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THE LIBRARY 
 
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 PRESENTED BY 
 
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 DOCTOR PRIESTLEY, 
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 NKLIN 
 
 PRIVY COUNCIL, 
 
 IAPEL, LONDON, 1774, 
 
 IHALP OP THE 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS, 
 
 L OF HUTCHINSON AND OLIVER. 
 
 LDELPHIA : 
 
 T JOHN M. BUTLER, 
 
 ISTNtTT STREET. 
 
 1860. 
 
FRANKLIN 
 
 BEFORE THE PRIVY COUNCIL, 
 
 WHITE HALL CHAPEL, LONDON, 1774, 
 
 ON BEHALF OP THE 
 
 PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS, 
 
 TO ADVOCATE THE REMOVAL OF HUTCHINSON AND OLIVER. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN M. BUTLER, 
 
 242 CHESTNUT STRKET. 
 
 1860. 
 
Entered according to tli Act of Congress, in the year 1S59 bv 
 
 JOHN M. BTJTLKK, 
 In the Clerk s Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 STEREOTYPED BY 
 
 JESPER HARDING & SON, 
 
 INQUIRER BUILDING), SOUTH TFIIRD STREET, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
INTBODUCTION, 
 
 FRANKLIN BEFORE THE LORDS IN COUNCIL 
 
 IN RELATION TO THK HuTCHINSON AND OLIVER CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 IN Bancroft s history of the United States we have a graphic de 
 scription of this striking scene, arising from one of the most im 
 portant of Franklin s official transactions with his country; and 
 which greatly accelerated the course of events resulting in the inde 
 pendence of the Colonies. 
 
 In 1773, Franklin was residing in London as commissioner for the 
 Colonies of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and also of New Jersey 
 and Georgia ; coming to the knowledge of certain letters written by 
 Governor Hutchinson and Lieutenant Governor Oliver, of the 
 province of Massachusetts, to persons in power and office in England, 
 calling for suppressive measures, and advising action detrimental to 
 the interest of the colonies ; and subsequently obtaining possession of 
 the letters, he transmitted copies of them to the Speaker of the As 
 sembly of Massachusetts ; at the same time calling attention to the 
 insidious character of the documents, and the unfaithful character 
 of their public officers. The perusal of these letters excited the 
 greatest indignation. The House of Representatives respectfully 
 petitioned his Majesty for the removal of the Governor and Lieutenant 
 Governor; charging them with betraying their trust, and the people 
 they governed ; and with giving private, partial, and false information 
 to those in power. They also declared them enemies to the colonies, 
 and prayed for their speedy removal from office. 
 
 It was upon this question that Franklin came before the Council, 
 assisted by John Dunning and John Lee, to advocate the removal of 
 Hutchinson and Oliver. It was the general opinion in America, that 
 
 (iii) 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Hutchinson ought, to be superseded. Wedderburn, the Solicitor 
 General, who appeared in behalf of Hutchinson and Oliver, changed 
 the issue as if Franklin were on trial; and in a speech, replete with 
 falsehood and invective, charged him with the vilest conduct in ob 
 taining and using the letters. This infamous speech was received 
 with cheers and laughter by the Lords in council, who regarded it ;is 
 a triumph over the venerable Franklin and the cause he advocated. 
 It is the narrative of this extraordinary scene that forms the chapter 
 in Bancroft s history, entitled " The King in Council insults the great 
 American Plebeian." 
 
 An event having so direct an influence on the future of the country, 
 and which may be said to have fully awakened the spirit of liberty, 
 cannot fail to be appreciated at the present time. In the splendid 
 engraving of this subject which this volume accompanies, the histo 
 rical importance and truthfulness of the event, together with the in 
 trinsic qualities of the work, having been produced by a combination 
 of talent never before employed on any similar publication, must 
 commend it as a work of great value to the American public. 
 
 This magnificent picture is one of the largest ever published in 
 the country. It is engraved on steel ; and beautifully finished in a 
 superb style of line and stipple; mezzotinto being entirely rejected. 
 It is forty inches by twenty-seven in size, and contains over sixty 
 figures ; comprising the members of the Council, and a number of the 
 most distinguished characters of the day. Among the most con 
 spicuous are Edmund Burke, Dr. Priestley, and Jeremy Bentham, and 
 other personal friends of Franklin, who were at his side during the 
 trying scene. 
 
 The portraits of the members of the Council, and the distinguished 
 persons present are perfectly reliable. Many of them have never be 
 fore been published; and were obtained especially for this work 
 from drawings and paintings remaining in the possession of their 
 families. Several years were devoted to procuring them, through the 
 exertions of competent agents in London, nnd at nn expense greater 
 than is usually incurred for the full completion of meretricious en- 
 gravings, which are frequently published in this country as works of 
 art. The interior of the hall, with its furniture and decorations, is 
 perfectly accurate in nil its details. 
 
 The engraving is from a magnificent painting in oil, by C. Schuessele, 
 of Philadelphia, seven feet by fivo in size, which, for masterly 
 grouping, splendid arrangement of effect and color, and perfect accu 
 racy of portraiture and costume, is universally conceded to be one 
 
INTRODUCTION V 
 
 of the finest national pictures in the country: and has excited the 
 greatest attention wherever exhibited. 
 
 The entire work has been over eight years in preparation, and the 
 best talent in the country employed in every department, that its 
 intrinsic qualities as a work of art may be commensurate with its 
 national and historical importance. It is confidently hoped that its 
 publication will inaugurate an era in American art, when the efforts 
 of our native artists will be produced in a style to meet the growing 
 taste and refinement of the people, and vie with the best productions 
 of the European masters. 
 
 The volume which accompanies the engraving is published exclu 
 sively for subscribers. It contains the splendid chapter from Ban 
 croft s History of the United States descriptive of the event forming 
 the subject of the picture ; and the entire correspondence of Hutch- 
 inson and Oliver. The correspondence is from a volume which is now 
 entirely out of print; and so extremely rare that it is difficult to find 
 even in the largest and most complete libraries in the country. It is in 
 itself an important historical work, and a valuable addition to the 
 picture. 
 
 The Engraving and Book can only be obtained by subscription ; 
 and through the authorized agents of the publisher. In no event 
 will it be on sale at the print or book stores. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 THE KING IN COUNCIL INSULTS THE GREAT AMERICAN 
 
 PLEBEIAN, ...... 3 
 
 LETTERS OF HUTCHINSON AND OLIVER, . . .17 
 
 REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS, . 52 
 
 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF THE ASSEMBLY OF MAS 
 SACHUSETTS BAY, . . . . .67 
 
 THE SPEECH OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EARL OF 
 
 CHATHAM, &c., . . . . .122 
 
 (i) 
 
THE KING IN COUNCIL INSULTS THE GREAT AMERICAN PLEBEIAN. 
 
 THE just man covered with the opprobrium of crime 
 and meriting all the honors of virtue, is the sublimest 
 spectacle that can appear on earth. Against Franklin 
 were arrayed the Court, the Ministry, the Parliament, 
 and an all-pervading social influence; but he only assumed 
 a firmer demeanor and a loftier tone. On delivering to 
 Lord Dartmouth the Address to the King for the removal 
 of Hutchinson and Oliver, he gave assurances, that the 
 people of Massachusetts aimed at no novelties ; that, 
 " having lately discovered the authors of their grievances 
 to be some of their own people, their resentment against 
 Britain was thence much abated." The Secretary pro 
 mised at once to lay the Petition before the King, and 
 expressed his "pleasure" at the communication, as well 
 as his " earnest hope" for the restoration " of the most 
 perfect tranquillity and happiness." It had been the un 
 questionable duty of the Agent of the Province to com 
 municate proof that Hutchinson and Oliver were conspir 
 ing against its Constitution ; to bring censure on the act, 
 it was necessary to raise a belief that the evidence had 
 been surreptitiously obtained. To that end Hutchinson 
 was unwearied in his entreaties ; but William Whately, 
 the Banker, who was his brother s executor, was per- 
 
4 THE KING INSULTS THE GREAT AMERICAN PLEBEIAN. 
 
 suaded that the letters in question had never been in his 
 hands, and refused to cast imputations on any one. 
 
 The newspaper Press was therefore emploj^ed to spread 
 a rumor that they had been dishonestly obtained through 
 John Temple. The anonymous calumny which was at 
 tributed to Bernard, Knox, and Mauduit, was denied by 
 one calling himself "a Member of Parliament," who also 
 truly affirmed, that the letters which were sent to Boston 
 had never been in the executor s hands. Again the Press 
 declared, what was also true, that Whately, the executor, 
 had submitted files of his brother s letters to Temple s 
 examination, who, it was insinuated, had seized the op 
 portunity to purloin them. Temple repelled the charge 
 instantly and successfully. Whately, the executor, never 
 made a suggestion that the letters had been taken away 
 by Temple, and always believed the contrary ; but swayed 
 not so much by the solicitations of Hutchinson and Mau 
 duit, as by his sudden appointment as a banker to the 
 Treasury, he published an evasive card, in which he did 
 not relieve Temple from the implication. 
 
 A duel followed between Temple and Whately, without 
 witnesses ; then newspaper altercations on the incidents 
 of the meeting ; till another duel seemed likely to ensue. 
 Gushing, the timid Speaker of the Massachusetts Assem 
 bly, to whom the letters had been officially transmitted, 
 begged that he might not be known as having received 
 them, lest it should be " a damage" to him; the Member 
 of Parliament, who had had them in his possession, never 
 permitted himself to be named ; Temple, who risked 
 offices producing a thousand pounds a year, publicly de 
 nied " any concern in procuring or transmitting them." 
 To prevent bloodshed, Franklin assumed the undivided 
 
THE KING INSULTS THE GREAT AMERICAN PLEBEIAN. 5 
 
 responsibility, from which every one else was disposed to 
 shrink. " I," said he, " I alone am the person who ob 
 tained and transmitted to Boston the letters in question." 
 His ingenuousness exposed him to " unmerited abuse" in 
 every company and in every newspaper, and gave his 
 enemies an opening to reject publicly the Petition; which 
 otherwise would have been dismissed without parade. 
 
 On Tuesday the eleventh of January, Franklin for 
 Massachusetts, and Mauduit, with Wedderburn, for Hutch- 
 inson and Oliver, appeared before the Privy Council. "I 
 thought," said Franklin, " that this had been a matter of 
 politics, and not of law, and have not brought any coun 
 sel." The hearing was, therefore, adjourned to Saturday 
 the twenty -ninth. Meantime the Ministry and the cour 
 tiers expressed their rage against him ; and talked of his 
 dismissal from office, of his arrest, and imprisonment at 
 Newgate ; of a search among his papers for proofs of 
 Treason ; while Wedderburn openly professed the inten 
 tion to inveigh personally against him. He was also 
 harassed with a subpoena from the Chancellor, to attend 
 his Court at the suit of William Whately, respecting the 
 letters. 
 
 The public sentiment was, moreover, embittered by 
 accounts that the Americans would not suffer the landing 
 of the tea. The zeal of the Colonists was unabated. 
 On New Year s eve, a half chest of tea, picked up in 
 Hoxbury, was burned on Boston Common ; on the twen 
 tieth, three barrels of Bohea tea were burned in State 
 Street. On the twenty-fifth, John Malcolm, a North 
 Briton, who had been aid to Gov. Tryon in his war against 
 the Regulators, and was now a preventive officer in the 
 Customs, having indiscreetly provoked the populace, was 
 
6 THE KING INSULTS THE GREAT AMERICAN PLEBEIAN. 
 
 seized, tarred and feathered, and paraded under the gal 
 lows. 
 
 The General Court also assembled, full of a determina 
 tion to compel the Judges to refuse the salaries proffered 
 by the King. Enough of the prevalence of this spirit 
 was known in England, to raise a greater clamor against 
 the Americans, than had ever before existed. Hypocrites, 
 traitors, rebels, and villains, were the softest epithets ap 
 plied to them ; and some menaced war, and would have 
 given full scope to sanguinary rancor. On the twenty- 
 seventh, the Government received official information, 
 that the people of Boston had thrown the tea overboard, 
 and this event swelled the anger against the Americans. 
 
 In this state of public feeling, Franklin, on the twenty- 
 ninth, assisted by Dunning and John Lee, came before 
 the Privy Council, to advocate the removal of Hutchin- 
 son and Oliver, in whose behalf appeared Israel Mauduit, 
 the old adviser of the Stamp Tax; and Wedderburn, 
 the Solicitor General. It was a day of great expectation. 
 Thirty-five Lords of the Council were present ; a larger 
 number than had ever attended a hearing ; and the room 
 was filled with a crowded audience, among whom were 
 Priestley, Jeremy Bentham, and Edmund Burke. 
 
 The Petition and accompanying papers having been 
 read, Dunning asked on the part of his clients the reason 
 of his being ordered to attend. " No cause," said he, 
 " is instituted ; nor do we think advocates necessary; 
 nor are they demanded on the part of the Colony. The 
 Petition is not in the nature of accusation, but of advice 
 and request. It is an Address to the King s wisdom, not 
 an application for criminal justice ; when referred to the 
 Council, it is a matter for political prudence, not for judi- 
 
THE KING INSULTS THE GREAT AMERICAN PLEBEIAN. 7 
 
 cial determination. The matter, therefore, rests wholly 
 in your Lordship s opinion of the propriety or impro 
 priety of continuing persons in authority, who are repre 
 sented by legal bodies, competent to such representation, 
 as having (whether on sufficient or insufficient grounds) 
 entirely forfeited the confidence of the Assemblies whom 
 they were to act with, and of the people whom they were 
 to govern. The resolutions on which that representation 
 is founded, lie before your Lordships, together with the 
 letters from which they arose. 
 
 " Jf your Lordships should think that these actions, 
 which appear to the Colony Representative to be faulty, 
 ought in other places to appear meritorious, the Petition 
 has not desired that the parties should be punished as 
 criminals for these actions of supposed merit ; nor even 
 that they may not be rewarded. It only requests that 
 these gentlemen may be removed to places where such 
 merits are better understood, and such rewards may be 
 more approved." He spoke well, and was seconded by 
 Lee. 
 
 The question as presented by Dunning, was already 
 decided in favor of the Petitioners ; it was the universal 
 opinion that Hutchinson ought to be superseded. Wed- 
 derburn changed the issue, as if Franklin were on trial ; 
 and in a speech which was a continued tissue of falsehood 
 and ribaldry, turned his invective against the Petitioners 
 and their Messenger. Of all men, Franklin was the most 
 important in any attempt at conciliation. He was the 
 Agent of the two great Colonies of Massachusetts and 
 Pennsylvania, and also of New Jersey and Georgia ; was 
 the friend of Edmund Burke, who was agent for New 
 York. All the troubles in British colonial policy had 
 
THE KING INSULTS THE GREAT AMERICAN PLEBEIAN. 
 
 grown out of the neglect of his advice, and there was no 
 one who could have mediated like him between the Me 
 tropolis and the Americans. He was now thrice vene 
 rable, from genius, fame in the world of science, and age, 
 being already nearly threescore years and ten. This man 
 Wedderburn, turning from the real question, employed all 
 the cunning powers of distortion and misrepresentation 
 to abuse. With an absurdity of application which the 
 Lords of the Privy Council were too much prejudiced to 
 observe, he drew a parallel between Boston and Capri, 
 Hutchinson and Sejanus, the humble Petition of the Mas 
 sachusetts Assembly, and a verbose and grand epistle of 
 the Emperor Tiberius. Franklin, whose character was 
 most benign, and who, from obvious motives of mercy, 
 had assumed the sole responsibility of obtaining the let 
 ters, he described as a person of the most deliberate 
 malevolence, realizing in life what poetic fiction only had 
 penned for the breast of a bloody African. The speech 
 of Hutchinson, challenging a discussion of the Supremacy 
 of Parliament, had been not only condemned by public 
 opinion in England, but disapproved by the Secretary of 
 State ; Wedderburn pronounced it u a masterly one," 
 which had " stunned the faction." Franklin, for twenty 
 years had exerted his wonderful powers as the great con 
 ciliator, had never once employed the American press to 
 alarm the American people, but had sought to prevent 
 the Parliamentary taxation of America, by private and 
 successful remonstrance during the time of the Pelhams ; 
 by seasonable remonstrance with Grenville against the 
 Stamp Act ; by honest and true answers to the inquiries 
 of the House of Commons ; by the best of advice to 
 Shelburne. When sycophants sought by flattery to mis- 
 
THE KING INSULTS THE GREAT AMERICAN PLEBEIAN. 9 
 
 lead the Minister for America, he had given correct in- 
 formation and safe counsel to the Ministry of Grafton, 
 and repeated it emphatically, and in writing, to the Min 
 istry of North ; but Wedderburn stigmatized this wise 
 and hearty lover of both countries as "a true incen 
 diary." The letters which had been written by public 
 men, in public offices, on public affairs, to one who formed, 
 an integral part of the body that had been declared to 
 possess absolute power over America, and which had 
 been written for the purpose of producing a tyrannical 
 exercise of that absolute power, he called private. Hutch- 
 inson had solicited the place held by Franklin, from which 
 Franklin was to be dismissed ; this fact was suppressed, 
 and the wanton falsehood substituted, that Franklin had 
 desired the Governor s office, and had basely planned 
 " his rival s overthrow." Franklin had inclosed the let 
 ters officially to the Speaker of the Massachusetts As 
 sembly, without a single injunction of secrecy with re 
 gard to the sender; Wedderburn maintained that they 
 were sent anonymously and secretly ; and by an argu 
 ment founded on a mis-statement, but which he put for 
 ward as irrefragable, he pretended to convict Franklin of 
 having obtained the letters by fraudulent and corrupt 
 means, or of having stolen them from the person who 
 stole them. 
 
