." Mr. Parton warmly 
 describes it as the beginning of " the American 
 stove system, one of the wonders of the industrial 
 world." Franklin refused to take out a patent for 
 
86 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 it, "- from a principle which has ever weighed with 
 me on such occasions, viz. : That as we enjoy great 
 advantages from the inventions of others, we should 
 be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any 
 invention of ours ; and this we should do freely 
 and generously." This lofty sentiment, wherein 
 the philanthropist got the better of the man of 
 business, overshot its mark ; an iron-monger of 
 London, who did not combine philosophy and phil- 
 anthropy with his trade, made " some small 
 changes in the machine, which rather hurt its 
 operation, got a patent for it there, and made a lit- 
 tle fortune by it." 
 
 A little later Franklin founded a philosophical 
 society, not intended to devote its energies to ab- 
 stractions, but rather to a study of nature, and the 
 spread of new discoveries and useful knowledge in 
 practical affairs, especially in the way of farming 
 and agriculture. Franklin always had a fancy for 
 agriculture, and conferred many a boon upon the 
 tillers of the soil. A good story, which may be 
 true, tells how he showed the fertilizing capacity of 
 plaster of paris. In a field by the roadside he 
 wrote, with plaster, THIS HAS BEEN plastered ; 
 and soon the brilliant green of the letters carried 
 the lesson to every passer-by. 
 
 In 1743 Franklin broached the idea of an acad- 
 emy; but the time had not quite come when the 
 purse-strings of well-to-do Pennsylvanians could be 
 loosened for this purpose, and he had no success. 
 It was, however, a project about which he was much 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 37 
 
 in earnest, and a few years later he returned to it 
 with better auspices. He succeeded in getting it 
 under weigh by means of private subscriptions. It 
 soon vindicated its usefulness, drew funds and en- 
 dowments from various sources, and became the 
 University of Pennsylvania. Franklin tells an 
 amusing story about his subsequent connection 
 with it. Inasmuch as persons of several religious 
 sects had contributed to the fund, it was arranged 
 that the board of trustees should consist of one 
 member from each sect. After a while the Mora- 
 vian died ; and his colleagues, having found him ob- 
 noxious to them, resolved not to have another of 
 the same creed. Yet it was difficult to find any 
 one who did not belong to, and therefore unduly 
 strengthen, some sect already represented. At 
 length Franklin was mentioned as being " merely 
 cm Jionest man^ and of no sect at all." The recom- 
 mendation secured his election. It was always a 
 great cause of his success and influence that noth- 
 ing could be alleged against his correct and respect- 
 able exterior and prudent, moderate deportment. 
 
 He now endeavored to reorganize the system, if 
 system it can be called, of the night-watch in Phila- 
 delphia. His description of it is picturesque : — 
 
 " It was managed by the constables of the respective 
 wards, in turn; the constable warned a number of 
 housekeepers to attend him for the night. Those who 
 chose never to attend paid him six shillings to be ex- 
 cus'd, which was supposed to be for hiring substitutes, 
 but was, in reality, much more than was necessary for 
 
38 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 that purpose, and made the constableship a place of 
 profit ; and the constable, for a little drink, often got such 
 ragamuffins about him as a watch, that respectable house- 
 keepers did not choose to mix with. Walking the rounds, 
 too, was often neglected, and most of the nights spent in 
 tippling." 
 
 But even Franklin's influence was overmatched by 
 this task. An abuse, nourished by copious rum, 
 strikes its roots deep, and many years elapsed be- 
 fore this one could be eradicated. 
 
 In another enterprise Franklin shrewdly enlisted 
 the boon-companion element on his side, with the 
 result of immediate and brilliant success. He be- 
 gan as usual by reading a paper before the Junto, 
 and through this intervention set the people think- 
 ing concerning the utter lack of any organization 
 for extinguishing fires in the town. In consequence 
 the Union Fire Company was soon established, the 
 first thing of the kind in the city. Franklin con- 
 tinued a member of it for half a century. It was 
 thoroughly equipped and efficiently conducted. An 
 item in the terms of association was that the mem- 
 bers should sj^end a social evening together once a 
 month. The example was followed ; other com- 
 panies were formed, and fifty years later Franklin 
 boasted that since that time the city had never 
 "lost by fire more than one or two houses at a 
 time ; and the flames have often been extinguished 
 before the house in which they began has been half 
 consumed." 
 
 About this time he became interested in the mat- 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 39 
 
 ter of the public defenses, and wrote a pamphlet, 
 " Plain Truth," showing the helpless condition of 
 Pennsylvania as against the French and their In- 
 dian allies. The result was that the people were 
 alarmed and aroused. Even the Quakers winked 
 at the godless doings of their fellow-citizens, while 
 the enrollment and drill of a volunteer force went 
 forward, and funds were raised for building and 
 arming a battery. Franklin suggested a lottery, 
 to raise money, and went to New York to borrow 
 guns. He was very active and very successful ; 
 and though the especial crisis fortunately passed 
 away without use being made of these preparations, 
 yet his energy and efficiency greatly enhanced his 
 reputation in Pennsylvania. 
 
 That Franklin had been prospering in his pri- 
 vate business may be judged from the facts that in 
 1748 he took into partnership David Hall, who 
 had been a fellow journeyman with him in London ; 
 and that his purpose was substantially to retire and 
 get some " leisure . . . for philosophical studies and 
 amusements." He cherished the happy but foolish 
 notion of becoming master of his own time. But 
 his fellow-citizens had purposes altogether incon- 
 sistent with those pleasing and comfortable plans 
 which he sketched so cheerfully in a letter to his 
 friend Golden in September, 1748. The Philadel- 
 phians, whom he had taught thrift, were not go- 
 ing to waste such material as he was. " The pub- 
 lick," he found, " now considering me as a man of 
 leisure, laid hold of me for their purposes ; every 
 
40 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 part of our civil government, and almost at the 
 same time, imposing some duty upon me. The 
 governor put me into the commission of the peace ; 
 the corporation of the city chose me of the common 
 council, and soon after an alderman ; and the citi- 
 zens at large chose me a burgess to represent them 
 in the Assembly." This last position pleased him 
 best, and he turned himself chiefly to its duties, 
 with the gratifying result, as he records, that the 
 " trust was repeated every year for ten years, with- 
 out my ever asking any elector for his vote, or sig- 
 nifying, either directly or indirectly, any desire of 
 being chosen." 
 
 The next year he was appointed a commissioner 
 to treat with the Indians, in which business he had 
 so much success as can ever attend upon engage- 
 ments with savages. He gives an amusing account 
 of the way in which all the Indian emissaries got 
 drunk, and of their quaint apology : that the Great 
 Spirit had made all things for some use ; that 
 " when he made rum, he said, ' Let this be for the 
 Indians to get drunk with ; ' and it must he so^ 
 
 In 1751 he assisted Dr. Bond in the foundation 
 of his hospital. The doctor at first tried to carry 
 out his scheme alone, but could not. The tranquil 
 vanity of Franklin's narration is too good to be 
 lost : " At length he came to me, with the compli- 
 ment that he found there was no such thing as 
 carrying a public-spirited project through, without 
 my being concerned in it. ' For,' says he, ' I am 
 often asked by those to whom I propose subscrib- 
 
 f 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 41 
 
 iiig, Have you consulted Franklin upon this busi- 
 ness ? and what does he think of it ? And when I 
 tell them that I have not (supposing it rather out 
 of your line), they do not subscribe, but say they 
 will consider of it.'" It is surprising that this art- 
 ful and sugar-tongued doctor, who evidently could 
 read his man, had not been more successful with 
 his subscription list. With Franklin, at least, he 
 was eminently successful, touching him with a con- 
 summate skill which brought prompt response and 
 cooperation. The result was as usual. Franklin's 
 hand knew the way to every Philadelphian mer- 
 chant's pocket. Respected as he was, it may be 
 doubted whether he was always sincerely welcomed 
 as he used to move from door to door down those 
 tranquil streets, with an irresistible subscription 
 paper in his hand. In this case private subscrip- 
 tions were eked out by public aid. The legisla- 
 ture was applied to for a grant. The country 
 members objected, said that the benefit would be 
 local, and doubted whether even the Philadelphian s 
 wanted it. Thereupon Franklin drew a bill, by 
 which the State was to give X2,000 upon condition 
 that a like sum should be raised from private 
 sources. This was soon done. Franklin regarded 
 his device as a novelty and a ruse in legislation. 
 He complacently says : " I do not remember any of 
 my political manoeuvres, the success of which gave 
 me at the time more pleasure, or wherein, after- 
 thinking of it, I more easily excused myself for 
 having made some use of cunning." Simple times^ 
 
42 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 in which such an act could be described as a " ma- 
 noeuvre" and " cunning ! " 
 
 He further turned his attention to matters of 
 local improvement. He got pavements laid ; and 
 even brought about the sweeping of the streets 
 twice in each week. Lighting the streets came al- 
 most simultaneously ; and in connection with this 
 he showed his wonted ingenuity. Globes open only 
 at the top had heretofore been used, and by reason 
 of the lack of draught, they became obscured by 
 smoke early in the evening. Franklin made them 
 of four flat panes, with a smoke-funnel, and crevices 
 to admit the air beneath. The Londoners had 
 long had the method before their ej^es, every even- 
 ing, at Vauxhall ; but had never got at the notion 
 of transferring it to the open streets. 
 
 For a long while Franklin was employed by the 
 postmaster-general of the colonies as "his comp- 
 troller in regulating several offices and bringing the 
 officers to account." In 1753 the incumbent died, 
 and Franklin and Mr. William Hunter, jointly, 
 were appointed his successors. They set to work 
 to reform the entire postal service of the country. 
 The first cost to themselves was considerable, the 
 office falling more than £900 in debt to them dur- 
 ing the first four years. But thereafterward the 
 benefit of their measures was felt, and an office 
 which had never before paid anything to that of 
 Great Britain came, under their administration, 
 " to yield three times as much clear revenue to the 
 crown as the post-office of Ireland." Franklin 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 43 
 
 narrates that in time he was displaced " by a freak 
 of the ministers," and in happy phrase adds, 
 " Since that imprudent transaction, they have re- 
 ceived from it — not one farthing ! " In this con- 
 nection it may be worth while to quote Franklin's 
 reply to a request to give a position to his nephew, 
 a young man whom he liked well, and otherwise 
 aided. " If a vacancy should happen, it is very 
 probable he may be thought of to supply it ; but it 
 is a rule with me not to remove any officer that 
 behaves well, keeps regular accounts, and pays 
 duly ; and I think the rule is founded on reason 
 and justice." 
 
 At this point in his autobiography he records, 
 with just pride, that he received the degree of 
 Master of Arts, first from Yale College and after- 
 ward from Harvard. " Thus, without studying in 
 any college, I came to partake of their honors. 
 They were conferred in consideration of my im- 
 provements and discoveries in the electric branch 
 of natural philosophy." 
 
 An interesting page in the autobiography con- 
 cerns events in the year 1754. There were distinct 
 foreshadowings of that war between England and 
 France which soon afterward broke out, beginning 
 upon this side of the water earlier than in Europe ; 
 and the lords of trade ordered a congress of com- 
 missioners from the several colonies to assemble 
 at Albany for a conference with the chiefs of 
 the Six Nations. They came together June 19, 
 1754. Franklin was a deputy from Pennsylvania ; 
 
44 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 and on his way thither he " projected and drew a 
 plan for the union of all the colonies under one 
 government, so far as might be necessary for de- 
 fense and other important general purposes." It 
 was not altogether a new idea ; in 1697 William 
 Penn had suggested a commercial union and an 
 annual congress. The journal of the congress 
 shows that on June 24th it was unanimously voted 
 that a union of the colonies was " absolutely neces- 
 sary for their security and defense." The Massa- 
 chusetts delegation alone had been authorized to 
 consider the question of a union, and they had 
 power to enter into a confederation "as well in 
 time of peace as of war." Franklin had already 
 been urging this policy by writings in the Gazette, 
 and now, when the ideas of the different commis- 
 sioners were brought into comparison, his were 
 deemed the best. His outline of a scheme, he says, 
 " happen'd to be preferr'd," and, with a few amend- 
 ments, was accordingly reported. It was a league 
 rather than a union, somewhat resembling the 
 arrangement which came into existence for the 
 purposes of the Revolution. But it came to noth- 
 ing ; " its fate," Franklin said, " was singular." 
 It was closely debated, article by article, and hav- 
 ing at length been " pretty unanimously accepted, 
 it came before the colonial assemblies for ratifica- 
 tion." But they condemned it ; " there was too 
 much prerogative in it," they thought. On the 
 other hand, the board of trade in England would 
 not approve it because it had " too much of the 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPniA. 45 
 
 democratic." All which led Franklin to " suspect 
 that it was really the true medium." He himself 
 acknowledged that one main advantage of it would 
 be " that the colonies would, by this connection, 
 learn to consider themselves, not as so many inde- 
 pendent states, but as members of the same body ; 
 and thence be more ready to afford assistance and 
 support to each other," etc. It was already the 
 national idea which lay, not quite formidated, yet 
 distinct enough in his mind. It was hardly to be 
 expected that the home government would fail to 
 see this tendency, or that they would look upon it 
 with favor. Franklin long afterward indulged in 
 some speculations as to what might have been the 
 consequences of an adoption of his scheme, namely : 
 united colonies, strong enough to defend them- 
 selves against the Canadian French and their In- 
 dian allies ; no need, therefore, of troops from 
 England ; no pretext, therefore, for taxing the 
 provinces ; no provocation, therefore, for rebellion. 
 " But such mistakes are not new ; history is full 
 of the errors of states and princes. . . . The best 
 public measures are seldom adopted from jorcvioits 
 wisdom hut forcd hy the occasion.'" But this 
 sketch of what might have been sounds over-fanci- 
 ful, and the English were probably right in think- 
 ing that a strong military union, with home taxa- 
 tion, involved more of danger than of safety for 
 the future connection between the colonies and the 
 mother country. 
 
 There was much uneasiness, much planning. 
 
46 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 theorizing, and discussing going on at this time 
 about the relationship between Great Britain and 
 her American provinces ; earlier stages of that talk 
 which kept on growing louder, more eager, and more 
 disputatious, until it was swallowed up in the roar 
 of the revolutionary cannon. Among others, Shir- 
 ley, governor of Massachusetts, concocted a scheme 
 and showed it to Franklin. By this an assembly 
 of the governors of all the colonies, attended by 
 one or two members of their respective councils, 
 was to have authority to take such measures as 
 should seem needful for defense, with power to 
 draw upon the English treasury to meet expenses, 
 the amount of such drafts to be " re-imbursed by 
 a tax laid on the colonies by act of Parliament." 
 This alarming proposition at once drew forth three 
 letters from Franklin, written in December, 1754, 
 and afterward published in the "" London Chronicle " 
 in December, 1766. His position amounted to this : 
 that the business of self-defense and the expense 
 thereof were matters neither beyond the abilities of 
 the colonies, nor outside their willingness, and 
 should therefore be managed by them. Their 
 loyalty could be trusted ; their knowledge must be 
 the best ; on the other hand, governors were apt 
 to be untrustw^orthy, self-seeking, and ignorant of 
 provincial affairs. But the chief emphasis of his 
 protest falls against taxation without representa- 
 tion. He says : — 
 
 " That it is supposed an undoubted right of English- 
 men not to be taxed but by their own consent, given 
 through their representatives. 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 47 
 
 " That the colonists have no representatives in Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 " That compelling the colonists to pay money without 
 their consent would be rather like raising contributions 
 in an enemy's country, than taxing of Englishmen for 
 their own public benefit. 
 
 " That it would be treating them as a conquered peo- 
 ple, and not as true British subjects." 
 
 And so on ; traversing beforehand the same ground 
 soon to be so thoroughly beaten over by the patriot 
 writers and speakers of the colonies. In a very few- 
 years the line of argument became familiar, but for 
 the present Franklin and a very few more were 
 doing the work of suggestion and instruction for 
 the j^eople at large, teaching them by what logic 
 their instinctive convictions could be maintained. 
 
 He further ingeniously sliowed that the colonists 
 were already heavily taxed in ways from which 
 they could not escape. Taxes paid by British ar- 
 tificers came out of the colonial consumers, and the 
 colonists were compelled to buy only from Britain 
 those articles which they would otherwise be able 
 to buy at much lower prices from other countries. 
 Moreover, they were obliged to sell only in Great 
 Britain, where heavy imposts served to curtail the 
 net profits of the producer. Even such manufac- 
 tures as could be carried on in the colonies were 
 forbidden to them. He concluded : — 
 
 " These kinds of secondary taxes, however, we do not 
 complain of, though we have no share in the laying or 
 disposing of them ; but to pay immediate, heavy taxes, 
 
48 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 in the laying, appropriation, and disposition of which we 
 have no part, and which perhaps we may know to be as 
 unnecessary as grievous, must seem hard measures to 
 Enghshmen, who cannot conceive that by hazarding 
 their lives and fortunes in subduing and settling new 
 countries, extending the dominion and increasing the 
 commerce of the mother nation, they have forfeited the 
 native rights of Britons, which they think ought rather 
 to be given to them, as due to such merit, if they had 
 been before in a state of slavery." 
 
 A third letter discussed a proposition advanced 
 by Shirley for giving the colonies representation 
 in Parliament. Franklin was a little skeptical, 
 and had no notion of being betrayed by a kiss. 
 A real unification of the two communities lying 
 upon either side of the Atlantic, and even a close 
 approximation to proportionate representation, 
 would constitute an excellent way out of the j)res- 
 ent difficulties. But he saw no encouragement to 
 hope for this. 
 
 In fact, the project of laying direct internal 
 taxes upon the colonies by act of Parliament was 
 taking firm root in the English mind, and colonial 
 protests could not long stay the execution of the 
 scheme. Even such grants of money as were made 
 by some of the colonial legislatures were vetoed, on 
 the ground that they were connected with encroach- 
 ments, schemes for independence, and an assumjD- 
 tion of the right to exercise control in the matter 
 of the public finances.^ The Penns rejoiced. 
 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., iv. 176. 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 49 
 
 Thomas Penn wrote, doubtless with a malicious 
 chuckle : " If the several assemblies will not make 
 provision for the general service, an act of Parlia- 
 ment may oblige them here." He evidently thought 
 that it would be very wholesome if government 
 should become incensed and severe with the re- 
 calcitrants. 
 
 During his discussion with Shirley, Franklin had 
 been upon a visit to Boston. He '' left New Eng- 
 land," he says, "slowly, and with great reluc- 
 tance " for he loved the country and the people. 
 He returned home to be swept Into the hurly-burly 
 of military affairs. War appropriations came hard 
 from the legislature of the Quaker province ; but 
 the occasion was now at hand when come they 
 must. In the autumn of 1755 <£ 60,000 were voted, 
 chiefly for defense, and Franklin was one of the 
 committee In charge of the expenditure. The bor- 
 der was already unsafe, and formal hostilities on a 
 large scale were close at hand. France and Eng- 
 land must fight it out for the possession of the new 
 continent, which, boundless as it then seemed, was 
 yet not big enough to admit of their both dwelling 
 in it. France had been steadily pressing upon the 
 northern and western frontiers of the British col- 
 onies, and she now held Crown Point, Niagara, the 
 fort on the present site of Pittsburg, and the whole 
 valley of the Ohio River. It seemed that she would 
 confine the English to the strip along the coast 
 which they already occupied. It Is true that she 
 offered to relinquish the Ohio valley to the savages, 
 
50 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 to be a neutral belt between the European nations 
 on either side of it. But the proposal could not be 
 accepted ; the French were much too clever in man- 
 aging the Indians. Moreover, it was felt that they 
 would never permanently desist from advancing. 
 Then, too, the gallant Braddock was on his way 
 across seas, with a little army of English regulars. 
 Finally, the disproportion between the English and 
 French in the New World was too great for the 
 former to rest satisfied with a compromise. There 
 were about 1,165,000 whites in the British Prov- 
 inces, and only about 80,000 French in Canada. 
 The resources, also, of the former were in every re- 
 spect vastly greater. These iron facts must tell ; 
 were already telling. Throughout this last deadly 
 grapple, now at hand, the French were in desperate 
 earnest. History records few struggles wherein the 
 strength of a combatant was more utterly spent, 
 with more entire devotion, than was the case with 
 these Canadian - French provinces. Every man 
 gave himself to the fight, so literally that no one 
 was left to till the fields, and erelong famine be- 
 gan its hideous work among the scanty forces. The 
 English and Americans, on the other hand, were 
 far from conducting the struggle with the like tem- 
 per as the French ; yet with such enormous advan- 
 tages as tliey possessed, if they could not conquer 
 a satisfactory peace in course of time, they ought 
 to be ashamed of themselves. So no composition 
 could be arranged ; the Seven Years' War began, 
 and to open it with becoming eclat Braddock de- 
 
A CITIZEN OF PniLADELPniA. 51 
 
 barked, a gorgeous spectacle in red and gold. Yet 
 still there had as yet been in Europe no declara- 
 tion of hostilities between England and France; 
 on the contrary, the government of the former 
 country was giving very fair words to that of the 
 latter ; and in America the British professed only 
 to intend " to repel encroachments." ^ 
 
 Franklin had to take his share of the disasters 
 attendant upon the fatal campaign of Braddock. 
 According to his notion that foolish officer and his 
 two ill-behaved regiments should never, by good 
 rights, have been sent to the provinces at all ; for 
 the colonists, being able and willing to do their own 
 fighting, should have been allowed to undertake it. 
 But eleven years before this time the Duke of Bed- 
 ford had declared it a dangerous policy to enroll an 
 army of 20,000 provincials to serve against Canada, 
 " on account of the independence it might create in 
 those provinces, when they should see within them- 
 selves so great an army, possessed of so great a 
 country by right of conquest." This anxiety had 
 been steadily gaining ground. The home govern- 
 ment did not choose " to permit the union of the 
 colonies, as proposed at Albany, and to trust that 
 union with their defense, lest they should thereby 
 grow too military and feel their own strength, sus- 
 picions and jealousies being at this time entertained 
 of them.'^ So it was because the shadow of the 
 Revolutionary War already darkened the visions 
 of English statesmen that the gallant array of sol- 
 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., iv. 182. 
 
52 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 diery, with the long train of American attendants, 
 had to make that terrible march to faikire and 
 death. 
 
 The Assembly of the Quaker province was sadly 
 perturbed lest this arbitrary warrior, encamped 
 hard by in Virginia, should " conceive violent pre- 
 judices against them, as averse to the service." In 
 their alarm they had recourse to Franklin's shrewd 
 wit and ready tongue. Accordingly, he visited 
 Braddock under pretense of arranging for the 
 transmission of mails during the campaign, stayed 
 with him several days, and dined with him daily. 
 There were some kinds of men, perhaps, whom 
 Braddock appreciated better than he did Indians ; 
 nor is it a slight proof of Franklin's extraordinary 
 capacity for getting on well with every variety of 
 human being that he could make himself so wel- 
 come to this testy, opinionated military martinet, 
 who in every particular of nature and of training 
 was the precise contrary of the provincial civilian. 
 
 Franklin's own good will to the cause, or his ill- 
 luck, led him into an engagement, made just before 
 his departure, whereby he undertook to procure 
 horses and wagons enough for the transportation of 
 the ordnance and all the appurtenances of the camp. 
 It was not a personal contract upon his part to fur- 
 nish these : he was neither to make any money, 
 nor to risk any ; he was simply to render the gra- 
 tuitous service of inducing the Pennsylvania farm- 
 ers to let out their horses, wagons, and drivers to 
 the general. It was a difficult task, in which the 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 53 
 
 emissaries of Bradclock had utterly failed in Vir- 
 ginia. But Franklin conceived the opportunities 
 to be better in his own Province, and entered on 
 the business with vigor and skill. Throughout the 
 farming region he sent advertisements and circu- 
 lars, cleverly devised to elicit what he wanted, and 
 so phrased as to save him harmless from personal 
 responsibility for any payment. Seven days' pay 
 was to be " advanced and paid in hand " by him, 
 the remainder to be paid by General Braddock, or 
 by the paymaster of the army. He said, in closing 
 his appeal : " I have no particular interest in this 
 affair, as, except the satisfaction of endeavoring to 
 do good, I shall have only my labor for my pains." 
 But he was not to get off so easily ; for, he says, 
 " the owners, . . . alleging that they did not know 
 General Braddock, or what dependence might be 
 had on his promise, insisted on my bond for the 
 performance, which I accordingly gave them." This 
 was the more patriotic because Franldin was by no 
 means dazzled by the pomp and parade of the 
 doughty warrior, but on the contrary, reflecting on 
 the probable character of the campaign, he had " con- 
 ceived some doubts and some fears for the event." 
 What hapj)ened every one knows. The losses of 
 wagons and horses in the slaughter amounted to 
 the doleful sum of £20,000 ; " which to pay would 
 have ruined me," wrote Franklin. Nevertheless 
 the demands began at once to pour in upon him, 
 and suits were instituted. It was a grievous affair, 
 and the end was by no means clear. It was easily 
 
54 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 possible that in place of his fortune, sacrificed in 
 the public service, he might have only the sorry- 
 substitute of a claim against the government. But 
 after many troubled weeks he was at length relieved 
 of the heaviest portion of his burden, through Gen- 
 eral Shirley's appointment of a commission to audit 
 and pay the claims for actual losses. Other sums 
 due him, representing considerable advances which 
 he had made at the outset in the business, and 
 later for provisions, remained unpaid to the end of 
 his days. The British government in time prob- 
 ably thought the Revolution as efficient as a stat- 
 ute of limitations for barring that account. At 
 the moment, however, Franklin not only lost his 
 money, but had to suffer the affront of being sup- 
 posed even to be a gainer, and to have filled his 
 own pockets. He indignantly denied that he had 
 " pocketed a farthing ; " but of course he was not 
 believed. He adds, with delicious humor : " and, 
 indeed, I have since learnt that immense fortunes 
 are often made in such employments." Those, 
 however, were simple, provincial days. In place 
 of the money which he did not get, also of the 
 further sum which he actually lost, he had to sat- 
 isfy himself with the consolation derived from the 
 approbation of the Pennsylvania Assembly, while 
 also Braddock's dispatches gave him a good name 
 with the officials in England, which was of some 
 little service to him. 
 
 A more comical result of the Braddock affair 
 was that it made Franklin for a time a military 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 55 
 
 man and a colonel. He had escaped being a cler- 
 gyman and a poet, but he could not escape that 
 common fate of Americans, the military title, the 
 prevalence of which, it has been said, makes "the 
 whole country seem a retreat of heroes." It befell 
 Franklin in this wise : immediately after Brad- 
 dock's defeat, in the panic which possessed the 
 people and amid the reaction against professional 
 soldiers, recourse was had to plain good sense, 
 though unaccompanied by technical knowledge. 
 No one, as all the Province knew, had such sound 
 sense as Franklin, who was accordingly deputed to 
 go to the western frontier with a small volunteer 
 force, there to build three forts for the protection 
 of the outlying settlements. "I undertook," he 
 says, "this military business, though I did not con- 
 ceive myself well qualified for it." It was a ser- 
 vice involving much difficulty and hardship, with 
 some danger ; General Braddock would have made 
 a ridiculous failure of it ; Franklin acquitted him- 
 self well. What he afterward wrote of General 
 Shirley was true of himself: "For, tho' Shirley 
 was not bred a soldier, he was sensible and saga- 
 cious in himself, and attentive to good advice from 
 others, capable of forming judicious plans, and 
 quick and active in carrying them into execution." 
 In a word, Franklin's military career was as cred- 
 itable as it was brief. He was called forward at 
 the crisis of universal dismay; he gave his popular 
 influence and cool head to a peculiar kind of ser- 
 vice, of which he knew much by hearsay, if nothing 
 
56 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 by personal experience ; he did his work well ; 
 and, much stranger to relate, he escaped the delu- 
 sion that he was a soldier. So soon as he could 
 do so, that is to say after a few weeks, he returned 
 to his civil duties. But he had shown courage, 
 intelligence, and patriotism in a high degree, and 
 he had greatly increased the confidence reposed in 
 him by his fellow-citizens. 
 
 Beyond those active military measures which the 
 exigencies of the time made necessary, Franklin 
 fell in with, if he did not originate, a plan designed 
 to afford permanent protection in the future. This 
 was to extend the colonies inland. His notions 
 were broad, embracing much both in space and 
 time. He thought " what a glorious thing it would 
 be to settle in that fine country a large, strong body 
 of religious, industrious people. What a security 
 to the other colonies and advantage to Britain by 
 increasing her people, territory, strength, and com- 
 merce." He foretold that " perhaps in less than 
 another century " the Ohio valley might " become 
 a populous and powerful dominion, and a great 
 accession of power either to England or France." 
 Having this scheme much at heart, he drew up a 
 sort of prospectus " for settling two western colonies 
 in North America ; " " barrier colonies " they were 
 called by Governor Pownall, who was warm in the 
 same idea, and sent a plan of his own, together with 
 Franklin's, to the home government. 
 
 It is true that these new settlements, regarded 
 strictly as bulwarks, would have been only a change 
 
A CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA. 57 
 
 of "barrier," an advancement of frontier; they 
 themselves would become frontier instead of the 
 present line, and would be equally subject to Indian 
 and French assaults. Still the step was in the 
 direction of growth and expansion ; it was advanc- 
 ing and aggressive, and indicated an appreciation 
 of the enormous motive power which lay in Eng- 
 lish colonization. Franklin pushed it earnestly, 
 interested others in it, and seemed at one time on 
 the point of securing the charters. But the con- 
 quest of Canada within a very short time rendered 
 defensive colonization almost needless, and soon 
 afterward the premonitions and actual outbreak of 
 the Revolution put an end to all schemes in this 
 shape. 
 
CHAPTEK III. 
 
 REPEESENTATIVE OF PENNSYLVANIA IN ENGLAND : 
 RETURN HOME. 
 
 It was not possible to make a world-wide reputa- 
 tion in the public affairs of the Province of Penn- 
 sylvania ; but so much fame as opportunity would 
 admit of had by this time been won by Franklin. 
 In respect of influence and prestige among his fel- 
 low-colonists none other came near to him. Mean- 
 while among all his crowding occupations he had 
 found time for those scientific researches towards 
 which his heart always yearned. He had flown his 
 famous kite ; had entrapped the lightning of the 
 clouds ; had written treatises, which, having been 
 collected into a volume, " were much taken notice 
 of in England," made no small stir in France, and 
 were " translated into the Italian, German, and 
 Latin languages." A learned French abbe, " pre- 
 ceptor in natural philosophy to the royal family, 
 and an able experimenter," at first controverted his 
 discoveries and even questioned his existence. But 
 after a little time this worthy scientist became 
 " assur'd that there really existed such a person as 
 Franklin at Philadelphia," while other distinguished 
 scientific men of Europe united in the adoption of 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. 59 
 
 his theories. Kant called him the Prometheus of 
 modern times. Thus, in one way and another, his 
 name had probably already come to be more widely 
 known than that of any other living man who had 
 been born on this side of the Atlantic. It might 
 have been even much more famous, had he been 
 more free to follow his own bent, a pleasure which 
 he could only enjoy in a very limited degree. In 
 1753 he wrote : " I am so engaged in business, 
 public and private, that those more pleasing pur- 
 suits [philosophical enquiries] are frequently inter- 
 rupted, and the chain of thought necessary to be 
 closely continued in such disquisitions is so broken 
 and disjointed that it is with difficulty I satisfy 
 myself in any of them." Similar complaints occur 
 frequently, and it is certain that his extensive phil- 
 osophical labors were all conducted in those mere 
 cracks and crannies of leisure scantily interspersed 
 amid the hours of a man apparently overwhelmed 
 with the functions of active life. 
 
 He was now selected by the Assembly to en- 
 counter the perils of crossing the Atlantic upon an 
 important mission in behalf of his Province. For 
 a long while past the relationship between the 
 Penns, unworthy sons of the great- William, and 
 now the proprietaries, on the one side, and their 
 quasi subjects, the people of the Province, upon 
 the other, had been steadily becoming more and 
 more strained, until something very like a crisis 
 had been reached. As usual in English and Anglo- 
 American communities, it was a quarrel over dol- 
 
60 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 lars, or rather over pounds sterling, a question of 
 taxation, which was producing the alienation. At 
 bottom, there was the trouble which always pertains 
 to absenteeism ; the proprietaries lived in England, 
 and regarded their vast American estate, with 
 about 200,000 white inhabitants, only as a source 
 of revenue. That mercantile community, however, 
 with the thrift of Quakers and the independent 
 temper of Englishmen, had a shrewd appreciation 
 of, and an obstinate respect for, its own interests. 
 Hence the discussions, already of threatening pro- 
 portions. 
 
 The chief point in dispute was, whether or not 
 the waste lands, still directly owned by the proprie- 
 taries, and other lands let by them at quitrents, 
 should be taxed in the same manner as like prop- 
 erty of other owners. They refused to submit to 
 such taxation ; the Assembly of Burgesses insisted. 
 In ordinary times the proprietaries prevailed ; for 
 the governor was their nominee and removable at 
 their pleasure ; they gave him general instructions 
 to assent to no law taxing their holdings, and he 
 naturally obeyed his masters. But since govern- 
 ors got their salaries only by virtue of a vote of 
 the Assembly^ it seems that they sometimes disre- 
 garded instructions, in the sacred cause of their 
 own interests. After a while, therefore, the pro- 
 prietaries, made shrewd by experience, devised the 
 scheme of placing their unfortunate sub-rulers un- 
 der bonds. This went far towards settling the 
 matter. Yet in such a crisis and stress as were 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. 61 
 
 now present in the colony, when exceptionally large 
 sums had to be raised, and great sacrifices and suf- 
 ferings endured, and when little less than the actual 
 existence of the Province might be thought to be at 
 stake, it certainly seemed that the rich and idle pro- 
 prietaries might stand on the same footing with 
 their poor and laboring subjects. They lived com- 
 fortably in England upon revenues estimated to 
 amount to the then enormous sum of X20,000 
 sterling ; while the colonists were struggling un- 
 der unusual losses, as well as enormous exjjenses, 
 growing out of the war and Indian ravages. At 
 such a time their parsimony, their " incredible 
 meanness," as Franklin called it, was cruel as well 
 as stupid. At last the Assembly flatly refused to 
 raise any money unless the proprietaries should be 
 burdened like the rest. All should pay together, 
 or all should go to destruction together. The Penns 
 too stood obstinate, facing the not less resolute 
 Assembly. It was indeed a deadlock ! Yet the 
 times were such that neither party could afford to 
 maintain its ground indefinitely. So a temporary 
 arrangement was made, whereby of £60,000 ster- 
 ling to be raised the proprietaries agreed to contrib- 
 ute X5,000, and the Assembly agreed to accept the 
 same in lieu or commutation for their tax. But 
 neither side abandoned its principle. Before long 
 more money was needed, and the dispute was as 
 fierce as ever. 
 
 The burgesses now thought that it would be 
 well to carry a statement of their case before the 
 
62 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 kino: in council and the lords of trade. In 
 February, 1757, they named their speaker, Isaac 
 Norris, and Franklin to be their emissaries '' to 
 represent in England the unhappy situation of the 
 Province," and to seek redress by an act of Par- 
 liament. Norris, an aged man, begged to be ex- 
 cused ; Franklin accepted. His son was given 
 leave of absence, in order to attend him as his 
 secretary. During the prolonged and bitter con- 
 troversies Franklin had been the most prominent 
 member of the Assembly on the popular side. He 
 had drawn many of the addresses, arguments, and 
 other papers ; and his familiarity with the business, 
 therefore, no less than his good judgment, shrewd- 
 ness, and tact united to point him out as the man 
 for the very unpleasant and difficult errand. 
 
 A portion of his business also was to endeavor to 
 induce the king to resume the Province of Penn- 
 sylvania as his own. A clause in the charter had 
 reserved this right, which could be exercised on 
 payment of a certain sum of money. The colonists 
 now preferred to be an appanage of the crown 
 rather than a fief of the Penns. Oddly enough, 
 some of the provincial governors were suggesting 
 the like measure concerning other provinces ; but 
 from widely different motives. The colonists 
 thought a monarch better than private individuals, 
 as a master ; while the governors thought that only 
 the royal authority could enforce their theory of 
 colonial government. They angrily complained 
 that the colonies would do nothing voluntarily ; a 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. 63 
 
 most unjust charge, as was soon to be seen*, for in 
 the Seven Years' War the colonists did three quar- 
 ters of all that was done. What the governors 
 really meant was that the colonies would not raise 
 money and turn it over to other persons to spend 
 for them. 
 
 It must be acknowledged that the prospects for 
 the success of this mission were not good. Almost 
 simultaneously with Franklin's appointment, the 
 House of Commons resolved that " the claim of 
 right in a colonial Assembly to raise and apply pub- 
 lic money, by its own act alone, is derogatory to the 
 crown, and to the rights of the people of Great 
 Britain." This made Thomas Penn jubilant. 
 " The people of Pennsylvania," he said, '' will soon 
 be convinced . . . that they have not a right to 
 the powers of government they claim." ^ 
 
 Franklin took his passage in a packet -ship, 
 which w^as to sail from New York forthwith. But 
 the vessel was subject to the orders of Lord Lou- 
 doun, newly appointed governor of the Province of 
 New York, and a sort of military over-lord over all 
 the governors, assemblies, and people of the 
 American provinces-. His mission was to organize, 
 to introduce system and submission, and above all 
 else to overawe. But he was no man for the task ; 
 not because his lordship was not a dominant char- 
 acter, but because he was wholl}^ unfit to transact 
 business. Franklin tried some negotiations with 
 him, and got no satisfaction or conclusion. 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., iv. 255. 
 
64 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 The ship which waited upon the will of this 
 noble procrastinator had a very doubtful future. 
 Every day at nine o'clock his lordship seated him- 
 self at his desk, and stayed there writing indus- 
 triously, hour after hour, upon his despatches ; 
 every day he foretold with much accuracy and posi- 
 tiveness of manner that these would surely be ready, 
 and the ship would inevitably sail, on the next day. 
 Thus week after week glided by, and still he 
 uttered the same prediction, " to-morrow, and to- 
 morrow, and to-morrow." Yet in spite of this won- 
 derful industry of the great man his letters never 
 got written, so that, says Franklin, " it was about 
 the beginning of April that I came to New York, 
 and I think it was the end of June before we 
 sail'd." Even then the letters were not ready, and 
 for two days the vessel had to accompany his lord- 
 ship's fleet on the way towards Louisburg, before 
 she got leave to go upon her own proper voyage. 
 It is entertaining to hear that this same lord, 
 during his stay in America, detained other packets 
 for other letters, until their bottoms got so foul 
 and worm-eaten that they were unseaworthy. He 
 was irreverently likened by those who waited on 
 his pleasure to " St. George on the signs, always on 
 horseback, and never rides on." He was at last 
 removed by Mr. Pitt, because that energetic min- 
 ister said " that he never heard from him, and 
 could not know what was doino^." 
 
 Escaping at last from a detention more tedious, 
 if less romantic, than any which ever befell Ulysses, 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. Q^ 
 
 Franklin steered for Eno-land. The vessel was 
 " several times chas'd " by French cruisers, and 
 later was actually within a few lengths of being 
 wrecked on the Scilly rocks. Franklin wrote to 
 his wife that if he were a Roman Catholic he should 
 probably vow a chapel to some saint ; but, as he 
 was not, he should much like to vow a light-house. 
 At length, however, he came safely into Falmouth, 
 and on July 27, 1757, arrived in London. 
 
 Immediately he was taken to see Lord Gran- 
 ville, president of the council ; and his account of 
 the interview is too striking not to be given entire. 
 His lordship, he says, 
 
 " received me with great civility ; and after some ques- 
 tions respecting the present state of affairs in America 
 and discourse thereupon, he said to me : ' You Americans 
 have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution ; you 
 contend that the king's instructions to his governors are 
 not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard or 
 disregard them at your own discretion. But these in- 
 structions are not like the pocket instructions given to a 
 minister going abroad, for regulating his conduct on some 
 trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn up by 
 judges learned in the laws ; they are then considered, 
 debated, and perhaps amended, in council, after which 
 they are signed by the king. They are then, so far as 
 they relate to you, the law of the land, for the king is 
 \\\e legislator of the colonies.^ I told his lordship this 
 was new doctrine to me. I had always understood from 
 our charters that our laws were to be made by our assem- 
 blies, to be presented indeed to the king for his royal as- 
 sent ; but that being once given, the king could not re- 
 
66 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 peal or alter them. And as the assemblies could not 
 make permanent laws without his assent, so neither 
 could he make a law for them without theirs. He assured 
 me I was totally mistaken. I did not think so, however ; 
 and his lordship's conversation having somewhat alarmed 
 me as to what might be the sentiments of the court con- 
 cerning us, I wrote it down as soon as I returned to my 
 lodgings." ^ 
 
 Granville also defended the recent act of Parlia- 
 ment laying " grievous restrictions on the export of 
 provisions from the British colonies," the intent 
 being to distress the American possessions of 
 France by famine. His lordship said : " America 
 must not do anything to iuterfere with Great Brit- 
 ain in the European markets." Franklin replied: 
 " If we plant and reap, and must not ship, your 
 lordship should apply to Parliament for transports 
 to bring us all back again." 
 
 Next came an interview with the proprietaries. 
 Each side declared itself disposed towards "rea- 
 sonable accommodations ; " but Franklin supposed 
 that " each party had its own ideas of what should 
 be meant by reasonaMey Nothing came of all 
 this palaver ; which only meant that time was be- 
 ing wasted to no better purpose than to show that 
 the two parties were " very wide, and so far from 
 each other in [their] opinions as to discourage all 
 hope of agreement." But this had long been evi- 
 dent. The lawyer of the proprietaries was then 
 
 1 Works, i. 295, 206 ; see also an account, substantially the 
 same, in letter to Bowdoin, January 13, 1772. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. 67 
 
 put forward. He was a " proud, angry man," with 
 a " mortal enmity " toward Franklin ; for the two 
 had exchanged buffets more than once already, d^l 
 the " proud angry man " had been hit hard. It 
 had been his professional duty, as counsel for the 
 Penns, to prepare many papers to be used by their 
 governor in the course of their quarrels with the 
 Assembly. It had usually fallen to Franklin's lot 
 to draft the replies of the Assembly, and by Frank- 
 lin's own admission these documents of his, like 
 those which they answered, were " often tart and 
 sometimes indecently abusive." Franklin now 
 found his old antagonist so excited that it seemed 
 best to refuse to have any direct dealings with him. 
 The proprietaries then put their interests in 
 charge of Attorney-General Pratt, afterwards Lord 
 Camden, and the Solicitor-General Charles Yorke, 
 afterward Lord Chancellor. These legal lumina- 
 ries consumed " a year, wanting eight days " before 
 they were in a condition to impart light ; and dur- 
 ing that period Franklin could of course achieve 
 nothing with the proprietaries. After all, the pro- 
 prietaries ignored and insulted him, and made 
 further delay by sending a message to the Assem- 
 bly of Pennsylvania, wherein they complained of 
 Franklin's " rudeness," and professed themselves 
 " willing to accommodate matters," if a " person 
 of candour " should be sent to treat with them. 
 The only reply to their message came in the pointed 
 and intelligible shape of an act '' taxing the pro- 
 prietary estate in common with the estates of the 
 
68 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 people." Much disturbed, the proprietaries now 
 obtained a hearing before the king in council. 
 "Hley requested his majesty to set aside this tax 
 act, and several other acts which had been passed 
 within two years by the Assembly. Of these other 
 acts some were repealed, according to the prayer of 
 the proprietaries ; but more were allowed to stand. 
 These were, however, of comparatively little conse- 
 quence ; the overshadowing grievance for the Penns 
 lay in this taxation of their property. Concerning 
 this it was urged b}^ their counsel that the pro- 
 prietaries were held in such odium by the people 
 that, if left to the popular '' mercy in apportioning 
 the taxes, they would be ruined." The other side, 
 of course, vehemently denied that there was the 
 slightest ground for such a suspicion. 
 
 In June, 1760, the board of trade rendered a 
 report very unfavorable to the Assembly. Their 
 language showed that they had been much affected 
 by the appearance of popular encroachments, and 
 by the allegations of an intention on the part of 
 the colonists " to establish a democracy in place of 
 his majesty's government." Their advice was to 
 bring " the constitution back to its proper princi- 
 ples ; to restore to the crown, in the person of 
 the proprietaries, its just prerogative ; to check the 
 growing influence of assemblies, by distinguishing, 
 what they are perpetually confounding, the execu- 
 tiv^e from the legislative power." News of this 
 alarming document reached Franklin just as he 
 was about to start upon a trip through Ireland. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. 69 
 
 It put an end to that pleasure ; lie had to set to 
 work on the moment, with all the zeal and by all 
 the means he could compass, to counteract this 
 fulmination. Just how he achieved so difficult au 
 end is not recorded; but it appears that he suc- 
 ceeded in securing a further hearing, in the pro- 
 gress of which Lord Mansfield " rose, and beckon- 
 ing me, took me into the clerk's chambers, . . . 
 and asked me, if I was really of opinion that no 
 injury would be done to the proprietary estate 
 in the execution of the act. I said : Certainly. 
 ' Then,' says he, ' you can have little objection to 
 enter into an engagement to assure that point.' 
 I answered : None at all." Thereupon a paper of 
 this purport, binding personally upon Franklin 
 and upon Mr. Charles, the resident agent of the 
 Province, was drawn up, and was duly executed by 
 them both ; and on August 28th the lords filed an 
 amended report, in which they said that the act 
 taxing the proprietary estates upon a common 
 basis with those of other owners was " fundamen- 
 tally wrong and unjust and ought to be repealed, 
 unless six certain amendments were made therein." 
 These amendments were, in substance, the under- 
 takings entered into in the bond of the colonial 
 agents. Franklin soon afterward had occasion to 
 review this whole business. He showed that of the 
 six amendments, five were immaterial, since they 
 only expressed with greater clearness the intent of 
 the Assembly. He admitted that the sixth was of 
 more consequence. It seems that X100,000 had 
 
70 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 been voted, appropriated, raised and, expended, 
 chiefly for the defense of the colony. The manner 
 of doing this was to issue paper money to this 
 amount, to make it legal tender, and then to retire 
 it by the proceeds of the tax levy. The proprie- 
 taries insisted that they could not be compelled to 
 receive their rents in this money, and the lords 
 now found for them. Franklin acknowledged that 
 herein perhaps the lords were right and the As- 
 sembly wrong ; but he added this scathing para- 
 graph : — 
 
 " But if he cannot on these considerations quite ex- 
 cuse the Assembly, what will he think of those honour- 
 able proprietaries, who, when paper money was issued 
 in their colony for the commo7i defense of their vast 
 estates with those of the people, could nevertheless wish 
 to be exempted from their share of the unavoidable dis- 
 advantages. Is there upon earth a man besides, with 
 any conception of what is honest, with any notion of 
 honor, with the least tincture in his veins of the gentle- 
 man, but would have blushed at the thought, but would 
 have rejected with disdain such undue preference, if it 
 had been offered him ? Much less would he have strug- 
 gled for it, moved heaven and earth to obtain it, resolved 
 to ruin thousands of his tenants by a repeal of the act, 
 rather than miss of it, and enforce it afterwards by an 
 audaciously wicked instruction, forbidding aids to his 
 king, and exposing the Province to destruction, unless 
 it was complied with. And yet, these are honourable 
 men ! " 
 
 This was, however, altogether a subordinate issue. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. 71 
 
 The struggle had really been conducted to deter- 
 mine whether the proprietary estate should be 
 taxed like other estates, and the decision upheld 
 such taxation. This was a complete triumph for 
 the Assembly and their rejiresentative. " But let 
 the proprietaries and their discreet deputies here- 
 after recollect and remember," said Franklin, " that 
 the same august tribunal, which censured some of 
 the modes and circumstances of that act, did at the 
 same time establish and confirm the grand prin- 
 ciple of the act, namely : ' That the proprietary 
 estate ought, with other estates, to be taxed ; ' and 
 thereby did, in effect, determine and pronounce 
 that the opposition so long made in various shapes 
 to that just principle, by the proprietaries, was 
 ' fundamentally lorong and unjust ! ' " 
 
 It was a long while before the Assembly found 
 leisure to attend to that enoaoement of their assents 
 which stipulated for an investigation to see whether 
 the proprietaries had not been unduly and exces- 
 sively assessed. But at length, after having had 
 the spur of reminder constantly applied to their 
 laggard memories, they appointed a committee to 
 inquire and report concerning the valuations made 
 by the tax-gatherers. 
 
 This committee reported that — 
 
 " there has not been any injustice done to the proprie- 
 taries, or attempts made to rate or assess any part of 
 their estates higher than the estates of the like kind be- 
 longing to the inhabitants are rated and assessed ; but, 
 
72 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 on the contrary, . . . their estates are rated, in many- 
 instances, below others." 
 
 So the matter ended. 
 
 Franklin had been detained a little more than 
 three years about this business. At its conclusion 
 he anticipated a speedy return home ; but he had 
 to stay yet two years more to attend to sundry 
 matters smaller in importance, but which were ad- 
 vanced almost as slowly. Partly such delay was 
 because the aristocrats of the board of trade and 
 the privy council had not the habits of business 
 men, but consulted their own noble convenience in 
 the transaction of affairs ; and partly it was be- 
 cause procrastination was purposely employed by 
 his opponents, who harassed him and blocked his 
 path by every obstacle, direct and indirect, which 
 they could put in his way. For they seemed to 
 hope for some turn in affairs, some event, or some 
 too rapid advance of the popular party in America, 
 which should arouse the royal resentment against 
 the colonists and so militate on their side. Delay 
 was easily brought about by them. They had 
 money, connections, influence, and that familiarity 
 with men and ways which came from their residence 
 in England ; while Franklin, a stranger on an un- 
 popular errand, representing before an aristocratic 
 government a parcel of tradespeople and farmers 
 who lived in a distant land and were charged with 
 being both niggardly and disaffected, found that 
 he could make only difficult and uncertain progress. 
 He was like one who sails a race not only against 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. 73 
 
 hostile winds and tides, but also in strange waters 
 where the shoals and rocks are unknown, and where 
 invisible currents ceaselessly baffle his course. 
 His lack of personal importance hampered him ex- 
 asperatingly. Thus during his prolonged stay he 
 rej)eatedly made every effort in his power to obtain 
 an audience of William Pitt. But not even for 
 once could he succeed. A provincial agent, en- 
 gaged in a squabble about taxing proprietary lands, 
 was too small a man upon too small a business to 
 consume the precious time of the great prime min- 
 ister, who was endeavoring to dominate the embroil- 
 ments and intrigues of all Europe, to say nothing 
 of the machinations of his opponents at home. So 
 the subalterns of Mr. Pitt met Franklin, heard 
 what he had to say, sifted it through the sieve of 
 their own discretion, and bore to the ears of their 
 principal only such compends as they thought 
 worthy of attention. 
 
 But the vexation of almost endless delay had its 
 alleviations, apparently much more than enough to 
 offset it. Early in September, 1757, that is to say 
 some five or six weeks after his landing, Franklin 
 was taken very ill of an intermittent fever, which 
 lasted for eight weeks. During his convalescence 
 he wrote to his wife that the agreeable conversa- 
 tion of men of learning, and the notice taken of 
 him by persons of distinction, soothed him under 
 this painful absence from family and friends ; yet 
 these solaces would not hold him there another 
 week, were it not for duty to his country and the 
 
74 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 hope of being able to do it service. But after the 
 early homesickness wore off, a great attachment for 
 England took its place. He found himself a man 
 of note among scientists there, who gave him a 
 ready welcome and showed a courteous and flatter- 
 ing recognition of his high distinction in their pur- 
 suits. Thence it was easy to penetrate into the 
 neighboring circle of literature, wherein he made 
 warm personal friends, such as Lord Kames, David 
 Hume, Dr. Robertson, and others. From time to 
 time he was a guest at many a pleasant country 
 seat, and at the universities. He found plenty of 
 leisure, too, for travel, and explored the United 
 Kingdom very thoroughly. When he went to Ed- 
 inburgh he was presented with the freedom of the 
 city ; and the University of St. Andrews conferred 
 on him the degree of Doctor of Laws ; later, Ox- 
 ford did the same. He even had time for a trip 
 into the Low Countries. As months and finally 
 years slipped away, with just enough of occupation 
 of a dignified character to save him from an annoy- 
 ing sense of idleness, with abundant opportunities 
 for social pleasure, and with a very gratifying defer- 
 ence shown towards himself, Franklin, who liked 
 society and did not dislike flattery, began to think 
 the mother country no such bad place. For an in- 
 tellectual and social career London certainly had 
 advantages over Philadelphia. Mr. Strahan, the 
 well-known publisher of those days, whom Franklin 
 used affectionately to call Straney, became his close 
 friend, and was very insistent with him that he 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. 75 
 
 should leave the Provinces and take up a permanent 
 residence in England. lie baited his hook with 
 an offer of his son in marriage with Franklin's 
 daughter Sarah. He had never seen Sarah, but he 
 seems to have taken it for granted that any child 
 of her father Jiiust be matrimonially satisfactory. 
 Franklin wrote home to his wife that the young 
 man was eligible, and that there were abundant 
 funds in the Strahan treasury ; but that he did not 
 suppose that she would be able to overcome her 
 terror of the ocean voyage. Indeed this timidity 
 on the part of his wife was more than once put 
 forward by him as if it were really the feather 
 which turned the scale in the choice of his future 
 residence. 
 
 Franklin himself also was trying his hand at 
 match-making. He had taken a great fancy to a 
 young lady by the name of Mary Stevenson, with 
 whom, when distance prevented their meeting, he 
 kept up a constant correspondence concerning points 
 of physical science. He now became very pressing 
 with his son William to wed this learned maiden ; 
 but the young man possibly did not hold a taste for 
 science to be the most winning trait in woman ; at 
 any rate, having bestowed his affections elsewhere, 
 he refused to transfer them. So Franklin was 
 compelled to give up his scheme, though with an 
 extreme reluctance, which he expressed to the re- 
 jected damsel with amusing openness. Had either 
 of these matrimonial bonds been made fast, it is 
 not improbable that Franklin would have lived out 
 
76 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 the rest of his life as a friend of the colonies in 
 England. But his lot was otherwise cast ; a second 
 time he escaped, though narrowly, the prospect of 
 dying an Englishman and the subject of a king. 
 At the moment he was not altogether glad that 
 matters worked thus. On August 17, 1762, he 
 wrote from Portsmouth to Lord Kames : — 
 
 " I am now waiting here only for a wind to waft me 
 to America ; but cannot leave this happy island and my 
 friends in it without extreme regret, though I am going 
 to a country and a people that I love. I am going from 
 the old world to the new ; and I fancy I feel like those 
 who are leaving this world for the next : grief at the 
 parting ; fear of the passage ; hope of the future. These 
 different passions all affect their minds at once ; and 
 these have tendered me down exceedingly." 
 
 And six days later, from the same place, he 
 wrote to Strahan : " I cannot, I assure you, quit 
 even this disagreeable place, without regret, as it 
 carries me still farther from those I love, and from 
 the opportunities of hearing of their welfare. The 
 attraction of reason is at present for the other side 
 of the water, but that of inclination will be for this 
 side. You know which usually prevails. I shall 
 probably make but this one vibration and settle 
 here forever. Nothing will prevent it, if I can, as 
 I hope I can, prevail with Mrs. F. to accomj)any 
 me, especially if we have a peace." Apparently 
 the Americans owe a great debt of gratitude to 
 Mrs. Franklin's fearfulness of the untrustworthy 
 Atlantic. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. 77 
 
 Before dismissing this stay of Franklin in Eng- 
 land a word should be said concerning his efforts 
 for the retention of Canada by the British, as 
 spoils of war. The fall of Quebec, in the autumn 
 of 1759, practically concluded the struggle in 
 America. The French were utterly spent ; they 
 had no food, no money ; they had fought with des- 
 perate courage and heroic self-devotion ; they could 
 honestly say that they had stood grimly in the last 
 trench, and had been slaughtered there until the 
 starved and shattered remnant could not find it in 
 their exhausted human nature longer to conduct a 
 contest so thoroughly finished. In Europe, France 
 was hardly less completely beaten. At the same 
 time the singular position of affairs existed that 
 the triumphant conqueror was even more resolutely 
 bent upon immediate peace than were the con- 
 quered. George III., newly come to the throne, 
 set himself towards this end with all the obstinacy 
 of his resolute nature. It became a question of 
 terms, and eager was the discussion thereof. The 
 colonies were profoundly interested, for a question 
 sharply argued was : whether England should re- 
 tain Guadaloupe or Canada. She had conquered 
 both, but it seemed to be admitted that she must 
 restore one. It was even then a comical bit of 
 political mathematics to establish anything like an 
 equation between the two, nor could it possibly 
 have been done with reference to intrinsic values. 
 It was all very well to dilate upon the sugar crop 
 of the island, its trade, its fertility, its harborage. 
 
78 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Every one knew that Canada could outweigh all 
 these things fifty times over. But into the Guada- 
 loupe scale was dropped a weighty consideration, 
 which was clearly stated in an anonymous pam- 
 phlet attributed to William Burke. This writer 
 said : — 
 
 " If the people of our colonies find no check from 
 Canada, they will extend themselves almost without 
 bound into the inland parts. They will increase infi- 
 nitely from all causes. What the consequence will be, 
 to have a numerous, hardy, independent people, possessed 
 of a strong country, communicating little or not at all 
 with England, I leave to your own reflections. By 
 eagerly grasping at extensive territory we may run the 
 risk, and in no very distant period, of losing what we 
 now possess. A neighbor that keeps us in some awe is 
 not always the worst of neighbors. So that, far from 
 sacrificing Guadaloupe to Canada, perhaps, if we might 
 have Canada without any sacrifice at all, we ought not 
 to desire it. There should be a balance of power in 
 America. . . . The islands, from their weakness, can 
 never revolt ; but, if we acquire all Canada, we shall 
 soon find North America itself too powerful and too 
 pof)ulous to be governed by us at a distance." 
 
 From many other quarters came the same warn- 
 ing predictions.^ 
 
 Franklin watched the controversy with deep in- 
 terest and no small anxiety. As the argument 
 grew heated he could no longer hold his hand ; he 
 cast into the Canadian scale an able pamphlet, in- 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., iv. 363-365. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. 79 
 
 gennous in the main if not in all the details. It is 
 not worth while to rehearse what he had to say 
 npon mercantile points, or even concerning the 
 future growth of a great American empire. What 
 he had really to encounter was the argument that 
 it was sound policy to leave Canada in possession of 
 the French. Those who pretended to want Gua- 
 daloupe did not so much really want it as they did 
 wish to have Canada remain French. To make 
 good this latter point they had to show, first, that 
 French ownership involved no serious danger to 
 the English possessions ; second, that it brought 
 positive advantages. To the first proposition they 
 said that the French had fully learned their lesson 
 of inferiority, and that a few forts on the frontier 
 would easily overawe the hostile Indians. To the 
 second proposition, they elaborated the arguments 
 of William Burke. Franklin replied that the war- 
 parties of braves would easily pass by the forts in 
 the forests, and after burning, pillaging, murder- 
 ing, and scalping, would equally easily and safely 
 return. Nothing save a Chinese wall the whole 
 length of the western frontier would suffice for pro- 
 tection against savages. Then, with one of those 
 happy illustrations of which he was a master, he 
 said: "In short, long experience has taught our 
 planters that they cannot rely upon forts as a 
 security against Indians ; the inhabitants of Hack- 
 ney might as well rely upon the Tower of London, 
 to secure them against highwaymen and house- 
 breakers." The admirable simile could neither be 
 answered nor forgotten. 
 
80 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Concerning the positive desirability of leaving 
 the French as masters of Canada to *' check " the 
 grovvrth of the colonies, Franklin indignantly ex- 
 claimed : " It is a modest word, this ' check ' for 
 massacring men, women, and children ! " If Can- 
 ada is to be " restored on this principle, . . . will 
 not this be telling the French in plain terms, that 
 the horrid barbarisms they perpetrate with Indians 
 on our colonists are agreeable to us ; and that they 
 need not apprehend the resentment of a govern- 
 ment with whose views they so happily concur." 
 But he had the audacity to say that he was abun- 
 dantly certain that the mother country could never 
 have any occasion to dread the power of the colo- 
 nies. He said : — 
 
 " I shall next consider the other supposition, that their 
 growth may render them dangerous. Of this, I own, I 
 have not the least conception, when I consider that we 
 have already fourteen separate governments on the 
 maritime coast of the continent ; and, if we extend our 
 settlements, shall probably have as many more behind 
 them on the inland side." By reason of the different 
 governors, laws, interests, religions and manners of 
 these, " their jealousy of each other is so great, that, 
 however necessary a union of the colonies has long been, 
 for their common defence and security against their 
 enemies, and how sensible soever each colony has been 
 of that necessity, yet they have never been able to effect 
 such a union among themselves, nor even to agree in re- 
 questing the mother country to establish it for them." 
 If they could not unite for self-defence against the 
 French and the murderous savages, " can it reasonably 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. 81 
 
 be supposed there is any danger of their uniting against 
 their own nation, which protects and encourages them, 
 with which they have so many connexions and ties of 
 blood, interest, and affection, and which, it is well 
 known, they all love much more than they love one 
 another ? 
 
 "In short there are so many causes that must operate 
 to prevent it, that I will venture to say a union amongst 
 them for such a purpose is not merely improbable, it is 
 impossible. And if the union of the whole is impossible, 
 the attempt of a part must be madness. . . . When I 
 say such a union is impossible, I mean without the most 
 grievous tyranny and oppression. . . . The leaves do 
 not rise hut ivhen the winds hloiv. . . . What such an 
 administration as the Duke of Alva's in the Netherlands 
 might produce, I know not ; but this, I think, I have a 
 right to deem impossible.'' 
 
 We read these words, even subject to the mild 
 saving of the final sentences, with some bewilder- 
 ment. Did their shrewd and well-informed writer 
 believe what he said ? Was he casting this polit- 
 ical horoscope in good faith? Or was he only 
 uttering a proi^hecy which he desired, if possible, 
 and for his own purposes, to induce others to be- 
 lieve? If he was in earnest, Attorney - General 
 Pratt was a better astrologer. *' For all what you 
 Americans say of your loyalty," he said to Franklin, 
 " and notwithstanding your boasted affection, you 
 will one day set up for independence." *' No such 
 idea," said Franklin, " is entertained by the Amer- 
 icans, or ever will be, unless you grossly abuse 
 
82 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 them." " Very true," said Pratt ; " that I see will 
 happen, and will produce the event." ^ Choiseul, 
 the able French minister, expressed his wonder that 
 the " great Pitt should be so attached to the acqui- 
 sition of Canada," which, being in the hands of 
 France, would keep the " colonies in that depend- 
 ence which they will not fail to shake off the mo- 
 ment Canada shall be ceded." ^ Vergennes saw 
 the same thing not less clearly ; and so did many 
 another. 
 
 If Franklin was really unable to foresee in this 
 business those occurrences which others predicted 
 with such confidence, at least he showed a grand 
 conception of the future, and his vision took in 
 more distant and greater facts and larger truths 
 of statesmanship than were compassed by the Brit- 
 ish ministers. Witness what he wrote to Lord 
 Kames : — 
 
 " I have long been of opinion that the foundations of 
 the future grandeur and stability of the British empire 
 lie in America. ... I am therefore by no means for 
 restoring Canada. If we keep it, all the country from 
 the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi will in another cen- 
 tury be filled with British people. Britain itself will 
 become vastly more populous by the immense increase 
 to its commerce ; the Atlantic sea will be covered with 
 your trading ships ; and your naval power, thence con- 
 tinually increasing, will extend your influence round the 
 whole globe, and awe the world." 
 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., iv. 380. 
 
 2 Ibid., iv. 399. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE IN ENGLAND. 83 
 
 Whatever regret Franklin may have felt at not 
 being able to remain in England was probably 
 greatly mitigated if not entirely dissipated by the 
 cordial reception which he met with at home. On 
 December 2, 1762, he wrote to Strahan that the 
 reports of the diminution of liis friends were all 
 false ; that ever since his arrival his house had 
 been full of a succession of them from morning 
 till night, congratulating him on his return. The 
 Assembly honored him with a vote of thanks, and 
 also voted him <£3,000 towards defraying his ex- 
 penses. It was, of course, much less than he had 
 expended during an absence of nearly six years ; 
 but it seems that he considered that, since much of 
 his time had been passed in the enjoyment of an 
 agreeable leisure, he should bear a corresponding 
 part of the expense. While on the sea he had 
 been chosen unanimously, as indeed had been done 
 in each year of his absence, a member of that 
 body ; and he was told that, if he had not got so 
 privately into town, he should have been met by 
 an escort of 500 horsemen. All this must have 
 been very gratifying. 
 
 A different kind of tribute, somewhat indirect, 
 but none the less intelligible, was at the same time 
 paid to him by the British government. In the 
 autumn of 1762 his illegitimate son, William 
 Franklin, was appointed governor of New Jersey. 
 This act created a great storm of wrath from some 
 of the provincial aristocratic party, and was vehe- 
 mently railed at as an " indignity," a " dishonor 
 
84 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 and disgrace," an " insult." After all, it failed of 
 its obvious j3urpose. The government shot brought 
 down the wrong bird, common carrion, while the 
 one aimed at never swerved in the slightest from 
 his course. William, whom no one cared for in 
 the least, became a confirmed royalist, and ulti- 
 mately, as a Tory refugee, for years continued to 
 absorb a pension for which he could return no 
 adequate consideration. So far as Benjamin 
 Franklin was concerned, he was at first much 
 pleased ; but his political views and course were 
 not in the slightest aegree affected. On tlie con- 
 trary, as the scheme developed, and the influence 
 on the younger man became apparent, the final re- 
 sult was an alienation between father and son, 
 which was only partially healed so late as 1784, 
 just before the former returned from Europe for 
 the last time. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 When Franklin came home he was fifty-six 
 years. old. By nature he was physically indolent, 
 and fifteen years ago he had given proof of his 
 desire for the command of his own time by retir- 
 ing from a lucrative business. But his forecasting 
 of a tranquil, social career in Philadelphia, with 
 science as his chief and agreeable occupation, was 
 still to continue a day-dream, interrupted only by 
 some thoughts of an English home. "Business, 
 public and private, consumes all my time ; I must 
 return to England for repose. With such thoughts 
 I flatter myself, and need some kind friend to put 
 me often in mind that old trees cannot safely be 
 transplanted." Thus he wrote to Mary Stevenson, 
 the young lady whom he had hoped to have as a 
 daughter-in-law. 
 
 His first labor in the provinces came in the shape 
 of a journey about the country to supervise and 
 regulate the postal business. Upon this errand he 
 went 1,600 miles, which was no slight matter as 
 travel was conducted in those days. He started 
 in the spring of 1763, and did not get back until 
 November. Upon his return he found himself at 
 
86 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 once immersed in public affairs. In October, 1763, 
 Governor Hamilton was superseded by John Penn, 
 nephew of the proprietary Thomas Penn. 
 
 " Never," said Franklin, " did any administration 
 open with a more promising prospect than this of Gov- 
 ernor Penn. He assured the people in his first speeches 
 of the proprietaries' paternal regard for them, and their 
 sincere dispositions to do everything that might promote 
 their happiness. As the proprietaries had been pleased 
 to promote a son of the family to the government, 'it was 
 thought not unlikely that there might be something in 
 these professions ; for that they would probably choose 
 to have his administration made easy and agreeable, and 
 to that end might think it prudent to withdraw those 
 harsh, disagreeable, and unjust instructions, with which 
 most of his predecessors had been hampered. The 
 Assembly therefore believed fully and rejoiced sincerely. 
 They showed the new governor every mark of respect 
 and regard that was in their power. They readily and 
 cheerfully went into everything he recommended to 
 them." 
 
 Moreover, the first event of public importance 
 after Governor Penn's advent had, in its early 
 stage, the effect of drawing him very closely to 
 Franklin. Some of the settlers on the frontier, 
 infuriated beyond the control of reason by the In- 
 dian marauding parties, gathered together for the 
 purpose of slaughter. If they had directed their 
 vengeance against the braves, and even all the 
 occupants of the villages of the wilderness, they 
 might have been excused though their vindictive 
 
LIFE IN FHILADELPUIA. 87 
 
 rage led them to retaliate by the same barbarities 
 which the red men had practiced towards the whites. 
 Unfortunately, instead of courageously turning 
 their faces towards the forests, they turned their 
 backs in that direction, where only there was any 
 enemy to be feared, and in a safe expedition they 
 wreaked a deadly, senseless, cowardly, and brutal 
 vengeance on an unoffending group of twenty old 
 men, women and children, living peacefully and 
 harmlessly near Lancaster. The infamous story is 
 familiar in the annals of Pennsylvania, as the 
 "Paxton massacre," because the "Paxton boys," 
 the perpetrators, came from the Scotch-Irish set- 
 tlement bearing that name. 
 
 Franklin's indignation was great, and he ex- 
 pressed it forcibly in a pamphlet. But many, 
 even of the class which should have felt with 
 him, were in such a temper that they would 
 condemn no act done against an Indian. En- 
 couraged by the prevalence of this feeling, this 
 same band, swelled to a. numerous and really for- 
 midable force, had the audacity to start for Phila- 
 delphia itself, with the avowed purpose of massa- 
 cring there a small body of civilized Christian In- 
 dians, who had fled thither for safety under the 
 charge of their ^loravian missionary, and against 
 whom not a complaint could be made. Panic 
 reigned in the City of Brotherly Love, little com- 
 petent to cope with imminent violence. In the 
 crisis citizens and governor could conceive no more 
 hopeful scheme than an appeal to Franklin, which 
 
88 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 was made at once and urgently. The governor 
 himself actually took up his residence in Franklin's 
 house, and stayed there till the threat of trouble 
 passed over, speaking, writing, and ordering only 
 at Franklin's dictation — a course which had in it 
 more of sense than of dignity. The appeal was 
 made in the right quarter. Already profoundly 
 moved in this matter, Franklin was prompt and 
 zealous to save his city from a shameful act, and 
 the Indians from barbarous murder. His efforts 
 soon gathered, and after a fashion organized, a body 
 of defenders probably somewhat more numerous 
 than the approaching mob. Yet a collision would 
 have been most unfortunate, whatever the result ; 
 and to avert it Franklin took it upon him to go in 
 person to meet the assailants. His courage, cool- 
 ness, and address prevailed ; he succeeded in satis- 
 fying the " Paxton boys " that they were so greatly 
 outnumbered, that, far from attacking others, they 
 could only secure their own safety by instant dis- 
 persion. Thus by the resources and presence of 
 mind of one man Philadelphia was saved from a 
 day of which the bloody stain could never have 
 been effaced from her good fame. 
 
 But Franklin seemed for a while to reap more 
 of hostility than of gratitude for his gallant and 
 honorable conduct in this emergency. Governor 
 Penn was an ignoble man, and after the danger was 
 over he left the house, in which he had certainly 
 played a rather ignominious part, with those feel- 
 ings toward his host which a small soul inevitably 
 
LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA. 89 
 
 cherishes toward a greater under such circum- 
 stances. Moreover, there were very many among 
 the people who had more of sympathy with the 
 " Paxton boys " than with the wise and humane 
 man who had thwarted them. " For about forty- 
 eight hours," Franklin wrote to one of his friends, 
 " I was a very great man ; " but after " the fight- 
 ing face we put on " caused the insurgents to turn 
 back, " I became a less man than ever ; for I had, 
 by this transaction, made myself many enemies 
 among the populace," a fact of which the governor 
 speedily took advantage. But without this episode 
 enmity between Penn and Franklin was inevitable. 
 They served masters whose ends were wide apart ; 
 upon the one side avaricious proprietaries of little 
 foresight and judgment, upon the other side a peo- 
 ple jealous of their rights and unwilling to leave to 
 any one else the definition and interpretation of 
 them. 
 
