his nephew and done everything possible to shield him and enable him to
get possession of the balance of money he claimed. Readers must draw
their own conclusions, for the matter was never officially investigated.
It would have been unwise for Congress to inaugurate a public scandal
at a time when the country was struggling for existence, needed all the
moral and financial support it could obtain from Europe, and as yet saw
no end to the Revolution.
One more point must be noticed. Lee commented with much sarcasm on the
sudden prosperity of Jonathan Williams. He had been clerk to a
sugar-baker in England, and was supposed to be without means; but as
naval agent he soon began to call himself a merchant, and when waiting
on the commissioners charged five Louis d'ors a day for the loss of his
time. Lee, according to some of his letters, had been trying for some
time to have a certain John Lloyd, of South Carolina, appointed in the
place of Williams; and I shall quote part of one of these letters, which
shows why Lee wanted Williams's place for one of his friends.
"My brother and myself have conceived that as the public
allowance to the commercial agent is very liberal and the
situation necessarily must recommend considerable business, the
person appointed might with the most fair and conscientious
discharge of his duty to the public make his own fortune." (Life
of Arthur Lee, vol. ii. p. 144.)
He did not succeed in having Lloyd appointed, but he and his brother
William secured the position for a friend of theirs called
Schweighauser, on the dismissal of Williams, and this Schweighauser
appointed a nephew of the Lees as one of his assistants.
It should be said that although Lee and Izard were constantly hinting at
evil practices by Franklin, and sometimes directly stigmatized him as
the "father of corruption" and deeply involved in the most disreputable
schemes, they never produced any proof that he had enriched himself or
was directly engaged in anything discreditable. There seems to be no
doubt that certain people were making money under cover of the loose way
in which affairs were managed. Franklin must have known of this, as well
as Adams and the other commissioners, but neither he nor they were
enriched by it. Lee's pamphlet goes no farther than to say that Franklin
had shielded his nephew. John Adams, it may be observed, assisted in
this shielding, if it can with justice be so called, for he signed with
Franklin the order allowing the money to be paid to Williams on
condition that it should not be considered an approval of his accounts.
Adams afterwards described very concisely the situation, and how he,
with the others, was compelled to connive at peculations under the
absurd system.
"I knew it to be impossible to give any kind of satisfaction to
our constituents, that is to Congress, or their constituents,
while we consented or connived at such irregular transactions,
such arbitrary proceedings, and such contemptible peculations as
had been practised in Mr. Deane's time, not only while he was in
France, alone, without any public character, but even while he
was associated with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Arthur Lee in a real
commission; and which were continued in some degree while I was
combined in the commission with Franklin and Lee, in spite of
all the opposition and remonstrance that Lee and I could make."
(Adams's Works, vol. i. p. 657.)
Franklin said and wrote very little on the subject. He sent no letters
to members of Congress undermining the characters of his
fellow-commissioners; the few statements that he made were exceedingly
mild and temperate, and were usually to the effect that there were
differences and disputes which he regretted. He usually invited his
fellow-commissioners to dine with him every Sunday, and on these
occasions they appeared very friendly, though at heart cherishing
vindictive feelings towards one another.
In truth, Lee and Izard wrote so much and so violently that they dug the
graves of their own reputations. It was Dr. Johnson who said that no man
was ever written down except by himself, and Franklin once shrewdly
remarked, "spots of dirt thrown upon my character I suffered while fresh
to remain; I did not choose to spread by endeavoring to remove them, but
relied on the vulgar adage that they would all rub off when they were
dry."
General public opinion was then and has remained in favor of Franklin,
and the prominent men of France were, without exception, on his side.
They all in the end detested Lee, whose conduct showed a vindictive
disposition, and who evidently had purposes of his own to serve. One of
his pet suspicions was that Paul Jones was a rascal in league with the
other rascal, Franklin, and he protests in a letter to a member of
Congress against Jones being "kept upon a cruising job of Chaumont and
Dr. Franklin." Jones, he predicted, would not return from this cruise,
but would go over to the enemy.
