I HAD A GREAT DEAL OF PLEASURE IN TEMPLE AND BEN
My grandson Temple was well and served as my right hand in France, but I was surprised to hear from Mr. Bache in Philadelphia that there was a cabal for removing him from me. Methinks it was rather some merit that I rescu’d a valuable young man from the danger of being a Tory, and fix’d him in honest republican Whig principles; as I think, from the integrity of his disposition, his industry, his early sagacity, and uncommon abilities for business, he might in time become of great service to his country. Was it not enough that I had lost my son; would they add my grandson? An old man of seventy, I undertook a winter voyage at the command of the Congress, and for the public service, with no other attendant to take care of me. Who would comfort me and, if I died, close my eyes and take care of my remains? His dutiful behaviour towards me and his diligence and fidelity in business were both pleasing and useful to me. His conduct, as my private secretary, was exceptional, and I was confident the Congress would never think of separating us.
I had a great deal of pleasure in Ben too. He was a good, honest lad, and would in time make a valuable man. He dined with me every Sunday and some holidays. He had made as much proficiency in his learning as the boarding-school he was at could well afford him; and after some consideration where to find a better school for him, I at length fixed on sending him to Geneva, which had schools as good as in Paris. There he would be educated a Republican and a Protestant, which could not be so conveniently done at the schools in France. I had a good opportunity by a gentleman of that city, who had a place for him in his chaise, and had a son about the same age at the same school. He went very cheerfully, tho’ I miss’d his company on Sundays at dinner. Soon he began to speak and read French readily, and he gained a prize by having made the best translation from Latin into French.
I LOST ALL MY CORRESPONDENCE FOR NEARLY TWENTY YEARS
About this time, I received a report from James Lovell of Congress that the enemy had evacuated the City of Philadelphia in June 1778, which was then occupied by our troops from Valley Forge. My daughter Sally and Mr. Bache wrote me that after Gen. Howe’s departure, my family had been brought back to my house at Philadelphia, and found that the English enemies who had been in possession of my house carried off with them my portrait,95 leaving that of its companion, my wife, by itself a kind of widow. I also learned that my son William was exchanged for an American prisoner and would shortly go for England, and that the chest of my papers, which included all the books of my letters containing my public and private correspondence during my residence in England, had been broken open, and emptied, the papers scattered, some in the house and some out of doors, many of the latter suffered from the weather. Some of the papers from the top were found scattered about the floor and gathered up, but the manuscript books were missing, and perhaps other valuable papers. Among my papers in the trunk were eight books of rough drafts of my letters, containing all my correspondence when in England, for nearly twenty years. I have been able to recover only two. I would not have left my papers in the care of Mr. Galloway, if he had not deceived me, by saying that, since the King had declared us out of his protection, and the Parliament by an act had made our properties plunder, he would go as far in defense of his country as any man; and accordingly he had, with pleasure, given colours to a regiment of militia, and an entertainment of 400 of them before his house. I therefore thought he had become a stanch friend to the glorious cause. I was mistaken. As he was a friend of my son’s, I made him one of my executors, and put the trunk of papers into his hands, imagining them safer in his house (which was out of the way of any probable march of the enemy’s troops) than in my own. It was very unlucky.
FOR OF ALL THINGS, I HATE ALTERCATION
With the addition of Mr. Izard and Mr. William Lee, we were five of us commissioners in the City of Paris, all honest and capable men (if I may include myself in that description) and all meaning well for the public, but our tempers did not suit, and we got into disputes and contentions that were not to our credit, and which sometimes went to extremes.
I had always resolved to have no quarrel, and have therefore made it a constant rule to answer no angry, affronting or abusive letter, of which I have received many and long ones from Mr. Lee and Mr. Izard, who wrote liberally, or rather illliberally against me, to prevent any impressions my writing against them might occasion to their prejudice.
Arthur Lee: “Mr. Lee was the most unpleasant man I ever knew.”
I frequently received letters from Mr. Arthur Lee with angry charges and artful and unjust insinuations about me and Mr. Deane; that he resented the court’s sending a minister without advising with him; that we did not settle the public accounts before us; and that I acted inconsistent with my duty to the public. Mr. Lee was the most unpleasant man I ever knew, full of little arts, and constantly on the watch to take advantage, with a suspicion of everybody that was exceedingly troublesome, and would make one think that he never knew an honest man in his life except himself.
Herein a correspondence between myself and Mr. Lee, amended: To the Honorable Benjamin Franklin Esqr:
Chaillot April 2d, 1778
Sir,
It was with the utmost surprise that I learn’d yesterday that Mr. Gérard was to set out in the evening for America, in a public character; and that Mr. Deane was to accompany him, without either you or he having condescended to answer my letter of the preceding day.
