This compelling PBS miniseries follows Benjamin Franklin's impressive career, from scientist and revolutionary to founding father and American diplomat. Drawing on Franklin's own writings and those of his contemporaries, the narrative is set against a backdrop of breathtaking events in which Franklin played a central role: the age of Scientific Discovery, the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary war and the Constitutional Convention.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:00Major funding for Benjamin Franklin is provided by the Northwestern Mutual Foundation.
00:00:21The people of Northwestern Mutual are proud to have supported this remarkable series on
00:00:26PBS, celebrating the wisdom and ingenuity of one of America's most distinguished founding
00:00:32fathers.
00:00:34Major funding is also provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, expanding America's
00:00:40understanding of who we were, who we are, and who we will be.
00:00:46The Pew Charitable Trusts, investing in ideas, returning results.
00:00:52Additional funding is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for Public Understanding
00:00:57of Science and Technology, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Corporation for Public
00:01:04Broadcasting.
00:01:06By these funders, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
00:01:13Thank you.
00:01:22October, 1776.
00:01:29Benjamin Franklin prepares for his voyage to France.
00:01:34His only living sister is convinced that she will never see him again.
00:01:39I cannot bear the thought of you going abroad again.
00:01:42You positively must not go.
00:01:45You've served the public beyond any other man, into your old age.
00:01:50Let some younger person now take on this painful work.
00:01:55Do as much good here as Congress thinks proper.
00:01:57Your talents are certainly superior to other men.
00:02:01But brother, don't go.
00:02:03Pray don't go.
00:02:06With great secrecy, Franklin leaves Philadelphia on a ship aptly named the Reprisal.
00:02:13His mission is of the utmost urgency.
00:02:16The Americans don't have a hope of winning the revolution unless they can secure an alliance
00:02:21with England's most powerful rival, France.
00:02:25I think that the whole endeavor was Stark staring mad.
00:02:32Franklin has to do this impossible thing, or this almost impossible thing, to persuade
00:02:39the French to join this war.
00:02:42As much as the fate of the revolution is in George Washington's hands with the army
00:02:47on land, it's with Franklin as he crosses the sea.
00:02:52I will do anything my fellow citizens think proper.
00:02:55As the shopkeeper says about his short ends of cloth, use me for anything you want.
00:03:00I'm old and good for nothing but rags.
00:03:12I'm old and good for nothing but rags.
00:03:41In 1776, Benjamin Franklin is 70 years old.
00:03:47His wife and most of his contemporaries are dead.
00:03:50But far from retiring, he is about to face one of the most difficult challenges of his
00:03:56long life.
00:03:59Before setting off for France, he had been in the forefront of the revolutionary cause.
00:04:05In June, he had assisted in the writing of the Declaration of Independence.
00:04:11Now in October, the war is in full cry, and so far has been disastrous for the new nation.
00:04:18George Washington's army has suffered decisive defeats at Long Island, White Plains, Fort
00:04:24Washington, and Fort Lee.
00:04:27Britain has the most well-disciplined, well-supplied, well-stocked army and navy in the world.
00:04:36America has virtually nothing.
00:04:40America was just this sort of young, new, marginal place.
00:04:46We couldn't beat the most powerful nation on the planet without someone's help.
00:04:50It just wasn't going to happen.
00:04:52If the Americans got French help, preeminently a French alliance, French weapons, then the
00:04:58revolution had a chance of succeeding.
00:05:01If the Americans did not get French help, the American revolution almost certainly would
00:05:05fail.
00:05:07We were incredibly fortunate that Franklin was willing to do it.
00:05:11There's no diplomatic corps in existence.
00:05:15There's barely a government, so that it has to be an informal, personal mission.
00:05:21And Franklin, because he had the personal recognition over there, was the one diplomat
00:05:27who could do it.
00:05:38When Franklin arrives in Paris in December 1776, it is a far cry from the city of light,
00:05:45the wide-open boulevards and stunning architecture of later years.
00:05:54The average Parisian lives in abject poverty, in narrow, crooked streets with open sewers
00:06:00running down the middle.
00:06:04Starving beggars and homeless families are everywhere.
00:06:09In the elegant mansions near the Tuileries Gardens, where the poor are forbidden to go,
00:06:15the upper classes prepare for their soirees.
00:06:20No elegant face is complete without the application of at least one mouche, originally used to
00:06:26disguise smallpox scars.
00:06:29Elaborate wigs are placed over bald heads, shaven to discourage lice.
00:06:39At Versailles, King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, preside over a world of
00:06:45idle luxury.
00:06:48This is the society to which the former printer from Philadelphia will have to gain access.
00:06:54He already has one powerful weapon, his reputation.
00:06:59The general public in Paris already then idolized Franklin.
00:07:06People had read Poor Richard, they knew about the way to wealth, they knew about his writings,
00:07:12they were very proud that the theory of electricity and lightning had been proved in France for
00:07:19the first time.
00:07:21He was the embodiment of all they thought America to be.
00:07:27There was a vogue for things American in France at this time.
00:07:32Many French intellectuals looked to America as a new world, as a fresh world, as a world
00:07:37where human nature was closer to its natural origins than the human nature that one found
00:07:44in the confines of Europe.
00:07:46And so Franklin arrived from America and presumably he shared some of this noble, savage
00:07:54character.
00:07:56Franklin is kind of the natural genius whose development has not been fettered by a European
00:08:03court.
00:08:04He's flourished.
00:08:05His intellect has sprung beautiful shoots in the American wilderness.
00:08:11And the French are absolutely entranced by this kind of native genius.
00:08:17The most surprising thing is the contrast between the luxury of our capital, the elegance
00:08:22of our fashions, the magnificence of Versailles, the polite haughtiness of our nobility and
00:08:28Benjamin Franklin.
00:08:30Everything about him announces the simplicity and innocence of the natural man.
00:08:35His clothing is rustic.
00:08:38His bearing is simple but dignified.
00:08:41His language is direct and his hair unpowdered.
00:08:45Such a person is made to excite curiosity in Paris.
00:08:49People cluster around him as he walks down the street and ask, who is this old peasant
00:08:54who has such a noble hair?
00:08:58Franklin wants to oblige their expectations.
00:09:02He decides to present himself as an authentic American rustic.
00:09:09They want it, they'll get it.
00:09:13He is the American from central casting.
00:09:17When Franklin first arrives in France, he is wearing a fur hat simply to keep his head
00:09:22warm.
00:09:24The frontiersman's hat causes a sensation.
00:09:27For the French, it is proof that its wearer is a true natural man.
00:09:32Franklin who has never lived out of a city now sends back to Pennsylvania for great supplies
00:09:38of these coonskin caps that he's never worn in his life.
00:09:43All the attention surprises even the master publicist himself.
00:09:47He writes with amusement to his daughter.
00:09:50My picture is everywhere.
00:09:52On the lids of snuff boxes, on rings, busts.
00:09:55The numbers sold are incredible.
00:09:57My portrait's a bestseller.
00:09:59You have prints and copies of prints and copies of copies spread everywhere.
00:10:05Your father's face is now as well known as the man in the moon.
00:10:14Franklin's mission is top secret.
00:10:16He is ostensibly visiting France as a private citizen.
00:10:20From the moment of his arrival, all Paris has been abuzz with rumors.
00:10:26Nobody really knows what he is up to.
00:10:30Lord Stormont, British ambassador to the French court, reports back to London.
00:10:36Some people think that the famous Dr. Franklin has come to France on personal business.
00:10:42I am convinced he is here on some secret mission from Congress.
00:10:47He is a devious man, incapable of truth, and will, I am sure, try to draw the French into
00:10:53openly supporting the cause of the rebels.
