  At sixty-seven, Franklin had an expression at once benign, kindly, and humorous. His years in England had subtly altered his appearance and his manner. He dressed with elegance in a smooth wig and fashionable ruffles, and he was equally at ease with eleven-year-old Kitty Shipley or the King’s ministers. During the London season, he set out each afternoon in his coach, often with Temple, his lively grandson, to leave his card or pay calls on members of Parliament or other influential persons whom he wished to win over to the American cause. In the year 1773, he was most concerned with the threat of the British troops still stationed in Boston three years after the “Boston Massacre.” Wherever he thought it might help, he argued the folly of treating Bostonians like troublesome children. “I am in perpetual anxiety lest the mad measure of mixing soldiers among a people whose minds are in such a state of irritation, may be attended with some sudden mischief,” he wrote his Boston correspondent, Thomas Cushing. One day, during a conversation on this subject, a British “gentleman of character and distinction” told him that he was wrong to blame the English for the troops in Boston. They had been requested by some of his most respectable fellow countrymen. Franklin was incredulous. The gentleman then turned over to him some letters written between 1767 and 1769 by two Massachusetts Crown officers, both native Americans, Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver. In effect, it was as Franklin had been told. Hutchinson, and Oliver too, pleaded of England “a firm hand,” even armed forces, to keep order. They demanded for Massachusetts “an abridgment of what are called English liberties.” By the time Franklin read these letters, Oliver was lieutenant governor of Massachusetts and Thomas Hutchinson was governor. Hutchinson had as an excuse that his house had been ransacked during the Stamp Act furor. This did not alter that he had been undermining the work of colonial agents and betraying the very people he had been chosen to govern. In his position as agent for Massachusetts, Franklin knew he must warn their Assembly. After some reflection, he sent the letters to Thomas Cushing, asking that they be returned to him after Cushing and members of the Assembly Committee of Correspondence, a small and trusted group, had studied them. He further explained that he could not reveal the source of the letters and that he was not at liberty to make them public. He had no scruples about showing the letters since they were political, not personal, but he had to protect the “gentleman of distinction” who had entrusted them with him. In due time the letters reached Cushing, who followed Franklin’s instructions. Neither Cushing nor anyone else who saw the letters could prevent their being talked about. In June 1773, Samuel Adams, one of the most ardent of Boston patriots, read them to a secret session of the Massachusetts Assembly. Someone took the responsibility of having them copied and printed. In the public uproar that ensued, the Assembly prepared a petition to the King to remove both Hutchinson and Oliver from office. Perhaps it was for the best, Franklin decided when the news reached him. Without reproaches, he wrote Cushing that he was grateful his own name had not been mentioned, “though I hardly expect it.” He only hoped that the letters’ publication would not “occasion some riot of mischievous consequence.” He was continuing his own methodical and unrelenting pressure to bring reason to the English government. In September 1773, an anonymous and stinging satire appeared in the Public Advertiser under the title “Rules by Which a Great Empire may be Reduced to a Small One.” Among the rules cited were:
In all, the “Rules” encompassed every fault and folly of which England was guilty in its treatment of the American colonies. Ministers and members of Parliament could not doubt that the piece came from the quill pen of Benjamin Franklin. It was followed by an even more devastating attack on British policy: “Edict by the King of Prussia.” Frederick the Great of Prussia, the “Edict” announced, was now taking up his claims on the province of Great Britain, which had been settled originally by German colonists and had never been emancipated. Hence the Prussian government had the right to exact revenue from its “British colonies,” to lay duties on all goods they exported or imported, to forbid all manufacturing in these “colonies.” From now on, should the British need hats, they must send raw materials to Prussia, which would manufacture the hats and let the British purchase them. (This was exactly the manner in which the British were preventing American manufacture.) Next, Prussia planned to ship to “the island of Great Britain” all the “thieves, highway and street robbers, housebreakers, and murderers” whom they “do not think fit here to hang.” (Here Franklin returned to an old grievance—Britain’s using the colonies as a dumping ground for convicts. In 1751 he had proposed tongue-in-cheek to send American rattlesnakes to England in exchange.) He was visiting Lord Le Despencer when a servant brought to the breakfast table the newspaper which had printed the “Edict” hoax. A fellow guest named Paul Whitehead read the first paragraphs and exploded: “Here’s the King of Prussia claiming a right to this kingdom.... I dare say we shall hear by next post that he is upon his march with one hundred thousand men to back this.” Franklin kept a straight face. Whitehead read on until, as absurdities piled up, it dawned on him that he had been taken: “I’ll be hanged, Franklin, if this is not some of your American jokes upon us.” They admitted he had made his point very cleverly and all had a good laugh. But neither the “Rules” nor the “Edict” persuaded Parliament and the