Unlikely Allies Page 21
One of Franklin’s friends in France was Jacques-Donatien Le Ray, the Comte de Chaumont, a squat giant of a man who had made a fortune trading in leather, textiles, glassware, stone, minerals, grain, and that most lucrative commodity, government contracts. Chaumont invited Franklin to live in his hilltop villa, the Hôtel de Valentinois, on the rue Raynouard in the tiny village of Passy, only half an hour’s carriage ride from the heart of Paris. Today, the free offer of a home to an American diplomat might seem to raise the potential for a conflict of interest, especially when the host sought and received contracts for supplies from the American and French governments. However, the commissioners’ finances were strained, and the Hôtel de Valentinois would afford them the opportunity to conduct business behind its walls without being observed by British spies. The sprawling eighteen-acre estate featured a neoclassical design around a courtyard and a terraced garden with a view of Notre-Dame. There was a team of liveried servants who attended to the commissioners’ comfort, and an impressive wine cellar of more than a thousand bottles for entertaining. The lively Madame de Chaumont presided over elaborate dinners every afternoon at which the commissioners and their guests gorged themselves. Franklin lived like a prince, with a monthly food budget of about 1,500 livres (roughly $11,000 today). The famous exponent of thrift and savings admitted that “Frugality is a virtue I never could acquire in myself.” In gratitude for Chaumont’s hospitality, Franklin erected one of his lightning rods over the villa. Franklin preferred not to venture beyond his neighbors’ châteaux, except for an occasional ride to Paris to the tony salon of the Marquise du Deffand in Saint-Germain, a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, or one of his warm baths at the Poitevin. Franklin embraced the inscription over the entry gate to Valentinois as his own: Se sta bene non se muove—“If it’s going well, don’t change it.” It was an ironic signpost for the diplomatic mission of a revolutionary republic.
Franklin understood public relations as well as any man of his century. He had built a fortune as a printer and publicist. From the moment he arrived in France, he consciously tried to personify the American Enlightenment. To the aristocracy—powdered, wigged, and frilly—Franklin appeared simple, natural, and wise. He was the Sage of Pennsylvania, and the French imagined Pennsylvania as a sort of natural utopia populated by good Quaker farmers prospering from their honest labor on the rugged frontier. Franklin was no farmer. He was a cosmopolitan, urbane man of science and industry, who had lived in large cities his whole life. And he certainly was no Quaker, but he was willing to play one if that was what it took to win over France. He made a point of wearing the same plain brown coat every day with a white linen blouse. He carried a walking stick and covered most of his long gray hair under a round fur cap that looked as if he might have shot and skinned it himself. “Think how this must appear among the Powder’d Heads of Paris,” he chuckled to an English lady friend. Franklin could certainly afford to dress à la mode, but he was playing to his audience, who wanted him to look exotic. His host Chaumont had hundreds of medallions stamped with Franklin’s portrait for his adoring fans. Franklin understood the power of his celebrity and believed he could be more effective as a figurehead, winning the hearts of the most powerful women and men in the capital. While Franklin posed for painters and sculptors, he left to Deane the details of negotiating, financing, equipping, raising, and arming a fighting force. Even the British spies reported that between Franklin and Deane, Deane was “the more active and efficient man.”
Franklin spent his days preoccupied by the political, the scientific, the social, and even the frivolous. The flood of candidates for military commissions now went to Franklin rather than Deane, who had been criticized for issuing commissions without authority. In the basement of his villa he installed a printing press so that he could publish pamphlets that would build public support for the Americans. He wrote a regular column for a monthly French magazine, Affaires de l’Angleterre et de l’Amérique, which was secretly controlled by the French Foreign Ministry. All this while Franklin continued a lively correspondence with a staggering number of serious thinkers and flirtatious women.
