HABITS OF LIFE AND OF BUSINESS: AN ADAMS INCIDENT
John Adams wielded a vivid and vicious pen; he neglected the Scriptural
injunction: "Judge not," and he set honesty before charity in speech.
His judgments upon his contemporaries were merciless; they had that kind
of truthfulness which precluded contradiction, yet which left a sense of
injustice; they were at once accurate and unfair. His strictures
concerning Franklin are an illustration of these peculiarities. What he
said is of importance because he said it, and because members of the
Adams family in successive generations, voluminous contributors to the
history of the country, have never divested themselves of the inherited
enmity toward Franklin. During Adams's first visit to France the
relationship between him and Franklin is described as sufficiently
friendly rather than as cordial. December 7, 1778, in a letter to his
cousin Samuel Adams, John thus described his colleague:--
"The other you know personally, and that he loves his Ease, hates
to offend, and seldom gives any opinion till obliged to do it. I
know also, and it is necessary that you should be informed, that he
is overwhelmed with a correspondence from all quarters, most of
them upon trifling subjects and in a more trifling style, with
unmeaning visits from Multitudes of People, chiefly from the Vanity
of having it to say that they have seen him. There is another thing
that I am obliged to mention. There are so many private families,
Ladies and gentlemen, that he visits so often,--and they are so
fond of him, that he cannot well avoid it,--and so much intercourse
with Academicians, that all these things together keep his mind in
a constant state of dissipation. If indeed you take out of his hand
the Public Treasury and the direction of the Frigates and
Continental vessels that are sent here, and all Commercial affairs,
and entrust them to Persons to be appointed by Congress, at Nantes
and Bordeaux, I should think it would be best to have him here
alone, with such a Secretary as you can confide in. But if he is
left here alone, even with such a secretary, and all maritime and
Commercial as well as political affairs and money matters are left
in his Hands, I am persuaded that France and America will both have
Reason to repent it. He is not only so indolent that Business will
be neglected, but you know that, although he has as determined a
soul as any man, yet it is his constant Policy never to say 'yes'
or 'no' decidedly but when he cannot avoid it."
This mischievous letter, not actually false, yet misrepresenting and
misleading, has unfortunately survived to injure both the man who wrote
it and the man about whom it was written. It is quoted in order to show
the sort of covert fire in the rear to which Franklin was subjected
throughout his term of service. It is astonishing now, when the
evidence is all before us and the truth is attainable, to read such a
description of such a patriot as Franklin, a man who went through labors
and anxieties for the cause probably only surpassed by those of
Washington, and whose services did more to promote success than did the
services of any other save only Washington. How blind was the personal
prejudice of the critic who saw Franklin in Paris and could yet suggest
that the charge of the public treasury should be taken from him! To whom
else would the Frenchmen have unlocked their coffers as they did to him,
whom they so warmly liked and admired? John Adams and Arthur Lee and
other Americans who endeavored to deal with the French court got
themselves so thoroughly hated there that little aid would have been
forthcoming at the request of such representatives. It was to Franklin's
personal influence that a large portion of the substantial help in men,
ships, and especially in money, accorded by France to the States, was
due. He was as much the right man in Europe as was Washington in
America.
Nevertheless this attribution of traits, so maliciously penned, has
passed into history, and though the world does not see that either
France or the States had cause "to repent" keeping Franklin in Paris in
general charge of affairs, and unwatched by a vigilant secretary, yet
all the world believes that in the gay metropolis Franklin was indolent
and given over to social pleasures, which flattered his vanity.
