good Doctor exceedingly, because the house of Grand, in whose hands it is at present, is in partnership with Deane (in which probably the Doctor may share), and therefore it will wound those honorable and friendly feelings which bind them together. As to the public, that is out of the question." With equal malice, but less insanity, wrote William Lee and Ralph Izard.

It was his

It is worth noticing, before we finally dispose of Mr. Arthur Lee, that while he was so fierce a critic of other men, he himself was signally faulty and incompetent. It was he who was cheated in buying fusils at Berlin-as he himself confesses. secretary who betrayed the secrets of the legation. It was he who had his papers stolen. It was he who caused repeated delays in the shipping of stores. He made himself abhorred by the gov ernment and people whom it was his first duty to conciliate. He sanctioned the indecent drafts of Izard and his brother upon the public treasury. He alone asked a personal favor of the French ministry. It was he who caused the long misery arising from the transactions of Beaumarchais, which lasted from 1777 until 1835. It was he who lent his influence to the expulsion from the naval agency of that efficient, prompt, economical Bostonian, Jonathan Williams, and the appointment of the highly respectable but very expensive Herr Schweighauser. He it was who recommended to public employment in London the Maryland merchant, Digges, who cheated the American prisoners in England of more than four hundred pounds of the money intrusted to him by the envoys for the prisoners' weekly allowance. Franklin has damned this wretch to eternal infamy in a familiar 66 passage: He that robs the rich even of a single guinea is a villain; but what is he who can break his sacred trust, by robbing a poor man and a prisoner of eighteen pence given in charity for his relief, and repeat that crime as often as there are weeks in a winter, and multiply it by robbing as many poor men every week as make up the number of near six hundred? We have no name in our language for such atrocious wickedness. If such a fellow is not damned, it is not worth while to keep a devil." This was a protégé of Arthur Lee. All men are liable to be deceived; but none are so liable as those who habitually and savagely denounce the conduct of others.

Congress soon discovered that the appointment of Franklin as sole plenipotentiary had not allayed the dissensions among their

envoys in Europe; and again those dissensions were the theme of warm discussion. A committee of thirteen was appointed to consider the matter and report. Many propositions were considered by this committee. Some members were in favor of recalling all the envoys and sending out a new set. A powerful faction aimed at the recall of Dr. Franklin, and the election of Arthur Lee in his stead. There are reasons for believing that this project would actually have prevailed, but for the direct and energetic influence of the French Embassador. All accounts agree that the majority in the committee for sustaining Dr. Franklin was very small, probably it was for a time a majority of one. M. Gerard distinctly claims the honor of having defeated the Lees on this occasion. One of his letters to M. de Vergennes contains these sentences: "The stories of Mr. Arthur Lee are but an absurd tissue of falsehoods and sarcasms, which can only compromise those who have the misfortune of being obliged to have any correspondence with him. Permit me, Monseigneur, to congratulate myself at least on having relieved you of this burden." Another letter has the following: "I explained myself gradually, and not until the very instant when it was indispensable, to prevent this dangerous and bad man (Arthur Lee) from replacing Franklin, and being, at the same time, charged with the negotiations with Spain. I cannot conceal from you, Monseigneur, that I rejoice every day more and more in having been able to assist in preventing this misfortune."* The struggle was long and severe; it lasted all the spring and part of the summer of 1779, until the country clamored for an end of the strife, that Congress might turn to the support of its failing credit. Truth, justice, and good policy prevailed at length; Dr. Franklin was confirmed in his post. Arthur Lee, William Lee,

and Ralph Izard were recalled.

It is humiliating to think that such a creature as Arthur Lee could, for a single instant, have stood to Franklin in the light of a competitor. We are to consider, however, that Lee was personally unknown to Congress; that many of his letters, though transparently false to the well-informed, read plausibly enough to persons not familiar with the events and characters involved; that he and his two confederates possessed great family influence in the

Beaumarchais and his Times," p. 520.

two leading States of the South; that for two years they had been assiduously employed in poisoning the mind of Congress against Franklin; that he had never deigned, until after the question was decided, to so much as allude to their efforts to undermine him; and that Congress, owing to the irregularity of the packets, had only such knowledge of their affairs in Europe as they could gather and infer from the few letters of their correspondents which escaped capture. In a letter of this very year Dr. Franklin mentions, that of four copies of his new commission, sent to him by as many different ships, he received only the one brought by the Marquis de Lafayette. Every man, moreover, of any force or individuality has enemies. Franklin, during the long contests in Pennsylvania, in which he had been the head and champion of the popular party against the wealth and rank of the province, had inflicted some wounds which time had not healed. Nay, time has not healed them; for there is to this hour a certain narrow, dismally respectable circle in Philadelphia, who cherish, besides sundry silver teapots, cracked punch-bowls, family pictures, ancient furniture, and other trumpery of the Past, an hereditary antipathy to Dr. Franklin, of which they are very proud.

