Franklin & Washington

by Edward J. Larson

  102.George Washington to Benjamin Franklin, October 22, 1781, ibid., 35:637.

  103.Benjamin Franklin to George Washington, September 20, 1785, PGW-CS, 3:267.

  Chapter Five: “The Most Awful Crisis”

  1.Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 349.

  2.Leonidas, “On the French Alliance,” Pennsylvania Packet, August 24, 1779, 1. When Franklin’s sister Jane, who was then living in Pennsylvania, learned of the alliance, she wrote to her brother in France, “I hope now we may be restored to Peace on our own Ecqutable terms on Established Independance.” Of course, she credited and congratulated her brother. Jane Mecom to Benjamin Franklin, May 5, 1778, PBF, 26:402.

  3.Massachusetts Board of War to Benjamin Franklin, May 8, 1778, ibid., 26:420.

  4.Benjamin Franklin to Massachusetts Board of War, February 17, 1778, ibid., 25:684.

  5.George Washington, General Orders, May 5, 1778, in PGW-RWS, 15:38–39.

  6.John Adams to Benjamin Rush, April 4, 1790, PJA, --:---.

  7.George Washington to Marquis de Lafayette, March 18, 1780, PGW-RWS, 25:83.

  8.Articles of Confederation, Art. III (1781).

  9.Von Steuben’s companion was Peter Stephen Du Ponceau, age seventeen. While at Valley Forge, von Steuben began lasting relationships with two young American army officers, Benjamin Walker and William North, who served as his aides-de-camp, were adopted as his sons, and became his heirs. Later, von Steuben lived with a younger man, John W. Mulligan Jr., who had previously lived with John Adams’s son Charles before the elder Adams ended the arrangement. Intimate letters exist between the men, but not explicit descriptions of their relationships.

  10.George Washington, General Orders, September 26, 1780, in WGW, 20:95.

  11.Benjamin Franklin to Marquis de Lafayette, December 9, 1780, PBF, 34:143.

  12.Washington, General Orders, September 26, 1780, 20:95.

  13.George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, December 18–30, 1778, PGW-RWS, 18:248, 250. Dozens of letters by Washington from 1778–1779 express similar sentiments.

  14.George Washington to Joseph Reed, May 28, 1780, WGW, 18:436.

  15.George Washington to Joseph Jones, May 31, 1780, ibid., 18:453.

  16.George Washington to Fielding Lewis Sr., July 6, 1780, ibid., 19:132.

  17.G. Washington to Jones, May 31, 1780, 18:453.

  18.G. Washington to Lewis, July 6, 1780, 19:132.

  19.In one typical outburst, Washington called war profiteers, which included people who monopolized products and those who forestalled delivery to create a higher price, “pests of Society, & the greatest enemies we have, to the happiness of America,” and urged the states to outlaw their actions and hang them in punishment. George Washington to Joseph Reed, December 12, 1778, PGW-RWS, 18:397.

  20.George Washington to Samuel Huntington, January 23, 1781, WGW, 21:136.

  21.John Adams, Diary, May 27, 1778, in DAJA, 4:118.

  22.Benjamin Franklin to Robert R. Livingston, July 22, 1783, PBF, 40:358. Regarding Lee, Franklin wrote, “I take no revenge of such enemies, than to let them remain in the miserable situation in which their malignant natures have placed them.” Benjamin Franklin to Richard Bache, June 2, 1779, ibid., 29:599.

  23.Gordon S. Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 196.

  24.Benjamin Franklin to Alexander Gillon, July 5, 1779, PBF, 30:37.

  25.George Washington to John Laurens, April 9, 1781, WGW, 21:438.

  26.Even Washington, in his letter to Laurens, spoke of “the impracticality of carrying on the War without” the funds that Franklin was directed to seek from France. Ibid (emphasis in original).

  27.Benjamin Franklin to Samuel Huntington, March 12, 1781, PBF, 34:446.

  28.Benjamin Franklin to William Carmichael, August 24, 1781, ibid., 35:399.

  29.Robert R. Livingston to Benjamin Franklin, October 20, 1781, ibid., 35:618.

  30.Benjamin Franklin to Comte de Vergennes, November 20, 1781, ibid., 36:79.

  31.George III to Lord Shelburne, September 16, 1782, in Boswell’s Life of Johnson, ed. George Birkbeck Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887), 3:241n2.

  32.Benjamin Franklin, “Journal of the Peace Negotiations,” May 9, 1782, in PBF, 37:291.

  33.George Washington to Benjamin Lincoln, October 2, 1782, WGW, 25:227–28.