00:10:56He is very well regarded by general opinion and has excellent connections at court.
00:11:02In a word, my lord, I look upon him as a dangerous enemy, and I only regret that some English
00:11:09warship did not meet up with him on his way here.
00:11:15The British ambassador has good reason to worry.
00:11:19Franklin soon attempts to make official contact with the French court.
00:11:24To the French foreign minister, Lecomte de Vergene, sir, we request an audience with
00:11:31your excellency in order to present our credentials.
00:11:35We beg to acquaint your excellency that we are fully empowered by the Congress of the
00:11:40United States to negotiate a treaty of friendship and commerce between our two countries.
00:11:50Charles Gravier, Lecomte de Vergene, minister of foreign affairs to the court of Louis XVI,
00:11:56is the key man Franklin will have to deal with in his efforts to get support from the French.
00:12:02Mr. Franklin's conversation is civil and sweet.
00:12:05He seems to be a man of much wit, talent, and intelligence, but careful, very careful.
00:12:12This does not surprise me.
00:12:14Vergene, like Franklin, is quiet, hardworking, avuncular, a relatively elderly man, one of
00:12:25the few members of the French aristocracy that had married for love and almost lost
00:12:29his diplomatic career as a result of it, a man picked by the king because the king didn't
00:12:36expect so quiet and cautious and prudent a man would make waves, whereas, in fact, like
00:12:41Franklin, Vergene was a zealot.
00:12:45Vergene is an ardent nationalist, eager for France to resume her rightful place as Europe's
00:12:50greatest power.
00:12:53In the 18th century, there are two great world powers, and they are France and England.
00:13:00They had been at war with each other as rivals, and the English had defeated the French in
00:13:06the French and Indian War, and they were fighting over world domination, in essence.
00:13:13France is arguably the world's greatest military power, but had lost the last war in a big
00:13:22way to the British.
00:13:24And, of course, French policy is one of whenever the opportunity arises, recouping that loss.
00:13:31But whether they were ready to go to war was the crucial question.
00:13:36The government was not in the best financial shape in the world.
00:13:39In fact, Turgot, the great minister of finance, had warned Louis XVI, the king, that the first
00:13:47gunshot will bankrupt the state.
00:13:52Vergene knows that France is not yet ready for a full-scale war, and that King Louis
00:13:57will have to be convinced that the Americans are worthy of French help.
00:14:02Proceeding with caution, he agrees to meet with Franklin and his co-commissioners, but
00:14:07only in secret.
00:14:10Vergene makes it clear that France will be prepared to fully back the young nation only
00:14:15if there is a real chance of winning.
00:14:19Naturally, the French are reluctant, as eager as they were to seek revenge.
00:14:25They're reluctant to get themselves caught if the Americans should suddenly settle with
00:14:29the British, and the French find themselves in a world war with Britain without the support
00:14:34of the Americans.
00:14:35So there's a good deal of suspicion on the part of the French whether the Americans have
00:14:41the stuff to make this revolution stick.
00:14:45Vergene tells Franklin that France will provide aid under the table, but there will be no
00:14:51alliance for the Americans, at least not yet.
00:15:00Franklin knows that his stay in France is going to be a long one.
00:15:05A wealthy friend, Leray de Chaumont, offers the use of his country estate at Passy.
00:15:12It is strategically situated one half mile outside of Paris, and just a short carriage
00:15:17ride from the court of Versailles.
00:15:21And he proceeded to hold a kind of salon there.
00:15:25He entertained important people and generally operated as a representative of a foreign
00:15:33country.
00:15:34He was like an ambassador without a formal portfolio, even though he spoke, incidentally,
00:15:39terrible French.
00:15:41In social terms, he found friends among the Parisian intellectuals and the Parisian intelligentsia.
00:15:49He ingratiated himself with all those folks who were willing to have him over to their
00:15:55homes for dinner, to invite him to their salon.
00:15:58Americans, like the British, generally hate the French.
00:16:03The French are their traditional enemies, despised Roman Catholics, fops and frog eaters.
00:16:10But Franklin, unlike most of his provincial countrymen, is a true man of the world and
00:16:16finds French society utterly congenial.
00:16:19This is the most civilized nation on earth.
00:16:23The first people you meet here try to find out what you like so they can tell others.
00:16:28If you tell someone that you like mutton, then at every meal they serve you mutton.
00:16:32Someone, it seems, gave out the information that I love the ladies.
00:16:37So now everyone presents me with their ladies, or ladies present themselves to be
00:16:42embrassés, that is, to have their necks kissed.
00:16:46Kissing a young lady's lips is considered rude, and kissing her cheeks might rub off the paint.
00:16:54He begins to just lay groundwork everywhere.
00:16:58He's willing to go to any salon.
00:17:01He's willing to talk with anybody.
00:17:03He's willing to do whatever is available to him to be done.
00:17:08You must remember that there was no foreign service.
00:17:12There was no tradition.
00:17:14This was one of his chief inventions, so to say.
00:17:17He had to create this system as he went.
00:17:22His basic idea was very simple.
00:17:26He thought the only way I can obtain help for America is in having these French see
00:17:33eventually that it is in their interest to help us, and that will take some time.
00:17:39I think what you have during his embassy in Paris, there at Passy, is the fulfillment
00:17:49of everything that he'd ever acquired in his life before that.
00:17:54All of the skills in dealing with people, all the skills in psyching out where people
00:17:59are coming from, what they want, what they need, what they live by, how to play the game
00:18:03so as to curry favor with them, how to ingratiate yourself with them.
00:18:07All of that, all the manipulativeness, all of the cunning, all of the way of getting
00:18:12around people, all of the adaptability, all of the waiting for the right moment.
00:18:18I think in every way that embassy to France was the culmination, was the pinnacle of his
00:18:26entire life.
00:18:27For over a year, Franklin and Vergine do a curious diplomatic dance.
00:18:33Franklin wants an official alliance with France, but is careful not to pressure Vergine for
00:18:39what he cannot give, and the minister continues to send small amounts of money in arms to
00:18:44America.
00:18:47It all has to take place very unofficially, with a wink and a nod.
00:18:51It all has to take place very unofficially, with a wink and a nod.
00:19:10The British are aware that something is going on between Franklin and Vergine.
00:19:14They have a network of spies who send weekly reports back to London by leaving drops of
00:19:22supposed love letters in a hollow tree in the Tuileries Gardens.
00:19:27In the blank spaces of the letters, written in invisible ink, are the real messages.
00:19:34John Le Carré would have loved Paris in the 1780s.
00:19:37It's full of spies and moles and counter-spies.
00:19:40Franklin's own secretary, Edward Bancroft, was a spy in the pay of the British government,
00:19:45but was also spying for the Americans at times.
00:19:49He's the secretary of delegation.
00:19:51It's crazy.
00:19:53Some of the reports sent back by England's breathless spies border on science fiction.
00:20:00We have discovered that the doctor, with the assistance of French technicians, is in the
00:20:04process of building a great number of reflecting mirrors, which will concentrate so much heat from
00:20:10the sun as to be able to destroy anything by fire at a considerable distance.
00:20:16The apparatus is to be set up at Calais on the French coast, whereby they mean to burn
00:20:21and destroy the British navy sitting in our harbours.
00:20:26And more.
00:20:28The doctor proposes a conducting chain linking Calais to Dover.
00:20:33He will connect it to a prodigious electrical machine of his invention and convey a powerful
00:20:39shock to explode our entire island.
00:20:45Franklin is well aware that both the British and French have spies everywhere,
00:20:50but he remains philosophical.
00:20:53It's impossible to uncover the falsity of pretended friends.
00:20:57If I was sure that my valet was a spy, as he probably is,
00:21:01I wouldn't dream of discharging him for that fact.