 Soon it became known that the instructions of 
 the new governor differed in no substantial particu- 
 lar from those of his predecessors. The procession 
 of vetoes upon the acts of the Assembly resumed 
 its familiar and hateful march. A militia bill was 
 thus cut off, because, instead of leaving with the 
 governor the nomination of regimental officers, it 
 stipulated that the rank and file should name three 
 persons for each position, and that the governor 
 should choose one of these, — an arrangement bad 
 in itself, but perhaps well suited to the habits and 
 even the needs of the Province at that time. A tax 
 
90 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 bill met the like fate, because it did not discriminate 
 in favor of the located lands of the proprietaries by 
 rating their best lands at no higher valuation than 
 the worst lands of other persons. Soon it was 
 generally felt that matters were as bad as ever, and 
 with scantier chances of improvement. Then " all 
 the old wounds broke out and bled afresh ; all the 
 old grievances, still unredressed, were recollected ; 
 despair succeeded of seeing any peace with a family 
 that could make such returns to all overtures of 
 kindness." The aggrieved party revived its scheme 
 for a transfer of the government from the proprie- 
 taries to the crown, and Franklin threw himself 
 into the discussion with more of zeal and ardor 
 than he had often shown. 
 
 While the debates upon this subject waxed hot 
 in the Assembly, it was moved and carried that 
 that body should adjourn for a few weeks, in order 
 that members might consult their constituents and 
 sound the public feeling. During this recess it 
 may be conceived that neither side was slack in its 
 efforts. Franklin for his share contributed a pam- 
 phlet, entitled " Cool Thoughts on the Present 
 Situation of our Public Affairs." "Mischievous 
 and distressing," he said, as the frequent disputes 
 " have been found to both pro23rietaries and peo- 
 ple, it does not appear that there is any prospect 
 of their being extinguished, till either the proprie- 
 tary purse is unable to support them, or the spirit 
 of the people so broken that they shall be willing 
 to submit to anything rather than continue them." 
 
LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA. 91 
 
 With a happy combination of shrewdness and 
 moderation he laid the bkinie upon the intrinsic na- 
 ture of a proprietary government. " For though it 
 is not unlikely that in these as well as in other dis- 
 putes there are faults on both sides, every glowing 
 coal being apt to inflame its opposite ; yet I see no 
 reason to suppose that all proprietary rulers are 
 worse men than other rulers, nor that all people in 
 proprietary governments are worse people than those 
 in other governments. I suspect, therefore, that 
 the cause is radical, interwoven in the constitution, 
 and so become the very nature, of proprietary 
 governments ; and will therefore produce its effects 
 as long as such governments continue." It indi- 
 cated a broad and able mind, and one well under 
 control, to assume as a basis this dispassionate 
 assertion of a general principle, amid such personal 
 heats as were then inflaming the passions of the 
 whole community. His conclusion held one of his 
 admirable similes which had the force of argument : 
 " There seems to remain then but one remedy for 
 our evils, a remedy approved by experience, and 
 which has been tried with success by other prov- 
 inces ; I mean that of an immediate Royal Gov- 
 ernment^ without the intervention of proprietary 
 powers, which, like unnecessary springs and move- 
 ments in a machine, are so apt to produce dis- 
 order." 
 
 Further, he held out a bait to the crown : — 
 "The expression, change of government, seems indeed 
 to be too extensive, and is apt to give the idea of a 
 
92 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 general and total change of our laws and constitution. 
 It is rather and only a change of governor — that is, in- 
 stead of self-interested proprietaries, a gracious king. 
 His majesty, who has no views but for the good of the 
 people, will thenceforth appoint the governor, who, un- 
 shackled by proprietary instructions, will be at liberty 
 to join with the Assembly in enacting wholesome laws. 
 At present, when the king desires supplies of his faithful 
 subjects, and they are willing and desirous to grant them, 
 the proprietaries intervene and say : ' Unless our private 
 interests in certain particulars are served, nothing shall 
 he done' This insolent tribunal veto has long encum- 
 bered our public affairs and been productive of many 
 mischiefs." 
 
 He then drew a petition " to the king's most ex- 
 cellent majesty in council," which humbly showed 
 '* That the government of this Province by pro- 
 prietaries has, by long experience, been found in- 
 convenient, attended by many difficulties and ob- 
 structions to your majesty's service, arising from 
 the intervention of proprietary private interests in 
 public affairs, and disputes concerning those inter- 
 ests. That the said proprietary government is weak, 
 unable to support its own authority, and maintaiu 
 the common internal peace of the Province ; great 
 riots have lately arisen therein. . . . And these 
 evils are not likely to receive any remedy here, the 
 continual disputes between the proprietaries and 
 people, and their mutual jealousies and dislikes, 
 preventing." Wherefore his majesty was asked 
 to be " graciously pleased to resume the govern- 
 
LIFE IN PHILADKLPIIIA, 93 
 
 ment of tins Province, . . . permitting your duti- 
 ful subjects therein to enjoy, under your majesty's 
 more immediate care and protection, the privileges 
 that have been granted to them by and under your 
 royal predecessors." 
 
 The result of feeling the public pulse showed 
 that it beat very high and strong for the proposed 
 change. Accordingly the resolution to present the 
 petition was now easily carried. But again the 
 aged speaker, Norris, found himself called upon to 
 do that for which he had not the nerve. He re- 
 signed the speakership ; Franklin was chosen in 
 his place and set the official signature to the doc- 
 ument. 
 
 Another paper by Franklin upon the same sub- 
 ject, and of considerable length, appeared in the 
 shape of a preface to a speech delivered in the As- 
 sembly by Joseph Galloway in answer to a speech 
 on the proprietary side by John Dickinson, which 
 speech, also with a long preface, had been printed. 
 In this pamphlet he reviewed all the recent history 
 of the Province. He devoted several pages to a 
 startling exposition of the almost incredible usage 
 which had long prevailed, whereby bills were left 
 to accumulate on the governor's table, and then 
 were finally signed by him in a batch, only upon 
 condition that he should receive, or even sometimes 
 upon his simultaneously receiving, a considerable 
 douceur. Not only had this been connived at by 
 the proprietaries, but sometimes these payments 
 had been shared between the proprietaries and the 
 
94 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 governors. This topic Franklin finally dismissed 
 with a few lines of admirable sarcasm : " Do not, 
 my courteous reader, take pet at our proprietary 
 constitution for these our bargain and sale proceed- 
 ings in legislation. It is a hapj^y country where 
 justice, and what was your own before, can be had 
 for ready money. It is another addition to the 
 value of money, and, of course, another spur to in- 
 dustry. Every land is not so blessed." Many 
 quotations from this able state paper have already 
 been made in the preceding pages, though it is so 
 brilliant a jiiece of work that to quote is only to 
 mutilate. Its argument, denunciation, humor, and 
 satire are interwoven in a masterly combination. 
 The renowned " sketch in the lapidary style," pre- 
 pared for the gravestone of Thomas and Richard 
 Penn, with the introductory paragraphs, constitutes 
 one of the finest assaults in political literature.^ It 
 is unfortunately impossible to give any adequate 
 idea or even abstract of a document which covers 
 so much ground and with such variety of treat- 
 ment. It had of course a powerful effect in stimu- 
 lating the public sentiment, and it was especially 
 useful in supplying formidable arguments to those 
 of the popular way of thinking ; drawing their 
 weapons from this armory, they felt themselves 
 invincible. 
 
 But it must not be supposed that all this while 
 Franklin was treading the velvet path of universal 
 
 1 Franklin's animosity against the Penns was mitigated in later 
 years. See Franklin's Works, viii. 273. 
 
LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA. 95 
 
 popularity, amid the unanimous encouragement of 
 his fellow-citizens, and with only the frowns of the 
 proprietary officials to disturb his serenity. By 
 one means and another the proprietaries mustered 
 a considerable party in the Province, and the hatred 
 of all these men was concentrated upon Franklin 
 with extreme bitterness. He said that he was " as 
 much the butt of party rage and malice," and was 
 as much pelted with hostile prints and pamphlets, 
 as if he were prime minister. Neither was the no- 
 tion of a royal government looked upon with liking 
 even by all those who were indignant against the 
 present system. Moreover many persons still re- 
 mained ill-disposed towards him hj reason of his 
 opinions and behavior during the Paxton outbreak. 
 The combination against him, made up of all these 
 various elements, felt itself powerful enough for 
 mischief, and found its opportunity in the election 
 to the Assembly occurring in the autumn of 1764. 
 The polls were opened on October 1, at nine 
 o'clock in the morning. The throng was dense, and 
 the column of voters could move but slowly. At 
 three o'clock of the following morning, the voting 
 having continued during the night, the friends of 
 the " new ticket," that is to say of the new candi- 
 date, moved to close the polls. The friends of the 
 " old ticket " opposed this motion and unfortu- 
 nately prevailed. They had a " reserve of the aged 
 and lame," who had shunned the crowd and were 
 now brought in chairs and litters. Thus in three 
 hours they increased their score by some two hun- 
 
96 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 dred votes. But the other side was not less enter- 
 prising, and devoting the same extension of time to 
 scouring Germantown and other neighborhoods, 
 they brought in near five hundred additional votes 
 upon their side. It was apparently this strange 
 blunder of the political managers for the " old 
 ticket " party that was fatal to Franklin, for when 
 the votes were all counted he was found to be beaten 
 by a balance against him of twenty-five. He had 
 therefore evidently had a majority at the hour 
 when his friends prevented the closing of the polls. 
 He " died like a philosopher. But Mr. Galloway 
 agonized in death like a Mortal Deist, who has no 
 Hopes of a Future Existence." ^ 
 
 But the jubilation of the proprietary party over 
 this signal victory was soon changed into mourning. 
 For within a few days the new Assembly was in 
 session, and at once took into consideration the ap- 
 pointment of Dr. Franklin as its agent to pre- 
 sent to the king in council another petition for a 
 royal government. The wrath of the other side 
 blazed forth savagely. "No measure," their leader, 
 Dickinson, said, was " so likely to inflame the re- 
 sentments and embitter the discontents of the peo- 
 ple." He " appealed to the heart of every member 
 for the truth of the assertion that no man in Penn- 
 sylvania is at this time so much the object of public 
 dislike as he that has been mentioned. To what 
 a surprising height this dislike is carried among 
 
 ^ Parton's Life of Franklin, i. 451, quoting Life of Joseph Heed, 
 i.37. 
 
LIFE IN PHILADELPHIA. 97 
 
 vast numbers " he did " not choose to repeat." He 
 said that within a few hours of the nomination 
 hundreds of the most reputable citizens had pro- 
 tested, and if time were given thousands " would 
 crowd to present the like testimony against [him]. 
 Why then should a majority of this House single 
 out from the whole world the man most obnoxious 
 to his country to represent his country, though he 
 was at the last election turned out of the Assem- 
 bly, where he had sat for fourteen years ? Why 
 should they exert their power in the most disgust- 
 ing manner, and throw pain, terror, and displeasure 
 into the breasts of their fellow-citizens ? " The ex- 
 cited orator then threw out a suggestion to which 
 this vituperation had hardly paved a way of roses ; 
 he actually appealed to Franklin to emulate Aris- 
 tides, and not be worse than " the dissolute 
 Otho," and to this end urged that he should dis- 
 tinguish himself in the eyes of all good men by 
 " voluntarily declining an office which he could not 
 accept without alarming, offending, and disturbing 
 his country." "Let him, from a private station, 
 from a smaller sphere, diffuse, as I think he may, a 
 beneficial light ; but let him not be made to move 
 and blaze like a comet, to terrify and to distress." ^ 
 The popular majority in the Assembly withstood 
 Mr. Dickinson's rhetoric, and, to quote the forcible 
 language of Bancroft, " proceeded to an act which in 
 its consequences was to influence the world." That 
 is to say, they carried the appointment. Franklin 
 
 ^ Partou's Life of Franklin, i. 451, 452. 
 
98 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 likewise set aside Dickinson's seductive counsels, 
 and accepted the position. 
 
 It is not in human nature to be so extravagantly 
 abused in times of intense excitement, and wholly 
 to hold one's peace. Even the cool temper of Dr. 
 Franklin was incited to a retort ; his defense was 
 brief and dignified, in a very different tone from 
 that of the aspersions to which it replied ; and it 
 carries that influence which always belongs to him 
 who preserves moderation amid the passions of a 
 fierce controversy.^ 
 
 ^ See, for example, Franklin's Works, iii. 361 , 362. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND: I. 
 
 Franklin so hastened his preparations that he 
 was ready to depart again for England in twelve 
 days after his election. There was no money in 
 the provincial treasury ; but some of the well-to-do 
 citizens, in expectation of reimbursement, raised 
 by subscription £1,100. He took only .£500. A 
 troop of three hundred mounted citizens escorted 
 him from the city sixteen miles down the river to 
 the ship, and "filled the sails with their good 
 wishes." This parade, designed only as a friendly 
 demonstration, was afterward made a charge against 
 him, as an assumption of pomp and a display of 
 popularity. If it had been deliberately planned, 
 it would have been ill-advised ; but it took him by 
 surprise, and he could not prevent it. The ship 
 cast anchor in St. Helen's Road, Isle of Wight, on 
 December 9, 1764. He forthwith hastened to Lon- 
 don, and installed himself in the familiar rooms 
 at No. 7 Craven Street, Strand. In Philadelphia, 
 when the news came of the safe arrival of this 
 " man the most obnoxious to his country," the 
 citizens kept the bells ringing until midnight. 
 
 So altogether the prospect now seemed agree- 
 
100 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 able in whatever direction Dr. Franklin chose to 
 look. He was in quarters in which he was at least 
 as much at home as he could feel in his house at 
 Philadelphia ; Mrs. Stevenson, his landlady, and 
 her daughter Mary, whom he had sought to per- 
 suade his son to marry, upon the excellent ground 
 of his own great affection for her, not only made 
 him comfortable but saved him from homesickness ; 
 old and warm friends welcomed him ; the pleasures 
 of London society again spread their charms be- 
 fore him. Without the regrets and doubts which 
 must have attended the real emigration which he 
 had been half inclined to make, he seemed to be 
 reaping all the gratification which that could have 
 brought him. At the same time he had also the 
 pride of receiving from the other side of the Atlan- 
 tic glowing accounts of the esteem in which he was 
 held by a controlling body of those who were still 
 his fellow-citizens there. But already there had 
 shown itself above the horizon a cloud which rap- 
 idly rose, expanded, and obscured all this fair sky. 
 Franklin came to England in the anticipation of 
 a short stay, and with no purpose beyond the pres- 
 entation and urging of the petition for the change 
 of government. Somewhat less than ten months, 
 he thought, would suffice to finish this business. In 
 fact, he did not get home for ten years, and this 
 especial errand, which had seemed all that he had 
 to do, soon sank into such comparative insignifi- 
 cance that, though not actually forgotten, it could 
 not secure attention. He conscientiously made re- 
 
 J 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 101 
 
 peated efforts to keep the petition in the memory 
 of the English ministry, and to obtain action upon 
 it ; but his efforts were vain ; that body was ab- 
 sorbed by other affairs in connection with the 
 troublesome American colonies, — affairs which gave 
 vastly more perplexity and called for much more 
 attention than were becoming in the case of prov- 
 inces that should have been submissive as well- 
 behaved children. Franklin himself found his own 
 functions correspondingly enlarged. Instead of re- 
 maining simply an agent charged with urging a 
 petition which brought him in conflict only with 
 private persons, like himself subjects of the king, 
 he found his position rapidly change and develop 
 until he became really the representative of a dis- 
 affected people maintaining a cause against the 
 monarch and the government of the great British 
 Empire. It was the " Stamp Act " which effected 
 this transformation. 
 
 Scarcely had the great war with France been 
 brought to a close by the treaty of 1763, bringing 
 such enormous advantages to the old British pos- 
 sessions in America, before it became apparent 
 that among the fruits some were mingled that were 
 neither sweet nor nourishing. The war had moved 
 the colonies into a perilous foreground. Their in- 
 terests had cost much in men and money, and had 
 been worth all that they had cost, and more ; the 
 benefits conferred upon them had been immense, 
 yet were recognized as not being in excess of their 
 real importance, present and future. Worst of aU, 
 
102 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 the magnitude of their financial resources had been 
 made apparent ; without a murmur, without visible 
 injury to their prosperity, they had voluntarily 
 raised large sums by taxation. Meanwhile the 
 English treasury had been put to enormous charges, 
 and the English people groaned beneath the un- 
 wonted tax burdens which they had to bear. The 
 attention of British financiers, even before the war 
 was over, was turned toward the colonies, as a field 
 of which the productive capacity had never been 
 developed. 
 
 So soon as peace brought to the government 
 leisure to adjust domestic matters in a thorough 
 manner, the scheme for colonial taxation came to 
 the front. " America . . . became the great sub- 
 ject of consideration ; . . . and the minister who 
 was charged with its government took the lead in 
 public business." ^ This minister was at first 
 Charles Townshend, than whom no man in Eng- 
 land, it was supposed, knew more of the transat- 
 lantic possessions. His scheme involved a standing 
 army of 25,000 men in the provinces, to be sup- 
 ported by taxes to be raised there. In order to 
 obtain this revenue he first gave his care to the 
 revision of the navigation act. Duties which had 
 been so high that they had never been collected he 
 now proposed to reduce and to enforce. This w^as 
 designed to be only the first link in the chain, but 
 before he could forge others he had to go out of 
 office with the Bute ministry. The change in the 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., iv. 28. 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 103 
 
 cabinet, however, made no change in the colonial 
 policy ; that was not " the wish of this man or that 
 man," but apparently of nearly all English states- 
 men. 
 
 So in March, 1763, George Grenville, in the 
 treasury department, took up the plan which Town- 
 shend had laid down. Grenville was commer- 
 cially-minded, and his first efforts were in the di- 
 rection of regulating the trade of the colonies so 
 as to carry out with much more stringency and 
 thoroughness than heretofore three principles : first, 
 that England should be the only shop in which a 
 colonist could purchase ; second, that colonists 
 should not make for themselves those articles which 
 England had to sell to them ; third, that the people 
 of different colonies should not trade with each 
 other even to the indirect or possible detriment of 
 the trade of either with England. Severely as 
 these restrictions bore upon the colonists, they were 
 of that character, as relating to external trade, 
 which no colonist denied, to lie within the jurisdic- 
 tion of Parliament. But they were not enough; 
 they must be supplemented ; and a stamp act was 
 designed as the supplement. On March 9, 1764, 
 Grenville stated his intention to introduce such a 
 bill at the next session ; he needed the interval for 
 inquiries and preparation. It was no very novel 
 idea. It "had been proposed to Sir Eobert Wal- 
 pole ; it had been thought of by Pelham ; it had 
 been almost resolved upon in 1755 ; it had been 
 pressed upon Pitt ; it seems, beyond a doubt, to 
 
104 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 have been a 2)art of the system adopted in the 
 ministry of Bute, and it was sure of the support of 
 Charles Townshend. Knox, the agent of Georgia, 
 stood ready to defend it. . . . The agent of Massa- 
 chusetts favored raising the wanted money in that 
 way." Little opposition was anticipated in Parlia- 
 ment, and none from the king. In short, " every- 
 body, who reasoned on the subject, decided for a 
 stamp tax." ^ Never did any bill of any legisla- 
 ture seem to come into being with better auspices. 
 Some among the colonial agents certainly expressed 
 ill feeling towards it ; but Grenville silenced them, 
 telling them that he was acting " from a real regard 
 and tenderness " towards the Americans. He said 
 this in perfect good faith. His views both of the 
 law and of the reasons for the law were intelligent 
 and honest ; he had carefully gathered information 
 and sought advice ; and he had a profound belief 
 alike in the righteousness and the wisdom of the 
 measure. 
 
 News of what was in preparation in England 
 reached Pennsylvania in the summer of 1764, 
 shortly before Franklin sailed. The Assembly 
 debated concerning it ; Franklin was prominent in 
 condemning the scheme ; and a resolution protest- 
 ing against it was passed. It was made part of 
 Franklin's duty in London to urge upon Grenville 
 these views of Pennsylvania. But when he arrived 
 he found that the grinding at the mills of govern- 
 ment was going on much too evenly to be disturbed 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., iv. 155. 
 
 i 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 105 
 
 by the introduction of any such insignificant foreign 
 substance as a colonial protest. Nevertheless he 
 endeavored to do what he could. In company with 
 three other colonial agents he had an interview 
 with Grenville, February 2, 1765, in which he urged 
 that taxation by act of Parliament was needless, 
 inasmuch as any requisition for the service of the 
 king always had found, and always would find, a 
 prompt and liberal response on the part of the 
 Assembly. Arguments, however, and protests 
 struck ineffectually against the solid wall of Gren- 
 ville's established purpose. He listened with a civil 
 appearance of interest and dismissed his visitors 
 and all memory of their arguments together. On 
 the 13th of the same month he read the bill 
 in Parliament ; on the 27th it passed the Com- 
 mons ; on March 8th, the Lords ; and on March 
 22d it was signed by a royal commission ; the 
 insanity of the king saved him from placing his 
 own signature to the ill - starred law. In July 
 Franklin wrote to Charles Thomson : — 
 
 " Depend upon it, my good neighbor, I took every 
 step in my power to prevent the passing of tlie Stamp 
 Act. Nobody could be more concerned and interested 
 than myself to oppose it sincerely and heartily. But the 
 tide was too strong against us. The nation was provoked 
 by American claims of independence, and all parties 
 joined in resolving by this act to settle the point. We 
 might as well have hindered the sun's setting. That we 
 could not do. Bat since it is down, my friend, and it 
 may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a 
 
106 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 night of it as we can. We can still light candles. Fru- 
 gality and industry will go a great way towards indem- 
 nifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand 
 than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the 
 former, we may easily bear the latter." 
 
 In such a temper was he at this time, and so re- 
 mained until he got news of the first mutterings of 
 the storm in the colonies. His words show a dis- 
 couragement and despondency unusual with him ; 
 but what attracts remark is the philosophical pur- 
 pose to make the best even of so bad a business, 
 the hopeless absence of any suggestion of a further 
 opposition, and that his only advice is patient en- 
 durance. Unquestionably he did conceive the mat- 
 ter to be for the time settled. The might of Eng- 
 land was an awful fact, visible all around him ; he 
 felt the tremendous force of the great British peo- 
 ple ; and he saw their immense resources every day 
 as he walked the streets of busy, prosperous Lon- 
 don. As he recalled the infant towns and scattered 
 villages of the colonies, how could he contemplate 
 forcible resistance to an edict of Parliament and 
 the king? Had Otis, Adams, Henry, Gadsden, and 
 the rest seen with their bodily eyes what Franklin 
 was seeing every day, their words might have been 
 more tempered. Even a year later, in talk with a 
 gentleman who said that so far back as 1741 he 
 had expressed an opinion that the colonies *' would 
 one day release themselves from England," Frank- 
 lin answered, "with his earnest, expressive, and 
 intelligent face : " "• Then you were mistaken ; the 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 107 
 
 Americans have too much love for their mother 
 country ; " and he added that " secession was im- 
 possible, for all the American towns of importance, 
 Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were exposed 
 to the English navy. Boston could be destroyed 
 by bombardment." Near the same time he said to 
 IngersoU of Connecticut, who was about departing 
 for the colonies : " Go home and tell your country- 
 men to get children as fast as they can." By no 
 means without forebodings for the future, he was 
 yet far from fancying that the time had come when 
 physical resistance was feasible. It seemed still 
 the day for arguments, not for menaces. 
 
 To Franklin in this frame of mind, never doubt- 
 ing that the act would be enforced, there was 
 brought a plausible message from Grenville. The 
 minister desired " to make the execution of the act 
 as little inconvenient and disagreeable to America 
 as possible," and to this end he preferred to nomi- 
 nate as stamp distributers " discreet and reputa- 
 ble " residents in the Province, rather than to send 
 over strangers from Great Britain. Accordingly 
 he solicited a nomination from Franklin of some 
 *' honest and responsible" man in Philadelphia. 
 Franklin readily named a trustworthy merchant of 
 his acquaintance, Mr. Hughes. The Stamp Act 
 itself hardly turned out a greater blunder for Gren- 
 ville than this well-meant suggestion was near turn- 
 ing out for Franklin. When the Philadelphians 
 got news of the passage of the act, the prepara- 
 tions for its enforcement, the nomination of Mr. 
 
108 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Hughes, and the fact that he had been suggested 
 by Franklin, the whole city rose in a wild frenzy 
 of rage. Never was such a sudden change of feel- 
 ing. He who had been their trusted companion 
 was now loudly reviled as a false and truckling 
 traitor. He was said to have deserted his own, and 
 to have gone over to the minister's side; to have 
 approved the odious law, and to have asked that a 
 position under it might be given to his friend. The 
 mobs ranging the streets threatened to destroy the 
 new house, in which he had left his wife and daugh- 
 ter. The latter was persuaded to seek safety in 
 Burlington; but Mrs. Franklin, with admirable 
 courage, stayed in the house till the danger was 
 over. Some armed friends stood ready to assist if 
 the crisis should come, but fortunately it passed by. 
 All sorts of stories were spread concerning Frank- 
 lin, — even that it was he who had '•^planned the 
 Stamp Act ; " and that he was endeavoring also to 
 get the Test Act introduced into the colonies ! A 
 caricature represented the devil whispering into his 
 ear : " Ben, you shall be my agent throughout my 
 dominions." 
 
 Knowing Franklin's frame of mind, it is easy to 
 fancy the surprise with which he learned of the 
 spirit which had blazed forth in the colonies, and 
 of the violent doings in many places ; and we may 
 imagine the pain and mortification with which he 
 heard of the opinions expressed by his fellow-citi- 
 zens concerning his own action. He said little at 
 the time, so far as we know ; but many years after- 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 109 
 
 wards he gave a narrative of his course in language 
 which was ahnost apologetic and deprecatory. A 
 pen in his fingers became a sympathetic instrument, 
 and betrays sometimes what his moderate language 
 does not distinctly state. The intense, bitter con- 
 demnation vented by his constituents, who so lately 
 had been following his lead, but who now reviled 
 a representative who had misrepresented them in 
 so vital an affair, cut its way deep. 
 
 The gap between him and them did indeed seem 
 a wide one. In the colonies there was universal 
 wrath, oftentimes swelling into fury ; in some places 
 mobs, much sacking of houses, hangings and burn- 
 ings in effigy ; compulsion put upon kings' officers 
 publicly to resign their offices ; wild threats and 
 violence ; obstruction to the distribution of the 
 stamped paper ; open menaces of forcible resistance, 
 even of secession and rebellion ; a careful estimat- 
 ing of the available armed forces among the colo- 
 nies ; the proposal for a congress of colonies to 
 promote community of action, to protest, and to 
 consult for the common cause ; disobedient resolu- 
 tions by legislatures; a spreading of the spirit of 
 colonial union by the general cry of " Join or die;'* 
 agreements not to import or use articles of English 
 manufacture, with other sunderings of commercial 
 relations. Far behind this mad procession, of which 
 the more moderate divisions were marshalled by 
 Otis, Sam Adams, and Gadsden, and soon also by 
 John Adams and Patrick Henry, and by many 
 other well-known "patriots," Franklin appeared to 
 
110 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 be a laggard in the rear distance, with disregarded 
 arguments and protests, with words of moderation, 
 even counsels of submission, nay, actually with a 
 sort of connivance in the measure by the nomina- 
 tion of an official under it. 
 
 Yet the intervening space was not so great as it 
 appeared. There was nothing in the counsels of the 
 reasonable and intelligent " patriots " which was re- 
 pugnant to Franklin's opinions. So soon as he saw 
 the ground upon which they had placed themselves, 
 he made haste to come into position with them. It 
 was fortunate indeed that the transient separation 
 was closed again before it could lead to the calam- 
 ity of his removal from his office. For no man or 
 even combination of men, whom it was possible to 
 send from the provinces, could have dune them the 
 services which Franklin was about to render. Be- 
 sides the general power of his mind, he had peculiar 
 fitnesses. He was widely known and very highly 
 esteemed in England, where he moved in many 
 circles. Among members of the nobilit}^ among 
 men high in office, among members of Parliament, 
 among scientific men and literary men, among men 
 of business and affairs, and among men who made a 
 business of society, he was always welcome. In that 
 city in which dinners constituted so important an 
 element in life, even for the most serious purposes, 
 he was the greatest of diners-out; while at the cof- 
 fee-houses, clubs, and in the old-fashioned tavern 
 circles no companion was more highly esteemed 
 than he. He consorted not only with friends of the 
 
 i 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. Ill 
 
 colonies, but was, and for a long time continued to 
 be, on intimate terras of courteous intercourse also 
 with those w^ho were soon to be described as their 
 enemies. Each and all, amid this various and ex- 
 tensive acquaintance, listened to him with a respect 
 no tithe of which could have been commanded by 
 any otlier American then living. The force of his 
 intelligence, the scope of his understanding, the 
 soundness of his judgment, had already been appre- 
 ciated by men accustomed to study and to estimate 
 the value of such traits. His knowledge of Ameri- 
 can affairs, of the trade and business of the prov- 
 inces, of the characteristics of the people in differ- 
 ent parts of the country, were very great, because 
 of his habit of shrewd observation, of his taste for 
 practical matters, and of his extensive travels and 
 connections as postmaster. Add to this that he had 
 a profound affection for the mother country, which 
 was not only a tradition and a habit, but a warm 
 and lively attachment nourished by delightful per- 
 sonal experience, by long residence and numerous 
 friendships, by gratifying appreciation of and com- 
 pliments to himself. No one could doubt his sin- 
 cerity when he talked of his love for England as a 
 real and influential sentiment. At the same time 
 he was an American and a patriot. Though he had 
 failed to anticipate the state of feeling which the 
 Stamp Act begot, it was his only failure of this 
 kind ; generally he spoke the sentiments of the col- 
 onists with entire truth and sympathy. He was 
 one who could combine force with moderation in 
 
112 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 the expression of his views, the force being all the 
 greatgr for the moderation ; he had an admirable 
 head to conceive an argument, a tongue and pen to 
 state it clearly and pointedly. He had presence ., 
 
 of mind in conversation, was ready and quick at || 
 fence ; he was widely learned ; he was a sounder 
 political economist than any member of the Eng- 
 lish government ; above all, he had an unrivaled 
 familiarity with the facts, the arguments, and the 
 people on both sides of the controversy ; he kept 
 perfect control of his tem|)er, without the least loss 
 of earnestness ; and had the rare faculty of being 
 able to state his own side with plain force, and yet 
 without giving offense. Such were his singular 
 qualifications, which soon enabled him to perform 
 the greatest act of his public life. 
 
 Matters came by degrees into better shape for 
 the colonies. In politics any statesman has but ' 
 
 to projijose a measure to find it opposed by those 
 who oppose him. So what had seemed an univer- 
 sal willingness to levy internal taxes upon the col- 
 onies soon lost this aspect. No sooner did the 
 news from the angry colonies bring the scheme into 
 prominence than the assaults upon it became 
 numerous, and enemies of Grenville became friends 
 of America. Arguments so obvious and so strong 
 as those against the measure were eagerly made 
 the most of by the opponents of the men who were 
 in office. Among these op])onents was Pitt, that 
 formidable man before whom all trembled. Gout 
 had disabled him, but who could tell when he 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 113 
 
 might get sufficient respite to return and deal 
 havoc ? Yet in spite of all that was said, the minis- 
 try seemed impregnable. Grenville was very able, 
 always of a stubborn temper, and in this especial 
 case convinced to tlie point of intensity that the 
 right lay with him ; moreover, he was complete 
 master in Parliament, where his authority seemed 
 still to increase steadily. No man was sanguine 
 enough to see hope for the colonies, when suddenly 
 an occurrence, which in this age could not appreci- 
 ably affect the power of an English premier, snapped 
 Grenville's sway in a few days. This was only the 
 personal pique of the king, irritated by complaints 
 made by the Duke of Bedford about the favorite, 
 Bute. For such a cause George III. drove out of 
 office, upon grounds of his own dislike, a prime 
 minister and cabinet with whom he was in substan- 
 tial accord upon the most important public matters 
 then under consideration, and although it was al- 
 most impossible to patch together any tolerably 
 congruous or competent body of successors. 
 
 Pitt endeavored to form a cabinet, but was 
 obliged, with chagrin, to confess his inability. At 
 last the Duke of Cumberland succeeded in forming 
 the so-called Rockingham Cabinet, a weak combi- 
 nation, but far less unfavorable than its predecessor 
 towards America. The Marquis of Rockingham, as 
 prime minister, had Edmund Burke as his private 
 secretary ; while General Conway, one of the very 
 few who had opposed the Stamp Act, now actually 
 received the southern department of state within 
 
114 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 whicli the colonies were included. Still there 
 seemed little hope for any undoing of the past, 
 which probably would never have been wrung 
 from this or any British ministry so long as all the 
 discontent was on the other side of three thousand 
 miles of ocean. But this was ceasing to be the case. 
 The American weapon of non-importation was 
 proving most efficient. In the provinces the cus- 
 tom of wearing mourning was abandoned ; no one 
 killed or ate lamb, to the end that by the increase 
 of sheep the supply of wool might be greater; 
 homespun was now the only wear ; no man would 
 be seen clad in English cloth. In a word, through- 
 out America there was established what would now 
 be called a thorough and comprehensive " boycott " 
 aoainst all articles of Enolish manufacture. So 
 very soon the manufacturers of the mother country 
 began to find themselves the only real victims of the 
 Stamp Act. In America it was inflicting no harm, 
 but rather was encouraging economy, enterprise, 
 and domestic industry; while the sudden closing 
 of so enormous a market brought loss and bank- 
 rujDtcy to many an English manufacturer and ware- 
 houseman. Shipping, too, was indirectly affected. 
 An outcry for the change of a disastrous policy 
 swelled rapidly in the manufacturing and trading 
 towns ; and erelong the battle of the colonists was 
 being fought by allies upon English soil, who were 
 stimulated by the potent impulse of self-preserva- 
 tion. These men cared nothing for the principle 
 at stake, nothing for the colonists personally ; but 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 115 
 
 they cared for the business by wlilcli they sustained 
 their own homes, and they were resolved that the 
 destroying Stamp Act shoukl be got out of their 
 way. Such an influence was soon felt. Death 
 also came in aid of the Americans, removing in 
 good time the Duke of Cumberland, the merciless 
 conqueror of Culloden, who now was all ready to 
 fight it out with the colonies, and only thus lost 
 the chance to do so. 
 
 Beneath the pressure of these events concession 
 began to be talked of, though at first of course its 
 friends were few and its enemies many. Charles 
 Townshend announced himself able to contemplate 
 wdth equanimity the picture of the colonies relaps- 
 ing " to their primitive deserts." But the trouble 
 was that little deserts began to spot the face of 
 England ; and still the British merchant, who sel- 
 dom speaks long in vain, was increasing his clamor, 
 and did not fancy the prospect of rich trading fields 
 reduced to desolation. In January, 1766, too, the 
 dreaded voice of Pitt again made itself heard in 
 St. Stephen's, sending forth an eloquent harangue 
 for America: "The Americans are the sons, not 
 the bastards, of England. As subjects they are en- 
 titled to the common right of representation, and 
 cannot be bound to pay taxes without their consent. 
 Taxation is no part of the governing power.^ The 
 taxes are a voluntary gift and grant by the Com- 
 
 ^ Grenville had laid down the proposition that England was 
 "the sovereign, the supreme legislative power over America," 
 and that " taxation is a part of that sovereign power." 
 
116 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 mons alone. In an American tax what do we do ? 
 We, yonr Majesty's Commons of Great Britain, 
 give and grant to your Majesty — what ? Our 
 own property ? No ! we give and grant to your 
 Majesty the property of your Majesty's commons 
 in America. It is an absurdity in terms." ^ " The 
 idea of a virtual representation of America in this 
 House is the most contemptible that ever entered 
 into the head of man." " I never shall own the 
 justice of taxing America internally until she en- 
 joys the right of representation." Not very many 
 men in either house of Parliament would go the 
 full logical length of Pitt's argument ; but men 
 who held views quite opposite to his as to the law- 
 ful authority of Parliament to lay this tax were 
 beginning to feel that they must join him in get- 
 ting it out of the way of domestic prosperity in 
 England. It seemed to them a mistaken exer- 
 cise of an unquestionable right. They were pre- 
 pared to correct the mistake, which could be done 
 without abandoning the right. As this feeling vis- 
 ibly gained ground the ministry gathered courage 
 to consider the expediency of introducing a bill to 
 repeal the act. Could the king have had his way 
 they would not have survived in office to do so. 
 He would have had their ministerial heads off, as he 
 had stricken those of their immediate predecessors. 
 But efforts which he made to find successors for 
 them were fruitless, and so they remained in places 
 which no others could be induced to fill. Pitt was 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., v. 385-387. 
 
SECOND MJSSJON TO ENGLAND. 117 
 
 sounded, to see whether he woukl ally himself with 
 them ; but he would not. Had he been gained the 
 fight would not have come simply upon the repeal 
 of the act as unsatisfactoiy, but as being contrary 
 to the constitution of England. The narrower 
 battle-ground was selected by Rockingham. 
 
 The immediate forerunner in Parliament of the 
 repeal of the Stamp Act was significant. A reso- 
 lution was introduced into the House of Lords, 
 February 3, 1766, that the " king in Parliament 
 has full power to bind the colonies and people of 
 America in all cases whatsoever." The debate 
 which followed showed what importance this Amer- 
 ican question had assumed in England ; the expres- 
 sion of feeling was intense, the display of ability 
 very great. Lord Camden and Lord Mansfield en- 
 countered each other ; but the former, with the best 
 of the argument, had much the worst of the divi- 
 sion. One hundred and twenty-five peers voted for 
 the resolution, only five against it. In the Com- 
 mons, Pitt assailed the resolution, with no better 
 success than had attended Camden. No one knew 
 how many voted Nay, but it was " less than ten 
 voices, some said five or four, some said but three." ^ 
 Immediately after this assertion of a principle, the 
 same Parliament prepared to set aside the only 
 application of it which had ever been attempted. 
 It was well understood that the repeal of the Stamp 
 Act was close at hand. 
 
 It was at this juncture that Franklin, who had 
 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., v. 417. 
 
118 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 been by no means idle during the long struggle, 
 a23peared as a witness in that examination which 
 perhaps displayed his ability to better advantage 
 than any other single act in his life. It was be- 
 tween February 3 and 13, 1766, that he and others 
 were summoned to give testimony concerning the 
 colonies at the bar of the House of Commons 
 sitting in committee of the whole. The others 
 have been forgotten, but his evidence never will be. 
 The proceeding was striking ; there were some of 
 the cleverest and most experienced men in England 
 to question him ; no one of them singly was his 
 match ; but there were many of them, and they 
 conducted an examination and a cross-examination 
 both in one ; that is to say, those who wished to 
 turn a point against him might at any moment 
 interpose with any question which might suddenly 
 confuse or mislead him. But no man was ever 
 better fitted than Franklin to play the part of a 
 witness, and no record in politics or in law can 
 compare with the report of his testimony. Some 
 persons have endeavored to account for, which 
 means of course to detract from, its extraordinary 
 merit by saying that some of the questions and 
 replies had been prearranged ; but it does not 
 appear that such prearrangement went further 
 than that certain friendly interrogators had dis- 
 cussed the topics with him so as to be familiar with 
 his views. Every lawyer does this with his wit- 
 nesses. Nor can it be supposed that the admirable 
 replies which he made to the enemies of America 
 
 I. 
 
 J 
 
SECOND MISS TON TO ENGLAND. 119 
 
 were otherwise than strictly impromptu. He had 
 thorough knowledge of the subject ; he was in per- 
 fect control of his head and his temper ; his ex- 
 traordinary faculty for clear and pithy statement 
 never showed to better advantage ; he was, as al- 
 ways, moderate and reasonable ; but above all the 
 wonderful element was the quick wit and ready 
 skill with which he turned to his own service every 
 query which was designed to embarrass him ; and 
 this he did not in the vulgar way of flippant retort 
 or disingenuous twistings of words or facts, but 
 with the same straightforward and tranquil sim- 
 plicity of language with which he delivered evidence 
 for the friendly examiners. Burke likened the 
 proceeding to an examination of a master by a 
 parcel of schoolboys. 
 
 Franklin used to say, betwixt plaint and humor, 
 that it always seemed to him that no one ever gave 
 an abbreviation or an abstract of anything which 
 he had written, without very nearly spoiling the 
 original. This would be preeminently true of an 
 abstract of this examination ; abbreviation can be 
 only mutilation. It ranged over a vast ground, — 
 colonial history and politics, political economy, 
 theories and practice in colonial trade, colonial 
 commerce and industry, popular opinions and sen- 
 timent, and the probabilities of action in supposed 
 cases. His answers made a great stir ; they were 
 universally admitted to have substantially advanced 
 the day of repeal. They constituted the abundant 
 armory to which the friends of the colonies resorted 
 
120 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 for weapons offensive and defensive, for facts and 
 for ideas. He himself, with just complacency, re- 
 marked : " The then ministry was ready to hug me 
 for the assistance I afforded them." The "Gentle- 
 man's Magazine " said : — 
 
 " From this examination of Dr. Franklin the reader 
 may form a clearer and more comprehensive idea of the 
 state and disposition in America, of the expediency or 
 inexpediency of the measure in question, and of the 
 character and conduct of the minister who proposed it, 
 than from all that has been written upon the subject in 
 newspapers and pamphlets, under the titles of essays, 
 letters, speeches, and considerations, from the first 
 moment of its becoming the subject of public attention 
 until now. The questions in general are put with great 
 subtlety and judgment, and they are answered with such 
 deep and familiar knowledge of the subject, such pre- 
 cision and perspicuity, such temper and yet such spirit, 
 as do the greatest honor to Dr. Franklin, and justify the 
 general opinion of his character and abilities." 
 
 Like praises descended from every quarter. 
 
 One interesting fact clearly ajipears from this 
 examination : that Franklin now fully understood 
 the colonial sentiment, and was thoroughly in 
 accord with it. Being asked whether the colonists 
 " would submit to the Stamp Act, if it were modi- 
 fied, the obnoxious parts taken out, and the duty 
 reduced to some particulars of small moment," he 
 replied with brief decision : " No, they will never 
 submit to it." As to how they would receive " a 
 future tax imposed on the same principle," he said, 
 
 II 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 121 
 
 with the same forcible brevity : " Just as they do 
 this : they would not pay it." Q. " Can anything 
 less than a military force carry the Stamp Act into 
 execution? A. I do not see how a military force 
 can be applied to that purpose. Q. Why may it 
 not? A. Suppose a military force sent into Amer- 
 ica, they will find nobody in arms. What are they 
 then to do? They cannot force a man to take 
 stamps who chooses to do without them. They will 
 not find a rebellion ; they may indeed make one. 
 Q. If the act is not repealed, what do you think 
 will be the consequences? A. A total loss of the 
 respect and affection the people of America bear 
 to this country, and of all the commerce that de- 
 pends on that respect and affection. Q. How can 
 the commerce be affected ? A. You will find that 
 if the act is not repealed, they will take a very 
 little of your manufactures in a short time. Q. Is 
 it in their power to do without them? A. The 
 goods they take from Britain are either necessaries, 
 mere conveniences, or superfluities. The first, as 
 cloth, etc., with a little industry they can make at 
 home ; the second they can do without until they 
 are able to provide them among themselves ; and 
 the last, which are much the greatest part, they will 
 strike off immediately." This view of the willing- 
 ness and capacity of the colonists to forego English 
 importations he elsewhere elaborated fully. The 
 English merchants knew to their cost that he spoke 
 the truth. 
 
 With reference to the enforcement of claims 
 
122 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 in the courts, he was asked whether the people 
 would not use the stamps " rather than remain . . . 
 unable to obtain any right or recover by law any 
 debt? " He replied : " It is hard to say what they 
 would do. I can only judge what other people will 
 think, and how they will act, by what I feel within 
 myself. I have a great many debts due to me in 
 America, and I would rather they should remain 
 unrecoverable by any law than submit to the Stamp 
 Act." 
 
 A few weeks later he wrote : " I have some little 
 property in America. I will freely spend nineteen 
 shillings in the pound to defend my right of giving 
 or refusing the other shilling. And, after all, if I 
 cannot defend that right, I can retire cheerfully 
 with my family into the boundless woods of Amer- 
 ica, which are sure to afford freedom and subsistence 
 to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." 
 The picture of Dr. Franklin, the philosopher, at 
 the age of sixty-one, " cheerfully " sustaining his 
 family in the wilderness by the winnings of his rod 
 and his rifle stirs one's sense of humor; but the 
 paragraph indicates that he was in strict harmony 
 with his countrymen, who were exjiressiug serious 
 resolution with some rhetorical exaggeration, in the 
 American fashion. 
 
 The main argument of the colonies : that under 
 the British constitution there could be no taxation 
 without representation, was of course introduced 
 into the examination ; and Franklin seized the 
 occasion to express his theory very ingeniously. 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 123 
 
 Referring to the fact that, by the Declaration of 
 Eights, no money could '' be raised on the subject 
 but by consent of Parliament," the subtle question 
 was put : How the colonists could think that they 
 themselves had a right to levy money for the crown ? 
 Franklin replied : " They understand that clause 
 to relate only to subjects within the realm ; that no 
 money can be levied on them for the crown but by 
 consent of Parliament. The colonies are not sup- 
 posed to be within the realm ; they have assemblies 
 of their own, which are their parliaments." This 
 was a favorite theory with him, in expounding 
 which he likened the colonies to Ireland, and to 
 Scotland before the union. Many sentences to 
 the same purport occur in his writings ; for example : 
 " These writers against the colonies all bewilder 
 themselves by supposing the colonies unthin the 
 realm, which is not the case, nor ever was." " If 
 an Englishman goes into a foreign country, he is 
 subject to the laws and government he finds there. 
 If he finds no government or laws there, he is sub- 
 ject there to none, till he and his companions, if he 
 has any, make laws for themselves ; and this was 
 the case of the first settlers in America. Otherwise, 
 if they carried the English laws and power of Par- 
 liament with them, what advantage could the Puri- 
 tans propose to themselves by going ? " " The col- 
 onists carried no law with them ; they carried only 
 a power of making laws, or adopting such parts of 
 the English law or of any other law as the}^ should 
 think suitable to their circumstances." ^ Radical 
 
 1 To same purport see, also, Works, iv. 300. 
 
124 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 doctrines these, wliicli lie could not reasonably 
 expect would find favor under any principles of 
 government then known in the world. To the like 
 effect were other assertions of his, made somewhat 
 later : " In fact, the British empire is not a single 
 state ; it comprehends many." " The sovereignty 
 of the crown I understand. The sovereignty of the 
 British legislature out of Britain I do not under- 
 stand." ''The king, and not the King, Lords, and 
 Commons collectively, is their sovereign ; and the 
 king with their respective parliaments is their only 
 legislator." ^ " The Parliament of Great Britain 
 has not, never had, and of right never can have, 
 without consent given either before or after, power 
 to make laws of sui^cient force to bind the subjects 
 of America in any case whatever, and particularly 
 in taxation." The singular phrase "the subjects 
 of America " is worth noting. In 1769, still reit- 
 erating the same principle, he said: "We are free 
 subjects of the king ; and fellow-subjects of one 
 part of his dominions are not sovereigns over fel- 
 low-subjects in any other part." 
 
 It is a singular fact that Franklin long cherished 
 a personal regard towards the king, and a faith in 
 his friendly and liberal purposes towards the col- 
 onies. Indignation against the Parliament was 
 offset by confidence in George III. Even so late 
 as the spring of 1769, he writes to a friend in 
 America : " I hope nothing that has happened, 
 
 1 Concerning- tliis theory, see Fiske's The Beginnings of New 
 England, 260. 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 125 
 
 or may happen, will diminisli in the least our loy- 
 alty to our sovereign, or affection for this nation in 
 general. I can scarcely conceive a king of better 
 disposition, of more exemplary virtues, or more 
 truly desirous of promoting the welfare of all his 
 subjects. The experience we have had of the 
 family in the two preceding mild reigns, and the 
 good temper of our young princes, so far as can 
 yet be discovered, promise us a continuance of this 
 felicity." Of the British people too he thought 
 kindly. But for the Parliament he could find no 
 excuse. He admitted that it might be " decent " 
 indeed to speak in the " public papers " of the 
 " wisdom and the justice of Parliament ; " never- 
 theless, the ascription of these qualities to the pres- 
 ent Parliament certainly was not true, whatever 
 might be the case as to any future one. The next 
 year found him still counseling that the colonies 
 should hold fast to their allegiance to their king, 
 who had the best disposition towards them, and 
 was their most efficient bulwark against " the ar- 
 bitrary power of a corrupt Parliament." In the 
 summer of 1773, he was seeking excuses for the 
 king's adherence to the principle that Parliament 
 could legally tax the colonies : " when one con- 
 siders the king's situation," with all his ministers, 
 advisers, judges, and the great majority of both 
 houses holding this view, when " one reflects how 
 necessary it is for him to be well with his Parlia- 
 ment," and that any action of his countenancing 
 a doctrine contrary to that of both the Lords and 
 
126 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 the Commons " would hazard his embrollmg him- 
 self with those powerful bodies," Franklin was of 
 opinion that it seemed " hardly to be expected from 
 him that he should take any step of that kind." 
 But this was the last apology which he uttered for 
 George III. He was about to reach the same esti- 
 mation of that monarch which has been adopted 
 by posterity. Only a very little later he writes : 
 '* Between you and me, the late measures have 
 been, I suspect, very much the king's own, and he 
 has in some cases a great share of what his friends 
 call firmness^ Thus tardily, reluctantly, and at 
 first gently, the kindly philosopher began to admit 
 to himself and others the truth as to his Majesty's 
 disposition and character. 
 
 Some persons in England, affected by the pow- 
 erful argument of non-representation, proposed that 
 the colonies should be represented in Parliament ; 
 and about the time of the Stamp Act the ^possibility 
 of such an arrangement was seriously discussed. 
 Franklin was willing to speak kindly of a plan 
 which was logically unobjectionable, and which in- 
 volved the admission that the existing condition was 
 unjust; but he knew very well that it would never 
 develop into a practicable solution of the problem, 
 and in fact it soon dropped out of men's minds. 
 January 6, 1766, he wrote that in his opinion the 
 measure of an Union^ as he shrewdly called it, was 
 a wise one ; " but," he said, " I doubt it will 
 hardly be thought so here until it is too late to 
 attempt it. The time has been when the colonies 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 127 
 
 woiiltl have esteemed it a great advantage, as well 
 as honor, to be permitted to send members to Par- 
 liament, and would have asked for that privilege if 
 they could have had the least hopes of obtaining it. 
 The time is now come when they are indifferent 
 about it, and will probably not ask it, though they 
 might accept it, if offered them ; and the time will 
 come when they will certainly refuse it. But if 
 such an Union were now established (which me- 
 thinks it highly imports this country to establish), 
 it would probably subsist so long as Britain shall 
 continue a nation. This people, however, is too 
 proud, and too much despises the Americans to 
 bear the thought of admitting them to such an 
 equitable participation in the government of the 
 whole." ^ Haughty words these, though so tran- 
 quilly spoken, and which must have startled many 
 a dignified Briton : behold ! a mere colonist, the 
 son of a tallow chandler, is actually declaring that 
 those puny colonies of simple " farmers, husband- 
 men, and planters " were already " indifferent " 
 about, and would soon feel in condition to " refuse," 
 representation in such a body as the Parliament of 
 England; also that it "highly imported" Great 
 Britain to seek amalgamation while yet it could be 
 had ! But Franklin meant what he said, and he 
 repeated it more than once, very earnestly. He 
 resented that temper, of which he saw so much on 
 every side, and which he clearly described by saying 
 
 1 To same purport see letter to Evans, May 9, 1766, Works, iiL 
 464. 
 
128 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 that every individual in England felt himself to be 
 "part of a sovereign over America." 
 
 Men of a different habit of mind of course reit- 
 erated the shallow and threadbare nonsense about 
 " virtual," or as it would be called nowadays, con- 
 structive, representation of the colonies, likening 
 them to Birmingham, Manchester, and other towns 
 which sent no members to Parliament — as if prob- 
 lems in politics followed the rule of algebra, that 
 negative quantities, multiplied, produce a positive 
 quantity. But Franklin concerned himself little 
 about this unreasonable reasoning, which indeed 
 soon had an effect eminently disagreeable to the 
 class of men who stupidly uttered it. For it was 
 promptly replied that if there were such large 
 bodies of unrepresented Englishmen, it betokened 
 a wrong state of affairs in England also. If Eng- 
 lish freeholders have not the right of suffrage, said 
 Franklin, " they are injured. Then rectify what is 
 amiss among yourselves, and do not make it a jus- 
 tification of more wrong." ^ Thus that movement 
 began which in time brought about parliamentary 
 reform, another result of this American disturbance 
 which was extremely distasteful to that stratum of 
 English society which was most strenuous against 
 the colonists. 
 
 Still another point which demanded elucidation 
 was : why Parliament should not have the power to 
 lay internal taxes just as much as to levy duties. 
 Grenville said : " External and internal taxes are 
 
 1 See also to same purport, Works, iv. 157. 
 
 i 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 129 
 
 the same in effect, and only differ in name ; " and 
 the authority of Parliament to lay external taxes 
 had never been called in question. Franklin's ex- 
 aminers tried him upon this matter : Can you 
 show that there is any kind of difference between 
 the two taxes, to the colony on which they are laid ? 
 He answered: "I think the difference is very 
 great. An external tax is a duty laid on commo- 
 dities imported ; that duty is added to the first cost 
 and other charges on the commodity, and, when it 
 is offered for sale, makes a part of the price. If 
 the people do not like it at that price, they refuse 
 it ; they are not obliged to pay for it. But an 
 internal tax is forced from the people without their 
 consent, if not laid by their own representatives. 
 The Stamp Act says, we shall have no commerce, 
 make no exchange of property with each other, 
 neither purchase, nor grant, nor recover debts ; we 
 shall neither marry nor make our wills ; unless we 
 pay such and such sums." It was suggested that 
 an external tax might be laid on the necessaries 
 of life, which the people must have ; but Franklin 
 said that the colonies were, or very soon would be, 
 in a position to produce for themselves all neces- 
 saries. He was then asked what was the differ- 
 ence "between a duty on the importation of goods 
 and an excise on their consumption ? " He replied 
 that there was a very material one ; the excise, for 
 reasons given, seemed unlawful. " But the sea is 
 yours ; you maintain by your fleets the safety of 
 navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates ; you 
 
130 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 may have, therefore, a natural and equitable right 
 to some toll or duty on merchandises carried 
 through that part of your dominions, towards de- 
 fraying the expense you are at in ships to maintain 
 the safety of that carriage." This was a rather 
 narrow basis on which to build the broad and 
 weighty superstructure of the British Custom 
 House ; but it was not to be expected that Frank- 
 lin should supply any better arguments upon that 
 side of the question. It was obvious that Gren- 
 ville's proposition might lead to two conclusions. 
 He said : External and internal taxation are in 
 principle substantially identical ; we have the right 
 to the former ; therefore we must have the right 
 to the latter. It was a quick reply : Since you 
 have not a right to the latter, you cannot have 
 a right to the former. But Franklin, being a 
 prudent man, kept within his intrenchments, and 
 would not hazard increasing the opposition to 
 the colonial claims by occupying this advanced 
 ground. He hinted at it, nevertheless : " At pres- 
 ent the colonists do not reason so ; but in time 
 they possibly may be convinced by these argu- 
 ments ; " and so they were. 
 
 Franklin also in his examination, and at many 
 other times and places, had something to say as to 
 the willingness of the colonies to bear their full 
 share of public burdens. He spoke with warmth 
 and feeling, but with an entire absence of boastful- 
 ness or rodomontade. He achieved his purpose by 
 simply recalling such facts as that the colonies in 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 131 
 
 the late war had kept 25,000 troops in the field ; 
 that they had raised sums of money so large that 
 even the English Parliament had seen that they 
 were exceeding any reasonable estimate of their 
 capacity, and had voted some partial restitution to 
 them ; and that they had received thanks, official 
 and formal yet apparently sincere, for their zeal 
 and their services. Few Englishmen knew these 
 things. So, too, he said, the Americans would 
 help the mother country in an European war, so 
 far as they could ; for they regarded themselves as 
 a part of the empire, and really had an affection 
 and loyalty towards England. 
 
 On February 21, 1766, General Conway moved 
 for leave to introduce into the House of Commons 
 a bill to repeal the Stamp Act. The motion was 
 carried. The next day the House divided upon 
 the repealing bill : 275 for repeal, 167 against it. 
 The minority were willing greatly to modify the 
 act ; but insisted upon its enforcement in some 
 shape. The anxious merchants, who were gathered 
 in throngs outside, and who really had brought 
 about the repeal, burst into jubilant rejoicing. A 
 few days later, March 4tli and 5th, the bill took its 
 third reading by a vote of 250 j^eas against 122 
 nays. In the House of Lords, upon the second read- 
 ing, 73 peers voted for repeal, 61 against it. Thirty- 
 three peers thereupon signed and recorded their 
 protest. At the third reading no division was had, 
 but a second protest, bearing 28 signatures, was 
 
132 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 entered. On March 18th the king, whose position 
 had been a little enigmatical, but who at last had 
 become settled in opposition to the bill, unwillingly 
 placed his signature to it, and ever after regretted 
 having done so. 
 
 When the good news reached the provinces great 
 indeed was the gladness of the people. They 
 heeded little that simultaneously with the repeal a 
 resolve had been carried through declaratory of the 
 principle on which the Stamp Act had been based. 
 The assertion of the right gave them at this mo- 
 ment " very little concern," since they hugged a 
 triumphant belief that no further attempt would be 
 made to carry that right into practice. The people 
 of Philadelphia seemed firmly persuaded that the 
 repeal was chiefly due to the unwearied personal 
 exertions of their able agent. They could not re- 
 call their late distrust of him without shame, and 
 now replaced it with boundless devotion. In the 
 great procession which they made for the occasion 
 " the sublime feature was a barge, forty feet long, 
 named FRANKLIN, from which salutes were fired 
 as it passed along the streets." ^ That autumn the 
 old ticket triumphed again at the elections for 
 members of the Assembly. Franklin's own pleas- 
 ant way of celebrating the great event was by send- 
 ing to his wife " a new gown," with the message, 
 referring, of course, to the anti-importation league : 
 that he did not send it sooner, because he knew that 
 she would not like to be finer than her neighbors, 
 unless In a gown of her own spinning. 
 
 1 Parton's Life of FranMin, i. 481. 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 133 
 
 No American will find it difficnlt to conceive the 
 utter ignorance concerning the colonies which then 
 prevailed in England ; about their trade, manufac- 
 tures, cultivated products, natural resources, about 
 the occupations, habits, manners, and ideas of their 
 people, not much more was known than Americans 
 now know concerning the boers of Cape Colony or 
 the settlers of New Zealand. In his examination 
 before the Commons, in many papers which he 
 printed, by his correspondence, and by his conver- 
 sation in all the various companies which he fre- 
 quented, Franklin exerted himself with untiring in- 
 dustry to shed some rays into this darkness. At 
 times the comical stories which he heard about his 
 country touched his sense of humor, wdth the happy 
 result that he would throw off some droll bit of writ- 
 ing for a newspaper, which would delight the friends 
 of America and make its opponents feel very silly 
 even while they could not help laughing at his wdt. 
 A good- one of these was the paper in which he re- 
 plied, among other things, to the absurd supposition 
 that the Americans could not make their own cloth, 
 because American sheep had little wool, and that 
 little of poor quality : " Dear sir, do not let us suffer 
 ourselves to be amused with such groundless objec- 
 tions. The very tails of the American sheep are so 
 laden with wool that each has a little car or wagon 
 on four little wheels to support and keep it from 
 trailing on the ground. Would they caulk their 
 ships, would they even litter their horses, with 
 wool, if it were not both plenty and cheap ? And 
 
134 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 what signifies the clearness of labor when an Eng- 
 lish shilling passes for five and twenty?" and so 
 on. It is pleasant to think that then, as now, many 
 a sober Britisher, with no idea that a satirical jest 
 at his own expense was hidden away in this extrav- 
 agance, took it all for genuine earnest, and was 
 sadly puzzled at a condition of things so far re- 
 moved from his own experience. 
 
 Very droll is the account of how nearly a party 
 of clever Englishmen were taken in by the paper 
 which purported to advance the claim of the king 
 of Prussia to hold England as a German province, 
 and to levy taxes therein, supported by precisely 
 the same chain of reasoning whereby Britain 
 claimed the like right in respect of the American 
 colonies. This keen and witty satire had a brilliant 
 success, and while Franklin prudently kept his au- 
 thorship a close secret, he was not a little pleased 
 to see how well his dart flew. In one of his letters 
 he says : — 
 
 " I was down at Lord le Deppencer's when the post 
 brought that day's papers. Mr. Whitehead was there, 
 too, who runs early through all the papers, and tells the 
 company what he finds remarkable. . . . We were chat- 
 ting in the breakfast parlor, when he came running in to 
 us, out of breath, with the paper in his hand. * Here,' 
 says he, ' here 's news for ye ! Here 's the king of Prus- 
 sia claiming a right to this kingdom ! ' All stared, and 
 I as much as anybody ; and he went on to read it. When 
 he had read two or three paragraphs, a gentleman pres- 
 ent said : ' Damn their impudence ! I daresay we shall 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 135 
 
 hear by the next post that he is upon his march with 
 100,000 men to back this.' Whitehead, who is very 
 shrewd, soon after began to smoke it, and looking in my 
 face said, ' I '11 be hanged if this is not some of your 
 American jokes upon us.' " 
 
 Then, amid much laughter, it was admitted to be 
 " a fair hit." Of a like nature was his paper setting 
 out " Rules for reducing a great Empire to a small 
 one," which prescribed with admirable satire such a 
 course of procedure as English ministries had pur- 
 sued towards the American provinces. Lord Mans- 
 field honored it with his condemnation, saying that 
 it was " very able and very artful indeed ; and 
 would do mischief by giving here a bad impression 
 of the measures of government." 
 
 Yet this English indifference to transatlantic 
 facts could not always be met in a laughing mood. 
 It was too serious, too unfortunate, too obstinately 
 persisted in to excite only ridicule. It was deplor- 
 able, upon the very verge of war, and incredible 
 too, after all the warnings that had been had, that 
 there should be among Englishmen such an utter 
 absence of any desire to get accurate knowledge. 
 In 1773 Franklin wrote : " The great defect here 
 is, in aU sorts of people, a want of attention to what 
 passes in such remote countries as America ; an 
 unwillingness to read anything about them, if it 
 appears a little lengthy; and a disposition to post- 
 pone a consideration even of the things which they 
 know they must at last consider." Such ignorance, 
 fertilized by ill will, bore the only fruit which could 
 
136 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 grow in such soil : abuse and vilification. Yet all 
 the while the upper classes in France, with their 
 eyes well open to a condition of things which 
 seemed to threaten England, were keen enough in 
 their desire for knowledge, translating all Frank- 
 lin's papers, and keeping up constant communica- 
 tion with him through their embassy. Patient in 
 others of those faults of vehemence and prejudice 
 which had no place in his own nature, Franklin 
 endured long the English provocations and retorted 
 only with a wit too perfect to be personal, with un- 
 answerable arguments, and with simple recitals of 
 facts. But we shall see, later on, that there came 
 an occasion, just before his departure, when even 
 his temper gave way. It was not surprising, for 
 the blood-letting point had then been reached by 
 both peoples. 
 
 Franklin's famous examination and his other ef- 
 forts in behalf of the colonies were appreciated by 
 his countrymen outside of Pennsylvania. He was 
 soon appointed agent also for New Jersey, Georgia, 
 and Massachusetts. The last office was conferred 
 upon him in the autumn of 1770, by no means 
 without a struggle. Samuel Adams, a man as 
 narrow as Franklin was broad, as violent as Frank- 
 lin was calm, as bigoted a Puritan as Franklin 
 was liberal a Free-thinker, felt towards Franklin 
 that distrust and dislike which a limited but in- 
 tense mind often cherishes towards an intellect 
 whose vast scope and noble serenity it cannot com- 
 prehend. Adams accordingly strenuously opposed 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 137 
 
 the appointment. It was plausibly suggested that 
 Franklin already held other agencies, and that 
 policy would advise " to enlarge the number of our 
 friends." It was meanly added that he held an of- 
 fice under the crown, and that his son was a royal 
 governor. Other ingenious, insidious, and personal 
 objections were urged. Fortunately, however, it 
 was in vain to array such points against Franklin's 
 reputation. Samuel Cooper wrote to him that, 
 though the House had certainly been much divided, 
 " yet such was their opinion of your abilities and 
 integrity, that a majority readily committed the af- 
 fairs of the Province at this critical season to your 
 care." By reason of this combination of agencies, 
 besides his own personal capacity and prestige, 
 Franklin seemed to become in the eyes of the Eng- 
 lish the representative of all America. In spite of 
 the unpopularity attaching to the American cause, 
 the position was one of some dignity, greatly en- 
 hanced by the respect inspired by the abilTty with 
 which Franklin filled it, ability which was recog- 
 nized no less by the enemies than by the friends 
 of the provinces. It was also a position of grave 
 responsibility ; and it ought to have been one of 
 liberal emolument, but it was not. The sum of his 
 four salaries should have been £1,200 ; but only 
 Pennsylvania and New Jersey actually paid him. 
 Massachusetts would have paid, but the bills mak- 
 ing the appropriations were obstinately vetoed by 
 the royalist governor.^ 
 
 1 Franklin's Works, iv. 88. 
 
138 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Yet this matter of income was important to 
 him, and it was at no slight personal sacrifice 
 that he was now serving his country. He had a 
 moderate competence, but his expenses were al- 
 most doubled by living thus apart from his family, 
 while his affairs suffered by reason of his absence. 
 For a while he was left unmolested in the post- 
 mastership, and in view of all the circumstances it 
 must be confessed that the ministry behaved very 
 well to him in this particular. Kumors which oc- 
 casionally reached his ears made him uncomfort- 
 ably aware how precarious his tenure of this posi- 
 tion really was. His prolonged absence certainly 
 gave an abundantly fair pretext for his removal ; 
 still advantage was not taken of it. Some of his 
 enemies, as he wrote in December, 1770, by plenti- 
 ful abuse endeavored to provoke him to resign ; 
 but they found him sadly " deficient in that Chris- 
 tian virtue of resignation." It was not until 1774, 
 after the episode of the Hutchinson letters and the 
 famous hearing before the privy council, that he 
 was actually displaced. If this forbearance of the 
 ministry was attributable to magnanimity, it stands 
 out in prominent inconsistence with the general 
 course of official life in England at that time. 
 Probably no great injustice would be done in sug- 
 gesting a baser motive. The ministry doubtless 
 aimed at one or both of two things : to keep a 
 certain personal hold upon him, which might, in- 
 sensibly to himself, mollify his actions ; and to dis- 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 139 
 
 credit him among liis countrymen by precisely such 
 fleers as had been cast against him in the Massa- 
 chusetts Assembly. More than once they sought 
 to seduce him by offers of office ; it was said that 
 he could have been an under-secretary of state, had 
 he been willing to qualify himself for the position 
 by modifying his views on colonial questions. 
 More than once, too, gossip circulated in America 
 that some such bargain had been struck, a slan- 
 der which was cruel and ignoble indeed, when the 
 opportunity and temptation may be said to have 
 been present any and every day during many years 
 without ever receiving even a moment of doubtful 
 consideration. Yet for this the English ministry 
 are believed not to have been wholly responsible, 
 since some of these tales are supposed to have been 
 the unworthy work of Arthur Lee of Virginia. 
 This young man, a student at one of the Inns of 
 Court in London, was appointed by the Massachu- 
 setts Assembly as a successor to fill Franklin's 
 place whenever the latter should return to Penn- 
 sylvania. For at the time it was anticipated that 
 this return would soon occur ; but circumstances 
 interfered and prolonged Franklin's usefulness 
 abroad during several years more. The heir ap- 
 parent, who was ambitious, could not brook the 
 disappointment of this delay ; and though kindly 
 treated and highly praised by the unsuspicious 
 Franklin, he gave nothing but malice in return. 
 It is perhaps not fully proved, yet it is certainly 
 
140 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 well suspected by historians, that liis desire to 
 wreak injury upon Franklin became such a pas- 
 sion as caused him in certain instances to for- 
 get all principles of honor, to say nothing of 
 honesty. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND : II. 
 
 In order to continue the narrative of events 
 with due regard to chronological order it is neces- 
 sary to revert to the repeal of the Stamp Act. 
 The repealing act was fully as unpopular in Eng- 
 land as the repealed act had been in America. It 
 was brought about by no sense of justice, by no 
 good will toward the colonists, but solely by reason 
 of the injury which the law was causing in Eng- 
 land, and which was forced upon the reluctant con- 
 sideration of Parliament by the urgent clamor of 
 the suffering merchants ; also perhaps in some de- 
 gree by a disinclination to send an army across the 
 Atlantic, and by the awkward difficulty suggested 
 by Franklin when he said that if troops should be 
 sent they would find no rebellion, no definite form 
 of resistance, against which they could act. The 
 repeal, therefore, though carried by a large major- 
 ity, w^as by no means to be construed as an ac- 
 knowledgment of error in an asserted principle, 
 but only as an unavoidable admission of a mistake 
 in the application of that principle. The repealing 
 majority grew out of a strange coalition of men of 
 the most opposite ways of thinking concerning 
 
142 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 the fundamental question. For example, Charles 
 Townshend was a repealer, yet all England did 
 not hold a man who was more wedded than was 
 Townshend to the idea of levying internal taxes in 
 the colonies by act of Parliament. The notion 
 had been his own mischievous legacy to Grenville, 
 but he now felt that it had been clumsily used by 
 his legatee. Many men agreed with him, and the 
 prevalence of this opinion was made obvious by 
 the passage, almost simultaneously, of the resolu- 
 tion declaratory of the right of parliamentary tax- 
 ation. But the solace of an empty assertion was 
 wholly inadequate to heal the deep wound which 
 English pride had received. The great nation 
 had been fairly hounded into receding before the 
 angry resistance of a parcel of provincials dwell- 
 ing far away across the sea ; the recession was 
 not felt to be an act of magnanimity or generos- 
 ity or even of justice, but only a bitter humiliation 
 and indignity. Poor Grenville, the responsible 
 adviser of the blundering and unfortunate measure, 
 lost almost as much prestige as Franklin gained. 
 It was hard luck for him ; he was as honest in his 
 convictions as Franklin was in the opposite faith, 
 and he was a far abler minister than the successor 
 charged to undo his work. But his knowledge of 
 colonial facts was very insufficient, and the light in 
 which be viewed them was hoj^elessly false. Frank- 
 lin had a knowledge immeasurably greater, and 
 was almost incapable of an error of judgment ; of 
 all the reputation which was won or lost in this 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 143 
 
 famous contest he gathered the lion's share ; he 
 was the hero of the colonists ; his ability was re- 
 cognized impartially by both the contending parties 
 in England, and he was marked as a great man 
 by those astute French statesmen who were watch- 
 ing with delight the opening of this very promis- 
 ing rift in the British empire. 
 
