Franklin

by Thomas Fleming

  A few days later, in the Public Advertiser another story appeared. It was introduced by what passed in the eighteenth century for a sensational headline.

  The Subject of the following Article of

  THAT FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE

  Being Exceedingly Extraordinary, is the

  Reason of Its being Separated from the Usual

  Articles of Foreign News

  AN EDICT

  BY THE KING OF PRUSSIA

  In ceremoniously regal language, Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia, proceeded to proclaim that it was “well known to all the world” that England was a colony of Germany. The first settlers in England had been Germans under Hengist, Horsa, and others of “our renowned ducal ancestors.” Since the colony had “hitherto yielded little profit,” Frederick was imposing a four and a half percent duty on all goods and foodstuffs exported or imported from England. All ships bound from Great Britain to any other part of the world would henceforth be forced to touch at the port of Konigsberg, “there to be unladened, searched and charged with said duties.” The edict went on to forbid the smelting of iron and other forms of manufacturing in Great Britain, banned the weaving of woolen cloth and the making of hats, and finally ordered “that all the thieves, highway and street robbers, housebreakers, forgers, murderers . . . and villains of every denomination, who have forfeited their lives to the law in Prussia; but whom we, in our great clemency do not think fit here to hang, shall be emptied out of our goals into the said island of Great Britain, for the better peopling of that country.”

  The King flattered himself “that these our royal regulations and commands will be thought just and reasonable by our much favored colonists in England,” and proceeded to cite statutes justifying them from laws made by the British Parliament or from instructions given by their kings “for the good government of their own colonies in Ireland and America.”

  For a final acid touch, the King blandly declared that “all persons in the said island are hereby cautioned not to oppose in any wise the execution of this our edict, or any part thereof, such apposition being high treason; of which all who are suspected shall be transported in fetters from Britain to Prussia, there to be tried and executed according to the Prussian law.

  As he often did when he was sticking his neck out dangerously, Franklin absented himself from London during the days when these two articles appeared. He had become friendly with Lord Le Despencer, the new Postmaster General, and had spent several vacations at his palatial estate in West Wycombe. Franklin was sitting in the breakfast room, chatting with his Lordship and several other guests when the London papers arrived. Paul Whitehead, a well-known writer of the time, had a habit of scanning the papers and then reading aloud the choice bits of gossip and news to the company. This morning he burst into the breakfast room breathless with excitement.

  “Here! Here’s news for ye! Here’s the King of Prussia claiming a right to this kingdom!”

  Consternation. Everyone stared in total disbelief. Franklin, no mean actor, managed to look as goggle-eyed as the next man. Whitehead read two or three paragraphs, and one of the listeners burst into violent denunciation of the Prussian King. “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.”

  But as Whitehead read on, he began to notice the exact correspondence between the Prussian King’s claims and Parliament’s asserted rights over America. Suddenly he looked Franklin in the eye and said, “I’ll be hanged if this is not some of your American jokes upon us.”

  Franklin smilingly confessed, knowing he was in pro-American company. Whitehead finished the article, amid roars of laughter from the audience. Everyone agreed, Franklin said, “that it was a fair hit.” Lord Le Despencer liked it so much he ordered the piece cut out of the paper and preserved in his library.

  London readers liked it even more. Both satires sold out the papers in which they were published, and were printed a half-dozen times in other publications. In a letter to his son, Franklin apologized for not being able to send him a copy of the “Edict.” He had sent his clerk the next morning to the printers and wherever the papers were sold. “They were all gone but two.” Franklin preferred the “Rules by which a Great Empire May be Reduced,” probably because it was clearer and bolder in its attack. But most English readers preferred the “Edict.” He told William, with not a little satisfaction, that one of the chief anti-Americans in the government, Lord Mansfield, called it “very able and very artful” and gloweringly predicted that it would “do mischief by giving . . . a bad impression of the measures of government; and in the colonies by encouraging them in their contumacy.”

  There was another reason for this new boldness in Franklin. Typically it appeared first in a letter to his son, in mid-July of 1773, and it was obviously the result of his growing disappointment with Dartmouth’s ministry, and his attempt to understand why this good man was so powerless. “Between you and I, the late measures [the Tea Act] have been, I suspect, very much the King’s own, and he has in some cases a great share of what his friends call firmness.” Only if we remember how much weight Franklin placed on the person and the role of the King in maintaining the unity of the empire can we grasp how serious this statement was, to him Yet he remained hopeful that “by some painstaking and proper management, the wrong impressions he has received may be removed, which is perhaps the only chance America has for obtaining soon the redress she aims at.” Underscoring his seriousness, he added, “This entirely to yourself.”

  Another reason for his boldness was also intimately connected with his son. The Boston political leaders had disregarded Franklin’s instructions, made copies of Hutchinson’s letters, and finally arranged to have them printed in the papers. William Franklin wrote to his father, expressing the natural distaste that he, a governor, would feel upon seeing a fellow official’s private correspondence made public in such a manner. He told his father that Governor Hutchinson was accusing Franklin of writing letters to the Boston patriots, advising them to insist on independence. Obviously William half believed this and anxiously asked his father for an explanation.

