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A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875
The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence --CHAPTER X FRANKLIN.
His appointment. § 112. Franklin was seventy years old when he was elected, on September 27, 1776, commissioner to France. The election was unanimous and on the first ballot. It was then that he made to Dr. Rush, who sat near him, this remark: "I am old and good for nothing; but as the store-keepers say of their remnants of cloth, I am but a fag end, and you may have me for what you please to give." Jefferson was elected on the next ballot but declined, and then after some delay followed the elections of Silas Deane and then of Arthur Lee, both Deane and Lee being then in Europe. Several years afterwards in one of his informal letters he again compared himself to a remnant of cloth, but in another relation.* He said whatever the remnant was worth belonged to his country and had but little value to himself. He suffered greatly during his voyage to enter on his mission; from time to time during the remainder of his life he was tortured by gout and stone. But it is a consolation to those who are old and sick to feel that it was not until his seventieth year, when subject to cruel diseases that grew on him, that Franklin entered on a diplomatic career which surpasses all others in its permanent results of good.
[Note *: * Infra, Franklin to Hartley, April 23, 1778, noticed in next section.]
His probity and courage. § 113. Before Franklin left for France he placed in the hands of Congress, then in dire necessity for want of money, all his available funds, knowing that if the cause failed his loan failed with it.† His salary when sustaining the burden of the momentous negotiations with France and England was the same as that of the other American envoys, among whom was Izard, who speaks of himself as a man of fortune, but who never even visited the court to
[Note †: † In explaining to Ingenhousz, on Feb. 11, 1788, the fall in American securities, Franklin thus writes: "Such certificates are low in value at present, but we hope and believe they will succeed when our new projected Constitution is established. I lent to the old Congress three thousand pounds in the value of hard money and took their certificates, promising interest at six per cent., but I have received no interest for several years, and if I were now to sell the principal I could not get more than a sixth part. You must not ascribe this to want of honesty in our government, but to want of ability, the war having exhausted all the faculties of the country. The public funds even of Great Britain sunk by the war the three per cents from 95 to 54." (9 Franklin Papers, Bigelow's ed., 456.)]
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which he was accredited. And unscrupulous and energetic as was the industry with which Franklin's private life during his stay in France was scanned, and carefully as were his entire accounts in the subsequent investigations overhauled, not one single instance of mismanagement of public money was traced to him. Not himself a trained accountant, with immense public business in his hands, he had kept for years the most complicated accounts with a fidelity which, when he gave up his stewardship, showed that he not only had been conscientiously faithful, but strictly accurate, in the discharge of business trusts foreign to his diplomatic duties and uncongenial to his habits.
Of the charges against him in this relation Sparks thus speaks in an article in the North American Review for April, 1830 (vol. 30, p. 508):
"When Mr. William Lee (who was then the chief commercial agent at Nantes) was about going to Prussia, he proposed to appoint Mr. Williams to be a permanent agent. Dr. Franklin wrote to him in reply as follows: 'Your proposition about appointing agents in the ports shall be laid before the commissioners when they meet. In the mean time I can only say that as to my nephew, Mr. Williams, though I have from long knowledge and experience of him a high opinion of his abilities, activity, and integrity, I will have no hand in his appointment or in approving it, not being desirous of his being in any way concerned in that business.' And yet we are called on to believe that his holding the appointment was a scheme of Dr. Franklin's to give him a chance to grow rich out of the public money.
"Again, he repeatedly urged Congress to relieve him from the burden of the mercantile business in the management of which nearly all the expenditures of the money that passed through his hands were made. 'The trouble and vexation,' he says, 'which these maritime affairs give me are inconceivable. I have often expressed to Congress my wish to be relieved from them and that some person better acquainted with them and better situated might be appointed to manage them. Much money as well as time would, I am sure, be saved by such an appointment.' On several occasions he reiterated earnestly the same request; that is, desired Congress to take out of his hands the very means which his enemies have asserted him to have been eager in retaining for the purpose of advancing his private ends at the expense of his integrity. These facts require no comment."
After noticing the "lost million" episode, Sparks goes on to say:
"Lastly, it has been often said, and is sometimes repeated at this day, that Dr. Franklin never settled his public accounts. In its spirit and purport this assertion is essentially false. Some months before Dr. Franklin left France, Mr. Barclay, the American consul to that country, arrived there with full power and authority from Congress to liquidate and settle the accounts of all persons in Europe who had been intrusted with the expenditure of the public money of the United States. Under this authority he examined methodically the entire mass of Dr. Franklin's accounts. The difference between the result of his investigation and the statement of Dr. Franklin was seven sols, or about six cents, which by mistake the doctor had overcharged."
The following letter shows Franklin's position as to his accounts after his arrival in Philadelphia:
Franklin to the President of Congress.*
[Note *: * 2 Sparks' Dip. Rev. Corr., 530.]
"Philadelphia, November 29, 1788.
"Dear Sir: When I had the honor of being the minister of the United States at the court of France, Mr. Barclay, arriving there brought me the following resolution of Congress:
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"'Resolved, That a commissioner be appointed by Congress, with full power and authority to liquidate and finally to settle the accounts of all the servants of the United States who have been intrusted with the expenditure of public money in Europe, and to commence and prosecute such suits, causes, and actions, as may be necessary for that purpose, or for the recovery of any property of the said United States in the hands of any person or persons whatsoever.
"'That the said commissioner be authorized to appoint one or more clerks, with such an allowance as he may think reasonable.
"'That the said commissioner and clerks, respectively, take an oath before some person duly authorized to administer an oath, faithfully to execute the trust reposed in them respectively.
"'Congress proceeded to the election of a commissioner; and ballots being taken, Mr. T. Barclay was elected.'
"In pursuance of this resolution, and as soon as Mr. Barclay was at leisure from more pressing business, I rendered to him all my accounts, which he examined and stated methodically. By his statement he found a balance due me on the 4th of May, 1785, of 7,533 livres 19 sols 3 den., which I accordingly received of the Congress banker; the difference between my statement and his being only seven sols, which by mistake I had overcharged--about three pence halfpenny sterling.
"At my request, however, the accounts were left open for the consideration of Congress, and not finally settled, there being some articles on which I desired their judgment, and having some equitable demands, as I thought them, for extra services, which he had not conceived himself empowered to allow, and therefore I did not put them in my account. He transmitted the accounts to Congress, and had advice of their being received. On my arrival at Philadelphia one of the first things I did was to dispatch my grandson, William T. Franklin, to New York, to obtain a final settlement of those accounts; he having long acted as my secretary, and being well acquainted with the transactions, was able to give an explanation of the articles that might seem to require explaining, if any such there were. He returned without effecting the settlement, being told that it could not be made till the arrival of some documents expected from France. What those documents were I have not been informed, nor can I readily conceive, as all the vouchers existing there had been examined by Mr. Barclay; and I, having been immediately after my arrival engaged in the public business of this State, waited in expectation of hearing from Congress, in case any part of my accounts had been objected to.
"It is now more than three years that those accounts have been before that honorable body, and to this day no notice of any such objection has been communicated to me. But reports have for some time past been circulated here, and propagated in the newspapers, that I am greatly indebted to the United States for large sums that had been put into my hands, and that I avoid a settlement. This, together with the little time one of my age may expect to live, makes it necessary for me to request earnestly, which I hereby do, that the Congress would be pleased, without further delay, to examine those accounts; and if they find therein any article or articles which they do not understand or approve, that they would cause me to be acquainted with the same, that I may have an opportunity of offering such explanations or reasons in support of them as may be in my power, and then that the accounts may be finally closed.
"I hope the Congress will soon be able to attend to this business for the satisfaction of the public, as well as in condescension to my request. In the mean time, if there be no impropriety in it, I would desire that this letter, together with another relating to the same subject, the copy of which is hereto annexed, may be put upon their minutes.
"With every sentiment of respect and duty to Congress, I am, sir, &c.,
"B. Franklin."
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His courage never sank, no matter how great were the surrenders he had to make, or how dark might be the future.
When Hartley advised him, "if tempestuous times should come, take care of your own safety, events are troublesome and men may be capricious," the answer was, "I thank you for your kind caution, but having nearly finished a long life, I set but little value on what remains of it. Perhaps the best use such an old fellow can be put to is to make a martyr of him."*
[Note *: * Letter of April 23, 1778, supra.]
Hartley seems to have taken much credit to himself for this correspondence. Hutchinson thus writes on July 17, 1779:
"Mr. Bastard said to me to-day that Hartley the member told him that * * * in a note to Franklin he advised him to take care of himself. Franklin sent him an answer, that the caution brought to his mind the common language of a mercer, 'It is only a remnant, and therefore of little value.'" (2 Hutchinson's Diary, 268.)
His determination to maintain the cause in which he was embarked rose with the difficulties in its way. His attitude as to other lines of solicitation is illustrated in his letter to Wessenstein of July 1, 1778, as explained in the notes to that letter.
Of Franklin's life no one was a more competent or closer observer than Washington, and to Franklin, on September 25, 1785, shortly after his return to America, he wrote as follows:
"Amid the public gratulations on your safe return to America after a long absence, and the many eminent services you have rendered it, * * * permit an individual to join the public voice in expressing a sense of them, and to assure you that as no one entertains more respect for your character, so no one can salute you with more sincerity or with greater pleasure than I do on this occasion." (9 Franklin Papers, Bigelow's ed., 264.)
And shortly before Franklin's death Washington thus addressed him:
"If to be venerated for benevolence, if to be admired for talents, if to be esteemed for patriotism, if to be beloved for philanthropy, can gratify the human mind, you must have the pleasing consolation to know that you have not lived in vain. And I flatter myself that it will not be ranked among the least grateful occurrences of your life to be assured that, so long as I retain my memory, you will be recollected with respect, veneration, and affection by your sincere friend." (10 Franklin Papers, Bigelow's ed., 149.)