His grandson, William Temple Franklin, did not escape the malevolence of the factions. Mrs. Bache informed her father that a cabal was plotting his removal. He assured her that he would resign if the youth were taken from him; and to Mr. Bache he wrote: "I am surprised to hear that my grandson, Temple Franklin, being with me, should be an objection against me, and that there is a cabal for removing him. Methinks, it is rather some merit that I have rescued a valuable young man from the danger of being a Tory, and fixed him in honest, republican Whig principles; as I think, from the integrity of his disposition, his industry, his early sagacity, and uncommon abilities for business, he may in time become of great service to his country. It is enough that I have lost my son; would they add my grandson? An old man of seventy, I undertook a winter voyage at the command of the Congress, and for the public service, with no other attendant to take care of me. I am continued here in a foreign country, where, if I am sick, his filial attention comforts me, and, if I die, I have a child to close my eyes and take care of my remains. His dutiful behavior towards me, and his diligence and fidelity in business, are both pleasing and

useful to me. His conduct, as my private secretary, has been unexceptionable, and I am confident the Congress will never think of separating us."

It is well for us to know that Franklin suffered such things as these. Perhaps, every estimable man who has lived forty years in the world, has had his Arthur Lee. It is comforting to know that such disordered beings can only sting and perplex, not permanently injure, and that the greatest and wisest men are not exempt from their attacks. Franklin's own comments upon the enmity of Lee and Izard are amusing: "As to friends and enemies, I have hitherto, thanks to God, had plenty of the former kind; they have been my treasure; and it has perhaps been of no disadvantage to me, that I have had a few of the latter. They serve to put us upon correcting the faults we have, and avoiding those we are in danger of having. They counteract the mischief flattery might do us, and their malicious attacks make our friends more zealous in serving us and promoting our interest. At present, I do not know of more than two such enemies that I enjoy, viz., Arthur Lee and Ralph Izard. I deserved the enmity of the latter, because I might have avoided it by paying him a compliment, which I neglected.* That of the former I owe to the people of France, who happened to respect me too much and him too little; which I could bear, and he could not. They are unhappy that they cannot make everybody hate me as much as they do; and I should be so, if my friends did not love me much more than those gentlemen can possibly love one another."

To the last hour of their stay in Europe, these two individuals were a plague and a shame to all honest men concerned with them. Paul Jones, covered with the glory of his late expedition, and desirous to return to America, Dr. Franklin had appointed to the command of the frigate Alliance, which had been so shockingly misgoverned, and then abandoned by Captain Landais. In this ship Franklin had, also, obtained passage for Lee and Izard. The crew of the Alliance refused to sail until large disputed arrears of pay and prize money were paid them. Lee and Izard openly supported them in this mutinous resolution. Many weeks were consumed in this dispute, though the Alliance was to convey stores to America, of which the army was in pressing need. Commodore

i. c., he might have paid Izard the compliment of consulting him during the negotiations of 1778, vol. ii., 17.

VOL. II.-17

Jones went to Paris, at length, to seek the advice and authority of Dr. Franklin; and, in his absence, Captain Landais reappeared, and assumed command of the ship. On the return of Jones, the ship being upon the point of sailing, the contest for the command was referred to Arthur Lee. Landais exhibited merely his original commission from Congress, appointing him to the command of the Alliance. Against his claim to the present control of the ship were the following considerations: 1. His conduct in the late expedition, which was attested by every officer of the Bon Homme Richard, in writing, and which misconduct was capital; 2. His public abandonment of the ship, and the removal therefrom of all his effects; 3. His written request to Dr. Franklin for money and a passage to America, to take his trial there before a court-martial; 4. Dr. Franklin's written and very emphatic refusal to restore him; 5. Franklin's order to Captain Jones, assigning him to the command; 6. Captain Jones's actual command of the ship for eight months; 7. The evident, notorious, undeniable unfitness of Landais for any post of trust and difficulty; 8. The pre-eminent ability and reputation of Captain Jones, and the gratitude due to him from every citizen of America. Need I say that Arthur Lee disregarded these considerations, and assigned the command of the Alliance to Captain Landais? Jones left the frigate, rather than sail under such a commander. News of these proceedings reaching Paris, Franklin annulled his order assigning a passage in the vessel to Arthur Lee; and the French government dispatched an order for the arrest of Captain Landais; but before the documents reached the coast, the Alliance had sailed.

The vessel had not been many days at sea before Landais gave such alarming evidences of flightiness and incompetency, that the passengers deposed him from the command, and the ship was taken into port by the first lieutenant. Beyond all question, Jones was right when he wrote to Mr. Robert Morris, that "Mr. Lee has acted in this manner merely because I would not become the enemy of the venerable, the wise, and good Franklin, whose heart and head does, and always will do, honor to human nature." The honest sailor added: "I know the great and good in this kingdom better, perhaps, than any other American who has appeared in Europe since the treaty of alliance; and if my testimony would add any thing to Franklin's reputation, I could witness the universal