V First and Second Missions to England
Franklin reached London July 27, 1757, when he was fifty-one years old. He remained in England five years, and during that period his life was one of manifold interests and vexations. His business with the Penns first engaged his attention; but from those stubborn gentlemen he got nothing but insolence and delays. After much manœuvring the dispute was brought before a committee of the Privy Council, where the Pennsylvania Assembly through its representative virtually won its case. The proprietary estates were made subject to taxation, and this bone of contention was for a time removed. It was indeed a great victory for the Philadelphia printer; but perhaps its chief value was the training it gave him for the more important diplomatic negotiations that were to come later. There was that in Franklin’s nature which made him an ideal diplomatist. Under the utmost candor and simplicity he concealed a penetration into character and a skill in using legitimate chicanery that rarely missed their mark. Then, too, he was persistent: what he undertook to do he never left until it was done. Though far from being an orator, he wielded a pen that for clearness and logical pointedness has scarcely been surpassed, and his powers of irony and sarcasm were worthy of Swift himself.
Among other subjects which engaged Franklin’s pen at this time was a question of vital interest, as he thought, to the empire. Under the masterly guidance of the great Pitt, England had come out victorious in the struggle with France, and the government was now debating whether Canada should be retained or given back to the French. The chief argument for surrendering the province was ominous of the future. “A neighbor that keeps us in some awe is not always the worst of neighbors.... If we acquire all Canada, we shall soon find North America itself too powerful and too populous to be governed by us at a distance.” To this timid reasoning, which was attributed to William Burke, Franklin replied in a pamphlet, discussing the whole question with the utmost acumen, displaying the future greatness of the empire in America, and denying that the colonies would ever revolt. Touching this last apprehension he says: “There are so many causes that must operate to prevent it that I will venture to say a union amongst them for such a purpose is not merely improbable, it is impossible.... When I say such a union is impossible, I mean without the most grievous tyranny and oppression.... The waves do not rise but when the wind blows.... What such an administration as the Duke of Alva’s in the Netherlands might produce, I know not; but this, I think, I have a right to deem impossible.” Strange words to come from Franklin in those days; but it is thought they were of considerable influence in the final decision of the question. Franklin indeed was always fond of prophesying the future greatness of America, and again in the diplomatic debates after the revolutionary war he long insisted that Canada should be severed from England and joined to the thirteen States.
But our philosopher had much to occupy him besides politics. He had taken lodgings at No. 7 Craven Street with a Mrs. Stevenson, in whom and in whose daughter he found warm and congenial friends. His correspondence with “Dear Polly,” the daughter, contains some of his most entertaining letters; and he even planned, but unsuccessfully, to make her the wife of his son William. His fame as a scientist had preceded him, and introduced him into the society of many distinguished men in England and Scotland, among whom his genial nature freely expanded. And nothing could stop the activity of his mind, not even sickness. For eight weeks he struggled with a fever, but the letter to his wife conveying the story of his illness reads as if he were almost willing to undergo such an experience for the opportunity of studying pathology which it offered.
At last he was ready to return home. The University of St. Andrews had conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws, and afterwards Oxford had done the same. He had succeeded in his mission, his son had been appointed governor of New Jersey, and he looked forward to a life of honorable ease in his adopted city. Just before sailing he wrote to Lord Kames: “I am now waiting here only for a wind to waft me to America, but cannot leave this happy island and my friends in it without extreme regret, though I am going to a country and a people that I love. 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 of the future,—these different passions all affect their minds at once, and these have tendered me down exceedingly.”
Peace had come to Europe in 1763, but not to America. The Indians, who had been aroused by European intrigue, were not so easily pacified, and western Pennsylvania especially continued to suffer from their ravages. The men of the frontier banded together for retaliation, and unfortunately their revenge equaled the brutality of the red savages. Religious odium added bitterness to the passions. The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of the west, enraged at the supineness of the eastern Quakers, made the extermination of the Indians a point of religion. The horror reached its climax when the good people of Paxton in cold blood massacred twenty helpless and innocent Indians, and then with a large following marched towards Philadelphia with the avowed purpose of murdering in the name of an angry God one hundred and forty peaceful Moravian Indians. The governor, a nephew of the proprietaries, came, as all men did, to Franklin in his perplexity; he even lodged in Franklin’s house, and concerted with him hourly on the means of repelling the invaders. The “Paxton boys” had reached Germantown. The city was in a panic, and there was no time to lose. Franklin first got together a regiment of militia, and then, with three other gentlemen, went out to Germantown to remonstrate with the fanatics. His mission was successful, and the insurrection was quelled; but Franklin himself had gained many enemies by his action. The people were largely in favor of the Paxton rioters; and the governor, now relieved of his immediate fears, made an infamous proclamation setting a price upon Indian scalps. A strong coalition was formed against Franklin; to the enmity of the proprietary party was now added the distrust of the people.
