American Aurora

by Richard N. Rosenfeld

  Wednesday, July 2, 1783. Today, from Geneva, Benny Bache responds to his grandfather,

  I received your letter … I was very glad when I read that you desired me to come during the Vacation of the School to see you. I have been sick, but I am now recover’d and Strong enough to undertake the Jorney … I only expect an occasion to undertake the agreeable jorney to see you.1407

  Wednesday, July 9, 1783. Today, John Adams writes Secretary of Foreign Affairs Robert Livingston:

  Since the dangerous fever I had in Amsterdam two years ago, I have never enjoyed my health. Through the whole of the last winter and spring, I have suffered under weaknesses and pains which have scarcely permitted me to do business. The excessive heats of the last week or two have brought on my fever again, which exhausts me in such a manner as to be very discouraging, and incapacitates one for everything. In short, nothing but a return to America will ever restore me to health …

  Your late despatches [of March 25], sir, are not well adapted to give spirits to a melancholy man or to cure one sick with a fever … [H]ow you could conceive it possible for us to treat at all with the English, upon supposition that we had communicated every the minutest thing to this court … I know not … The instructions were found to be absolutely impracticable.1408

  Saturday, July 19, 1783. Today, Benny Bache leaves Geneva to resume life with Ben Franklin in Paris.

  Tuesday, July 22, 1783. Today, from Paris, Benjamin Franklin answers John Adams’ charges in a letter to Foreign Affairs Secretary Robert Livingston:

  [N]either [the evidence] handed us thro’ the British Negotiators (a suspicious Channel) nor the Conversations [with the French] respecting the Fishery, the Boundaries … &c., recommending Moderation in our Demands, are of Weight Sufficient in my Mind to fix an opinion that this Court wished to restrain us in obtaining any Degree of Advantage we could … [T]hose Discourses are fairly resolvable by supposing a very natural [French] Apprehension that we, relying too much on the Ability of France to continue the War in our favour and supply us constantly with Money, might insist on more Advantages than the English would be willing to grant and thereby lose the Opportunity of making Peace, so necessary to our Friends …

  I ought not to conceal from you, that one of my colleagues [Mr. Adams] is of a very different Opinion from me in these matters. He thinks the French Minister one of the greatest Enemies of our Country, that he … afforded us, during the War, the assistance we receiv’d only to keep it alive, that we might be so much the more weaken’d by it; that to think of Gratitude to France is the greatest of Follies, and that to be influenc’d by it would ruin us. He makes no secret of having these Opinions, expresses them publicly, sometimes in presence of the English Ministers, and speaks of hundreds of Instances which he could produce in Proof of them. None of which however, have yet appear’d to me …

  If I were not convinc’d of the real Inability of this Court to furnish the further Supplys we ask’d, I should suspect these Discourses of a person in his Station might have influenced the refusal; but I think they have gone no farther than to occasion a Suspicion that we have a considerable Party of Antigallicans in America, who are not Tories, and consequently to produce some doubts of the Continuance of our Friendship. As such Doubts may hereafter have a bad Effect, I think we cannot take too much care to remove them; and it is, therefore, I write this to put you on your guard, (believing it my duty tho’ I know that I hazard by it a mortal Enmity) and to caution you respecting the Insinuations of this Gentleman against this Court, and the Instances he supposes of their ill will to us, which I take to be as imaginary as I know his Fancies to be that the Count de V. and myself are continually plotting against him, and employing the News-Writers of Europe to depreciate his Character &. But as Shakespear says, “Trifles light as Air,” &c. I am persuaded, however, that he means well for his Country, is always an honest Man, often a wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses.1409

  Tuesday, August 12, 1783. Today, in Paris, Benny Bache turns fourteen years old. He arrived two weeks ago and wrote his mother,

  I have left off my Latin and Gr[eek] to learn writing, fencing, dansing, and Drawing.1410

  Benny Bache will also study printing in his grandfather’s printshop in Passy, under the shop’s master printer, Maurice Meyer.1411

  Wednesday, September 3, 1783. Today, in Paris, American peace commissioners Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens sign, on behalf of the United States, the Definitive Treaty of Peace with Britain. The American War of Independence has ended.

