Chapter III: Franklin as a Statesman (4)

Nor was any American of Franklin's time more profoundly conscious than he of the growing power and splendid destiny of the Colonies. His familiarity with America was singularly minute and accurate. He had supped at its inns and sojourned in its homes, been delayed at its ferries and crippled on its roads. In one way or another, he had acquired a correct and searching insight into almost everything that related to its political, social and industrial life. His answers to the questions put to him during his famous examination before the House of Lords have been justly reputed to be among the most striking of all the proofs of ability that he ever gave, marked as they were by great wisdom and acuteness, marvellous conciseness as well as clearness of statement, invincible tact and dexterity. But in no respect are these answers more remarkable than in the knowledge that they display of colonial America in all its relations. Accompanying this knowledge, too, was unquestionably a powerful feeling of affection for the land of his birth which renders us more or less skeptical as to whether he was at all certain of himself on the different occasions when he expressed his willingness to die in some other land than his own.

I have indeed [he wrote to his son from England in
1772] so many good kind Friends here, that I could
spend the Remainder of my Life among them with great
Pleasure, if it were not for my American connections, &
the indelible Affection I retain for that dear Country,
from which I have so long been in a State of Exile.

At all times the tread of those coming millions of human beings, which the family fecundity of America made certain, sounded majestically in his ears. Referring to America in a letter to Lord Kames in the year after the repeal of the Stamp Act, he employed these significant words:

She may suffer at present under the arbitrary power of
this country; she may suffer for a while in a
separation from it; but these are temporary evils that
she will outgrow. Scotland and Ireland are differently
circumstanced. Confined by the sea, they can scarcely
increase in numbers, wealth and strength, so as to
overbalance England. But America, an immense territory,
favoured by Nature with all advantages of climate,
soil, great navigable rivers, and lakes, &c. must
become a great country, populous and mighty; and will,
in a less time than is generally conceived, be able to
shake off any shackles that may be imposed on her, and
perhaps place them on the imposers. In the mean time,
every act of oppression will sour their tempers, lessen
greatly, if not annihilate the profits of your commerce
with them, and hasten their final revolt; for the seeds
of liberty are universally found there, and nothing can
eradicate them.

Even, if confined westward by the Mississippi and northward by the St. Lawrence and the Lakes, he thought that, in some centuries, the population of America would amount to one hundred millions of people.

Such were the prepossessions brought by Franklin to the controversy between Great Britain and her colonies. In his view he was none the less an Englishman because he was an American, and, as the controversy gained in rancor, his dual allegiance to the two countries led to no little misconstruction. To an unknown correspondent he wrote several years after the repeal of the Stamp Act that he was becoming weary of talking and writing about the quarrel, "especially," he said, "as I do not find that I have gained any point, in either country, except that of rendering myself suspected by my impartiality; in England of being too much an American, and in America, of being too much an Englishman."

His view of the legal tie between England and the Colonies was very simple. How, he wrote to William Franklin, the people of Boston could admit that the General Court of Massachusetts was subordinate to Parliament, and yet, in the same breath, deny the power of Parliament to enact laws for them, he could not understand; nor could he understand what bounds the Farmer's Letters set to the authority in Parliament, which they conceded, to "regulate the trade of the Colonies." It was difficult, he thought, to draw lines between duties for regulation and those for revenue; and, if Parliament was to be the judge, it seemed to him that the distinction would amount to little. Two years previously, however, when examined before the House of Commons; he had stated that, while the right of a Parliament in which the colonies were not represented to impose an internal tax upon them was generally denied in America, he had never heard any objection urged in America to duties laid by Parliament to regulate commerce; and, when he was asked whether there was any kind of difference between the two taxes to the colonies on which they might be laid, he had a prompt answer:

I think the difference is very great. An external tax
is a duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is
added to the first cost and other charges on the
commodity, and, when it is offered to sale, makes a
part of the price. If the people do not like it at that
price, they refuse it; they are not obliged to pay it.
But an internal tax is forced from the people without
their consent, if not laid by their own
representatives.

And then, when asked immediately afterwards whether, if the external tax or duty was laid on the necessaries of life imported into Pennsylvania, that would not be the same thing in its effects as an internal tax, he doubtless filled the minds of his more insular auditors with astonishment by replying, "I do not know a single article imported into the Northern Colonies, but what they can either do without, or make themselves."

Another neat answer in the examination was his answer when asked whether there was any kind of difference between a duty on the importation of goods and an excise on their consumption:

Yes, a very material one; an excise, for the reasons I
have just mentioned, they (the colonists) think you can
have no right to lay within their country. But the sea
is yours; you maintain, by your fleets, the safety of
navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates; you may
have therefore a natural and equitable right to some
toll or duty on merchandizes carried through that part
of your dominions, towards defraying the expence you
are at in ships to maintain the safety of that
carriage.

