MINISTER TO FRANCE, II PRISONERS: TROUBLE WITH LEE AND OTHERS
No sooner had the war taken on an assured character than many quick-eyed
and adventurous Americans, and Franklin among the first, saw
irresistible temptation and great opportunity in that enormous British
commerce which whitened all the seas. The colonists of that day, being a
seafaring people with mercantile instincts, were soon industriously
engaged in the lucrative field of maritime captures. Franklin
recommended the fortifying of three or four harbors into which prizes
could be safely carried. Nothing else, he said, would give the new
nation "greater weight and importance in the eyes of the commercial
states." Privateering is not always described by such complimentary and
dignified language, but the practical-minded rebel spoke well of that
which it was so greatly to the advantage of his countrymen to do. After
arriving in France he found himself in a position to advance this
business very greatly. Conyngham, Wickes, with others only less famous,
all active and gallant men as ever trod a deck, took the neighboring
waters as their chosen scene of action, and very soon were stirring up
a commotion such as Englishmen had never experienced before. They
harried the high, and more especially the narrow, seas with a success at
least equal to that of the Alabama, while some of them differed from
Semmes and his compeers in being as anxious to fight as the Southern
captains were to avoid fighting. Prize after prize they took and carried
into port, or burned and sank; prisoners they had more than they knew
what to do with; they frightened the underwriters so that in London the
insurance against capture ran up to the ruinous premium of sixty per
cent. The Lisbon and the Dutch packets fell victims, and insurance of
boats plying between Dover and Calais went to ten per cent. Englishmen
began to feel that England was blockaded! We are not so familiar as we
ought to be with the interesting record of all these audacious and
brilliant enterprises, conducted with dare-devil recklessness by men who
would not improbably have been hanged both as pirates and as traitors,
had fortune led to their capture at this moment of British rage and
anxiety.[47]
[Note 47: In fact, Conyngham, being at last captured, narrowly
escaped this fate.]
All this cruising was conducted under the auspices of Franklin. To him
these gallant rovers looked for instructions and suggestions, for money
and supplies. He had to issue commissions, to settle personal
misunderstandings, to attend to questions of prize money, to soothe
unpaid mutineers, to advise as to the purchase of ships, and as to the
enterprises to be undertaken; in a word, he was the only _American
government_ which these independent sailors knew. The tax thus laid upon
him was severe, for he was absolutely without experience in such
matters.
There was one labor, however, in this connection, which properly fell
within his department, and in this his privateersmen gave him abundant
occupation. It was to stand between them and the just wrath and fatal
interference of the French government. Crude as international law was in
those days, it was far from being crude enough for the strictly
illegitimate purposes of these vikings. What they expected was to buy,
equip, man, and supply their vessels in French ports, to sail out on
their prize-taking excursions, and, having captured their fill, to
return to these same ports, and there to have their prizes condemned, to
sell their booty, to refit and re-supply, and then to sally forth again.
In short, an Englishman would have been puzzled to distinguish a
difference between the warlike ports of America and the neutral ports of
France, save as he saw that the latter, being nearer, were much the more
injurious. But de Vergennes had no notion of being used for American
purposes in this jeopardizing style. He did not mean to have a war with
England, if he could avoid it; so he gave to the harbor masters orders
which greatly annoyed and surprised the American captains,
"extraordinary" orders, as these somewhat uninstructed sea-dogs
described them in their complaining letters to Franklin. They thought it
an outrage that the French minister should refuse to have English prizes
condemned within French jurisdiction, and that he should not allow them
to refit and to take on board cannon and ammunition at Nantes or
Rochelle. They called upon Franklin to check these intolerable
proceedings. Their audacious and boundless insolence is very
entertaining to read, especially if, in connection therewith, we call to
mind the history of the "Alabama outrages."
Franklin knew, just as well as de Vergennes did, that the French
ministry was all the time favoring the privateersmen and cruisers far
beyond the law, and that it was ready to resort to as many devices as
ingenuity could concoct for that purpose; also that the Americans by
their behavior persistently violated all reason and neutral toleration.