  ARTICLE 1st. His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the [sovereign] United States …

  ARTICLE 2d. [I]t is hereby agreed and declared that the following are and shall be their Boundaries, viz … from thence on a due west Course to the River Mississippi, Thence by a Line drawn along the Middle of the said River …1412

  By this agreement, America’s western boundaries extend to the center of the Mississippi River, far beyond the lands George Washington killed Jumonville to secure, far beyond the 58,000 acres Washington now owns on the “illegal” side of the 1763 proclamation line.1413 The lands of Fort Necessity and Braddock’s massacre are now open for American settlement.

  Sunday, September 7, 1783. Today, John Adams writes in his diary:

  This morning I went out to Passy, and Dr. Franklin put into my hands the following resolution of Congress, which he received last night …

  Ordered that a Commission be prepared to Mess[rs]. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, authorizing them … to enter into a Treaty of Commerce between the United States and Great Britain …1414

  Shortly after learning that Franklin must be part of his reinstated commission to negotiate a commercial treaty with Great Britain, John Adams suffers another nervous collapse. John Adams:

  I soon fell down in a fever, not much less violent than I had suffered two years before in Amsterdam … Not all the skill and kind assiduity of my physician, nor all the scrupulous care of my regimen … was found effectual for the restoration of my health. Still remaining feeble, emaciated, languid to a great degree, my physician and all my friends advised me to go to England to drink the waters and to bath[e] in them …1415

  Wednesday, September 10, 1783. Today, John Adams writes Massachusetts congressional delegate Elbridge Gerry:

  I beg you would make a Point of putting Jay and me into the Commission for treating with Denmark, Portugal, [&c.] … Smuggling Treaties into Franklin’s hands alone is continued by Vergennes on purpose to throw slights upon Jay and me …

  [Y]ou ought to have some sympathy for the Feelings of your Ministers and more for their Reputations … Our affairs will all [go] extremely well if we are supported.—But if Franklin is suffered to go on with that low Cunning and mean Craft with which he has always worked and by which he has done so much Mischief, the publick will suffer.1416

  John Adams’ self-touting to Congress has had repercussions. Today, Ben Franklin writes John Adams:

  I have received a letter from a very respectable person in America containing the following words, viz:

  “It is confidently reported … that the court of France was at the bottom against our obtaining the fishery and [western] territory … secured to us by the treaty; that our minister at that court [meaning Mr. Franklin] favored, or did not oppose this design against us, and that it was entirely owing to the firmness, sagacity and disinterestedness of Mr. Adams with whom Mr. Jay united, that we have obtained these important advantages.”

  I therefore think that I ought not to suffer an accusation which falls little short of treason to my country to pass without notice when the means of effectual vindication are at hand … I have no doubt of your readiness to do a brother commissioner justice by certificates that will entirely destroy the effect of that accusation.1417

  Saturday, September 13, 1783. Today, John Adams responds to Ben Franklin’s letter of the 10th:

  I have received the letter … It i
s unnecessary for me to say anything upon this subject more than to quote the words which I wrote in [my diary on] the evening of the 30th of November, 1782, and which have been received and read in Congress, viz:

  “I told [Dr. Franklin] my opinion without reserve of the policy of this court and of the principles, wisdom, and firmness with which Mr. Jay had conducted the negociations in his sickness and my absence, and that I was determined to support Mr. Jay to the utmost of my power in the pursuit of the same system. The Doctor heard me patiently, but said nothing.

