PART VI. CHAPTER I. ARRIVAL OF DR. FRANKLIN. HELP was at hand. The note informed Mr. Deane that Dr. Franklin was at Nantes, two hundred and eight miles southwest of Paris! It was on the twenty-sixth of September, a month after Hortalez and Co. had taken possession of the Hotel de Hollande, that Congress elected the three plenipotentiaries to represent the United States at the friendly court of France. Vain was the attempt to keep the grand embassy a secret. A curious and unique entry in the Records of the Secret Committee acquaints us with the fact that it remained a secret only four days. On the first of October, as we learn from this entry, Mr. Robert Story appeared before Dr. Franklin and Mr. Thomas Morris, the only members of the committee then in Philadelphia, and delivered to them the verbal message with which Arthur Lee had charged him: namely, that the King of France, moved thereto by the powerful intercession of Mr. Lee, had determined to send to America, before the next campaign opened, two hundred thousand pounds worth of arms and ammunition. Intelligence more thrilling has seldom been brought across the ocean than this announcement, as a certainty, of the practical alliance of France with the infant nation. Nevertheless, the two members of the Secret Committee deliberately resolved to conceal it even en from Congress, because, as they entered in their records, "we find by fatal experience, that the Congress consists of too many members to keep secrets, as none could be more strongly enjoined than the present embassy to France, notwithstanding which, Mr. Morris was this day asked whether Dr. Franklin and others were really going embassadors to France." It was, how ever, agreed between them, that in case "any unexampled misfortune should befall the States of America, so as to depress the spirits of Congress," then Mr. Morris should cheer them up with this great news; otherwise, he should keep it buried in the archives of the committee, until at least part of the supplies should have escaped the enemy's frigates, and reached an American port.* This was the last official act of any note done by Dr. Franklin before his departure. One private deed of his, performed during the month of preparation, shines, starlike, in the cloudy records of the time. He collected all the money he could command at such short notice, "between three and four thousand pounds," and lent it to Congress; a practical proof of his faith in the cause, which, we are told, had its effect in replenishing the public coffers. This is the man who is regarded by some as the type of penny wisdom! Two grandsons were to accompany Dr. Franklin on this occasion; William Temple Franklin, his son's son, now a handsome lad of seventeen or eighteen, whom he intended to place at a French or German university, with a view to his adopting the law; and Benjamin Franklin Bache, the eldest son of his daughter, a boy of seven, whom he meant to send to school in Paris. Governor Franklin, then a prisoner in Connecticut, knew nothing of his son's departure for several weeks after he had sailed; as we read in one of his letters to his wife, dated November 27th. "If," wrote the governor, "the old gentleman has taken the boy with him, I hope it is only to put him into some foreign university, which he seemed anxious to do when he spoke to me last about his education." Franklin's last writing before his departure was a letter to a friend; which, falling into the hands of the enemy, the king and his cabinet had the pleasure of reading a few weeks later. It was written the day before he left home: "Being once more ordered to Europe, and to embark this day, I write this line. * * As to our public affairs, I hope our people will keep up their courage. I have no doubt of their finally succeeding by the blessing of God, nor have I any doubt that so good a cause will fail of that blessing. It is computed that we have already taken a million sterling from the enemy. They must soon be sick of their piratical project. No * Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, il., 16. time should be lost in fortifying three or four posts on our extended coast as strong as art and expense can make them. Nothing will give us greater weight and importance in the eyes of the commercial states, than a conviction that we can annoy, on occasion, their trade, and carry our prizes into safe harbors; and whatever expense we are at in such fortifying, will soon be repaid by the encouragement and success of privateering."* A swift sloop of war, called the Reprisal, of sixteen guns, Captain Wickes, lay at Marcus Hook, in the Delaware, awaiting the pleasure of Dr. Franklin and his little party. The sloop had three thousand pounds' worth of indigo on board for the first expenses of the plenipotentiaries. There was a fitness in his going by this vessel, since it was he who had originated the policy of reprisals, of which policy this gallant little sloop was one of the prettiest fruits. Readers remember the fiery Preamble which he dashed to paper when the news reached him of the passage of Lord North's Prohibitory bill. On the twenty-sixth of October he and his grandsons left Philadelphia; not attended on this occasion by an escort of three hundred horse; but with precautions to keep their departure secret. That night they lay at Chester, and the next morning rode in a carriage to Marcus Hook, three miles beyond, and embarked on board the sloop, which immediately weighed and stood down the river. Useless precautions! That the British authorities in New York were instantly informed of the event, we learn from a letter of Sir Grey Cooper (an old London friend of Franklin's), written at New York, October 28th, which contains this sentence: "The Arch- -Dr. Franklin, has lately eloped under a cloak of plenipotentiary to Versailles;" i. e., to avoid the inevitable collapse of the revolt. The voyage was short, rough, and eventful. Several times the vessel was chased by the enemy's cruisers, when Captain Wickes would beat to quarters, and clear for action in a style which Franklin thought could be surpassed in no king's ship. At the same time, the captain made all sail to get away, since his orders were to fight if he must, but avoid fighting if he could. It was one wild November gale nearly all the way over, and the old man was sadly cramped in the contracted cabin; so that of all his eight voyages, American Archives. this was the most distressing. His grandson assures us, however, that sick or well, sea smooth or sea rough, the ardent experimenter contrived every day to take the temperature of the ocean, in order to verify anew his discovery of the warmth of the Gulf Stream. We may imagine, too, that he spent some hours in furbishing his French, in speaking which he had had but little practice, and that long ago. During his earlier visits to Paris he had depended too much upon his comrade Sir John Pringle; and he told Mr. Adams, a year or two after this voyage, that on reaching France he found it extremely difficult, for a while, to make himself understood, though he read French with perfect ease. What American embassador has ever crossed the ocean without a furtive phrase-book in his trunk? William Temple Franklin alone has related with any minuteness, and he too meagerly, the circumstances attending the arrival of his grandfather on the shores of France. "November 27th," he says, our vessel being near the coast of France, though out of soundings, several sail were seen, and, about noon, the sloop brought to and took a brig from Bordeaux, bound to Cork (being Irish property), loaded with lumber and some wine. She had left Bordeaux the day before. The captain found, by the brig's reckoning, that he was then only sixteen leagues from land. In the afternoon of the same day he came up with, and took another brig, from Rochfort, belonging to Hull, bound to Hamburg, with brandy and flax-seed. Early the next morning land was in sight from the masthead; it proved to be Bellisle; a pilot came on board, and the sloop was brought to an anchor in the evening. On the 29th she ran into Quiberon Bay, where she continued till December 3d; when finding the contrary winds likely to continue, which prevented her entering the Loire, the captain procured a fishing boat to put Dr. Franklin and his grandsons on shore at Auray, about six leagues distant, where they were landed in the evening. The boatmen spoke the Breton language as well as the French; and it appeared to be the common language of the country people in that province. One word only was intelligible, which was Diaul; it signifies Devil, and is the same in the Welsh language. It is said there is a considerable affinity between the two languages, and that the Welsh and Breton fishermen and peasantry can comprehend each other. Auray proved to be a wretched place. No post-chaises to be |