Franklin, as the chief spokesman for the committee, ignored this cloud of diplomatic chaff and got to the point. Would France help America? What would be the conditions under which she would give aid?
Again, the secret agent zigzagged. He thought “France wished them well.” Whether she would aid them, “that might happen.” But he knew nothing about terms. If they were inclined to make proposals, his “reliable acquaintances” would be happy to present them, but nothing more.
What about sending a deputy with full powers to France? This made Monsieur Bonvouloir very nervous. The idea was “precipitous, and even hazardous.... It was slippery business in the face of the English.” But he was willing to pass on the inquiry, and “. . . perhaps obtain a response which would determine which course to pursue.” He reiterated that he was only a private individual, “a traveler out of curiosity.” If his “acquaintances” could be of any service, he would be “much pleased.” But he could guarantee only one thing, his ability to keep a secret.
Three times during the month of December, Franklin and the committee met by night with this master of double talk. In spite of the fact that he produced not a scrap of written credentials, Franklin decided that candor was worth the risk and gave him a remarkable insider’s view of the crisis at this point in time. The Americans thought they had men and munitions enough to withstand the British Army. But they desperately wished for naval protection against the British fleet. In October, the British had followed up their destruction of Charlestown by burning Falmouth, Massachusetts. Only France or Spain could give them protection against British ships of the line. Franklin shrewdly intimated that they had not quite made up their mind which one to ask.
This almost made Bonvouloir shed his curious traveler’s cover. He argued vehemently against Spain and discoursed on the numerous advantages that France could offer. Franklin, more certain than ever that he was dealing with an authentic agent, told him that it was too soon to seek France’s aid openly. At the moment, it would “excite uneasiness to have a foreign nation interfere.” Better to wait until the beginning of the campaign when the people saw British warships and armies on the attack. That will soon change everyone’s mind, and make them “feel the necessity of being helped.” All they wanted for the moment from France was as many muskets as possible and two good engineering officers to help them construct fortifications.
Bonvouloir replied that two engineers, and even more, would be no problem. As for the muskets and even ammunition, that was “a matter between one merchant and another” and he saw “no great difficulty about it.” But he reiterated that he could guarantee nothing. He was “nobody.” He had “serviceable acquaintances, that was all.”
Franklin was too shrewd to bet all his money on this evasive gentleman. While he and the rest of the secret committee were conferring with Bonvouloir, he was simultaneously writing to Arthur Lee in London, telling him of the committee’s formation and asking him to find out “the disposition of foreign powers towards us.” Franklin put Lee in touch with an old friend, Charles W. F. Dumas, a Swiss intellectual who lived at The Hague, in Holland, and was an expert on international law. Franklin asked him to serve as a transmitter of Lee’s dispatches. Franklin knew that it would soon be impossible for Lee to send information directly from England to America. He also asked Dumas to set up a listening post in The Hague, to find out if “there is any state or power in Europe who would be willing to enter into an alliance with us for the benefit of our commerce, which amounted, before the war, near seven million sterling per annum.” As for arms and ammunition, “any merchant who would venture to send ships laden with those articles might make great profit; such is the demand in every colony.”
While Franklin launched these first probes toward Europe, Congress was attacking other problems. On January 2, 1776, they passed a resolution which was to cause Franklin acute personal pain. They called on local authorities in the various colonies to “frustrate the mischievous machinations and restrain the wicked practices” of those “unworthy Americans” who persisted in supporting the royal government. Three days after this resolution passed, it was in the hands of William Alexander, the son of Franklin’s old friend, who was now commanding the militia in eastern New Jersey. Alexander, who still claimed the Scottish title of Lord Sterling, yet paradoxically supported the American cause, had a personal grudge against Governor William Franklin. They had engaged in an acrimonious public debate when Sterling accepted his commission in the state militia. Governor Franklin had ordered him to resign from his council, thereby forcing. Alexander to commit himself wholeheartedly to the revolutionary cause. This made him resent intensely Governor Franklin’s fence straddling, and the moment he saw the Congressional resolution, he ordered his men to seize the governor’s mail. Before nightfall, a fat packet addressed to Lord Dartmouth, the colonial secretary, and marked “Secret and Confidential,” was in Alexander’s hands.
To a vehement pro-American, and by now the pugnacious Alexander was definitely in that category, the governor’s mail was most alarming reading. William told the colonial secretary that independence was a plot by a small minority which was being conducted “by such degrees and under such pretences as not to be perceived by the people in general till too late for resistance.” Also enclosed was a thorough report of the New Jersey Assembly’s meeting, including the resolutions against independence, and summaries of the speeches Dickinson, Jay, and Wythe had made to persuade the assemblymen to retract their petition for reconciliation. There were also extracts from the proceedings of the New Jersey Provincial Congress and a great deal of material from colonial newspapers, underscoring the prevalence of radical propaganda. Much of this was hanging evidence if the British won the war.
