The Revolution That Missed Canada
He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin's Failure to Annex Canada, Dundurn Press (2025) by Madelaine Drohan
Examining a little-known chapter of Canadian-American history, former journalist for The Economist and The Globe and Mail Madelaine Drohan[1] examines in this book the failed efforts of Benjamin Franklin to annex Canada. Franklin, a renowned polymath (publisher, prolific writer, inventor/scientist, and Founding Father of the United States of America), “had suspiciously little to say about his dismal Canadian adventure” in his many public writings.[2] Drohan’s account seeks to repair that.
In present circumstances, it’s a fascinating read.
Born in Boston, Franklin was raised and remained a loyal subject of Britain “until it became clear independence was inevitable.”[3] A runaway to London at an early age, he later returned to Pennsylvania to start a very profitable printing businesses. That success -- and his general adeptness at mixing personal and public ventures -- helped Franklin rise into the role of clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly (1736), then deputy postmaster of Philadelphia (1737), then Postmaster General of British America (1753).[4] Franklin was routinely dispatched to London as an agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly, lobbying to the Privy Council and appearing before the Chief Proprietor of Pennsylvania, Thomas Penn, who lived in London.
In an early piece of writing advocating for stronger defence of the British colony of Pennsylvania, Plain Truth: or, Serious Considerations on the Present State of the City of Philadelphia, and Province of Pennsylvania (1747), Franklin fleshed out arguments for British militarization against French and Indigenous populations on the continent -- which would later enable the fight for independence against the British themselves. Franklin was already viewing as ripe for the colonies’ expansion the French-controlled land to the West of the Appalachian mountains, which roughly defined the geographical limit of Britain’s colonies on what is today the eastern seaboard of the United States.
In 1745, British troops briefly captured the fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton (at the time, Île-Royale). She presents the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which saw the fortress returned to the French in exchange for Chennai (at the time, Madras) to Britain, as an early source of the feud between the colonists and the empire.[6]
Critically undecided in that treaty was the fate of the territory to the West of the Appalachian mountains whose vague boundaries were of such concern to Franklin. As Drohan writes, securing what was then France’s Canada in British hands and expanding to the West would both resolve security issues and “a huge new area would be open for expansion.”[7] Another Franklin essay shortly after this period, Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c (1751), showed the hardening of Franklin’s positions on these issues.[8]
As British designs on French assets in North America intensified, sustained fighting continued to break out. In July 1758, the British captured Louisbourg permanently, followed shortly thereafter by Quebec City (September 1759) and Montreal (September 1760), which helped bring a close to the Seven Years’ War, formally through the Treaty of Paris (1763), bringing almost all of North American under British rule. France retained only a few Caribbean islands.
Shortly after the Treaty of Paris, the Royal Proclamation (1763) established new borders and established the Province of Quebec. The question of the western border for the thirteen colonies was again effectively drawn at the Appalachian Mountains, with the western limit at “the heads or Sources of any of the Rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the West and the North West.”[9] This was a major irritant for the colonists.[10] It meant those colonies were encircled by “a mix of French and English law and toleration of the Catholic faith.”[11]
The Seven Years War also saddled the Brits with enormous debt. In short order, the “Coercive Acts” were introduced to pay for these costs. “This provoked riots and boycotts of British goods in the thirteen colonies,” writes Drohan, but not, interestingly, “in colonies like Canada, Nova Scotia, and Jamaica, which entirely depended on funding from Britain to survive.”[12] In 1774, the Quebec Act gave recognition to the Catholic religion and French civil law. While this move empowered the Catholic clergy and solidified British control over a large part of North America, it incensed the American colonists.
Franklin’s stint as the Postmaster General of British America terminated in 1774, after he had largely failed in efforts to repeal the Coercive Acts or to prevent the Quebec Act from passing.[13] This period dovetailed with the impending splinter between the Thirteen Colonies and the British Empire. Drohan nicely captures the contradictory views of the Thirteen Colonies’ towards French Canada -- oscillating between fear of an alien people and a desire to liberate them.[14] “Some Americans jumped to the conclusion the French Canadians were secret allies,” writes Drohan, “just waiting for the right time to join them.”[15]
As fighting broke out and intensified in 1775, and as many Canadians today do not know, the British were briefly chased out of Montreal -- with the Governor General Guy Carleton paddling down the St. Lawrence to safety in Quebec City, which never fell to the Americans. Franklin arrived in Montreal with two other commissioners to convince French Canadians and the Indigenous population to rise up against the British. But the Catholic clergy advised their followers to resist these calls.[16]
Franklin, who was sick at the time, left after a short time. When Carleton returned, collaborators suffered: goods were seized and houses were burned down.[17] By then, the aim of emancipating Canada was gone. “I am sorry to say -- the plan proposed for the purpose does not appear to me to be eligible, under our present circumstances,” General George Washington wrote in 1778.
Drohan’s book is an able account of these events. While the desire to capture French Canada was common to many British subjects seeking security guarantees against the French and Indigenous populations, early efforts at actually transforming these yearnings into reality is little appreciated today.
—The Director
[1] https://madelainedrohan.org/
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[3] 32
[4] 47
[5] 47
[6] 59
[7] 94
[8] 67
[9] 103
[10] 110
[11] 121
[12] 112
[13] 137
[14] 13
[15] 152
[16] 178
[17] 177