Just at this time the old trouble between the governor and the Assembly broke out more virulently. Despite the decision of the London Council, the governor vetoed an important bill because the proprietary estates were not exempted from taxation. An angry debate arose in the Assembly as to whether they should petition the king to withdraw Pennsylvania from the proprietaries and make it a crown colony. Franklin took an active part in this contest, and threw all the weight of his authority in favor of the petition; but in the election which followed in 1764 the combination of the aristocrats, who sided with the proprietaries, and of the fanatics, who favored the Paxton uprising, was too strong for him, and he was not returned. After a stormy debate, however, the Assembly adopted the petition; and Franklin, despite the bitter personal attacks of John Dickinson, was chosen as agent to carry the request to England.
The petition was not allowed, and Pennsylvania remained in the hands of the proprietaries until it became an independent state. But other questions, far more important than the local difficulties of any one colony, were to occupy Franklin’s and the other commissioners’ time. Franklin was in England from December, 1764, until March of 1775, and during these ten years was busily engaged in supporting the colonies in their unequal struggle against the British Parliament. He was the accredited representative of Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, and before the government and the people of England stood as the champion of the whole province. Every one knows the nature of the acts which finally created a new empire in the West,—the Stamp Act, the duty on tea, the Boston Port bill. Their very names still stir the patriotic blood of America. The principle at issue was clearly announced in the battle cry, “No taxation without representation.” Franklin was a stanch advocate of the American claims, and threw all the weight of his personal influence and of his eloquent pen into the work. But in one respect he seems to have been deceived: during the first years of his mission he held Parliament responsible for all the tyrannical measures against the colonies, and looked upon the king as their natural protector. It was a feeling common among Americans who wished to preserve their allegiance to the empire while protesting against the authority of the laws. Even as late as 1771 he could write these words about George III: “I can scarcely conceive a king of better dispositions, of more exemplary virtues, or more truly desirous of promoting the welfare of his subjects.” When at last the bigoted character of that sovereign was fully revealed to him, he despaired utterly of reconciliation with the mother country.
Franklin’s labors may well be portrayed in two dramatic incidents: his examination before Parliament in 1766, and the so-called Privy Council outrage in 1774.
After the passage of the Stamp Act, Franklin wrote to a friend: “Depend upon it, my good neighbor, I took every step in my power to prevent the passing of the Stamp Act. Nobody could be more concerned and interested than myself to oppose it sincerely and heartily.... We might as well have hindered the sun’s setting. That we could not do. But since it is down, my friend, and it may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a night of it as we can. We can still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a great way towards indemnifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the former, we may easily bear the latter.” But Franklin’s philosophical habit of accepting the inevitable,—a habit which for a time brought him the hostility of such strenuous patriots as the Adamses,—did not prevent him from doing all in his power to further the repeal of that act when the matter was again taken up by Parliament. Nor did America lack friends in Parliament itself, and these gentlemen now arranged that Franklin should give testimony before the bar of the House.
In the examination which followed, Franklin showed the fullness of his knowledge and the keenness of his wit better perhaps than in any other act of his life. It is impossible to give at length the replies with which he aided the friends of repeal and baffled its foes; but a few of his answers may indicate the nature of all.
Q. “What was the temper of America towards Great Britain before the year 1763?”
A. “The best in the world. They submitted willingly to the government of the Crown, and paid in their courts obedience to acts of Parliament.... They had not only a respect, but an affection for Great Britain; for its laws, its customs, and manners; and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an Old England man was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us.”
Q. “What is their temper now?”
A. “Oh, very much altered.”
Q. “How would the Americans receive a future tax, imposed on the same principle as the Stamp Act?”
A. “Just as they do the Stamp Act; they would not pay it”.
Q. “Would the colonists prefer to forego the collection of debts by legal process rather than use stamped paper?”
A. “I can only judge what other people will think and how they will act by what I feel within myself. I have a great many debts due to me in America, and I had rather they should remain unrecoverable by any law than submit to the Stamp Act. They will be debts of honor.”
The examination was a complete success; not even the Tories could object to it, and to Burke it seemed like the examination of a master by a parcel of schoolboys. A few days later the repeal was carried.