That a measure of such moment as Mr. Gérard’s mission should have been taken without any communication with the commissioners is hardly credible.96 I do not live but ten minutes distance from you. The communication therefore could not be attended with delay or difficulty. Within these few days, as usual, I have seen you frequently. During all this time and with these circumstances you have been totally silent to me about the present opportunity of writing to Congress, about the important public measure in agitation, and about Mr. Deane’s departure. Nay more, what you have said and the manner in which you acted, tended to mislead me from imagining that you knew of any such thing. Had you studied to deceive the most distrusted and dangerous enemy of the public, you could not have done it more effectually.
I trust, sir, you will think with me that I have a right to know your reasons for treating me thus. If you have anything to accuse me of, avow it; and I will answer you. If you have not, why do you act so inconsistent with your duty to the public, and injurious to me? Is the present state of Europe of so little moment to our constituents as not to require our joint consideration, and information to them?
I trust too, sir, that you will not treat this letter as you have done many others, with the indignity of not answering it. Tho’ I have been silent, I have not felt the less, the many affronts of this kind which you have thought proper to offer me. I have the honor to be with great respect
ARTHUR LEE
I WROTE THIS LETTER TO ARTHUR LEE. . . .
This is the draft of a letter I wrote but did not send:To Arthur Lee
Passy, April 3, 1778
Sir
It is true I have omitted answering some of your letters. I do not like to answer angry letters. I hate disputes. I am old, cannot have long to live, have much to do and no time for altercation. If I have often received and borne your magisterial snubbing and rebukes without reply, ascribe it to the right causes: my concern for the honour and success of our mission, which would be hurt by our quarrelling; my love of peace, my respect for your good qualities, and my pity for your sick mind, which is forever tormenting itself, with its jealousies, suspicions and fancies that others mean you ill, wrong you, or fail in respect for you. If you do not cure your self of this temper, it will end in insanity, of which it is the symptomatic forerunner, as I have seen in several instances. God preserve you from so terrible an evil: and for his sake pray suffer me to live in quiet. I have the honour to be very respectfully, sir, your most humble servant
B FRANKLIN
BUT SENT THIS ONE.. . . .
>
This is the letter I actually sent (in part):To Arthur Lee
Passy, April 4, 1778
Sir,
Mr. Deane communicated to me his intention of setting out for America immediately as a secret, which he desired I would mention to nobody. I comply’d with his request. If he did not think fit to communicate it to you also, it is from him you should demand his reasons.
You ask me why I act so inconsistent with my duty to the public. This is a heavy charge, sir, which I have not deserved. But it is to the public I am accountable and not to you. I have been a servant to many publics thro’ a long life, having served them with fidelity, and having been honoured by their approbation. There is not a single instance of my ever being accus’d before of acting contrary to their interest or my duty. I shall account to the Congress, when call’d upon for this, my terrible offense of being silent to you about Mr. Deane’s and M. Gérard’s departure. And I have no doubt of their equity in acquitting me.
It is true that I have omitted answering some of your letters, particularly your angry ones, in which you with very magisterial airs school’d and documented me, as if I had been one of your domestics. I saw in the strongest light the importance of our living in decent civility toward each other while our great affairs were depending here. I saw your jealous, suspicious, malignant, and quarrelsome temper, which has daily manifested itself against Mr. Deane and almost every other person you had any concern with. I, therefore, pass’d your affronts in silence, did not answer but burnt your angry letters, and received you when I next saw you with the same civility as if you had never written them. For of all things I hate altercation. I bore all your rebukes with patience, for the sake of the service, but it went a little hard with me.
One more word about the accounts. The infinity of business we have had is the true and only reason that I know of why they have not been settled; that is why we did not meet, sit down and compare the vouchers with the articles in the banker’s account, in order to see that his charges were supported, and that he had given us due credit for the moneys we had put into his hands. This I apprehend is all we have to do here. It is to the Congress we are separately to account for the separate drafts we have made on him. This Mr. Deane can do when he arrives, having taken a copy of the account with him. If you think we should account to one another for our expenses, I have no objection, tho’ I never expected it. I believe they will be found very moderate. I am sure mine will, having had only the necessaries of life, and purchas’d nothing besides except the Encyclopedia, nor sent a sixpence’ worth of anything to my friends or family in America.
B FRANKLIN
THEY WROTE ME LONG ABUSIVE LETTERS, WHICH I NEVER ANSWERED
I was very easy about the efforts of Messrs. Lee and Izard to injure me on that side of the water and cause so much dissensions in Congress. We had Wedderburnes in France as well as in England. They quarreled at me, rather than with me, for I would not quarrel with them. They wrote me long abusive letters which I never answered, but treated the gentlemen with the same civility when we met as if no such letters existed. This I think most prudent for public character, but I suspect myself of being a little malicious in it, for I imagined they were more vex’d by such neglect than they would have been by a tart reply. Such malignant natures cannot long agree together even in mischief. No revenge was necessary for me; I need only leave them to hiss, bite, sting and poison one another.