For the same reasons that the French found Franklin charming, Lee regarded his famous countryman as self-indulgent. Franklin, now seventy, was not quite the man he had known in London. Lee thought that Franklin was losing his edge, growing soft, and corrupted by French influence. Franklin spent too much time chasing younger—and often married—women, including his neighbor’s wife, the charismatic Madame Brillon. Though Franklin’s relations with Madame Brillon may have remained chaste, there was little doubt of the passion he felt for her. Their correspondence was more than suggestive. Franklin confessed to her that he was “constantly” violating the commandment “which forbids Coveting my Neighbour’s Wife.” Nor was Franklin at all discreet in his pursuit of this young beauty. “Do you know, my dear Papa,” as she often called him, “that people have criticized my sweet habit of sitting on your lap, and your habit of soliciting from me what I always refuse?” Franklin thought nothing of playing chess in her bathroom as Madame Brillon admired him from her tub. At thirty-six, Lee, who apparently had little interest in women and remained chaste throughout his life, probably regarded Franklin’s extracurricular activities as a distraction that potentially could endanger their mission. Franklin, in turn, thought Lee too dour for a man his age.
While Franklin took charge of the public diplomacy, and Deane was up to his elbows in the smuggling operation, Lee felt bored and underemployed. He was the odd man out. He wanted to travel to Madrid and Berlin to seek additional assistance. Franklin and Deane were delighted to oblige their irritating colleague by sending him far afield. They probably did not expect much from Lee’s diplomacy, although the Spanish ambassador to France, the Conde de Aranda, had encouraged them to believe that the Spanish foreign minister, the Marqués de Grimaldi, might be prepared to help. Lee was enthusiastic about taking on these diplomatic missions, convinced that he alone had the character and intellect to forge alliances.
Lee left for Spain in February of 1777. On the way he stopped over at the French port city of Nantes, where he met Thomas Morris, whom Deane had appointed as the American commercial agent at Nantes, charged with arranging shipments to Congress. Morris was the half brother of Robert Morris, Deane’s most powerful ally in Congress and his commercial partner. Lee found that commercial affairs under Thomas Morris were “greatly deranged.” During their meeting Morris was noticeably inebriated; Lee thought he was “a sot . . . a man who could not get a month’s employment in any counting house in Europe.” Privately, Lee was probably gleeful to find evidence confirming his suspicions of Deane’s incompetence and possible corruption, especially concerning the brother of Robert Morris. Robert Morris was one of the leading opponents of the “Lee-Adams Junto” in Congress led by Richard Henry Lee and Samuel Adams. Anything that would weaken Morris—and the clique of mercantile men he associated with in Congress—would strengthen Lee’s brothers, Richard Henry and Francis Lightfoot. On his own Lee wrote to Congress that Thomas Morris was unfit, and he recommended that Congress appoint his brother William Lee to oversee all of America’s commercial interests in Europe.
To his credit, when Deane learned that Thomas Morris was a drunk, he dismissed him despite Deane’s close relationship with Robert Morris. Deane and Franklin reported to Congress the reason for dismissing Thomas Morris, and their report embarrassed and angered Robert, who wished they could have handled the matter more discreetly. Franklin replaced Thomas Morris with his grand-nephew Jonathan Williams. Franklin’s nepotism infuriated Lee; after all, to Lee it was obvious that his brother William was the most qualified man for the job.
Deane’s public disclosure of Thomas Morris’s drunkenness opened a significant rift between Deane and Robert Morris, his chief ally in Congress and business partner. Morris wrote to Deane accusing him of betraying their friendship and “Blasting [Thomas’s] character in the most Public manner, and exposing me to feeling
s the most Poignant I ever knew.” By embarrassing the Morris brothers, Lee had sown the seeds for dividing Deane’s supporters in Congress.
By the time Lee reached Spain in late February, Conde de Floridablanca had replaced the Marqués de Grimaldi as Spanish foreign minister. Nonetheless, Lee met with Grimaldi in early March at Vitoria, Spain, in the Basque country near the French border. At the request of the foreign ministry the meeting was held out of the capital city to avoid alarming the British ambassador. Lee, never a man to take a hint, insisted that he should be allowed to go to Madrid. He warned Grimaldi that if he were not received in Madrid it would damage the credibility of the American commissioners in Europe. The English ambassador had no right to object to his visiting a “neutral court.” Lee told the foreign minister that this “is the moment in which Spain and France may clip [Great Britain’s] wings and pinion her forever.” Grimaldi growled back at Lee, “You have considered your own situation and not ours. The moment is not yet come for us.”