 The Lords of Council as he spoke, cheered him on by 
 their laughter ; and the cry of Hear him, hear him," 
 burst repeatedly from a body which professed to be sit 
 ting in judgment as the highest Court of Appeal for the 
 Colonies, and yet encouraged the advocate of one of the 
 parties to insult a public envoy, present only as the per 
 son delivering the Petition of a great and loyal Colony. 
 
10 THE KING INSULTS THE GREAT AMERICAN PLEBEIAN. 
 
 Meantime the gray-haired Franklin, whom Kant, the 
 noblest philosopher of that aue, had called the modern 
 Prometheus, stood conspicuously erect, confronting his 
 vilifier and the Privj r Council, compelled to listen while 
 calumny, in the service of lawless force, aimed a death 
 blow at his -honor, and his virtues called on God and man 
 to see how 7 unjustly he suffered. 
 
 The reply of Dunning, who was very ill and was fa 
 tigued by standing so long, could scarcely be heard ; and 
 that of Lee produced no impression. There was but one 
 place in England where fit reparation could be made ; and 
 there was but one man who had the eloquence and the 
 courage and the weight of character to effect the atone 
 ment. For the present, Franklin must rely on the ap 
 proval of the monitor within his own breast. " I have 
 never been so sensible of the power of a good conscience," 
 said he to Priestly ; " for if I had not considered the 
 thing for which I have been so much insulted, as one of 
 the best actions of my life, and what I should certainly 
 do again in the same circumstances, I could not have sup 
 ported it." But it was not to him, it was to the people 
 of Massachusetts, and to New England, and to all Amer 
 ica, that the insult was offered through their Agent. 
 
 Franklin and Wedderburn parted ; the one to spread 
 the celestial fire of freedom among men ; to make his 
 name a cherished household word in every nation of 
 Europe ; and in the beautiful language of Washington, 
 " to be venerated for benevolence, to be admired for talents, 
 to be esteemed for patriotism, to be beloved for philan 
 thropy ;" the other childless, though twice wedded, un- 
 beloved, wrangling with the patron who had impeached 
 his veracity, busy only in " getting every thing he could" 
 
THE KING INSULTS THE CHEAT AMERICAN PLEBEIAN. 11 
 
 in the way of titles and riches, as the wages of corruption. 
 Franklin, when he died, had nations for his mourners, and 
 the great and the good throughout the world as his eulo 
 gists ; when Wedderburn died, there was no man to 
 mourn ; no senate spoke his praise ; no poet embalmed 
 his memory ; and his King, hearing that he w,as certainly 
 dead, said only, " He has not left a greater knave behind 
 him in my dominions." The report of the Lords, which 
 had been prepared beforehand, was immediately signed ; 
 and " they went away, almost ready to throw up their 
 hats for joy, as if by the vehement Philippic against the 
 hoary-headed Franklin, they had obtained a triumph." 
 
 And who were the Lords of the Council, that thus 
 thought to mark and brand the noblest representative of 
 free labor who for many a year had earned his daily bread 
 as apprentice, journeyman, or mechanic, and "knew the 
 heart of the working man," and felt for the people, of 
 whom he remained one ? If they who upon that occa 
 sion pretended to sit in judgment had never come into 
 being, whom among them all would humanity have 
 missed ? But how would it have suffered if Franklin 
 had not lived ! 
 
 The men in power who on that day sought to rob 
 Franklin of his good name, wounded him on the next 
 in his fortunes, by turning him out of his place in the 
 British American Post Office. That institution had 
 yielded no revenue till he organized it, and yielded none 
 after his dismissal. 
 
 On Tuesday, the first of February, the Earl of Buck 
 inghamshire, who had attended the Privy Council, went 
 to the House of Lords, " to put the Ministry in mind 
 that he was to be bought by private contract." Moving 
 
1.2 THE KING INSULTS THE GREAT AMERICAN PLEBEIAN. 
 
 for the Boston Correspondence, he said, " The question is 
 no longer about the liberty of North America, but whether 
 we are to be free or slaves to our Colonies. Franklin is 
 here, not as the Agent of a Province, but as an Ambas 
 sador from the States of America. His embassy to us is 
 like nothing but that sent by Louis XIV. to the Republic 
 of Genoa, commanding the doge to come and appease the 
 Grand Monarch, by prostrating himself at Versailles." 
 " Such language is wild," replied the Earl of Stair. 
 " Humanity, commercial policy, and the public necessities 
 dictate a very contrary one." " I would not throw cold 
 water on the noble Lord s zeal," said the good Lord Dart 
 mouth ; as he made the request that farther despatches 
 might be waited for. 
 
 Superior to injury, Franklin, or, as Uockingham called 
 him, the " magnanimous" " old man," still sought for con 
 ciliation, and seizing the moment when he was sure of all 
 sympathies, he wrote to his constituents to begin the 
 work, by making compensation to the East India Com 
 pany before any compulsive measures were thought of. 
 But events were to proceed as they had been ordered. 
 Various measures were talked of for altering the Consti 
 tution of the Government in Massachusetts, and for prose 
 cuting individuals. The opinion in town was very general 
 that America would submit ; that Government was taken 
 by surprise when they repealed the Stamp Act, and that 
 all might be recovered. 
 
 The King was obstinate, had no one near him to ex 
 plain the true state of things in America, and admitted 
 no misgivings except for not having sooner enforced the 
 claims of authority. On the fourth day of February, he 
 consulted the American Commander-in-Chief, who had re- 
 
THE KING INSULTS THE GREAT AMERICAN PLEBEIAN. 13 
 
 cently returned from New York. " I am willing to go 
 back at a day s notice," said Gage, " if coercive measures 
 are adopted. They will be lions, while we are lambs ; 
 but if we take the resolute part, they will undoubtedly 
 prove very meek. Four regiments sent to Boston will 
 be sufficient to prevent any disturbance." The King re 
 ceived these opinions as certainly true ; and wished their 
 adoption. He would enforce the claim of authority at all 
 hazards. " All men," said he, " now feel, that the fatal 
 compliance in 1766 has increased the pretensions of the 
 Americans to absolute independence." In the letters of 
 Hutchinson, he saw nothing to which the least exception 
 could be taken ; and condemned the Address of Massa 
 chusetts, of which every word was true, as the production 
 of " falsehood and malevolence." 
 
 Accordingly, on the seventh day of February, in the 
 Court at St. James s, the report of the Privy Council was 
 read, embodying the vile insinuations of Wedderburn; 
 and the Petition which Franklin had presented, and which 
 expressed the exact truth, was described as formed on 
 false allegations, and was dismissed by the King as 
 " groundless, vexatious, and scandalous." Bancroft s His 
 tory of the United States. 
 
THE LETTERS OF 
 
 GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON AND LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OLIVER. 
 WITH THE ASSEMBLY S ADDRESS, 
 
 AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE LORDS COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL; 
 WITH THE SPEECH OF ME. WEDDERBURN, 
 
 RELATING TO THOSE LETTERS; 
 AND THE REPORT OF THE LORDS COMMITTEE 
 
 TO HIS MAJESTY IN COUNCIL; 
 
 AND THE SPEECH OP THE 
 
 EARL OF CHATHAM ON AMERICAN AFFAIRS 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED FOR J. WILKIE, 
 AT 71 IN ST. PAUL S CHURCH- YARD, 1774. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 RE PRINTED BY JOHN M. BUTLER, 
 
 242 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
 1860. 
 
 (15) 
 
LETTEKS, &C. 
 
 Boston, June 18, 1768. 
 
 SIR: As you allow me the honor of your correspon 
 dence, I may not omit acquainting you with so remark 
 able an event as the withdraw of the Commissioners of 
 the Customs, and most of the other officers under them, 
 from the town on board the Romney, with an intent to 
 remove from thence to the castle. 
 
 In the evening of the 10th, a sloop belonging to Mr. 
 Hancock, a Representative for Boston, and a wealthy 
 merchant of great influence over the populace, was seized 
 by the Collector and Comptroller for a very notorious 
 breach of the acts of trade, and, after seizure, taken into 
 custody by the officer of the Romney man-of-war, and 
 removed under command of her guns. It is pretended 
 that the removal, and not the seizure, incensed the people. 
 It seems not very material which it was. A mob was 
 immediately raised, the officers insulted, bruised, and 
 much hurt, and the windows of some of their houses 
 broke ; a boat belonging to the Collector burnt in triumph, 
 and many threats uttered against the Commissioners and 
 their officers : no notice being taken of their extravagance 
 in the time of it, nor any endeavors by any authority, 
 
 3 ( 17 ) 
 
18 
 
 except the Governor, the next day, to discover and punish 
 the offenders; and there being a rumor of a higher mob 
 intended Monday (the 13th) in the evening, the Commis 
 sioners, four of them, thought themselves altogether un 
 safe, being destitute of protection, and removed with their 
 families to the llomney, and there remain and hold their 
 board, and next week intend to do the same, and also 
 open the custom house at the castle. The Governor 
 pressed the council to assist him with their advice, but 
 they declined and evaded, calling it a brush, or small dis 
 turbance by boys and negroes, not considering how much 
 it must be resented in England that the officers of the 
 crown should think themselves obliged to quit the place 
 of their residence, and go on board a King s ship for 
 safety, and all the internal authority of the province take 
 no notice of it. The town of Boston have had repeated 
 meetings, and by their votes declared the Commissioners 
 and their officers a great grievance, and yesterday in 
 structed their Representatives to endeavor, that enquiry 
 should be made by the Assembly whether any person by 
 writing or in any other way, had encouraged the sending 
 troops here, there being some alarming reports that troops 
 are expected, but have not taken any measures to dis 
 countenance the promoters of the late proceedings ; but, 
 on the contrary, appointed one or more of the actors or 
 abettors on a committee appointed to wait on the Go 
 vernor, and to desire him to order the man-of-war out of 
 the harbor. 
 
 Ignorant as they be, yet the heads of a Boston town- 
 meeting influence all public measures. 
 
 It is not possible this anarchy should last always. Mr. 
 Ilallowell, who will be the bearer of this, tells me he has 
 
&c. 19 
 
 the honor of being personally known to you. I beg leave 
 to refer you to him for a more full account. 
 I am, with great esteem, Sir, 
 
 Your most humble and obedient servant, 
 
 THO. HUTCHINSON. 
 
 Boston, August, 1768. 
 
 SIR : It is very necessary other information should 
 be had in England of the present state of the commission 
 ers of the customs than what common fame will bring to 
 you, or what you will receive from most of the letters 
 which go from hence, people in general being prejudiced 
 by many false reports and misrepresentations concerning 
 them. Seven-eighths of the people of the country sup 
 pose the board itself to be unconstitutional, and cannot 
 be undeceived and brought to believe that a board has 
 existed in England all this century, and that the board 
 established here has no new powers given to it. Our in 
 cendiaries know it, but they industriously and very wick 
 edly publish the contrary. As much pains have been 
 taken to prejudice the country against the persons of the 
 Commissioners, and their characters have been misrepre 
 sented and cruelly treated, especially since their confine 
 ment at the castle, where they are not so likely to hear 
 what is said of them, and are not so able to confute it. 
 
 It is now pretended they need not to have withdrawn, 
 that Mr. Williams had stood his ground without any in 
 jury, although the mob beset his house, &c. There 
 never was that spirit raised against the under officers as 
 against the Commissioners, I mean four of them. They 
 had a public affront offered them by the town of Boston, 
 
20 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 who refused to give the use of their hall for a public din 
 ner, unless it was stipulated that the Commissioners 
 should not be invited. An affront of the same nature at 
 the motion of Mr. Hancock was offered by a company of 
 cadets. Soon after a vessel of Mr. Hancock s being 
 seized, the officers were mobbed, and the Commissioners 
 were informed they were threatened. 1 own I was in 
 pain for them. I do not believe if the mob had seized 
 them, there was any authority able and willing to have 
 rescued them. After they had withdrawn, the town sig 
 nified to the Governor by a message that it was expected 
 or desired they should not return. It was then the 
 general voice that it would not be safe for them to return. 
 After all this, the sons of liberty say they deserted or 
 abdicated. 
 
 The other officers of the customs in general either did 
 not leave the town, or soon returned to it. Some of them 
 seem to be discontented with the Commissioners. Great 
 pains have been taken to increase the discontent. Their 
 office by these means is rendered extremely burdensome. 
 Every thing they do is found fault with, and yet no par 
 ticular illegality or even irregularity mentioned. There 
 is too much hauteur, some of their officers say, in the 
 treatment they receive. They say, they treat their offi 
 cers as the Commissioners treat their officers in England, 
 and require no greater deference. After all, it is not the 
 persons, but the office of the Commissioners which has 
 raised this spirit, and the distinction made between the 
 Commissioners, is because it has been given out that four 
 of them were in favor of the new establishment, and the 
 fifth was not. If Mr. Hallowell arrived safe, he can in- 
 
LETTERS, &C. 21 
 
 form you many circumstances relative to this distinction, 
 which I very willingly excuse myself from mention 
 ing. 
 
 I know of no burden brought upon the fair trader by 
 the new establishment. The illicit trader finds the risk 
 greater than it used to be, especially in the port where 
 the board is constantly held. Another circumstance 
 which increases the prejudice is this ; the new duties 
 happened to take place just about the time the Commis 
 sioners arrived. People have absurdly connected the 
 duties and Board of Commissioners, and suppose we 
 should have had no additional duties, if there had been 
 no Board to have the charge of collecting them. With 
 all the aid you can give to the officers of the crown, they 
 will have enough to do to maintain the authority of 
 government, and to carry the laws into execution. If 
 they are discountenanced, neglected, or fail of support 
 from you, they must submit to every thing the present 
 opposers of government think fit to require of them. 
 
 There is no office under greater discouragements than 
 that of the Commissioners. Some of my friends recom 
 mended me to the ministry. I think myself very happy 
 that I am not one. Indeed it would have been incom 
 patible with my post as chief justice, and I must have 
 declined it. and I should do it, although no greater salary 
 had been affixed to the chief justice s place, than the 
 small pittance allowed by the province. 
 
 From my acquaintance with the Commissioners I have 
 conceived a, personal esteem for them, but my chief in 
 ducement to make this representation to you, is a regard 
 
22 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 to the public interest, which I am sure will suffer if the 
 opposition carry their point against them. 
 I am, with very great esteem, Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 THO. HUTCHINSON. 
 
 August 10. Yesterday at a meeting of the merchants, 
 it was agreed by all present to give no more orders for 
 goods from England, nor receive any on commission until 
 the late acts are repealed. And it is said all except six 
 teen in the town have subscribed an engagement to that 
 tenor. I hope the subscription will be printed, that I 
 may transmit it to you. 
 
 Boston, October 4, 1768. 
 
 DEAR SIR : I was absent upon one of our circuits when 
 Mr. Byles arrived. Since my return, I have received 
 from him your obliging letter of 31st July. I never 
 dared to think what the resentment of the nation would 
 be upon HalloweH s arrival. It is not strange that mea 
 sures should be immediately taken to reduce the colonies 
 to their former state of government and order, but that 
 the national funds should be affected by it, is to me a 
 little mysterious and surprising. Principles of govern 
 ment absurd enough spread through all the colonies ; but 
 I cannot think that in any colony, people of any consid 
 eration have ever been so mad as to think of a revolt. 
 Many of the common people have been in a frenzy, and 
 talked of dying in defence of their liberties, and have 
 spoke and printed what is highly criminal, and too many 
 of rank above the vulgar, and some in public posts have 
 
LETTERS, &C. 23 
 
 countenanced and encouraged them, until they increased 
 so much in their numbers, and in their opinion of their 
 importance, as to submit to government no further than 
 they thought proper. The legislative powers have been 
 influenced by them, and the executive powers entirely 
 lost their force. There has been continual danger of mobs 
 arid insurrections, but they would have spent all their 
 force within ourselves, the officers of the crown, and some 
 of the few friends who dared to stand by them, possibly 
 might have been knocked on the head, and some such 
 fatal event would probably have brought the people to 
 their senses. For four or five weeks past the distemper 
 has been growing, and I confess I have not been without 
 some apprehensions for myself, but my friends have had 
 more for me ; and I have heard repeated and frequent 
 notices from them from different quarters, one of the last 
 I will inclose to you.* In this state of things, there was 
 no security, but quitting my posts, which nothing but the 
 last extremity would justify. As Chief Justice, for two 
 years after our first disorders, I kept the grand juries 
 tolerably well to their duty. The last spring, there had 
 been several riots, and a most infamous libel had been 
 published in one of the papers, which I enlarged upon, 
 and the grand jury had determined to make presentments, 
 but the Attorney-General not attending them the first 
 day, Otis and his creatures, who were alarmed and fright 
 ened, exerted themselves the next day, and prevailed 
 upon so many of the jury to change their voices, that 
 there was not a sufficient number left to find a bill. 
 They have been ever since more enraged against me than 
 ever. At the desire of the Governor I committed to wri- 
 
 * See the following Letter. 
 