High intellectual gifts. § 114. Franklin is spoken of by Matthew Arnold as "a man who was the very incarnation of sanity and clear sense, a man the most considerable, it seems to me, whom America has yet produced." No American would assent to the last statement so far as concerns Washington; and, putting Washington aside, there are some who, on the question as to the "most considerable man," would postpone him to Hamilton, some who would postpone him to Jefferson. But be this as it may, we may without hesitation say that to sagacity which has rarely been equaled, to a fairness of judgment and equanimity of temper which neither flattery nor animosity could swerve, to a perception of the conditions of the times which enabled
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him best to utilize them for his country, he brought to the Revolution an administrative experience far greater than any man in the United States. There are few points of political or economical action as to which his judgment was not sound; there is no question as to which we can look upon him, at least in his later years, as influenced by ambition, or at any time of his life by fear or by greed. When he sailed for France in 1776, repose in the nature of things would have been his principal desire, and, as essential to that repose, peace in the political world. Of his tender attachment to England there can be no question. From England he had received, with one bitter denunciation, many honors and kindnesses. His son, to whom he was much attached, was a strong loyalist and royal governor of New Jersey. But in Franklin's judgment it was essential to freedom and to ultimate peace that the English yoke should be cast off, and though he abhorred war, yet he maintained that war should be waged until independence was secured. He devoted, with perfect courage, the remainder of his life to the work. He ran the risk of capture at sea. He repelled every inducement held out to him from England to give up France and to enter into relations with England, which would give the United States independence in everything but name. He seems never even to have contemplated these inducements, but he persevered in his course until a peace was agreed on which gave his country more than any dispassionate observer would have held it at the time possible to obtain.
The following volumes contain the letters written by him in this cause. It is questionable whether any diplomatic papers equal to them exist. They do not give, it is true, the exhaustive views of local politics which are to be found in Jay's letters from Spain, nor the elaborate summaries of European news to be found in the letters of Adams from Holland. They have not the element of gossip which made Malmesbury's Russian letters so entertaining, nor do they indulge in a rhetoric so majestic as that we meet in some instances in the papers of Webster. But for fitness for the purpose for which they were written, it may be questioned whether, taking them as a body, there are any diplomatic papers equal to them. They have nothing of what is called the diplomatic style, the "availing myself again of the opportunity to renew," etc., formularies of the mechanical diplomatist. But they are terse, simple, full of tact, always persuasive, always just in tone, always presenting the right reasons for what is asked or the right explanations for what is to be defended. And they abound in those epigrammatical expressions of duty as remarkable for wisdom as for wit, the authorship of which, taking all his publications together, have made Franklin of all men the one to whom proverbial philosophy in its best sense owes most.
Knowledge of existing political conditions. § 115. Of all men in public life Franklin was the most familiar, when he came to France as envoy, with the political conditions with which he had to deal. As postmaster-general
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he had traversed every inhabited section of the United States. He had been prominent in Pennsylvania politics for forty years, during which period he had been concerned in the various projects which were framed for alliance between the Colonies. He had been largely concerned in the raising and forwarding of men and supplies for the campaigns against France on the American shores, and to his sagacity and patriotism was largely due the success of those campaigns. Nor were his efforts confined to America. He had been agent for Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Georgia in England for a series of years. Perhaps there was no living man so familiar with and observant of English politics as was Franklin at the time when he left England finally in 1775. To France also his keen powers of observation and analysis were turned first as an antagonist during the war in which the Colonies joined with England against her, then as a visitor when he went to Paris in 1767 as an honored guest, then as an expectant ally when he went again to Paris in 1776.
Franklin's position in 1767--'68 is thus described by De Witt:
"His patriotism was as complicated as his functions. The agent of Georgia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in London, and at the head of the general post-office in America, he was at one and the same time a representative of colonial discontent and an English official; there was a moment when there was even a question of appointing him undersecretary of state for the Colonies, then filled by Lord Hillsborough, and he showed himself quite ready to accept this post conformably to his triple maxim, 'Never to ask a place, never to refuse a place, and never to resign one!' By position, therefore, he was an almost impartial intermediary between England and America, a peacemaker as tenacious as far-sighted, whose daily attempts at success in no degree trammeled his liberty of thought, and whose melancholy anticipations were unable to relax his perseverance. This was one of the great marks of his superiority; he could see in the future and live in the present. The separation he expected might probably be still remote; why should he not, while laboring to avoid it now, facilitate its progress and prolong the peace of the world." (De Witt's Jefferson, 59.)
A liberal constructionist. § 116. It has already been said that Franklin, as between the two schools of revolutionary statesmen, the "liberatives" on the one side and the "constructives" on the other, was eminently a "constructive."* Reorganization with him was a necessary element of destruction; he never sought to pull down a political edifice without speculating what he should put in its place. We have this strikingly illustrated in the aversion he showed in England to Wilkes, whom he regarded as a mere destructive, without any plans for future good government; and to this aversion may be in part traced the antagonisms between himself and the Wilkes school, as hereafter noticed. But here again a subdistinction is to be observed. Those engaged in a work of political republican construction fall themselves into two classes, those who would impose on the people a fixed code of unchangeable laws, and those who, after laying down a general republican constitution, leave the imposition of such laws as are necessarily
[Note *: * See supra, §§ 82 ff., 4.]
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fluctuating to be determined by popular conscience and polity as moulded by the condition of the times, and trusting far more to a creation of a right public conscience in matters of detail than to the force of prior absolute legislation. Of the latter school was Franklin, as the correspondence that follows abundantly shows. He was opposed to issuing paper money beyond the limit of the probable capacity of the country to redeem, and he was in favor of taxation to the utmost extent of the country to bear; yet in pressing this position on Congress through Morris he dwelt much more on the necessity of raising a right public sentiment as to debt paying than on the wisdom of any merely legislative action. He urged great economy in private life, and particularly the non-purchase of luxuries, but he objected to the system of sumptuary laws proposed by some of his colleagues. This same distinction was exhibited in 1777--'78 in our discussion with France as to the treaty of commerce then under consideration. West Indian molasses was then an article of great importance to New England, and a fear was felt that France, influenced by her colonists, at some moment of irritation might restrict its exportation. This danger Deane, a Connecticut man, expressed himself as feeling very keenly, and Franklin therefore proposed that France should bind herself not to impose in future any such restrictions. This, however, required some correlative restriction on the United States, and Franklin at once agreed to insert a clause binding the United States to impose no export duties on articles going to France, defending the clause not as a quid pro quo, but as the expression of a sound principle of political economy, that freedom of commerce should not be impaired by restrictions on exports of any kind whatsoever.*
[Note *: * Supra, § 46.]
In the negotiating of the same treaty as well as of subsequent treaties in which Franklin was concerned, the rule that free ships make free goods was affirmed; the privileges of privateers placed under specific limitations; the liberty for either party to trade with a nation at war with the other asserted; contraband goods so specified as to prevent the undue extension of the disability; reciprocal municipal rights assured to the subjects of the contracting parties; the right of search restricted; and sea letters made the basis of international protection, irrespective of municipal legislation. Though a belligerent, he strove uniformly for the protection of neutral rights, neutrality being the condition which he held should receive every construction of international law in its favor; though representing a country which had every opportunity and temptation to retaliate for the cruelties to which it was subjected under the guise of war, he did his best to establish a humane system of war, restraining its horrors and mitigating the discomforts of prisoners.† Thus while a "constructive" revolutionist, seeking to establish a new system in the place of the old he desired to set aside,
[Note †: † See, as to Franklin's position in this relation, supra, § 4.]
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the system which he sought to establish was one of liberty so far as consistent with the necessary prerogatives of the State. Probably in matters domestic his views of government found their best expression in the Constitution of the United States which he assisted in framing. It was to his sagacity and influence that we owe that compromise which represented the States in the Senate equally, and in the House in proportion to their population, by the adoption of which the Constitution was saved.
Franklin, in his striking comparison of the Jews and anti-Federalists,* which he issued when the federal Constitution was in discussion in Pennsylvania, took strong ground in favor of the jure divino necessity not of any particular government, but of some government by which liberty would be made secure; and the federal Constitution offering such security, he urged that it should not be defeated merely on account of the popular opposition to it. Such opposition he held should be looked on with suspicion when stimulated by men personally interested in merely local offices. We must at the same time remember that Franklin was a strong advocate of the laissez faire doctrine of political economy, and that the system he advocated was one which was to protect all lawful action of individuals free from government interference, and in which government was to do nothing for the people which the people could do for themselves.
[Note *: * "On the whole, it appears that the Israelites were a people jealous of their newly acquired liberty, which jealousy was in itself no fault, but when they suffered it to be worked upon by artful men, pretending public good with nothing really in view but private interest, they were led to oppose the establishment of the new Constitution, whereby they brought upon themselves much inconvenience and misfortune. * * * Popular opposition to a public measure is no proof of its impropriety even though the opposition be excited and headed by men of distinction." (9 Franklin Papers, Bigelow's ed., 438.)]
