Benjamin Franklin in Passy, 1784

The cold and difficult winter of 1783 to 1784 kept Benjamin Franklin indoors, aching from serious bouts of his old complaints (gout and bladder stones) and from the long delay in the arrival of the signed treaty ratification papers from Congress. In North America, ice floes blocked the waterways, and roadways were treacherous. The weather's harshness made it impossible for members of Congress to convene for the ratification of the Treaty of Paris. On Franklin's side of the Atlantic, ice and snow made travel difficult, and it grew so cold that the French government ordered a rationing of firewood. Franklin, in poor health, was essentially stuck at his residence at Jacques Donatien Leray's Hôtel de Valentinois, at Chaumont. Although he had numerous visitors, Franklin worried about his health and the delay of the singularly important papers from Congress. But Franklin was also aching to be back in Philadelphia. In early March, 1784, he wrote to Henry Laurens (awaiting his departure for America) that he wished his own departure "was as near." He was troubled that his repeated pleas for recall to America, now that the peace was concluded, had gone unanswered. With an openness characteristic of these years, Franklin remarked, "I wish rather to die in my own Country than here." He continued with a striking architectural and engineering metaphor that he would repeat in a slightly different version to others, that "tho' the upper Part of the Building appears yet tolerably firm, yet being undermin'd by the Stone and Gout united, its Fall cannot be far distant." The next day, he picked up his pen again, this time to explain he was "too modest" to claim "Infallibility," but he nonetheless desired Laurens would continue to refute the aspersions cast by his enemies in America. He had "liv'd beyond all other Ambition than that of dying with the fair Character he has long endeavour'd to deserve," he wrote (p. 49).

Volume 42 of the exemplary edition of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin provides insight on a significant period in Franklin's career as an international diplomat, economist, scientist, and philosopher. The volume begins at March 1, 1784, when Franklin was worrying about the delays in the arrival of the peace treaty papers, and it concludes just after the time when Franklin learned from Joseph Banks that he was being honored by London's Royal Society for his part, during the war, in keeping American ships from "molesting" the ships of James Cook, "that great Circumnavigator" of the seas (p. 497). There is much to commend in this forty-second volume of a long and prestigious series. This review will trace some of Franklin's key concerns, many of which might be incomprehensible without the editorial apparatus provided, and then remark about the editorial accomplishment of the volume.

The Treaty of Paris marked Franklin's major diplomatic success, so of course he was worried about its ratification within the timeframe allotted for the process. The treaty papers finally arrived in France in very late March. They were signed by King George III on April 9, 1784. David Hartley brought the papers to Paris, where he arrived on April 27. Franklin's hope of returning home to Philadelphia were dashed when the commissioners received correspondence from Congress (in documents dating from May 7 to June 3) that Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson were appointed to negotiate treaties of amity and commerce with twenty European nations and North African powers. Franklin knew such efforts would be nearly impossible, and he was bemused by the decision made in Congress to reduce the salaries of the commissioners. To John Adams, still in The Hague, he wrote acerbically, "You will see that a good deal of Business is cut out for us, Treaties to be made with I think twenty Powers, in two Years, so...