The Eve of the Revolution By Carl Becker A Chronicle of the Breach with
England
Volume 11 of the Chronicles of America Series ? Allen Johnson, Editor
Assistant Editors Gerhard R. Lomer Charles W. Jefferys
Abraham Lincoln Edition
New Haven: Yale University Press Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. London:
Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press 1918
Copyright, 1918 by Yale University Press
PREFACE
In this brief sketch I have chiefly endeavored to convey to the reader,
not a record of what men did, but a sense of how they thought and felt
about what they did. To give the quality and texture of the state of
mind and feeling of an individual or class, to create for the reader the
illusion (not delusion, O able Critic!) of the intellectual atmosphere
of past times, I have as a matter of course introduced many quotations;
but I have also ventured to resort frequently to the literary device
(this, I know, gives the whole thing away) of telling the story by
means of a rather free paraphrase of what some imagined spectator or
participant might have thought or said about the matter in hand. If
the critic says that the product of such methods is not history, I am
willing to call it by any name that is better; the point of greatest
relevance being the truth and effectiveness of the illusion aimed
at--the extent to which it reproduces the quality of the thought and
feeling of those days, the extent to which it enables the reader to
enter into such states of mind and feeling. The truth of such history
(or whatever the critic wishes to call it) cannot of course be
determined by a mere verification of references.
To one of my colleagues, who has read the entire manuscript, I am under
obligations for many suggestions and corrections in matters of detail;
and I would gladly mention his name if it could be supposed that an
historian of established reputation would wish to be associated, even in
any slight way, with an enterprise of questionable orthodoxy.
Carl Becker.
Ithaca, New York, January 6, 1918.
Contents
The Eve of the Revolution Chapter Chapter Title Page Preface vii
I. A Patriot of 1763 1 II. The Burden of Empire 12 III. The Rights of a
Nation 50 IV. Defining the Issue 98 V. A Little Discreet Conduct 150 VI.
Testing the issue 200 Bibliographical Note 257
Index 261
THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION
CHAPTER I A PATRIOT OF 1763
His Majesty's reign ... I predict will be happy and truly
glorious.--Benjamin Franklin.
The 29th of January, 1757, was a notable day in the life of Ben Franklin
of Philadelphia, well known in the metropolis of America as printer and
politician, and famous abroad as a scientist and Friend of the Human
Race. It was on that day that the Assembly of Pennsylvania commissioned
him as its agent to repair to London in support of its petition
against the Proprietors of the Province, who were charged with having
"obstinately persisted in manacling their deputies [the Governors
of Pennsylvania] with instructions inconsistent not only with the
privileges of the people, but with the service of the Crown." We may,
therefore, if we choose, imagine the philosopher on that day, being then
in his fifty-first year, walking through the streets of this metropolis
of America (a town of something less than twenty thousand inhabitants)
to his modest home, and there informing his "Dear Debby" that her
husband, now apparently become a great man in a small world, was ordered
immediately "home to England."
In those leisurely days, going home to England was no slight
undertaking; and immediately, when there was any question of a great
journey, meant as soon as the gods might bring it to pass. "I had agreed
with Captain Morris, of the Pacquet at New York, for my passage," he
writes in the Autobiography, "and my stores were put on board, when Lord
Loudoun arrived at Philadelphia, expressly, as he told me, to endeavor
an accommodation between the Governor and the Assembly, that his
Majesty's service might not be obstructed by their dissentions."
Franklin was the very man to effect an accommodation, when he set his
mind to it, as he did on this occasion; but "in the mean time," he
relates, "the Pacquet had sailed with my sea stores, which was some loss
to me, and my only recompence was his Lordship's thanks for my service,
all the credit for obtaining the accommodation falling to his share."