Alleged failure to appeal to high principle. § 117. But though thus making the morals and economies of private life to depend not upon legislation, but upon the conscience of individuals, Franklin's system may be regarded as defective in its want of appeal to the sanction of divine righteousness and justice. He bases his arguments in favor of frugality and industry and integrity and duty to the State, even of humanity in war as well as in peace, mainly on policy, though as to outrages in war we find him constantly invoking that sense of right which he regards as inherent in the human breast. Yet, while such was the case, we notice in him none of those appeals to a divine authority, the source of this sense of right, which adds such a glow and solemnity to the Declaration of Independence, to Chatham's speeches on the American war, to Webster's speeches on the Union; nor do we find any recognition of the sublime in political conception such as we meet with in the later publications of Burke. It is impossible also not to feel that so far as concerns the inculcation of the duties of economy and morality Franklin
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too closely restricts himself to his own country. When he addressed advice of this class to Morris as a basis on which the financial system of the United States was to rest he was living in Paris, in a scene where great purity and highmindedness on the part of the king, and great conscientiousness and courtesy on the part of Vergennes, were in painful contrast with the dissoluteness and profligacy of the nobility, and the gross oppression of the people as a mass. It is true that in shutting his eyes to such a spectacle, or at least declining to comment on it, he was following one of his own maxims, that that would be a clean town in which every one swept before his own door. Yet here was a cause in which all humanity was interested, and here was a nation whose hospitality Franklin was enjoying to an eminent degree, and here were flagrant violations of sound economy such as he would have vigorously warred against in his own land, and here was the rumbling underneath of a volcano of which it is hard to think that his exquisite perception could have been unconscious. It is at this point that he stands inferior to Jay, who when with him in Paris was so profoundly impressed with a consciousness of the perilous immorality of what was called society, with the recklessness with which domestic politics were managed, and with the mutterings of a storm which he could hear approach. Yet, deficient as may have been Franklin in the sense of the sublime in politics and in a cosmopolitan conception of political duty and in the recognition in his papers at this period of the Divine sanction, it must be remembered that it was from him that proceeded, on June 28, 1787, when the Constitutional Convention had been for more than two months occupied unavailingly with the question of State representation, the following resolution:
"That henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business; and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service."
In the course of his remarks on this resolution he said:
"In this situation of this assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the Divine protection! Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need its assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that GOD governs in the affairs of men! And if a sparrow can not fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little, partial,
31 WH
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local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a by-word down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest." (9 Franklin Papers, Bigelow's ed., 429.)
Such were Franklin's maturest views after a retrospect of the revolutionary struggle in which he took so important a part. And it may be possible to join the utilitarian basis of his political economy with these later views in the same way that Paley reconciled his theism with his utilitarianism, "Honesty is the best policy, because whatever in the long run succeeds must be right, while the misery attending wrong is a proof that it is a violation of the Divine law." Nor can it be maintained that Franklin sacrificed principle to what was temporarily politic. In several matters he pertinaciously contended for what he considered "right principle against the immediate policy of the United States. He strenuously objected to privateering, and this against not merely the prevalent sentiment, but the unquestionable policy of the United States. He opposed a navigation law, at a time when the temper of the people of the United States was roused to bitter retaliation by the order of council issued by the coalition ministry. He resisted the Fox scheme of recognition of independence as an insulated act, popular as that scheme was in the United States. And against the tenor of home advices and in antagonism to France, by whose political atmosphere he was surrounded, he insisted on the title of the United States to the Mississippi."*
[Note *: * 3 Dig. Int. Law, 2 ed., p. 921.]
In a letter from Franklin to Paine (date uncertain), Paine's skeptical views are vigorously controverted, and it is said:
"By the argument it contains against a particular Providence, though you allow a general Providence, you strike at the foundations of all religion." (9 Franklin Papers, Bigelow's ed., 354.)
Immense business done by him. § 118. Franklin's work in Paris can not be properly estimated without considering the administrative forces to which he was opposed. Europe was the center of action; it was in Europe that funds for carrying on the war were to be raised; it was in Europe that supplies for the armies of the United States were mainly to be obtained; it was in Europe that, in view of the impossibility of prompt communication with Congress, the diplomacy of the Revolution was to be moulded; it was in the ports of France, of Spain, of Holland, that American privateers were fitted out, and to them that they brought back their prizes; it was in Europe that all admiralty questions relative to the United States were to be determined; it was in Europe also that the naval operations of these privateers were to be planned out. It was by Franklin alone that these various functions were exercised. When we examine the following pages we shall find that on his arrival in Europe until at least the treaty of peace he conducted almost exclusively the financial operations of the United States
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in Europe; that through him alone were loans obtained and to his hands alone were they paid. The exhaustion of the home resources of Congress, which became complete in 1781, made it necessary to go abroad for aid, and it soon became plain that from France alone could aid come. No nonbelligerent power would voluntarily forfeit the great commercial advantages of neutrality by advancing funds to America when such supply would be at once followed by a declaration of war by Britain. Hence it was on Franklin alone, as the sole American minister with whom France would treat, that Congress was obliged to rely for payment of the innumerable bills it drew on Europe; and though they were directed sometimes to Jay, sometimes to Adams, sometimes to Laurens, yet on Franklin, and through him on France, was the appeal to be ultimately made. Franklin, therefore, was in 1781 and 1782 European fiscal agent of Congress, on whom it was obliged almost exclusively to rely for funds. In addition to these diplomatic and financial functions, which put him in the position of a secretary of state and of a secretary of the treasury, he had to exercise the functions of a secretary of war in the selection and forwarding supplies, of a secretary of the navy in supervising the fitting out and regulation of privateers numerous enough to scour all the European waters, and of a supreme admiralty judge in determining prize questions in which these privateers were concerned and in adjusting the almost innumerable controversies in which those concerned in these privateers were engaged.* And it was on Franklin alone that fell the enormous labor of keeping the accounts connected with these various departments of administration.
[Note *: * As an illustration of this may be noticed the correspondence in the index under the titles Jones and Landais.]
The functions thus exercised by Franklin were of the same general character as those which in England are exercised by the chancellor of the exchequer, the secretaries for foreign affairs, the admiralty board, the war secretaries, and the courts of admiralty. Each of these departments of the British ministry was at that time furnished not merely with competent secretaries, but the heads of departments were in the habit of free conference with associates who from political necessity were their political friends. But Franklin's own secretary was his grandson, who, however good he might be as a copyist, could not draft a paper. And during a part of the period in which he was burdened with these immense responsibilities he had with him colleagues who were ready to overrule him in all matters that were in their power. Thus in 1778 Arthur Lee and Adams removed from the agency at Nantes Jonathan Williams, to whose eminent public services and great capacity reference will be hereafter made,† and put at the head of that agency, with disastrous consequences, William Lee, with a younger member of the Lee family as associate. This action, when Franklin found a majority was against him, he acquiesced in for the sake of peace; and
[Note †: † Infra, § 186 ff.]
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so it was as to other matters which his colleagues had within their power. But on the great question of the foreign relations of the United States, it made no matter whether he was alone or surrounded by unfriendly colleagues; it was only through him that negotiations could be carried on with France, for to him alone could the French Government commit itself with the consciousness theft the enormous confidences reposed in him would be honorably guarded.
Neither indolent nor dissipated. § 119. Among the charges addressed by Arthur Lee and Izard to Congress, as given in the following pages,* are those not merely of idleness, but of gross dissipation. Even in a letter of December 7, 1778, from John Adams to Samuel Adams, then a leading member of Congress, we have the following: "I know also, and it is necessary you should be informed, that he is overwhelmed with a correspondence from all quarters, mostly on trifling subjects, and in a more trifling style; and with unmeaning visits from multitudes of people, chiefly from the vanity of having it to say that they have seen him. There is another thing which I am obliged to mention; there are so many private families, ladies and gentlemen, that he visits so often, and they are so fond of him, that he can not well avoid it, and so much intercourse with academicians, that all these things together keep his mind in a constant state of dissipation."† If Samuel Adams, whose austere soul was naturally shocked by such a narrative as the above, had read Franklin's private correspondence, as we are now able to do, he would have been able to relieve himself from the unfavorable impressions of Franklin which this letter produced, since there is no public man whose correspondence on business is fuller and more thorough than that preserved of Franklin; nor can a letter written by him on matters outside of business be spoken of as without weight. Franklin's letter-book, now deposited in the Department of State, not only contains no such "trifling" letters, but it includes a mass of letters so pregnant, so elaborate, so exact on matters of business--of domestic policy, of diplomacy, of admiralty, sometimes of physical science and literature--as to exclude the idea that there could have been another set of letters of the "trifling" type issuing from the same pen. There can be no question, also, that Adams more or less fully received as true the charge of sexual immorality made against Franklin by Arthur Lee. Yet we have a right, in view of Franklin's age, the maladies under which he was suffering, the immense load of business resting on him, to conclude that this charge of immorality is as unfounded as the charge of keeping up a "trifling" correspondence. It so happens that we have in Stormont's correspondence with Weymouth, during the period when Stormont and Franklin were in Paris, quite an accurate statement of Franklin's
[Note *: * See index, title Arthur Lee, Izard, Franklin.]
[Note †: † 1 Hale's Franklin in France, 229; 9 Mag. of Amer. History, 467.]
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evening engagements in Paris. Often Franklin dined out; on Sunday he always, when well, had company at home. But there were certain secret and well-masked engagements to account for which much puzzled his suspicious colleagues. Stormont reports that his spies penetrated through even this disguise, and that the evening engagements to which so much mystery had been attached were "assignations" to meet Vergennes or his confidential agents.* Before the eyes of Arthur Lee the curtain may have been drawn more closely from the fact that the distrust felt towards him by the French Government was such as to make them unwilling that he should be acquainted with their secret plans. As to the charge of undue conviviality, we may remember Lord Palmerston's statement, when examined before a committee of the House of Commons on diplomatic expenses, that conversations which end in beneficent treaties are more likely to be begun, and professional or national acerbities to be removed, in social intercourse than in any other way. And, however this may be, so far from undue conviviality being chargeable on Franklin, there can be no question that he did more by the grace and benignity of his manners, his freedom from egotism and his wonderful skill in presenting what he wanted to say in the most homely and winning shape, when these gifts were exercised in conversation, than he could have done if he had exercised them exclusively in writing.
[Note *: * Thus "Gerard goes to Passy in the night, and Franklin and Deane make Vergennes nightly visits at Versailles." (Stormont to Weymouth, Sparks Papers, Harvard College, vol. 89.)]
Arthur Lee's reports to Congress as to Franklin's dissipated habits were prob ably based on information derived by him from Thornton, his private secretary, a British spy, one of whose duties, prescribed by his British principals, seems to have been to bear to Arthur Lee any rumors, true or false, which might tend to injure Franklin, and in this way to impair Franklin's influence.
