SILAS DEANE.
Silas Deane was a native of Groton. Of the three men to whom Congress intrusted its secret negotiations with European powers, Franklin was the only one whose character did not permanently suffer, although he did not escape the malignity and envy of Arthur Lee. The Virginian's enmity and jealousy, aided by the influence of his brothers, were more successful in sullying the name and fame of Silas Deane. Yet Arthur Lee was a patriot and an honest man, whose public life was corroded by a morbid envy and distrust of his associates. A more disastrous appointment than his could hardly have been made, as his temperament especially unfitted him for a near approach to men who, with all the world's polish, were, in diplomatic phrase, able to cut an adversary's throat with a hair.
John Quincy Adams, who may perhaps have inherited his father's dislike of Deane, once said, in the course of a conversation with some friends:
"A son of Silas Deane was one of my school-fellows.[323] I never saw him again until last autumn, when I recognized him on board a steamboat, and introduced him to Lafayette, who said, 'Do you and Deane agree?' I said, 'Yes.' 'That's more than your fathers did before you,' replied the general.
"Silas Deane," continued Mr. Adams, "was a man of fine talents, but, like General Arnold, he was not true to his country. After he was dismissed from the service of the United States he went to England, lived for a long time on Lord Sheffield's patronage, and wrote a book which did more to widen the breach between England and America, and produce unpleasant feelings between the two countries, than any work that had been published. Finally he determined to return to America, but, in a fit of remorse and despair, committed suicide before the vessel left the Thames. His character and fate affected those of his son, who has lived in obscurity."[324]
It is possible that Silas Deane's patriotism was not proof against the ingratitude he had experienced, and that he became soured and disaffected; but it is scarcely just to his memory to call him traitor, or compare him with such an ignoble character as Arnold. Deane was the friend of Beaumarchais; he was also his confidant. He was the means of securing the services of Lafayette for America. There is little doubt that he exceeded his powers as commissioner, involving Congress in embarrassments, of which his recall was the solution. The malevolence of Lee and the crookedness of French diplomacy did what was wanting to consign him to obscurity and poverty. The controversy over Deane's case produced a pamphlet from Thomas Paine, and caused John Jay to take the place resigned by Mr. Laurens as president of Congress. Deane and Beaumarchais were the scape-goats of the French alliance.[325]
John Ledyard was another monument of Groton. His first essay as a traveler exhibits his courage and resource. He entered Dartmouth as a divinity student; but poverty obliging him to withdraw from the college, and not having a shilling in his pocket, he made a canoe fifty feet long, with which he floated down the river one hundred and forty miles to Hartford. He then embarked for England as a common sailor, and while there, under the impulse of his passion for travel, enlisted with Captain Cook as a corporal of marines. He witnessed the tragical death of his captain. In 1771, after eight years' absence, Ledyard revisited his native country. His mother was then keeping a boarding-house at Southhold. Her son took lodgings with her without being recognized, as had once happened to Franklin in similar circumstances.