 Anger, like water, subsides quickly after the 
 tempest ceases. As each day in its flight carried 
 the Stamp Act and the repeal more remotely into 
 past history, the sanguine and peaceably minded 
 began to hope that England and the colonies might 
 yet live comfortably in union. It only seemed ne- 
 cessary that for a short time longer no fresh provo- 
 cation should revive animosities which seemed com- 
 posing themselves to slumber. The colonists tried 
 to believe that England had learned wisdom ; Eng- 
 lishmen were cautious about committing a second 
 blunder. In such a time Franklin was the best 
 man whom his countrymen could have had in Eng- 
 land. His tranquil temperament, his warm regard 
 for both sides, his wonderful capacity for living 
 well with men who could by no means live well 
 with each other, his social tact, and the respect 
 which his abilities inspired, all combined to enable 
 him now more than ever to fill admirably the posi- 
 tion of colonial representative. The effect of such 
 an influence is not to be seen in any single note- 
 worthy occurrence, but is known by a thousand 
 lesser indications, and it is unquestionable that no 
 American representative even to this day has ever 
 
144 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 been held in Europe in such estimation as was ac- 
 corded to Franklin at this time. He continued 
 writing and instructing upon American topics, but 
 to what has already been said concerning his ser- 
 vices and opinions abroad, there is nothing of im- 
 portance to be added occurring within two or three 
 years after the repeal. While, however, he played 
 the often thankless part of instructor to the Eng- 
 lish, he had the courage to assume the even less 
 popular role of a moderator towards the colonists. 
 He made it his task to soothe passion and to preach 
 reason. He did not do this as a trimmer ; never 
 was one word of compromise uttered by him 
 throughout all these alarming years. But he 
 dreaded that weakness which is the inevitable re- 
 action from excess ; and he was supremely anxious 
 to secure that trustworthy strength which is impos- 
 sible without moderation. What he profoundly 
 wished was that the " fatal period " of war and 
 separation should be as much as possible " post- 
 poned, and that whenever this catastrophe shall 
 happen it may appear to all mankind that the fault 
 has not been ours." Yet he fell far short of the 
 Christian principle of turning to the smiter the 
 other cheek. He wished the colonists to keep a 
 steady front face, and only besought them not to 
 rush forward so foolishl}" fast as to topple over, of 
 which ill-considered violence there was much dan- 
 ger. Of course the usual result of such efforts 
 overtook him. He wrote somewhat sadly, in 1768 : 
 " Being born and bred in one of the countries, and 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 145 
 
 having lived long and made many agreeable con- 
 nections of friendship in the other, I wish all pros- 
 perity to both ; bnt I have talked and written so 
 much and so long on the subject, that my acquaint- 
 ance are weary of hearing and the public of read- 
 ing any more of it, which begins to make me weary 
 of talking and writing ; especially as I do not find 
 that I have gained any point in either country, ex- 
 cept that of rendering myself suspected by my im- 
 partiality ; — in England of being too much an 
 American, and in America of being too much an 
 Englishman." More than once he repeated this 
 last sentence with much feeling. But whatever 
 there was of personal discouragement or despond- 
 ency in this letter was only a temporary frame of 
 mind. Dr. Franklin never really slackened his 
 labors in a business which he had so much at heart 
 as this of the relationship of the colonies to the 
 mother country. Neither, it is safe to say, did he 
 ever bore any one by what he wrote or by what he 
 said, though his witty effusions in print were usu- 
 ally anonymous, and only some of his soberer and 
 argumentative papers announced their paternity. 
 
 The agony with which the repeal of the Stamp 
 Act was effected racked too severely the feeble 
 joints of the Rockingham ministry, and that ill- 
 knit body soon began to drop to pieces. A new 
 incumbent was sought for the department which 
 included the colonies, but that position seemed to 
 be shunned with a sort of terror ; no one loved 
 office enough to seek it in this niche ; no one could 
 
146 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 expect comfort In a chamber liaunted by such rest- 
 less ghosts. Early in July, at the earnest solicita- 
 tion of the king, Pitt endeavored not so much to 
 form a new ministry as to revamp the existing one. 
 He partially succeeded, but not without difficulty. 
 The result seemed to promise well for the colonies, 
 since the new cabinet contained their chief friends : 
 Pitt himself, Shelburne, Camden, Conway, names 
 all justly esteemed by America. Yet all these 
 were fully offset by the audacious Charles Towns- 
 liend, the originator and great apostle of the scheme 
 of colonial taxation, whom Pitt, much against his 
 will, had been obliged to place in the perilous post 
 of chancellor of the exchequer. It was true that 
 Lord Shelburne undertook the care of the colonies, 
 and that no Englishman cherished better dispo- 
 sitions towards them ; but he had to encounter two 
 difficulties, neither of which could be overcome. 
 The one was that Townshend's views were those 
 which soon proved not only to be coincident with 
 those of the king, but also to be popular in Parlia- 
 ment ; the other was that, while he had the admin- 
 istration of colonial affairs, Townshend had the 
 function of introducing schemes of taxation. So 
 long as he remained in office he administered all 
 the business of the colonies in the spirit of liberal 
 reform. No reproach was ever brought against his 
 justice, his generosity, his enlightened views of 
 government. But unfortunately all that he had 
 to do, being strictly in the way of administration, 
 such as the restraining over-loyal governors, the 
 
 i 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 147 
 
 amelioration of harsh legislation, and universal mod- 
 eration in language and behavior, could avail com- 
 paratively little so long as Townshend, whom Pitt 
 used to call " the incurable," could threaten and 
 bring in obnoxious revenue measures. 
 
 Shelburne had the backing of Pitt ; but, by ill 
 luck, so soon as the cabinet was formed, Pitt 
 ceased to be Pitt, and became the Earl of Chat- 
 ham ; and with the loss of his own name he lost 
 also more than half of his power. Moreover the 
 increasing infirmities of his body robbed him of 
 efficiency and impaired his judgment. He was 
 utterly unable to keep in subordination his reck- 
 less chancellor of the exchequer, betwixt whom 
 and himself no good will had ever existed. On the 
 other hand, this irrepressible Townshend had a far 
 better ally in George III., who sympathized in his 
 purposes, gave him assistance which was none the 
 less powerful for being indirect and occult, and 
 who hated and ingeniously thwarted Shelburne. 
 Moreover, as has been said, it was a popular delu- 
 sion that Townshend had exceptionally full and 
 accurate knowledge concerning American affairs. 
 His self-confident air, making assurance of success, 
 won for him one half of the battle by so sure a 
 presage of victory. He lured the members of the 
 House by showing them a considerable remission 
 in their own taxes, provided they would stand by 
 his scheme of replacing the deficit by an income 
 from the colonies ; and he boldly assured his de- 
 lighted auditors that he knew "the mode by 
 
148 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 which a revenue could be drawn from America 
 witliout offense." He was of the thoughtless class 
 which learns no lesson. He still avowed himself 
 "a firm advocate of the Stamp Act," and with 
 cheerful scorn he " laughed at the absurd distinc- 
 tion between internal and external taxes." He 
 did not expect, he merrily said, alluding to the dis- 
 tinction just conferred upon Chatham, to have 
 his statue erected in America. The reports of his 
 speeches kept the colonial mind disquieted. The 
 act requiring the provinces in which regiments were 
 quartered to provide barracks and rations for the 
 troops at the public exj)ense was a further irrita- 
 tion. Shelburne sought to make the burden as 
 easy as possible, but Townshend made Shelburne's 
 duties as hard as possible. Of what use were the 
 minister's liberality and moderation, when the chan- 
 cellor of the exchequer evoked alarm and wrath 
 by announcing insolently that he was for govern- 
 ing the Americans as subjects of Great Britain, 
 and for restraining their trade and manufactures in 
 subordination to those of the mother country ! So 
 the struggle went on within the ministry as well as 
 without it ; but the opponents of royal prejudice 
 were heavily handicapped ; for the king, though 
 stui3id in general, had some political skill and much 
 authority. His ill - concealed personal hostility to 
 his "enemy," as he called Shelburne, threatened 
 like the little cloud in the colonial horizon. Nor 
 was it long before Chatham, a dispirited wreck, 
 withdrew himself entirely from all active partici- 
 
 4 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 149 
 
 pation in affairs, shut himself up at Hayes, and 
 refused to be seen by any one who wished to talk 
 on business. 
 
 On May 13, 1767, colonial agents and merchants 
 trading to America were refused admission to 
 hear the debates in the House of Commons. Upon 
 that day Townshend was to develop his scheme. 
 By way, as it were, of striking a keynote, he pro- 
 posed that the Province of New York should be 
 restrained from enacting any legislation until it 
 should comply with the " billeting act," against 
 which it had heretofore been recalcitrant. He 
 then sketched a scheme for an American board of 
 commissioners of customs. Finally he came to the 
 welcome point of the precise taxes which he de- 
 signed to levy : he proposed duties on wine, oil, and 
 fruits, imported directly into the colonies from 
 Spain and Portugal ; also on glass, paper, lead, 
 colors, and china, and three pence per pound on tea. 
 The governors and chief justices, most of whom 
 were already appointed by the king, but who got 
 their pay by vote of the colonial assemblies, were 
 hereafter to have fixed salaries, to be paid by the 
 king from this American revenue. Two days later 
 the resolutions were passed, directing the introduc- 
 tion of bills to carry out these several jjropositions, 
 and a month later the bills themselves were passed. 
 
 Meantime the cabinet was again getting very 
 rickety, and many heads were busy with sugges- 
 tions for patching it in one part or another. With 
 Chatham in retreat and the king in the ascendant, 
 
150 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 it seemed that Townsliend had the surest seat. But 
 there is one risk against which even monarchs can- 
 not insure their favorites, and that risk now fell 
 out against Townshend. He died suddenl}^ of a 
 fever, in September, 1767. Lord North succeeded 
 him, destined to do everything which his royal 
 master desired him to do, and bitterly to repent 
 it. A little later, in December, the king scored an- 
 other success ; Shelburne was superseded in the 
 charge of the colonies by the Earl of Hillsborough, 
 who reentered the board of trade as first commis- 
 sioner, and came into the cabinet with the new 
 title of secretary of state for the colonies. 
 
 Hillsborough was an Irish peer, with some little 
 capacity for business, but of no more than moderate 
 general ability. He also was supposed, altogether 
 erroneously, to possess a little more knowledge, or, 
 as it might have been better expressed, to be 
 shackled with a little less ignorance, concerning 
 colonial affairs than could be predicated of most of 
 the noblemen who were eligible for public office. 
 America had acquired so much importance that the 
 reputation of familiarity with its condition was an 
 excellent recommendation for preferment. Frank- 
 lin wrote that this change in the ministry was 
 " very sudden and unexpected ; " and that " whether 
 my Lord Hillsborough's administration will be 
 more stable than others have been for a long time, 
 is quite uncertain ; but as his inclinations are 
 rather favorable towards us (so far as he thinks 
 consistent with what he supposes the unquestion- 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 151 
 
 able rights of Britain), I cannot but wish it may 
 continue." 
 
 It was Franklin's temperament to be liojjeful, 
 and he also purposely cultivated the wise habit 
 of not courting ill fortune by anticipating it. 
 In this especial instance, however, he soon found 
 that his hopefulness was misplaced. Within six 
 months he discovered that this new secretary 
 looked upon the provincial agents " with an evil 
 eye, as obstructors of ministerial measures," and 
 would be well pleased to get rid of them as "' un- 
 necessary " impediments in the transaction of 
 business. " In truth," he adds, " the nominations, 
 particularly of Dr. Lee and myself, have not been 
 at all agreeable to his lordship." It soon appeared 
 that his lordship had the Irish quickness for taking 
 a keen point of law ; he broached the theory that 
 no agent could lawfully be appointed by the mere 
 resolution of an assembly, but that the appointment 
 must be made by bill. The value of this theory 
 is obvious when we reflect that a bill did not be- 
 come law, and consequently an appointment could 
 not be completed, save by the signature of the pro- 
 vincial governor. " This doctrine, if he could es- 
 tablish it," said Franklin, " would in a manner give 
 to his lordship the power of appointing, or, at 
 least, negativing any choice of the House of Rep- 
 resentatives and Council, since it would be easy for 
 him to instruct the governor not to assent to the 
 appointment of such and such men, who are obnox- 
 ious to him ; so that if the appointment is annual, 
 
152 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 every agent that valued his post must consider him- 
 self as holding it by the favor of his lordship ; " 
 whereof the consequences were easy to be seen. 
 
 There was a lively brush between the noble sec- 
 retary and Franklin, when the former first pro- 
 pounded this troublesome view. It was in January, 
 1771, that Franklin called upon his lordship — 
 
 " to pay my respects . . . and to acquaint him with my 
 appointment by the House of Representatives of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay to be their agent here." But his lordship 
 interrupted : — 
 
 " I must set you right there, Mr. Franklin ; you are 
 not agent. 
 
 " Why, my lord ? 
 
 " You are not appointed. 
 
 "I do not understand your lordship ; I have the 
 appointment in my pocket. 
 
 " You are mistaken ; I have later and better advices. 
 I have a letter from Governor Hutchinson ; he would 
 not give his assent to the bill. 
 
 " There was no bill, my lord ; it was a vote of the 
 House. 
 
 " There was a bill presented to the governor for the 
 purpose of appointing you and another, one Dr. Lee I 
 think he is called, to which the governor refused his 
 assent. 
 
 " I cannot understand this, my lord ; I think there 
 must be some mistake in it. Is your lordship quite 
 sure that you have such a letter ? 
 
 " I will convince you of it directly ; Mr. Pownall will 
 come in and satisfy you." 
 
 So Mr. Pownall, invoked by the official bell, 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 153 
 
 appeared upon the scene. But lie could not play 
 his part ; he was obliged to say that there was no 
 such letter. This was awkward ; but Franklin was 
 too civil or too prudent to triumph in the discom- 
 fiture of the other. He simply offered the "au- 
 thentic copy of the vote of the House " appointing 
 him, and asked if his lordship would "please to 
 look at it." His lordship took the paper unwil- 
 lingly, and then, without looking at it, said : — 
 
 " An information of this kind is not properly brought 
 to me as secretary of state. The board of trade is the 
 proper place. 
 
 " I will leave the paper then with Mr. Pownall to be — 
 
 " (^Hastily.) To what end would you leave it with 
 him? 
 
 " To be entered on the minutes of the board, as usual. 
 
 " {Angrily.) It shall not be entered there. No such 
 paper shall be entered there while I have anything to do 
 with the business of that board. The House of Repre- 
 sentatives has no right to appoint an agent. We shall 
 take no notice of any agents but such as are appointed 
 by acts of Assembly, to which the governor gives his 
 assent. We have had confusion enough already. Here 
 is one agent appointed by the Council, another by the 
 House of Representatives.-^ Which of these is agent for 
 the Province ? Who are we to hear in provincial affairs ? 
 An agent appointed by act of Assembly we can under- 
 
 ^ The ag'ent for tlie Council, Mr. Bollan, acted in entire aeeord 
 with Dr. Franklin ; there was no inconsistency between the two 
 offices, which were altogether distinct, neither any clashing" be- 
 tween the incumbents, as might be inferred from Lord Hillsbor- 
 ough's language. 
 
154 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 stand. No other will be attended to for the future, I 
 can assure you. 
 
 " 1 cannot conceive, my lord, why the consent of the 
 governor should be thought necessary to the appointment 
 of an agent for the people. It seems to me that — 
 
 " ( With a mixed look of anger and contempt.) I 
 shall not enter into a dispute with you, Sir, upon this 
 subject. 
 
 " I beg your lordship's pardon ; I do not mean to 
 dispute with your lordship. I would only say that it 
 appears to me that every body of men who cannot appear 
 in person, where business relating to them may be trans- 
 acted, should have a right to appear by an agent. The 
 concurrence of the governor does not seem to be neces- 
 sary. It is the business of the people that is to be done ; 
 he is not one of them ; he is himself an agent. 
 
 " {Hastily.) Whose agent is he ? 
 
 *' The king's, my lord. 
 
 " No such matter. He is one of the corporation by 
 the Province charter. No agent can be appointed but 
 by an act, nor any act pass without his assent. Besides, 
 this proceeding is directly contrary to express in- 
 structions. 
 
 " I did not know there had been such instructions. 
 I am not concerned in any offense against them, and — 
 
 " Yes, your offering such a paj^er to be entered is an 
 offense against them. No such ajipointment shall be en- 
 tered. When I came into the administration of Amer- 
 ican affairs I found them in great disorder. By Tiiy 
 firmness they are now something mended ; and while I 
 have the honor to hold the seals I shall continue the 
 same conduct, the same firmness. I think my duty to 
 the master I serve, and to the government of this nation, 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 155 
 
 requires it of me. If that conduct is not approved, they 
 may take that office from me when they please : I shall 
 make them a bow and thank them ; I shall resign with 
 pleasure. That gentleman [Mr. Pownall] knows it ; but 
 while I continue in it I shall resolutely persevere in the 
 B2iTCie firmness.'' 
 
 Speaking thus, his lordship seemed warm, and 
 grew pale, as if '' angry at something or somebody 
 besides the agent, and of more consequence to him- 
 self." Franklin thereupon, taking back his creden- 
 tials, said, speaking with an innuendo aimed at that 
 which had not been expressed, but which lay plainly 
 visible behind his lordship's pallor and excite- 
 ment : — 
 
 " I beg your lordship's pardon for taking up so much 
 of your lordship's time. It is, I beheve, of no great 
 importance whether the appointment is acknowledged or 
 not, for I have not the least conception that an agent 
 can, at present, be of any use to any of the colonies. I 
 shall therefore give your lordship no further trouble." 
 
 Therewith he made liis exit, and went home to 
 write the foregoing sketch of the scene. Certainly 
 throuofhout so irritatin^: an interview he had con- 
 ducted himself with creditable self-restraint and 
 moderation, yet with his closing sentence he had 
 sent home a dart which rankled. He soon heard 
 that his lordship " took great offense " at these last 
 words, regarding them as "extremely rude and 
 abusive," and as " equivalent to telling him to his 
 face that the colonies could expect neither favor 
 nor justice during his administration." *' I find," 
 
156 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 adds Franklin, witli placid satisfaction in the skill 
 with which he had shot his bolt, " I find he did not 
 mistake me." 
 
 So Franklin retained the gratification which lies 
 in having administered a stinging and appreciated 
 retort ; a somewhat empty and entirely personal 
 gratification, it must be admitted. Hillsborough 
 kept the substance of victory, inasmuch as he per- 
 sisted in refusing to recognize Franklin as the agent 
 of the Massachusetts Bay. Yet in this he did not 
 annihilate, indeed very slightly curtailed, Franklin's 
 usefulness. It merely signified that Franklin ceased 
 to be an official conduit for petitions and like com- 
 munications. His weight and influence, based upon 
 his knowledge and prestige, remained unimpugned. 
 In a word, it was of little consequence that the 
 lord secretary would not acknowledge him as the 
 representative of one Province, so long as all Eng- 
 land practically treated him as the representative 
 of all America. 
 
 From this time forth, of course, there was warfare 
 between the secretary and the unacknowledged 
 agent. Franklin began to entertain a " very mean 
 opinion " of Hillsborough's " abilities and fitness 
 for his station. His character is conceit, wrong- 
 headedness, obstinacy, and passion. Those who 
 speak most favorably of him allow all this ; they 
 only add that he is an honest man and means well. 
 If that be true, as perhaps it may, I only wish him 
 a better place, where only honesty and well-mean- 
 ing are required, and where his other qualities can 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 157 
 
 do no harm. ... I hope, however, that our affairs 
 will not much longer be perplexed and embarrassed 
 by his perverse and senseless management." But 
 for the present Franklin was of opinion that it 
 would be well " to leave this omniscient, infallible 
 minister to his own devices, and be no longer at the 
 expense of sending any agent, whom he can displace 
 by a repeal of the appointing act." 
 
 Hillsborough's theory was adopted by the board 
 of trade, and Franklin therefore remained practi- 
 cally stripped of the important agency for Massa- 
 chusetts. He anticipated that this course would 
 soon put an end to all the colonial agencies ; but 
 he said that the' injury would be quite as great 
 to the English government as to the colonies, for 
 the agents had often saved the cabinet from intro- 
 ducing, through misinformation, " mistaken meas- 
 ures," which it would afterward have found to be 
 " very inconvenient." He expressed his own opin- 
 ion that when the colonies " came to be considered 
 in the light of distinct states, as I conceive they 
 really are, possibly their agents may be treated 
 with more respect and considered more as public 
 ministers." But this was a day-dream ; the current 
 was setting in quite the opposite direction. 
 
 In point of fact, Massachusetts seems to have 
 taken no detriment from this foolish and captious 
 bit of chicanery. All the papers and arguments 
 which she had occasion to have presented always 
 found their way to their destination as well as they 
 would have done if Franklin had been acknowl- 
 
158 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 edged as tlie quasi public minister, wliicli he con- 
 ceived to be his proper character. 
 
 Franklin perfectly appreciated that Hillsborough 
 retained his position by precarious tenure. He 
 shrewdly suspected that if the war with Spain, 
 which then seemed imminent, were to break out, 
 Hillsborough would at once be removed. For in 
 that case it would be the policy of the government 
 to conciliate the colonies, at any cost, for the time 
 being. This crisis passed by, fortunately for the 
 secretary and unfortunately for the provinces. 
 Yet still the inefficient and ill-friended minister 
 remained very infirm in his seat. An excuse only 
 was needed to displace him, and by a singular and 
 unexpected chance Franklin furnished that excuse. 
 It was the humble and discredited colonial agent 
 who unwittingly but not unwillingly gave the jar 
 which toppled the great earl into retirement. His 
 fall when it came gave general satisfaction. His 
 unfitness for his position had become too obvious 
 to be denied ; he had given offense in quarters 
 where he should have made friends ; he had irri- 
 tated the king and provoked the cabinet. Frank- 
 lin, with his observant sagacity, quickly divined 
 that George HI. was " tired " of Hillsborough and 
 " of his administration, which had weakened the 
 affection and respect of the colonies for a royal 
 government ; " and accordingly he " used proper 
 means from time to time that his majesty should 
 have due information and convincing proofs " of 
 this effect of his lordship's colonial policy. 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 159 
 
 It was, however, upon a comparatively trifling 
 matter that Hillsborough finally lost his place. It 
 has been already mentioned that many years before 
 this time Franklin had urged the establishment of 
 one or two frontier, or " barrier," provinces in the 
 interior. He had never abandoned this scheme, 
 and of late had been pushing it with some prospect 
 of success ; for among other encouraging features 
 he astutely induced three privy councilors to be- 
 come financially interested in the project. The 
 original purpose of the petitioners had been to ask 
 for only 2,500,000 acres of land ; but Hillsborough 
 bade them ask for " enough to make a province." 
 This advice was grossly disingenuous ; for Hills- 
 borough himself afterward admitted that from the 
 beginning he had intended to defeat the applica- 
 tion, and had put the memorialists " upon asking so 
 much with that very view, supposing it too much 
 to be granted." But they, not suspecting, fell into 
 the trap and increased their demand to 23,000,000 
 acres, certainly a sufficient quantity to call for se- 
 rious consideration. When the petition came be- 
 fore the board of trade. Lord Hillsborough, who 
 was president of the board, took upon himself the 
 task of rendering a report. To the surprise of the 
 petitioners, who had reason to suppose him well in- 
 clined, he replied adversely. The region was so 
 far away, he said, that it would not "lie within the 
 reach of the trade and commerce of this king- 
 dom ; " so far, also, as not to admit of " the exer- 
 cise of that authority and jurisdiction . . . neces- 
 
IGO BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 sary for the preservation of the colonies in due 
 subordination to and dependence upon the mother 
 country." The territory appeared, " upon the full- 
 est evidence," to be '' utterly inaccessible to ship- 
 ping," and therefore the inhabitants would " prob- 
 ably be led to manufacture for themselves, ... a 
 consequence . . . to be carefully guarded against." 
 Also part belonged to the Indians, who ought not 
 to be disturbed, and settlements therein would of 
 course lead to Indian wars and to " fighting for 
 every inch of the ground." Further, the occupa- 
 tion of this tract " must draw and carry out a great 
 number of people from Great Britain," who would 
 soon become "a kind of separate and independent 
 people, . . . and set up for themselves," meeting 
 their own wants and taking no " supplies from the 
 mother country nor from the provinces " along the 
 seaboard. At so great a distance from " the seat 
 of government, courts, magistrates, etc.," the terri- 
 tory would " become a receptacle and kind of asy- 
 lum for offenders," full of crime itself, and encour- 
 aging crime elsewhere. This disorderly population 
 would soon " become formidable enough to oppose 
 his majesty's authority, disturb government, and 
 even give law to the other or first-settled part of 
 the country, and thus throw everything into confu- 
 sion." Such arguments were as feeble as they were 
 bodeful. The only point which his lordship really 
 scored was in reply to Franklin's theory of the 
 protection against the Indians which these colonies 
 would afford to those on the seaboard. Hillsbor- 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 161 
 
 ough well said that the new settlements themselves 
 would stand most in need of protection. It was 
 only advancing, not eliminating, a hostile frontier. 
 Evidently it required no very able reasoning, 
 coming from the president of the board, to per- 
 suade his subordinates ; and this foolish report was 
 readily adopted. But Franklin was not so easily 
 beaten; the privy council furnished one more stage 
 at which he could still make a fight. He drew up 
 a reply to Lord Hillsborough's paper and submit- 
 ted it to that body. It was a long and very care- 
 fully prepared document; it dealt in facts histor- 
 ical and statistical, in which the report was utterly 
 deficient ; it furnished evidence and illustration ; 
 in arguing upon probabilities it went far towai'd 
 demolishing the theories advanced by the president 
 of the board. The two briefs were laid before a 
 tribunal in which three men sat who certainly ought 
 not to have been sitting in this cause, since Frank- 
 lin's interest was also their own ; but probably this 
 did not more than counterbalance the prestige of 
 official position in the opposite scale. Certainly 
 Franklin had followed his invariable custom of 
 furnishing his friends with ample material to 
 justify them in befriending him. In this respect 
 he always gallantly stood by his own side. The 
 allies whom at any time he sought he always abun- 
 dantly supplied with plain facts and sound argu- 
 ments, in which weapons Jie always placed his chief 
 trust. So at present, whatever was the motive 
 which induced privy councilors to open their ears 
 
1G2 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 to what Franklin had to say, after they had heard 
 him they could not easily decide against him. Nor 
 had those of them who were personally disinter- 
 ested any great inducement to do so, since, though 
 some of them may have disliked him, none of them 
 had any great liking for his noble opponent. So 
 they set aside the report of the board of trade.^ 
 
 Upon this Lord Hillsborough fell into a hot 
 rage, and sent in his resignation. It was generally 
 understood that he had no notion that it would be 
 accepted, or that he would be allowed to leave upon 
 such a grievance. He fancied that he was estab- 
 lishing a dilemma which would impale Franklin. 
 But he was in error ; he himself was impaled. No 
 one expostulated with him ; he was left to exercise 
 " the Christian virtue of resignation " without hin- 
 drance. Franklin said that the anticipation of 
 precisely this result, so far from being an obsta- 
 cle in the way of his own success, had been an 
 additional incitement to the course taken by the 
 council. 
 
 So the earl, the enemy of America, went out ; 
 and the colonial agent had shown him the door, 
 with all England looking on. It was a mortifica- 
 tion which Hillsborough could never forgive, and 
 upon four occasions, when Franklin made the con- 
 ventional call to pay his respects, he did not find 
 his lordship at home. At his fifth call he received 
 
 from a lackey a very plain intimation that there 
 
 ^. 
 
 1 A very interesting- statement of these proceedings may be 
 found in Franklin's Works, x. 346. 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 163 
 
 was no chance that he ever would find the ex-secre- 
 tary at home, and thereafter he desisted from the 
 forms of civility. " I have never since," lie said, 
 " been nigh him, and we have only abused one an- 
 other at a distance." Franklin had fully balanced 
 one account at least. 
 
 So far as the special matter in hand was con- 
 cerned, the worsting of Hillsborough, though a 
 gratification, did not result in the bettering of 
 Franklin and his co-petitioners. April 6, 1773, he 
 wrote : " The affair of the grant goes on but slowly. 
 I do not yet clearly see land. I begin to be a little 
 of the sailors' mind, when they were landing a cable 
 out of a store into a ship, and one of 'em said : 
 ' 'T is a long heavy cable, I wish we could see the 
 end of it.' ' Damn me,' says another, ' if I be- 
 lieve it has any end ; somebody has cut it off.' " 
 A cable twisted of British red tape was indeed a 
 coil without an end. In this case, before the patent 
 was granted, Franklin had become so unpopular, 
 and the Revolution so imminent, that the matter 
 was dropped by a sort of universal consent. 
 
 Franklin rejoiced in this departure of Hills- 
 borough as a good riddance of a man whom he 
 thought to be as " double and deceitful " as any 
 one he had ever met. It is possible that, as he had 
 been instrumental in creating the vacancy, he may 
 also have assisted in some small degree in dispos- 
 ing of the succession. One day he was complain- 
 ing of Hillsborough to a " friend at court," when 
 the friend replied that Hillsborough was wont to 
 
164 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 represent the Americans " as an unquiet people, 
 not easily satisfied with any ministry ; that, how- 
 ever, it was thought too much occasion had been 
 given them to dislike tlie present ; " and the ques- 
 tion was asked whetlier, in case of Hillsborough's 
 removal, Franklin " could name another likely to 
 be more acceptable " to his countrymen. He at 
 once suggested Lord Dartmouth. This was the 
 appointment which was now made, in August, 
 1772, and the news of which gave much satisfac- 
 tion to all the " friends of America." For Dart- 
 mouth was of kindly disposition, and when previ- 
 ously president of the board of trade had shown a 
 liberal temper in provincial affairs. 
 
 The relationship between Franklin and Lord 
 Dartmouth opened auspiciously. Franklin waited 
 upon him at his first levee, at the close of October, 
 1772, and was received " very obligingly." Fur- 
 ther Franklin was at once recognized as agent for 
 Massachusetts, with no renewal of the caviling as 
 to the manner of his appointment, from which he 
 hopefully augured that " business was getting into 
 a better train." A month later he reported him- 
 self as being still " upon very good terms " with the 
 new minister, who, he had " reason to think," meant 
 well by the colonies." So Dartmouth did, un- 
 doubtedly, and if the best of intentions and of feel- 
 ings could have availed much at this stage of affairs, 
 Franklin and his lordship might have postponed 
 the Revolution until the next generation. But it 
 was too late to counteract the divergent movements 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 165 
 
 o£ the two nations, and no better proof could be 
 desired of the degree to which this divergence had 
 arrived than the fact itself that the moderate 
 Franklin and the well-disposed Dartmouth could 
 not come into accord. Each people had declared 
 its political faith, its fundamental theory ; and the 
 faith and theory of the one were fully and fairly 
 adverse to those of the other ; and the instant that 
 the talk went deep enough, this irreconcilable dif- 
 ference was sure to be exposed. 
 
 During the winter of 1772-3, following Lord 
 Dartmouth's appointment, a lively dispute arose 
 in Massachusetts between the Assembly and Gov- 
 ernor Hutchinson. It was the old question, whe- 
 ther the English Parliament had control in matters 
 of colonial taxation. The governor made speeches 
 and said Yea, while the Assembly passed resolu- 
 tions and said Nay. The early ships, arriving in 
 England in the spring of 1773, brought news of 
 this dispute, which seemed to have been indeed a 
 hot one. The English ministry were not pleased ; 
 they wanted to keep their relationship with the 
 colonies tranquil for a while, because there was a 
 renewal of the danger of a war with Spain. There- 
 fore they were vexed at the over zeal of Hutchin- 
 son ; and Lord Dartmouth frankly said so. Frank- 
 lin called one day upon the secretary and found 
 him much perplexed at the "difficulties" into 
 whicli the governor had brought the ministers by 
 his " imprudence." Parliament, his lordship said, 
 could not " suffer such a declaration of the colonial 
 
166 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Assembly, asserting its independence, to pass un- 
 noticed." Franklin thought otherwise : "It is 
 words only," he said ; " acts of Parliament are 
 still submitted to there ; " and so long as such was 
 the case " Parliament would do well to turn a deaf 
 ear. . . . Force could do no good." Force, it was 
 replied, might not be thought of, but rather an act 
 to lay the colonies " under some inconveniences, till 
 they rescind that declaration." Could they by no 
 possibility be persuaded to withdraw it ? Franklin 
 was clearly of opinion that the resolve could only 
 be withdrawn after the withdrawal of the speech 
 which it answered, "• an awkward operation, which 
 perhaps the governor would hardly be directed to 
 perform." As for an act establishing " inconven- 
 iences," probably it would only put the colonies, " as 
 heretofore, on some method of incommoding this 
 country till the act is repealed ; and so we shall go 
 on injuring and provoking each other instead of 
 cultivating that good-will and harmony so necessary 
 to the general welfare." Divisions, his lordship 
 admitted, " must weaken the whole ; for we are yet 
 one empire^ whatever may be the opinions of the 
 Massachusetts Assembly." But how to escape 
 divisions was the conundrum. Could his lordship 
 withhold from Parliament the irritating documents, 
 though in fact they were already notorious, and 
 " hazard the being called to account in some future 
 session of Parliament for keeping back the com- 
 munication of despatches of such importance ? " 
 He appealed to Franklin for advice ; but Franklin 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 167 
 
 would iiiidertake to give none, save that, in his 
 opinion, if the despatches should be laid before Par- 
 liament, it would be prudent to order them to lie 
 on the table. For, he said, " were I as much an 
 Englishman as I am an American, and ever so de- 
 sirous of establishing the authority of Parliament, 
 I protest to your lordship I cannot conceive of a 
 single step the Parliament can take to increase it 
 that will not tend to diminish it, and after abun- 
 dance of mischief they must finally lose it." So 
 whenever the crucial test was applied these two 
 men found themselves utterly at variance, and the 
 hopelessness of a peaceful conclusion would have 
 been obvious, had not each shunned a prospect so 
 painful. 
 
 It must be confessed that, if Lord Dartmouth 
 was so pathetically desirous to undo an irrevocable 
 past. Dr. Franklin was no less anxious for the per- 
 formance of a like miracle. Both the statesman 
 and the philosopher would have appreciated better 
 the uselessness of their efforts, had their feelings 
 been less deeply engaged. Franklin's vain wish at 
 this time was to move the peoples of England and 
 America back to the days before the passage of 
 the Stamp Act. " I have constantly given it as 
 my opinion," he wrote, early in 1771, " that, if 
 the colonies were restored to the state they were in 
 before the Stamp Act, they would be satisfied and 
 contend no farther." Two and a half j^ears later, 
 following the fable of the sibylline books, he ex- 
 pressed the more extreme opinion that " the letter 
 
1G8 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 of the two houses of the 29th of June, proposing 
 as a satisfactory measure the restoring things to 
 the state in which they were at the conclusion of 
 the late war, is a fair and generous offer on our 
 part, . . . and more than Britain has a right to ex- 
 pect from us. . . . If she has any wisdom left, she 
 will embrace it, and agree with us immediately." 
 
 But the insuperable trouble was that, at the close 
 of the last war and before the passage of the 
 Stamp Act, the controversy upon the question of 
 right had been unborn. Now, having come Into 
 being, this controversy could not be laid at rest by 
 a mere waiver ; it was of that nature that its resur- 
 rection would be sure and speedy. Anything else 
 would have been, of course, the practical victory of 
 the colonies and defeat of England ; and the Eng- 
 lish could not admit that things had reached this 
 pass as yet. M England should not renounce her 
 right, the colonies would always remain uneasy be- 
 neath the unretracted assertion of it ; if she should 
 never again seek to exercise it, she would be really 
 yielding. It was idle to talk of such a state of 
 affairs ; it could not be brought about, even if it 
 were conceivable that each side could be Induced to 
 repeal all its acts and resolves touching the subject, 
 — and even this preliminary step was what no 
 reasonable man could anticipate. In a word, when 
 Franklin longed for the restoration of the status 
 quo ante the Stamp Act, he longed for a chimera. 
 A question had been raised, which was of that kind 
 that it could not be compromised, or set aside, or 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 169 
 
 ignored, or forgotten ; it must be settled by the re- 
 cession or by the defeat of one contestant or the 
 other. Nothing better than a brief period of rest- 
 less and suspicious truce could be gained by an 
 effort to restore the situation of a previous date, 
 even were such restoration possible, since the in- 
 tervening period and the memory of its undeter- 
 mined dispute concerning a principle could not be 
 annihilated. 
 
 Still Franklin persistently refused to despair, so 
 long as peace was still unbroken. Until blood had 
 been shed, war might be avoided. This was no 
 lack of foresight ; occasionally an expression es- 
 caped him which showed that he fully understood 
 the drift of affairs and saw the final outcome of the 
 oj)posing doctrines. In 1769 he said that matters 
 were daily tending more and more "to a breach 
 and final separation." In 1771 he thought that 
 any one might " clearly see in the system of cus- 
 toms to be exacted in America by act of Parlia- 
 ment, the seeds sown of a total disunion of the 
 countries, though as yet that event may be at a con- 
 siderable distance." By 1774 he said, in an arti- 
 cle written for an English newspaper, that certain 
 " angry writers " on the English side were using 
 " their utmost efforts to persuade us that this war 
 with the colonies (for a war it will be) is a na- 
 tional cause, when in fact it is a ministerial one." 
 But he very rarely spoke thus. It was at once his 
 official duty as well as his strong personal wish to 
 find some other exit from the public embarrass- 
 
170 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 ments tlian by this direful conclusion. Therefore, 
 so long as war did not exist he refused to admit 
 that it was inevitable, and he spared no effort to 
 prevent it, leaving to fervid orators to declare the 
 contrary and to welcome it; nor would he ever 
 allow himself to be discouraged by any measure 
 of apparent hopelessness. 
 
 His great dread was that the colonies might go 
 so fast and so far as to make matters incurable be- 
 fore thinking peoj^le were ready to recognize such 
 a crisis as unavoidable. He seldom wrote home 
 without some words counseling moderation. He 
 wanted to see " much patience and the utmost dis- 
 cretion in our general conduct." It must not, 
 however, be supposed that such language was used 
 to cover any lukewarmness, or irresolution, or ten- 
 dency towards halfway or temporizing measures. 
 On the contrary, he was wholly and consistently 
 the opposite of all this. His moderation was not 
 at all akin to the moderation of Dickinson and 
 such men, who were ahvays wanting to add another 
 to the long procession of petitions and protests. He 
 only desired that the leading should be done by the 
 wise men, so as not to have a Braddock's defeat in 
 so grave and perilous an undertaking. He feared 
 that a mob might make an irrevocable blunder, and 
 the mischievous rabble create a condition of affairs 
 which the real statesmen of the provinces could 
 neither mend nor excuse. Certainly his anxiety 
 was not without cause. He warned his country 
 people that there was nothing which their enemies 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 171 
 
 in England more wished than that, by insurrec- 
 tions, they would give a good pretense for estab- 
 lishing a large military force in the colonies. As 
 between friends, he said, every affront is not worth 
 a duel, so "-between the governed and governing 
 every mistake in government, every encroachment 
 on right, is not worth a rebellion." So he thought 
 that an " immediate rupture " was not in accord- 
 ance with " general prudence," for by " a prema- 
 ture struggle " the colonies might " be crippled and 
 kept down another age." No one, however, was 
 more resolute than he that the mistakes and en- 
 croachments which had occurred should not be re- 
 peated. An assurance against such repetition, he 
 tried to think, might be effected within a reason- 
 ably short time by two peaceful influences. One 
 of these was a cessation of all colonial purchases of 
 English commodities ; the other was the rapid in- 
 crease of the visible strength and resources of the 
 colonies. He was urgent and frequent in reiterat- 
 ing his opinion of the great efficacy of the non- 
 purchasing agreements. It is a little odd to find 
 him actually declaring that, if the people would 
 honestly persist in these engagements, he " should 
 almost wish " the obnoxious act " never to be re- 
 pealed ; " for, besides industry and frugality, such 
 a condition of things would promote a variety of 
 domestic manufactures. In a word, this British 
 oppression would briug about all those advantages 
 for the infant nation, which, through the medium 
 of the protective tariff, have since been purchased 
 
172 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 by Americans at a vast expense. Moreover, the 
 money which used to be sent to England in pay- 
 ment for superfluous luxuries would be kept at 
 home, to be there laid out in domestic improve- 
 ments. Gold and silver, the scarcity of which 
 caused great inconvenience in the colonies, would 
 remain in the country. All these advantages would 
 accrue from a course wdiich at the same time must 
 give rise in England itself to a pressure so extreme 
 that Parliament could not long resist it. " The 
 trading part of the nation, with the manufacturers, 
 are become sensible how necessary it is for their 
 welfare to be on good terms with us. The peti- 
 tioners of Middlesex and of London have num- 
 bered among their grievances the unconstitutional 
 taxes on America ; and similar petitions are ex- 
 pected from all quarters. So that I think we need 
 only be quiet, and persevere in our schemes of fru- 
 gality and industry, and the rest will do itself." 
 But it was obvious that, if the measures w^ere not 
 now persisted in until they should have had their 
 full effect, a like policy could never again be re- 
 sorted to ; and Franklin gave it as his belief that, 
 " if we do persist another year, we shall never af- 
 terwards have occasion to use " the remedy. 
 
 To him it seemed incredible that the peo23le of 
 America should not loyally persist in a policy of 
 non-importation of English goods. Not only was 
 the doing without these a benefit to domestic indus- 
 tries, but buying them was a direct aid and mainte- 
 nance to the oppressor. He said : " If our j)eople 
 
SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND. 173 
 
 will, by coiisiiming siieli commodities, purchase and 
 pay for their fetters, who that sees them so shackled 
 will think they deserve either redress or pity ? Me- 
 tliinks that in drinking tea, a true American, reflect- 
 ing that by every cup he contributed to the salaries, 
 pensions, and rewards of the enemies and persecu- 
 tors of his country, would be half choked at the 
 thought, and find no quantity of sugar sufficient to 
 make the nauseous draught oo down." ^ 
 
 In this connection he was much " diverted " and 
 gratified by the results of the Stamp Act, and espe- 
 cially of the act laying the duty on tea. The gross 
 proceeds of the former statute, gathered in the West 
 Indies and Canada, since substantially nothing was 
 got in the other provinces, was XI. 500 ; while 
 the expenditure had amounted to c£12,000 ! The 
 working of the Customs Act had been far worse. 
 According to his statement, the unfortunate East 
 India Company, in January, 1773, had at least 
 X2,000,000, some said X4,000,000, worth of goods 
 which had accumulated in their warehouses since 
 the enactment, of which the chief part would, in the 
 natural condition of business, have been absorbed 
 by the colonies. The consequence was that the 
 company's shares had fallen enormously in price, 
 that it was hard pressed to make its payments, that 
 its credit was so seriously impaired that the Bank 
 of England would not help it, and that its dividends 
 had been reduced below the point at and above 
 which it was obliged to pay, and heretofore regu- 
 larly had paid, X 400,000 annually to the govern- 
 
 ^ See also letter to Marshall, April 22, 1771, Works, x. 315. 
 
174 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 meiit. Many investors were painfully straitened, 
 and not a few bankruptcies ensued. Besides tlie 
 loss of this annual stipend the treasury was further 
 the sufferer by the great expense which had been 
 incurred in endeavoring to guard the American 
 coast against smugglers ; with the added vexation 
 that these costly attempts had, after all, been fruit- 
 ^ less. Fifteen hundred miles of shore line, occu- 
 pied by people unanimously hostile to the king's 
 revenue officers, presented a task much beyond the 
 capabilities of the vessels which England could 
 send thither. So the Dutch, the Danes, the Swedes, 
 and the French soon established a thriving contra- 
 band trade ; the American housewives were hardly 
 interrupted in dispensing the favorite beverage ; the 
 English merchant's heavy loss became the foreign 
 smuggler's aggravating gain ; and the costly sacri- 
 fice of the East India Company fell short of effect- 
 ing the punishment of the wicked Americans. 
 Franklin could not " help smiling at these blun- 
 ders." Enolishmen would soon resent them, he 
 said, would turn out the ministry that was respons- 
 ible for them, and put in a very different set of 
 men, who would undo the mischief. " If we con- 
 tinue firm and united, and resolutely persist in the 
 non-consumption agreement, this adverse ministry 
 cannot possibly stand another year. And surely 
 the great body of our people, the farmers and arti- 
 ficers, will not find it hard to keep an agreement by 
 which they both save and gain." Thus he contin- 
 ued to write so late as February, 1775, believing 
 to the last in the efficacy of this policy. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND, III. 
 
 THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS : THE PRIVY COUNCIL 
 
 SCENE : RETURN HOME. 
 
 The famous episode of the Hutchinson letters, 
 occurring near the close of Franklin's stay in Eng- 
 land, must be narrated with a brevity more in ac- 
 cord with its real historical value than with its in- 
 terest as a dramatic story. In conversation one 
 day with an English gentleman, Franklin spoke 
 with resentment of the sending troops to Boston 
 and the other severe measures of the government. 
 The other in reply engaged to convince him that 
 these steps were taken upon the suggestion and ad- 
 vice of Americans. A few days later he made good 
 his promise by producing certain letters, signed by 
 Hutchinson, Oliver, and others, all natives of, and 
 residents and office-holders in, America. The ad- 
 dresses had been cut from the letters ; but in other 
 respects they were un mutilated, and they were the 
 original documents. They contained just such mat- 
 ter as the gentleman had described, — opinions and 
 advice which would have commended themselves 
 highly to a royalist, but which could have seemed 
 to a patriot in the provinces only the most danger- 
 
176 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 ons and abominable treason. Induced by obvions 
 motives, Franklin begged leave to send these let- 
 ters to Massachusetts, and finally obtained permis- 
 sion to do so, subject to the stipulation that they 
 should not be printed nor copied, and should be 
 circulated only among a few leading men. His 
 purpose, he said, lay in his belief that when the 
 " principal people " in Boston " saw the measures 
 they complained of took their rise in a great de- 
 gree from tlie representations and recommendations 
 of their own countrymen, their resentment against 
 Britain might abate, as mine has done, and a recon- 
 ciliation be more easily obtained." ^ Franklin ac- 
 cordingly sent over the letters, together with strict 
 injunctions in pursuance of his engagement to the 
 giver of them : " In confidence of your following 
 inviolably my engagement," etc., he wrote. But 
 this solemn instruction was not complied with ; the 
 temptation was too great for the honor of some 
 among the patriots, who resolved that the letters 
 
 ^ The importance of establishing the fact that the government's 
 course was instigated by Hutchinson is liable at the present clay- 
 to be underrated. For his name has fallen into such extreme dis- 
 repute in America that to have been guided by his advice seems 
 only an additional offense. But such vpas not the case ; Hutchin- 
 son came of old and prominent Massachusetts stock ; he was a 
 descendant of Anne Hutchinson, of polemic fame, and when ap- 
 pointed to office he appeared a man of good standing and ability. 
 The English government had a perfect right to rely upon the 
 soundness of his statements and opinions. Thus it was really of 
 great moment for Franklin to be able to convince the people of 
 Massachusetts that the English measures were in strict conformity 
 with Hutchinson's suggestions. It was an excuse for the English, 
 as it also was the condemnation of Hutchinson, in colonial opinion. 
 
THE HUTCniNSON LETTERS. 177 
 
 should be made public despite any pledge to the 
 contrary, and resorted to a shallow artifice for 
 achieving their end. A story was started that au- 
 thenticated copies of the same papers had been re- 
 ceived from England by somebody. There was a 
 prudent abstention from any inquiry into the truth 
 of this statement. " I know," said Franklin, " that 
 could not be. It was an expedient to disengage 
 the House." Dishonest as it obviously was, it was 
 successful ; members accepted it as a removal of 
 the seal of secrecy ; and the documents having thus 
 found their way before the Assembly were ordered 
 to be printed. That body, greatly incensed, imme- 
 diately voted a petition to the king for the re- 
 moval of the governor and lieutenant-governor, 
 and sent it over to Franklin to be presented. 
 
 The publication of these letters made no little 
 stir. The writers were furious, and of course 
 brought vehement charges of bad faith and dishon- 
 orable behavior. But they were at a loss to know 
 upon whom to visit their wrath. For the person 
 to whom they had written the letters was dead, and 
 they knew no one else who had been concerned in 
 the matter. The secret of the channel of convey- 
 ance had been rigidly kept. No one had the 
 slightest idea by whom the letters had been trans- 
 mitted to Massachusetts, nor by whom they had 
 been received there. To this day it is not known 
 by whom the letters were given to Franklin. July 
 25, 1773, he wrote to Mr. Gushing, the speaker 
 of the Assembly, to whom he had inclosed the let- 
 
178 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 ters : " I observe that you meutiou that no person 
 besides Dr. Cooper and one member of the com- 
 mittee knew they came from me. I did not accom- 
 pany them with any request of being myself con- 
 cealed ; for, believing what I did to be in the way 
 of my duty as agent, though I had no doubt of 
 its giving offense, not only to the parties exposed 
 but to administration here, I was regardless of the 
 consequences. However, since the letters them- 
 selves are now copied and printed, contrary to the 
 promise I made, I am glad my name has not been 
 heard on the occasion ; and, as I do not see how it 
 could be of any use to the public, I now wish it 
 may continue unknown ; though I hardly expect 
 it." Unfortunately it soon became of such use to 
 two individuals in England that Franklin himself 
 felt obliged to divulge it ; otherwise it might have 
 remained forever a mystery. 
 
 Though the addresses had been cut from the 
 letters, yet they had previously been shown to many 
 persons in England, and it soon became known 
 there that they had been written to Mr. William 
 Whately, now dead, but who, when the letters 
 were written, was a member of Parliament and 
 private secretary to George Grenville, who was 
 then in the cabinet. Amid the active surmises as 
 to the next link in the chain suspicion naturally 
 attached to Thomas Whately, brother and executor 
 of the dead man, and in possession of his papers. 
 This gentleman denied that he had ever, to his 
 knowledge, had these letters in his hands. Sus- 
 
THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 179 
 
 picion next attached to Mr. Temple, "our friend," 
 as Franklin described him. He had had access to 
 the letters of William Whately for the purpose of 
 getting' from among them certain letters written 
 by himself and his brother ; he had lived in Amer- 
 ica, had been governor of New Hampshire, and 
 later in letters to his friends there had announced 
 the coming of the letters before they had actually 
 arrived. The expression of suspicion towards 
 Temple found its way into a newspaper, bolstered 
 with an iutimatlon that the information came from 
 Thomas AYhatel3^ Temple at once made a demand 
 upon Whately to exculpate him. This of course 
 Whately could not do, since he had not inspected 
 the letters taken by Temple, and so could not say 
 of his knowledge that these were not among them. 
 But instead of taking this perfectly safe ground, 
 he published a card stating that Temple had had 
 access to the letters of the deceased for a special 
 purpose, and that Temple had solemnly averred to 
 him, Whately, that he had neither removed nor 
 copied any letters save those written by himself 
 and his brother. This exoneration was far from 
 satisfying Temple, who conceived that it rather 
 injured than improved his position. Accordingly 
 he challenged Wliately and the two fou:^ht In Hyde 
 Park ring. The story of the duel, which was min- 
 gled of comedy and tragedy, is vividly told by Mr. 
 Parton. Whately was wounded twice, and at his 
 request the fight then ceased. Temple was accused, 
 but unfairly, of having thrust at him when he was 
 
180 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 clown. But it was no conventional duel, or result 
 of tem23orary hot blood. The contestants were 
 profoundly angry with each other, and were bent 
 on more serious results than curable wounds. It 
 was understood that so soon as Whately should be 
 well, the fight would be renewed. Thus matters 
 stood when Franklin came up to London from a 
 visit in the country, to be astonished by the news 
 of what had occurred, and annoyed at the prosj)ect 
 of what was likely to occur. At once he inserted 
 this letter : — 
 
 To the Printer of the " PulUc Advertiser : " 
 
 Sir, — Finding- that two gentlemen have been unfor- 
 tunately engaged in a duel about a transaction and its 
 circumstances of which both of them are totally ignorant 
 and innocent, I think it incumbent upon me to declare 
 (for the prevention of further mischief, as far as such a 
 declaration may contribute to prevent it) that I alone 
 am the person who obtained and transmitted to Boston 
 the letters in question. Mr. Whately could not commu- 
 nicate them, because they were never in his possession ; 
 and for the same reason they could not be taken from 
 him by Mr. Temple. They were not of the nature of 
 private letters between friends. They were written by 
 public officers to persons in public stations on public 
 affairs, and intended to procure jDublic measures ; they 
 were therefore handed to other public persons, who might 
 be influenced by them to produce those measures. Their 
 tendency was to incense the mother country against her 
 colonies, and, by the steps recommended, to widen the 
 breach which they effected. The chief caution expressed 
 with regard to privacy was, to keep their contents from 
 
THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 181 
 
 the colony agents, who, the writers apprehended, might 
 return them, or copies of them, to America. That ap- 
 prehension was, it seems, well founded, for the first agent 
 who laid his hands on them thought it his duty to trans- 
 mit them to his constituents. 
 
 B. Franklin, 
 Agent for the House of Representatives of 
 Massachusetts Bay. 
 Craven Stkeet, December 25, 1773. 
 
 The petition, forwarded by the House of Repre- 
 sentatives of Massachusetts Bay, after they had 
 read the famous letters, recited that the petitioners 
 had "very lately had before them certain iiapers^'' 
 and it was upon the strength of the contents of 
 these papers that they humbly prayed that his 
 majesty would be " pleased to remove from their 
 posts in this government " Governor Hutchinson 
 and Lieutenant-Governor Oliver. Immediately 
 upon receipt of this petition Franklin transmitted 
 it to Lord Dartmouth, with a very civil and con- 
 ciliatory note, to which Lord Dartmouth replied in 
 the same spirit. This took place in August, 1773 ; 
 the duel followed in December, and in the interval 
 Franklin had heard nothing from the petition. 
 But when his foregoing letter was published and 
 conned over it seemed that the auspicious moment 
 for the ministry was now at hand, and that it had 
 actually been furnished to them by the astute 
 Franklin himself. There is no question that he 
 had acted according to his conscience, and it seems 
 now to be generally agreed that his conscience did 
 
182 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 not mislead liim. But he had been placed in a 
 difficult position, and it was easily possible to give 
 a very bad coloring to his conduct. There was in 
 this business an opportunity to bring into discredit 
 the cliaracter of the representative man of America, 
 the man foremost of Americans in the ej^es of the 
 world, the man most formidable to the ministerial 
 party ; such an opportunity was not to be lost.^ 
 
 Franklin had anticipated that the " king would 
 have considered this petition, as he had done the 
 preceding one, in his cabinet, and have given an 
 answer without a hearing." But on the afternoon 
 of Saturday, January 8, 1774, he was surprised to 
 receive notice of a hearing upon the petition before 
 
 1 It must be confessed that the question whether Franklin 
 should have sent these letters to he seen by the leading men of 
 Massachusetts involves points of some delicacy. The very elab- 
 orateness and vehemence of the exculpations put forth by Amer- 
 ican writers indicate a lurking- feeling that the opposite side is at 
 least plausible. I add my opinion decidedly upon Franklin's side, 
 though I certainly see force in the contrai-y view. Yet before one 
 feels fully satisfied he would wish to know from whom these let- 
 ters came to Franklin's hands, the information then given him 
 concerning them, and the authority which the giver might be 
 supposed to have over them, in a word all the attendant and qual- 
 ifying cix'cumstances and conversation upon which presumptions 
 might have been properly founded by Franklin. Upon these 
 essential matters there is absolutely no evidence. Franklin was 
 bound to secrecy concerning them, at Avhatever cost to himself. 
 But it is evident that Franklin never for an instant entertained 
 the slightest doubt of the entire propriety of his action, and even 
 in his own cause he was wont to be a fair-minded judge. One 
 gets a glimpse of the other side in the Diary and Letters of his 
 Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., etc., by Thomas Orlando 
 Hutchinson, pp. 5, 82-93, 192, 356. 
 
THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 183 
 
 the Lords of the Committee for Plantation Affairs, 
 at the Cockpit, on the Tuesday following, at noon. 
 Late in the afternoon of Monday he got notice 
 that Mr. Mauduit, agent for Hutchinson and Oliver, 
 would be represented at the hearing on the follow- 
 ing morning by counsel. A less sagacious man 
 than Franklin would have scented trouble in the 
 air. Pie tried to find Arthur Lee ; but Lee was in 
 Bath. He then sought advice from Mr. Bollan, a 
 barrister, agent f©r the Council of Massachusetts 
 Bay, and who also had been summoned. There 
 was no time to instruct counsel, and Mr. Bollan 
 advised to employ none ; he had found " lawyers 
 of little service in colony cases." " Those who are 
 eminent and hope to rise in their profession are 
 unwilling to offend the court, whose disposition on 
 this occasion was w^ell known." The next day at 
 the hearing Mr. Bollan endeavored to speak ; but, 
 though he had been summoned, he was summarily 
 silenced, on the ground that the colonial Council, 
 whose agent he was, was not a party to the petition. 
 Franklin then laid the petition and authenticated 
 copies of the letters before the committee. Some 
 objections to the receipt of copies instead of orig- 
 inals were raised by Mr. Wedderburn, solicitor- 
 general and counsel for Hutchinson and Oliver. 
 Franklin then spoke with admirable keenness and 
 skill. He said that he had not conceived the mat- 
 ter to call for discussion by lawyers ; but that it 
 was a " question of civil or political prudence, 
 whether, on the state of the fact that the governors 
 
184 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 had lost all trust and confidence with the people, 
 and become universally obnoxious, it would be for 
 the interest of his majesty's service to continue 
 them in those stations in that Province." Of this 
 he conceived their lordships to be " perfect judges," 
 not requiring "assistance from the arguments of 
 counsel." Yet if counsel was to be heard he asked 
 an adjournment to enable him to engage and in- 
 struct lawyers. Time was accordingly granted, 
 until January 29. Wedderburn waived his ob- 
 jection to the copies, but both he and Lord Chief 
 Justice De Grey intimated that inquiry would be 
 made as to " how the Assembly came into possession 
 of them, through whose hands and by what means 
 they were procured, . . . and to whom they were 
 directed." This was all irrelevant to the real issue, 
 which had been sharply defined by Franklin. The 
 lord president, near whom Franklin stood, asked 
 him whether he intended to answer such questions. 
 " In that I shall take counsel," replied Franklin. 
 
 The interval which elapsed before the day nom- 
 inated could not have been very lightsome for the 
 unfortunate agent for the Massachusetts Bay. Not 
 only had he the task of selecting and instructing 
 competent counsel, but even his self-possessed, and 
 composed nature must have been severely harassed 
 by the rumors of which the air was full. He heard 
 from all quarters that the ministry and courtiers 
 were highly enraged against him ; he was called an 
 incendiar}^ and the newspapers teemed with invec- 
 tives against him. He heard that he was to be ap- 
 
THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 185 
 
 prehended and sent to Newgate, and that his papers 
 were to be seized ; that after he had been sufficiently 
 blackened by the hearing he would be deprived of 
 his place ; with disheartening news also that the 
 disposition of. the petition had already been deter- 
 mined.^ At the same time a subpoena was served 
 upon him at the private suit of Whately, who was 
 under personal obligations to him, but was also a 
 banker to the government. Certainly the heavens 
 threatened a cloudburst with appalling thunder 
 and dano^erous lio^htninof. 
 
 Upon reflection Franklin was disposed to do with- 
 out counsel, but Mr. Bollan now became strongly 
 of the contrary opinion. So Mr. Dunning and 
 Mr. John Lee were retained. The former had 
 been solicitor-general, and was a man of mark and 
 ability in the profession. When the hearing came 
 on, the Cockpit presented such a spectacle that 
 Franklin felt assured that the whole affair had 
 been "preconcerted." The hostile courtiers had 
 been " invited, as to an entertainment, and there 
 never was such an appearance of privy councilors 
 on any occasion, not less than thirty-five, besides 
 an immense crowd of other auditors." Every one 
 save the privy councilors had to stand from 
 beginning to end of the proceedings. Franklin 
 occupied a position beside the fireplace, where he 
 stood throughout immovable as a statue, his feat- 
 ures carefully composed so that not one trace of 
 emotion was apparent upon them, showing a degree 
 1 Franklin's Works, v. 297, 298. 
 
186 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 of self-control which was extraordinary even in one 
 who was at once a man of the world and a philoso- 
 pher, with sixty-eight years of experience in life. 
 Mr. Dunning, with his voice unfortunately weak- 
 ened by a cold, was not always audible and made 
 little impression. Mr. Lee was uselessly feeble. 
 Wedderburn, thus inefficiently opposed, and con- 
 scious of the full sympathy of the tribunal, poured 
 forth a vile flood of personal invective. Through- 
 out his life he approved himself a mean-spirited 
 and ignoble man, despised by those who used and 
 rewarded his able and debased services. On this 
 occasion he eagerly took advantage of the protec- 
 tion afforded by his position and by Dr. Frank- 
 lin's age to use language which, under such circum- 
 stances, was as cowardly as it was false. Nothing, 
 he said, " will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of 
 obtaining [the letters] by fraudulent or corrupt 
 means, for the most malignant of purposes, unless 
 he stole them from the person who stole them." 
 " I hope, my lords, you will mark and brand the 
 man, for the honor of this country, of Europe, and 
 of mankind." " He has forfeited all the respect of 
 societies and of men. Into what companies will he 
 hereafter go with an unembarrassed face or the 
 honest intrepidity of virtue ? Men will watch him 
 wath a jealous eye ; they will hide their papers 
 from him, and lock up their escritoires. He will 
 henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a man of 
 letters^ homo trium ^ literarum.^^ " But he not 
 
 1 A play upon the Latin word, fuk, a thief. 
 
THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 187 
 
 only took away the letters from one brother, but 
 kept himself concealed till he nearly occasioned 
 the murder of the other. It is impossible to read 
 his account, expressive of the coolest and most 
 deliberate malice, without horror. Amidst these 
 tragical events, — of one person nearly murdered, 
 of another answerable for the issue, of a worthy 
 governor hurt in his dearest interests, the fate of 
 America in suspense, — here is a man who, with 
 the utmost insensibility of remorse, stands up and 
 avows himself the author of all. I can compare 
 it only to Zanga, in Dr. Young's ' Revenge.' 
 
 ' Know then 't was — I ; 
 I forged the letter, I disposed the picture ; 
 I hated, I despised, and I destroy.' 
 
 I ask, my lords, whether the revengeful temper 
 attributed, by poetic fiction only, to the bloody 
 African, is not surpassed by the coolness and apa- 
 thy of the wily American." 
 
 Such was the torrent of vilification which flowed 
 from the lips of one of the meanest of England's 
 lawyers, and the speaker was constantly encouraged 
 by applause, and by various indications of gratifica- 
 tion on the part of the tribunal before which he 
 argued. Dr. Priestley, who was present, said that 
 from the opening of the proceedings it was evident 
 " that the real object of the court was to insult Dr. 
 Franklin," an object in which their lordships were, 
 of course, able to achieve a complete success. " No 
 person belonging to the council behaved with de- 
 cent gravity, except Lord North," who came late 
 
188 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 and remained standing behind a cliair. It was a 
 disgraceful scene, but not of long duration ; ap- 
 parently there was little else done save to hear the 
 speeches of counsel. The report of the lords was 
 dated on the same day, and was a severe censure 
 upon the petition and the petitioners. More than 
 this, their lordships went out of their way to inflict 
 a wanton outrage upon Franklin. The question of 
 who gave the letters to him was one which all con- 
 cerned were extremely anxious to hear answered. 
 But it was also a question which he could not law- 
 fully be compelled to answer in these proceedings ; 
 it was wholly irrelevant ; moreover it was involved 
 in the cause then pending before the lord chancellor 
 in which Franklin was respondent. Accordingly, 
 by advice of counsel, advice unquestionably correct, 
 he refused to divulge what their lordships were so 
 curious to hear. Enraged, they said in their re- 
 port that his " silence " was abundant support for 
 the conclusion that the " charge of surreptitiously 
 obtaining the letters was a true one," although they 
 knew that in law and in fact his silence was wholly 
 justifiable. 
 
 Resolutely as Franklin sought at the time to re- 
 press any expression of his natural indignation, 
 there is evidence enough of how deeply he felt this 
 indignity. For example, there is the familiar story 
 of his dress. He wore, at the Cockpit, " a full 
 dress suit of spotted Manchester velvet." Many 
 years afterward, when it befell him, as one of the 
 ambassadors of his country, to sign the treaty of 
 
THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 189 
 
 alliance with France, the first treaty ever made by 
 the United States of America, and which practi- 
 cally insured the defeat of Great Britain in the 
 pending war, it was observed by Dr. Bancroft that 
 he was attired in this same suit. The signing was 
 to have taken place on February 5, but was un- 
 expectedly postponed to the next day, when again 
 Franklin appeared in the same old suit and set his 
 hand to the treaty. Dr. Bancroft says : " I once 
 intimated to Dr. Franklin the suspicion which his 
 wearing these clothes on that occasion had excited 
 in my mind, when he smiled, without telling me 
 whether it was well or ill founded." Having done 
 this service, the suit was again laid away until it 
 was brought forth to be worn at Paris at the sign- 
 ing of the treaty of peace with England, a circum- 
 stance the more noteworthy since at that time the 
 French court was in mourning.^ 
 
 It appears that Franklin for a time entertained 
 a purpose of drawing up an '' answer to the abuses " 
 cast at him upon this occasion. There was, how- 
 ever, no need for doing so, and his reason for 
 not doing it is more eloquent on his behalf with 
 posterity than any pamphlet could be. He said : 
 " It was partly written, but the affairs of public 
 importance I have been ever since engaged in pre- 
 vented my finishing it. The injuries too that my 
 country has suffered have absorbed private resent- 
 ments, and made it appear trifling for an individual 
 to trouble the world with his particular justifica- 
 
 ^ Parton's Life of Franklin^ ii. 508. 
 
190 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 tion, when all his compatriots were stigmatized by 
 the king and Parliament as being in every respect 
 the worst of mankind." 
 
 The proceedings at the Cockpit took place on a 
 Saturday. On the following Monday morning 
 Franklin got a " written notice from the secretary 
 of the general post-office, that his majesty's post- 
 master-general found it necessary to dismiss me 
 from my office of deputy postmaster-general in 
 North America.'* In other ways too the mischief 
 done him by this public assault could not be con- 
 cealed. It published to all the world the feeling 
 of the court and the ministry toward him, and told 
 Englishmen that it was no longer worth while to 
 keep up appearances of courtesy and good will. It 
 put upon him a judicial stigma, which was ample 
 excuse for the enemies of America henceforth to 
 treat him as both dishonored and dishonorable. 
 Hitherto his tact and his high character had pre- 
 served him in a great measure from the social an- 
 noyances and curtailments which he would naturally 
 have suffered as the prominent representative of 
 an unpopular cause. But it seemed now as if his 
 judgment had once and fatally played him false, 
 and certainly his good name and his prestige were 
 given over to his enemies, who dealt cruelly with 
 them. He felt that it was the end of his useful- 
 ness, also that his own self-respect and dignity 
 must be carefully preserved ; and he wrote to the 
 Assembly of Massachusetts to say that it would be 
 impossible for him longer to act as its agent. From 
 
THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 191 
 
 that time he never attended the levee of a minister. 
 The portcullis had dropped ; the days of his service 
 in England were over. 
 
 The conclusion had come painfully, yet it was 
 not without satisfaction that he saw himself free 
 to return home. His affairs had suffered in his 
 absence, and needed his attention now more than 
 ever, since he was deprived of his income from the 
 post-office. Moreover his efforts could no longer be 
 cheered with hopes of success or even of achieving 
 any substantial advantage for his countrymen. He 
 was obliged to admit that the good disposition of 
 Lord Dartmouth had had no practical results. 
 " No single measure of his predecessor has since 
 been even attempted to be changed, and, on the 
 contrary, new ones have been continually added, 
 further to exasperate these people, render them des- 
 perate, and drive them, if possible, into open rebel- 
 lion." It had been a vexatious circumstance, too, 
 that not long before this time he had received a 
 rebuke from the Massachusetts Assembly for hav- 
 ing been lax, as they fancied, in notifying them of 
 some legislation of an injurious character, which 
 was in preparation. " This censure," he said, 
 " though grievous, does not so much surprise me, 
 as I apprehended all along from the beginning 
 that between the friends of an old agent, my pre- 
 decessor, who thought himself hardly used in his 
 dismission, and those of a young man impatient for 
 the succession, my situation was not likely to be 
 a ver}^ comfortable one, as my faults could scarce 
 
192 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 pass unobserved." This reference to the malicious 
 and untrustworthy backbiter, Arthur Lee, might 
 have been much more severe, and still amply de- 
 served. The most important acts of his ignoble 
 life, by which alone his memory is preserved, were 
 the slanders which he set in circulation concerning 
 Franklin. Yet Franklin, little suspicious and very 
 magnanimous, praised him as a " gentleman of 
 parts and ability," likely to serve the Province with 
 zeal and activity. Probably from this impure Lee 
 fount, but possibly from some other source, there now 
 came a renewal of the rumors that Franklin was to 
 be gained over to the ministerial side by promotion 
 to some office superior to that which he had held. 
 The injurious story was told in Boston, where per- 
 haps a few persons believed it to be true of a man 
 who in fact could hardly have set upon his fealty a 
 price so high that the British government would 
 not gladly have paid it, and who heretofore had 
 been, and at this very time again was, tempted by 
 repeated solicitations and the intimations of grand 
 rewards, only to change his mind — a matter so 
 very easy in politics. 
 
 Furthermore, beyond these assaults upon his 
 fidelity, these insults of the privy council, Frank- 
 lin had to contemplate the possibility of personal 
 danger. He was a man of abundant courage, but 
 courage does not make a prison or a gallows an 
 agreeable object in one's horizon. The newspapers 
 alleged that in his correspondence " treason " 
 had been discovered. The ministry, as he was 
 
THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 193 
 
 directly informed, thought no better of him than 
 did the editors, regarding him as "the great fo- 
 menter of the opposition in America," the " great 
 adversary to any accommodation." "It is given 
 out," he wrote, " that copies of several letters of 
 mine to you are sent over here to the ministers, 
 and that their contents are treasonable, for which 
 I should be prosecuted if copies could be made evi- 
 dence." He was not conscious of any treasonable 
 intention, but treason was a word to make a man 
 anxious in those days, when uttered by the minis- 
 try and echoed by the court. Franklin was quite 
 aware that, though ministers might offer him a 
 tempting place by way of bribe, they would far 
 rather give him " a place in a cart to Tyburn." 
 His friends warned him that his situation was 
 hazardous ; that, " if by some accident the troops 
 and the people of New England should come to 
 blows," he would doubtless be seized ; and they 
 advised him to withdraw while yet he could do so. 
 Hutchinson frankly avowed that, if his advice were 
 taken, the withdrawal would not be permitted. 
 " But," said Franklin, " I venture to stay," upon 
 the chance of still being of use, " and I confide on 
 my innocence that the worst which can happen to 
 me will be an imprisonment upon suspicion ; though 
 that is a thing I should much desire to avoid, as it 
 may be expensive and vexatious, as well as danger- 
 ous to my health." So spoke this imperturbable 
 man, and calmly stayed at his post. 
 
 He was still consulted by both sides in England. 
 
