Franklin (6 page)

Franklin could sense his son pulling away. Embittered by his son's choice of a bride, he left London a few weeks before the wedding. He wrote a sad farewell to Polly Stevenson, who he had hoped to convince William to wed: “Adieu, my dearest child. I will call you so. Why should I not call you so since I love you with all the tenderness, all the fondness of a father? Adieu. May the God of all goodness shower down his choices blessings upon you and make you infinitely hazier than . . . marriage to William could have made you. Adieu.”

Franklin told his friend William Strahan he felt so depressed on leaving England that Strahan's “persuasions and arguments” had affected him. “The attraction of reason is at present for the other side of the water, but that of inclination will be for this side. You know which usually prevails. I shall probably make but this one vibration and settle here forever. Nothing will prevent it, if I can, as I hope I can, prevail with Mrs. F. to accompany me.”

William and Elizabeth were married at St. George's Church on Hanover Square in a ceremony conducted by her brother. Strahan described the bride as “as good a soul as breathes, and they are very happy in one another. She is indeed a favorite with all who knew her.” Elizabeth knew nothing of her husband's illegitimate son, and William decided to keep the secret a while longer. As he prepared to leave London, he made arrangements with Strahan to provide for Temple - as he called the boy – from New Jersey. He wrote a will, naming Elizabeth and Temple as his heirs.

Less than a week later, William Franklin kneeled before King
George III
to accept his commission as royal governor of New Jersey. Franklin was absent for his son's oath of office. In letters to his favorite sister, Franklin omitted news of both William's marriage and his appointment, which resulted in her learning about it in the Boston newspapers. Back in America, he arranged a grand reception for his son that included a salute from members of William's old cavalry unit. Franklin's carriage took Elizabeth home. Franklin, meanwhile, laid out his plans for William's governorship. With his son as a governor directly under the rule of the crown, Franklin saw an opportunity to run the Penns out of Pennsylvania.

Franklin never had forgotten William's description of the Ohio Valley. With the French defeated, this area was English territory. He had discussed with friends in England the possibility of founding a colony there as William Penn had founded Pennsylvania. What better way to train his son than to inherit the responsibility this political experiment would leave him.

With haste, father and son set off on horseback for New Jersey, escorted by a royal cavalcade. Franklin would not miss this milestone. William mounted the steps of an old stone courthouse, where his commission was read aloud, and after a short speech, he claimed his post.

Franklin returned to Philadelphia, already longing to return to London. He tried to persuade Deborah to go with him. He was serious about spending the rest of his life there. In a letter to an English friend, he said, “Why should that petty island, which compared to America is but like a stepping stone in a book, scarce enough of it above water to keep one's shoes dry; why, I say, should that little island, enjoy in almost every neighborhood, more sensible, virtuous and elegant minds, than we can collect in ranging a hundred leagues of our vast forests?” From Philadelphia, he assured Strahan, “In two years at farthest I hope to settle all my affairs in such a manner, as that I may then conveniently remove to England, provided we can persuade the good woman to cross the seas.”

But the good woman, afraid of ships and water, refused to cross an ocean. Franklin began building a new house in Philadelphia, and Governor William Franklin soon was telling Strahan his father was planning to spend his remaining years in America.

By now, Franklin was fifty-nine, an old man in a century when most died in their forties and fifties. Yet Franklin did not act old. He had the burly, bulky vigor of middle age, despite a paunch that sometimes prompted him to call himself Dr. Fatsides.

When war with the Indians erupted on the Pennsylvania frontier, the need to tax the Penns' estates again became a problem in the colony's Assembly. Franklin, elected in absentia during his years in England, prepared the tax bill in accordance with his agreement with the Penns. Then he discovered the Penns had instructed their governor not to permit any taxation on their lands that exceeded the lowest taxes that individual owners paid on the cheapest land in the colony.

