John Laurens, too, when he came over to Paris to solicit money for the

American army, _beau sabreur_ as he was, handled the French as awkwardly as

the rest. "He was indefatigable, while he staid," Franklin wrote to

William Carmichael, "and took true Pains, but he _brusqu'd_ the Ministers

too much, and I found after he was gone that he had thereby given more

Offence than I could have imagin'd." The truth is that, until the watchful

detachment of Adams and Jay from their foreign environment became of some

service to the United States in helping to assure to them the full fruits

of their victory in the final shuffle of diplomacy over the Treaty of

Peace, Franklin after the return of Silas Deane to America was the only one

of our diplomatic representatives who can be said to have earned his salt

in France.[32] The rest, so far from promoting the objects of the French

mission, did much to jeopard its success. The United States could well have

afforded to keep them all at home and to pay them double the amount of the

salaries which were wasted upon them abroad. They either could not rise

above the limitations and prejudices of foreigners in dealing with a people

peculiarly tenacious of their own national views and characteristics, or

were too lacking in diplomatic instinct and _savoir faire_ to hold their

own grating idiosyncracies of temper and disposition in check, when it was

of the highest importance to their country that they should do so; or they

were so restive under the pre-eminence of Franklin as to be unable to

control the envy and ill-feeling, which harassed his peace, and tended to

discredit the cause, in which they were engaged. Congress did not do many

wise things in regard to our interests in France during the Revolution, but

undoubtedly it did one, when it finally brought the discord of its envoys

in that country to an end by declining to accept the resignation of

Franklin and appointing him the sole Ambassador of the United States at

Paris.[33] Under no circumstances, does his success in obtaining succor

for America from France stand out so clearly as when contrasted with the

futile missions of Arthur Lee, William Lee, Ralph Izard, Francis Dana and

John Jay to other courts than that of France. So far from obtaining any

material aid for the United States from the countries, to which they were

accredited, and should never have been sent,[34] they had to fall back upon

Franklin himself for their own subsistence; though it is only fair to them

to say that some of them were allowed by these countries too little freedom

of approach to make an impression of any kind upon them, good or otherwise.

For the bad feeling entertained by Adams, Lee and Izard towards Franklin

there is no valid reason for holding Franklin responsible. It is plain that

he did not lack the inclination to be on friendly terms with Adams; and

there is no evidence that he in any way provoked the malice which he

suffered at the hands of Arthur Lee, or the passionate animosity which he

excited in Ralph Izard. As late as 1780, after the return of Adams to

Europe as a peace commissioner, Franklin wrote to William Carmichael that

Adams and himself lived on good terms with each other, though the former,

he added, had never communicated anything of his business to him, and he

had made no inquiries of him. If Franklin did not live on good terms with

Arthur Lee, it was because no one, unless it were Adams, or Ralph Izard,

when drawn to Lee by common jealousy of Franklin, could live on good terms

with a man whose character was so hopelessly soured and perverted by

suspicion and spleen. It was doubtless with entire truth that Franklin in a

letter to William Carmichael, in which he termed Lee the most malicious

enemy that he ever had, declared that there was not the smallest cause for

his enmity. It had been inspired in England, as it had been revived in

France, simply by the brooding desire of Lee to displace Franklin. In 1771,

he made it plain in a letter from England to Samuel Adams that Franklin, in

his opinion, was not too good to be the instrument of Lord Hillsborough's

treachery in pretending that all designs against the charter of

Massachusetts had been laid aside.

The possession of a profitable office at will, the

having a son in a high post at pleasure, the grand

purpose of his residence here being to effect a change

in the government of Pennsylvania, for which

administration must be cultivated and courted [Lee

wrote], are circumstances which, joined with the

temporizing conduct he has always held in American

affairs, preclude every rational hope that, in an open

contest between an oppressive administration and a free

people, Dr. Franklin can be a faithful advocate for the

latter.

In another letter he intimated a suspicion that Dr. Franklin had been

"bribed to betray his trust." The motive for such communications is made

clear enough by still another letter that he sent over to Boston stating

that, while Dr. Franklin frequently assured him that he would sail for

Philadelphia in a few weeks, he believed he would not quit them till he

was gathered to his fathers.[35] The insidious calumnies that Lee sowed in

Massachusetts, when he was coveting Franklin's agency for that colony, were

only too effective for a time in creating even in the minds of such men as

Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Josiah Quincy an impression unfavorable to

Franklin's fidelity to the American cause. How little based on any real

misgivings as to the character of the man, whose place he craved, were the

innuendoes and accusations of Lee, may be inferred from his statement at

the time of the Privy Council outrage that Franklin bore the assaults of

Wedderburn "with a firmness and equanimity which conscious integrity can

inspire." In a letter to Lord Shelburne in 1776, he even spoke of Franklin

as "our _Pater Patriae_."

In France, the same sense of having a young man's revenue withered out by

tedious expectation led to similar misrepresentations and intrigue. This

time, the object was to bring about the transfer of Franklin from France,

where the jealousy of Lee was incessantly inflamed by his great reputation

and influence, to some other post, and the appointment of Lee himself as

his successor. If the change had not been such as to foreshadow utter ruin

to American interests in France, the letters that Arthur Lee wrote to his

brother Richard Henry Lee in the prosecution of these aims would be little

less than ludicrous. "My idea of adapting characters and places is this,"

he said in one letter, "Dr. F. to Vienna, as the first, most respectable,

and quiet; Mr. Deane to Holland.... France remains the centre of political

activity, and here, therefore, I should choose to be employed." There was

but one way, he said in another letter to his brother, of bringing to an

end the neglect, dissipation, and private schemes, which he saw in every

department of the American Mission at Paris, and that was the plan he had

before suggested of appointing the Dr. _honoris causa_ to Vienna, Mr. Deane

to Holland, and Mr. Jennings to Madrid, and of leaving him (Lee) at Paris.

To Samuel Adams he wrote that he had been at the several courts of Spain,

Vienna and Berlin, and found that of France to be the great wheel that

moved them all. He would, therefore, be much obliged to Adams for

remembering that he should prefer being at the court of France.

Lee was a man of considerable ability, though his incurable defects of

disposition and temper almost wholly deprived him of the profitable use of

it, and he was from first to last, when in Europe, loyal to the American

cause. But, if there ever was a person born under the malignant sign,

Scorpio, it was he. He was

"More peevish, cross and splenetic

Than dog distract or monkey sick."

In the course of his suspicious, jealous and quarrelsome life he appears to

have inflicted a venomous sting upon almost every human being that ever

crossed the path of his inordinate and intriguing ambition. In the monopoly

of intelligence and public virtue that he arrogated to himself he was not

unlike the French woman who was credited by Franklin with the assertion

that she met with nobody but herself that was always in the right. With a

few exceptions, no prominent American in France, when he was in that

country, escaped his insidious defamation. Silas Deane was the accomplice

of Beaumarchais in his effort to make the United States pay for free gifts

of the French King. Franklin was a cunning rogue ever on the watch to line

the pockets of his grandnephew, Jonathan Williams; indeed Lee did not

scruple to term him "the father of corruption"; every day gave him fresh

reasons for suspecting William Carmichael; John Paul Jones was merely the

captain of "a cruising job of Chaumont and Dr. Franklin." And so on with

the other contemporaries, whose character he did his best to tarnish with

the breath of calumny, ever actuated as he was by the sinister,

backward-spelling disposition which

"Never gives to truth and virtue that

Which simpleness and merit purchaseth."

What both Lee and Adams could not forgive in Franklin was the fact that,

though there were three American envoys at Paris, the French Ministry and

People would have it that there was only one, "_le digne Franklin_,"[36]

"_le plus grand philosophe du siecle_," "_l'honneur de l'Amerique, et de

l'humanite_." The wounded sense of self-importance, awakened by this fact,

assumed in Adams, except in his more extravagant moments, no worse form

than that of quickened self-assertion, or the charge that Franklin was

grown too inert, from years and physical infirmities, to conduct the

routine business of the mission with the proper degree of order and system,

or was too susceptible to social and academic flattery to keep a vigilant

eye upon the more selfish side of French policy. But in the case of Lee,

lacerated vanity not only led him along finally to the conclusion that

Deane and Franklin were both rascals, but early convinced him that all

their transactions, even the simplest, where he was concerned, were shaped

by a desire to slight or affront him, or to deprive him of his just

privileges and standing as one of the Commissioners. He had hardly been in

France a year before his perverse pen was lecturing and scolding Franklin

as if he were one of the most arbitrary and inconsiderate of men instead of

one of the most reasonable and considerate. At first, Franklin did not

reply to such letters, but his failure to reply simply supplied Lee with

another excuse for scolding. At last, Lee, after taxing him with tardiness

in settling the accounts of the Commissioners, and with keeping him in the

dark about the mission on which M. Gerard had been sent to America,

expressed the hope that he would not treat this letter from him as he had

many others with the indignity of not answering it.

It is true [said Franklin], that I have omitted

answering some of your Letters, particularly your angry

ones, in which you, with very magisterial Airs,

school'd and documented me, as if I had been one of

your Domestics. I saw in the strongest Light the

Importance of our living in decent Civility towards

each other, while our great Affairs were depending

here. I saw your jealous, suspicious, malignant and

quarrelsome Temper, which was daily manifesting itself

against Mr. Deane, and almost every other Person you

had any Concern with: I therefore pass'd your Affronts

in Silence; did not answer but burnt your angry

Letters, and received you when I next saw you with the

same Civility as if you had never wrote them.

These words are taken from a letter in which Franklin replied in detail to

all the grievances vented in Lee's letter. On the day before, he had

written a curter reply which gives us a good idea of what his anger was at

flood-tide.

It is true [this reply began], I have omitted answering

some of your Letters. I do not like to answer angry

Letters. I hate Disputes. I am old, can not have long

to live, have much to do and no time for Altercation.

If I have often receiv'd and borne your Magisterial

Snubbings and Rebukes without Reply, ascribe it to the

right Causes, my Concern for the Honour & Success of

our Mission, which would be hurt by our Quarrelling, my

Love of Peace, my Respect for your good Qualities, and

my Pity of your Sick Mind, which is forever tormenting

itself, with its Jealousies, Suspicions & Fancies that

others mean you ill, wrong you, or fail in Respect for

you. If you do not cure yourself of this Temper it will

end in Insanity, of which it is the Symptomatick

Forerunner, as I have seen in several Instances. God

preserve you from so terrible an Evil: and for his sake

pray suffer me to live in quiet.

