FRANKLIN, Benjamin,
statesman and philosopher, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 17 January 1706; died
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 17 April 1790. (See representation of
birthplace.) His family had lived for at least three centuries in the parish of
Ecton, Northamptonshire, England, on a freehold of about thirty acres. For
several generations the head of the family seems to have been the village
blacksmith, the eldest son being always bred to that business.
Benjamin's grandfather, Thomas Franklin, born in 1598,
removed late in life to Banbury, in Oxfordshire, while his eldest son, Thomas
Franklin, remained on the estate at Ecton. This Thomas received a good
education, and became a scrivener. He came to be one of the most prominent men
in his County, and formed a friendship with the Earl of Halifax. In mental
characteristics he is said to have borne a strong likeness to his immortal
nephew.
The second son, John Franklin, was a dyer of woolens, and
lived in Banbury. The third son, Benjamin Franklin, for some time a silk dyer in
London, immigrated to Boston at an advanced age, and left descendants there. He
took a great interest in politics, was fond of writing verses, and invented a
system of shorthand. The fourth son, Josiah Franklin, born in 1655, served an
apprenticeship with his brother John Franklin, at Banbury, but removed to New
England in 1682.
From the beginning of the Reformation the family had been
zealous Protestants, and in Mary's reign had incurred considerable danger on
that account. Their inclination seems to have been toward Puritanism, but they
remained in the Church of England until late in the reign of Charles II, when so
many clergymen were dispossessed of their holdings for nonconformity, and
proceeded to carry on religious services in conventicles forbidden by law. Among
these dispossessed clergymen in Northamptonshire were friends of Benjamin and
Josiah, who became their warm adherents and attended their conventicles.
The persecution of these nonconformists led to a small
Puritan migration to New England, in which Josiah took part. He settled in
Boston, where he followed the business of soap boiler and tallow chandler. He
was twice married, the second time to the daughter of Peter Folger, one of the
earliest settlers of New England, a man of some learning, a writer of political
verses, and a zealous opponent of the persecution of the Quakers.
By his first wife Josiah Franklin had seven children; by
his second, ten, of whom the illustrious Benjamin was the youngest son. For five
generations his direct ancestors had been youngest sons of youngest sons. As a
child he showed such precocity that his father at first thought of sending him
to Harvard and educating him for the ministry; but the wants of his large family
were so numerous that presently he felt that he could not afford the expense of
this.
At the age of ten, after little more than a year at the
grammar school, Benjamin was set to work in his father's shop, cutting wicks and
filling moulds for candles. This was so irksome to him that he began to show
symptoms of a desire to run away and go to sea. To turn his mind from this, his
father at length decided to make him a printer. He was an insatiable reader, and
the few shillings that found their way into his hands were all laid out in
books. His elder brother, James, had learned the printer's trade, and in 1717
returned from England with a press, and established himself in business in
Boston.
In the following year Benjamin was apprenticed to his elder
brother, and, becoming interested and proficient in the work, soon made himself
very useful. He indulged his taste for reading, which often kept him up late
into the night. Like so many other youthful readers, he counted Defoe and Bunyan
among his favorites, but presently we find him studying Locke's "Essay on the
Human Understanding," and the Port Royal logic.
While practicing himself in arithmetic and the elements of
geometry, he was also striving to acquire a prose style like that of Addison. He
wrote little ballads and songs of the chapbook sort, and hawked them about the
Streets, sometimes with profit to his pocket. At the same time reading
Shaftesbury and Collins, until some worthy people began to look askance at him
and call him an infidel strengthened an inborn tendency toward freethinking.
In 1721 James Franklin began printing and publishing the
"New England Courant," the third newspaper that appeared in Boston, and the
fourth in America. For this paper Benjamin wrote anonymous articles, and
contrived to smuggle them into its columns without his brother's knowledge of
their authorship; some of them attracted attention, and were attributed to
various men of eminence in the colony.
The newspaper was quite independent in its tone, and for a
political article that gave offence to the colonial legislature James Franklin
was put into jail for a month, while Benjamin was duly admonished and
threatened. Finding himself somewhat unpopular in Boston, and being harshly
treated by his brother, whose violent temper he confesses to have sometimes
provoked by his sauciness, Benjamin at length made up his mind to run away from
home and seek his fortune.
He raised a little money by selling some of his books, and
in October 1723, set sail in a sloop for New York. Unable to find employment
there as a printer, he set out for Philadelphia, crossing to Amboy in a small
vessel, which was driven upon the coast of Long Island in a heavy gale. Narrowly
escaping shipwreck, he at length reached Amboy in the crazy little craft, after
thirty hours without food or drink, except a drop from a flask of what he called
"filthy rum."
From Amboy he made his way on foot across New Jersey to
Burlington, whence he was taken in a rowboat to Philadelphia, landing there on a
Sunday morning, cold, bedraggled, and friendless, with one Dutch dollar in his
pocket. But he soon found employment in a printing office, earned a little
money, made a few friends, and took comfortable lodgings in the house of a Mr.
Read, with whose daughter Deborah he proceeded to fall in love.
It was not long before his excellent training and rare good
sense attracted the favorable notice of Sir William Keith, governor of
Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia printers being ignorant and unskillful, Keith
wished to secure Franklin's services, and offered to help set him up in business
for himself and give him the government printing, such as it was.