00:21:05If, of course, he was a good valet.
00:21:11With the help of Larrey de Chaumont's liveried servants,
00:21:14Franklin entertains great numbers of visitors, including a young American, Elkhanna Watson.
00:21:22I was invited to dine with Dr. Franklin at Percy.
00:21:26I was very embarrassed, not knowing any French and being dressed in the American style.
00:21:32We entered a large room where I saw several extremely well-dressed people bowing to us.
00:21:38As an unsophisticated American, I bowed back to each one of them
00:21:43until Dr. Franklin kindly informed me that they were the servants.
00:21:48All the guests greeted the wise old man in the most affectionate manner,
00:21:52some kissing him on both cheeks, for men kiss in France.
00:21:57One young lady called him Papa.
00:21:59I had been expecting great ceremony, but everyone was free and cheerful.
00:22:05Franklin, never the Puritan moralist, greatly enjoys flirting,
00:22:09and this enjoyment is thoroughly reciprocated.
00:22:13One favorite is a neighbor, the elegant, beautiful, intelligent,
00:22:17and married 33-year-old Madame Brion de Jouy.
00:22:22Franklin calls her La Brillante, the Brilliant.
00:22:27For four years, Franklin spends almost every Wednesday and Saturday evening at her house.
00:22:32She offers him tea, concerts, elegant dinners, and games of chess.
00:22:39In between visits, they write letters to one another.
00:22:43Madame La Brillante, they say there are only 10 commandments,
00:22:48but I think there are really 12.
00:22:50The 11th is that we should increase and multiply,
00:22:53and the 12th, I suggest, is that we should love one another.
00:22:58Tell me, my dear, if my religiously keeping these extra two commandments
00:23:04compensates for my breaking one of the 10,
00:23:07the one which forbids me from coveting my neighbor's wife,
00:23:10which I confess I break constantly.
00:23:14I understand it's the belief of certain fathers of the church
00:23:17that one of the most effective ways of getting rid of a temptation is to satisfy it.
00:23:22Pray instruct me, my lovely confessor, how far I may venture to practice this theory.
00:23:30Though Franklin is twice his neighbor's age,
00:23:33Madame Brion is only too happy to play this game.
00:23:38On the subject of lust, all great men are tainted with it
00:23:43and call it a weakness, but it's not.
00:23:47You're kind and lovable, and you're loved in return.
00:23:51What's wrong with that?
00:23:53Go on doing great things and loving pretty women,
00:23:58provided, of course, you obey my three commandments.
00:24:01Always love God, America, and above all, moi.
00:24:09Franklin understood what a reputation he had as a ladies' man,
00:24:13and in fact, his reputation exceeded the reality, as Franklin himself knew.
00:24:19But Franklin understood that a reputation as a ladies' man,
00:24:24especially if you were in your 70s, was something that the French just loved.
00:24:29You couldn't be a politician in France unless you had relationships with influential women.
00:24:34They call them the salonnières, and these women ran these salons
00:24:39where everybody who was anybody came, and at one point, there was a salon
00:24:45where 300 women gathered around Franklin, and they placed a crown on his head.
00:24:51And don't think these women didn't go home and tell their husbands,
00:24:55I think France should become the ally of America, and they had influence.
00:25:01So he was always being the diplomat, even while he was charming the ladies of France.
00:25:06In the evening, one of Franklin's favorite pastimes is chess.
00:25:12One night, he plays a long game by the bathtub where Madame Brion is soaking.
00:25:18The next day, he apologizes to his neighbor that he was so deeply absorbed
00:25:23that he fears he has let her get waterlogged.
00:25:26For Franklin, chess is more than a game.
00:25:29In life and in chess, we have points to gain, adversaries to deal with,
00:25:36and a large variety of good or bad things which we bring on ourselves
00:25:39by our own prudence or lack of it.
00:25:42In playing chess, for example, we learn to plan for the future.
00:25:48The player is always thinking, if I move this piece,
00:25:51what will be the advantage of my new situation?
00:25:54What use can my adversary make of it?
00:25:56You learn to survey the whole chessboard, the relations of the several pieces,
00:26:02the dangers they're exposed to,
00:26:04and the several possibilities of their aiding each other.
00:26:08You learn caution, not to make your move too quickly,
00:26:12lest you put yourself in a bad position and must live with your rashness.
00:26:18Lastly, you learn from chess the habit of not getting discouraged.
00:26:23Even when, for the moment, you find yourself in a state of seemingly insurmountable difficulty.
00:26:39After six months in France,
00:26:41Franklin has made no progress in bringing the French into the war.
00:26:46From America, he is receiving frantic appeals for the most basic of supplies,
00:26:51but no money to pay for them.
00:26:54Franklin often became exceedingly frustrated at what he was asked to do,
00:26:59continually to provide monetary resources, weapons, boots, ammunition,
00:27:06all of this stuff for the American army,
00:27:09essentially to keep the Continental Army in the field.
00:27:12And he had almost nothing to work with.
00:27:15In many cases, he was simply dealing with private French soldiers,
00:27:18in many cases, he was simply dealing with private French contractors,
00:27:22and he was asking them to ship goods to the American colonies on credit,
00:27:27on the credit of the Continental Congress,
00:27:29credit which was rapidly disintegrating.
00:27:32The amount of work that Franklin had to do was significant.
00:27:38We think of him having a good time in France,
00:27:41and he did to some extent,
00:27:43but he also worked very hard and he was getting tired.
00:27:48Franklin's fellow Americans are not making his job any easier.
00:27:54He is one of three co-commissioners appointed by Congress to negotiate with the French.
00:28:00One of the commissioners, Silas Dean, has been accused of embezzling funds.
00:28:06The other, Arthur Lee, is suspicious of Franklin to the point of paranoia.
00:28:11Lee has been spreading ugly gossip about Franklin to his allies in Congress.
00:28:15Franklin's very powerful enemies used every indiscretion that he ever committed
00:28:23to portray him as a man who just was a skirt chaser and that sort of thing.
00:28:29And there were rumors, rather vicious ones,
00:28:32that he made a lot of money under the table, etc., etc.
00:28:38In addition, Lee has been bombarding Franklin
00:28:41with criticisms of the way he has been running the delegation.
00:28:44After months of Lee's constant sniping, Franklin can bear it no longer.
00:28:49It's true I've not answered your letters.
00:28:52I have received and borne your magisterial snubbings and rebukes in silence.
00:28:57I'm old and don't have long to live.
00:29:00I have much to do and no time for these sort of quarrels.
00:29:04I'm worried about the success of our mission,
00:29:07which is hurt by your sick mind that is forever torturing itself
00:29:12with jealousies and suspicions and fantasies that everyone means you wrong or fails to respect you.
00:29:19If you don't cure yourself of these ravings, you'll end up insane.
00:29:23God preserve you from so terrible and evil,
00:29:25and for his sake and mine, pray suffer me to live in peace.
00:29:31But Franklin, as usual, prefers to keep his frustrations private.
00:29:36The letter to Lee will remain unsent.
00:29:39He says at some point in one of Richard's almanacs,
00:29:43let all men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly.
00:29:49Men ford easily where they see the shallows.
00:29:53So you have to keep a part of yourself, maybe a large part of yourself, hidden from the world.
00:30:09In the dreary French autumn of 1777,
00:30:13Franklin is getting nothing but bad news from America.
00:30:19Washington has suffered a string of military defeats.
00:30:27Fort Ticonderoga has been captured.
00:30:33The British General Burgoyne is on his way to control the city.
00:30:39He's controlling the entire Hudson Valley.
00:30:44New York, too, is under British control.
00:30:48The worst news they heard was that General Howe had captured Philadelphia,
00:30:53and that was Franklin's hometown.
