Walter Isaacson Great Innovators e-book boxed set: Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Einstein

by Isaacson, Walter

  34. Van Doren 593; Edmund Morgan, The Birth of the Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), 83; Gordon Wood, “Not So Poor Richard,” The New York Review of Books, June 6, 1996; Samuel Cooper to BF, May 14, 1778. See also Samuel Cooper to BF, July 1, 1778, in which the Boston clergyman describes how the treaty thwarted England’s attempts to lure Congress into a reconciliation and how information sent by Franklin and Adams about a British convoy of eleven warships would be passed along, presumably to warn French admiral d’Estaing.

  Chapter 14

  1. Edward Bancroft, “most secret extracts,” Apr. 2, 16, 1778, British Library, Auckland papers, Add MSS 34413, f405–7; Middlekauff 171; McCullough 197, 204, 208, 239. Middlekauff’s chapter on Adams in his book, pp. 171–202, is a vivid look at the vagaries of their relationship. McCullough, 210–15, provides an authoritative assessment of their feelings about each other, with some deference to Adams.

  2. Adams to James Lovell, Feb. 20, 1779, Adams Letters 4:118–19; Middlekauff 189.

  3. Lopez Private, 237; Lopez Cher, 9. The quote is from Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis, Complete Works (Paris: Bossange frères, 1825), 2:267.

  4. Brands 547–48; Adams Diary 2:391, 4:69.

  5. BF to Robert Livingston, July 22, 1783.

  6. Diderot, editor, Enyclopédie, www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/ARTFL/projects/ encyc/; Alsop 13; Harold Nicolson, The Age of Reason (London: Constable, 1960), 268.

  7. Most accounts say, I think mistakenly, that it was Temple who received the benediction. Smith 60, 187 traces the mystery and convincingly concludes that the “boy” was actually his younger grandson Benny, who was 7 at the time, rather than Temple, who was about 18. Aldridge French, 10, says it was Temple, but in his later writings, including Voltaire and the Century of Light (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 399, he revises his opinion. Claude-Anne Lopez tells me that Temple used a wax seal with the phrase “God and Liberty,” which leads her to believe it may have been Temple. See also Voltaire to the Abbé Gaultier, Feb. 21, 1778, in The Works of Voltaire (Paris: Didot, 1829), 1:290; Hutchinson Diary and Letters 2:276. The newspaper quoted is Les Memoirs Secret, Feb. 22, 1778, in Aldridge French, 10.

  8. Aldridge French, 12; Adams Diary 3:147; Van Doren 606.

  9. Lopez Life, 148–57; Van Doren 655–56; Lemay Reappraising, 145.

  10. Lopez Cher, 34, 29. As one of the Yale editors, Lopez’s specialty was analyzing Franklin’s papers from his period in France. Her translations, astute assessments, and personal discussions with me informed this chapter.

  11. Madame Brillon to BF, July 30, 1777.

  12. Madame Brillon to BF, Mar. 7, 1778; BF to Madame Brillon, Mar. 10, 1778.

  13. Madame Brillon to BF, May 3, 8, 1779; Lopez Cher, 40, 61–62; Adams Letters 4:46; Brands 552.

  14. BF to Madame Brillon, July 27, 1778. Lib. of Am. uses a version dated 1782, and some sources have the final article worded differently. The version I have used is from the Yale Papers and the American Philosophical Society; Papers 27:164.

  15. Madame Brillon to BF, Mar. 16, 17, 18, Apr. 26, June 9, July 27, Sept. 13, 17, 1778; BF to Madame Brillon, July 27, Sept. 1, 15, 1778.

  16. Madame Brillon to BF, Sept. 13, 1778; BF to Madame Brillon, Sept. 15, 1778; Lopez Cher, 29–121.

  17. “The Ephemera,” Sept. 20, 1778, Lib. of Am. 922; A. Owen Aldridge, “Sources for Franklin’s Ephemera,” New England Quarterly 27 (1954): 388.

  18. BF to Madame Brillon, Nov. 29, 1777; Madame Brillon to BF, Nov. 30, 1777 (the chess game partner was their neighbor Louis-Guillaume le Veillard); Papers 25:204, 25:218); Madame Brillon to BF, Dec. 10, 15, 20, 1778; BF to Madame Brillon, Dec. 11?, 1778.

