Franklin, William

FRANKLIN, WILLIAM. (1731–1813). Royal governor of New Jersey, Tory leader. Pennsylvania-New Jersey. An illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin, probably by his common-law wife, Deborah Read, he joined the company of Virginia troops raised by Beverley Robinson in 1746 for the expedition against Canada and at the age of about fifteen he rose to the grade of captain. For almost thirty years afterward, he was closely associated with his father as comptroller of the general post office from 1754 to 1756, clerk of the Pennsylvania provincial assembly, and as his father's companion in 1757 when the latter went to England as colonial agent for Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Will, as his father called him, was "a tall proper Youth, and much of a Beau." He studied at the Middle Temple, was admitted to the bar, traveled with his father, and aided him with his scientific investigations. Having become acquainted with the earl of Bute, he was appointed governor of New Jersey in 1763 through the latter's influence. This unsolicited honor may have been given with a view to winning Benjamin Franklin over to the British side.

William Franklin's tenure in the governorship started successfully. His adherence to the royal cause at the start of the Revolution appears to have been prompted by nothing more complicated than a sense of duty to the government that appointed him. In this he was estranged from his father, who after failing in all arguments to win him over, characterized William as "a thorough government man." On 15 June 1776 the Provincial Congress of New Jersey declared him an enemy and ordered his arrest. After severe treatment as a prisoner at East Windsor, Connecticut, he went to New York City in October 1778 after being exchanged for John McKinley, the Patriot president of Delaware. Franklin became president of the Associated Loyalists, which was deprived by Clinton of its powers after the Huddy-Asgill Affair in 1782. After Captain Lippincott was acquitted, blame for the killing of Huddy was transferred to William Franklin and some of the other directors of the Associated Loyalists. Franklin left for England in August 1782. He was allowed a relatively paltry eighteen hundred pounds for the loss of his estate and was given a life pension of eight hundred pounds a year. His first wife, whom he had married in England in 1762, died while he was a prisoner in Connecticut, having never been allowed to visit him there. In the family tradition, William sired an illegitimate son, William Temple Franklin, who became his grandfather Benjamin's secretary in Paris and later edited the works of the great man.

Franklin's career was a tragic paradox. As royal governor he was flexible, moderate, and resourceful, but as president of the Board of Associated Loyalists in the New York garrison town from 1778 and 1782, he tried without much success to smooth relations between Loyalist exiles trapped in the city and British commanders, first Clinton and then Carleton. To have been a stabilizing influence in the New York garrison town as the British military effort moved inexorably toward defeat would have required his father's guile.

SEE ALSO Associated Loyalists; Franklin, Benjamin; Huddy-Asgill Affair.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Skemp, Sheila L. William Franklin: Son of a Patriot, Servant of a King. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

???????. Benjamin and William Franklin: Father and Son, Patriot and Loyalist. Boston: Bedford Books, 1994.

                            revised by Robert M. Calhoon