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SIR,

LORD DARTMOUTH'S ANSWER TO DR. FRANKLIN'S LETTER.

Sandwell, 25th of August, 1773.

I have received your letter of the 21st instant, together with an Address of the House of Representatives of the Massachusetts Bay, which I shall not fail to lay before the King, the next time I shall have the honor of being admitted into his presence. I cannot help expressing to you the pleasure it gives me to hear that a sincere disposition prevails in the people of that province to be on good terms with the mother country, and my earnest hope that the time is at no great distance, when every ground of uneasiness will cease, and the most perfect tranquillity and happiness be restored to the breasts of that people,

I am, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

DARTMOUT . Benjami Fra

klin, Esq.

Both Houses at the same time joined in a letter to Lord Dartmouth on this subject, (dated June 29.) It came through Dr. Franklin's hands, and he transmitted it to his Lordship.

The petition of the Massachusetts assembly lay for some time in the hands of the ministers ; and in the beginning of the following year was taken up. Mr. Mauduit, who acted as agent for the governor, had several private conferences with the ministers, and addressed to the committee of the privy council, on the 10th of January 1774, the following letter :

To the Lords' Committee of His Majesty's Privy Council for Plantation Affairs.

THE PETITION OF ISRAEL MAUDUIT

Humbly sheweth unto your Lordships,

THAT having been informed, that an address, in the name of the house of representatives of his majesty's colony of Massachusetts Bay, has been presented to his majesty by Benjamin Franklin, esquire, praying the removal of his majesty's governor and lieutenant-governor, which is appointed to be taken into consideration on Thursday next; your petitioner, on the behalf of the said governor and lieutenant-governor, humbly prays, that he may be heard by counsel in relation to the same, before your lordships shall make any report on the said address. ISRAEL MAUDUIT.

Clement's Lane, Jan. 10, 1774.

A controversy had taken place in the public prints between Mr. Thomas Whately's brother and Mr. John Temple, arising out of the manner in which the letters of Governor Hutchinson, &c. had passed to Boston, from among the papers of Mr. Thomas Whately, who was at this time deceased.

Mr. Whately wished to avoid the charge of having given them, Mr. Temple of having taken them. At length the dispute became so personal and pointed, that Mr. Temple thought it necessary to call the surviving 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; and it was only after some interval that he received the intelligence. What had passed he could not foresee: but he considered it to be his duty, and therefore he endeavoured to prevent what still might otherwise follow, by publishing the following article :

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 declaration 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 privacy, was, to 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.

B. FRANKLIN,

Agent for the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay.

Craven-street, Dec. 25, 1773.

It will be seen by the dates, that this publication by Dr. Franklin, and the transactions which led to it, followed the presentation of the Massachusetts petition, and preceded the letter of Mr. Mauduit to the council; and it will be seen in the narration that follows of the proceedings before the privy council, that these letters and publications, were brought into view, and produced effects, which ought to be a perpetual lesson to statesmen.

The committee of privy-council met on the 11th of January, 1774.

Present. The lord president of the council.

The secretaries of State, and many other lords.

Dr. Franklin and Mr. Bollan, agents for Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

Mr. Mauduit, agent for the governor of Massachusetts, with Mr. Wedderburn as his counsel Dr. Franklin's Letter and the Address, Mr. Pownall'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 lieutenant-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 honor 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 the 29th instant.

VOL. I.

The committee of privy-council met according to their adjournment, on the 29th January following, when Mr. John Dunning (afterwards lord Ashburton) and Mr. John Lee, both eminent lawyers, appeared as counsel on behalf of the Massachusett's assembly. Mr. Wedderburn (afterwards lord Loughborough) appeared as counsel for the governor and lieutenant-go

vernor.

The matter being a complaint from the Massachusett's assembly, their counsel were first heard of course. Mr. Wedderburn was very long and laborious, and indecently acrimonious in his answers. Instead of justifying his clients, or vindicating their conduct in the administration, which was the matter complained of, Mr. Wedderburn bent the whole force of his discourse, which was an inflammatory invective, against Dr. Franklin, who sat, with calm equanimity, an auditor of this injudicious and indecorous course of proceeding.

The principal butt of his acrimony was the matter of dispute between Mr. Temple and Mr. Whately; and the preceding letter published by Dr. Franklin in the Public Advertiser of 25th December, 1773.

Mr. Dunning had substantiated the complaints of the assembly by exhibiting the letters, which were at this time published in a pamphlet ; and also in the Remembrancer of 1773; and he stood upon their letters as proof of their being unworthy of the confidence of the government, as well as of the assembly of Massachusetts. Among other matters, he stated, that Andrew Oliver had suggested to the ministry—" to stipulate with the merchants of England, and purchase from them large quantities of goods proper for the American market; agreeing beforehand to allow them a premium equal to the advance of their stock in the trade, if the price of their goods was not enhanced by a tenfold demand in future, even though the goods might lay on hand till this temporary stagnation of business ceased. By such a step," said he," the game will be up with my countrymen." That Oliver had on other occasions (in a letter to the ministry, dated Feb. 15, 1769,)" indirectly recommended assassination;" his words being," that some method should be devised to take off the original incendiaries, whose writings supplied the fuel of sedition through the Boston Gazette." And he referred to the case of Mr. Otis, who, notwithstanding he held the office of king's advocate, under the predecessor of governor Hutchinson, had been at night attacked by one Robinson, a commissioner of the king's customs, at the head of a gang of ruffians armed with swords and bludgeons; who, on entering the house, extinguished the lights, and after leaving the respectable gentleman covered with wounds, fled and found a refuge on board a king's ship. Mr. Hutchinson by one declaration alone, he said, justified all the complaints of Massachusetts, and called for an immediate dismission of an officer so hostile to the rights and liberties of his countrymen. He who had declared "there must be an abridgment of English liberties in the colonies," was justly charged with "making wicked and injurious re

'The writers alluded to were Messrs. Otis, Dexter, Warren, Adams, Quinsey, Mayben and Cooper. Mr. Otis was so much injured by the wounds he received, as never to recover, and afterwards died in a state of mental derangement, produced by his wounds.

presentations, designed to influence the ministry, and the nation, and to excite jealousies in the breast of the king against his faithful subjects."

The speeches of Messrs. Dunning and Lee were never reported at length; but the extracts which they read were marked for them by Dr. Franklin, of which the following is one.

extracts from hutchinson's correspondence.

Boston, June 22, 1772.

"The union of the colonies is pretty well broke; I hope I shall never see it renewed. Indeed our sons of liberty are hated and despised by their former brethren in New York and Pennsylvania; and it must be something very extraordinary ever to reconcile them."

Boston, December 8, 1772.

"You see no difference between the case of the colonies and that of Ireland. I care not in how favorable a light you look upon the colonies, if it does not separate us from you. You will certainly find it more difficult to retain the colonies, than you do Ireland. Ireland is near you, and under your constant inspection; all officers are dependent and removable at pleasure. The colonies are remote, and the officers generally more disposed to please the people than the king or his representative. In Ireland you have always the ultima ratio, [a standing army] in the colonies you are either destitute of it, or you have no civil magistrate to direct the use of it."

Mr. Wedderburn, after a review of the arguments of counsel, and the customary eulogies on the loyalty and services of his clients, evading the examination of the matter in complaint, directed himself to an inculpation of the assembly and people of Massachusetts, and intemperately against the character and conduct of Dr. Franklin generally, but particularly in the case of the letters.

"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 honor 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 virtue? 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 trium1 literarum!

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