Beacon Lights of History, Volume 11: American Founders

by John Lord

From that time, as Franklin suffered from a severe illness, Jay was the life of the negotiations, and the credit is generally given to him for the treaty which followed, and which was hurried through hastily for fear that a change in the British ministry would hazard its success. It came near alienating France, however, since it had been distinctly understood that peace should not be made without the consent of all the contracting powers, and this treaty was made with England alone. Franklin, in the transaction, was the more honest, and Jay the more astute.

Strictly speaking, all these three commissioners rendered important services in their various ways. Franklin's urbanity and frankness, and the high esteem in which he was held both in France and in England, made easy the opening of the negotiations, and he gained a special point in avoiding any agreement of indemnity to American royalists who had suffered in person or property during the war, while he maintained pleasant relations with France when Vergennes was pursuing his selfish policy to prevent the United States from becoming too strong, and when he became indignant that the treaty had been concluded with England irrespective of France. Jay, with keen sagacity, fathomed the schemes of the French minister, and persistently refused to sign a treaty of peace unless it was satisfactory and promised to be permanent and mutually advantageous. Adams was especially acquainted with the fisheries question and its great importance to New England; and he insisted on the right of Americans to fish on the banks of Newfoundland. All three persisted in the free navigation of the Mississippi, which it was the object of Spain to prevent. Great Britain, Spain, and France would have enclosed the United States by territories of their own, and would have made odious commercial restrictions. By the firmness and sagacity of these three diplomatists the United States finally secured all they wanted and more than they expected. The preliminary articles were signed November 30, 1782, and the final treaties of peace between England, France, and the United States on September 3, 1783.

These negotiations at last having been happily concluded, Franklin wished to return home, but he remained, at the request of Congress, to arrange commercial treaties with the various European nations. Reluctantly at last his request to be relieved was granted, and he left France in July, 1785. Thomas Jefferson was appointed to the position. "You replace Dr. Franklin," said the Count de Vergennes to the new plenipotentiary. "I succeed him," replied Jefferson; "no one can replace him."

Franklin would have been the happiest man in Europe at the conclusion of peace negotiations, but for his increasing bodily infirmities, especially the gout, from which at times he suffered excruciating agonies. He was a universal favorite, admired and honored as one of the most illustrious men living. His house in Paris was the scene of perpetual hospitalities. Among his visitors were the younger Pitt, Wilberforce, Romilly, and a host of other celebrities, French and English, especially eminent scientific men. He was then seventy-eight years of age, but retained all the vivacity of youth. His conversation is said to have been as enchanting as it was instructive. His wit and humor never ceased to flow. His pregnant sentences were received as oracles. He was a member of the French Academy and attended most of its meetings. He was a regular correspondent of the most learned societies of Europe.

When the time came for him to return home he was too ill to take leave of the king, or even of the minister of foreign affairs. But Louis XVI, ordered one of the royal litters to convey the venerable sufferer to the coast, as he could not bear the motion of a carriage. In his litter, swung between two mules, Franklin slowly made his way to Havre, and thence proceeded to Southampton to embark for America. The long voyage agreed with him, and he arrived in Philadelphia in September, in improved health, after an absence of nine years. No one would have thought him old except in his walk, his feet being tender and swollen with the gout. His voice was still firm, his cheeks were ruddy, his eyes bright, and his spirits high.

Settled in his fine house in Market Street, surrounded by his grandchildren, and idolatrous neighbors and friends, he was a rare exception to the rule that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country. He had fortune, friends, fame, and a numerous family who never disgraced his name. Of all the great actors in the stormy times in which he lived, he was one of the most fortunate. He had both genius and character which the civilized world appreciated, and so prudent had been his early business life and his later investments, that he left a fortune of about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars,--a great sum to accumulate in his times.

The last important service rendered by Franklin to his country was as a member of the memorable convention which gave the Constitution to the American nation in 1787. Of this assembly, in which sat Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Dickinson, Livingstone, Ellsworth, Sherman, and other great men, Franklin was the Nestor, in wisdom as well as years. He was too feeble to take a conspicuous part in the discussions, but his opinions and counsel had great weight whenever he spoke, for his judgment was never clearer than when he had passed fourscore years. The battle of words had to be fought by younger and more vigorous men, of whom, perhaps, Madison was the most prominent. At no time of his life, however, was Franklin a great speaker, except in conversation, but his mind was vigorous to the end.

This fortunate man lived to see the complete triumph of the cause to which he had devoted his public life. He lived also to see the beginning of the French Revolution, to which his writings had contributed. He lived to see the amazing prosperity of his country when compared with its condition under royal governors. One of his last labors was to write an elaborate address in favor of negro emancipation, and as president of an abolition society to send a petition to Congress to suppress the slave-trade. A few weeks before his death he replied to a letter of President Stiles of Yale College setting forth his theological belief. Had he been more orthodox, he would have been more extolled by those men who controlled the religious opinions of his age.

Franklin died placidly on the 17th of April, 1790, in the eighty-fifth year of his age, and his body was followed to the grave by most of the prominent citizens of Philadelphia in the presence of twenty thousand spectators. James Madison pronounced his eulogy in Congress, and Mirabeau in the French National Assembly, while the most eminent literary men in both Europe and America published elaborate essays on his deeds and fame, recognizing the extent of his knowledge, the breadth of his wisdom, his benevolence, his patriotism, and his moral worth. He modestly claimed to be only a printer, but who, among the great lights of his age, with the exception of Washington, has left a nobler record?

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