24 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 ting the charge while it lay in my memory, and as I have 
 no further use for it, I will inclose it, as it may give you 
 some idea of our judicatories. 
 
 Whilst we were in this state, news came of two regi 
 ments being ordered from Halifax, and soon after two 
 more from Ireland. The minds of people were more and 
 more agitated, broad hints were given that the troops 
 should never land, a barrel of tar was placed upon the 
 beacon, in the night to be fired, to bring in the country, 
 when the troops appeared, and all the authority of the 
 government was not strong enough to remove it. The 
 town of Boston met and passed a number of weak, but 
 very criminal votes ; and as the Governor declined calling 
 an Assembly, they sent circular letters to all the towns 
 and districts to send a person each that there might be a 
 general consultation at so extraordinary a crisis. They 
 met and spent a week, made themselves ridiculous, and 
 then dissolved themselves, after a message or two to the 
 Governor, which he refused to receive ; a petition to the 
 King, which I dare say their agent will never be allowed 
 to present, and a result which they published ill-natured 
 and impotent. 
 
 In this confusion the troops from Halifax arrived. I 
 never was much afraid of the people s taking arms, but 
 I was apprehensive of violence from the mob, it being 
 their last chance before the troops could land. As the 
 prospect of revenge became more certain, their courage 
 abated in proportion. Two regiments are landed, but a 
 new grievance is now raised. The troops are by act of par 
 liament to be quartered no where else but in the barracks, 
 until they are full. There are barracks enough at the 
 castle to hold both regiments. It is therefore against the 
 
LETTERS, &C. 25 
 
 Act to bring any of them into the town. This was 
 started by the Council in their answer to the Governor, 
 which, to make themselves popular, they in an unprece 
 dented way published and have alarmed all the province ; 
 for although none but the most contracted minds could 
 put such a construction upon the act, yet after this decla 
 ration of the Council, nine-tenths of the people suppose 
 it just. I wish the act had been better expressed, but it 
 is absurd to suppose the parliament intended to take from 
 the King the direction of his forces, by confining them 
 to a place where any of the colonies might think fit to 
 build barracks. It is besides ungrateful, for it is known 
 to many that this provision was brought into thebillafter 
 it had been framed without it, from mere favor to the 
 colonies. I hear the Commander-in-Chief has provided 
 barracks or quarters, but a doubt still remains with some 
 of the Council, whether they are to furnish the articles 
 required, unless the men are in the province barracks, and 
 they are to determine upon it to-day. 
 
 The government has been so long in the hands of the. 
 populace, that it must come out of them by degrees, at 
 least it will be a work of time to bring the people back 
 to just notions of the nature of government. 
 
 Mr. Pepperrell, a young gentleman of good character, 
 and grandson and principal heir to the late Sir William 
 Pepperrell, being bound to London, I shall deliver this 
 letter to him, as it will be too bulky for postage, and de 
 sire him to wait upon you with it. 
 I am, with very great esteem, Sir, 
 
 Your most humble and most obedient servant, 
 
 Tuo. HUTCHINSON. 
 
 4 
 
26 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 SIR: The great esteem I have for you in every point 
 of light, perhaps renders my fears and doubts for the 
 safety of your person greater than they ought to be; 
 however if that is an error, it certainly results from true 
 friendship, naturally jealous. Last night, I was informed 
 by a gentleman of my acquaintance, who had his infor 
 mation from one intimate with and knowing to the infer 
 nal purposes of the sons of liberty, as they falsely style 
 themselves, that he verily believed, from the terrible 
 threats and menaces by those Catilines against you, that 
 your life is greatly in danger. This informant, I know, 
 is under obligations to you, and is a man of veracity. He 
 expressed himself with concern for you, and the gentle 
 man acquainting me with this horrid circumstance, assured 
 me he was very uneasy till you had notice. I should 
 have done myself the honor of waiting on you, but am 
 necessarily prevented. The duty I owed to you as a 
 friend, and to the public as a member of society, would 
 not suffer me to rest till 1 had put your honor upon your 
 guard ; for though this may be a false alarm, nothing 
 would have given me greater pain, if any accident had 
 happened, and I had been silent. If possible, I will see 
 you to-morrow, and let you know further into this black 
 affair. And am, with the sincerest friendship and re 
 spect, your Honor s 
 
 Most obedient, and most humble servant, 
 
 ROB. AUCHMUTY. 
 To the horitte Thomas Hutchinson, Sept. 14, 1768. 
 
 Boston, Dec. 10, 1768. 
 DEAR SIR : I am just now informed that a number of 
 
LETTERS, &C. 27 
 
 the Council, perhaps eight or ten, who live in and near 
 this town, have met together and agreed upon a long ad 
 dress or petition to Parliament, and that it will be sent 
 by this ship to Mr. Bollan to be presented. Mr. Dan- 
 forth, who is President of the Council, told the Governor, 
 upon enquiry, that it was sent to him to sign, and he sup 
 posed the rest of the Council who had met together, 
 would sign after him in order ; but he had since found 
 that they had wrote over his name, by order of Council, 
 which makes it appear to be an act of Council. This 
 may be a low piece of cunning in him, but be it as it may, 
 it is proper it should be known, that the whole is no more 
 than the doings of a part of the Council only ; although 
 even that is not very material, since, if they had all been 
 present, without the Governor s summons, the meeting 
 would have been irregular and unconstitutional, and ought 
 to be discountenanced and censured. I suppose there is 
 no instance of the Privy Council s meeting and doing 
 business without the King s presence or special direction, 
 except in committees upon such business as by his Ma 
 jesty s order has been referred to them by an act of 
 Council ; and I have no instance here without the Go 
 vernor, until within three or four months past. 
 
 I thought it very necessary the circumstances of this 
 proceeding should be known, though if there be no neces 
 sity for it, I think it would be best it should not be known 
 that the intelligence comes from me. 
 
 I am, with very great regard, Sir, 
 
 Your most humble and most obedient servant, 
 
 THO. HUTCHINSON. 
 
28 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 Boston, Jan. 20, 1769. 
 
 DEAR SIR : You have laid me under very great obli 
 gations by the very clear and full account of proceedings 
 in Parliament, which I received from you by Capt. Scott. 
 You have also done much service to the people of the 
 province. For a day or two after the ship arrived, the 
 enemies of government gave out that their friends in Par 
 liament were increasing, and all things would be soon on 
 the old footing ; in other words, that all acts imposing 
 duties would be repealed, the Commissioners board dis 
 solved, the customs put on the old footing, and illicit trade 
 be carried on with little or no hazard. It was very fortu 
 nate that I had it in my power to prevent such a false 
 representation from spreading through the province. I 
 have been very cautious of using your name, but I have 
 been very free in publishing abroad the substance of your 
 letter, and declaring that I had my intelligence from the 
 best authority, and have in a great measure defeated the 
 ill design in raising and attempting to spread so ground 
 less a report. What marks of resentment the Parliament 
 will show, whether they will be upon the province in 
 general, or particular persons, is extremely uncertain, but 
 that they will be placed somewhere is most certain ; and 
 I add, because I think it ought to be so, that those who 
 have been most steady in preserving the constitution and 
 opposing the licentiousness of such as call themselves 
 Sons of Liberty, will certainly meet with favor and en 
 couragement. 
 
 This is most certainly a crisis. I really wish that 
 there may not have been the least degree of severity be 
 yond what is absolutely necessary to maintain, I think I 
 may say to you, the dependance which a colony ought to 
 
LETTERS, &C. 29 
 
 have upon the present state ; but if no measures shall 
 have been taken to secure this dependance, or nothing 
 more than some declaratory acts or resolves, it is all over 
 with us. The friends of government will be utterly dis 
 heartened, and the friends of anarchy will be afraid of 
 nothing, be it ever so extravagant. 
 
 The last vessel from London had a quick passage. We 
 expect to be in suspense for the three or four next weeks, 
 and then to hear our fate. I never think of the measures 
 necessary for the peace and good order of the colonies 
 without pain. There must be an abridgment of what are 
 called English liberties. I relieve myself by considering 
 that in a remove from the state of nature to the most 
 perfect state of government, there must be a great re 
 straint of natural liberty. I doubt whether it is possible 
 to project a system of government in which a colony 
 3000 miles distant from the parent state shall enjoy all 
 the liberty of the parent state. I am certain I have 
 never yet seen the projection. I wish the good of the 
 colony when I wish to see some further restraint of 
 liberty, rather than the connection with the parent state 
 should be broken ; for I am sure such a breach must 
 prove the ruin of the colony. Pardon me this excursion, 
 it really proceeds from the state of mind into which our 
 perplexed affairs often throws me. 
 
 I have the honor to be, with very great esteem, Sir, 
 your most humble and most obedient servant, 
 
 THO. HUTCHINSON. 
 
 Boston, October 25, 1769. 
 DEAR SIR : I thank you for your last favor of July 
 
30 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 18th. I fancy in my last to you, about two months ago, 
 I have answered the greatest part of it. 
 
 My opinion upon the combination of the merchants, I 
 gave you very fully. How long they will be able to con 
 tinue them if Parliament should not interpose, is uncer 
 tain. In most articles they may another year, and you 
 run the risk of their substituting, when they are put to 
 their shifts, something of their own in the place of what 
 they used to have from you, and which they will never 
 return to you for. But it is not possible that provision 
 for dissolving these combinations, and subjecting all who 
 do not renounce them to penalties adequate to the offence, 
 should not be made the first week the parliament meets. 
 Certainly all parties will unite in so extraordinary a case, 
 if they never do in any other. So much has been said 
 upon the repeal of the duties laid by the last act, that it 
 will render it very difficult to keep people s minds quiet, 
 if that should be refused them. They deserve punish 
 ment, you will say ; but laying or continuing taxes upon 
 all cannot be thought equal, seeing many will be pun 
 ished who are not offenders. Penalties of another kind 
 seem better adapted. 
 
 I have been tolerably treated since the Governor s de 
 parture, no other charge being made against me in our 
 scandalous newspapers, except my bad principles in mat 
 ters of government; and this charge has had little effect, 
 and a great many friends promise me support. 
 
 I must beg the favor of you to keep secret every thing 
 I write, until we are in a more settled state, for the party 
 here, either by their agent, or by some of their emissaries 
 in London, have sent them every report or rumor of the 
 
LETTERS, &C. 31 
 
 contents of letters wrote from hence. I hope we shall 
 see better times both here and in England. 
 I am, with great esteem, Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient servant, 
 
 TIIO. HUTCHINSON. 
 
 Boston, May 7, 1767. 
 
 SIR: I am indebted to you for the obliging manner 
 in which you received my recommendation of my good 
 friend Mr. Paxton, as well as for the account you are 
 pleased to send me of the situation of affairs in the 
 mother country. 
 
 I am very sorry that the colonies give you so much 
 employment, and it is impossible to say how long it will 
 be before things settle into quiet among us. We have 
 some here who have been so busy in fomenting the late 
 disturbances, that they may now think it needful for their 
 own security to keep up the spirit. , They have plumed 
 themselves much upon the victory they have gained, and 
 the support they have since met with ; nor could any 
 thing better show what they would still be at, than the 
 manner in which, by their own account published in the 
 newspapers last August, they celebrated the 14th of that 
 month, as the first anniversary commemoration of what 
 they had done at the tree of Liberty on that day the 
 year before. Here a number of respectable gentlemen, 
 as they inform us, now met, and among other toasts drank 
 General Paoli, and the spark of liberty kindled in Spain. 
 1 arn now speaking of a few individuals only, the body 
 of the people are well disposed ; yet when you come to 
 see the journal of the House of Representatives the last 
 
32 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 session, I fear you will think that the same spirit has 
 seized our public counsels. I can. however, fairly say 
 thus much in behalf of the government, that the last house 
 was packed by means of a public proscription just before 
 the election, of the greatest part of those who had ap 
 peared in the preceding session in the support of govern 
 ment : their names were published in an inflammatory 
 newspaper, and their constituents made to believe they 
 were about to sell them for slaves. Writs are now out 
 for a new Assembly, but I cannot answer for the choice : 
 I hope, however, that the people in general are in a better 
 temper ; yet the moderate men have been so brow-beaten 
 in the House, and found themselves so insignificant there 
 the last year, that some of them will voluntarily decline 
 coming again. I think this looks too much like a despair 
 of the commonwealth, and cannot be justified on patriotic 
 principles. 
 
 The election of Counsellors was carried the last year 
 as might have been expected from such an house. The 
 officers of the crown, and the judges of the superior 
 court were excluded. And I hear that it is the design 
 of some, who expect to be returned members of the 
 house this year, to make sure work at the ensuing elec 
 tion of Counsellors, by excluding, if they can, the gen 
 tlemen of the Council (who by charter remain such till 
 others are chosen in their room) from any share in the 
 choice, though they have always had their voice in it 
 hitherto from the first arrival of the charter. If the 
 house do this, they will have it in their power to model 
 the Council as they please, and throw all the powers of 
 government into the hands of the people, unless the Go- 
 
LETTERS, &C. 33 
 
 vernor should again exert his negative as he did the last 
 year. 
 
 You have doubtless seen some of the curious messages 
 from the late house to the Governor, and can t hut have 
 observed with how little decency they have attacked 
 both the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor. They 
 have also in effect forced the Council to declare themselves 
 parties in the quarrel they had against the latter in a 
 matter of mere indifference. In their message to the 
 Governor of the 21st of January, they have explicitly 
 charged the Lieutenant Governor (a gentleman to whom 
 they are more indebted than to any one man in the 
 government) with " ambition and lust of power," merely 
 for paying a compliment to the Governor agreeable to 
 ancient usage, by attending him to court, and being pre 
 sent in the council-chamber when he made his speech at 
 the opening of the session ; at which time they go on to 
 say, " none but the general court and their servants are 
 intended to be present," still holding out to the people 
 the servants of the crown as objects of insignificance, 
 ranking the Secretary with their door keeper, as servants 
 of the Assembly ; for the Secretary with his clerks and 
 the door-keeper, are the only persons present with the 
 Assembly on these occasions. 
 
 The officers of the crown being thus lessened in the 
 eyes of the people, takes off their weight and influence, 
 and the balance will of course turn in favor of the people, 
 and what makes them still more insignificant is their de- 
 pendance on the people for a necessary support: If some 
 thing were left to the good-will of the people, yet nature 
 should be sure of a support. The Governor s salary has 
 for about thirty-five years past been pretty well under- 
 
34 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 stood to be 1000 a year sterling. When this sum was 
 first agreed to, it was very well ; but an increase of 
 wealth since has brought along with it an increase of 
 luxury, so that what was sufficient to keep up a proper 
 distinction and support the dignity of a Governor then, 
 may well be supposed to be insufficient for the purpose 
 now. The Lieutenant Governor has no appointments as 
 such : the Captaincy of Castle-William, which may be 
 worth 120 sterling a year, is looked upon indeed as an 
 appendage to his commission, and the late Lieutenant 
 Governor enjoyed no other appointment: he lived a re 
 tired life upon his own estate in the country, and was 
 easy. The present Lieutenant Governor indeed has other 
 appointments, but the people are quarreling with him for 
 it, and will not suffer him to be easy unless he will retire 
 
 also. 
 
 The Secretary may have something more than 200 a 
 year sterling, but has for the two last years been allowed 
 60 lawful money a year less than had been usual for 
 divers years preceding, though he had convinced the house 
 by their Committee, that without this deduction he would 
 have had no more than 250 sterling per annum in fees, 
 perquisites, and salary altogether, which is not the one 
 half of his annual expense. 
 
 The crown did by charter reserve to itself the appoint 
 ment of a Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Secretary ; 
 the design of this was without doubt to maintain some 
 kind of balance between the powers of the crown and of 
 the people ; but, if officers are not in some measure inde 
 pendent of the people (for it is difficult to serve two mas 
 ters), they will sometimes have a hard struggle between 
 duty to the crown and a regard to self, which must be a 
 
LETTERS, &C. 35 
 
 very disagreeable situation to them, as well as a weaken 
 ing to the authority of government. The officers of the 
 crown are very few, and are therefore the more easily 
 provided for without burdening the people : and such 
 provision 1 look upon as necessary to the restoration arid 
 support of the King s authority. 
 