Franklin had now been seven months in Philadelphia, and,
his family having at length heard news of him, it was thought best that he
should return to Boston and solicit aid from his father in setting up a press in
Philadelphia. On reaching Boston he found his brother sullen and resentful, but
his father received him kindly. He refused the desired assistance, on the ground
that a boy of eighteen was not fit to manage a business, but he commended his
industry and perseverance, and made no objection to his returning to
Philadelphia, warning him to restrain his inclination to write lampoons and
satires, and holding out hopes of aid in case he should behave industriously and
frugally until twenty-one years of age.
On Franklin's return to Philadelphia, the governor promised
to furnish the money needful for establishing him in business, and encouraged
him to go over to London, in order to buy a press and type and gather useful
information. But Sir William Keith was one of those social nuisances that are
lavish in promises but scanty in performance. It was with the assurance that the
ship's mailbag carried letters of introduction and the necessary letter of
credit that young Franklin crossed the ocean.
On reaching England, he found that Keith had deceived him.
Having neither money nor credit wherewith to accomplish the purpose of his
journey or return to America, he sought and soon found a place as journeyman in
a London printing house. Before leaving home he had been betrothed to Miss Read.
He now wrote to her that it would be long before he should, return to America.
His ability and diligence enabled him to earn money
quickly, but for a while he was carried away by the fascinations of a great
City, and spent his money as fast as he earned it. In the course of his eighteen
months in London he gained much knowledge of the world, and became acquainted
with some distinguished persons, among others Dr. Mandeville and Sir Hans
Sloane; and he speaks of his "extreme desire" to meet Sir Isaac Newton, in which
he was not gratified.
In the autumn of 1726 he made his way back to Philadelphia,
and after some further vicissitudes was at length (in 1729) established in
business as a printer. He now became editor and proprietor of the "Pennsylvania
Gazette," and soon made it so popular by his ably written articles that it
yielded him a comfortable income.
During his absence in England, Miss Read, hearing nothing
from him after his first letter, had supposed that he had grown tired of her. In
her chagrin she married a worthless knave, who treated her cruelly, and soon ran
away to the West Indies, where he died. Franklin found her overwhelmed with
distress and mortification, for which he felt himself to be partly responsible.
Their old affection speedily revived, and on I September 1730, they were
married. They lived most happily together until her death, 19 December 1774.
As Franklin grew to maturity he became noted for his public
spirit and an interest at once wide and keen in human affairs. Soon after his
return from England he established a debating society, called the "Junto," for
the discussion of questions in morals, politics, and natural philosophy. Among
the earliest members may be observed the name of the eminent mathematician,
Thomas Godfrey, who soon afterward invented a quadrant similar to Hadley's. For
many years Franklin was the life of this club, which in 1743 was developed into
the American philosophical society.
In 1732 he began publishing an almanac for the diffusion of
useful information among the people. Published under the pen name of "Richard
Saunders," this entertaining collection of wit and wisdom, couched in quaint and
pithy language, had an immense sale, and became famous throughout the world as
"Poor Richard's Almanac."
In 1731 Franklin founded the Philadelphia library. In 1743
he projected the University that a few years later was developed into the
University of Pennsylvania, and was for a long time considered one of the
foremost institutions of learning in this country.
From early youth Franklin was interested in scientific
studies, and his name by and by became associated with a very useful domestic
invention, and also with one of the most remarkable scientific discoveries of
the 18th century. In 1742 he invented the "open stove, for the better warming of
rooms," an invention that has not yet entirely fallen into disuse. Ten years
later, by wonderfully simple experiments with a kite, he showed that lightning
is a discharge of electricity; and in 1753 he received the Copley medal from the
Royal society for this most brilliant and pregnant discovery.
A man so public-spirited as Franklin, and editor of a
prominent newspaper besides, could not long remain outside of active political
life. In 1736 he was made clerk of the assembly of Pennsylvania, and in 1737
postmaster of Philadelphia. Under his skilful management this town became the
center of the whole postal system of the colonies, and in 1753 he was made
deputy postmaster general for the continent. Besides vastly increasing the
efficiency of the postal service, he succeeded at the same time in making it
profitable.
In 1754 Franklin becomes a conspicuous figure in
Continental politics. In that year the prospect of war with the French led
several of the royal governors to call for a congress of all the colonies, to be
held at Albany. The primary purpose of the meeting was to make sure of the
friendship of the Iroquois Six Nations, and to organize a general scheme of
operations against the French. The secondary purpose was to prepare some plan of
confederation that all the colonies might be persuaded to adopt.
Only the four New England colonies, with New York,
Pennsylvania, and Maryland, sent commissioners to this congress. The people seem
to have felt very little interest in the movement. Among the newspapers none
seems to have favored it warmly except the "Pennsylvania Gazette," which
appeared with a union device and the motto "Unite or Die!"
At the Albany congress Franklin brought forward the first
coherent scheme ever propounded for securing a permanent Federal union of the
thirteen colonies. The plan contemplated the union of the colonies under a
single central government, under which each colony might preserve its local
independence.