Among the papers thus given by Thornton to Arthur Lee, and deposited for safekeeping among the Lee papers in the University of Virginia, is a memorandum of January 8, 1778, marked No. 120, in which the "wife of egg, Lord Stormont's courier," is quoted as having given a not very decorous construction to Franklin's evening visits. Yet Lord Stormont himself, as we elsewhere have seen,† reports their visits as political, not social.
[Note †: † Supra, § 119.]
Still more characteristic is the following, which appears among the Lee papers at Harvard College:
"London, May 7th, 1778.
"You have a list of the fleet which is ordered to sail the 11th & to proceed to America, those ships are completely maund. I got the names & the day of their sailing from R.'s Lady; she coud not tell me no other name than a Madame Lamberty, who lives in Paris & an intimate of Dr. Franklin's intimate--that Lord Stormond had got several intelligence from her while the treaty was in agitation & had had several of the articles as well as many papers, but what surprises me more, she told me of the reason you were so soon acknowledged & repeated verbatim what Mr. R. had told her. she has brought me some letters directed to Mr. R. but no name--vizt 'That Capt. Jones had in view to strike a stroke against the Enemy that might be greatly
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to their Dammage, but in its nature not probably profitable to his Ships Company, unless some reward be received from Congress adequate to its service. That in case that the good and gallant behavior of the people under his Command of their punctual obedience to his orders we will recommend them warmly to Congress for a generous gratification' Signd F. D. L. 'The account of the Cutter sailing with Dispatches' The Convoy France has granted under the command of la Motte Pignet. The quantity of arms Cloathing sent. The money Spain has agreed to tarnish you thro the Havannah this year. The Count de Vergennes letter 24 Angst 1777-- 'vos amis ne sent ni justes ni honetes' &a, &n--Supplies granted by France from Feby 1777 to Octr following 2 millions livres D? by the Farmers Genls to be repaid in tobacco. 1 D? Part of the letter dated Passy Docr 8th 1777 vizt Their grateful acknowledgements to the King of France from the additional aid of 3 millions which he has been graciously pleased to procure them & that his Majesty may be assured what ever engagements others may enter into in behalf of the U. S. in pursuant of the full powers vested with them the most punctual good faith by the Congress &n &a this is in a copy of a memorial she shewd.
"She also shewd me a letter vizt 5 March 1778 the Commissioners have requested that the treaty might be made public, his answer the great uncertainty of its being ratifyd by the Congress & should they publish it in Europe & it shd be rejected in America it woud subject France to infinite Difficulties. I had not time to take the full copies, she has promised that when he goes to the Country for a day or two, that she will secreet some papers & then I shall have what copies I phrased. I gave her the watch & have promised her the Pick tooth case for which I have given 6 Guineas."
Stormont's correspondence with Weymouth shows that the above statement is incorrect in every particular. Stormont did not have any of the articles of the treaty in his hands until after its contents were disclosed in England through Fox's statement in the House of Commons, which statement was made under Franklin's advice by friends of the American cause. Stormont also, while he kept spies enough about Franklin, so far from claiming to have obtained information through "Dr. Franklin's intimate" and "Mr. R.'s lady," states that while he has had all Franklin's goings out and comings in watched, the secret meetings held by Franklin were, as has been already stated, with political French agents, who sought such interviews to avoid publicity. But the letter above given is of interest as showing not merely the efforts of the British Government to obtain Franklin's disgrace at home, but the intensity of the monomania which impelled Arthur Lee to employ his own secretary as a detective to effect such disgrace. This letter, retained by Arthur Lee and indorsed by him and now among those of his papers deposited at Harvard College, is probably the "proof" referred to by Arthur Lee in one of the letters printed in the following pages of Franklin's subjection to unworthy female influence and of his consequent betrayal of state secrets.
Franklin's mistake was his not insisting on a competent secretary. He was, as we have seen, neither indolent nor dissipated, but as he grew older he became less and less inclined to do any work which was not necessary, or permit himself to be agitated by difficulties which were insurmountable. His fondness for his grandson made him adverse to having the latter's place occupied by a secretary of experience and ability, who, while following Franklin's policy, might have saved him from much friction, and, by proper and prompt explanations, have very much lessened the opposition of those who thought themselves neglected by the great diplomatist himself. This want of a secretary of legation who, while industrious and accomplished, would have been loyal to Franklin, was the great defect of our diplomatic revolutionary
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system. More than one minister at Paris we did not need. But as Vergennes maintained, when arguing against vesting diplomatic authority in a board of three, such a legation as that of the United States in Paris required a secretary of the legation to carry on the minister's work.
His success as a diplomatist. § 120. "It must be remembered that to him we owe two treaties, that with France of 1778, and with Great Britain of 1782--'83, which are at once the most beneficial and the most widely and continuously effective of any which are recorded in history; and that these treaties were negotiated by him with colleagues at his side who at least gave him no help, and with no powerful sovereign to back him; himself a plain man, with no diplomatic training, adopting neither in conversation nor in correspondence the formulas of diplomatic science. Yet nowhere in the annals of diplomacy do we find documents so admirably adapted to their object, in simplicity and power of style, in political skill, in dexterity and force of argument, as those which during his Paris service sprung from his pen; nowhere such extraordinary results. The ablest of our older negotiators, next to Franklin, was Gallatin; yet it is impossible to examine Gallatin's dispatches during the negotiations of 1814--'15 and of 1818 without seeing how far he falls behind Franklin, at least in result, if not in style. Conspicuous diplomatists were at the Congress of Vienna--Talleyrand, Metternich, Castlereagh, Nesselrode. Yet the treaties they drew were in a few years torn to tatters, and, when they were still in force, were conspicuous chiefly for their perfidious denial to the peoples of Europe of liberties their sovereigns had previously pledged. Canning had great abilities as a secretary for foreign affairs, yet in his boast that he called a New World into existence to restore the equipoise of the Old, he claimed what belonged to Franklin, for it was Franklin who, in obtaining from all the legitimate sovereigns of Europe the recognition of a republic in the New World which had revolted from one of them, made it possible for this equipoise to be restored. But Franklin did more than this. By the treaties he negotiated with France and England not only was a liberal revolutionary government in the New World for the first time sanctioned by the legitimate sovereigns of Europe, but the United States, with boundaries sufficient to make a first-class power, was able, before her national spirit and love of liberty had been subjected to the strain which would have been imposed by a further continuance of war, to establish a government both free and constitutional. And of all treaties that have ever been negotiated, that of 1782--'83 is the one, as we have seen, which has produced the greatest blessings to both contracting parties, has been of the greatest benefit to civilization as a whole, and has been least affected by the flow of time."*
[Note *: * 3 Dig. Int. Law, 2d ed., 919, ff.]
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His high reputation promotive of his success. § 121. "It would be difficult," says Count Ségur,* "to describe the eagerness and delight with which the American envoys, the agents of a people in a state of insurrection against their monarch, were received in France, in the bosom of an ancient monarchy. Nothing could be more striking than the contrast between the luxury of our capital, the elegance of our fashions, the magnificence of Versailles, the still brilliant remains of the monarchical pride of Louis XIV, and the polished and superb dignity of our nobility, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the almost rustic apparel, the plain but firm demeanor, the free and direct language of the envoys, whose antique simplicity of dress and appearance seemed to have introduced within our walls, in the midst of the effeminate and servile refinement of the eighteenth century, some sages contemporary with Plato, or republicans of the age of Cato and of Fabius. This unexpected apparition produced upon us a greater effect in consequence of its novelty, and of its occurring precisely at the period when literature and philosophy had circulated amongst us an unusual desire for reforms, a disposition to encourage innovations, and the seeds of an ardent attachment to liberty."
[Note *: * 2 Patron's Franklin, 211.]
Jefferson, who argued that it spoilt an American diplomatist to keep him abroad seven years, said this did not apply to Franklin, who was America itself when in France, not subjecting himself to French influence, but subjecting France to American influence.
His consequent influence in France. § 122. "His (Franklin's) reputation," said John Adams at the time when Franklin's French duties were beginning, "was more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire, and his character more beloved and esteemed than any or all of them. * * * His name was familiar to government and people, to foreign countries, nobility, clergy, and philosophers, as well as plebeians to such a degree that there was scarcely a peasant or a citizen, a valet de chambre, coachman or footman, a lady's chambermaid or a scullion in a kitchen, who was not familiar with it, and who did not consider him a friend to humankind. * * * If a collection could be made of all the gazettes of Europe for the latter half of the eighteenth century a greater number of panegyrical paragraphs upon le grand Franklin would appear, it is believed, than upon any other man that ever lived."†
[Note †: † 1 John Adams' Works, 660.]
In a letter to Franklin of July 17, 1780, Jay says: "France, I know, has already done great things for us, and is still making glorious exertions. I am also sensible of your difficulties and respect them, though I am happy in reflecting that since they must exist they have fallen into the hands of one whose abilities and influence will enable him to sustain them at a court which does not appear inclined to do things by halves."‡
[Note ‡: ‡ Franklin Papers, Department of State.]
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"Meanwhile," says a leading French historian, "the other glory of America, Franklin, had quitted his country (America) in order the better to serve it. After aiding in framing the immortal Declaration he had set out to gain the French alliance. * * * The United States had admirably chosen their plenipotentiary. Sprung from those working classes brought to light and elevated in public opinion by Diderot, not a Protestant like the great body of his countrymen, but a philosophic Deist of an intermediate shade between Voltaire and Rousseau; a physicist of the first order in this age, so much enamored with the natural sciences; as simple in his manners and costume as Jean-Jacques and his heroes, yet the wittiest and most acute of men; of a mind wholly French in tone and grace; a marvellous mixture of probity and ability, both in the highest degree; at once the great man of antiquity in certain aspects and pre-eminently the man of modern times; redeeming as far as possible what he lacked in ideality by that excellent moral equilibrium which he had in common with Washington, but more varied, more comprehensive, and less austere than the latter, he was adapted to captivate, as he captivated the France of the eighteenth century, by all his sentiments and all his ideas. He won the wise men by the good sense of his genius; the enthusiasts by the brilliancy of his rôle; the frivolous by the originality of his position and appearance."*
[Note *: * 2 Martin's Decline of French Monarchy, 379.]