00:30:55His children, all his papers were now in British hands.
00:30:59It was really crushing, and yet he kept up a bold front.
00:31:02And when someone said to him, I hear that General Howe has captured Philadelphia,
00:31:08no, no, you have it wrong.
00:31:10Philadelphia has captured Howe, which was nice, nice bravado,
00:31:15but it still wasn't very good news.
00:31:21Franklin knows that without French military intervention,
00:31:24the United States will continue to lose battles.
00:31:28And the more they lose, the less likely it is that Virgin will agree to intervene.
00:31:35It is an impossible situation.
00:31:39The French will not begin a quarrel with England as long as they can avoid it,
00:31:44nor will they give us any open assistance of ships or troops.
00:31:49Indeed, we're scarcely allowed to admit that the French are giving us any aid at all.
00:31:53Well, this leaves America the glory of working out her deliverance by her own effort and bravery.
00:32:02From now on, we'd be well advised to depend chiefly on God's blessing,
00:32:07and not that of King Louis.
00:32:12Just as Franklin is almost ready to give up,
00:32:14an American messenger is on his way from the port of Nantes with the latest news from America.
00:32:21I didn't have time to get off my horse when Franklin shouted to me,
00:32:24did Howe really take Philadelphia?
00:32:27Yes, sir, I said.
00:32:29And the poor gentleman sadly shook his head and was heading back to the house.
00:32:34I stopped him.
00:32:35But, sir, I have greater news than that.
00:32:38General Burgoyne and his whole army are prisoners of war.
00:32:45In a military operation which astounds the Europeans,
00:32:48an army of American farmers has defeated a large invasion force at Saratoga.
00:32:54Crack British and Hessian troops who have rarely lost a battle anywhere in the world.
00:33:00Franklin makes sure every influential person in Paris gets the news.
00:33:05Starting with Virgin.
00:33:07The circumstances are now more favorable for the establishment of an understanding
00:33:13between France and the United Colonies of North America.
00:33:19The prospect of an alliance between France and America terrifies the British.
00:33:25King George will do anything to avoid this.
00:33:28The many instances of Franklin's malevolent behavior convinced me that
00:33:34hatred of this country is the constant object of his mind.
00:33:40Yet it is so desirable to end the war with America in order to avenge the insolent conduct
00:33:48of the French that I think it proper to keep open the channel of intercourse with that insidious man.
00:33:57The British decide to send out peace fielders and dispatch an agent to meet with Franklin.
00:34:04For several weeks Virgin has been stalling and Franklin fears the alliance with France
00:34:11will come too late to save the revolution.
00:34:15He makes a brilliant move.
00:34:18He sees an opportunity to use the British willingness to negotiate to force events with Virgin.
00:34:25Franklin, while he was in Paris, was engaged in a complicated maneuver
00:34:31to make the French think that the American states might cozy back up to the British,
00:34:38to make the British think that the Americans were getting what they wanted from the French,
00:34:43all the while playing from a position of weakness.
00:34:46For Franklin the chess master the game is always being played
00:34:51and there are always 16 or 32 moves to be thinking of in advance.
00:34:57Sometimes he would get stuck in a position where he was obviously in a losing
00:35:03position and he would arrange to distract his opponent. He wasn't above moving the pieces.
00:35:10Franklin agrees to meet with the British agent.
00:35:14He makes sure that Virgin will find out about the meeting
00:35:17and suspect that Franklin is secretly entertaining a British peace proposal.
00:35:21In fact, Franklin has no intention of making peace with England.
00:35:26We know what really took place at the meeting because the agent, an American loyalist,
00:35:31reports every word spoken back to the British.
00:35:35He uses a code in which numbers are substituted for key words.
00:35:40I called on 7-2. He received me very kindly at first.
00:35:46I told him that I wish to be honored with a temper of 4-5.
00:35:51On the terms of a possible reconciliation.
00:35:55He told me how unsatisfactory previous informal attempts had been.
00:36:00He considered them time lost and now it was a matter of lives lost and
00:36:04as he spoke he worked himself up into a fury of resentment against our country and king.
00:36:12I suggested to him that any private resentment he had about something that had happened to him
00:36:17personally while he was in Britain should be controlled for the good of his country.
00:36:22I flattered him and told him that he was too great a person to let private
00:36:29quarrels be mixed with the public good. The effect was to rouse the old man who,
00:36:34as we know, is constitutionally calm and unemotional to the passion of a high-metal youth.
00:36:40I've never seen him so eccentric and so diffuse as he was today.
00:36:45He told me that other countries were wiser than 6-4 and ready to deal with 4-5
00:36:53and that the savages of North America were more reasonable than the savages of Great Britain and
00:36:57then he went off on the barbarity of Englishmen. At this point he was almost breaking into a sweat.
00:37:05I said to him that I was here for instructions not for insults.
00:37:09I said that the people of 6-4 were prepared for a 10-year 207.
00:37:16His answer was that America would endure a 50-year 207 before she would ever, ever give up 107.
00:37:26Vergine has no idea what really went on at the meeting but Franklin's tactic spurs him into
00:37:31action. We put the question directly to Mr. Franklin. What must France do to block the
00:37:38commissioners from listening to any new proposals of peace from England? He answered that America
00:37:45had long been asking for a treaty of friendship and commerce between our two countries.
00:37:50The immediate conclusion of such a treaty would remove all uncertainties.
00:37:55On February 6th, 1778, a treaty of alliance between France and the United States is signed
00:38:06in Paris. It is not just a matter of open French aid. Formal recognition by one of the world's
00:38:14two superpowers gives legitimacy to the shaky idea of independence. Franklin has accomplished
00:38:22the first goal of his mission. For the signing of the treaty, he wears a strangely unfashionable
00:38:31coat of Manchester velvet. It is the very same coat that he had worn during his humiliation
00:38:37before the British Privy Council four years earlier. Revenge is sweet and for Franklin,
00:38:45very personal. He writes to his old friend Katie Ray. Your troubles will not last much longer.
00:38:54We have formed an alliance with the French. This will serve to keep the English bull
00:38:59quiet and make him behave himself. His horns have been shortened.
00:39:06On March 20th, 1778, King Louis XVI, among the most powerful men in the world,
00:39:14formally receives the American commissioners at Versailles.
00:39:20Playing his role perfectly, Franklin flouts all court protocol.
00:39:25The natural man wears no sword and no wig. The king spoke with great sincerity.
00:39:33Assure Congress, he said, of my friendship. I hope this treaty will benefit both our nations.
00:39:40Then Mr. Franklin spoke. Your majesty, he said, can count on Congress.
00:39:47And so France is the first to recognize the independence of the United States.
00:39:54The fact that France signs a treaty and in effect therefore acknowledges the independence
00:40:02of British colonies is a remarkable milestone in history. This is a king who has agreed to
00:40:15support a revolution against another legitimate king. Really very unusual and in some ways,
00:40:24you know, if you want to give credit, bold and farsighted on the part of the French,
00:40:28but really I think they were tricked into it by Franklin.
00:40:37The treaty is also, and most importantly, a military alliance.
00:40:43France declares war on England. France's ally Spain eventually joins the war as well.
00:40:52But the Europeans have their own priorities, which are not necessarily those of the United States.
00:40:59The French aren't as interested in creating the new American republic as they are in humiliating
00:41:04the British. And so they initially spent a lot of their time down in the West Indies,
00:41:09sacking the West Indies, making money from destroying English Caribbean colonies.