  34.Henry Knox et al., “To the United States in Congress Assembled,” December 1782, in JCC, 24:291.

  35.For example, at the time, the federalist-minded congressman James Madison wrote that officers’ petition would “furnish new topics in favor the Impost.” James Madison to Edmund Randolph, December 30, 1782, PJM, 5:473.

  36.Gouverneur Morris to John Jay, January 1, 1783, in Jared Sparks, The Life of Gouverneur Morris, with Selections from His Correspondence (Boston: Gray & Bowen, 1832), 1:249.

  37.Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, February 13, 1783, PAH, 3:254. Although opposed to using the army to secure it, Washington depicted himself as “a warm friend to the Impost.” E.g., George Washington to William Gordon, July 8, 1783, WGW, 27:49.

  38.Ron Chernow, the biographer of Washington and Hamilton, wrote about the incident, “In suggesting that Washington exploit the situation to influence Congress, Hamilton toyed with combustible chemicals.” Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 433. At the same time and probably in league with Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris sent a similar letter to Nathanael Greene, the leader of American forces in the south, suggesting that the army would be paid only if it united in demanding it. Richard Brookhiser, Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris—The Rake Who Wrote the Constitution (New York: Free Press, 2003), 72.

  39.George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, March 4, 1783, WGW, 26:186–87.

  40.Along with Gates, Washington at first blamed Robert Morris but then shifted his accusation to Gouverneur Morris (no relation), who then served as Robert Morris’s assistant. Compare George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, April 4, 1783, WGW, 26:293, with George Washington to Alexander Hamilton, April 16, 1783, ibid., 26:324. Colonel Walter Stewart, then living in Philadelphia and serving at Washington’s request as inspector general of the army’s northern department, carried letters from Robert and Gouverneur Morris to Newburgh, where Stewart met with Gates and others. See, generally, Charles Rappleye, Robert Morris: Financier of the Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 331–51; and Richard H. Kohn, “The Inside History of the Newburgh Conspiracy,” William and Mary Quarterly 27, no. 2 (1970): 205–6.

  41.See James Madison, “Notes of Debates,” February 20, 1783, in JCC, 25:906–7. Also see, generally, John Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), 231–33.

  42.“To the Officers of the Army,” [March 10, 1783], in JCC, 24:297.

  43.George Washington, General Orders, March 11, 1783, in WGW, 26:208.

  44.George Washington, “To Officers of the Army,” March 15, 1783, in ibid., 26:226–27.

  45.Ibid., 26:222n38.

  46.Horatio Gates, [Minutes of Meeting of Officers], March 15, 1783, in JCC 24:311.

  47.Benjamin Franklin to Robert R. Livingston, April 15, 1783, PBF, 39:472 (“The Finances here are embarrass’d, & a new Loan is proposed by way of Lottery, in which it is said by some Caculators, the King will pay at the Rate of 7 per. Cent. I mention this to furnish you with a fresh convincing Proof, against Cavillers of the Kings Generosity towards us, in lending us six Millions this Year at 5 per Cent. and of his Concern for our Credit, in saving by that Sum the honour of Mr. Morris’s Bills, while those drawn by his own Officers abroad, have their Payment suspended for a Year after they become due”).

  48.G. Washington to Hamilton, April 4, 1783, 26:293.

  49.See George Washington to Theordorick Bland, April 4, 1783, WGW, 26:288 (first letter).

  50.George Washington, “Sentiments on a Peace Establishment,” May 1, 1783, in ibid., 26:375.

&nbs
p; 51.George Washington to the States (Circular), June 8, 1783, ibid., 26:485–89.

  52.E.g., George Washington to Marquis de Lafayette, August 15, 1786, PGW-CS, 4:215 (tellingly referring to himself as one “member of an infant-empire”).

  53.G. Washington to the States, June 8, 1783, 26:496–97.

  54.James Thomas Flexner, George Washington in the American Revolution (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967), 514.

  55.E.g., G. Washington to Gordon, July 8, 1783, 27:49.

  56.George Washington to Marquis de Lafayette, April 5, 1783, WGW, 26:298.

  57.George Washington to John Augustine Washington, June 15, 1783, ibid., 27:12.

  58.George Washington, “Farewell to the Armies of the United States,” November 2, 1783, in ibid., 27:222–27.

  59.George Washington, Address, December 23, 1783, in JCC, 25:838.

  60.Samuel Huntington to Benjamin Franklin, June 19, 1781, PBF, 35:175.

