(Note: it’s in the alt text for the image, but in the interest of broader accuracy and general transparency, we know that this artwork isn’t the symbol for an American abolitionist society but rather a British one. But this is one of those cases where the story works better than the truth, and we found it to be a powerful image that underlines the intent of the tale. In short, let it go this once, OK? –CC)
It might come as a surprise to you that societies dedicated to the elimination of slavery in America came about as early as this, especially inasmuch as we had other things on our mind, such as the largest army in the world putting us in their sights. It might also come as a surprise that the one that came first in America, exists still, but with a different focus. Tune in and learn their story.
A quick note on the cover art: this may be the first time I (Claude) happened to match the side banner with the background of the webpage exactly.
As we’ve noted in the past, Benjamin Franklin and Edmund Burke were good friends who worked together to come up with a solution that would get the Colonies and the Crown back into each others’ good graces.
Now that we think about it, Franklin was good friends with many people on both sides of the Atlantic, and now we’re wondering if he was just one of those guys to whom you take an instant liking without knowing quite why.
At any rate, by this point the two men had to concede that it was far too late to prevent further escalation, and they were right. Burke took the time to address Parliament on this day, and let them all know just what a mistake they’d made.
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.
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.
Today we review two different pieces of correspondence—one local, the other trans-Atlantic—in which the letter writers are clearly coming to the conclusion that things are not going well between the British and the Colonies, and that preparing for war is probably inevitable at this point.
And that’s interesting on its own, but we also wanted to call your attention to the cover art for today’s episode. The person in the picture is Josiah Quincy II, who is discussed in the episode as a “side” character of sorts. The painting is by Gilbert Stuart, who is pretty famous for painting hundreds of American politicians and public figures, and perhaps most famous for the “unfinished” portrait of George Washington that served as the model for the one-dollar bill. There aren’t a lot of portraits of Quincy extant, but this one (which was painted after Quincy’s death in April 1775) gets a lot of attention from Stuart scholars because it provides a very candid representation of Quincy’s strabismus, or misalignment of the eyes. (It’s possible that he simply had amblyopia but we don’t know for sure nowadays.) Most people agree that it actually gives Quincy a little extra dignity and esteem.
As noted previously, the First Continental Congress composed a Petition to the King asking him for some relief from the Intolerable Acts. The petition arrived in London in mid-December, which turned out to be some bad timing for a number of reasons.
Benjamin Franklin was in town for diplomatic purposes, and he composed a letter to Charles Thomson, the Secretary of the Continental Congress, which summed up the problem: not only was the Petition but one among many, many other documents, it appeared that Parliament didn’t much care what the Colonies thought. And that’s the kind of thing that makes for bad relationships.
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.
William Legge was the Second Earl of Dartmouth and, just before the hostilities between the Colonists and the British started in earnest, was also the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the First Lord of Trade.
Lord Dartmouth noticed that people throughout the Colonies appeared to be preparing for all-out war, so he sent a letter to the colonial governors, essentially ordering them to embargo imports of weapons or ammunition. In doing this, he was basically fulfilling his duty to the Crown.
Simultaneously, however, he was trying to employ backdoor diplomacy tactics to negotiate a peace. Benjamin Franklin was among the people with whom he communicated. But it’s tough to argue for peace when your troops are occupying Boston, and his actions ultimately led to the Gunpowder Plot, and the war heating up for good at Lexington and Concord just a few months later.
At one time there were rumors that Benjamin Franklin had lots and lots of children born out of wedlock. (Insert your favorite “lightning rod” joke here.) As usual, the real story is more complicated than that.
Franklin courted a woman named Deborah Reed. At the time, he was 17 and she was 15, so her mother forbade the marriage. Deborah later married another man who fled the country. Sometime after this, Franklin re-entered the picture, but because the status of her marriage was unclear, they simply lived together as common-law spouses. They had two children together, so technically they were “born out of wedlock.” Francis Folger Franklin died of smallpox at the age of four, and Sarah Folger Franklin was also politically active until her death at the age of 68. Meanwhile, Franklin had another “illegitimate” son whose mother is not known (and was also probably Deborah), but he acknowledged his own parentage and together they raised him. This was William Franklin, the future Royal Governor of New Jersey.
That’s it. That’s all of Benjamin Franklin’s kids. But we’re focused on William today.
William was appointed the Royal Governor of New Jersey largely because he was known to have Loyalist leanings. And while he was pretty good at being governor, there did come a point where New Jersey said “Enough of this” and imprisoned him locally for six months before moving him to Connecticut for two years. (This is an event alluded to in the play 1776, but by that point Franklin really had to know that his son had been removed from office. He probably didn’t know yet that William had just been moved to Connecticut, so by early July that would have been news to him.)
By all accounts, Ben Franklin was a charming guy. And while he has a reputation today for being the sort of ladies’ man who left behind lots of children with single moms, that wasn’t really the case (as you’ll discover in a future episode).
But part of his charm came from his diplomacy skills, which he knew how to use to the fullest. And part of those skills included learning what friends he could make who had a great deal of social capital he could use.
One such person was Lady Caroline Howe, who first met Franklin in 1774 as part of a shadow diplomacy tactic. Although this didn’t go far, Howe and Franklin maintained a relationship over the years and frequently visited one another for conversation and games of chess. (Ben Franklin was quite the avid chess player, often playing several times a week in multi-hour sessions.) Today’s episode discusses some of this, and their efforts to get together to play a match.
