in them. Such censures I have generally passed over in silence, conceiving, when they were just, that I ought rather to amend than defend; and when they were undeserved, that a little time would justify me. Much experience has confirmed my opinion of the propriety of this conduct; for notwithstanding the frequent, and sometimes the virulent, attacks which the jostlings of party interests have drawn upon me, I have had the felicity of bringing down to a good old age as fair a reputation (may I be permitted to say it) as most public men that I have known, and have never had reason to repent my neglecting to defend it.

I should therefore (persisting as old men ought to do in old habits) have taken no notice of the late invective of the solicitor-general, nor of the abundant abuse in the papers, were I not urged to it by my friends, who say, that the first being delivered by a public officer of government, before a high and most respectable court, the privy-council, and countenanced by its report, and the latter having that for its foundation, it behoves me, more especially as I am about leaving this country, to furnish them with the knowledge of such facts as may enable them to justify to others their good opinion of me. This compels me to the present undertaking; for otherwise, having for some time past been gradually loosing all public connections, declining my agencies, determined on retiring to my little family, that I might enjoy the remainder of life in private repose, indifferent to the opinion of courtiers, as having nothing to seek or wish among them, and being secure that time would soon lay the dust which prejudice and party have so lately raised, I should not think of giving myself the trouble of writing, and my friends of reading, an apology for my political

conduct.

That this conduct may be better understood, and its consistency more apparent, it seems necessary that I should first explain the principles on which I have acted. It has long appeared to me that the only true British policy was that which aimed at the good of the whole British Empire, not that which sought the advantage of one part in the disadvantage of the others: therefore all measures of procuring gain to the mother country arising from loss to her colonies, and all of gain to the colonies arising from or occasioning loss to Britain, especially where the gain was small and the loss great, every abridgement of the power of the mother country where that power was not prejudicial to the liberties of the colonists, and every diminution of the privileges of the colonists, where they were not prejudicial to the welfare of the mother country, I, in my own mind, condemned as improper, partial, unjust, and mischievous; tending to create dissentions, and weaken that union, on which the strength, solidity, and duration of the empire greatly depended; and I opposed, as

far as my little powers went, all proceedings either here or in America, that in my opinion had such tendency. Hence it has often happened to me, that while I have been thought here too much of an American, I have in America been deemed too much of an Englishman.

From a thorough enquiry (on occasion of the stamp act) into the nature of the connection between Britain and the colonies, I became convinced, that the bond of their union is not the parliament but the king. That in removing to America, a country out of the realm, they did not carry with them the statutes then existing; for if they did, the Puritans must have been subject there to the same grievous act of conformity, tithes, spiritual courts, &c. which they meant to be free from by going thither; and in vain would they have left their native country, and all the conveniences and comforts of its improved state, to combat the hardships of a new settlement in a distant wilderness, if they had taken with them what they meant to fly from, or if they had left a power behind them capable of sending the same chains after them, to bind them in America. They took with them, however, by compact, their allegiance to the king, and a legislative power for the making a new body of laws. with his assent, by which they were to be governed. Hence they became distinct states, under the same prince, united as Ireland is to the crown but not to the realm of England, and governed each by its own laws, though with the same sovereign, and having each the right of granting its own money to that sovereign.

At the same time, I considered the king's supreme authority over all the colonies, as of the greatest importance to them, affording a dernier resort for settling all their disputes, a means of preserving peace among them with each other, and a centre in which their common force might be united against a common enemy. This authority I therefore thought, when acting within its due limits, should be ever as carefully supported by the colonists as by the inhabitants of Britain.

In conformity with these principles, and as agent for the colonies, I opposed the stamp act, and endeavoured to obtain its repeal, as an infringement of the rights of the colonists, of no real advantage to Britain, since she might ever be sure of greater aids from our voluntary grants, than she could expect from arbitrary taxes, as by loosing our respect and affection, on which much of her commerce with us depended, she would lose more in that commerce than she could possibly gain by such taxes, and as it was detrimental to the harmony which had till then so happily subsisted, and which was so essential to the welfare of the whole. And to keep up as much as in me lay, a reverence for the king, and a respect for the British nation on that side the water, and on this, some regard for the colonies (both tending to promote

that harmony,) I industriously on all occasions, in my letters to America, represented the measures that were grievous to them, as being neither royal nor national measures, but the schemes of an administration, which wished to recommend itself for its ingenuity in finance, or to avail itself of new revenues in creating, by places and pensions, new dependencies; for that the king was a good and gracious prince, and the people of Britain their real friends. And on this side the water, I represented the people of America as fond of Britain, concerned for its interests and its glory, and without the least desire of a separation from it. In both cases, I thought and still think, I did not exceed the bounds of truth, and I have the heart-felt satisfaction attending good intentions, even when they are not successful.

