show whether or not John Adams ever could have been President of the United States, if in France he had not sided with the Lees against Franklin. But, for our part, we are now at liberty to turn to topics more congenial.

CHAPTER XI.

FRANKLIN SOLE PLENIPOTENTIARY.

DR. FRANKLIN was now, to use a well-worn phrase, "master of the situation"-in Europe the supreme American-director and controller of his country's affairs on that continent, naval, commercial, financial, political. He and his grandson, aided by their single clerk, now transacted business in their own rational and successful way, with as much or as little of red tape as they chose to employ, and with no restless, malign, or impracticable spirits to criticize or interfere. But if his life flowed on more tranquilly than before, it was not because his labors were less arduous, but because his hands were freer to perform them. Labor and care are the basis of all noble lives led on this earth; nor does nature produce a great, energetic brain without meaning to get from it all that it was made capable of furnishing. In a universe conducted with such exact economy, it would be surprising, indeed, if the rarest and most precious of all things, a superior human mind, were allowed to waste any portion of its intelligent power. We find, accordingly, that men of real ability are, generally, heroic workers to the last. They cannot extricate themselves from the coil of affairs. The majority of us are so prodigiously stupid and ignorant, that a man of a little true insight cannot be spared while there is yet remaining a gleam of his original sense. During the whole of his long and busy career, Franklin never worked harder, never suffered more anxiety, than in the next three years after becoming sole plenipotentiary.

The burden of his thoughts was-money. Upon his broad shoulders rested the credit of the infant republic. As the congressional paper depreciated, and the resources of the country were exhausted, Congress acquired a fearful facility in drawing

bills upon Dr. Franklin. When all other resources failed, recourse was invariably had to him; and it was he, also, who had to find means to pay the interest on the always growing debt of Congress in Europe. He always had been able to honor the drafts of Congress, and, therefore, Congress appeared to think he always would. And besides the interest of the debt and the drafts from America, he had to pay the salary of every agent employed by Congress in Europe, and to defray the endless expenses attending the ships engaged in transporting stores. To meet all these demands, he received an occasional cargo of tobacco or rice from America; but his great resource was the treasury of the King of France. When the drafts came rushing in upon him, and terror possessed his soul lest the credit and the cause of his country should be overwhelmed, and all other means had failed, then would he conquer his all but unconquerable repugnance to asking further aid from so generous an ally, and apply to the Count de Vergennes. Never did he apply in vain. Never was he obliged to defer the payment of a draft for an hour.

The very means employed by Congress to relieve him of his embarrassment only served to increase it. Early in 1780, Mr. Jay arrived at Madrid to solicit the alliance and aid of Spain. So confident was Congress of his obtaining money, that they began forthwith to draw upon him; but as no money could be wrung from the Spanish court, all these drafts came upon Dr. Franklin for pay"The storm of bills," he wrote to Mr. Jay, "which I found coming upon us both, has terrified and vexed me to such a degree, that I have been deprived of sleep, and so much indisposed by continual anxiety, as to be rendered almost incapable of writing." The Count de Vergennes, as usual, came to his rescue.

ment.

In this letter to Mr. Jay, occurs the once famous passage respecting the value to the United States of the Mississippi River: "Poor as we are, yet, as I know we shall be rich, I would rather agree with them to buy at a great price the whole of their right on the Mississippi, than sell a drop of its waters. A neighbor might as well ask me to sell my street door."

The last two years of the revolutionary war were little more than one long agonizing struggle for money. The very facility with which aid had been obtained from France, and the evident zeal of France in the common cause, tended to make the States languid in

enforcing the requisite taxation. For the campaign of 1781, there seemed absolutely no resource but the French treasury. "We must have one of two things," wrote General Washington to Franklin, "peace or money from France;" and to similar purport, wrote Robert Morris and members of Congress. Franklin was at length ordered to lay the state of affairs before the French ministry, and ask for a loan of twenty-five millions of francs, as well as for stores requisite for the campaign. Mr. Morris, then at the head of the department of finance, was of opinion that, with the assistance of that amount of capital, he could put the finances of the country upon a sound basis, and maintain the credit of Congress in all probable contingencies. Without such aid, he knew not how to take the first step towards solvency. Franklin obeyed the orders of Congress, and wrote an eloquent memorial to the Count de Vergennes, asking for the loan. As usual with him when he had a great point to carry, he appealed not to one motive only, but to all the motives which were likely to come into play in the minds of the persons whom he sought to influence. Thus, in this memorial, after stating the case in all its leading points, he concluded with a kind of personal appeal, and yet mingled with that some weighty sentences addressed to the fears of the French people.

“I am grown old," he wrote; "I feel myself much enfeebled by my late long illness, and it is probable I shall not long have any more concern in these affairs. I therefore take this occasion to express my opinion to your Excellency, that the present conjuncture is critical; that there is some danger lest the Congress should lose its influence over the people, if it is found unable to procure the aids that are wanted; and that the whole system of the new government in America may thereby be shaken; that, if the English are suffered once to recover that country, such an opportunity of effectual separation as the present may not occur again in the course of ages; and that the possession of those fertile and extensive regions, and that vast seacoast, will afford them so broad a basis for future greatness, by the rapid growth of their commerce, and the breed of seamen and soldiers, as will enable them to become the terror of Europe, and to exercise with impunity that insolence which is so natural to their nation, and which will increase enormously with the increase of their power."