Undoubtedly there is foundation in fact for the belief. But to arrive at
a just conclusion one must consider many things. The character of the
chief witness is as important as that of the accused. Adams, besides
being a severe critic, was filled to the brim with an irrepressible
activity, an insatiate industry, a restlessness and energy, all which
were at this period stimulated by the excitement of the times to an
intensity excessive and abnormal even for him. To him, in this condition
of chronic agitation, the serenity of Franklin's broad intellect and
tranquil nature seemed inexplicable and culpable. But Franklin had what
Adams lacked, a vast experience in men and affairs. Adams knew the
provinces and the provincials; Franklin knew the provinces and England
and France, the provincials, Englishmen, Frenchmen, and all ranks and
conditions of men,--journeymen, merchants, philosophers, men of letters,
diplomatists, courtiers, noblemen, and statesmen. The one was an able
colonist, the other was a man of the world, of exceptionally wide
personal experience even as such. Moreover Franklin's undertakings were
generally crowned with a success which justifies us in saying that,
however much or little exertion he visibly put forth, at least he put
forth enough. Adams sometimes was for putting forth too much. Franklin,
when he arrived in France, was in his seventy-first year; his health was
in the main good, yet his strength had been severely tried by his
journey to Canada and by the voyage. He was troubled with a cutaneous
complaint, of which he makes light, but which was abundant evidence that
his physical condition was far from perfect; he was a victim of the
gout, which attacked him frequently and with great severity, so that he
was often obliged to keep his bed for days and weeks; when he was
appointed sole minister of the States to France he remarked that there
was "some incongruity in a _plenipotentiary_ who could neither stand nor
go;" later on he suffered extremely from stone and gravel; with all
these diseases, and with the remorseless disease of old age gaining
ground every day, it is hardly surprising that Franklin seemed to the
hale and vigorous Adams not to be making that show of activity which
would have been becoming in the chief representative of the United
States during these critical years. Yet except that he was careless
about his papers and remiss in his correspondence, no definite
allegations are made against him prior to the treating for peace; no
business of importance was ever said to have failed in his hands, which
should be a sufficient vindication of his general efficiency. The amount
of labor which was laid upon him was enormous: he did as much business
as the managing head of a great banking-house and a great mercantile
firm combined; he did all the diplomacy of the United States; he was
also their consul-general, and though he had agents in some ports, yet
they more often gave trouble than assistance; after the commercial
treaty with France he had to investigate French laws and tariffs and
give constant advice to American merchants upon all sorts of questions
as to statutes, trade, customs, dues, and duties. What he did concerning
the warships, the privateers, and the prizes has been hinted at rather
than stated; what he did in the way of financiering has been imperfectly
shown; he was often engaged in planning naval operations either for Paul
Jones and others in European waters or for the French fleet in American
waters. He had for a perpetual annoyance all the captiousness and the
quarrels of the two Lees, Izard, and Thomas Morris. When business had to
be transacted, as often occurred, with states at whose courts the United
States had no representative, Franklin had to manage it;[71] especially
he was concerned with the business in Spain, whither he would have
journeyed in person had his health and other engagements permitted.
Moreover he was adviser-general to all American officials of any and
every grade and function in Europe; and much as some of these gentlemen
contemned him, they each and all instinctively demanded his guidance in
every matter of importance. Even Arthur Lee deferred to him rather than
decide for himself; Dana sought his instructions for the mission to
Russia; men of the calibre of Jay and independent John Adams sought and
respected his views and his aid, perhaps more than they themselves
appreciated. Surely here was labor enough, and even more responsibility
than labor; but Franklin's great, well-trained mind worked with the ease
and force of a perfectly regulated machine whose smoothness of action
almost conceals its power, and all the higher parts of his labor were
achieved with little perceptible effort. For the matters of
account-keeping and letter-writing, he neglected these things; and one
is almost provoked into respecting him for so doing when it is
remembered that during all the time of his stay in France Congress never
allowed to this aged and overtasked man a secretary of legation, or even
an amanuensis or a copyist. He had with him his grandson, Temple
Franklin, a lad of sixteen years at the time of his arrival in France,
and whom it had been intended to place at school. But Franklin could not
dispense with his services, and kept this youngster as his sole clerk
and assistant. It should be mentioned also in this connection that it
was not only necessary to prepare the customary duplicates of every
document of importance, but every paper which was to be sent across the
Atlantic had to be copied half a dozen extra times, in order to be
dispatched in as many different ships, so great were the dangers of
capture. It was hardly fair to expect a minister plenipotentiary to
display unwearied zeal in this sort of work. Adams himself would have
done it, and grumbled; Franklin did not do it, and preserved his good
temper. In conclusion it may be said that, if Franklin was indolent, as
in some ways he probably was, he had at least much excuse for indolence,
and the trait showed itself only on what may be called the physical side
of his duties; upon the intellectual side, it cannot be denied that
during the period thus far traversed he did more thinking and to better
purpose than any other American of the day.
[Note 71: For example, with Norway, with Denmark, and with
Portugal.]
