Franklin (7 page)

While fighting on these fronts, Franklin managed to enjoy himself. He remained interested in family and friends, keeping in touch with his wife and daughter in America. Only after much hesitation did he agree to Sally's marriage to
Richard Bache
, an emigrant from Yorkshire, in England. William had written of his disapproval to Franklin, calling his twenty-four-year-old sister's fiancé “a mere fortune hunter who wants to better his circumstances [by] marrying into a family that will support him.” But Franklin left the decision to his wife, who vouched for their future son-in-law.

Neither her father nor brother was present to give Sally away at her wedding. Franklin, Sally learned later from her mother, was in Paris, where he dined with the king and queen of France. Shortly afterward, a letter from England described in detail another wedding – that of Polly Stevenson, whom Franklin had thought of as a second daughter. What he had denied Sally he gave Polly; he walked Polly down the aisle at her wedding, and gave her away to a young doctor, William Hewson. Franklin stayed with the Stevensons on Craven Street.

Bache returned to England to introduce himself to his father-in-law, and Franklin loaned him money to establish himself as a merchant in Philadelphia. Later he received delightful news: Sally had made him a grandfather and named the boy
Benjamin Franklin Bache
.

When Polly, too, had a baby, she made Franklin the godfather and wrote him regularly, telling him of the child's development. Franklin, in turn, gave her advice on how to raise him. “Pray let him have everything he likes; I think it of great consequence while the features of the countenance are forming; it gives them a pleasant air, and, that being once become natural and fix'd by habit, the face is ever after the handsomer for it, and on that much of a person's good fortune and success in life may depend. Had I been cross'd as much in my infant likings and inclinations as you know I have been of late years, I should have been, I was going to say, not near so handsome; but as the vanity of that expression would offend other folks' vanity, I change it, out of regard to them, and stay a great deal more homely.”

When not at Craven Street, Franklin visited with powerful Englishmen. His favorites were
William Petty
, Lord Shelburne, and
Francis Dashwood
, Lord le Despencer, head of the British post office. Shelburne was sympathetic to America's argument with parliament, and he favored the Ohio colony until a shift in the political power structure drove him out of office.

One weekend at
Bowood
, Shelburne's estate, Franklin played a joke on guests, including members of parliament and actor
David Garrick
. Walking in the landscaped gardens, Franklin remarked that, thanks to some scientific experiments he had been making, he could transform rough water into calm water with a wave of his cane. No one believed him. They pointed to a nearby brook, where a breeze stirred up small waves, and told him to prove it. Franklin walked to the side of the brook and passed his cane over it a few times. The spectators gasped with disbelief as the surface of the water became calm and glassy.

A workman standing nearby was sure Franklin had just demonstrated supernatural powers. “What should I believe?” he asked.

“Only what you see,” Franklin said.

The rest of the spectators rushed to the bank and pleaded with Franklin to reveal his trick. Only then did he admit the bottom of his cane was hollow, and in the hollow he carried a small vial of oil. Franklin had been experimenting with the use of oil to calm storms at sea, in the hope of aiding vessels in distress. He found it did not work well on the ocean, but it did an excellent job on smaller bodies of water.

During another weekend at Lord le Despencer's, Franklin enjoyed performing one of his best political pranks. In one London paper, under the heading of foreign news, he published, “An Edict from the King of Prussia.” The edict, supposedly signed by Frederick the Great of Prussia, declared henceforth the country was going to exercise more control over its colony, England. The right to call England a colony was based, the king said, on the fact it had been settled hundreds of years ago by German tribesmen. The king proceeded to forbid the manufacture of iron and other products in exactly the same way the English parliament forbade their manufacture in America. All goods England shipped had to pass through the German port of Koningsberg, just as all American ships had to touch first at London and pay a duty on cargo before proceeding to other countries. Finally, the edict declared, “We do hereby also ordain and command, that all the thieves, highway and street robbers, housebreakers, forgers, murderers . . . and villains of every denomination, who have forfeited their lives to the law in Prussia; but whom we, in our great clemency, do not think fit here to hang, shall be emptied out of our gaols into the said island of Great Britain, for the better peopling of that country.”

Franklin was eating breakfast at Lord le Despencer's estate when a visiting writer,
Paul Whitehead
, rushed into the room with the newspaper. “Here,” he said, “here's news for ye! Here's the King of Prussia, claiming a right to this kingdom.”

Franklin managed to look as surprised as the rest.

Whitehead read two or three paragraphs. “Damn his impudence,” roared another guest, “I dare say, we shall hear by next post that he is upon his march with 100,000 men to back this.” But Whitehead, noticing references to Britain and the American colonies in the Prussian king's justification of his edict, squinted at Franklin and said, “I'll be hanged if this is not some of your American jokes upon us.”

Franklin admitted his guilt, and Whitehead read the rest of the edict to uproarious laughter. Everyone agreed it was “a fair hit.” Lord le Despencer liked the piece so much he preserved it in his library.

In the summer or fall of each year, to improve his health, Franklin escaped London's sooty atmosphere for five or six weeks. Even away from London, he found it difficult to avoid politics. This was true in the fall of 1771, when he toured Ireland and Scotland. The poverty appalled him, particularly in Ireland, where the English dominated. To a friend in Rhode Island, he wrote of what he had seen and why it convinced him America must maintain its rights in the face of parliament's power.