Nevertheless he stood gallantly by his own, and in one case after
another he kept corresponding with de Vergennes under pretense of
correcting misrepresentations, presenting requests, and arguing points,
until, by the time thus gained, the end was achieved. The truth was that
Franklin's duty was to get from France just as much aid, direct and
indirect, as could be either begged or filched from her. Such orders
could not be written down in plain words in his instructions, but none
the less they lurked there not illegible to him among the lines. He
obeyed them diligently. France was willing to go fully as far as she
could with safety; his function was to push, to pull, to entice, even to
mislead, in order to make her go farther. Perhaps it was a fair game;
France had her interest to see Great Britain dismembered and weakened,
but not herself to fight other people's battles; the colonies had their
interest to get France into the fight if they possibly could. It was a
strictly selfish interest, and was pursued almost shamelessly. The
colonial policy and the details of its execution are defensible simply
on the basis that nations in their dealings with each other are always
utterly selfish and generally utterly unscrupulous. By and by, when it
comes to the treating for peace between England and the colonies, we
shall find de Vergennes much reviled because he pursued exclusively
French interests; but it will be only fair to reflect that little more
can be charged against him than that he was playing the game with cards
drawn from the same pack which the Americans had used in these earlier
days of the war.
***
A matter which grew out of privateering gave Franklin much trouble. The
American captains, who were cruising on the European side of the
Atlantic prior to the treaty of alliance with France, had no place in
which to deposit their prisoners. They could not often send them to the
States, neither of course could they accumulate them on board their
ships, nor yet store them, so to speak, in France and Spain; for
undeveloped as were the rules of neutrality they at least forbade the
use of neutral prisons for the keeping of English prisoners of war in
time of peace. Meanwhile the colonial captives, in confinement just
across the Channel, in the prisons at Plymouth and Portsmouth, were
subjected to very harsh treatment; and others were even being sent to
the fort of Senegal on the coast of Africa, and to the East Indies,
whence they could not hope ever to regain their homes. Franklin
immediately resolved, if possible, to utilize these assets in the shape
of English sailors in the usual course of exchange. A letter was
accordingly addressed by him to Lord Stormont, asking whether it would
be worth while to approach the British court with an offer to exchange
one hundred English prisoners in the hands of the captain of the
Reprisal for a like number of American sailors from the English prisons.
The note was a simple interrogatory in proper form of civility. No
answer was received. After a while a second letter was prepared, less
formal, more forcible in statement and argument, and in the appeal to
good sense and decent good feeling. This elicited from his lordship a
brief response: "The king's ambassador receives no applications from
rebels, unless they come to implore his majesty's mercy." The
commissioners indignantly rejoined: "In answer to a letter which
concerns some of the most material interests of humanity, and of the two
nations, Great Britain and the United States of America, now at war, we
received the inclosed indecent paper, as coming from your lordship,
which we return for your lordship's more mature consideration."
The technical position of the English in this business was that the
captured Americans were not prisoners of war, but traitors. Their
practical position was that captains of American privateers, not finding
it a physical possibility to keep their prisoners, would erelong be
obliged to let them go without exchange. This anticipation turned out to
be correct, and so far justified their refusal; for soon some five
hundred English sailors got their freedom as a necessity, without any
compensatory freeing of Americans. Each of them gave a solemn promise in
writing to obtain the release of an American prisoner in return; but he
had as much authority to hand over the Tower of London, and the British
government was not so romantically chivalrous as to recognize pledges
entered into by foremast hands.
All sorts of stories continued to reach Franklin's ears as to the
cruelty which his imprisoned countrymen had to endure. He heard that
they were penniless and could get no petty comforts; that they suffered
from cold and hunger, and were subjected to personal indignities; that
they were not allowed to read a newspaper or to write a letter; that
they were all committed by a magistrate on a charge of high treason, and
were never allowed to forget their probable fate on the gibbet; that
some of them, as has been said, were deported to distant and unwholesome
English possessions. For the truth of these accounts it is not necessary
to believe that the English government was intentionally brutal; but it
was neglectful and indifferent, and those who had prisoners in charge
felt assured that no sympathy for rebels would induce an investigation
into peculations or unfeeling behavior. Moreover there was a deliberate
design, by terror and discouragement, to break the spirit of the
so-called traitors and persuade them to become real traitors by entering
the English service.
