orical value than with its interest as a dramatic story. In conversation one day with an English gentleman, Franklin spoke with resentment of the sending troops to Bos

should be circulated only among a few leading men. His purpose, he said, lay in his belief that when the "principal people" in Boston "saw the measures they complained of took their rise in a great degree from the representations and recommendations of their own countrymen, their resentment against Britain might abate, as mine has done, and a reconciliation be more easily obtained."[30] Franklin accordingly sent over the letters, together with strict injunctions in pursuance of his engagement to the giver of them: "In confidence of your following inviolably my engagement," etc., he wrote. But this solemn instruction was not complied with; the temptation was too great for the honor of some among the patriots, who resolved that the letters should be m

been received there. To this day it is not known by whom the letters were given to Franklin. July 25, 1773, he wrote to Mr. Cushing, the speaker of the Assembly, to whom he had inclosed the letters: "I observe that you mention that no person besides Dr. Cooper and one member of the committee knew they came from me. I did not accompany them with any request of being myself concealed; for, believing what I did to be in the way of my duty as agent, though I had no doubt of its giving offense, not only to the parties exp

n governor of New Hampshire, and later in letters to his friends there had announced the coming of the letters before they had actually arrived. The expression of suspicion towards Temple found its way into a newspaper, bolstered with an intimation that the information came from Thomas Whately. Temple at once made a demand upon Whately to exculpate him. This of course Whately could not do, since he had not inspected the letters taken by Temple, and so could not say of his knowledge that these were not among them. But instead of taking this perfectly safe ground, he published a card stating that Temple had had access to the letters of the deceased for a special purpose, and that Temple had solemnly averred to him, Whately, that he had neither removed nor copied any letters save those written by himself and his brother. This exoneration was far from satisfying T

r of the Publ

cause they were never in his possession; and for the same reason they could not be taken from him by Mr. Temple. They were not of the nature of private letters between friends. They were written by public officers to persons in public stations on public affairs, and intended to procure public measures; they were therefore handed to other public persons, who might be influenced by them to produce those measures. Their tendency was to incense t

rank

House of Rep

husett

et, Decembe

Dartmouth, with a very civil and conciliatory note, to which Lord Dartmouth replied in the same spirit. This took place in August, 1773; the duel followed in December, and in the interval Franklin had heard nothing from the petition. But when his foregoing letter was published and conned over it seemed that the auspicious moment for the ministry was now at hand, and that it had actually been furnished to them by the astute Franklin himself. There is no question that he had acted accord

e service in colony cases." "Those who are eminent and hope to rise in their profession are unwilling to offend the court, whose disposition on this occasion was well known." The next day at the hearing Mr. Bollan endeavored to speak; but, though he had been summoned, he was summarily silenced, on the ground that the colonial Council, whose agent he was, was not a party to the petition. Franklin then laid the petition and authenticated copies of the letters before the committee. Some objections to the receipt of copies instead of originals were raised by Mr. Wedderburn, solicitor-general and counsel for Hutchinson and Oliver. Franklin then spoke with admirable keenness and skill. He said that he had not conceived the matter to call for discussion by lawyers; but that it was a "question of civil or political prudence, whether, on the state of the fact that the governors had lost all trust and confidence with the peo

quarters that the ministry and courtiers were highly enraged against him; he was called an incendiary, and the newspapers teemed with invectives against him. He heard that he was to be apprehended and sent to Newgate, and that his papers were to be seized; that after he had been sufficiently blackened by the hearing he would be deprived of his place;

the world and a philosopher, with sixty-eight years of experience in life. Mr. Dunning, with his voice unfortunately weakened by a cold, was not always audible and made little impression. Mr. Lee was uselessly feeble. Wedderburn, thus inefficiently opposed, and conscious of the full sympathy of the tribunal, poured forth a vile flood of personal invective. Throughout his life he approved himself a mean-spirited and ignoble man, despised by those who used and rewarded his able and debased services. On this occasion he eagerly took advantage of the protection afforded by his position and by Dr. Franklin's age to use language which, under such circumstances, was as cowardly as it was false. Nothing, he said, "will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining [the letters] by fraudulent or corrupt means, for the most malignant of purposes, unless he stole them from the person who stole them." "I hope, my lords, you will mark and brand the man, for the honor of this country,

then '

etter, I dispo

espised, and

, by poetic fiction only, to the bloody African, is not s

cept Lord North," who came late and remained standing behind a chair. It was a disgraceful scene, but not of long duration; apparently there was little else done save to hear the speeches of counsel. The report of the lords was dated on the same day, and was a severe censure upon the petition and the petitioners. More than this, their lordships went out of their way to inflict a wanton outrage upon Franklin. The question of who gave the letters to him was one which all concerned were extremely anxious to hear answered. But it was also a question which he could not