19r!: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 In the August following the scene in the privy 
 council chamber, he called upon Lord Chatham 
 and had a long and interesting interview. He 
 then said that he attributed the late " wrong poli- 
 tics " to the departure from the old and true Brit- 
 ish principle, " whereby every Province was well 
 governed, being trusted in a great measure with 
 the government of itself." When it was sought 
 to take this privilege from the colonies, grave 
 blunders had inevitably ensued ; because, as he 
 admirably expressed it. Parliament insisted upon 
 being omnipotent when it was not omniscient. In 
 other words, the affairs of the unrepresented colo- 
 nies were mismanaged through sheer ignorance. 
 It is noteworthy that England has since recognized 
 the necessity of precisely the principle indicated by 
 Franklin for colonial government ; all her great 
 colonies are now " trusted in a great measure with 
 the government " of themselves, and are conse- 
 quently " well governed." Franklin further as- 
 sured his lordship that in all his travels in the 
 provinces he had never once heard independence 
 hinted at as a desirable thing. This gave Chat- 
 ham much pleasure ; but perhaps neither of them 
 at the moment reflected how many eventful years 
 had elapsed since Franklin was last journeying in 
 America. He further declared that the colonists 
 were " even not against regulations of the general 
 commerce by Parliament, provided such regulations 
 were hona fide for the benefit of the whole empire^ 
 not to the small advantage of one part to the great 
 
THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 195 
 
 injury of another." This, by the way, was a good 
 point, which he found very serviceable when peo- 
 ple talked to him about the unity of the empire. 
 A genuine unity was just the gospel which he liked 
 to preach. " An equal dispensation," he said, " of 
 protection, rights, privileges, and advantages is 
 what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy, 
 it being a matter of no moment to the state whether 
 a subject grows rich and flourishing on the Thames 
 or the Ohio, in Edinburgh or Dublin." But no 
 living Englishman could accept this broad and 
 liberal doctrine. The notion that the colonies were 
 a dependency and should be tributary to the greater 
 power was universal. It was admitted that they 
 should not be oppressed ; but it was believed that 
 between oppression and that perfect unity which 
 involved entire equality there was certainly a mid- 
 dle ground whereon the colonies might properly be 
 established. 
 
 Lord Chatham expressed in courteous compli- 
 ments the gratification which this visit afforded 
 him. Not long afterward he came gallantly to the 
 defense of Franklin in the House of Lords. It was 
 one day in February, 1775 ; Franklin was stand- 
 ing in full view, leaning on a rail ; Lord Sandwich 
 was speaking against a measure of conciliation or 
 agreement just introduced by Chatham. He said 
 that it deserved " only contempt," and " ought to 
 be immediately rejected. I can never believe it 
 to be the production of any British peer. It ap- 
 pears to me rather the work of some American. 
 
196 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 I fancy I have in my eye the j)erson who drew it 
 up, one of the bitterest and most mischievous ene- 
 mies this country has ever known." Speaking 
 thus, he looked full at Franklin, and drew uj)on 
 him the general attention. But Chatham hastened 
 to defend the defenseless one. " The plan is en- 
 tirely my own," he said ; "but if I were the first 
 minister, and had the care of settling this momen- 
 tous business, I should not be ashamed of calling 
 to my assistance a person so perfectly acquainted 
 with the whole of American affairs, one whom all 
 Europe ranks with our Boyles and Newtons, as an 
 honor not to the English nation only but to human 
 nature." This was spirited and friendly ; Frank- 
 lin had a way of making warm and loyal friends. 
 Most men would have rejoiced to be so abused by 
 Sandwich in order to be so complimented by Chat- 
 ham.^ 
 
 Yet in spite of the high esteem in which so many 
 Englishmen still held Franklin an incident occurred 
 at this time which showed very plainly that the 
 term of his full usefulness was indeed over, though 
 not altogether for the reasons which had led him to 
 think so. The fact was that the proverbial last 
 feather which breaks the back had been laid upon 
 him. His endurance had been overtaxed, and he 
 was at last in that temper and frame of mind in 
 which the wisest men are liable to make grave mis- 
 takes. He was one day present at a debate in the 
 House of Commons, and found himself, as he says, 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., v. 220. 
 
THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 197 
 
 " much disgusted, from the ministerial side, by 
 many base reflections on American courage, reli- 
 gion, understanding, etc., in which we were treated 
 with the utmost contempt, as the lowest of man- 
 kind, and almost of a different species from the 
 English of Britain ; but particularly the American 
 honesty was abused by some of the lords, who as- 
 serted that we were all knaves, etc." Franklin went 
 home " somewhat irritated and heated," and before 
 he had cooled he wrote a paper which he hastened 
 to show to his friend Mr. Thomas Walpole, a 
 member of the House of Commons. Mr. Walpole 
 " looked at it and at me several times alternately, 
 as if he apprehended me a little out of my senses." 
 Nor would Mr. Walpole have been altogether with- 
 out reason, if in fact he entertained such a suspi- 
 cion. The paper was the memorial of Benjamin 
 Franklin to the Earl of Dartmouth, secretary of 
 state. In its first clause it demanded " repara- 
 tion " for the injury done by the blockade of the 
 port of Boston. Conventional forms of speech 
 were observed, yet there was an atmosphere almost 
 of injurious insolence, entirely foreign to all other 
 productions of Franklin's brain and pen. Its se- 
 cond paragraph recited that the conquests made in 
 the northeast from France, which included all 
 those extensive fisheries which still survive as a 
 bone of contention between the two countries, had 
 been jointly won by England and the American 
 colonies, at their common cost, and by an army in 
 which the provincial troops were nearly equal in 
 
198 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 numbers to the British. "It follows," the auda-' 
 cious memorialist said, " that the colonies have an 
 equitable and just right to participate in the advan- 
 tage of those fisheries," and the present English 
 attempt to deprive the Massachusetts people of 
 sharing in them was " an act highly unjust and in- 
 jurious." He concluded : " I give notice that satis- 
 faction will probably one day be demanded for all 
 the injury that may be done and suffered in the 
 execution of such act ; and that the injustice of the 
 proceeding is likely to give such umbrage to all the 
 colonies that in no future war, wherein other con- 
 quests may be meditated, either a man or a shilling 
 will be obtained from any of them to aid such con- 
 quests, till full satisfaction be made as aforesaid." 
 Here was indeed a fulmination to strike an Eng- 
 lishman breathless and dumb with amazement. It 
 put the colonies in the position of a coequal or al- 
 lied power, entitled to share with Britain the spoils 
 of victory ; even in the position of an independent 
 power which could refuse the military allegiance 
 of subjects. English judges would have found 
 abundant treason in this insubordinate document. 
 It may soothe common men to see the wise, the se- 
 rene, the self-contained Dr. Franklin, the philoso- 
 pher and diplomatist, for once lose his head in a 
 gust of uncontrollable passion. Walpole, though 
 a loyal Englishman, was fortunately his true friend, 
 and wrote him, with a brevity more impressive than 
 argument, that the memorial " might be attended 
 with dangerous consequences to your person and 
 
THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 199 
 
 contribute to exasperate the nation." He closed 
 with tlie significant sentence : " I heartily wish 
 you a prosperous voyage and long health." The 
 significant words remind one of the woodcock's 
 feather with which Wildrake warned the disguised 
 monarch that no time was to be lost in fleeing from 
 Woodstock. But if the hint was curt, it was no 
 less wise. There was no doubt that it was full 
 time for the sage to be exchanging his farewells, 
 when such a point had been reached. The next 
 day, as Franklin relates, Walpole called and said 
 that " it was thought my having no instructions 
 directing me to deliver such a protest would make 
 it appear still more unjustifiable, and be deemed a 
 national affront. I had no desire to make matters 
 worse, and, being grown cooler, took the advice so 
 kindly given me." 
 
 The last business which Franklin had to trans- 
 act on the eve of his departure came in the shape of 
 one of those mj^sterious and obscure bits of negotia- 
 tion w^hich are at times undertaken by private per- 
 sons who are very " near " to ministers, and who 
 conduct their affairs with impressive secrecy. Just 
 how much this approach amounted to it is difficult 
 to say ; no less a person than Lord Howe was con- 
 cerned in it, and he was undoubtedly in direct 
 communication with Lord North. But whether 
 that potentate really anticipated any substantial 
 good result may be doubted. Franklin himself has 
 told the story with much particularity, and since it 
 will neither bear curtailment nor admit of being 
 
200 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 related at length, and since the whole palaver ac- 
 complished absolutely nothing, the relation will be 
 omitted here. In the course of it the efforts to 
 bribe Franklin were renewed, and briefly rejected 
 by him. Also he met, and established a very 
 friendly personal relation with, Lord Howe, who 
 afterward commanded the British fleet in American 
 waters. 
 
 Having discovered the emptiness of this busi- 
 ness Franklin at last completed his arrangements 
 for his return home. He placed his agencies in the 
 hands of Arthur Lee. His last day in London he 
 passed with his staunch old friend, Dr. Priestley, 
 and a large part of the time, says the doctor, " he 
 was looking over a number of American news- 
 papers, directing me what to extract from them for 
 the English ones ; and in reading them he was fre- 
 quently not able to proceed for the tears literally 
 running down his cheeks." Such was the depth of 
 feeling in one often accounted callous, indifferent, 
 or even untrustworthy in the matter of American 
 relations with England. He felt some anxiety as 
 to whether his departure might not be prevented 
 b}^ an arrest, and made his journey to Portsmouth 
 with such sjDeed and precautions as were possible.^ 
 But he was not interrupted, and sailed on some day 
 near the middle of March, 1775. His departure 
 marked an era in the relations of Great Britain 
 with her American colonies. It signified that all 
 hope of agreement, all possibility of reconciliation 
 
 ^ Parton's Life of Franklin, ii. 70. 
 
TEE HUTCHINSON LETTERS. 201 
 
 upon one side or of recession upon the other, were 
 absohitely over. That Franklin gave up in de- 
 spair the task of preventing a war meant that war 
 was certain and imminent. He arrived in Phila- 
 delphia May 5, 1775. During his absence his 
 wife had died, and his daughter had married a 
 young man, Richard Bache, whom he had never 
 yet seen. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SERVICES IN THE STATES. 
 
 From the solitude of the ocean to the seething 
 turmoil which Franklin found in the colonies must 
 have been a startling transition. He had come 
 home an old man, lacking but little of the allotted 
 threescore years and ten. He had earned and de- 
 sired repose, but never before had he encountered 
 such exacting, important, and unremitting labor as 
 immediately fell to his lot. Lexington and Con- 
 cord fights had taken place a fortnight before he 
 landed, and the news preceded him in Philadelphia 
 by a few days only. Many feelings may be dis- 
 cerned in the brief note which he wrote on May 
 16th to Dr. Priestley : — 
 
 " Dear Friend, — You will have heard, before this 
 reaches you, of a march stolen by the regulars into the 
 country by night, and of their expedition back again. 
 They retreated twenty miles in six hours. The governor 
 had called the Assembly to propose Lord North's 
 pacific plan, but before the time of their meeting began 
 the cutting of throats. You know it was said he carried 
 the sword in one hand and the olive branch in the other, 
 and it seems he chose to give them a taste of the sword 
 first." 
 
 « 
 
SERVICES IN THE STATES. 203 
 
 To another correspondent he said that " the 
 feeble Americans, who pelted them all the way, 
 could scarcely keep up with " the rapidly retreat- 
 ing redcoats. But the occurrence of bloodshed had 
 an immense meaning for Franklin ; it opened to 
 his vision all the future : an irreconcilable struggle, 
 and finally independence, with a bitter animosity 
 Ions: survivinof. He could not address all those 
 who had once been near and dear to him in Eng- 
 land as he did the good Dr. Priestley. The letter 
 to Strahan of July 5, 1775, is famous : — 
 
 " Mr. Strahan, — You are a member of Parliament, 
 and one of that majority which has doomed my country 
 to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns and 
 murder our people. Look upon your hands ; they are 
 stained with the blood of your relations ! You and I 
 were long friends ; you are now my enemy, and I am, 
 " Yours, B. Franklin." 
 
 But strained as his relations with Strahan were 
 for a while, it is agreeable to know that the es- 
 trano-ement between such old and close friends was 
 not everlasting. 
 
 To write at length concerning Franklin's ser- 
 vices during his brief stay at home would involve 
 giving a history of the whole affairs of the colonies 
 at this time. But space presses, and this ground 
 is familiar and has been traversed in other volumes 
 in this series. It seems sufficient therefore rather 
 to enumerate than to narrate his various engage- 
 ments, and thus to reserve more room for less well- 
 known matters. 
 
204 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 On the very day after his return, when he had 
 scarce caught the breath of land, he was unani- 
 mously elected by the Assembly a delegate to the 
 Provincial Congress. It was an emergency when 
 the utmost must be made of time, brains, and men. 
 By subsequent reelections he continued to sit in 
 that body until his departure for France. There 
 was business enough before it : the organization of 
 a government, of the army, of the finances ; most 
 difficult of all, the arrangement of a national policy, 
 and the harmonizing of conflicting opinions among 
 men of influence at home. In all that came before 
 the Congress Franklin was obliged to take his full 
 share. He seems to have been upon all the busy 
 and important committees. There were more ar- 
 dent spirits, greater propelling forces, than he was ; 
 but his wisdom was transcendent. Dickinson and 
 his followers were bent upon sending one more 
 petition to the king, a scheme which was ridiculed 
 almost with anger by the more advanced and reso- 
 lute party. But Franklin's counsel was to give 
 way to their wishes, as being the best policy for 
 bringing them later into full accord with the party 
 which was for war. He had no hopes of any other 
 good result from the proceeding ; but it also 
 chimed with his desire to put the English as much 
 as possible in the wrong. In the like direction was 
 a clause in his draft of a declaration, intended to 
 be issued by Washington in the summer of 1775. 
 To counteract the charge that the colonies refused 
 to contribute to the cost of their own protection, 
 
SERVICES IN THE STATES. 205 
 
 he proposed that, if Great Britain woukl abolisli 
 her monopoly of the colonial trade, allowing free 
 commerce between the colonies and all the rest of 
 the world, they would pay into the English sinking 
 fund X100,000 annually for one hundred years; 
 which would be more than sufficient, if '' faithfully 
 and inviolably applied for that purpose, ... to 
 extinguish all her present national debt." 
 
 At the close of this document he administered a 
 telling fillip in his humorous style to that numer- 
 ous class who seek to control practical affairs by 
 sentiment, and who now would have had their 
 prattle about the " mother country " outweigh the 
 whole accumulation of her very unmaternal op- 
 pression and injustice. Concerning the allegation 
 of an unlilial ingratitude, he said : '^ There is 
 much more reason for retorting that charge on 
 Britain, who not only never contributes any aid, 
 nor affords, by an exclusive commerce, any advan- 
 tages to Saxony, her mother country ; but, no 
 longer since than the last war, without the least pro- 
 vocation, subsidized the king of Prussia while he 
 ravaged that mother country, and carried fire and 
 sword into its capital. . . . An example we ho^De 
 no provocation will induce us to imitate." Had this 
 declaration ever been used, which it was not, the 
 dignity of the grave general who commanded the 
 American forces would have compelled him to cut 
 off this closing snapper from the lash, amusing 
 as it was. The witty notion had found a more 
 appropriate place in the newspaper article which 
 
206 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 had dumfoiinded the guests at the English coun- 
 try house. Commenting upon this, Mr. Parton 
 well says : " Here perhaps we have one of the rea- 
 sons why Dr. Franklin, who was universally con- 
 fessed to be the ablest pen in America, was not al- 
 ways asked to write the great documents of the 
 Kevolution. He would have put a joke into the 
 Declaration of Independence, if it had fallen to him 
 to write it. . . . His jokes, the circulating medium 
 of Congress, were as helpful to the cause as Jay's 
 conscience, or Adams's fire ; . . . but they were out 
 of place in formal, exact, and authoritative papers." ^ 
 
 A document which cost Dr. Franklin much more 
 labor than this declaration was a plan for a union 
 of the colonies, which he brought forward July 
 21, 1775. It was the " first sketch of a plan of 
 confederation which is known to have been pre- 
 sented to Congress." No final action was ever 
 taken upon it. It contained a provision that Ire- 
 land, the West India Islands, the Canadian posses- 
 sions, and Florida might, upon application, be re- 
 ceived into the confederation. 
 
 Franklin's duties in Congress were ample to 
 consume his time and strength ; but they were far 
 from being all that he had to do. Almost imme- 
 diately after his return he was made chairman of a 
 committee for organizing the postal service of the 
 country. In execution of this duty he established 
 in substance that system which has ever since pre- 
 vailed ; and he was then at once appointed jDost- 
 
 1 Life of Franklin, ii. 85. 
 
SERVICES IN THE STATES. 207 
 
 master-general, with a salary of XI, 000 per annum. 
 AVhen franking letters he amused himself by 
 changing the formula, " Free : B. Franklin " into 
 *' B. Free, Franklin." 
 
 He was next made chairman of the provincial 
 committee of safety, a body which began its sit- 
 tings at the comfortable, old-fashioned hour of six 
 o'clock in the morning. Its duty was to call out 
 and organize all the military resources of Pennsyl- 
 vania, and generally to provide for the defenses of 
 the Province. It worked with much efficiency in 
 its novel and . difficult department. Among other 
 things, Franklin devised and constructed some in- 
 genious "marine cJievaux de frise^^ for closing 
 the river approaches to Philadelphia. 
 
 In October, 1775, he was elected a member of the 
 Assembly of the Province. But this did not add 
 to his labors ; for the oath of allegiance had not 
 yet been dispensed with ; he would not take it, and 
 resigned his seat. 
 
 In September, 1775, Franklin, Lynch of South 
 Carolina, and Harrison of Virginia, as a committee 
 of Congress, were dispatched to Cambridge, Mas- 
 sachusetts, to confer with Washington concern- 
 ing military affairs. They rode from Philadelphia 
 to the leaguer around Boston in thirteen days. 
 Their business was achieved with no great diffi- 
 culty ; but they lingered a few days more in that 
 interesting camp, and were absent six weeks. Gen- 
 eral Greene has recorded how he gazed upon Frank- 
 lin, " that very great man, with silent admiration ; " 
 
208 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 and Abigail Adams tells with what interest she 
 met him whom " from infancy she had been taught 
 to venerate," and how she read in his grave coun- 
 tenance " patriotism in its full lustre " and with it 
 " blended every virtue of a Christian." The phrase 
 was not well chosen to fall from the pen of Mrs. 
 Adams, yet was literally true ; Franklin had the 
 virtues, though dissevered from the tenets which 
 that worthy Puritan dame conceived essential to 
 the make up of a genuine Christian. The time 
 came when her husband would not have let her 
 speak thus in praise of Benjamin Franklin. 
 
 In the spring of 1776 Congress was inconsiderate 
 enough to impose upon Franklin a journey to Mon- 
 treal, there to confer with General Arnold concern- 
 ing affairs in Canada. It was a severe, even a 
 cruel task to put upon a man of his age ; but with 
 his usual tranquil courage he accepted the mission. 
 He met the ice in the rivers, and suffered much 
 from fatigue and exposure ; indeed, the carelessness 
 of Congress was near depriving the country of a 
 life which could not have been spared. On April 
 15th he wrote from Saratoga : " I begin to apjDre- 
 hend that I have undertaken a fatigue that at my 
 time of life may prove too much for me ; so I sit 
 down to write to a few friends by way of farewell ; " 
 and still the real wilderness with all its hardships 
 lay before him. After he had traversed it he had 
 the poor reward of finding himself on a bootless 
 errand. The Canadian enterprise had no possible 
 future save failure and retreat. There was abso- 
 
SERVICI.S IN THE STATES. 209 
 
 lutely nothing which he coukl do in Canada ; he 
 was being- wasted there, and resolved to get away 
 as soon as he conkl. Accordingly he made his 
 painful way homeward ; but worn out as he was, 
 he was given scant opportunity to recuperate from 
 this perilous and mistaken journey. The times 
 called upon every patriot to spend all he had of 
 vigor, intellect, money, life itself, for the common 
 cause, and Franklin was no niggard in the stress. 
 
 In the spring of 1776 the convention charged to 
 prepare a constitution for the independent State of 
 Pennsylvania was elected. Franklin was a member, 
 and when the convention came together he was 
 chosen to preside over its deliberations. It sat from 
 July 16th to September 28th. The constitution 
 which it presented to the people established a legis- 
 lature of only one house, a feature which Franklin 
 approved and defended. At the close of the delib- 
 erations thanks were unanimously voted to him for 
 his services as presiding officer, and for his " able 
 and disinterested advice." 
 
 Yet in spite of abundant acts, like this, of real 
 independence taking place upon all sides, profession 
 of it inspired alarm in a large proportion of the 
 people. Congress even declared formally that 
 independence was not aimed at. Sam Adams, dis- 
 gusted, talked of forming a New England confed- 
 eracy, and Franklin approved the scheme and said 
 that in such an event he would cast in his lot with 
 the New Englanders. But the stream ran on in 
 spite of some snags in the current It was not 
 
210 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 mucli later that Franklin found himself one of the 
 committee of five elected by ballot to frame a decla- 
 ration of independence. Had he been called upon 
 to write the document he would certainly have 
 given something more terse and simple than that 
 rotund and magniloquent instrument which Jeffer- 
 son bequeathed to the unbounded admiration of 
 American posterity. As it was, Franklin's recorded 
 connection with the preparation of that famous 
 paper is confined to the amusing tale about John 
 Thompson, Hatter, wherewith he mitigated the 
 miseries of Jefferson during the debate ; and to his 
 familiar bon-mot in reply to Harrison's appeal for 
 unanimity : " Yes, we must indeed all hang to- 
 gether, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." 
 With this rather grim jest upon his lip, he set his 
 signature to one of the greatest documents in the 
 world's history. 
 
 When it came to shaping the machinery of the 
 confederation, the great difficulty, as is well known, 
 lay in establishing a just proportion between the 
 larger and the smaller states. Should they have 
 equal weight in voting, or not ? It was a question 
 so vital and so hard to settle that the confederacy 
 narrowly survived the strain. Franklin was de- 
 cidedly in favor of making the voting value propor- 
 tionate to the size, measured by population, of the 
 several states. He said : Let the smaller colonies 
 give equal money and men, and then let them have 
 an equal vote. If they have an equal vote without 
 bearing equal burdens, a confederation based on 
 
SERVICES IN THE STATES. 211 
 
 such iniquitous principles will not last long. To 
 set out with an unequal representation is unreason- 
 able. There is no danger that the larger states 
 will absorb the smaller. The same apprehension 
 was expressed when Scotland was united to Eng- 
 land. It was then said that the whale had swal- 
 lowed Jonah ; but Lord Bute's administration came 
 in, and then it was seen that Jonah had swallowed 
 the whale. That Scotch favorite was the provoca- 
 tion for many witty sayings, but for none better 
 than this. 
 
 In July, 1776, Lord Howe arrived, in command 
 of the English fleet. He immediately sought to 
 open a friendly correspondence with Franklin. He 
 had played a prominent part in those efforts at 
 conciliation which had come to naught just before 
 Franklin's departure from England ; and he now 
 renewed his generous attempt to act as a mediator. 
 There is no doubt that this nobleman, as kindly as 
 brave, would far rather have reconciled the Amer- 
 icans than have fought them. By permission of 
 Congress Franklin replied by a long letter, not 
 deficient in courtesy of language, but full of argu- 
 ment upon the American side, and in a tone which 
 there was no misconceiving. Its closing paragraph 
 was: — 
 
 " I consider this war against us, therefore, as both 
 unjust and unwise ; and I am persuaded that cool, dis- 
 passionate posterity will condemn to infamy those who 
 advised it ; and that even success will not save from 
 some degree of dishonor those who voluntarily engaged 
 
212 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 to conduct it. I know your great motive in coming 
 hither was the hope of being instrumental in a reconcili- 
 ation ; and I believe, when you find that impossible on 
 any terms given you to propose, you will relinquish so 
 odious a command, and return to a more honorable pri- 
 vate station." 
 
 If the Englishman had been hot-tempered, this 
 would probably have ended the correspondence ; as 
 it was, he only delayed for a while before writing 
 civilly again. The battle of Long Island next 
 occurred, and Lord Howe fancied that that disaster 
 might bring the Americans to their senses. He 
 paroled General Sullivan and by him sent a mes- 
 saofe to Cono^ress : That he and his brother had 
 full powers to arrange an accommodation ; that 
 they could not at present treat with Congress as 
 such, but would like to confer with some of its 
 members as private gentlemen. After a long 
 debate it was resolved to send a committee of Con- 
 gress to meet the admiral and the general, and 
 Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge were 
 deputed. Lord Howe received them with much 
 courtesy, and gave them a lunch before proceeding 
 to business. But when luncheon was over and the 
 substance of the errand was reached, it was very 
 shortly disposed of. His lordship opened with a 
 speech of elaborate civility, and concluded by say- 
 ing that he felt for America as for a brother, and 
 if America should fall he should feel and lament it 
 like the loss of a brother. Franklin replied : " My 
 lord, we will use our utmost endeavors to save your 
 
SERVICES IN THE STATES. 213 
 
 lordship that mortification." But Lord Howe did 
 not relish this Yankee wit. He continued by a 
 long, explanatory, conciliatory address. At its 
 close there was necessarily brought up the question 
 of the character in which the envoys came. His 
 lordship thought that the idea of Congress might 
 " easily be thrown out at present." Franklin 
 adroitly settled it: "Your lordship may consider 
 us in any view you think proper. We on our part 
 are at liberty to consider ourselves in our real char- 
 acter. But there is really no necessity on this 
 occasion to distinguish between members of Con- 
 gress and individuals. The conversation may be 
 held as among friends." Mr. Adams made one of 
 those blunt and pugnacious remarks which, when- 
 ever addressed to Englishmen, are sure to endear 
 the speaker to the American nation. Mr. Rutledge 
 laid over it the courtesy of a gentleman ; and then 
 the conference came to the point. 
 
 Lord Howe expressed his majesty's earnest de- 
 sire for a permanent peace and for the happiness 
 of his American subjects, his willingness for a re- 
 form and for a redress of grievances. But he ad- 
 mitted that the Declaration of Independence was 
 an awkward obstacle. He asked : " Is there no way 
 of treating back of this step of independency?" 
 Franklin replied at some length, closing with the 
 words : " Forces have been sent out, and towns 
 have been burnt. We cannot now expect happi- 
 ,ness under the domination of Great Britain. All 
 former attachments are obliterated. America can- 
 
214 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 not return to the domination of Great Britain, and 
 I imagine tliat Great Britain means to rest it upon 
 force." Adams said : " It is not in our power to 
 treat otherwise than as independent states ; and for 
 my own part, I avow my determination never to 
 depart from the idea of independency." Butledge 
 said; "With regard to the people consenting to 
 come again under the English government, it is im- 
 possible. I can answer for South Carolina." Lord 
 Howe replied : " If such are your sentiments, I can 
 only regret that it is not in my power to bring about 
 the accommodation I wish." Thus the fruitlessness 
 of such efforts was made manifest ; of all concerned 
 it is probable that the most amiable of Englishmen 
 was the only one who was disappointed at the re- 
 sult. The Americans were by no means displeased 
 at having another and conclusive proof to convince 
 the doubting ones that reconciliation was an impos- 
 sibility. I^'l 
 
 Eranklin's language was expressive of the way 
 in which his mind had worked. Until it came to 
 the " cutting of throats," he had never altogether 
 and avowedly given up hopes that, from the re- 
 servoir of unknown things in the future, something 
 might in time come forth that would bring about 
 a reasonable accommodation. But the first blood- 
 shed effected a change in his feelings as irrevocable 
 as that which Hawthorne so subtly represents as 
 having been worked in the nature of Donatello by 
 a violent taking of life. " Bunker's Hill " excited, 
 him ; the sack of Falmouth affected him with ter- 
 
SERVICES IN THE STATES. 215 
 
 rible intensity. AVheu the foolish petition of the 
 Dickinson party was sent to England, he wrote to 
 Dr. Priestley that the colonies had given Britain 
 one more chance of recovering their friendship, 
 " which, however, I think she has not sense enough 
 to embrace ; and so I conclude she has lost them 
 forever. She has begun to burn our seaport towns, 
 secure, I suppose, that we shall never be able to 
 return the outrage in kind. ... If she wishes to 
 have us subjects . . . she is now giving us such 
 miserable specimens of her government that we 
 shall ever detest and avoid it, as a combination of 
 robbery, murder, famine, fire, and pestilence." His 
 humor could not be altogether repressed, but there 
 was sternness and bitterness underlying it : " Tell 
 our dear, good friend. Dr. Price, who sometimes 
 has his doubts and despondencies about our firm- 
 ness, that America is determiued and unanimous : 
 a very few Tories and placemen excepted, who will 
 probably soon export themselves. Britain, at the 
 expense of three millions, has killed one hundred 
 and fifty Yankees, this campaign, which is twenty 
 thousand pounds a head ; and at Bunker's Hill she 
 gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost 
 again by our taking post at Ploughed Hill. During 
 the same time 60,000 children have been born in 
 America. From these data his mathematical head 
 will easily calculate the time and expense necessary 
 to kill us all, and conquer our whole territory." It 
 was a comical way of expressing the real truth that 
 Britain neither would nor could give enough either 
 
216 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 of men, or money, or time to accomplisli the task 
 she had undertaken. To another he wrote : " We 
 hear that more ships and troops are coming out. 
 We know that you may do us a great deal of mis- 
 chief, and are determined to bear it patiently, as 
 long as we can. But if you flatter yourselves with 
 beating us into submission, you know neither the 
 people nor the country." Other men wrote ardent 
 words and indulged in the rhetorical extravagance 
 of intense excitement in those days ; Franklin 
 sometimes cloaked the intensity of his feeling in 
 humor, at other times spoke with a grave and self- 
 contained moderation which was within rather than 
 without the facts and the truth. Everything which 
 he said was true with precision to the letter. But 
 his careful statement and measured profession indi- 
 cate rather than belie the earnestness of his feeling, 
 the strength of his conviction, and the fixedness of 
 his resolution. 
 
 Thus briefly must be dismissed the extensive and 
 important toil of eighteen months, probably the 
 busiest of Franklin's long and busy life. In Sep- 
 tember, 1776, he was elected envoy to France, and 
 scant space is left for narrating the events of that 
 interesting embassage. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MINISTER TO FRANCE: I. 
 DEANE AND BEAUMARCHAIS : FOREIGN OFFICERS. 
 
 It is difficult to pass a satisfactory judgment 
 upon the diplomacy of the American Revolution. 
 If one takes its history in detail it presents a dis- 
 agreeable picture of importunate knocking at the 
 closed doors of foreign courts, of incessant and al- 
 most shameless begging for money and for any and 
 every kind of assets that could be made useful in 
 war, of public bickering and private slandering 
 among the envoys and agents themselves. If, on 
 the other hand, its achievements are considered, it 
 appears crowned with the distinction of substantial, 
 repeated, sometimes brilliant, successes. A like con- 
 trast is found in its personnel. Between Franklin 
 and Arthur Lee a distance opens like that between 
 the poles, in which stand such men as Jay and 
 Adams near the one extreme, Izard, William Lee, 
 and Thomas Morris near the other, with Deane, 
 Laurens, Carmichael, Jonathan Williams, and a 
 few more in the middle ground. Yet what could 
 have been reasonably expected ? Franklin had had 
 
218 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 some dealings with Englisli statesmen upon what 
 may be called international business, and had justly- 
 regarded himself in the light of a quasi foreign 
 minister. But with this exception not one man in 
 all the colonies had had the slightest experience in 
 diplomatic affairs, or any personal knowledge of 
 the requirements of a diplomatic office, or any op- 
 portunity to gain any ideas on the subject beyond 
 such as a well-educated man could glean from read- 
 ing the scant historical literature which existed in 
 those days. It was difficult also for Congress to 
 know how to judge and discriminate concerning the 
 material which it found at its disposal. There had 
 been nothing in the careers of the prominent pa- 
 triots to indicate whether or not any especial one 
 among them had a natural aptitude for diplomacy. 
 The selection must be made with little knowledge 
 of the duties of the position, and with no knowl- 
 edge of the responsive characteristics of the man. 
 It was only natural that many of the appointments 
 thus blindly made should turn out ill. After they 
 were made, and the appointees had successfully 
 crossed the ocean through the dangerous gauntlet 
 of the English cruisers, there arose to be answered 
 in Europe the embarrassing question : What these 
 self-styled representatives represented. Was it a 
 nation, or only a parcel of rebels ? Here was an 
 unusual and vexatious problem, concerning which 
 most of the cautious royal governments were in no 
 hurry to commit themselves ; and their reticence 
 added greatly to the perplexities of the fledgling 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 219 
 
 diplomats. Nearly all cabinets felt it a great temp- 
 tation to assist the colonies of the domineering 
 mistress of the seas to change themselves from her 
 dependencies into her naval rivals. But the at- 
 tempt and not the deed might prove confounding ; 
 neither could a wise monarch assume with entire 
 complacency the position of an aider and an abet- 
 tor of a rebellion on the part of subjects whose 
 grievances appeared chiefly an antipathy to taxa- 
 tion. 
 
 From the earliest moment France had been hope- 
 fully regarded by the colonists as probably their 
 friend and possibly their ally. To France, there- 
 fore, the first American envoy was dispatched with 
 promptitude, even before there was a declaration 
 of independence or an assumption of nationality. 
 Silas Deane was the man selected. He was the 
 true Yankee jack-at-all-trades ; he had been gradu- 
 ated at Yale College, then taught school, then prac- 
 ticed law, then engaged in trade, had been all the 
 while advancing in prosperity and reputation, had 
 been a member of the first and second congresses, 
 had failed of reelection to the third, and was now 
 without employment. Mr. Parton describes him 
 as " of somewhat striking manners and good ap- 
 pearance, accustomed to live and entertain in lib- 
 eral style, and fond of showy equipage and appoint- 
 ment." Perhaps his simple-minded fellow-country- 
 men of the provinces fancied that such a man would 
 make an imposing figure at an European court. He 
 developed no other peculiar fitness for his position ; 
 
220 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 he could not even speak French ; and it proved an 
 ill hour for himself in which he received this try- 
 ing and difficult honor. By dint of native shrewd- 
 ness, good luck, and falling among friends he made 
 a fair beginning ; but soon he floundered beyond 
 his depth, committed some vexatious blunders, and 
 in the course of conducting some important busi- 
 ness at last found himself in a position where he 
 bad really done right but appeared to have done 
 wrong, without being free to explain the truth. 
 The result was that he was recalled upon a pretext 
 which poorly concealed his disgrace, that he found 
 even his reputation for financial honesty clouded, 
 and that his prospects for the future were of the 
 worst. He was not a man of sufficient mental cali- 
 bre or moral strength to endure his unmerited suf- 
 ferings with constancy. After prolonged disap- 
 pointments in his attempts to set himself right in 
 the opinion of the country, he became embittered, 
 lost all judgment and patriotism, turned a renegade 
 to the cause of America, which had wronged him 
 indeed, but rather in ignorance than from malice, 
 and died unreconciled, a broken and miserable 
 exile. Such were the perils of the dij)lomatic ser- 
 vice of the colonies in those days. 
 
 Deane arrived in France in June, 1776. He 
 had with him a little ready money for his immedi- 
 ate personal expenses, and some letters of introduc- 
 tion from Franklin. It was intended to keep him 
 supplied with money by sending cargoes of tobacco, 
 rice, and indigo consigned to him, the proceeds of 
 
 i 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 221 
 
 which would be at his disposal for the public ser- 
 vice. He was instructed to seek an interview with 
 de Vergennes, the French minister for foreign af- 
 fairs, and to endeavor with all possible prudence 
 and delicacy to find out what signs of promise the 
 disposition of the French government really held 
 for the insurgents. He was also to ask for equip- 
 ment for 25,000 troops, ammunition, and 200 pieces 
 of field artillery, all to be paid for — when Con- 
 gress should be able ! In France he was to keep 
 his mission cloaked in secure secrecy, appearing 
 simply as a merchant conducting his own affairs ; 
 and he was to write home common business letters 
 under the very harmless and unsuggestive name of 
 Timothy Jones, adding the real despatch in invisi- 
 ble ink. But these commonplace precaul^ions were 
 rendered of no avail through the treachery of Dr. 
 Edward Bancroft, an American resident abroad, 
 who had the confidence of Congress, but who " ac- 
 cepted the post of a paid American spy, to prepare 
 himself for the more lucrative office of a double 
 spy for the British ministers." ^ Deane, going some- 
 what beyond his instructions to correspond with 
 Bancroft, told him everything. Bancroft is sup- 
 posed to have passed the information along to the 
 British ministry, and thus enabled them to inter- 
 pose serious hindrances in the way of the ingenious 
 devices of the Frenchmen. 
 
 Before the arrival of Deane the interests of the 
 colonies had been already taken in hand and sub- 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. -S., ix. 63. 
 
222 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 stantially advanced in France by one of tlie most 
 extraordinary characters in history. Caron de 
 Beaumarchais was a man whom no race save the 
 French could produce, and whose traits, career, and 
 success lie hopelessly beyond the comprehension of 
 the Anglo-Saxon. Bred a watchmaker, he had the 
 skill, when a mere youth, to invent a clever escape- 
 ment balance for regulating watches ; had he been 
 able to insert it into his own brain he might have 
 held more securely his elusive good fortunes. From 
 being an ingenious inventor he became an adven- 
 turer general, watchmaker to the king, the king's 
 mistresses, and the king's daughters, the lover, or 
 rather the beloved, of the wife of the controller of 
 the king's kitchen, then himself the controller, 
 thence a.courtier, and a favorite of the royal prin- 
 cesses. Through a clever use of his opportunities 
 he was able to do a great favor to a rich banker, 
 who in return gave him chances to amass a fortune, 
 and lent him money to buy a patent of nobility. 
 This connection ended in litigation, which was near 
 ruining him ; but he discovered corruption on the 
 part of the judge, and thereupon wrote his Memo- 
 rials, of which the wit, keenness, and vivacity made 
 him famous. He then rendered a private, personal, 
 and important service to Louis XV., and soon after- 
 wards another to the young Louis XVI. His ca- 
 pacity for secret usefulness gave him further occu- 
 pation and carried him much to London. There he 
 wrote the " Barber of Seville," and there also he 
 fell in with Arthur Lee and became indoctrinated 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 223 
 
 with grand notions of the resources and value of 
 the colonies, and of the ruin which their separation 
 must inflict upon England. Furthermore, as a 
 Frenchman he naturally consorted with members 
 of the opposition party who took views very favor- 
 able to America. With such corroboration of Lee's 
 statements, Beaumarchais, never moderate in any 
 sentiment, leaped to the conclusion that the colo- 
 nies " must be invincible," and that England was 
 " upon the brink of ruin, if her neighbors and ri- 
 vals were but in a state to think seriously of it." 
 At once the lively and ambitious fancy of the im- 
 petuous Frenchman spread an extravagant pano- 
 rama of the possibilities thus opened to England's 
 "natural enemy." He became frenzied in the 
 American cause. In long and ardent letters he 
 opened upon King Louis and his ministers a rat- 
 tling fire of arguments sound and unsound, state- 
 ments true and untrue, inducements reasonable and 
 unreasonable, forecastings probable and improba- 
 ble, policies wise and unwise, all designed to show 
 that it was the bounden duty of France to adopt 
 the colonial cause. The king, -with no very able 
 brain at any time, was very young and wholly in- 
 experienced. He gazed bewildered at the brilliant 
 pageantry of Beaumarchais' s wonderful and auda- 
 cious statecraft, and sensibly sought the advice of 
 his ministers. 
 
 De Yergennes set out his views, in agreement 
 with Beaumarchais. He declared that France now 
 had her opportunity to reduce her dangerous rival 
 
224 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 to the place of a second-rate power. To this end it 
 was desirable that the rebellion should endure at 
 least one year. The sufferings of the colonists in 
 that period would so embitter them that, even if 
 they should finally be subdued, they would ever 
 remain a restless, dangerous thorn in the side of 
 England, a bond with a heavy penalty effectually 
 binding her to keep the peace. To make sure that 
 neither side should move for peace before this one 
 valuable year of warfare should have been secured, 
 it was the policy of France to maintain a pacific 
 front towards Great Britain, thus relieving her 
 from any fear that the colonies would obtain a 
 French alliance, but clandestinely to furnish the 
 insurgents with munitions of war and money suffi- 
 cient to enable and encourage them to hold out. 
 
 The wise Turgot, in a state paper marked by 
 great ability, opposed French intervention, and 
 proved his case. Colonial independence was sure 
 to come, a little sooner or later. Yet the reduction 
 of the colonies would be the best possible assurance 
 that England would not break the peace with 
 France, since the colonists, being mutinous and dis- 
 contented, would give her concern enough. On the 
 other hand, should England fail, as he anticipated 
 that she would, in this war, she would hardly emerge 
 from it in condition to undertake another with 
 France. As for the colonies themselves, should 
 they win, the character of the Americans gave 
 augury of their wishing a solid government and 
 therefore cultivating peace. He uttered an admi- 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 225 
 
 rable dissertation upon the relations between col- 
 onies and a parent country, and upon the value of 
 colonies in its bearing upon the present question. 
 In conclusion he gravely referred to the alarming 
 deficit in the French exchequer as the strongest of 
 all arguments against incurring the heavy charge 
 of a war not absolutely unavoidable. ''For a neces- 
 sary war resources could be found ; but war ought 
 to be shunned as the greatest of misfortunes, since 
 it would render impossible, perhaps forever, a re- 
 form absolutely necessary to the prosperity of the 
 state and the solace of the people." The king, to 
 whom these wise words were addressed, lived to 
 receive terrible proof of their truth. 
 
 This good advice fell in well with the bent of 
 Louis's mind. For, though no statesman, he had 
 in this matter a sound instinct that an absolute 
 monarch aiding rebels to erect a free republic was 
 an anomaly, and a hazardous contradiction in the 
 natural order of things. But de Vergennes was 
 the coming man in France, and Turgot no longer 
 had the influence or the popularity to which his 
 ability entitled him. In May, 1776, on an ill day 
 for the French monarchy, but a fair one for the 
 American provinces, this able statesman was ousted 
 from the cabinet. De Vergennes remained to 
 wield entire control of the policy of the kingdom 
 in this business, and his triumph was the great 
 good fortune of the colonies. Yet his design was 
 sufficiently cautious, and strictly limited to the ad- 
 vantage of his own country. France was not to 
 
226 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 be compromised, and an ingenious scheme was 
 arranged. 
 
 The firm of Roderigue Hortalez & Co. made sud- 
 den appearance in Paris. Beaumarchais alone con- 
 ducted its affairs, the most extraordinary merchant 
 surely who ever engaged in extensive commerce! 
 The capital was secretly furnished by the Spanish 
 and French governments; about $400,000 the firm 
 had to start with, and later the French government 
 contributed $200,000 more. De Vergennes was ex- 
 plicit in his language to Beaumarchais : to English- 
 men and Americans alike the affair must be an 
 " individual speculation." With the capital given 
 him Beaumarchais must "found a great commercial 
 establishment," and " at his own risk and peril " 
 sell to the colonies military supplies. These would 
 be sold to him from the French arsenals ; but he 
 " must pay for them." From the colonies he must 
 "ask return in their staple products." Except 
 that his silent partners might be lenient in demand- 
 ing repayment Beaumarchais really was to be a 
 merchant, engaged in an exceptionally hazardous 
 trade. If he regarded himself in any other light 
 he was soon painfully undeceived ; for de Yergennes 
 was in earnest. But for the immediate present, 
 upon the moment when he had arranged these pre- 
 liminaries, doubtless fancying the government at 
 his back, this most energetic of men plunged into 
 his work with all the ardor of his excitable nature. 
 He flew hither and thither ; got arms and munitions 
 from the government ; bought and loaded ships, 
 and was soon conducting an enormous business. 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 227 
 
 But it was by no means all smooth sailing- for 
 the vessels of Hortalez & Co. ; for Deane arrived, 
 not altogether opportunely, just as Beaumarchais 
 was getting well under weigh. The two were 
 soon brought together, and Deane was told all that 
 was going on save only the original connection 
 of the French government, which it seems that 
 he never knew. He in turn told all to Dr. Ban- 
 croft, and so unwittingly to the English govern- 
 ment. Thereupon the watchful English cruisers 
 effectually locked up the ships of Hortalez in the 
 French harbors. Also Lord Stormont, the Eng- 
 lish ambassador, harassed the French government 
 with ceaseless representations and complaints con- 
 cerning these betrayed shipments of contraband 
 cargoes. At the same time the news from Amer- 
 ica, coming chiefly through English channels, took 
 on a very gloomy coloring, and lent a certain 
 emphasis to these protests of the English minister. 
 De Vergennes felt compelled to play out his neu- 
 tral part even more in earnest than had been in- 
 tended. He sent to the ports at which Hortalez 
 & Co. had ships very stringent instructions to 
 check unlawful trade, and the officials obeyed in 
 good faith to the letter. Beaumarchais was seri- 
 ously embarrassed at finding himself bearing in 
 fact the mercantile character which he had sup- 
 posed that he was only dramatically assuming. 
 He had to load his cargoes and clear his ships as 
 best he could, precisely like any ordinary dealer in 
 contraband wares; there was no favoritism, no 
 
228 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 winking at his breaches of the law. The result 
 was that it was a long while before he got any 
 arms, ammunition, and clothing into an American 
 port. Moreover the ships from America which 
 were to have brought him payment in the shape of 
 tobacco and other American commodities failed to 
 arrive ; his royal co-partners declined to make 
 further advances ; the ready money was gone, 
 credit had been strained to the breaking point, and 
 a real bankruptcy impended over the sham firm. 
 Thus in the autumn and early winter of 1776 pros- 
 pects in France wore no cheerful aspect for the 
 colonies. It was at this juncture that Franklin 
 arrived, and he came like a reviving breeze from 
 the sea. 
 
 Long and anxiously did Congress wait to get 
 news from France ; not many trustworthy ships 
 were sent on so perilous a voyage, and of those that 
 ventured it only a few got across an ocean " porcu- 
 pined " with English war-ships. At last in Sep- 
 tember, 1776, Franklin received from Dr. Dubourg 
 of Paris, a gentleman with whom his friendship 
 dated back to his French trip in 1767, a long and 
 cheering letter full of gratifying intelligence con- 
 cerning the disposition of the court, and throwing 
 out a number of such suofSfestions that the mere 
 reading them was a stimulus to action. Congress 
 was not backward to respond ; it resolved at once 
 to send a formal embassage. Franklin was chosen 
 unanimously by the first ballot. " I am old and 
 good for nothing," he whispered to Dr. Rush, "but, 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 229 
 
 as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, 
 ' I am but a fag end and you may have me for what 
 you please.' " ^ Thomas Jefferson and Deane were 
 elected as colleagues ; but Jefferson declined the 
 service and Arthur Lee was put in his stead. The 
 Reprisal, sloop of war, of sixteen guns, took Dr. 
 Franklin and his grandson on board for the dan- 
 gerous voyage. It was a very different risk from 
 that which Messrs. Slidell and Mason took nearly 
 a century later. They embarked on a British mail 
 steamship, and were subject, as was proved, only 
 to the ordinary perils of navigation. But had 
 Franklin been caught in this little rebel craft, 
 which had actually been captured from English 
 owners and condemned as prize by rebel tribunals, 
 and which now added the ao-oTavatins: circumstance 
 that she carried an armament sufficient to destroy 
 a merchantman but not to encounter a frigate, he 
 w^ould have had before him at best a long imprison- 
 ment, at worst a trial for high treason and a halter. 
 Horace Walpole gave the news that " Dr. Franklin, 
 at the age of seventy-two or seventy -four, and at 
 the risk of his head, had bravely embarked on 
 board an American frigate." Several times he 
 must have contemplated these pleasing prospects, 
 for several times the small sloop was chased by 
 English cruisers ; but she was a swift sailer and 
 escaped them all. Just before making port she 
 captured two English brigs and carried them in as 
 prizes. 
 
 1 Parton's Life of Franklin^ ii. 166. 
 
230 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 The reference to Slidell and Mason, by the way, 
 calls to mind the humorous but accurate manner in 
 which Franklin described the difference between 
 revolution and rebellion. Soon after landing from 
 this hazardous voyage he wrote merrily to a lady 
 friend : " You are too early, hussy ^ as well as too 
 saucy, in calling me a rebel. You should wait for 
 the event, which will determine whether it is a 
 rebellion or only a revolution. Here the ladies are 
 more civil ; they call us les insurgens, a character 
 which usually pleases them." 
 
 The voyage, though quick, was very rough, and 
 Franklin, confined in a small cabin and "poorly 
 nourished,'' since much of the meat was too tough 
 for his old teeth, had a hard time of it ; so that 
 upon coming on shore he found himself " much 
 fatigued and weakened," indeed, " almost demol- 
 ished." He therefore rested several days at Nantes 
 before going to Paris, where he arrived just before 
 the close of the year. 
 
 The excitement which his arrival in the French 
 capital created was unmistakable evidence of the 
 estimate set by Europe upon his abilities. Some 
 persons in England endeavored to give to his voy- 
 agfe the color of a desertion from a cause of which 
 
 he despaired. " The arch , Dr. Franklin, has 
 
 lately eloped under a cloak of plenij^otentiary to 
 Versailles," wrote Sir Grey Cooper. But Edmund 
 Burke refused to believe that the man whom he 
 had seen examined before the privy council was 
 "going to conclude a long life, which has brightened 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 231 
 
 every hour it has contiDued, with so foul and dis- 
 honorable a flight." Lord Rockingham said that 
 the presence of Franklin in Paris much more than 
 offset the victory of the English on Long Island, 
 and their capture of New York. Lord Stormont, 
 it is said, threatened to leave sans prendre conge, 
 if the " chief of the American rebels " were allowed 
 to come to Paris. The adroit de Vergennes replied 
 that the government had already dispatched a 
 courier to direct Franklin to remain at Nantes ; 
 but since they knew neither the time of his depart- 
 ure nor his route, the message might not reach him. 
 Should he thus innocently arrive in Paris it would, 
 be scandalous, inhospitable, and contrary to the 
 laws of nations to send him away.^ 
 
 But while the Enoiish were ano^rv, the French 
 indulged in a furore of welcome. They made 
 feasts and hailed the American as the friend of 
 human kind, as the " ideal of a patriarchal repub- 
 lic and of idyllic simplicity," as a sage of anti- 
 quity ; and the exuberant classicism of the nation 
 exhausted itself in glorifying him by comparisons 
 with those great names of Greece and Rome which 
 have become symbols for all private and public 
 virtues. They admired him because he did not 
 wear a wig ; they lauded his spectacles ; they were 
 overcome with enthusiasm as they contemplated 
 his great cap of martin fur, his scrupulously white 
 linen, and the quaint simplicity of his brown 
 Quaker raiment of colonial make. They noted 
 1 Hale's Franklin in France, i. 73. 
 
232 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 with amazement tliat his " only defense " was a 
 " walking-stick in his hand." The print-shops were 
 soon full of countless representations of his noble 
 face and venerable figure, set off by all these pleas- 
 ing adjuncts. The people thronged the streets to 
 see him pass, and respectfully made way for him. 
 He seemed, as John Adams said later, to enjoy a 
 reputation " more universal than that of Leibnitz 
 or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire." 
 
 So soon as all this uj^roar gave him time to look 
 about him, he established himself at Passy, in a 
 part of the Hotel de Valentinois, which was kindly 
 placed at his disposal by its owner, M. Ray de Chau- 
 mont. In this at that time retired suburb he hoped 
 to be able to keep the inevitable but useless inter- 
 ruptions within endurable limits. Not improbably 
 also he was further influenced, in accepting M. 
 Chaumont's hospitality, by a motive of diplomatic 
 prudence. His shrewdness and experience must 
 soon have shown him that his presence in Paris, if 
 not precisely distasteful to the French government, 
 must at least in some degree compromise it, and 
 might by any indiscretion on his part easily be made 
 to annoy and vex the ministers. It therefore be- 
 hoved him to make himself as little as possible con- 
 spicuous in any official or public way. A rebuke, a 
 cold reception, might do serious harm ; nor was it 
 politic to bring perplexities to those whose friend- 
 ship he sought. He could not avoid, nor had he any 
 reason to do so, the social eclat with which he was 
 greeted ; but he must shun the ostentation of 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. - 233 
 
 any relationship with men in office. This would 
 be more easily accomplished by living in a quarter 
 somewhat remote and suburban. His retirement, 
 therefore, while little curtailing his intercourse with 
 private society, evinced his good tact, and doubt- 
 less helped his good standing with the ministers. 
 The police record reports that, if he saw them at 
 all, it was secretly and under cover of night. He 
 lived in comfortable style, but not showily, keep- 
 ing a moderate retinue of servants for appearance 
 as much as for use, and a carriage, which was in- 
 dispensable to him. John Adams charged him with 
 undue luxury and extravagance, but the accusation 
 was ridiculous. 
 
 Very exacting did the business of the American 
 envoys soon become. On December 23, 1776, they 
 wrote to acquaint the Count de Vergennes that they 
 were " appointed and fully empowered by the Con- 
 gress of the United States of America to propose 
 and negotiate a treaty of amity and commerce be- 
 tween France and the United States ; " and they 
 requested an audience for the purpose of present- 
 ing their credentials to his excellency. Five days 
 later the audience was given them. They explained 
 the desire of the American colonies to enter into 
 a treaty of alliance and of commerce. They said 
 that the colonists were anxious to get their ships, 
 now lying at the home wharves laden with tobacco 
 and other products, out of the American harbors, 
 and to give them a chance to run for France. But 
 the English vessels hovered thick up and down the 
 
234 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 coasts, and the Americans, tliough able to take 
 care of frigates, could not encounter ships of the 
 line. Would not France lend eight ships of the 
 line, equipped and manned, to let loose all this 
 blockaded commerce which was ready to seek her 
 ports and to fill the coffers of her merchants? 
 Under all the circumstances this was certainly ask- 
 ing too much ; and in due time the envoys were 
 courteously told so, but were also offered a strictly 
 secret loan of f 400,000, to be repaid after the war, 
 without interest. 
 
 It appears that Franklin had substantially no 
 concern in the quasi commercial transactions pend- 
 ing at the time of his arrival between Deane and 
 Beaumarchais. Deane himself did not know and 
 could not disclose the details of the relationship 
 between Beaumarchais and the government, which 
 indeed were not explored and made public until 
 more than half a century had elapsed after their 
 occurrence. Therefore Franklin saw nothing more 
 than mercantile dealings in various stages of for- 
 wardness, whose extensive intricacies it did not 
 seem worth while for him to unravel at a cost of 
 much time and labor, which could be better ex- 
 pended in other occupations.^ Deane held all the 
 threads, and it seemed natural and proper to 
 leave this business as his department. So Frank- 
 lin never had more than a general knowledge con- 
 cerning this imbroglio. 
 
 1 Franklin's Works, vi. 199, 205 ; viii. 153, 183 ; Hale's Frank 
 lin in France, i. 53. 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 235 
 
 This leavinof all to Deane misfht have been 
 well enough had not Deane had an implacable 
 enemy in Arthur Lee, who, for that matter, 
 resembled the devil in at least one particular, 
 inasmuch as he was the foe of all mankind. 
 Beaumarchais early in the proceedings had sum- 
 marily dropped Lee from his confidence and in- 
 stated Deane in the vacancy. This was sufficient 
 to set Lee at once at traducing, an art in which 
 long experience had cultivated natural aptitude. 
 He saw great sums of money being used, and he 
 was not told whence they came. But he guessed, 
 and upon his guess he built up a theory of finan- 
 cial knavery. Deane had repeatedly assured 
 Beaumarchais that he should receive the carg^oes 
 of American produce with promptitude,^ and he did 
 his best to make these promises good, writing ur- 
 gent letters to Congress to hasten forward the colo- 
 nial merchandise. But Arthur Lee mischievously 
 and maliciously blocked these perfectly straightfor- 
 ward and absolutely necessary arrangements. For 
 he had conceived the notion that Beaumarchais was 
 an agent of the French court, that the supplies 
 were free gifts from the French government, and 
 that any payments for them to Hortalez & Co. would 
 only go to fill the rascal purses of Deane and Beau- 
 marchais, confederates in a scheme for swindling. 
 He had no particle of evidence to sustain this no- 
 tion, which was simply the subtle conception of his 
 own bad mind ; but he was not the less positive 
 
 ^ Hale's Franklin in France, i. 45. 
 
236 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 and persistent in asserting it in his letters to mem- 
 bers of Congress. Such accounts sadly puzzled 
 that body ; and it may be imagined to what a 
 further hopeless degree of bewilderment this 
 gathering of American lawyers and tradesmen, 
 planters and farmers, must have been reduced by 
 the extraordinary letters of the wild and fanciful 
 Beaumarchais. The natural consequence was that 
 the easier course was pursued, and no merchandise 
 was sent to Hortalez. If affairs had not soon 
 taken a new turn in France this error might have 
 had disastrous consequences for the colonies. In 
 fact, it only ruined poor Deane. 
 
 After this unfortunate man had been recalled, 
 and while he was in great affliction at home be- 
 cause he could not get his reputation cleared 
 from these Lee slanders, being utterl}^ unable 
 in America to produce even such accounts and 
 evidence as might have been had in France, 
 Franklin more than once volunteered to express 
 kindly and emphatically his entire belief in Deane's 
 integrity. So late as October, 1779, though ad- 
 mitting his lack of knowledge concerning an 
 affair in which he had " never meddled," he still 
 thought Deane " innocent." Finally in 1782, when 
 Deane had become thoroughly demoralized by 
 his hard fate, Franklin spoke of his fall not 
 without a note of sympathy : " He resides at 
 Ghent, is distressed both in mind and circum- 
 stances, raves and writes abundance, and I imagine 
 it will end in his going over to join his friend Arnold 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 237 
 
 in England. I had an exceedingly good opinion 
 of liim when he acted with me, and I believe he 
 was then sincere and hearty in our cause. But he 
 is changed, and his character ruined in his own 
 country and in this, so that I see no other but Eng- 
 land to which he can now retire. He says we owe 
 him about £12,000 sterling." i But of this Franklin 
 knew nothing, and proposed getting experts to ex- 
 amine the accounts. He did know very well, how- 
 ever, what it was to be accused by Arthur Lee, and 
 would condemn no man upon that basis ! 
 
 Yet the matter annoyed him greatly. On June 
 12, 1781, he wrote acknowledging that he was ab- 
 solutely in the dark about the whole business : — 
 
 " In 1776, being then in Congress, I received a letter 
 from Mr. Lee, acquainting me that M. Beaumarehais 
 had applied to him in London, informing him that 
 200,000 guineas had been put into his hands, and was at 
 tlie disposal of the Congress ; Mr. Lee added that it was 
 agreed between them that he, M. Beaumarehais, should 
 remit the same in arms, ammunition, etc., under the 
 name of Hortalez & Co. Several cargoes were accord- 
 ingly sent. Mr. Lee understood this to be a private aid 
 from the government of France ; but M. Beaumarehais 
 has since demanded from Congress payment of a gross 
 sum, as due to him, and has received a considerable part, 
 but has rendered no particular account. I have, by 
 order of Congress, desired him to produce his account, 
 
 1 See also letter to Morris, March 30, 1T82, Works, vii. 419 ; 
 also viii. 225. In 1835 sufficient evidence was discovered to in- 
 duce Congress to pay to the heirs of this unfortunate man a part 
 of the sum due to liim. Parton's Life of Franklin, ii. 362. 
 
238 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 that we might know exactly what we owed, and for 
 what ; and he has several times promised it, but has not 
 yet done it ; and in his conversation he often mentions, 
 as I am told, that we are greatly in his debt. These 
 accounts in the air are unpleasant, and one is neither 
 safe nor easy under them. I wish, therefore, you could 
 help me to obtain a settlement of them. It has been said 
 that Mr. Deane, unknown to his colleagues, wrote to Con- 
 gress in favor of M. Beaumarchais's demand ; on which 
 Mr. Lee accuses him of having, to the prejudice of his 
 constituents, negotiated a gift into a debt. At present all 
 that transaction is in darkness ; ^ and we know not whether 
 the whole, or a part, or no part, of the supplies he fur- 
 nished were at the expense of government, the reports 
 we have had being so inconsistent and contradictory ; 
 nor, if we are in debt for them, or any part of them, 
 whether it is the king or M. de Beaumarchais who is 
 our creditor." ^ 
 
 What chiefly irritated Congress against Deane 
 and led to his recall was neither his dealings with 
 Beaumarchais nor the slanders of Lee, but quite 
 another matter, in which he certainly showed much 
 lack of discretion. Cargoes of arms and munitions 
 of war were very welcome in the States, but cargoes 
 of French and other European officers were by no 
 means so. Yet the inconsiderate Deane sent over 
 these enthusiasts and adventurers in throngs. The 
 
 ^ Light was first let in upon this darkness by Louis de Lo- 
 m^nie, in his Beaumarchais et Son Temps ; and the story as 
 told by him may be read, in a spirited version, in Parton's Life 
 of Franklin, chapters vii., viii. 
 
 2 Hale's Franklin in France, i. 53. 
 
 1 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 239 
 
 outbreak o£ the rebellion seemed to arouse a spirit 
 of martial pilgrimage in Europe, a sort of crusad- 
 ing ardor, which seized the Frenchmen especially, 
 but also some few officers in other continental ar- 
 mies. These all flocked to Paris and told Deane 
 that they were burning to give the insurgent States 
 the invaluable assistance of their distinguished ser- 
 vices. Deane was little accustomed to the highly 
 appreciative rhetoric with which the true French- 
 man frankly describes his own merit, and appar- 
 ently accepted as correct the appraisal which these 
 warriors made of themselves. Soon they alighted 
 in swarms upon the American coast, besieged the 
 doors of Congress, and mingled their importunities 
 with all the other harassments of Washington. 
 Each one of them had his letter from Deane, re- 
 citing the exaggerated estimate of his capacity, and 
 worse still each one was armed with Deane's 
 promise that he should hold in the American army 
 a rank one grade higher than he had held in his 
 home service. To keep these unauthorized pledges 
 would have resulted in the resignation of all the 
 good American officers, and in the utter disorgani- 
 zation of the army. So the inevitable outcome 
 was that the disappointed adventurers became 
 furious ; that Congress, greatly annoyed, went to 
 heavy expenses in sending them back again to 
 Europe, and in giving some douceurs, which could 
 be ill afforded by the giver and were quite insuffi- 
 cient to prevent the recipients from spreading at 
 home their bitter grudge against the j^oung repub- 
 lic. Altogether it was a bad business. 
 
240 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 No sooner was Franklin's foot on Frencli soil 
 than the same eager horde assailed him. But they 
 found a respondent very different from Deane. 
 Franklin had experience. He knew the world and 
 men ; and now his tranquil judgment and firmness 
 saved him and the applicants alike from further 
 blunders. His appreciation of these fiery and 
 priceless gallants, who so dazzled the simple-minded 
 , Deane, is shown with charming humor in his effort 
 to say a kindly word for his unfortunate colleague. 
 He did not wonder, he said, that Deane, — 
 
 " being then a stranger to the people, and unacquainted 
 with the language, was at first prevailed on to make 
 some such agreements, when all were recommended, as 
 they always are, as officiers experimentes, braves comme 
 leuTs epees, pleins de courage, de talent, et de zele 
 pour notre cause, etc., etc.; in short, mere Caesars, each 
 of whom would have been an invaluable acquisition to 
 America. You can have no conception how we are still 
 besieged and worried on this head, our time cut to pieces 
 by personal applications, besides those contained in 
 dozens of letters by every post. ... I hope therefore 
 that favorable allowance will be made to my worthy 
 colleague on account of his situation at the time, as he 
 has long since corrected that mistake, and daily ap- 
 proves himself, to my certain knowledge, an able, faith- 
 ful, active, and extremely useful servant of the public ; 
 a testimony I think it my duty of taking this occasion to 
 make to his merit, unasked, as, considering my great age, 
 I may probably not live to give it personally in Congress, 
 and I perceive he has enemies." 
 
 But however firmly and wisely Franklin stood 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 241 
 
 out against the storm of importunities he could not 
 for a long time moderate it. He continued to be 
 " besieged and worried," and to have his time 
 " cut to pieces ; " till at last he wrote to a friend : 
 " You can have no conception how I am harassed. 
 All my friends are sought out and teased to tease 
 me. Great officers of all ranks, in all departments, 
 ladies great and small, besides professed solicitors, 
 worry me from morning to night. The noise of 
 every coach now that enters my court terrifies me. 
 I am afraid to accept an invitation to dine abroad. 
 . . . Luckily I do not often in my sleep dream of 
 these vexatious situations, or I should be afraid of 
 what are now my only hours of comfort. . . . For 
 God's sake, my dear friend, let this, your twenty- 
 third application, be your last." 
 
 His plain-spoken replies, however harshly they 
 may have struck upon Gallic sensitiveness, at least 
 left no room for any one to misunderstand him. 
 " I know that officers, going to America for em- 
 ployment, will probably be disappointed," he wrote ; 
 " that our armies are full ; that there are a number 
 of expectants unemploj^ed and starving for want 
 of subsistence ; that my recommendation will not 
 make vacancies, nor can it fill them to the prejudice 
 of those who have a better claim." He also wrote 
 to Washino'ton, to whom the letter must have 
 brought joyous relief, that he dissuadetl every one 
 from incurring the great expense and hazard of 
 the long voyage, since there was already an over- 
 
242 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 supply of officers and tlie chance of employment 
 was extremely sliglit.^ 
 
 The severest dose which he administered must 
 have made some of those excitable swords quiver 
 in their scabbards. He drew up and used this 
 
 " MODEL OF A LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION OF A PER- 
 SON YOU ARE UNACQUAINTED WITH. 
 
 <' Sir, — The bearer of this, who is going to America, 
 presses me to give him a letter of recommendation, 
 though I know nothing of him, not even his name. 
 This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you it is not 
 uncommon here. Sometimes, indeed, one unknown per- 
 son brings another equally unknown to recommend him ; 
 and sometimes they recommend one another ! As to 
 this gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his char- 
 acter and merits, with which he is certainly better ac- 
 quainted than I can possibly be. I recommend him 
 however to those civilities, which every stranger, of 
 whom one knows no harm, has a right to ; and I request 
 you will do him all the good offices and show him all the 
 favor, that, on further acquaintance, you shall find him 
 to deserve. I have the honor to be, &c." 
 
 It would be entertaining to know how many of 
 these letters were delivered, and in what phrases of 
 
 ^ As an example of the manner in which Franklin sometimes 
 was driven to express himself, his letter to M. Lith is admirable. 
 This gentleman had evidently irritated him some what, and Frank- 
 lin demolished him with a reply in that plain, straightforward 
 style of which he was a master, in which appeai-ed no ang-er, but 
 sarcasm of that severest kind which lies in a simple statement of 
 facts. I regret that there is not space to transcribe it, but it may 
 be read in his Works, vi. 85. 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 243 
 
 French courtesy gratitude was expressed for tliem. 
 Sometimes, if any one persisted, in spite of dis- 
 couragement, in making the journey at his own 
 cost, and, being forewarned, also at his own risk of 
 disappointment, Franklin gave him a letter strictly 
 confined to the scope of a civil jDcrsonal introduc- 
 tion. Possibly, now and again, some useful officer 
 may have been thus deterred from crossing the 
 water ; but any such loss was compensated several 
 hundredfold by shutting off the intolerable inun- 
 dation of useless foreigners. Nor was Franklin 
 wanting in discretion in the matter ; for he com- 
 mended Lafayette and Steuben by letters, which 
 had real value from the fact of the extreme rarity 
 of such a warranty from this source. 
 
 Franklin was little given to political prophecy, 
 but it is interesting to read a passage written 
 shortly after his arrival. May 1, 1777: — 
 
 " All Europe is on our side of the question, as far as 
 applause and good wishes ean carry them. Those who 
 live under arbitrary power do nevertheless approve of 
 liberty, and wish for it ; they almost despair of recover- 
 ing it in Europe ; they read the translations of our sep- 
 arate colony constitutions with rapture ; and there are 
 such numbers everywhere who talk of removing to 
 America, with their families and fortunes, as soon as 
 peace and our independence shall be established, that it 
 is generally believed that we shall have a prodigious ad- 
 dition of strength, wealth, and arts from the emigration 
 of Europe ; and it is thought that to lessen or prevent 
 such emigrations, the tyrannies established there must 
 
244 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 relax, and allow more liberty to their people. Hence It 
 is a common observation here that our cause is the cause 
 of all mankind., and that we are fighting for their lib- 
 erty in defending our own. It is a glorious task as- 
 signed us by Providence, which has, I trust, given us 
 spirit and virtue equal to it, and will at last crown it 
 with success." 
 
 The statesmanship of the time-honored Euro- 
 pean school, ably practiced by de Yergennes, was 
 short-sighted and blundering in comparison with 
 this broad appreciation of the real vastness and far- 
 reaching importance of that great struggle betwixt 
 the Old and the New. 
 
 1 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 MINISTER TO FRANCE : II. 
 PRISONERS : TROUBLE WITH LEE AND OTHERS. 
 
 No sooner had the war taken on an assured char- 
 acter than many quick-eyed and adventurous Amer- 
 icans, and Franklin among the first, saw irresisti- 
 ble temptation and great opportunity in that enor- 
 mous British commerce which whitened all the seas. 
 The colonists of that day, being a seafaring people 
 with mercantile instincts, were soon industriously 
 engaged in the lucrative field of maritime captures. 
 Franklin recommended the fortifying of three or 
 four harbors into which prizes could be safely car- 
 ried. Nothing else, he said, would give the new 
 nation " greater weight and importance in the eyes 
 of the commercial states." Privateering is not al- 
 ways described by such complimentary and digni- 
 fied language, but the practical-minded rebel spoke 
 well of that which it was so greatly to the advan- 
 tage of his countrymen to do. After arriving in 
 France he found himself in a position to advance 
 this business very greatly. Conyngham, Wickes, 
 with others only less famous, all active and gallant 
 men as ever trod a deck, took the neighboring waters 
 
246 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 as tlieir chosen scene of action, and very soon were 
 stirring up a commotion such as Englishmen had 
 never experienced before. They harried the high, 
 and more especially the narrow, seas with a success 
 at least equal to that of the Alabama, while some 
 of them differed from Semmes and his compeers in 
 being as anxious to fight as the Southern captains 
 were to avoid fighting. Prize after prize they took 
 and carried into port, or burned and sank ; prison- 
 ers they had more than they knew what to do with ; 
 they frightened the underwriters so that in Lon- 
 don the insurance against capture ran up to the 
 ruinous premium of sixty per cent. The Lisbon and 
 the Dutch packets fell victinis, and insurance of 
 boats plying between Dover and Calais went to ten 
 per cent. Englishmen began to feel that England 
 was blockaded ! We are not so familiar as we 
 ouMit to be with the interestino* record of all these 
 audacious and brilliant enterprises, conducted with 
 dare-devil recklessness by men who would not im- 
 probably have been hanged both as pirates and as 
 traitors, had fortune led to their capture at this mo- 
 ment of British rage and anxiety.^ 
 
 All this cruising was conducted under the au- 
 spices of Eranklin. To him these gallant rovers 
 looked for instructions and suggestions, for money 
 and supplies. He had to issue commissions, to set- 
 tle personal misunderstandings, to attend to ques- 
 tions of prize money, to soothe unpaid mutineers, 
 to advise as to the purchase of ships, and as to the 
 
 ^ In fact, Conyngham, being at last captured, narrowly escaped 
 this fate. 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 247 
 
 enterprises to be undertaken ; in a word, he was 
 the only American government which these inde- 
 pendent sailors knew. The tax thus laid upon him 
 was severe, for he was absohitely without experience 
 in such matters. 
 
 There was one labor, however, in this connection, 
 which properly fell within his department, and in 
 this his privateersmen gave him abundant occupa- 
 tion. It was to stand between them and the just 
 wrath and fatal interference of the French ofovern- 
 ment. Crude as international law was in those 
 days, it was far from being crude enough for the 
 strictly illegitimate purposes of these vikings. 
 What they expected was to buy, equip, man, and 
 supply their vessels in French ports, to sail out on 
 their prize-taking excursions, and, having captured 
 their fill, to return to these same ports, and there 
 to have their prizes condemned, to sell their booty, 
 to refit and re-supply, and then to sally forth again. 
 In short, an Englishman would have been puzzled 
 to distinguish a difference between the warlike 
 ports of America and the neutral ports of France, 
 save as he saw that the latter, being nearer, were 
 much the more injurious. But de Vergennes had 
 no notion of being used for American purposes in 
 this jeopardizing style. He did not mean to have 
 a war with England, if he could avoid it ; so he gave 
 to the harbor masters orders which greatly annoyed 
 and surprised the American captains, "extraor- 
 dinary " orders, as these somewhat uninstructed 
 sea-dogs described them in their complaining letters 
 
248 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 to Franklin. They tliouglit it an outrage that the 
 French minister should refuse to have English 
 prizes condemned within French jurisdiction, and 
 that he should not allow them to refit and to take 
 on board cannon and ammunition at Nantes or 
 Eochelle. They called upon Franklin to check 
 these intolerable proceedings. Their audacious and 
 boundless insolence is very entertaining to read, 
 with the memory of " Alabama outrages " fresh in 
 mind. 
 
