Walter Isaacson Great Innovators e-book boxed set: Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Einstein

by Isaacson, Walter

  Indeed, a few months after their wedding, Polly and William Hewson came to stay with Franklin while Mrs. Stevenson spent one of her long weekends visiting friends in the country. Together they published a fake newspaper to mark the occasion. The Craven Street Gazette for Saturday, September 22, 1770, reported on the departure of “Queen Margaret” and Franklin’s ensuing grumpiness. “The GREAT person (so called from his enormous size)…could hardly be comforted this morning, though the new ministry promised him roasted shoulder of mutton and potatoes for his dinner.” Franklin, it was reported, was also miffed that Queen Margaret had taken the keys to a closet so that he could not find his ruffled shirts, which prevented him from going to St. James’s Palace for Coronation Day. “Great clamors were made on this occasion against her Majesty…The shirts were afterwards found, tho’ too late, in another place.”

  For four days, the newspaper poked fun at various Franklin foibles: how he violated his sermons about saving fuel by making a fire in his bedroom when everyone else was out, how he vowed to fix the front door but gave up because he was unable to decide whether it required buying a new lock or a new key, and how he pledged to go to church on Sunday. “It is now found by sad experience that good resolutions are easier made than executed,” Sunday’s edition reported. “Notwithstanding yesterday’s solemn Order of Council, nobody went to church today. It seems the GREAT person’s broad-built bulk lay so long abed that breakfast was not over until it was too late.” The moral of the tale could have been written by Poor Richard: “It seems a vain thing to hope reformation from the example of our great folks.”

  One particularly intriguing entry seems to refer to a woman living nearby with whom Franklin had an unrequited flirtation. That Sunday, Franklin pretended to visit her: “Dr. Fatsides made 469 turns in his dining room, as the exact distance of a visit to the lovely Lady Bar-well, whom he did not find at home, so there was no struggle for and against a kiss, and he sat down to dream in his easy chair that he had it without any trouble.” By the third day of Mrs. Stevenson’s absence, the Gazette was reporting that Dr. Fatsides “begins to wish for her Majesty’s return.”

  That final edition contained one of Franklin’s inimitable letters to the editor, signed with the pseudonym “Indignation,” decrying the food and conditions. Referring to Polly and her husband, it railed: “If these nefarious wretches continue in power another week, the nation will be ruined—undone!—totally undone if the Queen does not return; or (which is better) turn them all out and appoint me and my friends to succeed them.” It was answered by “A Hater of Scandal,” who wrote that the surly Franklin had been offered a wonderful dinner of beef ribs and had rejected it, saying “that beef does not with him perspire well, but makes his back itch, to his no small vexation now that he hath lost the little Chinese ivory hand at the end of the stick, commonly called a scratchback, presented to him by Her Majesty.”36

  Franklin was able to indulge on Craven Street the many eccentricities he had developed. One of these was taking hour-long “air baths” early each morning, during which he would open his windows and “sit in my chamber without any clothes whatever.” Another was engaging in little flirtations. The famous painter Charles Willson Peale recounted how he once visited Craven Street unannounced and found “the Doctor was seated with a young lady on his knee.” The lady in question was probably Polly, though the sketch Peale later made of the scene is ambiguous.37

  Eventually, Polly and William Hewson moved into Craven Street and brought with them Hewson’s skeletons, “prepared fetuses,” and other tools for his medical research. Later, Franklin and Mrs. Stevenson moved a few doors away. Their odd relationship was reflected in a crotchety letter Franklin wrote her during one of her regular escapes to visit friends in the country. Reminding her of Poor Richard’s adage that guests become tiresome after three days, he urged her to return on the next stagecoach. But lest she think he was too dependent on her, he spelled out his contentment at being alone. “I find such a satisfaction in being a little more my own master, going anywhere and doing anything just when and how I please,” he claimed. “This happiness however is perhaps too great to be conferred on any but Saints and holy hermits. Sinners like me, I might have said us, are condemned to live together and tease one another.”38

