FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[21]Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, p. 147.[22]Bigelow’s Works of Franklin, vol. vi. p. 300.[23]Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, p. 221.[24]Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, chap. xix.[25]Bigelow’s Works of Franklin, vol. iii. p. 212; vol. x. pp. 295, 302.

[21]Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, p. 147.

[22]Bigelow’s Works of Franklin, vol. vi. p. 300.

[23]Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, p. 221.

[24]Pennsylvania: Colony and Commonwealth, chap. xix.

[25]Bigelow’s Works of Franklin, vol. iii. p. 212; vol. x. pp. 295, 302.

Franklin’sdiplomatic career was now to begin in earnest. Although the petition to change Pennsylvania into a royal province under the direct rule of the crown was, fortunately, not acted upon and not very seriously pressed, he, nevertheless, continued to believe that such a change would be beneficial and might some day be accomplished.

He looked upon the king as supreme ruler of the colonies, and retained this opinion until he heard of actual bloodshed in the battle of Lexington. The king and not Parliament had in the beginning given the colonies their charters; the king and not Parliament had always been the power that ruled them; wherefore the passage by Parliament of stamp acts and tea acts was a usurpation. This was one of the arguments in which many of the colonists had sought refuge, but few of them clung to it so long as Franklin.

Almost immediately after his arrival in London in December, 1764, the agitations about the proposed Stamp Act began, and within a few weeks he was deep in them. His previous residence of five years in London when he was trying to have the proprietary estates taxed had given him some knowledge of men and affairs in the great capital; had given him,indeed, his first lessons in the diplomat’s art; but he was now powerless against the Stamp Act. The ministry had determined on its passage, and they considered the protests of Franklin and the other colonial agents of little consequence.

The act passed, and Franklin wrote home on the subject one of his prettiest letters to Charles Thomson:

“Depend upon it, my good neighbor, I took every step in my power to prevent the passing of the Stamp Act. But the tide was too strong against us.... The nation was provoked by American claims of independence, and all parties joined in resolving by this act to settle the point. We might as well have hindered the sun’s setting. That we could not do. But since it is down, my friend, and it may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a night of it as we can. We may still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a great way towards indemnifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the former we may easily bear the latter.”

Grenville, in conformity with his assurance that the act would work satisfactorily even to the Americans, announced that stamp officers would not be sent from England, but that the kind mother would appoint colonists, and he asked the colonial agents to name to him honest and responsible men in their several colonies. Franklin recommended his old friend John Hughes, a respectable merchant of Philadelphia, never dreaming that by so doing he was getting the good man into trouble. But as soon as Hughes’s commission arrived his house was threatened by the mob and he was forced to resign.

Franklin had no idea that the colonies would be so indignant and offer so much resistance. He supposedthat they would quietly submit, buy the stamps, and paste them on all their documents. He bought a quantity of stamped paper and sent it over to his partner, David Hall, to sell in the little stationery shop which was still attached to their printing-office. When he heard of the mob violence and the positive determination not to pay the tax, he was surprised and disgusted. He wrote to John Hughes, expressing surprise at the indiscretion of the people and the rashness of the Virginia Assembly. “A firm loyalty to the crown,” he said, “and a faithful adherence to the government of this nation, which it is the safety as well as honour of the colonies to be connected with, will always be the wisest course for you and I to take.”[26]

His old opponents, the proprietary party, were not slow to take this opportunity to abuse him as faithless to his province and the American cause. A certain Samuel Smith went about telling the people that Franklin had planned the Stamp Act and intended to have the Test Act put in force in America. A caricature of the time represents the devil whispering in his ear, “Thee shall be agent, Ben, for all my dominions,” and underneath was printed—

“All his designs concentre in himselfFor building castles and amassing pelf.The public ’tis his wit to sell for gain,Whom private property did ne’er maintain.”

The mob even threatened his house, much to the alarm of his wife, who, however,sturdily remained and refused to seek safety in flight. This and other events, together with the information that he received from America during the next few months, compelled him to change his ground. He saw that there was to be substantial resistance to the act, and he joined earnestly in the agitation for its repeal. This agitation was carried on during the autumn of 1765 and a very strong case made for the colonies, the most telling part of which was the refusal of the colonists to buy English manufactured goods, which had already lost the British merchants millions of pounds sterling.

In December Parliament met and the whole question was gone into with thoroughness. For six weeks testimony was taken before the House sitting as committee of the whole, and merchants, manufacturers, colonial agents, and every one who was supposed to be able to throw light on the subject were examined. It was during the course of this investigation that Franklin was called and gave those famous answers which enhanced his reputation more than any other one act of his life, except, perhaps, his experiment with the kite.