The legislative assembly of each colony was to choose, once
in three years, representatives to attend a Federal grand council, which was to
meet every year at Philadelphia, as the City most convenient of access from
north and south alike. This grand council was to choose its own speaker, and
could neither be dissolved nor prorogued except by its own consent, or by
especial order of the crown.
The grand council was to make treaties with the Indians,
and regulate trade with them; and it was to have sole power of legislation on
all matters concerning the colonies as a whole. To these ends it could lay
taxes, enlist soldiers, build forts, and nominate civil officers. Its laws were
to be submitted to the king for approval; and the royal veto, in order to be
effective, must be exercised within three years.
To this grand council each colony was to send a number of
representatives, proportioned to its contributions to the continental military
service, the minimum number being two, and the maximum seven. With the exception
of such matters of general concern as were to be managed by the grand council,
each colony was to retain its powers of legislation intact. In an emergency any
colony might singly defend itself against foreign attack, and the Federal
government was prohibited from impressing soldiers or seamen without the consent
of the local legislature.
The supreme executive power was to be vested in a president
or governor general, appointed and paid by the crown. He was to have a veto on
all the acts of the grand council, and was to nominate all military officers,
subject to its approval. No money could be issued save by joint order of the
governor general and council. "This plan," said Franklin, "is not altogether to
my mind; but it is as I could get it."
To the credit of its great author, it should be observed
that this scheme long afterward known as the "Albany plan "contemplated the
formation of a self-sustaining Federal government, and not of a mere league. It
aimed at creating "a public authority as obligatory in its sphere as the local
governments were in their spheres"; and in this respect it was much more
complete than the articles of confederation under which the thirteen states
contrived to live from 1781 till 1789.
But public opinion was not yet ripe for the adoption of
such bold and comprehensive ideas. After long debate, the Albany congress
decided to adopt Franklin's plan, and copies of it were sent to all the colonies
for their consideration; but nowhere did it meet with popular approval.
A town meeting in Boston denounced it as subversive of
liberty; Pennsylvania rejected it without a word of discussion; not one of the
assemblies voted to adopt it. When sent over to England, to be inspected by the
ministers of the crown, it only irritated them. In England it was thought to
give too much independence of action to the colonies; in America it was thought
to give too little.
The scheme was, moreover, impracticable, because the desire
for union on the part of the several colonies was still extremely feeble; but it
shows on the part of Franklin wonderful foresightedness.
If the Revolution had not occurred, we should probably have
sooner or later come to live under a constitution resembling the Albany plan. On
the other hand, if the Albany plan had been put into operation, it might perhaps
have so adjusted the relations of the colonies to the British government that
the Revolution would not have occurred.
The only persons that favored Franklin's scheme were the
royal governors, and this was because they hoped it might be of service in
raising money with which to fight the French. In such matters the local
assemblies were extremely niggardly. At the beginning of the war in 1755,
Franklin had been for some years the leading spirit in the assembly of
Pennsylvania, which was engaged in a fierce dispute with the governor concerning
the taxation of the proprietary estates. The governor contended that these
should be exempt from taxation; the assembly insisted rightly that these estates
should bear their own share of the public burdens.
On another hotly disputed question the assembly was clearly
in the wrong; it insisted upon issuing paper money, and against this pernicious
folly governor after governor fought with obstinate bravery. In 1755 the result
of these furious contentions was that Braddock's army was unable to get any
support except from the steadfast personal exertions of Franklin, who used his
great influence with the farmers to obtain horses, wagons, and provisions,
pledging his own property for their payment. Until the question of the
proprietary estates should be settled, the operations of the war seemed likely
to be paralyzed.
In 1757 Franklin was sent over to England to plead the
cause of the assembly before the Privy Council. This business kept him in
England five years, in the course of which he became acquainted with the most
eminent people in the country. His discoveries and writings had won him a
European reputation.
Before He left England, in 1762, he received the degree of
LL.D. from the universities of Oxford and Edinburgh. His arguments before the
privy council were successful; the sorely vexed question was decided against the
proprietary governors; and on his return to Pennsylvania in 1762 he received the
formal thanks of the assembly.
It was not long before his services were again required in
England. In 1764 Grenville gave notice of his proposed stamp act for defraying
part of the expenses of the late war, and Franklin was sent to England as agent
for Pennsylvania, and instructed to make every effort to prevent the passage of
the stamp act. He carried out his instructions ably and faithfully; but, when
the obnoxious law was passed in 1765, he counseled submission.
In this case, however, the wisdom of this wisest of
Americans proved inferior to the "collective wisdom" of his fellow countrymen.
Warned by the fierce resistance of the Americans, the new ministry of Lord
Rockingham decided to reconsider the act. In an examination before the House of
Commons, Franklin's strong sense and varied knowledge won general admiration,
and contributed powerfully toward the repeal of the stamp act.
The danger was warded off but for a time, however. Next
year Charles Townshend carried, his measures for taxing American imports and
applying the proceeds to the maintenance of a civil list in each of the
colonies, to be responsible only to the British government. The need for
Franklin's services as mediator was now so great that he was kept in England,
and presently the colonies of Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Georgia chose him
as their agent.