  Hillsborough and

  the Townshend Duties

  In his dramatic testimony arguing for repeal of the Stamp Act, Franklin made a serious misjudgment: he said that Americans recognized Parliament’s right to impose external taxes, such as tariffs and export duties, just not internal taxes that were collected on transactions inside the country. He repeated the argument in April 1767, writing as “A Friend to Both Countries” and then as “Benevolus” in a London paper. In an effort to soothe troubled relations, he recounted all the times that Americans had been very accommodating in helping to raise money for the defense of the empire. “The colonies submit to pay all external taxes laid upon them by way of duty on merchandise imported into their country and never disputed the authority of Parliament to lay such duties,” he wrote.39

  Charles Townshend, the new chancellor of the exchequer, had been among those who grilled Franklin in Parliament about his acceptance of external but not internal taxes. The distinction was complete “nonsense,” Townshend felt, but he decided to pretend to please the colonies—or call their bluff—by adopting it. In a brilliant speech that earned him the nickname “Champagne Charlie” because it was delivered while he was half-drunk, he laid out a plan for import duties on glass, paper, china, paint colors, and tea. Making matters worse, part of the money raised would be used to pay royal governors, thus freeing them from dependence on colonial legislatures.

  Once again, as with the passage of the Stamp Act, Franklin expressed little concern when the Townshend duties passed in June 1767, and he did not realize how far he lagged behind the growing radicalism in parts of the colonies. Outrage at the new duties grew particularly strong in the port city of Boston, where the Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams, effectively roused sentiments with dances around a “Liberty Tree” near the common. Adams got the Massachusetts Assembly to draft a circular letter to the rest of the colonies that petitioned for repeal of the act. The British ministry demanded that the letter be rescinded and sent troops to Boston after the Assembly refused.

  When reports of American anger reached him in London, Franklin remained rather moderate and wrote a series of essays calling for “civility and good manners” on both sides. To friends in Philadelphia, he expressed his disapproval of the radicalism growing in Boston; in articles published in England, he tried hard—indeed, too hard—to pull off an adroit feat of ambidexterity.

  His juggling act was reflected in a long, anonymous essay he wrote in January 1768 for the London Chronicle, called “Causes of the American Discontents.” Written from the perspective of an Englishman, it explained the Americans’ belief that their own legislatures should control all revenue measures, and it added in a squirrelly manner, “I do not undertake here to support these opinions.” His goal, he averred, was to let people “know what ideas the Americans have.” In doing so, Franklin tried to have it both ways: he warned that America’s fury at being taxed by Parliament could tear apart the empire, then pretended to lament these “wild ravings” as something “I do not pretend to support.”40

  His reaction was similar when he read a set of anonymous articles, published in Philadelphia, called “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania.” At the time, Franklin did not know that they were written by John Dickinson, his adversary in Philadelphia’s battles over the Proprietors. Dickinson’s letters conceded that Parliament had a right to regulate trade, but he argued that it could not use that right to raise revenues from the colonies without their consent. Franklin arranged to have the letters published as a pamphlet in London in May 1768 and wrote an introduction. But he refrained from fully endorsing their arguments. “How far these sentiments are right or wrong I do not pretend at present to judge.”<
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  By then, Franklin had begun to realize that his distinction between external and internal taxes was probably unworkable. “The more I have thought and read on the subject,” he wrote William in March, “the more I find myself confirmed in my opinion that no middle doctrine can be well maintained.” There were only two alternatives: “that Parliament has a power to make all laws for us, or that it has the power to make no laws for us.” He was beginning to lean toward the latter, but he admitted that he was unsure.41

  Franklin’s inelegant dance around the issue of parliamentary power during the first half of 1768 caused his contemporaries (as well as subsequent historians) to come to different conclusions about what he really believed or what games he was playing. In fact, there were many factors jangling in his mind: he sincerely hoped that moderation and reason would lead to a restoration of harmony between Britain and the colonies; he wanted to make one last attempt to wrest Pennsylvania from the Proprietors; and he was still pursuing land deals that required the favor of the British government. Above all, as he admitted in some letters, his views were in flux and he was still trying to make up his mind.