For a long time before the examination he had been very busy interviewing all sorts of persons, going over the whole ground of the controversy and trying to impress members of Parliament with the information and arguments that had come to him from the colonies. His answers in the examination were not given so entirely on the spur of the moment as has sometimes been supposed, for he had gone over the subject again and again inconversation, and was well prepared. But his replies are truly wonderful in their exquisite shrewdness, the delicate turns of phrase, and the subtle but perfectly clear meaning given to words. The severe training in analyzing and rewriting the essays of theSpectatorstood him in good stead that day, and we realize more fully what he himself said, that it was to his mastery of language that he owed his great reputation.

They asked him, for example, “Are you acquainted with Newfoundland?” He could not tell to what they might be leading him, and some people would have replied no, or yes; but the wily old philosopher contented himself with saying, “I never was there.”

They drove him into an awkward corner at one point of the examination. He had been showing that the colonies had no objection to voting of their own free will supplies to the British crown, and had frequently done so in the French and Indian wars.

“But,” said his questioner, “suppose one of the colonial assemblies should refuse to raise supplies for its own local government, would it not then be right, in order to preserve order and carry on the government in that locality, that Parliament should tax that colony, inasmuch as it would not tax itself for its own support?”

Franklin parried the question by saying that such a case could not happen, and if it did, it would cure itself by the disorder and confusion that would arise.

“But,” insisted his tormentor, “just suppose thatit did happen; should not Parliament have the right to remedy such an evil state of affairs?”

The philosopher yielded a little to this last question, and said that there might be such a right if it were used only for the good of the people of the colony. This was exactly what they had wanted him to say, so they put the next question which would clinch the nail.

“But who is to judge of that, Britain or the colonies?”

This was difficult to answer; but with inimitable sagacity their victim replied,—

“Those that feel can best judge.”

It was a narrow escape, but he was safely out of the trap. Then they badgered him about the difference between external taxes, such as customs duties and taxes on commerce, which he said the colonists had always been willing to pay, and internal taxes, like the Stamp Tax, which they would never pay and could not be made to pay. He was very positive on this point; so a member asked him whether it was not likely, since the colonists were so opposed to internal taxes, that they would in time assume the same rebellious attitude towards external taxes. Franklin’s reply was very subtle in showing how Great Britain was driving the colonies more and more into rebellion:

“They never have hitherto. Many arguments have been lately used here to show them that there is no difference, and that if you have no right to tax them internally, you have none to tax them externally, or make any other law to bind them. At present they do not reason so; but in time they may possibly be convinced by these arguments.”

They reminded him of the clause in the charter of Pennsylvania which expressly allowed Parliament to tax that colony. How, then, they said, can the Pennsylvanians assert that the Stamp Act is an infringement of their rights? This was a poser; but Franklin was equal to the occasion.

“They understand it thus: by the same charter and otherwise they are entitled to all the privileges and liberties of Englishmen. They find in the Great Charters and the Petition and Declaration of Rights that one of the privileges of English subjects is, that they are not to be taxed but by their common consent. They have therefore relied upon it, from the first settlement of the province, that the Parliament never would, nor could, by color of that clause in the charter, assume a right of taxing them till it had qualified itself to exercise such right by admitting representatives from the people to be taxed, who ought to make a part of that common consent.”

But to print all the brilliant passages of this examination would require too much space. It should be read entire; for in its wonderful display of human intelligence we see Franklin at his best. He never did anything else quite equal to it, and he never again had such an opportunity. It was an ordeal that would have crushed or appalled ordinary men, and would have been too much for some very able men. They would have evaded the severe questions, given commonplace answers, or sought refuge in obscurity, eloquence, or sentiment. But Franklin, with perfect composure, ease, and almost indifference, met every question squarely as it was asked. Many other persons were examined during the long weeks of that investigation, but who now knows who they were? They may have been as well informed asFranklin, and doubtless many of them were; but they were submerged in the situation which he made a stepping-stone to greatness.

In nothing that he said can there be discovered the slightest trace of hurry, surprise, or disturbed temper; everything is unruffled and smooth. He guards without effort the beauty and perfection of his language as carefully as its substance. Each reply is complete. Nothing can be added to it, and it would be impossible to abbreviate it. It was his superb physical constitution that enabled him to bear himself thus. No prize-fighter could have been more self-possessed.

As is well known, he could seldom speak long, especially at this time of his life, without jesting or telling stories; but there is no trace of this in the examination, and the slightest touch of anything of the kind would have marred its wonderful merit. In his previous conversations with members he had been humorous enough. On one occasion a Tory asked him, as he would not agree to the act, to at least help them to amend it. He said he could easily do that by the change of a single word. The act read that it was to be enforced on a certain day in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-five. Just change one to two, he said, and America will have little or no objection to it. During his examination members who favored the repeal asked him questions calculated to bring out his favorite arguments, and one of them, remembering this jest, asked him a question which would lead to it. It seems to have been the only question he evaded;for, as he has told us, he considered such a jest too light and ridiculous for the occasion.