It was now war time, and the packets were at the disposal of Lord
Loudoun, commander of the forces in America. The General was good enough
to inform his accommodating friend that of the two packets then at New
York, one was given out to sail on Saturday, the 12th of April--"but,"
the great man added very confidentially, "I may let you know, entre
nous, that if you are there by Monday morning, you will be in time, but
do not delay longer." As early as the 4th of April, accordingly, the
provincial printer and Friend of the Human Race, accompanied by many
neighbors "to see him out of the province," left Philadelphia. He
arrived at Trenton "well before night," and expected, in case "the roads
were no worse," to reach Woodbridge by the night following. In crossing
over to New York on the Monday, some accident at the ferry delayed him,
so that he did not reach the city till nearly noon, and he feared
that he might miss the packet after all--Lord Loudoun had so precisely
mentioned Monday morning. Happily, no such thing! The packet was still
there. It did not sail that day, or the next either; and as late as the
29th of April Franklin was still hanging about waiting to be off. For it
was war time and the packets waited the orders of General Loudoun, who,
ready in promises but slow in execution, was said to be "like St. George
on the signs, always on horseback but never rides on."
Franklin himself was a deliberate man, and at the last moment he
decided, for some reason or other, not to take the first packet. Behold
him, therefore, waiting for the second through the month of May and
the greater part of June! "This tedious state of uncertainty and long
waiting," during which the agent of the Province of Pennsylvania,
running back and forth from New York to Woodbridge, spent his time more
uselessly than ever he remembered, was duly credited to the perversity
of the British General. But at last they were off, and on the 26th
of July, three and a half months after leaving Philadelphia, Franklin
arrived in London to take up the work of his mission; and there he
remained, always expecting to return shortly, but always delayed, for
something more than five years.
These were glorious days in the history of Old England, the most heroic
since the reign of Good Queen Bess. When the provincial printer arrived
in London, the King and the politicians had already been forced, through
multiplied reverses in every part of the world, to confer power upon
William Pitt, a disagreeable man indeed, but still a great genius and
War Lord, who soon turned defeat into victory. It was the privilege of
Franklin, here in the capital of the Empire, to share the exaltation
engendered by those successive conquests that gave India and America
to the little island kingdom, and made Englishmen, in Horace Walpole's
phrase, "heirs apparent of the Romans." No Briton rejoiced more
sincerely than this provincial American in the extension of the Empire.
He labored with good will and good humor, and doubtless with good
effect, to remove popular prejudice against his countrymen; and he wrote
a masterly pamphlet to prove the wisdom of retaining Canada rather than
Guadaloupe at the close of the war, confidently assuring his readers
that the colonies would never, even when once the French danger was
removed, "unite against their own nation, which protects and encourages
them, with which they have so many connections and ties of blood,
interest, and affection, and which 'tis well known they all love much
more than they love one another."
Franklin, at least, loved Old England, and it might well be maintained
that these were the happiest years of his life. He was mentally so
cosmopolitan, so much at ease in the world, that here in London he
readily found himself at home indeed. The business of his particular
mission, strictly attended to, occupied no great part of his time. He
devoted long days to his beloved scientific experiments, and carried
on a voluminous correspondence with David Hume and Lord Kames, and with
many other men of note in England, France, and Italy. He made journeys,
to Holland, to Cambridge, to ancestral places and the homes of surviving
relatives; but mostly, one may imagine, he gave himself to a steady flow
of that "agreeable and instructive conversation" of which he was so much
the master and the devotee. He was more famous than he knew, and the
reception that everywhere awaited him was flattering, and as agreeable
to his unwarped and emancipated mind as it was flattering. "The regard
and friendship I meet with," he confesses, "and the conversation of
ingenious men, give me no small pleasure"; and at Cambridge, "my vanity
was not a little gratified by the particular regard shown me by the
Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of the University, and the Heads of the
Colleges." As the years passed, the sense of being at ease among friends
grew stronger; the serene and placid letters to "Dear Debby" became
rather less frequent; the desire to return to America was much
attenuated.