Franklin's service in France may be divided into four periods. First,
from his arrival in December, 1776, until February, 1778, during which
two years he and Deane conducted the business as best they could and
quarrelled with Lee and Izard. Second, the year from February, 1778,
until February, 1779, during which John Adams was in Paris in the place
of Silas Deane. Third, some of the remaining months of 1779, during
which, although Franklin was sole plenipotentiary to France, Lee, Izard,
and others still retained their appointments to other countries, and
remained in Paris, continuing the quarrels more viciously than ever.
They were recalled towards the close of 1779, and from that time dates
the fourth period, during which Franklin enjoyed the sole control,
unassailed by the swarm of hornets which had made his life a burden.
I have already described most of the first period as briefly as
possible; its full treatment would require a volume. All that remains is
to describe the act with which it closed,--the signing of the treaty of
alliance. This treaty, which secured the success of our Revolution by
giving us the assistance of a French army and fleet, was the result of
unforeseen events, and was not obtained by the labors of Franklin or
those of any of the commissioners.
France had been anxious to ally herself with us during the first two
years of the Revolution, but dared not, because there was apparently no
prospect that we would be successful. In fact, all the indications
pointed to failure. Washington was everywhere defeated; had been driven
from New York, lost the battle of the Brandywine, lost Philadelphia, and
then the news arrived in Europe that Burgoyne was moving from Canada
down the Hudson, and would be joined by Howe from New York. This would
cut the colonies in half; separate New England, the home of the
Revolution, from the Middle and Southern Colonies and result in our
total subjugation.
The situation of the commissioners in Paris was dismal enough at this
time. They had been successful at first, with the aid of Beaumarchais;
but now Beaumarchais was in despair at the ingratitude of Congress and
its failure to pay him; no more prizes were coming in, for the British
fleets had combined against the American war vessels and driven them
from the ocean; the commissioners had spent all their money, and
Franklin proposed that they should sell what clothing and arms they had
been unable to ship and pay their debts as far as possible with the
proceeds. At any moment they might hear that they had neither country
nor flag, that the Revolution had collapsed, and that they must spend
the rest of their lives in France as pensioners on the royal bounty,
daring to go neither to America nor to England, where they would be hung
as ringleaders of the rebels.
In their dire extremity they forgot their animosities, and one is
reminded of those pictures of the most irreconcilable wild
animals--foxes and hares, or wolves and wild-cats--seeking refuge
together from a flood on a floating log. In public they kept a bold
front, in spite of the sneers of the English residents in Paris and the
shrugging shoulders of the Frenchmen.
"Well, doctor," said an Englishman to Franklin, "Howe has taken
Philadelphia."
"I beg your pardon, sir; Philadelphia has taken Howe."
But in his heart Franklin was bowed down with anxiety and apprehension.
We all know what happened. Burgoyne and Howe failed to connect, and
Burgoyne surrendered his army to the American general, Gates. That was
the turning-point of the Revolution, and there was now no doubt in
France of the final issue. A young man, Jonathan Austin, of
Massachusetts, was sent on a swift ship to carry the news to Paris. The
day his carriage rolled into the court-yard of Chaumont's house at
Passy, Franklin, Deane, both the Lees, Izard, Beaumarchais,--in fact,
all the snarling and quarrelling agents,--were there, debating, no
doubt, where they would drag out the remains of their miserable lives.
They all rushed out to see Austin, and Franklin addressed to him one sad
question which they all wanted answered, whether Philadelphia really was
taken.
"Yes, sir," said Austin.
The old philosopher clasped his hands and was stumbling back into the
house.
"But, sir, I have greater news than that. General Burgoyne and his whole
army are prisoners of war."