Infuriated but calm, Franklin marshaled his forces and rammed through a bill petitioning the king to remove the government of Pennsylvania from the Penns immediately. Despite the opposition of Penn supporters, the Assembly appointed Franklin to take the petition to London and secure approval from the king and his Privy Councilors. Franklin assured Deborah he would return within twelve months. Escorted by 300 men on horseback, he rode to Chester on the Delaware, where the ship,
King of Prussia,
waited. Cannon boomed as he went aboard, and the crowd sang a revised version of “God Save the King”:

Franklin's political lieutenant, Joseph Galloway, and two friends,
Thomas Wharton
and Abel James, prominent Philadelphia merchants, boarded the ship with him and sailed down the Delaware to New Castle. This loyalty touched Franklin. On the night of November 8, alone in his cabin one worry nagged him: his daughter, Sarah, whom he called Sally. At twenty-one, she was certain to be exposed to the same insults from her father's political enemies that had dogged William. Benjamin wanted to take Sally to England, to put her beyond the reach of this, at least for the year he expected to be gone, but Deborah refused to let her go.

Before the ship sailed, Franklin wrote Sally, assuring her of his love and urging her to ignore what enemies were saying. Even the pastor of the church Sally attended was anti-Franklin and uttered cruel remarks from the pulpit. Nevertheless, Franklin urged Sally to attend church. Finally, he encouraged her to acquire “those useful accomplishments, arithmetick and bookkeeping.” With the Philadelphia establishment against the Franklins, Sally had little chance to marry a wealthy heir. Franklin prepared her for life as a tradesman's wife, to enable her to give her husband the help Deborah had given him.

Franklin had no such worries about William. He was married and excelling as governor in New Jersey. William was based in the western capital of Burlington. He rented a house on the river with his new wife until, with a handsome pay raise from the Assembly, he was able to build his own waterfront mansion. His dining room was decorated with two oil portraits – one of King George III, the other of Benjamin Franklin. Living in Burlington put them closer to Philadelphia, but it had been some time since William had seen his father. William took Elizabeth dancing at Assembly balls and to horse races. The couple entertained friends and politicians at their home; Elizabeth hosted tea parties, dinners, and church benefits. Still, for Elizabeth, Burlington was no substitute for London. She did her best to adjust, even importing an English maid. But William “had much to do to keep up poor Mrs. Franklin's spirits.” She became afflicted with more than just homesickness. She was asthmatic and suffered regular bouts of illness.

William's first few years as governor were calm and uneventful. He built on the self-confidence he had won in England and made new friends – even of potential enemies. Politically, he managed to strike a balance between the king's demands and the needs and interests of his colonists. The absence of his father from his life seemed to have a positive effect.

Franklin believed his mission in England would be successful. With the friends he had there, he was confident he could drive the Penns out of Pennsylvania and get the government's approval of a new colony in the Ohio Valley. Together, he and his son would build a model society. Franklin had no idea he was sailing into a maelstrom that would destroy his relationship with William.

When Franklin reached England in December 1764, he found himself embroiled in an unexpected political uproar. After spending more than £200 million to defeat France in the
Seven Years War
, the British government was in debt. With people complaining about taxes, British politicians hesitated to impose more taxes in England, Scotland, or Ireland.

It cost the British a lot of money to maintain an army in America to protect residents, and parliament decided to make Americans pay for this. When Franklin arrived, he found government preparing to pass a
Stamp Act
for America. All legal documents, marriage licenses, wills, contracts, as well as newspapers and other items, would be required to carry a Royal stamp, which the government would sell. A similar law was in place in England.

Franklin and three other Americans went to see
George Grenville
, leader of the British cabinet, called the prime minister, to argue against the law, warning Americans would resent it. They did not believe parliament had a right to tax people in the colonies, because they had no representatives in parliament. But Grenville presented the bill to parliament, where it passed with little debate. Franklin advised friends at home to be patient. He and other Americans in England would work to get the law repealed, but it might take time.

In America, almost every colony condemned the bill. In Virginia,
Patrick Henry
, a backwoods orator, arose in the House of Burgesses to thunder, “
Caesar
had his
Brutus
,
Charles I
his
Cromwell
, let George III profit from their example.” In Boston and New York, mobs rioted, destroying the houses of government officials and forcing commissioners who were to sell stamps to resign. A boycott of the stamps by all New Jersey lawyers meant no legal business could be conducted in the colony. When a barge arrived in New Jersey with a shipment of the stamps, Governor William Franklin refused to allow it to land and unload. His answer to the king, under whose grace he served, would be that he had received no clear instructions about the dispensation of the stamps. He practiced this justification in a letter to his father: “It seems to me that we might legally go on with business in the usual way, as much as if the stamps had never been sent or had been lost at sea, seeing that no commission or instructions have been sent to anybody.”