In saying that Franklin was fond of society and pleased with the
admiration expressed for him by the ardent and courteous Frenchmen and
by other continental Europeans, Adams spoke correctly. Franklin was
always social and always a little vain. But much less would have been
heard of these traits if the distinction made between him and his
colleagues had been less conspicuous and less constant. That men of the
size of the Lees and Izard should inflate themselves to the measure of
harboring a jealousy of Franklin's preëminence was only ridiculous; but
Adams should have had, as Jay had, too much self-respect to cherish such
a feeling. It was the weak point in his character that he could never
acknowledge a superior, and the fact that the world at large estimated
Washington, Franklin, and Hamilton as men of larger calibre than his own
kept him in a state of exasperation all his life. Now the simple truth,
forced in a thousand unintended ways upon the knowledge of all American
envoys during the Revolution, was, that in Europe Franklin was a
distinguished man, while no other American was known or cared for at
all. Franklin received deference, where others received civility;
Franklin was selected for attentions, for flattery, for official
consultations and communications, while his colleagues were "forgotten
entirely by the French people." Jay, Dana, and Carmichael accepted this
situation in the spirit of sensible gentlemen, but Adams, the Lees, and
Izard were incensed and sought an offset in defamation. Compare
Carmichael's language with what has been quoted from Adams: he says:
"The age of Dr. Franklin in some measure hinders him from taking so
active a part in the drudgery of business as his great zeal and
abilities would otherwise enable him to execute. He is the Master, to
whom we children in politics look up for counsel, and whose name is
everywhere a passport to be well received." Still it must have been
provoking to be customarily spoken of as "Dr. Franklin's associates."
When Franklin was appointed minister plenipotentiary he was obliged to
explain that he was not the "sole representative of America in Europe."
De Vergennes always wished to deal only with him, and occasionally said
things to him in secrecy so close as to be exclusive even of his
"associates." Adams honestly admitted that "this court have confidence
in him alone." When a favor was to be asked, it was Franklin who could
best seek it; and when it was granted it seemed to be vouchsafed to
Franklin. In a word, Franklin had the monopoly of the confidence, the
respect, and the personal regard of the French ministry. It was the same
way also with the English; when they made advances for conciliation or
peace, they too selected Franklin for their communications.
Adams was not sufficiently familiar with the modes of political life in
Europe to appreciate what a substantial value Franklin's social and
scientific prestige among the "ladies and gentlemen" and the
"academicians" had there. All those tributes which the great
"philosopher" was constantly receiving may have been, as Adams said,
pleasant food for his vanity, but they were also of practical worth and
service, signifying that he was a man of real note and importance in
what European statesmen regarded as "the world." If Franklin relished
the repast, who among mortals would not? And was his accuser a man to
have turned his back on such viands, had he also been bidden to the
feast of flattery? Franklin's vanity was a simple, amiable, and harmless
source of pleasure to himself; it was not of the greedy or envious type,
nor did its gratification do any injury to any person or any interest.
Jay, a man of generous temper, understood the advantage reaped by the
States from being represented at the French court by a man whose
greatness all Europe recognized. More than once he bore this testimony,
honorable alike to the giver and to him for whom it was given.[72]
[Note 72: See, for example, Franklin's _Works_, vii. 252, note.]
Pleasant as were many of the features of Franklin's residence in France,
and skillfully as he may have evaded some of the more irksome labors
imposed upon him, the attraction was not always sufficient to make him
reluctant to have done with the place. Its vexations and anxieties wore
upon him grievously. He knew that unfriendly representations concerning
him were often made in America, and that these induced some men to
distrust him, and caused others to feel anxious about him. He heard
stories that he was to be recalled, other stories that there was a cabal
to vent a petty ill will by putting an end to the clerkship of his
grandson. This cut him to the quick. "I should not part with the child,"
he said, "but with the employment;" and so the ignoble scheme
miscarried; for Congress was not ready to lose Franklin, and did not
really feel any extreme dread of harm from a lad who, though the son of
a loyalist, had grown up under Franklin's personal influence. At times
homesickness attacked him. When he heard of the death of an old friend
at home he wrote sadly: "A few more such deaths will make me a stranger
in my own country." He was not one of those patriots who like to live
abroad and protest love for their own country. Generally he preserved
the delightful evenness of his temper with a success quite wonderful in
a man troubled with complaints which preëminently make the sufferer
impatient and irascible. Only once he said, when he was being very
unreasonably annoyed about some shipping business: "I will absolutely
have nothing to do with any new squadron project. I have been too long
in hot water, plagued almost to death with the passions, vagaries, and
ill humors and madnesses of other people. I must have a little repose."
A very mild outbreak this, under all his provocations, but it is the
only one of which any record remains. His tranquil self-control was a
very remarkable trait; he was never made so angry by all the calumny and
assaults of enemies peculiarly apt in the art of irritation as to use
any immoderate or undignified language. He never retaliated, though he
had the fighting capacity in him. Before the tribunal of posterity his
patient endurance has counted greatly in his favor.
