The British reply was a new attack on Washington’s army. They stormed ashore at Kips Bay in Manhattan and routed the American recruits. The American army fled, leaving Washington alone on the battlefield. It began to look as if William Franklin was right that the Americans could not hope to defeat Britain’s professional army and navy.
More bad news came from France. While Franklin’s friends assured him the French government and the French people were sympathetic to the American cause, they revealed that none of the king’s ministers “will espouse it with warmth.” France was “over head and ears in debt.” Congress, alarmed by American defeats, decided an alliance with France was essential. Having heard nothing from the secret agent that Franklin’s committee had sent to France in March, they decided to send a more impressive ambassador - Benjamin Franklin.
Their decision meant Franklin would have to endure a winter voyage across the Atlantic, which at his age, might kill him. If he were captured by British cruisers crowding the ocean, a traitor’s death at the end of a rope in London would be certain. But Franklin was committed to the revolution. Turning to Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, who sat next to him in Congress, Franklin said, “I am old and good for nothing; but, as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, ‘I am but a fag end, and you may have me for what you please,’ just so my country may command my services in any way they choose.”
Franklin’s first thoughts as he planned the voyage were of William Temple Franklin, staying with his stepmother in New Jersey. The boy had written his grandfather an angry letter when Franklin had refused to let him visit his father in Wallingford, Connecticut, where Governor Franklin was being held prisoner. If he left Temple behind, the boy likely would become a Loyalist. So Franklin decided to take Temple and rushed a note to the young man in New Jersey, urging him to return to Philadelphia immediately: “I hope … that your mother will make no objection to it, something offering here that will be much to your advantage if you are not out of the way.” Elizabeth wrote to inform William – in a letter delayed because Franklin had ordered all correspondence between them had to pass through him first. “If the old gentleman has taken the boy with him,” William wrote back, “I hope it is only to put him in some foreign university.” Stress and illness had taken its toll on Elizabeth, who now doubted that she would ever see her son or husband again.
Franklin decided to take with him his six-year-old grandson Benjamin Franklin Bache. The war was disrupting schools in America, and Franklin wanted the boy to get the best possible education. So, with his two grandsons for company, Franklin rode to Marcus Hook on the Delaware, where boats transported them to the American sloop Reprisal.
Franklin’s faith in America’s future remained unshaken. The day before he sailed, he wrote to a friend in Boston: “I hope our people will keep up their courage. I have no doubt of their finally succeeding by the blessing of God, nor have I any doubt that so good a cause will fail of that blessing.”
The voyage aboard the Reprisal was an ordeal. The seas were turbulent and the weather cold. The only food was salt beef and ship’s biscuits. Franklin wore the fur hat he had acquired in Canada, but it offered little protection. The boils that tormented him in Canada broke out again, and he grew weaker. His only consolation was the ship’s speed.
One day toward the end of the fourth week, the Reprisal’s captain, Lambert Wickes, burst into Franklin’s cabin and asked for permission to attack a British ship. Wickes had received orders from Congress to avoid encounters with the enemy until he had deposited Franklin in France, but now they were close to the French shore, and the ship, a merchantman, was a tempting target. Franklin took one look at the boat and gave his permission. The crew of the Reprisal raced to quarters, and the British ship surrendered without a shot. A few hours later, Wickes successfully attacked another British ship. Franklin enjoyed seeing American sailors strike a blow at England in her home waters.
Six days later, the Reprisal anchored off Brittany, near the fishing village of Auray. Franklin could barely stand; still, he wrote to Silas Deane in Paris: “I am weak, but hope the good air which I breathe on land will soon re-establish me,” he said. It took twenty-four hours to find a carriage and two horses in a neighboring town, but finally Franklin and his grandsons set off to Nantes.
After resting in Nantes, Franklin joined Deane in Paris, where he enrolled Benjamin Franklin Bache in a private school. Franklin and William Temple Franklin moved into the Hotel de Hambourg with Silas Deane, and the men went to work.