  In a tense letter, Franklin replied that he had done no such thing. He wasn’t sure which of his letters Hutchinson had intercepted, but he supposed “he has sent copies of them hither, having heard some whisperings about them.” He assured William that he would “be able at any time to justify everything I have written”; he had “uniformly” advised the people of Boston that “they should carefully avoid all tumults and every violent measure, and content themselves with verbally keeping up their claims, and holding forth their rights whenever occasion requires; secure, that, from the growing importance of America, those claims will erelong be attended to and acknowledged.”

  Then, he bluntly told William Franklin where he stood on the heart of the historic argument. “From a long and thorough consideration of the subject, I am indeed of opinion, that the Parliament has no right to make any law whatever, binding on the colonies; that the King, and not the King, Lords, and Commons collectively is their sovereign; and that the King, with their respective Parliaments is their only legislator.” Then came the point of tension. “I know your sentiments differ from mine on these subjects. You are a thorough government man, which I do not wonder at, nor do I aim at converting you. I only wish you to act uprightly and steadily, avoiding that duplicity, which in Hutchinson, adds contempt to indignation. If you can promote the prosperity of your people, and leave them happier than you found them, whatever your political principles are, your memory will be honoured.”

  But Franklin did not reveal to his son the full contents of the extraordinary letter which he wrote to Thomas Cushing on July 7, 1773. By now, Lord Dartmouth had been in office almost a year, and it was clear to Franklin that there was no hope that he would ever redress the balance of power within the North cabinet. In fact, North had not even tried to prevent powerful anti-American politicians in the cab
inet from blithely assuming much of the jurisdiction over America originally centered in Dartmouth’s ministry. As Franklin had already told William, it was becoming equally obvious to him that indolent, bumbling Lord North could not possibly maintain any policy, much less a harsh and repressive one for two weeks without some very firm backing from the man who held the real executive power in his royal hands: George III.

  “The question then arises, how are we to obtain redress?” Franklin wrote to Cushing. His answer was drastic. The Parliamentary history of England gave him the clue. Only by “withholding aids when the sovereign was in distress” were the people able to force the King and his lords to redress their grievances. This was the heart of the reason why the House of Commons always insisted on keeping control of all money bills, not even permitting the House of Lords to interfere in this crucial area. All right, Franklin reasoned, “this country pretends to be collectively our sovereign. It is now deeply in debt. Its funds are far short of recovering their par since the last war: Another would distress it still more. Its people are diminished, as well as its credit. Men will be wanted, as well as money.” The next time a war comes to the Empire, and England turns to America for aid and friendship, “then is the time to say, Redress our grievances.”

  Franklin noted that in 1770, when Britain almost went to war with Spain over a dispute about the ownership of the Falkland Islands, “some great men here” put on a very “different countenance . . . towards those who were thought to have a little influence in America.” He was confident that if the war had taken place, Lord Hillsborough “would have been immediately dismiss’d, all his measures revers’d and every step taken to recover our affection and procure our assistance.”

  This may not have been advice to create political independence in the literal sense, but to an officer of the British government, such confrontation tactics must have seemed very close to advising a kind of independence that was little short of treason. There is, moreover, a very strong probability that the British government read every word Franklin wrote. A copy of another letter to Cushing, in the same tough vein, was filed in Lord Dartmouth’s office with the ominous notation: “Very remarkable and requires no commentary.”

  By thus bringing “the dispute to a crisis” Franklin felt that the colonies would then be able to negotiate “on equitable terms” to create a genuine political union with the mother country. Franklin still saw advantages to this on both sides. Britain would have America’s resources in time of war, and America would have Britain to act as “a common umpire in our disputes, thereby preventing wars we might otherwise have with each other.” He then used a metaphor, which obviously was much on his mind at the time. If the Americans would “bear a little with the infirmities” of the British government, “as we would with those of an aged parent, tho’ firmly asserting our privileges,” he thought, “this advantageous union may still be long continued.”

  He reiterated his belief that America had “many friends and well-wishers” among the British people. They included numerous merchants and manufacturers, and even some of the country gentlemen. The members of the dissenting (non-Anglican) churches were all on America’s side. But he admitted that only “a few members of Parliament in both houses, and perhaps some in high office, have in a degree the same ideas” and none of these “seem willing as yet to be active in our favor, lest adversaries . . . charge it upon them as betraying the interest of this nation.”

  Because they were in such a minority, “the friends of liberty” in England were even beginning to wonder if this rule by the King’s friends, which so swiftly was becoming personal rule by George III himself, was not endangering the traditions of English liberty. That was another reason why they wished Americans “may long preserve it on our side of the water that they may find it there if adverse events should destroy it here.” But they were “anxious and afraid, lest we should hazard it by premature attempts in its favor. They think we may risque much by violent measures, and that the risque is unnecessary, since a little time must infallibly bring us all we demand or desire, and bring it us in peace and safety.”