The petition was not heeded. Cut off by his impracticable temper and the

dis-esteem of the French Ministry from any participation in the more

important transactions of the Mission, the industrious malice of Lee found

employment in accusations of peculation against the other agents of the

United States in France and in petty refinements over the proper methods of

keeping the accounts and papers of the Commissioners. Everything that he

touched threw out thorns and exuded acrid juices. Franklin might well have

said of him what he said of his brother, William Lee, that he was not only

a disputatious but a very artful man. He pursued Deane with such plausible

misrepresentations, when the latter sought justice at the hands of

Congress, that the unhappy man was finally hurried, to use Franklin's

phrase, into joining his friend, Arnold. How he harried Jonathan Williams,

we have already seen. So well understood was his litigious, malevolent

temper that, when the State of Virginia desired to purchase arms and

military stores in France, several merchants refused to have any dealings

with him, and one firm dealt with him only to be involved in the usual web

of fine-spun suspicion and controversy.

I hope, however [wrote Franklin to Patrick Henry, at

the time Governor of Virginia, who had solicited

Franklin's assistance in the matter], that you will at

length be provided with what you want, which I think

you might have been long since, if the Affair had not

been in Hands, which Men of Honour and Candour here are

generally averse to dealing with, as not caring to

hazard Quarrels and Abuses in the settlement of their

Accounts.

He dared not meddle, he said, with the dispute in which Lee was engaged,

"being charg'd by the Congress to endeavour at maintaining a good

Understanding with their other Servants," which was, "indeed, a hard task

with some of them," he declared.

As his acquaintance with Lee and his brother, William Lee, extended,

Franklin became more and more wary in dealing with them. This was

illustrated in his attitude towards the papers of Thomas Morris, the

brother of Robert Morris, and the Commercial Agent of the United States at

Nantes. When this gentleman, who, according to one of his contemporaries,

"turned out the greatest drunkard the world ever produced," had duly paid

the forfeit of his bibulous life, William Lee, with the aid of an order

from the French Ministry, secured possession of all his papers, public and

private, and, when on the eve of setting out for Germany, placed the trunk

containing them sealed in the custody of Franklin. The key, Franklin told

him, he would rather have in the keeping of Arthur Lee. A correspondence

followed between Franklin and John Ross, who had obtained an order from

Congress for the delivery of the trunk to him. If it had been Pandora's

box, Franklin could not have undertaken the delivery of the papers in a

more gingerly manner.

I am glad [he wrote to Ross], an Order is come for

delivering them to you. But as the Dispute about them

may hereafter be continued, and Papers suspected to be

embezzled by somebody; and as I have sign'd a terrible

long Receipt for the Trunk, of which I have no copy,

and only remember that it appear'd to be constructed

with all the Circumspection of the Writers Motto, _Non

incautus futuri_ and that it fill'd a Half Sheet so

full there was scarce Room for the Names of the four

Evidences he requir'd to witness it; I beg you will not

expect me to send it to you at Nantes but appoint who

you please to receive it for you here. For I think I

must deliver it before Witnesses, who may certify the

State of the Seals; nothing being more likely than that

Seals on a Trunk may rub off in the Carriage on so long

a Journey; and then I should be expos'd to the Artful

Suggestions of some who do not love me, & whom I

conceive to be of very malignant Dispositions.

Afterwards, when Arthur Lee informed Franklin that, unless he was furnished

with money by him, he would have to give up the thought of proceeding to

Spain, Franklin replied dryly: "As I can not furnish the Expence, and there

is not, in my Opinion, any Likelihood at Present of your being received at

that Court, I think your Resolution of returning forthwith to America is

both wise and honest." And, even when he supposed that he was finally rid

of the gad-fly, which had annoyed him so long, and that Lee was off for

America, with his poisoned ink-well and busy pen, Franklin took pains that

he should not have everything his own way, though a thousand leagues

distant. "There are some Americans returning hence," he wrote to Samuel

Cooper, "with whom our people should be upon their guard, as carrying with

them a spirit of enmity to this country. Not being liked here themselves,

they dislike the people; for the same reason, indeed, they ought to

dislike all that know them."

Three days later, he wrote to Joseph Reed, of Pennsylvania, a letter in

which, after denying a false statement made about the writer by Lee, he

said, "He proposes, I understand, to settle in your Government. I caution

you to beware of him; for, in sowing Suspicions and Jealousies, in creating

Misunderstandings and Quarrels among friends, in Malice, Subtilty, and

indefatigable industry, he has I think no equal." A few days later, he

wrote to William Carmichael, "Messrs. Lee and Izard are gone to L'Orient,

in order to embark in the _Alliance_ together, but they did not travel

together from hence. No soul regrets their departure. They separately came

to take leave of me, very respectfully offering their services to carry any

dispatches, etc."

But gone the gad-fly was not yet. After Lee reached L'Orient, the officers

and men of the _Alliance_ refused to weigh anchor until certain claims of

theirs to wages and prize money were complied with, and, while John Paul

Jones, their captain, was away at Paris, engaged in an effort to hasten the

payment of the prize-money, Captain Peter Landais, acting under the advice

of Arthur Lee and Commodore Gillon, took possession of the ship and sailed

off for America. As soon as the news of the mutiny came to Franklin, he

suspected that Arthur Lee was at the bottom of it.

I have no doubt [he wrote to Samuel Wharton, in regard

to Landais] that your suspicion of his Adviser is well

founded. That Genius must either find or make a Quarrel

wherever he is. The only excuse for him that his

Conduct will admit of, is his being at times out of his

Senses. This I always allow, and am persuaded that if

some of the many Enemies he provokes do not kill him

sooner he will die in a madhouse.

The sequel of this high-handed proceeding afforded Franklin another

opportunity to question Lee's mental soundness. The _Alliance_ was not long

out before Landais exhibited such flightiness that its passengers deposed

him, and placed the ship in command of its first lieutenant. Commenting on

the incident, Franklin wrote to Samuel Cooper:

Dr. Lee's accusation of Capt. Landais for Insanity was

probably well founded; as in my Opinion would have been

the same Accusation, if it had been brought by Landais

against Lee; For tho' neither of them are permanently

mad, they are both so at times; and the Insanity of the

Latter is the most Mischievous.

How truly high-handed the rape of the _Alliance_ was, will be realized,

when the reader is told that at the time Landais had been deprived of the

captaincy of the _Alliance_, upon the charge of gross misconduct in the

glorious engagement between the _Serapis_ and the _Bon Homme Richard_, and

was looking forward to a court-martial in America upon specifications

involving a capital offence; that he had abandoned the ship, and that

Jones, who had won imperishable honor and renown in the conflict between

the _Serapis_ and the _Bon Homme Richard_, had been placed in command of

her by Franklin, and had been in command of her for eight months; and that

Franklin had in a letter to Landais sternly refused to restore her to him.

Of William Lee, Franklin had, as we have just seen, very much the same

opinion that he had of Arthur Lee. When he talked to Franklin of nominating

Jonathan Williams, his grandnephew, and Mr. Lloyd in the place of Thomas

Morris and himself as the Commercial Agents of the United States at Nantes,

Franklin wrote to Williams: "I question whether there be Flesh enough upon

the Bone for two to pick. I doubt its being worth your while to accept of

it. I did not thank him for mentioning you because I do not wish to be much

oblig'd to him and less to be a little oblig'd."

Not long after this, Franklin had less cause to think well of William Lee

than ever. Upon representations being made by Ralph Izard and him to the

three Commissioners, Arthur Lee, Deane and Franklin, that, though they had

been appointed Ministers to the courts of Berlin, Vienna and Florence by

Congress, no provision for their expenses had reached them, the three

Commissioners asked what sums they would require. William Lee replied that

he could not exactly compute in advance what he would need, but that, if he

was empowered to draw upon the banker of the Commissioners, he would

certainly only draw from time to time for such sums as were absolutely

necessary; and that it was therefore a matter of little importance at what

amount the credit was fixed. "It would however look handsome &

confidential," he said, "if the sum were two Thousand Louis." Thereupon,

Franklin tells us, the Commissioners "did frankly but unwarily give the

Orders." Soon afterwards, Deane and Franklin were informed that William Lee

and Izard had gone directly to the banker of the Commissioners, and drawn

out the whole amount of the credit, and had deposited it to their own

account exclusively. After that, even an order from Congress, empowering

William Lee and Izard to draw upon the Commissioners for their expenses at

foreign courts, was unavailing to open Franklin's purse strings. Doubtless,

he wrote with calm irony to the Committee on Foreign Affairs at home,

Congress, when it passed its resolution, intended to supply the

Commissioners with funds for meeting the drafts of William Lee and Izard.

And, to make things still worse for the disappointed beneficiaries of the

resolution, he further said: "I could have no intention to distress them,

because I must know it is out of my Power, as their private Fortunes and

Credit will enable them at all times to pay their own Expences."

Arthur Lee had taken good care to protect himself against any such

afterclaps. In a formal letter to him, refusing to accede to his suggestion

that no orders should be drawn upon the banker of the Commissioners, unless

signed by all three of the Commissioners, Franklin told him flatly that he

did not choose to be obliged to ask Mr. Lee's consent, whenever he might

have occasion to draw for his subsistence, as that assent could not be

expected from any necessity of a reciprocal compliance on Mr. Franklin's

part, Mr. Lee having secured his subsistence by taking into his own

disposition 185,000 livres, and his brother, by a deception on the

Commissioners, 48,000.

Ralph Izard, of South Carolina, was very closely linked with Arthur Lee in

Franklin's mind. Though appointed by Congress Commissioner to the court of

the Grand Duke of Tuscany at Florence, this court refused to receive him

for fear of offending England, and he remained in Paris during the entire

period of his appointment. In a letter to James Lovell, Franklin stated

that he had made it a constant rule to answer no angry, affronting or

abusive letters, of which he had received many, and long ones, from Mr. Lee

and Mr. Izard. The hostility of Izard to Franklin, due in the main to the

same causes as Arthur Lee's, was whetted partly by the fact that he was not

consulted, when the treaty of alliance was entered into between the

American Commissioners and France, and partly by the fact that Franklin

refused to honor some of his pecuniary applications. In a letter from Passy

to Francis Hopkinson, Franklin, as we have seen, said that he deserved

Izard's enmity because he might have avoided it by paying him a compliment

which he neglected, but elsewhere in his correspondence he rests this

enmity upon substantially the same grounds as that of Arthur Lee. When

Izard assailed him, because he had not conferred with him in relation to

the treaty of alliance, Franklin replied that he would give his letter a

full answer when he had the honor of seeing him. "But," he said, "I must

submit to remain some days under the Opinion you appear to have form'd not

only of my poor Understanding in the general Interests of America, but of

my Defects in Sincerity, Politeness & Attention to your Instructions."

