cause he is an enemy to the liberties which such designing men are disposed to take with the old constitutional government." * The Governor commented also at considerable length upon. what he was pleased to term the evils of "independent republi can tyranny" which he considered impending over the province, as well as upon the injustice with which he had personally been treated. For whatever of an offensive character this communi. cation may contain, due allowance can now be made. To one of his impetuous disposition and high ideas of prerogative, it must have been exceedingly galling to be placed thus at the mercy of a self-constituted tribunal disposed to exercise the authority it had assumed without regard to any other power or jurisdiction whatever. May we not sympathize with the man, and regret the necessity which called for the rigor manifested towards him, with out weakening our abhorrence of the principles which as an officer of the crown he felt bound to support! He had discrimination enough to perceive that the "independency" which the peoples' representatives had not hesitated so recently to deny to be the end and aim of their struggle with the mother country, was, in fact, the point to which they were fast tending; had it been less apparent to his mind his course would probably have been more in consonance with the popular will, so far as his opinions are known upon the matters of difference between the colonies and the parliament, they appear to have been such as to exonerate him—as he asserts in the communication just noticedfrom any imputation of cherishing a disposition inimical to the interests of America; entertaining the conviction that by nego. tiation all the desired relief and redress could be secured. Doubtless the rapid development of the independent movement hastened his seizure.* *On the 22d June the Governor addressed a second letter to the Council and Assembly narrating the treatment received from his escort on his way to Burling. ton, and the circumstances connected with his examination. From his account of the transactions it would seem that unnecessary strictness was observed in excluding him from the society of friends, and in the restraints placed upon his personal movements. He concludes the letter thus-" Why they could not, if they were determined to usurp the powers of government, suffer me to remain quietly at my own home, as they do other Crown officers in the province, I have not heard. They well know I have not either levied or attempted to levy any troops against them, that I could not, had I been so inclined, have given any hindrance to their measures, and that I might have been of service to the country in case of a negotiation taking place. I can account for this conduct no otherwise than that they mean to shew, by tearing one in my station from his wife and family, how all-sufficient their present power is, and thereby to intimidate every man in the province from giving POLITENESS and AFFABILITY, were with SENSE refined and PERSON elegant, in her UNITED. From a grateful remembrance of her affectionate tenderness and constant performance of all the duties of a GOOD WIFE, This monument is erected, in the year 1789, By him who knew her worth, and still laments her loss." The firmness, energy, and indomitable perseverance with which Governor Franklin, under all circumstances, held fast to his roy'alty, were calculated to make his imprisonment longer than would otherwise have been the case, and we find Congress on the 20th Angust, 1778, by a deliberate vote, determining that it was inconsistent with the interests of the United States to consent to his exchange. This was in consequence of an application from J. McKinley, Esq, late President of Delaware, to be exchanged for him, presented to Congress ten days previous. Mr. McKin ley renewed his application on the 14th September, and after several amendments had been offered and rejected-one of them being a proposition to substitute Brig. Gen. Thompson for Mr. McKinley-the exchange was agreed to, and Governor Franklin returned to New York November 1st, 1778, having been a prisoner two years and four months. Governor Franklin remained in New York for nearly four years, the companion of Rivington and other noted adherents of the royal cause, and was at one time-how long is not known-the President of the Associate Board of Royalists; in that capacity authorizing or sanctioning, it is said, much cruelty and oppression towards the Americans who were prisoners, but no specific acts have come to my knowledge, affording grounds either for doubting or believing the charge. This Board, it is thought, originated principally with another Jerseyman, Daniel Coxe, who was one of Gov. Franklin's Council. It consisted of deputies selected from the refugees of the different colonies, and was first organ. ized in 1779. Its objects were the examination of captured Americans, or suspected persons, and the planning of measures *The question was on granting consent to the exchange, and, as was usual, was taken by the States, and lost by a tie vote, as follows: Ayes. N. H.; R. I.; Conn.; N. Y.; Md.; Va.; Noes. N. C.; S. C. Divided. Mass.; N. J.; Penn.; Geo. The votes of the individual members were ayes, 19; noes 10. 6 for procuring intelligence, or otherwise aiding the royal cause" Coxe was the first President, and was appointed to the chair,so one of his fellow refugees has stated-" to deprive him of the opportunity of speaking, as he had the gift of saying little with many words."