During these years he made many warm friendships with
eminent men in England, as with Burke, Lord Shelburne, Lord Howe, David Hartley,
and Dr. Priestley. His great powers were earnestly devoted to preventing a
separation between England and America. His methods were eminently conciliatory;
but the independence of character with which he told unwelcome truths made him
an object of intense dislike to the king and his friends, who regarded him as
aiming to undermine the royal authority in America.
George III is said to have warned his ministers against "
that crafty American, who is more than a match for you all." In 1774 this dread
and dislike found vent in an explosion, the echoes of which have hardly yet died
away. This was the celebrated affair of the "Hutchinson letters."
For several years a private and unofficial correspondence
had been kept up between Hutchinson, Oliver, and other high officials in
Massachusetts, on the one hand, and Thomas Whately, who had formerly been
private secretary to George Grenville, on the other. The choice of Whately for
correspondent was due to the fact that he was supposed to be very familiar at
once with colonial affairs and with the views and purposes of the king's
friends.
In these letters Hutchinson had a great deal to say about
the weakness of the royal government in Massachusetts, and the need for a strong
military force to support it; he condemned the conduct of Samuel Adams and the
other popular leaders as seditious, and enlarged upon the turbulence of the
people of Boston; he doubted if it were practicable for a colony removed by
3,000 miles of ocean to enjoy all the liberties of the mother country without
severing its connection with her; and he had therefore reluctantly come to the
conclusion that Massachusetts must submit to "an abridgment of what are called
English liberties."
Oliver, in addition to such general views, maintained that
judges and other crown officers should have fixed salaries assigned by the
crown, so as to become independent of popular favor. There can be no doubt that
such suggestions were made in perfect good faith, or that Hutchinson and Oliver
had the true interests of Massachusetts at heart, according to their lamentably
inadequate understanding of the matter. But to the people of Massachusetts, at
that time, such suggestions could but seem little short of treasonable.
Thomas Whately died in June 1772, and all his papers passed
into the custody of William, his brother and executor. In the following December
before William Whately had opened or looked over the packet of letters from
Hutchinson and his friends, it was found that they had been purloined by some
person unknown. It is not certain that the letters had ever really passed into
William's hands. "They may have been left lying in some place where they might
have attracted the notice of some curious busybody, who forthwith laid hands
upon them." This point has never been satisfactorily cleared up.
At all events, they were brought to Franklin as containing
political intelligence that might prove important. At this time Massachusetts
was furiously excited over the attempt of Lord North's government to have the
salaries of the judges fixed and paid by the crown instead of the colonial
assembly. The judges had been threatened with impeachment should they dare to
receive a penny from the royal treasury, and at the head of the threatened
judges was Oliver's younger brother, the chief justice of Massachusetts.
As agent for the colony, Franklin felt it to be his duty to
give information of the dangerous contents of the letters now laid before him.
Although they purported to be merely a private and confidential correspondence,
they were not really "of the nature of private letters between friends." As
Franklin said, "they were written by public officers to persons in public
station, on public affairs, and intended to procure public 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 "from the writers to Thomas Whately" with
respect to privacy was, to keep their contents from "the knowledge of the
colonial agents in London," who, the writers apprehended, "might return them, or
copies of them, to America."
Franklin felt, as Willingham might have felt on suddenly
discovering, in private and confidential papers, the incontrovertible proof of
some popish plot against the life of Queen Elizabeth. From the person that
brought him the letters he got permission to send them to Massachusetts, on
condition that they should be shown only to a few people in authority, that they
should not be copied or printed, that they should presently be returned, and
that the name of the person from whom they were obtained should never be
disclosed.
This last condition was most thoroughly fulfilled. The
others must have been felt to be mainly a matter of form; it was obvious that,
though they might be literally complied with, their spirit would inevitably be
violated. As Orlando Hutchinson writes, "we all know what this sort of secrecy
means, and what will be the end of it;” and, as Franklin himself observed,
"there was no restraint proposed to talking of them, but only to copying."
The letters were sent to the proper person, Thomas Cushing,
speaker of the Massachusetts assembly, and he showed them to Hancock, Hawley,
and the two Adamses. To these gentlemen it could have been no new discovery that
Hutchinson and Oliver held such opinions as were expressed in the letters; but
the documents seemed to furnish tangible proof of what had long been suspected,
that the governor and his lieutenant were plotting against the liberties of
Massachusetts.
They were soon talked about at every town meeting and on
every Street corner. The assembly twitted Hutchinson with them, and asked for
copies of these and other such papers as he might see fit to communicate, He
replied, somewhat sarcastically, " If you desire copies with a view to make them
public, the originals are more proper for the purpose than any copies."
Mistaken and dangerous as Hutchinson's policy was, his
conscience acquitted him of any treasonable purpose, and he must naturally have
preferred to have the people judge him by what he had really written rather than
by vague and distorted rumors. His reply was taken as sufficient warrant for
printing the letters, and they were soon in the possession of every reader in
England or America who could afford sixpence for a political tract.
On the other side of the Atlantic they aroused as much
excitement as on this, and William Whitely became concerned to know who could
have purloined the letters. On slight evidence he charged a Mr. Temple with the
theft, and a duel ensued in which Whately was wounded.