By March, 1781, he had definitively made up his mind to resign, and
wrote to the president of Congress a letter which was unmistakably
earnest and in parts even touching.[73] When this alarming communication
was received all the depreciation of the Lees, Izard, and the rest went
for nothing. Without hesitation Congress ignored the request, with far
better reason than it could show for the utter indifference with which
it was wont to regard pretty much all the other requests which Franklin
ever made. Its behavior in this respect was indeed very singular. He
recommended his grandson to it, and it paid absolutely no attention to
the petition. He repeatedly asked the appointment of consuls at some of
the French ports; it created all sorts of other officials, keeping Paris
full of useless and costly "ministers" accredited to courts which would
not receive them, but appointed no consul. He urged hard, as a trifling
personal favor, that an accountant might be appointed to audit his
nephew Williams's accounts, but Congress would not attend to a matter
which could have been disposed of in five minutes. He never could get a
secretary or a clerk, nor even any proper appointment of, or salary for,
his grandson. He seldom got an expression of thanks or approbation for
anything that he did, though he did many things wholly outside of his
regular functions and involving great personal risk and responsibility.
Yet when he really wanted to resign he was not allowed to do so; and
thus at last he was left to learn by inference that he had given
satisfaction.[74]
[Note 73: Franklin's _Works_, vii. 207; the letter is unfortunately
too long to quote. See also his letter to Lafayette, _Ibid._ 237.]
[Note 74: See letter to Carmichael, _Works_, vii. 285.]
***
No sooner had Adams got comfortably settled at home than he was obliged
to return again to Europe. Franklin, Jay, Laurens, Jefferson, and he
were appointed by Congress commissioners to treat for peace, whenever
the fitting time should come; and so in February, 1780, he was back in
Paris. But peace was still far away in the future, and Adams, meanwhile,
finding the intolerable incumbrance of leisure upon his hands,
exorcised the demon by writing long letters to de Vergennes upon sundry
matters of interest in American affairs. It was an unfortunate scheme.
If Nature had maliciously sought to create a man for the express purpose
of aggravating de Vergennes, she could not have made one better adapted
for that service than was Adams. Very soon there was a terrible
explosion, and Franklin, invoked by both parties, had to hasten to the
rescue, to his own serious injury.
On May 31, 1780, in a letter to the president of Congress, Franklin
said: "A great clamor has lately been made by some merchants, who say
they have large sums on their hands of paper money in America, and that
they are ruined by some resolution of Congress, which reduces its value
to one part in forty. As I have had no letter explaining this matter I
have only been able to say that it is probably misunderstood, and that I
am confident the Congress have not done, nor will do, anything unjust
towards strangers who have given us credit." Soon afterward Adams got
private information of the passage of an act for the redemption of the
paper money at the rate of forty dollars for one in silver. At once he
sent the news to de Vergennes. That statesman took fire at the tidings,
and promptly responded that foreigners ought to be indemnified for any
losses they might suffer, and that Americans alone should "support the
expense which is occasioned by the defense of their liberty," and should
regard "the depreciation of their paper money only as an impost which
ought to fall upon themselves." He added that he had instructed the
Chevalier de la Luzerne, French minister to the States, "to make the
strongest representations on this subject" to Congress.
Adams was alarmed at the anger which he had excited, and besought de
Vergennes to hold his hand until Franklin could "have opportunity to
make his representations to his majesty's ministers." But this gleam of
good sense was transitory, for on the same day, without waiting for
Franklin to intervene, he composed and sent to de Vergennes a long,
elaborate defense of the course of the States. It was such an argument
as a stubborn lawyer might address to a presumably prejudiced court; it
had not a pleasant word of gratitude for past favors, or of regret at
the present necessity; it was as undiplomatic and ill considered as it
certainly was unanswerable. But its impregnability could not offset its
gross imprudence. To exasperate de Vergennes and alienate the French
government at that period, although by a perfectly sound presentation,
was an act of madness as unpardonable as any crime.
Upon the same day on which Adams drew up this able, inexcusable brief
for his unfortunate client, the Congress, he wrote to Franklin begging
him to interfere. On June 29 he followed this request with a humbler
note than John Adams often wrote, acknowledging that he might have made
some errors, and desiring to be set right. On June 30 de Vergennes also
appealed to Franklin, saying, amid much more: "The king is so firmly
persuaded, sir, that your private opinion respecting the effects of that
resolution of Congress, as far as it concerns strangers and especially
Frenchmen, differs from that of Mr. Adams, that he is not apprehensive
of laying you under any embarrassment by requesting you to support the
representations which his minister is ordered to make to Congress."