 But it may be said, How can any new measures be 
 taken without raising new disturbances ? The manufac 
 turers in England, will rise again and defeat the measures 
 of government. This game, tis true, has been played 
 once and succeeded, and it has been asserted here, that 
 it is in the power of the colonies at any time to raise a 
 rebellion in England, by refusing to send for their manu 
 factures. 
 
 For my own part, I do not believe this. The merchants 
 in England, and 1 don t know but those in London and 
 Bristol only, might always govern in this matter and quiet 
 the manufacturer. The merchant s view is always to his 
 own interest. As the trade is now managed, the dealer 
 here sends to the merchant in England for his goods, upon 
 these goods the English merchant puts a profit of 10 or 
 more, probably 15 per cent, when he sends them to his 
 employer in America. The merchant is so jealous of 
 foregoing this profit, that an American trader cannot well 
 purchase the goods he wants of the manufacturer ; for 
 should the merchant know that the manufacturer had 
 supplied an American, he would take off no more of his 
 wares. The merchants therefore having this profit in 
 view, will by one means or other secure it. They know 
 the goods which the American market demands, and may 
 therefore safely take them off from the manufacturer, 
 though they should have no orders for shipping them this 
 
36 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 year or perhaps the next ; and I dare say, it would not 
 be longer before the Americans would clamor for a sup 
 ply of goods from England, for it is vain to think they 
 can supply themselves. The merchant might then put 
 an advanced price upon his goods, and possibly be able 
 to make his own terms ; or if it should be thought the 
 0ods would not bear an advanced price to indemnify 
 him, it might be worth while for the government to agree 
 with the merchants beforehand to allow them a premium 
 equivalent to the advance of their stock, and then the 
 game would be over. 
 
 I have wrote with freedom, in confidence of my name s 
 not being used on the occasion. For though I have wrote 
 nothing but what in my conscience I think an American 
 may upon just principles advance, and what a servant of 
 the Crown ought upon all proper occasions to suggest, yet 
 the many prejudices I have to combat with, may render 
 it unfit it should be made public. 
 
 I communicated to Governor Bernard what you men 
 tioned concerning him, who desires me to present you 
 his compliments, and let you know that he is obliged to 
 you for the expressions of your regard for his injured 
 character. 
 
 I am, with great respect, Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient and most humble servant, 
 
 ANDREW OLIVER. 
 
 I ask your acceptance of a journal of the last session, 
 which is put up in a box directed to the Secretary of the 
 Board of trade. 
 
37 
 
 Boston, May 11,1768. 
 
 SIR: I am at this moment favored with your very 
 obliging letter by Ca.pt. Jarvis, of the 2d March, which I 
 have but just time to acknowledge, as this is the day 
 given out for the ship to sail. I wrote you the 23d of 
 February in reply to your letter of the 28th December ; 
 that of the 12th February which you refer to in this of 
 the 2d of March is not yet come to hand. You lay me, 
 Sir, under the greatest obligations, as well for the inter 
 esting account of public affairs, which you are from time 
 to time pleased to transmit me, as for your steady atten 
 tion to my private concerns. 1 shall always have the 
 most grateful sense of Mr. Grenville s intentions of favor 
 also, whether I ever reap any benefit from them or not. 
 Without a proper support afforded to the King s officers, 
 the respect due to government will of course fail ; yet I 
 cannot say whether, under the present circumstances, and 
 considering the temper the people are now in, an addi 
 tional provision for me would be of real benefit to me 
 personally or not. It has been given out, that no person 
 who receives a stipend from the government at home, 
 shall live in the country. Government here wants some 
 effectual support. No sooner was it known that the Lieu 
 tenant Governor had a provision of 200 a year made 
 for him out of the revenue, than he was advised in the 
 Boston Gazette to resign all pretensions to a seat in coun 
 cil, either with or without a voice. The temper of the 
 people will be surely learnt from that infamous paper ; it 
 is the very thing that forms their temper ; for if they 
 are not in the temper of the writer at the time of the 
 publication, yet it is looked upon as the ORACLE, and thev 
 
38 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 soon bring their temper to it. Some of the latest of 
 them are very expressive ; I will not trouble you Avith 
 sending them, as I imagine they some how or other find 
 their way to you. But I cannot but apprehend from these 
 papers, and from hints that are thrown out, that if the pe 
 tition of the House to his Majesty, and their letters to 
 divers noble Lords should fail of success, some people 
 will be mad enough to go to extremities. The Commis 
 sioners of the Customs have already been openly affronted, 
 the Governor s company of Cadets have come to a reso 
 lution not to wait on him (as usual) on the day of Gene 
 ral Election, the 25th instant, if those gentlemen are of 
 the company. And the Town of Boston have passed .a 
 Vote that Faneuil Hall (in which the Governor and his 
 company usually dine on that day) shall not be opened 
 to him, if the Commissioners are invited to dine with 
 him. A list of Counsellors has within a few days past 
 been printed and dispersed by way of sneer on Lord 
 Shelburne s letter, made up of King s officers ; which 
 list, the writer says, if adopted at the next general elec 
 tion, may take away all grounds of complaint, and may 
 possibly prove a healing and a very salutary measure. 
 The Lieutenant Governor is at the head of this list, they 
 have done me the honor to put me next ; the Commis 
 sioners of the Customs are all in the list except Mr. 
 Temple, and to complete the list, they have added some 
 of the waiters. I never thought till very lately that they 
 acted upon any settled plan, nor do I now think they 
 have till of late ; a few, a very few among us, have 
 planned the present measures, and the government has 
 been too weak to subdue their turbulent spirits. Our 
 
LETTERS, &C. 39 
 
 situation is not rightly known : but it is a matter worthy 
 of the most serious attention. 
 
 I am, with the greatest respect, Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient and most humble servant, 
 
 ANDREW OLIVER. 
 
 I shall take proper care to forward your letter to Mr. 
 Ingersol. He had received your last. 
 
 Boston, February 13, 1769. 
 
 SIR : I have your very obliging favor of the 4th of 
 October. I find myself constrained, as well by this let 
 ter as by my son and daughter Spooner s letters since, to 
 render you my most sincere thanks for the very polite 
 notice you have taken of them ; and I pray nr^ most re 
 spectful compliments to the good lady, your mother, 
 whose friendly reception of them at Nonsuch has, I find, 
 engaged their warmest esteem and respect He hath 
 wrote us that he had a prospect of succeeding in the 
 business he went upon ; but the last letter we had was 
 from her of the 23d of November, acquainting us that 
 he had been very ill, but was getting better. She writes 
 as a person overcome with a sense of the kindness they 
 had met with, in a place where they were strangers, on 
 this trying occasion. 
 
 You have heard of the arrival of the King s troops ; 
 the quiet reception they met with among us was not at 
 all surprising to me. I am sorry there was any occasion 
 for sending them. From the address of the Gentlemen 
 of the Council to General Gage, it might be supposed 
 there was none. I have seen a letter from our friend In- 
 
40 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 gersoll with this paraphrase upon it " We hope that 
 your Excellency observing with your own eyes, now the 
 troops are among us, our peaceable and quiet behavior, 
 
 will be convinced that that wicked G r B d 
 
 told a fib in saying, We were not so before they came. 
 
 I have given you the sense of a stranger on a single 
 paragraph of this address, because I suspected my own 
 opinion of it, till I found it thus confirmed. If you have 
 the newspapers containing the address, your own good 
 sense will lead you to make some other remarks upon it, 
 as well as to trace the influence under which it seems 
 to have been penned. The disturbers of our peace take 
 great advantage of such aids, from people in office and 
 power. The Lieutenant Governor has communicated to 
 me your letter, containing an account of the debates in 
 parliament, on the first day of the session. We soon 
 expect their decision on American affairs, some I doubt 
 not with fear and trembling. Yet I have very lately had 
 occasion to know, that be the determination of parlia 
 ment what it will, it is the determination of some to agree 
 to no terms that shall remove us from our old foundation. 
 This confirms me in nn opinion, that I have taken up a 
 long time since, that if there be no WMV to take off the 
 original incendiaries, they will continue to instill their 
 poison into the minds of the people, through the vehicle 
 of the BOSTON GAZETTE. 
 
 In your letter to the Lieutenant Governor, you ob 
 serve upon two defects in our constitution, the popular 
 election of the Council, and the return of Juries by the 
 Towns. The first of these arises from the Charter itself; 
 the latter from our provincial Laws. The method of ap 
 pointing our Grand Juries lies open to management. 
 
LETTERS, &C. 41 
 
 Whoever pleases, nominates them at our town-meetings; 
 by this means one who was supposed to be a principal 
 in the Riots of the 10th of June last, was upon that 
 Jury, whose business it was to inquire into them. But 
 the provincial legislature hath made sufficient provision 
 for the return of Petit Juries by their act of 23d Geo. 
 2d, which requires the several towns to take lists of all 
 persons liable by law to serve, and forming them into two 
 classes, put their names written on separate papers into 
 two different boxes, one for the superior court, and the 
 other for the inferior. And when venires are issued, the 
 number therein required are to be drawn out in open town- 
 nfeeting, no person to serve oftener than once in three 
 years. The method of appointing Grand Juries appears 
 indeed defective ; but if the other is not, it may be im 
 puted to the times rather than to the defect of the laws, 
 that neither the Grand Juries nor the Petit Juries have 
 of late answered the expectations of government. 
 
 As to the appointment of the Council, I am of opinion 
 that neither the popular elections in this province, nor 
 their appointment in what are called the royal govern 
 ments by the King s mandamus, are free from exceptions, 
 especially if -the Council as a legislative body is intended 
 to answer the idea of the House of Lords in the British le 
 gislature. There they are supposed to be a free and inde 
 pendent body, and on their being such, the strength and firm 
 ness of the constitution does very much depend : whereas 
 the election or appointment of the Councils in the manner 
 before-mentioned, renders them altogether dependent on 
 their constituents. The King is the fountain of honor, 
 and as such the peers of the realm derive their honors 
 
 from him ; but then they hold them by a surer tenure 
 6 
 
42 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 than the provincial Counsellors, who are appointed by 
 mandamus. On the other hand, our popular elections 
 very often expose them to contempt; for nothing is more 
 common, than for the representatives, when they find the 
 Council a little untractable at the close of the year, to re 
 mind them that May is at hand. 
 
 It may he accounted by the colonies as dangerous to 
 admit of any alterations in their charters, as it is by the 
 Governors in the church to make any in the establish 
 ment ; yet to make the resemblance as near as may be to 
 the British Parliament, some alteration is necessary. 
 
 It is not requisite, that I know of, that a Counsellor 
 should be a Freeholder ; his residence according to the 
 charter, is a sufficient qualification ; for that provides 
 only, that he be an inhabitant of or proprietor of lands 
 within the district for which he is chosen : whereas the 
 Peers of the realm sit in the House of Lords, as I 
 take it, in virtue of their baronies. If there should be a 
 reform of any of the colony charters, with a view to keep 
 up the resemblance of the three estates in England, the 
 legislative Council should consist of men of landed es 
 tates : but as our landed estates here are small at present, 
 the yearly value of 100 sterling per annum, might in 
 some of them at least be a sufficient qualification. As our 
 estates are partable after the decease of the proprietor, the 
 honor could not be continued in families as in England. 
 It might however be continued in the appointee quam dm 
 bene se gesserit, and proof be required of some malpractice 
 before a suspension or removal. Bankruptcy also might 
 be another ground for removal. A small legislative Coun 
 cil might answer the purposes of government ; but it 
 might tend to weaken that leveling principle, which is 
 
LETTERS, &C. 43 
 
 cherished by the present popular constitution, to have an 
 honorary order established, out of which the Council 
 should be appointed. There is no way now to put a man 
 of fortune above the common level, and exempt him from 
 being chosen by the people into the lower offices, but his 
 being appointed a Justice of the Peace ; this is frequently 
 done, when there is no kind of expectation of his under 
 taking the trust, and has its inconveniences. For remedy 
 hereof it might be expedient to have an order of Patri 
 cians or Esquires instituted, to be all men of fortune or 
 good landed estates, and appointed by the Governor with 
 the advice of Council, and enrolled in the Secretary s 
 office, who should be exempted from the lower offices in 
 government, as the justices now are ; and to have the 
 legislative Council (which in the first instance might be 
 nominated by the Crown) from time to time filled up, as 
 vacancies happen, out of this order of men, who, if the 
 order consisted only of men of landed estates, might 
 elect, as the Scottish Peers do, only reserving to the 
 King s Governor, a negative on such choice. The King 
 in this case would be still acknowledged as the fountain 
 of honor, as having, in the first instance, the appointment 
 of the persons enrolled, out of whom the Council are to 
 be chosen, and finally having a negative on the choice. 
 Or, the King might have the immediate appointment by 
 mandamus, as at present in the royal governments. As 
 the gentlemen of the Council would rank above the body 
 from which they are taken, they might bear a title one 
 degree above that of Esquire. Besides this legislative 
 Council, a privy Council might be established, to consist 
 of some or all of those persons who constitute the legis 
 lative Council, and of other persons members of the 
 
44 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 House of Representatives, or otherwise of note or dis 
 tinction ; which would extend the honors of government, 
 and afford opportunity of distinguishing men of character 
 and reputation, the expectation of which would make go 
 vernment more respectable. 
 
 I would not trouble you with these reveries of mine, 
 were I not assured of your readiness to forgive the 
 communication, although you could apply it to no good 
 
 purpose. 
 
 Mr. Spooner sent me a pamphlet under a blank cover, 
 entitled, " the state of the nation." I run over it by my 
 self before I had heard any one mention it, and thought, 
 I could evidently mark the sentiments of some of my 
 friends. By what I have since heard and seen, it looks 
 as if 1 was not mistaken. Your right honorable friend I 
 trust will not be offended if I call him mine I am sure 
 you will not when I term you such. I have settled it for 
 a long time in my own mind, that without a representa 
 tion in the supreme legislature, there cannot be that union 
 between the head and the members as to produce a health 
 ful constitution of the whole body. I have doubted 
 whether this union could be perfected by the first experi 
 ment. The plan here exhibited seems to be formed in 
 generous and moderate principles, and bids the fairest of 
 any I have yet seen to be adopted. Such a great design 
 may, as in painting, require frequent touching before it 
 becomes a piece highly finished ; and after all, may re 
 quire the meliorating hand of time to make it please uni 
 versally. Thus the British constitution, considered as 
 without the colonies, attained its glory. The book I had 
 sent me is in such request, that I have not been able to 
 keep it long enough by me, to consider it in all its parts. 
 
LETTERS, &C. 45 
 
 I wish to hear how it is received in the House of Com 
 mons. I find by the publications, both of Governor 
 Pownall and Mr. Bollan, that they each of them adopt 
 the idea of an union and representation, and I think it 
 must more and more prevail. The argument against it 
 from local inconveniency, must, as it appears to me, be 
 more than balanced by greater inconveniences on the other 
 side the question : the great difficulty will be in the terms 
 of union. I add no more, as I fear I have already tres 
 passed much on your time and patience, but that I am, 
 Sir, 
 
 Your obliged and most obedient humble servant, 
 
 ANDREW OLIVER. 
 
 New York, August 12, 1769. 
 
 SIR: I have been in this city for some time past exe 
 cuting (with others) his Majesty s commission for settling 
 the boundary between this province and that of New Jer 
 sey. I left Boston the llth July, since which, my advices 
 from London have come to me very imperfect ; but as my 
 friend Mr. Thompson writes me, that he had drawn up 
 my case, and with your approbation laid it before the D. 
 of Graf ton, I think it needful once more to mention this 
 business to you. 
 
 There was a time when I thought the authority of 
 government might have been easily restored ; but while 
 its friends and the officers of the crown are left to an ab 
 ject dependence on those very people who are under 
 mining its authority ; and while these are suffered not 
 only to go unpunished, but on the contrary, meet with all 
 kind of support and encouragement, it cannot be expected 
 
46 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 that you will ever again recover that respect, which the 
 colonies had been wont to pay to the parent state. Go 
 vernment at home will deceive itself, if it imagines that 
 the taking off the duty on glass, paper, and painters 
 colors, will work a reconciliation, and nothing more than 
 this, as I can learn, is proposed in Ld. H. s late circular 
 letter. It is the principle that is now disputed ; the com 
 bination against importation extends to tea, although it 
 comes cheaper than ever, as well to the other foremen- 
 tioned articles. In Virginia it is extended lately to 
 wines : and I have heard one of the first leaders in these 
 measures in Boston say, that we should never be upon a 
 proper footing till all the revenue acts from the 15th 
 Charles II. were repealed. Our Assembly in the Massa 
 chusetts may have been more illiberal than others in their 
 public messages and resolves ; yet we have some people 
 among us still who dare to speak in favor of government. 
 But here I do not find so much as one, unless it be some 
 of the King s servants ; and yet my business here leads 
 me to associate with the best. They universally approve 
 of the combination against importing of goods from Great 
 Britain, unless the revenue acts are repealed, which ap 
 pears to me little less than assuming a negative on all 
 acts of parliament which they do not like ! They say 
 expressly, we are bound by none made since our emigra 
 tion, but such as for our own convenience we choose to 
 submit to ; such, for instance, as that for establishing a 
 post-office. The Bill of Rights and the Habeas Corpus 
 Acts, they say, are only declaratory of common law, 
 which we brought with us. 
 
