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Benjamin Franklin

<h2>6 A BRIEF MILITARY CAREER</h2> In 1753, trouble was brewing once more between Great Britain and France, with the colonists caught in the middle. While English subjects in America were as yet confined to a narrow strip along the Atlantic, France held Canada and the St. Lawrence Valley to the north; New Orleans and the great Louisiana territory in the south. By right of early explorations, the French also claimed the rich Ohio Valley region and were building forts along the Ohio and Allegheny rivers. The British considered these forts an intrusion on their territory. As the situation grew more tense, both British and French courted the favor of the Indians. In Pennsylvania this would have been easier had the policy of William Penn been followed; he had gone further than any other white man in establishing friendly Indian relations. Unfortunately, much of his work had been undone by his son Thomas, in the episode known as the Walking Purchase. To make room for his immigrants, William Penn had once purchased a tract of land from the Indians to extend “as far as a man could walk in three days.” In 1683, he had leisurely walked out a day and a half of this purchase, some twenty-five miles. In 1737, fifty years later, Thomas Penn decided to take up the rest of the Walking Purchase. He hired three athletes to do the walking for him. In a day and a half, they managed to cover eighty-six miles. The Indians had never forgiven this underhanded trick. It was partially to undo this bad feeling that in September 1753 Franklin and several other commissioners were sent by Governor James Hamilton to Carlisle, some 125 miles west of Philadelphia, to meet with chiefs of the Delaware and Shawnee Indians and the Six Nations (the name given to the united Iroquois tribes). Franklin had never been so far inland before nor had he any previous dealings with the original Americans. He was impressed with the ceremonial exchange of gifts and greetings which preceded the actual conference. These “savages” of whom he had heard such disparaging things had customs very different from those of the white man, but “savage justice,” as he was to write later, had as much to recommend it as “civilized justice.” The grievances presented by the chiefs after the conference began he found reasonable. They wanted, from the white man, fewer trading posts and more honest traders. They wanted to be sold less rum, which was ruinous to the braves, and more gunpowder, which they needed for hunting. The commissioners promised to do their best and, as they had been authorized to do, offered the Indians protection from the French, in return for their loyalty. Unfortunately, neither colonies nor British were in a position to guarantee such protection. Franklin returned from Carlisle to learn that he had been appointed deputy postmaster, with William Hunter of Williamsburg, of all the North American provinces. He had the prestige of being an officer of the Crown though the pay was nominal—only 600 pounds a year divided between him and Hunter should the service make a profit—and the work was considerable, for Hunter was ill and could give little help. He could and did provide his family with jobs. William, his son, became postmaster of Philadelphia, Franklin’s former job. William later turned this post over to a relative of Debby’s who in due time was succeeded by Franklin’s brother Peter. He appointed another brother, John, postmaster of Boston. At John’s death his widow succeeded him, thought to be the first American woman to hold a public office. Not only his family but all of America profited by Franklin’s appointment. Horseback riders carried mail in colonial America. Delivery was slow, irregular and costly. Franklin acted as an efficiency expert. He increased mail deliveries from Philadelphia to New York from once a week to three times a week during the warmer six months of the year and he made sure his riders did the route twice a week in the winter except in the worst weather. In time he visited all the post offices of the colonies, studied their local problems, surveyed roads, ferries, and fords. He started America’s first Dead Letter Office, and gave patrons other services they had never had before. By the time he had held the post eight years, not only could he and Hunter collect their full salaries but there was a surplus for the London office, the first time it had ever profited from its American branch. Late in 1753, Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia sent young Major George Washington on a journey to the French Fort Le Boeuf (now Erie, Pennsylvania) to order the French to evacuate. They chose to ignore the warning. Franklin attended another conference with the Six Nations, held at Albany, New York, in June 1754, attended by commissioners from seven colonies. In regard to Indian relations, the Albany conference was no more successful than the one at Carlisle. Afterward the Indians claimed they had been persuaded to deed a tract of land whose boundaries they had not grasped and that the deed was irregular since, contrary to the Six Nations’ custom, it gave away land of tribes whose representatives had not signed the deed. Thus the two meetings had the opposite effect of what had been hoped. They succeeded only in antagonizing the Indians. Many of them decided to support the French, as the lesser of the two white evils. It is most unlikely that Franklin suspected any wrong being perpetrated on the Indians. During the Albany conference he presented to his fellow commissioners a plan which had its inspiration from Six Nations. If the Iroquois tribes could work together harmoniously, why should the American colonies, allegedly civilized, always be quarreling? Accordingly, he proposed they form a confederacy under a single president-general appointed by the Crown. The commissioners approved wholeheartedly but that was as far as he got. When his plan was presented to the assemblies of the various colonies, it was rejected as being too dictatorial. The Crown opposed it as being too democratic. In a final effort to make his point he published in the Gazette America’s first cartoon, a