From the largest and most powerful of the colonies, Virginia, came the most astonishing news of all. The Assembly, in defiance of the royal governor, had confirmed a set of resolves which bluntly denied Parliament’s power to lay the stamp tax. Moreover, a backwoods fire-brand named Patrick Henry had made a speech in which he roared, “Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell, may George III profit by their example.” Cries of treason had shouted him down, and he had apologized for speaking such words in the heat of passion. The Assembly had then eliminated two of his more radical resolutions, but the remaining resolves still made the point that Virginians had always handled their own internal affairs, and taxation without representation was something Americans would not tolerate.
Franklin, of course, had been saying these things privately for years. But his role as a Crown servant, and his acute awareness of present political realities in England made him more than dubious about the value of saying them in public, especially in such blatantly defiant terms. “The rashness of the Assembly in Virginia is amazing!” he told his friend John Hughes. “I hope however that ours will keep within the bounds of prudence and moderation; for that is the only way to lighten or get clear of our burthens.”
But defiant resolves were by no means the only news from America. In Boston, Newport, New Haven, and other cities, mobs attacked and in some cases destroyed the homes of the Stamp Commissioners, and forced them to resign publicly, even before their commissions arrived from England. Franklin must have blinked in disbelief when he got a letter from his stamp nominee, John Hughes, reporting that the same kind of violence was imminent in Pennsylvania.
“You are now from letter to letter to suppose each may be the last you will receive from your old friend, as the spirit or flame of rebellion is got to a high pitch among the North Americans; and it seems to me that a sort of frenzy or madness has got such hold of the people of all ranks, that I fancy some lives will be lost before this fire is put out. I am at present much perplext what course to steer: For as I have given you reason to expect I would endeavour to put the Act in execution, and you no doubt have inform’d the commissioners; I cannot in point of honour go back, until something or other is done by the people to render it impossible for me to proceed. But perhaps when a mob is on foot, my life and interest may fall a sacrifice to an infatuated multitude and I know of no way to prevent it but absolutely declaring off as all the rest have done to the eastward. But as yet I cannot prevail upon myself, notwithstanding the threats of some, and the persuasion of others, to do an act that appears to me neither loyal nor reputable.
“I have hitherto kept matters easy by saying I had nothing to resign, for I have neither received my commission or any other kind of writing from the Stamp Office. But when it is known I have received my commission, I fancy I shall not escape the storm of Presbyterian rage. . . .”
A shaken Franklin could only reply that executing the Act might make Hughes “unpopular for a time.” But he assured him that “your acting with coolness and steadiness, and with every circumstance in your power of favor to the people, will by degrees reconcile them. In the meantime a firm loyalty to the Crown and faithful adherence to the government of this nation, which it is the safety as well as honor of the colonies to be connected with, will always be a wise course for you and I to take, whatever may be the madness of the populace or their blind leaders, who can only bring themselves and country into trouble, and draw on greater burthens by acts of rebellious tendency.”
Parliament’s angry reaction to America’s violent resistance destroyed any chance of Franklin’s suggestion for a colonial paper currency to become law. But new hope of an even more positive and practical nature appeared on the political horizon early in the summer of 1765. George Grenville had fallen from power, largely because George III had decided he could no longer stand Grenville’s overbearing manner. When a policy was proposed to him, complained the King, his agreement was taken for granted. The mounting chaos in America no doubt also played a part in the royal decision to dismiss the Gentle Shepherd.”
Into power came a man far more congenial to Franklin’s ideas. He was Charles Watson-Wentworth, the second Marquis of Rockingham. Immensely wealthy, he supported a “squadron” of politicians in Parliament, including Edmund Burke, an eloquent Irishman who frequently declared his sympathy for America. Rockingham himself had been one of the few outspoken opponents of the Stamp Act. Equally important, the friends and followers of Lord Bute were once more in a position to exert some influence. Thus, Franklin was able to tell John Hughes that he and the other agents were planning an “endeavour” to get the Stamp Act repealed. But as a good politician he warned him that the “success is uncertain” and “would take time.”
If Franklin needed anything to galvanize him, he got it in letters from other intimate correspondents in America. His printing partner David Hall wrote as a worried businessman, wondering what to do. “In my last. . . I told you that all the papers on the continent, ours excepted, were full of spirited papers against the Stamp Law. . . . Because I did not publish those papers likewise, I was much blamed, got a great deal of ill will. . . I was in hopes that, that storm would have blown over, and that the people would have been satisfied with the arguments I used for not inserting these pieces; but I find I am much mistaken; for as the time of the law taking place draws nearer, the more the clamours of the people increase against me, for my silence in the paper; alledging that as our Gazette, spreads more generally than all the other papers put together on the continent, our not publishing, as the printers of the other papers do, will be an infinite hurt to the liberties of the people.”
Even more ominous was the final paragraph of Hall’s letter. “I could wish you was on the spot, on many accounts; and yet I should be afraid of your safety, as the spirit of the people is so violent against every one, they think has the least concern with the Stamp Law, and they have imbibed the notion that you had a hand in the framing of it.”
