The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (55 page)

George II
sat heavily, and after thirty years wearily, on his throne when Franklin arrived from America. Franklin was weary himself, although from a long journey rather than a long reign. After hurrying to New York from Philadelphia to catch the first government packet to England, he and William (who volunteered to accompany his father—and see the world) wound up waiting on Lord Loudoun, and waiting, and waiting. The general insisted that the ship not leave until he had completed his correspondence, but though he appeared to be scribbling industriously
each time Franklin called on him, he never finished the letters. A week passed, then another, then a month, then two months. Franklin’s initial positive impression of Loudoun dissolved into an estimate of terminal indecision. Not till June did the travelers get away.

Franklin made typical good use of his time on the voyage east. Besides suggesting experiments to increase the speed of sailing ships, he composed what became his most famous piece of writing. The approaching autumn would see the twenty-fifth edition of
Poor Richard’s Almanack;
Franklin judged a quarter century sufficient for any philomath and prepared to send Richard Saunders into well-deserved retirement. But Saunders must go out, as he had come in, with a flourish. Franklin created a new character, Father Abraham, who, readers discovered, had been following the almanac faithfully these many years. “A plain clean old man, with white locks,” in Saunders’s description, Father Abraham was asked by passersby at a market what he thought of the present times. He responded with a soliloquy comprising the choicest of Poor Dick’s pearls, drawn from the entire run of the almanacs. “We may make these times better if we bestir ourselves,” he said.

Industry need not wish,
as Poor Richard says, and
he that lives upon hope will die fasting. There are no gains without pains;
then
help hands, for I have no lands,
or if I have, they are smartly taxed. And as Poor Richard likewise observes,
he that hath a trade hath an estate,
and
he that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honour.
… If we are industrious we shall never starve, for, as Poor Richard says,
at the working man’s house hunger looks in, but dares not enter.
Nor will the bailiff and the constable enter, for
industry pays debts, while despair increaseth them,
says Poor Richard. What though you have found no treasure, nor has any rich relation left you a legacy,
diligence is the mother of good luck,
as Poor Richard says, and
God gives all things to industry.
Then
plough deep, while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep,
says Poor Dick.

The idea was clever enough, and the speech of Father Abraham was reprinted hundreds of times in English and at least fifteen other languages. Yet for all its popularity, the piece was not one of Franklin’s best efforts. The “Poor Richard says” tag, while perhaps an apt marketing device, began to wear on readers’ ears before old Abram stopped speaking. More to the point—again a literary point, rather than a commercial one—the speech missed much of the best of Richard Saunders. Poor Dick’s irreverent wit and sly feistiness is suppressed here in favor of
admonitions to industry, frugality, and other virtues attuned to material success. The title under which the piece was often published—
The Way to Wealth
—reflected this capitalist emphasis, almost certainly increasing sales but equally certainly coloring Franklin historically as a dour grinder. “Snuff-coloured little man!” sneered D. H. Lawrence more than a century and a half later. Recalling how, as a boy, he had been introduced to the wisdom of Poor Richard, Lawrence complained, “I haven’t got over those Poor Richard tags yet. I still rankle with them. They are thorns in young flesh…. It has taken me many years to get out of that barbed wire enclosure Poor Richard rigged up.” Concluded Lawrence of Franklin, “I admire him…. I do not like him.”

At times on the voyage it appeared that Father Abraham might be buried at sea (which surely would have pleased Lawrence). The war with France raged as fiercely as ever, and though Franklin’s vessel traveled in a convoy, its capture or destruction was a constant possibility. (This possibility doubtless inspired Franklin’s experimental design for faster ships.) The enemy grew thicker near England; as the captain of Franklin’s ship tried to evade them off Falmouth under cover of night, he nearly ran onto the rocks. Franklin was as shaken as the rest. “Were I a Roman Catholic,” he wrote Deborah on reaching shore, “perhaps I should on this occasion vow to build a chapel to some saint; but as I am not, if I were to vow at all, it should be to build a
lighthouse.
”

The Franklin party—consisting of Franklin, William, and two slaves: Peter and King—arrived in London in late July 1757. They took up residence with Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, who lived at 7 Craven Street, Strand. The apartment suited Franklin so well he remained there during his entire London stay. The location could hardly have been better, convenient to the government offices in Whitehall and the houses of Parliament in Westminster.

Nor could the company have been more congenial. Mrs. Stevenson was a widow of about Franklin’s age. She had a bubbly good nature, she appreciated a joke, and, living as she did at the crossroads of English life, she afforded Franklin a street-level perspective on the high and powerful who passed her front door, as well as the low and put-upon who constituted the mass of London society. She also had a daughter, Mary, who quickly became as charmed with Franklin as her mother did. Franklin had left Debbie and Sally behind in Philadelphia; as his correspondence would reveal, he missed them. But Peggy and Polly Stevenson soon became at least partial substitutes.

Franklin received a still-warmer greeting from Peter Collinson, who,
having corresponded with Franklin for ten years, was delighted finally to meet the American genius. Collinson hosted Franklin and William at his house outside the city, where he kept a noteworthy botanical collection. He escorted Franklin to the Royal Society and introduced him to various ingenious men about London, including the “Honest Whigs,” a discussion group that soon filled the same social and intellectual niche in Franklin’s life the Junto had filled in Philadelphia.

William Strahan had known Franklin—from a distance—even longer than Collinson had, and his admiration and affection were even greater. “I had for many years conceived a very high, and now find, a very just, opinion of Mr. Franklin,” he wrote to Deborah Franklin. “But though the notion I had formed of him in my own mind, before I had the pleasure of seeing him, was, really as far as it went, just enough, I must confess it was very unequal to what I now know his singular merit deserves…. I never saw a man who was, in every respect, so perfectly agreeable to me. Some are amiable in one view, some in another, he in all.”

Strahan so loved Franklin that from the outset he conspired to keep him in England forever. Strahan’s letter to Debbie was only partly a paean to her husband; it was also a brief on behalf of her crossing the ocean to join him. Strahan described the slow pace of politics in the imperial capital and warned that it might be years before Franklin achieved the aim of his journey. Debbie should really consider coming over—with Sally, of course, who would benefit immensely from London. Franklin had mentioned that Debbie feared sea travel; Strahan reassured her that not a soul had been lost between Philadelphia and London in living memory. (He neglected to say that ships had gone down on other routes) His trump—he hoped—was an argument that must have seemed rather presumptuous from one Debbie had never met. Strahan asked her to ponder what a long separation from her husband might entail. “As I know the ladies here consider him in exactly the same light I do, upon my word I think you should come over with all convenient speed to look after your interest; not but that I think him as faithful to his Joan [he had heard Franklin’s song] as any man breathing, but who knows what repeated and strong temptation may in time, and while he is at so great a distance from you, accomplish.”

Some
charming persons appeal to nearly everyone; friend and foe find their personalities irresistible, often to the foes’ confusion and
dismay. Franklin’s charm was more selective. It worked upon those who shared his open, inquisitive, generous outlook on life. Strahan fell into this category, which was why he became so enamored of Franklin. Collinson was the same way, if less demonstrative about his affection.

But those who felt threatened by genius could find Franklin hard to abide. Franklin never flaunted his powers, but in middle age, with those powers at their height, he made less effort to disguise them than he had at times past. His fame as a philosopher preceded him, and he did not attempt to prove it unwarranted. He did not demand deference from others, but neither did he defer. The intellectually or emotionally insecure, those who insisted on measuring themselves against Franklin, could easily become jealous of one who mastered nearly everything to which he turned his mind. The politically insecure, those who possessed something Franklin might take away, could find his powers even more sinister.

Thomas Penn’s animus toward Franklin reflected the proprietor’s political insecurity; Lord Granville’s unfriendliness may have manifested intellectual insecurity but more obviously followed from his insistence on deference that Franklin refused to yield. Shortly after reaching London, Franklin asked John Fothergill, a well-connected friend of Collinson’s (and one of the Honest Whigs) for advice. Should he approach the British government with the Pennsylvania Assembly’s dispute with the proprietors, or should he appeal to the proprietors? Fothergill advocated the latter. British politics was a maze; a man might enter and never get out. Better to settle the affair directly with the Penns if at all possible. Franklin prepared to follow Fothergill’s advice, only to receive a summons from Lord Granville, the president of the Privy Council, the body of King George’s closest advisers. Granville also happened to be Thomas Penn’s brother-in-law.

The interview began unpromisingly. Granville delivered a pronunciamento on the misapprehensions of colonials regarding imperial politics. “You Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution,” he said. “You contend that the King’s instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion. But those instructions are not like the pocket instructions given to a minister going abroad, for regulating his conduct in some trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges learned in the laws; they are then considered, debated and perhaps amended in Council, after which they are signed by the King. They are then, so far as relates to you, the law of the land, for the King is the legislator of the colonies.”

This was deeper water than Franklin had expected to encounter so
soon, but, strong swimmer that he was, he struck out confidently. He declared that this was “new doctrine” to him. Under their charters, he explained, the colonies made their laws for themselves, in their assemblies. These laws were then presented to the king for his assent or veto. But once the king gave his assent, he could not repeal or alter the laws. And just as the assemblies could not make laws without his assent, neither could the king make laws for the colonies without the assemblies’ assent.

Granville assured Franklin he was totally mistaken. Franklin declined to argue the matter further in this venue but remained convinced he was right. Yet he could not help being troubled by what Granville’s position portended. “His Lordship’s conversation having a little alarmed me as to what might be the sentiments of the Court concerning us, I wrote it down as soon as I returned to my lodgings. I recollected that about twenty years before [thirteen, actually] a clause in a bill brought to Parliament by the ministry had proposed to make the King’s instructions laws in the colonies, but the clause was thrown out by the Commons, for which we adored them as our friends and friends of liberty.” This sentiment would change when Parliament itself began encroaching on colonial liberties, but for now Franklin was happy to look to Parliament as a protector.