Beaumarchais drove his carriage back to Paris so fast that it was
overturned and his arm dislocated. Austin relates that for a long time
afterwards Franklin would often sit musing and dreaming and then break
out, "Oh, Mr. Austin, you brought us glorious news."
Austin had arrived on December 3, 1777. On the 6th of the same month
the French government requested the commissioners to renew their
proposals for an alliance. Eleven days after that they were told that
the treaty would be made, and within two months,--namely, on February 6,
1778,--after full discussion of all the details, it was signed. This was
certainly very prompt action on the part of France and shows her
eagerness.
On the day that he signed the treaty, Franklin, it is said, wore the
same suit of Manchester velvet in which he had been dressed when
Wedderburn made his attack upon him before the Privy Council in London,
and after the signing it was never worn again. When asked if there had
not been some special meaning attached to the wearing of these clothes
at the signing, he would make no other reply than a smile. It was really
beautiful philosophic vengeance, and adds point to Walpole's epigram on
the scene before the Council:
"Sarcastic Sawney, swol'n with spite and prate,
On silent Franklin poured his venal hate.
The calm philosopher, without reply,
Withdrew, and gave his country liberty."
There was much discussion among the three envoys over the terms of the
treaty, and their love for one another was not increased. The principal
part of Izard's bitterness against Franklin is supposed to have begun at
this time. Lee made a point on the question of molasses. In the first
draft of the treaty it was agreed that France should never lay an export
duty on any molasses taken from her West India islands by Americans.
Vergennes objected that this was not fair, as the Americans bound
themselves to no equivalent restriction on their own exports. Franklin
suggested a clause that, in consideration of France agreeing to lay no
export duty on molasses, the United States should agree to lay no export
duty on any article taken by Frenchmen from America, and this was
accepted by Vergennes.
Lee, however, objected that we were binding ourselves on every article
of export, while France bound herself on only one. In this he was
entirely right, and it was not an officious interference, as Franklin's
biographers have maintained. He pressed his point so hard that it was
finally agreed with the French government that Congress might accept or
reject the whole arrangement on this question, if it saw fit. Congress
supported Lee and rejected it.
The signing of the treaty of course rendered Beaumarchais's secret work
through Hortalez & Co. of less importance. France was now the open ally
of the United States; the French government need no longer smuggle arms
and clothing into America, but was preparing to send a fleet and an army
to assist the insurgents, as they were still called in Paris. All this
rendered the labors of the embassy lighter and less complicated.
In April, 1778, a few months after the signing of the treaty, John
Adams, after a most dangerous and adventurous voyage across the
Atlantic, arrived to take the place of Silas Deane. He has left us a
very full account of the condition of affairs and his efforts at
reform. Franklin's biographers have been sorely puzzled to know what to
do with these criticisms; but any one who will take the trouble to read
impartially all that Adams has said, and not merely extracts from it,
will easily be convinced of his fairness. He makes no mistake about Lee;
speaks of him as a man very difficult to get on with, and describes
Izard in the same way. There is not the slightest evidence that these
two men poisoned his mind against Franklin. He does not side with them
entirely; but, on the contrary, in the changes he undertook to make was
sometimes on their side and sometimes against them. He held the scales
very evenly.
Lee wanted all the papers of the embassy brought to his own house, and
Adams wrote him a letter which certainly shows that Adams had not gone
over to the Lee party, and is also an example of the efforts he was
making to improve the situation.
