From many other quarters came the same warning predictions.[9]
Franklin watched the controversy with deep interest and no small anxiety. As the argument grew heated he could no longer hold his hand; he cast into the Canadian scale an able pamphlet, ingenuous in the main if not in all the details. It is not worth while to rehearse what he had to say upon mercantile points, or even concerning the future growth of a great American empire. What he had really to encounter was the argument that it was sound policy to leave Canada in possession of the French. Those who pretended to want Guadaloupe did not so much really want it as they did wish to have Canada remain French. To make good this latter point they had to show, first, that French ownership involved no serious danger to the English possessions; second, that it brought positive advantages. To the first proposition they said that the French had fully learned their lesson of inferiority, and that a few forts on the frontier would easily overawe the hostile Indians. To the second proposition, they elaborated the arguments of William Burke. Franklin replied that the war-parties of braves would easily pass by the forts in the forests, and after burning, pillaging, murdering, and scalping, would equally easily and safely return. Nothing save a Chinese wall the whole length of the western frontier would suffice for protection against savages. Then, with one of those happy illustrations of which he was a master, he said: "In short, long experience has taught our planters that they cannot rely upon forts as a security against Indians; the inhabitants of Hackney might as well rely upon the Tower of London, to secure them against highwaymen and house-breakers." The admirable simile could neither be answered nor forgotten.
Concerning the positive desirability of leaving the French as masters of Canada to "check" the growth of the colonies, Franklin indignantly exclaimed: "It is a modest word, this 'check' for massacring men, women, and children!" If Canada is to be "restored on this principle, … will not this be telling the French in plain terms, that the horrid barbarisms they perpetrate with Indians on our colonists are agreeable to us; and that they need not apprehend the resentment of a government with whose views they so happily concur." But he had the audacity to say that he was abundantly certain that the mother country could never have any occasion to dread the power of the colonies. He said:—
"I shall next consider the other supposition, that their growth may render them dangerous. Of this, I own, I have not the least conception, when I consider that we have already fourteen separate governments on the maritime coast of the continent; and, if we extend our settlements, shall probably have as many more behind them on the inland side." By reason of the different governors, laws, interests, religions, and manners of these, "their jealousy of each other is so great, that, however necessary a union of the colonies has long been, for their common defence and security against their enemies, and how sensible soever each colony has been of that necessity, yet they have never been able to effect such a union among themselves, nor even to agree in requesting the mother country to establish it for them." If they could not unite for self-defence against the French and the murderous savages, "can it reasonably be supposed there is any danger of their uniting against their own nation, which protects and encourages them, with which they have so many connexions and ties of blood, interest, and affection, and which, it is well known, they all love much more than they love one another?
"In short there are so many causes that must operate to prevent it, that I will venture to say a union amongst them for such a purpose is not merely improbable, it is impossible. And if the union of the whole is impossible, the attempt of a part must be madness. … When I say such a union is impossible, I mean without the most grievous tyranny and oppression. … The waves do not rise but when the winds blow. … What such an administration as the Duke of Alva's in the Netherlands might produce, I know not; but this, I think, I have a right to deem impossible."
We read these words, even subject to the mild saving of the final sentences, with some bewilderment. Did their shrewd and well-informed writer believe what he said? Was he casting this political horoscope in good faith? Or was he only uttering a prophecy which he desired, if possible, and for his own purposes to induce others to believe? If he was in earnest, Attorney-General Pratt was a better astrologer. "For all what you Americans say of your loyalty," he said to Franklin, "and notwithstanding your boasted affection, you will one day set up for independence." "No such idea," said Franklin, "is entertained by the Americans, or ever will be, unless you grossly abuse them." "Very true," said Pratt; "that I see will happen, and will produce the event."[10] Choiseul, the able French minister, expressed his wonder that the "great Pitt should be so attached to the acquisition of Canada," which, being in the hands of France, would keep the "colonies in that dependence which they will not fail to shake off the moment Canada shall be ceded."[11] Vergennes saw the same thing not less clearly; and so did many another.
If Franklin was really unable to foresee in this business those occurrences which others predicted with such confidence, at least he showed a grand conception of the future, and his vision took in more distant and greater facts and larger truths of statesmanship than were compassed by the British ministers. Witness what he wrote to Lord Kames:—
"I have long been of opinion that the foundations of the future grandeur and stability of the British empire lie in America. … I am therefore by no means for restoring Canada. If we keep it, all the country from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi will in another century be filled with British people. Britain itself will become vastly more populous by the immense increase to its commerce; the Atlantic sea will be covered with your trading ships; and your naval power, thence continually increasing, will extend your influence round the whole globe, and awe the world."
Whatever regret Franklin may have felt at not being able to remain in England was probably greatly mitigated if not entirely dissipated by the cordial reception which he met with at home. On December 2, 1762, he wrote to Strahan that the reports of the diminution of his friends were all false; that ever since his arrival his house had been full of a succession of them from morning till night, congratulating him on his return. The Assembly honored him with a vote of thanks, and also voted him £3000 towards defraying his expenses. It was, of course, much less than he had expended during an absence of nearly six years; but it seems that he considered that, since much of his time had been passed in the enjoyment of an agreeable leisure, he should bear a corresponding part of the expense. While on the sea he had been chosen unanimously, as indeed had been done in each year of his absence, a member of that body; and he was told that, if he had not got so privately into town, he should have been met by an escort of 500 horsemen. All this must have been very gratifying.
A different kind of tribute, somewhat indirect, but none the less intelligible, was at the same time paid to him by the British government. In the autumn of 1762 his illegitimate son, William Franklin, was appointed governor of New Jersey. This act created a great storm of wrath from some of the provincial aristocratic party, and was vehemently railed at as an "indignity," a "dishonor and disgrace," an "insult." After all, it failed of its obvious purpose. The government shot brought down the wrong bird, common carrion, while the one aimed at never swerved in the slightest from his course. William, whom no one cared for in the least, became a confirmed royalist, and ultimately, as a Tory refugee, for years continued to absorb a pension for which he could return no adequate consideration. So far as Benjamin Franklin was concerned, he was at first much pleased; but his political views and course were not in the slightest degree affected. On the contrary, as the scheme developed, and the influence on the younger man became apparent, the final result was an alienation between father and son, which was only partially healed so late as 1784, just before the former returned from Europe for the last