The First American

by H. W. Brands

  If Bache’s visit reminded Franklin of home, so did his encounters with his godson, Polly Hewson’s little boy William. Franklin had never seen Sally’s son Benjamin Franklin Bache, now nearly four years old; what he knew he got by letter from her and her mother. His imagination supplied the rest as he watched Billy Hewson grow. “In return for your history of your Grandson,” he wrote Debbie, “I must give you a little of the history of my Godson. He is now 21 months old, very strong and healthy, begins to speak a little, and even to sing. He was with us a few days last week, grew fond of me, and would not be contented to sit down to breakfast without coming to call Pa, rejoicing when he had got me into my place…. It makes me long to be at home to play with Ben.”

  Thoughts of Ben recalled another child. Across the ocean and across the years, Franklin still thought of his second son, dead now thirty-six years and buried in Philadelphia. “All who have seen my grandson agree with you in their accounts of his being an uncommonly fine boy,” he told his sister Jane, “which bring often afresh to my mind the idea of my son Franky.” This was the letter in which the still-grieving father declared his lost child to be a boy “whom I have seldom seen equaled in every thing, and whom to this day I cannot think of without a sigh.”

  Another grandson was nearer to hand, even if his circumstances were problematic. Temple Franklin, now twelve, spent most months at a school in Kent operated by a brother-in-law of William Strahan. The precise relation of Temple to his father and grandfather remained publicly obscure, but Franklin brought him to London for holidays and attended to him much as he attended to Billy Hewson. “He improves continually,” Franklin informed Temple’s father, “and more and more engages the regard of all that are acquainted with him, by his pleasing, sensible, manly behaviour.”

  If cover were needed for Temple, some was supplied by Sarah Franklin, granddaughter of Franklin’s cousin Thomas. Hoping to expand upon the opportunities available to a young woman in the English countryside, Sally came to London to live with Franklin. In exchange she helped look after the needs of her older relative, who no longer kept a servant man. “She is nimble-footed and willing to run of errands and wait upon me,” Franklin told Debbie. Unfortunately for him, her venture to the city had proved successful, and she was to be married. “I shall miss her.”

  Observing youth, Franklin pondered age. On January 6, 1773, he wrote Debbie, “I still feel some regard for this Sixth of January, as my old nominal birth-day, though the change of style has carried the real day forward to the 17th, when I shall be, if I live till then, 67 years of age. It seems but t’other day since you and I were ranked among the boys and girls, so swiftly does time fly!”

  Thoughts of home warred in Franklin’s heart against the continuing attractions of England. For all his distaste of recent English politics, London still offered much to a man of the world. The famous scientists and philosophers who called on him in London would never find their way to Philadelphia. His closest current friends all lived in England; with each passing year more old friends from Philadelphia passed on. A decade and a half after he had really made Philadelphia home, Franklin found London more familiar and comfortable, in many respects, than the city of the Quakers.

  Torn between his old and present homes, Franklin applied a method of decision-making he had developed over time. He explained the method in a letter to Joseph Priestley, the scientist who had done much to spread Franklin’s fame even while winning a first-rate reputation of his own. Priestley had received an offer from Lord Shelburne to be his librarian; the offer appealed on grounds of pay, prestige, and patronage. But Priestley was happy with his current life in Leeds, which afforded him both personal satisfaction and scientific opportunity. What should he do? he asked Franklin.

  “I cannot, for want of sufficient premises, advise you what to determine,” Franklin replied. “But if you please I will tell you how.” The reason hard choices were hard, he said, was that persons facing such decisions typically considered arguments on opposite sides serially—first the pros, then the cons—and as a result vacillated from one side to the other.

  To get over this, my way is to divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns, writing over the one Pro, and over the other Con. Then during three or four days’ consideration I put down under the different heads short hints of the different motives that at different times occur to me for or against the measure. When I have thus got them all together in one view, I endeavour to estimate their respective weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out. If I find a reason pro equal to some two reasons con, I strike out the three. If I judge some two reasons con equal to some three reasons pro, I strike out the five; and thus proceeding I find at length where the balance lies.

  Franklin did not pretend to mathematical precision in this method; reasons on one side never exactly canceled reasons on the other. “Yet when each is thus considered separately and comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge better, and am less likely to make a rash step; and in fact I have found great advantage from this kind of equation, in what might be called Moral or Prudential Algebra.”

  Franklin applied his prudential algebra to the question of returning to America. In one column he listed the reasons to stay in England; in the other, to go home. The former included his political work, his various philosophical projects, and the Ohio land scheme. The latter involved the settlement of certain accounts and the attractions of retirement. Thus reckoned, the reasons to stay prevailed.

  Although the omens were not auspicious, Franklin retained hope that the contest between Massachusetts, the most forward of the American colonies, and the British government could be worked out. Dartmouth continued to express goodwill, which was much more than could be said for his predecessor. And Dartmouth might bring his colleagues around.

  The key, Franklin believed, was time. He explained to Thomas Cushing, “Our great security lies, I think, in our growing strength both in wealth and numbers, that creates an increasing ability of assisting this nation in its wars, which will make us more respectable, our friendship more valued, and our enmity feared. Thence it will soon be thought proper to treat us, not with justice only, but with kindness; and thence we may expect in a few years a total change of measures with regard to us.” Needless to say, the Americans must maintain their sturdy spirit in order to effect this appreciation in English minds. But sturdiness need not imply belligerence, which in fact would disrupt the process. “In confidence of this coming change in our favour, I think our prudence is meanwhile to be quiet, only holding up our rights and claims on all occasions, in resolutions, memorials, and remonstrances, but bearing patiently the little present notice that is taken of them. They will all have their weight in time, and that time is at no great distance.”

  Perhaps Franklin’s years provided the patience that informed this advice; perhaps it simply reflected a temperament long willing for progress to arrive incrementally. Not everyone possessed Franklin’s patience. The Massachusetts House itched to have matters out with Parliament. Thomas Cushing, hardly the most radical member, asserted that the petition to the Crown that Franklin had postponed delivering represented “the sentiments of nine tenths of the people.” Referring to the previous autumn, when he had reiterated the grievances of the colony, Cushing added, “I apprehended it was high time the controversy was settled and thought that was as good a time as any, and that any further delay would render it more difficult…. I foresaw a storm arising and the breach widening. It is in vain for administration to flatter themselves that the people will rest quiet, when they find the ministry are depriving them of their charter by piece meal and there is not a year passes without one essential clause or another’s being rendered null and void.” In no uncertain terms Cushing instructed Franklin as the agent of the House to put the petition before Dartmouth. For good measure the House had passed a second petition, expanding the complaints about Parliamentary usurpation; Franklin was
to deliver this as well.

  Franklin followed instructions. To no one’s surprise—certainly not his—the petitions raised tempers in Parliament. But the anger over the petitions was lost in the uproar surrounding the publication of the Hutchinson-Oliver letters.

  “They have had great effect; they make deep impressions wherever they are known,” a delighted Samuel Cooper reported to Franklin from Boston. “They strip the mask from the authors who under the profession of friendship to their country have been endeavouring to build up themselves and their families upon its ruins. They and their adherents are shocked and dismayed. The confidence reposed in them by many is annihilated; and Administration must soon see the necessity of putting the provincial power of the Crown into other hands.”

  But the administration saw no such necessity. If anything, the publication of the Hutchinson letters confirmed the government in its belief that the Americans were ingrates and scoundrels. Nor did the official opinion improve when the Massachusetts House formally responded to the Hutchinson letters by petitioning for the recall of Hutchinson and Oliver.

  In his dealings with the government Franklin strove to place the most favorable light on this latest petition. “I have the pleasure of hearing from that province by my late letters,” he informed Dartmouth, “that a sincere disposition prevails in the people there to be on good terms with the Mother Country; that the Assembly have declared their desire only to be put into the situation they were in before the Stamp Act; they aim at no novelties. And it is said that having lately discovered, as they think, the authors of their grievances to be some of their own people, their resentment against Britain is thence much abated.”

  This was a brave front—although it would have been braver, if perhaps less a front, had Franklin acknowledged his part in the printing of these private letters. But he saw no good that could come from doing so, and much harm. He still considered himself a conciliator, one of the few voices of calm reason in a time when the shouts of passion threatened to make conciliation impossible. Let the deed speak for itself.

  Franklin was a conciliator, but he was also a propagandist. During the summer and autumn of 1773 he wrote regularly for the London papers; two pieces from the period became two of his most famous short works. One was cast in the form of a dispatch from Danzig containing an edict of the king of Prussia, Frederick II. This edict informed the inhabitants of Britain that henceforth they would be subject to a variety of taxes and other impositions, payable to and enforced by Prussia. The asserted justification for these measures was the historic fact that Germans in distant times past had settled in the island of Britain, thereby planting what Frederick was pleased to denominate his German colonies. Moreover, Prussia had fought to defend Britain against France in the late war, a boon for which Prussia had not received adequate compensation. The taxes to be levied, on imports to Britain and exports therefrom, would afford Prussia just such compensation. Various restraints on British trade would benefit Prussian merchants and manufacturers. The edict additionally decreed the transport of German felons to Britain “for the Better Peopling of that country.” Lest the inhabitants of Britain conceive this order as unreasonable, Frederick pointed out that he had modeled his edict on several statutes—he obligingly listed them—that the monarchs and Parliament of Britain had enacted toward their own colonies in America and Ireland.