It is doubtful whether a letter in which, in reply to an application for

money, he reminded Izard of the latter's own pecuniary independence, was

ever sent; but part of it is too pointed not to bear quotation. After

dwelling upon the many calls upon the funds in the hands of the

Commissioners, it goes on in these words:

In this Situation of our Affairs, we hope you will not

insist on our giving you a farther Credit with our

Banker, with whom we are daily in danger of having no

farther Credit ourselves. It is not a Year since you

received from us the sum of Two Thousand Guineas, which

you thought necessary on Acct of your being to set

out immediately for Florence. You have not incurr'd the

Expence of that Journey. You are a Gentleman of

Fortune. You did not come to France with any Dependence

on being maintained here with your Family at the

Expence of the United States, in the Time of their

Distress, and without rendering them the equivalent

Service they expected.

Izard seems to have had the kind of temper that heats as readily as iron

but cools off as slowly as a footbrick, wrapped up in flannels.[37]

Speaking of the indignity, to which Franklin had been subjected in his

sight before the Privy Council, he said: "When Dr. Franklin was so

unmercifully bespattered by Wedderburn, I sat upon thorns; and had it been

me that was so grossly insulted, I should instantly have repelled the

attack, in defiance of every consequence." It is not unlikely that he would

have been as good as his word, so prompt was the second, who had borne the

challenge from Temple to Whately, to give free play to his irascible and

imperious nature. But Graydon is our authority for the statement, too, that

as long as four years after Izard had returned in the _Alliance_ from

France to the United States, the name of Franklin could not be mentioned in

his presence without hurrying him into a state of excitement.

Altogether, our readers will agree with us, we are sure, in thinking that

few things in our national history are calculated to leave a more painful

impression upon the mind than the conduct of some of the men, who were

supposed to represent the United States abroad, while Franklin, in spite of

the jarring discords, of which he was the innocent author, was manfully

struggling with the responsibilities which belonged in part to others, but

never really rested upon any but his own old shoulders (as he termed them).

By character and temperament, in some instances, they were conspicuously

unfitted for the delicate tasks of diplomacy, and were too raw and rigidly

set in their personal and national prejudices besides ever to succeed in

repressing their dislike for the French. There can be no doubt, Jay aside,

that they would have quarrelled with each other as rancorously as they did

with Franklin but for the cohesion created by their common jealousy of him.

How indefensible their attitude towards him was becomes all the more

apparent when we recollect that rarely has any man ever been endowed with a

mind or nature better fitted to disarm malice than those of Franklin. It is

a hard judgment, not to be formed without due allowance for the extent to

which the testimony of history is always suborned by the glamour of a

great reputation, but it is nevertheless, we believe, only a just judgment,

to declare that Franklin spoke the simple truth when he wrote to William

Carmichael, "Lee and Izard are open, and, so far, honourable Enemies; the

Adams, if Enemies, are more covered. I never did any of them the least

Injury, and can conceive no other Source of their Malice but Envy." The

excessive respect, shown him in France by all ranks of people, he said in

the same letter, and the little notice taken of them, was a mortifying

circumstance, but it was what he could neither prevent nor remedy.

This "excessive respect," or justly deserved fame, as the biographer of

Franklin might call it, was another thing which contributed to Franklin's

brilliant success at the Court of France. When he arrived in that country,

he was no stranger there. His two previous visits to it had made him well

acquainted with Turgot, Quesnay, Dupont de Nemours, the elder Mirabeau,

Dubourg and Morellet and the other members of the group, known as the

Physiocrats, whose speculative passion for Agriculture was one of the

active intellectual forces of the time. His literary and scientific

attainments had likewise won him the favor of other famous Frenchmen. These

are facts of no slight importance, when we recall the extent to which the

currents of French thought, on the eve of the French Revolution, were fed

and directed by men of letters and philosophers. When Franklin found

himself in France, for the third time, he was a member of the Royal Society

at London and the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, and had been honored

with academic degrees not only by Yale, Harvard and William and Mary in his

own country, but by Oxford in England and St. Andrews in Scotland.[38] An

edition of his scientific works had been translated into French by his

friend Dubourg, and his _Way to Wealth_ had been translated into the same

language, and distributed broadcast by bishops and cures among the members

of their flocks as incentives to industry and frugality. It was in France,

too, that D'Alibard had verified the sublime hypothesis of Franklin by

drawing down the lightning from the clouds. Moreover, before he left

England at the end of his second mission to that country, his activity and

prominence in resisting the arbitrary measures of the British Ministry had

made his political influence and standing thoroughly familiar to the French

Cabinet, which had for many years kept a close watch upon every movement or

event that portended a revolt of the American Colonies. Along with these

solid claims to the attention and respect of the French people were certain

other circumstances that strongly tended to heighten the fame of Franklin.

It was the era when the modern Press was beginning to assert its new-born

power, and the fur cap, one of the badges of the mediaeval printer, that he

wore, was hardly necessary to remind the newspapers of that day, with all

their facilities for rouging public reputation by artful and persistent

publicity, that Franklin was first of all a printer. It was also the era

when the idea of the universal brotherhood of men of all classes and races

made an uncommonly strong appeal to democratic and humanitarian impulses.

Such an age could readily enough regard a man like Franklin as a true

citizen of the world, a veritable friend of man and a torch-bearer of the

new social and political freedom. It was also the era when it was the mode

to indulge dreams of primitive beatitude and idyllic simplicity, and around

no figure could such dreams more naturally gather than that of the

venerable and celebrated man, whose thin white hair, worn straight without

wig or powder, plain dress and frank, direct speech seemed to make him the

ideal exemplar of a state of society devoid of monarch, aristocrat or

hierarch.[39]

That Franklin, when he came to Paris, as the representative of a country,

which was not only at war with the hereditary enemy of France, but had

fearlessly avowed general political sentiments, that France herself was

eager to avow, should, with his fame, simple manners and social charm, have

excited for a time the surpassing enthusiasm which he did is not

surprising; for what the French ardently admire they usually festoon with

fireworks and crown with flowers; but that this enthusiasm should have

continued, so far as we can see, wholly unabated for nine years, is a

surprising thing, indeed, when we recollect how inclined the fickle

populace of every country is to beat in its hour of inevitable reaction the

idol before which it has prostrated itself in its hour of infatuation.

While in France, Franklin was not simply the mode, he was the rage. Learned

men from every part of Europe thought a visit to Paris quite incomplete, if

it did not include a call upon him. Even the Emperor Joseph, "a King by

trade," as he once termed himself, intrigued to meet him _incognito_. Among

the many letters that he received from individuals, distinguished or

obscure, who sought to flatter him or to draw upon his wisdom or treasured

knowledge, was Robespierre--then a young advocate at Arras--who sent him a

copy of his argument in defence of the lightning rod before the Council of

Artois, and Marat who, true enough to his future, was investigating the

physical laws of heat and flame. In the letter to Franklin, by which the

copy of his argument was accompanied, Robespierre spoke of Franklin as "a

man whose least merit is to be the most illustrious _savant_ of the world."

To have a Franklin stove in its fireplace, with a portrait of Franklin on

the wall above it, grew to be a common feature of the home of the wealthier

householder in Paris. His spectacles, his marten fur cap, his brown coat,

his bamboo cane became objects of general imitation. Canes and snuff-boxes

were carried _a la Franklin_. Portraits, busts and medallions of him were

multiplied without stint. Among the busts were some in Sevres china, set in

blue stones with gold borders, and among the medallions were innumerable

ones made of clay dug at Passy.

The clay medallion of me [Franklin wrote to Sarah

Bache] you say you gave to Mr. Hopkinson was the first

of the kind made in France. A variety of others have

been made since of different sizes; some to be set in

the lids of snuff-boxes, and some so small as to be

worn in rings; and the numbers sold are incredible.

These, with the pictures, busts, and prints (of which

copies upon copies are spread everywhere) have made

your father's face as well known as that of the moon,

so that he durst not do anything that would oblige him

to run away, as his phiz would discover him wherever he

should venture to show it.

It was computed that some two hundred different kinds of representations of

his face were turned out to be set in rings, watches, snuff-boxes,

bracelets, looking-glasses and other chattels. One print of him is said to

have made the fortune of the engraver. Particularly striking is the

testimony of John Adams to the fame of Franklin when in France, which is

part of the remarkable letter published by him in the _Boston Patriot_ on

May 11, 1811, in answer to Franklin's strictures on his conduct in France:

His reputation 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

kings, courtiers, 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 as a friend to human kind.

When they spoke of him, they seemed to think he was to

restore the golden age.

To the pen of Adams we are also indebted for an account of the first public

meeting between Voltaire and Franklin, which also testified with such

dramatic _eclat_ to the place occupied by Franklin in the hearts of the

French people. This was at the hall of the Academy of Science in Paris.

Voltaire and Franklin were both present, and there

presently arose a general cry that M. Voltaire and M.

Franklin should be introduced to each other. This was

done, and they bowed and spoke to each other. This was

no satisfaction; there must be something more. Neither

of our philosophers seemed to divine what was wished or

expected; they, however, took each other by the hand.

But this was not enough; the clamor continued, until

the explanation came out. "_Il faut s'embrasser, a la

Francaise._" The two aged actors upon this great

theatre of philosophy and frivolity then embraced each

other, by hugging one another in their arms, and

kissing each other's cheeks, and then the tumult

subsided. And the cry immediately spread through the

whole kingdom, and, I suppose, over all Europe, _"Qu'il

etait charmant de voir embrasser Solon et Sophocle!"_

A few weeks later Voltaire was dead, and, in the fall of the same year, his

Apotheosis was celebrated by the Lodge of Nine Sisters--a Freemason's Lodge

in Paris. An account of this memorable occasion was subsequently published

by the officers of the Lodge. Madame Denis, the niece of Voltaire, and the

Marchioness of Villette, whom he called his _Belle et Bonne_, and under

whose roof he died, were present. After various addresses and strains of

orchestral music, a clap of thunder was heard. Then

the sepulchral pyramid disappeared, great light

succeeded the gloom which had prevailed till now, an

agreeable symphony sounded in the place of the mournful

music, and an immense picture of the apotheosis of

Voltaire was disclosed. The picture represented

Corneille, Racine and Moliere above Voltaire as he

leaves his tomb. Truth and Beneficence present him to

them. Envy pulls at his shroud, in the wish to hold him

back, but is driven away by Minerva. Higher up may be

seen Fame, publishing the triumph of Voltaire.