  Then came two more sentences which must have raised Lord Dart-mouth’s eyebrows when he read a copy of this letter. “I do not presume to advise,” Franklin said, “there are many wiser men among you, and I hope you will be directed by a still superior Wisdom.” Cryptically, was Franklin admitting here that although he was not in favor of a violent solution, other Americans might justifiably decide it was the best answer?

  One thing is clear from these words, and from others Franklin wrote about this time: he was growing more and more impatient with the interminable quarrel between England and America, and growing more and more determined to settle it, one way or another. In a letter he wrote to William Franklin in November 1773, he implicitly renewed his defense of tough tactics. Telling William that his “Rules” satire had been reprinted several weeks later in the same paper as a result of the “earnest request of many private persons, and some respectable societies,” he added, “Such papers may seem to have a tendency to increase our divisions; but I intend a contrary effect, and hope by comprising in little room, and setting in a strong light the grievances of the colonies, more attention will be paid to them by our administration, and that when their unreasonableness is generally seen, some of them will be removed to the restoration of harmony between us.”

  About this time, Franklin wrote a song that revived the image of England as an aging parent, with some of his best satirical touches. It is easy to see him, surrounded by his pro-American friends, singing in his sitting room at Craven Street.

  We have an old mother that peevish is grown

  She snubs us like children that scarce walk alone

  She forgets we’ve grown up and have sense of our own:

  Which nobody can deny, deny

  Which nobody can deny.

  If we don’t obey orders, whatever the case;

  She frowns, and she chides, and she loses all patience, and sometimes she hits us a slap in the face,

  Which nobody can deny, &c.

  Her orders so odd are, we often suspect

  That age has impaired her sound intellect;

  But still an old mother should have due respect,

  Which nobody can deny, &c.

  Let’s bear with her humours as well as we can: But why should we bear the abuse of her man? When servants make mischief, they earn the rattan,

  Which nobody should deny, &c.

  Know too, ye bad neighbours, who aim to divide The sons from the mother, that still she’s our pride;

  And if ye attack her we’re all of her side,

  Which nobody can deny, &c.

  We’ll join in her lawsuits, to baffle all those,

  Who, to get what she has, will be often her foes:

  But we know it must all be our own, when she goes,

  Which nobody can deny, deny,

  Which nobody can deny.’

  But the old mother was about to display a kind of impatience that went beyond all of Franklin’s calculations. He had hoped to confine the Hutchinson-Oliver letters to a small circle of Boston leaders. But they were soon so well known among those hostile to the British Ministry that Benjamin Edes boldly printed them in his Boston Gazette.

  This set the smoldering dispute between the governor and the people aflame again, and in a formal resolution forwarded to Franklin, the Assembly petitioned the King for the removal of the governor and lieutenant governor. As the Assembly’s agent, Franklin had the ticklish duty of submitting this explosive document to Lord Dartmouth. His Lordship made no immediate comment to Franklin; in fact he ignored the petition for the better part of two months. But Dartmouth made it clear to Hutchinson that he thoroughly condemned the whole idea of the petition and assured him that “these proceedings . . . will soon be fully examined and considered here, and I have not the least doubt that the result of such consideration will be to your honor and satisfaction.”

  Wh
en Franklin called to inquire about the petition in December 1773, he was told that a committee of the Privy Council would soon consider it. But he gathered “by the turn of his [Dartmouth’s] conversation” that the petition did not have a prayer. Then Dartmouth donned his conciliator’s mantle and expressed his fervent wish that the differences between England and America could be accommodated. “Perhaps,” Franklin wrote wryly, reporting on the interview to Thomas Cushing in Massachusetts, “his good wishes are all that are in his power.”

  But there were other more serious consequences to these purloined letters elsewhere in London. William Whately, as executor of his brother’s estate, accused the Franklins’ friend John Temple of stealing the letters, which had by now been printed in the London papers. From verbal insults, Whately and Temple descended to exchanging scurrilities in the newspapers, and Temple finally decided that his honor could be preserved only by the sight of Whately’s blood. They began by exchanging a round each from pistols, then drew swords and went to work. As an ex-Customs officer, Temple was reasonably skillful in the use of this weapon, but banker Whately had obviously never handled a sword before in his life. He flailed at Temple in utterly ridiculous fashion, frustrating his attempt to end the battle by pinking Whately in the sword arm. Finally Temple managed to deliver a flesh wound in the side, and Whately cried for quarter. But Temple was unfortunately rather deaf and, infuriated by what seemed like Whately’s brainless resistance; he aimed a thrust at the banker’s shoulder. The frantic Whately tried to duck, slipped and fell on his face, taking the point of the blade in the back part of the shoulder as he went down. The two men parted totally unsatisfied, with Whately resolving to take fencing lessons and have another crack at Temple as soon as his wounds healed. Temple, defending himself against the rumor that he had stabbed Whately in the back as he lay on the ground, published a long account of the duel in the Public Advertiser, in which he reiterated his denial of Whately’s charge, that he was the man who stole the letters.