rible intensity. When the foolish petition of the Dickinson party was sent to England, he wrote to Dr. Priestley that the colonies had given Britain one more chance of recovering their friendship, "which, however, I think she has not sense enough to embrace; and so I conclude she has lost them forever. She has begun to burn our seaport towns, secure, I suppose, that we shall never be able to return the outrage in kind. .. If she wishes to have us subjects . . . she is now giving us such miserable specimens of her government that we shall ever detest and avoid it, as a combination of robbery, murder, famine, fire, and pestilence." His humor could not be altogether repressed, but there was sternness and bitterness underlying it: "Tell our dear, good friend, Dr. Price, who sometimes has his doubts and despondencies about our firmness, that America is determined and unanimous ; a very few Tories and placemen excepted, who will probably soon export themselves. Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed one hundred and fifty Yankees, this campaign, which is twenty thousand pounds a head; and at Bunker's Hill she gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost again by our taking post at Ploughed Hill. During the same time 60,000 children have been born in America. From these data his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all, and conquer our whole territory." It was a comical way of expressing the real truth that Britain neither would nor could give enough either

of men, or money, or time to accomplish the task she had undertaken. To another he wrote: "We hear that more ships and troops are coming out. We know that you may do us a great deal of mischief, and are determined to bear it patiently, as long as we can. But if you flatter yourselves with beating us into submission, you know neither the people nor the country." Other men wrote ardent words and indulged in the rhetorical extravagance of intense excitement in those days; Franklin sometimes cloaked the intensity of his feeling in humor, at other times spoke with a grave and selfcontained moderation which was within rather than without the facts and the truth. Everything which he said was true with precision to the letter. But his careful statement and measured profession indicate rather than belie the earnestness of his feeling, the strength of his conviction, and the fixedness of his resolution.

Thus briefly must be dismissed the extensive and important toil of eighteen months, probably the busiest of Franklin's long and busy life. In September, 1776, he was elected envoy to France, and scant space is left for narrating the events of that interesting embassage.

CHAPTER IX.

MINISTER TO FRANCE: I.

DEANE AND BEAUMARCHAIS: FOREIGN OFFICERS.

It is difficult to pass a satisfactory judgment upon the diplomacy of the American Revolution. If one takes its history in detail it presents a disagreeable picture of importunate knocking at the closed doors of foreign courts, of incessant and almost shameless begging for money and for any and every kind of assets that could be made useful in war, of public bickering and private slandering among the envoys and agents themselves. If, on the other hand, its achievements are considered, it appears crowned with the distinction of substantial, repeated, sometimes brilliant, successes. A like contrast is found in its personnel. Between Franklin and Arthur Lee a distance opens like that between the poles, in which stand such men as Jay and Adams near the one extreme, Izard, William Lee, and Thomas Morris near the other, with Deane, Laurens, Carmichael, Jonathan Williams, and a few more in the middle ground. Yet what could have been reasonably expected? Franklin had had

some dealings with English statesmen upon what may be called international business, and had justly regarded himself in the light of a quasi foreign minister. But with this exception not one man in all the colonies had had the slightest experience in diplomatic affairs, or any personal knowledge of the requirements of a diplomatic office, or any opportunity to gain any ideas on the subject beyond such as a well-educated man could glean from reading the scant historical literature which existed in those days. It was difficult also for Congress to know how to judge and discriminate concerning the material which it found at its disposal. There had been nothing in the careers of the prominent patriots to indicate whether or not any especial one among them had a natural aptitude for diplomacy. The selection must be made with little knowledge of the duties of the position, and with no knowledge of the responsive characteristics of the man. It was only natural that many of the appointments thus blindly made should turn out ill. After they were made, and the appointees had successfully crossed the ocean through the dangerous gauntlet of the English cruisers, there arose to be answered in Europe the embarrassing question: What these self-styled representatives represented. Was it a nation, or only a parcel of rebels? Here was an unusual and vexatious problem, concerning which most of the cautious royal governments were in no hurry to commit themselves; and their reticence added greatly to the perplexities of the fledgling

diplomats. Nearly all cabinets felt it a great temptation to assist the colonies of the domineering mistress of the seas to change themselves from her dependencies into her naval rivals. But the attempt and not the deed might prove confounding; neither could a wise monarch assume with entire complacency the position of an aider and an abettor of a rebellion on the part of subjects whose grievances appeared chiefly an antipathy to taxation.

From the earliest moment France had been hopefully regarded by the colonists as probably their friend and possibly their ally. To France, therefore, the first American envoy was dispatched with promptitude, even before there was a declaration of independence or an assumption of nationality. Silas Deane was the man selected. He was the true Yankee jack-at-all-trades; he had been graduated at Yale College, then taught school, then practiced law, then engaged in trade, had been all the while advancing in prosperity and reputation, had been a member of the first and second congresses, had failed of reëlection to the third, and was now without employment. Mr. Parton describes him as "of somewhat striking manners and good appearance, accustomed to live and entertain in liberal style, and fond of showy equipage and appointment." Perhaps his simple-minded fellow-countrymen of the provinces fancied that such a man would make an imposing figure at an European court. He developed no other peculiar fitness for his position;