Crowns were then laid upon the heads of La Dixmerie, the orator, Gauget,

the painter, and Franklin, who lifted them from their heads and laid them

at the feet of Voltaire's image.

Madame Campan in her _Memoirs_ mentions another occasion on which the most

beautiful of three hundred women was designated to place a crown of laurel

on Franklin's head, and to kiss him on each cheek.

Add to all these evidences of popular admiration and affection the intimate

footing maintained by Franklin in so many French homes, and we begin to

understand how powerfully his public and social standing helped to swell

the resistless tide of sympathy and enthusiasm which bore down all

opposition to the French alliance.

But far more than to his mere congeniality with the social spirit of the

French People, or to his literary and scientific fame, or to his kinship

with all the liberal tendencies of the eighteenth century in America and

Europe, was the success of Franklin at the French court due to those

general attributes of mind and character which he brought to every exigency

of his private or public life: his good sense, his good feeling, his

perfect equipoise, his tact, his reasonableness, his kindly humor. It was

these things which, above everything else, enabled him to surmount all the

trying difficulties of his situation, and to give to the world the most

imposing example of fruitful pecuniary solicitation that it has ever known.

The firm hold that he obtained upon the esteem and good will of Vergennes,

"that just and good man" he terms him in one of his letters, was but the

merited reward of personal qualities which invite, secure and retain esteem

and good will under all human conditions. Vergennes, who held the keys of

the French money-chest, and directed the policies of France, respected,

trusted and liked Franklin, because Franklin, at any rate, duly recognized

and acknowledged the generous motives which had, in part, inspired French

intervention in the American contest, because he exhibited a considerate

appreciation of the sacrifices which it cost France, still bleeding from

her last struggle with Great Britain, to make such large and repeated loans

to the United States, and because his tactful and discreet applications

for pecuniary assistance for his country were never marked by disgusting

importunity or thinly veiled menaces. How true this is we have already

seen; and its truth is still further confirmed by the testimony of

Franklin's successor, Jefferson, who, when asked in Paris, whether he

replaced Franklin, was in the habit of replying, "No one can replace him,

sir; I am only his successor." After stating the circumstances, including

his own association with Franklin at Paris, which had convinced him that

the charge of subservience to France, made against Franklin, had not a

shadow of foundation, Jefferson pays this impressive tribute to him:

He possessed the confidence of that Government in the

highest degree, insomuch, that it may truly be said,

that they were more under his influence than he under

theirs. The fact is, that his temper was so amiable and

conciliatory, his conduct so rational, never urging

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 was

only that reasonable disposition, which, sensible that

advantages are not all to be on one side, yielding what

is just and liberal, is the more certain of obtaining

liberality and justice. Mutual confidence produces, of

course, mutual influence, and this was all which

subsisted between Dr. Franklin and the government of

France.

To Jefferson we are also indebted for the statement that, when he was in

France, there appeared to him more respect and veneration attached to the

character of Franklin than to that of any other person in the same country,

foreign or native.

The volume of multifarious tasks performed by Franklin in France was

immense. The most valuable service rendered by him to the United States was

in obtaining from the French King the pecuniary aids which helped Congress

to defray the expenses of the Revolutionary War. It has been truly said

that he, and not Robert Morris, was the real financier of the Revolution.

Until the triumph of the patriot cause was assured, he was the only one of

the American envoys in Europe whose pecuniary solicitations met with any

material success. Sometimes even such sums as were obtained by others

outside of France were more attributable to his indirect influence than to

their own direct efforts. No matter upon whom Congress might recklessly

draw drafts, they were certain to come around to the aged negotiator, who

appeared to be able to secure money from France even when France had no

money for herself. He might be told that a loan which he had just procured

from Vergennes was positively the last that France could make, and, yet,

when he was compelled by desperation at home to give another reluctant rub

to his magic lamp, there always stood the French servitor with his chest of

gold. The aggregate amount of the loans and gifts made by France to the

United States was on February 21, 1783, little short of forty-three

millions of francs. It was these loans and gifts, transformed into

munitions of war and military supplies, which again and again infused

reviving life into the fainting bosom of his country, and enabled her

soldiers to turn an undaunted face to her foes. How a man of Franklin's

years could have borne up under such frightful anxieties as those imposed

upon him by the pecuniary demands of Congress and her other foreign envoys,

to say nothing of additional burdens, it is difficult to understand. In the

second year after his arrival in France, when drafts began to pour in on

him from Congress, he reminded it that the envoys had not undertaken to do

more than to honor its bills for interest on certain specified sums; and

this reminder was frequently repeated. It might as well have been syllabled

to the winds. Though most of the limited cargoes of tobacco and other

products remitted by Congress as a basis of credit fell into the hands of

the ever-watchful British cruisers, almost every ship brought over bills

upon the envoys or large orders for clothing, arms and ammunition. At one

time, they had notice that bills for interest had been drawn on them to the

amount of two million and a half, when they did not have a fifth of that

sum on deposit with their banker. In a letter to the Committee on Foreign

Affairs in 1779, Franklin, who was really our sole envoy for the purpose of

paying such bills, enumerates the great quantities of clothing, arms,

ammunition and naval stores, which the envoys had sent over to America, the

heavy drafts paid by them that Congress had drawn in favor of officers

returning to France, or of other persons, the outlays of the envoys for the

benefit of American prisoners, the amounts advanced by them to other agents

of the United States, the freight charges paid by them and the sums

expended by them in fitting out Captain Conygham and the _Raleigh_,

_Alfred_, _Boston_, _Providence_, _Alliance_, _Ranger_ and other frigates.

"And now," he concluded, "the Drafts of the Treasurer of the Loans coming

very fast upon me, the Anxiety I have suffered, and the Distress of Mind

lest I should not be able to pay them, has for a long time been very great

indeed." This was but one of the earlier crises in the financial experience

which led Franklin to say that his seemed to be the Gibeonite task of

drawing water for all the congregation of Israel. The point of the

observation becomes still more manifest when the reader is told that drafts

were also frequently drawn on Franklin by the European agents of the

Committee of Commerce of Congress, and that even the foreign agents of

individual States of the Union, finding that no American abroad but he

seemed to have any credit, applied to him for assistance in effecting loans

for their principals. Indeed, one agent of the United States, a Mr.

Bingham, did not scruple, without authority from Congress, or any other

source, to notify Franklin that the _Deane_ and the _General Gates_ had

just arrived at Martinique and were in need of overhauling and provisions,

and that he would have to draw upon him for the expense. This was too much

even for Franklin's patience, and, when Mr. Bingham's bills were returned

protested, that gentleman loudly complained that his credit had been

effectually ruined. And, as the necessities of Congress became greater and

greater, it almost wholly ceased to recognize that there were any

limitations upon its right to draw upon Franklin, or that there was even

any reason why it should notify him that such drafts were drawn. It simply

drew, hit or miss. For pursuing this course in regard to him, there was at

least the excuse that, no matter how freely it drew upon him, he somehow

contrived to preserve the credit of Congress unstained. But Congress had no

such excuse for drawing bills in this reckless manner, as it did too often,

upon John Jay, Henry Laurens or John Adams. It is a laughable fact that,

when some of its bills drawn upon Henry Laurens reached Europe, the drawee,

who had never arrived in Holland, the country to which he was accredited,

at all, was a prisoner in the Tower. As none of the other envoys, upon whom

Congress drew, had any resource but to beg Franklin to pay the drafts,

these drafts might as well have been drawn upon him in the first instance.

No wonder that, with this accumulation of responsibility upon his

shoulders, Franklin should have written to John Jay in Spain in these

terms:

But the little Success that has attended your late

applications for money mortified me exceedingly; and

the Storm of Bills, which I found coming upon us both

has terrified and vexed me to such a Degree, that I

have been deprived of Sleep, and so much indispos'd by

continual anxiety, as to be render'd almost incapable

of writing.

This very letter, however, bears witness to his remarkable aptitude for

dunning without incurring its odious penalties. Overcoming his almost

invincible reluctance, he said, he had made another application to the

French Court for more money, and had been told to make himself easy as he

would be assisted with what was necessary. Indeed, so generous was its

conduct on this occasion that, when Franklin, in part payment for the loan,

proposed that Congress should provision the French army in America with

produce demanded from the States, his Majesty declined the proposal, saying

that to furnish his army with such a large quantity of provisions as it

needed might straiten Congress. "You will not wonder at my loving this good

prince," Franklin concluded.

Amid all the cruel embarrassments of his situation, however, he never

abated one jot of heart or hope, nor for one moment lost sight of the

imperial future which he so clearly foresaw for the country that was adding

sixty thousand children to her numbers annually. In this same letter, he

let Jay know that in his opinion no amount of present distress should

induce the United States to make the concessions to Spain that she was

disposed to hold out as the price of her assistance. "Poor as we are," his

indomitable spirit declared, "yet, as I know we shall be rich, I would

rather agree with them to buy at a great Price the whole of their Right on

the Mississippi, than sell a Drop of its waters. A Neighbour might as well

ask me to sell my Street Door." Loyal, too, to Congress he remained from

first to last. The worst that he was willing to say in a letter to Thomas

Ruston of its rash conduct in flooding the world with bills that for all it

knew might never be paid was a quiet, "That body Is, as you suppose, not

well skill'd in Financing."

Less than two months after his letter to Jay, we find him again appealing

to Vergennes for pecuniary aid with which to enable Congress to co-operate

with the French forces in America, and, a few weeks later, when the

vitality of the American cause was at its lowest point, he again takes up,

on fresh calls from Congress, the same tedious refrain. The letter written

by him to Vergennes on this occasion is one of his supplicatory

masterpieces. He lays before the French Minister evidence that the spirit

of the United States is unbroken, and that the recent success of the

British in Carolina was chiefly due to the lack of the necessary means for

"furnishing, marching, and paying the Expence of Troops sufficient to

defend that Province." He tells him that Lafayette had written that it was

impossible to conceive, without seeing it, the distress that the troops had

suffered for want of clothing; and that Washington, too, had written to him

that the situation of the United States made one of two things essential to

them, a peace, or the most vigorous aid of their allies, particularly in

the article of money. For the aid, so necessary in the present conjuncture,

he said, they could rely on France alone, and the continuance of the King's

goodness towards them. And then he concluded with these affecting but not

altogether artless words:

I am grown old. I feel myself much enfeebled by my late

long Illness, and it is probable I shall not long have

any more Concern in these Affairs. I therefore take

this Occasion to express my Opinion to your Excellency,

that the present Conjuncture is critical; that there is

some Danger lest the Congress should lose its Influence

over the people, if it is found unable to procure the

Aids that are wanted; and that the whole System of the

New Governt in America may thereby be shaken; that, if

the English are suffer'd once to recover that Country,

such an Opportunity of effectual Separation as the

present may not occur again in the Course of Ages; and

that the Possession of those fertile and extensive

Regions, and that vast Sea Coast, will afford them so

Broad a Basis for future Greatness, by the rapid growth

of their Commerce, and Breed of Seamen and Soldiers, as

will enable them to become the _Terror of Europe_, and

to exercise with impunity that Insolence, which is so

natural to their Nation, and which will increase

enormously with the Increase of their Power.

