Even though Lippincott was tried and acquitted, the Americans weren’t satisfied and still wanted to execute Captain Asgill. Their ally King Louis XVI calmed the waters and convinced the Americans that killing an innocent man would not look good publicly on such a new country. Lippincott was removed to Nova Scotia, and Asgill was allowed to return to England in 1782. The Asgill Affair temporarily ended peace negotiations between Americans and the British at a crucial moment at the end of the war. When this occurred, William’s father was stationed in Paris as the American ambassador to the French court, so he was dealing first-hand with the repercussions of his son’s Loyalist activities. William’s role in the Asgill Affair cemented his fate and his exile.
After the Asgill Affair, William Franklin left the United States when the British left New York and he never returned to America. He became a major supporter of the Loyalist cause in England, claiming that the English should try to get the colonies back. Despite the loss at Yorktown, other British military successes in North America and a naval victory in the war against the French made the British think they still had a chance to win the colonies back.
William tried to reconcile with his father, but Benjamin never seemed to want one. Benjamin, however, did dote on William’s illegitimate son, William Temple Franklin. Temple became Benjamin’s secretary during the American Revolution, and the two developed a very strong bond. William and Benjamin Franklin saw each other one more time in 1785, before Benjamin Franklin’s death in 1790, when he had stopped in England while returning home to America from France. The visit was not necessarily a happy one: it was more to settle administrative and legal matters between them.
Benjamin suggested that William sign over the deeds of land that William owned in the United States to his son Temple, to which William only gave Temple part of it. When Benjamin died in 1790, he left his son almost nothing, showing that even in death, reconciliation wasn’t a possibility. In 1813, William Franklin died. He was buried at the St. Pancras Old Church cemetery, but that gravestone is now missing, so we don’t know where his grave is located.
The story of the tense relationship between Benjamin Franklin and his son William is one of the forgotten stories of the American Revolution: how divided loyalties pitted father against son and drove a wedge between the two men for the rest of their lives. It is shocking to think that the son of one of our Founding Fathers was a Loyalist, and it’s not surprising that he would want to keep that information hidden. After the Revolution, Benjamin Franklin became known for his intolerance for Loyalists, and one wonders if his personal turmoil over his son’s Loyalist actions has anything to do with that.
Sources For Further Reading:
American Battlefield Trust – William Franklin
Mental Floss – The True Story Behind Ben Franklin’s Lightning Experiment
Time Magazine – My Son, My Enemy
Smithsonian Magazine – Benjamin Franklin Joins the Revolution
Journal of American Revolution – Joshua Huddy: The Scourge Of New Jersey Loyalists
US History – Franklin’s Contributions to the American Revolution as a Diplomat in France