00:41:15Their goal is not to create the United States of America. Their goal is to break up the British
00:41:19empire. Franklin's task now is to keep the pressure up, to convince the French to send
00:41:27troops and ships to America. The rebels might win a few battles, but as the war drags on,
00:41:34his countrymen are dying. Dear brother, the British have evacuated Philadelphia and it
00:41:42seems that they have done little damage. I hope they never return. My son Benjamin
00:41:49disappeared soon after the Battle of Trenton and has not been heard of since.
00:41:54And God has taken poor Peter. Of the 17 children our father had, you and I, my dear brother,
00:42:02are now the only ones left. May I live to see the happiness of your children's children
00:42:10and peace for America.
00:42:13During Franklin's long stay in France, he keeps up his lifelong interest in science.
00:42:19It is in France that he witnesses one of the world's first lighter-than-air balloons
00:42:23rising over the Champs-Élysées. He develops a plan for daylight savings time.
00:42:33He studies the phenomenon of phenomenon of solar eclipses.
00:42:36He develops a plan for daylight savings time.
00:42:40He studies the phenomenon of hailstorms in the summertime
00:42:44and speculates about the temperature of the upper atmosphere.
00:42:49He has the ingenious idea of combining two sets of lenses, thus inventing bifocals.
00:42:55I wear my spectacles constantly. With these, I only have to move my eyes up or down
00:43:03to see distinctly near and far.
00:43:08As one of the world's foremost scientists, Franklin serves on a commission to evaluate
00:43:13the theories of Anton Mesmer. Mesmer claims to have discovered a new magnetic life force
00:43:20which can send people into a hypnotic trance.
00:43:25Franklin debunks the idea that mesmerism has anything to do with magnetism.
00:43:33Franklin is now the honored guest at all sorts of public functions.
00:43:39A prominent mason, he initiates the philosopher Voltaire as a member of the Lodge of the Nine
00:43:45Sisters. He is a man of means and is able to indulge in all the luxuries that Paris has to offer.
00:43:55He did not live a parsimonious frugal life over in France.
00:44:00He had a remarkably well-stocked wine cellar.
00:44:05The arm of man, said Franklin, is exactly the right length to lift a wine goblet up to his
00:44:13mouth and drink. That is the purpose of the arm, is to drink wine.
00:44:20Franklin believes that the prodigious intake of wine and rich food is the cause of his gout,
00:44:26an agonizing joint disease. One bout sends him to bed with a fever and extreme pain for over two
00:44:33weeks. When he can finally hobble out of bed, he sends this little playlet to Madame Brion.
00:44:44What have I done, Madame Gout, to deserve these cruel sufferings?
00:44:48Many things, sir. You eat and drink too freely and you don't exercise.
00:44:53I do as much exercise as I can, Madame Gout, but my work forces me to be sedentary.
00:45:03Forces you? Let's look at your day. You wake up in the morning,
00:45:07eat a huge breakfast, tea with cream, one or two buttered toasts,
00:45:15and then a few slices of dried beef. Is this good for the digestion? And then what do you do?
00:45:21You sit down at your desk and you don't move until dinner. And after dinner, do you walk in
00:45:25the garden with your beautiful lady friend? Oh, no. You play chess. I take rides in my carriage.
00:45:33You call that exercise the swaying of a carriage suspended on springs? You should thank me,
00:45:38Mr. Franklin. I'm the one who keeps you healthy by administering my wholesome corrections.
00:45:46So take that twinge. And that.
00:46:02In the spring of 1778, a new commissioner is making his way to Paris.
00:46:08He has been sent by Congress to replace Silas Dean.
00:46:11John Adams, Puritan from Brainfree, Massachusetts, is not as taken with France as Franklin is.
00:46:20He sees it as a test of his immortal soul. There is everything here that can improve learning,
00:46:26refine taste and purify the heart. But I must remember that there is also everything here
00:46:32which can seduce, betray, deceive, deprave, corrupt and botch.
00:46:41John Adams was a major voice in Congress. He had been perhaps the most eloquent supporter
00:46:48of independence before July 1776. He certainly had won the respect of the other delegates
00:46:54by his eloquence and by his strong commitment to the American cause. He was straightforward. He
00:47:00said what he thought. But those strengths did not necessarily make him a good diplomat.
00:47:06He can't dance, drink, game, flatter, promise, dress, swear with gentlemen, make small talk
00:47:15or flirt with the ladies. In short, he has none of the essential qualities to make him a courtier.
00:47:23Nobody could be less suited to be a diplomat in any court in Europe than John Adams. He has no
00:47:30social skills. More to the point, he never wanted to acquire any. Adams comes into the Paris scene
00:47:40as sort of the bull in the china shop. You can just picture Franklin going, oh my god, everything
00:47:49I've done here, all the groundwork I've laid, this idiot can destroy in five minutes. Adams,
00:47:58who had left America two months earlier, is surprised to find on his arrival that the
00:48:03alliance with France had been concluded before he even left home. At Franklin's invitation,
00:48:09he takes up residence at Passy. But his mood is not improved by his intense and growing jealousy
00:48:15of Franklin's fame in France. It doesn't help that at parties he is introduced as
00:48:22the collègue de Monsieur Franklin. When he tells them his name, he is then asked if he is the famous
00:48:28Adams, meaning Samuel Adams. I had to tell them that I was not Le Famous Adams. So then it was
00:48:37settled. I'm the American that nobody's heard of, a man of no consequence, a zero, particularly when
00:48:45compared with Le Famous Franklin. John Adams freaks out when he sees how Franklin is getting
00:48:55ahead in French society and presumably conducting American mission in France. Adams found Franklin's
00:49:05willingness to curry the favor of the French government ultimately inappropriate and
00:49:12intolerable. And while Franklin fully recognized that the United States had almost no leverage with
00:49:19France, that the United States could get what it needed only by tending closely to French interests,
00:49:27to Adams that was anathema. Adams wanted to stand up for American interests against France,
00:49:33if necessary, just as America had been standing up for American interests against Britain.
00:49:38Mr. Adams persists in thinking that France is the greatest enemy of America. He thinks that
00:49:44gratitude towards France is the greatest of follies, that it will ruin us. He makes no
00:49:49secret of his opinions, indeed expresses them publicly, sometimes in the presence of English
00:49:54ministers. This court must be treated with delicacy, and it is my intention while I am here
00:50:02to procure what advantages I can for our country by trying to please this court. An expression of
00:50:09gratitude is not only our duty but also very much in our interest. Anything which our countryman
00:50:15does to displease France, I'll try to prevent. John Adams could have been in France for the next
00:50:22millennium and never gotten a sue out of the French. And only Franklin's approach has a
00:50:30prayer of working with the French, but Adams is just livid that Franklin is getting someplace
00:50:39for nothing, and Adams who's working so hard is getting no place. The life of Dr. Franklin here
00:50:46in France is one long party. He eats breakfast late in the morning, and as soon as his breakfast
00:50:53is over, crowds of people come to his court. Philosophers, academics, his literary friends,
00:51:01even women and children, thrilled at the great honor of viewing his bald head, listening to him
00:51:07telling stories about his simplicity. Well, by then it's the afternoon, time to dress for dinner.
00:51:15Dr. Franklin never turns down a dinner invitation. He seldom comes home before nine, and sometimes
00:51:20as late as midnight. I'd be happy to do all the work myself. All I want is a few moments a day for
00:51:29him to sign letters or give advice on what's to be done. He has time for everyone else but me.
00:51:51By 1780, Franklin has been in France for almost four years.
00:51:58He has yet to persuade the French to send troops to American soil.
00:52:04The situation is becoming critical. Since Saratoga, there have been few victories,
00:52:11and now the British have invaded the south.
00:52:15Death and disease have spread from the army to the civilian population.
00:52:21The American economy has collapsed, and now with no money for supplies or pay,
00:52:27Washington's army is facing widespread desertion.
