Benjamin Franklin

by Jr. John T. Morse

Hillsborough's theory was adopted by the board of trade, and Franklin therefore remained practically stripped of the important agency for Massachusetts. He anticipated that this course would soon put an end to all the colonial agencies; but he said that the injury would be quite as great to the English government as to the colonies, for the agents had often saved the cabinet from introducing, through misinformation, "mistaken measures," which it would afterward have found to be "very inconvenient." He expressed his own opinion that when the colonies "came to be considered in the light of distinct states, as I conceive they really are, possibly their agents may be treated with more respect and considered more as public ministers." But this was a day-dream; the current was setting in quite the opposite direction.

In point of fact, Massachusetts seems to have taken no detriment from this foolish and captious bit of chicanery. All the papers and arguments which she had occasion to have presented always found their way to their destination as well as they would have done if Franklin had been acknowledged as the quasi public minister, which he conceived to be his proper character.

Franklin perfectly appreciated that Hillsborough retained his position by precarious tenure. He shrewdly suspected that if the war with Spain, which then seemed imminent, were to break out, Hillsborough would at once be removed. For in that case it would be the policy of the government to conciliate the colonies, at any cost, for the time being. This crisis passed by, fortunately for the secretary and unfortunately for the provinces. Yet still the inefficient and ill-friended minister remained very infirm in his seat. An excuse only was needed to displace him, and by a singular and unexpected chance Franklin furnished that excuse. It was the humble and discredited colonial agent who unwittingly but not unwillingly gave the jar which toppled the great earl into retirement. His fall when it came gave general satisfaction. His unfitness for his position had become too obvious to be denied; he had given offense in quarters where he should have made friends; he had irritated the king and provoked the cabinet. Franklin, with his observant sagacity, quickly divined that George III. was "tired" of Hillsborough and "of his administration, which had weakened the affection and respect of the colonies for a royal government;" and accordingly he "used proper means from time to time that his majesty should have due information and convincing proofs" of this effect of his lordship's colonial policy.

It was, however, upon a comparatively trifling matter that Hillsborough finally lost his place. It has been already mentioned that many years before this time Franklin had urged the establishment of one or two frontier, or "barrier," provinces in the interior. He had never abandoned this scheme, and of late had been pushing it with some prospect of success; for among other encouraging features he astutely induced three privy councilors to become financially interested in the project. The original purpose of the petitioners had been to ask for only 2,500,000 acres of land; but Hillsborough bade them ask for "enough to make a province." This advice was grossly disingenuous; for Hillsborough himself afterward admitted that from the beginning he had intended to defeat the application, and had put the memorialists "upon asking so much with that very view, supposing it too much to be granted." But they, not suspecting, fell into the trap and increased their demand to 23,000,000 acres, certainly a sufficient quantity to call for serious consideration. When the petition came before the board of trade, Lord Hillsborough, who was president of the board, took upon himself the task of rendering a report. To the surprise of the petitioners, who had reason to suppose him well inclined, he replied adversely. The region was so far away, he said, that it would not "lie within the reach of the trade and commerce of this kingdom;" so far, also, as not to admit of "the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction ... necessary for the preservation of the colonies in due subordination to and dependence upon the mother country." The territory appeared, "upon the fullest evidence," to be "utterly inaccessible to shipping," and therefore the inhabitants would "probably be led to manufacture for themselves, ... a consequence ... to be carefully guarded against." Also part belonged to the Indians, who ought not to be disturbed, and settlements therein would of course lead to Indian wars and to "fighting for every inch of the ground." Further, the occupation of this tract "must draw and carry out a great number of people from Great Britain," who would soon become "a kind of separate and independent people, ... and set up for themselves," meeting their own wants and taking no "supplies from the mother country nor from the provinces" along the seaboard. At so great a distance from "the seat of government, courts, magistrates, etc.," the territory would "become a receptacle and kind of asylum for offenders," full of crime itself, and encouraging crime elsewhere. This disorderly population would soon "become formidable enough to oppose his majesty's authority, disturb government, and even give law to the other or first-settled part of the country, and thus throw everything into confusion." Such arguments were as feeble as they were bodeful. The only point which his lordship really scored was in reply to Franklin's theory of the protection against the Indians which these colonies would afford to those on the seaboard. Hillsborough well said that the new settlements themselves would stand most in need of protection. It was only advancing, not eliminating, a hostile frontier.

Evidently it required no very able reasoning, coming from the president of the board, to persuade his subordinates; and this foolish report was readily adopted. But Franklin was not so easily beaten; the privy council furnished one more stage at which he could still make a fight. He drew up a reply to Lord Hillsborough's paper and submitted it to that body. It was a long and very carefully prepared document; it dealt in facts historical and statistical, in which the report was utterly deficient; it furnished evidence and illustration; in arguing upon probabilities it went far toward demolishing the theories advanced by the president of the board. The two briefs were laid before a tribunal in which three men sat who certainly ought not to have been sitting in this cause, since Franklin's interest was also their own; but probably this did not more than counterbalance the prestige of official position in the opposite scale. Certainly Franklin had followed his invariable custom of furnishing his friends with ample material to justify them in befriending him. In this respect he always gallantly stood by his own side. The allies whom at any time he sought he always abundantly supplied with plain facts and sound arguments, in which weapons he always placed his chief trust. So at present, whatever was the motive which induced privy councilors to open their ears to what Franklin had to say, after they had heard him they could not easily decide against him. Nor had those of them who were personally disinterested any great inducement to do so, since, though some of them may have disliked him, none of them had any great liking for his noble opponent. So they set aside the report of the board of trade.[28]

Upon this Lord Hillsborough fell into a hot rage, and sent in his resignation. It was generally understood that he had no notion that it would be accepted, or that he would be allowed to leave upon such a grievance. He fancied that he was establishing a dilemma which would impale Franklin. But he was in error; he himself was impaled. No one expostulated with him; he was left to exercise "the Christian virtue of resignation" without hindrance. Franklin said that the anticipation of precisely this result, so far from being an obstacle in the way of his own success, had been an additional incitement to the course taken by the council.

So the earl, the enemy of America, went out; and the colonial agent had shown him the door, with all England looking on. It was a mortification which Hillsborough could never forgive, and upon four occasions, when Franklin made the conventional call to pay his respects, he did not find his lordship at home. At his fifth call he received from a lackey a very plain intimation that there was no chance that he ever would find the ex-secretary at home, and thereafter he desisted from the forms of civility. "I have never since," he said, "been nigh him, and we have only abused one another at a distance." Franklin had fully balanced one account at least.

So far as the special matter in hand was concerned, the worsting of Hillsborough, though a gratification, did not result in the bettering of Franklin and his co-petitioners. April 6, 1773, he wrote: "The affair of the grant goes on but slowly. I do not yet clearly see land. I begin to be a little of the sailor's mind, when they were landing a cable out of a store into a ship, and one of 'em said: ''T is a long heavy cable, I wish we could see the end of it.' 'Damn me,' says another, 'if I believe it has any end; somebody has cut it off.'" A cable twisted of British red tape was indeed a coil without an end. In this case, before the patent was granted, Franklin had become so unpopular, and the Revolution so imminent, that the matter was dropped by a sort o£ universal consent.