He had to wait three anxious weeks for an answer, during which

arrived Colonel John Laurens, the minister sent expressly by Congress to promote the loan. The arrival of Colonel Laurens gave Dr. Franklin an excuse for pressing his request anew upon the Count de Vergennes; who sent for him, at length. "He assured me," Franklin wrote, " of the king's good will to the United States; remarking, however, that, being on the spot, I must be sensible of the great expense France was actually engaged in, and the difficulty of providing for it, which rendered the lending us twenty-five millions at present impracticable. But that to give the States a signal proof of his friendship, his Majesty had resolved to grant them the sum of six millions, not as a loan, but as a free gift. This sum, the minister informed me, was exclusive of the three millions which he had before obtained for me, to pay the Congress drafts for interest, expected in the current year. He added, that, as it was understood the clothing, with which our army had been heretofore supplied from France, was often of bad quality, and dear, the ministers would themselves take care of the purchase of such articles as should be immediately wanted, and send them over; and it was desired of me to look over the great invoice that had been sent hither last year, and mark out those articles."

It was a timely and a priceless gift. It enabled Dr. Franklin to sustain the credit of America in Europe, and it contributed essentially to the success of the campaign which ended in the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. The sum total of the money obtained from France at the solicitation of Franklin was twenty-six millions of francs; in 1777, two millions; in 1778, three millions; in 1779, one million; in 1780, four millions; in 1781, ten millions; in 1782, six millions. These aids were given at a time when France herself was at war, and while the minister of finance, M. Necker, constantly opposed the grants. Franklin, without knowing it. helped bleed the French monarchy to death.*

In relation to the loans and gifts procured by Dr. Franklin from France, the following passages from the letters of the Count de Vergennes to the French Minister in America, are important and interesting:

December 4th, 1780: "I have too good an opinion of the intelligence and wisdom of the members of Congress, and of all true patriots, to suppose that they will allow themselves to be led astray by the representations of a man [Arthur Lee] whose character they ought to know, or that they will judge of us from any other facts, than the generous proceedings of his Majesty. As to Dr. Franklin, his conduct leaves nothing for Congress to desire. It is as zealous and patriotic, as it is wise and circumspect; and you may affirm with assurance, on all occasions where you think proper, that the method he pursues is much more efficacious than it would be if he

Dismissing this topic of money, we may pass lightly and rapidly over these three busy, honorable years (1779, 1780, 1781), gleaning only the few anecdotes, events, and utterances which ought not to be omitted.

In 1779, with a felicity all his own, Franklin obeyed the resolve of Congress which ordered him to have made in Paris and to present to the Marquis de Lafayette a sword in the name of the United States. The sword, which cost two hundred guineas, being completed, he sent his grandson with it to Havre, where the young general then was. "Congress directed it," wrote Franklin to Lafayette, "to be ornamented with suitable devices. Some of the principal actions of the war, in which you distinguished yourself by your bravery and conduct, are therefore represented upon it. These, with a few emblematic figures, all admirably well executed, make its principal value. By the help of the exquisite artists France affords, I find it easy to express every thing but the sense we have of your worth and our obligations to you. For this, figures and even words are found insufficient."

were to assume a tone of importunity in multiplying his demands, and above all in supporting them by menaces, to which we should neither give credence nor value, and which would only tend to render him personally disagrecable.

Furthermore, that Congress may be enabled to judge that they ought to rely much more on our good will than the importunity of Dr. Franklin, you may inform them that, upon the first request of their minister, we have promised to give him a million of livres to put him in a condition to meet the demands made on him from this time to the end of the year; that we are occupied in providing for him new resources for the year coming; and that, in short, we shall in no case lose sight of the interests of the American cause. I flatter myself that these marks of regard will be understood by the patriots, and will destroy any prepossessions which the ill-advised language of Mr. Izard and Mr. Arthur Lee may have produced."

February 15th, 1781. "Congress rely too much on France for subsidies to maintain their army. They must absolutely refrain from such exorbitant demands. The great expenses of the war render it impossible for France to meet these demands if persisted in. You must speak in a peremptory manner on this subject; and, to give more weight, you must observe, that the last campaign has cost us more than one hundred and fifty millions extraordinary, and what we are now about to furnish will surpass that sum. You may add, that our desire to aid Congress to the full extent of our power has engaged us to grant Dr. Franklin (besides the one million, of which he had need to meet the demands for the last year) four millions more, to enable him to take up the drafts which Congress have drawn on him for the present year. I dare believe that this procedure will be duly estimated in America, and convince Congress that they have no occasion to employ the false policy of Mr. Izard and Mr. Lee to procure succors. If you are questioned respecting our opinion of Dr. Franklin, you may without hesitation say, that we esteem him as much on account of the patriotism as the wisdom of his conduct; and it has been owing in a great part to this cause, and to the confidence we put in the veracity of Dr. Franklin, that we have determined to relieve the pecuniary embarrassments in which he has been placed by Congress. It may be judged from this fact, which is of a personal nature, if that minister's conduct has been injurious to the interests of his country, or if any other would have had the same advantages."- Writings of Washington-Sparks, vil., 879.