But the relief was only temporary, and Parliament soon returned to its high-handed measures of repression. One day in the midst of the contest Franklin was talking with a friendly member of Parliament and inveighing against the violence of the government towards Boston. The Englishman replied that these measures of repression did not originate in England, and to prove his assertion placed in Franklin’s hands a packet of letters written by Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts, and others to a member of Parliament with the intention of reaching the ears of Lord Grenville. These letters, written by native-born Americans, advised the quartering of troops on Boston, advocated the making of judges and governors dependent on England for their salaries, and were full of such sentiments as that “there must be an abridgment of what are called English liberties.” Franklin by permission sent them to Boston, where they naturally raised a furor of indignation. A petition was immediately sent over to have Governor Hutchinson removed from office, but for a while government took no action. After a time the letters got into the London newspapers with the most deplorable result. One Thomas Whately, brother of the gentleman to whom they had been addressed, was accused of purloining the letters and sending them to America. This caused a duel, and a second duel was about to be fought when Franklin published a note in the “Public Advertiser” avowing that the letters had not passed through Mr. Whately’s hands, that he himself was responsible for sending them to Boston, and that no blame could be attached to the action as the letters were really of a public nature. The Tories now saw their opportunity to attack Franklin. The petition for removing Hutchinson was taken up by the Committee for Plantation Affairs, and Franklin was summoned to appear before them. Wedderburn, the king’s solicitor-general, was there to speak for Hutchinson, and Franklin, having no counsel, had the proceedings delayed for three weeks.
On the appointed day the Council met in a building called the Cockpit, and Franklin appeared before them. The room was furnished with a long table down the middle, at which the lords sat. At one end of the room was a fireplace, and in a recess at one side of the chimney Franklin stood during the whole meeting. His advocates spoke, but without much effect, and the defense of Hutchinson was then taken up by Wedderburn. But instead of arguing the point at issue, Wedderburn made it the occasion for delivering, much to the delight of the Tory lords present, a long and utterly unjustified tirade against Franklin. With thunderous voice and violent beating of his fist on the cushion before him, he denounced Franklin as the “prime mover of this whole contrivance against his majesty’s two governors.” Although the letters had been given to Franklin for the express purpose of having them conveyed to America, Wedderburn accused him of base treachery; turning to the committee he said: “I hope, my Lords, you will mark and brand the man, for the honor of this country, of Europe, and of mankind. Private correspondence has hitherto been held sacred, in times of the greatest party rage, not only in politics but religion.” “He has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity of virtue? Men will watch him with a jealous eye; they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their escritoirs. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a man of letters; homo trium litterarum (i.e., fur, thief)!” “But he not only took away the letters from one brother; but kept himself concealed till he nearly occasioned the murder of the other. It is impossible to read his account, expressive of the coolest and most deliberate malice, without horror.” “Amidst these tragical events, of one person nearly murdered, of another answerable for the issue, of a worthy governor hurt in his dearest interests, the fate of America in suspense; here is a man, who, with the utmost insensibility of remorse, stands up and avows himself the author of all. I can compare it only to Zanga, in Dr. Young’s “Revenge”;—
“‘Know then ’twas—I;
I forged the letter, I disposed the picture;
I hated, I despised, and I destroy.’
I ask, my Lords, whether the revengeful temper attributed, by poetic fiction only, to the bloody African is not surpassed by the coolness and apathy of the wily American?”
The picture of Franklin standing unmoved under this torrent of abuse is, I think, the most dramatic incident of his life. It was a victory of glorious endurance; it was the crown of unmerited infamy which was needed to give depth of interest to his successful career. An eyewitness thus described the scene: “Dr. Franklin’s face was directed towards me, and I had a full, uninterrupted view of it, and his person, during the whole time in which Mr. Wedderburn spoke. The Doctor was dressed in a full dress suit of spotted Manchester velvet, and stood conspicuously erect without the smallest movement of any part of his body. The muscles of his face had been previously composed, so as to afford a placid, tranquil expression of countenance, and he did not suffer the slightest alteration of it to appear during the continuance of the speech, in which he was so harshly and improperly treated. In short, to quote the words which he employed concerning himself on another occasion, he kept his ‘countenance as immovable as if his features had been made of wood.’”
