Was Ben Franklin A British Agent?

Was Ben Franklin a British secret agent? An interesting speculation. There is some evidence of that. Here are some bullet points.

* Close friendship with Lord le Despencer, founder of Hell-Fire, a society of libertines which British Intelligence used as a cover.
* Use of the pseudonym, “Brother Benjamin of Cookham.”
* Association with the Chevalier d’Eon de Beaumont, a spectacularly successful French secret agent (who usually posed as a woman).
* Membership in a firm of land speculators chartered by the British Government, retained during the Revolution.
* Protests by both French and American diplomats that every move of the Americans in Paris during the Revolution was known by the English Ambassador.
* Existence inside Franklin’s American Embassy of a cell of British Intelligence agents organized by his chief assistant, Bancroft.
* The fact that copies of most of Franklin’s reports to America during the Revolution are in the British Archives.
* Certain memoranda from the British diplomat, Richard Oswald, from Paris to his government in London.
* Franklin’s rejection of espionage charges against Bancroft – a man characterized by King George III himself as a double agent – refusal to investigate those charges and denunciation of the man who made them.
* Documents in the British Museum revealing that Franklin passed on to London information about American shipping.

It is an interesting theory. You can get more evidence at the link. Or try this search – Benjamin Franklin British spy –