According to Parton† the sum total of the money obtained from France at the solicitation of Franklin was twenty-six millions of francs: in 1777, two millions; in 1778, three millions; in 1779, one million; in 1780, four millions; in 1781, ten millions; in 1782, six millions. These aids were given at a time when France herself was at war, and while the minister of France, M. Necker, constantly opposed the grants.‡ The only one of the American envoys in Paris in whom M. de Vergennes put any confidence was Franklin.§ In Vergennes' letters to Congress, given hereafter, under date of December 4, 1780, and February 14, 1781, he in the strongest language attributes to Franklin success in his negotiations with France which the course of Arthur Lee and Izard if it had prevailed would have made impossible.∥ In a confidential letter of Vergennes to Luzerne, of February 15, 1784, which is the more significant from the fact that it was not meant for the eye of Congress, we have the following:
[Note †: † 2 Parton's Franklin, 391.]
[Note ‡: ‡ See to same effect 2 Martin's Decline of French Monarchy, 387; 4 Garden, Histoire des trai?és de paix, 301, 387.]
[Note §: § Note by Mr. Donne to Lord North's Correspondence with George III, 2, 370.
The sensation produced by Franklin's arrival in Paris is described with great vivacity and circumstantiality by Doniol, 2, 99 ff.]
[Note ∥: ∥ 2 Patron's Franklin, 391, note.]
"We think that Congress has acted wisely in recalling most of its agents in Europe; their character is too little conciliatory and their heads too much excited to admit of their
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being useful to their country. The calmness and the prudence of Mr. Franklin are certainly grave faults in their eyes; but it is by these qualities that this minister has inspired us with confidence. I do not believe that the superior services which this minister has rendered to his country will be requited; I can say that it will be very difficult for Congress to replace him." (1 Bancroft's History of the Constitution, 341.)
Feared and courted in England. § 123. Franklin, as a political power, was at least as highly estimated in England as in France. In George III's correspondence with North and Shelburne, Franklin is repeatedly spoken of as the one authoritative diplomatic representative of the Revolution. When men of position were sent from London to Paris to pave the way for peace, the question was who would be acceptable to Franklin, and for this purpose men of high character, such as Hartley, Hutton, Walpole, and Oswald, were selected; and it is creditable both to Franklin's sagacity and to his integrity that only men of this high tone were sent to him. Wedderburn's attack seems even to have increased the reverence with which Franklin was regarded by at least a large portion of the public. "In such language as this did this insolent lawyer speak of the profound philosopher, of the noble-hearted patriot, of the delightful social companion, of the tolerant politician, of the most illustrious, next to Washington, of the founders of the great American Republic, of the 'new Prometheus,' who in the words of the beautiful modern Latin verse--
"'Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis.'"*
[Note *: * 1 Jesse's Memoirs of George III, 550; to same effect see 7 Cunningham's Walpole, 97.
The feeling of bitterness towards Wedderburn grew in intensity as the war went on even among those who most applauded his speech when it was delivered. Even George III spoke of him as the most mischievous villain in England.]
"Of all the celebrated persons," said Sir Samuel Romilly, who met Franklin in 1783, "whom in my life I have chanced to see, Dr. Franklin, both from his appearance and his conversation, seemed to me the most remarkable. His venerable, patriarchal appearance, the simplicity of his manner and language, and the novelty of his observations, at least the novelty of them at that time to me, impressed me with an opinion of him as of one of the most extraordinary men that ever existed."†
[Note †: † 1 Romilly's Life, 50.
The anxiety felt by the English minister on Franklin's arrival is well illustrated in 2 Doniol, 102. He was of more value to the Americans, so it was said, than all the privateers they had sent out.]
Of Franklin's status in England Horace Walpole's letters, after allowing on the one side for his strong whig ties and on the other side for the antagonism of his character and tastes to those of Franklin, form a good test.
December 14, 1776.--"Dr. Franklin, at seventy-two, is arrived in a frigate at Nantes, and has brought in two prizes that he took in his way. He was to be in Paris on Saturday night. He left everything quiet in America on the 30th of October." (6 Cunningham's Walpole, 397.)
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December 20, 1776.--"As nearly as I can make out, Dr. Franklin must have sailed a day or two after Washington's retreat, and therefore it is natural to conclude that he is come to tell France that she must directly interpose and protect the Americans, or that the Americans must submit to such terms as they can obtain." (Id., 398.)
January 24, 1777.--"It does not appear yet that Dr. Franklin has persuaded France to espouse America openly." (Id., 407.)
August 11, 1777.--"France sits by and laughs; receives our remonstances, sends us an ambassadress, and winks on Dr. Franklin. That is all the comfort she will give us." (Id., 467.)
December 11, 1777.--"Lord North yesterday declared he should during the recess prepare to lay before the Parliament proposals of peace to be offered to the Americans. I trust we have force enough to bring forward an accommodation. These were his very words. * * * Were I Franklin, I would order the cabinet council to come to me at Paris with ropes about their necks and then kick them back to St. James." (7 Cunningham's Walpole, 14.)
February 18, 1778.--"Who can believe what I have read in the papers to-day? That one Hutton, a Moravian, has been dispatched to Paris to fling himself at Dr. Franklin's feet and sue for forgiveness. It is said that the man fell on the doctor's neck with tears and implored peace. What triumph on one side! What humiliation on the other! Will princes still listen to those vile flatterers, who fascinate them with visions of empire that terminate in such mortification? For the philosopher replied, 'It is too late.'" (Id., 32.)
March 10, 1778.--"Dr. Franklin boasts that Philadelphia will be starved into a Burgoyneism." (Id., 40.)
May 12, 1778.--"Unless sudden inspiration should seize the whole island of Britain and make it with one voice invite Dr. Franklin to come over and new model the government, it will crumble away in the hands that still hold it." (Id., 65.)
June 3, 1778.--"France is very glad we have grown such fools, and soon saw that the Presbyterian Dr. Franklin had more sense than our ministers together." (Id., 76.)
July 18, 1778.--"Dr. Franklin, thanks to Mr. Wedderburn, is at Paris. Every way I turn my thoughts the returns are irksome. What is the history of a fallen empire?" (Id., 97.)
April 24, 1779.--"Unable to raise the sums we want for the war, the members of that Parliament that is told so are yet occupied in preying on the distresses of the government. What comments must Dr. Franklin make on every newspaper to the French ministers." (Id., 196.)
June 16, 1779.--"The town has wound up the season perfectly in character by a fête at the Pantheon by subscription. * * * There is another person, one Dr. Franklin, who, I fancy, is not sorry that we divert ourselves so well." (Id., 210.)
April 25, 1781.--"Unfortunately, Dr. Franklin was a truer politician (than Dundas) when he said he would furnish Mr. Gibbon with materials for writing the History of the Decline of the British Empire." (8 Id., 30.)
October 1, 1782.--"Have you seen in the papers the excellent letter of Paul Jones to Sir Joseph Yorke? * * * Dr. Franklin himself, I should think, was the author. It is certainly written by a first-rate pen, and not by a common man of war." (Id., 286.)
November 10, 1782.--"Western Europe has upon the whole made but a foolish figure of late either in policy or arms. We have flung away men, money, and thirteen provinces. France has been spiteful, to gain nothing but the honor of mischief. Spain has been bombastically unsuccessful, and Holland has betrayed imbecility in every light. Dr. Franklin may laugh at us, but surely he can not reverence his allies." (Id., 305.)
July 1, 1790.--"How frantically have the French acted and how rationally the Americans. But Franklin and Washington are great men." (9 Id., 247.)
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Burke also paid tribute to Franklin as having made "such astonishing exertions in the cause which you espouse," and as deeply versed in human nature and human morals, and as "the philosopher, the friend, and the lover of his species."*
[Note *: * Infra, § 197.]
No sovereign in Europe was watched with greater interest or regarded as wielding a more supreme authority than was Franklin by English politicians as the war progressed. There was scarcely a correspondent of his in England who was not applied to by the ministry to sound him as to the terms he would accept; and when it was found that independence was the sine qua non, two of his most intimate friends were selected to arrange with him the treaty of peace.
Sympathies as between France and England. § 124. "Franklin's sympathies, as between England and France, were much discussed by his colleagues, and have been much discussed subsequently. Adams and Jay, as we will see, at first thought he was ready to speak too deferentially to England, and then that he was disposed too much to smooth over matters with France. The truth was that while his colleagues were ready to say rough things to both France and England, he was ready to say rough things to neither. And so far as concerns his personal relations, his past is to be considered. He undoubtedly had been much flattered in France, and pleasantly accepted the courtesies which were part of this flattery. But this flattery, it must be remembered, came not from the government but rather from philosophical illuminati who had nothing in common with the government, or from political enthusiasts, like La Fayette, who took up the American cause, not, as did Vergennes, as a means of redress for injuries inflicted on France by England, but from a love of liberty and of revolution, which Vergennes abhorred. There is nothing, in fact, in the way of extraordinary personal compliment from the French Government to Franklin to be found among his papers, generous as was the aid they contributed through him to his country. On the other hand, it is questionable whether there is an instance in history of homage paid to the emissary of revolted and still belligerent subjects such as that paid by three successive British administrations to Franklin. Fox, secretary of foreign affairs, sent to him Grenville with a letter of introduction couched in terms of singular conciliation. Shelburne sent to him Oswald, on the ground that Oswald had large American interests, and held the same views on political economy as Franklin; while Franklin was informed that the cabinet was agreed that if another negotiator would be more acceptable to Franklin, such negotiator should be sent. When Shelburne succeeded Rockingham, Oswald was continued at his post, with letters from Shelburne and from Thomas Townshend (who followed Shelburne in charge of the Colonies) expressive, with constantly increasing earnestness, of the hope that Oswald would succeed in winning Franklin's
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confidence. And when the coalition ministry came in, instead of upsetting the peace, as might have been expected from the fact that they mounted into power by repudiating it, they sent to Paris David Hartley, an intimate friend of Franklin, to say that they accepted the preliminaries as the terms of a definite peace, intimating that, in order to assure Franklin of their sincerity, they had given plenipotentiary powers for the purpose to one with whom he was known to have been associated by the tenderest ties. If Franklin retained bitter animosities towards England in consequence of the insults heaped on him by Wedderburn in the privy council, or of the vituperation which had afterwards been poured on him by the British press, certainly time, old age, and a temper on his part naturally benignant, coupled with such extraordinary attentions from ministries representing the British king, would have soothed such animosities.
