Benjamin Franklin, Agent in London, Longs to Be at Home Again in Philadelphia, by His “Own Fireside” With His Wife and Grandchildren

After being colonial ambassador to Britain for over a decade, his humiliation at the hands of the Privy Council made him realize his mission to England was at an end

“We daily expect vessels from Philadelphia which will bring me, I hope, good news from you, and a little more of the history of our grandsons, of whom I long to hear, & whom I long to see, as well as to be once more with you by our own fireside.”

Franklin began his career as a diplomat and statesman when he went to London in 1757 as an agent of the Pennsylvania assembly, and while there he became an absentee deputy British postmaster for North America. He remained in London, except for a brief return to Philadelphia, until the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, serving as an American provincial agent and pursuing his interests as an inventor, scientist, and author. Franklin had first visited London as a teenage printer in the mid-1720s and stayed for eighteen months. When he returned in 1757, it was as the most famous American in the world. Besides being a diplomat, Franklin was a noted scientist, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and friends with many of the leading intellectuals of the day, including Joseph Priestley, David Hume, Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin), and Richard Price. Moreover, his groundbreaking electrical experiments gave him greater political access at a time when the dominant British aristocracy, men and women, were gripped by a scientific craze. Having first established good relations with the Undersecretaries of State, Franklin then gained entry to their powerful patrons, including Secretaries of State such as the Earl of Shelburne and successive Prime Ministers from the Earl of Bute onwards.

In 1757 Franklin’s ostensible role was to persuade the absentee Proprietors of Pennsylvania, the sons of William Penn, to provide funds to the colonial Assembly on a permanent basis, rather than to govern the colony through discretionary grants. This proved impossible, and by 1760 Franklin was convinced that the only solution was for the Proprietors to lose power and for Pennsylvania to become a British Royal colony, controlled directly by the crown instead of by the Proprietors. Franklin saw a bright future for British North America. When his prolonged negotiations with the Penns ended, Franklin wound up his affairs and sailed for home in August 1762. Franklin was loath to leave, though happy to return to his “little family” in Philadelphia. At home, he and his friends in the assembly fought the governor by petitioning King George III to get rid of the proprietors and put Pennsylvania under a royal government. As usual, Franklin was in the forefront of the bitter political battle that ensued, during which, for the first time, he was defeated for re-election to the assembly, although his party remained in power. These friends named Franklin once more as their agent to go back to London and present their petition to the King. Thus he headed back to London in 1764, leaving Debbie and a new house that was barely completed, for what he expected to be a few months. It would prove to be over ten years.

It was after 1763, when the extent and expense of Britain’s military triumph in the Seven Years’ War had begun to destabilize the relationship between Britain and its colonies, that Franklin’s optimism began to come under pressure. Prime Minister George Grenville believed that the Americans themselves should contribute to the cost of the ongoing presence of the British Army on American soil, around £40,000 per year. Grenville rejected Franklin’s suggestion that the money could be raised, and trade stimulated, through the issuing of bills of credit with a 6% annual rate of interest. Instead he approved a Stamp Act in 1765. This caused an uproar in the colonies. The imposition of an internal tax by the British government was unconstitutional according to the colonies’ charters. There was mass protest and outraged citizens burned the houses of stamp collectors. Then a new government under Prime Minister Rockingham established a committee of the whole House of Commons to consider repeal of the Act. Franklin was the committee’s star witness and the act was duly repealed.

Franklin was now happily settled in England and thought of remaining there. As late as the summer of 1768, he wrote in confidence to his son William that “having lived long in England, and contracted a friendship and affection for many persons here, it could not but be agreeable to me to remain among them some time longer, if not for the rest of my life.” Yet Franklin was now also troubled by fears for the future relationship of Britain and America. Just a year after the repeal of the Stamp Act, Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, sparked further uproar in the colonies by introducing duties on glass, paint, paper and tea. By February 1769, Franklin was already writing “Things daily wear a worse Aspect, and tend more to a breach and final separation.”

