Franklin by Davidson Butler

protection, I shall do nothing unworthy the character of an honest man, and one that loves his family.” But sometime later, a visitor from Philadelphia would stumble upon evidence of Franklin’s affairs. Finding the door at the Craven Street home unlocked, Charles Willson Peale – an artist and close friend of William’s – let himself him. Peering through another door, left ajar, he witnessed Franklin kissing and fondling a young woman on his lap.
    Like his father, William found it difficult to control his carnal desires, and soon he informed Franklin he was a grandfather. A son, whom William named William Temple , had been born to a woman historians never have identified. She may have had a hat shop, and Franklin uncharacteristically loaned money to set up a business after she sent him a flurry of desperate letters. Franklin insisted his son accept responsibility and gave him money to place the child with a good family in the country, who would raise him until he went to school. The Franklins implored their friend William Strahan to keep a close watch on the boy and hide his paternity for the time being.
    With William’s help, Franklin forced the Penns to agree to be taxed by the Pennsylvania Assembly. To this victory, Franklin added a personal one. Through friends close to the British throne, he secured an appointment for William as governor of New Jersey. For William, it achieved another goal. Now well on his way to becoming his own man, William was at last a worthy match for the lady Elizabeth Downes. He was a self-confident man, in his mid-thirties, with an honorary master of law degree from Oxford and a public office awaiting him in America.
    Franklin could sense his son pulling away. Embittered by his son’s choice of a bride, he left London a few weeks before the wedding. He wrote a sad farewell to Polly Stevenson, who he had hoped to convince William to wed: “Adieu, my dearest child. I will call you so. Why should I not call you so since I love you with all the tenderness, all the fondness of a father? Adieu. May the God of all goodness shower down his choices blessings upon you and make you infinitely hazier than . . . marriage to William could have made you. Adieu.”
    Franklin told his friend William Strahan he felt so depressed on leaving England that Strahan’s “persuasions and arguments” had affected him. “The attraction of reason is at present for the other side of the water, but that of inclination will be for this side. You know which usually prevails. I shall probably make but this one vibration and settle here forever. Nothing will prevent it, if I can, as I hope I can, prevail with Mrs. F. to accompany me.”
    William and Elizabeth were married at St. George’s Church on Hanover Square in a ceremony conducted by her brother. Strahan described the bride as “as good a soul as breathes, and they are very happy in one another. She is indeed a favorite with all who knew her.” Elizabeth knew nothing of her husband’s illegitimate son, and William decided to keep the secret a while longer. As he prepared to leave London, he made arrangements with Strahan to provide for Temple - as he called the boy – from New Jersey. He wrote a will, naming Elizabeth and Temple as his heirs.
    Less than a week later, William Franklin kneeled before King George III to accept his commission as royal governor of New Jersey. Franklin was absent for his son’s oath of office. In letters to his favorite sister, Franklin omitted news of both William’s marriage and his appointment, which resulted in her learning about it in the Boston newspapers. Back in America, he arranged a grand reception for his son that included a salute from members of William’s old cavalry unit. Franklin’s carriage took Elizabeth home. Franklin, meanwhile, laid out his plans for William’s governorship. With his son as a governor directly under the rule of the