Grimaldi warned Lee that there would be no point in proceeding to Madrid. The new foreign minister, Floridablanca, who was cautious and conciliatory by nature, wanted to negotiate a peace that would avoid war with Portugal or Britain. Though Grimaldi personally opposed American independence as a threat to the Bourbon monarchy, he saw the Americans as a convenient means to an end. His goal was to defeat Portugal, Britain’s ally, and expand Spanish influence in South America. In other words, by overthrowing British colonialism, Grimaldi hoped to strengthen Spanish colonialism. Grimaldi promised Lee that Spain would provide some aid, but it was never clear how much or in what form. Spain eventually delivered 30,000 blankets to New Orleans for the Continental Army, but whether they actually provided arms or ammunition is doubtful. Spain also offered to loan the Americans an unspecified amount of money, but the Spanish king had already decided to make that offer before Lee’s arrival. Though Lee considered his mission a brilliant success, the Spanish crown thought otherwise.
Lee returned to France, where he learned that the Lee-Adams Junto in Congress had appointed him emissary to Spain and Prussia and appointed his brother William emissary to Austria. This was no more than naked nepotism. The Lee-Adams Junto believed in “militia diplomacy”—that is, sending representatives out to every capital regardless of whether there was any reason to believe their credentials would be recognized. Rather than wait for the right time and situation when a foreign power expressed a willingness to open talks with the Americans, these diplomatic militiamen would simply arrive at a foreign capital and insist on recognition and treaties of friendship and commerce. Militia diplomacy was more of a buck-shot approach to diplomacy than a narrowly defined deliberate strategy. Franklin, who had more diplomatic experience than any other American, thought that “A Virgin state should preserve its virgin character, and not go about suitoring for alliances, but wait with decent dignity for the application of others.” Franklin was correct. Militia diplomacy was presumptuous, promiscuous, and as things turned out, fruitless.
Lee had no talent for diplomacy. His ability as a propagandist flowed from his absolute certainty of the righteousness of his convictions; diplomacy demanded nuance and empathy, not bombast and zealotry. He was handicapped not only by a prickly personality, but by poor judgment. Though he chastised Franklin for his lax attitude toward secrecy, Lee showed no discretion in his first diplomatic foray as emissary to Spain and Prussia. He traveled to Berlin accompanied by Wilkes’s friend Stephen Sayre, who had been arrested and tossed into the Tower of London for his alleged conspiracy against George III. Sayre’s company guaranteed that Lee would attract the suspicion of British spies. After their arrival in the Prussian capital, Lee and Sayre went to dinner, leaving Lee’s personal papers behind in a room with an open window. While the two men ate, Lee’s diary was snatched and secretly copied by a British agent who delivered it to London. By the time Lee approached the Prussian government, the Prussian emperor had already heard from the British, and he had no interest in what Lee had to offer.
Deane and Franklin thought that Lee did more to tax their efforts than to assist. Neither the Spanish nor the French liked dealing with Lee, whom they regarded as too English. Lee, for his part, distrusted all things French, including the language, which he refused to learn. His years spent growing up in Britain had infected him with Anglo philia. Lee returned to Passy, where he was furious to learn that, in his absence, Franklin had invited his friend Deane to join him in his elegant quarters, leaving Lee to live miles away in much humbler accommodations in Chaillot. Lee envied Deane’s closeness to Franklin; even as he distrusted them, he wanted their trust. Lee was restless to be at the center of the action, and he continually proposed new plans that were impractical and impolitic: having failed to win support for the American cause in Prussia, the militia diplomat now proposed a diplomatic mission to China. Leaving aside the logistics of transporting diplomats to, or arms from, China, he had apparently failed to calculate just how sympathetic the Chinese emperor was likely to be to the revolutionary sentiments of the Declaration of Independence.
In Lee’s absence Deane negotiated a secret deal with Vergennes to obtain another million-livre subsidy for the Americans (nearly $8 million today). To keep the subsidy secret, it was in the form of a contract to import tobacco. Deane and Franklin promised to sell five million pounds of Virginia tobacco for one million livres, a price that was substantially discounted from the price on the French market. When Lee learned of this contract he accused Deane and Franklin of making a bad business deal and suggested to Congress that they must have had a personal stake in it. More than likely, Lee understood that the contract was merely a ruse to hide the French subsidy, but he chose to mischaracterize the transaction to embarrass Deane and Franklin.
