Mr. Strahan:
You are a member of Parliament, and one of that majority which has doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns and murder our people. Look upon your hands! They are stained with the blood of your relations. You and I were long friends. You are now my enemy, and I am
Yours, B. Franklin.
He did not send this cruel note, but instead wrote Strahan a warm and cordial letter which Strahan answered in kind. Perhaps he had written the first one to see how it sounded and when he read it over did not like it. Throughout the conflict he found ways of carrying on a correspondence with those he cherished in England.
On November 29, 1775, the Congressional Committee of Secret Correspondence was formed with five members—Benjamin Franklin and John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Harrison of Virginia, Thomas Johnson of Maryland, and John Jay of New York. Its assignment was to establish closer relations with foreign nations, and where possible to make allies of those nations. With these duties, the Committee of Secret Correspondence became the predecessor of the United States Department of State.
As a member of the new committee, Franklin wrote his friend Charles Dumas, a Swiss journalist with many political connections: “We wish to know whether, if, as seems likely to happen, we should be obliged to break off all connection with Britain, and declare ourselves an independent people, there is any state or power in Europe, who would be willing to enter into an alliance with us for the benefits of our commerce.” In a similar vein he sounded out Barbeu Dubourg, his Paris printer, who had, as he knew, friends high in the French government.
The French were already watching America with interest. The harsh terms of the 1763 treaty with Great Britain still rankled. They welcomed any struggle that would involve England’s military forces, particularly if it could be prolonged to seriously weaken her.
In December 1775, a certain Monsieur Achard de Bonvouloir, allegedly an Antwerp merchant, arrived in Philadelphia. Through a French bookseller he arranged to meet Franklin, to whom he admitted that he had connections at the Court of Versailles. In truth he was a French agent, sent by Louis XVI’s foreign minister, Count Charles Gravier de Vergennes, to appraise the American situation.
Franklin arranged for Bonvouloir to meet with the Committee of Secret Correspondence at a quiet house in the outskirts of Philadelphia. It turned out to be a very crucial meeting. The French government did not object to American ships coming into her ports to pick up cargoes, Bonvouloir said. If the British complained of the presence of these ships as a breach of neutrality, the government would simply plead ignorance of what was going on. But in return for this welcome assurance of free trade, the French wanted to make sure that America intended to declare its independence from England.
Independence was a word as yet heard rarely. Though Franklin had mentioned its possibility in his letter to Dumas, he knew that few other members of Congress, much less the American people, were ready for such a drastic step. The urgent need for French cooperation made him speak out boldly.
Certainly the Americans were going to separate from England, he told Bonvouloir blandly. The country was behind the war to a man. Everything was going splendidly. General Washington’s army was growing.
There was exaggeration in his statements. Not only was talk of independence rare, but America was peppered with Loyalists, those who, like Franklin’s own son, were opposed to action against the British Crown. While new recruits were joining Washington, many simply walked off when their time of service was up, and some were deserting outright. But Franklin’s words were a magnificent prophecy. He was speaking from his own profound faith in his countrymen, and his confidence was contagious. Bonvouloir sent back a glowing report to the French minister Vergennes; France’s secret alliance with America began from that time.