Hard upon the heels of this letter came a letter from John Adams, inquiring

whether Franklin could furnish funds for paying bills to the amount of ten

thousand pounds sterling which had been drawn by Congress on Adams.

Franklin replied by saying that he had not yet received a positive answer

to his last appeal for aid to the French King, but that he had, however,

two of the Christian Graces, Faith and Hope, though his faith was only that

of which the Apostle speaks--the evidence of things not seen. In truth, he

declared, he did not see at that time how so many bills drawn at random on

the Ministers of Congress in France, Spain and Holland were to be paid. But

all bills drawn upon them by Congress should be accepted at any risk; and

he would accordingly do his best, and, if those endeavors failed, he was

ready to break, run away or go to prison with Adams, as it should please

God. His endeavors were successful, so startlingly successful that

Vergennes informed him that his Majesty, to give the States a signal proof

of his friendship, had resolved to grant them the sum of six millions, not

as a loan, but as a free gift. But the announcement was accompanied by the

significant statement that, as the supplies previously purchased in France

by the United States, were supposed to be of bad quality, the Ministers

would themselves take care of the purchase, with part of the gift, of such

articles as were urgently needed in America, and the balance, remaining

after these purchases, was to be drawn for by General Washington upon M.

d'Harvelay, Garde du Tresor Royal. "There was no room to dispute on this

point," Franklin wrote to Samuel Huntington, "every donor having the right

of qualifying his gifts with such terms as he thinks proper"; but the

restrictions upon the gift would seem, after all, to have been waived.

Shortly after the six millions was promised, Colonel Laurens, who was

supposed by Washington to be peculiarly competent to state the needs of the

American army, arrived in France, and to him Franklin delegated the task of

making purchases for Congress with part of the sum. Franklin was already

supporting Adams, Dana, Jay and Carmichael on the proceeds of his

persuasive approaches to the French King, and, at best, the arrival of

Laurens would have meant little except another ministerial mouth to feed.

Unfortunately, however, it signified much more to Franklin's peace. Before

returning to America, with two millions and a half of the six millions,

Laurens made such free use of the remainder that Franklin, unable to meet

bills, with which he was threatened, was compelled to write to Adams not to

accept any more bills that were expected to be paid by him without notice

to him, and to Jay that, if the bills drawn upon him some months before

could not be paid by him, they would have to go to protest. "For," Franklin

said, "it will not be in my Power to help you. And I see that nothing will

cure the Congress of this Madness of Drawing upon the Pump at Aldgate, but

such a Proof that its Well has a Bottom."

To make things worse, though Congress continued to draw bills upon Franklin

after the gift of the six millions, it deprived him of the ability to use

that fund by forbidding any portion of it to be used without its order.

Franklin by prompt action did succeed in intercepting a part of the six

millions, which Laurens had taken to Holland, and which was about to follow

him to America. Speaking of this in a letter to William Jackson, who had

come over with Laurens, and was very angry with Franklin for detaining the

amount, Franklin wrote, "I see, that nobody cares how much I am distressed,

provided they can carry their own Points. I must, therefore, take what care

I can of mine, theirs and mine being equally intended for the Service of

the Public." It would have been well for Jackson if he had let the matter

rest there, but he did not, and had the temerity to write to Franklin a

saucy letter to which he replied in these terms:

These Superior Airs you give yourself, young Gentleman,

of Reproof to me, and Reminding me of my Duty do not

become you, whose special Department and Employ in

Public Affairs, of which you are so vain, is but of

yesterday, and would never have existed but by my

Concurrence, and would have ended in Disgrace if I had

not supported your enormous Purchases by accepting your

Drafts. The charging me with want of oeconomy is

particularly improper in _you_, when the only Instance

you know of it is my having indiscreetly comply'd with

your Demand in advancing you 120 Louis for the Expence

of your Journey to Paris and when the only Instance I

know of your oeconomizing Money is your sending me

three Expresses, one after another, on the same Day,

all the way from Holland to Paris, each with a Letter

saying the same thing to the same purpose.

One of the transactions, mentioned in this correspondence, is a good

illustration of the pecuniary "afterclaps," to use Franklin's term, to

which Franklin was frequently subjected. He had agreed to pay for goods for

the United States to the amount of fifteen thousand pounds. Instead of the

purchases amounting to fifteen thousand pounds, they amounted to fifty

thousand, and he persistently refused to pay for them. Jackson then hurried

express to him, urged that the goods were bought by order of Colonel

Laurens, that they were on shipboard, and that, if Franklin did not pay for

them, they would have to be relanded and returned, or sold; which would be

a disgrace, he insisted, to the United States. In the end, Franklin

accepted the bills for the whole amount, and applied to the French Ministry

for the money with which to pay for them. The application was a

particularly disagreeable one to him, not only because all the fiscal

calculations of the French Government for the year had been completed, but

because no part of the purchase price of the goods would be expended in

France. At first, the grant was absolutely refused, but at length Franklin

obtained it, and hoped that the difficulty was over. It was not.

Afterwards, the officers of the ship decided that she was overloaded, and

the goods were transferred to two other ships, whose owners required

Franklin to either buy the ships, or to pay them a freight bill nearly

equal to the value of the ships. This whole transaction was bad enough, but

William Jackson at least had the grace to notify Franklin that the bills in

this instance were about to descend upon him before their descent. This, we

know from a mildly reproachful letter, written by Franklin to John Paul

Jones, a Mr. Moylan was not kind enough to do when he drew upon Franklin

for nearly one hundred thousand livres for supplies ordered by Jones for

the _Ariel_.

These are but typical instances of the financial complications in which

Franklin was involved from time to time while he was drawing water for all

the congregation of Israel. Long after their date, bills were still making

his life miserable.

This serves chiefly to acquaint you [he wrote on one

occasion to John Adams] that I will endeavour to pay

the Bills that have been presented to you drawn on Mr.

Laurens. But you terrify me, by acquainting me that

there are yet a great number behind. It is hard that I

never had any information sent me of the Sums drawn, a

Line of Order to pay, nor a Syllable of Approbation for

having paid any of the Bills drawn on Mr. Laurens, Mr.

Jay or yourself.

To John Jay about the same time he wrote, "The cursed Bills, as you justly

term them, do us infinite Prejudice." In a letter to John Adams, he speaks

of "the dreaded Drafts." At times it looked as if the stream of French

bounty was at last exhausted. "With the million mentioned," he wrote to

John Adams in substantially the same terms as he had written to Robert

Morris two days before, "I can continue paying to the end of February, and

then, if I get no more I must shut up shop." This was in January, 1782,

when France, in addition to assisting the United States with a fleet and

army, had advanced great additional sums to them since the beginning of the

preceding year. At this time, for very shame Franklin could scarcely pluck

up courage enough to make another pecuniary application to the French

Ministry. In giving in a letter to John Jay his reasons for not holding out

the hope of pecuniary relief to him, he said, "I had weary'd this friendly

& generous Court with often repeated after-clap Demands, occasioned by

these unadvised (as well as ill advis'd) & therefore unexpected Drafts, and

was ashamed to show my Face to the Minister." In the same letter, Franklin

also said: "We have been assisted with near 20 Millions since the Beginning

of last Year, besides a Fleet and Army; and yet I am oblig'd to worry

[them] with my Solicitations for more, which makes us appear insatiable."

But the most interesting passage in this letter is the following: "You

mention my Proposing to repay the Sum you want in America. I had try'd that

last year. I drew a Bill on Congress for a considerable Sum to be advanced

me here, and paid in provisions for the French Troops. My Bill was not

honoured!" Worst of all, when Bills from Congress still showered upon him,

after its promise that no more bills would be drawn on him subsequent to a

fixed date, he began to suspect that the drawing was still going on, and

that the bills were antedated. To no American was the heedless reliance of

Congress upon the generosity of France more mortifying than to him. He

repeatedly suggested the obligation of his own country to look more to

self-help and less to the aid of her friendly and generous ally, and, at

times, in his characteristic way, he would demonstrate arithmetically how

easy it would be for the United States to support the burden of the war

themselves if they would only keep down the spirit of luxury and

extravagance at home, and cease to buy so many foreign gewgaws and

superfluities and so much tea. "In my opinion, the surest way to obtain

liberal aid from others is vigorously to help ourselves," he wrote to

Robert R. Livingston. "It is absurd," he said later in another letter to

Robert Morris, "the pretending to be lovers of liberty while they (the

American people) grudge paying for the defence of it." He was generously

prompt always also to ascribe any temporary interruption to the flow of

French subsidy to the pressing necessities of France herself. Full, too,

always he was of simple-hearted gratitude to France for the princely help

that she had given to the American cause. No one knew better than he that

this help originated partly in selfish policy, and was continued partly

because it had been extended too liberally already to be easily

discontinued. "Those, who have begun to assist us," he shrewdly observed to

Jay, when counselling him that every first favor obtained from Spain was

_tant de gagne_, "are more likely to continue than to decline." Every

appeal that he ever made in his life to liberality in any form took the

bias of self-interest duly into account. But he was merely true to his

settled principle that human character is an amalgam of both unselfish and

selfish motives, when, realizing that the aid rendered by France to the

United States originated partly in the glow of a generous enthusiasm for

the cause of human liberty and fraternity, he wrote to Robert R. Livingston

on August 12, 1782, a letter in which, after stating that the whole amount

of the indebtedness, then due by the United States to France, amounted to

eighteen million livres, exclusive of the Holland loan guaranteed by the

King of France, he said:

In reading it [a statement of the account] you will

discover several fresh marks of the King's goodness

towards us, amounting to the value of near two

millions. These, added to the free gifts before made to

us at different times, form an object of at least

twelve millions, for which no returns but that of

gratitude and friendship are expected. These, I hope,

may be everlasting.

