Benjamin Franklin

by Jr. John T. Morse

Fair success, however, was soon met with at the court of France, so that the commissioners had the pleasure of assuring Congress that they could safely be depended upon to meet the interest on a loan of $5,000,000, which by this aid Congress probably would be able to contract for. But that body had no idea of being content with this! March 17, 1778, Franklin writes to Lee that they have been drawn upon for 180,000 livres, to pay old indebtedness of the army in Canada; also that other bills have been drawn. The number and gross amount of these were not stated in the advices; but the commissioners were ordered to "accept them when they should appear." "I cannot conceive," said Franklin, "what encouragement the Congress could have had from any of us to draw on us for anything but that interest. I suppose their difficulties have compelled them to it. I see we shall be distressed here by these proceedings," etc., etc. Congress was composed of men far too shrewd to await "encouragement" to draw for money!

July 22, 1778, he wrote to Lovell: "When we engaged to Congress to pay their bills for the interest of the sums they could borrow, we did not dream of their drawing on us for other occasions. We have already paid of Congress's drafts, to returned officers, 82,211 livres; and we know not how much more of that kind we have to pay, because the committee have never let us know the amount of those drafts, or their account of them never reached us, and they still continue coming in. And we are now surprised with drafts from Mr. B. for 100,000 more. If you reduce us to bankruptcy here by a non-payment of your drafts, consider the consequences. In my humble opinion no drafts should be made on us without first learning from us that we shall be able to answer them."

Congress could not fairly exact great accuracy from the drawees of its bills, when it never took pains to give notice of the facts of the drawing, of the number of bills drawn, of dates, or amounts; in a word, really gave no basis for account-keeping or identification. No more helter-skelter way of conducting business has ever been seen since modern business methods were invented. The system, if system it may be called, would have been aggravating and confusing enough under any condition of attendant circumstances; but it so happened that all attendant circumstances tended to increase rather than to mitigate the difficulties created by the carelessness of Congress. One naturally fancies that a nation deals in few and large transactions, that these drafts may have been for inconveniently large sums, but that at least they probably were not numerous. The precise contrary was the case. The drafts were countless, and often were for very petty amounts, much as if a prosperous merchant were drawing cheques to pay his ordinary expenses. Further, the uncertainty of the passage across the Atlantic led to these bills appearing at all sorts of irregular times; seconds often came to hand before firsts, and thirds before either; the bills were often very old when presented. Knaves took advantage of these facts fraudulently to alter seconds and thirds into firsts, so that extreme care had to be taken to prevent constant duplication and even triplication of payments. It would have taken much of the time of an experienced banker's clerk to keep the bill and draft department in correct shape. It is not improbable that Congress lost a good deal of money by undetected rascalities, but if so the fault lay with that body itself, not with Franklin.

Amid the harassments of these demands, Franklin was much vexed by the conduct of Arthur Lee and Izard in drawing money for their own expenses. In February, 1778, each insisted that he should be allowed a credit with the banker, M. Grand, to an amount of £2000, as each then expected to depart on a mission. Franklin reluctantly assented, and was then astonished and indignant to find that each at once drew out the full sum from the national account; yet neither went upon his journey. In January, 1779, Izard applied for more. Franklin's anger was stirred; Izard was a man of handsome private property, and was rendering no service in Paris; and his requirements seemed to Franklin eminently unpatriotic and exorbitant. He therefore refused the request, writing to Izard a letter which is worth quoting, both from the tone of its patriotic appeal and as a vivid sketch of the situation:—

"Your intimation that you expect more money from us obliges us to expose to you our circumstances. Upon the supposition that Congress had borrowed in America but $5,000,000, and relying on the remittances intended to be sent to us for answering other demands, we gave expectations that we should be able to pay here the interest of that sum as a means of supporting the credit of the currency. The Congress have borrowed near twice that sum, and are now actually drawing on us for the interest, the bills appearing here daily for acceptance. Their distress for money in America has been so great from the enormous expense of the war that they have also been induced to draw on us for very large sums to stop other pressing demands; and they have not been able to purchase remittances for us to the extent they proposed; and of what they have sent, much has been taken, or treacherously carried into England, only two small cargoes of tobacco having arrived, and they are long since mortgaged to the Farmers General, so that they produce us nothing, but leave us expenses to pay.

"The continental vessels of war which come to France have likewise required great sums of us to furnish and refit them and supply the men with necessaries. The prisoners, too, who escape from England claim a very expensive assistance from us, and are much dissatisfied with the scanty allowance we are able to afford them. The interest bills above mentioned, of the drawing of which we have received notice, amount to $2,500,000, and we have not a fifth part of the sum in our banker's hands to answer them; and large orders to us from Congress for supplies of clothing, arms, and ammunition remain uncomplied with for want of money.

"In this situation of our affairs, we hope you will not insist on our giving you a farther credit with our banker, with whom we are daily in danger of having no farther credit ourselves. It is not a year since you received from us the sum of 2000 guineas, which you thought necessary on account of your being to set out immediately for Florence. You have not incurred the expense of that journey. You are a gentleman of fortune. You did not come to France with any dependence on being maintained here with your family at the expense of the United States, in the time of their distress, and without rendering them the equivalent service they expected.

"On all these considerations we should rather hope that you would be willing to reimburse us the sum we have advanced to you, if it may be done with any possible convenience to your affairs. Such a supply would at least enable us to relieve more liberally our unfortunate countrymen, who have long been prisoners, stripped of everything, of whom we daily expect to have nearly three hundred upon our hands by the exchange."

At this same time Franklin wrote to Congress to explain how it had happened that so large a sum as £4000 had been allowed to these gentlemen; for he feared that this liberality might "subject the commissioners to censure." The explanation was so discreditable to Lee and Izard that it is charitable to think that there was some misunderstanding between the parties.[68] The matter naturally rankled, and in May Franklin wrote that there was much anger against him, that he was charged with "disobeying an order of Congress, and with cruelly attempting to distress gentlemen who were in the service of their country."