Hearing of this affair, Franklin published a card in which
he avowed his own share in the transaction, and in a measure screened all others
by drawing the full torrent of wrath and abuse upon himself. All the ill
suppressed spleen of the king's friends was at once discharged upon him.
Meanwhile the Massachusetts assembly formally censured the
letters, as evidence of a scheme for subverting the constitution of the colony,
and petitioned the king to remove Hutchinson and Oliver from office. In January
1774, the petition was duly brought before the Privy Council in the presence of
a large and brilliant gathering of spectators.
The solicitor general, David Wedderburn, instead of
discussing the question on its merits, broke out with a violent and scurrilous
invective against, Franklin, whom he derided as a man of letters, calling him a
"man of three letters," the Roman slang expression for fur, a thief. Of the
members of government present, Lord North alone preserved decorum; the others
laughed and clapped their hands, while Franklin stood as unmoved as the moon at
the baying of dogs. He could afford to disregard the sneers of a man like
Wedderburn, whom the king, though fain to use him as a tool, called the greatest
knave in the realm. The Massachusetts petition was rejected as scandalous, and
next day Franklin was dismissed from his office of postmaster general.
They are in error who think it was this personal insult
that led Franklin to favor the revolt of the colonies, as they are also wrong
who suppose that his object in sending home the Hutchinson letters was to stir
up dissension. His conduct immediately after passing through this ordeal is
sufficient proof of the unabated sincerity of his desire for conciliation.
The news of the Boston Tea Party arriving in England about
this time, led presently to the acts of April 1774, for closing the port of
Boston and remodeling the government of Massachusetts. The only way in which
Massachusetts could escape these penalties was by indemnifying the East India
company for the tea that had been destroyed; and Franklin, seeing that the
attempt to enforce the new acts must almost inevitably lead to war, actually
went so far as to advise Massachusetts to pay for the tea. Samuel Adams, on
hearing of this, is said to have observed: "Franklin may be a good philosopher,
but he is a bungling politician."
Certainly in this instance Franklin showed himself less
farsighted than Adams and the people of Massachusetts. The moment had come when
compromise was no longer possible. To have yielded now, in the face of the
arrogant and tyrannical acts of April would have been not only to stultify the
heroic deeds of the patriots in the last December but it would have broken up
the nascent union of the colonies; it would virtually have surrendered them,
bound hand and foot, to the tender mercies of the king. That Franklin should
have suggested such a step, in order to avoid precipitating a conflict, shows
forcibly how anxious he was to keep the peace.
He remained in England nearly a year longer, though many
things were done by the king's party to make his stay unpleasant. During the
autumn and winter he had many conversations with persons near the government,
who were anxious to find out how the Americans might be conciliated without
England's abandoning a single one of the wrong positions that she had taken.
This was an insolvable problem, and when Franklin had become convinced of this
he reluctantly gave it up and returned to America, arriving in Philadelphia on 5
May 1775, to find that the shedding of blood had just begun.
On the next day the assembly of Pennsylvania unanimously
elected him delegate to the 2d Continental Congress, then about to assemble. He
now became a zealous supporter of the war, and presently of the Declaration of
Independence.
When congress, in July decided to send one more petition to
the king, he wrote a letter, which David Hartley read aloud in the House of
Commons. "If you flatter yourselves," said Franklin, "with beating us into
submission, you know neither the people nor the country. The congress will await
the result of their last petition."
A little more than two years afterward, in December 1777,
as parliament sat overwhelmed with chagrin at the tidings of Burgoyne's
surrender, Hartley pulled out this letter again and upbraided the house with it.
"You were then," said he, "confident of having America under your feet, and
despised every proposition recommending peace and lenient measures."
When this unyielding temper had driven the Americans to
declare their independence of Great Britain, Franklin was one of the committee
of five chosen by congress to draw up a document worthy of the occasion. To the
document, as drafted by Jefferson, he seems to have contributed only a few
verbal recommendations. The Declaration of Independence made it necessary to
seek foreign alliances, and first of all with England's great rival, France.
Here Franklin's worldwide fame and his long experience of
public life in England enabled him to play a part that would have been
impossible for any other American. He had fifteen years of practice as an
ambassador, and was thoroughly familiar with European polities. In his old days
of editorial work in Philadelphia, with his noble scholarly habit of putting
every moment to some good use, he had learned the French language, with Italian
and Spanish also, besides getting some knowledge of Latin. He was thus possessed
of talismans for opening many a treasure house, and among all the Encyclopaedist
philosophers of Paris it would have been hard to point to a mind more
encyclopedic than his own.
Negotiations with the French court had been begun already,
through the agency of Arthur Lee and Silas Deane, and in the autumn of 1776.
Franklin was sent out to join with these gentlemen in securing the active aid
and cooperation of France in the war. His arrival, on 21 December was the
occasion of great excitement in the fashionable world of Paris. Thinkers like
D'Alembert and Diderot regarded him as the embodiment of practical wisdom. To
many he seemed to sum up in himself the excellences of the American cause,
justice, good sense, and moderation. It was Turgot that said of him, "Eripuit
caelo fulmenen, sceptrumque tyrannis." [“He snatched the thunderbolt from
heaven, and the scepter from tyrants.”]