"But it can not be said, after an inspection of his papers, that these animosities swayed his course. He undoubtedly remembered that, not many months before, Lord Stormont, British minister at Paris, had said, in reply to a respectful communication from the American commissioners, that he would receive from rebels no communication unless in terms of surrender. He undoubtedly also remembered the cruelties by which the British arms in America had been stained; the employment of Hessians in a mere mercenary warfare; the instigation of atrocious Indian onslaughts. He could not have forgotten that the war had been protracted by the false information and the inflammatory appeals with which the refugees in England had filled the ears of those in power. He could not have forgotten any of these conditions, yet they appear to have receded from his eyes with the single exception of the conduct of the refugees as a class,--conduct which he thought disbarred them from any claim for indemnity from the United States. And on this topic he expressed himself with far more tenderness than did Jay, who declared that some at least of the refugees 'have far outstripped savages in perfidy and cruelty,'* and who in such cases justified confiscation, if not more condign punishment. But Franklin, while thus looking on the refugees as among the main causes of the obstinacy with which the war was persisted in and as continual industrious fomenters in England of animosity to the United States, found nevertheless in England friends not only the most cherished but most sympathetic with him in those views of political economy he held to so tenaciously. And with all his just gratitude to France, there is no doubt that in 1782 he looked forward to a permanent alliance between the United States and Great Britain, as affording, when based on sound economical principles, the prospect of greater benefit to the United States and to mankind in general than would be such an alliance with any other power. If, in Franklin's letters subsequent to the final determination of the peace, he speaks bitterly of probable British aggression, it must be remembered
[Note *: * 1 Jay's Life, 162.]
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that these letters were written after the defeat of Pitt's reciprocity bill, and after the issue by Fox and North of the order in council 'shutting off the United States from West Indian trade.'*
[Note *: * 3 Dig. Int. Law, 2d ed., 915 ff.]
On this question Jefferson thus wrote:
"As to the charge of subservience to France, besides the evidence of his friendly colleagues before named, (Jay, Deane, and Laurens,) two years of my own service with him at Paris, daily visits, and the most friendly and confidential conversations convince me it had not a shadow of foundation. He possessed the confidence of that government in the highest degree, insomuch that it may be truly said that they were more under his influence than he was under theirs. The fact is, that his temper was so amiable and conciliatory, his conduct so rational, never urging impossibilities or even things unreasonably inconvenient to them, in short, so moderate and attentive to their difficulties as well as our own, that what his enemies called subserviency I saw as 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 certain of obtaining liberality and justice. Mutual confidence produces, of course, mutual influence, and was all which subsisted between Dr. Franklin and the Government of France." (7 Jefferson's Works, 109.)
His relations to Chaumont and Passy. § 125. Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, as we are told by Mr. John Bigelow in an interesting sketch in the Century Magazine for March, 1888, a house on whose estate at Passy was occupied by Franklin when in France, was at the time a gentleman of fortune, holding honorable offices under the French Government, and bearing to it confidential relations. Franklin was to pay nothing for the house in the way of rent, but it was said by Chaumont that he meant to accept a grant of land from the republic when it was established. It was not without hesitation that Franklin accepted, on terms amounting to a gift, a residence so spacious and so elegant, which had the additional advantages of taking him out of the continuous supervision of British spies and the occasional intrusion of cosmopolitan tourists. The probable inference is that the French ministry stood behind Chaumont in making the lease, and that Chaumont was simply the nominal party.
Beaumarchais was the nominal party by whom supplies were presented to America. It was important for France that Franklin should have a commodious residence, in some respects out of the reach of unfriendly inspection; and this residence, as a sort of diplomatic immunity, France supplied. Of course this was not to be a public matter, so as to be the subject of British complaint; but the want of publicity is entirely consistent with the hypothesis that the government was the landlord. And it is to be observed that after 1779 Franklin never refers to Chaumont as the party to whom he was indebted for the house. So far from this, his letters after that date speak of Chaumont as of a person of whom in business matters he was entirely independent:
"I find that in these affairs with him (Chaumont) a bargain, though ever so clearly expressed, signifies nothing. One is no sooner engaged by a tempting proposition but
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changes begin to be proposed in the terms, and these follow one after another till one is quite bewildered." (Franklin to Williams, Jan. 15, 1781; Franklin's letterbook.)
On January 20, 1781, he speaks to Williams of Chaumont's desperate insolvency; and on January 22, 1781, he writes as follows:
"On the whole, I hope the destruction of his (Chaumont's) credit will do him no harm; it may prevent his excessively numerous and hazardous adventures; and if his estate be as it is represented, he can sit down upon it and live without trading."
For one sovereign to assign a residence to the representative of another is not unusual; and so far from such an assignment in the present case being humiliating, it was, supposing it to be in any shape from the government, one of the most delicate and generous ways in which the ministry, without breach of neutrality, could give prudent aid to the republic. And then there was no question that, even putting this action of the government out of sight, to Chaumont, a man then of wealth, a "philosopher," fond of social distinction, desirous of pleasing the court, the having Franklin, the idol of society, the object of deep court interest, as a guest and a close neighbor, was, for the nine years' residence of Franklin, the source of infinite delight. And it was from Passy that, during these nine eventful years, Franklin's diplomatic papers, which determined the fate of two continents, were dated; it was there that his liberal hospitality was dispensed; it was there, according to Mr. Bigelow, that the first lightning rod was put up; it was there that were held conferences with statesmen and philosophers, for whose results the world of science as well as the world of politics watched with eager interest.
Of the house assigned to Franklin Mr. Bigelow thus speaks:
"The property, of which the house occupied by Franklin was only a dépendance, and which M. de Chaumont had then owned but a few months, had at one time belonged to the Duchesse de Valentinois, and was still known as the Hôtel Valentinois. On this considerable estate were two dwellings, one known and described in the conveyances as le grand and the other as le petit hôtel. The larger was occupied by M. de Chaumont, and the smaller was for the remainder of his sojourn in France the residence of Franklin."
And of the immediate neighborhood:
"The quarter of Passy where Franklin took up his abode ranked in those days among the most attractive in the environs of Paris, and is far from owing all its interest, in the eyes even of American readers, to its having been for so many years the residence of their first diplomatic representative. It was the residence of the Marquis de Pontainvilliers, the Prevost of Paris and Lord of Passy; of the illustrious and unfortunate Princesse de Lamballe, whose chateau was still standing under the Second Empire: and of the Marshal d'Estaing, whose name is so honorably associated with our Revolution. Then at Auteuil, adjoining Passy, was the residence of Madame Helvetius, whose house was the resort of all the political celebrities of France, and to whom, because of the judicious patronage she extended to people of letters, Franklin gave the name of Notre Dame d'Auteuil. To this circle no person seems to have been admitted upon a more intimate footing than Franklin. There was even a tradition that he had offered himself to her in marriage. Of this, however, there is no evidence, nor even probability. It was the most attractive salon in Paris; one to which Napoleon on his return from Italy sought, but unsuccessfully,
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to secure admission. We need look no further for an explanation of Franklin's devotion to its presiding genius. If anything were yet wanting to make Passy fashionable it was to be found in the royal chateau of La Muette, which was a favorite resort of the king. It was from here that he dated the popular edict which suppressed the Don de joyeux Avénement. At La Muette was a laboratory constructed by Louis XV and enlarged by his successor. Franklin was often there with his friends Le Roy and the Abbé la Roche, both members of the Academy of Sciences, prosecuting his experiments in electricity, on the weight of the atmosphere, etc. Passy was also endowed by nature with a mineral spring renowned in those days for its medicinal properties, and which served as another veil to Franklin's real purpose--he being something of an invalid--in accepting the hospitalities of M. de Chaumont. This spring was the property of a M. le Veillard, first mayor of Passy, with whom Dr. Franklin contracted a great intimacy and life-long friendship."
"Franklin's life here [at Passy] seemed to some of the American travelers too luxurious; but the French criticism was not so severe. 'To luxury [as had marked the chateau in old times] there succeeded modesty, and to all the extravagance of vice the most frugal simplicity. The minister was usually dressed in a coat of chestnutcolored cloth, without any embroidery. He wore his hair without dressing it, used large spectacles, and carried in his hand a white staff of crab-apple stock. Whoever saw him would not have thought him to be an ambassador, but a peasant of distinguished appearance.' With reference to this remark, which appears in more than one French author of that and of succeeding times, it is to be said that Franklin knew as well as any man when full-dress was required, and was as unwilling as any man to undervalue social restrictions." (2 Hale's Franklin in France, 2.)
From what we have seen of Mr. Adams and Mr. Arthur Lee it can be readily understood that they were not likely to exercise that fascination over Chaumont which Franklin exercised, nor would they have by their celebrity added to the social distinction by which Chaumont was attracted, nor would they have contributed by their tact and gracefulness to the comfort of a common establishment. It was never suggested that Franklin did not do his best to make his colleagues at ease in the spacious establishment at the head of which he was placed. But John Adams, feeling that the courtesy came to him through Franklin, and that he had no personal claims on Chaumont, wrote to Chaumont on September 16, 1778, a letter, apparently speaking for himself and his associates, in which he told Chaumont that they were unwilling to be indebted to him without knowing on what terms the debt was to be. The letter closed as follows:
"As you have an account against the commissioners, or against the United States, for several other matters, I should be obliged to you if you would send it in as soon as possible, as every day makes it more and more necessary for us to look into our affairs with the utmost precision.