The Stamp Act was repealed principally through the efforts of the merchants and tradespeople who thronged the lobbies of the House of Commons and clamorously demanded that the Americans should be restored to a condition in which they would be willing to buy British goods; but there is no question that Franklin’s efforts and examination greatly assisted, and members of the opposition party thanked him for the aid he had given them in carrying the repeal. Pennsylvania reappointed him her agent, and he continued his life in London as a sort of colonial ambassador. In 1768 Georgia made him her agent, and during the next two years he was appointed agent for both New Jersey and Massachusetts; so that he was in a sense representing at London the interests of America.

His appointment as the agent of Massachusetts had been opposed by many of the leaders of the liberty party in Boston; for his opinions were rather too moderate to suit them. He still retained his confidence in George III. as a safe ruler for America, and he did all he could to soften and accommodate the differences existing between the colonies and the mother country.

His motives were, of course, attacked and his moderation ascribed to his love of office. He was at that time Postmaster of North America, and as his income of a thousand pounds a year from his partnership with David Hall in the printing business ceased in 1766, he was naturally desirous to retainhis postmaster’s salary. His zeal for the American cause was inclining Lord Sandwich, the Postmaster-General, to remove him, while the Duke of Grafton was disposed to give him a better office in England, in order to identify him with the mother country and bring him into close relations with the government.

There is no evidence that he was unduly influenced by love of office. His confidence in the king was merely a mistake which many other people made, and his moderation and attempt to settle all difficulties amicably were measures which a man of his temperament and in his position would naturally take.

He tried to give the English correct opinions about America, and to disclose the true interest and the true relations which should subsist between the mother and her daughters. To this end he wrote articles for the newspapers, and reprinted Dickinson’s “Farmer’s Letters” with a preface written by himself. There was a large party led by Burke, Barré, Onslow, Lord Chatham, and others who were favorable to America, and it seemed as if this party might be made larger. At any rate, Franklin felt bound to take sides with them, and assist them as far as possible. His articles were humorous, and necessarily anonymous; for he feared they would lose half of the slight effect they had if the name of the American agent were signed to them.

His two famous articles were published in the early autumn of 1773. One, called “Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small One,” was anadmirable satire on the conduct of the British government. A great empire is like a cake, most easily diminished at the edges. Take care that colonies never enjoy the same rights as the mother country. Forget all benefits conferred by colonies; treat them as if they were always inclined to revolt; send prodigals, broken gamesters, and stock-jobbers to rule over them; punish them for petitioning against injustice; despise their voluntary grants of money, and harass them with novel taxes; threaten that you have the right to tax them without limit; take away from them trial by jury andhabeas corpus, and those who are suspected of crimes bring to the mother country for trial; send the most insolent officials to collect the taxes; apply the proceeds of the taxes to increasing salaries and pensions; keep adjourning the colonial assemblies until they pass the laws you want; redress no grievances; and send a standing army among them commanded by a general with unlimited power.

The popularity of this piece was so great that all the newspapers copied it and new editions had to be issued. The other article was a short squib, called “An Edict of the King of Prussia,” and professes to be a formal announcement by Frederick the Great that, inasmuch as the British isles were originally Saxon colonies and have now reached a flourishing condition, it is just and expedient that a revenue be raised from them; and he goes on to declare the measures he had decided to put in force, which are most clever burlesques on the measures adopted by England for America.

This edict also had a great run of popularity, and of course its authorship became known. Many of the slow-witted English at first thought it real, and Franklin in a letter to his son gives an interesting account of its reception, and at the same time allows us a glimpse of his life at English country houses:

“I was down at Lord le Despencer’s, when the post brought that day’s papers. Mr. Whitehead was there, too, (Paul Whitehead, the author of ‘Manners,’) who runs early through all the papers, and tells the company what he finds remarkable. He had them in another room, and we were chatting in the breakfast parlor, when he came running in to us out of breath, with the paper in his hand. ‘Here,’ says he, ‘here’s news for ye! Here’s the King of Prussia claiming a right to this kingdom!’ All stared, and I as much as anybody; 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 that 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.’ The reading went on, and ended with abundance of laughing, and a general verdict that it was a fair hit; and the piece was cut out of the paper and preserved in my Lord’s collection.”

This was all very pleasant for Franklin, and increased his fame, especially among the Whigs, who were already on the side of America. But the Tories, whom it was necessary to win, were so indignant and so deeply disgusted that these brilliant essays may be said to have done more harm than good.

It is not usual for an ambassador in a foreign country to discuss in the public prints the questions at issue between that country and his own. It would generally be regarded as serious misconduct,and the rule which prohibits it seems to be founded on good reasons. The ambassador is not there for the purpose of instructing or influencing the general public. He is not in any way concerned with them, but is concerned only with the heads of the government, with whom alone he carries on the business of his mission. In order that he may fulfil his part successfully he must be acceptable, or at least not offensive, to the persons in control of the government. But how can he be acceptable to them if he is openly or in secret appealing to the people of the country against them? Will they not regard him very much as if he were a spy or an enemy in disguise in their midst?

