Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (80 page)

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.

64
. Willard Sterne Randall,
Thomas Jefferson
(New York: Henry Holt, 1993), 370–400; John Adams to Robert Livingston, May 25, 1783, James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Feb. 11, 1783, Jefferson to Madison, Feb. 14, 1783, all quoted in Middlekauff 200–201.

65
. WF to BF, July 22, 1784.

66
. BF to WF, Aug. 16, 1784.

67
. BF to TF, Oct. 2, 1784; Lopez
Private,
258.

68
. BF to PS, Mar. 19, Aug. 15, 1784.

69
. Lopez
Private,
272.

70
. PS to BF, Oct. 25, 1784; PS to Barbara Hewson, Jan. 25, 1785; Lopez
Private,
269.

71
. BF to PS, July 4, 1785; BF to JM, July 13, 1785; BF to David Hartley, July 5, 1785.

72
. Vergennes to François Barbé de Marbois, May 10, 1785; BF to John Jay, Sept. 21, 1785.

73
. Lopez
Cher,
137–39; Lopez
Private,
275; Fawn Brodie,
Thomas Jefferson
(New York: Norton, 1974), 425.

74
. Franklin trip journal, July 13–28, 1785, Papers CD 43:310.

75
. WF to SF, Aug. 1, 1785; Temple
Writings,
2:165. In a letter to John Jay, Sept. 21, 1785, he describes how Shipley and others visited him in Southampton, but does not mention William.

1
. “Maritime Observations,” BF to David Le Roy, Aug. 1785, Papers CD 41:384.

2
. “Causes and Cure of Smoky Chimneys,” BF to Jan Ingenhousz, Aug. 28, 1785; “Description of a New Stove,” by BF, Aug. 1785, Papers CD 43:380.