00:52:32A desperate Congress is urging Franklin to prod the French for more help,
00:52:37and with no collateral to offer, the United States is dependent more than ever on French goodwill.
00:52:45John Adams chooses this moment to loudly proclaim his distrust of the French.
00:52:51I will be buried in the ocean before I voluntarily put our country into French chains,
00:52:57just as I'm struggling to throw off those of Great Britain.
00:53:01Adams goes so far as to send Virgin unsolicited advice on how France should be conducting the war.
00:53:08Mr. Adams, when I gave you a mark of my confidence by informing you about the movement of French
00:53:13fleets, I really didn't expect, as thanks, a list of criticisms of our strategy. To avoid further
00:53:20discussions of this sort, I now inform you that in the future, I will be dealing only with Mr.
00:53:25Franklin on all matters that concern the King and the United States. I also remind you that
00:53:31the King does not require any further advice from you in these affairs.
00:53:38Comte de Virgin, I wish to make it clear that Mr. Adams's indiscretion is entirely his own.
00:53:46I live on terms of civility with him, not intimacy.
00:53:51Relations broke down between Virgin and Adams so dramatically in 1780 that Virgin sent Franklin
00:54:02copies of all Adams's letters to him, which was a very unusual and desperate move to take.
00:54:10He said to Franklin, I would like you to show these to the American Congress and have Adams
00:54:17recalled. Mr. Adams has offended the court here with several letters he has written. He did not
00:54:24show them to me before he sent them. He is creating suspicions that are endangering our support and
00:54:31our friendship with France. He imagines that Comte de Virgin and myself are continually plotting
00:54:37against him, that we are planting articles in the newspapers to belittle his character and other
00:54:44such fancies. I am persuaded that he means well for the country, that he is an honest man and a
00:54:52wise man. But in some things, he is absolutely out of his senses. Congress sends Adams to Holland
00:55:04to try to extract a loan from the Dutch. Arthur Lee had been recalled the year before.
00:55:12Franklin is relieved to be rid of his troublesome colleagues,
00:55:15but the full weight of the mission now rests on his shoulders alone.
00:55:20Winter 1780. Franklin is working day and night, trying to assemble shipments of weapons and
00:55:36supplies. To pay for them, he is signing numerous loan certificates to the French government,
00:55:44worthless because America is bankrupt.
00:55:49The French treasury is stretched to its limits.
00:55:53Virgin has hinted to Franklin that France is considering peace negotiations with England.
00:56:00Back in America, certain members of Congress are losing confidence in Franklin's ability to get
00:56:06results. The French navy is still in the Caribbean, and though the French have sent an army to America,
00:56:14it is sitting idle in Rhode Island, waiting for reinforcements.
00:56:20Congress is blaming Franklin for France's inaction, and there is serious talk of replacing him.
00:56:28He makes a preemptive strike. To the President of Congress, I'm now past 75 years old. I have
00:56:37just had another severe fit of the gout which has shaken me, and I have yet to recover my physical
00:56:42strength. I'm finding that the business is too heavy for me, and I fear that the affairs of the
00:56:49country are beginning to suffer. I've been engaged in public affairs, and I've enjoyed public
00:56:55confidence for 50 long years now. I have no other ambition left but to get some rest. I hope that
00:57:04Congress will grant me one last request, to send some person to France to replace me.
00:57:14Congress doesn't dare call Franklin's bluff. They insist that he stay on.
00:57:20And Franklin admits in a later letter to a friend that he regards that reappointment
00:57:30as more important than his first appointment, because his enemies in Congress wanted his
00:57:37replacement. And even with their demanding it, and his supporting it, in a letter,
00:57:45they don't do it. They want him there. They need him.
00:57:53One night in November of 1781, Franklin and his friend Elkhanna Watson stay up late,
00:57:59talking about the war. They have news from America that the French Army and Navy are
00:58:04finally on the move, attempting a highly difficult military campaign. Because it takes
00:58:11over a month for news to cross the Atlantic, they have no idea how the plan has turned out.
00:58:18We talked that night only about the great combined military operation to take Cornwallis
00:58:23in Virginia. All evening long, we pored over the maps and weighed all the possibilities.
00:58:30Franklin was suspended between hope and fear. One moment he would be in gloomy despondency,
00:58:38and then, looking at the situation in another way, he would flash into a conviction of complete
00:58:43success. And when this 75-year-old man became exhilarated, his whole body assumed a state of
00:58:49elasticity, of active play. I didn't share his optimism. Went home around 11 o'clock,
00:58:58saddened over the fate of my country. One hour later, at midnight, a messenger arrives at Passy
00:59:08with startling news. The French and American armies and the French Navy have surrounded
00:59:14and taken the entire British Army at Yorktown. Washington could never have won Yorktown. He
00:59:21didn't know how to lay down a siege. He was a militia colonel. He learned a lot during his
00:59:29eight years of fighting, but the French Army and the French participation and the French
00:59:34naval isolation of Cornwallis was absolutely crucial. It is an American victory. It is a
00:59:41French victory. And it is a victory for Benjamin Franklin's diplomacy.
00:59:47Mon cher papa, do you know why your neighbor has not written to you in a while?
00:59:52Because I am sulking. Yes, monsieur papa, I am sulking because of you. Here you take entire
00:59:58armies in America, and we, your poor neighbors, have to read about it in the newspapers.
01:00:05We were getting drunk drinking to your head, to that of Washington, to Independence, to the King,
01:00:11to Lafayette, and not one word from you. So I'm left only to imagine that you must be overjoyed.
01:00:21You must suddenly have become 20 years younger upon hearing the news,
01:00:25and you will lead us to lasting peace after this glorious victory.
01:00:30I will continue to sulk until I hear from you. To Madame Brion, my dear friend,
01:00:37it was a great victory, but I am not celebrating yet. War is a very uncertain thing. I play this
01:00:45game exactly like you've seen me play chess. I do not assume victory until the last move is made.
01:00:53Despite the British defeat at Yorktown, the war is not yet over.
01:00:58Hardliners in Parliament are still not willing to give up.
01:01:04Franklin decides to jumpstart negotiations. Nine years earlier in England, he had amazed some
01:01:12friends with his trick of pouring oil on rough waters. The demonstration took place on the
01:01:18The demonstration took place on the estate of the Earl of Shelburne.
01:01:23Franklin knows that Shelburne is sympathetic to the American cause.
01:01:28Perhaps the old conjurer will once again be able to smooth troubled waters.
01:01:33Lord Shelburne, I assure you of my total respect for your talents and virtues.
01:01:38I'm sure your lordship, along with all good men, desires a general peace.
01:01:42For my own part, I shall to my dying breath contribute everything in my power to this end.
01:01:50Franklin's timing is exquisite. Opposition to the war has just brought down the British government.
01:01:57Franklin's old friend Shelburne is now Secretary of State and soon will be Prime Minister.
01:02:04This back-channel diplomacy has succeeded in laying the foundations for a peace treaty.
01:02:10But Franklin will not remain the sole negotiator.
01:02:15Congress has appointed two other men to work on the peace commission.
01:02:20First, John Jay arrives. A wealthy New Yorker and former president of Congress,
01:02:26he hates France almost more than he hates England.
01:02:31As for the third American commissioner, Count Virgin groans when he hears the name.
01:02:36John Adams, he has a rigidity and arrogance and an obstinacy which will drive the negotiators to despair.
01:02:46The stakes are high. All three commissioners know that in the treaty negotiations, everything is on the table.
01:02:55The very borders of the United States have to be determined.
01:02:59Even independence itself may be sacrificed to the wider aims of the large European powers.
01:03:05The French had their own issues. They wanted to retrieve some of the losses from the last war with Britain.
