Dr. Franklin, in particular, was a great favorite with the French people. He wore short breeches, with knee-buckles, and silk stockings, and had the portly air, and bearing of a philosopher. Having learned to fly kites when a boy, he had turned the thing to some account when he had gotten to be a man, and was also well known as the author of “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” a book full of axiomatic wisdom, and wise saws. He had a much better field before him, therefore, than Mr. John Slidell had. “Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis;” and Slidell found that the “philosophers” who had petted Franklin, and the fair women who had played with the tassels of his three-cornered hat, showered bouquets upon him, and talked prettily of the new doctrines of liberty that were just then coming in vogue, had all passed away. Neither philosophy, liberty, or knee-buckles were at all fashionable at the French Court when Slidell arrived there. In short, the people of France had found out that this thing of getting up a revolution for popular rights, however well it might suit other people, did not suit Frenchmen, and they were tired of the matter. They had, since Franklin’s day, cut off the head of Louis XVI., played at republics a while, pretty much as children play at card-houses, now setting them up, and now knocking them down again, and having gotten tired of the game, like good children had gone back quietly to their old form of despotism, under Napoleon III., and were content! The sympathy which they had bestowed upon Franklin, and which was productive of so many good results, in our first revolution, had dried up in the second and greater revolution.
Having thus briefly introduced the Commissioners of the Colonies to the reader, let us again look into Cooper, to see what their business was in France, and how they performed it. “In order,” says this writer, “to complete the account of the proceedings of the American Commissioners in Paris, so far as they were connected with naval movements during the years 1776 and 1777, it is necessary to come next to the affair of Captain Conyngham, which, owing to some marked circumstances, made more noise than the cruises of the Reprisal and Lexington, though the first exploits of the latter were anterior as to time, and not of less consequence in their effects. While the Commissioners were directing the movements of Captain Wickes [we will come to these presently] in the manner that has been mentioned, they were not idle in other quarters. A small frigate was building at Nantes, on their account, and there will be occasion to speak of her hereafter, under the name of the Queen of France.
“Some time in the spring of 1777, an agent was sent to Dover by the American Commissioners, where he purchased a fine, fast-sailing, English-built cutter, and had her carried across to Dunkirk. Here she was privately equipped as a cruiser, and named the Surprise. To the command of this vessel, Captain Gustavus Conyngham was appointed, by filling up a blank commission from John Hancock, the President of Congress. This commission bore date, March 1st, 1777, and, it would seem, as fully entitled Mr. Conyngham to the rank of captain in the Navy, as any other that was ever issued by the same authority. Having obtained his officers and crew at Dunkirk, Captain Conyngham sailed on a cruise about the 1st of May, and on the 4th he took a brig called the Joseph,” &c.
Now, it is to be remarked, with reference to this passage, that the Alabama, though built in England, was not armed or equipped there, nor was her crew enlisted there; whilst the Surprise was not only “privately equipped as a cruiser,” at Dunkirk, a port of France, then at peace with England—for France had not yet joined the Colonies in the war—but she got all her officers and crew there, many of whom were Frenchmen. And when she got up her anchor for a cruise, still lying in the waters of France, she was a perfectly armed and equipped ship of war. She could have engaged an enemy, immediately upon passing beyond the marine league, whereas the Alabama, when she left the Mersey, was entirely unarmed, and without an enlisted crew, and could have been taken possession of by an enemy’s cruiser as easily as any other merchant-ship. Mr. Seward insisted, with much vehemence, with the English Government, that the Alabama was not entitled to be regarded as a ship of war, but rather a “British pirate,” because she had never been in a Confederate port. His latest form of protest is found in a letter to Lord Stanley, the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, of the date of January 12th, 1867, as follows:—
“Lord Stanley excuses the reception of the vessels complained of in British ports, subsequently to their fraudulent escapes and armament, on the ground that when the vessels appeared in these ports, they did so in the character of properly commissioned cruisers of the Government of the so-styled Confederate States, and that they received no more shelter, provisions, or facilities, than was due to them in that character. This position is taken by his lordship in full view of the facts that—with the exception of the Sumter and the Florida—none of the vessels named were ever found in any place where a lawful belligerent commission could either be conferred or received. It would appear, therefore, that, in the opinion of her Majesty’s Government, a British vessel, in order to acquire a belligerent character against the United States, had only to leave the British port where she was built, clandestinely, and to be fraudulently armed, equipped, and manned anywhere in Great Britain, or in any foreign country, or on the high seas; and in some foreign country, or upon the high seas, to set up and assume the title and privileges of a belligerent, without even entering the so-called Confederacy, or ever coming within any port of the United States. I must confess that, if a lawful belligerent character can be acquired in such a manner, then I am unable to determine by what different course of proceeding a vessel can become a pirate and an enemy to the peace of nations.”
