On that same day in the Public Advertiser, Franklin began publishing a series of essays called “The Colonists’ Advocate.” These were bold, hard-hitting pieces, supposedly by an English official who had “some years service in America.” He bluntly called the anti-Americans enemies of liberty, rejected their arguments as “a most pitiful set of defenses,” spoke savagely of places for “needy court-Janglers,” and compared the ignorance of the ministers to “the savages of Louisiana who to come at the fruit, cut down the tree.” This was very strong stuff, especially in an era when the noble lords expected to be approached with bows and compliments.”
Now Franklin’s appointment as agent for Massachusetts meant that he had to meet his prime target, Lord Hillsborough, face to face. In order to function as agent, he had to make a formal report of his appointment to the head of the Board of Trade.
Somewhat nervously, Franklin discussed the prospect of the interview with his friends. They advised him to wear his friendliest face and pretend that there was no warfare raging on either side. That way, his Lordship might be challenged to match Franklin’s civility, and the interview could be accomplished with a minimum of exacerbation. Franklin, with his knowledge of human nature, was probably not so optimistic. But on the morning of January 16, 1771, he set out on his unpleasant errand.
To Franklin’s relief, the porter who guarded his Lordship’s door refused to let him enter. Franklin left his name, regained his coach and drove off. But before he was out of the square, the porter came crying after him to halt. “His Lordship will see you, sir,” were probably the most unwelcome words Franklin had heard in months.
He was shown into his Lordship’s reception room, where he found himself face to face with Sir Francis Bernard, former governor of Massachusetts and the man Lord Shelburne had condemned for needlessly inflaming the province and calumniating the colony’s reputation. He was a constant companion of Lord Hillsborough, not a good omen for Franklin and his hopes of a peaceful reception.
A moment later, John Pownall, Secretary of the Board of Trade, invited Franklin into Hillsborough’s bedroom. Usually Hillsborough let Franklin sit outside his door for three or four hours waiting his turn. Delighted to save some time he had already considered lost, Franklin found it easier to put on “the open cheerful countenance” that his friends had advised him to wear. His Lordship did not look particularly malevolent as he greeted him. “I was dressing in order to go to court; but hearing that you were at the door, who are a man of business, I determined to see you immediately,” he said.
Franklin thanked him and replied that his business for the present was “not much.” He was only here to pay his respects to his Lordship and to “acquaint you with my appointment by the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay to be their agent here, in which station if I could be of any service.”
A transformation took place on Hillsborough’s face at the words Massachusetts Bay. With an expression that Franklin later described as “something between a smile and a sneer,” he cut him short.
“I must set you right here, Mr. Franklin, you are not agent.”
“Why, my Lord?”
“You are not appointed.”
“I do not understand, your Lordship. I have the appointment in my pocket.”
“You are mistaken. I have later and better advices. I have a letter from Governor Hutchinson. He would not give his assent to the bill.”
“There was no bill, my Lord. It was a vote of the House.”
“There was a bill presented to the governor for the purpose of appointing you and another, one Dr. Lee, I think he is called, to which the governor refused his assent.”
“I cannot understand this, my Lord; I think there must be some mistake. Is your Lordship quite sure that you have such a letter?”
“I will convince you of it directly.” Hillsborough rang a bell on a nearby table. “Mr. Pownall will come in and satisfy you.”
“It is not necessary that I should now detain your Lordship from dressing for going to court. I will wait on your Lordship another time.”
“No, stay,” Hillsborough snapped in his most imperious manner. “He will come immediately.” When a servant appeared at the door he barked at him, “Tell Mr. Pownall I want him.”
A moment later Pownall stood breathless in the doorway. He was the brother of Franklin’s good friend, Thomas Pownall, but as a maddening example of the way the issue of America divided men, he had “a strong bias” against Americans.
“Have not you at hand Governor Hutchinson’s letter mentioning his refusing his assent to the bill for appointing Dr. Franklin agent?”
“My Lord?” Pownall gasped.
“Is there not such a letter?”
“No, my Lord,” said Pownall. “There is a letter relating to some bill for the payment of a salary to Mr. de Berdt and I think to some other agent, to which the governor had refused his assent.”
“There is nothing in the letter to the purpose I mention?”
“No, my Lord,” said Pownall sadly.
“I thought it could not well be, my Lord,” said Franklin, “as my letters are by the last ships, and they mention no such thing. Here is the authentic copy of the vote of the House appointing me, in which there is no mention of any act intended. Will your Lordship please to look at it?”
Hillsborough took the paper from Franklin’s hand, as if it were offal, but did not bother to look at it. “An information of this kind is not properly brought to me as Secretary of State,” he quibbled.
“The Board of Trade is the proper place.”
“I will leave the paper then with Mr. Pownall to be.”
“To what end would you leave it with him?” Hillsborough stormed.
“To be entered on the minutes of that Board, as usual.”