 Under such circumstances as these, why should I wish 
 to expose myself to popular resentment ? Were I to re- 
 
LETTERS, &C. 47 
 
 ceive any thing out of the revenue, I must expect to he 
 abused for it. Nor do I find that our Chief Justice has 
 received the 200 granted him for that service ; arid yet 
 the Assembly have this year withheld his usual grant, 
 most probably because he has such a warrant from the 
 crown. 
 
 With regard to my negotiations with Mr. Rogers, I did 
 in conformity to your opinion make an apology to Mr. 
 Secretary Pownall for mentioning it, and there submitted 
 it. I hear it has been since talked of; but unless I could 
 be assured in one shape or other of 300 per annum, 
 with the other office, I would not choose to quit what I 
 have. I have no ambition to be distinguished, if I am 
 only to be held up as a mark of popular envy or resent 
 ment. I was in hopes before now, through the interven 
 tion of your good offices, to have received some mark of 
 favor from your good friend ; but the time is not yet 
 come to expect it through that channel ! I will however 
 rely on your friendship, whenever you can with propriety 
 appear in forwarding my interest, or preventing any thing 
 that may prove injurious to it. 
 
 Jf Mr. R. has interest enough to obtain the Secretary s 
 place, I shall upon receiving proper security think myself 
 in honor bound to second his views, though I have none 
 at present from him but a conditional note he formerly 
 wrote me. If he is not like to succeed, and my son 
 Daniel could have my place, I would be content, unless 
 affairs take a different turn, to resign in his favor, whether 
 administration should think proper to make any. further 
 provision for me or not. And yet I never thought of 
 withdrawing myself from the service, while there ap 
 peared to me any prospect of my being a.ble to promote it. 
 
48 
 
 If I have wrote with freedom, I consider I am writing 
 to a friend, and that I am perfectly safe in opening my 
 self to you. 
 
 I am, with great respect, Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 ANDREW OLIVER. 
 
 DEAR SIR : The Commissioners of the Customs have 
 met with every insult since their arrival at Boston, and 
 at last have been obliged to seek protection on board his 
 Majesty s ship Romney. Mr. Hallowell, the Comptroller 
 of the Customs, who will have the honor to deliver you 
 this letter, will inform you of many particulars ; he is 
 sent by the Board with their letters to government. Un 
 less we have immediately two or three regiments, tis the 
 opinion of all the friends to government, that Boston will 
 be in open rebellion. 
 
 I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect and 
 warmest regard, 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 Your most faithful and obliged servant, 
 
 CHARLES PAXTON. 
 
 On board his Majesty s Ship Romney, } 
 Boston Harbor, June 20, 1768. / 
 
 Boston, Dec. 12,1768. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR: I wrote you a few days ago, and did 
 not then think of troubling you upon any private affair 
 of mine, at least not so suddenly; but within this day 
 or two, I have had a conversation with Mr. Oliver, Secre 
 
LETTERS, &C. 49 
 
 tary of the province, the design of which was my suc 
 ceeding to the post he holds from the crown, upon the 
 idea, that provision would be made for Governor Bernard, 
 and the Lieutenant Governor would succeed to the chair, 
 then the Secretary is desirous of being Lieutenant Go 
 vernor, and if in any way three hundred pounds a year 
 could be annexed to the appointment. You are sensible 
 the appointment is in one department, and the grant in 
 another; now the present Lieutenant Governor has an 
 assignment of 200 a year upon the customs here ; he 
 has not received any thing from it as yet, and is doubtful 
 if he shall ; he has no doubt of its lapse to the crown, if 
 he has the chair; if then by any interest, that sum could 
 be assigned to Mr. Oliver as Lieutenant Governor, and 
 if he should be allowed (as has been usual for all Lieu 
 tenant Governors) to hold the command of the castle, 
 that would be another 100. This would complete the 
 Secretary s views ; and he thinks his public services, the 
 injuries he has received in that service, and the favorable 
 sentiments entertained of him by government, may lead 
 him to these views, and he hopes for the interest of his 
 friends. The place of Secretary is worth 300 a year, 
 but is a provincial grant at present, so that it will not 
 allow to be quartered on; and as I had views upon the 
 place when I was in England, and went so far as to con 
 verse with several men of interest upon it, though I never 
 had an opportunity to mention it to you after I recovered 
 my illness. I hope you will allow me your influence, and 
 by extending it at the Treasury, to facilitate the assign 
 ment of the 200 a year; it will be serving the Secretary, 
 and it will very much oblige me. The Secretary is ad- 
 vanced in life, though much more so in health, which has 
 
50 LETTERS, &C. 
 
 been much impaired by the injuries he received, and he 
 wishes to quit the more active scenes; he considers this 
 as a kind of otium cum dignitate, and from merits one may 
 think he has a claim to it. I will mention to you the 
 gentlemen who are acquainted with my views, and whose 
 favorable approbation I have had. Governor Pownall, 
 Mr. John Pownall, and Dr. Franklin. My Lord Hills- 
 borough is not unacquainted with it. I have, since T 
 have been here, wrote Mr. Jackson upon the subject, and 
 have by this vessel wrote Mr. Mauduit. I think my 
 character stands fair. I have not been without applica 
 tion to public affairs, and have acquired some knowledge 
 of our provincial affairs, and notwithstanding our many 
 free conversations in England, I am considered here as on 
 government side, for which I have been often traduced 
 both publicly and privately, and ver} lately have had two 
 or three slaps. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor 
 are fully acquainted with the negotiation, and I meet 
 their approbation ; all is upon the idea the Governor is 
 provided for, and there shall by any means be a vacancy 
 of the Lieutenant Governor s place. I have gone so far 
 as to say to some of my friends, that rather than not suc 
 ceed I would agree to pay the Secretary 100 a year out 
 of the office, to make up 300, provided he could obtain 
 only the assignment of 200 but the other proposal 
 would, to be sure, be most eligible. I scarce know any 
 apology to make for troubling you upon the subject; the 
 friendship you shewed me in London, and the favorable 
 expressions you made use of to the Lieutenant Governor 
 in my behalf, encourage rne, besides a sort of egotism, 
 which inclines men to think what they wish to be real. 
 
&c. 51 
 
 I submit myself to the enquiries of any of my country 
 men in England, but I should wish the matter may be 
 secret till it is effected. 
 
 I am, with very great respect and regard, my dear Sir, 
 Your most obedient and most humble servant, 
 
 NATH. ROGERS. 
 
KEMAEKS 
 
 IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 
 
 BY ISRAEL MAUDUIT. 
 
 THESE are the letters, upon which the Assembly have 
 artfully been induced to pass their censures, and have 
 founded an Address to remove his Majesty s Governor 
 and Lieutenant Governor. Unable to point out a single 
 action of the Governor s during his four years administra 
 tion, they find themselves under a necessity of recurring 
 to letters, written before the time, when either of these 
 gentlemen were possessed of the offices which they now 
 enjoy. 
 
 Upon the revival of them, I see strong proofs of Mr. 
 llutchinson s judgment and understanding, of his just no 
 tions of the interest of that country and of this, and of 
 his fidelity and steady regard to the welfare of both : 
 but am at a loss to find what there is in them, which can 
 be a ground of blame ; and much less warrant the very 
 extraordinary censures, which have been passed on them. 
 They are his private correspondence with the late Mr. 
 Thomas Whately, a private Gentleman in London : a 
 
 (52) 
 
REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 53 
 
 Member of Parliament indeed, and one who has been 
 Secretary to the Treasury : but who was then out of 
 place; and far from being connected with Government, 
 during the whole time while these letters were writing, 
 was voting in opposition. Being neither of them in trade, 
 their letters did not contain bills or invoices, but they 
 turned upon subjects which Gentlemen naturally write 
 about to each other : the occurrences of the time, and 
 the several public matters, which were transacting in the 
 places where each of them resided. The intelligences 
 they contain may have come to hand something earlier 
 than those by the common conveyance. But the facts 
 themselves were, soon after, all known to every man in 
 this country as well as that. 
 
 They give an account of a riot at Boston, upon the 
 seizure of a smuggling vessel belonging to Mr. Hancock, 
 a principal supporter of the party, and one of the Com 
 mittee appointed to the management of the censure passed 
 upon these letters ; but of this riot we all of us in due 
 time from our several correspondents, knew full as much 
 as Mr. Whately did from his.* 
 
 The letters mention the combination at Boston against 
 taking our goods: but is it a crime to write as news, what 
 they wished to have told to all the world ? and printed 
 in their newspapers for that very purpose, in order to 
 bully our Ministers, and frighten our Merchants and 
 
 * In this riot, Mr. Harrison, the Collector, an old Gentleman of an irre 
 proachable character, and very respectable appearance, received a contusion in 
 his breast by a brick-bat, which was thrown at him, under the ill-effects of 
 which he languished for more than twelve months, and probably might have 
 been trampled to death, if his son and others had not rescued him. This is 
 what they called a Brush, or small disturbance with boys and negroes. 
 
54 REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 
 
 Manufacturers. They mention that upon the Governor s 
 not judging it proper to call an Assembly at the will of 
 the party leaders at Boston, these townsmen took upon 
 themselves to write circular letters to all the towns and 
 districts, to send one person each to Boston. And do 
 we not all know that they did send such summons ? and 
 that this Mock Assembly did meet ? and did they not 
 desire that the world should know it, and publish their 
 resolves for that purpose ? 
 
 These letters mention the need there is of the govern 
 ment s supporting and encouraging the officers of the 
 crown in the faithful discharge of their duty. And had 
 not the House of Commons long before this determined 
 the very same thing ? and did they not address his Ma 
 jesty, that he would so support and countenance them ? 
 They mention the common people s having been worked 
 up into a frenzy, and their having talked of dying in de 
 fence of their liberties. And have they not been per 
 petually publishing threatenings of the same sort ? and 
 in all their papers sounding the trumpet of mutiny and 
 sedition ? 
 
 The letters say that many of rank above the vulgar, 
 and some in public posts, had encouraged this frenzy. 
 And do these censurers pretend to say they were not in 
 such a state of confusion ? Far from denying the truth 
 of this account, the Committee of Council themselves ac 
 knowledge that " the state of things at this time was 
 greatly disordered, but the greatness of this disorder they 
 say arose from other causes ; which they there enume 
 rate." Whether they or Mr. Hutchinson were right in 
 their judgment about the causes of these disorders is im 
 material to the present argument. Both acknowledge 
 
REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 55 
 
 that there were disorders. And had not Mr. Hotch- 
 inson as good a right to give his opinion about the 
 causes of them to a private correspondent, as these gen 
 tlemen have openly to traduce the British Government, 
 and to sajr that they were owing to them ? 
 
 With the relation of these facts, the letters mention 
 the writer s sentiments upon Government, and such other 
 subjects as occur : sentiments which, as Mr. llutchinson 
 justly observes, contain nothing respecting the constitu 
 tion of the colonies, more than what is contained in his 
 public speeches to the Assembly. But whether they did 
 or did not, will these sons of liberty, as they affect to call 
 themselves, avow the position, that a Gentleman of Bos 
 ton ought not to write his opinions to his friend in Lon- 
 eon, unless those opinions do exactly coincide with theirs ? 
 I say nothing of the moderation and good temper which 
 appears in all these letters ; for if they could have been 
 still more temperate, yet, while Mr. Hutchinson stands 
 in the way of the leaders of a faction, who can live by 
 nothing but confusion, they would have equally con 
 demned them. They wanted nothing more than to get 
 some letters under the Governor s hand ; and whatever 
 they were they would have condemned them in the same 
 manner as they do these, and have found that the design 
 of them was to overthrow the Constitution, and to intro 
 duce arbitrary power into the province. Thus they have 
 treated their former Governors ; thus they have treated 
 this ; and, if Mr. Hutchinson were to die, in three months 
 time they would treat his successor in the same manner. 
 I might justly rest the matter here; and appeal to 
 every impartial reader, whether if his own private cor 
 respondence should, by any act of fraud or perfidy, hap- 
 
56 REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 
 
 pen to be betrayed, he would not feel himself happy to 
 find, that his letters contained as many things as these 
 do, for his friends to commend, and so very few for the 
 malice of his enemies to carp at. But as these men affect 
 a mighty concern lest Mr. Whately should have shewed 
 his letters to the King; and they might interrupt and 
 " alienate the affections of our most gracious Sovereign 
 King George the Third, from his loyal and affectionate 
 province ; and destroy the harmony and good-will between 
 Great Britain and that colony, which every friend to 
 either would wish to establish :" and as the generality of 
 people here, misled by false representations and feigned 
 letters in newspapers, are but too apt to believe them, 
 this makes it necessary to take off the mask of hypoc 
 risy, and to exhibit them in their own proper features. 
 When the reader will himself see, that all these fearful 
 apprehensions of his Majesty s displeasure, and all these 
 professed desires of harmony between Great Britain and 
 the Colony, are mere mockery and insult; and that they 
 really mean the direct contrary. 
 
 See, reader, the true standard of their loyalty, ex 
 tracted from the Journals of the last House of Represen 
 tatives. The party had it not in their power to make a 
 declaratory Act of Assembly, because they knew that the 
 Governor would riot pass it : but they passed the follow 
 ing declaratory resolutions : 
 
 Mcrcurii, 3 die Martii, A. D. 1773. 
 
 " The House, according to order, entered into the con 
 sideration of the report of the Committee appointed to 
 consider his Excellency s message relative to the salaries 
 
REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 57 
 
 of the Justices of the Superior Court ; arid thereupon 
 the following resolves were passed : 
 
 " Whereas, by an act of the British Parliament, made 
 and passed in the sixth year of his present Majesty s 
 reign, it is declared, That the King, Lords, and Commons 
 in Parliament assembled have, ever had, and of right 
 ought to have, full power and authority to make laws 
 and statutes of sufficient force and validity, to bind the 
 colonies and people of America, subjects of the Crown 
 of Great Britain, in all cases whatever; and afterwards 
 the same Parliament made and passed an act for levying 
 duties in America, with the express purpose of raising a 
 revenue, and to enable his Majesty to appropriate the 
 same for the necessary charges of the administration of 
 justice, and the support of civil government in such colo 
 nies where it shall be judged necessary, and towards fur 
 ther defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and 
 securing said dominions. And his Majesty has been 
 pleased, by virtue of the same last-mentioned act, to ap 
 propriate a part of the revenue thus raised against the 
 consent of the people, in providing for the support of the 
 Governor of the province ; and from his Excellency s 
 message of the 4th of February we cannot but conclude, 
 that provision is made for the support of the Judges of 
 the Superior Court of Judicature, independent of the 
 grants and acts of the General Assembly, contrary to the 
 invariable usage of this province :" therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That the admitting any authority to make 
 laws binding on the people of this province in all cases 
 whatsoever, saving the General Court or Assembly, is in 
 consistent with the spirit of our free constitution, and is 
 repugnant to one of the most essential clauses in our 
 
 8 
 
58 REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 
 
 charter, whereby the inhabitants are entitled to all the 
 liberties of free and natural born subjects, to all intents, 
 constructions, and purposes whatsoever, as if they had 
 been born within the realm of England. It reduces the 
 people to the absolute will and disposal of a Legislature, 
 in which they can have no voice, and who may make it 
 their interest to oppress and enslave them. 
 
 " Resolved, That by the Royal Charter aforesaid, the 
 General Court or Assembly hath full power and authority 
 to impose and levy proportionable and reasonable assess 
 ments, rates, and taxes, upon the estates and persons of 
 all and every the proprietors and inhabitants of the pro 
 vince, to be issued and disposed of by warrant, under the 
 hand of the Governor, with the advice and consent of the 
 Council, for his Majesty s service in the necessary defence 
 and support of the government of the province, and the 
 protection and preservation of the inhabitants there, ac 
 cording to such acts as are or shall be in force within the 
 province. And the making provision for the support of 
 the Governor and the Judges otherwise than by the grants 
 and acts of the General Court or Assembly, is a violent 
 breach of the aforesaid most important clause in the 
 charter : the support of government, in which their sup 
 port is included, being one of the principal purposes for 
 which the clause was inserted. 
 
 " Whereas the independence as well as the uprightness 
 of the Judges of the land is essential to the impartial ad 
 ministration of justice, arid one of the best securities of 
 the rights, liberties, and properties of the people, 
 
 " Resolved, therefore, That the making the Judges of 
 the land independent of the grants of the people, and 
 altogether dependent on the crown, as they will be, if 
 
I 
 
 REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 59 
 
 while they thus hold their commissions during pleasure, 
 they accept of salaries from the crown, is unconstitutional 
 and destructive of that security, which every good mem 
 ber of civil society has a just right to be assured of, under 
 the due execution of the laws, and is directly the reverse 
 of the constitution and appointment of the Judges in 
 Great Britain. 
 
