assemblies, but I should be false to the King, and betray the trust he has reposed in me.

"To prevent a general revolt, the naval power may for a long course of years be sufficient, but to preserve the peace of the colonies, and to continue them beneficial to the mother country, this will be to little purpose."

"JOHN POWNAL, Esq.

You know I have been begging for measures to maintain the supremacy of parliament. Whilst it is suffered to be denied, all is confusion, and the opposition to government is continually gaining strength."

"Previous to the discovery of these letters there were many persons in the province who could not be fully convinced, that at the same period when he had put on the guise of compassion to his country, when he had promised all his influence to obtain some relaxation of the coercive system, that at that moment Mr. Hutchinson should be so lost to the ideas of sincerity, as to be artfully plotting new embarrassments to the colonies in general, and the most mischievous projects against the province he was entrusted to govern.'

An account of these famous letters is given in Franklin's Works, which is of sufficient interest and importance to be here introduced. Dr. Franklin, having presented to the Lord's Committee of his Majesty's Privy Council for Plantation affairs, the Address of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, praying for the removal of Governor Hutchinson and Lieutenant-Governor Oliver, was summoned to appear Jan. 11, 1774, at the Council Chamber for exam ination on the subject of the Address.

Present, Lord President, the Secretaries of State, and many other Lords; Dr. Franklin and Mr. Bollan; Mr. Mauduit and Mr. Wedderburn.

[Dr. Franklin's Letter and the Address, Mr. Pownal's Letter, and Mr Mauduit's Petition, were read.]

Mr. Wedderburn. The address mentions certain papers: I could wish to be informed what are those papers.

Dr. Franklin. They are the letters of Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Oliver.

Court. Have you brought them?

Dr. Franklin. No; but here are attested copies.

Court. Do you mean to found a charge upon them? if you do, you must produce the letters.

Dr. Franklin. These copies are attested by several gentlemen at Boston, and a Notary Public.

Mr. Wedderburn. My Lords, we shall not take advantage of any imperfection in the proof. We admit that the letters are Mr. Hutchinson's and Mr. Oliver's hand writing: reserving to ourselves the right of inquiring how they were obtained.

Dr. Franklin. I did not expect that counsel would have been employed on this occasion.

Court. Had you not notice sent you of Mr. Mauduit's having petitioned to be heard by counsel on behalf of the governor and lieutentant-governor.

Dr. Franklin. I did receive such notice; but I thought this had been a matter of politics, not of law, and have not brought my counsel.

Court. Where a charge is brought, the parties have a right to be heard by counsel or not, as they choose.

Mr. Mauduit. My Lords, I am not a native of that country, as these gentlemen are. I know well Dr. Franklin's abilities, and. wish to put the defence of my friends more upon a parity with the attack; he will not therefore wonder that I choose to appear before your lordships with the assistance of counsel. My friends, in their letters to me, have desired (if any proceedings, as they say, should be had upon this address) that they may have a hearing in their own justification, that their innocence may be fully cleared, and their honour vindicated; and have made provision accordingly. I do not think myself at liberty therefore to give up the assistance of my counsel, in defending them against this unjust accusation.

Court. Dr. Franklin may have the assistance of counsel, or go on without it, as he shall choose.

Dr. Franklin. I desire to have counsel.

Court. What time do you want?

Dr. Franklin. Three weeks.

Ordered that the further proceedings be on Saturday, 29th in

stant.

The privy council accordingly met on the 29th of January, 1774; when Mr. Dunning and Mr. John Lee appeared as counsel for the assembly, and Mr. Wedderburn as counsel for the governor and lieutenant-governor. Mr. Wedderburn was very long in his answer; which chiefly related to the mode of obtaining and sending away Mr. Whately's letters; and spoke of Dr. Franklin in terms of abuse, which never escape from one gentleman towards another.In the event, the committee of the privy council made a report, in which was expressed the following opinion. "The Lords of the committee do agree humbly to report, as their opinion to your Majesty, that the petition is founded upon resolutions formed on false and erroneous allegations; and is groundless, vexatious, and scandalous; and calculated only for the seditious purposes of keeping up a spirit of clamour and discontent in the said province. And the Lords of the committee do further humbly report to your majesty, that nothing has been laid before them which does or can, in their opinion, in any manner, or in any degree, impeach the honour, integrity, or conduct of the said governor or lieutenant-governor; and their Lordships are humbly of opinion, that the said petition ought to be dismissed.'

Feb. 7th, 1774. His Majesty taking the said report into consid

eration, was pleased, with the advice of his privy council, to approve thereof; and to order that the said petition of the house of representatives of the province of Massachusett's Bay be dismissed the board -as groundless, vexatious, and scandalous; and calculated only for the seditious purpose of keeping up a spirit of clamour and discontent in the said province.'-A former petition against Governor Bernard met with a dismission couched in similar terms.

SIR,

To the Printer of the Public Advertiser.*

Finding that two gentlemen have been unfortunately engaged in a duel about a transaction and its circumstances, of which both of them are totally ignorant and innocent; I think it incumbent upon me to declare (for the prevention of farther mischief, as far as such a de. claration may contribute to prevent it) that I alone am the person who obtained and transmitted to Boston the letters in question. Mr. W. could not communicate them, because they were never in his possession; and for the same reason, they could not be taken from him by Mr. T.-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 the mother-country against her colonies, and, by the steps recommended, to widen the breach; which they effected.-The chief caution expressed with regard to privaey, was, to I keep their contents from the colony agents; who the writers apprehended might return them, or copies of them to America. That apprehension was, it seems, well founded; for the first agent who laid his hands on them, thought it his duty to transmit them to his constituents.

Craven Street, Dec. 25, 1773.