“It shall not be entered there,” Hillsborough roared. “No such paper shall be entered there while I have anything to do with the business of that Board. The House of Representatives has no right to appoint an agent. We shall take no notice of any agents but such as are appointed by acts of the Assembly, to which the governor gives his assent. We have had confusion enough already. Here is one agent appointed by the Council, another by the House of Representatives. Which of these is agent for the province? Who are we to hear in provincial affairs? An agent appointed by act of Assembly we can understand. No other will be attended to for the future, I can assure you.”
“I cannot conceive, my Lord,” said Franklin calmly in the face of this blue-blooded wrath, “why the consent of the governor should be thought necessary to the appointment of an agent for the people. It seems to me that-”
“I shall not enter into a dispute with you, sir, upon this subject,” Hillsborough raged.
“I beg your Lordship’s pardon,” Franklin said icily. “I do not presume to dispute your Lordship. I would only say that it seems to me that every body of men who cannot appear in person where business relating to them may be transacted, should have a right to appear by an agent. The concurrence of the governor does not seem to be necessary. It is the business of the people that is to be done; he is not one of them; he is himself an agent.”
“Whose agent is he?” said Hillsborough, flustered by this new idea. “The King’s, my Lord,” said Franklin.
“No such matter,” snapped Hillsborough. “He is one of the corporation by the province charter. No agent can be appointed but by an act, nor can any act pass without his assent. Besides, this proceeding is directly contrary to express instructions.”
This was a favorite Hillsborough word. As Franklin had pointed out in the public press, these arbitrary instructions had done not a little to set America aflame. But he wisely decided not to suggest this to Hillsborough, now. “I did not know there had been such instructions,” he said. “I am not concerned in any offence against them and-”
“Yes,” said Hillsborough, interrupting Franklin for the fourth or fifth time, “your offering such a paper to be entered is an offense against t
hem.” He folded up Franklin’s letter of appointment without having read a word of it. “No such appointment shall be entered. When I came into the administration of American affairs I found them in great disorder. By my firmness they are now something mended; and while I have the honor to hold the seals [of office] I shall continue the same conduct, the same firmness. I think my duty to the master I serve, and to the government of this nation, requires it of me. If that conduct is not approved, they may take my office from me when they please. I shall make them a bow and thank them; I shall resign with pleasure. That gentleman knows it.” Hillsborough pointed to Pownall. “But while I continue in it I shall resolutely persevere in the same firmness.”
Franklin, describing this violent scene for Samuel Cooper, said that by now the color had drained from Hillsborough’s face. He seemed, Franklin said, to be “angry at something or somebody besides the agent, and of more consequence to himself.”
Calmly Franklin held out his hand for his letter of appointment. Hillsborough returned it to him. “I beg your Lordship’s pardon for taking up so much of your time,” Franklin said. “It is, I believe, of no great importance whether the appointment is acknowledged or not. For I have not the least conception that an agent can at present be of any use to any of the colonies. I shall therefore give your Lordship no further trouble.”
Coolly, Franklin made his formal bow and departed.
A few weeks later, Franklin sent the “minutes” of this tense confrontation, a word-for-word, blow-by-blow description which read like a script from a play to Samuel Cooper. He told Cooper that he had since heard that “his Lordship took great offence at some of my last words, which he calls extremely rude and abusive. He assured a friend of mine, that they were equivalent to telling him to his face that the colonies could expect neither favor nor justice during his administration.”
One can almost see the grim smile in Franklin’s next words. “I find he did not mistake me.”
Franklin also told Cooper that this was only one of “many instances of his [Hillsborough’s] behavior and conduct that have given me the very mean opinion I entertain of his abilities and fitness for his station. His character is conceit, wrongheadedness, obstinacy and passion.” The only consolation and encouragement, Franklin said, was the knowledge that Hillsborough “is not a whit better lik’d by his colleagues in the ministry, than he is by me.”
But these bold words concealed from his American friends the deep dismay this open breach with Hillsborough had caused Franklin. An acute depression replaced his usual cheerfulness. He spent more and more time secluded in his Craven Street lodgings. Almost certainly, the reason was the devastating impact Franklin feared the clash would have on the petition of the Grand Ohio Company. Soon William Strahan was writing worriedly to Governor Franklin the first critical words he had ever used against his old friend. Strahan said that Franklin “could not stir in this [Ohio] business as he is not only on bad terms with Lord Hillsborough but with the ministry in general. Besides, his temper has grown so very reserved, which adds greatly to his natural inactivity, that there is no getting him to take part in anything.” This was a picture of a man hurt and depressed by his inability to achieve the brightest dream of his life, on behalf of his son.
Samuel Wharton was no consolation. He had used Franklin to push his way into the inner circle of London society, and now turned on him for seeming to lose interest in Wharton’s one hope of escape from bankruptcy. He even managed to turn Strahan against his old friend. In his letter to William Franklin, Strahan lavishly declared that without Wharton the project would be in a state of collapse. He “hath acquired better connections here than any other American I know of ever did,” Strahan wrote, in an obvious comparison to Franklin. Strahan was a man who liked winners, and his hearty good nature found it hard to understand depression. He added in the same critical tone that he had heard Franklin “at my house propose to Mr. Wharton to strike his name out of the list [of partners] as it might be a prejudice to the undertaking.”
