The True Benjamin Franklin Part 20

France had just come out of a long war with England in which she had lost Canada and valuable possessions in the East and West Indies.

England held the port of Dunkirk, on French soil, and searched French ships whenever she pleased. France was humiliated and full of resentment. She had failed to conquer the English colonies; but it would be almost as good and some slight revenge if she deprived England of them by helping them to secure their own independence. It would cripple English commerce, which was rapidly driving that of France from the ocean. England had in 1768 helped the Corsican rebels against France, and that was a good precedent for France helping the American rebels against England.

In the autumn of 1775 the Secret Committee of Congress had sent Thomas Story to London, Holland, and France to consult with persons friendly to the colonies. He was also to deliver a letter to Arthur Lee, who had taken Franklin's place as agent of Ma.s.sachusetts in London, and this letter instructed Lee to learn the disposition of foreign powers. A similar letter was to be delivered to Mr. Dumas in Holland, and soon after Story's departure M. Penet, a French merchant of Nantes, was sent to France to buy ammunition, arms, and clothing.

A few months afterwards, in the beginning of 1776, the committee sent to Paris Silas Deane, of Connecticut, who had served in the Congress. He was more of a diplomatic representative than any of the others, and was instructed to procure, if possible, an audience with Vergennes, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, suggest the establishment of friendly relations, the need of arms and ammunition, and finally lead up to the question whether, if the colonies declared their independence, they might look upon France as an ally.

Meantime that strange character, Beaumarchais, the author of "The Barber of Seville" and "The Marriage of Figaro," and still a distinguished light of French literature, fired by the general enthusiasm for the Americans, const.i.tuted himself their agent and amba.s.sador, and was by no means an unimportant one. He was the son of a respectable watch-maker, and when a mere youth had distinguished himself by the invention of an improvement in escapements, which was stolen by another watch-maker, who announced it as his own. Beaumarchais appealed to the Academy of Sciences in a most cleverly written pet.i.tion, and it decided in his favor. Great attention had been drawn to him by the contest; he appeared at court, and was soon making wonderful little watches for the king and queen; he became a favorite, the familiar friend of the king's daughters, and his career as an adventurer, courtier, and speculator began. A most wonderful genius, typical in many ways of his century, few men have ever lived who could play so many parts, and his excellent biographer, Lomenie, has summed up the occupations in which he excelled:

"Watch-maker, musician, song writer, dramatist, comic writer, man of fashion, courtier, man of business, financier, manufacturer, publisher, ship-owner, contractor, secret agent, negotiator, pamphleteer, orator on certain occasions, a peaceful man by taste, and yet always at law, engaging, like Figaro, in every occupation, Beaumarchais was concerned in most of the events, great or small, which preceded the Revolution."

He traded all over the world, and made three or four fortunes and lost them; he had at times forty vessels of his own on the ocean, and his private man-of-war a.s.sisted the French navy at the battle of Grenada. In fact, he was like his great contemporary, Voltaire, who, besides being a dramatist, a philosopher, a man of letters, and a reformer, was one of the ablest business men of France, a ship-owner, contractor, and millionaire.

The resemblance of Franklin to these two men is striking. He showed the same versatility of talents, though perhaps in less degree. He had the same strange ability to excel at the same time in both literary and practical affairs, he had very much the same opinion on religion, and his morals, like Voltaire's, were somewhat irregular. When we connect with this his wonderful reputation in France, the adoration of the people, and the strange way in which during his residence in Paris he became part of the French nation, we are almost led to believe that through some hidden process the causes which produced Franklin must have been largely of French origin. He is, indeed, more French than English, and seems to belong with Beaumarchais and Voltaire rather than with Chatham, Burke, or Priestley.

But to return to Beaumarchais and the Revolution. He was carried away by the importance of the rebellion in America, and devoted his whole soul to bringing France to the a.s.sistance of the colonies. He argued with the court and the king, visited London repeatedly in the secret service of his government, and became more than ever convinced of the weakness of Great Britain.