Other letters from Joseph Galloway made it clear that Franklin was like a man attempting to dam a flood single-handed. “I cannot describe to you, the indefatigable industry that have been and are constantly taking by the Troy Party and men in power here to prevail on the people to give every kind of opposition to the execution of this law [the Stamp Act], to incense their minds against the King Lords and Commons, and to alienate their affections from the mother country. It is no uncommon thing to hear the judges of the courts of justice from the first to the most inferior, in the presence of the attending populace, to treat the whole Parliament with the most irreverent abuse. . . . It is already become dangerous to espouse the conduct of the Parliament in some parts of America, in any degree.”
More letters from John Hughes made it clear that the danger was rampant in Philadelphia.
“Sept 12, Our clamours run very high, and I am told my house shall be pull’d down and the stamps burnt. To which I give no other answer than that I will defend my house at the risque of my life. I must say, that all the sensible Quakers behave prudently.
“Sept 16, in the evening. Common report threat[ens] my house this night, as there are bonfires and rejoicings for the change of ministry. The sober and sensible part of the people are doing everything towards being in readiness to suppress a mob if there should be any intention of rising. I for my part am well-arm’d with fire arms, and am determin’d to stand a siege. If I live till tomorrow morning I shall give you a farther account; but as it is now about 8 aclock, I am on my guard, and only write this between whiles, as every noise or bustle of the people calls me off.
“9 aclock. Several friends that patroll between my house and the Coffee House, come in just now, and say, the collection of rabble begins to decrease visibly in the streets, and the appearance of danger seems a good deal less than it did.
“12 aclock. There are now several hundreds of our friends about the street, ready to suppress any mob, if it should attempt to rise and the rabble are dispersing.
“Sept. 17. 5 in the morning. We are all yet in the land of the living, and our property safe. Thank God.”
With these came a letter from Governor William Franklin, ruefully reporting that the man who had been appointed Stamp Commissioner in New Jersey had resigned without warning and with no evidence of any threats being made against him. Obviously the agent had seen the way the wind was blowing in other colonies and decided to preserve himself in advance from mob violence. Governor Franklin complained, “His surrender is not only using the gentleman ill who recommended him to office, but the province in general, as it may subject them to be thought as culpable as the N. England governments.” William also complained that he had not received an iota of instructions of how to administer the Stamp Act. Finally he discussed the “outrageous conduct” of the people in Boston, who had destroyed the Stamp Commissioner’s house and then “as is usual with mobs when they once feel their own power,” they destroyed several other houses, “even of those who were against the Stamp Act.” William noted that one of these houses belonged to Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, a man whom Franklin knew well and, at this time, admired.
The climax to these letters was one from Deborah Franklin that told her husband in vivid if badly spelled terms how she had been forced to defend herself and her house, gun in hand. For nine days, she said, she was kept in “one contineued hurrey” by people urging her to flee with Sally to Governor William Franklin’s home in Burlington. When the city heard that the Grenville ministry had fallen, there was “verey graite rejoysing.” But when the crowds assembled to celebrate with bonfires and rum, they soon began talking about pulling down the houses of those whom they blamed for the Act. High on the list was Benjamin Franklin, and Stamp Commissioner John Hughes. But friends and relatives staunchly supported them. One of Deborah’s cousins arrived to tell her “more than twenty pepel” had told him that it was his duty to stay with her. She replied that she was “pleased to receive civility from aney bodey.” Toward nightfall Deborah told her cousin to “fech a gun or two” and also to summon her brother to assist in the defense. “We maid one room into a magazin. I ordored sum sorte of defens upstairs such as I cold manaig my selef,” Deborah told her husband. Neighbors again advised her to flee, but she was adamant in her refusal. “I sed I was verey shuer you had dun nothing to hurte aney bodey nor I had not given aney ofense to aney person att all nor wold I be maid unesey by aney bodey nor wold I stir or show the leste uneseynis.” Deborah and her two relatives were soon joined by a half dozen of Franklin’s friends and neighbors. These reinforcements - plus the “hundreds of our friends” mentioned by John Hughes (no doubt many of them ex-Associaters who turned out once more to fight for their colonel - discouraged the mob and no houses were pulled down in Philadelphia.
If Franklin ever had any doubts about the wisdom of repealing the Stamp Act, he had zero now. He immediately launched a propaganda offensive. His friend Charles Thomson had written a vigorous reply to a Franklin letter, mournfully explaining the passage of the Stamp Act, and urging him to “light candles” against the setting of the sun of liberty. Franklin persuaded Strahan to publish the relevant portion of his letter, and Thomson’s reply, in The London Chronicle. The Irish-born Philadelphian’s words should have made every sensible Englishman shiver.
“The sun of liberty is indeed fast setting, if not down already, in the American colonies: But I much fear instead of candles you mention being lighted, you will hear of the works of darkness. . . . I really dread the consequence. The parliament insist on a power over all the liberties and privileges claimed by the colonies, and hence require a blind obedience and acquiescence in whatever they do: Should the behaviour of the colonies happen not to square with these sovereign notions (as I much fear it will not) what remains but by violence to compel them to obedience. Violence will beget resentment, and provoke to acts never dreamt of: But I will not anticipate evil; I pray God avert it.”