 Franklin knew, just as well as de Vergennes 
 did, that the French ministry was all the time fa- 
 voring the privateersmen and cruisers far beyond 
 the law, and that it was ready to resort to as many 
 devices as ingenuity could concoct for that purpose ; 
 also that the Americans by their behavior persist- 
 ently violated all reason and neutral toleration. 
 Nevertheless he stood gallantly by his own, and in 
 one case after another he kept corresponding with 
 de Vergennes under pretense of connecting misrepre- 
 sentations, presenting requests, and arguing points, 
 until, by the time thus gained, the end was achieved. 
 The truth was that Franklin's duty was to get from 
 France just as much aid, direct and indirect, as 
 could be either begged or filched from her. Such 
 orders could not be written down in plain words in 
 his instructions, but none the less they lurked there 
 not illegible to him among the lines. He obeyed 
 them diligently. France was willing to go fully as 
 far as she could with safety ; his function was to 
 push, to pull, to entice, even to mislead, in order to 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 249 
 
 make her go farther. Perhaps it was a fair game ; 
 France had her interest to see Great Britain dis- 
 membered and weakened, but not herself to fight 
 other people's battles ; the colonies had their inter- 
 est to get France into the fight if they possibly 
 could. It was a strictly selfish interest, and was 
 pursued almost shamelessly. The colonial policy 
 and the details of its execution are defensible sim- 
 ply on the basis that all nations in their dealings 
 with each other are always utterly selfish and gen- 
 erally utterly unscrupulous. By and by, when it 
 comes to the treating for peace between England 
 and the colonies, we shall find de Vergennes much 
 reviled because he pursued exclusively French in- 
 terests ; but it will be only fair to reflect that little 
 more can be charged against him than that he was 
 playing the game with cards drawn from the same 
 pack which the Americans had used in these 
 earlier days of the war. 
 
 A matter which grew out of privateering gave 
 Franklin much trouble. The American captains, 
 who were cruising on the European side of the At- 
 lantic prior to the treaty of alliance with France, 
 had no place in which to deposit their prisoners. 
 They could not often send them to the States, nei- 
 ther of course could they accumulate them on board 
 their ships, nor yet store them, so to speak, in France 
 and Spain ; for undeveloped as were the rules of 
 neutrality they at least forbade the use of neutral 
 prisons for the keeping of English prisoners of war 
 
250 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 in time of peace. Meanwhile the colonial captives, 
 in confinement just across the Channel, in the pris- 
 ons at Plymouth and Portsmouth, were subjected to 
 very harsh treatment ; and others were even being 
 sent to the fort of Senegal on the coast of Africa, 
 and to the East Indies, whence they could not hope 
 ever to regain their homes. Franklin immediately 
 resolved, if possible, to utilize these assets in the 
 shape of English sailors in the usual course of ex- 
 change. A letter was accordingly addressed by 
 him to Lord Stormont, asking whether it would be 
 worth while to approach the British court with an 
 offer to exchange one hundred English prisoners 
 in the hands of the captain of the Reprisal for a 
 like number of American sailors from the English 
 prisons. The note was a simple interrogatory in 
 proper form of civility. No answer was received. 
 After a while a second letter was prepared, less 
 fornml, more forcible in statement and argument, 
 and in the appeal to good sense and decent good 
 feeling. This elicited from his lordship a brief 
 response : " The king's ambassador receives no ap- 
 plications from rebels, unless they come to implore 
 his majesty's mercy." The commissioners indig- 
 nantly rejoined : " In answer to a letter which con- 
 cerns some of the most material interests of human- 
 ity, and of the two nations. Great Britain and the 
 United States of America, now at w^ar, we received 
 the inclosed indecent paper, as coming from your 
 lordship, which we return for your lordship's more 
 mature consideration." 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 251 
 
 The technical position of the English in this 
 business was that the captured Americans were 
 not prisoners of war, but traitors. Their prac- 
 tical position was that captains of American pri- 
 vateers, not finding it a physical possibility to keep 
 their prisoners, would erelong be obliged to let 
 them go without exchange. This anticipation 
 turned out to be correct, and so far justified their 
 refusal ; for soon some five hundred English sail- 
 ors got their freedom as a necessity, without any 
 compensatory freeing of Americans. Each of them 
 gave a solemn promise in writing to obtain the 
 release of an American prisoner in return ; but 
 he had as much authority to hand over the Tower 
 of London, and the British government was not 
 so romantically chivalrous as to recognize pledges 
 entered into by foremast hands. 
 
 All sorts of stories continued to reach Franklin's 
 ears as to the cruelty which his imprisoned coun- 
 trymen had to endure. He heard that they were 
 penniless and could get no petty comforts ; that 
 they suffered from cold and hunger, and were sub- 
 jected to personal indignities ; that they were not 
 allowed to read a newspaper or to write a letter ; 
 that they were all committed by a magistrate on a 
 charge of high treason, and were never allowed to 
 forget their probable fate on the gibbet ; that some 
 of them, as has been said, were deported to dis- 
 tant and unwholesome English possessions. For 
 the truth of these accounts it is not necessary to be- 
 lieve that the English governmrnt was intentionally 
 
252 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 brutal ; but it was neglectful and indifferent, and 
 those who had prisoners in chargerfelt assured that 
 no sympathy for rebels would induce an investiga- 
 tion into peculations or unfeeling behavior. More- 
 over there was a deliberate design, by terror and 
 discouragement, to break the spirit of the so-called 
 traitors and persuade them to become real traitors 
 by entering the English service. 
 
 By all these tales Franklin's zeal in the matter 
 of exchange was greatly stimulated. His humane 
 soul revolted at keeping men who v/ere not crimi- 
 nals locked up in wasting misery, when they might 
 be set free upon terms of perfect equality between 
 the contending parties. Throughout his corre- 
 spondence on this subject there is a magnanimity, 
 a humanity, a spirit of honesty and even of honor 
 so extraordinary, or actually unique, in dealings be- 
 tween diplomats and nations, that the temptation 
 is irresistible to give a fuller narrative than the in- 
 trinsic importance of the subject would warrant. 
 For after all there were never many English pris- 
 oners in France to be exchanged ; after a while 
 they might be counted by hundreds, but perhaps 
 they never rose to a total of one thousand. 
 
 There was at this time in England a man to 
 whose memory Americans ought to erect statues. 
 This was David Hartley. He was a gentleman of 
 the most liberal and generous sentiments, an old 
 and valued friend of Franklin, member of Parlia- 
 ment for Hull, allied with the opposition in this 
 matter of the American war, but personally on 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 253 
 
 good terms with Lord North. He had not very- 
 great ability ; he wrote long letters, somewhat sur- 
 charged with morality and good-feeling. One would 
 expect to hear that he was on terms of admiring 
 intimacy with his contemporary, the good Mrs. 
 Barbauld. But he had those opportunities which 
 come only to men whose excellence of character 
 and purity of motive place them above suspicion, — 
 o2:)portunities which might have been shut off from 
 an abler man, and which he now used with untir- 
 ing zeal and much efficiency in behalf of the 
 American prisoners. Lord North did not hesitate 
 to permit him to correspond with Franklin, and he 
 long acted as a medium of communication more 
 serviceable than Lord Stormont had been. Further- 
 more Hartley served as almoner to the poor fellows, 
 and pushed a private subscription in England to 
 raise funds for securing to them reasonable com- 
 forts. There were responsive hearts and purses, 
 even for rebels, among his majesty's subjects, and 
 a considerable sum was collected. 
 
 Franklin's first letter to Hartley on this subject, 
 October 14, 1777, has something of bitterness in 
 its tone, with much deep feeling for his country- 
 men, whose reputed woes he narrates. " I can as- 
 sure you," he adds, '' from my certain knowledge, 
 that your people, prisoners in America, have been 
 treats with great kindness, having had the same 
 rations of wholesome provisions as our own troops," 
 " comfortable lodgings" in healthy villages, with 
 liberty '* to walk and amuse themselves on their 
 
254 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 parole." " Where you have thought fit to employ 
 contractors to supply your people, these contractors 
 have been protected and aided in their operations. 
 Some considerable act of kindness towards our 
 people would take off the reproach of inhumanity in 
 that respect from the nation and leave it where it 
 ought with more certainty to lie, on the conductors 
 of your war in America. This I hint to you out of 
 some remaining good will to a nation I once loved 
 sincerely. But as things are, and in my present 
 temper of mind, not being over-fond of receiving 
 obligations, I shall content myself with proposing 
 that- your government should allow us to send or 
 employ a commissary to take some care of those 
 unfortunate people. Perhaps on your representa- 
 tions this might be obtained in England, though it 
 was refused most inhumanly at New York." 
 
 In December following he had arranged with 
 Major Thornton, " who appears a man of human- 
 ity," to visit the prisons and give relief to the 
 prisoners, and he hopes that Thornton " may ob- 
 tain permission for that purpose." " I have wished," 
 he added, " that some voluntary act of compassion 
 on the part of your government towards those in 
 your power had appeared in abating the rigors of 
 their confinement, and relieving their pressing ne- 
 cessities, as such generosity towards enemies has 
 naturally an effect in softening and abating ani- 
 mosity in their compatriots, and disposing to recon- 
 ciliation." Of such unconventional humanity was 
 he! 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 255 
 
 Hartley met Franklin's ardent appeals with re- 
 sponsive ardor. May 29, 1778, he writes that he 
 will press the point of exchange as much as he can, 
 " which in truth," he says, " I have done many 
 times since I saw you ; but official departments 
 move slowly here. A promise of five months is 
 yet unperformed." But a few days later, June 5, 
 he is '' authorized " to propose that Franklin should 
 send to him *' the number and rank of the prison- 
 ers, upon which an equal number shall be prepared 
 upon this side for the exchange." Franklin at 
 once demanded lists from his captains, and replied 
 to Hartley : " We desire and expect that the num- 
 ber of ours shall be taken from Forton and Ply- 
 mouth, in proportion to the number in each place, 
 and to consist of those who have been longest in 
 confinement." He then made this extraordinary 
 suggestion : " If you think proper to clear all your 
 prisoners at once, and give us all our people, we 
 give you our solemn engagement, which we are 
 sure will be punctually executed, to deliver to Lord 
 Howe in America, or to his order, a number of 
 your sailors equal to the surplus, as soon as the 
 agreement arrives there." It is easy to fancy a 
 British minister thrusting his tongue into his cheek 
 as this simple-minded proposal of the plain-dealing 
 colonist was read to him. The only occasion on 
 which Franklin showed ignorance of diplomacy 
 was in assuming, in this matter of the prisoners, 
 that honesty and honor were bases of dealing be- 
 tween public officials in international matters. 
 
256 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 He suggested also retaining a distinction be- 
 tween sailors of the navy and of tlie commercial 
 marine. After repeated applications to the Board 
 of Admiralty, Hartley was only able to reply to 
 all Franklin's proposals that no distinction could 
 be made between the naval and merchant services, 
 because all the Americans were *' detained under 
 commitments from some magistrate, as for high 
 treason." 
 
 July 13, 1778, Franklin remitted to Hartley the 
 lists of English prisoners. September 14 he re- 
 curs again to the general release : " You have not 
 mentioned whether the proposition of sending us 
 the whole of those in your prisons was agreed to. 
 If it is, you may rely on our sending immediately 
 all that come to our hands for the future ; or we 
 will give you, [at] your option, an order for the 
 balance to be delivered to your fleet in America. 
 By putting a little confidence in one another, we 
 may thus diminish the miseries of war." Five 
 days later he took a still more romantic position : 
 heretofore, he said, the American commissioners 
 had encouraged and aided the American prisoners 
 to try to escape ; " but if the British government 
 should honorably keep their agreement to make 
 regular exchanges, we shall not think it consistent 
 with the honor of the United States to encourage 
 such escapes, or to give any assistance to such as 
 shall escape." 
 
 Yet at the same time he showed himself fully 
 able to conduct business according to the usual 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 257 
 
 commonplace method. This same letter closes 
 with a threat under the lex talionls : " We have 
 now obtained permission of this government to put 
 all British prisoners, whether taken by continental 
 frigates or by privateers, into the king's prisons ; 
 and we are determined to treat such prisoners pre- 
 cisely as our countrymen are treated in England, 
 to give them the same allowance of provisions and 
 accommodations, and no other." He was long 
 obliged to reiterate the like menaces.^ 
 
 October 20, 1778, he reverts to his favorite pro- 
 ject : " I wish their lordships could have seen it 
 well to exchange upon account ; but though they 
 may not think it safe trusting to us, we shall make 
 no difficulty in trusting to them ; " and he proposes 
 that, if the English will " send us over 250 of our 
 people, we will deliver all we have in France ; " 
 if these be less than two hundred and fifty, the 
 English may take back the surplus Americans ; 
 but if these be more than two hundred and fifty, 
 Franklin says that he will nevertheless deliver 
 them all in expectation that he will receive back 
 an equivalent for the surplus. " We would thus 
 wish to commence, by this first advance, that mut- 
 ual confidence which it would be for the good of 
 mankind that nations should maintain honorably 
 with each other, tho' engaged in war." 
 
 November 19, 1778, nothing has been achieved, 
 and he gets impatient : '' I have heard nothing 
 from you lately concerning the exchange of the 
 ^ Hale's Franklin in France, i. 352. 
 
258 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 prisoners. Is that affair dropt? Winter is com- 
 ing on apace." January 25, 1779 : "la long time 
 believed that your government were in earnest in 
 agreeing to an exchange of prisoners. I begin 
 now to think I was mistaken. It seems they can- 
 not give up the pleasing idea of having at the end 
 of the war 1,000 Americans to hang for high trea- 
 son." Poor Hartley had been working with all 
 the energy of a good man in a good cause ; but he 
 was in the painful position of having no excuse to 
 offer for the backwardness of his government. 
 
 February 22, 1779, brought more reproaches 
 from Franklin. Months had elapsed since he had 
 heard that the cartel ship was prepared to cross 
 the Channel, but she had never come. He feared 
 that he had been " deceived or trifled with," and 
 proposed sending Edward Bancroft on a special 
 mission to England, if a safe conduct could be pro- 
 cured. At last, on March 30, Hartley had the 
 pleasure of announcing that the exchange ship had 
 " sailed the 25th instant from Plymouth." Frank- 
 lin soon replied that the transaction was completed, 
 and gave well - earned thanks to Hartley for his 
 " unwearied pains in that affair." 
 
 Thus after infinite difficulty the English govern- 
 ment had been pushed into conformity with the 
 ordinary customs of war among civilized nations. 
 Yet subsequent exchanges seem to have been ef- 
 fected only after every possible obstacle had been 
 contumaciously thrown in the way by the English 
 and patiently removed by Franklin. The Ameri- 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 259 
 
 cans were driven to various devices. The captains 
 sometimes released their prisoners at sea upon the 
 written parole of each either to secure the return of 
 an American, or to surrender himself to Franklin in 
 France. In November, 1781, Franklin had about 
 five hundred of these documents, " not one of 
 which," he says, " has been regarded, so little faith 
 and honor remain in that corrupted nation." At 
 last, after France and Spain had joined in the war, 
 Franklin arranged that the American captors might 
 lodge their prisoners in French and Spanish prisons. 
 Under flags of truce two cargoes of English 
 sailors were dispatched from Boston to England ; 
 but the English refused to reciprocate. " There is 
 no getting anything from these barbarians," said 
 Franklin, ^' by advances of civility or humanity." 
 Then much trouble arose because the French bor- 
 rowed from Franklin some English prisoners for 
 exchange in Holland, and returned to him a like 
 number a little too late for delivery on board the 
 cartel ship, which had brought over one hundred 
 Americans. Thereupon the Englishmen charged 
 Franklin with *' breach of faith," and with " deceiv- 
 ing the Board," and put a stop to further exchang- 
 ing. This matter was, of course, set right in time. 
 But the next point made by the admiralty was that 
 they would make no exchanges with Franklin ex- 
 cept for English sailors taken by American cruis- 
 ers, thus excluding captives taken by the privateers- 
 men. Franklin, much angered at the thwarting of 
 his humane and reasonable scheme, said that they 
 
260 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 had " given up all pretensions to equity and honor." 
 In his disappointment he went a little too far ; if 
 he had said " liberality and humanity " instead of 
 " equity and honor " he would have kept within 
 literal truth. To meet this last action on the part 
 of England he suggested to Congress : " Whether 
 it may not be well to set apart 500 or 600 English 
 prisoners, and refuse them all exchange in America, 
 but for our countrymen now confined in England ? " 
 
 Another thing which vexed him later was that 
 the English government would not give the Ameri- 
 cans an " equal allowance " with the Erench and 
 Spanish prisoners. He suggested retaliation upon 
 a certain number of English prisoners in America. 
 He himself was constantly remitting money to be 
 distributed to the American prisoners, at the rate 
 of one shilling apiece each week. But he had 
 the pain to hear that the wretched fellow, one 
 Digges, to whom he sent the funds, embezzled 
 much of them. " If such a fellow is not damned," 
 he said, "it is not worth while to keep a devih" 
 One prisoner of distinction. Colonel Laurens, cap- 
 tured on his way to France, complained that Frank- 
 lin did not show sufficient zeal in his behalf. But 
 he made the assertion in ignorance of Franklin's 
 efforts, which for a long while Franklin had reason 
 to believe had been successful in securing kind and 
 liberal treatment for this captive. 
 
 In all this business Franklin ought to have re- 
 ceived efficient assistance from Thomas Morris, 
 who held the position of commercial agent for the 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 261 
 
 States at Nantes, and who might properly have ex- 
 tended his functions to include so much of the 
 naval business as required personal attention at 
 that port. But he turned out to be a drunken ras- 
 cal, active only in mischief. Thereupon, early in 
 1777, Franklin employed a nephew of his own from 
 Boston, Jonathan Williams, not to supersede Mor- 
 ris in the commercial department, but to take 
 charge of the strictly naval affairs, which were con- 
 strued to include all matters pertaining to war- 
 ships, privateers, and prizes. This action became 
 the source of much trouble. It was a case of nepo- 
 tism, of course, which was unfortunate ; yet there 
 was an absolute necessity to engage some one for 
 these duties, and there was scant opportunity for 
 choice. During the year that Williams held the 
 office there is no reason to believe that he did not 
 prove himself both efficient and honest. Robert 
 Morris, however, whose brother Thomas was, and 
 who had obtained for him the commercial office, 
 was much offended, and it was not until in the 
 course of time he received masses of indisputable 
 evidence of his brother's wortlilessness, that he was 
 placated. Then at length he wrote a frank, pa- 
 thetic letter, in which he acknowledged that he had 
 been misled by natural affection, and that his re- 
 sentment had been a mistake. 
 
 Arthur Lee also poured the destructive torrent 
 of his malignant wrath over the ill-starred Wil- 
 liams. For William Lee pretended to find his 
 province and his profits also trenched upon. The 
 
262 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 facts were that he was appointed to the commercial 
 agency jointly with Thomas Morris ; but shortly 
 afterward he was promoted to the diplomatic ser- 
 vice, and left Nantes for a permanent stay in 
 Paris. He did not formally vacate his agency, but 
 practically he abandoned it by rendering himself 
 unable to attend to its duties. So even if by any 
 construction he could have established a show of 
 right to conduct the naval business, at least he 
 never was on hand to do so. These considerations, 
 however, did not in the least mitigate the rage of 
 the Lee brethren, who now brought a great variety 
 of charges. Franklin, they said, had no authority 
 to make the appointment, and Williams was a 
 knave engaged in a scandalous partnership with 
 Deane to make money dishonestly out of the pub- 
 lic business, especially the prizes. The quarrel 
 continued unabated when John Adams arrived, 
 in 1778, as joint commissioner with Franklin and 
 Arthur Lee. At once the active Lee besieged the 
 ear of the new-comer with all his criminations ; and 
 he must have found a ready listener, for so soon as 
 the fourth day after his arrival Adams felt himself 
 sufficiently informed to take what was practically 
 judicial action in the matter. He declared upon 
 Lee's side. The two then signed an order for Wil- 
 liams's dismissal, and presented it to Franklin. It 
 was discourteous if not insulting behavior to an old 
 man and the senior commissioner; but Franklin 
 wisely said not a word, and added his signature to 
 those of his colleagues. The rest of the story is 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 263 
 
 tlie familiar one of many cases : the agent made 
 repeated demands for the appointment of an ac- 
 countant to examine his accounts, and Franklin 
 often and very urgently preferred the same request. 
 But the busy Congress would not bother itself ever 
 so little with a matter no longer of any practi- 
 cal moment. Lee's charges remained unrefuted, 
 though not a shadow of justifiable suspicion rested 
 upon Franklin's unfortunate nephew. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 MINISTER TO FRANCE: III. 
 TREATY WITH FRANCE: MORE QUARRELS. 
 
 The enthusiastic reception of Franklin in 
 France was responded to by him with a bearing so 
 cheerful and words so encouraging that all the 
 auguries for America seemed for a while of the 
 best. For he was sanguine by nature, by resolu- 
 tion, and by policy ; and his way of alluring good 
 fortune was to welcome it in advance. But in fact 
 there were clouds enough floating in the sky, and 
 soon they expanded and obscured the transitory 
 brightness. Communication between the two con* 
 tinents was extremely slow ; throughout the war in- 
 tervals occurred when for long and weary months 
 no more trustworthy news reached Paris than the 
 rumors which got their coloring by filtration through 
 Great Britain. Thus in the dread year of 1777, 
 there traveled across the Channel tales that Wash- 
 ington was conducting the remnant of his forces in 
 a demoralized retreat ; that Philadelphia had fallen 
 before Howe ; that Burgoyne, with a fine army, was 
 moving to bisect the insurgent colonies from the 
 north. It was very well for Franklin, when told 
 that Howe had taken Philadelphia, to reply : " No, 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 265 
 
 sir : Philadelphia has taken Howe." The jest 
 may have relieved the stress of his mind, as Presi- 
 dent Lincoln used often to relieve his own over- 
 taxed endurance in the same way. But the unde- 
 niable truth was that it looked much as if the affair, 
 to use Franklin's words, would prove to be a " re- 
 bellion " and not a " revolution." Still, any mis- 
 givings which he may have inwardly felt found no 
 expression, and to no one would he admit the pos- 
 sibility of such an ultimate outcome. Late in the 
 autumn of this dismal year he wrote : — 
 
 *' You desire to know my opinion of what will prob- 
 ably be the end of this war, and whether our new estab- 
 lishments Avill not be thereby again reduced to deserts. I 
 do not, for my part, apprehend much danger of so great 
 an evil to us. I think we shall be able, with a little 
 help, to defend ourselves, our possessions, and our liber- 
 ties so long that England will be ruined by persisting in 
 the wicked attempt to destroy them. . . . And I some- 
 times flatter myself that, old as I am, I may possibly 
 live to see my country settled in peace, when Britain 
 shall make no more a formidable figure among the 
 powers of Europe." 
 
 But though Franklin might thus refuse to de- 
 spair for his country, the French ministry were not 
 to be blamed if they betrayed an increased reserve 
 in their communications with men who might soon 
 prove to be traitors instead of ambassadors, and if 
 they were careful to stop short of actually bringing 
 on a war with England. It was an anxious period 
 for Franklin when the days wore slowly into 
 
266 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 months and tlie months lengthened almost into a 
 year, during which he had no trustworthy informa- 
 tion as to all the ominous news which the English 
 papers and letters brought. 
 
 In this crisis of military affairs the anxious en- 
 voys felt that the awful burden of their country's 
 salvation not improbably rested upon them. If 
 they could induce France to come to the rescue, all 
 would be well ; if they could not, the worst might 
 be feared. Yet in this mortal jeopardy they saw 
 France growing more guarded in her conduct, while 
 in vain they asked themselves, in an agony, what 
 influence it was possible for them to exert. At the 
 close of November, 1777, they conferred upon the 
 matter. Mr, Deane was in favor of demanding 
 from the French court a direct answer to the ques- 
 tion, whether or not France would come openly to 
 the aid of the colonies ; and he advised that de 
 Vergennes should be distinctly told that, if France 
 should decline, the colonies would be obliged to 
 seek an accommodation with Great Britain. But 
 Dr. Franklin strenuously opposed this course. The 
 effect of such a declaration seemed to him too un- 
 certain ; France might take it as a menace; she 
 might be induced by it to throw over the colonies 
 altogether, in despair or anger. Neither would he 
 admit that the case was in fact so desperate ; the 
 colonies might yet work out their own safety, with 
 the advantage in that event of remaining more 
 free from any European influence. The soundness 
 of this latter argument was afterward abundantly 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 267 
 
 shown by the history of the country during the first 
 three administrations. Fortunately upon this oc- 
 casion Lee sided with Franklin, and the untimely 
 trial of French friendship was not made. Had it 
 been, it would have been more likely to jeopardize 
 forever than to precipitate the good fortune which, 
 though still invisible, was close at hand. 
 
 It was not until December 4, 1777, that there 
 broke a great and sudden rift in the solid cloudi- 
 ness. First there came a vague rumor of good 
 news, no one at all knew what ; then a post-chaise 
 drove into Dr. Franklin's court-yard, and from it 
 hastily alighted the young messenger, Jonathan 
 Loring Austin, whom Congress had sent express 
 from Philadelphia, and who had accomplished an 
 extraordinarily rapid journey. The American group 
 of envoys and agents were all there, gathered by 
 the mysterious report which had reached them, and 
 at the sound of the wheels they ran out into the 
 court-yard and eagerly surrounded the chaise. 
 *' Sir," exclaimed Franklin, " is Philadelphia 
 taken ? " " Yes, sir," replied Austin ; and Frank- 
 lin clasped his hands and turned to reenter the 
 house. But Austin cried that he bore greater 
 news : that General Burgoyne and his whole army 
 were prisoners of war ! At the words the glorious 
 sunshine burst forth. Beaumarchais, the ecstatic, 
 sprang into his carriage and drove madly for the 
 city to spread the story ; but he upset his vehicle 
 and dislocated his arm. Tlie envoys hastily read 
 and wrote ; in a few hours Austin was again on the 
 
268 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 road, this time bound to de Yergennes at Versailles, 
 to tell the great tidings. Soon all Paris got the 
 news and burst into triumphant rejoicing over the 
 disaster to England. 
 
 Austin's next errand was a secret and singular 
 one. Franklin managed throughout his residence 
 in France to maintain a constant communication 
 with the opposition party in England. He now 
 thought it wise to enable them to obtain full in- 
 formation from an intelligent man who was not 
 many weeks absent from the States. Accordingly 
 he dispatched Austin, using extreme precautions 
 of secrecy, making him "" burn every letter which 
 he had brought from his friends in America," but 
 giving him in exchange two other letters, which 
 certainly introduced him to strange society for an 
 American " rebel " to frequent. During his visit 
 he was " domesticated in the family of the Earl of 
 Shelburne ; placed under the particular protection 
 of his chaplain, the celebrated Dr. Priestley ; intro- 
 duced " to George IV., then Prince of Wales, with 
 whom was Charles Fox, and was "'present at all 
 the coteries of the opposition." Almost every 
 evening he was invited to dinner-parties, at which 
 the company was chiefly composed of members of 
 Parliament, and they plied him with interrogations 
 about his country and its affairs, so that, as he re- 
 ported, "no question which you can conceive is 
 omitted." ^ He answered well, and rendered ser- 
 vice as good as it was singular, for which Franklin 
 
 ^ Parton's Life of Franklin, ii. 307. 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 269 
 
 was probably the only American who could have 
 furnished the opening. The adventure brings to 
 mind some of the Jacobite tales of Sir Walter 
 Scott's novels. 
 
 One half of the advantages accruing from " Gen- 
 eral Burgoyne's capitulation to Mr. Gates " — such 
 was the Tory euj^hemisui, somewhat ill-considered, 
 since it implied that the gallant British commander 
 had capitulated to a civilian — was to be reaped in 
 Europe. The excellent Hartley was already be- 
 nevolently dreaming of effecting an accommoda- 
 tion between the two contestants ; and seeing 
 clearly that an alliance with France must be fatal 
 to any such project, he closed a letter on February 
 3, 1778, to Franklin, by '' subjoining one earnest 
 caution and request : Let nothing ever persuade 
 America to throw themselves into the arms of 
 France. Times may mend. I hope they will. An 
 American must always be a stranger in France ; 
 Great Britain may for ages to come be their home." 
 This was as kindly in intention as it was bad in 
 grammatical construction ; but it was written froui 
 a point of view very different from that which an 
 American could adopt. Franklin promptly replied : 
 " When your nation is hiring all the cut-throats it 
 can collect, of all countries and colors, to destroy 
 us, it is hard to persuade us not to ask or accept 
 aid from any power that may be prevailed with to 
 grant it ; and this only from the hope that, though 
 you now thirst for our blood, and pursue us with 
 fire and sword, you may in some future time treat 
 
270 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 US kindly. This is too much patience to be ex- 
 pected of us ; indeed, I think it is not in human 
 nature." 
 
 A few days later he transposed Hartley's advice, 
 not without irony : '' Let nothing induce [tlie Eng- 
 lish Whigs] to join with the Tories in supporting 
 and continuing this wicked war against the Whigs 
 of America, whose assistance they may hereafter 
 want to secure their own liberties, or whose country 
 they may be glad to retire to for the enjoyment of 
 them." Hartley must have had a marvelous good 
 temper, if he read without resentment the very 
 blunt and severe replies which Franklin a little 
 mercilessly made to the other's ever temperate and 
 amiable letters. 
 
 Hartley's advice, if not acceptable, was at least 
 timely. At the very moment when he warned 
 America against taking refuge in the arms of 
 France, the colonists were joyously springing into 
 that international embrace. The victory at Sara- 
 toofa had at last settled that matter. On December 
 6, 1777, two days after the news was received, 
 M. Gerard called upon the envoys and said that 
 the capacity of the colonies to maintain their in- 
 dependence could no longer be doubted, and that 
 the French court would be pleased by a renewal of 
 their proposals for an alliance. On December 8tli 
 a request for an alliance was placed by young Tem- 
 ple Franklin in the hands of de Vergennes. On 
 December 12th the cabinet met ; also Arthur Lee 
 reports that the envoys went out to Versailles and 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 271 
 
 concealed themselves at an appointed spot in the 
 wood, whither soon came to them de Yergennes. 
 In the talk that ensued he said to them everything 
 which a liberal spirit of friendship could suggest, 
 but nothing which was actually positive and bind- 
 ing. For it was necessary, as he explained, first to 
 consult with Spain, whose concurrence was desired ; 
 this, however, could be safely counted upon, and 
 a courier was to be dispatched at once to Madrid. 
 But the return of this messenger was not awaited ; 
 for on December 17 the commissioners were for- 
 mally notified that France woidd acknowledge the 
 independence of the colonies, and would execute 
 with them treaties of commerce and alliance imme- 
 diately upon getting the Spanish reply. In return 
 for her engagements France only asked that, in the 
 probable event of a war ensuing between herself 
 and England, the colonies would pledge themselves 
 never to make peace save upon the terms of inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 On January 8, 1778, M. Gerard met the en- 
 voys after dark at Mr. Deane's quarters. He in- 
 formed them that the government had resolved 
 immediately to conclude with the colonies a treaty 
 of amity and commerce ; also another treaty, offen- 
 sive and defensive, and guarantying independence, 
 upon the conditions that the colonies would neither 
 make a separate peace, nor one relinquishing their 
 independence. The independence of the thirteen 
 colonies being the king's sole purpose, no assistance 
 would be extended for subduine: Canada or the 
 
272 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 English West Indies. As it would probably not 
 be agreeable to the colonies to have foreign troops 
 in their country, the design was to furnish only 
 naval aid. It would be left oj^en for Sj^ain to 
 accede to the treaties at any time. Nothing could 
 have been more agreeable and encouraging than 
 these arrangements, by which France did all the 
 giving and America all the receiving. A few days 
 later Gerard said that the king would not only 
 acknowledge, but would support American indepen- 
 dence, and that the condition precluding the Amer- 
 icans from making a separate peace, if France 
 should be drawn into the war, would be waived. 
 
 On January 18th Gerard came to the envoys with 
 drafts which he had prepared for the two treaties, 
 and which he left for them to consider at their 
 leisure. It took them much longer to consider than 
 it had taken him to devise these documents. Lee 
 said that the delay was all Franklin's fault ; but 
 at least Franklin illumined it by one of his mots. 
 There was sent to the envoys a large cake inscribed : 
 " Le digne Franklin." Deane said that, with 
 thanks, they would approj^riate it to their joint use ; 
 Franklin pleasantly replied that it was obviously 
 intended for all three, only the French donor did 
 not know how to spell " Lee, Deane, Franklin " cor- 
 rectly. But the uneasy jealousy of Lee suggested 
 a counter-argument : " When they remember us," 
 i. c, himself and Deane, he said, " they always put 
 you first." Lee, who in his lifetime could never 
 endure being second to Franklin, must be astounded 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 273 
 
 indeed if, in another existence, he sees the place 
 which judicial posterity has assigned to him ! 
 
 In their discussions concerning the treaty the 
 commissioners fell into a contention over one article. 
 Their secret instructions directed them to " press " 
 for a stipulation that no export duties should be 
 imposed by France upon molasses taken from the 
 French West Indies into the States ; but they were 
 not to let the " fate of the treaty depend upon ob- 
 taining it." Of all merchandise imported into the 
 States molasses was the most important to their 
 general trade ; it was the " basis on which a very 
 great part of tlie American commerce rested." ^ 
 In exchange for it they sent to the islands consid- 
 erable quantities of pretty much all their products, 
 and they distilled it in enormous quantities into 
 rum. Every man who drank a glass of rum seemed 
 to be advancing ^jro tanto the national prosperity, 
 and the zeal with which those godly forefathers of 
 ours thus promoted the general welfare is feebly 
 appreciated by their descendants. All this rum, 
 said John Adams, has " injured our health and our 
 morals ; " but " the taste for rum will continue ; " 
 and upon this conviction the commissioners felt 
 obliged to act. Accordingly they proposed that it 
 should be " agreed and concluded that there shall 
 never be any. duty imposed on the exportation of 
 molasses that may be taken by the subjects of the 
 United States from the islands of America which 
 belong or may hereafter appertain to his most 
 
 1 Diplomatic Correspondence of the Amer. Rev., i. 156. 
 
274 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Christian majesty." But Gerard said that this 
 was " unequal," since the States made no balancing 
 concession. It was not easy to suggest any " con- 
 cession of equal importance on the part of the 
 United States," and so '' after long consideration 
 Dr. Franklin proposed" this: "In compensation of 
 the exemption stipulated in the preceding article, it 
 is agreed and concluded that there shall never be 
 any duties imposed on the exportation of any kind 
 of merchandise, which the subjects of his most 
 Christian majesty may take from the countries and 
 possessions, present or future, of any of the thirteen 
 United States, for the use of the islands which 
 shall furnish molasses." 
 
 This pleased Lee as little as the other article had 
 pleased Gerard ; for it was " too extensive, and 
 more than equivalent for molasses only." Pie was 
 answered that " it was in reality nothing more than 
 giving up what we could never make use of but to 
 our own prejudice ; for nothing was more evident 
 than the bad policy of laying duties on our own ex- 
 ports." Franklin was of oj^inion that export duties 
 were " a knavish attempt to get something for noth- 
 ing ; " that the inventor of them had the " genius of 
 a pickpocket." Britain had lost her colonies by an 
 export duty on tea. Moreover since the States j)ro- 
 duced no commodity which could net be procured 
 elsewhere, to discourage consumption of their own 
 and encourage the rivalship of others would be an 
 "absolute folljr" against which he w^ould protest 
 even if practiced by way of reprisal. Gerard finally 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCf.. 275 
 
 said that he regarded these articte c.^ "reciprocal 
 and equal," that his majesty waf^ " indifferent " 
 about them, and that they might be retained or re- 
 jected together, but that one could not be kept with- 
 out the other. Lee then yielded, and Gerard was 
 notified that both articles would be inserted. He 
 assented. Soon, however, William Lee and Izard, 
 being informed of the arrangement, took Arthur 
 Lee's original view and protested against it. Lee 
 reports that this interference put Franklin " much 
 out of humor," and that he said it would "appear 
 an act of levity to renew the discussion of a thing 
 we had agreed to." None the less, Lee now re- 
 sumed his first position so firmly that Franklin and 
 Deane in their turn agreed to omit both articles. 
 But they stipulated that Lee should arrange the 
 matter with Gerard, since, as they had just agreed 
 in writing to retain both, they " could not with any 
 consistency make a point of their being expunged," 
 and they felt that the business of a change at this 
 stao'e mio'ht be disaoreeable. Li fact Lee found it 
 so. When he called on Gerard and requested the 
 omission of botli, Gerard replied that the king had 
 already approved the treaty, that it was now en- 
 grossed on parchment, and that a new arrangement 
 would entail "inconvenience and considerable de- 
 lay." But finally, not without showing some irri- 
 tation at the fickleness of the commissioners, he 
 was brought to agree that Congress might ratify 
 the treaty either with or without these articles, as 
 it should see fit. This business cost Franklin, as 
 
276 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 an annoying incident, an encounter with Mr. Izard, 
 and a tart correspondence ensued. 
 
 On February 6th all was at length ready and 
 the pai^ties came together, M. Gerard for France 
 and the envoys for the States, to execute these 
 most important documents. Franklin wore the 
 spotted velvet suit of privy council fame. They 
 signed a treaty of amity and commerce, a treaty 
 of alliance, and a secret article belonging with 
 the latter providing that Spain might become a 
 party to it — on the Spanish manana. There was 
 an express stipulation on the part of France that 
 the whole should be kept secret until after ratifi- 
 cation by Congress ; for there was a singular ap- 
 prehension that in the interval some accommoda- 
 tion might be brought about between the insurgent 
 States and the mother country, which would leave 
 France in a very embarrassing position if she should 
 not be free to deny the existence of such treaties. 
 It was undoubtedly a dread of some such occur- 
 rence which had induced the promptitude and the 
 ever-increasing liberality in terms which France 
 had shown from the moment when the news of 
 Saratoga arrived. Nor joerhaps was her anxiety so 
 utterly absurd as it now seems. There was some 
 foundation for Gibbon's epigrammatic statement 
 that "the two greatest nations in Europe were 
 fairly running a race for the favor of America." 
 For the disaster to the army on the Hudson had 
 had an effect in England even greater than it 
 had had in France, and Burgoyne's capitulation 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 211 
 
 to " Mr. Gates " bad very nearly brought on a 
 capitulation of Lord Nortb's cabinet to the insur- 
 gent Congress. On February 17 that minister 
 rose, and in a speech of two hours introduced two 
 conciliatory bills. The one declared that Parlia- 
 ment had no intention of exercising the right of 
 taxing the colonies in America. The other author- 
 ized sending to the States commissioners emj^ow- 
 ered to "treat with Congress, with provincial as- 
 semblies, or with Washington ; to order a truce ; 
 to suspend all laws ; to grant pardons and rewards ; 
 to restore the form of constitution as it stood be- 
 fore the troubles." ^ The priuie minister substan- 
 tially acknowledged that England's course toward 
 her colonies had been one prolonged blunder, and 
 now she was willing to concede every demand save 
 actual independence. The war might be continued, 
 as it was ; but such a confession could never be 
 retracted. " A dull melancholy silence for some 
 time succeeded to this speech. . . . Astonishment, 
 dejection, and fear overclouded the assembly." 
 
 But a fresh sensation was at hand. Horace and 
 Thomas Walpole had obtained private information 
 of what had taken place in France ; but had cau- 
 tiously held it in reserve, and arranged that only 
 tw5 hours before the meeting of the House of Com- 
 mons on that eventful day the Duke of Grafton 
 should tell it to Charles Fox. So now when North 
 sat down Fox rose, indulged in a little sarcasm on 
 the conversion of the ministry to the views of the 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., ix. 484. 
 
278 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 opposition, and then asked liis lordshij) " Whether a 
 commercial treaty with France had not been signed 
 by the American agents at Paris within the last 
 ten days ? ' If so,' he said, ' the administration 
 is beaten by ten days, a situation so threatening 
 that in such a time of danger the House must con- 
 cur with the propositions, though probably now 
 they would have no effect.' Lord North was thun- 
 derstruck and would not rise." But at last, warned 
 that it would be " criminal and a matter of im- 
 peachment to withhold an answer," he admitted 
 that he had heard a rumor of the signature of such 
 a treaty.^ So the bills were passed too late. 
 
 So soon as their passage was assured. Hartley, 
 "acting on an understanding with Lord North," ^ 
 dispatched copies to Franklin. Franklin upon his 
 part, also first having an understanding with de 
 Vergennes, replied that, if peace with the States 
 upon equal terms were really desired, the commis- 
 sioners need not journey to America for it, for " if 
 wise and honest men, such as Sir George Saville, 
 the Bishop of St. Asaph, and yourself were to come 
 over here immediately with powers to treat, you 
 might not only obtain peace with America but pre- 
 vent a war with France." About the same time 
 also Hartley visited Franklin in person ; but noth- 
 ing came of their interview, of which no record 
 is preserved. The two bills were passed, almost 
 
 1 Parton's Life of Franklin, ii. 309. 
 
 2 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., ix. 485 ; Hale's Franklin in France, 
 i. 223. 
 
 4 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 279 
 
 unanimously. But every one felt that their useful- 
 ness had been taken out of them by the other con- 
 sequences of that event which had induced their in- 
 troduction. News of them, however, was dispatched 
 to America by a shijD which followed close upon the 
 frigate which carried the tidings of the French 
 treaties. If the English ship should arrive first, 
 something might be effected. But it did not, and 
 probably nothing would have been gained if it had. 
 Franklin truly said to Hartley: ''All acts that 
 suppose your future government of the colonies 
 can be no longer significant ; " and he described 
 the acts as " two frivolous bills, which the present 
 ministry, in their consternation, have thought fit 
 to propose, with a view to support their public 
 credit a little longer at home, and to amuse and 
 divide, if possible, our people in America." But 
 even for this purpose they came too late, and stirred 
 no other response than a ripple of sarcastic tri- 
 umph over such an act of humiliation, wdiich was 
 aggravated by being rejected almost without con- 
 sideration by Congress. '! 
 
 So there was an end of conciliation. On March 
 23d the American envoys had the significant dis- 
 tinction of a presentation to the king, who is said 
 to have addressed to them this gracious and royal 
 sentence : " Gentlemen, I wish the Congress to be 
 assured of my friendship, I beg leave also to ob- 
 serve that I am exceedingly satisfied, in particular, 
 with your own conduct during your residence in my 
 kingdom." ^ This personal compliment, if paid, 
 ^ Pai'ton's Life of Franklin, ii. 312. 
 
280 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 was gratifying ; for the anomalous and difficult posi- 
 tion of the envoys had compelled them to govern 
 themselves wholly by their own tact and judgment, 
 with no aid from experience or precedents. 
 
 The presentation had been delayed by reason of 
 Franklin having an attack of the gout, and the 
 effort, when made, laid him up for some time after- 
 ward. It was on this occasion, especially, that he 
 made himself conspicuous by wearing only the 
 simple dress of a gentleman of the day instead of 
 the costume of etiquette. Bancroft says that again 
 he donned the suit of spotted Manchester velvet. 
 He did not wear a sword, but made up for it by 
 keeping on his spectacles ; he had a round white 
 hat under his arm, and no wig concealed his 
 scanty gray hair. America has always rejoiced at 
 this republican simplicity ; but the fact seems to 
 be that it was largely due to chance. Parton says 
 that the doctor had ordered a wig, but when it 
 came home it proved much too small for his great 
 head, and there was no time to make another. 
 HawtlKwme also repeats the story that Franklin's 
 court suit did not get home in time, and so he had 
 to go in ordinary apparel ; but it " took " so well 
 that the shrewd doctor never explained the real 
 reason. 
 
 On March 13th the Marquis de Noailles, French 
 ambassador at St. James's, formally announced to 
 the English secretary of state the execution of the 
 treaty of amity and commerce ; and impudently 
 added a hope that the English court would see 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 281 
 
 therein " new proofs " of King Louis's " sincere 
 disposition for peace ; " and that his Britannic 
 majesty, animated by the same sentiments, would 
 equally avoid everything that might alter their 
 good harmony ; also that he would particularly 
 take effective measures to prevent the commerce 
 between his French majesty's subjects and the 
 United States of North America from being inter- 
 rupted. When this was communicated to Parlia- 
 ment Conway asked : " What else have we to do 
 but to take up the idea that Franklin has thrown 
 out with fairness and manliness?"^ But Franklin's 
 ideas had not now, any more than heretofore, the 
 good fortune to be acceptable to English ministers. 
 Indeed, the mere fact that a suggestion came from 
 him was in itself unfortunate ; for the king, whose 
 influence was preponderant in this American busi- 
 ness, had singled out Franklin among all the 
 " rebels " as the object of extreme personal hatred. ^ 
 Franklin certainly reciprocated the feeling with an 
 intensity which John Adams soon afterward noted, 
 apparently with some surprise. The only real reply 
 to Noailles's message which commended itself to 
 government was the instant recall of Lord Stor- 
 mont, who left Paris on March 23d, sans prendre 
 conge^ just as he had once before threatened to do. 
 On the same day the French ambassador left Lon- 
 don, accompanied, as Gibbon said, by " some slight 
 
 1 The reference was to the suggestion made to Hartley for 
 sending commissioners to Paris to treat for peace. 
 '^ Franklin's Works., vi. 39, note 
 
282 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 expression of ill humor from John Bull." At the 
 end of the month M. Gerard sailed for America, 
 the first accredited minister to the new member of 
 the sisterhood of civilized nations. A fortnight 
 later the squadron of D'Estaing sailed from Toulon 
 for American waters, and two weeks later the Eng- 
 lish fleet followed. 
 
 Thus far the course of France throughout her re- 
 lationship with the States had been that of a gen- 
 erous friend. She undoubtedly had been primarily 
 instigated by enmity to England ; and she had been 
 for a while guarded and cautious ; yet not un- 
 reasonably so ; on the contrary, she had in many 
 instances been sufficiently remiss in regarding her 
 neutral obligations to give abundant cause for war, 
 though England had not felt ready to declare it. 
 At the first interview concerning the treaty of com- 
 merce de Yergennes had said that the French 
 court desired to take no advantage of the condition 
 of the States, and to exact no terms which they 
 would afterward regret, but rather to make an ar- 
 rangement so based upon the interest of both par- 
 ties that it should last as long as human institu- 
 tions should endure, so that mutual amity should 
 subsist forever. M. Gerard reiterated the same 
 sentiments. That this language was not mere 
 French courtesy w^as proved by the fact that the 
 treaties, when completed, were " founded on prin- 
 ciples of equality and reciprocity, and for the most 
 part were in conformity to the proposals of Con- 
 gress." ^ Each party, under the customs laws of 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., ix. 481. 
 
 1 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 283 
 
 the other, was to be upon the footing of the most 
 favored nation. The transfer of the valuable and 
 growing trade of the States from England to France 
 had been assiduously held out as a temptation to 
 France to enter into these treaties ; but no effort 
 was made by France to gain from the needs of the 
 Americans any exclusive privileges for herself. 
 She was content to stipulate only that no other 
 people should be granted preferences over her, 
 leaving the States entirely unhampered for making- 
 subsequent arrangements with other nations. The 
 light in which these dealings about the treaties 
 made the French minister and the French court 
 appear to Franklin should be remembered in the 
 discussions which arose later concerning the treaty 
 of peace.^ 
 
 It may further be mentioned, by the way, that 
 Franklin had the pleasure of seeing inserted his 
 favorite principle: that free ships should make 
 free goods, and free persons also, save only soldiers 
 in actual service of an enemy. In passing, it is 
 pleasant to preserve this, amid the abundant other 
 testimony to Franklin's humane and advanced 
 ideas as to the conduct of war between civilized 
 nations.^ The doctrine of free ships making free 
 
 1 See Franklin's Works, vi. 133. At this time John Adams 
 strongly entertained the same sentiments, thoug-h he afterward 
 felt very differently about the sincerity of France. Diplomatic 
 Correspondence of American Bevolution, iv. 262, 292. 
 
 2 He was able to give a practical proof of his liberality by 
 furnishing a passport to the packets carrying goods to the Mora- 
 vian brethren in Labrador. Hale's Franklin in France, i. 245. 
 
284 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 goods, though promulgated early in the century, 
 was still making slow and difficult progress. 
 Franklin accepted it with eagerness. He wrote 
 that he was " not only for respecting the ships as 
 the house of a friend, though containing the goods 
 of an enemy, but I even wish that ... all those 
 kinds of people who are employed in procuring 
 subsistence for the species, or in exchanging the 
 necessaries or conveniences of life, which are for 
 the common benefit of mankind, such as husband- 
 men on their lands, fishermen in their barques, and 
 traders in unarmed vessels, shall be permitted to 
 prosecute their several innocent and useful employ- 
 ments without interruption or molestation, and 
 nothing taken from them, even when wanted by an 
 enemy, but on paying a fair price for the same." 
 Also to the president of Congress he spoke of Rus- 
 sia's famous proposal for an " armed neutrality for 
 protecting the liberty of commerce " as " the great 
 public event " of the year in Europe. He pro- 
 posed that Congress should order their cruisers 
 " not to molest foreign ships, but to conform to the 
 spirit of that treaty of neutrality.". Congress 
 promptly voted to request the admission of the 
 States to the league, and John Adams took charge 
 of this business during his mission to Holland. 
 
 Events having thus established the indefinite 
 continuance of the war, the good Hartley, pro- 
 foundly disappointed, wrote a brief note invoking 
 blessings on his " dear friend," and closing with 
 the ominous words, " If tempestuous times should 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 285 
 
 come, take care of your own safety ; events are un- 
 certain and men may be capricious." Franklin, 
 however, declined to be alarmed. "I thank you," 
 he said, " for your kind caution, but having nearly 
 finished a long life, I set but little value on Avhat 
 remains of it. Like a draper, M^hen one chaffers 
 with him for a remnant, I am ready to say : ' As it 
 is only the fag end, I will not diifer with you about 
 it ; take it for what you please.' Perhaps the best 
 use such an old fellow can be put to is to make a 
 martyr of him." 
 
 A few weeks after the conclusion of this diplo- 
 matic bond of friendship between the two peoples, 
 Franklin, in the words of Mr. Bancroft, ''placed 
 the public opinion of philosophical France con- 
 spicuously on the side of America." Voltaire came 
 back to Paris, after twenty-seven years of voluntary 
 exile, and received such adoration that it almost 
 seemed as if, for Frenchmen, he was taking the 
 place of that God whom he had been declaring 
 non-existent, but whom he believed it necessary for 
 mankind to invent. Franklin had an interview 
 with him, which presented a curious scene. The 
 aged French philosopher, shriveled, bright -eyed, 
 destructive - minded, received the aged American 
 philosopher, portly, serene, the humanest of men, 
 in theatrical French fashion, quoting a passage of 
 English poetry, and uttering over the head of 
 young Temple the appropriate benediction, " God 
 and Liberty." This drama was enacted in private, 
 but on April 29th occurred that public spectacle 
 
286 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 made familiar by countless engravings, decorating 
 the walls of so many old-fashioned American " sit- 
 ting-rooms " and " best parlors," when, upon the 
 stage of the Academy of Sciences, before a numer- 
 ous and distinguished audience, the two venerable 
 sages met and saluted each other. " 11 faut s^em- 
 bi^asser a la Frangaise^'^ shouted the enthusiastic 
 crowd ; so they fell into each other's arms, and 
 kissed, after the continental mode. Great was the 
 fervor aroused in the breasts of the classic people 
 of France as they proudly saw upon their soil a 
 new " Solon and Sophocles " in embrace. Who 
 shall say that Franklin's personal prestige in 
 Europe had not practical value for America ? 
 
 Silas Deane, recalled, accompanied Gerard to 
 America. He carried with him a brief but gener- 
 ous letter from Franklin to the president of Con- 
 gress.^* At the same time Izard was writing home 
 that Deane's misbehavior had long delayed the al- 
 liance with France, and he repeated what he had 
 said in former letters, that '' whatever good dispo- 
 sitions were shown by Mr. Lee, they were always 
 ©Imposed and overruled by the two oldest commis- 
 sioners." The departure of the two gentlemen was 
 kept a close secret at Paris, and at the request of 
 de Vergennes especially a secret from Arthur Lee. 
 For the French ministry were well assured that 
 Lee's private secretary was a spy in British pay, 
 and had he got possession of this important bit of 
 news, it would not only have been untimely in a 
 
 ^ Franklin's Works, vi. 153. 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 287 
 
 diplomatic way, but it might have given opportu- 
 nity for British cruisers to waylay a vessel carry- 
 ing such distinguished passengers. The precaution 
 was justifiable, but it had ill consequences for 
 Franklin, since it naturally incensed Lee to an ex- 
 treme degree, and led to a very sharp correspond- 
 ence, which still further aggravated the discomfort 
 of the situation. The legitimate trials to which 
 the aged doctor was subjected were numerous and 
 severe enough, but the untiring and malicious en- 
 mity of Arthur Lee was an altogether illegitimate 
 vexation. 
 
 Mr. Hale in his recent volumes upon Franklin 
 truly says that " it is unnecessary to place vitu- 
 perative adjectives to the credit [discredit?] of 
 Arthur Lee ; " and in fact to do so seems a work 
 of supererogation, since there probably remain few 
 such epithets in the English language which have 
 not already been applied to him by one writer or 
 another. Yet it is hard to hold one's hand, al- 
 though humanity would perhaps induce us to pity 
 rather than to revile a man cursed with so un- 
 happy a temperament. But whatever may be said 
 or left unsaid about him personally, the infinite 
 disturbance which he caused cannot be wholly ig- 
 nored. It was great enough to constitute an im- 
 portant element in history. Covered by the power- 
 ful authority of his influential and patriotic family 
 at home, and screened by the profound ignorance 
 of Congress concerning men and affairs abroad, 
 Lee was able for a long time to run his mis- 
 
288 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 chievous career without discovery or interruption. 
 He buzzed about Euroj)e like an angry liornet, 
 thrusting his venomous sting into every respecta- 
 ble and useful servant of his country, and irritat- 
 ing exceedingly the foreigners whom it was of 
 the first importance to conciliate. Incredible as 
 it seems, it is' undoubtedly true that he did not 
 hesitate to express in Paris his deep antipathy to 
 ^France and Frenchmen ; and it was only the low 
 esteem in which he was held that prevented his 
 singular behavior from doing irreparable injury to 
 the colonial cause. The English newspapers taunt- 
 ingly ridiculed his insignificance and incapacity ; 
 de Vergennes could not endure him, and scarcely 
 treated him with civility. But his intense egotism 
 prevented him from gathering wisdom from such 
 harsh instruction, which only added gall to his na- 
 tive bitterness. He wreaked his revenge upon his 
 colleagues, and towards Franklin he cherished an 
 envious hatred which developed into a monoma- 
 nia. Perhaps Franklin was correct in charitably 
 saying that at times he was " insane." He began 
 by asserting that Franklin was old, idle, and use- 
 less, fit only to be shelved in some respectable sine- 
 cure mission ; but he rapidly advanced from such 
 moderate condemnation until he charged Franklin 
 with being a party to the abstraction of his de- 
 spatches from a sealed parcel, which was rifled in 
 some unexplained way on its passage home ; ^ and 
 finally he even reached the extremity of alleging 
 
 ^ Parton's Franklin, ii. 354. 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 289 
 
 financial dishonesty in the public business, and in- 
 sinuated an opinion that the doctor's great rascality 
 indicated an intention never again to revisit his 
 native land. In all this malevolence he found an 
 earnest colleague in the hot-blooded Izard, whose 
 charges against Franklin were unmeasured. " His 
 abilities," wrote this angry gentleman, " are great 
 and his reputation high. Removed as he is at so 
 considerable a distance from the observation of his 
 constituents, if he is not guided by principles of 
 virtue and honor, those abilities and that reputa- 
 tion may produce the most mischievous effects. 
 In my conscience I declare to you that I believe 
 him under no such restraint, and God knows that 
 I speak the real, unprejudiced sentiments of my 
 heart." Such fulminations, reaching the States 
 out of what was then for them the obscurity of 
 Europe, greatly perplexed the members of Con- 
 gress ; for they had very insufficient means for de- 
 termining the value of the testimony given by these 
 absent witnesses. 
 
 It would serve no useful purpose to devote valu- 
 able space to narrating at length all the slander 
 and malice of these restless men, all the corre- 
 spondence, the quarrels, the explanations, and 
 general trouble to which they gave rise. But the 
 reader must exercise his imagination liberally in 
 fancying these things, in order to appreciate to 
 what incessant annoyance Franklin was subjected 
 at a time when the inevitable anxieties and severe 
 labors of his position were far beyond the strength 
 
290 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 of a man of his years. He showed wonderful pa- 
 tience and dignity, and though he sometimes let 
 some asperity find expression in his replies, he 
 never let them degenerate into retorts. Moreover, 
 he replied as little as possible, for he truly said 
 that he hated altercation ; whereas Lee, who rev- 
 eled in it, took as an aggravation of all his other 
 injuries that his opponent was inclined to curtail 
 the full luxury to be expected from a quarrel. 
 Franklin also magnanimously refrained from ar- 
 raigning Lee and Izard to Congress, either publicly 
 or privately, a forbearance which these chivalrous 
 gentlemen did not emulate. The memorial ^ of 
 Arthur Lee, of May, 1779, addressed to Congress, 
 contains criminations enough to furnish forth many 
 impeachments. But Franklin would not conde- 
 scend to allow his serenity to be disturbed hy the 
 news of these assaults. He felt " very easy," he 
 said, about these efforts to injure him, trusting in 
 the justice of the Congress to listen to no accusa- 
 tions without giving him an opportunity to reply.^ 
 Yet his position was not so absolutely secure and 
 exalted but that he suffered some little injury at 
 home. 
 
 John Adams, going out to replace Silas Deane, 
 crossed him on the passage, arriving at Bordeaux 
 on March 31, 1778. This ardent New Englander, 
 orderly, business-like, endowed with an insatiate 
 industry, plunged headlong into the midst of af- 
 
 1 Franklin's Works, vi. 363. 
 
 2 To Richard Bache, Franklin's Works, vi. 414. 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 291 
 
 fairs. With that happy self-confidence character- 
 istic of our people, which leads every American to 
 believe that he can at once and without training do 
 anything whatsoever better than it can be done by 
 any other living man no matter how well trained, 
 Adams began immediately to act and to criticise. 
 In a few hours he knew all about the discussions 
 between the various envoys, quasi envoys, and 
 agents, who were squabbling with each other to 
 the scandal of Paris ; in a few days he was ready 
 to turn out Jonathan Williams, unseen and un- 
 heard. He was shocked at the confusion in which 
 he saw all the papers of the embassy, and set vig- 
 orously about the task of sorting, labeling, dock- 
 eting, and tying up letters and accounts ; it was a 
 task which Franklin unquestionably had neglected, 
 and which required to be done. He was appalled 
 at the " prodigious sums of money " which had 
 been expended, at the further great sums which 
 were still to be paid, and at the lack of any proper 
 books of accounts, so that he could not learn " what 
 the United States have received as an equivalent." 
 He did not in direct words charge the other com- 
 missioners with culpable negligence ; but it was an 
 unavoidable inference from what he did say. Un- 
 doubtedly the fact was that the accounts were dis- 
 gracefully muddled and insufficient ; but the fault 
 really lay with Congress, which had never permitted 
 proper clerical assistance to be employed. Adams 
 soon found this out, and appreciated that besides 
 all the diplomatic affairs, which were their only 
 
292 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 proper concern, the commissioners were also trans- 
 acting an enormous business, financial and commer- 
 cial, involving innumerable payments great and 
 small, loans, purchases, and correspondence, and 
 that all was being conducted with scarcely any aid 
 of clerks or accountants ; whereas a mercantile 
 firm engaged in affairs of like extent and moment 
 would have had an extensive establishment with a 
 numerous force of skilled employees. When 
 Adams had been a little longer in Paris, he also 
 began to see where and how " the prodigious sums " 
 went,^ and just what was the full scope of the func- 
 tions of the commissioners ; then the censoriousness 
 evaporated out of his language. He admitted that 
 the neglects of subordinate agents were such that 
 it was impossible for the commissioners to learn 
 the true state of their finances ; and he joined in 
 the demand, so often reiterated by Franklin, for 
 the establishment of the usual and proper commer- 
 cial agencies. The business of accepting and keep- 
 ing the run of the bills drawn by Congress, and of 
 teasing the French government for money to meet 
 them at maturity, would still remain to be attended 
 to by the ministers in person ; but these things long 
 experience might enable them to manage. 
 
 No sooner had Adams scented the first whiff 
 of the quarrel-laden atmosphere of the embassy 
 than he expressed in his usual self-satisfied, impetu- 
 ous, and defiant way his purpose to be rigidly im- 
 partial. But he was a natural fault-finder, and by 
 
 ^ Diplomatic Corresp. of Amer. Rev., iv. 249, 251. 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 293 
 
 no means a natural peacemaker ; and his Impar- 
 tiality had no effect in assuaging the animosities 
 which he found. However, amid all the discords 
 of the embassy there was one note of harmony ; and 
 the bewildered Congress must have felt much satis- 
 faction in finding that all the envoys were agreed 
 that one representative at the French court would 
 be vastly better as well as cheaper than the sort of 
 caucus which now held its angry sessions there. At 
 worst one man could not be forever at odds with 
 himself. Adams, when he had finished the task of 
 arranging the archives, found no other occupation ; 
 and he was scandalized at the extravagance of keep- 
 ing three envoys. Lee, by the way, had constantly 
 insinuated that Franklin was blamably lax, if not 
 actually untrustworthy, in money matters, though 
 all the while he and his friend Izard had been quite 
 shameless in extorting from the doctor very large 
 sums for their own expenses. When the figures 
 came to be made up it appeared that Franklin had 
 drawn less than either of his colleagues, and much 
 less than the sum soon afterward established by 
 Congress as the proper salary for the position.^ 
 The frugal-minded New Englander himself now ac- 
 knowledged that he could " not find any article of 
 expense which could be retrenched," ^ and he hon- 
 estly begged Congress to stop the triple outlay. 
 
 Franklin, upon his part, wrote that in many 
 ways the public business and the national prestige 
 
 1 Diplomatic Corresp. of Amer. Bev., iv. 246. 
 
 2 Ibid., 245. 
 
294 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 suffered much from the lack of unanmiity among 
 the envoys, and said : " In consideration of the 
 whole, I wish Congress would separate us." Neither 
 Adams nor Franklin wrote one word which either 
 directly or indirectly had a personal bearing. 
 Arthur Lee was more frank ; in the days of Deane 
 he had begun to write that to continue himself 
 at Paris would " disconcert effectually the wicked 
 measures " of Franklin, Deane, and Williams, and 
 that it was " the one way of redressing " the "neg- 
 lect, dissipation, and private schemes " prevalent 
 in the department, and of " remedying the public 
 evil." He said that the French court was the 
 place of chief importance, calling for the ablest and 
 most efficient man, to wit, himself. He suggested 
 that Franklin might be sent to Vienna, a dignified 
 retreat without labor. Izard and William Lee 
 wrote letters of like purport ; it was true that it 
 was none of their affair, but they were wont to in- 
 terfere in the business of the commissioners, as if the 
 French mission were common property. Congress 
 took so much of this advice as all their advisers 
 were agreed upon ; that is to say, it broke up the 
 commission to France. But it did not appoint 
 Arthur Lee to remain there ; on the contrary, it 
 nominated Franklin to be minister plenipotentiary 
 at the French court, left Lee still accredited to 
 Madrid, as he had been before, and gave Adams 
 neither any place nor any instructions, so . that he 
 soon returned home. Gerard, at Philadelphia, 
 claimed the credit of having defeated the machina- 
 
TREATY WITE FRANCE. 295 
 
 tioRS of tlie " dangerous and bad man," Lee, and 
 congratulated de Vergennes on his relief from the 
 burden.^ Franklin's commission was brought over 
 by Lafayette in February, 1779. Thus ended the 
 Lee-Izard cabal against Franklin ; it was not unlike 
 the Gates-Conway cabal against Washington, save 
 that it lasted longer and was more exasperating. 
 The success of either woukl have been almost equally 
 perilous to the popular cause ; for the instatement of 
 Lee as minister plenipotentiary at the French court 
 would inevitably have led to a breach with France. 
 The result was very gratifying to Franklin, since 
 it showed that all the ill tales about him which had 
 gone home had not ruined, though certainly they 
 had seriously injured, his good repute among his 
 countrymen. Moreover, he could truly say that 
 the office " was not obtained by any solicitation or 
 intrigue," or by " magnifying his own services, or 
 diminishing those of others." But apart from the 
 gratification and a slight access of personal dignity, 
 the change made no difference in his duties ; he 
 still combined the functions of loan-agent, consul, 
 naval director, and minister, as before. Nor was 
 he even yet wholly rid of Arthur Lee. He had, 
 however, the satisfaction of absolutely refusing to 
 honor any more of Lee's or Izard's exorbitant 
 drafts for their personal expenses. 
 
 Shortly after his appointment Franklin sent his 
 grandson to Lee, with a note requesting Lee to 
 send to him such papers belonging to the embassy 
 
 ^ Parton's Life of Franklin, ii. 383. 
 
296 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 as were in lils possession. Lee insolently replied 
 that he had " no paj)ers belonging to the depart- 
 ment of minister plenipotentiary at the court of 
 Versailles ; " that if Franklin referred to papers 
 relating to transactions of the late joint commis- 
 sion, he had " yet to learn and could not conceive " 
 by what reason or authority one commissioner was 
 entitled to demand custody of them. Franklin re- 
 plied temperately enough that many of them were 
 essential to him for reference in conducting the 
 public business, but said that he should be per- 
 fectly content to have copies. The captious Lee 
 was still further irritated by this scheme for avoid- 
 ing a quarrel, but had to accede to it. 
 
 To John Paul Jones Franklin stood in the rela- 
 tion of a navy department. The daring exploits of 
 that gallant mariner form a chapter too fascinat- 
 ing to be passed by without reluctance, but limi- 
 tations of space are inexorable. His success and 
 his immunity in his reckless feats seem marvelous. 
 His chosen field was the narrow seas which sur- 
 round Britain, which swarmed with British ship- 
 ping, and were dominated by the redoubtable Brit- 
 ish navy as the streets of a city are kept in order 
 by police. But the rover Jones, though always 
 close to his majesty's coasts, was too much for all 
 his majesty's admirals and captains. He harried 
 these home waters and captured prizes till he be- 
 came embarrassed by the extent of his own success ; 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 297 
 
 he landed at Whitehaven, spiked the guns of the 
 fort, and fired the ships of the fleet in the harbor 
 beneath the eyes of the astounded Englishmen, 
 who thronged the shore and gazed bewildered upon 
 the spectacle which American audacity displayed 
 for them ; he made incursions on the land ; he 
 threatened the port of Leith, and would undoubt- 
 edly have bombarded it, had not obstinate counter 
 winds thwarted his plans ; he kept the whole Brit- 
 ish shores in a state of feverish alarm ; he was al- 
 ways ready to fight, and challenged the English 
 warship, the Serapis, to come out and meet him; 
 she came, and he captured her after fighting so 
 desperately that his own ship, the famous Bon 
 Homme Richard, named after Poor Richard, sank 
 a few hours after the combat was over. 
 
 All these glorious feats were rendered possible by 
 Franklin, who found the money, consulted as to the 
 operations, issued commissions, attended to pur- 
 chases and repairs, to supplies and equipment, who 
 composed quarrels, settled questions of authority, 
 and interposed to protect vessels and commanders 
 from the perils of the laws of neutrality. Jones had 
 a great respect and admiration for him, and said 
 to him once that his letters would make a coward 
 brave. The projects of Jones were generally de- 
 vised in consultations with Franklin, and were in 
 the direct line of enterprises already suggested by 
 Franklin, who had urged Congress to send out 
 three frio^ates, diso^uised as merchantmen, which 
 could make sudden descents upon the English coast, 
 
298 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 destroy, burn, gather plunder, and levy contribu- 
 tions, and be off before molestation was possible. 
 " The burning or plundering of Liverpool or Glas- 
 gow," he wrote, ''would do us more essential ser- 
 vice than a million of treasure, and much blood 
 sjient on the continent ; " and he was confident that 
 it was " practicable with very little danger." This 
 was not altogether in accord with his humane the- 
 ory for the conduct of war ; but so long as that 
 theory was not adopted by one side, it could not of 
 course be allowed to handicap the other. 
 
 As if Franklin had not enough legitimate trouble 
 in furthering these naval enterprises, an entirely 
 undeserved vexation grew out of them for him. 
 There was a French cajDtain Landais, who entered 
 the service of the States and was given the com- 
 mand of a ship in what was dignified by the name 
 of Jones's " squadron." Of all the excitable 
 Frenchmen who have ever lived none can have been 
 more hot-headed than this remarkable man. Dur- 
 ing the engagement between the Bon Homme Rich- 
 ard and the Serapis, he sailed up and down beside 
 the former and delivered broadsides into her until 
 he was near disabling and sinking the ship of his 
 own commander. The incomprehensible proceed- 
 ing meant only that he was so wildly excited that 
 he did not know at whom he was firing. Soon he 
 quarreled with Jones ; Franklin had to intervene ; 
 then Landais advanced all sorts of preposterous de- 
 mands, which Franklin refused ; thereupon he quar- 
 reled with Franklin ; a very disagreeable corre- 
 
TREATY WITH FRANCE. 299 
 
 spoiidence ensued ; Franklin finally had to displace 
 Landais from command of liis ship ; Landais de- 
 fied him and refused to surrender command. Then 
 Lee decided to go home to the States in Lan dais's 
 ship. When the two got together they stirred up 
 a mutiny on board, and more trouble was made for 
 Franklin. At last they got away, and Landais 
 went crazy during the voyage, was deposed by his 
 officers, and placed in confinement. If the ship had 
 been lost, it would have been a more tolerable loss 
 than many for which the ocean is accountable ; but 
 she was not, and Lee got safe ashore to continue 
 his machinations at Philadelphia, and to publish 
 an elaborate pamphlet against Franklin. All this 
 story and the correspondence may be read at length 
 in Mr. Hale's " Franklin in France." It is enter- 
 taining and shows vividly the misery to which 
 Franklin was subjected in attending to affairs 
 which were entirely outside of the proper scope of 
 his office. "It is hard," said he, "that I, who 
 give others no trouble with my quarrels, should 
 be plagued with all the perversities of those who 
 think fit to wrangle with one another." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FINANCIERING. 
 