In a subsequent letter to Vergennes, Franklin referred to the King as our

"Friend and Father." But naturally enough deep-seated gratitude found its

most impressive utterance when the long and bloody war was at an end, the

independence of the United States fully established and Franklin ready, as

he wrote to Robert R. Livingston, to say with old Simeon, "Now lettest thou

thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

May I beg the favour of you, Sir [he wrote to

Vergennes, when he was soon to leave France forever],

to express respectfully for me to his Majesty, the deep

Sense I have of all the inestimable Benefits his

Goodness has conferr'd 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, the Queen, their

children, and all the royal Family to the latest

Generations!

It would be irksome to detail all the loans obtained by Franklin from the

French King, and all the terrifying drafts drawn upon him. Profuse from

first to last as were the bills, which he was called upon to pay, he

appears to have met them all, with a few exceptions, whether drawn upon

Adams, Jay, Laurens or himself. Nor, when an extortioner attempted to

perpetrate an outrage upon the United States, did he fail to oppose him

with a wit quite as keen as his and with a spirit far more resolute. Such

a skinflint seems to have been De Neufville, of Amsterdam, who offered on

one occasion to borrow money for the United States, provided that their

representatives hypothecated to his firm, in the name of the whole Congress

of the Thirteen United States, as security for the loan, all the lands,

cities, territories and possessions of the said Thirteen States, present or

prospective. After mercilessly analyzing in a letter to John Adams the

unconscionable covenants by which this tremendous hypothecation was to be

accompanied, Franklin ended with these observations:

By this time, I fancy, your Excellency is satisfy'd,

that I was wrong in supposing J. de Neufville as much a

Jew as any in Jerusalem (a reference to what he had

said in a former letter) since Jacob was not content

with any per cents, but took the whole of his Brother

Esau's Birthright, & his Posterity did the same by the

Cananites, & cut their Throats into the Bargain; which,

in my Conscience, I do not think M. J. de Neufville has

the least Inclination to do by us,--while he can get

anything by our being alive.

The immediate occasion for this letter was the refusal of De Neufville to

allow the goods which had bred trouble between Franklin and William Jackson

to be delivered to the agents of the United States until a claim for

damages that he had preferred against the United States was satisfied. "We

have, you observe" Franklin had written in an earlier letter to John Adams,

"our Hands in the Lyon's Mouth; but if Mr. N. is a Lyon, I am a Bear, and I

think I can hug & gripe him till he lets go our Hands." And he was as good

as his word, and let De Neufville know that, if he did not deliver the

goods, the bills drawn by him on Franklin for the price, though accepted,

would not be paid. A few days later, in another letter to Adams with

respect to the same matter, Franklin said in regard to a proposal of

settlement made by De Neufville, "I think that the less we have to do with

that Shark the better; his jaws are too strong, his teeth too many and his

appetite immensely voracious." Before the episode was ended, De Neufville

was only too glad to dispatch his son to Paris to beseech the bear to relax

his hug.

There was still another reason why the arrival of bills from America should

be feared by Franklin. They were drawn in three sets each, and there was

constant danger, as the sets came in at different times, of the same bill

being paid more than once. In fact, repeated efforts were fraudulently made

to palm off duplicates and triplicates as firsts upon Franklin. To shut off

frauds, the minutest inspection of the bills, as they were presented for

payment, was indispensable, and, for this task, Franklin, Congress having

wholly ignored his request for a secretary, had no one to help him but

Temple and the French clerk at fifty louis a year. The task was rendered

especially laborious by the fact that a host of the bills was drawn by

Congress in very small amounts for the payment of interest abroad.

Far less tedious, of course, but still burdensome enough, was the labor of

copying the dispatches that left Franklin's hands. At one time, the

Atlantic was so alive with British cruisers that a dispatch on its way to

Congress from France had almost as little chance of escape as a jettisoned

dog in a shark-infested sea.

Adams [stated one of the letters in 1777 of our envoys

in France], by whom we wrote early this summer, was

taken on this coast, having sunk his dispatches. We

hear that Hammond shared the same fate on your coast.

Johnson, by whom we wrote in September, was taken going

out of the channel, and poor Captain Wickes (of the

_Reprisal_) who sailed at the same time, and had

duplicates, we just now hear foundered near

Newfoundland, every man perishing but the cook.

It was a batch of papers tossed into the ocean, and snatched up by a nimble

British sailor, before they sank, that first apprised the British Ministry

of the treaty for an alliance hatching between Holland and the United

States, and led Great Britain to declare war promptly against Holland. With

such perilous conditions to face, Franklin's dispatches were sometimes

copied as often as seven times. Besides the copy retained by him, and the

copy sent to Congress, other copies were later sent to Congress by the next

ships leaving France for the United States.

Another most onerous function imposed upon Franklin, until the appointment

of Thomas Barclay, a merchant, as Consul-General to France, was that of

purchasing supplies for Congress and fitting out ships. Special provision

for this function should, of course, have been made by Congress, so as to

leave him free to give his attention to what he termed his political

duties, but it was not until after he had repeatedly begged Congress to

relieve him from it that Congress first appointed for that purpose Colonel

Palfrey, who was lost at sea, on his way over to France, and then Barclay.

In the meantime, Franklin had suffered infinite annoyance in the

performance of duties for which he had no time, and insisted that he had no

knowledge or training. Writing to Jonathan Williams about the dispatch of

certain goods to America, he said:

At this Distance from the Ports, and unacquainted as I

am with such Affairs, I know not what to advise about

getting either that Cloathing or the small Arms and

Powder at L'Orient or the Cloth of Mr. Ross transported

to America; and yet everybody writes to me for Orders,

or Advice, or Opinion, or Approbation, which is like

calling upon a blind Man to judge of Colours.

Writing later to Williams about the same matter, when it had assumed a

still more vexatious aspect, he peremptorily turned down a project laid

before him by Williams, saying with an ebullition of impatience quite

unlike the ordinary tenor of his even temper, "I have been too long in hot

Water, plagu'd almost to Death with the Passions, Vagaries, and ill Humours

and Madnesses of other People. I must have a little Repose."

Another office performed by Franklin, though no special commission for the

purpose was ever issued to him by Congress, was that of a Judge in

Admiralty. A large quantity of blank commissions for privateers having been

sent to him by Congress shortly after his arrival in France, he delivered

them to cruisers, fitted out in the ports of France, and manned by

smugglers, who knew every creek and cove on the English coast which they

had so often visited by night as well, to use a simile employed by one of

Franklin's correspondents, as they knew the corners of their beds. The

alarm and loss created by these privateers was no mean offset to the

destructive efficiency of the British cruisers. One privateer, the _Black

Prince_, took in the course of three months more than thirty sail. Such was

the apprehension excited by the depredations of American privateers that

the seacoasts of England were kept in a constant state of panic, and the

premium rate on marine insurance was largely enhanced. As prizes were

brought into French harbors, the papers seized in them were examined by

Franklin for the purpose of passing upon their legality and the liability

of the prizes to sale. It was also under the patronage of Franklin and

Deane that the _Reprisal_, the first American ship to fire a gun or capture

a prize in European waters, the _Lexington_, a sloop-of-war, of fourteen

guns, fitted out by Congress, and commanded by Captain Johnson, the

_Dolphin_, a cutter of ten guns, purchased by our envoys from M. de

Chaumont, and the _Surprise_, a cutter, commanded by the doughty Captain

Gustavus Conyngham, inflicted such injury upon English commerce, including

the capture of the Lisbon packet by Captain Wickes, that the French

Ministry was compelled to heed the remonstrances of Lord Stormont, the

English Minister, so far as to make a deceitful show, in one form or

another, of vindicating the outraged neutrality of France. But, when the

flimsiest ruses were allowed by the French Ministry to circumvent its

interdiction of the abuse of its ports by American ships, with prizes in

tow, and Captain Conyngham and his crew, after passing a few days in luxury

in a French prison, found means in some unaccountable manner to escape,

just as two English men-of-war were coming over to ask that they be

delivered to them as pirates, there was little fear anywhere along the

French coast, or in the breasts of our envoys, that any sternly vigorous

embargo was likely to be laid upon the privateering activities of the

United States by anything except the naval energy of England itself.

At this time, Franklin was eager to retaliate the destruction and suffering

wantonly inflicted upon some of the defenceless seacoast towns of America

by the British. He, therefore, advised Congress to put three frigates into

the very best fighting trim, and to send them, loaded with tobacco, as if

they were common merchantmen, to Nantes or Bordeaux, but with instructions,

when they reached the one or the other port, to make off suddenly for some

unsuspecting British port, pounce upon the vessels in its harbor, levy

contributions, burn, plunder and get away before any harm could be done to

them by a counterstroke.

The burning or plundering of Liverpool or Glasgow [he

said] would do us more essential service than a million

of treasure and much blood spent on the continent. It

would raise our reputation to the highest pitch, and

lessen in the same degree that of the enemy. We are

confident it is practicable, and with very little

danger.

In a letter to Lafayette, too, Franklin stated that the coasts of England

and Scotland were extremely open and defenceless, and that there were many

rich towns in those countries near the sea "which 4 or 5000 Men, landing

unexpectedly, might easily surprize and destroy, or exact from them a heavy

Contribution taking a part in ready Money and Hostages for the rest." He

even calculated in livres the amounts that might be demanded of Bristol,

Bath, Liverpool, Lancaster and other English towns.

But the most eventful thing that Franklin ever did in relation to American

activity on the sea was to invite John Paul Jones to take command of a fine

frigate that the envoys had ordered from Holland, but had been compelled by

the vigilance of Great Britain to turn over to France, when but partially

built. While at Brest, Jones received a confidential note from Franklin

telling him that the King had asked the loan of him to the French navy for

a while, and wished him to take command of the frigate. "She is at

present," he said, "the property of the King; but, as there is no war yet

declared, you will have the commission and flag of the United States, and

act under their orders and laws." The frigate, however, was far from being

completed, and the thought of a stranger being placed in command of her was

highly irritating to French naval officers with a mind to promotion.

Chafing under the delay and uncertainty, occasioned by these circumstances,

Jones, whose remarkable literary facility, despite his lack of education,

is at least one illustration of the truth of Dogberry's saying that reading

and writing come by nature, wrote impatient appeals to the French Minister,

Franklin, the members of the Royal Family and the King himself.