"I am, sir, with much esteem and respect, etc.,
"John Adams."
Chaumont's reply was as follows:
"Passy, September 18, 1778.
"Sir: I have received the letter which you did me the honor to write to me on the 16th inst., making inquiry as to the rent of my house in which you live for the past and the future. When I consecrated my house to the use of Dr. Franklin and his associates who might share it with him, I made it fully understood that I should expect no compensation, because I perceived that you had need of all your means to send to the succor of your country, or to relieve the distresses of your countrymen
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escaping from the chains of your enemies. I pray you, sir, to permit this arrangement to remain, which I made when the fate of your country was doubtful. When she shall enjoy all her splendor, such sacrifices on my part will be superfluous or unworthy of her; but at present they may be useful, and I am happy in offering them to you.
"There is no occasion for strangers to be informed of my proceedings in this respect. It is so much the worse for those who would not do the same if they had the opportunity, and so much the better for me to have immortalized my house by receiving into it Dr. Franklin and his associates."
"There is no doubt," says Mr. Bigelow, commenting on the above, "that Mr. Adams' mind had been poisoned by his colleague, Arthur Lee, or he would never have written the letter of the 16th of September, which was more or less of a reflection upon his senior colleague, the practical head of the commission. However, he seems to have been entirely satisfied with the result, as all his subsequent relations with M. de Chaumont and his family abundantly testify. Not so, however, Arthur Lee. He was a sort of stormy petrel, only content in foul weather, and his determination to produce bad blood between Adams and Franklin was not abandoned."
Chaumont, as we learn from the following correspondence, was active in forwarding supplies to the United States with the understanding that there was to be no payment unless independence was achieved. He was concerned in the naval operations of John Paul Jones; he sent clothing in large quantities to La Fayette for distribution; he took part in a large shipment of powder to the United States at a time when powder was almost unattainable by the Continental troops.
That Chaumont's kindly feelings to Adams were not impaired by Adams' action in September, 1778, is shown by the fact that early in 1779, Adams still continuing to live under the roof of Franklin at Passy, Chaumont offered to Adams, who then was talking of his desire for country life, the use of a villa at Blessois. To this offer Adams made the following reply, as given by Mr. Bigelow:
To M. Le Ray de Chaumont.
"Passy, February 25, 1779.
"Sir: I have this moment the honor of your kind billet of this day's date, and I feel myself under great obligations for the genteel and generous offer of your house at Blessois; but if I do not put Dr. Franklin to inconvenience, which I shall not do long, my residence at Passy is very agreeable to me.
"To a mind as much addicted to retirement as mine the situation you propose would be delicious indeed, provided my country were at peace and my family with me; but, separated from my family and with an heart bleeding with the wounds of its country, I should be the most miserable being on earth in retreat and idleness. To America, therefore, in all events and at all hazards, I must attempt to go, provided I do not receive counter orders which I can execute with honor and with some prospect of advantage to the public service.
"I thank you, sir, and your agreeable family for all your civilities since my arrival at Passy, and have the honor to be, with great respect,
"Your most obedient and humble servant,
"John Adams."
32 WH
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In the following pages reference is made to the relations of Chaumont to Paul Jones. By Chaumont Paul Jones' outfit was in a large measure prepared, and though, as the papers show, they came frequently in conflict, yet Jones at the end acknowledged that Chaumont had endeavored to do justice to him in the very difficult situation in which they were placed.
However meritorious may have been Chaumont's claims for advances to the United States, they took their place among other claims, imperfectly vouched, which the Confederacy after peace found itself unable to pay.
Large tracts of land in the State of New York were purchased shortly after the war closed by Chaumont for himself and his friends. But the lands were badly situated, and the speculation ended in an insolvent assignment under circumstances which are detailed by Mr. Bigelow in the article above cited.
Relations to his colleagues. § 126. Franklin's relations to Adams, to Arthur and William Lee, and Izard are elsewhere specifically discussed, and have already been incidentally noticed.* With Deane he did but little in the way of concert. As soon as Franklin became familiar with his duties he assumed the entire management of the lega tion, Deane only taking charge of unfinished business and of matters of detail. With Jefferson, after his arrival, Franklin was on terms of affectionate intimacy. But the period when they were together was a period of repose, apparently all the more profound from its contrast with the tension and conflict by which it had been preceded. As to the position of his other colleagues we must keep in mind the following suggestions by Sparks:
[Note *: * See supra, § 15 ff.; infra, § 149.]
"His great fame and extraordinary character gained him much admiration and notice in France, and placed him in a sphere above his colleagues. As their powers in office were equal with his, it was natural that they should be annoyed by this marked distinction shown to him, particularly when taken in connection with his usual manners to them, which were evidently not the most conciliatory or courteous. He seemed willing to enjoy the meed of his fame without giving himself much trouble or concern about the social rank or public estimation of his associates. This may be accounted for in some sort by his advanced age and bodily infirmities, his habits of reserve in conversation, and his cold and cautious temperament." (North American Review, April, 1830, vol. 30, p. 507.)
We must, on the other hand, remember that when overruled by his colleagues he submitted with a tranquillity which relieved him from all suspicion of factious opposition. Thus by Adams and Arthur Lee he was outvoted, as we have seen, in the substitution for Williams of William Lee, in whose employment was Ludwell Lee, in the business agency at Nantes; and although he had reason to believe, as afterwards turned out to be the case, that the change would act badly, yet, feeling that an exposure of disagreement might be more dangerous to the
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country than would be a fruitless opposition on his part, he acquiesced. For the same reason he acquiesced in the action of Adams and Jay in withholding from France formal notice of the peace negotiations pending with Britain in 1782. Yet, though from time to time overruled, his influence, even when in a minority, was necessarily supreme. In him alone, among the several American envoys at Paris, did the French ministry put full confidence; and France, until almost the close of the Revolution, was the only European sovereignty by whom our national existence was recognized. And here may be studied the following striking remarks by Edward Everett:
"The alliance (with France) saved the United States; but how hardly was the alliance itself formed, and how often did it seem impossible to realize its fruits! The rarest conjuncture of persons and things was requisite and did in fact exist, but accompanied at the same time by other agents so ill qualified, and other events so untoward, that it would seem as if the good and evil genius of America had each his alternate day assigned him in controlling the march of things." (33 North American Review, 450.)
In following sections will be considered Franklin's relations to Arthur Lee and to Jay.*
[Note *: * Infra, §§ 149, 158.]
On December 4, 1818, Jefferson, then in extreme old age, thus wrote to Walsh:
"Dr. Franklin had many political enemies, as every character must which, with decision enough to have opinions, has energy and talent enough 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 Revolution, 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 malignity, 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 maintained towards him unlimited confidence and respect. That he would have waived the formal recognition of our independence I never heard on any authority worthy of notice." (7 Jefferson's Works, 108.)
The leading point of difference between Franklin on the one side, and Adams and Jay on the other side, was as to the binding character of the treaty and of the instructions of Congress, requiring them as peace commissioners to negotiate in unison with France. It has been already seen that such stipulations are common in all alliances for war,† and that Franklin's views in this respect were in harmony with those of Congress, as expressed by Livingston, by Hamilton, and by Madison.
[Note †: † Supra, §§ 4, 109 ff.]
The letter of Arthur Lee of January 29, 1778, in which he proposes that he be made sole minister at Paris, Deane sent to Holland, Franklin to Vienna, and Jennings to Madrid, is in the collection at the University of Virginia.
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On October 15, 1778, William Lee, in a letter in the Harvard College Collection, thus writes to Richard H. Lee:
"I have never yet asked anything from Congress, but when they do send a commissioner to Holland I profess, as my former line of life has been changed, I should not dislike that appointment, and I think if any change takes place in my present department there is no person so proper as Dr. Franklin to be sent to Vienna."
Arthur Lee therefore was to stay in Paris, William Lee to go to Holland, and Franklin, whom they both spoke of as traitorous and wicked, was to be sent to Vienna, which Arthur Lee declared to be the most distinguished diplomatic post in Europe.*
[Note *: * See Sparks' comments on this, infra, § 145. See further criticisms in Trescot's Diplomacy of the Revolution, 119.]
Relations to his family. § 127. Of Franklin's relations to his grandson, who acted as his private secretary, several incidental notices have been given. Of his relations to his son the following summary, which bears on the political position of the two, deserves consideration:
"In 1784 the father and son, after an estrangement of ten years, became reconciled to one another. The son appears to have made the first overture. Dr. Franklin, in acknowledging the receipt of his letter, says in reply, on the 16th of August of that year: 'I am glad to find that you desire to revive the affectionate intercourse that formerly existed between us. It will be very agreeable to me; indeed nothing has ever hurt me so much and affected me with such keen sensations as to find myself deserted in my old age by my only son; and not only deserted, but to find him taking up arms against me in a cause wherein my good fame, fortune, and life were all at stake. You conceived, you say, that your duty to your king and regard for your country required this. I ought not to blame you for differing in sentiment with me in public affairs. We are all men subject to errors, our opinions are not in our power; they are formed and governed much by circumstances that are often as inexplicable as they are irresistible. Your situation was such that few would have censured your remaining neuter, though there are natural duties which precede political ones, and cannot be extinguished by them. This is a disagreeable subject; I drop it, and we will endeavor, as you propose, mutually to forget what has happened relating to it, as well as we can.'†
"The doctor, I conclude, was neverable to forget entirely the alienation which had happened between them. In a letter to the Rev. Dr. Byles (1788) he said: 'I, too, have a daughter who lives with me, and is the comfort of my declining years, while my son is estranged from me by the part he took in the late war and keeps aloof, residing in England, whose cause he espoused, whereby the old proverb is exemplified:
'My son is my son till he gets him a wife;
But my daughter's my daughter all the days of her life.'