Franklin was pleased to learn the French government had set up a dummy company and had loaned Americans money to buy guns and supplies. Some ships already had sailed. But when the French heard about Washington’s defeats on Long Island and New York, they refused to permit other ships to sail, despite the fact they were ready to depart.
Deane and his assistant, Marylander William Carmichael, were angry with France, but Franklin understood why the French were cautious; England had routed them in the last war, and they had no desire to lose again. Before they supported the United States, they wanted to ensure the Americans could fight.
In Paris, Franklin continued to wear his fur hat, which caught the attention of the French, who saw it as proof Americans were simple and honest and did not bother with trivial matters, such as the latest fashion in hats. Franklin made a point of wearing plain brown or black suits and white shirts. One Frenchman vowed everything about him typified “simplicity and innocence.”
Franklin was neither simple nor innocent, but he recognized the importance of swaying the French. With the help of Jacques Chaumont, a French businessman working with Silas Deane to supply the American army, Franklin had a painting of himself wearing his fur hat printed on plates, pitchers, and other crockery. These were produced in ovens at Chaumont’s estate. They sold briskly, and Franklin soon remarked his face was better known in France than the man in the moon.
At the same time, Franklin coped with British attempts to wreck his mission. When an American woman in France warned him British spies were surrounding him, he replied that he had no doubt. In fact, he said, if he were sure his valet was a spy, “as probably he is, I think I should not discharge him for that, if in other respects I lik’d him.” Franklin saw it would be to his advantage if the British learned about French aid, for this information might make them angry enough to declare war on France. It did not matter how France became America’s ally. In fact, one of Franklin’s closest aides in Paris, Connecticut-born Edward Bancroft, was a double agent who received £600 a year from the British for reporting Franklin’s activities to King George.
The sight of Franklin in Paris incensed the British. British Ambassador David Murray, Lord Stormont, protested to the French government. British newspapers were filled with stories claiming Franklin had fled to France to save his life, because the revolution was collapsing. In a letter to Polly Stevenson Hewson, still in England, Franklin wrote, “I must contrive to get you to America. I want all my friends out of that wicked country. I have just seen in the papers seven paragraphs about me, of which six were lies.”
In March 1777, Franklin moved out of the Hotel de Hambourg and retreated to the village of Passy, a short drive from Paris on the road to Versailles, the palace of Louis XVI and the center of French government. He accepted the invitation of the Chaumonts to live rent-free on their estate.
Franklin soon was asking the French Foreign Minister, Count Vergennes, to come to America’s aid with a formal alliance. But Vergennes was not sure the Americans could win the war. Washington had won small victories at Trenton and Princeton, but the latest word indicated the British were mustering their strength to deliver a knockout blow. One British army, commanded by General John Burgoyne, was set to invade the colonies from Canada, while the main army, based in New York, would attack Philadelphia. So Count Vergennes stalled, offering Franklin more secret aid, but declining to become a public ally.
Franklin asked Vergennes if there was any objection
to Captain Lambert Wickes cruising against British vessels and bringing his prizes into French ports. Vergennes reluctantly replied there was no objection if Wickes’ ship was “a vessel in distress.” As for prizes, that would depend on how loudly the British protested. Under Franklin’s orders, Captain Wickes in a matter of days picked off four British merchantmen. Next, he captured the Royal Mail packet to Lisbon, the H.M.S. Swallow. Then he opened his ballast tanks until enough water had been taken on to prove his “distress” and sailed his prizes back into Nantes.
The British Ambassador Lord Stormont protested. Vergennes ordered Wickes and his prizes out of French waters within twenty-four hours. By this time, all prizes had been sold, taken offshore and hastily repainted, and their cargoes transferred to other ships. Meanwhile, Franklin sent Wickes orders to make another raid in British waters before he returned to America.