In Philadelphia, Franklin's enemies spread word that he favored the Stamp Act and had helped the British government draft the law. A mob threatened to attack his house. Franklin heard the story from Deborah, in vivid letters. For nine days, she said, she was kept in “one contineued hurrey” by people urging her to flee with Sally to William's home in Burlington, New Jersey. But other friends and relatives supported them. One of Deborah's cousins arrived to tell her “more than twenty pepel” told him it was his duty to stay with her. She told him she was “pleased to receive civility from aney bodey.”

Franklin redoubled his efforts to get the Stamp Act repealed. He had letters from American friends published in British newspapers, warning the English they were in danger of losing the colonies. Franklin spent hours at his desk, answering criticisms of Americans that began appearing in the English press, and he worked tirelessly to influence parliament. Almost every moment was spent “forming, explaining, consulting, disputing” with Britain's lawmakers. He worked with a committee of twenty-eight London merchants, who pressured parliament to repeal the Stamp Act. Americans had signed non-importation agreements, pledging to buy no English goods until the tax was repealed. The merchants sent circulars to twenty other British towns and cities, urging them to petition parliament to abandon the Stamp Act before it wrecked the British economy.

Initially, Franklin made little progress. Many parliament members saw the Stamp Act as a test of their right to tax Americans.
Edmund Burke
, an Irish-born member of parliament who wanted to repeal the Stamp Act, decided his colleague's “ignorance of American affairs” had misled them. To inform them, he summoned several experts to testify about America. One was Benjamin Franklin.

With the help of friends in Parliament, Franklin formulated and rehearsed questions and answers he hoped would refute the Stamp Act permanently.

On February 13, 1766, Franklin appeared before the House of Commons. His testimony overwhelmed supporters of the Stamp Act. Refuting the notion America was rich and relatively untaxed, Franklin told how many taxes Americans were paying to colonial assemblies. He demonstrated the Stamp Act was not only unjust, but it also was impractical. In thinly populated settlements along the frontier and in Canada (now an English possession), mail service did not exist, and people could not get stamps, which meant they could not marry, make wills, or buy or sell property without making long journeys and “spending perhaps three or four pounds, that the crown might get sixpence.”

At one point, Franklin won an exchange with George Grenville, the man who had proposed the Stamp Act. Out of office now, Grenville reacted angrily to anyone who criticized his legislation. “Do you think it right that America should be protected by this country and pay no part of the expense?” he demanded.

“That is not the case,” Franklin replied. “The colonies raised, clothed, and paid during the last war, near 25,000 men, and spent many millions.”

“Were you not reimbursed by parliament?”

“We were only reimbursed what in your opinion we had advanced beyond our proportion, or beyond what might reasonably be expected from us; and it was a very small part of what we spent. Pennsylvania, in particular, disbursed £500,000 and the reimbursements in the whole did not exceed £60,000.”

Grenville sat down.

In answer to prepared questions from friends, Franklin presented statistics about the population of America and how much the colonists imported from Britain. There were 300,000 men in America between sixteen and sixty, more than enough to make a formidable army. Pennsylvania alone imported £500,000 of British goods each year. The implication was obvious: Not only would a war with the colonies be dangerous; it would be highly uneconomic.

The questions and answers continued, with Franklin portraying the Stamp Act as idiocy. At the end of his presentation, a friend asked, “If the act is not repealed, what do you think will be the consequences?” Said Franklin: “A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear this country, and of all the commerce that depends on that respect and affection.”

A week later, the House of Commons repealed the Stamp Act. In America, the news touched off celebrations. Newspapers reprinted Franklin's testimony before parliament, and his popularity soared. William led the celebration in Burlington, New Jersey, where cannons fired at a public festival on the lawn of his estate. In Philadelphia, “the bells rang, we had bonfires,” Sally Franklin wrote in a letter to her father. “Indeed I have never heard so much noise all my life, the very children were distracted.”