As symbolizing the liberty for which all France was
yearning, he was greeted with a popular enthusiasm such as perhaps no French man
of letters except Voltaire has ever called forth. Shopkeepers rushed to their
doors to catch a glimpse of him as he passed along the sidewalk, while in
evening salons jeweled ladies of the court, vied with one another in paying him
homage.
As the first fruits of his negotiations, the French
government agreed to furnish two million livres a year, in quarterly
installments, to aid the American cause. Arms and ammunition were sent over, and
Americans were allowed to fit out privateers in French ports, and even to bring
in and sell their prizes.
Further than this France was not yet ready to go. She did
not wish to incur the risk of war with England until an American alliance could
seem to promise her some manifest advantage. This surreptitious aid continued
through the year 1777, until the surrender of Burgoyne put a new face upon
things.
The immediate consequence of that great event was an
attempt on the part of Lord North's government to change front, and offer
concessions to the Americans, which, if they had ever been duly considered,
might even at this late moment have ended in some compromise between England and
the United States.
Now, if ever, was the moment for France to interpose, and
she seized it. On 6 February 1778, the treaty was signed at Paris, which
ultimately secured the independence of the United States.
For the successful management of this negotiation, one of
the most important in the annals of modern diplomacy, the credit is almost
solely due to Franklin. Another invaluable service was the negotiation of loans
without which it would have been impossible for the United States to carry on
the war.
As the Continental congress had no power to levy taxes,
there were but three ways in which it could pay the expenses of the army: (1) By
requisitions upon the state governments; (2) by issuing its promissory notes, or
so-called "paper money"; (3) by foreign loans.
The first method brought in money altogether too slowly;
the second served its purpose for a short time, but by 1780 the continental
notes had became worthless. The war of independence would have been an
ignominious failure but for foreign loans, and these were made mostly by France
and through the extraordinary sagacity and tact of Franklin. It is doubtful if
any other man of that time could have succeeded in getting so much money from
the French government, which found it no easy matter to pay its own debts and
support an idle population of nobles and clergy upon taxes wrung from a groaning
peasantry.
During Franklin's stay in Paris the annual contribution of
2,000,000 livres was at first increased to 3,000,000, and afterward, in 1781, to
4,000,000. Besides this, which was a loan, the French government sent over
9,000,000 as a free gift, and guaranteed the interest upon a loan of 10,000,000
to be raised in Holland. Franklin himself, just before sailing for France, had
gathered together all the cash he could command for the moment, beyond what was
needed for immediate necessities, and amounting to nearly £4,000, and put it
into the United States treasury as a loan.
On the fall of Lord North's ministry in March 1782,
Franklin sent a letter to his friend, Lord Shelburne, expressing a hope that
peace might soon be made. When the letter reached London, the new ministry, in
which Shelburne was secretary of state for home and colonies, had already been
formed, and Shelburne, with the consent of the cabinet, replied by sending over
to Paris an agent to talk with Franklin informally, and ascertain the terms upon
which the Americans would make peace. The person chosen for this purpose was
Richard Oswald, a Scottish merchant of frank disposition and liberal views.
In April there were several conversations between Oswald
and Franklin, in one of which the latter suggested that, in order to make a
durable peace, it was desirable to remove all occasion for future quarrel; that
the line of frontier between New York and Canada was inhabited by a lawless set
of men, who in time of peace would be likely to breed trouble between their
respective governments; and that therefore it would be well for England to cede
Canada to the United States.
A similar reasoning would apply to Nova Scotia. By ceding
these countries to the United States, it would be possible, from the sale of
unappropriated lands, to indemnify the Americans for all losses of private
property during the war, and also to make reparation to the Tories whose estates
had been confiscated. By pursuing such a policy, England, which had made war on
America unjustly, and had wantonly done it great injuries, would achieve not
merely peace, but reconciliation with America, and reconciliation, said
Franklin, is "a sweet word."
This was a very bold tone for Franklin to take: but he knew
that almost every member of the Whig ministry had publicly expressed the opinion
that the war against America was unjust and wanton; and being, moreover, a
shrewd hand at a bargain, he began by setting his terms high.
Oswald seems to have been convinced by Franklin's
reasoning, and expressed neither surprise nor reluctance at the idea of ceding
Canada. The main points of this conversation were noted upon a sheet of paper,
which Franklin allowed Oswald to take to London and show to Lord Shelburne,
first writing upon it an express declaration of its informal character.
On receiving this memorandum, Shelburne did not show it to
the cabinet, but returned it to Franklin without any immediate answer, after
keeping it only one night. Oswald was presently sent back to Paris, empowered as
commissioner to negotiate with Franklin, and carried Shelburne's answer to the
memorandum that desired the cession of Canada for three reasons. The answer was
terse:
"1. By way of reparation. Answer: No reparation can be
heard of.
2. To prevent future wars. Answer: it is to be hoped
that some more friendly method will be found.
3. As a fund of indemnification to loyalists. Answer :
No independence to be acknowledged without their being taken care of."
Besides, added Shelburne, the Americans would be expected
to make some compensation for the surrender of Charleston, Savannah, and the
City of New York, still held by British troops.
From this it appears that Shelburne, as well as Franklin,
knew how to begin by asking more than he was likely to get. England was no more
likely to listen to a proposal for ceding Canada than the Americans were to
listen to the suggestion of compensating the British for surrendering New York.