 Whether the financiering of the American 
 Revolution is to be looked upon in a pathetic or in 
 a comical light must depend upon the mood of the 
 observer. The spectacle of a young people, with 
 no accumulated capital, engaged in supporting the 
 charge of a mortal struggle against all the vast re- 
 sources of Britain, has in it something of pathos. 
 But the methods to which this people resorted to 
 raise funds were certainly of amusing simplicity. 
 It was not until the appointment of Robert Mor- 
 ris, in 1781, that a treasury department came into 
 existence and some slight pretense of system was 
 introduced into the financial affairs of the confed- 
 eration. Daring the years prior to that time Con- 
 gress managed the business matters. But Congress 
 neither had funds nor the power to obtain any. It 
 had an unlimited power for contracting debts: ab- 
 solutely no power for collecting money. It used 
 the former power freely. When creditors wanted 
 payment, requisitions were made upon the states 
 for their respective quotas. But the states were 
 found to be sadly irresponsive ; probably the citi- 
 zens really had not much ready money ; cer- 
 
FINANCIERING. 301 
 
 tainly they had not enough to pay in taxes the cost 
 of the war ; no civilized state has been able to con- 
 duct a war, even a small one, in modern times 
 without using the national credit. But the United 
 States had absolutely no credit at all. It was well 
 enough to exclaim " Millions for defense ; but not 
 one cent for tribute ! " This was rhetoric, not busi- 
 ness ; and Congress soon found that the driblets 
 which trickled tardily to them in response to their 
 demands on the several states would hardly mois- 
 ten the bottom of the great exchequer tank, which 
 needed to be filled to the brim. 
 
 Two methods of relief were then adopted, crude, 
 simple, but likely for a time to be efficient ; and 
 provided only that within that time the war could 
 be finished, all might go well. One of these meth- 
 ods was to issue irredeemable paper "money;" the 
 other was to borrow real money abroad. The dvoU 
 part was that both these transactions were auda- 
 ciously entered upon by a body which had abso- 
 lutely no revenues at all to pledge as security, 
 which had not a dollar of property, nor authority 
 to compel any living man to pay it a dollar. A 
 more utterly irresponsible debtor than Congress 
 never asked for a loan or offered a promissory note. 
 For the security of a creditor there was only the 
 moral probability that in case of success the peo- 
 ple would be honest enough to pay their debts ; 
 and there was much danger that the jealousies be- 
 tween the states as to their proportionate quotas 
 might stimulate reluctance and furnish excuses 
 
802 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 which might easily become serious in so unpleasant 
 a matter as paying oift hard cash. At home Con- 
 gress could manage to make its paper money 2)er- 
 colate among the people, and could pay a good 
 many American creditors with it ; but there were 
 some who would not be thus satisfied, and few 
 European creditors, of course, would meddle with 
 such currency. So to pay these people who would 
 have real money Congress solicited loans from 
 other nations. It was like the financiering of a 
 schoolboy, who issues his I O U's among his mates, 
 and refers the exacting and business-like trades- 
 man to his father. France was cast for the role 
 of father to the Congressional schoolboy for many 
 wearisome years. 
 
 The arrangement bore hard upon the American 
 representatives, who, at European courts and upon 
 European exchanges, had the embarrassing task of 
 raising money. It was all very well to talk about 
 negotiating a loan ; the phrase had a Micawber- 
 like sound as of real business ; but in point of plain 
 fact the thing to be done was to beg. Congress 
 had a comparatively easy time of it ; such burden 
 and anxiety as lay upon that body were shared 
 among many ; and after all, the whole scope of its 
 duty was little else than to vote requisitions upon 
 the states, to order the printing of a fresh batch of 
 bills, and to " resolve that the Treasury Board be 
 directed to prepare bills of exchange of suitable de- 
 nominations upon the Honorable Benjamin Frank- 
 lin [or sometimes Jay, or Adams, or another] , min- 
 
FINANCIERING. 303 
 
 ister plenipotentiary at the court of Versailles, for 
 — — thousand dollars in specie^ Having done 
 this, Congress had fulfilled its simple part, and 
 serenely waited for something to turn up. 
 
 The plan which seemed most effective was to 
 send a representative accredited to some foreign 
 government, and instructed to raise money at once. 
 Without wasting time by waiting to see whether he 
 arrived safely, or was received, or was successful in 
 his negotiations, the next ship which followed him 
 brought drafts and bills which he was expected to 
 accept, and at maturity to pay. Having thus skill- 
 fully shifted the laboring oar into his hands Con- 
 gress bestirred itself no further. Poor Jay, in 
 Spain, had a terrible time of it in this way, and if 
 ever a man was placed by his country in a painful 
 and humiliating position, it was he. He faced it 
 gallantly, but had to be carried through by Frank- 
 lin. From first to last it was upon Franklin that 
 the brunt fell; he had to keep the country from 
 financial failure as Washington had to save it from 
 military failure ; he was the real financier of the 
 Revolution ; without him Robert Morris would have 
 been helpless. Spain yielded but trifling sums in 
 response to Jay's solicitations ; Holland, which was 
 tried by Adams, was even more tardy and unwil- 
 ling, though towards the end some money was got 
 there. Franklin alone, at Paris, could tap the rock 
 and make the waters flow. So upon him Congress 
 sent in an endless procession of drafts, and com- 
 pelled him to pay all their foreign bills and indebt- 
 
804 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 edness ; he gathered and he disbursed ; to Mm were 
 referred all the drafts upon Jay and others, which 
 they themselves could not pay, and he discharged 
 them one and all. A heavier task never fell upon 
 any man, nor one bringing less recognition ; for 
 money matters usually seem so dry and unintelligi- 
 ble that every one shirks informing himself about 
 them. We read about the horrors of the winter 
 camp at Valley Forge, and we shudder at all the 
 details of the vivid picture. The anxiety, the toil, 
 the humiliation, which Franklin endured for many 
 winters and many summers in Paris, in sustaining 
 the national credit, do not make a picture, do not 
 furnish material for a readable chapter in history. 
 Yet many a man would far rather have faced 
 Washington's lot than Franklin's. 
 
 I do not intend to tell this tale at length or mi- 
 nutely, for I could trust no reader to follow me in so 
 tedious an enterprise ; yet I must try to convey 
 some notion of what this financiering really meant 
 for Franklin, of how ably he performed it, of what 
 it cost him in wear and tear of mind, of what toil 
 it put upon him, and of what measure of gratitude 
 was due to him for it. It may be worth mention- 
 ing by the way that he not only spent himself in 
 efforts to induce others to lend, but he himself 
 lent. Before he embarked for Philadelphia on his 
 French mission, he gathered together all that he 
 could raise in m.oney, some X3,000 to <£4,000, and 
 paid it over as an unsecured loan for an indefinite 
 period to the Continental Congress. 
 
FINANCIERING. 305 
 
 It is not probable that from any records now ex- 
 isting the most patient accountant could elicit any 
 statement, even approximating to accuracy, of the 
 sums which Franklin received and paid out. But 
 if such an account could be drawn up, it would 
 only indicate some results in figures which would 
 have little meaning for persons not familiar with 
 the national debts, revenues, and outlays of those 
 times, and certainly would not at all answer the 
 purpose of showing what he really did. The only 
 satisfactory method of giving any passably clear 
 idea on the subject seems to be to furnish some 
 extracts from his papers. 
 
 The ship which brought Franklin also brought 
 indigo to the value of £3,000, which was to serve 
 as long as it could for the expenses of the commis- 
 sioners. For keeping them supplied with money 
 later on, it was the intention of Congress to pur- 
 chase cargoes of American products, such as to- 
 bacco, rice, indigo, etc., etc., and consign these to 
 the commissioners, who, besides paying their per- 
 sonal bills, were sure to have abundant other means 
 for using the proceeds. Unfortunately, however, it 
 so happened that the resources presented by this 
 scheme were already exhausted. In January, 1777, 
 a loan of one million livres had been advanced on a 
 pledge of fifty-six thousand hogsheads of tobacco to 
 the Farmers General of the French revenue ; and the 
 rice and indigo had been in like manner mortgaged 
 to Beaumarchais. Congressional jugglery could not 
 quite compass the payment of different creditors 
 
306 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 with the same money, even supposing that the 
 money came to hand. But it did not ; for a long 
 while no cargoes arrived ; of those that were dis- 
 patched, some were run away with by dishonest 
 ship-masters, some were lost at sea, others were 
 captured by the English, so that Franklin sadly 
 remarked that the chief result was that the enemy 
 had been supplied with these articles for nothing. 
 But he preserved his resolute cheerfulness. " The 
 destroying of our ships by the English," he said, 
 " is only like shaving our beards, that will grow 
 again. Their loss of provinces is like the loss of a 
 limb, which can never again be united to their body." 
 When at last a cargo did arrive, Beaumarchais de- 
 manded it as his own, and Franklin at last yielded 
 to his importunities and tears, though having no 
 really sufficient knowledge of his right to it. Later 
 a second vessel arrived, and Beaumarchais endeav- 
 ored to pounce upon it by process of law. That 
 one also Franklin let him have. Then no more 
 came, and this promising resource seems never to 
 have yielded one dollar for Franklin's use. 
 
 Already so early as January 26, 1777, it was 
 necessary to appeal to Thomas Morris, from whom 
 remittances had been expected on account of sales 
 made at Nantes : " You must be sensible how 
 very unbecoming it is of the situation we are in to 
 be dependent on the credit of others. We there- 
 fore desire that you will remit with all possible ex- 
 pedition the sum allotted by the Congress for our 
 expenses." But the commissioners appealed in 
 vain to this worthless drunkard. 
 
FINANCIERING. 307 
 
 Strange to say, the instructions given by Con- 
 gress to the commissioners at the time of Frank- 
 lin's appointment said nothing about borrowing 
 money. In view of what he had to do in this way 
 it was a singular omission ; but it was soon repaired 
 by letters. In March, 1777, Franklin writes to 
 Lee : " We are ordered to borrow £2,000,000 on 
 interest ; " also to '^ build six ships of war," pre- 
 sumably on credit. In this same month Franklin 
 wrote a paper, which was widely circulated in 
 Europe, in which he endeavored to show that the 
 honesty, the industry, the resources, and the pros- 
 pects of the United States were so excellent that it 
 would really be safer to lend to them than to Eng- 
 land. It was a skillful piece of work, and its argu- 
 ments had evidently persuaded the writer himself ; 
 but they did not induce the money-lenders of the 
 old countries to accept moral qualities and proba- 
 bilities as collateral security. 
 
 Fair success, however, was soon met with at the 
 court of France, so that the commissioners had the 
 pleasure of assuring Congress that they could 
 safely be depended upon to meet the interest on a 
 loan of 15,000,000, which by this aid Congress 
 probably would be able to contract for. But that 
 body had no idea of being content with this ! March 
 17, 1778, Franklin writes to Lee that they have been 
 drawn upon for 180,000 livres, to pay old indebt- 
 edness of the army in Canada ; also that other bills 
 have been drawn. The number and gross amount of 
 these were not stated in the advices ; but the com- 
 
308 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 missioners were ordered to " accept them wlien tliey 
 should appear." " I cannot conceive," said Franklin, 
 " what encouragement the Congress could have had 
 from any of us to draw on us for anything but that 
 interest. I suppose their difficulties have compelled 
 them to it. I see we shall be distressed here by 
 these proceedings," etc., etc. Congress was com- 
 posed of men far too shrewd to await " encourage- 
 ment " to draw for money ! 
 
 July 22, 1778, he wrote to Lovell : " When we 
 engaged to Congress to pay their bills for the inter- 
 est of the sums they could borrow, we did not 
 dream of their drawing on us for other occasions. 
 We have already paid of Congress's drafts, to re- 
 turned officers, 82,211 livres ; and we know not 
 how much more of that kind we have to pay, be- 
 cause the committee have never let us know the 
 amount of those drafts, or their account of them 
 never reached us, and they still continue coming in. 
 And we are now surprised with drafts from Mr. 
 B. for 100,000 more. If you reduce us to bank- 
 ruptcy here by a non-payment of your drafts, con- 
 sider the consequences. In my humble opinion no 
 drafts should be made on us without first learning 
 from us that we shall be able to answer them." 
 
 Congress could not fairly exact great accuracy 
 from the drawees of its bills, when it never took 
 pains to give notice of the facts of the drawing, of 
 the number of bills drawn, of dates, or amounts ; in 
 a word, really gave no basis for account-keeping or 
 identification. No more helter-skelter way of con- 
 
FINANCIERING. 809 
 
 ducting business has ever been seen since modern 
 business methods were invented. The system, if 
 system it may be called, would have been aggra- 
 vating and confusing enough under any condition 
 of attendant circumstances ; but it so happened 
 that all attendant circumstances tended to increase 
 rather than to mitigate the difficulties created by 
 the carelessness of Congress. One naturally fan- 
 cies that a nation deals in few and lars^e transac- 
 tions, that these drafts may have been for inconven- 
 iently large sums, but that at least they probably 
 were not numerous. The precise contrary was the 
 case. The drafts were countless, and often were 
 for very petty amounts, much as if a prosperous 
 merchant were drawing cheques to pay his ordinary 
 expenses. Further, the uncertainty of the passage 
 across the Atlantic led to these bills appearing at 
 all sorts of irregular times ; seconds often came to 
 hand before firsts, and thirds before either ; the 
 bills were often very old when presented. Knaves 
 took advantage of these facts fraudulently to alter 
 seconds and thirds into firsts, so that extreme care 
 had to be taken to prevent constant duplication 
 and even trijilication of payments. It would have 
 taken much of the time of an experienced banker's 
 clerk to keep the bill and draft department in cor- 
 rect shape. It is not improbable that Congress lost 
 a good deal of money by undetected rascalities, but 
 if so the fault lay with that body itself, not with 
 Franklin. 
 
 Amid the harassments of these demands, Frank- 
 
310 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 lln was much vexed by tlie conduct of Arthur Lee 
 and Izard in drawing money for their own ex- 
 penses. In February, 1778, each insisted that he 
 should be allowed a credit with the banker, M. 
 Grand, to an amount of £2,000, as each then ex- 
 pected to depart on a mission. Franklin reluc- 
 tantly assented, and was then astonished and in- 
 dig-nant to find that each at once drew out the full 
 sum from the national account ; yet neither went 
 upon his journey. In January, 1779, Izard applied 
 for more. Franklin's anger was stirred ; Izard was 
 a man of handsome private property, and was ren- 
 dering no service in Paris ; and his requirements 
 seemed to Franklin eminently unpatriotic and ex- 
 orbitant. He therefore refused the request, writ- 
 ing to Izard a letter which is worth quoting, both 
 from the tone of its patriotic appeal and as a vivid 
 sketch of the situation: — 
 
 " Your intimation that you expect more money from 
 us obliges us to expose to you our circumstances. Upon 
 the supposition that Congi'ess had borrowed in America 
 but $5,000,000, and relying on the remittances intended 
 to be sent to us for answering other demands, we gave 
 expectations that we should be able to pay here the in- 
 terest of that sum as a means of supporting the credit of 
 the currency. The Congress have borrowed near twice 
 that sum, and are now actually drawing on us for the 
 interest, the bills appearing here daily for acceptance. 
 Their distress for money in America has been so great 
 from the enormous expense of the war that they have 
 also been induced to draw on us for very large sums to 
 
FINANCIERING. 311 
 
 stop other pressing demands ; and they have not been 
 able to purchase remittances for us to the extent they 
 proposed ; and of what they have sent, much has been 
 taken, or treacherously carried into England, only two 
 small cargoes . of tobacco having arrived, and they are 
 long since mortgaged to the Farmers General, so that 
 they produce us nothing, but leave us expenses to pay. 
 
 '* The continental vessels of war which come to France 
 have likewise required great sums of us to furnish and 
 refit them and supply the men with necessaries. The 
 prisoners, too, who escape from England claim a very 
 expensive assistance from us, and are much dissatisfied 
 with the scanty allowance we are able to afford them. 
 The interest bills above mentioned, of the drawing of 
 which we have received notice, amount to $2,500,000, 
 and we have not a fifth part of the sum in our banker's 
 hands to answer them ; and large orders to us from Con- 
 gress for supplies of clothing, arms, and ammunition re- 
 main uncomplied with for want of money. 
 
 " In this situation of our affairs, we hope you will not 
 insist on our giving you a farther credit with our banker, 
 with whom we are daily in danger of having no farther 
 credit ourselves. It is not a year since you received 
 from us the sum of 2,000 guineas, which you thought 
 necessary on account of your being to set out immedi- 
 ately for Florence. You have not incurred the expense 
 of that journey. You are a gentleman of fortune. You 
 did not come to France with any dependence on being 
 maintained here with your family at the expense of the 
 United States, in the time of their distress, and without 
 rendering them the equivalent service they expected. 
 
 •' On all these considerations we should rather hope 
 that you would be willing to reimburse us the sum we 
 
812 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 have advanced to you, if it may be done with any pos- 
 sible convenience to your affairs. Such a supply would 
 at least enable us to relieve more liberally our unfortu- 
 nate countrymen, who have long been prisoners, stripped 
 of everything, of whom we daily expect to have nearly 
 three hundred upon our hands by the exchange." 
 
 At this same time Franklin wrote to Congress to 
 explain how it had happened that so large a sum 
 as £4,000 had been allowed to these gentlemen ; 
 for he feared that this liberality might " subject 
 the commissioners to censure." The explanation 
 was so discreditable to Lee and Izard that it is 
 charitable to think that there was some misunder- 
 standing between the parties.^ The matter nat- 
 urally rankled, and in May Franklin wrote that 
 there was much anger against him, that he was 
 charged with " disobeying an order of Congress, 
 and with cruelly attemj)ting to distress gentlemen 
 who were in the service of their country." 
 
 " They have indeed," he said, " produced to me a re- 
 solve of Congress empowering them to draw . . . fol* 
 their expenses at foreign courts ; and doubtless Congress, 
 when that resolve was made, intended to enable us to 
 pay those drafts ; but as that has not been done, and 
 the gentlemen (except Mr. Lee for a few weeks) have 
 not incurred any expense at foreign courts, and, if they 
 had, the 5,500 guineas received by them in about nine 
 months seemed an ample provision for it, ... I do not 
 conceive that I disobeyed an order of Congress, and 
 that if I did the circumstances will excuse it. . . . In 
 
 1 See Franklin's Works, vi. 294. 
 
FINANCIERING. 313 
 
 short, the dreadful consequences of ruin to our public 
 credit, both in America and Europe, that must attend 
 the protesting a single Congress draft for interest, after 
 our funds were out, would have weighed with me against 
 the payment of more money to those gentlemen, if the 
 demand had otherwise been well founded. I am, how- 
 ever, in the judgment of Congress, and if I have done 
 amiss, must submit dutifully to their censure." 
 
 Burgoyne's surrender had a market value ; it 
 was worth ready money in France and Spain. 
 Upon the strength of it the former lent the States 
 3,000,000 livres ; and the like amount was engaged 
 for by Spain. But, says Bancroft, " when Arthur 
 Lee, who was equally disesteemed in Versailles and 
 Madrid, heard of the money expected of Spain, 
 he talked and wrote so much about it that the 
 Spanish government, who wished to avoid a rup- 
 ture with England, took alarm, and receded from 
 its intention." ^ 
 
 In February and March, 1779, came demands 
 from the officers of the frigate Alliance for their 
 pay ; but Franklin was " neither furnished with 
 money nor authority for such purposes." It 
 seemed, however, too hard to tell these gallant fel- 
 lows, whose perilous and useful service was in Eu- 
 ropean waters, that they could not have a dollar 
 until they should get safely back to the States ; so 
 Franklin agreed to pay for one suit of clothes for 
 each of them. But he begged them to be as 
 " frugal as possible," and not make themselves 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., ix 480. 
 
314 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 " expensively fine " from a notion that it was for 
 the honor of the States, which could be better pro- 
 moted in more sensible ways. 
 
 May 26, 1779, he complains to the committee 
 of foreign affairs that, whereas the commissioners 
 had agreed to find in Paris means of paying inter- 
 est on a loan of §5,000,000, that loan had been 
 doubled, while, on the other hand, they had been 
 " drained by a number of unforeseen exj^enses," 
 including " orders and drafts " of Congress. " And 
 now," he says, " the drafts of the treasurer of the 
 loans coming very fast upon me, the anxiety I 
 have suffered and the distress of mind lest I should 
 not be able to pay them, have for a long time been 
 very great indeed. To apply again to this court 
 for money for a particular purpose, which they had 
 already over and over again provided for and fur- 
 nished us, was extremely awkward." One would 
 think so, indeed ! So he fell back on a " general 
 ai^plication " made some time before, and received 
 naturally the general answer that France herself 
 was being put to enormous expenses, which were 
 aiding the States as efficiently as a direct loan of 
 money could do. The most he could extort was 
 the king's guaranty for the payment of the interest 
 on $3,000,000, provided that sum could be raised 
 in Holland. The embarrassing fact was that the 
 plea of poverty advanced by the French govern- 
 ment was perfectly valid. Turgot said so, and no 
 man knew better than Turgot. He had lately 
 told the king that even on a peace footing the 
 
FINANCIERING. 315 
 
 annual expenditures exceeded the annual receipts 
 of the exchequer by 20,000,000 livres ; and he even 
 talked seriously of an avowal of national bank- 
 ruptcy. The events preceding the French Revolu- 
 tion soon proved that this great statesman did not 
 exaggerate the ill condition of affairs. Yet instead 
 of practicing rigid prudence and economy, France 
 had actually gone into a costly war for the benefit 
 of America. It was peculiarly disagreeable to be 
 ceaselessly appealing for money to an impoverished 
 friend. 
 
 Another vexation was found in the way in which 
 the agents of the various individual states soon 
 began to scour Europe in quest of money. First 
 they applied to Franklin, and " seemed to think it 
 his duty as minister for the United States to sup- 
 port and enforce their particular demands." But 
 the foreigners, probably not understanding these 
 separate autonomies, did not relish these requisi- 
 tions, and Franklin found that he could no nothins^. 
 On the contrary, he was hampered in effecting 
 loans on the national credit ; for these state agents, 
 hurrying clamorously hither and thither, gave an 
 impression of poverty and injured the reputation of 
 the country, which, indeed, was already low enough 
 upon the exchanges without any such gratuitous im- 
 pairment. 
 
 February 19, 1780, there was an application 
 from John Paul Jones for money for repairs on his 
 ships. Franklin approved keeping the vessels in 
 serviceable condition, but added : " Let me repeat. 
 
816 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 for God's sake be sj)aring, unless you mean to make 
 me a bankrupt, or have your drafts dishonored for 
 want of money in my hands to pay them." 
 
 May 31, 1780, he complains that he has been re- 
 proached by one of the congressional agents whose 
 unauthorized drafts he had refused. He has been 
 drawn upon by Congress, he says, for much more 
 than the interest, which only he had agreed to 
 furnish, and he has answered every demand, and 
 supported their credit in Europe. " But if every 
 agent of Congress in different parts of the world 
 is permitted to run in debt, and draw upon me at 
 pleasure to support his credit, under the idea of 
 its being necessary to do so for the honor of Con- 
 gress, the difficulty upon me will be too great, and 
 I may in fine be obliged to protest the interest 
 bills. I therefore beg that a stop may be put to 
 such irregular proceedings." It was a reasonable 
 prayer, but had no effect. Franklin continued to 
 be regarded as paymaster-general for the States in 
 Europe. 
 
 We next hear of his troubles in paying the bills 
 which Congress, according to its usual custom, was 
 drawing upon Jay. They sent Jay to Spain, and 
 told him to borrow money there ; and as soon as 
 they had got him fairly at sea, they began draw- 
 ing drafts upon him. He soon found himself, as 
 he said, in a "cruel situation," and the torture 
 of mind which he endured and the responsibil- 
 ity which he assumed are well known. He coura- 
 geously accepted the bills, trusting to Providence 
 
FINANCIERING. 317 
 
 and to Franklin, who seemed the agent of Provi- 
 dence, to arrange for their payment. Franklin 
 did not fail him. One of Jay's earliest letters to 
 Franklin said : " I have no reason as yet to think 
 a loan here will be practicable. Bills on me ar- 
 rive daily. Be pleased to send me a credit for the 
 residue of our salaries." Five days later : " Bills 
 to the amount of §100,000 have arrived. A loan 
 cannot be effected here." And so on. In April, 
 1781, his appeal became pathetic : " Our situation 
 here is daily becoming more disagreeable from the 
 want of our salaries ; to be obliged to contract 
 debts and live on credit is terrible. I have not to 
 this day received a shilling from America, and we 
 should indeed have been greatly distressed, had it 
 not been for your good offices." An American 
 minister without resources to pay his butcher and 
 his grocer, his servant and his tailor, presented a 
 spectacle which moved Franklin to great efforts ! 
 In plain truth. Jay and his secretary, Carmichael, 
 were dependent upon Franklin for everything ; 
 they not only drew on him for their salaries to pay 
 daily household expenses, but they sent him lists of 
 the bills accepted by them for the " honor of Con- 
 gress," and which they had no means of paying. 
 It was fortunate that these two men were willing;' 
 to incur such peril and anxiety in behalf of this 
 same " honor of Congress," which otherwise would 
 soon have been basely discredited ; for that body 
 itself was superbly indifferent on the subject, and 
 did not pretend to keep faith even with its own 
 agents. 
 
318 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Thus matters continued to the end. Congress 
 pledged itself not to draw bills, and immediately 
 drew them in batches. Jay could report to Frank- 
 lin only scant and reluctant promises won from the 
 Spanish court ; and small as these engagements 
 were, they were ill kept. Perhaps they coukl not 
 be kept ; for, as Jay wrote, there was " little coin 
 in Egypt," the country was really poor. So the 
 end of it always was that Franklin remained as 
 the only resource for payments, to be made week 
 after week, of all sorts of sums ranging from little 
 bills upon vessels up to great totals of $150,000 or 
 f 230,000 upon bankers' demands. Such was the 
 burden of a song which had many more woful 
 stanzas than can be repeated here. 
 
 By way of affording some sort of encouragement 
 to the French court, Franklin now proposed that 
 the United States government should furnish the 
 French fleet and forces in the States with provi- 
 sions, of which the cost could be offset, to the small 
 extent that it would go^ against French loans. It 
 seemed a satisfactory arrangement, and France 
 assented to it. 
 
 At the same time he wrote to Adams tliat he 
 had " long been humiliated with the idea of our 
 running about from court to court begging for 
 money and friendship, which are the more with- 
 held the more eagerly they are solicited, and would 
 perhaps have been offered if they had not been 
 asked. The proverb says, God heljis them that 
 help themselves ; and the world too, in this sense, 
 
FINANCIERING. 319 
 
 is very godly." This was an idea to which he 
 more than once recurred. In March, 1782, in the 
 course of a long letter to Livingston, he said : " A 
 small increase of industry in every American, male 
 and female, with a small diminution of luxury, 
 would produce a sum far superior to all we can 
 hope to beg or borrow from all our friends in 
 Europe." He reiterated the same views again 
 in March, and again in December, and doubtless 
 much oftener.i No man was more earnest in the 
 doctrine that every individual American owed his 
 strenuous and unremitting personal assistance to 
 the cause. It was a practical as well as a noble 
 patriotism which he felt, preached, and exempli- 
 fied ; and it was thoroughly characteristic of the 
 man. 
 
 What was then the real financial capacity of the 
 people, and whether they did their utmost in the 
 way of raising money to support the Revolution, is 
 a question about which it is easy to express an 
 opinion, but difficult to. prove its accuracy by con- 
 vincing evidence. On the one hand, it is true that 
 the strain was extreme and that much was done 
 to meet it ; on the other hand, it is no less true 
 that even beneath this stress the national pros- 
 perity actually made a considerable advance dur- 
 ing the war. The people as a whole gathered 
 money rather than impoverished themselves. In 
 the country at large the commercial instinct fully 
 held its own in competition with the spirit of inde- 
 1 Franklin's Works, vii. 404 ; viii. 236. 
 
320 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 pendence. There was not mncli forswearing of 
 little luxuries. Franklin said that he learned by 
 inquiry that of the interest money which was 
 disbursed in Paris most was laid out for " super- 
 fluities, and more than half of it for tea." He 
 computed that £500,000 were annually expended 
 in the States for tea alone. This sum, "annually 
 laid out in defending ourselves or annoying our 
 enemies, would have great effect. With what face 
 can we ask aids and subsidies from our friends, 
 while we are wasting our own wealth in such 
 prodigality ? " 
 
 Henry Laurens, dispatched as minister to the 
 Hague in 1780, was captured on the voyage and 
 carried into England. But this little incident mat- 
 tered not at all to the Congress, which for a long 
 while cheerfully drew a great number of bills upon 
 the poor gentleman, who, held in the Tower of 
 London as a traitor, was hardly in a position to 
 negrotiate larofe loans for his fellow " rebels." In 
 October, 1780, these bills began to flutter down 
 upon Franklin's desk, drawn by a sort of natural 
 gravitation. He felt " obliged to accept them," and 
 said that he should " with some difficulty be able 
 to pay them, though these extra demands often em- 
 barrass me exceedingly." 
 
 November 19, 1780, he wrote to de Vergennes 
 announcing that Congress had notified him of 
 drafts to the amount of about 1,400,000 livres, 
 (about 1280,000). The reply was: "You can 
 easily imagine my astonishment at your request of 
 
 ^ 
 
FINANCIERING. 321 
 
 the necessary funds to meet these drafts, since you 
 perfectly well know the extraordinary efforts which 
 I have made thus far to assist you and support your 
 credit, and especially since you cannot have for- 
 gotten the demands you lately made upon me. 
 Nevertheless, sir, I am very desirous of assisting 
 you out of the embarrassed situation in which these 
 repeated drafts of Congress have placed you ; and 
 for this purpose I shall endeavor to procure for 
 you, for the next year, the same aid that I have 
 been able to furnish in the course of the present. 
 I cannot but believe, sir, that Congress will faith- 
 fully abide by what it now promises you, that in 
 future no drafts shall be made upon you unless 
 the necessary funds are sent to meet them." 
 
 Such a letter, though only gratitude could be 
 felt for it, must have stung the sensitiveness of 
 Franklin, who had already a great national pride. 
 Nor was the pain likely to be assuaged by the con- 
 duct of Congress ; for that body had not the slight- 
 est idea of keeping the promises upon which de 
 Vergennes expressed a reliance perhaps greater 
 than he really felt. It is not without annoyance, 
 even now, that one reads that only two days after 
 the French minister wrote this letter. Congress in- 
 structed Franklin to do some more begging for 
 clothes, and for the aid of a fleet, and said : " With 
 respect to the loan, we foresee that the sum which 
 we ask will be greatly inadequate to our wants." 
 
 December 2, 1780, Franklin acknowledges " fav- 
 ors," a conventional phrase which seems sarcastic. 
 
322 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 These tell him that Congress has resolved to draw 
 on him " bills extraordinary, to the amount of near 
 1300,000." These were doubtless what led to the 
 foregoing correspondence with de Vergennes. In 
 reply he says that he has already engaged himself 
 for the bills drawn on Mr. Laurens, and adds : 
 " You cannot conceive how much these things per- 
 plex and distress me ; for the practice of this gov- 
 ernment being yearly to apportion the revenue to 
 the several expected services, any after demands 
 made, which the treasury is not furnished to sup- 
 ply, meet with great diflBculty, and are very dis- 
 ao:reeable to the ministers." 
 
 A short fragment of a diary kept in 1781 gives 
 a painful vision of the swarm of bills : — 
 
 " Jan, 6. Accepted a number of loan office bills this 
 day, and every day of the past week. 
 
 " Sunday, Jan. 7. Accepted a vast number of loan of- 
 fice bills. Some of the new drafts begin to appear. 
 
 " Jan. 8. Accepted many bills. 
 
 " Jan. 10th. Informed that my recall is to be moved 
 for in Congress. 
 
 " Jan. 12th. Sign acceptation [qu. " of " ? mutilated] 
 many bills. They come thick. 
 
 " Jan. 15th. Accepted above 200 bills, some of the 
 new. 
 
 "' Jan. 17th. Accepted many bills. 
 
 " Jan. 22d. M. Grand informs me that Mr. Williams 
 has drawn on me for 25,000 livres ; . . . I order pay- 
 ment of his drafts. 
 
 " Jan. 24th. A great number of bills. 
 
 " Jan. 26th. Accept bills." 
 
FINANCIERING. 323 
 
 February 13tli he writes a general begging and 
 stimulating letter to de Yergennes. He says that 
 the plain truth is that the present situation in the 
 States " makes one of two things essential to us — • 
 a peace, or the most vigorous aid of our allies, par- 
 ticularly in the article of money. . . . The present 
 conjuncture is critical ; there is some danger lest 
 the Congress should lose its influence over the 
 people, if it is found unable to procure the aids 
 that are wanted ; " and in that case the opportu- 
 nity for separation is gone, " perhaps for ages." 
 A few days later he was " under the necessity of 
 being importunate for an answer to the application 
 lately made for stores and money." De Yergennes 
 replied, in an interview, that Franklin must know 
 that for France to lend the 25,000,000 livres asked 
 for was " at present impracticable." Also his ex- 
 cellency mentioned otlier uncomfortable and dis- 
 tasteful facts, but concluded by saying that the 
 king, as a " signal proof of his friendship," would 
 make a free gift of 6,000,000 livres, in addition 
 to 3,000,000 recently furnished for interest drafts. 
 But the French court had at last so far lost confi- 
 dence in Congress that in order to make sure that 
 this money should be applied in aid of the army, 
 and not be vaguely absorbed by committees, a 
 stipulation was inserted that it should be paid only 
 upon the order of General Washington. This was 
 a trifle insulting to Congress, and made trouble ; 
 and it seems that ultimately the sum was intrusted 
 to Franklin. 
 
324 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Almost immediately afterward he extorted from 
 Neckeran agreement that the kmg of France would 
 guaranty a loan of 10,000,000 livres, if it could be 
 raised in Holland ; and upon these terms he was 
 able to raise this sum. Trouble enough the pos- 
 session of it soon gave him ; for the demands for it 
 were numerous. Franklin needed it to keep himself 
 solvent in Europe ; Congress greedily sought it for 
 America ; William Jackson, who was buying sup- 
 plies in Holland, required much of it there. Frank- 
 lin was expected to repeat with it the miracle of 
 the loaves and fishes. 2,500,000 livres he sent 
 to the States in the same ship which carried John 
 Laurens. 2,200,000 Laurens disposed of in pur- 
 chasing goods ; 1,500,000 were sent to Holland to 
 be thence sent to the States in another ship, so as 
 to divide the risk. But while he thus took care of 
 others, he himself was drawn upon by Jackson for 
 X50,000 ; and at the same time he was expected to 
 provide for all the bills accepted by Laurens, Jay, 
 and Adams, and now rapidly maturing. He sent 
 in haste to Holland to detain the 1,500,000 livres 
 in transitu. "1 am sorry," he said, "that this 
 operation is necessary ; but it must be done, or 
 the consequences will be terrible." 
 
 Laurens and Jackson, however, in Holland had 
 been actually spending this sum, and more. " I 
 applaud the zeal you have both shown in the 
 affair," said the harassed doctor, " but I see that 
 nobody cares how much I am distressed, provided 
 they can carry their own points." Fortunately the 
 
FINANCIERING. 325 
 
 money still lay in the hands of the banker, and 
 there Franklin stopped it ; whereupon Jackson fell 
 into extreme rage, and threatened some sort of a 
 " proceeding," which Franklin said would only be 
 exceedingly imprudent, useless, and scandalous. 
 " The noise rashly made about this matter " by 
 Jackson naturally injured American credit in Hol- 
 land, and especially rendered unmarketable his 
 own drafts upon Franklin. In these straits he 
 journeyed to Paris to see Franklin, represented 
 that his goods were on board ship ; that they were 
 articles much needed in America ; that they must 
 be paid for, or else relanded and returned, or sold, 
 which would be a public disgrace. So Franklin 
 w^as prevailed upon to engage for the payment, 
 and was " obliged to go with this afterclap to the 
 ministers," a proceeding especially disagreeable be- 
 cause, as he said, '' the money was to be paid for 
 the manufactures of other countries and not laid 
 out in those of this kingdom, by whose friendship 
 it was furnished." He was at first " absolutely re- 
 fused," but in time prevailed, and " hoped the dif- 
 ficulty was over." Not at all ! After all this ex- 
 ertion and annoyance, the officers of the ship said 
 she was overloaded, and turned out a large part of 
 the goods, which were accordingly put into two 
 other ships ; and then Franklin was offered the op- 
 tion of buying these two vessels, of hiring them at 
 a freight scarcely less than their value, or of hav- 
 ing the goods again set on shore. He was now 
 " ashamed to show his face to the minister," and 
 
326 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 was casting about for resources, when suddenly he 
 was surprised by new demands to pay for the goods 
 which he had every reason to believe had already 
 been paid for. This produced such a dispute and 
 complication that the goods remained long in Hol- 
 land before affairs could be arranged, and the final 
 settlement is not clearly to be made out. 
 
 In the spring of 1781 John Adams was in Hol- 
 land, and of course Congress was drawing bills 
 upon him, and equally of course he had not a 
 stiver with which to meet them. He had " opened 
 a loan," but so little had fallen into the opening 
 that he was barely able to pay expenses ; so, still 
 of course, he turned to Franklin : " When they 
 [the bills] arrive and are presented I must write 
 to you concerning them, and desire you to enable 
 me to discharge them." He added that it was a 
 " grievous mortification to find that America has 
 no credit here, while England certainly still has so 
 much." Apparently the pamphlet in which Frank- 
 lin had so convincingly shown that the reverse of 
 this should be the case had not satisfied the minds 
 of the Dutch bankers. 
 
 In July, 1781, came a broad hint from Robert 
 Morris : " I will not doubt a moment that, at your 
 instance, his majesty will make pressing represen- 
 tations in support of Mr. Jay's application, and I 
 hope that the authority of so great a sovereign and 
 the arguments of his able ministry will shed aus- 
 picious influence on our negotiations at Madrid." 
 This fulsome language, intended of course to be 
 
FINANCIERING. 327 
 
 read to de Vergennes, imposed the gratifying duty 
 of besfsrino^ the French minister to second American 
 begging in Spain. 
 
 In the same month Franklin wrote to Morris 
 that the French were vexed at the purchasing of 
 goods in Holland, and would not furnish the money 
 to pay for them, and he actually suggested a re- 
 mittance from America ! " Otherwise I shall be 
 ruined, with the American credit in Europe." He 
 might have had some motive besides patriotism in 
 thus uniting himself with the credit of his country ; 
 for he had been warned that the consul's court in 
 Paris had power even over the persons of foreign 
 ministers in the case of bills of exchange. 
 
 September 12, 1781, he announces triumphantly 
 that "the remittances . . . which I requested are 
 now unnecessary, and I shall finish the year with 
 honor," notwithstanding " drafts on Mr. Jay and 
 on Mr. Adams much exceeding what I had been 
 made to expect." 
 
 He was now informed that Congress would not 
 draw upon other ministers without providing funds, 
 but that they would continue to draw on Mm 
 "funds or no funds," an invidious distinction 
 which " terrified " him ; for he had been obliged 
 to promise de Vergennes not to accept any drafts 
 drawn later than March, 1781, unless he should 
 have in hand or in view funds sufficient to pay 
 them. But before long he began to suspect that 
 Congress could outwit the French minister. For 
 so late as January, 1782, bills dated prior to the 
 
328 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 preceding April were still coming ; and he said : 
 ''I begin to suspect tliat the drawing continues, and 
 that the hills are antedated. It is impossible for 
 me to go on with demands after demands." The 
 next month also found these old bills on Laurens 
 still coming in. Congress never let the ministers 
 know how many bills it was drawing, perhaps fear- 
 ing to discourage them by so appalling a disclosure. 
 Franklin now wrote to Adams : " Perhaps from 
 the series of numbers and the deficiencies one may 
 be able to divine the sum that has been issued." 
 Moreover, he reflects that he has never had any in- 
 structions to pay the acceptances of Jay and Adams, 
 nor has had any ratification of his payments ; 
 neither had he " ever received a syllable of appro- 
 bation for having done so. Thus I stand charged 
 with vast sums which I have disbursed for the pub- 
 lic service without authority." The thought might 
 cause some anxiety, in view of the moral obliquity 
 manifested by Congress in all its financial dealings. 
 In November, 1781, came a long letter from Liv- 
 ingston ; everything was wanted ; but especially the 
 States must have money ! December 31, a day 
 that often brings reflection on matters financial, 
 de Vergennes sent a brief warning ; 1,000,000 
 livres, which had been promised, Franklin should 
 have, but not one livre more under any circum- 
 stances ; if he had accepted, or should accept, Mor- 
 ris's drafts in excess of this sum, he must trust to 
 his own resources to meet his obligations. Accord- 
 ingly on January 9, 1782, he wrote to Morris : 
 
FINANCIERING. 329 
 
 " Bills are still coming in quantities. . . . You 
 will see by the inclosed letter the situation I am at 
 at last brought into. ... I shall be able to pay 
 till the end of February, when, if I can get no more 
 money, I must stop." 
 
 Ten days later he writes to Jay that his solicita- 
 tions make him appear insatiable, that he gets no 
 assurances of aid, but that he is '' very sensible " 
 of Jay's " unhappy situation," and therefore man- 
 ages to send him 830,000, though he knows not 
 how to replace it. In the sad month of March, 
 1782, Lafayette nobly helped Franklin in the dis- 
 agreeable task of begging, but to little purpose ; 
 for at length there seemed a general determination 
 to furnish no more money to the States. The fight- 
 ing was over, and it seemed reasonable that the 
 borrowing should be over likewise. 
 
 In February, 1782, Franklin says that Mr. Mor- 
 ris supposes him to have a sum " vastly greater 
 than the fact," and has " given orders far beyond 
 my abilities to comply with." Franklin was re- 
 garded as a miraculous orange which, if squeezed 
 hard enough, would always yield juice ! It could 
 not have been reassuring, either, to have one of the 
 American agents at this time ask to have 150,000 
 livres advanced to him at once; especially since 
 the frankly provident gentleman based his press- 
 ing haste upon the avowed fear that, as business 
 was going on, Franklin's embarrassments in money 
 matters were likely to increase. 
 
 February 13, 1782, Livingston wrote a letter 
 
330 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 which must have excited a grim smile. He com- 
 forts himself, in making more " importunate de- 
 mands," by reflecting that it is all for the good 
 of France! which thought, he says, may enable 
 Franklin to " press them with some degree of dig- 
 nity." Franklin's sense of humor was touched. 
 That means, he says, that I am to say to de Yer- 
 gennes : " Help us, and we shall not be obliged to 
 you." But in some way or another, probably not 
 precisely in this eccentric way, he so managed it 
 that in March he wheedled the French govern- 
 ment into still another, and a large, loan of 24,- 
 000,000 livres, payable quarterly during the year. 
 March 9 he informs Morris " pretty fully of the 
 state of our funds here, by which you will be ena- 
 bled so to regulate your drafts as that our credit in 
 Europe may not be ruined and your friend killed 
 with vexation." 
 
 He now engaged to pay all the drafts which Jay 
 should send to him, so that Jay could extricate 
 himself honorably from those dread engagements 
 which had been giving that harassed gentleman in- 
 finite anxiety at Madrid. Some of his acceptances 
 had already gone to protest ; but Franklin soon 
 took them all up. By the end of March he began 
 to breathe more freely ; he had saved himself and 
 his colleagues thus far, and now he hoped that the 
 worst was over. He wrote to Morris : " Your 
 promise that after this month no more bills shall 
 be drawn on me keeps up my spirits and affords 
 me the greatest satisfaction." By the following 
 
FINANCIERING. 331 
 
 Slimmer the accounts between France and the 
 States were in course of liquidation, and Franklin 
 called the attention of Livingston to the fact that 
 the king practically made the States a further pres- 
 ent " to the value of near two millions. These, 
 added to the free gifts before made to us at differ- 
 ent times, form an object of at least twelve millions, 
 for which no returns but that of gratitude and 
 friendship are expected. These, I hope, may be 
 everlasting." But liquidation, though a necessary 
 preliminary to payment, is not payment, and does 
 not preclude a continuance of borrowing; and in 
 August we find that Morris was still pressing for 
 more money, still drawing drafts, in happy forget- 
 f ulness of his promises not to do so, and still keep- 
 ing Franklin in anxious dread of bankruptcy. By 
 the same letter it appears that Morris had directed 
 Franklin to pay over to M. Grand, the banker, any 
 surplus funds in his hands ! " I would do it with 
 pleasure, if there were any such," said Franklin ; 
 but the question was still of a deficit, not of a sur- 
 plus. 
 
 December 14, 1782, finds Franklin still at the 
 old task, preferring " the application so strongly 
 pressed by the Congress for a loan of 14,000,000." 
 Lafayette again helped him, but the result re- 
 mained uncertain. The negotiations for peace were 
 so far advanced that the ministers thought it time 
 for such demands to cease. But probably he suc- 
 ceeded, for a few days later he appears to be remit- 
 ting a considerable sum. Peace, however, was at 
 
332 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 hand, and in one respect at least it was peace for 
 Franklin as well as for his country, for even Con- 
 gress could no longer expect him to continue bor- 
 rowing. He had indeed rendered services not less 
 gallant though less picturesque than those of Wash- 
 ington himself, vastly more disagreeable, and 
 scarcely less essential to the success of the cause. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS : AN ADAMS 
 INCIDENT. 
 
 John Adams wielded a vivid and vicious pen ; 
 he neglected tlie Scriptural injunction ; " Judge 
 not," and he set honesty before charity in speech. 
 His judgments upon his contemporaries were mer- 
 ciless ; they had that kind of truthfulness which 
 precluded contradiction, yet which left a sense of 
 injustice ; they were at once accurate and unfair. 
 His strictures concerning Franklin are an illustra- 
 tion of these peculiarities. What he said is of im- 
 portance because he said it, and because members 
 of the Adams family in successive generations, vo- 
 luminous contributors to the history of the coun- 
 try, have never divested themselves of the inher- 
 ited enmity toward Franklin. During Adams's 
 first visit to France the relationship between him 
 and Franklin is described as sufficiently friendly 
 rather than as cordial. December 7, 1778, in a 
 letter to his cousin Samuel Adams, »Tohn thus de- 
 scribed his colleague : — 
 
 " The other you know personally, and that he loves his 
 Ease, hates to offend, and seldom gives any opinion till 
 obliged to do it. I know also, and it is necessary that 
 
334 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 you should be informed, that he is overwhelmed with a 
 correspondence from all quarters, most of them upon 
 trifling subjects and in a more trifling style, with un- 
 meaning visits from Multitudes of People, chiefly from 
 the Vanity of having it to say that they have seen him. 
 There is another thing that I am obliged to mention. 
 There are so many private families, Ladies and gentle- 
 men, that he visits so often, — and they are so fond of 
 him, that he cannot well avoid it, — and so much inter- 
 course with Academicians, that all these things together 
 keep his mind in a constant state of dissipation. If in- 
 deed you take out of his hand the Public Treasury and 
 the direction of the Frigates and Continental vessels that 
 are sent here, and all Commercial affairs, and entrust 
 them to Persons to be appointed by Congress, at Nantes 
 and Bordeaux, I should think it would be best to have 
 him here alone, with such a Secretary as you can confide 
 in. But if he is left here alone, even with such a secre- 
 tary, and all maritime and Commercial as well as polit- 
 ical affairs and money matters are left in his Hands, I am 
 persuaded that France and America will both have Rea- 
 son to repent it. He is not only so indolent that Business 
 will be neglected, but you know that, although he has 
 as determined a soul as any man, yet it is his constant 
 Policy never to say ' yes ' or ' no ' decidedly but when 
 he cannot avoid it." 
 
 This mischievous letter, not actually false, yet 
 misrepresenting and misleading, has unfortunately 
 survived to injure both the man who wrote it and 
 the man about whom it was written. It is quoted 
 in order to show the sort of covert fire in the rear 
 to which Franklin was subjected throughout his 
 
HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS. 335 
 
 term of service. It is astonishing now, when the 
 evidence is all before us and the truth is attain- 
 able, to read such a description of such a patriot 
 as Franklin, a man who went through labors and 
 anxieties for the cause probably only surpassed by 
 those of Washington, and whose services did more 
 to promote success than did the services of any 
 other save only Washington. How blind was the 
 personal prejudice of the critic who saw Franklin 
 in Paris and could yet suggest that the charge of 
 the public treasury should be taken from him ! To 
 whom else would the Frenchmen have unlocked 
 their coffers as they did to him, whom they so 
 warmly liked and admired ? John Adams and 
 Arthur Lee and every other American who endeav- 
 ored to deal with the French court got himself so 
 thoroughly hated there that little aid would have 
 been forthcoming at the request of such represent- 
 atives. It was to Franklin's personal influence 
 that a large portion of the substantial help in men, 
 ships, and especially in money, accorded by France 
 to the States, was due. He was as much the right 
 man in Europe as was Washington in America. 
 
 Nevertheless this attribution of traits, so mali- 
 ciously penned, has passed into history, and though 
 the world does not see that either France or the 
 States had cause " to repent " keeping Franklin in 
 Paris in general charge of affairs, and unwatched 
 by a vigilant secretary, yet all the world believes 
 that in the gay metropolis Franklin was indolent 
 and given over to social pleasures, which flattered 
 
336 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 his vanity. Undoubtedly there is foundation in 
 fact for the belief. But to arrive at a just con- 
 clusion one must consider many things. The char- 
 acter of the chief witness is as important as that of 
 the accused. Adams, besides being a severe critic, 
 was filled to the brim with an irrepressible activity, 
 an insatiate industry, a restlessness and energy, all 
 which were at this period stimulated by the excite- 
 ment of the times to an intensity excessive and 
 abnormal even for him. To him, in this condi- 
 tion of chronic agitation, the serenity of Franklin's 
 broad intellect and tranquil nature seemed inex- 
 plicable and culpable. But Franklin had what 
 Adams lacked, a vast experience in men and af- 
 fairs. Adams knew the provinces and the provin- 
 cials ; Franklin knew the provinces and England 
 and France, the provincials. Englishmen, French- 
 men, and all ranks and conditions of men, — jour- 
 neymen, merchants, philosophers, men of letters, 
 diplomatists, courtiers, noblemen, and statesmen. 
 The one was an able colonist, the other was a 
 man of the world, of exceptionally wide personal 
 experience even as such. Moreover Franklin's un- 
 dertakings were generally crowned with a success 
 which justifies us in saying that, however much or 
 little exertion he visibly put forth, at least he put 
 forth enough. Adams sometimes was for putting 
 forth too much. Franklin, when he arrived in 
 France, was in his seventy-first year ; his health 
 was in the main good, yet his strength had been 
 severely tried by his journe}^ to Canada and by the 
 
HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS. S37 
 
 voyage. He was troubled with a cutaneous com- 
 plaint, of which he makes light, but which was 
 abundant evidence that his physical condition was 
 far from perfect; he was a victim of the gout, 
 which attacked him frequently and with great se- 
 verity, so that he was often obliged to keep his 
 bed for days and weeks ; when he was appointed 
 sole minister of the States to France he remarked 
 that there was " some incongruity in a plenipoten- 
 tiary who could neither stand nor go ; " later on 
 he suffered extremely from stone and gravel ; with 
 all these diseases, and with the remorseless disease 
 of old age gaining ground every day, it is hardly 
 surprising that Franklin seemed to the hale and 
 vigorous Adams not to be making that show of 
 activity which would have been becoming in the 
 chief representative of the United States during 
 these critical years. Yet except that he was care- 
 less about his papers and remiss in his correspond- 
 ence no definite allegations are made against him 
 prior to the treating for peace ; no business of im- 
 portance was ever said to have failed in his hands, 
 which should be a sufficient vindication of his 
 general efficiency. The amount of labor which 
 was laid upon him was enormous : he did as much 
 business as the managing head of a great banking- 
 house and a great mercantile firm combined ; he 
 did all the diplomacy of the United States ; he was 
 also their consul-general, and though he had agents 
 in some ports, yet they more often gave trouble 
 than assistance ; after the commercial treaty with 
 
388 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 France he had to investigate French laws and 
 tariffs and give constant advice to American mer- 
 chants upon all sorts of questions as to statutes, 
 trade, customs, dues, and duties. What he did 
 concerning the war ships, the privateers, and the 
 prizes has been hinted at rather than stated ; what 
 he did in the way of financiering has been imper- 
 fectly shown ; he was often engaged in planning 
 naval operations either for Paul Jones and others 
 in European waters or for the French fleet in 
 American waters. He had for a perpetual annoy- 
 ance all the captiousness and the quarrels of the 
 two Lees, Izard, and Thomas Morris. When busi- 
 ness had to be transacted, as often occurred, with 
 states at whose courts the United States had no 
 representative, Franklin had to manage it ; ^ es- 
 pecially he was concerned with the business in 
 Spain, whither he woukl have journeyed in person 
 had his health and other engagements permitted. 
 Moreover he was adviser-general to all American 
 officials of any and every grade and function in 
 Europe ; and much as some of these gentlemen 
 contemned him, they each and all instinctively de- 
 manded his guidance in every matter of importance. 
 Even Arthur Lee deferred to him rather than de- 
 cide for himself ; Dana sought his instructions for 
 the mission to Russia ; men of the calibre of Jay 
 and independent eJohn Adams sought and respect- 
 ed his views and his aid, perhaps more than they 
 
 1 For example, with Norway, with Denmark, and with Por- 
 tugal. 
 
HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS. 339 
 
 themselves appreciated. Surely here was labor 
 enough, and even more responsibility than labor ; 
 but Franklin's great, well - trained mind worked 
 with the ease and force of a perfectly regulated ma- 
 cliine whose smoothness of action almost conceals 
 its power, and all the higher parts of his labor 
 were achieved with little perceptible effort. For 
 the matters of account-keeping and letter-writing, he 
 neglected these things ; and one is almost provoked 
 into respecting him for so doing when it is remem- 
 bered that during all the time of his stay in France 
 Congress never allowed to this aged and over-tasked 
 man a secretary of legation, or even an amanuen- 
 sis or a copyist. He had with him his grandson. 
 Temple Franklin, a lad of sixteen years at the time 
 of his arrival in France, and whom it had been 
 intended to place at school. But Franklin could 
 not dispense with his services, and kept this young- 
 ster as his sole clerk and assistant. It should be 
 mentioned also in this connection that it was not 
 only necessary to prepare the customary duplicates 
 of every document of importance, but every paper 
 which was to be sent across the Atlantic had to be 
 copied half a dozen extra times, in order to be 
 dispatched in as many different ships, so great 
 were the dangers of capture. It was hardly fair 
 to expect a minister plenipotentiary to display un- 
 wearied zeal in this sort of work. Adams himself 
 would have done it, and grumbled ; Franklin did 
 not do it, and preserved his good temper. In con- 
 clusion it may be said that, if Franklin was indo- 
 
340 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 lent, as in some ways he probably was, lie had 
 at least much excuse for indolence, and the trait 
 showed itself only on what may be called the phys- 
 ical side of his duties ; upon the intellectual side, it 
 cannot be denied that during the period thus far 
 traversed he did more thinking and to better pur- 
 pose than any other American of the day. 
 
 In saying that Franklin was fond of society and 
 pleased with the admiration expressed for him by 
 the ardent and courteous Frenchmen and by other 
 continental Europeans, Adams spoke correctly. 
 Franklin was always social and always a little vain. 
 But much less would have been heard of these traits 
 if the distinction made between him and his col- 
 leagues had been less conspicuous and less con- 
 stant. That men of the size of the Lees and Izard 
 should inflate themselves to the measure of harbor- 
 ing a jealousy of Franklin's preeminence was only 
 ridiculous ; but Adams should have had, as Jay 
 had, too much self-respect to cherish such a feeling. 
 It was the weak point in his character that he could 
 never acknowledge a superior, and the fact that the 
 world at large estimated Washington, Franklin, 
 and Hamilton as men of larger calibre than his 
 own kept him in a state of exasperation all his 
 life. Now the simple truth, forced in a thousand 
 unintended ways upon the knowledge of all Amer- 
 ican envoys during the Revolution, was, that in 
 Europe Franklin was a distinguished man, while 
 no other American was known or cared for at all. 
 Franklin received deference, where others received 
 
 I 
 
HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS. 341 
 
 civility; Franklin was selected for attentions, for 
 flattery, for official consultations and communica- 
 tions, while his colleagues were " forgotten entirely 
 by the French people." Jay, Dana, and Carmi- 
 chael accepted this situation in the spirit of sen- 
 sible gentlemen, but Adams, the Lees, and Izard 
 were incensed and sought an offset in defamation. 
 Compare Carmichael's language with what has been 
 quoted from Adams : he says : " The age of Dr. 
 Franklin in some measure hinders him from taking 
 so active a part in the drudgery of business as his 
 great zeal and abilities would otherwise enable him 
 to execute. He is the Master, to whom we children 
 in politics look up for counsel, and whose name is 
 everywhere a passport to be well received." Still 
 it must have been provoking to be customarily 
 spoken of as " Dr. Franklin's associates." When 
 Franklin was appointed minister plenipotentiary 
 he was obliged to explain that he was not the " sole 
 representative of America in Europe." De Yer- 
 gennes always wished to deal only with him, and 
 occasionally said things to him in secrecy so close 
 as to be exclusive even of his " associates." Adams 
 honestly admitted that " this court have confidence 
 in him alone." When a favor was to be asked, it 
 was Franklin who could best seek it ; and when it 
 was granted it seemed to be vouchsafed to Frank- 
 lin. In a word, Franklin had the monopoly of the 
 confidence, the respect, and the personal regard of 
 the French ministry. It was the same way also 
 with the English ; when they made advances for 
 
342 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 conciliation or peace, they too selected Franklin for 
 their communications. 
 
 Adams was not sufficiently familiar with the 
 modes of political life in Europe to appreciate what 
 a substantial value Franklin's social and scientific 
 prestige among the " ladies and gentlemen " and 
 the " academicians " had there. All those tributes 
 which the great " philosopher " was constantly re- 
 ceiving may have been, as Adams said, pleasant 
 food for his vanity, but they were also of prac- 
 tical worth and service, signifying that he was a 
 man of real note and importance in what Euro- 
 pean statesmen regarded as "the world." If 
 Franklin relished the repast, who among mortals 
 would not ? And was his accuser a man to have 
 turned his back on such viands, had he also been 
 bidden to the feast of flattery ? Franklin's vanity 
 was a simple, amiable, and harmless source of 
 pleasure to himself ; it was not of the greedy or 
 envious type, nor did its gratification do any in- 
 jury to any person, or any interest. Jay, a man of 
 generous temper, understood the advantage reaped 
 by the States from being represented at the French 
 court by a man whose greatness all Europe recog- 
 nized. More than once he bore this testimony, 
 honorable alike to the giver and to him for whom 
 it was given.^ 
 
 Pleasant as were many of the features of Frank- 
 lin's residence in France, and skillfully as he may 
 have evaded some of the more irksome labors im- 
 
 ^ See, for example, Franklin's Works, vii. 25/^, note. 
 
HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS. 843 
 
 posed upon him, the attraction was not always suf- 
 ficient to make him reluctant to have done with the 
 place. Its vexations and anxieties wore upon him 
 grievously. He knew that unfriendly representa- 
 tions concerning him were often made in America, 
 and that these induced some men to distrust him, 
 and caused others to feel anxious about him. He 
 heard stories that he was to be recalled, other 
 stories that there was a cabal to vent a petty ill- 
 will by putting an end to the clerkship of his 
 grandson. This cut him to the quick. " I should 
 not part with the child," he said, " but with the 
 employment ; " and so the ignoble scheme miscar- 
 ried ; for Congress was not ready to lose Franklin, 
 and did not really feel any extreme dread of harm 
 from a lad who, though the son of a loyalist, had 
 grown up under Franklin's personal influence. At 
 times homesickness attacked him. AVhen he heard 
 of the death of an old friend at home he wrote 
 sadly : " A few more such deaths will make me a 
 stranger in my own country." He was not one 
 of those patriots who like to live abroad and pro- 
 test love for their own country. Generally he pre- 
 served the delightful evenness of his temper with 
 a success quite wonderful in a man troubled with 
 complaints which preeminently make the sufferer 
 impatient and irascible. Only once he said, when 
 he was being very unreasonably annoyed about 
 some shipping business : "I will absolutely have 
 nothing to do with any new squadron project. I 
 have been too long in hot water, plagued almost to 
 
344 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 death with the passions, vagaries, and ill-humors 
 and madnesses of other people. I must have a lit- 
 tle repose." A very mild outbreak this, under all 
 his provocations, but it is the only one of which 
 any record remains. His tranquil self-control was 
 a very remarkable trait ; he was never made so an- 
 gry by all the calumny and assaults of enemies 
 peculiarly apt in the art of irritation as to use any 
 immoderate or undignified language. He never 
 retaliated, though he had the fighting capacity in 
 him. Before the tribunal of posterity his patient 
 endurance has counted greatly in his favor. 
 
 By March, 1781, he had definitively made up 
 his mind to resign, and wrote to the president of 
 Congress a letter which was unmistakably earnest 
 and in parts even touching.^ When this alarming 
 communication was received all the depreciation of 
 the Lees, Izard, and the rest went for nothing. 
 Without hesitation Congress ignored the request, 
 with far better reason than it could show for the 
 utter indifference with which it was wont to regard 
 pretty much all the other requests which Franklin 
 ever made. Its behavior in this respect was in- 
 deed very singular. He recommended his grand- 
 son to it, and it paid absolutely no attention to 
 the petition. He repeatedly asked the appoint- 
 ment of consuls at some of the French ports ; it 
 created all sorts of other officials, keeping Paris 
 full of useless and costly " ministers " accredited to 
 
 1 Franklin's Works, vii. 207; the letter is unfortunately too 
 long to quote. See also his letter to Lafayette, Ibid,, 237. 
 
HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS. 345 
 
 courts which would not receive them, but appointed 
 no consid. He urged hard, as a trifling personal 
 favor, that an accountant might be appointed to 
 audit his nephew Williams's accounts, but Congress 
 would not attend to a matter which could have 
 been disposed of in five minutes. He never could 
 get a secretary or a clerk, nor even any proper ap- 
 pointment of, or salary for, his grandson. He sel- 
 dom got an expression of thanks or approbation for 
 anything thao he did, though he did many things 
 wholly outside of his regular functions and involv- 
 ing great personal risk and responsibility. Yet 
 when he really wanted to resign he was not allowed 
 to cio so ; and thus at last he was left to learn by 
 inference that he had given satisfaction.^ 
 
 No sooner had Adams got comfortably settled at 
 home than he was obliged to return again to Eu- 
 rope. Franklin, Jay, Laurens, Jefferson, and he 
 were appointed by Congress commissioners to treat 
 for peace, whenever the fitting time should come ; 
 and so in February, 1780, he was back in Paris. 
 But peace was still far away in the future, and 
 Adams, meanwhile, findiug the intolerable incum- 
 brance of leisure upon his hands, exorcised the 
 demon by writing long letters to de Vergennes 
 upon sundry matters of interest in American af- 
 fairs. It was an unfortunate scheme. If Nature 
 had maliciously sought to create a man for the ex- 
 press purpose of aggravating de Vergennes, she 
 
 ^ See letter to Carmichael, Works, vii. 285. 
 
346 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 could not have made one better adapted for tliat 
 service than was Adams. Very soon there was a 
 terrible explosion, and Franklin, invoked by both 
 parties, had to hasten to the rescue, to his own se- 
 rious injury. 
 
 On May 31, 1780, in a letter to the president 
 of Congress, Franklin said : "A great clamor has 
 lately been made by some merchants, who say they 
 have large sums on their hands of paper money in 
 America, and that they are ruined by some resolu- 
 tion of Congress, which reduces its value to one part 
 in forty. As I have had no letter explaining this 
 matter I have only been able to say that it is prob- 
 ably misunderstood, and that I am confident the 
 Congress have not done, nor will do, anything un- 
 just towards strangers who have given us credit." 
 Soon afterward Adams got private information of 
 the passage of an act for the redemption of the pa- 
 per money at the rate of forty dollars for one in sil- 
 ver. At once he sent the news to de Vergennes. 
 That statesman took fire at the tidings, and 
 promptly responded that foreigners ought to be 
 indemnified for any losses they might suffer, and 
 that Americans alone should " support the expense 
 which is occasioned by the defense of their lib- 
 erty," and should regard " the depreciation of their 
 paper money only as an impost which ought to 
 fall upon themselves." He added that he had in- 
 structed the Chevalier de la Luzerne, French min- 
 ister to the States, " to make the strongest repre- 
 sentations on this subject " to Congress. 
 
HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS. 347 
 
 Adams was alarmed at the anger which he had 
 excited, and besought de Yergennes to hold his 
 hand until Franklin could " have opportunity to 
 make his representations to his majesty's minis- 
 ters." But this gleam of good sense was transitory, 
 for on the same day, without waiting for Franklin 
 to intervene, he composed and sent to de Ver- 
 gennes a long, elaborate defense of the course of 
 the States. It was such an argument as a stubborn 
 lawyer might address to a presumably prejudiced 
 court ; it had not a pleasant word of gratitude for 
 past favors, or of regret at the present necessity ; 
 it was as undiplomatic and ill-considered as it cer- 
 tainly was unanswerable. But its impregnability 
 could not offset its gross imprudence. To exasper- 
 ate de Yergennes and alienate the French govern- 
 ment at that period, although by a perfectly sound 
 presentation, was an act of madness as unpardon- 
 able as any crime. 
 
 Upon the same day on which Adams drew up 
 this able, inexcusable brief for his unfortunate 
 client, the Congress, he wrote to Franklin begging 
 him to interfere. On June 29 he followed this 
 request with a humbler note than John Adams of- 
 ten wrote, acknowledging that he might have made 
 some errors, and desiring to be set right. On June 
 30 de Yergennes also appealed to Franklin, say- 
 ing, amid much more : " The king is so firmly 
 persuaded, sir, that your private opinion respecting 
 the effects of that resolution of Congress, as far as 
 it concerns sti^angers and especially Frejachmen, dif- 
 
348 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 fers from that of Mr. Adams, that he is not appre- 
 hensive of laying you under any embarrassment by 
 requesting you to support the representations which 
 his minister is ordered to make to Congress." 
 
 Franklin, receiving these epistles, was greatly 
 vexed at the jeopardy into which the rash zeal of 
 Adams had suddenly plunged the American inter- 
 ests in France. His indignation was not likely to 
 be made less by the fact that all this letter-writing 
 to de Vergennes was a tacit reproach upon his own 
 performance of his duties and a gratuitous intrench- 
 ment upon his province. The question which pre- 
 sented itself to him was not whether the argument 
 of Adams was right or wrong, nor whether the dis- 
 tinction which de Vergennes sought to establish 
 between American citizens and foreigners was prac- 
 ticable or not. This was fortunate, because, while 
 Adams in the States had been forced to ponder 
 carefully all the problems of a depreciating paper 
 currency, Franklin in France had neither necessity, 
 nor opportunity, nor leisure for studying either the 
 ethics or the solution of so perplexing a problem. 
 He now hastily made such inquiries as he could 
 among the Americans lately arrived in Paris, but 
 did not pretend ''perfectly to understand " the sub- 
 ject. To master its difficulties, however, did not 
 seem essential, because he recognized that the obvi- 
 ous duty of the moment was to say something which 
 might at least mitigate the present wrath of the 
 French ministry, and so gain time for explana- 
 tion and adjustment in a better state of feeling. 
 
HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS. 349 
 
 He had once laid down to Arthur Lee the princi- 
 ple : " While we are asking aid it is necessary to 
 gratify the desires and in some sort comply with 
 the humors of those we apply to. Our business 
 now is to carry our point." Acting upon this rule 
 of conciliation, he wrote, on July 10, to de Ver- 
 gennes : — 
 
 '• In this I am clear, that if the operation directed by 
 Congress in their resolution of March the 18th occa- 
 sions, from the necessity of the case, some inequality of 
 justice, that inconvenience ought to fall wholly upon the 
 inhabitants of the States, who reap with it the advantages 
 obtained by the measure ; and that the greatest care 
 should be taken that foreign merchants, particularly the 
 French, who are our creditors, do not suffer by it. This 
 I am so confident the Congress will do that I do not think 
 any representations of mine necessary to persuade them 
 to it. I shall not fail, however, to lay the whole before 
 them." 
 
 In pursuance of this promise Franklin wrote on 
 August 9 a full narrative of the entire matter ; it 
 was a fair and temperate statement of facts which 
 it was his duty to lay before Congress. ^ Before 
 sending it he wrote to Adams that de Vergennes, 
 *' having taken much amiss some passages in your 
 letter to him, sent the whole correspondence to me, 
 requesting that I would transmit it to Congress. I 
 was myself sorry to see those passages. If they 
 were the effects merely of inadvertence, and you 
 do not, on reflection, approve of them, perhaps you 
 
 ^ Fratiklin's Works, vii. 110-112. 
 
350 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 may think it proper to write something for effacing 
 the impressions made by them. I do not presume 
 to advise you ; but mention it only for your consid- 
 eration." But Adams had already taken his own 
 measures for presenting the case before Congress. 
 
 Such is the full story of Franklin's doings in this 
 affair. His connection with it was limited to an 
 effort to counteract the mischief which another had 
 done. Whether he thought that the " inconven- 
 ience " which " ought to fall " only on Americans 
 could be arranged to do so, does not appear ; prob- 
 ably he never concerned himself to work out a 
 problem entirely outside his own department. As 
 a diplomatist, who had to gain time for angry peo- 
 ple to cool down for amicable discussion, he was 
 content to throw out this general remark, and to 
 express confidence that his countrymen would do 
 liberal justice. So far as he was concerned, this 
 should have been the end of the matter, and Adams 
 should have been grateful to a man whose tranquil 
 wisdom and skillful tact had saved him from the 
 self-reproach which he would ever have felt had 
 his well-intentioned, ill-timed act borne its full 
 possible fruit of injury to the cause of the States. 
 But Adams, who knew that his views were intrin- 
 sically correct, emerged from the imbroglio with an 
 extreme resentment against his rescuer, nor was he 
 ever able to see that Franklin did right in not re- 
 iterating the same views. He wished not to be 
 saved but to be vindicated. The consequence has 
 been unfortunate for Franklin, because the affair 
 
HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS. 351 
 
 has furnished material for one of the counts in the 
 indictment which the Adamses have filed against 
 him before the bar of posterity. 
 
 It may be remarked here that the few words 
 which Franklin ever let drop concerning paper 
 money indicate that he had given it little thought. 
 He said that in Europe it seemed " a mystery," 
 " a wonderful machine ; " and there is no reason 
 why he should have understood it better than other 
 people in Europe. He also said that the general 
 effect of the depreciation had operated as a gradual 
 tax on the citizens, and " perhaps the most equal 
 of all taxes, since it depreciated in the hands of 
 the holders of money, and thereby taxed them in 
 proportion to the sums they held and the time they 
 held it, which is generally in proportion to men's 
 wealth." 1 The remark could not keep a place in 
 any very profound discussion of the subject ; but 
 it should be noted that in this point of view the 
 contention of de Yergennes might be logically de- 
 fended, on the ground that a foreigner ought not 
 to be taxed like a citizen ; but the insuperable diffi- 
 culty of making the distinction practicable remained 
 undisposed of. 
 
 ^ See also Franklin's Works, vii. 343. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PEACE NEGOTIATIONS: LAST YEARS IN FRANCE. 
 
 The war Lad not been long waging before over- 
 tures and soundings concerning an accommodation, 
 abetted and sometimes instigated by the cabinet, 
 began to come from England. Nearly all these 
 were addressed to Franklin, because all Europe 
 persisted in regarding him as the one authentic 
 representative of America, and because English- 
 men of all parties had long known and respected 
 him far beyond any other American. In March, 
 1778, William Pulteney, a member of Parliament, 
 came under an assumed name to Paris and had an 
 interview with him. But it seemed that England 
 would not renounce the theory of the power of 
 Parliament over the colonies, though willing by 
 way of favor to forego its exercise. Franklin de- 
 clared an arrangement on such a basis to be impos- 
 sible. 
 