Finally he grew weary of the repeated effort to fix the reproach of inconsistency upon the colonies because of their acquiescence in Parliamentary regulation of their commerce; and, when asked whether Pennsylvania might not, by the same interpretation of her charter, object to external as well as internal taxation without representation, he replied:

They never have hitherto. Many arguments have been
lately used here to show them, that there is no
difference, and that, if you have no right to tax them
internally, you have none to tax them externally, or
make any other law to bind them. At present they do not
reason so; but in time they may possibly be convinced
by these arguments.

Nearly ten years later, Franklin had in a conversation with Lord Chatham at his country seat a notable opportunity to say something further with respect to Parliamentary regulations of American commerce. On this occasion, the great English statesman, then earnestly engaged in a last effort to avert the approaching rupture, observed that the opinion prevailed in England that America aimed at setting up for itself as an independent state; or at least getting rid of the Navigation Acts; and Franklin assured him that, having more than once travelled almost from one end of the continent to the other, and kept a great variety of company, eating, drinking and conversing with them freely, he never had heard in any conversation from any person, drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America. And, as to the Navigation Act, he said that the main material part of it, that of carrying on trade in British or Plantation bottoms, excluding foreign ships from colonial ports, and navigating with three fourths British seamen was as acceptable to America as it could be to Britain. Indeed, he declared, America was not even against regulations of the general commerce by Parliament, provided such regulations were _bona fide_ for the benefit of the whole empire, not for the small advantage of one part to the great injury of another, such as obliging American ships to call in England with their wine and fruit from Portugal or Spain, the restraints on American manufactures in the woollen and hat-making branches, the prohibiting of slitting-mills, steel-works and the like.

In the opinion of Franklin, Great Britain and America were legally connected as England and Scotland were before the Union by having one common sovereign. He denied that the instructions of the King had the force of law in the Colonies, as Lord Granville had contended, or that the King and Parliament had any legislative authority over them. "Something," he told his son, "might be made of either of the extremes; that Parliament has a power to make _all laws_ for us, or that it has a power to make _no laws_ for us; and I think the arguments for the latter more numerous and weighty than those for the former." The King with his Plantation Parliaments was, in his opinion, the sole legislator of his American subjects, and, in that capacity, was, and ought to be, free to exercise his own judgment, unrestrained and unlimited by the English Parliament.[19] That the Colonies were originally constituted distinct states and intended to be continued such, was clear to him, he wrote to Dr. Cooper, from a thorough consideration of their first charters and the whole conduct of the crown and nation towards them until the Restoration. Since that time Parliament had usurped an authority of making laws for them which before it had not, and America had for some time submitted to the usurpation partly through ignorance and inattention and partly from its weakness and inability to contend. He wished therefore that such expressions as "the supreme authority of Parliament," "the subordinacy of our Assemblies to the Parliament" and the like were no longer employed in the colonies. These opinions were formed at a time when he labored under the egregious error of supposing that, in spite of the wicked machinations of his Parliament, the King regarded his colonies with the eye of mild paternal favor; but they remained his opinions long after he ceased to be the cheat of this delusion.

How far Franklin's idea of the legal bond between Great Britain and the Colonies was a correct one is a technical inquiry that we need not discuss; but his conception of the solidarity of interests which should exist between all parts of the British Empire was as generous and glowing as any federal rhapsodist of the present day could form. When he expounded it to Lord Chatham at Hayes, the latter in his grand way declared that it was a sound one, worthy of a great, benevolent and comprehensive mind. And such it was. The truth is that Franklin was an Imperialist, and the union which he saw was that of a vast English-speaking empire, made up of parts, held in harmony with each other not only by their common English heritage but also by a measure of self-government liberal enough to assure to each of them an intelligent and sympathetic administration of its particular interests. Until the colonial history of England began, all great empires, he told Lord Chatham, had crumbled first at their extremities, because

Countries remote from the Seat and Eye of Government
which therefore could not well understand their Affairs
for want of full and true Information, had never been
well governed but had been oppress'd by bad Governors,
on Presumption that Complaint was difficult to be made
and supported against them at such a distance.

Had this process of disintegration not been invited in recent years by wrong politics (which would have Parliament to be omnipotent, though it ought not to be so unless it could at the same time be omniscient) they might have gone on extending their Western Empire, adding Province to Province, as far as the South Sea.

It has long appeared to me [he said in his _Tract
relative to the Affair of Hutchinson's Letters_], that
the only true British Politicks were those which aim'd
at the Good of the _Whole British Empire_, not that
which sought the Advantage of _one Part_ in the
Disadvantage of the others; therefore all Measures of
procuring Gain to the Mother Country arising from Loss
to her Colonies, and all of Gain to the Colonies
arising from or occasioning Loss to Britain, especially
where the Gain was small and the Loss great, every
Abridgment of the Power of the Mother Country, where
that Power was not prejudicial to the Liberties of the
Colonists, and every Diminution of the Privileges of
the Colonists, where they were not prejudicial to the
Welfare of the Mo. Country, I, in my own Mind,
condemned as improper, partial, unjust, and
mischievous; tending to create Dissensions, and weaken
that Union, on which the Strength, Solidity, and
Duration of the Empire greatly depended; and I opposed,
as far as my little Powers went, all Proceedings,
either here or in America, that in my Opinion had such
Tendency.