This was precisely the difficulty into which Franklin got himself. He was not called an ambassador, and he would not have been willing to admit that he was in a foreign country. But in effect he was in that position, being the duly accredited agent of colonies that had a serious quarrel with the mother country which every one knew might terminate in war. When he began to write anonymous articles full of sarcasm and severity against the ministry of the party in power he was doing what, under ordinary diplomatic circumstances, might have caused his dismissal. It was distinctly a step downward. It was not different in essentials from that of an ambassador joining one of the political parties of the country to which he is accredited and making stump speeches for it. His arguments were approved only by people among the English liberals who were already convinced, while they made him bitter enemiesamong the Tory governing class at a time when he had every reason to mollify them, and when he was doing his utmost to accommodate amicably the differences between the mother and her daughters. They had now a handle against him, something that would offset the charm of his conversation, his learning, and his discoveries in science which gave him such influence among notable people. They soon had the opportunity they wanted in the famous episode of the Hutchinson letters.

In order to carry out his purpose of accommodating all disputes, he was in the habit of saying wherever he went in England that the colonies were most loyal and loving; that there was no necessity for the severe measures against Boston,—quartering troops on her, and other oppressions. Such severities created the impression among the Americans that the whole English nation was against them; they did not stop to think that it was merely the ministry and the party in power. Accordingly there were riots and tumults among some of the disorderly classes in America which in their turn created a wrong impression in England, where such disturbances were falsely supposed to be representative of the colonists at large. In this way the misunderstanding was continually aggravated because the true state of things was unknown.

Many people in England were disposed to smile at this pretty delusion of peace and affection, but they thought it best to let the colonial agents continue under its influence and not acquaint themwith the means they had of knowing the contrary. At last, however, in the year 1772, one of them let the cat out of the bag. Franklin was talking in his usual strain to a Whig member of Parliament who was disposed to be very friendly to America, when that member frankly told him that he must be mistaken. The disorders in America were much worse than he supposed. The severe measures complained of were not the mere suggestion of the party in power in England, but had been asked for by people in Boston as the only means of restoring order and pacifying the country, which was really in a most rebellious and dangerous state.

When Franklin expressed surprise and doubt, the member said he would soon satisfy him, and a few days after placed in his hands a packet of letters which had been written by Thomas Hutchinson, the Governor of Massachusetts, Andrew Oliver, the Lieutenant-Governor, and some other officials to Mr. William Whately, a man who had held some subordinate offices and had been an important political worker in the Grenville party.

The letters described the situation in Massachusetts in the year 1768; the riotous proceedings when John Hancock’s sloop was seized for violating the revenue laws; how the customs officers were insulted, beaten, the windows of their houses broken, and they obliged to take refuge on the “Romney” man-of-war. These and other proceedings the writers of the letters intimated were approved by the majority of the people, and they recommended that these turbulent colonists should, for their owngood, be restrained by force, and the liberty they were misusing curtailed. “There must be an abridgment,” said one of Hutchinson’s letters, “of what are called English liberties.”

Hutchinson, as well as some of the other writers of the letters, were natives of New England; and Hutchinson, before he became governor, had had a long public career in Massachusetts in which he had distinguished himself as a most conservative, prudent, and able man who had conferred many benefits on the colony. The letters by him and the other officials had been handed about among prominent people in London, who regarded them as better evidence of the real situation in America than the benevolent talk of the colonial agent or his brilliant and anonymous sallies in the newspapers.

The condition which the member of Parliament annexed to his loan of the letters to Franklin was that they should not be printed or copied, and after having been read by the leaders of the patriot movement in Massachusetts, they were to be returned to London. He must have had very little knowledge of the world, and Franklin must have smiled at the condition. Of course, in transmitting the letters to Massachusetts Franklin mentioned the condition. This relieved him from responsibility, and John Adams and John Hancock could do what they thought right under the circumstances.

What might have been expected soon followed. The leaders in Boston read the letters and were furious. Here were their own governors and officials secretly furnishing the British government withinformation that would bring punishment on the colony, and actually recommending that the punishment should be inflicted. One of Hutchinson’s letters distinctly stated that the information furnished by him in a previous letter had brought the troops to Boston; and, as is well known, it was the collision of some of these troops with a mob which led to what has been called the “Boston massacre.”

John Adams showed the letters to his aunt; others showed them to relatives and friends, no doubt, with the most positive instructions that they were not to be copied or printed, and were to be exhibited only to certain people. The Assembly met, and John Hancock, with a mysterious air, announced that a most important matter would in a few days be submitted to that body for consideration; but most of the members knew about it already; and when the day arrived the public was refused admittance and the letters read to the Assembly in secret session. As for publishing them, they were soon in print in London as well as in the colonies; and when the originals could be of no further use, John Adams put them in an envelope and sent them back to London, as the condition required.

