“A grateful Sense of your Lordship’s Good-will”

Only a few pieces of correspondence between Baron le Despencer and Benjamin Franklin survive in the Franklin Papers, but they show a developing relationship between the lord appointed to be a postmaster general and one of his deputies for North America.

By June 1770, Franklin could report on details of the baron’s home remodeling: “I am told by Lord Despencer, who has covered a long Piazza or Gallery with Copper, that the Expence is charged in this Account too high; for his cost but 1/10 per foot, all Charges included.”

The first surviving direct letter between the men dates from the next month. In that document Franklin both responded to a political memo from Despencer (now lost) and argued that he should keep his job.

At that time, Franklin was representing the refractory legislatures of multiple North American colonies before Parliament, so he was a voice of opposition to the Townshend Acts. (That after telling London in 1766 and 1767 that Americans would accept such tariffs as an “external tax.”)

On 18 March, Franklin had written to Charles Thomson, encouraging American merchants to keep up their non-importation agreements against the Townshend duties even though Lord North’s government was moving to repeal all but the tax on tea. Critics started to say that an official receiving a salary from the Crown shouldn’t behave that way.

It looked like time for Franklin to shore up support from Despencer, one of his two bosses. On 26 July he wrote with somewhat stiff, genteel formality:

My Lord,

I heartily wish your Lordship would urge the Plan of Reconciliation between the two Countries, which you did me the Honour to mention to me this Morning. I am persuaded that so far as the Consent of America is requisite, it must succeed. I am sure I should do everything in my Power there to promote it. . . .

I have Enemies, as every public Man always has. They would be glad to see me depriv’d of my Office; and there are others who would like to have it. I do not pretend to slight it. Three Hundred Pounds less would make a very serious Difference in my annual Income. But as I rose to that Office gradually thro’ a long Service of now almost Forty Years, have by my Industry and Management greatly improv’d it, and have ever acted in it with Fidelity to the Satisfaction of all my Superiors, I hope my political Opinions, or my Dislike of the late Measures with America (which I own I think very injudicious) exprest in my Letters to that Country; or the Advice I gave to adhere to their Resolutions till the whole Act was repealed, without extending their Demands any farther, will not be thought a good Reason for turning me out.

I shall, however, always retain a grateful Sense of your Lordship’s Good-will and many Civilities towards me, and remain as ever, with the greatest Respect, Your Lordship’s most obedient and most humble Servant

Franklin’s letter combined arguments for fairness and the greater good with some personal flattery—as the British patronage system of the time encouraged.

I don’t see any similar letters from Franklin to the other postmaster general at this time, the Earl of Sandwich. In fact, I don’t see any letters from Franklin to Sandwich at all, nor from Franklin to the previous office-holder, the Earl of Hillsborough.

That might hint that Franklin saw Despencer as his main protector within the British bureaucracy. At the same time, this letter doesn’t suggest a relationship closer than colleagues in government, one man clearly superior to the other.

Franklin did keep his postal service job. In a letter to his sister, Jane Mecom, he stated, “I had some Friends…who unrequested by me advis’d the” government to keep him on; “my Enemies were forc’d to content themselves with abusing me plentifully in the Newspapers, and endeavouring to provoke me to resign.” Was Despencer one of those friends? If so, was Franklin’s letter to the baron truly not a request to stay on? In any event, it worked.

TOMORROW: Warming up.