The plan which the French ministry now adopted was to aid the colonies in secret and avoid for the present an open breach with England. Arms were to be sent to one of the French West India islands, where the governor would find means of delivering them to the Americans. Soon, however, this method was changed as too dangerous, and in place of it Beaumarchais established in Paris a business house, which he personally conducted under the name of Roderique Hortalez & Company. He did this at the request of the government, and his biographer, De Lomenie, has given us a statement of the arrangement in language which he a.s.sumes Vergennes must have used in giving instructions to Beaumarchais:

"The operation must essentially in the eyes of the English government, and even in the eyes of the Americans, have the appearance of an individual speculation, to which the French ministers are strangers. That it may be so in appearance, it must also be so, to a certain point, in reality. We will give a million secretly, we will try to induce the court of Spain to unite with us in this affair, and supply you on its side with an equal sum; with these two millions and the co-operation of individuals who will be willing to take part in your enterprise you will be able to found a large house of commerce, and at your own risk can supply America with arms, ammunition, articles of equipment, and all other articles necessary for keeping up the war. Our a.r.s.enals will give you arms and ammunition, but you shall replace them or shall pay for them. You shall ask for no money from the Americans, as they have none; but you shall ask them for returns in products of their soil, and we will help you to get rid of them in this country, while you shall grant them, on your side, every facility possible. In a word, the operation, after being secretly supported by us at the commencement, must afterwards feed and support itself; but, on the other side, as we reserve to ourselves the right of favoring or discouraging it, according to the requirements of our policy, you shall render us an account of your profits and your losses, and we will judge whether we are to accord you fresh a.s.sistance, or give you an acquittal for the sums previously granted." (De Lomenie's Beaumarchais, p. 273.)

It was in June, 1776, that Beaumarchais started his extraordinary enterprise in the Rue Vieille du Temple, in a large building called the Hotel de Hollande, which had formerly been used as the residence of the Dutch amba.s.sador. The million francs was paid to him by the French government, another million by Spain in September, and still another million by France in the following year. So with the greatest hopefulness and delight he began shipping uniforms, arms, ammunition, and all sorts of supplies to America. He had at times great difficulty in getting his laden ships out of port. The French government was perfectly willing that they should go, and always affected to know nothing about them. But Lord Stormont, the British amba.s.sador, would often discover their destination and protest in most vigorous and threatening language. Then the French ministry would appear greatly surprised and stop the ships. This process was repeated during two years,--a curious triangular, half-masked contest between Beaumarchais, Lord Stormont, and the ministry.

"If government caused my vessels to be unloaded in one port, I sent them secretly to reload at a distance in the roads. Were they stopped under their proper names, I changed them immediately, or made pretended sales, and put them anew under fict.i.tious commissions. Were obligations in writing exacted from my captains to go nowhere but to the West India Islands, powerful gratifications on my part made them yield again to my wishes. Were they sent to prison on their return for disobedience, I then doubled their gratifications to keep their zeal from cooling, and consoled them with gold for the rigor of our government."

In this way he sent to the colonies within a year eight vessels with supplies worth six million francs. Sometimes, in spite of all efforts, one of his vessels with a valuable cargo was obliged to sail direct to the West Indies, and could go nowhere else. In one instance of this sort he wrote to his agent Francy, in America, to have several American privateers sent to the West Indies to seize the vessel.

"My captain will protest violently, and will draw up a written statement threatening to make his complaint to the Congress. The vessel will be taken where you are. The Congress will loudly disavow the action of the brutal privateer, and will set the vessel at liberty with polite apologies to the French flag; during this time you will land the cargo, fill the ship with tobacco, and send it back to me as quickly as possible, with all you may happen to have ready to accompany it."

Imagination is sometimes a very valuable quality in practical affairs, and this neat description by the man of letters was actually carried out in every detail and with complete success by his agent in America. He was certainly a valuable amba.s.sador of the colonies, this wonderful Beaumarchais; but he suffered severely for his devotion. Under his agreement with his government, the government's outlay was to be paid back gradually by American produce; but Congress would not send the produce, or sent it so slowly that Beaumarchais was threatened with ruin, and suffered the torturing anxiety which comes with the conviction that those for whom you are making the greatest sacrifices are indifferent and incapable of grat.i.tude.

It was in vain that he appealed to Congress; for Arthur Lee was continually informing that body that he was a fraud and his claims groundless, because the French government intended that all the supplies sent through Hortalez & Co. should be a free gift to the revolted colonies. Lee may have sincerely believed this; but it was very unfortunate, because more than two years elapsed before Congress became convinced that the supplies were not entirely a present, and voted Beaumarchais its thanks and some of the money he claimed. A large part of his claims were never paid. For fifty years there was a controversy about "the lost million," and for its romantic history the reader is referred to De Lomenie, Durand's "New Material for the History of the American Revolution," and Dr. Stille's "Beaumarchais and the Lost Million."

But he was not the only person who suffered. The truth is that the whole arrangement made by Congress for conducting the business in France was ridiculously inefficient, not to say cruel and inhuman. That we got most important aid from France was due to the eagerness and efforts of the French themselves, and not to anything done by Congress.

Franklin and his two fellow-commissioners, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee, had equal powers. They had to conduct a large and complicated business involving the expenditure of millions of dollars without knowing exactly where the millions were to come from, and with no regular system of accounts or means of auditing and investigating; their arrangements had to be largely kept secret; they expended money in lump sums without always knowing what use was made of it; they were obliged to rely on the a.s.sistance of all sorts of people,--naval agents, commercial agents, and others for whose occupation there was no exact name; and they had no previous experience or precedents to guide them. On their arrival at Paris, the three commissioners found a fourth person, Beaumarchais, well advanced in his work, and accomplishing in a practical way rather more than any of them could hope to do. Moreover, Beaumarchais's arrangement was necessarily so secret that though they knew in a general way, as did Lord Stormont and all Paris, what he was doing, yet only one of them, Deane, was ever fully admitted into the secret, and it is probable that the other two died without having fully grasped the real nature and conditions of his service.

That three joint commissioners of equal powers should conduct such an enormous business of expenditure and credit for a series of years without becoming entangled in the most terrible suspicions and bitter quarrels was in the nature of things impossible. The result was that the history of their horrible disputes and accusations against one another is more voluminous than the history of their services. Deane, who did more actual work than any one except Beaumarchais, was thoroughly and irretrievably ruined. Arthur Lee, who accomplished very little besides manufacturing suspicions and charges, has left behind him a reputation for malevolence which no one will envy; Beaumarchais suffered tortures which he considered almost equivalent to ruin, and his reputation was not entirely rescued until nearly half a century after his death; and Franklin came nearer than ever before in his life to sinking his great fame in an infamy of corruption, for the attacks made upon him by Arthur Lee were a hundred times worse than those of Wedderburn.

It was a terrible ordeal for the four men,--those two years before France made an open alliance with the colonies,--and I will add a few other circ.u.mstances which contributed variety to their situation. Ralph Izard, of South Carolina, a very pa.s.sionate man, was appointed by the wise Congress an envoy to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He never went to Tuscany for the simple reason that the duke could not receive him without becoming embroiled with Great Britain; so he was obliged to remain in Paris, where he a.s.sisted Lee in villifying Deane, Franklin, and Beaumarchais, and his letters home were full of attacks on their characters.

He was not a member of the commission which had charge of French affairs, and yet, in the loose way in which all the foreign business of the colonies was being managed, it was perhaps natural that, as an energetic and able man and an American, he should wish to be consulted occasionally by Franklin and Deane. In a certain way he was directly connected with them, for he had to obtain money from them for some of his expenses incurred in attempting to go to Tuscany, and on this subject he quarrelled with Franklin, who thought that he had used too much. He was also obliged to apply to Franklin for certain papers to enable him to make a commercial treaty with Tuscany, and these, he said, Franklin had delayed supplying. He complained further of Franklin's neglect to answer his letters and obstructing his means of sending information to America.

Franklin afterwards admitted that he might have saved himself from Izard's enmity by showing him a little attention; his letters to both Izard and Lee were very stinging; in fact, they were the severest that he ever wrote; and Izard's charge that he delayed answering letters was probably true, for we know from other sources that he was never orderly in business matters. At any rate, the result of his neglect of Izard was that that gentleman's hatred for him steadily increased to the end of his life, and years after Izard had left Paris he is described as unable to contain himself at the mention of Franklin's name, bursting out into pa.s.sionate denunciation of him like the virtuous old ladies we are told of in Philadelphia.

Then there was William Lee, brother of Arthur Lee, appointed envoy to Berlin and Vienna, which places he could not reach for the same reason that prevented Izard from going to Tuscany. So he also stayed in Paris, a.s.sisted his brother Arthur, became a commercial agent, and had no love for either Franklin or Deane. There was also Dr. Edward Bancroft, who had no regular appointment, but flitted back and forth between London and Paris. He was intimate with Franklin, a.s.sisted Deane, knew the secrets of the American business in Paris, which knowledge Lee tells us he used for the purpose of speculating in London, and Bancroft the historian says that he was really a British spy. Thomas Morris, a younger brother of Robert Morris, was a commercial agent at Nantes, wrecked himself with drink, and started what came near being a serious dispute between Robert Morris and Franklin; and Franklin himself had his own nephew, Jonathan Williams, employed as naval agent, which gave Lee a magnificent opportunity to charge that the nephew was in league with the uncle and with Deane to steal the public money and share with them the proceeds of the sale of prizes.

It is impossible to go fully into all these details; but we are obliged to say, in order to make the situation plain, that Deane, being taken into the full confidence of Beaumarchais, conducted with him an immense amount of business through the firm of Hortalez & Co. On several occasions Franklin testified in the warmest manner to Deane's efficiency and usefulness, and this testimony is the stronger because Franklin was never taken into the confidence of Beaumarchais, had no intercourse with him, and might be supposed to be piqued, as Lee was, by this neglect.

But the greatest secrecy was necessary, and Deane could not reveal his exact relationship with the French contractor and dramatist. So letter after letter was received by Congress from Lee, describing what dreadful fraud and corruption the wicked pair, Deane and Beaumarchais, were guilty of every day. Deane, he said, was making a fortune for himself by his relations with Beaumarchais, and was speculating in London. Deane also urged that Beaumarchais should be paid for the supplies, which were not, he said, a present from the king, and this Lee, of course, thought was another evidence of his villany.

Some of Lee's accusations are on their face rather far-fetched. On the charge, however, that Deane and Franklin's nephew, Jonathan Williams, were speculating on their own account in the sale of prizes, he quotes a letter from Williams to Deane which is rather strong:

"I have been on board the prize brig. Mr. Ross tells me he has written to you on the subject and the matter rests whether according to his letter you will undertake or not; if we take her on private account she must be pa.s.sed but 13,000 livres."

This, it must be confessed, looked very suspicious, for Williams was in charge of the prizes, and by this letter he seemed prepared to act as both seller and purchaser and to share with Deane.

The charge that Deane had a.s.sumed to himself the whole management of affairs and ignored Lee was undoubtedly true, and no one has ever denied it. Franklin also ignored him, for he was an unbearable man with whom no one could live at peace.

Lee kept on with his accusations, declaring that Deane's accounts were in confusion. A packet of despatches sent to Congress was found on its arrival to contain nothing but blank paper. It had evidently been opened and robbed. Lee promptly insinuated that Deane must have been the thief, and that Franklin probably a.s.sisted.

In a letter to Samuel Adams, Lee said,--

"It is impossible to describe to you to what a degree this kind of intrigue has disgraced, confounded, and injured our affairs here. The observation of this at head-quarters has encouraged and produced through the whole a spirit of neglect, abuse, plunder, and intrigue in the public business which it has been impossible for me to prevent or correct."

So the evidence, or rather suspicions, piled up against Deane, and he was ordered home. Supposing that Congress wanted him merely for information about the state of France, he returned after the treaty of alliance was signed, coming over, as he thought, in triumph with Admiral D'Estaing and the fleet that was to a.s.sist the Americans.

He expected to be welcomed with grat.i.tude, but Congress would not notice him; and when at last he was allowed to tell his story, the members of that body did not believe a word of it. He made public statements in the newspapers, fought Lee with paper and ink, and the curious may still read his and Lee's recriminations, calling one another traitors, and become more confused than ever over the controversy. His arguments only served to injure his case. He made the mistake of attacking Lee instead of merely defending himself, and he talked so openly about our affairs in France, revealing, among other things, the dissensions among the members of the commission, that he was generally regarded as having injured our standing among the governments of Europe.

He struggled with Congress, and returned to Paris to have his accounts audited; but it was all useless; he was ruined; and, in despair and fury at the injustice done him, he went over to the British, like Arnold, and died in poverty and obscurity.

In America both he and Beaumarchais seem to have been considered rascals until far into the next century, when the publication of Beaumarchais's life and the discovery of some papers by a member of the Connecticut Historical Society put a different face upon their history. Congress voted Deane's heirs thirty-eight thousand dollars as a recompense for the claims which the Continental Congress had refused to pay their ancestor. Indeed, the poverty in which Deane died was not consistent with Lee's story that he had been making millions by his arrangement with Beaumarchais. Franklin always stood by him, and publicly declared that in all his dealings with him he had never had any occasion to suspect that he lacked integrity.

Lee was a Virginian, a member of the famous family of that name, and a younger brother of Richard Henry Lee, who was a member of the Continental Congress. Though born in Virginia, he was educated in England at Eton and also at Edinburgh, where he took the degree of doctor of medicine. The easy-going methods by which Franklin and Deane handled millions of dollars, sold hundreds of prizes brought in by Paul Jones and other American captains, and shipped cargoes of arms, ammunition, and clothing to America were extremely shocking to him. Or perhaps he was extremely shocked because he was not allowed a hand in it. But it was necessary to be prompt in giving a.s.sistance to the revolted colonies, and Franklin and Deane pushed the business along as best they could.

If Congress had made a less stupid arrangement the emba.s.sy might have been organized on a business-like system in which everything would move by distinct, definite orders, everybody's sphere be defined, with a regular method of accounts in which every item should have its voucher.

