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 i
s 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.”
It became apparent the British were planning to injure other Americans before William Franklin. To punish Boston for the Tea Party, parliament passed bills the Americans called the Intolerable Acts. One closed the port of Boston to shipping until the tea was paid for. Another provided any royal official accused of murder or a similar crime would be tried outside Massachusetts or in England. A third bill annulled the colony’s charter, giving the governor dictatorial powers and making him answer only to England.
Then came a law aimed at Franklin. The Quebec Act set up a government for the French in Canada and extended the borders of Canada south to the Ohio River, swallowing Franklin’s proposed colony. The Americans saw the British were attempting to pin them between the mountains and the sea. Alexander Wedderburn admitted as much, when members of the opposition accused the government of this in debates in parliament over the bills to punish Boston. For Franklin, these Intolerable Acts were more proof the British were planning to oppress America as they had done in Ireland.
In America, the Intolerable Acts had an immediate effect on public opinion. People realized if the British could change one colony’s charter, they could change every colony’s charter. From Connecticut to Georgia, Americans rallied to support Massachusetts. Food and money poured into Boston to sustain the thousands left jobless by the port’s closing. At the same time, leaders of the colonies convened a Continental Congress in Philadelphia to discuss the crisis and unite in opposition to the British.
The surge of American support for Massachusetts stunned the British government. Franklin kept American friends informed. “The coolness, temper & firmness of the American proceedings; the unanimity of all the colonies . . . have a good deal surprized and disappointed our enemies,” he wrote.
Franklin was as concerned about his son. Governor Franklin, an appointee of the king, opposed the Continental Congress. Instead, he suggested a congress of Royal Governors to mediate the quarrel. He urged his father to come home to tell Americans they should make peace with England.
Franklin could barely contain himself. “You say my presence is wish’d for at the Congress,” he wrote, “but no person . . . in America has given me the least intimation of such a desire; and it is thought by the great friends of the colonies here, that I ought to stay till the result of the Congress arrives, when my presence here may be of use.” He told William, “I hear nothing of the proposal you have made for a congress of Governors, &c.” Franklin did not like William’s remark that citizens of Massachusetts ought to think of “doing justice before they ask it” and pay for the ruined tea. Franklin disagreed. “They have extorted many thousand pounds from America unconstitutionally, under colour of acts of parliament, and with an armed force. Of this money they ought to make restitution. They might first have taken out payment for the tea, &c., and returned the rest. But you, who are a thorough courtier, see everything with government eyes.”
Franklin exhorted his countrymen to resist. “By its continuance, you will undoubtedly carry all your points: by giving way you will lose every thing. Strong chains will be forged for you, and you will be made to pay for both the iron and the workmanship . . . If you should ever tamely submit to the yoke prepared for you, you cannot conceive how much you will be despised here, even by those who are endeavouring to impose it on you.”
Not every British official wanted war with America. When they saw most Americans were determined to resist parliament, several members of the government, including First Minister Lord North, approached Franklin through private messengers. Two Quaker friends, David Barclay and Dr. John Fothergill, asked Franklin if he would negotiate a settlement, stating the principal American demands in ways that might persuade the British to yield.
In the midst of these negotiations, Franklin received news that Deborah had died. He regretted not returning home sooner and prepared to leave. It was nearly three years before Franklin made mention of her death in his writings. “I have lately lost my old and faithful companion,” he wrote, “and I every day become more sensible of the greatness of that loss, which cannot now be repaired.”
Negotiations to prevent the war evaporated as parliament rejected several proposals to make peace with America. Finally, Franklin’s Quaker friends told him he was wasting his time negotiating. Whatever pretenses the government offered, “they are all hollow . . . To get a larger field on which to fatten a herd of worthless parasites is all that is regarded.”
War was close, and Franklin dreaded it. He sensed that William disagreed with him on the question of America’s independence. On his last day in London, he spent time with an English friend, reading newspapers recently arrived from America. Franklin pointed out articles that might do America some good, if they were reprinted in English papers. “He was frequently not able to proceed for the tears literally running down his cheeks,” the friend said.
Aboard the Pennsylvania ship, bound for Philadelphia, Franklin took with him William Temple Franklin, William’s illegitimate son. Through his years in England, Franklin remained close to the boy, bringing him to Craven Street for visits and paying for his education. Now fifteen, he was handsome and intelligent, with skills in drawing and languages. Not expecting to return to England, Franklin was taking Temple home.
The sea was calm, the voyage slow. Franklin spent his time writing the longest letter of his life. It began, “Dear Son,” and it continued for ninety-seven pages, detailing Franklin’s secret negotiations with the British government - proof of Franklin’s desire to prove to William that America was right and Britain wrong.
When he was not writing, Franklin investigated the Gulf Stream, the large current he had noticed on his first voyage back from England. Now he studied it more carefully, dropping thermometers over the ship and gathering samples of the water, which was bright with phosphorescence. He decided a ship sailing from America to Europe could boost its speed by using the Gulf Stream, since the current ran swiftly in that direction. Going from Europe to America, a ship could save days, perhaps weeks, by avoiding the stream. Franklin decided not to share this for the moment, because if war broke out, it would be useful to the English, who would be sending warships to America.
When Franklin arrived in Philadelphia on May 5, 1775, Americans swarmed the ship to inform him war had begun. Sixteen days earlier, the British had sent a military expedition to Concord, Massachusetts, to seize cannon, gunpowder, and other supplies there. On April 19, fighting broke out in Lexington, and before the day had ended, forty-nine Americans were dead, forty-one wounded, and five missing. The British retreated from Concord, pursued by American min
utemen, who suffered seventy-three casualties, with 174 wounded and twenty-six missing.
In New Jersey, William received a letter from his father – the first since he had written to inform him of Deborah’s death. The letter, sent from Philadelphia, was how William learned that Franklin had returned from London. The letter was dated two days after Franklin’s arrival in Philadelphia. Franklin asked if William had resigned. The answer was no. William felt loyal to the British government because he had not been removed him from office despite his father’s activities. Governor Franklin believed the Americans and the British were both to blame. “I don’t understand it as any favour to me or to you, the being continued in an office by which, with all your prudence, you cannot avoid running behindhand, if you live suitably to your station,” Franklin wrote. “While you are in it I know you will execute it with fidelity to your master, but I think independence more honourable than any service, and that in the state of American affairs . . . you will find yourself in no uncomfortable situation, and perhaps wish you had soon disengaged yourself.”
Franklin urged William to resign and join the revolution. Neither William nor Joseph Galloway, Franklin’s chief political lieutenant in Pennsylvania, agreed. Galloway proposed a plan of union between England and America, and the Continental Congress voted it down. Insulted, he quit Congress and returned home.
On May 10, when a second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, Franklin was appointed an extra member of the Pennsylvania delegation. He was stunned to discover few agreed with his stance on independence. Among those who did was a young delegate from Virginia, Thomas Jefferson. Almost everyone else agreed with John Dickinson, leader of the Pennsylvania delegation, who was determined to reconcile England and America. Franklin had tried that in London and knew it was futile. But he kept silent and accepted the opinion of the majority.
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