ministry to change their ways. Colonial resentment focused on the tax on tea, which small as it was, remained a “splinter in the unhealed wound.” In Boston, on December 16, 1773, fifty citizens, dressed as Mohawk Indians, defiantly dumped 342 chests of British tea into the ocean. Parliament, when the news reached London, acted swiftly. Until restitution was made for the tea, the port of Boston was to be closed. Four more regiments under General Thomas Gage were sent to keep order. Boston became an occupied city, unable to conduct its commerce and faced with financial ruin. Pay for the tea, Franklin urged his Boston colleagues. The Boston Tea Party was an act of lawlessness which could only harm the cause of the colonies. Just as the colonists were unaware of the problems that faced him daily in England, so he was too far away to appreciate the fire of indignation that was sweeping America. In the meantime a scandal had erupted in London as a result of the publication of Governor Hutchinson’s letters. Two gentlemen, William Whately and John Temple, had each accused the other of making the letters public. They carried the argument to the newspapers, and then Temple challenged Whately to a duel. It was fought at Hyde Park on December 11, with pistols and swords. Whately was wounded. Neither party was satisfied. Franklin was out of town when the duel took place. After he heard about it, he realized what he had to do. On Christmas Day, a letter signed by him appeared in the Public Advertiser, which said that both Whately and Temple were “ignorant and innocent” of the publication of the Hutchinson letters, that he was the one who had obtained them and sent them to Boston. The entire blame was his. He did not give the name of the man who had turned the letters over to him. This secret he carried to his grave. How many high-placed persons in England were waiting to get something on this imperturbable Philadelphian! How many resented the way, like Socrates’ gadfly, he forced them to admit what they did not want to admit, and pestered them eternally with his troublesome colonies. Now they would have their revenge. Franklin knew his admission would bring wrath on his head. He had not long to wait. On January 29, 1774, he was summoned to the Cockpit Tavern, to a meeting of the King’s Privy Council for Plantation Affairs. The subject given was the petition of the Massachusetts Assembly for the removal from office of Andrew Oliver and Governor Hutchinson. Franklin’s friends had informed him already that the petition was to be denied. There were even rumors that his papers might be seized and himself thrown in prison. He was prepared for the worst. He arrived on time, dressed in a suit of figured Manchester velvet, wearing an old-fashioned curled wig, and carrying the same cane with which he had once quieted the ripples on the stream at Lord Shelburne’s estate. Thirty-six members of the Privy Council were seated around a large table. Among them were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the Duke of Queensberry, Lord Dartmouth, whom he had found sympathetic; Lord Hillsborough, who hated and feared him; and the Earl of Sandwich (from whom the word “sandwich” was derived); the London head of the post office, a conceited individual who disliked everything that Franklin stood for. Among them, Franklin could be positive of only one friend—Lord Le Despencer. A few spectators had been admitted, including Joseph Priestley, the scientist, and Edmund Burke, the Irish peer. They stood behind the table since there were no extra chairs. No one offered Franklin a chair either. For the entire hearing he stood by the fireplace, facing the councilors. It opened with a reading of the Massachusetts petition and of the Hutchinson and Oliver letters. Franklin’s lawyer, John Dunning, appealed to the King’s “wisdom and goodness” to favor the petition and remove the two men from their posts, as a gesture to quiet colonial unrest. Then Alexander Wedderburn, lawyer for Hutchinson, took over. His speech, which lasted an hour, was from beginning to end a tirade against Franklin. Franklin could have got hold of the controversial letters only by fraudulent or corrupt means, he said. His own letter, clearing Whately and Temple of blame, was “impossible to read without horror.” Franklin was “a receiver of goods dishonorably come by.” He had duped the “innocent, well-meaning farmers” of the Massachusetts Assembly. Wedderburn’s accusations grew wilder as he warmed to his subject. Franklin wanted to become governor himself, he stated categorically. That was why he had taken on himself “to furnish materials for dissensions; to set at variance the different branches of the legislature; and to irritate and incense the minds of the King’s subjects against the King’s governor.” While Wedderburn continued to spew forth his poisonous invective, Franklin stood stoically, his face impassive, seemingly unaware either of the triumphal smirks of his enemies or the compassionate glances of his friends. People agreed later that his silence, in face of the screams of his adversary, showed him the stronger man. When the hearing was over, he went quietly home alone. He made no answer to Wedderburn, nor even to those closest to him did he indicate that the attack rankled. To Thomas Cushing he wrote, “Splashes of dirt thrown upon my character I suffered while fresh to remain. I did not choose to spread by endeavouring to remove them, but relied on the vulgar adage that they would all rub off when they were dry.” The day after the hearing he was notified of his dismissal as deputy postmaster-general of the colonies. This was a severe blow, for he had prided himself on the efficient work he had done in this service. Then, on February 7, 1774, the King formally rejected the Massachusetts Assembly petition to remove Hutchinson and Oliver. Seemingly Franklin’s usefulness as a provincial agent was ended. He thought of going home but decided against it. Critical days were ahead. He felt he might still, in spite of his disgrace, find ways of helping his country. Except that he had no direct dealings with the ministry or Parliament, his life went on as before. He discussed scientific matters with Joseph Priestley, among them the phenomenon of marsh gas. When Polly Hewson’s husband died, leaving her with three children, he grieved with and for her. He worried lest William be removed from the governorship of New Jersey as further punishment to him, but this did not happen. In September 1774, a dark-haired youngish man, who spoke in the Quaker manner, paid him a visit. His name was Thomas Paine, he said. He was fascinated by Franklin’s work in electricity and gave evidence of being well informed himself on scientific matters. He had also done a bit of writing, particularly a quite eloquent petition to Parliament on the plight of the excisemen, a petition that had cost him his own job in the excise service. He had a dream of going to America, Paine confided. Would Dr. Franklin be good enough to give him some advice? Franklin rarely refused such requests. In this case, he was sufficiently impressed to write a note of recommendation to his son-in-law Richard Bache. He could not guess the enormous favor he was doing his homeland by sending Thomas Paine to America’s shores. Massachusetts had rejected Franklin’s advice to pay for the Boston Tea Party. Other colonies were coming to the rescue of beleaguered Boston. Connecticut sent flocks of sheep. From Virginia came flour. South Carolina gave rice. Franklin was delighted; at last the colonies were helping each other, nearly twenty years after he had proposed a union at the Albany conference. When the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in May 1774, he was full of praise for “the coolness, temper, and firmness of the American proceedings,” and he was all in favor of a strong boycott of British manufacturers. “If America would save for three or four years the money she spends in fashions and fineries and fopperies of this country she might buy the whole Parliament, ministers and all.” At last his beloved colonies were learning the value of concerted and dignified action, so much more effective, in his thinking, than mob actions. As the crisis deepened, one by one important statesmen sought him out and almost humbly asked his advice as to what they should do. The great William Pitt summoned him in August. Did he think the colonists would go as far as to ask for independence? Franklin assured him, truthfully, that he “never had heard in any conversation, from any person drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation or hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America.” He received an invitation to play chess with the sister of Admiral Lord Richard Howe. At their second session, Miss Howe pressed him to tell her what should be done to settle the dispute between Great Britain and the colonies. “They should kiss and be friends,” he said lightly. Nor would he be more explicit when she brought Admiral Lord Howe to talk with him. In his heart he knew it was now too late to repair the many blunders on the part of Parliament and the King. On December 18, 1774, he received the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, a petition from the First Continental Congress to George III. The King, who was having the first of those attacks which would end in insanity, ignored it completely. With William Pitt, Admiral Lord Howe, and other of the more reasonable officials, Franklin spent long hours trying to work out a compromise that would keep the peace. It was all in vain. In the midst of these labors, word reached him that his faithful Debby had died of a stroke on December 19—the day after the arrival of the petition. There would be no more of her warm and loving and atrociously spelled letters to keep him informed about his relatives: “I donte know wuther you have bin told that Cosin Benney Mecome and his Lovely wife and five Dafters is come here to live and work Jurney worke I had them to Dine and drink tee yisterday....” Or to lament the lack of news from him: “I have bin verey much distrest a bout [you] as I did not [get] oney letter nor one word from you nor did I hear one word from oney bodey that you wrote to so I muste submit and indever to submit to what I am to bair.” Letters which she might sign “Your afeckshonet wife,” or when she was less careful “Your ffeckshonot wife.” He would miss them, but above all he would miss the assurance that she was there waiting for him, loyal and cheerful, to greet him whenever he returned from his long voyage. He stayed on in England only a few months longer. His last day in London he spent with Joseph Priestley. Together they read papers from America, and now and then tears ran down Franklin’s cheeks. He was sure America would win if there were a war, he told Priestley, but it would take at least ten years. On March 25, 1775, he and his grandson Temple embarked on the Pennsylvania Packet. The crossing took six weeks and the weather was pleasant. In the first half of it, he wrote out the complicated story of his recent dealings with the ministry in his last futile and desperate efforts to prevent war. The last part of the journey he devoted to studying the nature of the Gulf Stream, taking its temperature two to four times a day, and noting that its water had a special color of its own and “that it does not sparkle in the night.” Thus he was able to enjoy a brief interlude in the world of nature between the bitter disputes he left behind and the struggle that lay ahead. |
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