"Dr. Franklin had many political enemies, as every character must which, with decision enough to have opinions, has energy and talent to give them effect on the feelings of the adversary opinion. These enmities were chiefly in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. In the former they were merely of the proprietary party. In the latter they did not commence till the Revolution, and then sprung chiefly from personal animosities, which, spreading by little and little, became at length of some extent. Dr. Lee was his principal calumniator, a man of much malignity, who, besides enlisting his whole family in the same hostility, was enabled, as the agent of Massachusetts with the British government, to infuse it into that State with considerable effect. Mr. Izard, the doctor's enemy also, but from a pecuniary transaction, never countenanced these charges against him. Mr. Jay, Silas Deane, Mr. Laurens, his colleagues also, ever maintained towards him unlimited confidence and respect. That he would have waived the formal recognition of our independence, I never heard on any authority worthy notice. As to the fisheries, England was urgent to retain them exclusively, France neutral, and I believe that, had they ultimately been made a sine quâ non, our commissioners (Mr. Adams excepted) would have relinquished them rather than have broken off the treaty. To Mr. Adams's perseverance alone, on that point, I have always understood we were indebted for their reservation. As to the charge of subservience to France, besides the evidence of his friendly colleagues before named, two years of my own service with him at Paris, daily visits, and the most friendly and confidential conversation, convince me it had not a shadow of foundation. He possessed the confidence of that government in the highest degree, insomuch that it may truly be said that they were more under his influence than he under theirs. The fact is that his temper was so amiable and conciliatory, his conduct so rational, never urging impossibilities, or even things unreasonably inconvenient to them, in short so moderate and attentive to their difficulties, as well as our own, that what his enemies called subserviency I saw was only that reasonable disposition which, sensible that advantages are not all to be on one side, yielding what is just and liberal, is the more certain of obtaining liberality and justice. Mutual confidence produces of course mutual influence, and this was all which subsisted between Dr. Franklin and the government of France."[93]
When at last, in the summer of 1785, Franklin took his farewell of the much-loved land of France, the distinguished attentions which he received left no doubt of the admiration in which he was held. Indeed, many persons pressed him to remain in France, and three offered him homes in their own families, telling him that not even in America could he expect esteem and love so unalloyed as he enjoyed in France, and warning him also that he might not survive the voyage. But he said: "The desire of spending the little remainder of life with my family is so strong as to determine me to try at least whether I can bear the motion of the ship. If not, I must get them to set me ashore somewhere in the Channel and content myself to die in Europe." When the day of departure from Passy came "it seemed," said Jefferson, "as if the village had lost its patriarch." His infirmities rendered the motion of a carriage painful to him, and the king therefore placed at his disposal one of the queen's litters, which bore him by easy stages to the seacoast. He carried with him the customary complimentary portrait of the king; but it was far beyond the ordinary magnificence, for it was framed in a double circle of four hundred and eight diamonds, and was of unusual cost and beauty. On July 18 he arrived at Havre, and crossed the Channel to take ship at Portsmouth. The British government offset the discourtesy with which it was irritating Mr. Adams by ordering that the effects of Dr. Franklin's party should be exempt from the usual examination at the custom house. His old friend, the Bishop of St. Asaph, "America's constant friend," came to see him. So also did his Tory son, the ex-governor of New Jersey, with whom a sort of reconciliation had been patched up. He sailed with Captain, afterward Commodore, Truxton, who found him a most agreeable companion.
Of all things in the world a sea voyage most induces to utter idleness, and it is a striking proof of the mental industry of this aged man that during the seven weeks of this summer passage across the Atlantic he wrote three essays, which remain among his best. But he never in his life found a few weeks in which his mind was relieved from enforced reflection upon affairs of business that he did not take his pen in hand for voluntary tasks. During the last eighteen months of his life in Paris all the social distractions incident to his distinguished position had not prevented his writing some of the best papers which he has bequeathed to literature.