  19. Lopez Cher, 243–48. Lopez draws on Antoine Guillois, Le Salon de Madame Helvétius (Paris: Calmann Levy, 1894). Claude-Adrien Helvétius, De l’Esprit(Paris, 1758; English translation, Essays on the Mind, London, 1759); it was publicly burned in Paris but also one of the most widely read books of its time. See gallica.bnf.fr/Fonds_textes/T0088614.htm ; www.aei.ca/˜anbou/mhelv.html.

  20. Aldridge French, 162; Gilbert Chinard, “Abbé Lefebvre de la Roche’s Recollections of Benjamin Franklin,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society(1950).

  21. BF to Madame Helvétius, Oct. 31, 1778.

  22. Aldridge French, 165; Adams Papers 2:55.

  23. BF to Madame Helvétius, through Cabanis, Sept. 19, 1779. It is possible that Poupon was a cat, but we know she had a dog and this is more likely.

  24. “The Flies,” Papers 34:220; Lib. of Am., 991 (the date of this piece is unkown and in dispute); Lopez Cher, 260. See also Lopez Cher, 371n.32 arguing that some biographers “overdramatize” Franklin’s proposal to Madame Helvétius whereas others discount it too much.

  25. “The Elysian Fields,” Dec. 7, 1778, Lib. of Am. 924.

  26. Turgot to Pierre du Pont de Nemours, June 24, 1780, in Lopez Cher, 170.

  27. BF to Thomas Bond, Mar. 16, 1780.

  28. Aldridge French, 183. For a good assessment, see Richard Amacher, Franklin’s Wit and Folly: The Bagatelles (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953).

  29. Poem from Madame Brillon to BF, Oct., 1780, translation in Lopez Cher,78; “Dialogue with the Gout,” Oct. 22, 1780.

  30. Madame Brillon to BF, Nov. 18, 26, 1780; Lopez Cher, 79–81; Aldridge French, 166.

  31. Lopez Cher, 25–26.

  32. “Conte,” dated Dec. 1778 in Papers 28:308 and early 1779 by Lemay in Lib. of Am. 938; Aldridge French, 173; Lopez Cher, 90.

  33. Abbé Flamarens, Jan. 15, 1777, in Aldridge French, 61.

  34. “The Morals of Chess,” June 28, 1779; Papers 29:750–56 also includes the Junto notes he made in 1732. See also Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg to BF, July 3, 1779, which mentions a “refutation” of Franklin’s points.

  35. Aldridge French, 197; Jefferson Papers 18:168.

  36. “An Economical Project,” Journal of Paris, Apr. 26, 1784; Poor Richard’s, 1735. See also http://www.standardtime.com ; http://www.energy.ca.gov/daylight saving.html ; http ://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving.

  37. Aldridge French, 178

  38. “To the Royal Academy of ***,” May 19, 1780, or after, Lib. of Am. 952. See also, Carl Japsky, ed., Fart Proudly (Columbus, Ohio: Enthea Press, 1990).

  39. BF to the Abbé Morellet, ca. July 5, 1779.

  40. SF to BF, Jan. 17, 1779; BF to SF, June 3, 1779. General Howe had been replaced by Sir Henry Clinton, who evacuated his British troops from Philadelphia in May 1778 to concentrate on the defense of New York. General Washington tried and failed to stop the British in a battle in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and Clinton’s troops safely ensconced themselves in New York.

  41. SB to BF, Sept. 14, 1779; BF to SB, Mar. 16, 1780. See the poignant chapter “No Watch for Benny, No Feathers for Sally,” in Lopez Private, 215–32.

  42. SF to BF, Jan. 17, Sept. 25, 1779, Sept. 8, 1780; BF to SF, June 3, 1779.

  43. RB to BF, July 28, 1780; SF to BF, Sept. 9, 1780; BF to RB and SF, Oct. 4, 1780.

  44. BF to SF, June 3, 1779.

  45. BF to Benjamin Bache, Aug. 19, 1779, Apr. 16, 1781. For a well-researched and insightful assessment of their relationship, see Smith, in particular 67–70, 77–82. Also Lopez Private, 221–30.

  46. BF to Benjamin Bache, Jan. 25, 1782. See also May 3, 30, Aug. 19, 1779, July 18, 1780. Gabriel Louis de Marignac to BF, Nov. 20, 1781.