Alexander immediately ordered a contingent of militia to head for Perth Amboy. About 2 a.m. on the night of January 8, the colonel in command, apparently on Alexander’s orders, turned out all his men, surrounded the governor’s house as if it were a fortress under siege and demanded a guarantee from the governor that he would not leave the town. William assured him that he had no intention of leaving “unless compelled by violence.”
On January 9, William’s correspondence with the colonial secretary and Alexander’s report were laid before the Continental Congress.
Also included in the packet was a letter from another Perth Amboy citizen, Cortlandt Skinner, which contained strong loyalist sentiments. Congress ordered Skinner seized for interrogation by the New Jersey Committee of Safety. But they did nothing whatsoever about Governor Franklin. The Congressmen were apparently as baffled and embarrassed by the situation as Benjamin Franklin himself. After some talk by Alexander about confining William in a private home in Elizabeth, he was permitted to remain in his own residence in Perth Amboy.
Franklin apparently said nothing about the mortifying incident to anyone at home. William Temple Franklin wrote a chatty letter to his father on January 15 without a single mention of his difficulties. He got back a bitter blast, describing the whole nasty episode in detail. Instinctively, William dueled his father for Temple’s loyalty by stressing Elizabeth Franklin’s reaction to “being awakened with a violent knocking at the door about two o’clock in the morning and seeing the house surrounded by a large party of men aligned with guns and bayonets.” Her fright had “nearly deprived her of her life. She is not yet perfectly recovered . . . and I am really apprehensive that another alarm of the like nature will put an end to her life.” William said he had tried to “prevail on her to go either to Barbados or England where she has friends and relatives who will treat her with that kindness and respect she has always treated mine. But she is not willing to leave me on any consideration. She has no relatives of her own in this country to whom she can resort, or from whom she can receive any comfort in a time of distress; and she cannot but take notice that mine do not at present seem disposed to give themselves any concern about her.” By now Temple must have known the story of his father’s birth and unhappy childh
ood. There was more than an echo of it in his words, when he told Temple, “It gives me pleasure to find you inquire so affectionately for Mrs. Franklin. She has a very sincere regard for you, and you cannot but have seen that she is happy in every opportunity of expressing it. Let what will happen, I hope you will never be wanting in a grateful sense of her kindness to you.”
Temple was deeply disturbed by his father’s letter, and wrote an immediate answer, full of apologies and sympathy. But Benjamin Franklin did not communicate with his stubborn son. He had obviously decided that the political chasm separating them could only be filled by cold, absolute silence.
That chasm widened in the next month. Thomas Paine, the bankrupt ex-tax collector and corset maker whom Franklin had recommended to friends in Philadelphia as “an ingenious, worthy young man,” published on January 1, 1776, a two-shilling pamphlet of forty-seven pages called “Common Sense.” It was a devastating attack on the two ideas that still prevented most Americans from voting for independence, loyalty to the King and the British Constitution. The pamphlet was a sensational success. In less than three months, 120,000 copies were sold. Many people thought Franklin had written it, but he vehemently denied it. The idea was, however, suggested to Paine by young Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, a Franklin disciple, and Paine sent Franklin the first copy off the press.
Sensing a strong swing in public opinion, Franklin once more tried to seize the leadership of Congress by offering, on February 15, a resolution to open the ports of America to ships of all nations. But it was voted down because, in John Adams’ words, too many members considered it as “a bold step to independence.” Nevertheless, Franklin and other members of both secret committees negotiated with another Frenchman, a merchant named Penet, who had arrived in Philadelphia as a private entrepreneur, eager to sell guns and ammunition to the Americans. Unlike John Adams and Samuel Adams and other members of Congress, who filled their diaries and letters with lamentations over Congressional timidity and hesitation on the subject of independence, Franklin maintained a calm silence on the subject. He never seems to have had the slightest doubt that independence would come in due time, once the King and his ministers fully revealed how little genuine interest they had in reconciliation on any other basis but total submission. Another, perhaps stronger reason for Franklin’s certainty was the knowledge that he and the other members of the secret committees (on which the Adamses, because of their unpopularity, did not serve) were already conducting themselves as representatives of an independent state.
On March 3, Franklin’s committee took another large stride in this direction by appointing Silas Deane to go abroad and negotiate directly with the French. Deane was a Connecticut merchant who had served in the first two sessions of Congress, but had not been reelected to the current session. Energetic, with a reputation as a shrewd businessman, Deane was thirty-nine, and an apparently dedicated independence man. Franklin wrote his diplomatic instructions. They were vivid testimony to the almost total dependence of Congress on Benjamin Franklin’s contacts abroad. Appearing in the character of a “merchant,” Deane was told to confer with Franklin’s French friends, notably Barbs Dubourg, translator and editor of Franklin’s works. Franklin had already written Dubourg asking his help, and he assured Deane that he would find him “a man prudent, faithful, secret, intelligent in affairs, and capable of giving you very sage advice.” He would help Deane apply for an interview with the Count de Vergennes, the French foreign minister.
