The First American

by H. W. Brands

  During the latter half of 1766 and most of 1767 father and son corresponded regularly; the most frequent object of discussion was the status of the Illinois project. “I have mentioned the Illinois affair to Lord Shelburne,” Franklin wrote William in September 1766. Shelburne was secretary of state of the Southern Department of the American colonies and was considered supportive of western settlement. “His Lordship had read your plan for establishing a colony there, recommended by Sir William Johnson, and said it appeared to him to be a reasonable scheme.” Two weeks later Franklin reported further progress: “I was again with Lord Shelburne a few days since, and said a good deal to him on the affair of the Illinois settlement. He was pleased to say he really approved of it.” Yet Shelburne cautioned that during the current period of financial retrenchment, patience must be the watchword.

  Franklin was patient—but not inactive. He enlisted the help of Richard Jackson, who, upon request from the ministry, delivered his opinion that the Illinois plan was “certainly well framed.” Jackson added, “I have no doubt of its practicability or utility.” Franklin kept at his task, until in August 1767 he was able to announce a major hurdle surmounted. He had again dined with Shelburne, who was accompanied in this case by the secretary of state for the Northern Department, Henry Conway. “The Secretaries appeared finally to be fully convinced,” Franklin wrote William. The only remaining obstacle was the Board of Trade, which, the two secretaries suggested, ought to be brought round privately before the matter reached that body in official form.

  The lobbying took a few months; in late October the Board of Trade summoned Franklin and Richard Jackson to answer certain questions. Apparently satisfied with what they heard, the members approved the plan.

  And then, at the edge of success, the project encountered a new obstacle. The better to coordinate colonial policy, the imperial government melded the Northern and Southern departments into a single American Department; over this new office was placed Lord Hillsborough. Shelburne had been a friend of the Americans; Hillsborough proved just the opposite. He was skeptical of new projects and new expenses; he was also suspicious of most things American. The Illinois project came to a shuddering halt; the two Franklins’ dream of western wealth danced beyond their reach.

  The elevation of Hillsborough at just this moment was no accident, although the reason had nothing to do with the Franklins’ land scheme. The British government had never been stable since the accession of George III, and it remained unstable—not least since George himself was less than a rock. The young king’s infatuation with Bute had worn off the way infatuations do, but, as infatuations often do, it left traces of jealousy and suspicion, and not in the king alone. George Grenville might have become a powerful and long-tenured prime minister, but he could never put out of his mind that Bute had been George’s first love. In 1765 the king fell seriously ill; though none knew it, these were the first symptoms of the hereditary disease—apparently porphyria—that would drive him mad. The malady prompted calls for the creation of a regency in the event the monarch was carried off or permanently incapacitated. Although George recovered, the regency bill passed, and in doing so provoked a row over the identity of the regent. George wanted to appoint his own; Grenville and the ministry wanted their man. When George won out, Grenville refused to accept defeat gracefully. He insisted on spiting the king, and demonstrating his power, by forcing the resignation of Bute’s brother, whom George still favored, from an inconsequential office.

  The king wept and gnashed his teeth. He struggled to free himself of Grenville but found no rescuer. “George the Third,” jibed Horace Walpole, “is the true successor of George the Second, and inherits all his grandfather’s humiliations.” But the grandson had learned from those humiliations, and before long he found the alternative to Grenville he had been seeking. That this alternative and his friends were discovered at the racetrack at Ascot prompted another wag to declare that the new government was formed of “persons called from the stud to the state, and transformed miraculously out of jockeys into ministers.” On the lead horse was the Marquis of Rockingham.

  Yet Grenville had his revenge. Rockingham’s first order of business was liquidating the Stamp Act fiasco Grenville had created, and he rallied what he trumpeted to George as “public opinion” behind repeal. The public in question did not include Grenville and his friends, as they demonstrated in cross-examining Franklin during his testimony before Commons; and although they failed to prevent repeal they weakened Rockingham. Subsequent Rockingham reforms—of the Sugar Act, for instance, which was revised to lower the molasses duty from three pence to one, while extending it to British molasses—pleased certain constituencies (Americans especially) but further alienated the Grenville crowd.

