during these years, corresponding with the envoys at Paris and with Congress, trying hard to prevail upon Dutch merchants to lend money to the United States, prying into the movements of the British embassador, looking after the frigate which the envoys were building at a Dutch port, writing articles for the newspapers, and doing all that in him lay to promote the interests of America and of man. An honest, modest, zealous, learned, indefatigable agent. WILLIAM TEMPLE FRANKLIN. This young gentleman approved himself an exact, industrious, and skillful secretary. Of elegant person and graceful manners, speaking French well, and having inherited much of his grandfather's gayety and humor, young Mr. Franklin was welcome in the cabinet of M. de Vergennes, and in the salons of Paris. Congress, neglecting to appoint or provide for a secretary, Dr. Franklin allowed him, for the first year, six hundred and fifty dollars; the second, eight hundred; the third, nine hundred; the fourth, twelve hundred; and afterwards, fifteen hundred dollars a year. Few secretaries have earned their salaries by harder or more various labor; for Dr. Franklin was diplomatist, banker, commercial agent, naval commissioner, consul, and philosopher, and in each of these capacities required, occasionally, his grandson's aid. So busy were they both, that there were whole seasons in which neither of them could snatch a day's holiday. The faction of the Lees did not spare even this diligent and harmless youth, who was the solace and stay of Franklin's long exile. So much prejudice was excited against him in Congress, that his appointment as secretary to the mission was not officially recognized, and efforts were made, by and by, to insult and wound the grandfather by removing the young man from his place. Such evil could one perverted mind effect! Such was the spirit of Secession eightyfive years ago!

MRS. PATIENCE WRIGHT. The mention of young Franklin calls to mind this venerable lady, who rendered Dr. Franklin some aid during his residence in France, and of whom his grandson has preserved the memory. Mrs. Patience Wright, reports William Temple Franklin, was a very extraordinary woman. Though born and reared in Philadelphia, she was a niece of John Wesley, and inherited a share of the indomitable resolution of the family. She was early distinguished in Philadelphia as a modeler in wax (the Madame Tussaud of her day), and, a few years before the revolu

tion, though well advanced in years, brought her famous collection of figures to London, where she gained a good deal of money by exhibiting them. She also modeled in wax the busts of eminent persons in England, which gave her access, sometimes, to important information. A stanch American and whig, and an old Philadelphia acquaintance of Dr. Franklin, she communicated to him every item and rumor which she could gather in the great houses which she frequented. No sooner did she hear of the appointment of a new general, the fitting out of a fleet, the embarking of forces, or the arrival of dispatches, than she busied herself with gleaning details. "The old lady," says Temple, "found means of access to some family where she could get information, and thus, without being at all suspected, she contrived to transmit an account of the number of the troops, and the place of their destination, to her political friends abroad. She, at one time, had frequent access to Buckingham House; and used, it was said, to speak her sentiments very freely to their Majesties, who were amused with her originality. The great Lord Chatham honored her with his visits, and she took his likeness, which appears in Westminister Abbey."

One of Dr. Franklin's letters to this remarkable dame is interesting because it reveals to us the pleasant terms upon which he lived with his merry grandson. The old lady had written to him for advice as to her exhibiting her works at Paris, and then returning to America from a French seaport. He dissuades her from both projects; and, having finished his letter, adds this humorous postscript: "My grandson, whom you may remember when a little saucy boy at school, being my amanuensis in writing the within letter, has been diverting me with his remarks. He conceives that your figures cannot be packed up without damage from any thing you could fill the boxes with to keep them steady. He supposes, therefore, that you must put them into post-chaises, two and two, which will make a long train upon the road, and be a very expensive conveyance; but as they will eat nothing at the inns, you may the better afford it. When they come to Dover, he is sure they are so like life and nature, that the master of the packet will not receive them on board without passes; which you will do well therefore to take out from the secretary's office, before you leave London; where they will cost you only the modest price of two guineas and sixpence each, which you will pay without grumbling,

because you are sure the money will never be employed against your country. It will require, he says, five or six of the long wicker French stage-coaches to carry them as passengers from Calais to Paris, and a ship with good accommodations to convey them to America; where all the world will wonder at your clemency to Lord North; that, having it in your power to hang, or send him to the lighters, you had generously reprieved him for transportation."

Besides the persons already mentioned, there were other Americans, or friends of America, in Europe, who had more or less to do with Dr. Franklin; such as Simeon Deane, brother of the envoy; J. J. Pringle, secretary to Ralph Izard; Hodge and Allen, merchants; a nephew of Arthur Lee at school; the secretaries of Arthur Lee and William Lee. What employment Izard or William Lee could have found for a private secretary is difficult to conjecture, since they differed from private gentlemen in little more than the peculiarity of drawing from the treasury of Congress two thousand guineas a year each. Neither of them saw the capitals to which they were accredited.