But there can be little doubt that the bold stand thus taken by Franklin at the
outset, together with the influence he acquired over Oswald, contributed
materially to the brilliant success of the American negotiations.
This is the more important to be noted in connection with
the biography of Franklin, since in the later stages of the negotiations the
initiative passed almost entirely out of his hands, and into those of his
colleagues, Jay and Adams. The form that the treaty took was mainly the work of
these younger statesmen; the services of Franklin were chiefly valuable at the
beginning, and again, to some extent, at the end.
There were two grave difficulties in making a treaty. The
first was, that France was really hostile to the American claims. She wished to
see the country between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi divided between
England and Spain; England to have the region north of the Ohio, and the region
south of it to remain an Indian territory under the protectorate of Spain,
except a narrow strip on the western slope of the Alleghenies, over which the
United States might exercise protectorship.
In other words, France wished to confine the United States
to the east of the Alleghenies, and forever prevent their expansion westward.
France also wished to exclude the Americans from all share in the fisheries, in
order to prevent the United States from becoming a great naval power. As France,
up to a certain point, was our ally, this antagonism of interests made the
negotiation extremely difficult.
The second difficulty was the unwillingness of the British
government to acknowledge the independence of the United States as a condition
that must precede all negotiation. The Americans insisted upon this point, as
they had insisted ever since the Staten Island conference in 1776; but England
wished to withhold the recognition long enough to bargain with it in making the
treaty.
This difficulty was enhanced by the fact that, if this
point were conceded to the Americans, it would transfer the conduct of the
treaty from the colonial secretary, Shelburne, to the foreign secretary, Fox;
and these two gentlemen not only differed widely in their views of the
situation, but were personally bitter enemies.
Presently Fox heard of the private memorandum that
Shelburne had received from Franklin but had not shown to the cabinet, and he
concluded, quite wrongly, that Shelburne was playing a secret part for purposes
of his own. Accordingly, Fox made up his mind at all events to get the American
negotiations transferred to his own department; and to this end, on the last day
of June he moved in the cabinet that the independence of the United States
should be unconditionally acknowledged, so that England might treat as with a
foreign power.
The motion was lost, and Fox prepared to resign his office;
but the very next day the death of Lord Rockingham broke up the ministry. Lord
Shelburne now became prime minister, and other circumstances occurred which
simplified the problem, in April the French fleet in the West Indies had been
annihilated by Rodney; in September this was followed by the total defeat of the
combined French and Spanish forces at Gibraltar. This altered the situation
seriously.
England, though defeated in America, was victorious as
regarded France and Spain. The avowed object, for which France had entered into
alliance with the Americans, was to secure the independence of the United
States, and this point was now substantially gained.
The chief object for which Spain had entered into alliance
with France was to drive the English from Gibraltar, and this point was now
decidedly lost. France had bound herself not to desist from the war until Spain
should recover Gibraltar; but now there was little hope of accomplishing this,
except by some fortunate bargain in the treaty.
Vergennes now tried to satisfy Spain at the expense, of the
United States, and he sent a secret emissary under an assumed name to Lord
Shelburne, to develop his plan for dividing the Mississippi valley between
England and Spain. This was discovered by Jay, who counteracted it by sending a
messenger of his own to Shelburne who thus perceived the antagonism that had
arisen between the allies.
It now became manifestly for the advantage of England and
the United States to carry on their negotiations without the intervention of
France, as England preferred to make concessions to the Americans rather than to
the house of Bourbon. By first detaching the United States from the alliance,
she could proceed to browbeat France and Spain.
There was an obstacle in the way of a separate negotiation.
The chevalier Luzerne, the French minister at Philadelphia, had been busy with
congress, and that body had sent instructions to its commissioners at Paris to
be guided in all things by the wishes of the French court. Jay and Adams,
overruling Franklin, took the responsibility of disregarding these instructions;
and the provisions of the treaty, so marvelously favorable to the Americans,
were arranged by a separate negotiation with England.
In the arrangement of the provisions, Franklin played an
important part, especially in driving the British commissioners from their
position with regard to the compensation of loyalists. After a long struggle
upon this point, Franklin observed that, if the loyalists were to be
indemnified, it would be necessary also to reckon up the damage they had done in
burning villages and shipping, and then strike a balance between the two
accounts" and he gravely suggested that a special commission might be appointed
for this purpose.
It was now getting late in the autumn, and Shelburne felt
it to be a political necessity to bring the negotiation to an end before the
assembling of parliament. At the prospect of endless discussion, which
Franklin's suggestion involved, the British commissioners gave way and accepted
the American terms.
Affairs having reached this point, it remained for Franklin
to lay the matter before Vergennes in such wise as to avoid a rupture of the
cordial relations between America and France. It was a delicate matter, for, in
dealing separately with the English government, the Americans laid them open to
the charge of having committed a breach of diplomatic courtesy; but Franklin
managed it with entire success.
On the part of the Americans the treaty of 1783 was one of
the most brilliant triumphs in the whole history of modern diplomacy. Had the
affair been managed by men of ordinary ability, the greatest results of the
Revolutionary war would probably have been lost; the new republic would have
been cooped up between the Atlantic and the Alleghenies; our westward expansion
would have been impossible without further warfare; and the formation of our
Federal union would doubtless have been effectively hindered or prevented.