"I have not asked Dr. Franklin's opinion concerning your
proposal of a room in your house for the papers, and an hour to
meet there, because I know it would be in vain; for I think it
must appear to him more unequal still. It cannot be expected,
that two should go to one, when it is as easy again for one to
go to two; not to mention Dr. Franklin's age, his rank in the
country, or his character in the world; nor that nine-tenths of
the public letters are constantly brought to this house, and
will ever be carried where Dr. Franklin is. I will venture to
make a proposition in my turn, in which I am very sincere; it is
that you would join families with us. There is room enough in
this house to accommodate us all. You shall take the apartments
which belong to me at present, and I will content myself with
the library room and the next to it. Appoint a room for
business, any that you please, mine or another, a person to keep
the papers, and certain hours to do business. This arrangement
will save a large sum of money to the public, and, as it would
give us a thousand opportunities of conversing together, which
now we have not, and, by having but one place for our countrymen
and others to go to, who have occasion to visit us, would
greatly facilitate the public business. It would remove the
reproach we lie under, of which I confess myself very much
ashamed, of not being able to agree together, and would make the
commission more respectable, if not in itself, yet in the
estimation of the English, the French, and the American nations;
and, I am sure, if we judge by the letters we receive, it wants
to be made more respectable, at least in the eyes of many
persons of this country." (Bigelow's Franklin from His Own
Writings, vol. ii. p. 424.)
Adams had none of the rancor of Lee and Izard, but he tells us candidly
that he found the public business in great confusion. It had never been
methodically conducted. "There never was before I came a minute book, a
letter book, or an account book; and it is not possible to obtain a
clear idea of our affairs." Of Deane he says that he "lived expensively,
and seems not to have had much order in his business, public or private;
but he was active, diligent, subtle, and successful, having accomplished
the great purpose of his mission to advantage."
Adams procured blank books and devoted himself to assorting the papers
of the office at Passy, where Franklin had allowed everything to lie
about in the greatest confusion. He found that too many people had been
making money out of the embassy, and of these Jonathan Williams appears
to have been one. He united with Lee in demanding Williams's accounts,
and compelled Franklin to join in dismissing him. A man named Ross was
another delinquent who was preying on the embassy, and the arrangement
by which he was allowed to do it is described by Adams as "more
irregular, more inconsistent with the arrangement of Congress and every
way more unjustifiable than even the case of Mr. Williams."
He gives us many glimpses of Franklin's life,--his gayety, the bright
stories he told, and his wonderful reputation among the French. An
interesting young lady, Mademoiselle de Passy, was a great favorite with
Franklin, who used to call her his flame and his love. She married a man
whose name translated into English would be "Marquis of Thunder." The
next time Madame de Chaumont met Franklin, she cried out, "Alas! all the
conductors of Mr. Franklin could not prevent the thunder from falling on
Mademoiselle de Passy."
Adams was at the Academy of Sciences when Franklin and Voltaire were
present, and a general cry arose among the sensation-loving people that
these two wonderful men should be introduced to each other. They
accordingly bowed and spoke. But this was not enough, and the two
philosophers could not understand what more was wanted. They took each
other by the hand; but still the clamor continued. Finally it was
explained to them that "they must embrace in French fashion." The two
old men immediately began hugging and kissing each other, which
satisfied the company, and the cry spread through the whole country,
"How beautiful it was to see Solon and Sophocles embrace!"
Some of Adams's criticisms and estimates of Franklin, though not
satisfactory to his eulogists, are, on the whole, exceedingly just.
"That he was a great genius, a great wit, a great humorist, a
great satirist, and a great politician is certain. That he was a
great philosopher, a great moralist, and a great statesman is
more questionable." (Adams's Works, vol. iii. p. 139.)
This brief statement will bear the test of very close investigation.
Full credit, it will be observed, is given to his qualities as a
humorous and satirical writer, and even as a politician. The word
politician is used very advisedly, for up to that time Franklin had done
nothing that would raise him beyond that class into statesmanship.
