He dared not meddle, he said, with the dispute in which Lee was engaged, "being charg'd by the Congress to endeavour at maintaining a good Understanding with their other Servants," which was, "indeed, a hard task with some of them," he declared.
As his acquaintance with Lee and his brother, William Lee, extended, Franklin became more and more wary in dealing with them. This was illustrated in his attitude towards the papers of Thomas Morris, the brother of Robert Morris, and the Commercial Agent of the United States at Nantes. When this gentleman, who, according to one of his contemporaries, "turned out the greatest drunkard the world ever produced," had duly paid the forfeit of his bibulous life, William Lee, with the aid of an order from the French Ministry, secured possession of all his papers, public and private, and, when on the eve of setting out for Germany, placed the trunk containing them sealed in the custody of Franklin. The key, Franklin told him, he would rather have in the keeping of Arthur Lee. A correspondence followed between Franklin and John Ross, who had obtained an order from Congress for the delivery of the trunk to him. If it had been Pandora's box, Franklin could not have undertaken the delivery of the papers in a more gingerly manner.
I am glad [he wrote to Ross], an Order is come for delivering them to you. But as the Dispute about them may hereafter be continued, and Papers suspected to be embezzled by somebody; and as I have sign'd a terrible long Receipt for the Trunk, of which I have no copy, and only remember that it appear'd to be constructed with all the Circumspection of the Writers Motto, Non incautus futuri and that it fill'd a Half Sheet so full there was scarce Room for the Names of the four Evidences he requir'd to witness it; I beg you will not expect me to send it to you at Nantes but appoint who you please to receive it for you here. For I think I must deliver it before Witnesses, who may certify the State of the Seals; nothing being more likely than that Seals on a Trunk may rub off in the Carriage on so long a Journey; and then I should be expos'd to the Artful Suggestions of some who do not love me, & whom I conceive to be of very malignant Dispositions.
Afterwards, when Arthur Lee informed Franklin that, unless he was furnished with money by him, he would have to give up the thought of proceeding to Spain, Franklin replied dryly: "As I can not furnish the Expence, and there is not, in my Opinion, any Likelihood at Present of your being received at that Court, I think your Resolution of returning forthwith to America is both wise and honest." And, even when he supposed that he was finally rid of the gad-fly, which had annoyed him so long, and that Lee was off for America, with his poisoned ink-well and busy pen, Franklin took pains that he should not have everything his own way, though a thousand leagues distant. "There are some Americans returning hence," he wrote to Samuel Cooper, "with whom our people should be upon their guard, as carrying with them a spirit of enmity to this country. Not being liked here themselves, they dislike the people; for the same reason, indeed, they ought to dislike all that know them."
Three days later, he wrote to Joseph Reed, of Pennsylvania, a letter in which, after denying a false statement made about the writer by Lee, he said, "He proposes, I understand, to settle in your Government. I caution you to beware of him; for, in sowing Suspicions and Jealousies, in creating Misunderstandings and Quarrels among friends, in Malice, Subtilty, and indefatigable industry, he has I think no equal." A few days later, he wrote to William Carmichael, "Messrs. Lee and Izard are gone to L'Orient, in order to embark in the Alliance together, but they did not travel together from hence. No soul regrets their departure. They separately came to take leave of me, very respectfully offering their services to carry any dispatches, etc."
But gone the gad-fly was not yet. After Lee reached L'Orient, the officers and men of the Alliance refused to weigh anchor until certain claims of theirs to wages and prize money were complied with, and, while John Paul Jones, their captain, was away at Paris, engaged in an effort to hasten the payment of the prize-money, Captain Peter Landais, acting under the advice of Arthur Lee and Commodore Gillon, took possession of the ship and sailed off for America. As soon as the news of the mutiny came to Franklin, he suspected that Arthur Lee was at the bottom of it.
I have no doubt [he wrote to Samuel Wharton, in regard to Landais] that your suspicion of his Adviser is well founded. That Genius must either find or make a Quarrel wherever he is. The only excuse for him that his Conduct will admit of, is his being at times out of his Senses. This I always allow, and am persuaded that if some of the many Enemies he provokes do not kill him sooner he will die in a madhouse.
The sequel of this high-handed proceeding afforded Franklin another opportunity to question Lee's mental soundness. The Alliance was not long out before Landais exhibited such flightiness that its passengers deposed him, and placed the ship in command of its first lieutenant. Commenting on the incident, Franklin wrote to Samuel Cooper:
Dr. Lee's accusation of Capt. Landais for Insanity was probably well founded; as in my Opinion would have been the same Accusation, if it had been brought by Landais against Lee; For tho' neither of them are permanently mad, they are both so at times; and the Insanity of the Latter is the most Mischievous.
How truly high-handed the rape of the Alliance was, will be realized, when the reader is told that at the time Landais had been deprived of the captaincy of the Alliance, upon the charge of gross misconduct in the glorious engagement between the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard, and was looking forward to a court-martial in America upon specifications involving a capital offence; that he had abandoned the ship, and that Jones, who had won imperishable honor and renown in the conflict between the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard, had been placed in command of her by Franklin, and had been in command of her for eight months; and that Franklin had in a letter to Landais sternly refused to restore her to him.