  61.Benjamin Franklin to Robert R. Livingston, December 5–14, 1782, ibid., 38:416–17.

  62.Edmund S. Morgan, Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 304.

  63.Robert Morris to Benjamin Franklin, September 27, 1782, PBF, 38:147.

  64.Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris, December 25, 1783, ibid., 41:347–48 (a later response and maybe tempered by time but reflecting Franklin’s ongoing views).

  65.Benjamin Franklin to Charles Thomson, May 13, 1784, ibid., 42:244 (Thomson was Congress’s longtime secretary).

  66.Benjamin Franklin to William Straham, August 19, 1784, ibid., 43:29. Immediately after this sentence, Franklin added, “If I had ever before been an Atheist I should now have been convinced of the Being and Government of a Deity. It is he who abases the Proud and favors the Humble!”

  67.Benjamin Franklin to Abbés Chalut and Arnoux, April 17, 1787, ibid., 46:---.

  68.Benjamin Franklin to Henry Laurens, March 12, 1784, ibid., 42:49. In a postscript, Franklin added his “Thanks for your kind Assurances of never forsaking my Defence should there be need. I apprehend that the violent Antipathy of a certain Person to me may have produc’d some Calumnies, which what you have seen and heard here may enable you easily to refute. You will thereby exceedingly oblige one, who has liv’d beyond all other Ambition than that of dying with the fair Character he has long endeavour’d to deserve.”

  69.Benjamin Franklin to John and Sarah Jay, May 13, 1784, ibid., 42:242.

  70.John Jay to Benjamin Franklin, March 8, 1785, ibid., 43:475–76.

  71.Comte de Vergennes to François Barbé de Marbois, May 10, 1785, in The Emerging Nation: A Documentary History of the Foreign Relations of the United States under the Articles of Confederation, 1780–1789, ed. Mary A. Giunta et al. (Washington, D.C.: National Historical Publications, 1996), 2:626.

  72.When Congress tapped Jefferson to serve as its next ambassador to France, he stressed that he would simply succeed Franklin—no one could replace him, Jefferson said—and he later hailed Franklin as “the ornament of our country and I may say of the world.” Thomas Jefferson to Ferdinand Grand, April 23, 1790, PTJ, 16:369.

  73.Francis Hopkinson to Benjamin Franklin, May 24, 1784, PBF, 42:272.

  74.George Washington to Benjamin Franklin, September 25, 1785, PGW-CS, 3:275n1.

  75.George Washington to Armand-Louis de Gontaut, duc de Lauzun, February 1, 1784, ibid., 1:91. See also George Washington to Robert Morris, January 4, 1784, ibid., 1:11 (“this retreat from my public cares”).

  76.George Washington to Charles Bennett, fourth earl of Tankerville, January 20, 1784, ibid., 1:65.

  77.See Edmund S. Morgan, “George Washington: The Aloof American,” in George Washington Reconsidered, ed. Don Higginbotham (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001), 290–91.

  78.See Henry Wiencek, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 92–96.

  79.George Washington to Fielding Lewis Jr., February 27, 1784, PGW-CS, 1:161.

  80.George Washington to Jonathan Trumbull Jr., January 5, 1784, ibid., 1:12.

  81.George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, January 18, 1784, ibid., 1:57.

  82.George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, March 29, 1784, ibid., 1:239.

  83.George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, October 10, 1784, ibid., 2:92.

  84.George Washington to Richard Henry Lee, June 18, 1786, ibid., 4:118.

  85.George Washington to Jacob Read, November 3, 1784, ibid., 2:121.

  86.G. Washington to Harrison, October 10, 1784, 2:92.

  87.George Washington to Benjamin Franklin, September 26, 1785, PGW-CS, 3:275.

  88.George Washington to James Madison, November 30, 1785, ibid., 3:420.

  89.Annapolis Convention, “Address of the Annapolis Convention,” September 14, 1786, in PAH, 3:687.

  90.James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, August 12, 1786, PTJ, 10:233.

  91.Alexander Hamilton, “Address,” September 14, 1786, in PAH, 3:689.

  92.Benjamin Franklin to Commissioners, October 26, 1786, PBF, 45:---.

  93.George Washington to Comte de Rochambeau, December 1, 1785, PGW-CS, 3:427.

  94.G. Washington to B. Franklin, September 26, 1785, 3:275.

  95.E.g., compare George Washington to Marquis de Lafayette, December 8, 1784, PGW-CS, 2:175 (speaking of his expectation of soon being “entombed in the dreary mansions of my fathers”) with Benjamin Franklin to George Whately, August 21, 1784, PBF, 43:44 (“I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitutions as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.”). These contrasting letters—one fatalistic; one optimistic—were written within months of each other.

