The True Benjamin Franklin

by Sydney George Fisher

“It is impossible to describe to you to what a degree this kind of intrigue has disgraced, confounded, and injured our affairs here. The observation of this at head-quarters has encouraged and produced through the whole a spirit of neglect, abuse, plunder, and intrigue in the public business which it has been impossible for me to prevent or correct.”

So the evidence, or rather suspicions, piled up against Deane, and he was ordered home. Supposing that Congress wanted him merely for information about the state of France, he returned after the treaty of alliance was signed, coming over, as he thought, in triumph with Admiral D’Estaing and the fleet that was to assist the Americans.

He expected to be welcomed with gratitude, but Congress would not notice him; and when at last he was allowed to tell his story, the members of that body did not believe a word of it. He made public statements in the newspapers, fought Lee with paper and ink, and the curious may still read his and Lee’s recriminations, calling one another traitors, and become more confused than ever over the controversy. His arguments only served to injure his case. He made the mistake of attacking Lee instead of merely defending himself, and he talked so openly about our affairs in France, revealing, among other things, the dissensions among the members of the commission, that he was generally regarded as having injured our standing among the governments of Europe.

He struggled with Congress, and returned to Paris to have his accounts audited; but it was all useless; he was ruined; and, in despair and fury at the injustice done him, he went over to the British, like Arnold, and died in poverty and obscurity.

In America both he and Beaumarchais seem to have been considered rascals until far into the next century, when the publication of Beaumarchais’s life and the discovery of some papers by a member of the Connecticut Historical Society put a different face upon their history. Congress voted Deane’s heirs thirty-eight thousand dollars as a recompense for the claims which the Continental Congress had refused to pay their ancestor. Indeed, the poverty in which Deane died was not consistent with Lee’s story that he had been making millions by his arrangement with Beaumarchais. Franklin always stood by him, and publicly declared that in all his dealings with him he had never had any occasion to suspect that he lacked integrity.

Lee was a Virginian, a member of the famous family of that name, and a younger brother of Richard Henry Lee, who was a member of the Continental Congress. Though born in Virginia, he was educated in England at Eton and also at Edinburgh, where he took the degree of doctor of medicine. The easy-going methods by which Franklin and Deane handled millions of dollars, sold hundreds of prizes brought in by Paul Jones and other American captains, and shipped cargoes of arms, ammunition, and clothing to America were extremely shocking to him. Or perhaps he was extremely shocked because he was not allowed a hand in it. But it was necessary to be prompt in giving assistance to the revolted colonies, and Franklin and Deane pushed the business along as best they could.

If Congress had made a less stupid arrangement the embassy might have been organized on a business-like system in which everything would move by distinct, definite orders, everybody’s sphere be defined, with a regular method of accounts in which every item should have its voucher. But, as Franklin himself confessed, he never could learn to be orderly; and now, when he was past seventy, infirm, often laid up with violent attacks of the gout, with a huge literary and philosophic reputation to support, tormented by Lee and Izard, the whole French nation insane with admiration for him, and dining out almost every day, it was difficult for him to do otherwise than as he did.

Although the others had equal power with him, he was necessarily the head of the embassy, for his reputation was so great in France that everything gravitated towards him. Most people scarcely knew that there were two other commissioners, and the little they knew of Lee they did not like. Lee was absent part of the time on journeys to Spain, Berlin, and Vienna, and as Deane had started the business of sending supplies before either Franklin or Lee arrived, the conduct of affairs naturally drifted away from Lee. It afforded a good excuse for ignoring him. He was insanely suspicious, and charged John Jay, Reed, Duane, and other prominent Americans with treason, apparently without the slightest foundation.

Finding himself ignored and in an awkward and useless position, he should have resigned, giving his reasons. But he chose to stay and send private letters to members of Congress attacking the characters of his fellow-commissioners and intriguing to have himself appointed the sole envoy to France. Among his letters are to be found three on this subject, two to his brother in Congress and one to Samuel Adams.

“There is but one way of redressing this and remedying the public evil; that is the plan I before sent you of appointing the Dr. honoris causa to Vienna, Mr. Deane to Holland, Mr. Jennings to Madrid, and leaving me here.” (Life of Arthur Lee, vol. ii. p. 127.)