drawing of a snake chopped in eight pieces, each marked with the initials of different colonies. “Join or Die” read the caption. But he was several years in advance of the times. Even while the Albany conference was under way, seven hundred French soldiers and Indians forced the surrender of Fort Necessity, a small barricade fifty miles from Wills Creek, held by George Washington, now a colonel, and a scant 400 men. The nine-year French and Indian Wars were unofficially under way. In December, six months later, General Edward Braddock landed in Virginia with two regiments of British regulars. They had come to take the French Fort Duquesne, located on the forks of the Ohio (where Pittsburgh now stands). The Pennsylvania Assembly sent Franklin to meet the general at Frederickstown and offer his services as postmaster. Franklin with his son William spent several days with Braddock. He found the general a master of European military strategy but more than a little arrogant. “After taking Fort Duquesne,” Braddock announced one night at dinner, “I will proceed to Niagara; and, having taken that, to Frontenac, if the season will allow time; and I suppose it will, for Duquesne can hardly detain me above three or four days.” In his mind, Franklin pictured the long line of Braddock’s army marching along a narrow road cut through thick woods and bushes, and he was uneasy. He was sure, he told the general, that there would be scant resistance at Duquesne, if he arrived there. The danger would be Indian ambush on the way. Braddock smiled patronizingly. “These savages may, indeed, be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the king’s regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any impression.” Franklin did not press his doubts. It would have been improper for him to argue with a military man about his own profession. Braddock was only too glad to let Franklin hunt up some transport wagons for him. This he did by distributing circulars through Lancaster, York and Cumberland counties. Within two weeks Pennsylvania farmers had come through with the loan of 150 wagons and 259 horses. Of the 1,000 pounds due the owners in payment, Braddock paid 800 and Franklin advanced the extra 200 pounds on his own. Since the farmers knew and trusted him, he, rather than Braddock, gave them his bond for the full cost. After he returned to Philadelphia, he persuaded the Assembly to donate twenty parcels for the regiment officers, each containing six pounds of sugar, a pound of tea, six pounds of coffee, six pounds of chocolate, as well as biscuit, cheese, butter, wine, cured hams. He sent along other supplies for the soldiers, advancing 1,000 pounds more of his own money to cover the costs. Barely had he been reimbursed for his expenses thus far, when the disastrous news broke. Braddock’s army—some 1,400 British regulars and 700 colonial militiamen—was ambushed by a force of French, Canadians, and Indians on July 9, 1755, when they were within seven miles of Fort Duquesne. Terrified at the shooting from this invisible enemy, the regulars panicked. Nearly a thousand were killed or wounded, including most of the officers. George Washington, who was serving as Braddock’s aide, stayed to fight a valiant rear guard action. Braddock was mortally wounded, dying four days later. At the start of the fray, the drivers took one horse from each team and raced off, leaving wagons, food parcels and provisions to the attackers. Since Franklin had given bond, the wagon owners soon appeared, demanding recompense for their losses—a total of some 20,000 pounds. He faced ruin until October when the new British commander-in-chief, Governor Shirley, authorized government payment of the debt. In the midst of that summer’s harassment and disaster, there was one pleasant interlude. On a trip to visit Rhode Island post offices, Franklin met a delightful young lady named Catherine Ray. Middle-aged and tending to stoutness as he was, she lavished affection on him, not as a suitor but as someone to whom she could confide her innermost thoughts. Though he saw Catherine only infrequently after that meeting, she later married a worthy young man named William Greene by whom she had six children—she and Franklin wrote each other lengthy and intimate letters as long as they lived. Until he met her, apart from Debby, his friendships had all been with men. Beginning with Catherine, he had many women friends, who found in him a rare understanding of their qualities of mind and spirit. The defeat of Braddock taught the colonists that the British military was not as invincible as they had been led to believe. Many more Indians joined the French, deciding they were most likely to win. In the summer of 1755, Indian raiders were attacking isolated farms less than 100 miles from Philadelphia. It was obvious that once again Pennsylvania must provide its own defense. A bill to vote 60,000 pounds for the militia was presented to the Pennsylvania Assembly. At first the Quakers opposed it, but with great tact Franklin won from them a concession that even though they bore no arms themselves they would not object if others did so. There was still more dissension on the subject of taxes. Franklin and many others believed that the taxes should be raised from all the landholders in the province. The lawyer for “the proprietors” claimed that the Penn family should be exempt from such taxes, as they always had been. He was supported by the conservatives in the Assembly and by Governor Robert Hunter Morris, who owed his appointment to the Penns. Eventually the Penns compromised by offering 5,000 pounds toward the militia as a gift. The question as to whether or not their vast lands should be taxed remained unsettled, to trouble the future. Thomas Penn, who was living in London, was duly informed that Benjamin Franklin was a crafty man who could bend the Assembly to his will. On November 24, 1755, a Shawnee war party burned down the Moravian village of Gnadenhuetten, 75 miles from Philadelphia, killing all the inhabitants except a few who escaped into the forests. The crime was the more appalling since the Moravians were as opposed to violence as the Quakers. They were a gentle, devout people