While in this humor, his eye happened to fall upon a maxim in one of Poor

Richard's Almanacs, "If you would have your business done, go; if not,

send." He heeded the suggestion, proceeded to Versailles and secured an

order for the purchase of the forty-gun ship, which, in honor of his

monitor, he called the _Bon Homme Richard_. What she did, old as she was,

with her heroic commander, and her medley crew of Americans, Irish,

English, Scotch, French, Portuguese, Maltese and Malay sailors, before she

relaxed her dying clutch upon the _Serapis_, and sank, immortalized by a

splendid victory, to the bottom of the ocean, there is no need for the

biographer of Franklin to tell. It is enough to say that for Franklin Jones

ever entertained a feeling little short of passionate reverence. "The

letter which I had the honor to receive from your Excellency to-day ...

would make a coward brave," was his reply to one of Franklin's wise and

humane letters of instruction. This letter is evidence enough that Franklin

was not so incensed by the ruthless conduct at times of the British in

America as to be lost to the clemency of his own abstract views about the

proper limits of warfare.

Altho' [he said] the English have wantonly burnt many

defenceless Towns in America, you are not to follow

this Example, unless where a Reasonable Ransom is

refused; in which Case, your own generous feelings, as

well as this Instruction, will induce you to give

timely Notice of your Intention, that sick and ancient

Persons, Women and Children, may be first removed.

The relief of American prisoners in England was another thing which

continually taxed the attention of Franklin during the Revolutionary War.

"I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not," was a reproach that no

one of them could justly address to him. His nature was a truly

compassionate one, and, in few respects, does it show to greater advantage

than in his unceasing efforts to secure the exchange of his unhappy

countrymen, confined at Portsmouth and Plymouth, or, that failing, to

provide them with all the pecuniary succor in his power, in addition to

that so generously extended to them by many kind hearts in England.[40] In

his friend, David Hartley, a man, whose peaceful and humane instincts even

the vilest passions of war could not efface, he had an agent in a position

to reach the ear of the English Ministry for the purpose of promoting the

exchange of prisoners. For different reasons, the task was a painfully slow

one. In the beginning, all American prisoners were committed to prison upon

the charge of high treason, a charge entirely inconsistent with the idea of

exchange. Besides, England was reluctant to relinquish the advantage that

she had, until the treaty of alliance between France and America was

consummated, in the fact that American ships had nowhere to confine their

prisoners except under their own hatches. They tried to meet this

difficulty by releasing English prisoners on parole on their each promising

that they would secure the release of an American prisoner, but the English

Admiralty, after some hesitation, finally refused to surrender a single

American prisoner in exchange for such paroled Englishmen. Commenting upon

this fact, along with another incident, Franklin wrote to James Lovell,

"There is no gaining anything upon these Barbarians by Advances of Civility

or Humanity." At last, however, several cartels were agreed upon, and he

enjoyed the great happiness of seeing some hundred or so American captives

brought over to France and released. He was still, however, to incur a

great disappointment when, owing to the fear on the part of Holland of

provoking English resentment, the five hundred prisoners, transferred to

Holland by John Paul Jones, after his engagement with the _Serapis_, had to

be exchanged for French instead of American prisoners. The French Ministry

promised to make this disappointment good by advancing to Franklin an equal

number of English prisoners taken by French ships, but the English

Ministry promptly met this promise by refusing to exchange American

prisoners for any English prisoners except such as had been captured by

American ships. It was also a great disappointment to Franklin that he

could not induce the English Ministry to give its assent to a formal

proposition from him that prisoners, taken by either country, should be

immediately released upon the understanding that an equal number of

prisoners held by the other should also be released. The high-minded

conduct of Hartley, inspired in part by the hope that lenient treatment of

American prisoners might help to re-unite the two countries, was all the

more admirable, when contrasted with the harsh words, in which Franklin

sometimes in his letters to him inveighed against the English King,

Parliament and People. It is inconceivable that even Hartley would not have

gradually wearied of well-doing, if his perfect knowledge of Franklin's

benevolent nature had not taught him how to make liberal allowances for his

friend's occasional gusts of indignation.

This indignation was usually visited upon the English King and Ministry,

but upon one occasion it was visited upon the English people as well.

It is now impossible [he wrote to Hartley] to persuade

our people, as I long endeavoured, that the war was

merely ministerial, and that the nation bore still a

good will to us. The infinite number of addresses

printed in your gazettes, all approving this conduct of

your government towards us, and encouraging our

destruction by every possible means, the great majority

in Parliament constantly manifesting the same

sentiments, and the popular public rejoicings on

occasion of any news of the slaughter of an innocent

and virtuous people, fighting only in defence of their

just rights; these, together with the recommendations

of the same measures by even your celebrated moralists

and divines, in their writings and sermons, that are

cited approved and applauded in your great national

assemblies; all join in convincing us, that you are no

longer the magnanimous and enlightened nation, we once

esteemed you, and that you are unfit and unworthy to

govern us, as not being able to govern your own

passions.

Indeed, in this letter Franklin even told Hartley that, if the resentment

of the English people did not speedily fall on their ministry, the future

inhabitants of America would detest the name of Englishman as much as the

children in Holland did those of Alva and Spaniard. But, scold as he might

England and her rulers, he deeply appreciated the magnanimity of the good

man, who even took pains to see that sums placed in his hands by Franklin

were duly applied to the relief of the prisoners for whose liberty he

strove so disinterestedly. Referring in one of his letters to Hartley to

two little bills of exchange that he had sent to him for this purpose, he

said, "Permit me to repeat my thankful Acknowledgments for the very humane

and kind part you have acted in this Affair. If I thought it necessary I

would pray God to bless you for it. But I know he will do it without my

Prayers."

Correspondingly stern was the rebuke of Franklin for the heartless knave,

Thomas Digges, equal even to the theft of an obolus placed upon the closed

eyelids of a dead man as the price of his ferriage across the Styx--who

drew upon Franklin in midwinter for four hundred and ninety-five pounds

sterling for the relief of the American prisoners, and converted all but

about thirty pounds of the sum to his own personal use. "We have no Name in

our Language," said Franklin in a letter to William Hodgson, "for such

atrocious Wickedness. If such a Fellow is not damn'd, it is not worth while

to keep a Devil."

Besides Hartley, to say nothing of this William Hodgson, a merchant, who

performed offices for Franklin similar to those of Hartley, there was

another Englishman whose humanity with regard to American prisoners

elicited the grateful acknowledgments of Franklin. This was Thomas Wren, a

Presbyterian minister at Portsmouth, who was untiring in soliciting

contributions from his Christian brethren in England, and applying the sums

thus obtained by him, as well as the weekly allowances sent to him by

Franklin, to the wants of American prisoners in Forton Prison. "I think

some public Notice," Franklin wrote to Robert R. Livingston, "should be

taken of this good Man. I wish the Congress would enable me to make him a

Present, and that some of our Universities would confer upon him the Degree

of Doctor." The suggestion bore fruit, Congress sent Wren a vote of thanks,

and the degree of Doctor in Divinity was conferred upon him by Princeton

College. He, too, did not need the prayers of Franklin to receive the

blessings reserved for the few rare spirits who can hear the voice of the

God of Mercy even above the tumult of his battling children.

There were many other engrossing claims of a public or quasi-public nature

upon Franklin's attention in France. In the earlier stages of the

Revolutionary War, he was fairly besieged by foreign officers eager to

share in its peril and glory. Several of those recommended by him to

Congress--such as Steuben--gave a good account of themselves in America,

but the number of those, who had no special title to his recommendation,

was so great, that his ingenuity and sense of humor were severely strained

to evade them or laugh them off.

You can have no Conception [he wrote to a friend] how I

am harass'd. All my Friends are sought out and teiz'd

to teize me. Great officers of all Ranks, in all

Departments; Ladies, great and small, besides professed

Sollicitors, worry me from Morning to Night. The Noise

of every Coach now that enters my Court terrifies me. I

am afraid to accept an Invitation to dine abroad, being

almost sure of meeting with some Officer or Officer's

Friend, who, as soon as I am put in a good Humour by a

Glass or two of Champaign, begins his Attack upon me.

Luckily I do not often in my sleep dream myself in

these vexatious Situations, or I should be afraid of

what are now my only Hours of Comfort. If, therefore,

you have the least remaining Kindness for me, if you

would not help to drive me out of France, for God's

sake, my dear friend, let this your 23rd Application be

your last.

The friend to whom this letter was written was a Frenchman, and the lecture

that Franklin read to him in it on the easy-going habits of his countrymen

in giving recommendations is also worthy of quotation:

Permit me to mention to you [he said] that, in my

Opinion, the natural complaisance of this country often

carries People too far in the Article of

_Recommendations_. You give them with too much Facility

to Persons of whose real Characters you know nothing,

and sometimes at the request of others of whom you know

as little. Frequently, if a man has no useful Talents,

is good for nothing and burdensome to his Relations, or

is indiscreet, Profligate, and extravagant, they are

glad to get rid of him by sending him to the other end

of the World; and for that purpose scruple not to

recommend him to those that they wish should recommend

him to others, as "_un bon sujet, plein de merite_,"

&c. &c. In consequence of my crediting such

Recommendations, my own are out of Credit, and I can

not advise anybody to have the least Dependence on

them. If, after knowing this, you persist in desiring

my Recommendation for this Person, who is known neither

to _me_ nor to _you_, I will give it, tho', as I said

before, I ought to refuse it.

The subject was one that repeatedly awakened his humorous instincts.

You can have no conception of the Arts and Interest

made use of to recommend and engage us to recommend

very indifferent persons [he wrote to James Lovell].

The importunity is boundless. The Numbers we refuse

incredible: which if you knew you would applaud us for,

and on that Account excuse the few we have been

prevail'd on to introduce to you. But, as somebody

says,

"Poets lose half the Praise they would have got,

Were it but known what they discreetly blot."

The extent to which Silas Deane yielded to the solicitations of eager

candidates abroad for military honor was one of the things that helped to

destroy his standing with Congress. A second letter was written by Franklin

to Lovell in which he had a word of extenuation for Deane's weakness in

this respect.

I, who am upon the spot [he said] and know the infinite

Difficulty of resisting the powerful Solicitations here

of great Men, who if disoblig'd might have it in their

Power to obstruct the Supplies he was then obtaining,

do not wonder, that, being a Stranger to the People,

and unacquainted with the Language, he was at first

prevail'd on to make some such Agreements, when all

were recommended, as they always are, as _officiers

experimentes_, _braves comme leurs epees_, _pleins de

Courage, de Talents, et de Zele pour notre Cause_, &c.