  This alienation might not have unseated Rockingham had Rockingham not simultaneously alienated the king. George was unhappy with the repeal of the Stamp Act, preferring a stiffer line against the unruly Americans. Nor did he like Rockingham’s appeal to the public, a strategy that promised to place the Crown in the shade of such rabble as were ruining the empire in America. Moreover, following his recovery from his illness, George was in a mood to place his own stamp, even if not Grenville’s stamps, on imperial politics.

  Between Grenville’s enmity and George’s envy, Rockingham was pushed aside. His successor seemed, at first glance, an odd choice. William Pitt had most recently distinguished himself by speaking out against the Stamp Act. “I rejoice that America has resisted,” he proclaimed in Commons (in the very face of Grenville, a single seat away). “Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.” Americans rejoiced, in their turn, at Pitt’s rejoicing; a statue to Pitt went up in New York. But this was hardly language to reassure a worried monarch confronting incipient rebellion.

  All the same, Pitt proved the indispensable man now, as he had previously. He was as popular as Grenville was not, and George could hope that some of the Great Commoner’s popularity would rub off on the Crown. Unfortunately for both, George offered Pitt an earldom, and Pitt accepted. Almost at once his popularity with the masses began to dissipate; how could an earl (of Chatham) be the Great Commoner? Popularity aside, Pitt’s move from Commons to Lords was a tactical blunder, for it precluded control of the lower house, by now far and away the most important body in British politics. As if this were not enough, he fell badly ill, leaving day-to-day direction of government affairs in the hands of his associates, who showed even worse judgment and considerably less talent.

  Franklin observed the ministerial minuets with a mixture of fascination and dismay. “The confusion among our Great Men still continues as great as ever,” he told Joseph Galloway. “And a melancholy thing it is to consider, that instead of employing the present leisure of peace in such measures as might extend our commerce, pay off our debts, secure allies, and increase the strength and ability of the nation to support a future war, the whole time seems wasted in party contentions about power and profit, in court intrigues and cabals, and in abusing one another.”

  Also abused were the Americans. Franklin visited the House of Lords and heard the peers rant about the insubordinate wretches across the sea. “It gave me great uneasiness to find much resentment against the colonies in the disputants,” he recorded. “The word rebellion was frequently used.”

  Franklin did what he could to avert the abuse. He frequented the pages of the London journals, writing under various noms de plume. As “A Friend to Both Countries” he characterized the current atmosphere and sought to deflate it.

  Every step is now taken to enrage us against America. Pamphlets and news papers fly about, and coffee-houses ring with lying reports of its being in rebellion. Force is called for. Fleets and troops should be sent. Those already there should be called in from the distant posts and quartered on the capital towns. The principal people should be brought here and hanged, &c. And why?
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  Why! Do you ask why?

  Yes. I beg leave to ask why?

  Why they are going to throw off the government of this country, and set up for themselves.

  Pray how does that appear?

  Why, are they not all in arms?

  No. They are all in peace.

  Have they not refused to make the compensation to the sufferers by the late riots, that was required of them by government here?

  No. They have made ample satisfaction. Which, by the way, has not been done here to the sufferers by your own riots.

  Have they not burnt the custom-house?

  No. That story is an absolute invented lie, without the least foundation.

  As “Benevolus,” Franklin answered several allegations commonly laid against the Americans. The colonies were not settled at the expense of Parliament, he explained. “If we examine our records, the journals of Parliament, we shall not find that a farthing was ever granted for the settling any colonies before the last reign, and then only for Georgia and Nova Scotia, which are still of little value.” The colonies had not received their constitutions from Parliament, but from the king. Consequently Parliament could not claim that the colonial assemblies were creatures of Parliament.