  96.G. Washington to Rochambeau, December 1, 1785, 3:427.

  97.Benjamin Franklin to Jane Mecom, September 19, 1785, PBF, 44:---. In this letter, he adds about his homecoming, “I am continually surrounded by congratulating Friends.”

  98.George Washington to Marquis de Lafayette, November 8, 1785, PGW-CS, 3:345. At the time, Franklin explained his willingness to serve in a letter to Thomas Paine as follows “For my Fellow Citizens having in a considerable Body express’d their Desire that I would still take a Post in their publick Councils, assuring me it was the unanimous Wish of the different Parties that divide the State, from an Opinion that I might find some means of reconciling them; had not sufficient Firmness to refuse their Request.” Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Paine, September 27, 1785, PBF, 44:---.

  99.G. Washington to Rochambeau, December 1, 1785, 3:428. Expressing similar sentiments, Jay wrote to Franklin, “It strikes me that you will find it somewhat difficult to manage the two Parties in Pensylvania. It is much to be wished that union and Harmony may be re-established there, and if you accomplish it, much Honor and many Blessings will result from it. Unless you do it, I do not know who can.” John Jay to Benjamin Franklin, October 4, 1785, PBF, 44:---.

  100.Benjamin Rush to Richard Price, May 25, 1786, in Letters of Benjamin Rush, ed. L. H. Butterfield (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951), 1:389–90.

  101.Perhaps reflecting on reasons for the success of this alternative currency scheme and his own impending mortality, Franklin soon coined the enduring aphorism “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Benjamin Franklin to M. Le Roy, November 13, 1789, in Jared Sparks, ed., The Works of Benjamin Franklin (Boston: Hilliard, 1840), 10:410.

  102.Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Jefferson, March 20, 1786, PTJ, 9:349; Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Jefferson, April 19, 1787, ibid., 11:302. In a similar vein and about the same time as the earlier of these two letters to Jefferson, Franklin told a correspondent in France, in a letter that understandably downplayed but nevertheless admitted Franklin’s concerns, “There are some few Faults in our Constitutions, which is no wonder, considering the stormy Season in which they were made, but these will soon be corrected.” Benjamin Franklin to Rodolphe-Ferdinand Grand, March 5, 1786, PBF, 45:---. Similarly, in July, Franklin wrote to a correspondent in En
gland about government in America, “Notwithstanding some political Errors [we have] to eradicate, I flatter my self that on the whole and in time we shall do very well.” Benjamin Franklin to Richard Price, July 29, 1786, ibid., 45:---. At the Constitutional Convention, Franklin consistently supported giving broad powers to the federal government and offered proposals to expand them.

  103.Benjamin Franklin to Edward Bancroft, November 26, 1786, PBF, 45:---. Bancroft was an American-born English loyalist who served as the secretary to the American delegation in Paris while spying for Britain.

  104.Edmund Randolph to Benjamin Franklin, December 1, 1786, ibid., 45:--- (first letter); Edmund Randolph to Benjamin Franklin, December 1, 1786, ibid., 45:--- (second letter; emphasis added); Edmund Randolph to Benjamin Franklin, December 6, 1786, ibid., 45:---.

  105.Benjamin Franklin to Edmund Randolph, December 21, 1786, ibid., 45:---.

  106.Benjamin Franklin to Marquis de Chastellux, April 17, 1787, ibid., 46:--- (“assembly of Notables”); Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Jefferson, April 19, 1787, ibid., 46:--- (“If it does not do Good”).

  107.As the delegates assembled in May, Franklin called their work “[a] most important business,” and expressed his “hope” that it “will be attended with Success.” Benjamin Franklin to Richard Price, May 18, 1787, ibid., 46:---.

  108.Erasmus Darwin to Benjamin Franklin, May 29, 1787, ibid., 46:---.

  Chapter Six: Rendezvous in Philadelphia

  1.Benjamin Franklin to Jane Mecom, September 21, 1786, PBF, 45:---.

  2.Benjamin Franklin to Louis-Guillaume Le Veillard, April 17, 1787, PBF, 46:---.

  3.Ibid.

  4.Benjamin Franklin to Jane Mecom, May 30, 1787, PBF, 46:---.

  5.George Fox to George Washington, May 14, 1787, PGW-CfS, 5:187.

  6.Jane Mecom to Benjamin Franklin, May 22, 1787, PBF, 46:---.