Excerpts
The Old Conjurer's Last Trick: How Benjamin Franklin Made an Ally of the French and a Fool of Arthur Lee
Excerpts from "The Old Conjurer's Last Trick" by George
T. Morrow II
On December 22, 1776, the third member of the American
mission arrived in Paris. Though battered by a rough sea voyage
and old age (he was now 70), Franklin could be expected
to provide an effective counterweight to Arthur Lee's "malignant
temper" and Silas Deane's schemes. Nor did it hurt that
Franklin was carrying Congress' appointment as head of the
American mission. What Congress hoped to gain, other than
political balance, by having a third negotiator at the table was
revealed in the letter of appointment: it described Franklin as
the most experienced and the safest of diplomats. The next
day, his court work ended, Arthur Lee returned to Paris, and
the troika that was to negotiate the alliance that would successfully
conclude the American Revolutionary War was in
place.
Almost at once they split into factions. While Deane
schemed and Franklin sorted through dinner invitations, Lee
lamented the loss of the people he "could have loved" – the
English. While Franklin and Deane were sitting down to hot chocolate, bread, butter and honey at the Hotel Valentinois,
the luxurious lodgings outside Paris at Passy provided for them
by M. Chaumont, Lee was dreaming of "perishing in
[America's] last struggle" (written the day he arrived in Paris).
That Franklin spoke very little French, Deane less, and Lee
none at all could hardly have helped. But the real problem,
from the outset, was that with Franklin occupied in the pursuit
of pleasure, particularly the pleasure of female society, and
with Lee resisting "external dependence" on France, control
over the Mission's commercial affairs and diplomacy devolved
on Silas Deane. In a March 1777 letter to Arthur Lee, Franklin
claimed that his disengagement was purposeful: "I have never
changed the Opinion I gave Congress that a Virgin State
should preserve the Virgin Character, and not go suitoring for
Alliances, but wait with decent Dignity for the applications of
others.."
• • •
It was about this time that Arthur Lee decided to try his
hand at diplomacy. If his fear of spies and suspicions about
Deane's profiteering and Franklin's apathy understated the
awful reality, his anxiety over being personally implicated in
what he viewed as a scandal in the making did not. His proposed
mission to Spain thus fell somewhere between a
genuine inspiration and an act of desperation. It would take
him away from Passy, and there was a slim chance that it might
work. For all his doubts about suitoring for alliances, Franklin
was happy to see him go. So, clearly, was Silas Deane. In the
event, Lee left with their written consent to "hazard everything
[including] . . . the censure of Congress by exceeding our
instructions" if it were essential to his success.
• • •
It is not often that we get to witness the devious mind of
Benjamin Franklin in action. We do so here. When the hyperirritable
Lee found that his plea for an answer had once again been met with silence and smiling civilities, what was he
likely to do? He would fly into even greater rages and make
even more outrageous charges, the effect of which would be
to discredit both himself and his charges. If Lee's "sick mind"
insisted on "forever tormenting itself with suspicions", why
not help it along? If Lee would insist on documenting people,
why not encourage him to document his own insanity?
It was a perfect, self-effectuating strategy, one that allowed
Franklin to avoid a face-to-face altercation while satisfying his
lifelong urge to extract paradoxical moral lessons from the
ironies of existence. Instead of being its own reward, Lee’s
virtue would be the ruin of him, now and forever.
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