"In his will, dated June 23, 1789, a few months before his own decease, he thus remembers his son William, late governor of the Jerseys:
"'I give and devise all the lands I hold or have a right to in the province of Nova
[Note †: † According to Judge Jones, in his History of New York, (1,135) William Franklin was detained in Connecticut "and inhumanly treated" at his father's request. The inaccuracy of this statement is fully shown in Johnston's "Observations" on Jones' History, 33--35.
The refusal of Congress to appoint William Temple Franklin to a diplomatic post arose chiefly from the feeling that when he was removed from his grandfather's influence he might fall under that of his father, who was a bitter loyalist.]
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Scotia, to hold to him, his heirs and assigns, forever. I also give to him all my books and papers which he has in his possession and all debts standing against him on my account books, willing that no payment for nor restitution of the same be required of him by my executors. The part he acted against me in the late war, which is of public notoriety, will account for my leaving him no more of an estate he endeavored to deprive me of.'" (1 Sabine's Loyalists, 442.)
Franklin's home, after his return to Philadelphia, was with his daughter, Mrs. Bache, where he received visitors with the same kindly hospitality as marked him in his foreign career, though his infirmities prevented him from giving or receiving formal entertainments.*
[Note *: * From two very different sources, Jefferson and Manasseh Cutler, we have notices in their letters of Franklin's graciousness in his extreme age to visitors, as well as of the comfort he took in his home.]
His course after retiring from his mission. § 128. Franklin's course, on and immediately after retiring from his mission, is, so far as concerns the mission, exhibited in the following correspondence:
Franklin to the President of Congress.†
[Note †: † 2 Sparks' Dip. Rev. Corr., 519.]
Passy, February 8th, 1785.
Sir: I received by the Marquis de la Fayette the two letters you did me the honor of writing to me the 11th and 14th of December, the one inclosing a letter from Congress to the king, the other a resolve of Congress respecting the convention for establishing consuls. The letter was immediately delivered and well received. The resolve came too late to suspend signing the convention, it having been done July last, and a copy sent so long since that we now expected the ratification. As that copy seems to have miscarried I now send another.
I am not informed what objection has arisen in Congress to the plan sent me. Mr. Jefferson thinks it may have been to the part which restrained the consuls from all concern in commerce. That article was omitted, being thought unnecessary to be stipulated, since either party would always have the power of imposing such restraints on its own officers whenever it should think fit. I am, however, of opinion that this or any other reasonable article or alteration may be obtained at the desire of Congress and established by a supplement.
Permit me, sir, to congratulate you on your being called to the high honor of presiding in our national councils and to wish you every felicity, being, with the most perfect esteem, etc.,
B. Franklin.
Franklin to the President of Congress.†
Passy, April 12th, 1785.
Sir: M. de Chaumont, who will have the honor of presenting this line to your excellency, is a young gentleman of excellent character, whose father was one of our most early friends in this country, which he manifested by crediting us with a thousand barrels of gunpowder and other military stores in 1776, before we had provided any apparent means of payment. He has, as I understand, some demands to make on Congress, the nature of which I am unacquainted with; but my regard for the family makes me wish that they may obtain a speedy consideration, and such favorably issue as they may appear to merit.
To this end I beg leave to recommend him to your countenance and protection, and am, with great respect, etc.,
B. Franklin.
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Franklin to Count de Vergennes.*
[Note *: * 2 Sparks' Dip. Rev. Corr., 520.]
Passy, May 3d, 1785.
Sir: I have the honor to acquaint your excellency that I have at length obtained, and yesterday received, the permission of Congress to return to America. As my malady makes it impracticable for me to pay my devoirs at Versailles personally, may I beg the favor of you, sir, to express respectfully for me to his majesty the deep sense I have of all the inestimable benefits his goodness has conferred on my country; a sentiment that it will be the business of the little remainder of life now left me to impress equally on the minds of all my countrymen. My sincere prayers are that God may shower down his blessings on the king and queen, their children, and all the royal family, to the latest generations!
Permit me, at the same time, to offer you my thankful acknowledgments for the protection and countenance you afforded me at my arrival, and your many favors during my residence here, of which I shall always retain the most grateful remembrance.
My grandson would have had the honor of waiting on you with this letter, but he has been some time ill of a fever.
With the greatest esteem and respect, and best wishes for the constant prosperity of yourself and all your amiable family, I am, sir, your excellency's most obedient and most humble servant,
B. Franklin.
Rayneval to Franklin.*
[Translation.]
Versailles, May 8, 1785.
Sir: I have learned with the greatest concern that you are soon to leave us. You will carry with you the affections of all France, for nobody has been more esteemed than you. I shall call on you at Passy, to desire you to retain for me a share in your remembrance and renew to you personally the assurances of the most perfect attachment with which I have the honor to be, sir, etc.,
De Rayneval.
Franklin to Jay, secretary of foreign affairs.†
[Note †: † Ibid., 521.]
Passy, May 10, 1785.
Dear Sir: I received your kind letter of the 8th of March, inclosing the resolution of Congress permitting my return to America, for which I am very thankful, and am now preparing to depart the first good opportunity. Next to the pleasure of rejoining my own family will be that of seeing you and yours well and happy, and embracing once more my little friend, whose singular attachment to me I shall always remember.
I shall be glad to render any acceptable service to Mr. Randall. I conveyed the bayberry wax to Abbé de Chalut, with your compliments, as you desired. He returns his with many thanks. Be pleased to make my respectful compliments acceptable to Mrs. Jay; and believe me ever, with sincere and great respect and esteem, etc.,
B. Franklin.
P. S.--The striking of the medals being now in agitation here, I send the inclosed for consideration.B. F.
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Franklin to Charles Thomson.*
[Note *: * 2 Sparks' Dip. Rev. Corr., 521.]
Passy, May 10, 1785.
Dear Sir: An old gentleman in Switzerland, long of the magistracy there, having written a book entitled Du Gouvernement des Moeurs, which is thought to contain many matters that may be useful in America, desired to know of me how he could convey a number of the printed copies, to be distributed gratis among the members of Congress. I advised his addressing the package to you by way of Amsterdam, whence a friend of mine would forward it. It is accordingly shipped there on board the Van Berckel, Capt. W. Campbell. There are good things in the work; but his chapter on the liberty of the press appears to me to contain more rhetoric than reason.
With great esteem I am, ever, etc.,
B. Franklin.
Vergennes to Franklin.†
[Note †: † Ibid., 522.]
[Translation]
Versailles, May 22, 1785.
Sir: I have learnt with much concern of your retiring, and of your approaching departure for America. You can not doubt but that the regrets which you will leave will be proportionate to the consideration you so justly enjoy.
I can assure you, sir, that the esteem the king entertains for you does not leave you anything to wish; and that his majesty will learn with real satisfaction that your fellow-citizens have rewarded in a manner worthy of you the important services that you have rendered them.
I beg, sir, that you will preserve for me a share in your remembrance, and never doubt the sincerity of the interest I take in your happiness. It is founded on the sentiments of attachment of which I have assured you, and with which I have the honor to be, etc.,
De Vergennes.
Castries to Franklin.‡
[Note ‡: ‡ Ibid., 523.]
[Translation.]
Versailles, July 10, 1785.
Sir: I was not apprised until within a few hours of the arrangements which you have made for your departure. Had I been informed of it sooner I should have proposed to the king to order a frigate to convey you to your own country in a manner suitable to the known importance of the services you have been engaged in, to the esteem you have acquired in France, and the particular esteem which his majesty entertains for you.
I pray you, sir, to accept my regrets, and a renewed assurance of the most entire consideration with which I have the honor to be, sir, your very humble and obedient servant,
De Castries.
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Franklin to Jay, secretary of foreign affairs.*
[Note *: * 2 Sparks' Dip. Rev. Corr., 524.]
Philadelphia, September 19, 1785.
Sir: I have the honor to acquaint you that I left Paris the 12th of July, and, agreeable to the permission of Congress, am returned to my own country. Mr. Jefferson had recovered his health, and was much esteemed and respected there. Our joint letters have already informed you of our late proceedings, to which I have nothing to add, except that the last act I did, as minister plenipotentiary for making treaties, was to sign with him, two days before I came away, the treaty of friendship and commerce that had been agreed on with Prussia,† and which was to be carried to The Hague by Mr. Short, there to be signed by the Baron Thulemeyer, on the part of the king, who, without the least hesitation, had approved and conceded to the new humane articles proposed by Congress. Mr. Short was also to call at London for the signature of Mr. Adams, who I learnt, when at Southampton, was well received at the British court.
[Note †: † See this treaty at large in Treaties and Conventions of the United States, 1889, p. 899.]
The Captain Lamb, who in a letter of yours to Mr. Adams was said to be coming to us with instructions respecting Morocco, had not appeared, nor had we heard anything of him; so nothing had been done by us in that treaty.
I left the court of France in the same friendly disposition towards the United States that we have all along experienced, though concerned to find that our credit is not better supported in the payment of the interest-money due on our loans, which, in case of another war, must be, they think, extremely prejudicial to us, and indeed may contribute to draw on a war the sooner, by affording our enemies the encouraging confidence that those who take so little care to pay will not again find it easy to borrow. I received from the king at my departure the present of his picture set round with diamonds, usually given to ministers plenipotentiary who have signed any treaties with that court; and it is at the disposition of Congress, to whom be pleased to present my dutiful respects.
I am, with great esteem and regard, etc.,
B. Franklin.
P. S.--Not caring to trust them to a common conveyance, I send by my late secretary, who will have the honor of delivering them to you, all the original treaties I have been concerned in negotiating that were completed. Those with Portugal and Denmark continue in suspense.
B. F.
Of Franklin's reception on his return to Philadelphia, of his election and re-election to the presidency of Pennsylvania; of his part in the Constitutional Convention, this is not the place to speak. But it may not be improper, in closing this notice of him, to refer once more to the tribute paid him by Washington, given when Franklin was approaching his end.‡
[Note ‡: ‡ See supra, § 113.]
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