But in no words of Franklin is his inspiring idea of British unity more strikingly expressed than in one of his letters to Lord Howe during the Revolutionary War.

Long did I endeavour, with unfeigned and unwearied Zeal
[was his touching language] to preserve from breaking
that fine and noble China Vase, the British Empire; for
I knew, that, being once broken, the separate Parts
could not retain even their Shares of the Strength and
Value that existed in the Whole, and that a perfect
Reunion of those Parts could scarce ever be hoped for.
Your Lordship may possibly remember the tears of Joy
that wet my Cheek, when, at your good Sister's in
London, you once gave me Expectations that a
Reconciliation might soon take place.

That there was only one way in which the fair vase upon which his eye lingered so fondly and proudly could for certainty be preserved from irreparable ruin, namely, by admitting the colonies to representation in the British Parliament, Franklin saw with perfect clearness. Repeatedly the thought of such a union emerges from his correspondence only to be dismissed as impracticable. As far back as 1766, he wrote from London to Cadwallader Evans these pregnant words:

My private opinion concerning a union in Parliament
between the two countries is, that it would be best for
the whole. But I think it will never be done. For
though I believe, that, if we had no more
representatives than Scotland has, we should be
sufficiently strong in the House to prevent, as they do
for Scotland, anything ever passing to our
disadvantage; yet we are not able at present to furnish
and maintain such a number, and, when we are more able,
we shall be less willing than we are now. The
Parliament here do at present think too highly of
themselves to admit representatives from us, if we
should ask it; and, when they will be desirous of
granting it, we shall think too highly of ourselves to
accept of it. It would certainly contribute to the
strength of the whole, if Ireland and all the dominions
were united and consolidated under one common council
for general purposes, each retaining its particular
council or parliament for its domestic concerns. But
this should have been more early provided for. In the
infancy of our foreign establishments it was neglected,
or was not thought of. And now the affair is nearly in
the situation of Friar Bacon's project of making a
brazen wall round England for its eternal security. His
servant, Friar Bungey, slept while the brazen head,
which was to dictate how it might be done, said _Time
is_, and _Time was_. He only waked to hear it say,
_Time is past_. An explosion followed, that tumbled
their house about the conjuror's ears.

In a subsequent letter to his son in 1768, Franklin again indulges the same day dream, and again reaches the conclusion that such a union would be the best for the whole, and that, though particular parts might find particular disadvantages in it, they would find greater advantages in the security arising to every part from the increased strength of the whole. But such a union, he concluded, was not likely to take place, while the nature of the existing relation was so little understood on both sides of the water, and sentiments concerning it remained so widely different.

Nothing, therefore, remained for Franklin to do except to fall back upon this relation and to make the best of it, to insist that the only constitutional tie between England and the Colonies was the King, and that Parliament had no more right to tax America than to tax Hanover, though the legislative assemblies of the colonies would always be ready in the future as they had been in the past to honor the requisitions for pecuniary aids made upon them by the King, through his Secretary of State; to combat the political and economic dogmas and the national prejudices which stood in the way of the full recognition by England of the fact that her true interest was to be found in the liberal treatment of the Colonies; to warn the Colonies that their connection with England was attended with too many obligations and advantages to be hastily or prematurely forfeited by rash resentments, so long as there was any definite prospect of their appeal to English self-interest and good-feeling not proving in vain; and finally to couple the warning with the suggestion that they should unceasingly keep up the assertion of their just rights, and be prepared, all else failing, to maintain them with an unabated military spirit. It was not to be expected of a man so conservative and constant in nature, and bound to England by so many strong and endearing associations, that he should wage a solitary combat for American rights on English soil before he or any man had reason to know how bitterly the Stamp Act would be returned upon the head of Parliament by America, but never, after the temper of his countrymen in regard to it, was made manifest to him, were his elbows again out of touch with those of his compatriots in America. To their assistance and to the assistance as well of the great body of wise and generous Englishmen, who loved liberty too much at home to begrudge it to Englishmen in America, he brought his every resource, his scientific fame, his social gifts, his personal popularity, his knowledge of the world and the levers by which it is moved, the sane, searching mind, too full of light for bigotry, superstition, or confusion, the pen that enlisted satirical point as readily as grave dissertation in the service of instruction. It cannot be doubted that his exertions should be reckoned among the potent influences that secured the repeal of the Stamp Act. To Charles Thomson he wrote that he had reprinted everything from America that he thought might help their common cause. His examination before the House of Commons was published and had a great run. "You guessed aright," he wrote to Lord Kames with regard to the repeal, "in supposing that I would not be a _mute in that play_. I was extremely busy, attending Members of both Houses, informing, explaining, consulting, disputing, in a continual hurry from morning to night, till the affair was happily ended."