  The colonies had not been constantly protected from the Indians at Parliament’s expense. “They protected themselves at their own expence for near 150 years after the first settlement and never thought of applying to Parliament for any aid against the Indians.” The last two wars were fought not for the colonies’ protection, but for the protection of British trade. In the most recent case: “The colonies were in peace, and the settlers had not been attacked or molested in the least, till after the miscarriage of Braddock’s expedition to the Ohio.”

  The colonies had not refused to contribute their share toward the war effort. The colonial contribution in men was “far beyond their proportion,” in treasure an expense “ten times greater than the money returned to them.” The colonies were not the great gainers from the latest war. In fact just the opposite. The new acquisitions of land went to the king, not the Americans; moreover, the new land available for settlement diminished (through oversupply) the value of existing holdings; finally, the colonies in prosecuting the war assumed a heavy burden of debt they would be years retiring. The colonies did not escape taxes. “There cannot be a greater mistake than this.” The colonies paid taxes to support civil and military establishments, to fund the debt from the war, and to create various public works—roads, bridges, and the like—that were already built and paid for in Britain. As a proportion of property, taxes in America were greater than those in Britain.

  Lastly, the colonies did not claim that Parliament had no authority over them. All acts of Parliament had been accepted as such by the colonies—“acts to raise money upon the colonies by internal taxes only and alone excepted.” Put otherwise: “The colonies submit to pay all external taxes laid on them by way of duty on merchandises imported into their country, and never disputed the authority of Parliament to lay such duties.”

  Charles Townshend probably read this piece. If so, the new chancellor of the exchequer, and de facto prime minister in Chatham’s illness, might have taken issue with parts of Franklin’s argument. The king had indeed granted the colonial charters, but since then England had fought a civil war to vindicate the primacy of Parliament over the Crown. The colonies might have defended themselves for the first 150 years, but for the several years after that they were happy for Parliament’s help. To imply that the Americans paid taxes comparable to Britons was simply ludicrous; Franklin’s standard of comparison—property values—grossly distorted the true tax burden.

  But what must have interested Townshend most was Franklin’s reiteration that the Americans did not object to external taxes. Townshend had heard Franklin make this argument in Commons; likely he guessed that “Benevolus” was actually Franklin. Townshend may have accepted Franklin’s characterization of the American mind, or he may simply have wished to see Franklin hoist by his own petard. In either case, Townshend drew up a schedule of external taxes—to which, by Franklin’s reasoning, the Americans ought not to object. The Townshend taxes were import duties: on glass, lead, paint pigments, paper, and tea.

  Even had the Townshend program consisted of nothing more than this, many Americans would have complained. By no means was Franklin’s distinction between internal and external taxes universally shared. Yet Townshend went beyond imposing new duties. The revenues from the new duties were earmarked not simply for the defense of the colonies but for the administration of colonial government. The effect of this, as Townshend intended and the Americans immediately recognized, would be to free royal governors and other royal officials from the control of the local assemblies, which heretofore had paid their salaries—and might withhold their salaries at displeasure.

  Another alarming measure involved the Quartering Act of 1765, which required the colonies to barrack British troops on the request of the British commander in America. General Gage had so requested of New York, which resisted the request, leading to minor violence between American civilians and British troops. Townshend proposed to punish the New Yorkers by suspending their assembly.

  That such measures should emanate from a ministry nominally headed by a friend of America surprised some members of Parliament. But a widespread feeling that the rebellious colonials must be brought into line overrode such surprise, and during the summer of 1767 the Townshend program became law.

  During this period, Franklin found himself distracted by an important personal matter. His only daughter determined to wed a man of dubious character and prospects.