By all these tales Franklin's zeal in the matter of exchange was greatly
stimulated. His humane soul revolted at keeping men who were not
criminals locked up in wasting misery, when they might be set free upon
terms of perfect equality between the contending parties. Throughout his
correspondence on this subject there is a magnanimity, a humanity, a
spirit of honesty and even of honor so extraordinary, or actually
unique, in dealings between diplomats and nations, that the temptation
is irresistible to give a fuller narrative than the intrinsic importance
of the subject would warrant. For after all there were never many
English prisoners in France to be exchanged; after a while they might be
counted by hundreds, but perhaps they never rose to a total of one
thousand.
There was at this time in England a man to whose memory Americans ought
to erect statues. This was David Hartley. He was a gentleman of the most
liberal and generous sentiments, an old and valued friend of Franklin,
member of Parliament for Hull, allied with the opposition in this matter
of the American war, but personally on good terms with Lord North. He
had not very great ability; he wrote long letters, somewhat surcharged
with morality and good-feeling. One would expect to hear that he was on
terms of admiring intimacy with his contemporary, the good Mrs.
Barbauld. But he had those opportunities which come only to men whose
excellence of character and purity of motive place them above
suspicion,--opportunities which might have been shut off from an abler
man, and which he now used with untiring zeal and much efficiency in
behalf of the American prisoners. Lord North did not hesitate to permit
him to correspond with Franklin, and he long acted as a medium of
communication more serviceable than Lord Stormont had been. Furthermore
Hartley served as almoner to the poor fellows, and pushed a private
subscription in England to raise funds for securing to them reasonable
comforts. There were responsive hearts and purses, even for rebels,
among his majesty's subjects, and a considerable sum was collected.
Franklin's first letter to Hartley on this subject, October 14, 1777,
has something of bitterness in its tone, with much deep feeling for his
countrymen, whose reputed woes he narrates. "I can assure you," he adds,
"from my certain knowledge, that your people, prisoners in America, have
been treated with great kindness, having had the same rations of
wholesome provisions as our own troops," "comfortable lodgings" in
healthy villages, with liberty "to walk and amuse themselves on their
parole." "Where you have thought fit to employ contractors to supply
your people, these contractors have been protected and aided in their
operations. Some considerable act of kindness towards our people would
take off the reproach of inhumanity in that respect from the nation and
leave it where it ought with more certainty to lie, on the conductors of
your war in America. This I hint to you out of some remaining good will
to a nation I once loved sincerely. But as things are, and in my present
temper of mind, not being over-fond of receiving obligations, I shall
content myself with proposing that your government should allow us to
send or employ a commissary to take some care of those unfortunate
people. Perhaps on your representations this might be obtained in
England, though it was refused most inhumanly at New York."
In December following he had arranged with Major Thornton, "who appears
a man of humanity," to visit the prisons and give relief to the
prisoners, and he hopes that Thornton "may obtain permission for that
purpose." "I have wished," he added, "that some voluntary act of
compassion on the part of your government towards those in your power
had appeared in abating the rigors of their confinement, and relieving
their pressing necessities, as such generosity towards enemies has
naturally an effect in softening and abating animosity in their
compatriots, and disposing to reconciliation." Of such unconventional
humanity was he!
Hartley met Franklin's ardent appeals with responsive ardor. May 29,
1778, he writes that he will press the point of exchange as much as he
can, "which in truth," he says, "I have done many times since I saw you;
but official departments move slowly here. A promise of five months is
yet unperformed." But a few days later, June 5, he is "authorized" to
propose that Franklin should send to him "the number and rank of the
prisoners, upon which an equal number shall be prepared upon this side
for the exchange." Franklin at once demanded lists from his captains,
and replied to Hartley: "We desire and expect that the number of ours
shall be taken from Forton and Plymouth, in proportion to the number in
each place, and to consist of those who have been longest in
confinement." He then made this extraordinary suggestion: "If you think
proper to clear all your prisoners at once, and give us all our people,
we give you our solemn engagement, which we are sure will be punctually
executed, to deliver to Lord Howe in America, or to his order, a number
of your sailors equal to the surplus, as soon as the agreement arrives
there." It is easy to fancy a British minister thrusting his tongue into
his cheek as this simple-minded proposal of the plain-dealing colonist
was read to him. The only occasion on which Franklin showed ignorance of
diplomacy was in assuming, in this matter of the prisoners, that honesty
and honor were bases of dealing between public officials in
international matters.