With these sentiments I could not but see with concern the sending of troops to Boston; and their behaviour to the people there, gave me infinite uneasiness, as I apprehended from that measure the worst of consequences;—a breach between the two countries. And I was the more concerned when I found, that it was considered there as a national measure, (since none here opposed it) and as a proof that Britain had no longer a parental regard for them. I myself in conversation sometimes spoke of it in this light, and I own with some resentment, (being myself a native of that country) till I was, to my great surprize, assured by a gentleman of character and distinction (whom I am not at present permitted to name) that not only the measure I particularly censured so warmly, but all the other grievances we complained of, took their rise, not from the government here, but were projected, proposed to administration, solicited, and obtained, by some of the most respectable among the Americans themselves; as necessary measures for the welfare of that country. As I could not readily assent to the probability of this, he undertook to convince me, and he hoped through me (as their agent here) my countrymen. Accordingly, he called on me some days after, and produced to me these very letters from Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson, Secretary Oliver, and others, which have since been the subject of so much discussion.

Though astonished, I could not but confess myself convinced, and I was ready as he desired to convince my countrymen; for I saw, I felt indeed by its effect upon myself, the tendency it must have towards a reconciliation, which for the common good I earnestly wished; it appeared, moreover, my duty to give my constituents intelligence of such importance to their affairs;—but there was some difficulty, as this gentleman would not permit copies to be taken of the letters; and if that could have been done, the authenticity of those copies might have been doubted and disputed. My simple account of them, as papers I had seen, would have been

still less certain; I therefore wished to have the use of the originals for that purpose, which I at length obtained, on these express conditions: that they should not be printed, that no copies should be taken of them, that they should be shown only to a few of the leading people of the government, and that they should be carefully returned.

I accepted those conditions, and under the same transmitted the original letters to the committee of correspondence at Boston, without taking or reserving any copy of them for myself. I agreed the more willingly to the restraint, from an apprehension that a publication might, considering the state of irritation in which the minds of the people there had long been kept, occasion some riot of mischievous consequence. I had no other scruple in sending them, for as they had been handed about here to injure that people, why not use them for their advantage? The writers, too, had taken the same liberty with the letters of others, transmitting hither those of Rosne and Auchmuty in confirmation of their own calumnies against the Americans; copies of some of mine too, had been returned here by officers of government; why then should theirs be exempt from the same treatment? To whom they had been directed here I could only conjecture; for I was not informed, and there was no address upon them when I received them. My letter, in which I enclosed them, expressed more fully the motives above-mentioned for sending them, and I shall presently give an extract of so much of it as related to them.

A

But as it has, on the contrary, been roundly asserted that I did not, as agent, transmit those letters to the assembly's committee of correspondence; that I sent thein to a junto, my peculiar correspondents; that fearing to be known as the person who sent them, I had insisted on the keeping that circumstance a secret; that I had "shown the utmost solicitude to have that secret kept;" and as this has been urged as a demonstrative proof that I was conscious of guilt in the manner of obtaining them, and therefore feared a discovery so much as to have been afraid of putting my name to the letter in which I enclosed them, and which only appeared to be mine by my well-known hand-writing; I would here, previous to that extract, observe, that on the same paper was first written the copy of a preceding letter, which had been first signed by me as usual; and, accordingly, the letter now in question began with these words, "The above is a copy of my last ;" and all the first part of it was on business transacted by me relating to the affairs of the province, and particularly to two petitions sent to me as agent by the assembly, to be presented to the king. These circumstances must to every person there have as clearly shown me to be the writer of that letter, as my well-known hand must have

done to those peculiar correspondents of my own, to whom it is said I sent it. If then I hoped to be concealed by not signing my name to such a letter, I must have been as silly as that bird, which is supposed to think itself unseen when it has hid only its head. And if I could depend on my correspondents keeping secret a letter and a transaction which they must needs know were mine, I might as well have trusted them with my name, and could have had no motive for omitting it. In truth all I insisted on was, (in pursuance of my engagement) that the letters should not be printed or copied; but I had not at the time the least thought or desire of keeping my part in that transaction a secret; and, therefore, so far from requesting it, I did not so much as give the smallest intimation, even that it would be agreeable to me not to be mentioned on the occasion. And if I had had that inclination, I must have been very weak indeed to fancy, that the person I wrote to, all the rest of the committee of correspondence, five other persons named, and "such others as the committee might think fit to show them to," with three gentlemen here to whom I had communicated the matter, should all keep as a secret on my account what I did not state as a secret, or request should be concealed.

So much of the letter as relates to the Governor's letter, is as follows. "On this occasion I think it fit to acquaint you, that there has lately fallen into my hands, part of a correspondence that I have reason to believe laid the foundation of most, if not all our present grievances. I am not at liberty to tell through what channel I received it; and I have engaged that it shall not be printed, nor any copies taken of the whole, or any part of it; but I am allowed to let it be seen by some men of worth in the province, for their satisfaction only. In confidence of your preserving inviolably my engagement, I send you enclosed the original letters, to obviate every pretence of unfairness in copying, interpolation, or omission. The hands of the gentlemen will be well known. Possibly they may not like such an exposal of their conduct, however tenderly and privately it may be managed. But if they are good men, or pretend to be such, and agree that all good men wish a good understanding and harmony to subsist between the colonies and their mother country, they ought the less to regret, that at the small expence of their reputation for sincerity and public spirit among their compatriots, so desirable an event may in some degree be forwarded. For my own part, I cannot but acknowledge that my resentment against this country, for its arbitrary measures in governing us, conducted by the late minister, has, since my conviction by these papers, that those measures were projected, advised, and called for, by men of character among ourselves, and whose advice must therefore be attended with all the weight that was