 "Resolved, That the dependence of the Judges of the 
 land on the crown for their support, tends at all times, 
 especially while *they hold their commissions during plea- 
 sure, to the subversion of justice and equity, and to in 
 troduce oppression and despotic power. 
 
 " Resolved, As the opinion of this House, that while the 
 Justices of the Superior Court hold their commissions 
 during pleasure, any one of them who shall accept of, 
 and depend upon the pleasure of the crown for his sup 
 port, independent of the grants and acts of the General 
 Assembly, will discover to the world, that he has not a 
 due sense of < the importance of an impartial administra 
 tion of justice, that he is an enemy to the constitution, 
 and has it in his heart to promote the establishment of 
 an arbitrary government in the province/ " 
 
 Reader, after the perusal of these resolutions, what 
 are all the things said of these men in Mr. Hutchinson s 
 letters, compared with what they here say of themselves ? 
 Or what is there in his mentioning some particular in 
 stances of their not paying a due obedience to the au 
 thority of government, compared with this open disavowal 
 of the whole? Yet the Committee, which drew up these 
 resolutions, consisted chiefly of the same individual men, 
 with the Committee, which drew up the censure on these 
 letters. And indeed they are the same set of men, whose 
 
60 REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 
 
 names appear in all Committees of this sort. These are 
 the men, who, in order to give a plausible color to their 
 censures, can transform themselves into the appearance 
 of the most meek and submissive of all his Majesty s 
 subjects, and affect to be greatly alarmed at these private 
 letters, and to believe that " they had a natural and effi 
 cacious tendency to interrupt and alienate the affections 
 of our Most Gracious Sovereign, King George the Third, 
 from this his loyal arid affectionate province ; to destroy 
 that harmony and good will between Gr*eat Britain and 
 this colony, which every friend to either would wish to 
 establish ; and to excite the resentment of the British 
 Administration against this province, &c." 
 
 At that very time, when they knew that they had 
 been flying in the face of his Majesty, setting acts of 
 parliament at defiance, and passing the most seditious 
 resolutions against the dignity of the British nation, and 
 the supreme authority of the empire ; at that very time 
 these tender-minded loyalists are most piteously con 
 cerned about some private letters, lest they should inter 
 rupt and alienate the affections of their Most Gracious 
 Sovereign King George the Third : letters which set 
 them in a light of innocence, compared with the mutinous 
 and insolent portrait, which they have here drawn of 
 themselves. 
 
 After having in their public votes spurned at the King s 
 orders, assumed to themselves the control of his Courts 
 of Justice, and proscribed the King s Judges as enemies 
 to the constitution, and promoters of arbitrary govern 
 ment, if they obey the King s order, founded on an act 
 of parliament, and receive the King s salaries, they then 
 call themselves his most loyal and affectionate subjects. 
 
REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 61 
 
 They openly recite a solemn act of the British legisla 
 ture, and make a counter declaration of their own in di 
 rect opposition to it ; and then pretend to be mightily 
 afraid, lest these letters to Mr. Whately should destroy 
 the harmony and good-will between Great Britain and the 
 colony. 
 
 But not content with professing their great concern to 
 preserve the good-will of the British nation, and to ap 
 pear to his Majesty as his most affectionate subjects, they 
 are anxious even about the good opinion of his Ministers ; 
 and are grievously concerned, lest these letters should 
 excite the resentment of the British Administration. Reader, 
 these very men, Adams, Hancock, &c., who, in the form 
 of a Committee of Correspondence for the town of Bos 
 ton, have been inflaming all the towns in the province 
 against the King s government; who, in the form of a 
 Committee of Assembly, drew up these resolutions, and 
 these censures ; these very men, in a message to the 
 Governor, 12th February, 1773, express themselves in 
 the following terms : " We are more and more convinced, 
 that it has been the design of the Administration, totally 
 to subvert the constitution, and to introduce arbitrary go 
 vernment into this province." Doubtless, the King s ser 
 vants ought, every man of them, to join in advising his 
 Majesty to dismiss his Governor and Lieutenant Governor, 
 who could suppose any thing ill of men who stood so 
 much in awe of their resentment ? 
 
 There is one remark more, which cannot have escaped 
 the reader. One of the chief passages objected to by 
 these censurers, is that where Mr. Hutchinson says : "If 
 no measures shall have been taken to secure this depend 
 ence, or nothing more than some declaratory acts or re- 
 
62 REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 
 
 solves, it is all over with us." Can there possibly be re 
 quired a stronger proof of the truth of this observation 
 about the inefficacy of our declaratory act, than the 
 counter declaration which we have now seen ? yet, after 
 having themselves verified the prediction, they would 
 have his Majesty turn out his Governor for having 
 made it. 
 
 Reader, there are but too many men to be found, who, 
 after doing a bad thing, will be false enough to charge it 
 upon others. There are also other instances of men, who 
 having done a wrong thing, will affect to consider as the 
 highest affront, they being told that they have done it. 
 But for men first to do a thing, then to avow it, and 
 publish to the world that they have done it, and after 
 all this to censure it as a crime in their Governor to sup 
 pose them capable of doing it, this is a degree of 
 effrontery suited only to the complexion of a Boston 
 Committee-man. 
 
 There are a few other remarks which it may be of use 
 to make upon these letters. 
 
 The only exceptionable expression in Mr. Hutchinson s 
 letters, is that in which he says, there must be an abridg 
 ment of what are called English Liberties. And this ap 
 pears so, only from our not being apprized of the mean 
 ing of it. An English reader naturally concludes, that 
 by English Liberties is meant our being governed, not by 
 arbitrary will, but only by Acts of Parliament. In the 
 Boston new dialect the import of this phrase is just the 
 contrary ; and what they call English Liberties > is the not 
 being governed by Acts of Parliament. The reader need 
 only look into their votes and public proceedings, to be 
 convinced that this is the true and avowed sense in which 
 
REMAEKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 63 
 
 they understand it. In the Charter of the Massachusetts 
 colony, King William, in the words of their old Charter, 
 says : " And farther our will and pleasure is, and we do 
 hereby for us, our heirs, and successors, grant, establish, 
 and ordain, That all and every of the subjects of us, our 
 heirs, and successors, which shall go to and inhabit within 
 our said province and territory, and every of their chil 
 dren, which shall happen to be born there, or on the seas 
 in going thither, or returning from thence, shall have and 
 enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural 
 subjects, within any of the dominions of us, our heirs, and 
 successors, to all intents, constructions, and purposes what 
 soever, as if the} r and every of them were born within 
 this our realm of England." From King William s reign 
 to this, no one ever had the least doubt about the mean 
 ing of this clause ; and the New Englanders have ever 
 enjoyed the full benefit of it, by their being treated in 
 all parts of the King s dominions, wherever they came, 
 not as aliens, but as denisons, and enjoying all the liber 
 ties and immunities of free and natural born subjects. 
 This, I say, has invariably hitherto been understood to be 
 the meaning of this paragraph. But within these few 
 years, the leaders of the faction at Boston have been in 
 structed to pat a quite new interpretation upon these 
 words, and to say : The people of England have a right 
 to choose Representatives for themselves, and are go 
 verned only by Acts of Parliament; the charter says, 
 that we shall enjoy all liberties and immunities of free 
 and natural subjects within any of the King s dominions ; 
 therefore we too have as good a right, as the people of 
 England have, to choose our own Representatives, and to 
 be governed only by the laws made by our own Assem- 
 
64 REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 
 
 bly ; and the Parliament of England have nothing to do 
 with us. We, as well as the inhabitants of England, by 
 our charter are entitled to English liberties, and therefore 
 we will make laws for ourselves ; and no legislature of 
 Great Britain has any right to control us. 
 
 A subordinate power of legislation, for the well order 
 ing the several provinces and corporations, and for the 
 making laws for their own good government among them 
 selves, that is a power which we can well understand ; 
 and accordingly in the Massachusetts Charter, as well as 
 in most other Charters, there is an express clause, giving 
 them this legislative power, and limiting the extent of it ; 
 that its laws shall not be repugnant or contrary to the 
 laws of the realm, or as the next paragraph says, repug 
 nant to the laws and statutes of this our realm. But 
 these Bostoners passing over this, and all the other 
 clauses in their Charter, which provide for their welfare 
 arid good government, while they continue in the pro 
 vince, have most unfortunately chosen to build their high 
 claim of independence upon that single clause which 
 grants them nothing while they are in the province, but 
 only provides for their good reception in all parts of the 
 Kings dominions, when they go out of it. 
 
 In opposition to this wild and futile claim of independ 
 ence, Mr. Hutchinson insists, " that from King William s 
 days to these, the oldest man living never heard of this 
 interpretation. That never before these days was a doubt 
 made of the supreme authority of Parliament over every 
 part of the empire. That in every government there 
 must be somewhere a supreme uncontrolable power, an 
 absolute authority to decide and determine. That two 
 
REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 65 
 
 such powers cannot co-exist, but necessarily will make 
 two distinct states." 
 
 Whether it be right or not, that the empire should be 
 split into a number of separate and independent govern 
 ments, which shall each of them be at liberty to take 
 their own course, and make laws according to their own 
 liking, without being subject to any control from that su 
 preme legislature, which has hitherto been thought to 
 have the care of the whole, and whose duty it is to see 
 that no part of the empire suffer any detriment, that is 
 an argument which I leave to the determination of a su 
 perior authority. 
 
 Whether it be a justifiable procedure to foster and en 
 courage this froward humor in the Colonists, and to sup 
 port them in these pretensions of independence, till we 
 have nursed up their discontents into mutiny and rebel 
 lion, whether, I say, it be a justifiable thing to do this, 
 for the single purpose of distressing or oversetting a min 
 istry, that I leave to the discretion of our party leaders. 
 
 All that I have to observe is this : That if by English 
 liberties and immunities be meant a right given to a set 
 of subjects, wherever they go, to erect a legislature of 
 their own, and then to say that they will be governed 
 by that only, and that the Parliament has nothing to do 
 with them ; if, immediately after King James had been 
 expelled for attempting to suspend a very few Acts of 
 Parliament, it can be supposed, that King William meant 
 to assume a power to suspend them all, we may then 
 allow, that the people of Boston have a right to vote 
 these to be English liberties. 
 
 But if the British empire be but one empire, and we 
 do not wish to see it crumble to pieces, and break it into 
 
66 REMARKS IN DEFENCE OF THE FOREGOING LETTERS. 
 
 as many separate governments, as are the provinces, 
 counties, and corporations contained in it : we must then 
 be convinced, that a grant of English liberties and immu 
 nities does not mean a right given to every province or 
 corporation of the empire, to separate itself from the rest 
 of the British dominions, and to form to itself a legisla 
 ture of its own, which shall be uncontrolable by Parlia 
 ment. 
 
 Or, if the people of Massachusetts Bay will persist in 
 the use of this phrase, and will say, that this ought to 
 be called English liberties ; we must then say, as Mr. 
 Hutchinson does, that the British empire is but one, and 
 that to preserve that unity, there must be an abridgment 
 of what are (thus absurdly) called English liberties. 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDEESS 
 
 ASSEMBLY OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY, 
 
 TO REMOVE 
 
 HIS MAJESTY S GOVERNOR AND LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR. 
 
 To the Right Hon. the Earl of DARTMOUTH. 
 
 (Copy.) 
 
 London, August 21, 1773. 
 
 MY LORD : I have just received from the House of 
 Representatives of the Massachusetts Bay, their Address 
 to the King, which 1 now enclose, and send to your Lord 
 ship with my humble request in their behalf, that you 
 would be pleased to present jt to his Majesty the first 
 convenient opportunity. 
 
 I have the pleasure of hearing from that province by 
 my late letters, that a sincere disposition prevails in the 
 people there to be on good terms with the Mother Coun 
 try ; that the Assembly have declared their desire only 
 to be put into the situation they were in before the stamp 
 act; they aim at no novelties. And it is said, that 
 having lately discovered, as they think, the authors of 
 
 (67) 
 
68 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 their grievances to be some of their own people, their re 
 sentment against Britain is thence much abated. 
 
 This good disposition of theirs (will your Lordship 
 permit me to say ?) may be cultivated by a favorable 
 answer to this Address, which I therefore hope your good 
 ness will endeavor to obtain. 
 With the greatest respect, 
 
 I have the Honor to be, my Lord, &c., 
 
 B. FRANKLIN, 
 Agent for. the House of Representatives. 
 
 To the Clerk of the Council in waiting. 
 
 (COPY.) 
 
 Whitehall, Dec. 3, 1773. 
 
 SIR: The Agent for the House of Representatives of 
 the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, having delivered 
 to Lord Dartmouth an Address of that House to .the 
 King, signed by their Speaker, complaining of the con 
 duct of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of that 
 province, in respect to certain private letters written by 
 them to their correspondents in England, and praying 
 that they may be removed from their posts in that go 
 vernment ; his Lordship hath presented the said Ad 
 dress to his Majesty ; and his Majesty having signified 
 his pleasure, that the said Address should be laid before 
 his Majesty in his Privy Council, 1 am directed by Lord 
 Dartmouth to transmit the same accordingly, together 
 with a copy of the Agent s letter to his Lordship accom 
 panying the said Address. 
 1 am, Sir, 
 
 Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 (Signed.) J. POWNALL. 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 69 
 
 To the KING S Most Excellent Majesty. 
 
 MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN : We, your Majesty s loyal 
 subjects, the Representatives of your ancient Colony of 
 the Massachusetts Bay, in General Court legally assem 
 bled, by virtue of your Majesty s writ, under the hand 
 and seal of the Governor, beg leave to lay this our 
 humble Petition before your Majesty. 
 
 Nothing but the sense of the duty we owe to our Sove 
 reign, and the obligation we are under to consult the 
 peace and safety of the Province, could induce us to re 
 monstrate to your Majesty the Mai-Conduct of persons 
 who have heretofore had the confidence and esteem of 
 this people ; and whom your Majesty has been pleased, 
 from the purest motives of rendering your subjects happy, 
 to advance to the highest places of trust and authority in 
 the Province. 
 
 Your Majesty s humble petitioners, with the deepest 
 concern and anxiety, have seen the discords and animosi 
 ties which have too long subsisted between your subjects 
 of the Parent State and those of the American Colonies. 
 And we have trembled with apprehensions that the con 
 sequences, naturally arising therefrom, would at length 
 prove fatal to both Countries. 
 
 Permit us humbly to suggest to your Majesty, that 
 your subjects here have been inclined to believe, that the 
 grievances which they have suffered, and still continue 
 to suffer, have been occasioned by your Majesty s minis 
 ters and principal servants being, unfortunately for us, 
 misinformed in certain facts of very interesting import 
 ance to us. It is for this reason that former Assemblies 
 have from time to time prepared a true state of facts to 
 be laid before your Majesty, but their humble remon- 
 
70 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 strances and petitions, it is presumed, have by some 
 means been prevented from reaching your Royal hand. 
 
 Your Majesty s petitioners have very lately had before 
 them certain papers, from which they humbty conceive, 
 it is most reasonable to suppose, that there has long been 
 a conspiracy of evil men in this province, who have con 
 templated measures and formed a plan to advance them 
 selves to power, and raise their own fortunes, by means 
 destructive of the charter of the province, at the ex 
 pense of the quiet of the nation, and to the annihilating 
 of the rights and liberties of the American colonies. 
 
 And we do, with all due submission to your Majesty, 
 beg leave particularly to complain of the conduct of his 
 Excellency, Thomas Hutchinson, Esquire, Governor, and 
 the Honorable Andrew Oliver, Esquire, Lieutenant Go 
 vernor, of this your Majesty s province, as having a 
 natural and efficacious tendency to interrupt and alienate 
 the affections of your Majesty, our Rightful Sovereign, 
 from this your Loyal Province, to destroy that harmony 
 and good- will between Great Britain and this Colony, 
 which every honest subject would strive to establish, to 
 excite the resentment of the British Administration 
 against this province, to defeat the endeavors of our 
 agents and friends to serve us by a fair representation of 
 our state of facts, to prevent our humble and repeated 
 petitions from reaching the ear of your Majesty, or having 
 their desired effect. And finally, that the said Thomas 
 Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver have been among the 
 chief instruments in introducing a fleet and an army into 
 this province, to establish and perpetuate their plans ; 
 whereby they have been not only greatly instrumental of 
 disturbing the peace and harmony of the government, 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 71 
 
 and causing unnatural and hateful discords and animosi 
 ties between the several parts of your Majesty s exten 
 sive dominions, but are justly chargeable with all that 
 corruption of morals and all that confusion, misery, and 
 bloodshed, which have been the natural effects of posting 
 an army in a populous town. 
 
 Wherefore we most humbly pray that your Majesty 
 would be pleased to remove from their posts in this go 
 vernment, the said Thomas Hutchinson, Esquire, and 
 Andrew Oliver, Esquire, who have, by their above-men 
 tioned conduct and otherwise, rendered themselves justly 
 obnoxious to your loving subjects, and entirely lost their 
 confidence ; and place such good and faithful men in their 
 stead as your Majesty in your great wisdom shall think 
 fit. 
 