Had Mr. Seward forgotten, when he wrote the above, the case of Dr. Franklin’s ship, the Surprise? It will be recollected, too, that Mr. Adams, the United States Minister at the Court of London, frequently protested, in his correspondence with the English Foreign Office, against the Confederates being permitted to have “stationed agents,” at Liverpool, and elsewhere in the British dominions, conducting a “Naval Bureau.” Had he forgotten the “Naval Bureau” which was conducted in France, by Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane, who were “stationed agents” of the Colonies? How they built, and purchased, and equipped, and commissioned ships, all in neutral territory; even filling up blank commissions sent out to them by the Congress for the purpose?
But to continue with our precedents. The career of the Surprise was not a very long one. Having carried some prizes into a French port, in violation of a treaty then existing between France and Great Britain, providing that neither should permit the enemies of the other to bring their prizes into her ports, she was seized by the French authorities, and we hear no more of her. But we do hear more, and that immediately, from the Naval Bureau in Paris, under the guidance of Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane. As soon as the seizure of the Surprise became known to the Commissioners, they dispatched one of their agents, a Mr. Hodge, to Dunkirk, where he purchased another cutter, which was fitted with all dispatch, as a cruiser, as the Surprise had been. This second vessel was called the Revenge, and “Captain Conyngham and his people,” to use the words of the historian, were transferred to her. A new commission was given to Conyngham, dated on the 2d of May, 1777, filled up, as before, by the Commissioners, and he soon afterward proceeded to sea under it.
It will be seen with what indulgence, and even connivance the Commissioners were treated by the French authorities. The seizure of the Surprise was a mere blind, intended to satisfy England. The ship herself was suffered to pass out of view, but another ship was permitted to be equipped in her stead, and the officers and crew of the old ship were transferred to the new one, with little or no disguise, and the latter was suffered to depart on a cruise without molestation. Here was another ship, which had never been in any port of the Colonies, and which, according to Mr. Seward’s vocabulary, was a “pirate.” Let us see what she did. “The Revenge,” continues the historian, “proved exceedingly successful, making prizes daily, and generally destroying them. Some of the more valuable, however, were ordered into Spain, where many arrived; their arrival proving of great moment to the agents of the American Government in Europe. It is even affirmed, that the money advanced to Mr. Adams [the Mr. Adams, here spoken of, was John Adams, afterward second President of the United States, the grandfather of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Federal Minister to England during the war; and the antagonism in which the grandfather, and grandson are placed, in reference to the principles I am discussing, is one of the curious revolutions of history] for travelling expenses, when he arrived in Spain, a year or two later, was derived from this source.”
The Revenge now disappears from view, as the Surprise had done before her, and the historian takes up the Reprisal, the ship, as we have seen, which carried Dr. Franklin over to France. “The Reprisal, having refitted, soon sailed toward the Bay of Biscay, on another cruise. Here she captured several more vessels, and among the rest a King’s packet, that plied between Falmouth and Lisbon. When the cruise was up, Captain Wickes went into Nantes, taking his prizes with him. The complaints of the English now became louder, and the American Ministers were secretly admonished of the necessity of using greater reserve. The prizes were directed to quit France, though the Reprisal, being leaky, was suffered to remain in port, in order to refit. The former were taken into the offing, and sold, the state of the times rendering these informal proceedings necessary. Enormous losses to the captors were the consequences, while it is not improbable, that the gains of the purchasers had their influence in blinding the local authorities to the character of the transaction.”
Here we see not only a violation of neutrality, but a little bribery going on, these “rebel pirates” having an eye to the “flattering results,” spoken of by Mr. Cooper, some pages back. The historian proceeds. “The business appears to have been managed with dexterity, and the proceeds of the sales, such as they were, proved of great service to the agents of the Government, by enabling them to purchase other vessels.” We see how capitally those “stational agents,” Franklin and Deane, were conducting that “Naval Bureau,” against the like of which, in our case, Mr. Adams had so warmly protested. I again quote: “In April, the Lexington arrived in France, and the old difficulties were renewed. But the Commissioners at Paris, who had been authorized to equip vessels, appoint officers, and do other matters to annoy the enemy, now planned a cruise that surpassed anything of the sort that had yet been attempted in Europe, under the American flag. Captain Wickes was directed to proceed to sea, with his own vessel and the Lexington, and to go directly off Ireland, in order to intercept a convoy of linen ships, that was expected to sail about that time. A cutter of ten guns called the Dolphin, that had been detained by the Commissioners, to carry despatches to America, was diverted from her original destination, and placed under the orders of Captain Wickes. The Dolphin was commanded by Lieutenant Nicholson, a brother of the senior captain, and a gentleman who subsequently died at the head of the service. Captain Wickes, in command of this light squadron, sailed from Nantes, about the commencement of June, going first into the Bay of Biscay, and afterward entirely around Ireland, sweeping the sea before him, of everything that was not of a force to render an attack hopeless. The linen ships were missed, but many vessels were taken or destroyed.