01:03:10The Spanish had their own issues. They wanted to get Gibraltar back.
01:03:14From Franklin's perspective in Paris, things only got more complicated because the United States was now immersed in the diplomacy among the major European powers.
01:03:27Shelburne sends an envoy to the Americans.
01:03:29If he can get them to sign a treaty directly with England,
01:03:32England will be in a much stronger negotiating position vis-a-vis the French.
01:03:37Franklin at first resists the idea of cutting the French out of the negotiating process.
01:03:43The true political interests of America consist in observing with complete exactitude the commitments we made to France.
01:03:52It is our connection with France which gives us weight with England and the United States.
01:03:57It gives us weight with England and respect throughout Europe.
01:04:01If we were to break with France, England would again trample us and every other nation would despise us.
01:04:09I told him that the only treaty America would sign was one in concert with France.
01:04:16Jay and Adams are not convinced. They both believe that Franklin is in the pocket of the French.
01:04:23Jay particularly does not trust Virgin and believes that he is stalling on the peace in order to get the best deal for the French.
01:04:31The French court chooses to delay an acceptance of our independence by England until they make peace with England.
01:04:39They wish to keep us under their control until they get what they want from the peace.
01:04:43Count Virgin still calls us colonies. He would have us only deal with the British through him.
01:04:49Behind Franklin's back, Jay and Adams determine to accept the British proposal and sideline France.
01:04:57Adams confronts Franklin.
01:04:59I told Franklin that I supported Jay's principles and firmness.
01:05:04To share details of the treaty with the French would be like committing the lamb to the custody of the wolf.
01:05:11I supported the idea of a separate treaty without reserve.
01:05:18Franklin has spent his six years in France building up a bond of trust with Virgin.
01:05:24Troubled by the belligerent tactics of his two younger colleagues, he debates what to do.
01:05:31Honor the terms of the original alliance or go behind Virgin's back.
01:05:36Betray France and agree to a separate treaty with England.
01:05:41Franklin understood, grateful as he was to the French and appreciative as he was for their help
01:05:48and honorable as everyone had been, that he'd better get for America what he could get
01:05:56without waiting to follow the French lead.
01:06:01Franklin makes the difficult decision to go along with Jay and Adams.
01:06:06The master chess player sees that the young United States is in a strong position.
01:06:12Shelburne is so anxious to damage the French-American alliance
01:06:16that he is willing to give the Americans almost everything they are asking for.
01:06:22Virgin discovers that he has been double-crossed.
01:06:26I'm astonished.
01:06:28The British seem to buy peace rather than make it.
01:06:31The treaty is like a dream for the Americans.
01:06:33Exceeding everything I should have thought possible.
01:06:37Our position in negotiating with Lord Shelburne has been seriously compromised.
01:06:40We knew nothing of the details which were completed in the most sudden,
01:06:44unforeseen, and I may say extraordinary manner.
01:06:50Franklin's letter to Virgin is a classic of diplomatic history.
01:06:55I can assure your excellency that nothing in this agreement is contrary to the interests of France.
01:07:01But you are correct in saying that we should have consulted you before we signed it.
01:07:06It was an error of propriety, not want of respect for the king whom we all love and honor.
01:07:14I've just learned that the English flatter themselves in thinking
01:07:18that they have succeeded in dividing France and America.
01:07:22I hope this little misunderstanding between us will be kept secret
01:07:27so that they will find themselves totally mistaken.
01:07:31It's a masterpiece of diplomatic effrontery.
01:07:36He ends the letter by asking for more money.
01:07:39I accuse no one.
01:07:41I do not blame even Mr. Franklin.
01:07:43He yielded perhaps too easily to the impulses of his colleagues who
01:07:47affect to ignore the rules of courtesy.
01:07:49If we can judge the future by what we have just seen,
01:07:55we shall be poorly repaid for what we have done for the United States of America.
01:08:01You have to give credit to all three of them.
01:08:06I think both the British and the French thought that this was going to be easy going.
01:08:11The French thought they would take what they won.
01:08:15And the English thought that they could put one over on the Americans.
01:08:18They might get independence recognized, but they weren't going to get much else.
01:08:23And both the English and the French admitted that these fellows had performed
01:08:30a heck of a lot better than anyone expected them to.
01:08:34The Treaty of Paris was a marvelous
01:08:39achievement in many, many ways.
01:08:41For instance, at one point, some of Franklin's fellow diplomats were ready
01:08:46to give away the right to navigate the Mississippi, which Franklin, with this marvelous
01:08:54vision of the future, saw would be essential once Americans populated the Northwest.
01:08:59And Franklin said, I'd soon as give away the Mississippi as I'd give away my back.
01:09:04And Franklin said, I'd soon as give away the Mississippi as I'd give away my back door.
01:09:10What Franklin understood was that the United States needed to have territory to expand into.
01:09:16And that was the greatest achievement of the peace treaty that he got with the British government,
01:09:21the expansion of American boundaries from the Atlantic clear to the Mississippi River.
01:09:27The Treaty of Paris really guaranteed the American future.
01:09:30It's in the same league as the Declaration of Independence
01:09:33and the Constitution of the United States.
01:09:34It was that important.
01:09:41On September 3rd, 1783, nearly two years after the victory at Yorktown,
01:09:48the final treaty is signed and all hostilities cease.
01:09:55Parisians celebrate the peace with fireworks in front of City Hall.
01:10:00Though Franklin has had many triumphs in his long life,
01:10:04this latest one is the greatest of them all.
01:10:19In 1785, Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson as the new ambassador to France
01:10:25and agrees to let Franklin retire.
01:10:27Madame Brion, the brilliant, is too distraught to see her old friend off.
01:10:36At the age of 79, Benjamin Franklin sails home to America.
01:10:42In many ways, his final years will be the happiest of his life.
01:10:49During his long stay in France, he has had little time for science.
01:10:52Now, on the voyage home, he organizes decades of thinking and experimentation.
01:10:59In three major scientific papers, he describes his latest theories
01:11:03on everything from the Gulf Stream to how to make ships unsinkable.
01:11:14Philadelphia is now a thriving city, the capital of the new country.
01:11:18Much of its prominence is due to the many institutions,
01:11:21the library, the hospital, the college, that Franklin himself had helped found.
01:11:30He settles into the house near Market Street
01:11:33that he and his late wife, Deborah, had built two decades earlier.
01:11:38His daughter, Sally, and his six grandchildren are nearby.
01:11:41The increasing infirmities of old age become one more occasion for scientific inquiry.
01:11:47I have found that deafness will considerably diminish one's pleasure in conversation.
01:11:53But it is easily remedied by putting your hand behind your ear
01:11:58and pressing it outward with the hollow of your hand.
01:12:02I did an experiment with my son, Benjamin Franklin.
01:12:05I did an experiment and I found that I could hear the tick of a watch 45 feet away using this method.
01:12:22Franklin's health is deteriorating, but not his sense of humor.
01:12:27He suggests that the predatory eagle is not the right symbol for the fledgling country.
01:12:32In its stead, he proposes a useful bird, the turkey.
01:12:39In compensation for all his services to his country, Franklin has asked Congress for two things,
01:12:46a grant of land in the West and a job for one of his grandchildren.
01:12:52Congress gives him nothing, not even his expenses for his years in France.
01:12:57It's sort of inexplicable that after all Franklin had done,
01:13:06he was not greeted with laurel wreath and flower petal strewn.
01:13:13I think some of it is because America had found its hero in George Washington.
01:13:19If you immortalize Washington, you say the Americans who starved at Valley Forge
01:13:26triumphed because God was on our side, truth and justice were on our side.
01:13:33If you immortalize Franklin, then you say we couldn't have done it without France.