[CHAPTER XV]
AT HOME: PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA: THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION: DEATH
On September 12, 1785, the ship brought Franklin into Delaware Bay, and the next morning he rejoiced to find himself "in full view of dear Philadelphia." A multitude, filling the air with huzzas of salutation, greeted his landing and escorted him to his door. Private welcomes and public addresses poured in upon him. His health had been much improved by the sea air and rest, and he rejoiced, as his foot touched the streets of the town which after all his wanderings was his home, to feel himself by no means yet a worn-out man, though in fact he had seventy-nine years of a busy life behind him. His fellow citizens evidently thought that the reservoir which had been so bountiful could not yet be near exhaustion, and were resolved to continue their copious draughts upon it. They at once elected him to the State Council, of which he was made President; and, as he said, "I had not firmness enough to resist the unanimous desire of my country folks; and I find myself harnessed again in their service for another year. They engrossed the prime of my life. They have eaten my flesh, and seem resolved now to pick my bones." A visible and a natural pleasure lurks in the words; old age finds nothing sweeter than a tribute to the freshness of its powers; and especially Franklin saw in this honor a vindication against his maligners. From it he understood that, however some individuals might indulge in dislike and distrust, the overwhelming mass of his fellow citizens esteemed him as highly as he could wish. The distinction, however, cost posterity an unwelcome price, for it prevented further work on the autobiography, which otherwise would probably have been finished.[94]
He came into office as a peacemaker amid warring factions, and in the fulfillment of his functions gave such satisfaction that in 1786 he was unanimously reëlected; and the like high compliment was paid him again in the autumn of 1787. It was like Washington and the presidency: so long as he would consent to accept the office, no other candidate was thought of. He also took substantially the same course which had been taken by Washington as commander-in-chief concerning his pay; for he devoted his whole salary to public uses. He had the good fortune to be able to carry out his somewhat romantic, and for most persons impracticable, theory in this respect, because his private affairs were prospering. His investments in real estate in Philadelphia had risen greatly in value and in their income-producing capacity since the war, and he was now at least comfortably endowed with worldly goods.
He still continued to ply his pen, and the just but annoying complaints which came from Great Britain, that English creditors could not collect their ante-bellum debts from their American debtors, stimulated him to a bit of humor at which his own countrymen at least were sure to laugh, however little droll it might seem to Englishmen, who reasonably preferred good dollars to good jokes. "We may all remember the time," he wrote, "when our mother country, as a mark of her parental tenderness, emptied her gaols into our habitations, 'for the better peopling,' as she expressed it, 'of the colonies.' It is certain that no due returns have yet been made for these valuable consignments. We are therefore much in her debt on that account; and as she is of late clamorous for the payment of all we owe her, and some of our debts are of a kind not so easily discharged, I am for doing, however, what is in our power. It will show our good will as to the rest. The felons she planted among us have produced such an amazing increase that we are now enabled to make ample remittance in the same commodity," etc., etc.
Nevertheless these English assaults nettled him not a little; and further he dreaded their possible influence in the rest of Europe outside of England. The English newspapers teemed with accounts of the general demoralization and disintegration of the States; it was said that they had found their ruin in their independence, and the unwillingness of American merchants to pay their debts was in one paragraph attributed to their dishonesty, and in the next to the hopeless poverty which was described as having possession of the country. It was in good truth what Mr. John Fiske has called it, "The Critical Period of American History." But Franklin was at once too patriotic and too sanguine to admit that matters were so bad as they seemed. His insight into the situation proved correct, and the outcome very soon showed that the elements of prosperity which he saw were substantial, and not merely the phantoms of a hopeful lover of his country. During these years of humiliation and discouragement he was busy in writing to many friends in England and in France very manly and spirited letters, declaring the condition of things in the States to be by no means so ill as it was represented. Industry had revived, values were advancing, the country was growing, welfare and success were within the grasp of the people. These things he said repeatedly and emphatically, and in a short time the accuracy of his knowledge had to be admitted by all, whether friends or enemies. He would not even admit that the failure to arrange a treaty of commerce with England was the serious misfortune which most Americans conceived it to be. In his usual gallant fashion of facing down untoward circumstances he alleged again and again that the lack of such a treaty was worse for Great Britain than for the States. If British merchants could stand it, American merchants, he avowed, could stand it much better. He was for showing no more concern about it. "Let the merchants on both sides treat with one another. Laissez les faire," he said. The presence of such a temper in the States, in so prominent a man, was of infinite service in those troubled years of unsettled, novel, and difficult conditions.