The Assembly resolved to ask the crown to remove both Hutchinson and Oliver, and prepared a petition to that effect, basing the request on the ground that these two men had plotted to encourage and intensify the quarrel of the colonies with the mother country. By their false representations they had caused a fleet and an army to be brought toMassachusetts, and were therefore the cause of the confusion and bloodshed which had resulted. This petition reached the king in the summer of 1773.

Franklin thought that the whole affair would have a good effect. The resentment of the colonies against the mother country would be transferred to Hutchinson and the other individuals who had caused it; the ministry would see that the colonists were sincerely desirous of a good understanding with the British government and that Hutchinson and Oliver were evil persons bent on fomenting trouble and responsible for all the recent difficulties in Massachusetts. This was a pleasant theory, but it turned out to be utterly unsound and useless. The effect of the letters was just the opposite of what was expected. Instead of modifying the feelings of the colonists and the ministry, they increased the resentment of both.

The king and his Privy Council were not inclined to pay any attention to the petition, and it might have slept harmlessly like other petitions from America at that time. But when the letters were printed in London, people began to wonder how they had reached the colonists. They were in a sense secret information, and had been intrusted to persons who were supposed to understand that they were for government circles alone. William Whately, to whom they had been written, was dead, and as it began to be suspected that his brother and executor, Thomas Whately, might have put them into circulation, he felt bound to defend himself.

As a matter of fact, they seem to have passed outof William Whately’s hands before his death, and were never in the possession of the executor. But the executor had given permission to John Temple to look over the deceased Whately’s papers and to take from them certain letters which Temple and his brother had written to him. Accordingly, Thomas Whately went to see Temple, who gave the most positive assurances that he had taken only his own and his brother’s letters, and he repeated these assurances twice afterwards. But the suspicion against him getting into the newspapers, he demanded from Whately a public statement exonerating him. Whately published a statement which merely gave the facts and exonerated him no more than to say that Temple had assured him he did not take the Hutchinson letters. Such a statement left an unpleasant implication against Temple, for the executor seemed studiously to avoid saying that he believed Temple’s assurances.

So Temple challenged Whately, and the challenge was carried by Ralph Izard, of South Carolina. They fought a queer sort of duel which would have amused Frenchmen, and half a century later would have amused Carolinians. Whately declined to be bothered with a second, so Temple could not have one. They met in Hyde Park at four in the morning, Whately with a sword and Temple with both sword and pistols. Seeing that Whately had only a sword, he supposed that he must be particularly expert with it, and he therefore suggested that they fight with pistols. They emptied their weapons without effect, and then took to their blades.

Temple, who was something of a swordsman, soon discovered that Whately knew nothing of the art, and he chivalrously tried to wound him slightly, so as to end the encounter. But Whately slashed and cut in a bungling way that was extremely dangerous; and Temple, finding that he was risking his life by his magnanimity, aimed a thrust which would have killed Whately if he had not seized the blade in his left hand. As it was, it wounded him severely in the side, and he suggested that the fight end. But his opponent in this extraordinary duel was deaf, and, recovering his sword, as Whately slipped forward he wounded him in the back of the shoulder.

Izard and Arthur Lee, of Virginia, now arrived on the scene and separated the combatants. One result of not fighting in the regular manner with witnesses was that some people believed, from the wound on Whately’s back, that Temple had attempted to stab him when he was down. Meantime Franklin, who had been out of town on one of his pleasant excursions, returned to London and, hearing that another duel between the two was imminent, published a letter in the newspapers announcing that he was the person who had obtained and sent the letters to Massachusetts, and that they had never been in the possession of the executor and consequently could not have been stolen from him by Temple.

He supposed that he had ended the difficulty most handsomely, and he continued to hope for good results from making the letters public. But the ministry and the Tories had now the opportunity theywanted. They saw a way to deprive him of his office of postmaster and attack his character. He had admitted sending the letters to Massachusetts. But how had he obtained them? How did he get possession of the private letters of a deceased member of the government; letters, too, that every one had been warned not to allow to get into a colonial agent’s hands? If the distinguished man of science whose fascinating manner and conversation were the delight of London drawing-rooms and noblemen’s country-seats had stepped down from the heights of philosophy to do this sort of work, why, then, his great reputation and popularity need no longer be considered as protecting him.

It was unfortunate that Franklin sent these letters to Massachusetts in the way that has been described. At the same time it is rather too much to expect that he should have foreseen all the results. But after more than a hundred years have passed we can perhaps review the position of the Tory government a little more calmly than has been usual.

Let us suppose that the Spanish minister in the United States should get possession of letters sent from Spain by our minister there to the Secretary of State at Washington; and we will assume also that these letters relate to a matter of serious controversy between our country and Spain, and are the private communications from our minister to the Secretary of State. If the Spanish minister should send these letters to his government, and that government should publish them in its own and our newspapers, would there not be considerable indignationin America? Would it not be said that the Spanish minister was here to conduct diplomatic negotiations in the usual way and not for the purpose of securing possession of the private documents of our government? Would it not be assumed at once that he must have bribed some one to give him the letters, or got them in some other clandestine way? and would not his country in all probability be asked to recall him?