At the same time, Franklin launched another tough sailor, Gustavus Conyngham, a daredevil from County Donegal, to attack British shipping. On May 3, Conyngham captured a British mail packet with confidential documents the government was sending to ambassadors in Europe. The documents were full of lies about the coming collapse of the revolution, and Franklin published them, with his refutations.
This time Lord Stormont demanded the arrest of Conyngham and his crew as pirates. Vergennes, trying to avoid a break with England, arrested them, but declined to surrender them to the British. With the aid of the captured documents, Franklin made a fool of Lord Stormont. When a French friend rushed to Franklin to repeat the latest story about America’s collapse, which he had heard from the British ambassador, and asked if it was true, Franklin replied, “Oh, no, it is not the truth, it is only a Stormont.” Within a day the story had swept Paris, and stormonter became a common term for lying. Lord Stormont was so upset, he wrote nine letters to London about Franklin’s activities.
Around this time, Franklin happened to dine at the same inn as Edward Gibbon, the author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon was a member of parliament who blindly supported the government’s policies. Franklin invited Gibbon to join him, but the historian replied that a servant of the king could not have any conversation with a rebel. Franklin sent back his regrets – but could not resist adding that if Mr. Gibbon ever decided to write a book on the decline and fall of the British Empire, he would be happy to supply him with “ample materials.”
Then came more bad news. Burgoyne had captured Fort Ticonderoga, the key defense point on America’s northern frontier; and the British had defeated Washington at the Battle of Brandywine, near Philadelphia. In addition, many supply ships Deane had sent had been captured by British warships. America needed French support.
Franklin received bad news of a more personal nature during the fall of 1777. William, who had been granted parole, had been caught signing and smuggling pardons out of Connecticut and was incarcerated in Litchfield, Connecticut. Meanwhile, the British abandoned New Jersey and took William’s wife Elizabeth with them. In New York, without funds or friends, Elizabeth fell ill and died. Temple Franklin was crushed when he heard the news. He remembered the words his father had written to him, urging him to care for her. Torn between his loyalty to his grandfather and to America, and his love for his father and stepmother, Temple swore he would never marry, because marriage only produced unhappiness. It took four months for news of Elizabeth’s death to reach William in prison. In deep despair, he wrote, “Anxiety I was long under on account of the distressed situation of my dear wife, whose death I was convinced would be expedited by the intelligence she would necessarily receive of my cruel treatment, and the affliction with which I was overwhelmed on the news of the actual death of the best of women, has brought such a dejection of spirits, attended with an almost constant fever, that my life has become quite a burden to me.”
Franklin had little time to console his son or grandson. The barrage of bad news continued, and this time it was bad news both for America and Franklin. The British had captured Philadelphia. All Franklin’s property and, as far as he knew, his daughter and her children were in the hands of the enemy. He managed to maintain his composure when Frenchmen asked the status of the American cause. “Well, doctor,” one Parisian said to him, “Howe has taken Philadelphia.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” Franklin said, “Philadelphia has taken Howe.”
Less than a week after this news, a rumor drifted into Paris. An American ship had arrived with a messenger carrying dispatches for Franklin and his associates. The Americans and their French friends gathered at Franklin’s house to await the courier.
The moment a carriage was heard rattling over the cobblestones of the courtyard, Franklin and his retinue rushed to greet Jonathan Loring Austin. “Sir,” Franklin asked, “is Philadelphia taken?”
“Yes, sir,” Austin replied.
Franklin nodded. He had been hoping the story was another lie. Then, as he turned away, young Austin spoke again. “But, sir, I have greater news than that. General Burgoyne and his whole army are prisoners of war.”
It was true. New England militiamen, armed with guns from a ship sent by Silas Deane that had broken through the British blockade, had trapped Burgoyne’s army near Saratoga, and he had surrendered.
Franklin rushed into the house and began writing letters. Some went to friends in England to give the opposition in parliament ammunition against the ministry. Others went to friends in Paris; the most important went to Count Vergennes, French foreign minister, urging an alliance between France and America. To ensure everyone in Paris heard the news, Franklin had printed a French announcement to tell the story, newspaper style.