How delightful, indeed, was this Old England! "Of all the enviable
things England has," he writes, "I envy it most its people.... Why
should this little island enjoy in almost every neighborhood more
sensible, virtuous, and elegant minds, than we can collect in ranging
one hundred leagues of our vast forests?" What a proper place for a
philosopher to spin out the remnant of his days! The idea had occurred
to him; he was persistently urged by his friend William Strahan to carry
it into effect; and his other friend, David Hume, made him a pretty
compliment on the same theme: "America has sent us many good things,
gold, silver, sugar, tobacco; but you are the first philosopher for whom
we are beholden to her. It is our own fault that we have not kept him;
whence it appears that we do not agree with Solomon, that wisdom is
above gold; for we take good care never to send back an ounce of the
latter, which we once lay our fingers upon." The philosopher was willing
enough to remain; and of the two objections which he mentioned to
Strahan, the rooted aversion of his wife to embarking on the ocean and
his love for Philadelphia, the latter for the moment clearly gave him
less difficulty than the former. "I cannot leave this happy island and
my friends in it without extreme regret," he writes at the moment of
departure. "I am going from the old world to the new; and I fancy I
feel like those who are leaving this world for the next; grief at the
parting; fear of the passage; hope for the future."
When, on the 1st of November, 1762, Franklin quietly slipped into
Philadelphia, he found that the new world had not forgotten him. For
many days his house was filled from morning till night with a succession
of friends, old and new, come to congratulate him on his return;
excellent people all, no doubt, and yet presenting, one may suppose, a
rather sharp contrast to the "virtuous and elegant minds" from whom
he had recently parted in England. The letters he wrote, immediately
following his return to America, to his friends William Strahan and Mary
Stevenson lack something of the cheerful and contented good humor which
is Franklin's most characteristic tone. His thoughts, like those of a
homesick man, are ever dwelling on his English friends, and he still
nourishes the fond hope of returning, bag and baggage, to England for
good and all. The very letter which he begins by relating the cordiality
of his reception in Philadelphia he closes by assuring Strahan that "in
two years at fartherest I hope to settle all my affairs in such manner
as that I may then conveniently remove to England--provided," he adds as
an afterthought, "we can persuade the good woman to cross the sea. That
will be the great difficulty."
It is not known whether it was this difficulty that prevented the
eminent doctor, revered in two continents for his wisdom, from changing
the place of his residence. Dear Debby, as docile as a child in most
respects, very likely had her settled prejudices, of which the desire to
remain on dry land may have been one, and one of the most obstinate.
Or it may be that Franklin found himself too much occupied, too much
involved in affairs after his long absence, to make even a beginning in
his cherished plan; or else, as the months passed and he settled once
more to the familiar, humdrum life of the American metropolis, sober
second thought may have revealed to him what was doubtless a higher
wisdom. "Business, public and private, devours my time," he writes in
March, 1764. "I must return to England for repose. With such thoughts I
flatter myself, and need some kind friend to put me often in mind that
old trees cannot safely be transplanted." Perhaps, after all, Dear Debby
was this kind friend; in which case Americans must all, to this day, be
much indebted to the good woman.
At least it was no apprehension of difficulties arising between England
and the colonies that induced Franklin to remain in America. The Peace
of Paris he regarded as "the most advantageous" of any recorded in
British annals, very fitting to mark the close of a successful war, and
well suited to usher in the long period of prosperous felicity which
should properly distinguish the reign of a virtuous prince. Never
before, in Franklin's opinion, were the relations between Britain and
her colonies more happy; and there could be, he thought, no good reason
to fear that the excellent young King would be distressed, or his
prerogative diminished, by factitious parliamentary opposition.
You now fear for our virtuous young King, that the faction forming will
overpower him and render his reign uncomfortable [he writes to Strahan].
On the contrary, I am of opinion that his virtue and the consciousness
of his sincere intentions to make his people happy will give him
firmness and steadiness in his measures and in the support of the honest
friends he has chosen to serve him; and when that firmness is fully
perceived, faction will dissolve and be dissipated like a morning fog
before the rising sun, leaving the rest of the day clear with a sky
serene and cloudless. Such after a few of the first years will be the
future course of his Majesty's reign, which I predict will be happy
and truly glorious. A new war I cannot yet see reason to apprehend. The
peace will I think long continue, and your nation be as happy as they
deserve to be.