  “The first conference [with the British] we had afterwards … Dr. Franklin turned to Mr. Jay and said: ‘I am of your opinion and will go on with these gentlemen without consulting this court.’”1418

  Sunday, December 7, 1783. Today, Massachusetts congressional delegate Samuel Osgood writes John Adams:

  I hope it will not be altogether useless to communicate … the Reasons … of several important Decisions of Congress respecting our foreign ministers. The first … respected your Commission for Peace … [W]hat suggested to Congress the Idea of an Alteration … [were] the several Letters that passed between you and the C.[ompte]] de V[ergenne]s respecting the [currency devaluation] Resolutions of Congress of March 1780; and also [your insistence on] the publication of your Commission for a commercial treaty with great Britain … [I]t was expedient that you should [be] pointedly instructed … New Instructions were made out for you alone … “you are ultimately to govern yourself by the advice of the minister of his most Christian Majesty,” etc … But it was not sufficient to let it rest here. [T]here should be more than one Peace Commissioner … Congress having agreed upon five …

  [T]he Reasons of the Measure … Doctor Witherspoon has been candid enough on the floor of Congress to hint … was your obstinate Dispute with the C.[ount] de V.[ergenne]s. I have always suppos’d that the object was to clip your Wings …

  After the Provisional Treaty arriv’d, some were heartily pleased, and others discovered a Degree of Mortification. It was evident that our Comm’rs acted for themselves … [I]t was said that they had grossly disobeyed their instructions … They had made and signed a Treaty without their Knowledge or Concurrence … It was a Matter of Surprize and Astonishment to the Franklinites that the God of Electricity consented to act with you secretly. However, if I might be allowed to form an opinion, it would be that the electrical Machine discharged itself invisibly … He does not consider his most C[hristian] M[ajesty] as an Ally, but as a Father to the United States … whenever he mentions him it is in this light.

  The next act of Congress of Consequence was the recalling your Commission for entering into a commercial Treaty with G.[reat] B.[ritain] … I suppos’d then and am more confirmed in my Opinion now that it was a foreign Manoeuvre, not merely to mortify you …

  You will pardon me in candidly mentioning to you the Effects of your long [Peace] Journal, forwarded after the signing of the provisional Treaty. It was read by the Secretary in Congress … Several Gentlemen … appeared overmuch disposed to make it appear as ridiculous as possible; several ungenerous Remarks were made upon it, as being unfit to be read in Congress, and not worth the Time expended in reading it …1419

  Alexander Hamilton will observe:

  The reading of this journal extremely embarrassed his friends, especially the delegates of Massachusetts, who more than once interrupted it and at last succeeded in putting a stop to it on the suggestion that it bore the marks of a private and confidential paper … The good humor of that body yielded to the suggestion.

  The particulars of this Journal; … I recollect one … “Monsieur Adams, vous etes le WASHINGTON de negociation.” Stating the incident, he makes this comment upon it: “These people have a very pretty knack of paying compliments.” He might have added they have also a very dexterous knack of disguising a sarcasm.1420

  Tuesday, December 23, 1783. Today, George Washington submits his resignation as commander in chief:

  Happy in the confirmation of our Independence and Sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable Nation, I resign with satisfaction the Appointment I accepted with diffidence.1421

  George Washington has seen the war to its end. Tom Paine:

  Mr. Washington’s merit consisted in constancy. But constancy was the common virtue of the Revolution. Who was there that was inconstant? I know of but one military defection, that of [Benedict] Arnold; and I know of no political defection among those who made themselves eminent when the Revolution was formed by the Declaration of Independence.1422

  Wednesday, January 14, 1784. Today, in the Continental Congress, the Journals report:

  Resolved, unanimously, nine states being present, that the said definitive treaty [of peace between the United States of America and his Britannic Majesty signed on the 3d day of September, 1783] be, and the same is hereby ratified by the United States in Congress assembled …1423

  Monday, January 26, 1784. Today, Benjamin Franklin writes Benny’s mother, Sarah Bache, of Franklin’s fear that, in the new Society of the Cincinnati, George Washington is creating a hereditary order of nobility for the United States:

  Your Care in sending me the Newspapers is very agreeable to me. I received by Capt. Barney those relating to the Cincinnati. My Opinion of the Institution cannot be of much Importance; I only wonder that, when the united Wisdom of our Nation had, in the Articles of Confederation, manifested their Dislike of establishing Ranks of Nobility, … persons should think proper to distinguish themselves and their Posterity from their fellow Citizens and form an Order of Hereditary Knights in direct Opposition to the solemnly declared Sense of their Country! …

  [T]he descending Honour to Posterity who could have no Share in obtaining it is not only groundless and absurd, but often hurtful to that Posterity, since it is apt to make them proud … and thence falling into … Meannesses, Servility, and Wretchedness … which is the present case with much of what is called the Noblesse in Europe …1424

  Ben Franklin will show a copy of this letter to Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, the Comte de Mirabeau, urging him to write an essay against the evils of hereditary succession. Mirabeau will do so this September, using material from Franklin’s letter in his Considerations on the Order of Cincinnati.1425 Many will mark Mirabeau’s attack on hereditary succession as the beginning of the French Revolution!1426

  Tuesday, April 6, 1784. Today, back in the Netherlands, where he is still seeking a loan for the United States,1427 John Adams writes Arthur Lee:

  A friend of mine in Massachusetts, in a letter some months ago, gave me a confused hint that Franklin had written to somebody, at me, or towards me, or against me, or about me; but I could make nothing of it and did not know until I received your letter that he had written against me to Congress. What he can have said after allowing me to be sensible and honest, as you say he does, I am curious to know.1428

  Friday, April 9, 1784. Today, John Adams lets anger distend his handwriting as he responds to Massachusetts congressional delegate Samuel Osgood’s letter of December 8th:

  It can be no Surprise to any one who knows the real Character of the Man [Franklin], that Mr. Jay and I were joined [in independent negotiations with Britain] by our Colleague.—He never joined nor would join until he found we were United and determined to go through without him. Then he joined, because he knew his Destruction would be the Consequence of his standing out. That he had leave [from France] to join I doubt not, and [that] he communicated all he could [to France] I doubt not. But the business was so constructed that he could not communicate any Thing & could not hurt Us, and the Signature of the Treaty without communicating he could not hinder, and this Secured us from Delays which would have lost Us the [Peace?] …

  The Instances for a Minister to Question do not surprise me. Nothing … can surprise me … [Franklin’s] Success, in so many of his Selfish Plans and Hostilities against Others and the Ardor with which he is supported in all of them for his Obsequi
ousness by Politicians to whom all the Arts and Maxims of Aristotle, his Disciple Machiavelli, and their Disciples, the Jesuits, are familiar in Theory and Practice, have emboldened a mind enfeebled with Age, the Stone & the Gout, and eaten with all the Passions which may prey upon old Age unprincipled, until it is no longer under the restraint even of Hypocrisy. He told me that the United States ought to join France in two future wars against G.[reat] B.[ritain]—the first to pay the Debt we owe her for making war for us and the second to show ourselves as generous as she had been.—it is high time his Resignation was accepted. He has done Mischief enough. He has been possessed of the lowest Cunning and the deepest Hypocrisy I ever met. [T]he latter he every day lays aside more and more, it being now he thinks unnecessary. I am informed he has lately written against me to Congress. What he can have said after allowing me to be desirable and honest I know not. He has heretofore talked to Congress and misrepresented Expressions in private Conversation between him and me alone in anxious Consultation upon our dearest public Interests in the worst of times, without giving me the least hint that he disapproved what I said.

  I have been so sensible of danger from Foreigners that I was determined that no danger or fear of Prisons or Death, no Hardships of Voyages … or Perils of … Ministers or Assassins should deter me from attempting all in my power to ward it off.—But I was not aware of the Perils from false Brethren which have been worse than all the rest. Nevertheless, thro all Difficulties & Dangers, I have executed every Thing I have under taken, and all is secured. I am now indifferent about all the laughers, Weepers, Cursers & Flatterers. My first wish of my Soul is to go home. If the People of America have not now sense & spirit enough to put all to rights, they ought not in divine Justice to be free.1429