 A few months later there occurred the singular 
 and mysterious episode of Charles de Weissen- 
 stein. Such was the signature to a letter dated 
 at Brussels, June 16, 1778. The writer said that 
 independence was an impossibility, and that the 
 English title to the colonies, being indisputable, 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 353 
 
 would be enforced by coming generations even if 
 the present generation should have to " stop awhile 
 in the pursuit to recover breath ; " he then sketched 
 a plan of reconciliation, which included offices or 
 life-pensions for Franklin, Washington, and other 
 prominent rebels. He requested a personal inter- 
 view with Franklin, and, failing that, he ap- 
 pointed to be in a certain spot in Notre Dame at a 
 certain hour, wearing a rose in his hat, to receive 
 a written reply. The French police reported the 
 presence at the time and place of a man obviously 
 bent upon this errand, who was traced to his hotel 
 and found, says John Adams, to be " Colonel Fitz- 
 something, an Irish name, that I have forgotten." 
 He got no answer, because at a consultation be- 
 tween the American commissioners and de Yer- 
 gennes it was so decided. But one had been writ- 
 ten by Franklin, and though de Weissenstein and 
 Colonel Fitz-something never saw it, at least it has 
 afforded pleasure to thousands of readers since that 
 time. For by sundry evidence Franklin became 
 convinced, even to the point of alleging that he 
 " knew," that the incognito correspondent was the 
 English monarch himself, whose letter the Irish 
 colonel had brought. The extraordinary occasion 
 inspired him. It is a rare occurrence when one 
 can speak direct to a king as man with man on 
 terms of real equality. Franklin seized his chance, 
 and wrote a letter in his best vein, a dignified, vig- 
 orous statement of the American position, an elo- 
 quent, indignant arraignment of the English meas- 
 
354 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 ures for whicli George III. more than any otlier 
 one man was responsible. In language which was 
 impassioned without being extravagant, he mingled 
 sarcasm and retort, statement and argument, with 
 a strenuous force that would have bewildered the 
 royal " de Weissenstein." To this day one can- 
 not read these stinging paragraphs without a feel- 
 ing of disappointment that de Vergennes would 
 not let them reach their destination. Such a bolt 
 should have been sent hotly home, not dropped to 
 be picked up as a curiosity by the groping histo- 
 rians of posterity. 
 
 The good Hartley also was constantly toiling to 
 find some common ground upon which negotiators 
 could stand and talk. One of his schemes, which 
 now seems an idle one, was for a long truce, during 
 which passions might subside and perhaps a settle- 
 ment be devised. Franklin ever lent a courteous 
 ear to any one who spoke tlie word Peace. But 
 neither this strong feeling, nor any discouragement 
 by reason of American reverses, nor any arguments 
 of Englishmen ever induced him to recede in the 
 least from the line of demands which he thought 
 reasonable, nor to abate his uncompromising plain- 
 ness of speech. 
 
 With the outbreak of war Franklin's feelings to- 
 wards England had taken on that extreme bitter- 
 ness which so often succeeds when love and admi- 
 ration seem to have been misplaced. " I was fond - 
 to a folly," he said, " of our British connections, Jk 
 . , . but the extreme cruelty with which we have * 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 355 
 
 been treated has now extinguished every thought 
 of returning to it, and separated us forever. You 
 have thereby lost limbs that will never grow again." 
 English barbarities, he declared, " have at length 
 demolished all my moderation." Often and often 
 he reiterated such statements in burning words, 
 which verge more nearly upon vehemence than 
 any other reminiscence which survives to us of the 
 great and calm philosopher. 
 
 Yet in the bottom of his heart he felt that the 
 chasm should not be made wider and deeper than 
 was inevitable. In 1780 he told Hartley that Con- 
 gress would fain have had him " make a school- 
 book " from accounts of '' British barbarities," to 
 be illustrated by thirty-five prints by good artists 
 of Paris, " each expressing one or more of the dif- 
 ferent horrid facts, ... in order to imjDress the 
 minds of children and posterity with a deep sense 
 of your bloody and insatiable malice and wicked- 
 ness." He would not do this, yet was sorely pro- 
 voked toward it. " Every kindness I hear of done 
 by an Englishman to an American prisoner makes 
 me resolve not to proceed in the work, hoping a re- 
 conciliation may yet take place. But every fresh 
 instance of your devilism weakens that resolution, 
 and makes me abominate the thought of a reunion 
 with such a people." 
 
 In point of fact the idea of an actual reunion 
 seems never from the very outset to have had any 
 real foothold in his mind. In 1779 he said : " We 
 have long since settled all the account in our own 
 
356 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 minds. We know the worst you can do to us, if 
 you have your wish, is to confiscate our estates and 
 take our lives, to rob and murder us ; and this . . . 
 we are ready to hazard rather than come again un- 
 der your detested government." ^ This sentiment 
 steadily gained strength as the struggle advanced. 
 Whenever he talked about terms of peace he took 
 a tone so high as must have seemed altogether ri- 
 diculous to English statesmen. Independence, he 
 said, was established ; no words need be wasted 
 about that. Then he audaciously suggested that 
 it would be good policy for England " to act nobly 
 and generously; ... to cede all that remains in 
 North America, and thus conciliate and strengthen 
 a young power, which she wishes to have a future 
 and serviceable friend." She would do well to 
 " throw in " Canada, Nova Scotia, and the Flori- 
 das, and " call it ... an indemnification for the 
 burning of the towns." 
 
 Englishmen constantly warned him of the blun- 
 der which the colonies would commit, should they 
 " throw themselves into the arms " of France, and 
 they assured him that the alliance was the one 
 "great stumbling-block in the way of making 
 peace." But he had ever the reply, after the fash- 
 ion of Scripture : By their fruits ye shall know 
 them. France was as liberal of friendship and 
 good services as England was of tyranny and cru- 
 elties. This was enough to satisfy Franklin ; he 
 
 ^ See also a strong statement in letter to Hartley of October 14, 
 1777 ; Works, vii. 106. 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 357 
 
 saw no Judas In the constant and generous de Ver- 
 gennes, and could recognize no inducement to drop 
 the substance France for the sliadow England.^ 
 To his mind it seemed to concern equally the honor 
 and the interest of the States to stand closely and 
 resolutely by their allies, whom to abandon would 
 be " infamy ; " and after all, what better bond 
 could there be than a common interest and a com- 
 mon foe ? From this view he never wavered to 
 the hour when the definitive treaty of peace was 
 signed.^ 
 
 Such was Franklin's frame of mind when the 
 surrender at Yorktown and the events incident 
 to the reception of the news in England at last 
 brought peace into really serious consideration. 
 The States had already been forward to place 
 themselves in a position for negotiating at the first 
 possible moment. For in 1779 Congress had re- 
 ceived from France an intimation that it would be 
 well to have an envoy in Europe empowered to 
 treat ; and though it was seizing time very much 
 by the forelock, yet that body was in no mood to 
 dally with so pleasing a hint, and at once nomi- 
 nated John Adams to be plenipotentiary. This, 
 however, by no means fell in with the schemes of 
 the French ministry, for de Vergennes knew and 
 disliked Mr. Adams's very unmanageable character. 
 Accordingly the French ambassador at Philadelphia 
 
 1 See FrankHn's Works, vi. 303. 
 
 ^ See Franklin's Works, vi. 151, 303, 310; vii. 3, for examples 
 of his expressions on this subject. 
 
358 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 was instructed to use his great influence with Con- 
 gress to effect some amelioration of the distasteful 
 arrangement, and he soon covertly succeeded in in- 
 ducing Congress to create a commission by appoint- 
 ing Adams, Jay, Franklin, Jefferson, who never 
 went on the mission, and Laurens, who was a pris- 
 oner in England and joined his colleagues only 
 after the business had been substantially concluded. 
 Adams promptly came to Paris, created a great 
 turmoil there, as has been in part narrated, and 
 passed on to Holland, where he still remained. 
 Jay, accredited to, but not yet received by, the 
 Spanish court, was at Madrid. Franklin therefore 
 alone was on hand in Paris when the great tidings 
 of the capture of Cornwallis came. 
 
 It was on November 25, 1781, that Lord North 
 got this news, taking it " as he would have taken 
 a ball in his breast." He recognized at once that 
 " all was over," yet for a short time longer he re- 
 tained the management of affairs. But his ma- 
 jority in Parliament was steadily dwindling, and 
 evidently with him also " all was over." In his 
 despair he caught with almost pathetic eagerness 
 at what for a moment seemed a chance to save his 
 ministry by treating with the States secretly and 
 apart from France. He was a man not troubled 
 with convictions, and having been obstinate in con- 
 ducting a war for which he really cared little, he 
 was equally ready to save his party by putting an 
 end to it with the loss of all that had been at stake. 
 Franklin, however, decisively cut off that hope. 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 859 
 
 America, he assured Hartley, would not forfeit the 
 world's good opinion by " such perfidy ; " and in the 
 incredible event of Congress instructing its com- 
 missioners to treat upon " such ignominious terms," 
 he himself at least " would certainly refuse to act." 
 So Digges, whom Franklin described as " the 
 greatest villain I ever met with," carried back no 
 comfort from secret, tentative errands to Adams in 
 Holland and to Franklin in France. Simultaneous 
 furtive advances to de Vergennes met with a like 
 rebuff. France and America were not to be sepa- 
 rated ; Lord North and his colleagues were not to 
 be saved by the bad faith of either of their enemies. 
 On February 22, 1782, an address to the king 
 against continuing the American war was moved 
 by Conway. It was carried by a majority of nine- 
 teen. A few days later a second, more pointed, 
 address was carried without a division. The next 
 day leave was granted to bring in a bill enabling 
 the king to make a peace or a truce with the colo- 
 nies. The game was up ; the ministry held no 
 more cards to play ; on March 20 Lord North an- 
 nounced that his administration was at an end. 
 
 In his shrewd, intelligent fashion, Franklin was 
 watching these events, perfectly appreciating the 
 significance of each in turn. On March 22 he 
 seized an opportunity which chance threw in his 
 way for writing to Lord Shelburne a short note, 
 in which he suggested a hope that the " returning 
 good disposition " of England towards America 
 would " tend to produce a general peace." It was 
 
360 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 a note of a few lines only, seemingly a mere pleas- 
 ant passage of courtesy to an old friend, but sig- 
 nificant and timely, an admirable specimen of the 
 delicate tact with which Franklin could meet and 
 almost create opportunity. A few days later the 
 cabinet of Lord Rockingham was formed, composed 
 of the friends of America. In it Charles Fox was 
 secretary for foreign affairs, and Lord Shelburne 
 had the home department, including the colonies. 
 No sooner were the new ministers fairly instated 
 than Shelburne dispatched Richard Oswald, a re- 
 tired Scotch merchant, of very estimable charac- 
 ter, of good temper, reasonable views, and sufficient 
 ability, to talk matters over with Franklin at Paris. 
 Oswald arrived on April 12, and had satisfactory 
 interviews with Franklin and de Vergennes. The 
 important fact of which he became satisfied by the 
 explicit language of Franklin was, that the hope 
 of inducing the American commissioners to treat 
 secretly and separately from France was utterly 
 groundless.^ After a few days he went back to 
 London, carrying a letter from Franklin to Shel- 
 burne, in which Franklin expressed his gratifica- 
 tion at these overtures and his hope that Oswald 
 might continue to represent the English minister. 
 Oswald also carried certain " Notes for Conversa- 
 tion," which Franklin had written out ; " some loose 
 
 ^ About the same time Laurens was released on parole and 
 sent to confer with Adams in Holland, concerning a separate 
 treating, and brought from Adams the like response as Oswald 
 brought from Franklin. 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 361 
 
 thoughts ou paper," as he called them, " which I 
 intended to serve as memorandums for my dis- 
 course, but without a fixed intention of showing 
 them to him." As matters turned out later, it 
 would have been better if Franklin had not been 
 quite so free with these "memorandums," which 
 contained a suggestion that the English should 
 cede Canada and the Americans should recoup the 
 losses of the royalists. Indeed, no sooner had the 
 paper left his hands than he saw his error, and was 
 " a little ashamed of his weakness." The letter 
 only was shown to the whole cabinet. 
 
 On May 5 Oswald was again in Paris, charged to 
 discuss terms with Franklin. But on May 7 there 
 arrived also Thomas Grenville, deputed by Fox to 
 approach de Vergennes with the design not only 
 of treating with France, but also of treating with 
 the States through France. The double mission 
 indicated a division in the English cabinet. ¥ox 
 and Shelburne were almost as hostile to each other 
 as were both to Lord North ; and each was aiming 
 to control the coming negotiations with the States. 
 Which should secure it was a nice question. For 
 English purposes of classification the States, until 
 independence was acknowledged, remained colonies, 
 and so within the charge of Shelburne. Hence 
 came Fox's scheme for reaching them indirectly 
 through France, also his avowed willingness to 
 recognize their independence immediately , for for- 
 eign business belonged to him. Shelburne, on the 
 other hand, strenuously resisted this ; at worst, as 
 
362 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 
 
 he thouglit, independence must come through a 
 treaty, and with equivalents. Moreover it seems 
 that he cherished an odd, half -defined notion, ap- 
 parently altogether peculiar to himself, that he 
 might escape the humiliation of a grant of full 
 independence, and in place thereof might devise 
 some sort of " federal union." Perhaps it was out 
 of this strange fancy that there grew at this time 
 a story that the States were to be reconciled and 
 joined to Great Britain by a gift of the same meas- 
 ure of autonomy enjoyed by Ireland. 
 
 When Oswald and Franklin next met, they made 
 at first little progress ; each seemed desirous to 
 keep himself closed while the other unfolded. The 
 result was that Franklin wrote, with unusual na- 
 'ivete : " On the whole I was able to draw so little 
 of the sentiments of Lord Shelburne . . . that I 
 could not but wonder at his being again sent to 
 me." At the same time Grenville was offering to 
 de Vergennes to acknowledge the independence of 
 the United States, provided that in other respects 
 the treaty of 1763^ should be reinstated. That is 
 to say, France was to agree to a complete restora- 
 tion of the status quo ante helium in every respect 
 so far as her own interests were concerned, and to 
 accept as the entire recompense for all her expendi- 
 tures of money and blood a benefit accruing to the 
 American States. This was a humorous assump- 
 tion of the ingenuousness of her most disinterested 
 
 1 Made between England and France at the close of the last 
 war, in which France had lost Canada. 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 363 
 
 protestations. The French minister, we are told, 
 " seemed to smile " at this compliment to the un- 
 selfishness of his chivalrous nation,^ and replied that 
 the American States were making no request to 
 England for independence. As Franklin happily 
 expressed it : " This seems to me a proposition of 
 selling to us a thing that was already our own, and 
 making France pay the price they [the English] 
 are pleased to ask for it." But the design of wean- 
 ing the States from France, in the treating, was 
 obvious. 
 
 Grenville, thus checked, next tried to see what 
 he could do with Franklin in the way of sepa- 
 rate negotiation. But he only elicited a statement 
 that the States were under no obligations save 
 those embodied in the treaties of alliance and com- 
 merce with France, and a sort of intimation, which 
 might be pregnant of much or of little, that if the 
 purpose of the former were achieved through the 
 recognition of independence, then the commercial 
 treaty alone would remain. This somewhat enig- 
 matical remark doubtless indicated nothing more 
 than that the States would not continue active and 
 aggressive hostilities in order to further purely 
 French designs. Clearly it would depend upon the 
 demands of France whether the States might not 
 find themselves in a somewhat delicate position. 
 Their obligation to make no sej^arate peace with 
 England had been contracted upon the basis that 
 
 1 *'The Peace Nej^otiations of 1782-83," etc., by John Jay ; in 
 Winsor's Narr. and Crit. Hist, of America^ vol. vii. 
 
364 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 France should ally herself with them to obtain their 
 independence ; and the injury expected to result 
 therefrom to England, with the chance of commer- 
 cial advantages accruing to France, had been re- 
 garded as a full consideration. Yet it would seem 
 ungrateful, to say the least, to step out of the fight 
 and leave France in it, and to refuse to back her 
 demands for the recoupment of some of the losses 
 which she had suffered in the previous war. But 
 now the French alliance with Spain threatened 
 grave complications ; she had joined France in the 
 war, and the two powers were held closely together 
 by the Bourbon family interests. Spain now had 
 demands of her own in the way of territory on the 
 American continent, where she had made extensive 
 conquests, and even for the cession of Gibraltar. 
 But the States owed little to Spain, vastly less, in- 
 deed, than they had tried to owe to her ; for their 
 incessant begging had elicited only small sums, 
 and they were more irritated at their failure to 
 obtain much than thankful for the trifles they had 
 extorted. So they now easily and gladly took the 
 position of entire freedom from any obligation, 
 either by treaty or of honor, towards that power. 
 But in the probable event of France standing by 
 Spain, peace might be deferred for the benefit of 
 a country with which the States had no lien, unless 
 the States could treat separately. It was not within 
 the purview of the treaty that they should remain 
 tied to France for such purposes ; and to this pur- 
 port Fox wrote to Grenville. But though it might 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 365 
 
 be tolerably easy to enunciate a theory by which 
 the States could justly control their own affairs, 
 with no regard to France, it was only too proba- 
 ble that the application of that theory to circum- 
 stances would be a very nice and perplexing task. 
 It strongly behooved a new country to preserve its 
 good name and its friendships. 
 
 If Fox had been able to carry his point, matters 
 might have moved more expeditiously. But jDcnd- 
 ing the struggle between him and Shelburne no ad- 
 vance could be made at Paris. Grenville and Os- 
 wald could not work in unison. Franklin and de 
 Yergennes became puzzled and suspicious, having 
 only an imperfect inkling by report and gossip con- 
 cerning the true state of affairs. They suspected, 
 with good show of evidence, that the real object of 
 English diplomacy was to drive in a wedge between 
 the allies. Amid these perplexities, on April 22, 
 Franklin wrote to Jay, begging him to come to 
 Paris : " Here you are greatly wanted, for messen- 
 gers begin to come and go, . . . and I can neither 
 make nor agree to conditions of peace without the 
 assistance of my colleagues. ... I wish therefore 
 you would . . . render yourself here as soon as 
 possible. You would be of infinite service." Jay 
 arrived on June 23, to Franklin's " great satisfac- 
 tion," and the meeting was cordial. Jay was thirty- 
 seven years old, and Franklin was seventy-six, but 
 Jay says : " His mind appears more vigorous than 
 that of any man of his age I have known. He cer- 
 tainly is a valuable minister and an agreeable com- 
 panion." 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 The deadlock continued. Grenville showed a com- 
 mission to treat with France and " any other prince 
 or state." But the " enabling act," giving the king 
 authority to acknowledge the independence of the 
 States, had not yet been passed by Parliament ; 
 and it did not appear that England recognized 
 the ex-colonies as constituting either a prince or a 
 state. Oswald had no commission at all. Frank- 
 lin, though he found himself " in some peri^lexity 
 with regard to these two negotiations," strove to 
 set things in motion. He preferred Oswald to 
 Grenville, and intimated to Lord Shelburne his 
 wish that Oswald should receive exclusive author- 
 ity to treat with the American commissioners. He 
 at the same time suggested sundry necessary arti- 
 cles to be dis]3osed of by the treaty, namely : inde- 
 pendence, boundaries, and the fisheries ; and sun- 
 dry advisable articles, namely : an indemnity to be 
 granted by England to the sufferers by the war ; 
 an acknowledgment of her error by England, and 
 the cession of Canada. 
 
 But the duel between Shelburne and Fox must 
 first be settled, and it was now about to be settled 
 suddenly and in an unexpected manner. On July 
 1, 1782, Lord Rockingham died, and the crown, as 
 Walpole facetiously remarked, thereby descended 
 to the king of England. The monarch at once, 
 though very reluctantly, requested Shelburne to ac- 
 cept the post of prime minister, regarding him as in 
 some degree less obnoxious than Fox. Thereupon 
 Fox and his friends retired in high dudgeon from 
 
 I 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 367 
 
 office, and Grenville promptly asked to be recalled. 
 His opportune request was granted very readily, 
 and his place was given to Fitzherbert, who brought 
 personal letters to Franklin, but who was not ac- 
 credited to treat with the States. It seemed that 
 this business was now again to fall into the hands 
 of Oswald, and accordingly, though he still re- 
 mained without any definite authority, active dis- 
 cussion was resumed between him and Franklin. 
 Early in August both believed that an understand- 
 ing upon all important points had been reached. 
 Jay had been ill almost ever since his arrival in 
 Paris, and was only now recovering ; Adams was 
 still in Holland ; so that Franklin and Oswald had 
 had the whole matter between themselves. 
 
 Just at this time Parliament rose ; and Shel- 
 burne sent Yaughan to Paris to give private assur- 
 ance to Franklin that there would be no changfe in 
 policy towards America. A commission was at the 
 same time drawn up and sent to Oswald empower- 
 ing him to treat with commissioners of the " colo- 
 nies or plantations, and any body or bodies corpo- 
 rate or politic, or any assembly or assemblies." 
 This singular phraseology at once produced trou- 
 ble. Jay indignantly repudiated the colonial con- 
 dition imputed by this language, and resolutely 
 said that independence must be no item in any 
 treaty, but must be recognized before he would 
 even begin to treat. The point was discussed by 
 him with de Yergennes and Franklin. The French 
 minister at first had " objected to these general 
 
368 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 words as not being particular enough ; " but now 
 he changed his mind and advised not to stickle ; 
 for independence must be the result of the treaty, 
 and it was not to be expected that the effect should 
 precede the cause. Franklin, with evident hesita- 
 tion and reluctance,^ gave his opinion that the 
 commission " would do.'' Oswald then showed his 
 instructions, which directed him to concede " the 
 complete independence of the thirteen States." 
 Unfortunately the enabling act had not even 
 yet passed, so that there was some doubt as to the 
 power of the ministers to agree to this. Jay's de- 
 termination remained unchanged ; for he suspected 
 that the motives of de Vergennes were not disin- 
 terested, and thought that Franklin was hood- 
 winked by his French predilections. Franklin, on 
 the other hand, thought that the minister wished 
 only to expedite the negotiation as much as possi- 
 ble, a matter in which he himself also was very 
 zealous ; for he understood the English political 
 situation and knew that Shelburne's tenure of 
 power was precarious, and that any possible suc- 
 cessor of Shelburne would be vastly less well-dis- 
 posed to the States. This induced him to stretch 
 a point in order to go on with the treating. Par- 
 liament was to meet on November 26, and unless 
 peace could be concluded before that time, the 
 chance for it thereafter would be diminished al- 
 most to the point of hopelessness. But Adams 
 wrote from Holland that he also disapproved the 
 
 1 Franklin's Works, viii. 99, 101, 150, note. 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 369 
 
 unusual form of the commission, though a commis- 
 sion to treat with envoys of '' the United States of 
 America " would satisfy him, as a sufficient impli- 
 cation of independence without an explicit prelim- 
 inary acknowledgment of it. 
 
 About the middle of August Jay drew up a letter, 
 suggesting very ingeniously that it was incompati- 
 ble with the dignity of the king of England to nego- 
 tiate except with an independent power ; also that 
 an obstacle which meant everything to the States, 
 but nothing to Great Britain, should be removed 
 by his majesty. Franklin thought that the letter 
 expressed too positively the resolve not to treat save 
 upon this basis of pre-acknowledged independence. 
 He evidently did not wish to bolt too securely the 
 door through wdiich he anticipated that the com- 
 missioners might in time feel obliged to withdraw. 
 Moreover Jay thought that at this time " the doc- 
 tor seemed to be much perplexed and fettered by 
 our instructions to be guided by the advice of this 
 court," a direction correctly sup23osed to have been 
 procured by the influence of the French envoy at 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 Jay's suspicions concerning the French minister 
 happened now to receive opportune corroboration. 
 On September 4th Rayneval, secretary to de Ver- 
 gennes, had a long interview with Jay concerning 
 boundaries, in which he argued strongly against 
 the American claims to the western lands lying be- 
 tween the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. This 
 touched Jay nearly, for the navigation of the ^lis- 
 
370 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 sissippi was tlie one object which he had especially 
 at heart. Six days later the famous letter of Mar- 
 bois, de la Luzerne's secretary, which had been 
 captured en route from Philadelphia to de Ver- 
 gennes at Paris, was put into the hands of Jay 
 through the instrumentality of the English cabi- 
 net. This outlined a scheme for a secret under- 
 standing between England and France to deprive 
 the Americans of the Newfoundland fisheries. 
 This evidence seemed to prove Jay's case ; yet 
 Franklin remained strangely unshaken by it, for 
 he reflected that it came from the British ministry 
 and was infected with suspicion by this channel. 
 But still another occurrence came to strengthen 
 Jay's conviction of some latent hostility in the 
 French policy, for he learned that Rayneval was 
 making a rapid and secret journey to London. He 
 felt sure that this errand was to intimate to Shel- 
 burne that France did not incline to support the 
 demands of her American allies. In the fullness 
 of his faith he took a courageous, very unconven- 
 tional, but eminently successful step. He per- 
 suaded Vaughan to hasten to London, and to pre- 
 sent sundry strong arguments going to show that 
 it was the true policy of England to grant the de- 
 mands of the States rather than to fall in with the 
 subtle plans of France. He felt with regret that 
 he could not consult Franklin regarding this pro- 
 ceeding, which he undertook upon his own sole re- 
 sponsibility. It put Shelburne in a singular posi- 
 tion, as arbiter between two nations enemies of 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 371 
 
 England and allies o£ each otliei', but each ma- 
 noeuvring to secure its own advantage at the cost 
 of its friend, and to that end presuming to advise 
 him upon English interests. He did not ponder 
 long before accepting the American arguments as 
 the better, and deciding that the English policy 
 was rather to be liberal towards a kindred peo- 
 ple than to unite with a traditional foe in curtail- 
 ing their prosperity. He said to Yaughan : " Is 
 the new commission necessary ? " " It is," replied 
 Yaughan ; and his lordship at once gave orders for 
 makinof it out. Had he fallen in with the French 
 ideas, he would, upon the contrary, have cherished 
 this disagreement for a while, in order finally to 
 sell out a concession on this point at the price of 
 some such substantial matter as the fisheries or 
 the western lands. Forthwith Yaughan was on his 
 way back to Paris, accompanied by a messenger 
 who carried the amended document empowering 
 Oswald to treat with the commissioners of the 
 *' Thirteen United States of America, viz. : New 
 Hampshire," etc., naming them all. " We have put 
 the greatest confidence, I believe, ever placed in 
 man, in the American commissioners. It is now 
 to be seen how far they or America are to be de- 
 pended upon. . . . There never was such a risk 
 run ; I hope the public will be the gainer, else our 
 heads must answer for it, and deservedly." Such 
 were the grave and anxious words of the prime 
 minister. 
 
 Upon the receipt of this commission negotiations 
 
372 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 were actively resumed, Franklin and Jay on one 
 side, Oswald alone on the other. The old ground 
 was gone over again. On October 5-8, both par- 
 ties assented to a sketch of a treaty, which Oswald 
 transmitted to London for consideration by the 
 ministry. But the raising of the siege of Gibral- 
 tar, and reflection upon the probable results of the 
 incipient estrangement between American interests 
 and those of France and Spain, now induced the 
 English to hope for more favorable terms in some 
 particulars. So instead of adopting this draft 
 they sent over Mr. Strachey, a man especially 
 well informed concerning the disputed boundaries, 
 to reinforce Oswald in an effort to obtain modifi- 
 cations on these points. 
 
 Meantime another serious difference of opinion 
 was developed between Franklin and Jay. The in- 
 fluence of de Vergennes at Philadelphia had by no 
 means been exhausted in securing colleagues for 
 Mr. Adams. He had further desired to have the 
 American envoys instructed that no American de- 
 mands outside of independence must be allowed to 
 interpose obstacles in the way of French purposes. 
 In this he had been wholly successful. Of the 
 demands which Congress had at first intended to 
 insist upon, one after another was reduced to a 
 mere recommendation, until at last independence 
 alone was left as an absolute and definitive ulti- 
 matum. Moreover the closing paragraph of the 
 instructions actually bade the envoys to main- 
 tain constant communication with their generous 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 373 
 
 ally the king of France, and in tlie last resort to 
 be governed in all matters by his advice. This ser- 
 vility had raised the ire of Jay almost to the point 
 of inducing him to refuse a post so hedged around 
 with humiliation. With his views concernin": the 
 intentions of de Yergennes it now seemed to him 
 intolerable to jeopard American interests by plac- 
 ing them at the mercy of a cabinet which un- 
 mistakably, as it seemed to him, designed to sac- 
 rifice them to its own ends. Accordingly he was 
 for disobeying this unworthy instruction of Con- 
 gress, and for conducting the negotiation in strict 
 secrecy as towards the French minister. But 
 Franklin was no less resolute on the other side. 
 His established and grateful confidence in de Yer- 
 gennes remained unshaken, and he saw no error 
 in consulting the wisest, and by all proofs the best 
 and truest friend whom the States had ever had. 
 Moreover he saw that the orders of Congress were 
 imperative. It was a serious division. Fortu- 
 nately it was soon settled by the advent of John 
 Adams, about the end of October. That gentle- 
 man, prompt, fearless, and suspicious, at once fell 
 in with Jay's views. In a long evening's talk he 
 apparently read Franklin a pretty severe lecture, 
 and certainly ranged himself very positively on 
 Jay's side. Franklin listened to his vehement col- 
 league, and at the moment held his peace in his 
 wise way. It was true that Adams brought the 
 castinii: vote, though Franklin of course mio^ht re- 
 sist, and could make his resistance effectual by com- 
 
374 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 municatmg to de Vergennes all which passed, and 
 in so doing he would be backed by the authority 
 and orders of Congress. But he determined not to 
 pursue this course. When next they all met for 
 conference he turned to Jay and said : " I am of 
 your opinion, and will go on without consulting 
 this court." This was all that passed when thus 
 for a second time Franklin surrendered. Noth- 
 ing indicates by what motives he was influenced. 
 Some writers suggest that he had a lurking notion 
 that Jay's views were not altogether ill-founded ; 
 but later he declared the contrary. ^ Others fancy 
 that he simply yielded to a majority vote. To me 
 it seems more probable that, weighing comparative 
 importance, he gave in to what he conceived to 
 be the supreme necessity of advancing to a speedy 
 conclusion ; for, as has been said, he keenly ap- 
 preciated that time was pressing. Parliament was 
 to meet in a few weeks, on November 26, and it 
 daily became more evident that if a treaty was to 
 be made at all, it must be consummated before 
 that date. Now, as in the question concerning 
 the preliminary acknowledgment of independence, 
 peace overruled all considerations of minor points. 
 If this was indeed his end, he achieved it, for 
 negotiations were now zealously pushed. The im- 
 portant question of the western boundaries and 
 the navigation of the Mississippi was the especial 
 concern of Jay. Spain covertly wished to see the 
 States worsted upon these demands, and confined 
 1 Franklin's Works, viii. 305, 306. 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 375 
 
 between the Alleghanies and the sea; and the 
 Bourbon family compact influenced France to con- 
 cur with the Spanish plans. But in the secret 
 treating Jay prevailed. The fisheries were the 
 peculiar affair of Adams, as the representative of 
 New England. France would fain have had the 
 States shut out from them altogether ; but Adams 
 carried the day. Some concessions were made con- 
 cerning the collection of debts owing in the States 
 to Englishmen, and then there remained only the 
 matter of indemnification to American royalists. 
 Upon this the fight was waged with zeal by all ; 
 yet Franklin had the chief responsibility to bear. 
 For there now arose to plague him that unfortu- 
 nate proposition of his for the cession of Canada 
 and the restoration of confiscated tory property in 
 the States. This encouraged the English and gave 
 them a sort of argument. Moreover the indem- 
 nification was " uppermost in Lord Shelburne's 
 mind," because, unlike other matters, it seemed a 
 ^point of honor. With what face could the min- 
 istry meet Parliament with a treaty deserting all 
 those who had been faithful to their king? It 
 was indeed a delicate position, and the English 
 were stubborn ; but no less so v/as Franklin, upon 
 the other side. With the great province of Can- 
 ada as an offset, or quasi fund, the States might 
 have assumed such an obligation, but without it, 
 never. Further the American commissioners re- 
 iterated the explanation often given : that Congress 
 had no power in the premises, for the matter lay 
 
376 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 within the sovereign jurisdiction of each state. 
 This argument, however, really amounted to noth- 
 ing ; for if the fact was so, it behoved the states 
 to give their agent, the Congress, any power that 
 was necessary for making a fair treaty ; and Eng- 
 land was not to be a loser by reason of defects in 
 the American governmental arrangements. For a 
 while it really seemed that the negotiation would 
 be wrecked upon this issue, so immovable was each 
 side. As Vaughan wrote : "If England wanted to 
 break, she could not wish for better ground on her 
 side. Yoit do not break, and therefore I conclude 
 you both sincere. But in this way I see the treaty 
 is likely of itself to break." 
 
 Franklin now ingeniously counteracted his ear- 
 lier imprudence by reviving an old suggestion of 
 his, that immense claims might be preferred against 
 England on behalf of Americans whose property 
 had been wantonly destroyed, especially by the 
 burning and plundering of towns, and he actually 
 presented an article providing for such compen- . 
 sation, and an elaborate written paper sustain- 
 ing it.^ At last the Englishmen sought final in- 
 structions from Lord Shelburne. He replied with 
 spirit that it should be understood that England 
 was not yet in a position to submit to " humilia- 
 tion," least of all at the hands of Americans ; but 
 finally he so far yielded as to say that indemni- 
 fication need not be absolutely an ultimatum. This 
 settled the matter ; the negotiators who could yield 
 
 ^ Franklin's Works, viii. 218, text and note. 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 377 
 
 must yield, and they did so. A sort of compro- 
 mise article was inserted : " that Congress should 
 recommend to the state legislatures to restore the 
 estates, rights, and properties of real British sub- 
 jects." The American envoys knew that this was 
 worthless, and the English negotiators certainly 
 were not deceived. But the article sounded well, 
 and gave at least a standing ground for the min- 
 istry to defend themselves.^ On November 30 the 
 articles were at last signed, with the stipulation 
 that they were for the present merely preliminary 
 and provisional, and that they should be executed 
 as a definitive treaty only simultaneously with the 
 execution of a treaty of peace between France and 
 England. 
 
 The business was finished none too soon. In 
 order to cover it the meeting of Parliament had 
 been postponed until December 5. The danger 
 which had been escaped, and which would not have 
 been escaped had Franklin had a less correct ap- 
 
 1 It is not without interest in this connection to remark that 
 Franklin was very ill-disposed towards the "loyalists," having 
 scant toleration for their choice of a party. For a man of his 
 liberality and moderation his language concerning them was 
 severe. He objected to calling them " loyalists," thinking " roy- 
 alists ' ' a more correct description. To indemnification of their 
 losses by Parliament he had "no objection," for the damnatory 
 reason that "even a hired assassin has a right to his pay from 
 his employer." Franklin's Works, ix. 138. He often spoke in 
 the like tone about these people See, for example, Works, ix. 
 70, 72. But when the war was over and the natural mildness of 
 his disposition could resume its sway, he once at least spoke more 
 gently of them. Ibid. , 415. 
 
378 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 preciation of relative values in the negotiation, at 
 once became apparent. The howl of condemnation 
 swelled loud in the House of Commons ; it was felt 
 that the ministry had made not a treaty but a 
 "capitulation." The unfortunate Shelburne was 
 driven out of power, pursued by an angry outcry 
 from persons altogether incapable of appreciating 
 the sound statesmanship and the wise forecast of 
 the future advantage of England which he had 
 shown in preferring to give the colonies a chance 
 to become a great, English-speaking, English-sym- 
 pathizing, commercial people, rather than to feed 
 fat the aspirations of France and Spain. These 
 proceedings would have been good evidence, had 
 evidence been w^anting, that the American commis- 
 sioners had done a brilliant piece of work. De 
 Yergennes also added his testimony, saying : " The 
 English have bought the peace rather than made 
 it." 
 
 If the original instructions given to Oswald are 
 compared with the treaty it will be found that 
 England had conceded much ; on the other hand 
 the Americans, with no ultimatum save indepen- 
 dence, had gained in substance all that they had 
 dared seriously to insist upon. One would think 
 that Franklin, Jay, and Adams had fairly won 
 warm gratitude at the hands of their countrymen. 
 Posterity, at least since the publication of long 
 suppressed private papers and archives has shown 
 what powerful occult influences were at w^ork to 
 thwart them, regards their achievement with un- 
 
 1 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 379 
 
 limited admiration. But at that time a different 
 feeling prevailed. 
 
 No sooner were the preliminary or provisional 
 articles signed than Franklin informed de Ver- 
 gennes of the fact. That minister was much sur- 
 prised. He had been quietly biding his time, ex- 
 pecting to be invoked when the English and the 
 Americans should find themselves stopped by that 
 deadlock which he had done his best to bring about 
 by his secret intimations to England. He was now 
 astonished to learn that England had not availed 
 herself of his astute suggestions, but had given terms 
 which the Americans had gladly accepted. The 
 business was all done, and the clever diplomat had 
 not had his chance. At first he said nothing, but 
 for a few days pondered the matter. Then on De- 
 cember 15th he disburdened his mind in a very 
 sharp letter to Franklin. " I am at a loss." he 
 wrote, " to explain your conduct and that of your 
 colleagues on this occasion. You have concluded 
 your preliminary articles without any communica- 
 tion between us, although the instructions from 
 Congress prescribe that nothing shall be done with- 
 out the participation of the king. You are about 
 to hold out a certain hope of peace to America, 
 without even informing yourself of the state of the 
 negotiation on our part. You are wise and dis- 
 creet, sir ; you perfectly understand what is due to 
 propriety ; you have all your life performed your 
 duties ; I pray you consider how you propose tf> 
 fulfill those which are due to the king." 
 
380 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Franklin found himself in a painful position ; for 
 he could by no means deny that he had duties, or at 
 least something very near akin to duties, to the king, 
 imposed upon him by numerous and weighty obli- 
 gations which at his request had been conferred 
 upon him and accepted by him on behalf of the 
 American' people. The violation of the instruc- 
 tions of Congress gave to the secret treating too 
 much the air of an insulting distrust, of the throw- 
 ing over a friend when he had been sufficiently 
 used ; for whatever might be suspected, it could by 
 no means be proved that de Vergennes was not 
 still the sincere friend which he certainly long had 
 been. This bore hard upon Franklin. The policy 
 which in fact had been forced upon him against his 
 will by his colleagues was now made a matter of 
 personal reproach against him especially, because 
 he was persistently regarded as the head and front 
 of the commission ; no European yet dreamed of 
 considering any other American as of much conse- 
 quence in any matter in which Franklin was con- 
 cerned. During long years de Vergennes had been 
 his constant and efficient adviser and assistant in 
 many a day of trial and of stress, and Franklin be- 
 lieved him to be still an honest well-wisher to the 
 States. Moreover it actually was only a very few 
 weeks since Franklin had applied for and obtained 
 a new loan at a time when the king was so pressed 
 for his own needs that a lottery was projected, and 
 bills drawn by his own officials were going to pro- 
 test. All this made the secrecy which had been 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 381 
 
 practiced seem almost like duplicity on Franklin's 
 part, and lie felt keenly the ill light in which he 
 was placed. It is true that if he had known then 
 all that we know now, his mind would have been at 
 ease; but he did not know it, and he was seriously 
 disturbed at the situation into which he had been 
 brought. 
 
 But his usual skill did not desert him, and his 
 reply was aptly framed and prompt. " Nothing," 
 he said, " had been agreed in the preliminaries 
 contrary to the interests of France ; and no peace 
 is to take place between us and England till you 
 have concluded yours. Your observation is, how- 
 ever, apparently just that, in not consulting you 
 before they were signed, we have been guilty of 
 neglecting a point of hiensecmce. But as this was 
 not from want of respect for the king, whom we 
 all love and honor, we hope it will be excused, and 
 that the great work which has hitherto been so 
 happily conducted, is so nearly brought to perfec- 
 tion, and is so glorious to his reign, will not be 
 ruined by a single indiscretion of ours. And cer- 
 tainly the whole edifice sinks to the ground im- 
 mediately if you refuse on that account to give us 
 any further assistance. ... It is not possible for 
 any one to be more sensible than I am of what I 
 and every American owe to the king for the many 
 and great benefits and favors he has bestowed upon 
 us. . . . The English,, I just noio learn, flatter 
 themselves they have already divided us, I hope 
 this little misunderstanding will, therefore, be kept 
 
882 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 a secret, and that they will find themselves totally 
 mistaken." 
 
 This letter in a measure accomplished its sooth- 
 ing errand. Yet de Vergennes did not refrain 
 from writing to de la Luzerne that "the reserva- 
 tion retained on our account does not save the in- 
 fraction of the promise, which we have mutually 
 made, not to sign except conjointly ; " and he said 
 that it would be " proper that the most influential 
 members of Congress should be informed of the 
 very irregular conduct of their commissioners in 
 regard to us," though " not in the tone of com- 
 plaint." " I accuse no person," he added, " not 
 even Dr. Franklin. He has yielded too easily to 
 the bias of his colleagues, who do not pretend to 
 recognize the rules of courtesy in regard to us. 
 All their attentions have been taken up by the 
 English whom they have met in Paris." 
 
 So soon as the facts were known in the States 
 expressions of condemnation were lavished upon 
 the commissioners by members of Congress who 
 thought that the secrecy as towards France was an 
 inexcusable slight to a generous and faithful ally. 
 Livingston, as secretar}^ for foreign affairs, wrote 
 to the envoys, commending the treaty, but finding 
 fault with the manner of attaining it. Jay, an- 
 gered at the injustice of a reproof which belonged 
 more especially to him, drew up an exculpatory 
 statement. But Franklin, showing his usual good 
 sense and moderation, sought to mitigate Jay's in- 
 dignation, drew all the sting out of the document, 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 883 
 
 and insisted upon leaving the vindication to time 
 and second thoughts. For his own part Frank- 
 lin not only had to take his full share of the re- 
 proaches heaped upon the commissioners for in- 
 sulting France, but upon the other hand he was 
 violently assaulted on the quite opposite ground, 
 that he had desired to be too subservient to that 
 power. Many persons insisted that he " favored, 
 or did not oppose," the designs of France to rule 
 out the States from the fisheries, and to curtail their 
 boundaries ; and that it was only due to the " firm- 
 ness, sagacity, and disinterestedness " of Jay and 
 Adams that these mischiefs were escaped. 
 
 Such were the fault-findings and criminations 
 to which the diplomatic complexities, which it was 
 impossible then to unravel, gave rise. Fortu- 
 nately they were soon rendered mere personal 
 and abstract disputes, of little practical conse- 
 quence, by the simultaneous execution of defini- 
 tive treaties by France and the United States 
 with Great Britain on September 3, 1783. Many 
 efforts had been made to insert additional articles, 
 especially as to commercial matters ; but they were 
 all abortive. The establishment of peace had ex- 
 hausted the capacity of the States and England to 
 agree together ; and the pressure of war being re- 
 moved, they at once fell into very inimical atti- 
 tudes. So the definitive treaty was substantially 
 identical with the provisional one. 
 
 Franklin, after a while, finding that these charges 
 of his having preferred France to his own country 
 
384 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 were being reiterated with such innuendoes as to 
 bring his integrity into serious question, felt it 
 necessary to apjoeal to his colleagues for vindica- 
 tion. He wrote to them a modest, manly letter,^ 
 and in reply received from Jay a generous testi- 
 monial,^ and from Adams a carefully narrow ac- 
 quittal.^ The subsequent publication of Franklin's 
 papers written at, and long before, the time of the 
 negotiation, show that he was inclined to demand 
 from Great Britain fully as much as any American 
 upon either side of the ocean. 
 
 In taking leave of the subject it is interesting to 
 know that in point of fact the secret action of the 
 American commissioners was very nearly fraught 
 with serious injury to France. For when the States 
 were practically eliminated from active war by the 
 signing of the provisional articles, five members of 
 Shelburne's cabinet were in favor of breaking off 
 negotiations with France, and continuing the con- 
 test with her.* 
 
 During the negotiation Franklin wrote to Lau- 
 rens : " I have never yet known of a peace made 
 that did not occasion a great deal of popular dis- 
 
 ^ Works, viii. 340 ; and see Ibid. , 353. 
 
 2 Ibid., 350. 3 Ibid., 354. 
 
 * I have not endeavored to give a detailed account of this ne- 
 gotiation, though the narrative would be very interesting, because 
 it seems to me that the proper place for it will be furnished by 
 the Life of Jay. That volume will soon appear in this Series, and 
 will contain a very full and accurate presentation of this entire 
 affair, drawn from those sources which have only very recently 
 become public, and which go far to remove former questions out 
 of the realm of discussion. 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 385 
 
 content, clamor, and censure on both sides, ... so 
 that tlie blessing promised to peacemakers, I fancy, 
 relates to the next world, for in this they seem 
 to have a greater chance of being cursed." The 
 prognostication was fulfilled. The act which gave 
 peace to the warring nations, brought anything but 
 good will among the American negotiators. Jay 
 was so just, conscientious, and irreproachable a gen- 
 tleman in every respect that he escaped unvexed b}'- 
 any personal quarrel ; moreover he was not so dis- 
 tinguished as to have become the victim of envy and 
 jealousy. But the antipathy previously so unhap- 
 pily existing between Franklin and Adams became 
 greatly aggravated, and their respective advocates 
 in historical literature have not to this day reached 
 an accord. Adams was a relentless hater, and has 
 bequeathed bitter diatribes, which, as they can 
 never be obliterated, can never cease to excite the 
 ire of the admirers of Franklin. On the other 
 side, Franklin has at least the merit of having left 
 not a malicious line behind him. I have no mind 
 to endeavor to apportion merits and demerits be- 
 tween these two great foemen, able men and true 
 patriots both, having no room for these personali- 
 ties of history, which, though retaining that kind 
 of interest always pertaining to a feud, are really 
 very little profitable. Perhaps, after all, the discus- 
 sion would prove to be not unlike the classic one 
 which led two knights to fight about the golden- 
 silver shield. 
 
 Yet one dispute, which has been long waged, 
 
386 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 no longer admits of doubt. The suspicions of the 
 good faith of de Vergennes which Jay first enter- 
 tained, which Adams adopted, and which Franklin 
 rejected, were undoubtedly correct. As the years 
 go by and collections of private papers and of 
 hitherto suppressed public archives find their way 
 to the light, the accumulated evidence to this effect 
 has become overwhelming. Such being the case, 
 it must be admitted that the vital merit in the con- 
 duct of this difficult negotiation rests with Jay ; 
 that Adams has the credit belonging to one who 
 accepts a correct view when presented to him ; and 
 that Franklin did more wisely than he knew in 
 twice assenting to a course which seemed to him 
 based upon erroneous beliefs. 
 
 There is abundant evidence that from the very 
 outset Franklin was not less resolute than was 
 Adams about the fisheries ; and that he was in per- 
 fect accord with Jay about the western boundaries 
 and the Mississippi ; though Adams and Jay did 
 most of the talking concerning these subjects, re- 
 spectively. When it came to the even more diffi- 
 cult matter of the royalists, Franklin in turn took 
 the laboring oar. So far therefore as the three 
 cardinal points of the negotiation were concerned 
 honors were very evenly divided. But the value 
 of Franklin's contribution to the treating is not to 
 be measured either by his backwardness in sup- 
 porting Jay in certain points, or by his firm atti- 
 tude about boundaries, royalists, and fisheries. All 
 these things he had outlined and arranged with 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 387 
 
 Oswald at an early stage in tlie negotiating. Later 
 he fell seriously ill and was for a long while in no 
 fit condition for work. Yet the treaty seemed to 
 be made under his auspices. In reading the great 
 quantity of diaries and correspondence which relate 
 to the transactions, many a passage indicates the 
 sense of respect with which he was looked up to. 
 The high opinion entertained of his ability, integ- 
 rity, and fair-mindedness influenced very power- 
 fully the minds of the English ministry and their 
 envoys. " I am disposed," said Shelburne, " to 
 expect everything from Dr. Franklin's comprehen- 
 sive understanding and character." The like feel- 
 ing, strengthened by personal confidence and re- 
 gard, went far to keep de Vergennes from untimely 
 intermeddling and from advancing embarrassing 
 claims of supervision. Altogether, it was again 
 the case that Franklin's prestige in Europe was in- 
 valuable to America, and it is certainly true that 
 beneath its protection Jay and Adams were able to 
 do their work to advantage. Had they stood alone 
 they would have encountered difficulties which 
 would have seriously curtailed their efforts. ^ It 
 is truth and not theory that Franklin's mere name 
 and presence were sufficient to balance the scale 
 against the abilities and the zeal of both his coad- 
 jutors. 
 
 It seems hardl}^ necessary to endeavor to palli- 
 ate Franklin's error in failing to detect the dupli- 
 
 ^ See, for example, Franklin's Works, viii 29, 67, note, 69, 
 TO, 77, 109, 112, note, 133, note, 260. 
 
388 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 city of de Vergeimes. On the contrary, it would 
 give a less agreeable idea of him had he been 
 ready to believe so ill of an old and tried friend. 
 For years Franklin had been the medium through 
 whom had passed countless benefits from France to 
 the States, benefits of which many had been costly 
 and inconvenient for the giver ; he had been treated 
 with high consideration at this court, when no 
 other court in all Europe would even receive an 
 American ambassador ; he had enjoyed every possi- 
 ble token of esteem and confidence both personally 
 and in his official capacity; he had ever found 
 fair words backed by no less fair deeds. In short, 
 the vast mass of visible evidence seemed to him 
 to lie, and in fact did lie, all on one side. On 
 September 13, 1781, writing to the president of 
 Congress, he said that de Vergennes had just read 
 to him a copy of the instructions prepared by Con- 
 gress for the commissioners, and that the minister 
 '*" expressed his satisfaction with the unreserved 
 confidence placed in his court by the Congress, as- 
 suring me that they would never have cause to re- 
 gret it, for that the king had the honor of the 
 United States at heart, as well as their welfare 
 and independence. Indeed, this has been already 
 manifested in the negotiations relative to the pleni- 
 potentiaries ; and I have already had so much ex- 
 perience of his majesty's goodness to us, in the 
 aids afforded us from time to time, and by the sin- 
 cerity of this upright and able minister, who never 
 promised me anything that he did not punctually 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 389 
 
 perform, that I cannot but think the confidence 
 well and judiciously placed, and that it will have 
 happy effects." Every event in the history of 
 many years made it natural and right for Franklin 
 to feel in this way ; and it surely was no cause for 
 distrust that de Vergennes had had the interest of 
 France in mind as an original motive for aiding 
 America, when throughout the war Franklin had 
 witnessed France straining every nerve and taxing 
 every resource to aid her ally, in perfect sincerity ; 
 and when also, upon the suggestion of negotiations, 
 he had just seen de Yergennes adhere rigidly to 
 his word to do no treating save collaterally with 
 the Americans, and refuse to take advantage of 
 Grenville's efforts to reach the Americans through 
 the French minister. Even though de Yergennes 
 had disapproved the delay caused by Jay's objec- 
 tion to the form of the commission, still he had 
 honorably stayed his own negotiation until that 
 matter was favorably settled. Early in the negoti- 
 ations Grenville said. to Franklin that the States 
 owed no gratitude to France, since she had in fact 
 only promoted her own interests. The remark ex- 
 cited Franklin's indignation, and he says : " I told 
 him I was so strongly impressed with the kind as- 
 sistance afforded us by France in our distress, and 
 the generous and noble manner in which it was 
 granted, without extracting or stipulating for a sin- 
 gle privilege or particular advantage to herself in 
 our commerce, or otherwise, that I could never suf- 
 fer myself to think of such reasonings for lessening 
 
390 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 the obligation, and I hoped, and indeed did not 
 doubt, but my countrymen were all of the same 
 sentiments." The words do his heart none the 
 less honor, because it has been since discovered 
 that his confidence was too implicit. In truth de 
 Vergennes had been extremely scrupulous and deli- 
 cate throughout, in all matters which could fall 
 within the observation of the Americans. At the 
 outset he said to Franklin ; the English " want to 
 treat with us for you ; but this the king will not 
 agree to. He thinks it not consistent with the 
 dignity of your state. You will treat for your- 
 selves ; and every one of the powers at war will 
 make its own treaty. All that is necessary is that 
 the treaties go hand in hand, and are all signed on 
 the same day." Thus, to one who could believe 
 de Vergennes, everything seemed fair and sincere, 
 and Franklin at least had a right to believe de 
 Vergennes. 
 
 Furthermore it was not until negotiations actu- 
 ally began that the previous condition of French 
 relationship, as Franklin had well known it for 
 many years, underwent a sudden and complete 
 change. Then at last were presented new tempta- 
 tions before which friendship and good faith could 
 not stand, and each nation, keeping a decorous ex- 
 terior, anxiously studied its own advantage. It 
 was the trying hour when the spoils were to be 
 divided. The States themselves preferred the 
 profit of their enemy England to that of their half- 
 friend Spain. Franklin did not appreciate this 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 391 
 
 quick turning of the kaleidoscope, with the instant 
 change of all the previous political proximities ; in 
 view of his age, his infirmities, his recent experi- 
 ence in France, and his habitual generous faith in 
 his fellow-men, this failure should give rise neither 
 to surprise nor censure. 
 
 In 1782, after signing the preliminary articles, 
 Franklin a second time sent to Congress his re- 
 signation. He received no reply to this commu- 
 nication, and again, therefore, after the execution 
 of the definitive treaty, he renewed his request 
 to be relieved. But still Congress delayed. They 
 wished to enter into commercial treaties with the 
 European nations, and in spite of the rebukes 
 which their chairman of the committee for for- 
 eign affairs had administered to Franklin, Jay, 
 and Adams, they now showed no readiness to re- 
 move these gentlemen from the diplomatic service. 
 Franklin accordingly remained in Paris, probably 
 with no great reluctance, for he was attached to the 
 place and the people, and his affection was warmly 
 returned. It was a lis^ht labor to conduct the 
 neo^otiations for the desired commercial treaties. 
 Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, and even Morocco, all 
 made advances to him almost immediately after the 
 signing of the treaty of peace. For the most part 
 he had the ofratification of success. His last official 
 act, just before his departure from Paris, was the 
 signature of a treaty with Prussia, in which it was 
 
392 , BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 agreed to abolish privateering,^ and to hold private 
 property by land and sea secure from destruction 
 in time of war. It was pleasant thus to be intro- 
 ducing his country to the handshaking, so to speak, 
 of the old established nations of the world. So his 
 life glided on agreeably. He was recognized as one 
 of the most illustrious men living ; and to enjoy 
 such a rejjutation in Paris in those days, especially 
 when it was supplemented by personal popularity, 
 was to find one's self in the enjoyment of all which 
 the world could bestow to make delightful days. 
 
 In August, 1784, Jefferson arrived to assist in 
 the commercial business. But it was not until 
 March, 1785, that Congress at last voted that 
 Franklin might " return to America as soon as con- 
 venient," and that Jefferson should succeed him as 
 minister at the French court. Jefferson has borne 
 good testimony to Franklin's situation, as he ob- 
 served it. A few years later, in February, 1791, 
 he wrote : "I can only therefore testify in gen- 
 eral that there appeared to me more respect and 
 veneration attached to the character of Dr. Frank- 
 lin in France, than to that of any other person in 
 the same country, foreign or native. I had oppor- 
 tunities of knowing particularl}^ how far these sen- 
 timents were felt by the foreign ambassadors and 
 ministers at the court of Versailles. ... I found 
 the ministers of France equally impressed with the 
 talents and integrity of Dr. Franklin. The Count 
 de Vergennes particularly gave me repeated and 
 
 ^ See letter to Hartley, Franklin's Works, viii. 287. 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 393 
 
 unequivocal demoustrations of his entire confidence 
 in him." When Jefferson was asked : " C'est 
 vous, Monsieur, qui remplace le Docteur Frank- 
 lin ?" he used to reply : " No one can replace him, 
 ^ir ; I am only his successor ; " and we may be sure 
 that the Frenchmen appreciated and fully agreed 
 with an expression of courtesy which chimed so 
 well with their own customs of speech. Later, in 
 1818, Jefferson wrote an interesting letter concern- 
 ing the calumnies from which Franklin's reputa- 
 tion still suffered : — 
 
 " Dr. Franklin had many poHtical enemies, as every 
 character must which, with decision enough to have 
 opinions, has energy and talent to give them effect on 
 the feelings of the adversary opinion. These enmities 
 were chiefly in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. In 
 the former they were merely of the proprietary party. 
 In the latter they did not commence till the Revolu- 
 tion, and then sprung chiefly from personal animosities, 
 which, spreading by little and little, became at length of 
 some extent. Dr. Lee Was his principal calumniator, a 
 man of much mahgnity, who, besides enlisting his whole 
 family in the same hostility, was enabled, as the agent of 
 Massachusetts with the British government, to infuse it 
 into that State with considerable effect. Mr. Izard, the 
 doctor's enemy also, but from a pecuniary transaction, 
 never countenanced these charges against him. Mr. Jay, 
 Silas Deane, Mr. Laurens, his colleagues also, ever main- 
 tained towards him unlimited confidence and respect. 
 That he would have waived the formal recognition of 
 our independence, I never heard on any authority 
 worthy notice. As to the fisheries, England was urgent 
 
394 BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. 
 
 to retain tliem exclusively, France neutral, and I believe 
 that, had they ultimately been made a sine qua non, our 
 commissioners (Mr. Adams excepted) w^ould have re- 
 linquished them rather than have broken off the treaty. 
 To Mr. Adams's perseverance alone, on that point, I 
 have always understood we were indebted for their re- 
 servation. As to the charge of subservience to France, 
 besides the evidence of his friendly colleagues before 
 named, two years of my own service with him at Paris, 
 daily visits, and the most friendly and confidential con- 
 versation, convince me it had not a shadow of founda- 
 tion. He possessed the confidence of that government in 
 the highest degree, insomuch that it may truly be said 
 that they were more under his influence than he under 
 theirs. The fact is that his temper was so amiable and 
 conciliatory, his conduct so rational, never urging impos- 
 sibilities, or even things unreasonably inconvenient to 
 them, in short so moderate and attentive to their diffi- 
 culties, as well as our own, that what his enemies called 
 subserviency I saw was only that reasonable disposition 
 which, sensible that advantages are not all to be on one 
 side, yielding what is just and liberal, is the more cer- 
 tain of obtaining liberality and justice. Mutual confi- 
 dence produces of course mutual influence, and this was 
 all which subsisted between Dr. Franklin and the gov- 
 ernment of France." ^ 
 
 When at last, in the summer of 1785, Franklin 
 took his farewell of the much-loved land of France, 
 the distinguished attentions which he received left 
 no doubt of the admiration in which he was held. 
 Indeed, many persons pressed him to remain in 
 
 ^ Jefferson's Works, vii. 108. 
 
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 395 
 
 France, and three offered him homes In their own 
 families, telling him that not even in America could 
 he expect esteem and love so unalloyed as he en- 
 joj^ed in France, and warning him also that he 
 might not survive the voyage. But he said : " The 
 desire of spending the little remainder of life with 
 my family is so strong as to determine me to try at 
 least whether I can bear the motion of the ship. If 
 not, I must get them to set me ashore somewhere in 
 the Channel and content myself to die in Europe." 
 When the day of departure from Passy came " it 
 seemed," said Jefferson, " as if the village had lost 
 its patriarch." His infirmities rendered the mo- 
 tion of a carriage painful to him, and the king 
 therefore placed at his disposal one of the queen's 
 litters, which bore him by easy stages to the sea 
 coast. He carried with him the customary compli- 
 mentary portrait of the king ; but it was far be- 
 yond the ordinary magnificence, for it was framed 
 in a double circle of four hundred and eight dia- 
 monds, and was of unusual cost and beauty. On 
 July 18 he arrived at Havre, and crossed the Chan- 
 nel to take ship at Portsmouth. The British gov- 
 ernment offset the discourtesy with which it was 
 irritating Mr. Adams by ordering that the effects 
 of Dr. Franklin's party should be exempt from the 
 usual examination at the custom house. His old 
 friend, the Bishop of St. Asaph, " America's con- 
 stant friend," came to see him. So also did his 
 tory son, the ex-governor of New Jerse}^, with whom 
 a sort of reconciliation had been patched up. He 
 
396 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 sailed with Captain, afterward Commodore, Trux- 
 ton, who found him a most agreeable companion. 
 
 Of all things in the world a sea voyage most in- 
 duces to utter idleness, and it is a striking proof of 
 the mental industry of this aged man that during 
 the seven weeks of this summer passage across 
 the Atlantic he wrote three essays, which remain 
 among his best. But he never in his life found a 
 few weeks in which his mind was relieved from en- 
 forced reflection upon affairs of business that he 
 did not take his pen in hand for voluntary tasks. 
 During the last eighteen months of his life in Paris 
 all the social distractions incident to his distin- 
 guished position had not prevented his writing 
 some of the best papers which he has bequeathed 
 to literature. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AT HOME : PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA : THE 
 CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION : DEATH. 
 
 On September 12, 1785, the ship brought Frank- 
 lin into Delaware Bay, and the next morning he 
 rejoiced to find himself " in full view of dear Phil- 
 adelphia." A multitude, filling the air with huzzas 
 of salutation, greeted his landing and escorted him 
 to his door. Private welcomes and public addresses 
 poured in upon him. His health had been much 
 improved by the sea air and rest, and he rejoiced, 
 as his foot touched the streets of the town which 
 after all his wanderings was his home, to feel him- 
 self by no means yet a worn-out man, though in fact 
 he had seventy-nine years of a busy life behind 
 him. His fellow-citizens evidently thought that the 
 reservoir which had been so bountiful could not yet 
 be near exhaustion, and were resolved to continue 
 their copious draughts upon it. They at once 
 elected him to the State Council, of which he was 
 made President ; and, as he said, " I had not firm- 
 ness enough to resist the unanimous desire of my 
 country folks ; and I find myself harnessed again 
 in their service for another year. They engrossed 
 the prime of my life. They have eaten my flesh, 
 
398 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 and seem resolved now to pick my bones." A vis- 
 ible and a natural pleasure lurks in the words ; old 
 age finds nothing sweeter than a tribute to the 
 freshness of its powers ; and especially Franklin 
 saw in this honor a vindication ao^ainst his malig-n- 
 ers. From it he understood that, however some in- 
 dividuals might indulge in dislike and distrust, the 
 overwhelming mass of his fellow-citizens esteemed 
 liim as highly as he could wish. The distinction, 
 however, cost posterity an unwelcome price, for it 
 prevented further work on the autobiography, which 
 otherwise would probably have been finished.^ 
 
 He came into office as a peacemaker amid war- 
 ring factions, and in the fulfillment of his functions 
 gave such satisfaction that in 1786 he was unan- 
 imously reelected ; and the like high compliment 
 was paid him again in the autumn of 1787. It was 
 like Washington and the presidency : so long as he 
 would consent to accept the office, no other candi- 
 date was thought of. He also took substantially 
 the same course which had been taken by Wash- 
 ington as commander-in-chief concerning his pay ; 
 for he devoted his whole salary to public uses. He 
 had the good fortune to be able to carry out his 
 somewhat romantic, and for most persons impracti- 
 cable, theory in this respect, because his private af- 
 fairs were prospering. His investments in real es- 
 tate in Philadelphia had risen greatly in value and 
 in their income-producing capacity since the war, 
 and he was now at least comfortably endowed with 
 worldly goods. 
 
 1 Franklin's Works, ix. 459. 
 
AT HOME. 399 
 
 He still continued to ply lils pen, and the just 
 but annoying- complaints which came from Great 
 Britain, that English creditors could not collect 
 their ante-bellum debts from their American debt- 
 ors, stimulated him to a bit of humor at which 
 his own countrymen at least were sure to laugh, 
 however little droll it might seem to Englishmen, 
 who reasonably preferred good dollars to good 
 jokes. " We may all remember the time," he 
 wrote, " when our mother country, as a mark of 
 her parental tenderness, emptied her gaols into our 
 habitations, ''for the better peojplmg^ as she ex- 
 pressed it, ' of the colonies' It is certain that no 
 due returns have yet been made for these valuable 
 cousifrnments. We are therefore much in her debt 
 on that account ; and as she is of late clamorous 
 for the payment of all we owe her, and some of our 
 debts are of a kind not so easily discharged, I am 
 for doing, however, what is in our power. It will 
 show our good will as to the rest. The felons she 
 planted among us have produced such an amazing 
 increase that we are now enabled to make ample 
 remittance in the same commodity," etc., etc. 
 
 Nevertheless these English assaults nettled him 
 not a little; and further he dreaded their possible 
 influence in the rest of Europe outside of England. 
 The English newspapers teemed with accounts of 
 the general demoralization and disintegration of 
 the States ; it was said that they had found their 
 ruin in their independence, and the unwillingness 
 of American merchants to pay their debts was in 
 
400 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 one paragraph attributed to their dishonesty, and in 
 the next to the hopeless poverty which was described 
 as having possession of the country. It was in good 
 truth what Mr. John Fiske has called it, " The 
 Critical Period of American History." But Frank- 
 lin was at once too patriotic and too sanguine to 
 admit that matters were, so bad as they seemed. 
 His insight into the situation proved correct, and 
 the outcome very soon showed that the elements of 
 prosperity which he saw were substantial, and not 
 merely the phantoms of a hopeful lover of his 
 country. During these years of humiliation and 
 discouragement he was busy in writing to many 
 friends in England and in France very manly and 
 spirited letters, declaring the condition of things in 
 the States to be by no means so ill as it was repre- 
 sented. Industry had revived, values were advanc- 
 ing, the country was growing, welfare and success 
 were within the grasp of the people. These things 
 he said repeatedly and emphatically, and in a short 
 time the accuracy of his knowledge had to be ad- 
 mitted by all, whether friends or enemies. He 
 would not even admit that the failure to arrange a 
 treaty of commerce with England was the serious 
 misfortune which most Americans conceived it to 
 be. In his usual gallant fashion of facing down 
 untoward circumstances he alleged again and again 
 that the lack of such a treaty was worse for Great 
 Britain than for the States. If British merchants 
 could stand it, American merchants, he avowed, 
 could stand it much better. He was for showino^ 
 
AT HOME. 401 
 
 no more concern about it. " Let the merchants 
 on both sides treat with one another. Laissez les 
 faire^^ he said. The presence of such a temper in 
 the States, in so prominent a man, was of infinite 
 service in those troubled years of unsettled, novel, 
 and difficult conditions. 
 
 Dr. Franklin was not at first elected a member 
 of the deputation from Pennsylvania to the conven- 
 tion which framed the Constitution of the United 
 States. But in May, 1787, he was added in order 
 that, in the possible absence of General Washing- 
 ton, there might be some one whom all could agree 
 in calling to the chair.^ It was fortunate that even 
 an unnecessary reason led to his being chosen, for 
 all future generations would have felt that an un- 
 pardonable void had been left in that famous as- 
 semblaoe, had the sao^e of America not been there. 
 Certainly the " fitness of things," the historical 
 picturesqueness of the event, imperatively de- 
 manded Dr. Franklin's venerable figure in the 
 constitutional convention of the United States of 
 America. 
 
 As between the two theories of government which 
 divided that body, Franklin ranged himself with 
 the party opposed to a strong and centralized gov^ 
 ernment endowed with many functions and much 
 power.2 The simplest government seemed to him 
 
 1 Parton's Life of Franklin, ii. 565. 
 
 ^ But later he remarked : ' ' Though there is a general dread of 
 giving too much power to our governors, I think we are more in 
 danger from too little obedience in the governed.'''' 
 
402 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 the best ; and lie substantially gave in his allegiance 
 to those democratic ideas which afterward consti- 
 tuted the doctrines of the Jeffersonian school in 
 American politics. It was natural that he should 
 do so ; he was a cheerful optimist all his life long, 
 and few men have ever so trusted human kind as he 
 did ; so now he believed that the people could take 
 care of themselves, as indeed the history of the past 
 few years and the character of the population of the 
 States at that time indicated that they could. He 
 attended regularly all the sessions, and gave his 
 opinions freely ; but they are only dimly revealed 
 in the half-light which enfolds in such lamenta- 
 ble obscurity the debates of that interesting body. 
 What little is known can be briefly stated. 
 
 The same theory which he was practicing con- 
 cerning his own salary he wished to see intro- 
 duced as an article of the Constitution. The 
 President, he thought, should receive no salary. 
 Honor was enough reward ; a place which gave 
 both honor and profit offered too corrupting a 
 temptation, and instead of remaining a source of 
 generous aspiration to " the wise and moderate, 
 the lovers of peace and good order, the men fit- 
 test for the trust," it would be scrambled for by 
 " the bold and the violent, the men of strong pas- 
 sions and indefatigable activity in their selfish 
 pursuits." ^ In our day such a notion and such 
 arguments would be quickly sneered out of the de- 
 
 1 Franklin's Works, ix. 418. See, also, letter to Bishop of 
 St. Asaph, Franklin's Works, viii. 270. 
 
AT HOME. 403 
 
 bate ; but tliey were in keeping with the spirit of 
 that era when the first generation which for ages 
 had dared to contemplate popular government was 
 carried away by the earliest romantic fervor of in- 
 experienced speculation. 
 
 It is familiar that the gravest question which 
 perplexed the convention was whether the larger 
 and the smaller states should stand upon terms of' 
 equality, or whether some proportion should be 
 established. After a discussion, recurred to at in- 
 tervals during many weeks, had failed to develop 
 any satisfactory solution of this problem, pregnant 
 with failure, Franklin moved that the daily pro- 
 ceedings should be opened with prayer.^ But 
 Hamilton said that a resort to prayer would indi- 
 cate to the people that the convention had reached 
 a desperate pass ; and either this or some other 
 reason was so potent that scarcely any one voted 
 yea on the motion. What could be more singular 
 than to see the skeptical Franklin and the religious 
 Hamilton thus opposed upon this question ! Frank- 
 lin next suggested a compromise : an equal num- 
 ber of delegates for all states ; an equal vote for 
 all states upon all questions respecting the author- 
 ity or sovereignty of a state, and upon appoint- 
 ments and confirmations ; but votes to be appor- 
 tioned according to the populations of the states 
 respectively upon all bills for raising and spending 
 money. He was in favor of a single legislative 
 chamber, and his plan was designed to be applied 
 
 1 Franklin's Works, ix. 428. 
 
404 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 to such a system. Its feasibility would probably 
 have been defeated through the inevitable com- 
 plexity which would have attended upon it in prac- 
 tice.i Nevertheless it was a suggestion in the 
 right direction, and contained the kernel of that 
 compromise which later on he developed into the 
 system of an equal representation in the Senate, 
 and a proportionate one in the House. This happy 
 scheme may be fairly said to have saved the Union. 
 
 Upon the matter of suffrage Franklin voted 
 against limiting it to freeholders, because to do so 
 would be to " depress the virtue and public spirit 
 of our common people," for whose patriotism and 
 good sense he expressed high esteem. He oj^posed 
 the requirement of a residence of fourteen years as 
 a preliminary to naturalization, thinking four years 
 a sufficient period. He thought that the President 
 should hold office for seven years, and should not 
 be eligible for a second term ; he should be subject 
 to impeachment, since otherwise in case of wrong- 
 doing recourse could be had only to revolution or 
 assassination ; he should not have the power of an 
 absolute veto. 
 
 When at last the long discussions were over and 
 the final draft was prepared, Franklin found him- 
 self in the position in which also were most of his 
 associates, disapproving certain parts, but thinking 
 adoption of the whole far better than rejection. 
 He was wise enough and singular enough to admit 
 
 ^ One becomes quite convinced of this upon reading- his presen- 
 tation of his scheme. Works, ix. 423 ; see, also, Ibid., 395. 
 