Then, too, we must remember that Franklin’s argument that the colonies were all loyal and needed only a little kind treatment was in the eyes of the Tories a pious sham; and they were somewhat justified in thinking so. It is true, indeed, that outside of Massachusetts the people were very loyal, and determined not to break with Great Britain unless they were forced to it. But in Massachusetts Samuel Adams was laboring night and day to force a breach. He had as much contempt as the Tories for Franklin’s peace and love policy, and thought it ridiculous that such a man should be the agent for Massachusetts. He was convinced that there never would be peace, that it was not desirable, and that the sooner there were war and independence the better.

The Tory government knew all this; it knew of the committees of correspondence that the Boston patriots were inaugurating to inflame the whole country; it knew all these things, from the reports of the royal governors and other officials in the colonies, and it was probably better acquainted with the real situation than was Franklin. There may still be read among the documents of the Britishgovernment the affidavits of the persons who followed Samuel Adams about and took down his words when he was secretly inciting the lower classes of the people in Boston to open rebellion.[27]About the time that Whately and Temple fought their duel, in December, 1773, the tea was thrown overboard in Boston harbor, and it is now generally believed that Samuel Adams inspired and encouraged this act as one which would most surely lead to a breach with the mother country.

The school-book story of the “Boston Tea Party” has been so deeply impressed upon our minds as one of the glorious deeds of patriotism that its true bearings are obscured. There were many patriots at the time who did not consider it a wise act. Besides Boston, the tea was sent by the East India Company to Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York, and in these cities the people prevented its being landed and sold; but they did not destroy it. They considered that they had a right to prevent its landing and sale; that in doing this they were acting in a legal and constitutional manner to protect their rights; but to destroy it would have been both a riotous act and an attack on private property.

The Tory ministry, while having no serious objection to the method adopted in Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York, considered the Boston method decidedly riotous, and from its point of view such a conclusion was natural. It seemed to be of a piece with all the other occurrences which Hutchinsonand Oliver had described in their letters, and it confirmed most strongly all the statements and recommendations in those letters. It was decided to punish Boston in a way that she would remember, and in the following March, after careful deliberation, Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill, which locked up the harbor of that town, destroyed for the time her commerce, and soon brought on the actual bloodshed of the Revolution.

Meantime the ministry also attended to Franklin’s case. The Privy Council sent word to Franklin that it was ready to take up the petition of the Massachusetts Assembly asking for the removal of Governor Hutchinson, and required his presence as the colony’s agent. He found that Hutchinson and Oliver had secured as counsel Alexander Wedderburn, a Scotch barrister, afterwards most successful in securing political preferment, and ending his career as Lord Rosslyn. Franklin had no counsel, and asked for a postponement of three weeks to obtain legal aid and prepare his case, which was granted.

The day fixed for the hearing aroused great expectations. An unprecedented number of the members of the Privy Council attended. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Burke, Dr. Priestley, Izard, Lee, and many other distinguished persons, friends or opponents of Franklin, crowded into the chamber. The members of the Privy Council sat at a long table, and every one else had to stand as a mark of respect. The room was one of those apartments which tourists are often shown in palaces in Europe, somewhatlike a large drawing-room with an open fireplace at one end. The fireplace projected into the room, and in one of the recesses at the side of it Franklin stood, not far behind Lord Gower, president of the Council, who had his back to the fireplace.

Franklin’s astute counsel, John Dunning, a famous barrister, afterwards Lord Ashburton, told him that his peace and love theory was not a very good ground to rest his case on before the Council. It would be well not to use the Hutchinson letters at all, or refer to them as little as possible; for the Privy Council believed every word in them to be true, and the passages in them which had most inflamed the colonists were the very ones which were most acceptable to the Council.

So Dunning made a speech in which he said that no crime or offence was charged against Hutchinson and Oliver; they were in no way attacked or accused; the colonists were simply asking a favor of His Majesty, which was that the governor and the lieutenant-governor had become so distasteful to the people that it would be good policy and tend to peace and quiet to remove them.

It was a ridiculous attempt, of course, and none knew better than Dunning that there was not the slightest hope of success. The Privy Council would never have taken up the petition, it would have slept in the dust of its pigeon-hole, if the council had not seen in it a way of attacking Franklin. Wedderburn’s speech was the event awaited, and to it the Tories looked forward as to a cock-fight or a bull-baiting.

A little volume published in England and to be found in some of the libraries in America contains an account of the proceedings and gives a large part of Wedderburn’s speech. He has been most abundantly abused in America and by Whigs in England as an unprincipled office-seeker and a shallow orator, with no other talent than that of invective. That he was successful in obtaining office and rising to high distinction as an ardent Tory cannot be denied, and in this respect he did not differ materially from others or from the Whigs themselves when they had their innings. As to the charge of shallowness, it is not borne out by his speech on this occasion. Once concede his point of view as a Tory, and the speech is a very clever one.

