Franklin by Davidson Butler Page A

Wickes orders to make another raid in British waters before he returned to America.
    At the same time, Franklin launched another tough sailor, Gustavus Conyngham , a daredevil from County Donegal, to attack British shipping. On May 3, Conyngham captured a British mail packet with confidential documents the government was sending to ambassadors in Europe. The documents were full of lies about the coming collapse of the revolution, and Franklin published them, with his refutations.
    This time Lord Stormont demanded the arrest of Conyngham and his crew as pirates. Vergennes, trying to avoid a break with England, arrested them, but declined to surrender them to the British. With the aid of the captured documents, Franklin made a fool of Lord Stormont. When a French friend rushed to Franklin to repeat the latest story about America’s collapse, which he had heard from the British ambassador, and asked if it was true, Franklin replied, “Oh, no, it is not the truth, it is only a Stormont.” Within a day the story had swept Paris, and stormonter became a common term for lying. Lord Stormont was so upset, he wrote nine letters to London about Franklin’s activities.
    Around this time, Franklin happened to dine at the same inn as Edward Gibbon , the author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon was a member of parliament who blindly supported the government’s policies. Franklin invited Gibbon to join him, but the historian replied that a servant of the king could not have any conversation with a rebel. Franklin sent back his regrets – but could not resist adding that if Mr. Gibbon ever decided to write a book on the decline and fall of the British Empire, he would be happy to supply him with “ample materials.”
    Then came more bad news. Burgoyne had captured Fort Ticonderoga, the key defense point on America’s northern frontier; and the British had defeated Washington at the Battle of Brandywine , near Philadelphia. In addition, many supply ships Deane had sent had been captured by British warships. America needed French support.
    Franklin received bad news of a more personal nature during the fall of 1777. William, who had been granted parole, had been caught signing and smuggling pardons out of Connecticut and was incarcerated in Litchfield, Connecticut. Meanwhile, the British abandoned New Jersey and took William’s wife Elizabeth with them. In New York, without funds or friends, Elizabeth fell ill and died. Temple Franklin was crushed when he heard the news. He remembered the words his father had written to him, urging him to care for her. Torn between his loyalty to his grandfather and to America, and his love for his father and stepmother, Temple swore he would never marry, because marriage only produced unhappiness. It took four months for news of Elizabeth’s death to reach William in prison. In deep despair, he wrote, “Anxiety I was long under on account of the distressed situation of my dear wife, whose death I was convinced would be expedited by the intelligence she would necessarily receive of my cruel treatment, and the affliction with which I was overwhelmed on the news of the actual death of the best of women, has brought such a dejection of spirits, attended with an almost constant fever, that my life has become quite a burden to me.”
    Franklin had little time to console his son or grandson. The barrage of bad news continued, and this time it was bad news both for America and Franklin. The British had captured Philadelphia. All Franklin’s property and, as far as he knew, his daughter and her children were in the hands of the enemy. He managed to maintain his composure when Frenchmen asked the status of the American cause. “Well, doctor,” one Parisian said to him, “Howe has taken Philadelphia.”
    â€œI beg your pardon, sir,” Franklin said, “Philadelphia has taken Howe.”
    Less than a week after this news, a