Some years after the repeal of the Stamp Act, he wrote to Jane Mecom that, at the time of the repeal, the British Ministry were ready to hug him for the assistance that he had afforded them in bringing it about. From the time of the repeal until he returned to America in 1775, his one absorbing object was to create a better understanding between England and her colonies, and to avert the possibility of war between them. Among the things with which he had to contend in accomplishing his aims was the haughty spirit in which the English people were disposed to look down upon the colonists, and to resent any manifestation of independence upon their part as insolent. It was this spirit which made him feel that the assent of England would never be obtained to the representation of America in Parliament.

I am fully persuaded with you [he wrote to Lord Kames],
that a _Consolidating Union_, by a fair and equal
representation of all the parts of this Empire in
Parliament, is the only firm basis on which its
political grandeur and prosperity can be founded.
Ireland once wished it, but now rejects it. The time
has been, when the colonies might have been pleased
with it; they are now _indifferent_ about it; and if it
is much longer delayed, they too will _refuse it_. But
the pride of this people can not bear the thought of
it, and therefore it will be delayed. Every man in
England seems to consider himself as a piece of a
sovereign over America; seems to jostle himself into
the throne with the King, and talks of _our subjects in
the Colonies_.

This was the sentiment of England in general. In the guard-room and barracks, it assumed at times the grosser form of such contempt as that which led General Clarke to believe as we have seen that the emasculation of all the male Americans would be little more than a holiday task for a handful of British grenadiers. Along with this haughty spirit went a crass ignorance of America and Americans which Franklin despaired of ever enlightening except by good-natured ridicule. An illustration of the manner in which he employed this agency is found in his letter to the Editor of a Newspaper. It had been claimed, he said, that factories in America were impossible because American sheep had but little wool, and the dearness of American labor rendered the profitable working of iron and other materials, except in some few coarse instances, impracticable.

Dear Sir [was his reply], do not let us suffer
ourselves to be amus'd with such groundless Objections.
The very Tails of the American Sheep are so laden with
Wooll, that each has a little Car or Waggon on four
little Wheels, to support & keep it from trailing on
the Ground. Would they caulk their Ships, would they
fill their Beds, would they even litter their Horses
with Wooll, if it were not both plenty and cheap? And
what signifies Dearness of Labour, when an English
shilling passes for five and Twenty? Their engaging 300
Silk Throwsters here in one Week, for New York, was
treated as a Fable, because, forsooth, they have "no
Silk there to throw." Those, who made this Objection,
perhaps did not know, that at the same time the Agents
from the King of Spain were at Quebec to contract for
1000 Pieces of Cannon to be made there for the
Fortification of Mexico, and at New York engaging the
annual Supply of woven Floor-Carpets for their West
India Houses, other Agents from the Emperor of China
were at Boston treating about an Exchange of raw Silk
for Wooll, to be carried in Chinese Junks through the
Straits of Magellan.

Another thing, with which Franklin had to contend, was the misrepresentations that the colonial governors were constantly making about American conditions. These misrepresentations were in keeping with the unworthy character of some of them and with the transitory relation that almost all of them bore to the Colonies, of which they were the executives. What the Americans truly thought of them is pointedly expressed in Franklin's _Causes of the American Discontents_.

They say then as to Governors [he declared], that they
are not like Princes whose posterity have an
inheritance in the Government of a nation, and
therefore an interest in its prosperity; they are
generally strangers to the Provinces they are sent to
govern, have no estate, natural connexion, or relation
there, to give them an affection for the country; that
they come only to make money as fast as they can; are
sometimes men of vicious characters and broken
fortunes, sent by a Minister merely to get them out of
the way; that as they intend staying in the country no
longer than their government continues, and purpose to
leave no family behind them, they are apt to be
regardless of the goodwill of the people, and care not
what is said or thought of them after they are gone.

That such men were biased and untrustworthy witnesses touching American conditions goes without saying, but, when discontent became deeply implanted in the breasts of the colonists, their partisan and perverted reports to the English Government as to the state of America did much to mislead their masters. The burden of these reports as a rule was that the disaffected were few in numbers and persons of little consequence, that the colonists of property and social standing were satisfied, and inclined to submit to Parliamentary taxation, that it was impossible to establish manufacturing industries in America, and that, if Parliament would only steadily persist in the exercise of its legislative authority over America, the non-importation agreements and other defensive measures adopted by its people would be abandoned.