 In the name and by order of the House of Represen 
 tatives, 
 
 THO. GUSHING, 
 
 Speaker. 
 
 To THE LORDS COMMITTEE OF His MAJESTY S PRIVY 
 COUNCIL, FOR PLANTATION AFFAIRS. 
 
 The Petition of Israel Mauduit, humbly showeth 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, Esq., praying the re 
 moval of his Majesty s Governor and Lieutenant Go- 
 
72 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 vernor, which is appointed to be taken into consideration 
 on Tuesday 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. 
 Clemens Lane, Jan. 10, 1774. 
 
 To the Printer of the Public Advertiser. 
 
 g IR : Finding that two gentlemen have been unfortu 
 nately engaged in a duel, about a transaction and its cir 
 cumstances, of which both of them are totally ignorant 
 and innocent, I think it incumbent on me to declare (for 
 the prevention of farther mischief, as far as such a decla 
 ration may contribute to prevent it) that I alone am the 
 person who obtained and transmitted to Boston the let 
 ters 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 be 
 tween friends. They were written by public officers to 
 persons in public station, 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 in 
 cense 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 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 73 
 
 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 Jaid 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. 
 
 AT THE COUNCIL CHAMBER, Jan. 11, 1774. 
 
 Present, Lord President, 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 would wish to be informed what are those 
 papers. 
 
 Dr. Franklin. They are the letters of Mr. Hutchin- 
 son and Mr. Oliver. 
 
 Court. Have you brought them ? 
 
 Dr Franklin. No ; but here are attested copies. 
 
 Court. Do you not 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 advan- 
 
74 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 tage 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 
 that this had been a matter of politics and not of law, 
 and have not brought any 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 well know 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 vindi 
 cated ; and have made provision accordingly. I do not 
 think myself at liberty, therefore, to give up the assist 
 ance of my counsel, in defending them against this un 
 just accusation. 
 
 Court. Dr. Franklin may have the assistance of coun 
 sel, or go on without it, as he shall choose. 
 
 Dr. Franklin. I desire to have counsel. 
 
 Court. What time shall you want ? 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 75 
 
 Dr. Franklin. Three weeks. 
 
 Ordered, That the further proceedings be on Saturday, 
 29th instant. 
 
 The substance of that part of Mr. Wedderburns Speech 
 which related to the obtaining and sending away Mr. 
 Whatelys Letters. 
 
 Counsel for the Assembly. 
 MR. DUNNING, MR. JOHN LEE. 
 
 Counsel for the Governor and Lieutenant Governor. 
 MR. WEDDERBURN. 
 
 AT THE COUNCIL CHAMBER, 
 Saturday, Jan. 29,1774. 
 
 Present^ Lord President and thirty-five Lords. 
 MR. WEDDERBURN. 
 
 MY LORDS : The case which now comes before your 
 Lordships is justly entitled to all that attention, which, 
 from the presence of so great a number of Lords, and of 
 so large an audience, it appears to have excited. It is a 
 question of no less magnitude, than whether the Crown 
 shall ever have it in its power to employ a faithful and 
 steady servant in the administration of a Colony. 
 
 In the appointment of Mr. Hutchinson, his Majesty s 
 choice followed the wishes of his people ; and no other 
 man could have been named, in whom so many favorable 
 circumstances concurred to recommend him. 
 
 A native of the country, whose ancestors were among 
 
76 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 its first settlers. A gentleman, who had for many years 
 presided in their law courts; of tried integrity, of con 
 fessed abilities; and who had long employed those 
 abilities, in the study of their history and original con 
 stitution. 
 
 My Lords, if such a man, without their attempting to 
 allege one single act of misconduct, during the four years 
 in which he has been Governor, is to be borne down by 
 the mere surmises of this Address, it must then become 
 a case of still greater magnitude, and ever be a matter of 
 doubt, whether the Colony shall henceforward pay re 
 spect to any authority derived from this country. 
 
 A charge of some sort, however, is now preferred 
 against these gentlemen by this Address ; and the prayer 
 of it is, that his Majesty would punish them by a dis 
 graceful removal. 
 
 If they shall appear to have either betrayed the rights 
 of the Crown, or to have invaded the rights of the 
 people, your Lordships doubtless will then advise his 
 Majesty no longer to trust his authority with those who 
 have abused it. 
 
 But if no crime is objected to them, no act of miscon 
 duct proved, your Lordships will then do the justice to 
 their characters, which every innocent man has a right 
 to expect, and grant them that protection and encourage 
 ment, which is due to officers in their station. 
 
 My Lords, this is not the place to give any opinion 
 about our public transactions relating to the Colonies, 
 and I shall carefully avoid it. But the whole foundation 
 of this Address rests upon events of five and six years 
 standing ; and this makes it necessary to take up the 
 historv of them from their first original. 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 77 
 
 In the beginning of the year 1764, 
 
 * # :fc # :fc # sfc # * # 
 
 My Lords, after having gone through the history of 
 this people, for the last ten years, and shown what has 
 been the behaviour of Mr. Hutchinson in all these occur 
 rences, and the very laudable and friendly part he acted 
 on every occasion for the good of the colony ; I now 
 come to consider the argument upon that footing, on which 
 my learned friends have chosen to place it. 
 
 They have read to your Lordships the Assembly s ad 
 dress ; they have read the letters ; and they have read 
 the censures passed on them : and, after praying the re 
 moval of his Majesty s Governor and Lieutenant Go 
 vernor, they now tell your Lordships : There is no cause 
 to try there is no charge there are no accusers there 
 are no proofs. They say that the Governor and Lieu 
 tenant Governor are disliked by the Assembly, and they 
 ought to be dismissed, because they have lost the confi 
 dence of those who complain against them. 
 
 My Lords, this is so very extraordinary a proceeding, 
 that 1 know of no precedent, except one : but that, I con 
 fess, according to the Roman poet s report, is a case in 
 point : 
 
 Nunqnam, si quid mihi credis, amavi 
 Hnnc hominem. Sed quo cecidit sub crimine ? Quisnam 
 Delator Quibus Indicibus ? Quo Teste probavit 
 Nil horura Verbosa et grandis epistola venit 
 A Capreis Bene habet : nil plus interrogo. 
 
 My Lords, the only purport of this important Address 
 is, that the Governor and Lieutenant Governor have bst 
 the confidence of the people, upon account of some 
 papers, which they have voted to be unfriendly to them, 
 
78 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 and that they have been amongst the chief instruments in in- 
 froducing a fleet and army into the province. Your Lord 
 ships have heard the letters read, and are the best judges 
 of their tendency. I can appeal to your Lordships, that 
 it was not these letters, but their own ill conduct, which 
 made it necessary to order the four regiments. In point 
 of time it was impossible : for in Mr. Hutchinson s very 
 first letter, it appears, that they had an expectation of 
 troops. And they arrived in three months after. I 
 could appeal too to their own knowledge : for the printed 
 collection of Sir Francis Bernard s and General Gage s, 
 &c., letters were before them, which indisputably show 
 the direct contrary. 
 
 But as my learned friends have not attempted to point 
 out the demerits of these letters, I need not enter into 
 the defence of them. To call them only innocent letters, 
 would be greatly to depreciate them. They contain the 
 strongest proofs of Mr. Hutchinson s good sense, his 
 great moderation, and his sincere regard to the welfare of 
 that his native province. Yet, for these it is, that they 
 tell us he has lost the confidence of the people. 
 
 My Lords, there cannot be a more striking instance of 
 the force of truth, than what the Committee, who drew 
 up these papers, exemplify in their conduct. In their 
 second resolution, they acknowledge the high character, 
 in which Mr. Hutchinson stands, upon account of his 
 eminent abilities. In the very outset of their address, 
 they acknowledge the good use which he had made of 
 those abilities : for he could not have enjoyed their con 
 fidence, as they say he heretofore did, if he had made a 
 bad one. They acknowledge that this confidence sub 
 sisted, at least, till the time of his being made Governor. 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 7 ( J 
 
 Else they could not express their thankfulness to his Ma 
 jesty as they do, and applaud the appointment of him, 
 as proceeding from the purest motives of rendering his sub 
 jects happy. 
 
 In the height of their ill-will, therefore, to Mr. 
 Hutchinson, truth looks his enemies full in the face, and 
 extorts from them a confession of his merit, even in the 
 very act of accusing him. 
 
 But, whatever be the censures which the Assembly 
 may have been induced to pass on him, I will now give 
 your Lordships a proof of his enjoying the people s con 
 fidence, to the very time of the arrival of these letters. 
 
 Every one knows that there are few subjects in which 
 the people of the colonies have more eagerly interested 
 themselves, than in settling the boundary lines between 
 the several provinces. Some of your Lordships may re 
 member the long hearings which have been held at this 
 Board upon these disputes. Of late, they have taken 
 upon themselves to fix the limits of the King s charters. 
 An agreement was made between the two Assemblies of 
 New York and Massachusetts Bay, that they should each 
 appoint their Commissaries, to meet and settle the boun 
 dary line between the two provinces. Both of them no 
 doubt looked out for the best men they had for that pur 
 pose. But the people of Massachusetts Bay, after they 
 had chosen their Commissaries, still thought that they 
 could more securely trust their interests in their hands, 
 if Mr. Hutchinson would go along with them. To him 
 they had been used to look, as the man who best knew 
 the history of their first settlements ; him they con 
 sidered as the ablest defender of the province s rights : 
 and had ever found in him the most zealous affection for 
 
80 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 their welfare. The party leaders perhaps might have 
 been content to lose to the province any number of acres 
 or a few townships, rather than owe to Mr. Hutchinson 
 the preservation of them. But they did not dare to set 
 their faces against the general sense of the people. The 
 Governor was therefore requested to go with the Commis 
 saries. He did so, and settled for them a much better 
 line than they had ever expected. And the New York 
 and their own Commissaries, both of them acknowledged 
 that the advantage gained to the province, was chiefly 
 owing to the superior knowledge and abilities of Mr. 
 Hutchinson. 
 
 Thus far, then, the Governor s character stands fair 
 and unimpeached. Whatever, therefore, be the founda 
 tion of this Address for his removal, it must be something 
 done by him, or known of him, since his return from this 
 service just before the arrival of these letters. Your Lord 
 ships will observe that his enemies don t attempt to point out 
 a single action, during the four years in which he has been 
 Governor, as a subject of complaint. The whole of this 
 Address rests upon the foundation of these letters, writ 
 ten before the time when either of these gentlemen were 
 possessed of the offices, from which the Assembly now 
 ask their removal. They owe therefore all the ill-will 
 which has been raised against them, and the loss of that 
 confidence which the Assembly themselves acknowledge 
 they had heretofore enjoyed, to Dr. Franklin s good office 
 in sending back these letters to Boston. Dr. Franklin 
 therefore stands in the light of the first mover and prime 
 conductor of this whole contrivance against his Majesty s 
 two Governors ; and having by the help of his special 
 confidents and party leaders, first made the Assembly his 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 81 
 
 Agents in carrying on his own secret designs, he now ap 
 pears before your Lordships to give the finishing stroke 
 to the work of his own hands. 
 
 How these letters came into the possession of any one 
 but the right owners, is still a mystery for Dr. Franklin 
 to explain. They who know the affectionate regard 
 which the Whatelys had for each other, and the tender 
 concern they felt for the honor of their brother s memory, 
 as well as their own, can witness the distresses which 
 this occasioned. My Lords, the late Mr. Whately was 
 most scrupulously cautious about his letters. We lived 
 for many years in the strictest intimacy ; and in all those 
 years I never saw a single letter written to him. These 
 letters, I believe, were in his custody at his death. Arid 
 I as firmly believe, that without fraud, they could not 
 have been got out of the custody of the person whose 
 hands they fell into. His brothers little wanted this ad 
 ditional aggravation to the loss of him. Called upon by 
 their correspondents at Boston ; anxious for vindicating 
 their brother s honor and their own, they enquired ; gave 
 to the parties aggrieved all the information in their power ; 
 but never accused. 
 
 Your Lordships know the train of mischiefs which fol 
 lowed. But wherein had my late worthy friend or his 
 family offended Dr. Franklin, that he should first do so 
 great an injury to the memory of the dead brother, by 
 secreting and sending away his letters ; and then, con 
 scious of what he had done, should keep himself con 
 cealed, till he had nearly, very nearly, occasioned the 
 murder of the other. 
 
 After the mischiefs of this concealment had been left 
 for five^months to have their full operation, at length 
 
82 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 comes out a letter, which it is impossible to read without 
 horror ; expressive of the coolest and most deliberate 
 malevolence. My Lords, what poetic fiction only had 
 penned for the breast of a cruel African, Dr. Franklin has 
 realized, and transcribed from his oivn. His too is the 
 language of a Zanga : 
 
 " Know then twas I. 
 
 " I forged the letter I disposed the picture 
 
 " I hated, I despised, and I destroy." 
 
 What are the motives he assigns for this conduct, I 
 shall now more deliberately consider. 
 
 My Lords, if there be any thing held sacred in the in 
 tercourse of mankind, it is their private letters of friend 
 ship. If there can be any such private letters, those 
 which passed between the late Mr. Whately and Mr. 
 Oliver are such. The friendship between the two fami 
 lies is of thirty years stand ing during all that time there 
 has been kept up an intercourse of letters ; first with Mr. 
 Whately, the father, and then with the late Mr. Thomas 
 Whately, the son. In the course of this friendship, a 
 variety of good offices have passed between the two fam 
 ilies : one of these fell within the period of these letters. 
 Upon Mr. Oliver s daughter s coming to England with her 
 husband upon business, they were received at Nonsuch by 
 Mrs. Whately and her sons, as the son and daughter of 
 their old friend and correspondent. And accordingly your 
 Lordships will find, that one part of these letters is to 
 return thanks for the civilities shown to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Spooner at Nonsuch. 
 
 These are the letters which Dr. Franklin treats as pub 
 lic letters, and has thought proper to secrete them for his 
 own private purpose. How he got at them, or in whose 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 83 
 
 hands they were at the time of Mr. Whately s death, the 
 Doctor has not yet thought proper to tell us. Till he do, 
 he wittingly leaves the world at liberty to conjecture about 
 them as they please, and to reason upon those conjectures. 
 But let the letters have been lodged where they may, 
 from the hour of Mr. Thomas Whately s death, they be 
 came the property of his brother and of the Whately 
 family. Dr. Franklin could not but know this, and that 
 no one had a, right to dispose of them but they only. 
 Other receivers of goods dishonorably come by, may 
 plead as a pretence for keeping them, that they don t 
 know who are the proprietors. In this case there was 
 not the common excuse of ignorance ; the Doctor knew 
 whose they were, and yet did not restore them to the 
 right owner. This property is as sacred and as precious 
 to gentlemen of integrity, as their family plate or jewels 
 are. And no man who knows the Whatelys will doubt 
 but that they would much sooner have chosen, that any 
 person should have taken their plate, and sent it to Hol 
 land for his avarice, than that he should have secreted 
 the letters of their friends, their brother s friend, and their 
 father s friend, and sent them away to Boston, to gratify 
 an enemy s malice. 
 
 The reasons assigned for this, are as extraordinary as 
 the transaction itself is : They are public letters, to pub 
 lic persons, on public affairs, and intended to produce 
 public measures. This, my Lords, is the first ; and the 
 next reason assigned for publishing them is, because 
 the writers desire that the contents of them should be 
 kept secret. 
 
 If these are public letters, I know not what can be 
 reckoned private. If a letter whose first business is to 
 
84 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 return thanks to an old lady of seventy, for her civilities 
 at Nonsuch, be not a private letter, it will be necessary 
 that every man should be particularly careful of his 
 papers ; for, after this, there never can be wanting a pre 
 tence for making them public.* 
 
 But says the Doctor, " They tvere zvrittcn by public offi 
 cers" Can then a man in a public station have no pri 
 vate friends, and write no private letters? Will Dr. 
 Franklin avow the principle, that he has a right to make 
 all private letters of your Lordships his own, and to apply 
 them to such uses as will best answer the purposes of 
 party malevolence ? Whatever may have been the con 
 fidence heretofore placed in him, such a declaration will 
 not surely contribute to increase it. 
 
 But they were written to persons in public stations. 
 Just the contrary to this appears to have been the case. 
 Dr. Franklin is too well acquainted with our history not 
 to know that Mr. Whately, during both these years, and 
 for two years before and after, was only a private Mem 
 ber of Parliament ; and, as Mr. Oliver justly observes in 
 a letter of his, They at Boston could not be supposed to apply 
 to him as having an interest with the Ministers, when they 
 kneiv that he was all that time voting in opposition to them. 
 
 Does then the Doctor mean, that his being a Member 
 of Parliament placed him in a public station ? And will 
 he then avow, that a gentleman s being in Parliament is 
 ground sufficient for him to make his letters lawful plun 
 der, and to send them to his enemies ? 
 