AT HOME. 405 
 
 that he was not infallibly right. " Nothing in hu- 
 man affairs and schemes is perfect," he said, " and 
 perhaps that is the case of our opinions." He 
 made an excellent speech,^ urging that at the close 
 of their deliberations all should harmonize, sink 
 their small differences of opinion, and send the 
 document before the people with the prestige of 
 their unanimous approbation. While the last mem- 
 bers were signing, relates Madison, " Dr. Frank- 
 lin, looking toward the president's chair, at the 
 back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, 
 observed to a few members near him that painters 
 had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a 
 rising from a setting sun. ' I have,' he said, ' often 
 and often in the course of the session, and the vicis- 
 situdes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked 
 at that behind the president without being able to 
 tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at 
 length I have the happiness to know that it is a 
 rising and not a setting sun.' " 
 
 He did what he could to secure the adoption of 
 the instrument b}^ the people ; and when that end 
 was happily achieved he joined his voice to the 
 unanimous cry with which the American nation 
 nominated George Washington as the only possible 
 candidate for the presidency. He said : " General 
 Washington is the man whom all our eyes are 
 fixed on for President, and what little influence I 
 may have is devoted to him." 
 
 It was about the time of the election that he him- 
 
 ^ Franklin's Works, ix. 431. 
 
40G BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 self took his farewell of public life. The third year 
 of his incumbency in the office of president of 
 Pennsylvania expired in the autumn of 1788, and 
 his physical condition precluded all idea of further 
 official labors. Nature could not have committed 
 such an incongruity, such a sin against aesthetic 
 justice, as. not to preserve Benjamin Franklin's 
 life long enough to enable him to see the United 
 States fairly launched as a real nation, with an 
 established government and a sound constitution 
 giving promise of a vigorous career. But evi- 
 dently with this boon the patience of nature was 
 exhausted; for Franklin's infirmities now increased 
 upon him terribly. He endured extreme pain 
 during periods steadily increasing in length and 
 recurring at ever-shortening intervals. He bore 
 his suffering, which too often became agony, with 
 heroic fortitude ; but it was evident that even his 
 strong frame could not long hold out against the 
 debilitating effects of his merciless disease. Yet 
 while it racked his body it fortunately spared his 
 mental faculties ; and indeed so lively did his inter- 
 est in affairs remain that it seemed to require these 
 physical reminders to show him how old he was ; 
 save for his body, he was still a man in his prime. 
 He once said : " I often hear persons, whom I knew 
 when children, called old Mr. Such-a-one, to dis- 
 tinguish them from their sons, now men grown and 
 in business ; so that by living twelve years beyond 
 David's period, / seem to have intruded myself 
 into the company of posterity^ when I ought to have 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 40: 
 
 hce?i ahed and asleep^' — words which should take 
 their place among the fine sayings of the ages. 
 
 He was courageous and cheerful. In November, 
 1788, he wrote: ''You kindly inquire after my 
 health. I have not of late much reason to boast of 
 it. People that will live a long life and drink to 
 the bottom of the cup must expect to meet with 
 some of the dregs. However, when I consider how 
 many more terrible maladies the human body is 
 liable to, I think myself well off that I have only 
 three incurable ones : the gout, the stone, and old 
 age; and, those notwithstanding, I enjoy many 
 comfortable intervals, in which I forget all my ills, 
 and amuse myself in reading or writing, or in con- 
 versation witii friends, joking, laughing, and tell- 
 ing merry stories, as when you first knew me, a 
 young man about fifty." ^ He does not seem to 
 have^aken undue credit to himself; there is no 
 querulousness, or egotism, or senility in his let- 
 ters, but a delightful tranquillity of spirit. His 
 sister wrote to him that the Boston newspapers 
 often had matter in his honor. " I am obliged to 
 them," he wrote ; '' on the other hand, some of our 
 papers here are endeavoring to disgrace me. I 
 take no notice. My friends defend me. I have 
 long been accustomed to receive more blame, as 
 well as more praise, than I have deserved. It is 
 the lot of every public man, and I leave one ac- 
 count to balance the other." So serene was the 
 
 1 He habitually wrote in this vein ; see, for example, Works, 
 ix. 206, 28:', and passim. 
 
408 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 aged philosopher, a real philosopher, not one who, 
 having played a part in life, was to be betrayed in 
 the weakness and irritability of old age. He felt 
 none of the mental weariness which years so often 
 bring. He was by no means tired of life and 
 affairs in this world, yet he wrote in a characteris- 
 tic vein to the Bishop of St. Asaph ; " The course 
 of nature must soon put a period to my present 
 mode of existence. This I shall submit to with 
 the less regret, as, having seen during a long life 
 a good deal of this world, I feel a growing curi- 
 osity to be acquainted with some other." It was 
 characteristic that in these closing days it was the 
 progress of mankind in knowledge and welfare 
 which especially absorbed his thoughts. When he 
 reflected on the great strides that were making he 
 said that he almost wished that it had been his 
 destiny to be born two or three centuries later. 
 He was one of the few men who has left on re- 
 cord his willingness to live his life over again, even 
 though he should not be allowed the privilege of 
 " correcting in the second edition the errors of the 
 first." 
 
 The French Revolution excited his profoundest 
 interest. At first he said that he saw " nothing 
 singular in all this, but on the contrary what might 
 naturally be expected. The French have served 
 an apprenticeship to liberty in this country, and 
 now that they are out of their time they have 
 set up for themselves." ^ He expressed his hope 
 
 1 Parton's Life of Franklin, ii. 600. 
 
AT EOME. 409 
 
 that "the fire of liberty, . . . spreading itself over 
 Europe, would act upon the inestimable rights of 
 man as common fire does upon gold : purify with- 
 out destroying them ; so that a lover of liberty may 
 find a country in any part of Christendom." The 
 language had an unusual smack of the French re- 
 volutionary slang, in which he seems in no other in- 
 stance to have indulged. But as the fury swelled 
 his earlier sympathies became merged in a painful 
 anxiety concerning the fate of his many good old 
 friends. 
 
 Franklin's last act was a memorial addressed to 
 Congress, signed by him in his capacity as presi- 
 dent of the abolition society, and praying that 
 body : " That you will devise means for removing 
 this inconsistency from the character of the Ameri- 
 can people ; that j^ou will promote mercy and jus- 
 tice towards this distressed race ; and that you will 
 step to the very verge of the power vested in you 
 for discouraging every species of traffic in the per- 
 sons of our fellow-men." He had always spoken 
 of slavery wdth the strongest condemnation, and 
 branded the slave-trade as " abominable," a "dia- 
 bolical commerce," and a " crime." 
 
 A large part of the last year or two of his life 
 was passed by Franklin in his bed. At times 
 when his dreadful suffering seemed to become in- 
 tolerable, it was quelled, so far as possible, by 
 opium. But at intervals it left him, and still when- 
 ever he thus got a respite for a fev/ days he was 
 again at work. It was in such an interval that he 
 
410 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 wrote Ills paper condemning the liberty, which was 
 becoming the license, of the press. If the law per- 
 mitted this sort of thing, he said, then it should re- 
 store also the liberty of the cudgel. The paper is 
 not altogether antiquated, nor the idea altogether 
 bad! 
 
 It was even so late as March 23, 1790, that he 
 wrote the humorous rejoinder to the pro-slavery 
 speech delivered in Congress by Jackson of Geor- 
 gia. But the end was close at hand ; and when 
 this brilliant satire was composed, there lacked but 
 a few days of the allotted term when that rare 
 humor was to be stilled forever, and that broad 
 philanthropy was to cease from the toil in which it 
 had never tired alike for the free and the oppressed. 
 
 On April 12, 1790, a pain in the chest and diffi- 
 culty of breathing, which had been giving him much 
 trouble, ceased for a short while, and he insisted 
 upon getting up in order to have his bed re-made ; 
 for he wished to " die in a decent manner." His 
 daughter expressed the conventional wish that he 
 might yet recover and live many years. " I hope 
 not," he replied. Soon afterward the pain re- 
 turned, and he was advised to change his position, 
 so that he could breathe more easily. " A dying 
 man can do nothing easy," he said ; and these are 
 the last words which he is known to have uttered. 
 Soon afterward he sank into a lethargy, and so re- 
 mained until at eleven o'clock, P. M., on April 17, 
 1790, he died. 
 
 A great procession and a ~ concourse of citizens 
 
AT HOME. 411 
 
 escorted his funeral, and Congress voted to " wear 
 the customary badge of mourning for one month." 
 The bits of craj^e were all very well, a conven- 
 tional, insignificant tribute ; but unfortunately the 
 account of the country, or at least of Congress as 
 representing the country, did not stand very hon- 
 orably, to say nothing of generously, with one of 
 its oldest, most faithful, and most useful servants.^ 
 Again and again Franklin had asked for some 
 modest office, some slight opening, for his grand- 
 son. Temple Franklin. The young man's plans 
 and prospects in life had all been sacrificed to the 
 service of Franklin as his secretary, which was in 
 fact the service of the country ; yet he had never 
 been able to collect even the ordinary salary per- 
 taining to such a position. Throughout a long life 
 of public service, often costly to himself in his own 
 affairs, Franklin had never asked any other favor 
 than this, which after all was rather compensa- 
 tion than favor, and this was never given to him. 
 When one reflects how such offices are demanded 
 and awarded in these days, one hardly knows 
 whether to be more ashamed of the present or of 
 the past. But this was not all nor even the worst ; 
 for Franklin's repeated efforts to get his own ac- 
 counts with the government audited and settled 
 never met with any response. It needed only that 
 
 1 One of the most painful letters to read which our annals 
 contain is that written by Franklin to Charles Thomson, secretary 
 of Congress, November 29, 1788, Works, viii. 26, 30 It is an 
 arraignment which humiliates the descendants of the members of 
 that body. 
 
412 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Congress should appoint a competent accountant 
 to examine and report. Before leaving France 
 Franklin had begged for this act of simple, busi- 
 ness-like justice, which it was the duty of Congress 
 to initiate without solicitation ; he had the fate of 
 the " poor unhappy Deane " before his eyes, to 
 make him uncomfortable, but in this respect he was 
 treated no better than that misused man. After 
 his return home he continued his urgency during 
 his last years, not washing to die leaving malig- 
 nant enemies behind him, and accounts open which 
 he could no longer explain and elucidate. In- 
 deed, stories were already circulating that he was 
 " greatly indebted to the United States for large 
 sums that had been put into [his] hands, and that 
 [he] avoided a settlement ; " yet this request was 
 still, with unpardonable disregard of decency and 
 duty, utterly ignored. He never could get the busi- 
 ness attended to, and Benjamin Franklin actually 
 could not extort from an indifferent Congress the 
 small satisfaction of having his accounts passed. 
 The consequence was that when he died the United 
 States appeared his debtor, and never extricated 
 itself from that painful position.^ It was only in 
 this matter that he ever showed the slightest anx- 
 iety concerning his reputation with posterity. He 
 wanted to leave the name of an honest man ; but 
 otherwise he never was at the trouble of prepar- 
 ing a line to justify any of his actions, therein 
 differing from many of his contemporaries. 
 
 1 Parton's Life of Franklin^ ii. 596. 
 
AT HOME. 413 
 
 France showed a livelier afPection and warmer 
 appreciation toward the great dead than did his 
 own countrymen. At the opening of the National 
 Assembly, June 11, 1790, Mirabeau delivered an 
 impassioned eulogy in the rhetorical French fash- 
 ion ; and the motion to wear mourning for three 
 days was carried by acclamation. The j^resident 
 of that body, M. Sieyes, was instructed to commu- 
 nicate the resolution to Washington. At the cel- 
 ebration of the municipality of Paris the citizens 
 generally wore a mourning badge ; and the grain 
 market, where the oration was delivered, was draped 
 in black. The Academy of Sciences of course did 
 formal honor to his memory, as did likewise the 
 revolutionary clubs. A street at what was in his 
 day Passy, but is now included in Paris, near the 
 Trocadero, perpetuates by his name the admira- 
 tion which France felt for him. 
 
 Among illustrious Americans Franklin stands 
 preeminent in the interest which is aroused by a 
 study of his character, his mind, and his career. 
 One becomes attached to him, bids him farewell 
 with regret, and feels that for such as he the longest 
 span of life is all too short. Even though dead, 
 he attracts a personal regard which renders easily 
 intelligible the profound affection which so many 
 men felt for him while living. It may be doubted 
 whether any one man ever had so many, such con- 
 stant, and such firm friends as in three different 
 nations formed about him a veritable host. In the 
 
414 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 States and in France lie was loved, and as he grew 
 into old age he was revered, not by those who 
 heard of him only, but most warmly by those who 
 best knew him. Even in England, where for years 
 he was the arch-rebel of all America, he was gen- 
 erally held in respect and esteem, and had many 
 constant friends whose confidence no events could 
 shake. It is true, of course, that he had also his 
 detractors, with most of whom the reader has al- 
 ready made acquaintance. In Pennsylvania the 
 proprietary party cherished an animosity which still 
 survives against his memory, but which does not 
 extend far beyond those who take it as an inherit- 
 ance. It does him no discredit with persons who 
 understand its source. In New England a loyalty 
 to those famous New Englanders, John Adams and 
 Samuel Adams, seems to involve in the minds of 
 some persons a depreciation of Franklin. In Eng- 
 lish historical literature the patriotic instinct stands 
 in the way of giving Franklin quite his full due of 
 praise. But the faults and defects of character 
 and conduct which are urged against him appear 
 little more than the expression of personal ill-will, 
 when tbey are compared with the affection and 
 the admiration given to him in liberal measure by 
 the great mass of mankind both in the generations 
 which knew him as a living contemporary and in 
 those which hear of him only as one of the figures 
 of history. It is not w^orth wdiile to deify him, or 
 to speak with extravagant reverence, as if he had 
 neither faults nor limitations. Yet it seems un- 
 
I 
 
 AT no ME. 415 
 
 gracious to recall these concerning one who did for 
 Ins fellow-men so much as Franklin did. Moral, 
 intellectual, and material boons he conferred in such 
 abundance that few such benefactors of the race 
 can be named, though one should survey all the 
 ages. A man of a greater humanity never lived ; 
 and the quality which stood Abou Ben Adhem 
 in good stead should suffice to save Franklin from 
 human criticism. He not only loved his kind, but 
 he also trusted them with an implicit confidence, 
 reassuring if not extraordinary in an observer of 
 his shrewdness and experience. Democrats of the 
 revolutionary school in France and of the Jeffer- 
 sonian school in the United States have preached an 
 exaggerated gospel of the people, but their words 
 are the dubious ones of fanatics or politicians. 
 Franklin was of a different kind, and had a more 
 genuine and more generous faith in man than the 
 greatest democrat in politics who ever lived. 
 
 Franklin's inborn auibition was the noblest of all 
 ambitions : to be of practical use to the multitude 
 of men. The chief motive of his life was to pro- 
 mote the welfare of mankind. Every moment 
 which he could snatch from enforced occupations 
 was devoted to doing, devising, or suggesting some- 
 thing advantageous more or less generally to men. 
 His detractors have given a bad, but also a false 
 coloring to this trait. They say that the spirit of 
 all that he did and taught was sordid, that the 
 motives and purposes which he set before men were 
 selfish, that his messages spoken through the mouth 
 
410 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 of Poor Richard inculcated no higher objects in 
 life than money-getting. This is an utterly unfair 
 form of stating the case. Franklin was a great 
 moralist: though he did not believe in the Chris- 
 tian religion according to the strait-laced orthodox 
 view, he believed in the virtues which that religion 
 embodies ; and he was not only often a zealous 
 preacher, but in the main a consistent exemplar 
 of them. Perhaps he did not rest them upon pre- 
 cisely the same hasis upon which the Christian 
 preacher does, but at least he put them on a basis 
 upon which they could stand firm. In such mat- 
 ters, however, one may easily make mistakes, breed 
 ill blood, and do harm ; and his wisdom and good 
 sense soon led him to put forth his chief efforts 
 and to display especial earnestness and constancy 
 in promoting the well-being of all men. It was an 
 object sufficiently noble, one would think, worthy 
 of the greatest brain and the largest heart, and 
 having certain very commendable traits in the way 
 of practicability and substantial possibilities. His 
 desire was to see the community prosperous, com- 
 fortable, happy, advancing in the accumulation of 
 money and of all physical goods, but not to the 
 point of luxury ; it was by no means the pile of 
 dollars which was his end, and he did not care to 
 see many men rich, but rather to see all men well 
 to do. He was perfectly right in thinking that 
 virtuous living has the best prospects in a well-to- 
 do society. He gave liberally of his own means 
 and induced others to give, and promoted in pro- 
 
AT HOME. 417 
 
 portion to the ability of the community a surpris- 
 ing number of public and quasi public enterprises ; 
 and always the fireside of the i^oor man was as 
 much in his thought as the benefit of the richer 
 circle. Fair dealing and kindliness, prudence and 
 economy in order to procure the comforts and sim- 
 pler luxuries of life, reading and knowledge for 
 those uses which wisdom subserves, constituted the 
 real essence of his teaching. His inventive gen- 
 ius was ever at work devising methods of making 
 daily life more agreeable, comfortable, and whole- 
 some for all who have to live. In a word, the ser- 
 vice of his fellow-men was his constant aim ; and 
 he so served them that those public official func- 
 tions which are euphemistically called " public ser- 
 vices" seemed in his case almost an interruption of 
 the more direct and far-reaching services which he 
 was intent upon rendering to all civilized peoples. 
 Extreme religionists may audaciously fancy that 
 the judgment of God upon Franklin may be se- 
 vere ;• but it woidd be gross disloyalty for his own 
 kind to charge that his influence has been ignobly 
 material. 
 
 As a patriot none surjjassed him. Again it was 
 the love of the people that induced this feeling, 
 which grew from no theory as to forms of gov- 
 ernment, no abstractions and doctrines about " the 
 rights of man." He began by espousing the cause 
 of the people of the Province of Pennsylvania 
 against proprietary despotism, and for many years 
 he was a patriot in his colony, before the great 
 
418 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 issue against England made patriotism common. 
 His patriotism had not root in any revolutionary 
 element in his temper, but was the inevitable out- 
 come of his fair-mindedness. That which was un- 
 fair as between man and man first aroused his ire 
 against the grinding proprietaries ; and afterward 
 it was the unfairness of taxation without represen- 
 tation which especially incensed him ; for an intel- 
 lect of the breadth and clearness of his sees and 
 loves justice above all things. During the struggle 
 of the States no man was more hearty in the cause 
 than Franklin ; and the depth of feeling shown in 
 his letters, simple and unrhetorical as they are, is 
 impressive. All that he had he gave. What also 
 strikes the reader of his writings is the broad na- 
 tional spirit which he manifested. He had an im- 
 mense respect for the dignity of America ; he was 
 perhaps fortunately saved from disillusionment by 
 his distance from home. But be this as it may, 
 the way in which he felt and therefore genuinely 
 talked about his nation and his country w^s not 
 without its moral effect in Europe. 
 
 Intellectually there are few men who are Frank- 
 lin's peers in all the ages and nations. He covered, 
 and covered well, vast ground. The reputation of 
 doing and knowing various unrelated things is 
 wont to bring suspicion of perfunctoriness ; but the 
 ideal of the human intellect is an understanding to 
 which all knowledge and all activity are germane. 
 There have been a few, very few minds which have 
 approximated toward this ideal, and among them 
 
AT no.vE. 419 
 
 Franlvlln's Is prominent. He was one of the most 
 distingfiislied scientists who have ever lived. Ban- 
 croft calls him " the greatest diplomatist of his 
 century." ^ His ingenious and useful devices and 
 inventions were very numerous. He possessed a 
 masterly shrewdness in business and practical af- 
 fairs. He was a profound thinker and preacher 
 in morals and on the conduct of life ; so that with 
 the exception of the founders of great religions it 
 would be difficult to name any persons who have 
 more extensively influenced the ideas, motives, and 
 habits of life of men. He was one of the most, per- 
 haps the most agreeable conversationist of his age. 
 He was a rare wit and humorist, and in an age 
 when " American humor " was still unborn, amid 
 contemporaries who have left no trace of a jest, 
 still less of the faintest appreciation of humor, all 
 which he said and wrote was brilliant with both 
 these most charming qualities of the human mind. 
 Though sometimes lax in points of grammar, as 
 was much the custom in his day, he wrote as de- 
 lightful a style as is to be found in all English 
 literature, and that too when the stilted, verbose, 
 and turgid habit was tediously prevalent. He was 
 a man who impressed his abilit}^ upon all who met 
 him ; so that the abler the man and the more ex- 
 perienced in judging men, the higher did he rate 
 Franklin when brought into direct contact with 
 him ; politicians and statesmen of Europe, dis- 
 trustful and sao^acious, trained readers and valu- 
 
 1 Bancroft, Hist. U. S., ix. 134. 
 
420 BENJAMIN FRANK UN. 
 
 ers of men, gave him the rare honor of placing con- 
 fidence not only in his personal sincerity, but in his 
 broad fair-mindedness, a mental quite as much as 
 a moral trait. 
 
 It is hard indeed to give full expression to a 
 man of such scope in morals, in mind, and in affairs. 
 He illustrates humanity in an astonishing multi- 
 plicity of wa^^s at an infinite number of points. He, 
 more than any other, seems to show us how many- 
 sided our human nature is. No individual, of course, 
 fills the entire circle ; but if we can imagine a cir- 
 cumference which shall express humanity, we can 
 place within it no one man who will reach out to 
 approach it and to touch it at so many points as 
 will Franklin. A man of active as well as uni- 
 versal good-will, of perfect trustfulness towards all 
 dwellers on the earth, of supreme wisdom expand- 
 ing over all the interests of the race, none has 
 earned a more kindly loyalty. By the instruction 
 which he gave, by his discoveries, by his inventions, 
 and by his achievements in public life he earns the 
 distinction of having rendered to men varied and 
 useful services excelled by no other one man ; and 
 thus he has established a claim upon the gratitude 
 of mankind so broad that history holds few who 
 can be his rivals. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adams, Abigail, on Franklin, 208. 
 
 Adams, John, 109, 217, 281, 284, 353, 
 367, 37S, 383, 391, 395, 414; at the 
 conference with Lord Howe, 212- 
 214 ; remarks concerning Franklin, 
 232, 234, 333, 340 ; in the Williams 
 quarrel, 262 ; concerning rum, 273 ; 
 feeling toward France, 283 note ; 
 arrival in Paris, and extreme ac- 
 tivity there, 290-292 ; share in the 
 quarrels there, 292 ; advises to break 
 up the French commission, 293, 294 ; 
 returns home, 294 ; letter to, 318 ; 
 drafts on, and financial labors in 
 Holland, 326-328 ; unpopular at the 
 French court, 335 ; relations with 
 Franklin, 336, 337, 338, 340, 341, 
 342 ; return to Paris as peace com- 
 missioner, 355, 357 ; trouble with 
 de Vergennes, 345-349 ; consequent 
 wrath against Franklin, 350 ; disap- 
 proves Oswald's commission, 368 ; 
 approves of treating without com- 
 munication with de Vergennes, 373 ; 
 his part in the negotiations, 375, 
 386, 394; testimony in behalf of 
 Franklin, 384 ; feud with Franklin, 
 385. 
 
 Adams, Samuel, 106, 109, 333, 414; 
 opposes Franklin's nomination as 
 agent for Massachusetts, 136; pro- 
 jects a New England Confederacy, 
 209. 
 
 "Alliance," officers of, 313. 
 
 Arnold, General, 208. 
 
 " Art of Virtue," scheme for book, 
 30-32. 
 
 Austin, J. L., brings news of Bur- 
 goyne's defeat, 267 ; secret mission , 
 to England, 268. 
 
 Bache, Richard, marries Franklin's 
 
 daugliter, 201. 
 Bancroft, Edward, 258 ; tells story 
 
 about Franklin's coat, 189, 280 ; a 
 
 spy, 221, 227. 
 Beaumarchais, Caron de, early career, 
 
 222 ; meets Arthur Lee, 222 ; ea- i 
 
 pouses colonial cause, 223 ; estab- 
 lishes firm of Hortalez & Co., 226- 
 228 ; relations with Deane, 234, 235, 
 237 ; suspected by Lee, 235 ; at Bur- 
 goyne's surrender, 267 ; claims on 
 cargoes of rice and indigo, 305, 306. 
 
 Bedford, Duke of, 113 ; opposed to 
 raising a colonial army, 51. 
 
 Bollan, Mr., agent for council of Mas- 
 sachusetts Bay, 153 ; in afi'air of the 
 Hutchinson letters and privy coun- 
 cil hearing, 183, 185. 
 
 " Bon Homme Richard," 297, 298. ' 
 
 Bond, Dr., aided by Franklin in es- 
 tablishing hospital, 40. 
 
 Braddock, General, 50; visited by 
 Franklin, 52 ; expedition, 50 ei 
 seq. ; praises Franklin, 54. 
 
 Bradford, , editor of rival news- 
 paper, 12. 
 
 Burgoyne, General, 264, 269 ; news of 
 defeat, 267 ; effect of, 331. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 113 ; on Franklin's 
 French mission, 230. 
 
 Burke, William, pamphlet in favor of 
 retaining Guadaloupe rather than 
 Canada in 1700, 78, 79. 
 
 " Busybody " papers, 31. 
 
 Bute, Earl" of, 104, 113, 211. 
 
 Camden, Marquis of, counsel for Penns, 
 67 ; predicts an American revolt, 81 ; 
 befriends the colonies, 117 ; enters 
 cabinet, 146. 
 
 Canada, question whether to retain it 
 at peace of 17C3, 77-82. 
 
 Carmichael, William, 217, 317 ; praises 
 Franklin, 341. 
 
 Charles, Mr., agent for colonies, exe- 
 cutes agreement as to taxation, 69. 
 
 Cliatham, Earl of. See Pitt. 
 
 Chaumont, M. Ray de, lends his house 
 to Franklin, 232. 
 
 Choiseul, Duke de, predicts American 
 inilepemlence, 82. 
 
 Colden, letter to, 39. 
 
 Conway, General, receives oflSce, 113 ; 
 moves repeal of Stamp Act, 131 ; 
 
422 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 enters cabinet, 146 ; advises adop- 
 tion of Franklin's ideas, 281 ; mo- 
 tion, after news of Yorktown, 359. 
 
 Conyngham, tlie privateersmau, 245, 
 246 et seq. 
 
 " Cool thoughts on the Present Situa- 
 tion," etc., published, 90. 
 
 Cooper, Sir Gi'ey, on Franklin's 
 French mission, 230. 
 
 Cooper, Samuel, letter as to Frank- 
 lin's appointment as agent for Mas- 
 sachusetts, 137. 
 
 Cornwallis, Lord, surrender, 358. 
 
 Cumberland, Duke of, forms cabinet, 
 113; dies, 115. 
 
 Cushing, Thomas, letter to, as to 
 Hutchinson's letters, 177. 
 
 Dana, Francis, reliance on Franklin, 
 338, 341. 
 
 Dartmouth, Lord, succeeds Hillsbor- 
 ough in charge of colonies, 164 ; re- 
 lations with Franklin, 164 ; annoyed 
 at Governor Hutchinson's behavior, 
 165 ; discusses situation with Frank- 
 lin, 165-167 ; petition to, for re- 
 moval of Hutchinson, etc., 181 ; 
 achieves nothing for colonies, 191 ; 
 Franklin's memorial to, 197. 
 
 Deane, Silas, 217, 229, 272, 412 ; char- 
 acter and career, 219 ; arrival in 
 France, 220, 227 ; instructions, 221 ; 
 relations with Bancroft, 221, 227 ; 
 relations with Beaumarchais, 234, 
 235, 237 ; traduced by Arthur Lee, 
 235, and by Izard, 286 ; defended by 
 Franklin, 236, 286; sends foreign 
 officers to the States, 238-240 ; favors 
 strong appeal to France, 266 ; re- 
 turn home, 286, 290; friendly to 
 Franklin, 393. 
 
 Declaration of rights, 123. 
 
 De Grey, Lord Chief Justice, 184. 
 
 De la Luzerne, minister to States, 346, 
 357, 382. 
 
 Denham, , offers Franklin a clerk- 
 ship, 9 ; dies, 10. 
 
 Despencer, Lord le, breakfast party 
 at his house, 134. 
 
 D'Estaing, Admiral, sails, 282. 
 
 De Weissenstein, letter from, and re- 
 ply, 352-354. 
 
 Dickinson, John, 170 ; speech of, 93 ; 
 opposition to election of Franklin as 
 agent for Pennsylvania, 96, 97 ; de- 
 sires to petition Parliament, 204, 
 215. 
 
 Digges, rascality of, 260, 359. 
 
 " Dissertation on Liberty and Necessi- 
 ty, Pleasure and Pain," published, 9; 
 Franklin's subsequent opinion of, 25. 
 
 Dubourg, Dr., letter to Franklin, 228. 
 
 Dunning, Mr., counsel for Franklin, 
 185, 186. 
 
 East India Company, suffers by Eng- 
 lish legislation, 173. 
 
 Fiske, John, 400. 
 
 Folger, Abiah, wife of Joseph Frank- 
 lin, 2. 
 
 Folger, Peter, 2, 3. 
 
 Fox, Charles, 268, attacks Lord 
 North about the French alliance, 
 277 ; in Rockingham cabinet, 360 ; 
 differences with Shelburne, 361, 
 305, 366 ; retires from office, 306. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, lineage, 2 ; birth, 
 3 ; intended for the church, 3 ; ap- 
 prenticed to his brother, 4 ; religious 
 speculations, 5 ; runs away, 5 ; be- 
 ginnings in Philadelphia, 6 ; returns 
 home, 7 ; embarks for England, 
 under auspices of Sir William Keith, 
 7 ; career in London, 8 ; infidelity, 
 9 ; returns home, 10 ; iUness and 
 epitaph, 10, 11 ; partnership with 
 Meredith, 11 ; establishes a news- 
 paper, 12, 23 ; matrimonial schemes, 
 13; married, 15; establishes a li- 
 brary, 20 ; publishes " Poor Rich- 
 ard's " almanac, 21 ; as a teacher of 
 morality, 24 et seq. ; religious views, 
 24 et seq. ; scheme for " The Art of 
 Virtue," 30-32; letter to President 
 Stiles, 28 ; project for the " Society 
 of the Free and Easy," 33 ; estab- 
 lishes the Junto, 33 ; studies lan- 
 guages, 35 ; clerk of the General As- 
 sembly, 35 ; postmaster at Philadel- 
 phia, 35 ; invents a stove, 35 ; founds 
 a philosophical society, 36 ; interest 
 in agriculture, 36 ; founds the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania, 36 ; en- 
 deavors to reorganize the night 
 watch, 37 ; establishes the Union 
 Fire Company, 38 ; interest in mil- 
 itary matters, 38 ; " Plain Truth," 
 39 ; takes a partner, 39 ; elected to 
 various offices, 40 ; commissioner to 
 treat with the Indians, 40 ; assists 
 Dr. Bond to establish his hospital, 
 40 ; attends to lighting and cleaning 
 streets, 42 ; postmaster general, 42 ; 
 made Master of Arts of Harvard and 
 Yale, 43 ; deputy to an Indian con- 
 ference at Albany, 43 ; proposes a 
 colonial confederation, 44 ; writes 
 letters on Shirley's plan for assem- 
 bly of governors, 46 ; early views on 
 parliamentary taxation of colonies, 
 46 et seq. ; and concerning colonial 
 representation in parliament, 48 ; 
 visits Boston, 49 ; appointed to 
 supervise military expenditures, 49 ; 
 concerned in Braddock's campaign, 
 51-54 ; claims against the govern- 
 ment for advances, 54 ; becomes a 
 colonel, 54-56 ; scheme for planting 
 
INDEX. 
 
 423 
 
 colonies inland, 56 ; reputation 
 among scientists in Europe, 58 ; liis 
 existence doubted, 58; deputed to 
 represent Pennsylvania in England, 
 59, 62 ; opposed to the proprietaries, 
 61, 62 ; embarks, but is long de- 
 tained, 63, 6-1 ; arrival in London, 
 65 ; interview with Lord Granville 
 as to colonial conditions, 65 ; with 
 the proprietaries, 60 ; and with their 
 counsel, 67 ; finally substantially 
 carries his point, 69-71 ; prolonged 
 detention in England, 72 ; vain 
 efforts to see Mr. Pitt, 73 ; social 
 amenities, 73 ; friendsnipvvith Stra- 
 han, 74 ; university honors in Eng- 
 land and Scotland, 74; fancy for liv- 
 ing in England, 75, 76, 85; scheme 
 for matrimonial alliance for his 
 daughter, 75 ; and for his son, 75 ; 
 efforts to induce England to retain 
 Canada, 77-81 ; deprecates the idea 
 of American independence, 80, 81; 
 predicts the growth of the West, 
 82 ; return home and warm wel- 
 come, 83 ; chosen to the assem- 
 bly, 83 ; voted an imperfect com- 
 pensation, 83 ; unaffected by ap- 
 pointment of his son as governor of 
 New Jersey, 84 ; postal journey, 85 ; 
 prognostications concerning Gov- 
 ernor Penn, 86 ; opposition to the 
 murdering " Paxton boys," 86-89 ; 
 relations with Governor Penn, 89 ; 
 a leader on the popular side, 90 ; 
 campaign literature, 90-94 ; chosen 
 speaker, to sign petition, 93 ; op- 
 posed, and beaten at election for 
 assembly in 1764, 95; chosen as 
 agent for the colony, in England, 
 90-98 ; embarkation at Philadelphia 
 and arrival in London, 99 ; position 
 and business in England, 100, 101 ; 
 instructed to oppose the Stamp Act, 
 104; interview with Grenville, 105; 
 early opinion as to Stamp Act, 
 105-107 ; no idea of independence, 
 106 ; recommends Mr. Hughes to 
 dispense stamps at Philadelphia, 
 107 ; consequent unpopularity at 
 home, 108, 109 ; faUs in with public 
 opinion in the States, 110, 120 ; his 
 usefulness in England, 109-112; a 
 witness before the House of Com- 
 mons, 118, 120 ; expresses American 
 view as to principle of Stamp Act, 
 120, 122 ; willing to hunt and fish 
 for a livelihood, 122 ; upon taxation 
 without representation, 122 ; says 
 Americans are not subjects of par- 
 liament, 123, 124 ; personal regard 
 for George III., 124-126 ; views as 
 to colonial representation in par- 
 liament, 126-128 ; on difference be- 
 
 tween internal and external taxes, 
 128-130 ; asserts willingness of colo- 
 nies to bear their sliare of public 
 burdens, 130; sudden return of 
 popularity in Pennsylvania, 132 ; 
 sends a gown to his wife, 132 ; efforts 
 to instruct Englislnnen coucsruing 
 America, 133 et seq. ; jest as to 
 claim of king of Prussia to England, 
 134 ; " Rules for reducing a Great 
 Empire to a small one," 135; com- 
 munication with French govern- 
 ment, 136 ; agent of New Jersey, 
 Georgia, and Massachusetts, 136 ; 
 opposed in Massachusetts, 137 ; posi- 
 tion before Englislnnen, 137 ; salary, 
 137; financial affairs, 138, 143; 
 postmastership, 138 ; attempts at 
 bribery, 139 ; slandered, 139 ; ad- 
 vises moderation, 144 ; on Hillsbor- 
 ough's appointment, 150 ; relations 
 and interview with Hillsborough, 
 151-155 ; no longer recognized as 
 agent for Massachusetts, 156, 157 ; 
 on bad terms with Hillsborough, 
 156 ; views as to proper character of 
 colonial agents, 157 ; works against 
 Hillsborough, 158, and overthrows 
 him, 158-162, and is snubbed by 
 him, 162 ; argument addressed to 
 Privy Council about a frontier prov- 
 ince, 161 ; never gets the grant, 
 163 ; suggests Hillsborough's suc- 
 cessor, 163; relations with Dart- 
 mouth, 164 ; again recognized as 
 agent for Massachusetts, 164 ; con- 
 versation with Dartmouth about 
 quarrel between Hutchinson and 
 Massachusetts assembly, 165-167 ; 
 desire to restore an earlier status, 
 167-169; forebodings of war, 169; 
 counsels moderation, 170 ; faith in 
 non-importation, 171-173, 174 ; on 
 the result of the Stamp Act and the 
 Customs Act, 173 ; sends the Hutch- 
 inson letters to Massachusetts, 176- 
 178 ; exculpates Whately and Tem- 
 ple, 180 ; transmits petition to Lord 
 Dartmouth, 181 ; notified of hearing 
 before Privy Council, 182 ; remarks 
 before the council, 183; assailed by 
 Wedderburn, 186-188; his velvet 
 coat, 188 ; deprived of oflSce as post- 
 master, 190 ; resigns agency for 
 Massachusetts, 190 ; blamed by Mas- 
 sachusetts Assembly, 191 ; speaks 
 well of Arthur Lee, 192 ; personal 
 danger, charges of treason, 192 ; 
 on provincial government, 194 ; in- 
 terview with Chatham, 194 ; views 
 as to unity of the Empire, 195 ; com- 
 plimented by Chatham in House of 
 Lords, 195 ; irritated into address- 
 ing an angry memorial to Lord Dart- 
 
424 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 mouth, 190-199 ; secret negotiations 
 for conciliation, 199 ; last day in 
 England, with Dr. Priestley, 200 ; 
 return home, 200 ; letter to Priestley, 
 after Lexington and Concord, 202 ; 
 to Strahan, 203 ; services in Pro- 
 vincial Congress, as to new petition, 
 20-1 ; declaration for Washington, 
 204 ; jesting habit, 206 ; plan for a 
 union of colonies, 20G; postmaster 
 general, 206 ; chairman of provincial 
 committee of safety, 207 ; member 
 of the assembly, 207 ; sent to confer 
 with Washington at Cambridge, 
 207 ; sent to Canada, 208 ; member 
 of Constitutional Convention of 
 Pennsylvania, 209 ; connection with 
 Declaration of Independence, 209, 
 210 ; opinion as to voting power of 
 States in the confederacy, 210 ; cor- 
 respondence with Lord Howe, 211 ; 
 interview with him, 212-214 ; af- 
 fected by bloodshed, 214 ; letters to 
 Priestley, 215; fitness for diplo- 
 macy, 217 et seq. ; gets news from 
 France in September, 1776, 228 ; and 
 is consequently sent thither, 228 ; 
 his voyage, 229, 230 ; his arrival, 
 228, 230-232; takes quarters at 
 Passy, 232 ; way of life, 232 ; audi- 
 ence given by de Vergennes, 233 ; 
 in connection with the Deane- 
 Beaumarchais busmess, 234, 236, 
 237 ; dealings with foreign military 
 officers, 240-243 ; a political proph- 
 ecy, 243 ; advises privateering, 245 ; 
 connection with privateersmen in 
 Europe, 246 et seq. ; protects them 
 against French governmental inter- 
 ference, 248 ; endeavors to effect 
 exchange of prisoners with England, 
 250 et seq. ; correspondence with 
 Hartley on this subject, 253 et seq. ; 
 methods of business in this matter, 
 256, 257 ; remits money to prisoners, 
 254, 260; appoints Jonathan Wil- 
 liams naval agent, 261 ; consequent 
 trouble, 261, 262; troubled by lack 
 of news from the States, 264 ; keeps 
 up his spirits, 264-266 ; gets news 
 of Burgoyne's surrender, 267 ; sends 
 J. L. Austin to England, 268 ; cor- 
 respondence with Hartley about 
 French alliance, 269, 270 ; negotia- I 
 ting treaties with France, 270-276 ; j 
 misunderstanding with Lee, 273- 
 275 ; writes to Hartley about peace, 
 278 ; granted an audience by Louis 
 XVI. , 279 ; his costume, 280 ; hated 
 by George III. , 281 ; ideas as to con- 
 duct of warfare, 283, 284 ; meeting 
 with Voltaire, 285 ; says a good word 
 for Deane, 286 ; more assaults on the } 
 part of Lee, 287-290, 293, 294 ; ad- I 
 
 vises establishing a single represen- 
 tative at Versailles, 293 ; appointed 
 minister plenipotentiary to France, 
 294, 295; trouble with Lee about 
 official papers, 296; relations with 
 John Paul Jones, 296, 297 ; troubles 
 with Landais and Lee, 298, 299 ; as 
 American financier in Europe, 303, 
 305, 307 ; lends money to Congress, 
 304 ; yields two cargoes to Beau- 
 marchais, 306 ; appeals to Thomas 
 Morris, 306 ; writes a pamphlet on 
 credit of the States, 307 ; agrees to 
 meet interest on loan in the States, 
 307 ; annoyed by drafts, 308, 314, 
 316, 327, 329, 331 ; not advised con- 
 cerning bills drawn, 309 ; vexed by 
 demands of Lee and Izard, 310-313 ; 
 aids the officers of the Alliance, 
 313 ; begging from France, 314, 320, 
 321, 323 ; annoyed by state agents 
 seeking loans, 315 ; applied to by 
 Jones, 315 ; assists Jay, 317, 318, 
 324, 329, 330; proposes furnishing 
 supplies to French fleet, 318 ; urges 
 self-help, 318 ; meets drafts on Lau- 
 rens, 320, 322, 324 ; fragment of his 
 diary, 322 ; secures a loan in Hol- 
 land, 324 ; trouble about Jackson's 
 purchases, 324-326 ; called upon to 
 meet drafts on John Adams, 326 ; 
 demands of Morris, 326, 329, 331 ; 
 asks remittances from America, 
 327 ; antedated bills, 328 ; personal 
 liability, 327, 328; demands from 
 Livingston, 328, 329 ; warned by 
 de Vergennes, 328 ; relations with 
 John Adams, 333, 350 ; influence in 
 France, 335; discussion of his offi- 
 cial life in France, 336-342 ; annoyed 
 by rumors from home, 343 ; pa- 
 tience, 343; effort to resign, 344; 
 ill-treated by Congress, 344 ; in- 
 voked to aid Adams in his trouble 
 with de Vergennes, 346-351 ; opin- 
 ions as to paper money, 351 ; ap- 
 proached by Pulteney, as to peace, 
 352 ; share in the de Weissenstein 
 episode, 352-354 ; approached by 
 Hartley, as to truce, 354 ; feelings 
 toward England , 354, 355 ; as to re- 
 union with England, 355 ; as to 
 choice between England and France, 
 356 ; one of the Commission to treat 
 for peace, 358 ; refuses to treat sep- 
 arately from France, 358, 359 ; op- 
 portune note to Shelbume, 359 ; 
 first interview with Oswald, 360 ; 
 second interview, 362 ; refuses to 
 negotiate separately from France, 
 363 ; urges Jay's presence, 365 ; 
 asks to treat with Oswald, 366 ; 
 agrees with Oswald. 367 : opinion 
 as to Oswald's commission, 368 ; 
 
INDEX. 
 
 425 
 
 criticises Jay's letter, 3C9 ; dififers 
 with Jay, 370, 372-374 ; ou compen- 
 sation to American royalists, 375, 
 37G ; antipathy to American royal- 
 ists, 377 ; correspondence with de 
 Vergeunes as to the secret treating, 
 379, 382 ; blamed by Congress, 382 ; 
 and by others, 383 ; vindicated, 38-4 ; 
 feud with the Adams family, 385 ; 
 discussion of his part in making the 
 treaty, 386-391 ; opinion of de Ver- 
 geunes, 388 ; again resigns, 391 ; re- 
 tained for commercial treaties, 391 ; 
 leave to retire, 392 ; Jefferson's tes- 
 timony as to his position in France, 
 392-394 ; departure from France, 
 395 ; voyage, 390 ; arrival at home, 
 397 ; councilor, 397 ; devotes sal- 
 ary to public use, 398 ; proposal for 
 repaying British debts, 399 ; encour- 
 aging views, 400; member of the 
 Constitutional Convention, 401-405 ; 
 comes out for Washington, 405; 
 physical ills, 40G ; feeling about 
 French revolution, 408 ; anti-slavery 
 efforts, 409, 410 ; condemns the lib- 
 erty of the press, 409 ; last illness 
 and death, 410 ; ill treatment ex- 
 perienced at the hands of Congress, 
 411, 412 ; French action concerning 
 his death, 413 ; reflections on his 
 character, abilities, and life, 413- 
 420. 
 
 Franklin, Mrs. Deborah, receives 
 Franklin's illegitimate son, 10 ; let- 
 ter to, 74; dread of crossing the 
 Atlantic, 75, 70 ; in the Stamp Act 
 riots, 108 ; Franklin's present of a 
 gown to, 132 ; dies, 201. See Read, 
 Miss Deborah. 
 
 Franklin, James, early relations with 
 Benjamin, 4, 5. 
 
 FrankUn, Josiah, emigration and mar- 
 riages of, 2 ; refuses to aid Franklin 
 in setting up as a printer, 7. 
 
 Franklin, Sarah, offer of marriage, 75 ; 
 and the Stamp Act riots, 108 ; mar- 
 ries, 201. 
 
 Franklin, Temple, his unrequited ser- 
 vices, 243, 245, 339, 411. 
 
 Franklin, William, birth, 10 ; will not 
 marry Mary Stevenson, 75 ; appoint- 
 ed governor of New Jersey, S3 ; and 
 becomes a Tory, 84 ; last interview 
 with his father, 396. 
 
 Gadsden, Christopher, 106, 109. 
 Galloway, Joseph, speech of, 93 ; de- 
 feated at election for Assembly, 90. 
 Gates, General, 209, 277, 295. 
 " Gentleman's Magazine," The, on 
 Franklin's examination, 120. 
 -ly^George III., anxious for peace with 
 -*«. France in 1759-CO, 77; displaces 
 
 Grenville, 113 ; Franklin's opinion 
 of, 124-120 ; hatred of Shelburue, 
 147, 148 ; vexed with Hillsborough, 
 158 ; hatred of FrankUn, 281 ; and 
 de Weissenstein, 353 ; makes Shel- 
 burne prime minister, 3GG. 
 
 George IV., 268. 
 
 Gerard, M., negotiates with colonial 
 commissioners, 270-270 ; liberal pro- 
 fessions to them, 282 ; claims credit 
 for ousting Arthur Lee, 294. 
 
 Gibbon, Edward, quoted, 270, 281. 
 
 Grand, M., the banker, 310, 322, 331. 
 
 Granville, Lord, interview with Frank- 
 lin concerning colonial politics, 65, 
 60. 
 
 Greene, General, on Franklin, 207. 
 
 Grenville, George, 178; in the treas- 
 ury department, 103 ; schemes con- 
 cerning colonial taxation, 103, 104 ; 
 interview with Franklin, 105; pro- 
 cures from Franklin nomination of 
 stamp distributor, 107 ; and the 
 Stamp Act, 112, 113, 142 ; on exter- 
 nal and internal taxes, 128, 130. 
 
 Grenville, Thomas, mission to Paris, 
 361, 363-366 ; recalled, 367 ; remarks 
 concerning obligations to France, 
 389. 
 
 Guadaloupe, question of retaining, 77 
 et seq. 
 
 HaU, David, fellow-workman of Frank- 
 lin, 9 ; taken into partnership, 39. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 340, 403. 
 
 Hamilton, Governor, superseded, 86. 
 
 Harrison, Benjamin, 207, 210. 
 
 Hartley, David, 252, 359; and the 
 American prisoners, 253, 255-258 ; 
 advice as to alliance with France, 
 209 ; and the conciliatoi-y bills and 
 peace, 278, 279 ; warning to Frank- 
 lin, 284 ; proposes truce, 354 ; about 
 a peace, 356. 
 
 Harvard College makes Franklin mas- 
 ter of arts, 43. 
 
 Havii;horne, Nathaniel, 214, 280. 
 
 Henry, Patrick, 106, 109. 
 
 Hillsborough, Earl of, placed in 
 charge of the colonies, 150 ; Frank- 
 lin's opinion of, and relations with, 
 1.50 et seq., 156; interview with 
 Franklin, 152-156 ; precarious ten- 
 ure of office, 158 ; vexes the king, 
 158 ; loses his place on the question 
 of granting lands, 159-162 ; resent- 
 ment against Franklin, 162 ; speaks 
 ill of the colonists, 163, 164. 
 
 Hortalez ."t Co., firm of, 226, 227, 235. 
 
 Howe, Lord, efforts at conciliation, in 
 England, 199 ; and in America, 211- 
 214 ; captures Philadelphia, 204. 
 
 Hughes, nominated stamp distributor, 
 107. 
 
426 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hume, David, 74. 
 
 Huuter, William, associated with 
 Franklin in managing the post-of- 
 tice, 42. 
 
 Hutchinson, Anne, 176, note. 
 
 Hutchinson, Governor Thomas, 182, 
 note, 183 ; quarrels with Massa- 
 chusetts Assembly and irritates the 
 ministry, 1G5 ; his letters, 175 et 
 seq. ; position in Massachusetts, 
 176, note ; petition for Ms removal, 
 181 ; favors arrest of Franklin, 193. 
 
 Izard, 217, 290, 295; meddles in the 
 treaty negotiations, 275 ; traduces 
 Deane, 286 ; and Franklin, 286, 289, 
 294, 393; exorbitant demands for 
 money rebuked by Franklin, 310- 
 313. 
 
 Jackson, William, demands for money, 
 324, 325. 
 
 Jay, John, 217, 383, 391; financial 
 trouble in Spain, 303, 316, 318, 326 ; 
 aided by Franklin, 317, 327, 329, 
 330 ; feeling towards Franklin, 338, 
 341, 342, 365, 393 ; on peace com- 
 mission, 358 ; comes to Paris, 365 ; 
 ill, 367 ; objects to Oswald's com- 
 mission, 367 ; letter on the subject, 
 369; suspicious of de Vergennes, 
 369, 370, 373 ; persuades Vaughan to 
 go secretly to London, 370 ; desires 
 to treat without communication 
 with de Vergennes, 373 ; takes 
 charge of boundaries and navigation 
 of Mississippi, 374, 375 ; angry at 
 congressional reproof, 382 ; testi- 
 mony in behalf of Franklin, 384; 
 his part in the negotiation, 386. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, and Declaration of 
 Independence, 210 ; French mission, 
 229 ; on peace commission, 345, 358 ; 
 tribute to Franklin, 392-394, 395. 
 
 Jones, John Paul, his doings and re- 
 lations with Franklin, 296, 297; 
 trouble with Landais, 298 ; applies 
 for money, 315. 
 
 Junto, the, established, 33 ; aids in es- 
 tablishing fire companies, 38. 
 
 Kames, Lord, 74 ; letter to, as to 
 "Art of Virtue," 31 ; letter to, on 
 leaving England, 76 ; letter to, as to 
 growth of the West, 82. 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, calls Franklin Pro- 
 metheus, etc., 59. 
 
 Keimer, Franklin's employer, 6, 11 ; 
 publishes a newspaper, and sells it, 
 12. 
 
 Keith, Sir William ; behavior to 
 Franklin, 6-8. 
 
 Knox, agent for Georgia, favors a 
 Stamp Act, 104. 
 
 Lafayette, Marquis de, recommended 
 by Franklin, 243 ; aids Franklin to 
 raise money, 329, 331. 
 
 Landais, Captain, his misbehavior, 298, 
 299. 
 
 Laurens, Henry, 217, 384; complains 
 of Franklm, 260; drafts on, 320, 
 322 ; on peace commission, 358 ; 
 friendly towards Franklin, 393. 
 
 Laurens, John, expenses in Holland, 
 324. 
 
 Lee, Arthur, 183, 217, 270, 295 ; slan- 
 ders Fraiiklin, 139, 192, 288, 290, 
 291, 294, 299, 393 ; praised by Frank- 
 lin, 192; succeeds Franklin, 200; 
 meets Beaumarchais, 222 ; commis- 
 sioner to France, 229 ; traduces 
 Deane, 235, 237 ; vituperates Wil- 
 liams, 261 ; sides with Franklin, 
 against Deane, 267 ; jealousy of 
 Franklin, the cake story, 272 ; makes 
 trouble about the alliance, 274, 275 ; 
 not told of departure of Deane and 
 Gerard, 286 ; comments upon, 287 ; 
 general unpopularity, 288 ; exces- 
 sive demands for money, 293, 310, 
 312 ; removed from French com- 
 mission, 294, 295 ; bad behavior as 
 to official papers of French commis- 
 sion, 295 ; return home, 299 ; spoils 
 a loan, 313 ; relies on Franklin, 338. 
 
 Lee, John, counsel for Franklin, 185, 
 186. 
 
 Lee, William, 217 ; and the Williams 
 affair, 261 ; meddles in the French 
 mediations, 275 ; traduces Franklin, 
 294. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 265. 
 
 Livingston, letters to, 319, 331 ; letters 
 from, 328, 329, 382. 
 
 " London Chronicle." letters of Frank- 
 lin published in, 46. 
 
 Loudoun, Lord, dispatched to the 
 provinces, 63 ; his character and be- 
 havior, 63, 64. 
 
 Louis XVI., 222, 223, 225; polite 
 speech to American commissioners, 
 279 ; civilities to Franklin, 395. 
 
 Lovell, James, letter to, 308. 
 
 Madison, James, story of the rising or 
 the setting sim, 405. 
 
 Mansfield, Lord, interview with Frank- 
 lin as to the disputes with the Penns, 
 69 ; supports principle of Stamp 
 Act, 117. 
 
 Mason, J. M., 229, 230. 
 
 Mather, Cotton, 2. 
 
 Mauduit, Israel, 183. 
 
 Meredith, , Franklin's partner, 
 
 11, 12. 
 
 Mirabeau, Comte de, eulogy on Frank- 
 lin, 113. 
 
 Morris, Robert, 300, 303 ; in matter of 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A21 
 
 Thomas Morris, 261 ; demands for 
 money, 3:iG, 328-331. 
 Morrid, Thomas, 217, 260, 261, 306. 
 
 Necker, Jacques, loan to the States, 
 324. 
 
 " New England Courant," 5. 
 
 Noailles, Marquis de, announces alli- 
 ance betweeij France and United 
 States, 280. 
 
 Norris, Isaac, speaker of Pennsylvania 
 Assembly, 62 ; resigns rather than 
 sign petition, 93. 
 
 North, Lord, 361 ; chancellor of ex- 
 chequer, 150 ; at privy council hear- 
 ing, 187 ; and conciliation, 199 ; and 
 Hartley, 253 ; introduces concilia- 
 tory bills after Burgoyne's surren- 
 der, 277 ; admits the alliance with 
 France, 278 ; receives news of Corn- 
 wallis's surrender, 358 ; resigns, 359. 
 
 Oliver, Lieutenant-Governor, 184 ; his 
 letters, 175 ; petition for his re- 
 moval, 181. 
 
 Oswald, Richard, opens talk about 
 peace, 360 ; second interview, 3G2 ; 
 difficulties as to his authority, 365- 
 368 ; receives new commission, 371 ; 
 and treats, 372 et seq. 
 
 Otis, James, 106. 
 
 Oxford, University of, makes Frank- 
 lin doctor of laws, 74. 
 
 Parton, James, life of Franklin cited, 
 16, 23, 35, 206, 219, 229, 237, 238, 
 268, 278, 279, 280, 401, 408, 412. 
 
 " Paxton boys," massacre and riot, 
 86-88 ; the affair excites hostility 
 toward Franklin, 89, 95. 
 
 Pelham, Henry, 103. 
 
 Penn, the family of, proprietaries, re- 
 lations with the people, 49, 59-03 ; 
 efforts of Franklin to negotiate with, 
 66 et seq. ; tlieir position concerning 
 taxation, 67-70 ; beaten, 71 ; send 
 one of their number to be governor, 
 86 ; Franklin's hostility to, miti- 
 gated, 94, note. 
 
 Penn, John, made governor, 86 ; be- 
 havior m tlie matter of the Paxton 
 massacre and riot, 88 ; hostility to- 
 ward Franklin, 89 ; his vetoes, 89, 
 90. 
 
 Penn, Richard, Franklin's famous epi- 
 taph for, 94. 
 
 Penn, Thomas, 49, 63, 86 ; Franklin's 
 famous epitaph for, 94. 
 
 " Pennsj-lvania Gazette," published 
 by Franklin, 12, 13, 23 ; articles in, 
 43. 
 
 Pitt, "William, 73, 82, 103; opposes 
 Stamp Act, 112, 115, 117; fails to 
 form a cabinet, 113 ; will not take 
 
 office, 116 ; reforms the Rockingham 
 ministry, 146 ; backs Shelburue, 
 147 ; statue to, in America, 148 ; se- 
 clusion, 148, 149 ; Franklin's inter- 
 view witli, 194, 195 ; compliments 
 Franklin in House of Lords, 195. 
 
 •' Plain Truth " published, 39. 
 
 " Poor Richard's Almanac," 21-23. 
 
 Pownall, Governor, scheme for " bar- 
 rier " colonies, 56. 
 
 Pratt, John J. Gee Camden, Marquis 
 of. 
 
 Priestley, Dr., concerning privy coun- 
 cil hearing, 187 ; passes day with 
 Franklin, 200; letter to, at out- 
 break of war, 202 ; humorous letter 
 to, 215 ; and Austin, 268. 
 
 Pulteney,William,mission about peace, 
 352. 
 
 Ray, Catherine, letter to, 14. 
 
 Rayneval, F. M. G. de, views as to 
 western lands, 369 ; secret mission 
 to London, 370. 
 
 Read, Miss Deborah, first sees Frank- 
 lin, 6 ; subsequent career, 14, 15 ; 
 marries Franklin, 15. See Frank- 
 lin, Mrs. Deborah. 
 
 Rockingham, MarquiS of ; his cabinet, 
 113 ; position as to Stamp Act, 117 ; 
 his cabinet revamped, 145, 146 ; on 
 Franklin's French mission, 231 ; 
 second cabinet, 360 ; death, 366. 
 
 Robertson, Dr., 74. 
 
 " Rules for reducing a Great Empire," 
 etc., 135. 
 
 Rush, Dr., 228. 
 
 Rutledge, Edward, at conference with 
 Lord Howe, 212-214. 
 
 Sandwich, Lord, assails Franklin, 195. 
 
 Serapis, The, 297, 298. 
 
 Shelburne, Earl of, enters cabinet, and 
 his position therein, 146-148 ; backed 
 by Pitt, 147 ; opposed by Towu- 
 shend,14G-148; hated by George III., 
 147, 148 : .superseded, 150 ; entertains 
 Austin, 268 ; letter of Franklin to, 
 359 ; in Rockingham cabinet, 360 ; 
 opens talk about peace, 360 ; differ- 
 ences with Fox, 361, 366 ; scheme 
 for "federal union," 362; prime 
 minister, 366 ; his position in re- 
 spect of the treaty, 367, 368 ; an 
 arbiter between France and the 
 States, 370, 371 ; earnest in behalf 
 of American royalists, 375 ; but 
 yields, 376 ; thrupt from power, 378. 
 
 Shirley, William, Governor, plan for 
 assembly of colonial governors, 46 ; 
 for representation of colonies in Par- 
 liament, 48 ; appoints auditors for 
 claims under Braddock's expedition, 
 54 ; qualifications as a soldier, 55. 
 
428 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sieyes, Abb6 E. J. de, 413, 
 
 Slidell, John, 229, 230. 
 
 " Society of the Free and Easy," 33. 
 
 Stamp Act, the, lOJ, 103, 104, 107, 
 112, 143, 145, 107, 108 ; passed, 105; 
 Franklin's feeling about, 105 et seq. ; 
 effect in England, 114 ; opposed by 
 Pitt, 112, 115 ; Rockingham's posi- 
 tion, 117 ; debate on principle of, 
 117 ; Franklin's examination in con- 
 nection with, 120 e/ seq. ; repealed, 
 131 ; causes of repeal, 141 ; opinion 
 as to repeal, 141, 142 ; financial re- 
 sults of, 173. 
 
 St. Andrews, University of, makes 
 Franklin doctor of laws, 74. 
 
 St. Asaph, Bishop of, 278, 395, 402, 
 note, 408. 
 
 Steuben, Baron, introduced by Frank- 
 lin, 243. 
 
 Stevenson, Mary, 100 ; Franklin wish- 
 es his son to marry, 75 ; letter to, 85. 
 
 Stevenson, Mrs. , 100. 
 
 Stiles, Ezra, letter to, 28. 
 
 Stormont, Lord, interferes with Beau- 
 niarchais, 227 ; on Franklin's recep- 
 tion in France, 231 ; reply to Frank- 
 lin concerning exchange of prisoners, 
 250 ; leaves Paris, 281. 
 
 Strachey, Henry, sent to Paris, 372. 
 
 Strahan, William, 74 ; offers matrimo- 
 nial alliance, 75 ; letter to, on leav- 
 ing England, 76 ; letter to, as to 
 welcome home, 83 ; letter of enmi- 
 ty to, 203. 
 
 Sullivan, General, 212. 
 
 Temple, , and the Hutchinson let- 
 ters, 178-181. 
 
 Thomson, Charles, letters to, 105, 411. 
 
 Thornton, Major, agent to aid prison- 
 ers, 2.54. 
 
 Townshend, Charles, 104 ; in charge of 
 colonial business, 102 ; his schemes, 
 102 ; succeeded by Grenville, 103 ; 
 hostility to colonies, 115 ; favors re- 
 peal of Stamp Act, 142 ; chancellor 
 of the exchequer, 146 ; position in 
 hostility to Shelburne on colonial 
 affairs, 146-148 ; proposal for colo- 
 nial taxation, 140 ; dies, 150. 
 
 Truxton, Commodore, 396. 
 
 Turgot, views as to aiding the colo- 
 nies, 224 ; displaced, 225 ; on French 
 finances, 314. 
 
 Union Fire Company established, 38. 
 University of Pennsylvania, 37. 
 
 Vaughan, Benjamin, mission to Lord 
 
 Shelburne, 370, 371 ; about the roy- 
 alists question, 376. 
 
 Vergennes, Comte de, foresees Amer- 
 ican independence, 82 ; views as to 
 aiding the colonies, 223, 225; ar- 
 rangements with Beaumarchais, 226, 
 227 ; upon Franklin's arrival in 
 France, 231 ; gives audience to co- 
 lonial commissioners, 233 ; and the 
 colonial privateers, 247, 248 ; charges 
 of selfishness against, 249; secret 
 interview with colonial commission- 
 ers, 270 ; liberal dealing with them, 
 282 ; as to Lee, 286, 288 ; financial 
 applications to, 320, 323, 327, 328, 
 330; liking for Franklin, 342, 393; 
 trouble with John Adams as to pa- 
 per money, 345-349; and the de 
 Weissenstein letter, 353 ; trusted by 
 Franklin, 357, 388-390; dislikes 
 Adams, 357 ; influence in matter of 
 peace commission, 357 ; at first sug- 
 gestions of peace, 359, 360 ; amused 
 at English propositions, 363 ; puz- 
 zled, 365 ; opinion as to Oswald's 
 commission, 367 ; suspicions against, 
 308-370, 380 ; on the treaty of peace, 
 378 ; anger at the secret treating, 
 379-382. 
 
 Voltaire meets Franklin, 285. 
 
 Walpole, Horace, on Franklin's em- 
 barkation, 229 ; and the French al- 
 liance, 277. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, 103. 
 
 Walpole, Thomas, 277 ; advice to 
 Franklin, 197-199. 
 
 Washington, George, 204, 241, 264, 
 295, 303, 304, 323, 335, 340, 353, 398, 
 413 ; visited by Pennsylvania dele- 
 gation, 207 ; president, 405. 
 
 Wedderburn, Alexander, Solicitor- 
 General, at the hearing before the 
 privy council, 183, 184, 186, 187. 
 
 Weissenstein. See de Weissenstein. 
 
 Whately, Thomas, and the Hutchinson 
 letters, 178-181 ; sues Franklin, 185. 
 
 Whately, William, and the Hutchin- 
 son letters, 178. 
 
 Williams, Jonathan, 217, 294, 322 ; re- 
 ceives appointment from Franklin, 
 261 ; displaced, 262 ; ill-treated, 263, 
 345. 
 
 Wyndham, Sir William, proposes to 
 Franklin to teach swimming, 10. 
 
 Yale College makes Franklin master 
 
 of arts, 43. 
 Torke, Charles, counsel for Pennsj'l- 
 
 vania, 67. 
 
9lmer(can CommontDealtfjs. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 HORACE E. SCUDDER. 
 
 A series of Histories of the representative Common- 
 wealths of the United States. 
 
 VIRGINIA. A History of the People. By John Esten 
 CoOKE, author of " Life of Stonewall Jackson/' etc. 
 
 OREGON. The Struggle for Possession. By William 
 Barrows, D. D. 
 
 MARYLAND. The History of a Palatinate. By Wil- 
 liam Hand Browne, Associate of Johns Hopkins University. 
 
 KENTUCKY. A Pioneer Commonwealth. By Nathaniel 
 S. Shaler, S. D., Professor of Paleontology, Harvard University. 
 
 MICHIGAN. A History of Governments. By Thomas 
 McIntyre Cooley, LL. D., formerly Chief Justice of Michigan. 
 
 KANSAS. The Prelude to the War for the Union. By 
 Leverett W. Spring, formerly Professor in English Literature 
 in the University of Kansas. 
 
 CALIEORNIA. From the Conquest in 1846 to the Second 
 Vigilance Committee in San Francisco. By Josiah Royce, for- 
 merly Professor in the University of California. 
 
 NEW YORK. The Planting and the Growth of the Em- 
 pire State. By the Hon. Ellis H. Roberts, author of " Govern- 
 ment Revenue." In two volumes. 
 
 CONNECTICUT. A Study of a Commonwealth-Dem- 
 ocracy. By Professor Alexander Johnston, author of " Amer- 
 ican Politics." 
 
 MISSOURI A Bone of Contention. By Lucien Carr, 
 M. A., Assistant Curator of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology. 
 
 INDIANA. A Redemption from Slavery. By J. P. 
 Dunn, Jr., author of " Massacres of the Mountains." 
 
 OHIO. First-Fruits of the Ordinance of 1787. By Hon. 
 RuFUS King. [Nearly Ready.) 
 
 In Preparation. 
 
 NEW JERSEY. By Austin Scott, Ph. D., Professor 
 
 of History, etc., in Rutgers College. 
 PENNSYL VANIA. By Hon. Wayne MacVeagh, late 
 
 Attorney-General of the United States. 
 ILLINOIS. By E. G. Mason. 
 
 Other Volumes to be announced hereafter. Each volume, 
 with Map, 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. 
 
PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 VIRGINIA." 
 
 Mr. Cooke has made a fascinating volume — one which it will be 
 very difficult to surpass either in method or interest. If all the vol- 
 umes of the series ["American Commonwealths"] come up to the 
 level of this one — in interest, in broad tolerance of spirit, and in a 
 thorough comprehension of what is best worth teUing — a very great 
 service will have been done to the reading public. True historic in- 
 sight appears through all these pages, and an earnest desire to do all 
 parties and religious perfect justice. The story of the settlement of 
 Virginia is told in full. ... It is made as interesting as a romance. 
 
 — The Critic (New York). 
 
 It need not be said that it is written in a fascinating style, and ani- 
 mated by a spirit of strong love for the author's native State, and 
 pride in its history. It should be said further that it brings out many 
 an obscure or forgotten bit of history, and makes real an epoch which 
 is familiar to very few. — New York Evening Post. 
 
 " OREGON.'* 
 
 The long and interesting story of the struggle of five nations for 
 the possession of Oregon is told in the graphic and reliable narrative 
 of William Barrows. ... A more fascinating record has seldom been 
 written. . . . Careful research and pictoiial skill of narrative commend 
 this book of antecedent history to all interested in the rapid march and 
 wonderful development of our American civilization upon the Pacific 
 coast. — Springfield Republican. 
 
 There is so much that is new and informing embodied in this little 
 volume that we commend it with enthusiasm. It is written with great 
 ability. — Magazine of American History (New York). 
 
 "MARYLAND." { 
 
 With great care and labor he has sought out and studied original 
 documents. By the aid of these he is able to give his work a value 
 and interest that would have been impossible had he followed slav- 
 ishly the commonly accepted authorities on his subject. His investi- 
 gation in regard to toleration in Maryland is particularly noticeable. 
 
 — iVeu; York Evening Post. 
 
 A substantial contribution to the history of America. — Magazine 
 qf American History, 
 
 \ 
 
''KENTUCKY:' 
 
 The author of it is admirably qualified to give us the history of the 
 State of which he is a uative, to the scieutific exauiinatiou of which 
 he has given his eminent professional service, and of whose popula- 
 tion he is proud because of the heroic and manly qualities it has mani- 
 fested in many crises of its public affairs. — Christian Register (Bos- 
 ton). 
 
 Prof. Shaler sees how little the people he was born amongst know 
 the rest of mankind, and how Httle they are in turn known; and this 
 book is chietiy an attempt to explain and defend the peculiar ideas of 
 political and social life which characterize Kentuckians.^ This effort 
 is successful and interesting. — Chicago Tribune. 
 
 An excellent map of Kentucky is a welcome feature of this concise 
 and well- writ ten volume. — Magazine of American History, 
 
 "MICHIGAN." 
 
 An ably written and charmingly interesting volume. . . . For vari- 
 ety of incident, for transitions in experience, for importance of events, 
 and for brilliancy and ability in the service of the leading actors, the 
 history of Michigan offers rare attractions; and the writer of it has 
 brought to his task the most excellent gifts and powers as a vigorous, 
 impartial, and thoroughly accomplished historian. — Christian Register 
 (Boston). 
 
 Other States cover only special lines, as it were, of political history ; 
 Michigan seems to have covered the whole, and hence furnishes an 
 admirable field for a history of governments. More fortunate still, 
 she has in Judge Cooley a man of great and acknowledged ability, 
 learning, and authority upon all such themes. . . . From its distin- 
 guished author, but even more from its profoundly valuable subject- 
 matter, this is a work to repay abundantly the diligent study of all 
 our citizens. — The Literary World. 
 
 *' KANSAS." 
 
 Few, even of actual participants in the Kansas struggle, have so 
 complete a knowledge of it that they cannot learn something from 
 this narrative. Professor Spring has been diligent in research to a 
 degree that merits special praise, and his diligence has been inspired 
 and controlled by method, so that it has borne rich fruits. — The Ex- 
 aminer (New York). 
 
 In all respects one of the very best of the series. . . . His work ex- 
 hibits diligent research, discrimination in the selection of the mate- 
 rials, and skill in combining his chosen stuff into a narration that has 
 unity, and order, and lucidity. — Hartford Courant. 
 
''CALIFORNIA:' 
 
 The formation of the modern commonwealth of California is a phe- 
 nomenon which never has been matched, and probably never will be. 
 , . . Mr. Royce has undertaken to study, in a philosophical spirit, the 
 causes and circumstances of this social evolution. — New York Tribune, 
 
 The study is one of sociological changes, never before known be- 
 cause the sociological conditions have never before existed in history. 
 The problem is new and most fascinating. Every facet of it has a 
 distinct light. Professor Royce has turned it round and round, has 
 received its various lights, and has cast upon it some of his own. 
 . . . The st^e is as breezy as varied. — San Francisco Bulletin. 
 
 "NEW YORK." 
 
 The field occupied, embracing so much time and such variety of inci- 
 dent, such extent of territory fought over and contended for by so 
 many different races, so complete development of indastrial and com- 
 mercial interest, with all the institutions of social and civil life grow, 
 ing up among a mixed and shifting population, requires that the 
 historian have a full and firm grasp upon his subject, as a whole and 
 in its details, that he may preserve harmony and proportion through- 
 out. This requisite the author had, and his book is admirable in the 
 just prominence given to the several topics according to their impor- 
 tance to the story as a wdiole. — Boslon Transcript. 
 
 Mr. Roberts has executed his difficult task with signal abilit}'. He 
 has put into less than eight hundred pages all the truly significant 
 events which have gone to the making up of New York history from 
 1524 to the present day. — New York Journal of Commerce. 
 
 " CONNECTICUT." 
 
 The most interesting portions of Professor Johnston's valuable and 
 spirited volume are those which demonstrate the precedence of Connec- 
 ticut in the establishment of the democratic principle of government 
 which now makes the essential feature of the American plan, and 
 those which exhibit the influence of the Connecticut tow^n-system in 
 the development of our national theory of local self-rule combined 
 with federal authority. In the prominence given to these important 
 points the author shows an appreciation not only of the intrinsic 
 character of his subject but of the best uses of the excellent and well 
 edited series in which his book takes a high place. — New York Tribune. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston. 
 

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