“Mail arrived from Philadelphia at Dr. Franklin’s home in Passy after 34 days.
“On October 14th, Burgoyne had to lay down his arms, 9200 men killed or taken prisoner. . . .”
Vergennes said he was ready to sign a treaty of alliance. First he needed Spain’s approval. The Spanish king was an ally, as well as a Bourbon relative, of France’s King, Louis XVI. When Spain refused to sign the treaty, the alliance was threatened with a fatal delay. Franklin’s response was to have dinner with the head of the British Secret Service in Paris. The French, afraid he was about to sign a truce with England, were alarmed; they had no way of knowing what Franklin said to the spy at dinner. England, the spy told Franklin, was ready to fight ten years to prevent America from independence. America, Franklin shot back, was ready to fight sixty years to win it.
Now the French implored Franklin to sign a treaty. He was reluctant, because he knew it would mean a longer war. He waited until the last moment, hoping to hear from England the opposition had brought down the government and a pro-American ministry had taken power. To Thomas Walpole, a friend from the proposed Ohio Company, he wrote, “Everything seems to be rejected by your mad politicians that would lead to healing the breach.” To another English friend, on February 5, 1778, he wrote, “Understanding that a certain person promised to make proposals for healing a certain breach, I postponed and delay’d a material operation till I shou’d hear what those proposals were. I am now told that he will not make them . . . Therefore, adieu, my dear friend.”
The following day, Franklin went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and signed the treaty of alliance with France., Noticing he wore the same velvet suit he had worn the day Wedderburn had abused him before Privy Council, friends asked why. Franklin smiled and said, “To give it a little revenge.”
The British refused to surrender, despite the French alliance, and the war dragged on. Envious of his fame, other Americans who were supposed to be helping Franklin in Paris quarreled with him and with each other. The chief troublemaker was Virginian Arthur Lee, who suspected everyone of being a traitor, even Franklin.
One day, Deane and Lee were dining with Franklin, whose French neighbors had sent in a cake with the inscription, Le digne Franklin (The worthy Franklin).
“As usual, Doctor,” Silas Deane said, “we have to appropriate your present t
o our joint use.”
Seeing a sour look on Arthur Lee’s face, Franklin said, “Not at all. This must be intended for all the commissioners; only these French people cannot write English. They mean, no doubt, Lee, Deane, Franklin.”
“That might answer,” growled Lee, “but we know that whenever they remember us at all, they always put you first.”
Eventually, Congress recalled Deane and Lee and gave Franklin sole responsibility for representing the United States in Paris. Franklin had to buy guns and other supplies for the army, supervise American warships in European waters, and worry about the more than 1,000 American seamen who were starving to death in British jails. He had to interview hundreds of officers from France, Germany, and other countries who wanted to volunteer in the American army. These were extra duties, piled atop his most important job - maintaining harmony between France and America and persuading the French to continue to loan money to the bankrupt Americans.
European volunteers frustrated Franklin. “Great officers in all ranks, in all departments; ladies great and small . . . worry me from morning to night,” he complained. “The noise of every coach now that enters my court terrifies me. I am afraid to accept an invitation to dine abroad, being almost sure of meeting with some officer or officer’s friend, who, as soon as I am put in good humour by a glass or two of champaign, begins his attack upon me. . . .”
As usual, Franklin saw humor in the situation. One day he cooked up a “model of a letter of recommendation of a person you are unacquainted with.” The letter, which he gave to people going to America, explained that Franklin did not know the person, but he recommended him “to those civilities which every stranger of whom one knows no harm has a right to.”
Franklin worried constantly over American seamen in British jails. Through friends in England, he set up a fund that was to pay them money each week to buy decent food. The man in charge of this fund was Maryland merchant Thomas Digges, whom Arthur Lee had selected. Unfortunately, Digges was a British agent. He took the £400 Franklin sent to England and put it in his pocket.
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