He suggested also retaining a distinction between sailors of the navy
and of the commercial marine. After repeated applications to the Board
of Admiralty, Hartley was only able to reply to all Franklin's proposals
that no distinction could be made between the naval and merchant
services, because all the Americans were "detained under commitments
from some magistrate, as for high treason."
July 13, 1778, Franklin remitted to Hartley the lists of English
prisoners. September 14 he recurs again to the general release: "You
have not mentioned whether the proposition of sending us the whole of
those in your prisons was agreed to. If it is, you may rely on our
sending immediately all that come to our hands for the future; or we
will give you, [at] your option, an order for the balance to be
delivered to your fleet in America. By putting a little confidence in
one another, we may thus diminish the miseries of war." Five days later
he took a still more romantic position: heretofore, he said, the
American commissioners had encouraged and aided the American prisoners
to try to escape; "but if the British government should honorably keep
their agreement to make regular exchanges, we shall not think it
consistent with the honor of the United States to encourage such
escapes, or to give any assistance to such as shall escape."
Yet at the same time he showed himself fully able to conduct business
according to the usual commonplace method. This same letter closes with
a threat under the _lex talionis_: "We have now obtained permission of
this government to put all British prisoners, whether taken by
continental frigates or by privateers, into the king's prisons; and we
are determined to treat such prisoners precisely as our countrymen are
treated in England, to give them the same allowance of provisions and
accommodations, and no other." He was long obliged to reiterate the like
menaces.[48]
[Note 48: Hale's _Franklin in France_, i. 352.]
October 20, 1778, he reverts to his favorite project: "I wish their
lordships could have seen it well to exchange upon account; but though
they may not think it safe trusting to us, we shall make no difficulty
in trusting to them;" and he proposes that, if the English will "send us
over 250 of our people, we will deliver all we have in France;" if these
be less than two hundred and fifty, the English may take back the
surplus Americans; but if these be more than two hundred and fifty,
Franklin says that he will nevertheless deliver them all in expectation
that he will receive back an equivalent for the surplus. "We would thus
wish to commence, by this first advance, that mutual confidence which it
would be for the good of mankind that nations should maintain honorably
with each other, tho' engaged in war."
November 19, 1778, nothing has been achieved, and he gets impatient: "I
have heard nothing from you lately concerning the exchange of the
prisoners. Is that affair dropt? Winter is coming on apace." January 25,
1779: "I a long time believed that your government were in earnest in
agreeing to an exchange of prisoners. I begin now to think I was
mistaken. It seems they cannot give up the pleasing idea of having at
the end of the war 1000 Americans to hang for high treason." Poor
Hartley had been working with all the energy of a good man in a good
cause; but he was in the painful position of having no excuse to offer
for the backwardness of his government.
February 22, 1779, brought more reproaches from Franklin. Months had
elapsed since he had heard that the cartel ship was prepared to cross
the Channel, but she had never come. He feared that he had been
"deceived or trifled with," and proposed sending Edward Bancroft on a
special mission to England, if a safe conduct could be procured. At
last, on March 30, Hartley had the pleasure of announcing that the
exchange ship had "sailed the 25th instant from Plymouth." Franklin
soon replied that the transaction was completed, and gave well-earned
thanks to Hartley for his "unwearied pains in that affair."
Thus after infinite difficulty the English government had been pushed
into conformity with the ordinary customs of war among civilized
nations. Yet subsequent exchanges seem to have been effected only after
every possible obstacle had been contumaciously thrown in the way by the
English and patiently removed by Franklin. The Americans were driven to
various devices. The captains sometimes released their prisoners at sea
upon the written parole of each either to secure the return of an
American, or to surrender himself to Franklin in France. In November,
1781, Franklin had about five hundred of these documents, "not one of
which," he says, "has been regarded, so little faith and honor remain in
that corrupted nation." At last, after France and Spain had joined in
the war, Franklin arranged that the American captors might lodge their
prisoners in French and Spanish prisons.
Under flags of truce two cargoes of English sailors were dispatched from
Boston to England; but the English refused to reciprocate. "There is no
getting anything from these barbarians," said Franklin, "by advances of
civility or humanity." Then much trouble arose because the French
borrowed from Franklin some English prisoners for exchange in Holland,
and returned to him a like number a little too late for delivery on
board the cartel ship, which had brought over one hundred Americans.