B. FRANKLIN,

Agent for the House of Representatives of the Massachusett's Bay.

"It was in consequence of this letter that Mr. Wedderburn ventured to make the most odious personal applications. Mr. Mauduit has prudently omitted part of them, in his account of the proceedings

*Some letters had passed in the public prints between Mr. Thomas Whately's brother and Mr. John Temple, concerning the manner in which the letters of Governor/ Hutchinson, &c. had escaped from among the papers of Mr. Thomas Whately, at this time deceased.

The one gentleman wished to avoid the charge of having given them; the other of having taken them. At length the dispute became so personal and pointed, that Mr. Temple thought it necessary to call the brother into the field. The letter of provocation appeared in the morning, and the parties met in the afternoon. Dr. Franklin was not then in town; it was after some interval that he received the intelligence. What had passed he could not foresee; he endeavoured to prevent what still might follow.

before the privy council. They are given here altogether however, (as well as they could be collected,) to mark the politics of the times, and the nature of the censures passed in England upon Dr. Frank lin's character.

"The letters could not have come to Dr. Franklin,' said Mr. Wedderburn, 'by fair means. The writers did not give them to him; nor yet did the deceased correspondent, who from our intimacy would otherwise have told me of it: Nothing then will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining them by fraudulent or corrupt means, for the most malignant of purposes; unless he stole them, from the person who stole them. This argument is irrefragable.'

I hope, my lords, you will mark [and brand] the man, for the honour of this country, of Europe, and of mankind. Private correspondence has hitherto been held sacred, in times of the greatest party rage, not only in politics but religion.-'He has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity of vir tue. Men will watch him with a jealous eye; they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their escrutoires. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a man of letters; homo trium literatum!

'But he not only took away the letters from one brother; but kept himself concealed till he nearly occasioned the murder of the other. It is impossible to read his account, expressive of the coolest and most deliberate malice, without horror.' [Here he read the letter above; Dr. Franklin being all the time present.] Amidst these tragical events, of one person nearly murdered, of another answerable for the issue, of a worthy governor hurt in his dearest interests, the fate of America in suspense; here is a man, who with the utmost insensibility of remorse, stands up and avows himself the author of all. } can compare it only to Zanga in Dr. Young's Revenge.

"Know then 'twas-I:

I forged the letter, I disposed the picture ;

I hated, I despised, and I destroy."

"I ask, my Lords, whether the revengeful temper attributed, by poetic fiction only, to the bloody African, is not surpassed by the coolness and apathy of the wily American?'

These pleadings for a time worked great effect: The lords assented, the town was convinced, Dr. Franklin was disgraced,* and Mr. Wedderburn seemed in the road for every kind of advancement. Unfortunately for Mr. Wedderburn, the events of the war did not correspond with his systems. Unfortunately too for his "irrefragable argument," Dr. Franklin afterwards took an oath in chancery, that at the time that he transmitted the letters, he was ignorant of the party to whom they had been addressed; having himself received them from a third person, and for the express purpose of their being conveyed to America. Unfortunately also for Mr. Wedderburn's "worthy governor," that governor himself, before the arrival of Dr.

*He was dismissed from his place in the Post-office.

Franklin's packet in Boston, sent over one of Dr. Franklin's own "private" letters to England; expressing some little coyness indeed upon the occasion, but desiring secrecy, lest he should be prevented procuring more useful intelligence from the same source. Whether Mr. Wedderburn in his speech intended to draw a particular case and portraiture, for the purpose only of injuring Dr. Franklin; or meant that his language and epithets should apply generally to all, whether friends or foes, whose practice should be found similar to it; is a matter that must be left to be adjusted between Governor Hutchinson and Mr. Wedderburn.

But to return to Dr. Franklin. It was not singular perhaps that as a man of honour, he should surrender his name to public scrutiny in order to prevent mischief to others, and yet not betray his coadju tor (even to the present moment,) to relieve his own fame from the severest obloquy; but perhaps it belonged to few besides Dr. Franklin, to possess mildness and magnanimity enough, to refrain from intemperate expressions and measures, against Mr. Wedderburn and his supporters, after all that had passed."

. Soon after this Dr. Franklin returned to America.

Mr. Walsh, in his usual style of classical eloquence, refering to this singular affair, says,—

"The discussion of the merits of the petition before the Privy Council, took place on the 29th of January, 1774; Franklin was present, accompanied by some few friends, and the lawyers employed for the colony. Mr. Wedderburn, the Solicitor General of the Crown, appeared as counsel for Hutchinson and his accomplices; or, rather, as the gladiator of the ministers, who had fixed upon this occasion for the prostration of the American advocate, and had assembled a number of their friends to witness the edifying spectacle. Wedderburn gave himself little trouble about vindicating his nominal clients, but assailed the intended victim with the most opprobrious charges, and the most vehement invective. He held him forth as 'a thief and a murderer;' as, 'having forfeited all the respect of societies and of men.' As he alternated his abuse with humorous sarcasms, the members of the council universally laughed aloud and the retainers of the ministry joined in the chorus. Franklin betrayed not the least emotion; he saw and heard with calm dignity; he only remarked to one of his lawyers, after the predetermined absolution of the culprits, that he was sincerely sorry to observe the lords of council behave so indecently, and to find that the coarsest language could be grateful to the politest ear.' This scene is one which calls for national commemoration, by the pencil of a Trumbull. It overwhelms us with astonishment, when we reflect that the proper question for consideration, was no other than the solemn complaint and prayer of an important province; that the man thus treated was the representative of that, and three other considerable provinces; the boast and idol of all the colonies, then in a state of fearful incalescence; venerable for his age, his genius, his discoveries and writings as a philosopher and a moralist; one whom all Europe besides was