He began by a history of Hutchinson’s useful public career in Massachusetts; and there is no question that Hutchinson had been a most valuable official; even the Massachusetts people themselves conceded that. The difficulty with Hutchinson was the same as with Wedderburn,—his point of view was not ours. Having reviewed Hutchinson, he went on to show how ridiculous it was to suppose that he alone had been the cause of sending the troops to Boston, and in this he was again probably right. The home government, as he well said, had abundant other means of information from General Gage, Sir Francis Bernard, and its officials all through the colonies; and he concluded this part of his speech with the point that Hutchinson, by the admission of Massachusetts herself, had never done anything wrong except write these letters, and wouldit not be ridiculous to dismiss a man for giving information which had been furnished by a host of others?

Then he turned his attention to Franklin. How had he obtained those letters? And here it must be confessed that Franklin was in a scrape, and from the Tory point of view was fair game. He could not disclose the name of the member of Parliament who gave them to him, for he had promised not to do so, and even without this promise it would have been wanton cruelty to have subjected the man to the ruin and disgrace that would have instantly fallen upon him. Nothing could drag this secret from Franklin. He refused to answer questions on the subject, and it is a secret to this day, as it is also still a secret who was the mother of his son. Ingenious persons have written about one as about the other, and supposed and guessed and piled up probabilities to no purpose. Franklin told the world more private matters than is usual with men in his position; but in the two matters on which he had determined to withhold knowledge the world has sought for it in vain.

Praiseworthy as his conduct may have been in this respect, it gave his opponents an advantage which we must admit they were entitled to take. If, as Wedderburn put it, he refused to tell from whom he received the letters, they were at liberty to suppose the worst, and the worst was that he had obtained them by improper means and fraud.

For a time which must have seemed like years to Franklin, Wedderburn drew out and played on thispoint with most exasperating skill. Gentlemen respect private correspondence. They do not usually steal people’s letters and print them. Even a foreign ambassador on the outbreak of war would hardly be justified in stealing documents. Must he not have known as soon as the letters were handed to him that honorable permission to use them could be obtained only from the family of Whately? Why had he chosen to bring that family into painful notoriety and one of them within a step of being murdered? He had sent the letters to Massachusetts with the address removed from them, and he was here supporting the petition with nothing but copies of the letters. He would, forsooth, have removed from office a governor in the midst of a long career of usefulness on the ground of letters the originals of which he could not produce and which he dared not tell how he had obtained.

The orator went on to cite some of Franklin’s letters to the people in Massachusetts encouraging them in their opposition. He read the resolutions of New England town meetings, and gave what, indeed, was a truthful description, from his point of view, of the measures taken for resistance in America. Franklin was aspiring to be Governor of Massachusetts in the place of Hutchinson, that was the secret of the whole affair, he said; and as for that beautiful argument that Hutchinson and Oliver had incensed the mother country against the colonies, what absurdity!

We are perpetually told, he said, of men’s incensing the mother country against the colonies,but we hear nothing of the vast variety of acts which have been made use of to incense the colonies against the mother country, setting at defiance the king’s authority, treating Parliament as usurpers, pulling down the houses of royal officials and attacking their persons, burning His Majesty’s ships of war, and denying the supreme jurisdiction of the British empire; and yet these people pretend a great concern about these letters as having a tendency to incense the parent state against the colonies, and would have a governor turned out because he reports their doings. “Was it to confute or prevent the pernicious effect of these letters that the good men of Boston have lately held their meetings, appointed their committees, and with their usual moderation destroyed the cargo of three British ships?”

While this ferocious attack was being delivered,—and it is said to have been delivered in thundering tones, emphasized by terrible blows of the orator’s fist on a cushion before him on the table,—Franklin stood with head erect, unmoved, and without the slightest change upon his face from the beginning to the end. When all was over he went out, silent, dignified, without a word or sign to any one except that, as he passed Dr. Priestley, he secretly pressed his hand. His superb nerves and physique again raised him far above the occasion.

It was one of the most remarkable traits of his wonderful personality that in all the great trials of his life he could give a dramatic interest and force to the situation which in the end turned everything in his favor. Burke said that his examination beforeParliament reminded him of a master examined by a parcel of school-boys; and Whitefield said that every answer he gave made the questioner appear insignificant. In his much severer test before Wedderburn and the Privy Council he was defeated; but his supreme and serene manner was never forgotten by the spectators, and will live forever as a dramatic incident. Pictures have been painted of it, for it lends itself irresistibly to the purposes of the artist. In these pictures Franklin is the hero, for it is impossible, from an artistic point of view, to make any one else the hero in that scene.