To the grand triumph the varied talents of Franklin, Adams,
and Jay alike contributed. To the latter is due the credit of detecting and
baffling the sinister designs of France; but without the tact of Franklin this
probably could not have been accomplished without offending France in such wise
as to spoil everything.
Franklin's last diplomatic achievement was the negotiation
of a treaty with Prussia, in which was inserted an article looking toward the
abolition of privateering. This treaty, as Washington observed at the time, was
the most liberal that had ever been made between independent powers, and marked
a new era in international morality.
In September 1785, Franklin returned to America, and in the
next month was chosen president of Pennsylvania. He was reelected in 1786 and
1787. In the summer of the latter year he was a delegate to the immortal
convention that framed the constitution of the United States.
He took a comparatively small part in the debates, but some
of his suggestions were very timely, as when he seconded the Connecticut
compromise. At the close of the proceedings he made a short speech, in which he
said: "I consent, to this constitution, because I expect no better, and because
I am not sure that it is not the best."
His last public act was the signing of a memorial addressed
to congress by an antislavery society of which he was president. This petition,
which was presented on 12 February 1790, asked for the abolition of the slave
trade, and for the emancipation of slaves. The southern members of congress were
very indignant, and Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, undertook to prove, with the aid of
texts from Scripture, the sacredness of the institution of slavery. On 23 March
Franklin wrote an answer, which was published in the " National Gazette." It was
an ingenious parody of Jackson's speech, put into the mouth of a member of the
"divan of Algiers," and fortified by texts from the Koran. This characteristic
article, one of the most amusing he ever published, was written within four
weeks of his death.
The abilities of Franklin were so vast and so various, he
touched human life at so many points, that it would require an elaborate essay
to characterize him properly. He was at once philosopher, statesman, diplomat,
scientific discoverer, inventor, philanthropist, moralist, and wit, while as a
writer of English he was surpassed by few men of his time.
History presents few examples of a career starting from
such humble beginnings and attaining to such great and enduring splendor. The
career of a Napoleon, for example, in comparison with Franklin's, seems vulgar
and trivial. The ceaseless industry of Franklin throughout his long life was
guided to an extraordinary degree by the clear light of reason, and inspired by
a warm and enthusiastic desire for the improvement of mankind. He is in many
respects the greatest of Americans, and one of the greatest men whose names are
recorded in history.
In accordance with his wishes, Franklin's remains were
deposited beside those of his wife and daughter, in the yard of Christ Church,
at the corner of 5th and Arch Streets, Philadelphia, under a plain marble stone
inscribed" Benjamin and Deborah Franklin." (See accompanying illustration.)
In early life he had written a fanciful epitaph for
himself, which was published in the "New England Courant" and has become famous:
The body of
Benjamin Franklin, printer,
like the cover
of an old book,
its Contents
torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding,
lies here, food
for worms.
But the work
shall not be lost;
for it will, as
he believed,
appear once
more in a new and more elegant edition,
revised and
corrected by the Author.
Franklin left a charming "Autobiography," covering the
earlier part of his life down to his arrival in London in 1757. The best edition
is the one edited by John Bigelow (Philadelphia, 1868). His works were edited by
Jared Sparks (10 vols., Boston, 1850). In 1885 a large mass of unedited
manuscripts, by Franklin or relating to him, collected by the late Henry
Stevens, of Vermont, for a long time a resident in London, was purchased by
congress. A new edition of Franklin's complete works, edited by John Bigelow and
containing much new material obtained from the Stevens manuscripts, is now in
course of publication (10 vols., New York, 1887). See Condorcet's "Eloge de
Franklin" (Paris, 1790): Bauer's "Washington und Franklin" (Berlin, 1803'6);
Sehmaltz's" Leben Benj. Franklin's " (Leipsic, 1840); Parton's "Life and Times
of Benjamin Franklin" (2 vols., New York, 1864); Mignet's " Vie de Franklin "
(Paris, 1873); and Hale's "Franklin in France" (Boston, 1887).
The Maryland convention sent him as one of five delegates
to the Continental congress of 1774, and he continued a member of successive
congresses until the end of 1778. The Maryland delegates were restricted, by
special instructions of the convention, from voting for independence, and Mr.
Chase, chafing at being obliged to withhold open support from a measure he so
enthusiastically favored, gladly accepted from congress a mission to Canada, in
company with Benjamin Franklin, Rev. John Carroll and Charles Carroll.
The mission, the object of which was to persuade Canada to
join the colonies, was fruitless; and on his return Mr. Chase canvassed the
state of Maryland, and obtained from county meetings expressions of patriotic
sentiment that the convention could not resist. It now voted for independence,
and Mr. Chase returned to Philadelphia just in time to join in adopting the
decisive resolution.
He was appointed on most of the important committees in
congress, where his industry was unwearied. In 1778 he drafted an eloquent
address to the people of the country, in answer to papers that had been
circulated by the Tories. During the last two or three years of the war he
devoted himself to his private law business, which he had not hesitated to
neglect, while in congress, for his public duties.