What Franklin and Deane did not know is that Lee was secretly undermining their efforts, even at the risk of betraying the Revolution. At the end of December 1776, Lee privately wrote to the Secret Committee about France’s military aid. “The politics of Europe are in a state of trembling hesitation,” he cautioned Congress. As a consequence, “I find the promises that were made to me by the French agent in London [Beaumarchais] . . . have not been entirely fulfilled.” Lee charged that Deane had intervened and undone all of Lee’s good work. Though Lee still hoped that Congress might receive some of what was promised to him, the goods were “infinitely short” of what was promised. Implicit in Lee’s message was that Congress had no obligation to pay for the goods by shipping tobacco to Beaumarchais.
Though they did not yet know the full extent of Lee’s treachery, Deane and Franklin realized that Lee was rowing the boat in the opposite direction. They would have to row harder.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE OHIO COMPANY
The bleak prospects for their diplomatic mission strained relations between Lee and the other commissioners, but there were other personal and familial explanations for Lee’s behavior. As a Virginia gentleman from a leading Tidewater family, educated at Eton, Edinburgh, and the Inns of Court, Lee felt destined to lead. Instead, he had been elbowed aside by the pushy New England sons of a candle maker and a blacksmith who, to his mind, were too eager to enrich themselves any way they could. Lee wrote to a friend that the appointment of commissioners “who were neither bred [n]or born gentlemen . . . was either a great folly or a great contempt of those to whom they were sent.”
And there was another motive behind Lee’s animosity, especially toward Franklin. It was rooted in the bitter competition between the Lee family and Franklin over the development of the Ohio River valley.
By the early 1700s the Lee family, like many Virginia planters, had a difficult time maintaining their extravagant lifestyle from tobacco alone. Tobacco exhausted the soil, and farmers had not learned to rotate crops efficiently. Tobacco prices were unstable, and there was competition not only from other English colonies, but from Spanish Florida as well. The Navigation Acts prohibited the export of tobacco except to Britain. To gain access to Euro
pean markets Virginian tobacco growers were compelled to consign their crops to English merchants, who skimmed off most of the profit. These merchants advanced credit to planters against their future tobacco sales and also filled orders for manufactured goods from Europe. The availability of credit encouraged planters to live far beyond their means, but when tobacco prices fell, the laws gave English creditors swift and brutal remedies against debtors.
Like many Tidewater growers, the Lees could not maintain their lifestyle from their tobacco sales, and they were constantly threatened with insolvency. And so the Lees turned to real estate development as a new source of wealth. In 1747, Thomas Lee, Arthur’s father, organized the Ohio Company, a land syndicate, to settle 500,000 acres of the fertile region along the Allegheny River and north and south of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in what is now parts of Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Lee’s plan was to sell off plots to new immigrants to develop a new territory. The syndicate included leading Virginians like George Washington and George Mason, another Virginian planter who was a member of the Continental Congress. In 1748, Lee became the president of the Virginia Council. Shortly after that the British Board of Trade, the powerful committee of the Privy Council that oversaw land grants, awarded Lee’s company 200,000 acres and promised Lee another 300,000 acres after he built a fort and began settlements.
John Robinson, the powerful Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses, ran a competing land syndicate known as the Loyal Land Company and viewed Thomas Lee as an impediment to both his political and financial ambitions. After the Loyal Land Company received a grant of 800,000 acres in what is now Kentucky, Thomas Lee decided to seek a larger land grant for the Ohio Company. In 1749, he became acting governor for the colony. Not without reason the Board of Trade feared that greedy land developers were encroaching on Indian lands and risked sparking a war with the tribes. Lee pressed the Board of Trade for more land—without success. The Board of Trade viewed the competition between the Robinson faction and the Lee faction as destructive to the peace of the colony and decided not to grant Lee any additional land. When Lee died in 1750, the Ohio Company’s claim to more land remained unsettled.