Benjamin Franklin

by Jr. John T. Morse

Franklin rejoiced in this departure of Hillsborough as a good riddance of a man whom he thought to be as "double and deceitful" as any one he had ever met. It is possible that, as he had been instrumental in creating the vacancy, he may also have assisted in some small degree in disposing of the succession. One day he was complaining of Hillsborough to a "friend at court," when the friend replied that Hillsborough was wont to represent the Americans "as an unquiet people, not easily satisfied with any ministry; that, however, it was thought too much occasion had been given them to dislike the present;" and the question was asked whether, in case of Hillsborough's removal, Franklin "could name another likely to be more acceptable" to his countrymen. He at once suggested Lord Dartmouth. This was the appointment which was now made, in August, 1772, and the news of which gave much satisfaction to all the "friends of America." For Dartmouth was of kindly disposition, and when previously president of the board of trade had shown a liberal temper in provincial affairs.

The relationship between Franklin and Lord Dartmouth opened auspiciously. Franklin waited upon him at his first levee, at the close of October, 1772, and was received "very obligingly." Further Franklin was at once recognized as agent for Massachusetts, with no renewal of the caviling as to the manner of his appointment, from which he hopefully augured that "business was getting into a better train." A month later he reported himself as being still "upon very good terms" with the new minister, who, he had "reason to think, meant well by the colonies." So Dartmouth did, undoubtedly, and if the best of intentions and of feelings could have availed much at this stage of affairs, Franklin and his lordship might have postponed the Revolution until the next generation. But it was too late to counteract the divergent movements of the two nations, and no better proof could be desired of the degree to which this divergence had arrived than the fact itself that the moderate Franklin and the well-disposed Dartmouth could not come into accord. Each people had declared its political faith, its fundamental theory; and the faith and theory of the one were fully and fairly adverse to those of the other; and the instant that the talk went deep enough, this irreconcilable difference was sure to be exposed.

During the winter of 1772-73, following Lord Dartmouth's appointment, a lively dispute arose in Massachusetts between the Assembly and Governor Hutchinson. It was the old question, whether the English Parliament had control in matters of colonial taxation. The governor made speeches and said Yea, while the Assembly passed resolutions and said Nay. The early ships, arriving in England in the spring of 1773, brought news of this dispute, which seemed to have been indeed a hot one. The English ministry were not pleased; they wanted to keep their relationship with the colonies tranquil for a while, because there was a renewal of the danger of a war with Spain. Therefore they were vexed at the over-zeal of Hutchinson; and Lord Dartmouth frankly said so. Franklin called one day upon the secretary and found him much perplexed at the "difficulties" into which the governor had brought the ministers by his "imprudence." Parliament, his lordship said, could not "suffer such a declaration of the colonial Assembly, asserting its independence, to pass unnoticed." Franklin thought otherwise: "It is words only," he said; "acts of Parliament are still submitted to there;" and so long as such was the case "Parliament would do well to turn a deaf ear....Force could do no good." Force, it was replied, might not be thought of, but rather an act to lay the colonies "under some inconveniences, till they rescind that declaration." Could they by no possibility be persuaded to withdraw it? Franklin was clearly of opinion that the resolve could only be withdrawn after the withdrawal of the speech which it answered, "an awkward operation, which perhaps the governor would hardly be directed to perform." As for an act establishing "inconveniences," probably it would only put the colonies, "as heretofore, on some method of incommoding this country till the act is repealed; and so we shall go on injuring and provoking each other instead of cultivating that good will and harmony so necessary to the general welfare." Divisions, his lordship admitted, "must weaken the whole; for we are yet one empire, whatever may be the opinions of the Massachusetts Assembly." But how to escape divisions was the conundrum. Could his lordship withhold from Parliament the irritating documents, though in fact they were already notorious, and "hazard the being called to account in some future session of Parliament for keeping back the communication of dispatches of such importance?" He appealed to Franklin for advice; but Franklin would undertake to give none, save that, in his opinion, if the dispatches should be laid before Parliament, it would be prudent to order them to lie on the table. For, he said, "were I as much an Englishman as I am an American, and ever so desirous of establishing the authority of Parliament, I protest to your lordship I cannot conceive of a single step the Parliament can take to increase it that will not tend to diminish it, and after abundance of mischief they must finally lose it." So whenever the crucial test was applied these two men found themselves utterly at variance, and the hopelessness of a peaceful conclusion would have been obvious, had not each shunned a prospect so painful.