The petition of the Massachusetts Assembly was, of course, rejected with contempt; Franklin was immediately deprived of his office of postmaster of the colonies, and his usefulness as a colonial agent or as a diplomatist was at an end. He could no longer go to court or even be on friendly terms with the Tory party which controlled the government; and from this time on he was compelled to associate almost exclusively with the opposition, who still continued to be his friends. In other words, from being a colonial representative he had become a mere party man or party politician in England, and his own acts had brought him to this condition. While in a position which was essentially diplomatic, he had chosen to write anonymous newspaper articles against the very men with whom he was compelled to carry on his diplomatic negotiations. They naturally watched their opportunity to destroy him; and his conduct with regard to the Hutchinson letters gave it to them.

He fully realized his situation, and made preparations to return to Philadelphia. He was, in fact, in danger of arrest; and the government had sent to America for the originals of some of his letters on which to base a prosecution for treason. But when it became known that the first Continental Congress was called to meet in September, he was persuaded to remain, as the Congress might have business for him to transact. He still believed that all difficulties would be finally settled. He did not think that there would be war; and this belief may have been caused partly by his conviction of the utter folly of such a war and partly because it was impossible for him to get full and accurate information of the real state of mind of the people in America. He had great faith in a change of ministry. If the Americans refused for another year to buy British goods, there would be such a clamor from the merchants and manufacturers that the Whigs would ride into power and colonial rights be safe.

He remained until the following spring, without being able to accomplish anything, but he caught at several straws. Lord Chatham, who, as William Pitt, had conquered Canada in the French and Indian wars and laid the foundations of the modern British empire, was thoroughly disgusted at the conduct of the administration towards America. An old man, living at his country-seat within a couple of hours’ drive from London, and suffering severely at times from the gout, he nevertheless aroused himself to reopen the subject in the House of Lords. He sent for Franklin, who has left us a most graphicaccount of the great man, so magnificent, eloquent, and gracious in his declining years.

Franklin went over the whole ground with him; but the aged nobleman who had been such a conqueror of nations was fond of having everything his own way, and Franklin confesses that he was so charmed in watching the wonderful powers of his mind that he cared but little about criticising his plans. His lordship raised the question in the House of Lords in a grand oration, parts of which are still spoken by our school-boys, and he followed it by other speeches. He was for withdrawing all the troops from the colonies and restoring peace; but his oratory had no more effect on Parliament than Franklin’s jokes.

At the same time Lord Howe, brother of the General Howe who was afterwards prominent in the war against the colonies, attempted a plan of pacification which was to be accomplished through Franklin’s aid. The Howes were favorably inclined towards America. Their brother, General Viscount Howe, had been very popular in the colonies, was killed at Ticonderoga in 1758 in the French and Indian war, and Massachusetts had erected a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

Lord Howe’s object was to secure some basis of compromise which both Franklin and the ministry could agree upon, an essential part of which was that his lordship was to be sent over to the colonies as a special commissioner to arrange final terms. The negotiations began by Franklin being asked to play chess with Lord Howe’s sister, and he was alsoapproached by a prominent Quaker, David Barclay, and by his old friend, Dr. Fothergill. There were numerous interviews, and Franklin prepared several papers containing conditions to which he thought the colonies would agree. Lord Howe promised him high rewards in case of success, and even offered, as an assurance of the good things to come, to pay him at once the arrears of his salary as agent of Massachusetts.

Whether this was a sincere attempt at accommodation on the part of some of the more moderate of the Tories, or a scheme of Lord Howe’s private ambition, or a mere trap for Franklin, has never been made clear. Franklin, however, rejected all the bribes and stood on the safe ground of terms which he knew would be acceptable in America; so this attempt also came to naught.

After reading the long account Franklin has given of these negotiations, and the innumerable letters and proposals that were exchanged, one may see many causes of the break with the colonies,—ignorance, blindness, the infatuation of the king or of North or of Townsend,—but the primary cause of all is the one given at the end by Franklin,—corruption. The whole British government of that time was penetrated through and through with a vast system of bribery. Statesmen and politicians cared for nothing and would do nothing that did not give them offices to distribute. That was one of the objects of Lord Howe’s scheme. Dr. Fothergill was intimate with all the governing class, and he said to Franklin, “Whatever specious pretences areoffered, they are hollow; to get a larger field on which to fatten a herd of worthless parasites is all that is regarded.” England lost her colonies by corruption, and she could not have built up her present vast colonial empire unless corruption had been abolished.

At the end of April Franklin set out on his return to Philadelphia, and there was some question whether he would not be arrested before he could start. He used some precautions in getting away as quietly as possible, and sailed from Portsmouth unmolested.

He still believed that there would be no war, and fully expected to return in October with instructions from the Continental Congress that would end the controversy. His ground for this belief seems to have been the old one that the hostility in England towards America was purely a ministerial or party question, and would be overthrown by the refusal of the colonists to buy British goods. But on his arrival in Philadelphia on the 5th of May he heard of the battle of Lexington, and never after that entertained much hope of a peaceful accommodation.

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