  47. Catherine Cramer to BF, May 15, 1781; RB to BF, July 22, 1780.

  48. BF to Benjamin Bache, Sept. 25, 1780; SB to BF, Jan. 14, 1781.

  49. Benjamin Bache to BF, Jan. 30, 1783; BF to Benjamin Bache, May 2, 1783; BF to Johonnot, Jan. 26, 1782.

  50. BF to the Brillons, Apr. 20, Oct. 30, 1781; Madame Brillon to BF, Apr. 20, Oct. 20, 1781; Lopez Cher, 91–101.

  Chapter 15

  1. BF to James Lovell (for Congress), July 22, 1778; Richard Bache to BF, Oct. 22, 1778; Van Doren 609.

  2. BF to John Adams, Apr. 3, 24, May 10, June 5, 1779; John Adams to BF, Apr. 13, 2
9, May 14, 17, 1779; Middlekauff 190–92; McCullough 210–14; Schoenbrun 229.

  3. RB to BF, Oct. 8, 22, 1778; BF to RB, June 2, 1779; BF to SF, June 3, 1779.

  4. BF to Lafayette, Mar. 22, Oct. 1, 1779; Lafayette to BF, July 12, 1779; Lafayette to TF, Sept. 7, 1779. See also Harlowe Giles Unger, Lafayette (New York: Wiley, 2002).

  5. BF to Lafayette, Mar. 22, 1779; BF to John Paul Jones, May 27, June 1, 10, 1778. See also Evan Thomas, John Paul Jones (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003). Evan Thomas graciously provided an early copy of his manuscript, which helped inform this section, and he read and helped to correct this section.

  6. Samuel Eliot Morison, John Paul Jones (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1959), 156 and passim. Alsop 176 also says that “all the world knew of the love affair between the dashing officer and Madame de Chaumont.” But Evan Thomas in his biography points out that there is no concrete evidence of this.

  7. John Paul Jones to BF, Mar. 6, 1779; BF to Jones, Mar. 14, 1779.

  8. BF to John Paul Jones, Apr. 27, 1779; Jones to BF, May 1, 1779.

  9. John Paul Jones to BF, May 26, Oct. 3, 1779; BF to Jones, Oct. 15, 1779. As Evan Thomas points out, it is very unclear whether Jones actually uttered his famous “I have not yet begun to fight.”

  10. Vergennes to Adams, Feb. 15, 1780; McCullough 232.

  11. BF to George Washington, Mar. 5, 1780.

  12. BF to David Hartley, Feb. 2, 1780.

  13. For Franklin’s use of the phrase “no bad peace or good war,” see BF to Jonathan Shipley, June 10, 1782; BF to Joseph Banks, July 27, 1783; BF to Josiah Quincy, Sept. 11, 1783; BF to Rodolphe-Ferdinand Grand, Mar. 5, 1786.

  14. BF to Arthur Lee, Mar. 21, 1777; Stourzh 160; BF to Robert Livingston, Mar. 4, 1782.

  15. John Adams to Congress, Apr. 18, 1780, Adams Letters 3:151; Vergennes to John Adams, July 29, 1780, Adams Letters 3:243; McCullough 241.

  16. Vergennes to BF, July 31, 1780; BF to Vergennes, Aug. 3, 1780; BF to Samuel Huntington (for Congress), Aug. 9, 1780. Adams was still rehashing this disagreement decades later in an article in the Boston Patriot, May 15, 1811; see Stourzh 159.

  17. BF to John Adams, Oct. 2, 1780, Feb. 22, 1781. Adams replied with a gloomy camaraderie, saying he had accepted some bills “relying on your virtues and graces of Faith and Hope.” John Adams to BF, Apr. 10, 1781.

  18. Washington to BF, Oct. 9, 1780; BF to Vergennes, Feb. 13, 1781.

  19. For currency conversion data see page 507. See also: Thomas Schaeper, France and America in the Revolutionary Era (Providence: Bergham Books, 1995), 348; John McCusker, How Much Is That in Real Money? (New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2001); Economic History Services, http://eh.net/hmit/; Inflation Conversion Factors, www.orst.edu/Dept/pol_sci/fac/sahr/cf166502.pdf.

