Soon after it was ascertained that he was an active agent for the British ministry. He was then confined in Litchfield jail, and deprived of pen, ink and paper. For two years he suffered this well-merited imprisonment. Mrs. governor Franklin never saw her husband again. Grief-stricken, she fell sick, and died in New York in July, 1778.
After an imprisonment of two years and four months, William Franklin was exchanged, and he took refuge within the British lines at New York. He received a pension from the British government, lived hilariously, and devoted his energies to a vigorous prosecution of the war against his countrymen. Franklin felt deeply this defection of his son. After the lapse of nine years he wrote,
“Nothing has ever affected me with such keen sensations, as to find myself deserted in my old age by my only son; and not only deserted but to find him taking up arms in a cause wherein my good fame, fortune and life were at stake.”[26]
CHAPTER XIII.
Progress of the War, both of Diplomacy and the
Sword.
Letter of Henry Laurens—Franklin visits the army before Boston—Letter of Mrs. Adams—Burning of Falmouth—Franklin’s journey to Montreal—The Declaration of Independence—Anecdote of the Hatter—Framing the Constitution—Lord Howe’s Declaration—Franklin’s reply—The Conference—Encouraging letter from France—Franklin’s embassy to France—The two parties in France—The voyage—The reception in France.
The spirit which, almost to that hour, had animated the people of America,—the most illustrious statesmen and common people, was attachment to Old England. Their intense desire to maintain friendly relations with the mother country, their “home,” their revered and beloved home, may be inferred from the following extract from a letter, which one of the noblest of South Carolinians, Hon. Henry Laurens, wrote to his son John. It bears the date of 1776. He writes, alluding to the separation from England, then beginning to be contemplated: