The True Benjamin Franklin

by Sydney George Fisher

Adams appeared again in Paris in the beginning of the year 1780, having been sent by Congress to await England’s expected willingness to treat for peace. He was authorized to receive overtures for a general peace, and also, if possible, to negotiate a special commercial treaty with England. He had nothing to do but wait, and was in no way connected with our embassy in France. But being presented at court and asked by Vergennes to furnish information, he must needs try to make an impression. He assailed Vergennes, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, with numerous reasons why he should at once disclose to the court at London his readiness to make a commercial treaty. He argued about the question of the Continental currency and how it should be redeemed. He urged the sending of a large naval force to the United States; and when told that the force had already been sent without solicitation, he attempted to prove in the most tactless and injudicious manner that it was not without solicitation, but, on the contrary, the king had been repeatedly asked for it, and had yielded at last to importunity.

This conduct was so offensive to Vergennes that he complained of it to Franklin, who was obliged to rebuke Adams; and Congress, when the matter came before it, administered another rebuke. Adams never forgave Franklin for this, and afterwards publicly declared that Franklin and Vergennes had conspired to destroy his influence and ruin him. At the time, however, he had the good sense to take his rebuff in silence, and went off grumbling to Holland to see if something could not be done to render the United States less dependent on France.

Adams represented a large party, composed principally of New-Englanders, who did not like the alliance with France and were opposed to Franklin’s policy of extreme conciliation and friendliness with the French court. It was as one of this party that Adams had attempted to give Vergennes a lesson and show him that America was not a suppliant and a pauper. Like the rest of his party, he harbored the bitter thought that France intended to lord it over the United States, send a general over there who would control all the military operations, get all the glory, and give the French ever after a preponderating influence. He thought America had been too free in expressions of gratitude to France, that a little more stoutness, a greater air of independence and boldness in our demands, would procure sufficient assistance and at the same time save us from the calamity of passing into the hands of a tyrant who would be worse than Great Britain had been.

His attempt at stoutness, however, was at once checked by Vergennes, who refused to answer any more of his letters; and there is no doubt that if Adams’s plan had been adopted by the United States government, our alliance with France would have been jeopardized. It is not pleasant to think that without the aid of France the Revolution would have failed and we would have again been brought under subjection to England; but it is unquestionably true, and as Washington had no hesitation in frankly admitting it, we need have none.

At the time of Adams’s attempted interference with Franklin’s policy our fortunes were at a very low ebb. The resources of the country were exhausted and the army could no longer be maintained on them. The soldiers were starving and naked, and the generals could not show themselves without being assailed with piteous demands for food and clothes. France had much to gain by assisting us against England, and she never pretended that she had not; but in all the documents and correspondence that have been brought to light there is no evidence that she intended to take advantage of our situation or that her ministers had designs on our liberties. Indeed, when we read the whole story of her assistance, including the secret correspondence, it will be found almost unequalled for its worthiness of purpose and for the honorable means employed.

Franklin had spent several years at the court, knew everybody, and thoroughly understood the situation.

“The king, a young and virtuous prince, has, I am persuaded, a pleasure in reflecting on the generous benevolence of the action in assisting an oppressed people, and proposes it as a part of the glory of his reign. I think it right to increase this pleasure by our thankful acknowledgments, and that such an expression of gratitude is not only our duty, but our interest. A different conduct seems to me what is not only improper and unbecoming, but what may be hurtful to us.... It is my intention while I stay here to procure what advantages I can for our country by endeavoring to please this court; and I wish I could prevent anything being said by any of our countrymen here that may have a contrary effect, and increase an opinion lately showing itself in Paris, that we seek a difference, and with a view of reconciling ourselves in England.”

Please the court, as well as the whole French nation, he most certainly did. His communications with Vergennes, even when he was asking for money or some other valuable thing, were not only free from offence, but so adroit, so beautifully and happily expressed, that they charmed the exquisite taste of Frenchmen. There is not space in this volume to give expression to all that the people of the court thought of his way of managing the business intrusted to him by America, but one sentence from a letter of Vergennes to the French minister in America may be given:

“If you are questioned respecting our opinion of Dr. Franklin, you may without hesitation say that we esteem him as much on account of the patriotism as the wisdom of his conduct, and it has been owing in a great part to this cause, and to the confidence we put in the veracity of Dr. Franklin, that we have determined to relieve the pecuniary embarrassments in which he has been placed by Congress.”

It is not likely that Gouverneur Morris, Jefferson, or any other American of that time possessed the qualifications necessary to give them such a hold on the French court as Franklin had. We were colonists, very British in our manners, of strong energy and intelligence, but quite crude in many things, and capable of appearing in a very ridiculous light in French society, which was in effect the society of Louis XIV., very exacting, and by no means so republican as it has since become.