But the most intractable of all the obstacles with which Franklin had to contend was the policy of commercial and industrial restriction, partly the result of economic purblindness, peculiar to the time, and partly the result of sheer selfishness, which England relentlessly pursued in her relations to the colonies. Every suggestion that this policy should be relaxed was met by its more extreme champions, such as George Grenville, with the statement that the Acts of Navigation were the very Palladium of England. On no account were the Colonies to be allowed to import wine, oil and fruit directly from Spain and Portugal, or to even import iron directly from foreign countries. Enlarged as was the understanding of Lord Chatham himself, it could not tolerate the thought that America should be permitted to convert any form of crude material into manufactured products. Every hat made in America, every shipload of emigrants that left the shores of England for America, was jealously regarded as signifying so much pecuniary loss to England. The colonists were to be mere _adscripti glebae_, mere tillers of the American soil for the purpose of wringing from it the price of the manufactured commodities, with which they were to be exclusively supplied by the factories and shops of the mother country. The idea that, in any other sense, the expanding numbers and wealth of America could inure to the benefit of England, was one that seemed to be wholly foreign to its consciousness. To this Little England Franklin steadfastly opposed his conception of an Imperial England, based upon the freedom of all its parts to contribute to the wealth and importance of the whole by the full enjoyment of all their peculiar natural gifts and advantages.

No one can more sincerely rejoice than I do [he wrote
to Lord Kames in 1760], on the reduction of Canada; and
this is not merely as I am a colonist, but as I am a
Briton. I have long been of opinion, that the
_foundations of the future grandeur and stability of
the British Empire lie in America_; and though, like
other foundations, they are low and little seen, they
are, nevertheless, broad and strong enough to support
the greatest political structure human wisdom ever yet
erected.

These words, splendid as was the vision by which they were illumined, were but the utterance in another form of the thought that he had expressed nine years before in America in his essay on the _Increase of Mankind_. Speaking of the population of the colonies at that time he said:

This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 years,
will, in another Century, be more than the People of
_England_, and the greatest Number of _Englishmen_ will
be on this Side the Water. What an Accession of Power
to the _British Empire_ by Sea as well as Land! What
Increase of Trade and Navigation! What Numbers of Ships
and Seamen! We have been here but little more than 100
years, and yet the Force of our Privateers in the late
War, united, was greater, both in Men and Guns, than
that of the whole _British_ Navy in Queen _Elizabeth's_
time.

Indeed so fully possessed was he even as late as 1771 with the federative spirit, which has brought recruits from Canada and Australia to the side of England in recent wars that, after urging upon Thomas Cushing the importance of a well-disciplined militia being maintained by Massachusetts, for her protection against invasion by a foreign foe, he added, "And what a Glory would it be for us to send, on any trying Occasion, ready and effectual Aid to our Mother Country!" It is only by reading such words as these that we can begin to divine what the divulsion of England and America has really meant to the vast host of human beings throughout the world who speak the English tongue.

To all the shallow sophistries or sottish errors, that tended to falsify his glorious dream of world-wide British unity, Franklin presented a merciless intellect. With regard to the intention of Parliament to tax the colonies, he had these pointed words to say in a letter to Peter Collinson in 1764: "What we get above a Subsistence we lay out with you for your Manufactures.

"Therefore what you get from us in Taxes you must lose in Trade. The Cat can yield but her skin."

Even more acute was his letter to the _Public Advertiser_ on a proposed Act to prevent emigration from England. Such an Act, he declared, was unnecessary, impracticable, impolitic and unjust. What is more, with an insight into the laws governing population, superior to that of any man of his time, he made his assertions good. To illustrate this claim in part, we need go no further than what he had to say about the necessity of the Act.

As long as the new situation shall be _far_ preferable
to the old [he said], the emigration may possibly
continue. But when many of those, who at home
interfered with others of the same rank (in the
competition for farms, shops, business, offices, and
other means of subsistence), are gradually withdrawn,
the inconvenience of that competition ceases; the
number remaining no longer half starve each other; they
find they can now subsist comfortably, and though
perhaps not quite so well as those who have left them,
yet, the inbred attachment to a native country is
sufficient to overbalance a moderate difference; and
thus the emigration ceases naturally. The waters of
the ocean may move in currents from one quarter of the
globe to another, as they happen in some places to be
accumulated, and in others diminished; but no law,
beyond the law of gravity, is necessary to prevent
their abandoning any coast entirely. Thus the different
degrees of happiness of different countries and
situations find, or rather make, their level by the
flowing of people from one to another; and where that
level is once found, the removals cease. Add to this,
that even a real deficiency of people in any country,
occasioned by a wasting war or pestilence, is speedily
supplied by earlier and more prolific marriages,
encouraged by the greater facility of obtaining the
means of subsistence. So that a country half
depopulated would soon be repeopled, till the means of
subsistence were equalled by the population. All
increase beyond that point must perish, or flow off
into more favourable situations. Such overflowings
there have been of mankind in all ages, or we should
not now have had so many nations. But to apprehend
absolute depopulation from that cause, and call for a
law to prevent it, is calling for a law to stop the
Thames, lest its waters, by what leave it daily at
Gravesend, should be quite exhausted.

Twenty-three years before he had stated the same truths more sententiously in his essay on the _Increase of Mankind_.

In fine [he said in that essay] a Nation well regulated
is like a Polypus; take away a Limb, its Place is soon
supply'd; cut it in two, and each deficient Part shall
speedily grow out of the Part remaining. Thus if you
have Room and Subsistence enough, as you may by
dividing, make ten Polypes out of one, you may of one
make ten Nations, equally populous and powerful; or
rather increase a Nation ten fold in Numbers and
Strength.

Franklin clearly saw that, with the increase of population in the colonies, the demand for British manufactures would increase _pari passu_, and that, with the increased demand for them, the population of Great Britain would increase, perhaps, tenfold. Much as he made of the economic conditions that tended to give a purely agricultural direction to the energies of America, he laughed to scorn the idea that America would always remain in a state of industrial subjection to England.

Only consider _the rate of our Increase_ [he wrote to
Peter Collinson, after stating that it was folly to
expect that America would always be supplied with cloth
by England] and tell me if you can increase your Wooll
in that Proportion, and where, in your little Island
you can feed the Sheep. Nature has put Bounds to your
Abilities, tho' none to your Desires. Britain would, if
she could, manufacture & trade for all the World;
England for all Britain;--London for all England;--and
every Londoner for all London. So selfish is the human
Mind! But 'tis well there is One above that rules these
Matters with a more equal Hand.

The agency that Franklin held for Pennsylvania in the first instance, and the agencies that he afterwards held for Massachusetts, New Jersey and Georgia, too, afforded him a solid standing for influencing public opinion both in England and America. He was actually in England, and, at the same time, in incessant correspondence with the popular leaders in America. With the beginning of the agitation for the repeal of the Stamp Act he entered upon a course of political activity which added greatly, in another form, to the reputation already acquired by him as a man of science. For his services in securing the repeal, including the flood of light that his answers, when examined before the House of Commons, shed upon the points at issue between the two countries, he was repaid by the English Ministry with attentions which he describes by a term as strong as "caress." Even when the dust of the conflict had thickened, and popular sentiment in England had ranged itself more and more on the side of the King and Parliament, his advice was still eagerly sought by Chatham, Camden, Shelburne and Burke and other liberal and sagacious English statesmen, when they were vainly striving in opposition to restore sanity to the distracted counsels that were menacing the security of the Empire.[20] Those must have been proud moments for Franklin, when the elder Pitt, whom he had come to regard in the earlier stages of his maturer life in England as an "inaccessible," received him as an honored guest under his roof at Hayes, or conferred with him at No. 7 Craven Street, or delivered him to the doorkeepers in the House of Lords, saying aloud, "This is Dr. Franklin, whom I would have admitted into the House." There have been few men who might not have envied the privilege of intimate communion with a man not greater, when he was making his country the mistress of the world, than, when decrepit, and in a hopeless minority, he rose in the House of Lords to plead with a voice, inspired not only by his own matchless eloquence but by all that was best in the history and temper of England for the removal of His Majesty's troops from the town of Boston. On the other side of the Atlantic, too, as the final catastrophe drew nearer, Franklin acquired a position, as the champion of the Colonies, which led Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts to say of the memorable report, made by a committee to the town meeting, held in Boston on November 20, 1772, that "although at its first appearance it was considered as their own work, yet they had little more to do than to make the necessary alterations in the arrangement of materials prepared for them by their great director in England, whose counsels they obeyed, and in whose wisdom and dexterity they had an implicit faith."

And with entire truth it can be said that, until war became inevitable, Franklin used his influence in both countries with the unwavering purpose of promoting the best interests of both. The representation of America in Parliament at that time he saw was impracticable, and it is hard to believe, though the imbecility of a government without a sanction had not yet been forced upon his attention by the Articles of Confederation, that so practical a man could have had much faith in the steady efficacy of mere requisitions for aids by the Crown on the colonial assemblies. But, within the limits set him by the insurmountable barriers of the hour, it can not be doubted, bold as such an assertion may be, that the wisest thing that both England and the Colonies could have done, if such an idea is conceivable, would have been to leave the controversy between them to his sole arbitration. The most striking tribute that can be paid to the wisdom and open-mindedness of Franklin is to say that, if this had been done, an accommodation would unquestionably have been reached with due regard to the honor, dignity and essential interests of both countries. His attitude in England was that of a loyal friend to both parties to the controversy, who, as he viewed it, had no cause for disagreement that a temperate and sensible man would not know how to readily remove. To the British public he addressed with numerous variations the following arguments: Notwithstanding the rapid increase of population in America, its area was so vast, and contained so much vacant land, that even such artisans as it had soon drifted into the possession and cultivation of land. The danger, therefore, of industrial competition between the two countries was very remote. The people of America, however, would multiply so rapidly that, in the course of a brief time, the demand for manufactures would increase to such an extent that Great Britain would be powerless alone to supply it. He had satisfied himself by an inspection of the cloth factories in Yorkshire that, with a population doubling as did that of America every twenty-five years, Great Britain would in the future be unable to keep the Americans clothed. It was not right that the interests of a particular class of British merchants, tradesmen or artificers should outweigh those of all the King's subjects in the Colonies. Iron was to be found everywhere in America, and beaver furs were the natural productions of that country; hats, nails and steel were wanted there as well as in England. It was of no importance to the common welfare of the empire whether a subject of the King got his living by making hats on one or the other side of the water, whether he grew rich on the Thames or the Ohio, in Edinburgh or Dublin. Yet the hatters of England had obtained an act in their own favor, restraining that manufacture in America in order to oblige the Americans to send their beaver to England to be manufactured, and to purchase back the hats loaded with the charges of a double transportation. In the same manner, had a few nail-makers and a still smaller body of steel-makers (perhaps there were not a half-dozen of these in England) been able to totally forbid by an Act of Parliament the erecting of slitting mills or steel-furnaces in America. All money made by America in trade, or derived by it from fisheries, the produce of the soil or commerce, finally centred in England; yet, though America was drained of all its specie in the purchase of English goods, often mere luxuries and superfluities, she was not even allowed to issue paper money, however carefully safeguarded, to take its place. The idea that the numerous and separate colonies might become dangerous to the mother country was visionary. They were so jealous of each other that they had been wholly unable to agree upon a union for their common defence or to unite in requesting the mother country to establish one for them. The truth was that they loved England much more than they loved each other. There remained among them so much respect, veneration and affection for Britain, that, if cultivated prudently, with kind usage, and tenderness for their privileges, they might be easily governed still for ages, without force, or any considerable expense. Parliament had no constitutional right to levy a direct tax of any kind on America. The King was the only bond between America and Great Britain. In the beginning, no claim had been made by Parliament of a right to even regulate American commerce, but the power had long been exercised by it without any objection on the part of the colonies, and could, at any rate, be reasonably defended on the ground that Great Britain was put to a great expense in policing the seas over which American commerce moved. If England felt that she could not rely upon the voluntary grants of America, to defray the charges imposed upon her by America, then the logical and proper thing to do before she levied direct taxes upon America was to provide for the representation of the Colonies in Parliament. Until that was done, if it was practicable to do it, she should confine herself to the old constitutional practice of requisitions for pecuniary aid, issued by the Secretary of State, at the instance of the Crown, to the Legislative Assemblies of America. These requisitions of a gracious King had been freely honored in the past. Indeed, the pecuniary burden of the wars, which had been carried on in America, though they were not of her kindling, had been borne by America in a larger proportion to her means than England. But to impose a stamp or tea duty upon America by Act of Parliament was simple madness. No taxes of that sort would ever be collected in America except such as were stained with blood. If Parliament, in which America was not represented, had the right to take from her a penny in a pound, what was there to hinder it from calling, whenever it pleased, for the other nineteen shillings and eleven pence? The only result of a continued attempt to tax America would be the complete loss of her respect and affection, and all the political and commercial advantages that accompanied them. It was a mistake to heed the statements of the Colonial Governors as to the limited extent of popular disaffection in America and the inability of the Colonies to dispense with English manufactures. Their dependence was such as to render them more eager to conciliate court than colonial favor. It was also a mistake to suppose that America could not either make or forego any articles whatsoever that she was in the habit of buying from England. Men would tax themselves as heavily to gratify their resentment as their pride. The Americans had resolved to wear no more mourning, and it was now totally out of fashion with near two millions of people. They had resolved to eat no more lamb, and not a joint of lamb had since been seen on any of their tables, but the lambs themselves were all alive with the prettiest of fleeces on their backs imaginable. Look, too, at the pitiful sum of eighty pounds which was all that the odious tea duty banned by America had produced in a year to defray the expense of some hundreds of thousands of pounds incurred by England in maintaining armed ships and soldiers to support the innumerable officeholders charged with the duty of enforcing the tax.

The argument addressed by Franklin to America was equally earnest. The protection that England could afford her, the office of umpire that England could perform for her, in case of disputes between the Colonies, so that they could go on without interruption with their improvements, and increase their numbers, were the advantages that America enjoyed in her connection with England.

By the Exercise of prudent Moderation on her part,
mix'd with a little Kindness [Franklin wrote to Thomas
Cushing], and by a decent Behaviour on ours, excusing
where we can excuse from a Consideration of
Circumstances, and bearing a little with the
Infirmities of her Government, as we would with those
of an aged Parent,[21] tho' firmly asserting our
Privileges, and declaring that we mean at a proper time
to vindicate them, this advantageous Union may still be
long continued. We wish it, and we may endeavour it;
but God will order it as to His Wisdom shall seem most
suitable. The Friends of Liberty here, wish we may long
preserve it on our side the Water, that they may find
it there if adverse Events should destroy it here. They
are therefore anxious and afraid, lest we should hazard
it by premature Attempts in its favour. They think we
may risque much by violent Measures and that the Risque
is unnecessary, since a little Time must infallibly
bring us all we demand or desire, and bring it us in
Peace and Safety. I do not presume to advise. There are
many wiser men among you, and I hope you will be
directed by a still superior Wisdom.

Every personal difference Franklin contended did not justify a quarrel nor did every act of oppression on the part of the mother country justify a war. The policy, which he laid down for the Colonies, was to exercise patience and forbearance, and to look to political changes in England and their own rapidly increasing numbers and wealth for the ultimate redress of their grievances, but, in the meantime, to reaffirm fearlessly their constitutional rights on every proper occasion. This policy is again and again recommended in his letters to his friends and political correspondents over-sea. Even before the Stamp Act was actually repealed, he wrote to Charles Thomson expressing the hope that, when that happened, the behavior of America would be so prudent, decent and grateful that their friends in England would have no reason to be ashamed, and their enemies in England, who had predicted that Parliamentary indulgence would only make them more insolent and ungovernable, would find themselves, and be found, false prophets. After the repeal of the Stamp Act, in a letter to Galloway, he expressed deep regret that the English merchants, who had helped to secure that result, and to communicate the knowledge of it, at their expense to America, should feel that the Americans had proved themselves ingrates, and he accordingly said that he hoped that some decent acknowledgments or thanks would be sent to these merchants by the colonial assemblies. When the idea of taxing America was subsequently revived, he wrote to the same correspondent that he knew not what to advise, but that they should all do their endeavors on both sides the water to lessen the present unpopularity of the American cause, conciliate the affections of the British towards them, increase by all possible means the number of their friends, and be careful not to weaken their hands, and strengthen their enemies, by rash proceedings on their side; the mischiefs of which were inconceivable. In a letter to the printer of the _Gazetteer_, signed "New England," he said: "I only hate calumniators and boutefeus on either side the water, who would for the little dirty purposes of faction, set brother against brother, turn friends into mortal enemies, and ruin an empire by dividing it." In a letter to Cadwallader Evans, in 1768, he even approved the idea that America should manufacture only such things as England neglected.

These are but scant gleanings from the numerous letters in which, down to the very last, Franklin unweariedly repeated his counsels of self-restraint to his fellow-countrymen. Accompanying them was every word of good cheer that he thought might tend to make this self-restraint easier. Several times he assured his American correspondents that, in the debate with the mother country, America had the sympathy of all Europe. For a long time, he endeavored to allay the resentment of his countrymen, under the sting of parliamentary injustice, by voicing the delusion that the King did not share the sentiments of the corrupt legislature which, as a matter of fact, he was all the time corrupting for the purpose of fostering such sentiments. Every indication of a favorable disposition towards the Colonies upon the part of the English People, during the alternations of anxiety and confidence that his mind underwent with the rise and fall of English ministries, friendly or unfriendly to America, was promptly observed by him and reported to America. At times, it is plain enough that he thought a war it would be; yet as late as 1775, when he believed that the adverse ministry of that time was tottering, his sanguine nature reached the conclusion in a letter to James Bowdoin that the redoubled clamor of the trading, manufacturing and Whig interests in England would infallibly overthrow all the enemies of America, and produce an acknowledgment of her rights and satisfaction for her injuries. Parliament rarely gave him any occasion to speak of it except in terms of mingled amazement and indignation; but it is agreeable to remember that, in a letter in 1774 to Jane Mecom, he made grateful mention of "the generous and noble friends of America" in both houses, whose names, dear to the highest traditions of human genius and public spirit, should never be forgotten in any movement to reintegrate in some form the broken fragments of the china vase in which Franklin saw a symbol of the unity of the British Empire.

Accompanying Franklin's counsels of patience, however, was also an unceasing warning to America not to alter for a moment her posture of resistance and protest. "If under all the Insults and Oppressions you are now exposed to," he told Dr. Cooper, "you can prudently, as you have lately done, continue quiet, avoiding Tumults, but still resolutely keeping up your Claim and asserting your Rights, you will finally establish them, and this military Cloud that now blusters over you will pass away, and do no more Harm than a Summer Thunder Shower." "The Colonies," he wrote subsequently to Robert Morris and Thomas Leach, "have Adversaries enow to their common Privileges: They should endeavour to agree among themselves, and avoid everything that may make ill-Blood and promote Divisions, which must weaken them in their common Defence." To Thomas Cushing he wrote that America should continue from time to time to assert its rights in occasional solemn resolves and other public acts, never yielding them up, and avoiding even the slightest expressions that seemed confirmatory of the claim that had been set up against them. As the end of it all became more and more obvious, his note of warning assumed an additional significance. In a letter to Thomas Cushing in 1773, he wrote:

But our great Security lies, I think, in our growing
Strength, both in Numbers and Wealth; that creates an
increasing Ability of assisting this Nation in its
Wars, which will make us more respectable, our
Friendship more valued, and our Enmity feared; thence
it will soon be thought proper to treat us not with
Justice only, but with Kindness, and thence we may
expect in a few Years a total Change of Measures with
regard to us; unless, by a Neglect of military
Discipline, we should lose all martial Spirit, and our
Western People become as tame as those in the Eastern
Dominions of Britain, when we may expect the same
Oppressions; for there is much Truth in the Italian
saying, _Make yourselves Sheep_, _and the Wolves will
eat you_.