  20. Ralph Izard to Richard Lee, Oct. 15, 1780; Vergennes to la Luzerne, Feb. 19, 1781; Stourzh 153; BF to Samuel Huntington (for Congress), Mar. 12, 1781.

  21. Vergennes to la Luzerne, Dec. 4, 1780; Stourzh 167.

  22. Stourzh 168; BF to Samuel Huntington (for Congress), Sept. 13, 1781.

  23. BF to William Carmichael, Aug. 24, 1781; BF to John Adams, Oct. 12, 1781.

  24. BF to Robert Morris, Mar. 7, 1782.

  25. Madame Brillon to BF, Jan. 20, Feb. 1, 1782; BF to Shelburne, Mar. 22, Apr. 18, 1782; BF to Vergennes, Apr. 15, 1782. See also BF to WF, Sept. 12, 27, Oct. 11, 1766, June 13, Aug. 28, 1767, for discussions of Franklin’s early meetings with Shelburne.

  26. “Journal of Peace Negotiations,” May 9–July 1, 1782, Papers CD 37:191. This forty-page journal is a detailed description of all the talks and meetings Franklin had up until an attack of the gout caused him to quit keeping the journal on July 1. The following narrative is drawn from this journal as well as the letters he included in it.

  Much of this information is also based on the forthcoming volume 37 of the Franklin Papers, due to be published in late 2003, which covers March 16–September 15, 1782. It adds notes and assessments about Franklin’s writings, which were already available on the Papers CD and elsewhere. I am grateful to the Yale editors for letting me read the manuscript in the fall of 2002. The editors also provided access to the drafts of volumes 38 and 39, due out in 2004, which cover the conclusion of the negotiations.

  27. “Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle,” a hoax by BF, Mar. 12, 1782. The Yale editors provide a detailed assessment of this document for the forthcoming volume 37 of the Papers. Among the people he sent it to was James Hutton, an English friend, who replied, “That article in the Boston paper must be romance, all of it invention, cruel forgery I hope and believe. Bales of scalps!!! Neither the King nor his old ministers…are capable of such atrocities.” Nevertheless, at least one London magazine ( Public Advertiser, Sept. 27, 1782) reprinted parts of it as true. BF to James Hutton, July 7, 1782; James Hutton to BF, July 23, 1782, Papers 37:443, 37:503.

  28. “Journal of Peace Negotiations”; Shelburne to BF, Apr. 28, 1782; Charles Fox to BF, May 1, 1782.

  29. Richard Morris, The Peacemakers (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 274, points out that Grenville and Oswald did not report Franklin’s strong refusals to consider a separate peace, but instead reported back hints that he might be open to it.

  30. BF to John Adams, June 2, 1782.

  31. “Journal of Peace Negotiations”; BF to Shelburne, Apr. 18, May 10, 13, 1782; Shelburne to BF, Apr. 28, 1782; BF to Charles James Fox, May 10, 1782; BF to John Adams, Apr. 20, May 2, 8, 1782; BF to Henry Laurens, Apr. 20, 1782.

  32. BF to Robert Livingston, June 25, 29, 1782; BF to Richard Oswald, June 25, 1782. Franklin’s journal ends July 1.

  33. Richard Oswald to Lord Shelburne, July 10, 1782; BF to Richard Oswald, July 12, 1782; BF to Vergennes, July 24, 1782.

  34. Lord Shelburne to Richard Oswald, July 27, 1782; Wright 314.

  35. John Jay to Robert Livingston, Sept. 18, Nov. 17, 1782; Stourzh 178; BF to Lafayette, Sept. 17, 1782.

  36. Vergennes to la Luzerne, Dec. 19, 1782; McCullough 280.

  37. Middlekauff 197; Herbert Klinghoffer, “Matthew Ridley’s Diary during the Peace Negotiations of 1782,” William and Mary Quarterly 20.1 (January 1963): 123; John Adams to Edmund Jennings, July 20, 1782, in McCullough 276; Adams Letters 3:38; Wright 315.

  38. John Adams to BF, Sept. 13, 1783; McCullough 277; Wright 316; Stourzh 177; BF to Robert Livingston, July 22, 1783.

  39. BF to John Jay, Sept. 10, 1783; John Adams to BF, Sept. 13, 1783; McCullough 282.

  40. Samuel Cooper to BF, July 15, 1782; Robert Livingston to BF, June 23, 1782; BF to Richard Oswald, July 28, 1782; Fleming 455.