Thereupon the Englishmen charged Franklin with "breach of faith," and
with "deceiving the Board," and put a stop to further exchanging. This
matter was, of course, set right in time. But the next point made by the
admiralty was that they would make no exchanges with Franklin except for
English sailors taken by American cruisers, thus excluding captives
taken by the privateersmen. Franklin, much angered at the thwarting of
his humane and reasonable scheme, said that they had "given up all
pretensions to equity and honor." In his disappointment he went a little
too far; if he had said "liberality and humanity" instead of "equity and
honor" he would have kept within literal truth. To meet this last action
on the part of England he suggested to Congress: "Whether it may not be
well to set apart 500 or 600 English prisoners, and refuse them all
exchange in America, but for our countrymen now confined in England?"
Another thing which vexed him later was that the English government
would not give the Americans an "equal allowance" with the French and
Spanish prisoners. He suggested retaliation upon a certain number of
English prisoners in America. He himself was constantly remitting money
to be distributed to the American prisoners, at the rate of one shilling
apiece each week. But he had the pain to hear that the wretched fellow,
one Digges, to whom he sent the funds, embezzled much of them. "If such
a fellow is not damned," he said, "it is not worth while to keep a
devil." One prisoner of distinction, Colonel Laurens, captured on his
way to France, complained that Franklin did not show sufficient zeal in
his behalf. But he made the assertion in ignorance of Franklin's
efforts, which for a long while Franklin had reason to believe had been
successful in securing kind and liberal treatment for this captive.
In all this business Franklin ought to have received efficient
assistance from Thomas Morris, who held the position of commercial agent
for the States at Nantes, and who might properly have extended his
functions to include so much of the naval business as required personal
attention at that port. But he turned out to be a drunken rascal, active
only in mischief. Thereupon, early in 1777, Franklin employed a nephew
of his own from Boston, Jonathan Williams, not to supersede Morris in
the commercial department, but to take charge of the strictly naval
affairs, which were construed to include all matters pertaining to
warships, privateers, and prizes. This action became the source of much
trouble. It was a case of nepotism, of course, which was unfortunate;
yet there was an absolute necessity to engage some one for these duties,
and there was scant opportunity for choice. During the year that
Williams held the office there is no reason to believe that he did not
prove himself both efficient and honest. Robert Morris, however, whose
brother Thomas was, and who had obtained for him the commercial office,
was much offended, and it was not until in the course of time he
received masses of indisputable evidence of his brother's worthlessness,
that he was placated. Then at length he wrote a frank, pathetic letter,
in which he acknowledged that he had been misled by natural affection,
and that his resentment had been a mistake.
Arthur Lee also poured the destructive torrent of his malignant wrath
over the ill-starred Williams. For William Lee pretended to find his
province and his profits also trenched upon. The facts were that he was
appointed to the commercial agency jointly with Thomas Morris; but
shortly afterward he was promoted to the diplomatic service, and left
Nantes for a permanent stay in Paris. He did not formally vacate his
agency, but practically he abandoned it by rendering himself unable to
attend to its duties. So even if by any construction he could have
established a show of right to conduct the naval business, at least he
never was on hand to do so. These considerations, however, did not in
the least mitigate the rage of the Lee brethren, who now brought a great
variety of charges. Franklin, they said, had no authority to make the
appointment, and Williams was a knave engaged in a scandalous
partnership with Deane to make money dishonestly out of the public
business, especially the prizes. The quarrel continued unabated when
John Adams arrived, in 1778, as joint commissioner with Franklin and
Arthur Lee. At once the active Lee besieged the ear of the newcomer with
all his criminations; and he must have found a ready listener, for so
soon as the fourth day after his arrival Adams felt himself sufficiently
informed to take what was practically judicial action in the matter. He
declared upon Lee's side. The two then signed an order for Williams's
dismissal, and presented it to Franklin. It was discourteous if not
insulting behavior to an old man and the senior commissioner; but
Franklin wisely said not a word, and added his signature to those of his
colleagues. The rest of the story is the familiar one of many cases: the
agent made repeated demands for the appointment of an accountant to
examine his accounts, and Franklin often and very urgently preferred the
same request. But the busy Congress would not bother itself ever so
little with a matter no longer of any practical moment. Lee's charges
remained unrefuted, though not a shadow of justifiable suspicion rested
upon Franklin's unfortunate nephew.