&c. in short, mere Cesars, each of whom would have been

an invaluable Acquisition to America.

Franklin even had the temerity to draft this _jeu d'esprit_ to suit the

character of the more extreme class of applications made to him for

military employment, and it was actually used at times according to William

Temple Franklin.

The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me

to give him a Letter of Recommendation, tho' I know

nothing of him, not even his Name. This may seem

extraordinary, but I assure you it is not uncommon

here. Sometimes, indeed one unknown Person brings

another equally unknown, to recommend him; and

sometimes they recommend one another! As to this

Gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his

Character and Merits, with which he is certainly better

acquainted than I can possibly be. I recommend him

however to those Civilities, which every Stranger, of

whom one knows no Harm, has a Right to; and I request

you will do him all the good Offices, and show him all

the Favour that, on further Acquaintance, you shall

find him to deserve.

An ill-balanced man might have fretted himself into an angry outbreak or a

state of physical decline under the exasperation of such importunities, but

none of the petty annoyances of Franklin's position were too rough to

withstand the smoothing effect of his unctuous humor. It was like the oil

that he was in the habit of carrying around with him in the hollow joint of

a bamboo cane during the period of his life when he was testing the

tranquillizing effect of oil upon ruffled water.

At times, however, the unreasonableness of some of the applicants was too

much even for Rabelais in his easy chair.

First [he wrote to a M. Lith], you desired to have

Means procur'd for you of taking a Voyage to America

"_avec surete_"; which is not possible, as the Dangers

of the Sea subsist always, and at present there is the

additional Danger of being taken by the English. Then

you desire that this may be _sans trop grandes

Depenses_, which is not intelligible enough to be

answer'd, because, not knowing your Ability of bearing

expences, one can not judge what may be _trop grandes_.

Lastly, you desire Letters of Address to the Congress

and to General Washington; which it is not reasonable

to ask of one who knows no more of you, than that your

name is Lith, and that you live at Bayreuth.

Another applicant, who thirsted for military renown, was one, Louis

Givanetti Pellion, "ci-devant Garde du Corps de S. M. le Roi de Sardaigne,

aujourd'hui Controlleur de la Cour de S. Mo susdite." "I know how," this

gentleman wrote, "to accommodate myself to all climates, manners,

circumstances, and times. I am passionately fond of travel, I love to see

the great world, its armies and navies. Neither cards, nor wine nor women

have any influence over me; but a ship, an army, long voyages, all these

are Paradise to me."

It was also Franklin's lot to receive many letters of inquiry about the New

World from individuals in Europe, who were thinking of migrating to America

for peaceable purposes. What of its climate, its trade, its people, its

laws? These were some of the questions relating to the New Eldorado which

these individuals wished answered. To all who questioned him about the

opportunities held out by America, when he did not simply refer the

questioners to Crevecoeur's "Letters from an American Farmer," his

answers were substantially the same. The emigrants to America would find a

good climate, good air, good soil, good government, good laws and liberty

there, but no Lotus Land. One Reuben Harvey wrote to him from Cork that

about one hundred poor Irish tradesmen and husbandmen desired to settle in

America. Franklin replied sententiously, "They will go to a Country where

People do not Export their Beef and Linnen to import Claret, while the Poor

at home live on Potatoes and wear Rags. Indeed America has not Beef and

Linnen sufficient for Exportation because every man there, even the

poorest, eats Beef and wears a Shirt."

Numerous letters came to him from authors inviting his literary criticism,

or asking him to accord to them the honor of permitting them to dedicate

their works to him. Allamand, the Warden of the forests and waters of the

Island of Corsica, wished to know from him what canals there were in

America. None, he replied, unless a short water-way, cut, it was said, in a

single night across a loop formed by a long bend in Duck Creek, in the

State of Delaware, could be called such. Projectors of all kinds solicited

his views about their several projects, sane or crack-brained. Sheer

beggars, as we have already seen, were likewise among his correspondents.

One, La Baronne de Randerath, tells him that she has been advised by the

doctors to take her husband to Aix, and, as her justification for

requesting a loan from Franklin for the purpose, she mentions that her

husband and Franklin are both Masons, though members of different lodges.

Another letter requests him to exercise his influence with the Minister of

Marine in behalf of the writer, a sea captain, who wishes to be discharged

from the King's service. Dartmouth College, Brown University, Princeton

College and Dickinson College all appealed to him for his aid in their

efforts to secure money or other gifts abroad. In a word, he was not only

world-famous but paid fully all the minor as well as major penalties of

world-fame.

How curdled by the animosities of the Revolutionary War was the milk of

human kindness even in such an amiable breast as that of Franklin, we have

already had reason enough to know. His nature yielded slowly to the intense

feelings, aroused by the long conflict between Great Britain and her

Colonies, but it was equally slow to part with them when once inflamed. The

most notable thing about his attitude towards Great Britain, after the

first effusion of American blood at Lexington, was the inexorable firmness

with which he repelled all advances upon the part of England that fell

short of the recognition of American Independence. When the English

Ministry fully realized that Great Britain was not waging war against a few

rebellious malcontents but against a whole people in arms, overture after

overture was informally made to Franklin by one English emissary or

another, in the effort to dissolve the alliance between France and the

United States, and to restore, as far as possible, the old connection

between Great Britain and America. Among the first of these emissaries was

Franklin's good friend, James Hutton. Franklin received him with the most

affectionate kindness, but a letter, which he wrote to Hutton, after Hutton

had returned to England, showed how entirely fruitless the journey of the

latter had been. A peace, Franklin said, England might undoubtedly obtain

by dropping all her pretensions to govern America, but, if she did not,

with the peace, recover the affections of the American people, it would be

neither a lasting nor a profitable one. To recover the respect and

affection of America, England must tread back the steps that she had taken

and disgrace the American advisers and promoters of the war, with all those

who had inflamed the nation against America by their malicious writings;

and all the ministers and generals who had prosecuted the war with such

inhumanity. A little generosity, in the way of territorial concessions

added to the counsels of necessity, would have a happy effect. For

instance, Franklin said, if England would have a real friendly as well as

able ally in America, and avoid all occasions of future discord, which

would otherwise be continually arising along its American frontiers, it

might throw in Canada, Nova Scotia and the Floridas.

Hutton was succeeded by William Pulteney, a member of Parliament. All of

his propositions were predicated upon the continued dependence of America.

Every proposition, Franklin let him know, which implied the voluntary

return of America to dependence on Great Britain was out of the question.

The proper course for Great Britain, in his judgment, was to acknowledge

the independence of the United States, and to enter into such a treaty of

peace, friendship and commerce with them as France itself had formed. The

concluding words of Franklin's letter were hardly necessary to convince

Pulteney of the hopelessness of his task. "May God at last," they ran,

"grant that Wisdom to your national Councils, which he seems long to have

deny'd them, and which only sincere, just, and humane Intentions can merit

or expect." Ten days before this letter was written, the American envoys

had been presented to the French King. Then followed David Hartley and Mr.

George Hammond, the father of the George Hammond, who, many years

afterwards, became Minister Plenipotentiary from England to the United

States. When they arrived at Paris, it was only to find that the treaty of

alliance between France and the United States had already been signed, and

to learn soon afterwards that one of its clauses obliged the United States

to make common cause with France, in case England declared war against her.

How authentic were the credentials of the next emissary it is impossible to

say, but Franklin was entirely confident that he came over to France under

the direct patronage of George III. The circumstances were these. One

morning, a lengthy letter was thrown into a window of Franklin's residence

at Passy, written in English, dated at Brussels, and signed Charles de

Weissenstein. The letter conjured Franklin in the name of the Just and

Omniscient God, before whom all must soon appear, and by his hopes of

future fame, to consider if some expedient could not be devised for ending

the desolation of America and preventing the war imminent in Europe. It

then declared that France would certainly at last betray America, and

suggested a plan for the union of England and America. Under the plan,

among other things, judges of the American courts were to be named by the

King, and to hold their offices for life, and were to bear titles either as

peers of America, or otherwise, as should be decided by his Majesty; there

were to be septennial sessions of Congress, or more frequent ones, if his

Majesty should think fit to call Congress together oftener, but all its

proceedings were to be transmitted to the British Parliament, without whose

consent no money was ever to be granted by Congress, or any separate State

of America to the Crown; the chief offices of the American civil list were

to be named in the plan, and the compensation attached to them was to be

paid by America; the naval and military forces of the Union were to be

under the direction of his Majesty, but the British Parliament was to fix

their extent, and vote the sums necessary for their maintenance. It was

also proposed by the letter that, to protect Franklin, Washington, Adams,

Hancock and other leaders of the American Revolution from the personal

enmity in England, by which their talents might otherwise be kept down,

they were to have offices or pensions for life at their option. The promise

was also made that, in case his Majesty, or his successors, should ever

create American peers, then those persons, or their descendants, were to be

among the first peers created, if they desired. Moreover, _Mr._ Washington

was to have immediately a brevet of lieutenant-general, and all the honors

and precedence incident thereto, but was not to assume or bear any command

without a special warrant, or letter of service for that purpose, from the

King.

The writer further asked for a personal interview with Franklin for the

purpose of discussing the details of the project, or, he stated, if that

was not practicable, he would be in a certain part of the Cathedral of

Notre Dame on a certain day at noon precisely, with a rose in his hat, to

receive a written answer from Franklin which he would transmit directly to

the King himself. Franklin laid the letter before his colleagues, and it

was agreed that it should be answered by him, and that both it and the

answer should be laid before Vergennes, and that the answer should be sent

or kept back as Vergennes believed best. The French Minister decided that

it had best not be sent. At the hour fixed for the interview, however, an

agent of the French police was on hand, and he reported that a gentleman,

whose name he afterwards ascertained to be an Irish one by tracking him to

his hotel, did appear at the appointed time, and, finding no one to meet

him, wandered about the Cathedral, looking at the altars and pictures, but

never losing sight of the place suggested for the tryst, and often

returning to it, and gazing anxiously about him as if he expected some one.

The scornful tone of the letter, drafted by Franklin, which is not unlike

one of the scolding speeches, with which the Homeric heroes expressed their

opinions of each other, leaves little room for doubt that he truly believed

himself to be assailing no less a person than the bigoted King himself.

After some savage thrusts, which remind us of those aimed by Hamlet at

Polonius behind the arras, he bursts out into these exclamatory words: