250 and Counting

Category: Backchannel Diplomacy

  • Vive La France–February 6, 1776

    Vive La France–February 6, 1776

    Much like the Hessians of our last episode, the story involving our getting French recognition and friendship is longer and more complex than most people realize.

    The events of today were important, but they laid the groundwork for so much more in the future. France was already annoyed with Britain over the Seven Years’ War, so supporting the Colonies was the shrewd thing to do: France would annoy Britain with the treaty, America would get arms and soldiers (and naval support), and we wound up with a good friend later on for trade and merchant support.

    The French were reluctant to cooperate at first, in part because they were hedging their bets about the war’s outcome. But with a little luck and a few battle victories, a lot of formerly-clandestine activites became more overt. What’s more, without French assistance throughout the war, we might all be speaking British now.

    Oh, wait.

  • Jean-Guillaume Hyde–January 24, 1776

    Cover art for January 24, 1776: Detail of an 1830 lithograph by Ducarme after a portrait by Legrand.
    Detail of an 1830 lithograph by Ducarme after a portrait by Legrand.

    While the United States has had its share of international mishaps, not all of them have been created by Americans. Jean-Guillaume Hyde, more properly known as “Jean-Guillaume, baron Hyde de Neuville”, would be an early example of this.

    Hyde was probably a textbook case of failing upward, as he appears to have suffered multiple setbacks and still managed to come out ahead later on. As early as 1793, when he was 17, Hyde liked to work behind the scenes, trying to nudge people into saying and doing things that would benefit France, and oftentimes failing. This eventually led to his being made to move to the United States in 1800. In 1814 when the Bourbons returned to power in France, he was allowed to return.

    That’s where his diplomatic career began, and he spent six years as the ambassador to the US, where he was rather universally despised. From there he went to Portugal, where he was again a disaster as a diplomat. This time it only took about three years to kick him out.

    In 1828 Hyde became Minister of the Navy and the Colonies where he did appear to have some luck improving the way the French Colonial Empire was organized and run, but he eventually resigned from the position as a symbol of protest.

    Hyde was involved with the internal discussions to decide whether a new commercial treaty with the US was a worthy idea, though we don’t think he did any of the actual negotiating with America.

    Hyde died in Paris in 1857 and the book of his “memoirs” is actually a collection of letters and notes compiled by his nieces.

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  • A Plan For Reconciliation–January 3, 1776

    Cover Art for January 3, 1776: a 1913 painting of the Continental Congress in session, by John Ward Dunsmore.
    A 1913 painting of the Continental Congress in session, by John Ward Dunsmore. This is supposed to be the moment that John Adams recommends George Washington to lead the Continental Army. I couldn’t find any images of Lord Drummond, at least not the correct Lord Drummond.

    It was called “A Plan of Accommodation,” and it had been in the works for most of the previous year before Lord Drummond tried to present it to the Second Continental Congress.

    Taxation was the big ticket item originally, but they managed to work that out with a perpetual grant of a percentage of revenues of certain items. Once the Americans got past that, the negotiations moved quickly: Britain would modify many of its restrictions on the Colonies, and the Colonies would in turn observe certain trade rules and provide Britain with military support when needed.

    All of this was under the table, though: the next step was to begin formal negotiations. Drummond wanted the Americans to send an official delegation, but the delegates pointed out that they were likely to be arrested if they went to England, so Drummond offered himself as a hostage.

    It was all looking good until several pieces of bad news came in.

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  • July 14, 1775: Support From An Odd Place

    Cover art for July 14, 1775: Cropped detail from John Glynn, John Wilkes and John Horne Tooke, after Richard Houston (1769), given to the National Portrait Gallery, London in 1922.

    Lord John Wilkes was an interesting person who was always willing to run against popular opinion if he felt strongly that he was in the right.

    In 1769 he fought for the right of his voters – rather than the House of Commons – to determine their representatives. In 1761 he got Parliament to concede the right of publishers to print the content of Parliamentary debates. In 1776 he put forth a bill proposing Parliamentary reform.

    But on this day in 1775, Wilkes managed to anger a great number of people in Parliament when he expressed support for the Colonial rebels.

    Unfortunately, after one of his actions had an unfortunate effect, his politics became increasingly conservative and as a result he lost his seat in Parliament in 1790. Not long afterward he took a position as a magistrate, and he seemed to once again show more compassion toward the lower classes.

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  • March 21, 1775: Franklin Departs London Forever

    Cover art for March 21, 1775: The house where Benjamin Franklin stayed while on his final trip to London.

    Benjamin Franklin was pretty good at diplomacy, but even when given several years to try, he was unable to bring about peace between England and the Thirteen Colonies.

    From December 1774 through February 1775, he and some of his British friends tried to put together a map to peace, but unfortunately both sides were too entrenched to even consider compromise. Franklin finally went home on this day in 1775, but he left one final impression that we’ll learn about tomorrow.

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  • March 18, 1775: Ben Franklin Confides in Edmund Burke

    Cover art for March 18, 1775: Portrait of Edmund Burke. 1771 by Joshua Reynolds

    Among the casualties of the early days of American History are all the friendships that were damaged by people being on opposite sides of the political fence. Good thing we’re all past that sort of petty nonsense nowadays, amirite?

    Sigh.

    We’ve talked in the past about John Adams and his former friend Daniel Leonard, who sparred in print under pen names and never quite repaired their relationship. Today we talk about Benjamin Franklin and Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament who was good friends with Franklin, though perhaps not publicly. Today marks the likely last day that the two men ever saw each other, as Franklin was on the final trip to England of his lifetime. Sadder still, Burke was actually sympathetic to the Colonist cause, though he wasn’t entirely convinced that they’d win a war.

    On the other hand, hardly anyone was convinced that Britain would be defeated, so there’s that.

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  • 250 and Counting: January 29, 1775

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    Cover art for January 29, 1775: portrait of Benjamin Franklin.

    Benjamin Franklin, like many of our Founding Fathers, was interested in repairing the relationship between the Colonies and England, at least early on.

    What’s more, he thought that others in similar positions would be of a similar mind, so he was rather dismayed to learn that this wasn’t the case; in fact, when a sheaf of letters written by Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver made their way into his hands, he was rather dismayed to learn that they were badly misleading Parliament with regard to the situation in the Colonies.

    So Franklin leaked the letters to the Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly, saying they could be read but not copied. But Franklin didn’t heed his own advice: “Three people may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” The letters got out anyway, and they were published in the Boston Gazette a few months later. For his efforts, Franklin was humiliated in a Privy Council hearing and stripped of his title of Postmaster General of the Colonies. On the other hand, this was the event that tipped Benjamin Franklin firmly over to the cause of liberty.

  • 250 and Counting: January 21, 1775

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    Cover Art for January 21, 1775: A portrait of John Adams

    As we’ve noted a few times, the Colonists in general didn’t want war with Britain; in fact most of them were pretty sure they were going to get wiped out should it come to that.

    Even our most famous Patriots of the time, such as John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and others, spent enormous amounts of time trying to engage the British peacefully. For a long time, any petitions sent to King George III had some form of “Hey, we’re totally loyal to you, can you please address this for us, your loyal subjects? Please?” somewhere in the document.

    Thus it was that John Adams composed a letter to a friend of his in London, whose identity remains unknown to modern-day historians. He pinpoints the day he thinks things started to go wrong, and he notes that there’s a spirit on this side of the pond which shouldn’t go ignored.