These, then, were the persons composing the American circle of which Dr. Franklin was the center and chief. The two hostile parties were about equal in numbers; but on the side of the Lees were three individuals holding the rank of envoy or commissioner, and having access to the mind of Congress, namely, Arthur Lee, William Lee, and Ralph Izard. During the greater part of the year 1777 Dr. Franklin, who abhorred nothing more than altercation, and who felt deeply the necessity of harmony among the envoys, succeeded in ignoring the controversy, and lived on terms of civility with the men who were traducing him and his friends in every private letter they wrote to America. For his own part, he never mentioned the names of these insidious foes in his letters home, whether public or private, until the quarrel was known to all the world.

CHAPTER IV.

THE DARK HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN.

SEPTEMBER, October, and November, 1777, were anxious months with the servants of Congress in Europe. Not a decisive word of General Burgoyne or General Howe had reached them. Dr. Franklin, I think, must have derived some comfort from reading the exceedingly absurd and pompous Proclamation with which General Burgoyne had begun his southward march into the State of New York. If he had had the privilege of reading as many productions of that kind as the people of the United States have been favored with in recent years, he would, probably, have dismissed all apprehensions of danger from a General capable of opening a difficult campaign with a burst of swelling and boastful words. It was only Napoleon who could both brag and conquer; and Napoleon was then a boy of nine, at school in Corsica. Nevertheless, General Burgoyne's comic opening paragraph was founded on grim fact. "The forces intrusted to my command," said he, "are designed to act in concert, and upon a common principle, with the numerous armies and fleets which already display in every quarter of America the power, the justice, and, when properly sought, the mercy of the king."* So, if General Burgoyne should fight no better than he wrote, there were still General Howe, Sir Henry Clinton, and the fleet.

Nor was the prospect cheering in Europe. No more little naval triumphs; no more prizes; no more privateering; no hope of burning Liverpool and Glasgow; for a strong squadron of British men-of-war cruised off the mouth of the Loire, and shut up the American vessels in Nantes, as though the port were blockaded. Besides, worthy Captain Wickes was drowned; brave Johnson and Nicholson were languishing in British prisons; the bold Conyngham had been obliged at last to fly from British waters; and the alert Hammond had been taken on his way home. In September, too, the envoys had spent all their money; Beaumarchais, all his; Thomas Morris, all the public money under his con

For a copy of General Burgoyne's Proclamation, see "Frank Moore's Diary of the Revolution," i., 454.

trol; no cargoes came to their relief; and there were contractors, commissioners, captains, crews, agents, clerks, servants, prisoners escaped from England, a hungry and clamorous host, all looking to the envoys for payment or daily bread. In such dire extremity were they at one time, that Dr. Franklin proposed that they should sell part of the clothing and arms that were waiting for shipment at Nantes. They concluded, at length, after many long conferences, to lay the state of their affairs before the King of France; to press him to acknowledge the independence of the United States; and grant them a loan that would really relieve them, say fourteen millions of francs. They also offered to sell the king the frigate they were building in Holland, which, they feared, they would never be able to finish and equip in that cautious, Britainfearing country. A mémoire to this effect was drawn up, which their banker, Mr. Grand, conveyed to the Count de Vergennes on the twenty-fifth of September. The minister engaged to have it immediately translated, and to present it to the king.

September 29th, arrived at Passy a Captain from America with dispatches; but, alas! they proved to be merely duplicates of those last received. Arthur Lee, however, received a private letter, one paragraph of which he read to his colleagues. He made this entry in his diary the next day: "I read a paragraph to the commissioners, in my brother Richard Henry Lee's letter, stating that without an alliance with France and Spain, with a considerable loan to support their funds, it would be difficult to maintain their independence. Resolved to send Mr. Grand next day to Count Vergennes, for an answer to the mémoire." Mr. Grand went, accordingly. He reported that the count had not yet laid the mémoire before the king, but would do so ere long; that he "seemed to think fourteen millions of francs a great demand;" and that, as to the proposed recognition, it would involve all Europe without materially helping America. The ministers also reproved the envoys for "the unguarded manner in which they did business," saying that "Lord Stormont had apprised Mons. Maurepas that a mémoire was intended before it was presented." "Mr. Grand,” continues Arthur Lee, "communicated these things to me in private, and I desired him to do it to all the commissioners together, that it might

*Deane Papers, p. 50.