It must be confessed that, if Lord Dartmouth was so pathetically desirous to undo an irrevocable past, Dr. Franklin was no less anxious for the performance of a like miracle. Both the statesman and the philosopher would have appreciated better the uselessness of their efforts, had their feelings been less deeply engaged. Franklin's vain wish at this time was to move the peoples of England and America back to the days before the passage of the Stamp Act. "I have constantly given it as my opinion," he wrote, early in 1771, "that, if the colonies were restored to the state they were in before the Stamp Act, they would be satisfied and contend no farther." Two and a half years later, following the fable of the sibylline books, he expressed the more extreme opinion that "the letter of the two houses of the 29th of June, proposing as a satisfactory measure the restoring things to the state in which they were at the conclusion of the late war, is a fair and generous offer on our part, ... and more than Britain has a right to expect from us.... If she has any wisdom left, she will embrace it, and agree with us immediately."

But the insuperable trouble was that, at the close of the last war and before the passage of the Stamp Act, the controversy upon the question of right had been unborn. Now, having come into being, this controversy could not be laid at rest by a mere waiver; it was of that nature that its resurrection would be sure and speedy. Anything else would have been, of course, the practical victory of the colonies and defeat of England; and the English could not admit that things had reached this pass as yet. If England should not renounce her right, the colonies would always remain uneasy beneath the unretracted assertion of it; if she should never again seek to exercise it, she would be really yielding. It was idle to talk of such a state of affairs; it could not be brought about, even if it were conceivable that each side could be induced to repeal all its acts and resolves touching the subject,—and even this preliminary step was what no reasonable man could anticipate. In a word, when Franklin longed for the restoration of the status quo ante the Stamp Act, he longed for a chimera. A question had been raised, which was of that kind that it could not be compromised, or set aside, or ignored, or forgotten; it must be settled by the recession or by the defeat of one contestant or the other. Nothing better than a brief period of restless and suspicious truce could be gained by an effort to restore the situation of a previous date, even were such restoration possible, since the intervening period and the memory of its undetermined dispute concerning a principle could not be annihilated.

Still Franklin persistently refused to despair, so long as peace was still unbroken. Until blood had been shed, war might be avoided. This was no lack of foresight; occasionally an expression escaped him which showed that he fully understood the drift of affairs and saw the final outcome of the opposing doctrines. In 1769 he said that matters were daily tending more and more "to a breach and final separation." In 1771 he thought that any one might "clearly see in the system of customs to be exacted in America by act of Parliament, the seeds sown of a total disunion of the countries, though as yet that event may be at a considerable distance." By 1774 he said, in an article written for an English newspaper, that certain "angry writers" on the English side were using "their utmost efforts to persuade us that this war with the colonies (for a war it will be) is a national cause, when in fact it is a ministerial one." But he very rarely spoke thus. It was at once his official duty as well as his strong personal wish to find some other exit from the public embarrassments than by this direful conclusion. Therefore, so long as war did not exist he refused to admit that it was inevitable, and he spared no effort to prevent it, leaving to fervid orators to declare the contrary and to welcome it; nor would he ever allow himself to be discouraged by any measure of apparent hopelessness.