Deane was ordered to tell the Count that “there is a great appearance we shall come to a total separation from Great Britain” and, therefore, Congress regarded France as “the power whose friendship it would be fittest for us to obtain and cultivate.” Deane was to dangle in front of Vergennes the prospect of winning a “great part of our commerce” which had contributed so much to Britain’s “late wealth and importance.” If Deane found Vergennes reserved, under no circumstances was he to press him. Here Franklin had to descend to minutia. If an aggressive Connecticut Yankee such as Deane displayed the sense of equality he undoubtedly felt toward a European nobleman, the results would be disastrous. Deane was told “to shorten your visit,” tell the Count where he was staying in Paris, and assure him “knowing how precious his time is, you do not presume to ask another audience; but that, if he should have commands for you, you will, upon the least notice, immediately wait upon him.” Finally, Deane was told to contact Charles Dumas in Holland, and Edward Bancroft in London. Obviously Franklin was forced to function as a combination secretary of state and tutor.”
Congress next handed Franklin another diplomatic assignment. Affairs in Canada seemed to be sliding toward chaos and total collapse. The American Army had been repulsed in a New Year’s Eve attack on Quebec, and that city was still holding out against a siege. But the Americans were getting neither food nor reinforcements from the 80,000 French-Canadians in the province, who seemed to suspect the Americans were military adventurers at best, and potential enemies, because of their religious differences — at worst. Congress had done nothing to allay this latter suspicion, and was, in fact, largely responsible for it. In protesting the Quebec Act in the address to the people of Great Britain (October 21, 1774) Congress had declared, “Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged your island in blood and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder and rebellion through every part of the world.” Five days later, Congress had about-faced and issued an address to the Canadians, declaring they could not imagine how “difference of religion will prejudice you against a hearty amity with us.” Such double talk failed to convince the leading French-Canadians, particularly the “noblesse” and the clergy.
Congress decided that the only hope of clearing up the unfortunate misunderstanding was a direct appeal from a Congress committee. Franklin was chosen for his knowledge of the French language and his reputation in France. With him was elected Samuel Chase of Maryland, as a representative of a province where the Catholic religion was tolerated. The third member was another Marylander, Charles Carroll, a wealthy Catholic who was an enthusiastic patriot. To further bolster the committee’s appeal, Charles Carroll was asked to persuade his cousin, the Reverend John Carroll, a priest who was living on the family estates, to go along. Both the Carrolls had been educated in France and spoke fluent French.
The appointment caused Franklin to make a decision he had been thinking about for some time. He resigned from the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety, and from the State Assembly, to which he had also been elected. He said he was “unequal to so much business,” but later developments suggest that there may also have been a subtle political motive in this resignation. John Dickinson was firmly in control of the State Assembly and was punctiliously insisting that no man could be seated without first taking his oath of allegiance to the King. It was one of several symptoms that Dickinson had begun to display, suggesting that when it came to a crunch on the issue of independence, he was not dependable. Franklin, who served with him on the secret committee and had ample opportunity to know through numerous mutual acquaintances that Dickinson’s wife and mother were both urging him to back still another gesture of reconciliation, had no desire to give his old enemy a chance to use his name and prestige. It was bad enough to be voted into oblivion as a minority voice on the Pennsylvania delegation to Congress. Why should he let Dickinson be able to say that the Assembly, speaking as the voice of the people of Pennsylvania, backed his wavering stance, even though Benjamin Franklin was a member? In such a situation, it was far better to abstain and let Dickinson go his unsteady way, alone.
Before he left for Canada, Franklin presided at a highly unusual gathering which took place at the Indian Queen Tavern on March 20, 1776. It was a meeting of the American division of the Grand Ohio Company. It was not, really, strictly speaking, the Grand Ohio Company any longer. As the breach between the two countries widened, the American members
decided to revive the old Indiana Company, Ohio’s predecessor, and use that façade to press their claims to the million and a half acres of land the Iroquois had ceded them. With America and England on the brink of war, one might think that this relic of Franklin’s last triumph in British politics would have been abandoned. But the speculators, particularly Samuel Wharton and William Trent, insisted that the corpse was still alive, or could at least be restored to life by the breath of that new source of power, the Continental Congress. Wharton remained in England to maintain communication with Thomas Walpole and his friends. Trent returned to America, and busily collected opinions from Congressmen, such as Patrick Henry, supporting the Ohio Company’s claims. Trent was also authorized by Wharton to offer eight members of Congress a half share each if they would promote the idea that the company had a right to the land, not only on the basis of the cession of the Privy Council, but on the undoubted fact that they had already purchased it from the Indians. They flourished legal opinions from prominent English lawyers, such as Sergeant Glynn, maintaining that the Indians were the ones who owned the land and any cession on their part constituted a clear title.
Absent, of course, was William Franklin, under virtual house arrest in Perth Amboy. But he would have boycotted the meeting anyway. He was convinced that this new policy was a mistake and would only injure their chances of winning the grant from the Crown. He still clung to the King as the fountainhead of wealth and power. But his father and the other American members of the company were now indifferent to the largesse of George III. Briskly, Joseph Galloway was elected president and Thomas Wharton, vice president. George Morgan was appointed secretary of a land office and empowered to sell 400-acre lots.
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