  There was one other complicating factor. His desire to help resolve the disputes, combined with his ambition, led him to hope that he might be appointed an official in the British ministry overseeing colonial affairs. Lord Hillsborough had just been named secretary of state of that ministry, and Franklin thought (incorrectly) that he might turn out to be friendly to the colonies. “I do not think this nobleman in general an enemy to America,” he wrote a friend in January. In a letter to his son, Franklin admitted the more personal ambition. “I am told there is talk of getting me appointed undersecretary to Lord Hillsborough,” he said. His chances, he admitted, were slim: “It is a settled point here that I am too much of an American.”

  That was the crux of Franklin’s dilemma. He had rendered himself suspect, he noted in a letter to a friend, “in England of being too much of an American, and in America of being too much of an Englishman.” With his dreams for a harmonious and growing British Empire, he still hoped that he could be both. “Being born and bred in one of the countries and having lived long and made many agreeable connections in the other, I wish all prosperity to both,” he proclaimed. Thus, he was intrigued, even hopeful, about securing a government job in which he could try to hold the two parts of the empire together.42

  When Hillsborough consolidated his power by becoming the head of the board of trade as well as colonial secretary, Franklin won support from other British ministers who felt that giving him a government post would provide some balance. Most notable was Lord North, who had become chancellor of the exchequer after Townshend’s death. Franklin met with him in June and professed to have plans to return to America. He added, however, that “I should stay with pleasure if I could any ways be useful to government.” North took the hint, and he began trying to line up backing for his appointment.

  It was not to be. Franklin’s hope of joining the British government ended abruptly when he had a long and contentious meeting with Lord Hillsborough in August 1768. Hillsborough declared that he had no intention of appointing Franklin and would instead choose as his deputy John Pownall, a loyal bureaucrat. Franklin was dismayed. Pownall “seems to have a strong bias against us,” he wrote Joseph Galloway, his ally in the Pennsylvania Assembly. Adding injury to insult, Hillsborough also rejected once and for all any further consideration of the petition to remove Pennsylvania from Proprietary rule. With two of his main goals dashed, Franklin was ready to abandon his moderation in the colonies’ battles with Parliament. The turning point had been reached.43

  The American Patriot

  With the situation clarified in his own mind, Franklin took up his pen to wage an essay war against Hillsborough and the Townshend duties. Most of his articles were anonymous, but this time he did little to disguise his authorship. He even signed one of them, with clear frankness, “Francis Lynn.” Relations between Britain and America had been amicable, he argued, “until the idea of taxing us by the power of Parliament unfortunately entered the heads of your ministers.” He claimed that the colonies had no desire to rebel against the king, but misguided ministers were likely “to convert millions of the King’s loyal subjects into rebels for the sake of establishing a newly-claimed power in Parliament to tax a distant people.” Something must be done. “Is there not one wise and good man to be found in Britain who can propose some conciliating measure that may prevent this mischief?” In another piece, written as if from a concerned Englishman, he proposed seven “queries” to be considered “by those gentlemen who are for vigorous measures with the Americans.” Among them: “Why must they be stripped of their property without their consent?” As for Hillsborough personally, Franklin labeled him “our new Haman.”44

  His opponents returned the fire. One article signed by “Machiavel” in the Gazetteer called it a “burlesque on patriotism” that so many Americans were “filling newspapers and consecrating trees to liberty” with lamentations about being taxed while at the same time surreptitiously recommending their friends for appointments and “trying to obtain offices” for themselves. Machiavel provided a list of fifteen such hypocrites, with Franklin the postmaster at the top. Franklin responded (anonymously) that the Americans were attacking Parliament, not the king. “Being loyal subjects to their sovereign, the Americans think they have as good a right to enjoy offices under him in America as a Scotchman has in Scotland or an Englishman in England.”

