If nothing else, the tenacity of the Continental Congress has to be admired, because sending a delegation to Canada, especially after the recent New Year’s Eve disaster in Quebec, and then the “who knows how well it went” trip in March, was a sign of either eternal optimism or an inability to get the hint.
It was probably a little of Column A and a little of Column B.
At any rate, Ben Franklin, Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll headed up to Montrèal to see if relations with Canada could be smoothed over a little bit. And perhaps they could, but the Canadians still weren’t interested in the events going on to their south.
While we’re focusing on one letter written by Benjamin Franklin today, written to Anthony Todd, it’s rather impressive the sheer number and breadth of letters written by, or to, Franklin during his lifetime as a statesman.
There is a collaborative effort going on between Yale University and the American Philospohical Society, among others, to search, collect and publish the various works of Benjamin Franklin. So far over forty volumes have been published since 1959, and the scholars involved are pretty sure that number will surpass 50.
Important to this effort is the fact that Franklin saved a lot of his correspondence specifically for the sake of posterity. As a result we have perhaps a more complete collection of what historians like to call “primary sources” of materials than for any other Founding Father. What’s more, Franklin didn’t just dash off quick notes; he treated them like miniature works of art and crafted their composition. This came in handy when he edited the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. It was his suggestion that the phrase “We hold these truths to be self-evident” whereas Jefferson had described them as “sacred and undeniable.”
So here’s a fun story about Charles Carroll. As I’ve mentioned many times before, lots and lots of place names in Baltimore have strong historical connections and Charles Carroll is no exception.
There is, of course, a Carroll Street, which starts in the southeast neighborhood of Morrell Park. It doesn’t go quite through that neighborhood though; it gets broken up by a couple of blocks’ worth of houses and resumes again. There’s another break as a railroad right-of-way comes through—but there’s no train crossing; the road just terminates. Carroll Street resumes (we’re still in Morrell Park) on the other side, however, before it’s interrupted yet again.
Now as I understand it, this particular part of the neighborhood was wiped out completely by Hurricane Agnes in the early 1970s, so the rebuild was kind of haphazard. Plus, I-95 was first constructed through this part of Baltimore City around this time, so you have to jump almost 3500 feet before Carroll Street resumes again.
But now you’re not in a residential neighborhood; it’s series of warehouses and industrial buildings for a stretch until it gets back into a residential neighborhood known as Pigtown, so called because on Market days, pigs would be led through the streets to the market for sale and eventual slaughter. Carroll Street meets with Cross Street in that neighborhood, and that’s the northern terminus.
However.
There’s an elementary school in the area that’s also named after Charles Carroll. It’s not on Carroll Street (of course) but is about two blocks away, in Pigtown. Now, remember, Charles Carroll was a lawyer, or a “barrister” as the old-timey types like to say. So Elementary School #34 is officially “Charles Carroll, Barrister Elementary School”. Except everybody forgets the comma is there and says it like one long name. And chances are, they think there was a guy actually named Charles Carroll Barrister somewhere in history.
And wasn’t that a long walk for a short drink of water.
Portrait of William Franklin, 1790, attributed to Mather Brown. via Wikimedia.
It used to be rumored that Benjamin Franklin had over 30 children out of wedlock, but that’s since been debunked. (And there goes a perfectly good “lightning rod” joke.)
But William Franklin was considered illegitimate, though he was raised by his father and his common-law wife Deborah Read. There are some breadcrumbs here and there that lead some historians to believe that Deborah was, in fact, William’s mother, but nothing thick enough exists to confirm that.
At any rate, William was one of the last great Loyalists, and while his arrest and move to Connecticut was alluded to in the play 1776, it didn’t quite happen the way it was described there. Or at the time the viewer was led to believe. Tune in to get the real story from Mike.
Yeah, I cheated and used the same image from last week.
While he didn’t use a rattlesnake, Benjamin Franklin was the guy who came up with the original “Join or Die” snake image [right]back in 1754. (At least most people give him credit for it.)
It was based in a superstition that if you cut up a snake into pieces and then reassembled those pieces before sunset, the snake could be resurrected. In 1754, during the French and Indian War, Delaware was part of Pennsylvania and New England’s four colonies were simply grouped together. Georgia was altogether omitted and nobody knows why.
At any rate, it’s only fitting that when the Gadsden Flag, which we talked about in the December 20th episode, made its debut, Franklin was the one who took the time to opine on why a snake was so appropriate; what’s more why a rattlesnake was the best choice. He published an essay in a local newspaper under a pen name, but his identity was figured out anyway.
Ben Franklin and Gabriel de Borbón had corresponded with one another previously, so while the letter that is the subject of today’s episode has a very specific (and relevant) ask in it, it was also just another in a chain of correspondence between the two.
For his part, Prince Gabriel was probably receptive to Franklin’s suggestions, but he wasn’t likely to be in a position to act on them in the way that Franklin hoped. As the fourth son of Charles III, the throne was a long way off, though he was considered the heir apparent for some time.
When Spain provided assistance the following year, they did so because Spain and France were allies and France was providing assistance to the Americans; furthermore they had their own bone to pick with the British, so Two Birds and all that. So they sent over lots of assistance, mostly in the form of money so that the Continental Army could purchase cannons, mortars, gun carriages and other ordinance.
It’s possible that Prince Gabriel had some influence on his father, but more likely is that Charles III was simply maintaining existing alliances.
There are going to be days when no truly big events happen, but that wasn’t going to stop the Second Continental Congress from getting stuff done.
Today we have a bit of an image of that group as a bunch of men who are hard-drinking philosophers, ready—and maybe eager—to burst into fisticuffs, or perhaps the occasional song, depending on where you got your impressions.
So for that reason, we do like to remind you that the Continental Congress, for all their weird little squabbles, was a serious group of men. They took their jobs seriously, and put a lot of thought into everything they did. They often put in long hours, working until after darkness fell many days, and they typically worked six days a week.
George Washington was a pretty smart guy. He knew exactly what his army needed, in all aspects. He had a handle on discipline, on supplies, on tactics and any number of other things. Washington surrounded himself with people who were smart, too. This went a long way toward ensuring his success.
So when his army started to fall apart because some basic needs weren’t getting met, Washington took action. He knew that sending another letter to Congress wasn’t going to help. So instead he met with them directly. And like a dog savaging a toy, Washington grabbed Congress in his (not wooden!) teeth and shook them in a figure-eight.
Metaphorically, of course. And while he didn’t get everything he sought, he managed to get the important stuff done and the rest of it…well. The rest of it, at least he knew he’d been heard. And he’d live to fight another day.
The Committee of Secret Correspondence is one of those names that sounds like they should be on Double Secret Probation or something. However, when you look at their purpose, the name makes sense.
The Committee of Secret Correspondence was formed to seek out support from other nations. They reached out to France, Spain, and a few others to get supplies, food, munitions…pretty much anything they could get. Oftentimes they had to use a third party to give everyone plausible deniability.
And fortunately, their tactics were mostly successful.
Nothing beats the speed of gossip, and apparently the Virginia Gazette on this day had plenty of it to share.
A few of the stories were quite serious, relating to events in both Virginia and Massachusetts. They closed out with a local story that had a more humorous edge to it…though it’s likely that the people involved had a hard time seeing the humor in it all.