His sole motive in writing “thus freely” to William, Strahan said, was “to put you upon your guard, & to induce you to be as circumspect in your conduct as possible, as it is imagined here, that you entertain the same political opinions with your father, and are actuated by the same motives with regard to Britain and America.”
These words were to become far more ominous in a few years. For the moment William was still inclined to side strongly with his father. In the first draft of his reply to Strahan, he wrote the skeptical sentence, “I have no doubt of Mr. Wharton’s activity, sagacity or perseverance in this business . . . but that he should, as you say, without the least assistance from any other quarter, find means to connect himself with many of the greatest names in Britain is indeed not a little surprising.” William omitted this sentence from the final copy of the letter he sent to Strahan because he feared the printer would “look upon it as a sneer, & that I doubted his veracity. Besides it was probable he would show it to S. W. [Samuel Wharton] which might occasion a coolness.” William also did not tell Strahan the whole truth about his feelings toward the Grand Ohio Company. He claimed that if the colony was founded it would give him pleasure, not because it was advantageous to him but only because it would rescue his friends, Croghan, Wharton, and Trent, from their embarrassments. This was less than candid since about the same time Wharton and Trent were writing William from London, begging him to send along another installment of the expense money he had promised them. He was as deeply involved in the project as the Whartons, and in almost as much danger of bankruptcy.
On other matters, William was more revealing to Strahan. Lord Hillsborough, he said, “has no reason (other than the natural connection between us) to imagine that I entertain the same political opinion with my father with regard to the disputes between Britain & America. My sentiments are really in many respects different from those which have yet been published on either side of the question; but as I could not expect the voice of an individual be attended to in the temper both parties were in, I for the most part kept my sentiments to myself, & only endeavored to steer my little bark quietly through all the storms of political contest with which I was everywhere surrounded.”
Hillsborough, obviously bent on making as much trouble as possible for the Franklins, persuaded the Board of Trade to write a letter to New Jersey containing strict instructions regarding the appointment of a London agent. The Board hoped that the “House of Reps of N.J. would from the propriety of the thing itself have receded from their claim of the sole right of appointing an agent for the colony . . . as we think such claim is unjust and unwarrantable. . .” This put William Franklin in a very sticky corner. He promptly notified the Board of Trade that there was no hope that the Assembly would ever agree to such instructions. Then he went to work on his Assembly, and wheedled an agreement out of them. They voted a formal bill, appointing Benjamin Franklin agent for another year, and the governor and the council signed it. In a letter to his father he admitted that he did not expect Benjamin to be “altogether pleased” with this compliance. Defensively promising to explain it in more detail in a future letter, William pleaded that “it really (inter nos) makes no kind of difference, and yet will fortify the My [Ministry] as it will appear to be a point gained.”
Benjamin was in no mood to let Hillsborough gain anything, and he was even more annoyed that William would cooperate in a scheme that was obviously aimed at cowing colonial agents. No doubt on orders, from Hillsborough, Governor Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts had refused to authorize the payment of Franklin’s salary. If agents could only be appointed with the signature of a royal governor, soon there would be no colonial representatives in London except ministerial yes men. Franklin first threatened to resign rather than serve in “such a suspicious situation.” But he finally decided to let his son score his small point with the ministry, and accepted the job of acting as New Jersey’s agent for another year.”
This was only a small se
gment of Franklin’s clash with Hillsborough. There is evidence in Franklin’s papers that this powerful lord was also hard at work among his fellow cabinet members, trying to get Franklin arrested, probably for treason. In fact, a letter from one of Franklin’s friends to an English lawyer talks of it not as a possibility, but as a near certainty. “I think when he is arrested his friends will find such security you approve rather than lett him be detained here.” Hillsborough was declaiming against Franklin at every London dinner table and club he visited. Even William Strahan, who felt that his newly acquired job as King’s printer required him to take a more moderate position on the quarrel, got an earful from his Lordship. Franklin, thundered Hillsborough, “was a factious, turbulent fellow, an enemy to the King’s service, a republican.” Franklin, on his part, let his Lordship know that he was gathering material to get him impeached.
Partly to escape Hillsborough’s threats, and also to shake off his depression, Franklin traveled a great deal during the year 1771. He let Samuel Wharton and Thomas Walpole struggle with the problem of shoving the Grand Ohio Company through Hillsborough’s opposition. In the spring he took a tour of the British midlands. He traveled through Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, and Manchester, the “clothing towns” from which England exported wool and cotton goods around the world. The huge mills and intricate weaving machines were fascinating to Franklin’s scientific mind, but the other, humane side of his mind was active too. In this early phase of the industrial revolution, wages were brutally low. The workers who toiled at the machines for twelve and fourteen hours a day were filthy, half-starved skeletons, clothed in rags. The manager of one Norwich factory began boasting to Franklin about the world-wide range of his exports. He told how Norwich cloth made suits, stockings, and dresses for people in the West Indies, America, India, and half the countries of Europe. Franklin listened patiently to this geographical roll call and then, his eyes on a ragged worker, asked: “And what do you export to Norwich?”
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