Fortunately, to sustain him in these trials, Franklin had a cheerful home and the society of the best men in England. He was living at the old house on Craven Street, where Mrs. Stevenson did all in her power to make him forget that he was an exile. Indeed, were it not that Mrs. Franklin had an unconquerable dread of crossing the water, it is quite possible that our philosopher might have carried his family to England and lived permanently among his new friends; and in estimating the services of Franklin to America we should never forget to give due credit to his loyal wife who stayed quietly at home, managing his affairs for him in Philadelphia and keeping warm his attachment for his adopted city. Besides the eminent statesmen, such as Pitt and Burke, with whom Franklin’s business brought him naturally in contact, he associated much with liberal clergymen,—with Priestley particularly, the discoverer of oxygen, and with the family of the good Bishop of St. Asaph’s, at whose house he had almost a second home. To one of the bishop’s daughters he sent the inimitable epitaph on the squirrel Mungo which he had given her as a present from America. The influence for good is almost incalculable which Franklin thus exercised by the noble type of American character he displayed to the liberal party in England.
Nor did he ever lose an opportunity to accomplish what he could with the pen. At one time, to lay bare the suicidal policy of the government, he published in a newspaper a satirical squib quite in the vein of Dean Swift, entitled “Rules for reducing a Great Empire to a Small One.” The opening sentences were as follows: “An ancient sage valued himself upon this, that, though he could not fiddle, he knew how to make a great city of a little one. The science that I, a modern simpleton, am about to communicate, is the very reverse;” and with this introduction the author proceeds to give a detailed account of the treatment of the colonies by Parliament.
In another paper Franklin reduced certain arguments of the ministry to the absurd. This was a pretended “Edict of the King of Prussia,” in which Frederick was supposed to announce the same sovereignty over England, which had been originally settled by Germans, as Parliament now claimed over America. Speaking of these two papers Franklin says, in a letter to his son: “I sent you one of the first, but could not get enough of the second to spare you one, though my clerk went the next morning to the printer’s, and wherever they were sold.... I am not suspected as the author, except by one or two friends; and have heard the latter spoken of in the highest terms, as the keenest and severest piece that has appeared here a long time. Lord Mansfield, I hear, said of it, that it was very able and very artful indeed; and would do mischief by giving here a bad impression of the measures of government; and in the colonies, by encouraging them in their contumacy.... What made it the more noticed here was, that people in reading it were, as the phrase is, taken in, till they had got half through it, and imagined it a real edict, to which mistake I suppose the King of Prussia’s character must have contributed. I was down at Lord Le Despencer’s, when the post brought that day’s papers. Mr. Whitehead was there, too (Paul Whitehead, the author of “Manners”), who runs early through all the papers, and tells the company what he finds remarkable. He had them in another room, and we were chatting in the breakfast parlor, when he came running in to us, out of breath, with the paper in his hand. ‘Here!’ says he, ‘here’s news for ye! Here’s the King of Prussia, claiming a right to this kingdom!’ All stared, and I as much as anybody; and he went on to read it. When he had read two or three paragraphs, a gentleman present said, ‘Damn his impudence, I dare say we shall hear by next post, that he is upon his march with one hundred thousand men to back this.’ Whitehead, who is very shrewd, soon after began to smoke it, and looking in my face, said, ‘I’ll be hanged if this is not some of your American jokes upon us.’ The reading went on, and ended with abundance of laughing, and a general verdict that it was a fair hit.”
After the Privy Council outrage there was very little for Franklin to do. Lord Chatham consulted with him before introducing in Parliament a liberal bill for conciliating the colonies, and Franklin himself was present in the House of Lords when the old statesman, despite the protests of his gout, plead for fairer measures. It may very well be that if these troubles had occurred in Chatham’s vigorous days he might have been able to preserve the integrity of the empire. But now he was crippled by the gout and debarred from active life; and in the interesting “Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout” the philosopher might have retorted upon that exacting lady the mischief she had done his people by laming Pitt. Again Franklin had to stand the bitter denunciation of the Tories, while Lord Sandwich held him up as “one of the bitterest and most mischievous enemies this country had ever known;” but he also had the satisfaction of hearing a noble eulogy of his character pronounced by the great Chatham.
Then, after a good deal of secret negotiation with Lord Howe, Franklin reluctantly abandoned the situation and turned homeward. His last day in London was passed with Dr. Priestley, who has left an interesting record of their conversation. He says of Franklin that “the unity of the British empire in all its parts was a favorite idea of his. He used to compare it to a beautiful china vase, which, if ever broken, could never be put together again; and so great an admirer was he of the British constitution that he said he saw no inconvenience from its being extended over a great part of the globe. With these sentiments he left England.”