  Richard Bache was the brother of a New York merchant named Theophylact Bache, a native of Yorkshire who migrated to Manhattan in 1751 and took up business with his aunt’s husband, a former mayor of New York. The uncle died, leaving Theophylact the business. This proved successful enough to attract Theophylact’s brother over from Yorkshire but not successful enough to support both Baches in New York itself, at least not at the level to which they aspired. Richard Bache accordingly was dispatched to Philadelphia, by now the leading city in the colonies, to open a branch of the business.

  Somewhere between Yorkshire and New York the family name, which had been pronounced “beach,” became “baytch,” and it was under this pronunciation that Richard Bache met Sally Franklin shortly after his arrival in Philadelphia. (The pronunciation apparently wobbled, however. Franklin said “beach” at least occasionally, to judge by the misspellings in his dictated letters.) Almost certainly Bache arrived in finer style than Sally’s father had displayed to her mother some forty years earlier, if only because Richard Bache was twenty-eight to Franklin’s seventeen and already established in his trade. But the result was the same, and before long, Sally and Richard Bache were speaking of marriage.

  Until now Deborah had managed the affairs of the family with adeptness and aplomb in Franklin’s absence. Rearing Sally had fallen largely upon her shoulders, certainly during the last ten years. But arranging—or approving, rather—her daughter’s marriage was not a responsibility she wished to take on unassisted. As the daughter of Pennsylvania’s most famous citizen, and the (half) sister of New Jersey’s governor, Sally did not want for company. “Sally has friends all about,” her mother explained. Yet this new “addition of her friends,” as Deborah described Richard Bache to Franklin, was special—to Sally, at any rate. Debbie was not quite sure how to deal with him, and so opted for a friendly yet watchful approach. Better this than to try to keep them apart. “I think it would only drive her to see him somewhere else, which would give me much uneasiness.” It was very difficult to know how to proceed. “I am obliged to be father and mother,” she said, somewhat plaintively. She added, “I hope I act to your satisfaction. I do according to my best judgment.”

  Franklin was concerned to know the character and prospects of Sally’s suitor. Yet he appreciated the handicap his absence from home placed h
im under in this regard, and he did not want his handicap to become his daughter’s. In May 1767 he could not know when he would be returning to Philadelphia, so he referred the matter to the combined judgment of Deborah, who knew Sally best, and William, who was in a position to find out something about Richard Bache. “I would not occasion a delay of her happiness if you thought the match a proper one.”

  But he could not leave the matter at this—after all, Sally was his only daughter. “I know very little of the gentleman or his character, nor can I at this distance,” he wrote Debbie just a month later. He worried that Bache might have developed a wrong impression.

  I hope his expectations are not great of any fortune to be had with our daughter before our death. I can only say, that if he proves a good husband to her, and a good son to me, he shall find me as good a father as I can be. But at present I suppose you would agree with me that we cannot do more than fit her out handsomely in clothes and furniture, not exceeding in the whole five hundred pounds of value. For the rest they must depend, as you and I did, on their own industry and care, as what remains in our hands will be barely sufficient for our support, and not enough for them when it comes to be divided at our decease.

  Per Franklin’s request—and doubtless from a fraternal feeling as well—William inquired of Bache’s business. Bache himself confessed to some recent financial reverses that left him temporarily illiquid; this prompted William to investigate further. What he found occasioned grave worry. It seemed Sally was not the first woman Bache had wooed, nor even the first in Philadelphia. He had initially fallen for Margaret Ross, one of Sally’s closest friends. But two untoward occurrences had prevented the consummation of the romance. The first was Bache’s inability to prove his worthiness to John Ross, Margaret’s father. Ross investigated Bache’s finances and discovered they were substantially less sound than Bache made them out to be. As William Franklin learned secondhand, and described to Franklin, Ross declared not only “that Mr. B. had often attempted to deceive him about his circumstances, but that he was well convinced he was not, before this unlucky affair [the recent reverse to which Bache owned up] happened, worth any thing if all his debts were paid. In short, that he is a mere fortune hunter who wants to better his circumstances by marrying into a family that will support him.”