He had had a long career in Pennsylvania politics, where his abilities
were confined to one province, and in the attempt to change the colony
into a royal government he had been decidedly in the wrong. While
representing Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Georgia in England from
the time of the Stamp Act until the outbreak of the Revolution, he had
accomplished nothing, except that his examination before Parliament had
encouraged the colonists to persist in their opposition; he had got
himself into a very bad scrape about the Hutchinson letters; and his
plan of reconciliation with the mother country had broken down. In
France, the government being already very favorable to the colonies,
there was but little for the embassy to do except to conduct the
business of sending supplies and selling prizes, and in this Deane and
Beaumarchais did most of the work, while Franklin had kept no accounts,
had allowed his papers to get into confusion, was utterly unable to keep
the envoys in harmony, and had not made any effective appeal to
Congress to change the absurd system which permitted the sending to a
foreign country of three commissioners with equal powers. In the last
years of his mission in France he did work which was more valuable; but
it was not until some years afterwards, when he was past eighty and on
the verge of the grave, that he accomplished in the Constitutional
Convention of 1787 the one act of his life which may be called a
brilliant stroke of statesmanship.
His qualities as a moralist have been discussed in a previous chapter
which fully justifies Adams's assertion. As a philosopher, by which
Adams meant what we now call a man of science, Franklin was
distinguished, but not great. It could not be said that he deserved to
be ranked with Kepler or Newton. His discovery of the nature of
lightning was picturesque and striking, and had given him popular
renown, but it could not put him in the front rank of discoverers.
In a later passage in his Diary Adams attempts to combat the French idea
that Franklin was the American legislator.
"'Yes,' said M. Marbois, 'he is celebrated as the great
philosopher and the great legislator of America.' 'He is,' said
I, 'a great philosopher, but as a legislator of America he has
done very little. It is universally believed in France, England,
and all Europe, that his electric wand has accomplished all this
revolution. But nothing is more groundless. He has done very
little. It is believed that he made all the American
constitutions and their confederation; but he made neither. He
did not even make the constitution of Pennsylvania, bad as it
is.'...
[Illustration: AMERICA SET FREE BY FRANKLIN
(From a French engraving)]
"I said that Mr. Franklin had great merit as a philosopher. His
discoveries in electricity were very grand, and he certainly was
a great genius, and had great merit in our American affairs.
But he had no title to the 'legislator of America.' M. Marbois
said he had wit and irony; but these were not the faculties of
statesmen. His Essay upon the true means of bringing a great
Empire to be a small one was very pretty. I said he had wrote
many things which had great merit, and infinite wit and
ingenuity. His Bonhomme Richard was a very ingenious thing,
which had been so much celebrated in France, gone through so
many editions, and been recommended by curates and bishops to so
many parishes and dioceses.
"M. Marbois asked, 'Are natural children admitted in America to
all privileges like children born in wedlock?'... M. Marbois
said this, no doubt, in allusion to Mr. F.'s natural son, and
natural son of a natural son. I let myself thus freely into this
conversation, being led on naturally by the Chevalier and M.
Marbois on purpose, because I am sure it cannot be my duty, nor
the interest of my country, that I should conceal any of my
sentiments of this man, at the same time that I do justice to
his merits. It would be worse than folly to conceal my opinion
of his great faults." (Adams's Works, vol. iii. p. 220.)
The French always believed that Franklin was the originator of the
Revolution, and that he was a sort of Solon who had prepared laws for
all the revolted colonies, directed their movements, and revised all
their state papers and public documents. It was under the influence of
this notion that they worshipped him as the personification of liberty.
It must have been extremely irritating to Adams and others to find the
French people assuming that the old patriarch in his fur cap had
emancipated in the American woods a rude and strange people who without
him could not have taken care of themselves. But, protest as they might,
they never could persuade the French to give up their ideal, and this
was undoubtedly the foundation of a great deal of the hostility to
Franklin which showed itself in Congress.
In 1811, long after Franklin's death, Adams wrote a newspaper article
defending himself against some complaints that Franklin had made, of
which I shall have more to say hereafter. It is a most vigorous piece of
writing, and, in spite of some unfounded suspicions which it contains
and the bluster and egotism so characteristic of its author, is by far
the most searching and fairest criticism of Franklin that was ever
written:
"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 and 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." (Adams's Works,
vol. i. p. 660.)