first treaty ever made by the United States of America, and which practically insured the defeat of Great Britain in the pending war, it was observed by Dr. Bancroft that he was attired in this same suit. The signing was to have taken place on February 5, but was unexpectedly postponed to the next day, when again Franklin appeared in the same old suit and set his hand to the treaty. Dr. Bancroft says: "I once intimate

ith posterity than any pamphlet could be. He said: "It was partly written, but the affairs of public importance I have been ever since engaged in prevented my finishing it. The injuries too that my country has suffered have absorbed pri

ster-general found it necessary to dismiss me from my office of deputy postmaster-general in North America." In other ways, too, the mischief done him by this public assault could not be conce

red as the prominent representative of an unpopular cause. But it seemed now as if his judgment had once and fatally played him false, and certainly his good name and his prestige were given over to his enemies, who dealt cruelly with them. He felt that it was the end of his usefulness, also that his o

ived a rebuke from the Massachusetts Assembly for having been lax, as they fancied, in notifying them of some legislation of an injurious character, which was in preparation. "This censure," he said, "though grievous, does not so much surprise me, as I apprehended all along from the beginning that between the friends of an old agent, my predecessor, who thought himself hardly used in his dismission, and those of a young man impatient for the succession, my situation was not likely to be a very comfortable one, as my faults could scarce pass unobserved." This reference to the malicious and untrustworthy back-biter, Arthur Lee, might have been much more severe, and still amply deserved. The most important acts of his ignoble life, by which alone his memory is preserved, were the slanders which he set in circulation conc

ral letters of mine to you are sent over here to the ministers, and that their contents are treasonable, for which I should be prosecuted if copies could be made evidence." He was not conscious of any treasonable intention, but treason was a word to make a man anxious in those days, when uttered by the ministry and echoed by the court. Franklin was quite aware that, though ministers might offer him a tempting place by way of bribe, they would far rather give him "a place in a cart to Tyburn." His friends warned him that his situation was hazardous; that, "if by some accident the troops and the peopl

by Franklin for colonial government; all her great colonies are now "trusted in a great measure with the government" of themselves, and are consequently "well governed." Franklin further assured his lordship that in all his travels in the provinces he had never once heard independence hinted at as a desirable thing. This gave Chatham much pleasure; but perhaps neither of them at the moment reflected how many eventful years had elapsed since Franklin was last journeying in America. He further declared that the colonists were "even not against regulations of the general commerce by Parliament, provided such regulations were bona fide for the benefit of the whole empire, not to the small advantage of one part to the great injury of another." This, by the way, was a good point, which he found very serviceab

r believe it to be the production of any British peer. It appears to me rather the work of some American. I fancy I have in my eye the person who drew it up, one of the bitterest and most mischievous enemies this country has ever known." Speaking thus, he looked full at Franklin, and drew upon him the general attention. But Chatham hastened to defend the defenseless one. "The plan is entirely my own," he said; "but if I were the first minister, and had the care

ere all knaves, etc." Franklin went home "somewhat irritated and heated," and before he had cooled he wrote a paper which he hastened to show to his friend Mr. Thomas Walpole, a member of the House of Commons. Mr. Walpole "looked at it and at me several times alternately, as if he apprehended me a little out of my senses." Nor would Mr. Walpole have been altogether without reason, if in fact he entertained such a suspicion. The paper was the memorial of Benjamin Franklin to the Earl of Dartmouth, secretary of state. In its first clause it demanded "reparation" for the injury done by the blockade of the port of Boston. Conventional forms of speech were observed, yet there was an atmosphere almost of injurious insolence, entirely foreign to all other productions of Franklin's brain and pen. Its second paragraph recited that the conquests made in the northeast from France, which included all those extensive fisheries which still survive

is head in a gust of uncontrollable passion. Walpole, though a loyal Englishman, was fortunately his true friend, and wrote him, with a brevity more impressive than argument, that the memorial "might be attended with dangerous consequences to your person and contribute to exasperate the nation." He closed with the significant sentence: "I heartily wish you a prosperous voyage and long health." The significant words remind one of the woodcock's feather with which Wildrake warned the disguised monarch that no time was to be

lt to say; no less a person than Lord Howe was concerned in it, and he was undoubtedly in direct communication with Lord North. But whether that potentate really anticipated any substantial good result may be doubted. Franklin himself has told the story with much particularity, and since it will neither bear curtailment nor admit of being rela

ears literally running down his cheeks." Such was the depth of feeling in one often accounted callous, indifferent, or even untrustworthy in the matter of American relations with England. He felt some anxiety as to whether his departure might not be prevented by an arrest, and made his journey to Portsmouth with such speed and precautions as were possible.[36] But he was not interrupted, and sailed on some day near the middle of March, 1775. His departure marked an e