I trusted in the justice of the Congress that they would listen to no accusations against me. I knew those gentlemen had plenty of ill will to me, tho’ I had never done to either of them the smallest injury, or given the least just cause of offense. But my too great reputation and the general good-will this people have had for me, the respect they showed me and even the compliments they made me, all grieved those unhappy gentlemen; unhappy indeed in their tempers, and in their dark uncomfortable passions of jealousy, anger, suspicion, envy, and malice. It is enough for good minds to be affected at other people’s misfortunes; but they that are vexed at everybody’s good luck can never be happy: I take no other revenge of such enemies, than to let them remain in their miserable situation in which their malignant natures have placed them, by endeavouring to support an estimable character; and thus by continuing the reputation the world has hitherto indulged me with, I shall continue them in the present state of damnation; I am not disposed to reverse my conduct for the alleviation of their torments.
THE DEFORMED AND THE HANDSOME LEG
My experiences with Lee and Izard reminded me at times of a bagatelle I wrote later called “La Belle et la Mauvaise Jambe.” It has been translated as follows:
There are two sorts of people in the world who, with equal degrees of health and wealth and the other comforts of life, become the one happy, the other unhappy. Those who are to be happy fix their attention on the pleasant parts of conversation, and enjoy all with cheerfulness. Those who are to be unhappy think and speak only of the contraries. Hence they are continually discontented themselves, and by their remarks sour the pleasures of society, offend personally many people, and make themselves everywhere disagreeable. If these people will not change this bad habit, and condescend to be pleas’d with what is pleasing, it is good for others to avoid an acquaintance with them, which is always disagreeable, and sometimes very inconvenient, particularly when one finds one’s self entangled in their quarrels.
An old philosophical friend of mine, grown from experience very cautious in this, carefully shun’d any intimacy with such people. He had, like other philosophers, a thermometer to show the heat of the weather, and a barometer to mark when it was likely to prove good or bad; but there being no instrument yet invented to discover at first sight this unpleasing disposition in a person, he for that purpose made use of his legs. One was remarkably handsome, the other by some accident crooked and deform’d. If a stranger at the first interview regarded his ugly leg more than his handsome one, he doubted him. If he spoke of it, and took no notice of the handsome leg, that was sufficient to determine my philosopher to have no farther acquaintance with him.
I therefore advise these critical, querulous, discontented, unhappy people that if they wish to be loved and respected by others and happy in themselves, they should leave off looking at the ugly leg.
AMERICA MAY BE CHEAPLY GOVERNED
The body of our people are not merchants but humble husbandmen who delight in the cultivation of their lands, which from their fertility and variety of our climates are capable of furnishing all the necessaries and conveniences of life without external commerce: And we have too much land to have the least temptation to extend our territories by conquest from peaceable neighbours, as well as too much justice to think of it. Our militias are sufficient to defend our lands from invasion, and the commerce with us will be defended by all the nations who find an advantage in it. We therefore have not the occasion of fleets or standing armies, but may well leave those expensive machines to be maintain’d for the pomp of princes and by the wealth of ancient states.
We purpose, if possible, to live in peace with all mankind; we have hope that no other power will judge it prudent to quarrel with us, lest they divert us from our own quiet industry, and turn us into corsairs preying upon others. The weight therefore of an independent empire will not be so great: The expense of our civil government we have always borne, and can easily bear because it is small. A virtuous and labourious people may be cheaply govern’d. Determined as we are to have no offices of profit, nor any sinecures or useless appointments, so common in ancient and corrupted states, we can govern overselves a year for the sums England pays in a single department.
ON FREE TRADE
I received notice from Congress proposing to abrogate articles eleven and twelve of the Treaty of Commerce with France regarding duties on molasses from the West Indies.97 Vergennes agreed to drop these articles. In my opinion proposing to abrogate them had an unpleasing appearance, as it looked like a desire of making that commercial kind of war,
which no honest state can begin with. It might be consider’d an act of hostility that provoked as well as justify’d reprisals, and render’d the first project as unprofitable as it was unjust. Commerce among nations as well as between private persons should be fair and equitable, by equivalent exchanges and mutual supplies. The taking unfair advantage of a neighbour’s necessities, tho’ attended with a temporary success, always breeds ill blood. To lay duties on a commodity exported which our friends want is a knavish attempt to get something for nothing. The statesman who first invented it had the genius of a pickpocket; and would have been a pickpocket if fortune had suitably plac’d him. The nations who have practis’d it have suffer’d for it fourfold, as pickpockets ought to suffer. Savoy by a duty on exported wines lost the supplying of Switzerland, which thenceforth raised its own wine; and (to wave other instances) Britain by her duty on exported tea lost the trade of her colonies. But as we produce no commodity that is peculiar to our country, and which may not be obtained elsewhere, the discouraging the consumption of ours by duties on exportation, and thereby encouraging a rivalship from other nations in the ports we trade to, is absolute folly, which is indeed mixed more or less with all knavery. For my part, if my protest were of any consequence, I should protest against our ever doing it even by way of reprisal. It is a meanness with which I would not dirty the conscience or character of my country.
The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1757-1790) Page 19