01:13:40And so when you pick your heroes to revere, you're also picking the myth of the American people.
01:13:47You're also picking the myth about yourself that you want to tell.
01:13:59At a time of life when most people become more conservative, Franklin is becoming more radical.
01:14:06Never one to accept the status quo, he takes a public stand against a fundamental institution
01:14:12of American society, slavery. Can the pleasure of sweetening our tea with sugar grown by slaves
01:14:23make up for all the misery produced among our fellow creatures?
01:14:30The butchery of the human species by this detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men.
01:14:37As a young man, Franklin accepted slavery as just the way the world worked. He owned a couple of
01:14:42personal servants himself. He engaged in buying and selling slaves through his various business
01:14:48enterprises. And he unthinkingly accepted the assumption that Africans were inferior in
01:14:56intelligence to Europeans. This assumption was challenged when he visited a school
01:15:02where young black children were being educated. And he discovered that these children,
01:15:11these African-American children, were learning just as quickly as white kids of the same age.
01:15:18He changed his whole theory and was willing to go exactly the opposite direction, to encourage
01:15:25their education and also to argue for the end of slavery. And became, in the final years of his life,
01:15:33a great radical on that issue. In 1787, Franklin accepts the presidency of America's first
01:15:41abolitionist society. He is the only one of the founding fathers to actively campaign against
01:15:48slavery. That summer in Philadelphia, delegates from the separate states gathered to write a
01:16:01constitution for the new country. Franklin, old and sick, has to be carried to the convention hall.
01:16:14The debates are long and rancorous, and the final document is highly controversial.
01:16:21The delegates know that most Americans are still passionately attached to states' rights.
01:16:26Many regard the constitution as threatening the freedoms men have fought and died for.
01:16:31James Madison is deeply disillusioned with the final results, because some of his pet things are
01:16:37omitted. And he writes a letter to Jefferson which says, I don't think it's going to work.
01:16:41And Washington is reputed to have said, this thing won't last 20 years. Everybody knew that this
01:16:48document, which was a radical proposal, was going to be a very difficult time getting ratified. And
01:16:54there was hardly a member of the convention that approved of the whole thing. It was a bundle of
01:16:58compromises. Nobody got exactly what they wanted, and many were very suspicious of the document.
01:17:06Franklin ends the convention with a seemingly simple speech.
01:17:11In it, he draws on a lifetime of skills as a diplomat and negotiator.
01:17:17No ringing phrases or calls to battle, but rather a plea for compromise.
01:17:24This is his last public statement, and perhaps his greatest.
01:17:30I don't entirely approve of this constitution at present.
01:17:34I'm not sure I'll ever approve of it, but I'm also not sure I'm right. I've lived a long time,
01:17:41and the longer I live, the more I begin to doubt my own infallibility, the more I begin to respect
01:17:47the judgment of others. We've collected together men who not only have great wisdom, but also
01:17:55prejudices, selfish views, and local interests. From such an assembly, we can't expect a perfect
01:18:03production. It astonishes me that we have come as close to perfection as we did. It will astonish
01:18:10our enemies, who think of our separate states coming together only to cut each other's throats.
01:18:17So, I consent to this constitution because I expect no better, and because
01:18:26I'm not absolutely convinced that it is not the best.
01:18:33Nobody, including Franklin, expected the constitution to last for 200 years.
01:18:38They saw it as an experiment, as a try at solving the problem of a central,
01:18:46intensive government for a series of states. What he was pleading for was ratification,
01:18:52so the experiment could be run. In some ways, the federal constitution was the end and the most
01:19:00important experiment to which Franklin was committed in a life in which he made his name
01:19:06as an experimentalist. Franklin signs the document with the flourished signature of his youth.
01:19:16He is the only person to have his name on the three documents that created this country,
01:19:21the Declaration of Independence, the Peace Treaty with England, and the United States Constitution.
01:19:37In 1790, at the age of 84, Benjamin Franklin dies at home.
01:19:4620,000 people attend his funeral, not only the high and the mighty,
01:19:53but the ordinary tradesmen from whose ranks he had risen.
01:19:59When news of his death reaches France, that country is in the throes of its own revolution.
01:20:06King Louis will soon be overthrown, in part because he bankrupted France with his support
01:20:12of the American war. The French assembly immediately announces an official countrywide
01:20:19period of mourning. Benjamin Franklin, the man of humble roots who had snatched lightning from
01:20:26the gods and the scepter from tyrants, is, for the French, a symbol of the new order they hope
01:20:32to establish. For Americans, Franklin's legacy would be much more complex.
01:20:43In the century following his death, he was mythologized
01:20:47as the patron saint of success through hard work and diligence.
01:20:52Franklin's autobiography led Mark Twain to complain that Franklin was the author
01:20:57of a vicious conspiracy against every boy growing up in America, because that boy's
01:21:04father could point to the autobiography and said, young Ben was able to do this at age so and so,
01:21:10and you, you out, are incapable of it. There's an important and highly significant fact
01:21:19that Franklin suppresses from the autobiography. He never tells you that he's a genius.
01:21:28In our own time, the magnitude of Franklin's achievements continues to astonish.
01:21:35After 782 pages, his biographer Carl Van Doren gave up trying to sum him up.
01:21:43He wrote that Franklin seemed to be not one person, but a harmonious human multitude.
01:21:51Well, I often say, you know, that when we look for Ben Franklin's legacy, we don't have to look
01:21:55far, because each and every one of us has Ben Franklin's living legacy. And I think he'd come
01:22:00back and he'd look at the streetlights and the paved streets and the fire companies
01:22:04and the schools, and he would see himself and his ideas and hope for us reflected in all those
01:22:09things. The real distinction between Franklin and the rest of the founding fathers was that Franklin
01:22:15takes great pride in being a tradesman. And he believes that the foundation of American democracy
01:22:23is not some elite, not some aristocracy, but the middle class shopkeeper who's learned,
01:22:29who cares about civic life, and can participate in democracy. I think what Franklin demonstrates
01:22:35is the importance of intellectual flexibility. He was profoundly interested in issues and was
01:22:43willing to change his convictions according to observations. Let the experiment be made.
01:22:49That was his philosophy. Franklin was born at a time when witches were thought to be real,
01:22:57and he died at the dawn of the modern age. It is an age that, to a surprising degree,
01:23:04he himself helped shape. He came from a society where class determined one's station in life,
01:23:11and he helped create a country where merit and ability could flourish.
01:23:16In a rigid world of orthodoxy and dogma, he believed to the core of his soul in the virtues
01:23:21of tolerance and compromise. The quintessential optimist, he never doubted, even for a moment,
01:23:30that the future of humanity lay in the infinite power of human reason.
01:23:36The rapid progress of the sciences makes me, at times, sorry that I was born so soon.
01:23:43Imagine the power that man will have over matter a few hundred years from now. We may learn how to
01:23:51remove gravity from large masses and float them over great distances. Agriculture will double
01:23:56its produce with less labor. All diseases will surely be cured, even old age. If only the moral
01:24:04sciences could be improved as well. Perhaps men would cease to be wolves to one another,
01:24:10and human beings could learn to be human.
01:25:10Major funding for Benjamin Franklin is provided by the Northwestern Mutual Foundation.
01:25:39The people of Northwestern Mutual are proud to have supported this remarkable series on PBS,
01:25:45celebrating the wisdom and ingenuity of one of America's most distinguished founding fathers.
01:25:50Major funding is also provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities,
01:25:56expanding America's understanding of who we were, who we are, and who we will be.
01:26:02The Pew Charitable Trusts, investing in ideas, returning results. Additional funding is provided
01:26:10by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for Public Understanding of Science and Technology,
01:26:16the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
01:26:23By these funders, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you.