The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (85 page)

“I have enemies, as every public man has,” he explained to Postmaster General Lord Le Despencer, his superior, by way of attempting to neutralize those enemies. “They would be glad to see me deprived of my office; and there are others who would like to have it.” Yet they should not be suffered to do so. Besides the money—£300 per year, which if lost “would make a very serious difference in my annual income”—there were principles involved. “I rose to that office gradually through a long service of now almost forty years, have by my industry and management greatly improved it, and have ever acted in it with fidelity to the satisfaction of all my superiors.” Moreover, a British subject should be able to speak his mind on public matters. “I hope my political opinions, or my dislike of the late measures with America (which I own I think very injudicious) expressed in my letters to that country, or the advice I gave to adhere to their resolutions till the whole Act was repealed, without extending their demands any farther, will not be thought a good reason for turning me out.”
Franklin persuaded Le Despencer not to sack him; whatever the postmaster general’s opinion of Franklin’s politics, he appreciated the efficiencies Franklin had brought to the delivery of the mail, and he knew Franklin could not easily be replaced. This did not silence Franklin’s critics, however; they simply modified their tactics and opened a campaign to force him to resign.

“In this they are not likely to succeed, I being deficient in that Christian virtue of resignation,” he told Jane Mecom. “If they would have my office, they must take it.” He went on to summarize a philosophy of public service that forever became attached to his name. “I have heard of some great man, whose rule it was with regard to offices,
Never to ask for them,
and
never to refuse them.
To which I have always added in my own practice,
Never to resign them.
”

The Massachusetts
agency cost him more trouble than he could have imagined. In the first place, as he learned only after the fact, his appointment was by no means unanimous. Sam Adams still suspected him of closet Anglophilia; Adams and James Otis had sponsored instead the candidacy of Arthur Lee, a physician currently studying law in London. Although Speaker Cushing and a majority of the House of Representatives voted for Franklin, Adams and Otis won approval of Lee as an alternate in case Franklin declined the agency or was otherwise unavailable.

More vexing was the opposition of Lord Hillsborough. When Hillsborough had assumed the new post of secretary of state for (all) the American colonies, Franklin at first expressed guarded optimism. “I do not think this nobleman in general an enemy to America,” he told Galloway. Six months later, in July 1768, Franklin added, “His inclinations are rather favourable towards us (so far as he thinks consistent with what he supposes to be the unquestionable rights of Britain).”

But that qualification proved critical. Hillsborough brooked nothing that hinted of sedition or even obstruction of the smooth administering of the colonies. He had ordered the Massachusetts House of Representatives to rescind its appeal to the other colonies for common action against the Townshend acts, and when Adams and the others refused, he sent the troops ashore in Boston.

In matters relating to Franklin personally, Hillsborough had proved something of a puzzle. Like Grafton he early dropped hints of an appointment
for Franklin as undersecretary, but these came to no more than Grafton’s had (or would). He opposed the land schemes of the Franklins and their partners until a critical hearing in December 1769, when he suddenly told them that far from asking too much, they were asking far too little. Surprised, Franklin and the others redrew their maps of the Ohio Valley and, instead of asking for 2.4 million acres, requested 20 million. But rather than back this new proposal, Hillsborough let it disappear into the maw of the British bureaucracy, leading Franklin to surmise that Hillsborough had lent his weight to the project the better to sink it.

At the beginning of 1771 the Hillsborough puzzle acquired a new piece. Franklin visited Hillsborough’s house for what he thought would be a routine presentation of his credentials as the agent for the Massachusetts House of Representatives. At first he was put off and told to try later, but as his coach drove away, the porter called out, saying that his lordship could see him after all. Franklin entered the secretary’s quarters, only to encounter Governor Francis Bernard of Massachusetts, the most outspoken critic of the Massachusetts House, and various other gentlemen. Franklin settled into a chair for what he assumed would be a substantial wait. But after just minutes Hillsborough’s assistant summoned Franklin ahead of the others.

“I was pleased with this ready admission and preference (having sometimes waited 3 or 4 hours for my turn),” Franklin recorded; “and being pleased, I could more readily put on the open cheerful countenance that my friends advised me to wear.”

Hillsborough initially reciprocated the cheer. He had been dressing to go to court, he said, but on learning that Franklin had arrived, desired to see him at once.

Franklin thanked the secretary and explained that he would not delay him. He merely wished to inform him of his recent appointment by the Massachusetts House, and to say that he hoped to be of service to the public in this capacity.

Hillsborough did not let him finish this sentence. With what Franklin identified as “something between a smile and a sneer,” he interjected, “I must set you right there, Mr. Franklin. You are not agent.”

“Why, my lord?” responded Franklin.

“You are not appointed.”

“I do not understand your lordship. I have the appointment in my pocket.”

“You are mistaken. I have later and better advices. I have a letter
from [Lieutenant] Governor Hutchinson. He would not give his assent to the bill.”

“There was no bill, my lord. It is a vote of the House.”

“There was a bill presented to the Governor, for the purpose of appointing you, and another, one Dr. Lee, I think he is called, to which the Governor refused his assent.”

“I cannot understand this, my lord. I think there must be some mistake in it. Is your lordship quite sure that you have such a letter?”

“I will convince you of it directly.” Hillsborough rang a bell. “Mr. Pownall will come in and satisfy you.”

“It is not necessary that I should now detain your lordship from dressing. You are going to court. I will wait on your lordship another time.”

“No, stay. He will come in immediately.” Hillsborough motioned to a servant. “Tell Mr. Pownall I want him.”

Pownall arrived. Hillsborough addressed him: “Have you not at hand Governor Hutchinson’s letter mentioning his refusing his assent to the bill for appointing Dr. Franklin agent?”

Pownall answered, “My lord?”

Hillsborough: “Is there not such a letter?”

Pownall: “No, my lord.”

Hillsborough was annoyed at being shown wrong, but he was more annoyed at the Massachusetts House for presuming to appoint an agent without the concurrence of the governor. This, of course, was common practice; Franklin’s appointment from Pennsylvania had not, needless to say, elicited the approval of the Penns’ governor. But as part of the overall effort to tighten the administration of the colonies, Hillsborough was determined to put an end to it.

“The House of Representatives has no right to appoint an agent,” he told Franklin angrily. “We shall take no notice of any agents but such as are appointed by acts of assembly to which the governor gives his assent. We have had confusion enough already.”

Franklin challenged this novelty. “I cannot conceive, my lord, why the consent of the
governor
should be thought necessary to the appointment of an agent for the
people.
It seems to me that—”

Hillsborough’s visage assumed what appeared to Franklin “a mixed look of anger and contempt.” He snapped, “I shall not enter into a dispute
with you,
sir, upon this subject.”

Franklin persisted. “I beg your lordship’s pardon. I do not presume to dispute with your lordship”—though of course both men realized this
was precisely what he was doing. “I would only say that it seems to me that every body of men, who cannot appear in person where business relating to them may be transacted, should have a right to appear by an agent. The concurrence of the governor does not seem to me necessary. It is the business of the people that is to be done. He [the Governor] is not one of them; he is himself an agent.”

“Whose agent is he?” demanded Hillsborough.

“The king’s, my lord.”

Hillsborough dismissed this. “Besides,” he added, “this proceeding is directly contrary to express instructions.”

“I did not know there had been such instructions. I am not concerned in any offence against them.”

“Yes, your offering such a paper [the copy of the House vote, which Franklin had handed Hillsborough upon entering] to be entered is an offence against them. No such appointment shall be entered.”

Hillsborough then launched into a diatribe. “When I came into the administration of American affairs, I found them in great disorder. By
my firmness
they are now something mended; and while I have the honour to hold the seals, I shall continue the same conduct, the same
firmness. I
think my duty to the master I serve and to the government of this nation require it of me. If that conduct is not approved, they may take my office from me when they please. I shall make ’em a bow, and thank ’em. I shall resign with pleasure. That gentleman knows it”—here he pointed to Pownall. “But while I continue in it, I shall resolutely persevere in the same firmness.”

Franklin recorded that at this point Hillsborough was “turning pale in his discourse, as if he was angry at something or somebody besides the agent, and of more importance.”

By Franklin’s telling, the agent had the last word. “I beg your lordship’s pardon for taking up so much of your time. It is, I believe, of no great importance whether the appointment is acknowledged or not, for I have not the least conception that an agent can
at present
be of any use, to any of the colonies. I shall therefore give your lordship no farther trouble.”

“I have
since heard that his lordship took great offence at some of my last words, which he calls extremely rude and abusive,” Franklin confided to Samuel Cooper three weeks later. “He assured a friend of mine,
they were equivalent to telling him to his face that the colonies could expect neither favour nor justice during his administration. I find he did not mistake me.”

Franklin rarely let emotion displace reasonableness, but after three years of trying to make Hillsborough and the rest of the ministry see reason in relations with the colonies, he had had his fill; and after the secretary of state declared that he would have nothing to do with Franklin, Franklin reciprocated. He had grown accustomed to mediocrities in positions of power, but this particular mediocrity at this particular moment was more than he could stand. “His character is conceit, wrongheadedness, obstinacy and passion,” he told Cooper. “Those who would speak most favourably of him allow all this; they only add that he is an honest man, and means well. If that be true, as perhaps it may, I wish him a better place, where only honesty and well-meaning are required, and where his other qualities can do no harm.”

Perhaps on reflection Franklin considered that by alienating Hills-borough he was jeopardizing the interests of those he was representing (which by now included Georgia and New Jersey as well as Pennsylvania and Massachusetts). Yet Hillsborough had already taken great umbrage at Franklin’s writings on behalf of the colonies; there was really little to lose. In any event, Franklin was willing to pay the cost of his actions. “Whatever the consequences of his displeasure, putting all my offences together, I must bear them as well as I can.” Yet not everything was bleak. “One encouragement I have: the knowledge that he is not a whit better liked by his colleagues in the Ministry than he is by me, that he cannot probably continue where he is much longer, and that he can scarce be succeeded by anybody who will not like me the better for his having been at variance with me.”