  The entire article, until the very end, was written in all apparent seriousness. Only in the last paragraph, a comment by the unnamed person communicating the edict from Danzig, did Franklin tip his hand.

  Some take this edict to be merely one of the King’s jeux d’esprit. Others suppose it is serious, and that he means a quarrel with England. But all here think the assertion it concludes with, “that these regulations are copied from Acts of the English Parliament respecting their colonies,” a very injurious one; it being impossible to believe that a people distinguished for their love of liberty, a nation so wise, so liberal in its sentiments, so just and equitable towards its neighbours, should, from mean and injudicious views of petty immediate profit, treat its own children in a manner so arbitrary and tyrannical!

  Upon publication of this piece Franklin had the pleasure of watching readers swallow the bait before realizing they had been hooked. “I was down at Lord Le Despencer’s when the post brought in that day’s papers,” he wrote William. Several gentlemen were present, including Paul Whitehead, a satirist of some note (and a former associate of John Wilkes).

  He had them in another room, and we were chatting in the breakfast parlour, when he came running in to us, out of breath, with the paper in his hand. Here! says he, here’s the news for ye! Here’s the king of Prussia, claiming a right to this kingdom! All stared, and I as much as any body; and he went on to read it. When he had read two or three paragraphs, a gentleman present said, Damn his impudence. I dare say we shall hear by next post he is upon his march with one hundred thousand men to back this. Whitehead, who is very shrewd, soon after began to smoke it, and looking in my face said, I’ll be hanged if this is not some of your American jokes upon us.

  Franklin’s other noteworthy piece that autumn was more straightforwardly satire. The title—“Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One”—put readers on notice that something was amiss. An ancient sage (Themistocles, as it happened) had once formulated a set of rules by which a small city might be enlarged into a great one; the current author—who labeled himself “a modern Simpleton” and signed himself “Q.E.D.”—essayed the reverse.

  “In the first place, Gentlemen, you are to consider that a great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges. Turn your attention therefore first to your remotest provinces, that as you get rid of them, the next may follow in order.”

  Second, in order that such separation remain possible, special care should be taken that the provinces not be incorporated into the Mother Country, that they not enjoy the same rights and privileges, but that they be subject to laws more severe, and not of their own enacting.

  Third, should said provinces acquire strength of trade or fleet, strength that enabled them to assist the Mother Country in wartime, this must be forgotten by the Mother Country, or treated as an affront. Should the colonists acquire the spirit of liberty, nurtured in the principles of the Mother Country’s own revolution, this must be stamped out. “For such principles, after a revolution is thoroughly established, are of no more use; they are even odious and abominable.”

  Fourth, however peaceable the provinces, and however inclined to bear grievances patiently, “you are to suppose them always inclined to revolt, and treat them accordingly.” Troops should be quartered among them, troops who by their insolence might provoke them, and by their bullets and bayonets suppress them. “By this means, like a husband who uses his wife ill from suspicion, you may in time convert your suspicions into realities.”

  There were several more principles along similar lines. Some mirrored policies already in place; others projected from present policies. The colonists, after loyally supporting the Mother Country in war, should be burdened with taxes and treated with contempt. “Nothing can have a better effect in producing the alienation proposed, for though many can forgive injuries, none ever forgave contempt.” If news arrived of general dissatisfaction in the colonies, such news must be disbelieved. “Suppose all their complaints to be invented and promoted by a few factious demagogues, whom if you could catch and hang, all would be quiet. Catch and hang a few of them accordingly; and the blood of the martyrs shall work miracles in favour of your purpose.”

  By the time all these rules were put into effect in the colonies, the outcome would be guaranteed. “You will that day, if you have not done it sooner, get rid of the trouble of governing them, and all the plagues attending their commerce and connection from thenceforth and for ever.”

  Not long after these pieces appeared, Franklin received a letter from his sister Jane, expressing her hope that he might be the instrume
nt of restoring harmony between America and Britain. He replied that he would be very happy to see such harmony restored, whoever was the instrument. He went on to say that his strategy for seeking harmony had changed. “I had used all the smooth words I could muster, and I grew tired of meekness when I saw it without effect. Of late therefore I have been saucy.” Referring to his two recent sallies in the press, he explained:

  I have held up a looking-glass in which some ministers may see their ugly faces, and the nation its injustice. Those papers have been much taken notice of. Many are pleased with them, and a few very angry, who I am told will make me feel their resentment, which I must bear as well as I can, and shall bear the better if any public good is done, whatever the consequence to myself.

  In my own private concerns with mankind, I have observed that to kick a little when under imposition has a good effect. A little sturdiness when superiors are much in the wrong sometimes occasions consideration. And there is truth in the old saying, that if you make yourself a sheep, the wolves will eat you.