But in London, the man who made victory possible was not as optimistic. He noted parliament had passed a
Declaratory Act
, which insisted it had the right to enact laws binding the British colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” Only a few weeks later, parliament renewed the law that gave England the power to export convicts to the colonies. Among his friends, Franklin circulated another bill, which would give the colonies the right to export convicts to Scotland. Most members of parliament considered it a joke, overlooking Franklin's serious message: Americans were not going to let the British give them orders.

Franklin stayed in London. The people of Pennsylvania felt no one could do a better job of representing them before the various boards and committees that ran the empire. He worked on a plan to create a paper currency for all colonies. Not only would it help unify them, it would increase the circulation of money and thus stimulate business. In Franklin's plan, the British government would derive a small profit from selling money to the colonies, which would be a painless and invisible form of taxation. But as usual, he found it difficult to convince the British government. America was only one part of the great British Empire; colonies in India, Africa, and the West Indies also clamored for the government's attention. And the English political scene was tumultuous, with new cabinets and new ministers taking office every year.

At the same time, Franklin worked to create a new colony in the Ohio River Valley, a dream William Franklin now pursued. In America, Governor Franklin had joined friends in a company that negotiated a treaty with the Indians, giving them access to some of this land. In London, Franklin tried to secure the British government's approval. Eventually, he persuaded William and his friends to dissolve their American company and merge it with a larger British enterprise that Franklin and his friends formed in London. Franklin drew into this company some of the biggest names in the British establishment. Lord Gower, president of the Privy Council, was a partner. Slowly, patiently, for five years, Franklin worked on this.

Almost every year, he would tell his wife or son he was discouraged and eager to return home. But something always kept him in England. If it was not the hope of some progress on the Ohio colony, it was turmoil between England and America.

In 1768, parliament's
Charles Townshend
proposed new taxes, placing duties on paper, lead, glass, and other commodities that the colonies imported from England. Americans resented these taxes and began lobbying for their repeal. Franklin busied himself writing articles in British newspapers, defending America against accusations from Britons.

Franklin was becoming a spokesman for all Americans, not just for Pennsylvania. Georgia asked him to be its agent in London, and then New Jersey, no doubt prompted by Governor Franklin, made the same request. Then came a surprise: Massachusetts, the most rebellious colony, asked Franklin to represent it.

In point of fact, the Massachusetts Assembly made this request. The Assembly had been feuding with the royal governor,
Thomas Hutchinson
, over the
Townsend Acts
and other matters. When the London agent for Massachusetts died, it became obvious the governor and the Assembly could not agree on a new man; the Assembly chose Franklin as its representative and told the governor to get his own agent.

Franklin knew that serving as agent for Massachusetts was dangerous. Anyone who represented it was bound to be disliked in London. Accepting the job was painful, because he knew it might ruin his chances of getting approval for the Ohio colony. But he accepted the appointment, believing the people of Massachusetts and their fellow Americans in other colonies were right, and the British were wrong in the debate over parliament's power.

Franklin discovered just how much trouble Massachusetts was likely to bring when he went to see
Wills Hill
, Lord Hillsborough, the minister in charge of the American colonies. Franklin had quarreled with him over Ohio, which Lord Hillsborough, fearful a new colony in America might lure workers away from his estates in Northern Ireland, vigorously opposed.

Franklin evened the score with Lord Hillsborough by forcing him to hold a hearing on the Ohio colony. The Board of Trade, which Hillsborough led, rejected the project. Franklin requested the Privy Council review this decision, and they repudiated Hillsborough's report. Humiliated, Hillsborough resigned. But he remained a powerful enemy, and his friends in the government stalled the final decision.

On April 6, 1773, Franklin wrote a letter to Joseph Galloway about this slow progress. “The affair of the [Ohio] grant goes on but slowly. I do not yet clearly see land. I begin to be a little of the sailor's mind when they were handing a cable out of a store into a ship, and one of ‘em said: ‘Tis a long heavy cable. I wish we could see the end of it.'”

“‘Damn me,' says another, ‘if I believe it has any end; somebody has cut it off.'”