He corresponded regularly with his son William; though separated by 3,000 miles, father and son seemed more closely aligned than ever. Franklin's letters offered encouragement, advice, and playful anecdotes from his London activities. In nearly every letter, though, Franklin also reminded his son of his debts. To maintain a lavish lifestyle in New Jersey, William had continued to borrow heavily from his father. In addition, Franklin had taken it on himself to provide for William's illegitimate son in London. Once William and Elizabeth had moved to the eastern capital of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, he wrote to his father, asking him to bring his son, now fourteen, to live with him. “I hope to see you and him in the spring and that you will spend some time with me at Amboy, where I am now happily settled into a very good house and shall always have an apartment at your service.”

Meanwhile, parliament, disturbed by American resistance to the Townshend Acts, repealed them except the tax on tea. It was retained to uphold the right of parliament to tax the colonies. The tax was small, three pence to a pound, but Americans refused to pay as a matter of principle. Sales of British tea, imported from India by the East India Company, plummeted. Americans preferred to drink illegal tea, smuggled from the French and Dutch West Indies.

The East India Company lost millions, as tea piled up in its warehouses in England. Its stock tumbled on the London Exchange, and many who had bought it went bankrupt.

Franklin blamed British pride and greed. As he watched the British government's behavior toward America, he became convinced the English were scheming to inflict poverty on Americans as they had in Ireland by creating an abundance of government jobs they could parcel out to cronies.

Franklin was outspoken, both in British newspapers and in letters to friends in America. By this time, the government, intercepting his mail, regarded Franklin as the man behind the American resistance. To some extent, it was true: His letters were reprinted regularly in newspapers, and, as deputy postmaster general, he could send letters free by writing “Free B. Franklin” on them. Now, to make sure Americans got his message, he began to write “B. free Franklin.”

Meanwhile, the Hutchinson letters Franklin had sent to Massachusetts created a political explosion. Franklin asked friends to show them only to a handful of leaders, but the letters were widely circulated and printed in newspapers. The Massachusetts Assembly passed a resolution demanding Hutchinson's removal as governor and sent it to Franklin to present to the king. Franklin submitted it, and the Privy Council scheduled a hearing.

While Franklin was out of town, two men, one an American, the other the brother of the man to whom the letters were written, dueled over them. The brother,
Thomas Whately
, accused the American, John Temple, of stealing them. The duel ended with Whately slightly wounded and demanding another match. Franklin wanted to avoid bloodshed and published a letter in London's leading newspaper, admitting he had procured the letters and sent them to America. This admission angered enemies in the British government.

Then came more inflammatory news. The British government, trying to help the East India Company, had given the company permission to sell its tea at a price so low Americans would find it hard to resist. The tax on the tea remained, infuriating Americans determined to deny parliament's right to tax the colonies. When ships arrived carrying cargoes of specially priced tea, riots broke out in several ports. Unfortunately for Franklin, the first news of these acts of defiance to reach England came from Boston. There, a group of rioters had boarded tea ships, broken the chests of tea, and thrown the contents into the harbor.

Leaders of the British government, already angry with Franklin, were furious. At the Privy Council hearing on the petition to remove Hutchinson, they arranged for his humiliation. The government solicitor general, Scot
Alexander Wedderburn
, was hired as Hutchinson's defense attorney. While the full Privy Council of thirty-five lords, as well as their numerous followers, lady friends, and courtiers, snickered, Wedderburn called Franklin a thief, liar, and a revolutionary.

Franklin stood silent, his face expressionless, throughout this abuse. One American present, a South Carolinian, marveled at Franklin's self-control. “Had it been me that was so grossly insulted, I should instantly have repelled the attack, in defiance of every consequence,” he said. Franklin told friends he had never before appreciated the value of a good conscience. If he had not been convinced he had taken the right approach with the Hutchinson letters, he could not have endured the ordeal.

The next day, Franklin was informed he was dismissed as deputy postmaster general for North America. His first thoughts were of the consequences to the Ohio Colony and his son's career. He resigned from the Ohio Colony board so no one could use him to deny approval of the grant of land.

In a letter to William just after his appearance before the Privy Council, Franklin advised: “As there is no prospect of your being ever promoted to a better government, and that your hold has never defrayed its expenses, I wish you were well settled in your farm. ‘Tis an honester and a more honourable, because a more independent employment.” Two weeks later, however, he wrote to his son more composed. “Some tell me that it is determined to displace you likewise, but I do not know it as certain . . . Perhaps they may expect that your resentment of their treatment of me may induce you to resign, and save them the shame of depriving you when they ought to promote. But this I would not advise you to do. Let them take your place if they want it, though in truth I think it is scarce worth your keeping . . . But one may make something of an injury, nothing of a resignation.”

Franklin was certain revolution was inevitable, and America would become independent. He wanted William to play a part in the government of this new nation. William could “make something” of an injury from the British government. William's loyalty was again being tested - on one side was his father, on the other his country, England. While Franklin considered himself an American, William had always thought of himself as an Englishman born in America. Franklin seemed oblivious to this struggle within William and naïve about which side his son would choose.

A letter questioning William's dedication to the king arrived in New Jersey. Never one to let accusations go unanswered, he fired back his defense – a thirty-page letter in which he asserted he had never questioned the authority of Parliament either “openly” or “privately.” But he acknowledged the predicament he was in: “Men's minds are soured, a sullen discontent prevails, and, in my opinion, no force on earth is sufficient to make the Assemblies acknowledge by any act of theirs, that the Parliament has a right to impose taxes on America. As long as this temper continues [America's legislators] will do all in their power, in their private capabilities, to prevent the consumption of British manufactures in the colonies, that the mother country may thereby lose more in her commerce than she can possibly gain by way of revenue.”