* Governor Franklin finally sailed for England in August, 1782. In consideration of the losses he had been subjected to, £1800 were granted him by the English Government, and he was allowed in addition a pension of £800 per annum ; placing him, so far as his annual income was effected, in a better condition probably than he would have enjoyed had he remained in his government, although a contemporary writer states that both indemnity and pension were considered inadequate to remunerate him for all he had sacrificed. After leaving America he married again; the lady being a native of Ireland. He died Nov. 17, 1813, aged 82. Benjamin West, in his picture representing the "Reception of the American Loyalists by Great Britain, in the year 1783," introduces him as one of the prominent personages at the head of the group of figures; and in the description of the picture he is mentioned as having "preserved his fidelity and loyalty to his sovereign from the commencement to the conclusion of the contest, notwithstanding powerful incitements to the contrary." During the whole of the revolutionary struggle, there was no intercourse between Dr. Franklin and his son; and the mutual estrangement continued, in a great degree, even after the cause was removed by the restoration of peace and acknowledgment of the independence of America. The fisrt advances towards a reconciliation appear to have been made by the Governor, in a letter dated July 22, 1784; which the Doctor answered from Passy on 16th August following. In his letter he says: "Nothing has ever hurt me so much, and affected me with such keen sensations, as to find myself deserted in my old age by my only son, and not only deserted, but to find him taking up arms against me in a cause wherein my good fame, fortune, and life were all at stake." He intimates to him that neutrality at least should have been observed on his part, but, as he desired it, is willing to forget the past as much as possible. The treatment of his son, however, ever continued to afflict him. In a letter written on January 1st, 1788, to the Rev. Dr. Byles, of Boston, he thus feelingly alludes to it, after adverting *Sabine's Loyalists, 232. + Public characters of Great Britain. Commission on Claims of Amer. Loyalists, Sabine's Loyalists. to the comfort derived from the presence of his daughter; "My sor is estranged from me by the part he took in the late war, and keeps aloof, residing in England, whose cause he espoused, whereby the proverb is exemplified: My son is my son till he gets him a wife, But my daughter is my daughter all the days of her life.'" In his will he left the Governor his Nova Scotia lands with such books and papers as were in his possession, and released him from the payment of all debts that his executors might find to be due from him. The devise to him concluding with: "The part he acted against me in the late war, which is of public notoriety, will account for my leaving him no more of an estate he en deavored to deprive me of."* Va This estrangement of Doctor Franklin from his son is an in stance of the inevitable separation of families and friends, which is one among the many evils ever attendant on a civil war. rious as are the characters, dispositions, tastes and habits of man kind, it can never be reasonably anticipated that in those conflicts of opinion which precede the disruption of empires or com munities, the ties of consanguinity or association are to prove sufficient for every emergency and withstand the corroding influence of selfishness, prejudice or error. If the war to which we owe our independence as a nation this evil in every degree of magnitude was painfully manifested; and probably not one of the colonies, in proportion to its population and extent, suffered more from it than New Jersey. Having less of foreign commerce and of inland traffic than many of her sister colonies in which to employ the industry and enterprise of her youth, numbers of the higher classes were accustomed to look for preferment in the administration of the Provincial Govern ment, or to seek for honor and profit in the naval and military service of the mother country; and many were sent to England by anxious parents to secure those advantages of education which were not afforded by the literary institutions of America. These circumstances necessarily involved associations which led in many instances to marriages into families abroad, or into such as were temporarily located in the province, while the introduction of the royal regiments, which took place some years before the Revolution, caused similar unions between their officers and the daughters of New Jersey. Independent, therefore, of all pecuniary or other interested Franklin's Writings, I. p. 398.; X, pp. 121, 330. reasons for hesitation, both young and old among the inhabitants of the Province became thus, in various ways, involved in the important and solemn enquiry how to reconcile their love of country or allegiance to their king with considerations of person. al or domestic happiness. Happy were they whose situation admitted of a decision which did not jeopardize either: but this in a large number of instances was impossible. Mothers were doomed to see their children at open variance upon whose heads their blessings had with equal fondness descended. Fathers found themselves arrayed in opposition to their sons, and that too, in a contest in which the lives of one and all were at stake. Wives beheld in agony their husbands armed with weapons that were to be used against their friends and countrymen, or perchance against their own brethren; and friends, between whom no personal dissension had ever existed, ranged themselves under dif ferent banners to seal with their blood their adherence to political principles which where made to engulph every tender emotion of their hearts. These are no random assertions. Family histories would bring to light many cases of this painful characteristic of our revolutionary struggle, and the case of Governor Franklin is but one of many that are similar. Governor Franklin's love of books in his early life, at a later period, naturally led him to collect them, and before the revolu tion he had amassed a large library, which, on his leaving Amboy, was packed in cases and deposited by Mrs. Franklin within the British lines. The warehouse in which they were placed happened to contain a quantity of military stores that were subse. quently burned, and the books shared the same fate.* His wri tings that are met with, although they exhibit no particular superiority of mind or elegance of composition-and are, perhaps, less remarkable than we might expect from the advantages of ed. ucation and association he had enjoyed-yet give evidence of literary attainments which compare favorably with those of most of the prominent men of that day in the colonies. He was of a cheerful, facetious disposition; could narrate well entertaining stories to please his friends; was engaging in his manners, and possessed good conversational powers. He lived in the recollec. tion of those who saw him in New Jersey, as a man of strong passions, fond of convivial pleasures, well versed in the ways of the world, and, at one period of his life not a stranger to the * Public Characters, IV. |