Franklin, receiving these epistles, was greatly vexed at the jeopardy
into which the rash zeal of Adams had suddenly plunged the American
interests in France. His indignation was not likely to be made less by
the fact that all this letter-writing to de Vergennes was a tacit
reproach upon his own performance of his duties and a gratuitous
intrenchment upon his province. The question which presented itself to
him was not whether the argument of Adams was right or wrong, nor
whether the distinction which de Vergennes sought to establish between
American citizens and foreigners was practicable or not. This was
fortunate, because, while Adams in the States had been forced to ponder
carefully all the problems of a depreciating paper currency, Franklin in
France had neither necessity, nor opportunity, nor leisure for studying
either the ethics or the solution of so perplexing a problem. He now
hastily made such inquiries as he could among the Americans lately
arrived in Paris, but did not pretend "perfectly to understand" the
subject. To master its difficulties, however, did not seem essential,
because he recognized that the obvious duty of the moment was to say
something which might at least mitigate the present wrath of the French
ministry, and so gain time for explanation and adjustment in a better
state of feeling. He had once laid down to Arthur Lee the principle:
"While we are asking aid it is necessary to gratify the desires and in
some sort comply with the humors of those we apply to. Our business now
is to carry our point." Acting upon this rule of conciliation, he wrote,
on July 10, to de Vergennes:--
"In this I am clear, that if the operation directed by Congress in
their resolution of March the 18th occasions, from the necessity of
the case, some inequality of justice, that inconvenience ought to
fall wholly upon the inhabitants of the States, who reap with it
the advantages obtained by the measure; and that the greatest care
should be taken that foreign merchants, particularly the French,
who are our creditors, do not suffer by it. This I am so confident
the Congress will do that I do not think any representations of
mine necessary to persuade them to it. I shall not fail, however,
to lay the whole before them."
In pursuance of this promise Franklin wrote on August 9 a full narrative
of the entire matter; it was a fair and temperate statement of facts
which it was his duty to lay before Congress.[75] Before sending it he
wrote to Adams that de Vergennes, "having taken much amiss some passages
in your letter to him, sent the whole correspondence to me, requesting
that I would transmit it to Congress. I was myself sorry to see those
passages. If they were the effects merely of inadvertence, and you do
not, on reflection, approve of them, perhaps you may think it proper to
write something for effacing the impressions made by them. I do not
presume to advise you; but mention it only for your consideration." But
Adams had already taken his own measures for presenting the case before
Congress.
[Note 75: Franklin's _Works_, vii. 110-112.]
Such is the full story of Franklin's doings in this affair. His
connection with it was limited to an effort to counteract the mischief
which another had done. Whether he thought that the "inconvenience"
which "_ought_ to fall" only on Americans could be arranged to do so,
does not appear; probably he never concerned himself to work out a
problem entirely outside his own department. As a diplomatist, who had
to gain time for angry people to cool down for amicable discussion, he
was content to throw out this general remark, and to express confidence
that his countrymen would do liberal justice. So far as he was
concerned, this should have been the end of the matter, and Adams should
have been grateful to a man whose tranquil wisdom and skillful tact had
saved him from the self-reproach which he would ever have felt had his
well-intentioned, ill-timed act borne its full possible fruit of injury
to the cause of the States. But Adams, who knew that his views were
intrinsically correct, emerged from the imbroglio with an extreme
resentment against his rescuer, nor was he ever able to see that
Franklin did right in not reiterating the same views. He wished not to
be saved but to be vindicated. The consequence has been unfortunate for
Franklin, because the affair has furnished material for one of the
counts in the indictment which the Adamses have filed against him before
the bar of posterity.
It may be remarked here that the few words which Franklin ever let drop
concerning paper money indicate that he had given it little thought. He
said that in Europe it seemed "a mystery," "a wonderful machine;" and
there is no reason why he should have understood it better than other
people in Europe. He also said that the general effect of the
depreciation had operated as a gradual tax on the citizens, and "perhaps
the most equal of all taxes, since it depreciated in the hands of the
holders of money, and thereby taxed them in proportion to the sums they
held and the time they held it, which is generally in proportion to
men's wealth."[76] The remark could not keep a place in any very
profound discussion of the subject; but it should be noted that in this
point of view the contention of de Vergennes might be logically
defended, on the ground that a foreigner ought not to be taxed like a
citizen; but the insuperable difficulty of making the distinction
practicable remained undisposed of.
[Note 76: See also Franklin's _Works_, vii. 343.]