  Throughout 1769, Franklin became increasingly worried that the situation would lead to a rupture. America could not be subjugated by British troops, he argued, and it soon would be strong enough to win its own independence. If that happened, Britain would be sorry that it missed the opportunity to create a system of imperial harmony. To make his point, he published a parable in January 1770 about a young lion cub and a large English dog traveling together on a ship. The dog picked on the lion cub and “frequently took its food by force.” But the lion grew and eventually became stronger than the dog. One day, in response to all the insults, it smashed the dog with “a stunning blow,” leaving the dog “regretting that he had not rather secured its friendship than provoked its enmity.” The parable was “humbly inscribed” to Lord Hillsborough.45

  Many in Parliament were seeking a compromise. One proposal was to remove most of the Townshend duties, leaving only the one on tea as a way to assert the principle that Parliament retained the right to regulate trade and tariffs. It was the type of pragmatic solution that in earlier days would have appealed to Franklin. But he was now in no mood for moderation. “It is not the sum paid in that duty on tea that is complained of as a burden, but the principle of the act,” he wrote Strahan. A partial repeal “may inflame matters still more” and lead to “some mad action” and an escalation that “will thus go on to complete the separation.”46

  Separatist sentiments were, in fact, already being inflamed, especially in Boston. On March 5, 1770, a young apprentice insulted one of the redcoats sent to enforce the Townshend duties, a fight broke out, bells rang, and a swarm of armed and angry Bostonians came out in force. “Fire and be damned,” the crowd taunted. The British soldiers did. Five Americans ended up dead in what soon became known as the Boston Massacre.

  Parliament went ahead with the partial repeal of the Townshend duties that month, leaving a duty on tea. In a letter to his Philadelphia friend Charles Thomson, which was promptly published throughout the colonies, Franklin urged a continued boycott of all British manufactured goods. America, he argued, must be “steady and persevere in our resolutions.”

  Franklin had finally caught up with the more ardent patriotism spreading through the colonies, most notably Massachusetts. Writing to Samuel Cooper, a Boston minister, he declared that Parliament had no authority to tax the colonies or order British troops there: “In truth they have no such right, and their claim is founded only on usurpation.”

  Still, like many Americans, he
was not yet willing to advocate a total break with Britain. The solution, he felt, was a new arrangement in which the colonial assemblies would remain loyal to the king but no longer be subservient to Britain’s Parliament. As he told Cooper, “Let us therefore hold fast our loyalty to our King (who has the best disposition toward us, and has a family interest in our prosperity) as that steady loyalty is the most probable means of securing us from the arbitrary power of a corrupt Parliament that does not like us and conceives itself to have an interest in keeping us down and fleecing us.” It was an elegant formula for commonwealth governance. Alas, it was based on the unproven assumption that the king would be more sympathetic to colonial rights than was Parliament.47

  Franklin’s letter to Cooper, widely published, helped to secure him an appointment by the Massachusetts lower house to be its agent in London as well. In January 1771, he paid a call on Lord Hillsborough to present those new credentials. Although the minister was dressing for court, he cheerfully had Franklin admitted to his chambers. But when Franklin mentioned his new appointment, Hillsborough sneered. “I must set you right there, Mr. Franklin. You are not agent.”

  “I do not understand your lordship,” replied Franklin. “I have the appointment in my pocket.”

  Hillsborough maintained that Massachusetts governor Hutchinson had vetoed the bill appointing Franklin.

  “There was no such bill,” said Franklin. “It is a vote of the House.”

  “The House of Representatives has no right to appoint an agent,” Hillsborough angrily retorted. “We shall take no notice of agents but such as are appointed by Acts of Assembly to which the governor gives his assent.”