who had befriended the Indians. The next day the Assembly appointed Franklin to head a committee of seven to manage the funds for the defense. More responsibilities on his shoulders, more decisions to make, arguments to settle, hotheads to calm down. “All the world claims the privilege of troubling my Pappy,” wailed Deborah to a clerk named Daniel Fisher whom Franklin had just hired. A few weeks later Franklin set out on horseback with 50 cavalrymen to recruit volunteers, and check on defenses in outlying districts—a strenuous assignment for a man nearly fifty and sedentary in his habits. William served as his aide. Theoretically, James Hamilton, a former governor, was in charge, but after a few days he quietly yielded the leadership to Franklin. Their first stop was Bethlehem, the chief Moravian settlement. Franklin had expected them to be as opposed to military defense as the Quakers. On the contrary, they were determined to avoid a tragedy such as that at Gnadenhuetten, had built a stockade around their principal buildings, brought in arms from New York, and were even arming their women with small paving stones to throw out the windows should any marauding Indians approach. “General Franklin,” the Moravians insisted on calling the head of the Philadelphia expedition. They rode on to Easton next, to find a town in a state of panic and disorder with no discipline at all. Refugees filled the houses. Food was almost gone. There was drinking and rioting. Franklin organized a guard, put sentries on the principal street, set up a patrol, had bushes outside of town cleared away to avert their use as ambush, and enlisted some two hundred men into the provincial militia. They visited other towns, arriving at the ruins of Gnadenhuetten in the bitter cold of January. After the mournful chore of burying the dead, the men set to building a stockade—felling pines, placing them firmly in the ground side by side. Franklin, with his passion for collecting facts, noted that it took six men six minutes to fell a pine of 14-inch diameter, and he observed that his men were more cheerful on the days they worked than when, because of rain or snow, they had to sit idle. Supplies were running low when provisions arrived from Philadelphia, including roast beef, veal, and apples from Deborah. To reassure her, he wrote that he was sleeping on a featherbed under warm blankets. The truth was that, like his men, he slept on the floor of a hut with only one thin blanket. The stockade, finished at last, was 450 feet in circumference, 12 feet high, and had two mounted swivel guns but no cannon. They were aware of the danger lurking in the dense forest. On a patrol, Franklin found the remains of Indian watches. For their fires they dug holes about three feet deep. The prints in weeds and grass showed they had lain in a circle around the fire holes, letting their feet hang over to keep warm. At a short distance, neither flame, sparks, nor smoke could be seen. But the Indians, not then nor later, risked an attack. Franklin’s militia did no fighting but they turned defenseless regions into defensive ones. They had built two more stockades at Fort Norris and Fort Allen, when Franklin was called back to Philadelphia early in February for a special Assembly meeting. To have a good bed again seemed so strange, he hardly slept all night long. On his return he was appointed a militia colonel. Following his first review of his regiment, the men accompanied him to his house and saluted him with several rounds of fire, incidentally breaking some glass tubes of his electrical apparatus. The following day when he set off for Virginia on post office business, 20 officers and some 30 grenadiers escorted him to the ferry, the grenadiers riding with drawn swords in a ceremony reserved for persons of great distinction. When Thomas Penn in England learned of this tribute, he was furious. No grenadiers had ever drawn their swords for him. As for Governor Morris, he suavely suggested that Franklin and his command should try to take Fort Duquesne, which Braddock had failed to take, promising him a general’s commission. Franklin firmly declined. He had no illusions about his military ability and likely suspected Morris of wishing to be rid of him. (Fort Duquesne was eventually captured in 1758, in an expedition led by British Brigadier General Forbes; George Washington hoisted the British flag over the fort’s ruins.) In August 1756, following a declaration of war on the Delaware, the new governor, William Denny, offered large bounties for “the scalp of every male Indian enemy above the age of twelve years,” and smaller bounties for “female Indian prisoners and youths under eight.” Franklin, like the majority of the Assembly members, was outraged at this barbarity, and disgusted with the conduct of the proprietors and their representatives. Early in 1757, a vote was passed to send Franklin to England, as official agent of Pennsylvania, there to present to Parliament and the King a petition of grievances against the Penns. Debby would not go with him. She was frightened to death of the sea. He did take William, who was radiant at seeing England. By April they were in New York, ready to catch their ship. Packets for England were in charge of Lord Loudon, the new commander-in-chief, an amiable person with all the time in the world to listen to complaints, indulge in long conversations, and to write endless notes. Not until he had finished this mysterious correspondence, would he permit the fleet to depart. For more than two months, Franklin and his son waited, restless and impatient and helpless. There was plenty of time to puzzle about the errors of the British. Why they should send to the colonies an arrogant man like General Braddock, a dawdler like Loudon, governors like the dishonest Sir William Keith, or Morris and Denny, who were far more interested in protecting the rich proprietors than in the welfare of the colonists. But then the reason for Franklin’s voyage was to correct such mistakes. He had no doubt that the King and the mighty Parliament would be glad to listen to him. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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