His great dread was that the colonies might go so fast and so far as to make matters incurable before thinking people were ready to recognize such a crisis as unavoidable. He seldom wrote home without some words counseling moderation. He wanted to see "much patience and the utmost discretion in our general conduct." It must not, however, be supposed that such language was used to cover any lukewarmness, or irresolution, or tendency towards halfway or temporizing measures. On the contrary, he was wholly and consistently the opposite of all this. His moderation was not at all akin to the moderation of Dickinson and such men, who were always wanting to add another to the long procession of petitions and protests. He only desired that the leading should be done by the wise men, so as not to have a Braddock's defeat in so grave and perilous an undertaking. He feared that a mob might make an irrevocable blunder, and the mischievous rabble create a condition of affairs which the real statesmen of the provinces could neither mend nor excuse. Certainly his anxiety was not without cause. He warned his country people that there was nothing which their enemies in England more wished than that, by insurrections, they would give a good pretense for establishing a large military force in the colonies. As between friends, he said, every affront is not worth a duel, so "between the governed and governing every mistake in government, every encroachment on right, is not worth a rebellion." So he thought that an "immediate rupture" was not in accordance with "general prudence," for by "a premature struggle," the colonies might "be crippled and kept down another age." No one, however, was more resolute than he that the mistakes and encroachments which had occurred should not be repeated. An assurance against such repetition, he tried to think, might be effected within a reasonably short time by two peaceful influences. One of these was a cessation of all colonial purchases of English commodities; the other was the rapid increase of the visible strength and resources of the colonies. He was urgent and frequent in reiterating his opinion of the great efficacy of the non-purchasing agreements. It is a little odd to find him actually declaring that, if the people would honestly persist in these engagements, he "should almost wish" the obnoxious act "never to be repealed;" for, besides industry and frugality, such a condition of things would promote a variety of domestic manufactures. In a word, this British oppression would bring about all those advantages for the infant nation, which, through the medium of the protective tariff, have since been purchased by Americans at a vast expense. Moreover, the money which used to be sent to England in payment for superfluous luxuries would be kept at home, to be there laid out in domestic improvements. Gold and silver, the scarcity of which caused great inconvenience in the colonies, would remain in the country. All these advantages would accrue from a course which at the same time must give rise in England itself to a pressure so extreme that Parliament could not long resist it. "The trading part of the nation, with the manufacturers, are become sensible how necessary it is for their welfare to be on good terms with us. The petitioners of Middlesex and of London have numbered among their grievances the unconstitutional taxes on America; and similar petitions are expected from all quarters. So that I think we need only be quiet, and persevere in our schemes of frugality and industry, and the rest will do itself." But it was obvious that, if the measures were not now persisted in until they should have had their full effect, a like policy could never again be resorted to; and Franklin gave it as his belief that, "if we do persist another year, we shall never afterwards have occasion to use" the remedy.

To him it seemed incredible that the people of America should not loyally persist in a policy of non-importation of English goods. Not only was the doing without these a benefit to domestic industries, but buying them was a direct aid and maintenance to the oppressor. He said: "If our people will, by consuming such commodities, purchase and pay for their fetters, who that sees them so shackled will think they deserve either redress or pity? Methinks that in drinking tea, a true American, reflecting that by every cup he contributed to the salaries, pensions, and rewards of the enemies and persecutors of his country, would be half choked at the thought, and find no quantity of sugar sufficient to make the nauseous draught go down."[29]

In this connection he was much "diverted" and gratified by the results of the Stamp Act, and especially of the act laying the duty on tea. The gross proceeds of the former statute, gathered in the West Indies and Canada, since substantially nothing was got in the other provinces, was £1500; while the expenditure had amounted to £12,000! The working of the Customs Act had been far worse. According to his statement, the unfortunate East India Company, in January, 1773, had at least £2,000,000, some said £4,000,000, worth of goods which had accumulated in their warehouses since the enactment, of which the chief part would, in the natural condition of business, have been absorbed by the colonies. The consequence was that the company's shares had fallen enormously in price, that it was hard pressed to make its payments, that its credit was so seriously impaired that the Bank of England would not help it, and that its dividends had been reduced below the point at and above which it was obliged to pay, and heretofore regularly had paid, £400,000 annually to the government. Many investors were painfully straitened, and not a few bankruptcies ensued. Besides the loss of this annual stipend the treasury was further the sufferer by the great expense which had been incurred in endeavoring to guard the American coast against smugglers; with the added vexation that these costly attempts had, after all, been fruitless. Fifteen hundred miles of shore line, occupied by people unanimously hostile to the king's revenue officers, presented a task much beyond the capabilities of the vessels which England could send thither. So the Dutch, the Danes, the Swedes, and the French soon established a thriving contraband trade; the American housewives were hardly interrupted in dispensing the favorite beverage; the English merchant's heavy loss became the foreign smuggler's aggravating gain; and the costly sacrifice of the East India Company fell short of effecting the punishment of the wicked Americans. Franklin could not "help smiling at these blunders." Englishmen would soon resent them, he said, would turn out the ministry that was responsible for them, and put in a very different set of men, who would undo the mischief. "If we continue firm and united, and resolutely persist in the non-consumption agreement, this adverse ministry cannot possibly stand another year. And surely the great body of our people, the farmers and artificers, will not find it hard to keep an agreement by which they both save and gain." Thus he continued to write so late as February, 1775, believing to the last in the efficacy of this policy.