In 1770, the reins of government came to rest in the hands of Frederick Lord North, who fanned the fires of anger in the colonies into a white heat by a series of measures that became known as the Intolerable Acts. Meanwhile Franklin was orchestrating a vast propaganda effort against the acts, reprinting documents and pamphlets from America, getting sympathetic English friends to write on behalf of the colonies, and pouring out, under pseudonyms, a huge body of persuasive essays. It was not until late in the game that the government caught on to the authorship. As the controversy quickened, Franklin was recognized more and more as the chief spokesman in England for the American cause. Georgia named him their agent in 1768, followed by New Jersey in 1769 and Massachusetts in 1770.

The royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, in his private correspondence with a British cabinet member, had revealed a tendency to incense the mother country against her colonies and recommended steps to widen the breach. Somehow Franklin managed to obtain some of these letters. The Boston rebels disregarded his instructions and promptly published the letters, with explosive effect. The Massachusetts Assembly petitioned for the removal of Hutchinson. They in turn got Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn in London to defend them, and Franklin was called before a meeting of the privy council on January 29, 1774, ostensibly to speak on behalf of the Massachusetts petition. What actually took place was a brutal attack on Franklin’s character in a room jammed to capacity by lords of the council, courtiers, politicians, and spectators. According to Jeremy Bentham, Franklin stood entirely silent, “the whole time like a rock, in the same posture, his head resting on his left hand, and in that attitude abiding the pelting of the pitiless storm.” For one degrading hour he endured the laughter and derision of men he had lived and worked among for more than fifteen years. The hopes he had had of a reconciliation between America and the mother country and the love he had felt for England and Englishmen, drained out of him then and there, never to be revived.

Franklin knew the end had come. Though he remained in London until March 1775—almost on the very eve of the conflicts at Lexington and Concord, he began making plans for his return to Philadelphia.

Partial Autograph letter signed, London, May 7, 1774, to his wife Deborah. “We daily expect vessels from Philadelphia which will bring me, I hope, good news from you, and a little more of the history of our grandsons, of whom I long to hear, & whom I long to see, as well as to be once more with you by our own fireside. Your affectionate husband, B. Franklin.” He adds at lower left, “Love to all the Bache”, referring to the family of Richard Bache, who had married his daughter Sarah. On the verso, Jared Sparks has written “Dated London, 7 May 1774.”

The reason the document is partial is that Sparks, a Harvard president who had access to the papers of Franklin and Washington and wrote biographies of both, responded to requests for the autographs of these men by cutting up their correspondence and sending pieces. He notoriously cut up Washington’s inaugural address, as one example. The top portion of this letter is in The American Philosophical Society (founded by Franklin), and simply reads, “My dear Child, It is now a very long time indeed since I have had the Pleasure of a Line from you. I hope however that you are well as I am, Thanks to God.” Thus, most of the text is in our portion, with little of importance in the other.

This letter is the third to last Franklin ever wrote to his wife. Franklin’s relationship with her has long been a matter of controversy. They were married 44 years, but spent all but 17 of them apart. When Franklin was gone for over a decade (1764-1775), he teased his return frequently and then canceled, often without explanation. Year after year Deborah endured this waiting, even after she had a stroke in early spring 1769. But as her health declined, she gave up her vow not to give him “one moment’s trouble.” “When will it be in your power to come home?” she asked in August 1770. A few months later she pressed him: “I hope you will not stay longer than this fall.” He ignored her appeals until July 1771, when he wrote her: “I purpose it [to return] firmly after one Winter more here.” The following summer he canceled again. In March and April 1773 he wrote vaguely of coming home, and then didn’t. In February 1774, after his humiliation in the Privy Council, he really did intend to return home and would indeed do so, and wrote her so. But by the time he returned in 1775, she was dead.

Franklin returned to the United States, arriving in Philadelphia in May 1775. In 1776 he was on the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence, and signed that document. In December 1776, the Continental Congress dispatched Franklin to France as commissioner for the United States. He conducted the affairs of his country toward the French nation with great success, and ultimately secured a critical military alliance in 1778 and signed the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War. He returned to the United States in 1785, remaining until his death in 1790. Thus, he was overseas representing the American colonies and then the United States for 24 of his last 33 years. No wonder he missed his home and family.