But, as Franklin himself confessed, he never could learn to be orderly; and now, when he was past seventy, infirm, often laid up with violent attacks of the gout, with a huge literary and philosophic reputation to support, tormented by Lee and Izard, the whole French nation insane with admiration for him, and dining out almost every day, it was difficult for him to do otherwise than as he did.

Although the others had equal power with him, he was necessarily the head of the emba.s.sy, for his reputation was so great in France that everything gravitated towards him. Most people scarcely knew that there were two other commissioners, and the little they knew of Lee they did not like. Lee was absent part of the time on journeys to Spain, Berlin, and Vienna, and as Deane had started the business of sending supplies before either Franklin or Lee arrived, the conduct of affairs naturally drifted away from Lee. It afforded a good excuse for ignoring him. He was insanely suspicious, and charged John Jay, Reed, Duane, and other prominent Americans with treason, apparently without the slightest foundation.

Finding himself ignored and in an awkward and useless position, he should have resigned, giving his reasons. But he chose to stay and send private letters to members of Congress attacking the characters of his fellow-commissioners and intriguing to have himself appointed the sole envoy to France. Among his letters are to be found three on this subject, two to his brother in Congress and one to Samuel Adams.

"There is but one way of redressing this and remedying the public evil; that is the plan I before sent you of appointing the Dr. _honoris causa_ to Vienna, Mr. Deane to Holland, Mr.

Jennings to Madrid, and leaving me here." (Life of Arthur Lee, vol. ii. p. 127.)

His attack on Franklin and his nephew, Jonathan Williams, was a very serious one, and was published in a pamphlet, ent.i.tled "Observations on Certain Commercial Transactions in France Laid Before Congress."

Williams was one of Franklin's Boston nephews who turned up in Paris poor and without employment. Franklin was always taking care of his relatives with government positions, and he gave this one the position of naval agent at Nantes. He had charge of the purchase of supplies for American men-of-war, sold the prizes that were brought in, and also bought and shipped arms and ammunition. It was a large business involving the handling of enormous sums of money, and there is no doubt that there were opportunities in it for making a fortune. Under the modern spoils system it would be regarded as a precious plum which a political party would be justified in making almost any sacrifices to secure.

Franklin and Deane seem to have let Williams manage this department pretty much as he pleased, and, as has been already shown, Lee had some ground for suspecting that Deane was privately interested with Williams in the sale of prizes. Williams certainly expended large sums on Deane's orders alone, and he was continually calling for more money from the commissioners' bankers. Lee demanded that there should be no more orders signed by Deane alone, and that Williams should send in his accounts; and, notwithstanding Lee's naturally captious and suspicious disposition, he was perfectly right in this.

Deane and Williams kept demanding more money, and Lee asked Franklin to stop it, which he not only refused to do, but wrote a letter to his nephew justifying him in everything:

"Pa.s.sY, Dec. 22, 1777.

"DEAR NEPHEW:

"I received yours of the 16th and am concerned as well as you at the difference between Messrs. Deane and Lee, but cannot help it. You need, however, be under no concern as to your orders being only from Mr. Deane. As you have always acted uprightly and ably for the public service, you would be justified if you had no orders at all. But as he generally consulted with me and had my approbation in the orders he gave, and I know they were for the best and aimed at the public good, I hereby certify you that I approve and join in those you received from him and desire you to proceed in the execution of the same."

Williams at last sent in his accounts, and Lee went over them, marking some items "manifestly unjust," others "plainly exorbitant," and others "altogether unsatisfactory for want of names, dates, or receipts." He refused to approve the accounts, sent them to Congress, and asked Williams to produce his vouchers. The vouchers, Lee tells us, were never produced. He asked for them again and again, but there was always some excuse, and he charges that Williams had in his possession a hundred thousand livres more than was accounted for. Finally, John Adams, who had come out to supersede Deane, joined with Franklin in giving Williams an order on the bankers for the balance claimed by him; but the order expressly stated that it was not to be understood as an approval of his accounts, for which he must be responsible to Congress. Franklin appointed certain persons to audit the accounts, but at a time, Lee says, when they were on the point of sailing for America, and therefore could not act. Adams seems to have been convinced that Williams was not all that could be desired, and he and Franklin soon dismissed him from his office, again reminding him that this was not to be considered as an approval of his accounts.

Lee's charge against Franklin was that he had connived at the acts of his nephew and done everything possible to shield him and enable him to get possession of the balance of money he claimed. Readers must draw their own conclusions, for the matter was never officially investigated.