It was not enough merely to publicize the American point of view. Franklin found it also necessary to answer the incredibly arrogant and opinionated assaults on Americans that began appearing in the English press. One of the worst came from a writer who styled himself “Tom Hint.” He called for all out force to repress and punish the Stamp Act dissidents. Tom Hint was particularly outraged that wealthy Americans had joined in the resistance. Gentlemen, he apparently thought, should be more obedient. He, therefore, took the opportunity to slander “the most opulent inhabitants of America,” calling them “selfish, [of] mean dispositions, void of public spirit” and asserted they had repeatedly obstructed the British war effort, during the recent struggle with France.
Franklin knew Tom Hint’s identity; he was a British officer who had served in America. The knowledge made it doubly difficult for him to control his temper and be fired back a scorching reply: “Stabbing in the dark is unbecoming a soldier and an officer,” Franklin fumed. He called upon the writer to put “his own name openly and fairly to his accusation; or take to himself in private the conscious shame” of having abused people who had received him with all the hospitality and courtesy in their power.
No sooner had he disposed of Tom Hint than a new calumniator appeared, signing himself “Vindex Petrie.” He denounced the Americans in vicious terms, calling them “a mixed rabble of Scotch, Irish, and foreign vagabonds, descendants of convicts,” whose chief occupation was smuggling. He even castigated America’s eating habits, from their breakfasts to their Indian corn. Their cries about taxation without representation were nonsense since they were “virtually” represented in Parliament. This virtual or fictional representation, as it was frequently called, enabled Englishmen to justify the fact that many of their most populous manufacturing towns were not represented in Parliament while rotten boroughs with one-fiftieth of these cities’ population elected members. One of these rotten boroughs, the Manor of East Greenwich, was mentioned in one of the original grants of territory in America. The Crown had stated that the colonists were “to be beholden of us, our heirs and successors, as of the Manor of East Greenwich in our County of Kent.” From a legal point of view, Vindex argued, this phraseology meant that all of America lay within the Manor of East Greenwich, and was, therefore, represented in Parliament.
Writing under a variety of pseudonyms, Franklin skewered Vindex with his favorite weapon, sarcasm. He defended American breakfasts under the signature “Homespun,” soberly declaring, “We Americans . . . may think it a very serious thing to have the honor of our eating impeached in any particular whatsoever.” He wondered how a man could denounce Indian corn when he had never even tasted a single grain of it. “But why should that hinder you writing on it. Have you not written even on politics?”
As for the manor of East Greenwich encompassing America, “I have read that the whale swallowed Jonah; and as that is in Holy Writ, to be sure I ought to believe it. But if I were told, that, in fact, it was Jonah that swallowed the whale, I’d fancy I could myself as easily swallow the whale as the story.”
This kind of writing was more fun than indignant reproaches and Franklin enjoyed it so much, he tried it again a few weeks later, appearing in the Public Advertiser, disguised as an Englishman called “Pacificus,” with a plan that would solve the entire American question. It would, he solemnly wrote, “be entirely consistent with the economy at present so much in vogue. It is so cheap a way of going to work, that even Mr. G G [George Grenville], that great oeconomist, could have no reasonable objection to it.”
He then suggested in straightforward prose that the Crown recruit 6,000 soldiers, plus some Indians, and descending from Canada, lay waste the American colonies, burning all the capitals to the ground and cutting the throats of all the inhabitants, men, women, and children. “No man in his wits, after such terrible military execution, will refuse to purchase statrip’d paper. If anyone should hesitate, five or six hundred lashes on a cold frosty morning would soon, bring him to reason.” No doubt some goodhearted Britons might object to this
massacre. Others might point out the harm it would do to England’s commerce. But the temporary loss of American trade would cause so many bankruptcies and so much unemployment bug manufacturers and laborers that “together with the felons from our goals” England would soon be able to transport enough social dropouts to repopulate the colonies with “loyal and submissive people, and be morally certain that no act of Parliament would ever be disputed.”
Finally, Franklin released to the press the letters he had written to Governor Shirley over a decade ago. These cool, careful analyses of the relationship between the colonies and the mother country, with recommendations that could have averted, and could now solve, the present crisis, created a sensation in London. As Franklin shrewdly pointed out in a letter of introduction, they showed the sentiments of the Americans on the subject of a Parliamentary tax before the threat of French power was removed from Canada, and the Stamp Act was passed.
All this literary activity was combined with a day and night personal effort to influence members of Parliament. Every hour, Franklin told one correspondent, was spent “in forming, explaining, consulting, disputing” with the Empire’s lawmakers. He worked closely with the Rockingham administration, and with a committee of twenty-eight London merchants, led by Barlow Trecothick, with whom Franklin shared a common birthplace, Boston. The merchants were vastly alarmed by news of the next phase in American resistance, non-importation agreements signed by businessmen in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and every other major American port, pledging themselves to buy no English goods until the tax was repealed. The merchants sent circular letters to twenty other British towns and cities urging them to petition Parliament to abandon the Stamp Act before it wrecked the British economy.
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