  41. Benjamin Vaughan to Lord Shelburne, July 31, Dec. 10, 1782.

  42. “Apologue,” Nov. 1782, Lib. of Am. 967; Smyth Writings, 8:650.

  43. Adams Diaries 3:37; Middlekauff 198; Klinghoffer, “Matthew Ridley’s Diary,” 132.

  44. Vergennes to la Luzerne, Dec. 19, 1782; Vergennes to BF, Dec. 15, 1782.

  45. BF to Vergennes, Dec. 17, 1782; Stourzh 178. The dispute, it so happens, hardly remained a secret: Edward Bancroft, still a spy, promptly sent the letter to the British ministers.

  46. Vergennes to la Luzerne, Dec. 19, 1782. A few months later, when Foreign Secretary Robert Livingston asked him about the French objections, Franklin replied, “I do not see, however, that they have much reason to complain of that Transaction. Nothing was stipulated to their Prejudice, and none of the Stipulations were to have Force, but by a subsequent Act of their own…I long since satisfied Count de Vergennes about it here. We did what appeared to all of us best at the Time, and, if we have done wrong, the Congress will do right, after hearing us, to censure us.” Franklin told Livingston he felt that the French advice on fishing rights was merely designed to assure that a deal was made. Adams felt the French were making the suggestions because they did not want America to succeed in getting the fishing rights. It is in this letter that Franklin chides Adams for his lack of gratitude toward France and calls him “in some things completely out of his
senses.” BF to Robert Livingston, July 22, 1783.

  47. Van Doren 696–97.

  48. BF to PS, Jan. 27, 1783; BF to Joseph Banks, July 27, 1783.

  49. BF to Benjamin Bache, June 23, 1783; Robert Pigott to BF, June 27, 1783; Smith 79.

  50. Dorcas Montgomery to SB, July 23, 1783; BF to PS, Sept. 7, 1783; BF to SF, July 27, 1783; Benjamin Bache to RB and SF, Oct. 30, 1783; Smith 80–82.

  51. BF to PS, 1782, Jan. 8, Sept. 7, 1783; PS to BF, Sept. 28, 1783.

  52. BF to PS, Dec. 26, 1783; BF to RB, Nov. 11, 1783; Van Doren 709.

  53. BF to Robert Livingston, July 22, 1783; Lopez Cher, 314.

  54. BF to Joseph Banks, Aug. 30, Nov. 21, Dec. 1, 1783. A vivid account of the ballooning race and craze is in Lopez Cher, 215–22, which cites Gaston Tissandier, Histoire des ballons et des aéronautes célèbres, 1783–1800 (Paris: Launette, 1887). See also Lopez Private, 267; www.ballooning.org/ballooning/timeline.html ; www.balloonzone.com/history.html.

  55. Joseph Banks to BF, Nov. 7, 1783; BF to Joseph Banks, Nov. 21, 1783; BF to Jan Ingenhousz, Jan. 16, 1784; Lopez Cher, 222, contains Franklin’s parody letter.

  56. BF to SF, Jan. 26, 1784.

  57. “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America,” Feb. 1784; Lib. of Am. 975; Morgan Franklin, 297. In a letter to me commenting on some draft sections of this book, Edmund Morgan noted: Franklin’s “description is mainly accurate but at the same time a statement of what he values in the country and hopes to see perpetuated or magnified” (Dec. 2, 2002).

  58. BF to Benjamin Vaughan, July 26, 1784.

  59. BF to Robert Morris, Dec. 25, 1783; BF to Benjamin Vaughan, Mar. 14, 1785.

  60. BF to Strahan, Jan. 24, 1780, Feb. 16, Aug. 19, 1784.

  61. Lopez Cher, 277–79; Pierre Cabanis, Complete Works (Paris: Bossange frères, 1825), 2:348.

  62. BF to George Whatley, Aug. 21, 1784, May 23, 1785.

  63. BF to TF, Aug. 25, 1784. There are many books and articles on Mesmer. The best, as it relates to Franklin, is the chapter in Lopez Life, 114–26. See also Robert Darnton, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968); Lopez Cher, 163–73; Van Doren 713–14.