 But they were written on public a/airs. A very grievous 
 
 * The reader will be pleased to observe, that the question here is not 
 whether they be good letters or bud ones, but whether they arc public letters 
 or private. 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 85 
 
 offence ! But it is a crime of which probably we all of us 
 have been guilty, and ought not surely, for that only, to 
 forfeit the common rights of humanity. 
 
 But they were intended to procure public measures. And 
 does not every man, who writes in confidence to his friend 
 upon political subjects, lament any thing which he thinks 
 to be wrong, and wish to have it amended ? And is this 
 a crime of so heinous a nature, as to put Mr. Whatety s 
 friends out of the common protection, and to give to Dr. 
 Franklin a right to hang them up to party rage, and to 
 expose them, for what he knew, to the danger of having 
 their houses a second time pulled down by popular fury? 
 
 But the writers of them desired secresy. True, they did 
 so. And what man is there, who, when he is writing in 
 confidence, does not wish for the same thing ? Does not 
 every man say things to a friend, which he would not 
 choose to have published to other people, and much less 
 to his enemies ? Would letters of friendship be letters of 
 friendship, if they contained nothing but such indifferent 
 things as might be said to all the world ? 
 
 If this is the case at all times with the confidential in 
 tercourse of friends, in times of party violence, there 
 must be a thousand things said in letters, which, though 
 innocent in themselves, either by rival malice or party 
 prejudice, may be turned to a very different construction. 
 These letters themselves have been distorted in this 
 manner ; and some expressions in them cannot possibly 
 be understood, without knowing the correspondent letters 
 to which they refer. And when a factious party had got 
 possession of the town meetings, and led the Assembly 
 into what resolutions they pleased, and were watching 
 for any pretence to abuse and insult their Governors, 
 
86 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 is it at all to be wondered, that they did not wish to 
 have the contents of their letters told to their enemies ? 
 When we read in these letters such passages as these : 
 " If there be no necessity for it, I think it would be best 
 it should not be known that this intelligence conies from 
 me." Or this : " I have wrote with freedom, in confi 
 dence of my name s not being used on the occasion. For 
 though I have wrote nothing but what, in my conscience, 
 I think an American may, upon just principles, advance, 
 and what a servant of the crown ought, upon all proper 
 occasions, to suggest; yet the many prejudices I have to 
 combat with, may render it unfit it should be made pub 
 lic." Or this of Mr. Hutchinson s : " I must beg the 
 favor of you to keep secret every thing I write, until we 
 are in a more settled state ; for the party here, either by 
 their Agent, or by some of their emissaries in London, 
 have sent them every report or rumor of the contents of 
 letters wrote from hence. I hope we shall see better 
 times both here and in England." Or this again of Mr. 
 Oliver s: "/ have wrote with freedom; I consider I am 
 writing to a friend; and that I am perfectly safe in opening 
 myself to you" Upon reading these passages, which are 
 all there are of this kind, a man whose heart was cast in 
 the common mould of humanity, would have been apt to 
 say : These are letters irregularly obtained ; the writers 
 desire that every thing they write should be kept secret ; 
 they belong to Mr. Whately, who never injured me ; I 
 will therefore return them to the right owner. Dr. 
 Franklin s reasoning is of a very different cast. After 
 having just before told us : These are public letters, sent 
 to public persons, designed for public purposes, and there 
 fore I have a right to betray them; he now says, These 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 87 
 
 are letters which the writers desire may be kept secret, 
 and therefore I will send them to their enemies. Pre 
 pared on both sides for his rival s overthrow, he makes 
 that an argument for doing him hurt, which any other 
 man would consider as a principal aggravation of the in 
 justice of it. 
 
 But, if the desiring secresy be the proof, and the mea 
 sure of guilt, what then are we to think of Dr. Franklin s 
 case; whose whole conduct in this affair has been secret 
 and mysterious ; and who, through the whole course of 
 it, has discovered the utmost solicitude to keep it so ? 
 My Lords, my accounts say, that when these letters were 
 sent over to Boston, so very desirous was Dr. Franklin 
 of secresy, that he did not choose to set his name to the 
 letter which accompanied them. This anonymous letter 
 expressly ordered, that it should be shown to none but 
 to a junto of six persons. If the Doctor choose it, 1 
 will name the six. The direction of every letter was 
 erased, and strict orders were given that they should be 
 carefully returned again to London. The manner in 
 which they were brought into the Assembly, all showed 
 the most earnest desire of concealment. Under these 
 mysterious circumstances have the Assembly passed their 
 censures ; and voted this Address to his Majesty against 
 Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Oliver, upon account of a parcel 
 of letters directed to somebody, they know not whom ; 
 and sent from somebody, they know not where. And 
 Dr. Franklin now appears before your Lordships, wrapt 
 up in impenetrable secresy, to support a charge against 
 his Majesty s Governor and Lieutenant Governor; and 
 expects that your Lordships should advise the punishing 
 
88 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 them, upon account of certain letters, which he will not 
 produce, and which he dares not tell how he obtained. 
 
 But the Doctor says, he transmitted them to his con 
 stituents. 
 
 That Dr. Franklin sent these letters to such persons as 
 he thought would in some way or other bring them into 
 the Assembly, may be true. And accordingly, after an 
 alarm of some dreadful discovery, these letters were pro 
 duced by one single person, pretending to be under an 
 injunction to observe the strictest secresy, and to suffer 
 no copies to be taken of them. After allowing two or 
 three days for fame to amplify, and for party malice to 
 exaggerate ; and after having thereby raised a general 
 prejudice against the Governor ; at length another Mem 
 ber tells the Assembly, that he had received from an un 
 known hand a copy of the letters ; and wished to have 
 that copy compared and authenticated with the originals. 
 After this, when they had brought the Council into their 
 measures, they then found their powers enlarged ; and 
 that they were at liberty to show them to any one, pro 
 vided they did not suffer them to go out of their hands ; 
 and the King s Governor and Lieutenant Governor were 
 permitted to look upon them only in this opprobrious 
 manner, in order to render the indignity so much the 
 more offensive. 
 
 This Dr. Franklin may call transmitting the letters to 
 his constituents ; and upon those who know nothing of 
 the course of these proceedings, may easily impose the 
 belief of it. But your Lordships will readily see, and 
 every man who has been an agent very well knows, that 
 this is not what is meant by transmitting to his constitu 
 ents. My Lords, when an agent means to write to the 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 89 
 
 Assembly, he addresses his letter to the Speaker, to be 
 communicated to the House. And the Doctor knows 
 that there are many articles in the Journals of this tenor: 
 " A letter from Dr. Franklin to the Speaker, was read." 
 
 But the course taken with these letters was just the 
 reverse of this. The letter which came with them was 
 anonymous ; though the hand was well known : too well 
 perhaps known to the selected few, who only were to be 
 allowed the sight of it. Since therefore the Doctor has 
 told us that he transmitted these letters to his constitu 
 ents, we know now who they are. His constituents, b}^ 
 his own account, must be this particular junto ; for to 
 them, and them only, were the letters communicated. Dr. 
 Franklin did not communicate them, as their agent, to the 
 Assembly; for whatever may have been the whispers of 
 this junto, the Assembly, as an Assembly, does not to 
 this day know by whom the letters were sent. And. so 
 little do these innocent, well meaning farmers, which com 
 pose the bulk of the Assembly, know what they are 
 about, that by the arts of these leaders, they have been 
 brought to vote an Address to his Majesty to dismiss his 
 Governor and Lieutenant Governor, founded upon certain 
 papers, which they have not named ; sent to them from 
 somebody, they know not whom ; and originally directed 
 to somebody, they cannot tell where : for, my Lords, my 
 accounts say, that it did not appear to the House that 
 these letters had ever been in London. 
 
 I have pointed out to your Lordships the manner in 
 which this conspiracy against the Governor was conducted, 
 with all its circumstances, as the letters from Boston re 
 late them. And from this account your Lordships will 
 not wonder that I consider Dr. Franklin not so much in 
 
90 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 the light of an agent for the Assembly s purpose, as in 
 that of a first mover and prime conductor of it for his 
 own ; not as the Assembly s agent for avenging this 
 dreadful conspiracy of Mr. Hutchirison against his native 
 country ; but as the actor and secret spring, by which all 
 the Assembly s motions were directed : the inventor and 
 first planner of the whole contrivance. He it was that 
 received and sent away Mr. Whately s letters. By what 
 means he laid his hands on them, he does not say ; till he 
 do, he leaves us at liberty to suppose the worst ; I. would 
 wish to suggest the best. One case only must be ex- 
 cepted ; Dr. Franklin will not add another injur\% and 
 say to the representative* of the Whately family, that 
 they were any of them consenting to the perfidy. And 
 yet, my Lords, nothing but that consent could put him 
 honorably in possession of them, and much less give 
 him a right to apply them to so unwarrantable a pur 
 pose. 
 
 My Lords, there is no end of this mischief. I have 
 now in my hand an expostulatory letter from a Mr. 
 Roome, not a native of America, but sent from London to 
 Ilhode Island, to collect in and sue for large outstanding 
 debts there. This poor man, in a familiar letter to a friend 
 in the same province, expresses a just indignation at the 
 difficulties he met with in executing his trust, from the 
 iniquitous tendency of their laws, and of the proceedings 
 of their courts, to defraud their English creditors ; and 
 then gives him an invitation to come and spend some 
 time with him at his country house, and catch perch and 
 be of their fishing party. For this letter, the Assembly 
 
 * Mr. Whately intended, if he had been well enough, to have been at the 
 Council. 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 91 
 
 brought him under examination, and committed him to 
 prison, because he would not answer to his printed name 
 at the end of one of the letters in this book.* Upon this 
 occasion he writes a, letter to one of his employers, with 
 whom he had served his clerkship here in London, expos 
 tulating on the cruelty and injustice of the executors suf 
 fering their dead brother s papers to be applied to such a 
 purpose. For he, my Lords, had no conception that any 
 one else could have made this use of letters which did 
 not belong to him. Mr. Roome had heard that the Bos 
 ton letters had all been sent back again to London ; and 
 knew that their Speaker was directed to procure his 
 original letter, in order to their proceeding against him 
 still more severely. The merchant here came with this 
 letter to a friend of Mr. Whately s, desiring that he 
 would go with him to Mr. Whately, and join in entreat 
 ing him not to send back the letter to their Speaker, 
 which would oblige him, he writes, either to fly the Pro 
 vince, or else to suffer a long imprisonment. My Lords, 
 Mr. Whately s friend had seen too much of the anguish 
 of mind under which he had been suffering for the five 
 months since this discovery. He knew that it would 
 be giving him another stab to suffer a stranger abruptly 
 to put this letter into his hands ; he informed the mer 
 chant of the state of the affair, and prevented his going 
 to him. 
 
 But what had this poor man done to Dr. Franklin, that 
 his letter should be sent back too? Mr. Hutchinson and 
 Mr. Oliver were public persons, and their letters, accord 
 ing to the Doctor s new code of morality, may be lawful 
 prize. But Mr. Roome s is a name we had never heard 
 
 * The Book of Letter?, printed at Boston, then in his hand. 
 
92 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 of. Was he too a man in a public station ? His friend, 
 to whom he sent this invitation to come a fishing with him, 
 was he a public person? Could Mr. Roome, when he was 
 writing to New London, imagine that he was writing a 
 letter to be shown to the King; and to alienate his affec 
 tions from that loyal people ? Did the sailing of the four 
 regiments to Boston depend upon the intelligence of a 
 man at Narragansett ? The writer of this letter could 
 not nave a thought of its producing public measures. 
 Surely then the returning of this letter might have been 
 omitted ; and this poor man at least might have been 
 spared. But all men. be they in public stations or in 
 private, be they great or small, all are prey that unfor 
 tunately fall into Dr. Franklin s hands : he wantonly and 
 indiscriminately sends back the letters of all; unfeeling 
 of the reflection which must arise in every other breast, 
 that what is sport to him may be imprisonment and death 
 to them. 
 
 But under all this weight of suspicion, in the full view 
 of all the mischievous train of consequences which have 
 followed from this treachery, (for such there must be 
 somewhere, though Dr. Franklin does not choose to let 
 us know where to fix it,) with a whole province set in a 
 flame ; with an honest, innocent man thrown into jail, and 
 calling on Mr. Whately not to furnish the means of fixing 
 him there ; with a worthy family distressed, in the re 
 flections cast on their own character, and in the sufferings 
 brought upon their friends and correspondents ; with the 
 memory of one brother greatly injured, and the life of 
 another greatly endangered ; with all this weight of sus 
 picion, and with all this train of mischiefs before his 
 eyes, Dr. Franklin s apathy sets him quite at ease, arid 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 93 
 
 he would have us think that he has done nothing more 
 than what any other Colony Agent would have done. Tie 
 happened only to be the first Colony Agent who laid his 
 hands on them, and he thought it his duty to transmit 
 them to his constituents. 
 
 My Lords, I have the pleasure of knowing several very 
 respectable gentlemen, who have been Colony Agents, and 
 cannot but feel a little concern at seeing this strange im 
 putation cast on that character. I have heard the senti 
 ments of some of them. Upon being asked, whether, if 
 they had laid their hands upon another gentleman s let 
 ters, they would have thought it their duty to make a 
 like use of them : my Lords, they received the proposal 
 with horror. One of them said, it was profaning the 
 word duty to apply it to such a purpose; another, that if 
 he had been their Agent, he would sooner have cut off 
 his right hand than have done such a thing. 
 
 My Lords, Dr. Franklin s mind may have been so 
 possessed with the idea of a Gre?it American Republic, 
 that he may easily slide into the language of the minister 
 of a foreign independent state.* A foreign Ambassador 
 when residing here, just before the breaking out of a war, 
 or upon particular occasions, may bribe a villain to steal 
 or betray any state papers ; he is under the command of 
 another state, and is not amenable to the laws of the 
 country where he resides; and the secure exemption 
 from punishment may induce a laxer morality. 
 
 But Dr. Franklin, whatever he ma} r teach the people 
 at Boston, while he is here at least is a subject ; and if a 
 subject injure a subject, he is answerable to the law. 
 
 * See also his Letter to Lord Dartmouth. 
 
94 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 And the Court of Chancery will not much attend to his 
 new self-created importance. 
 
 But, my Lords, the rank in which Dr. Franklin appears, 
 isnot even that of a Province Ag^nt : he moves in a very 
 inferior orbit. An agent for a province, your Lordships 
 know, is a person chosen by the joint act of the Governor, 
 Council, and Assembly ; after which, a commission is is 
 sued by the Secretary, under the province seal, appoint 
 ing him to that office. Such a real Colony Agent, being 
 made by the joint concurrence of all the three branches 
 of the Government, will think it his duty to consult the 
 joint service of all the three ; and to contribute all he 
 can to the peace, harmony, and orderly government of 
 the whole, as well as to the general welfare and prosperity 
 of the province. This at least is what I learn from the 
 copy books of two gentlemen, who at different periods 
 were Agents for this very Colony. But Dr. Franklin s 
 appointment seems to have been made in direct opposi 
 tion to all these. Upon a message from the Council to 
 the Assembly, desiring that they would join in the choice 
 of an Agent for the Colony, they came to a resolution, 
 that they would not join with the honorable Board in the 
 choice of such an Agent ; but resolved that they will 
 choose an Agent of their own ; and then, that Dr. Frank 
 lin should be that Agent. My Lords, the party by 
 whom the Assembly is now directed, did not want a man 
 who should think himself bound in duty to consult for 
 the peace and harmony of the whole government; they 
 had their own private separate views, and they wanted 
 an Agent of their own, who should be a willing instru 
 ment and instructor in the accomplishing their own sepa 
 rate purposes. Dr. Franklin, therefore, your Lordships 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAF. 95 
 
 see, not only moves in a different orbit from that of other 
 Colony Agents, but he gravitates also to a different centre. 
 His great point appears to be to serve the interest of his 
 party ; and privately to supply the leaders of it with the 
 necessary intelligence. Wheresoever and howsoever he 
 can lay his hands on them, he thinks it his duty to fur 
 nish materials for dissensions ; to set at variance the dif 
 ferent branches of the Legislature ; and to irritate and 
 incense the minds of the King s subjects against the 
 King s Governor. 
 
 But, says the Doctor, the tendency of these letters was to 
 incense the mother country against her colonies. 
 
 There is a certain steadiness which is singularly re 
 markable in this case. These men are perpetually offer 
 ing every kind of insult to the English nation. Setting 
 the King s authority at defiance; treating the parliament 
 as usurpers of an authority not belonging to them, and 
 flatly denying the Supreme Jurisdiction of the British 
 empire ; and have been publishing their votes and reso 
 lutions for this purpose; and yet now pretend a great 
 concern about these letters, as having a tendency to in 
 cense the parent state against the colony. Not content 
 with bidding defiance to our authority, they now offer 
 insult to our understanding ; and at the very time while 
 they are flying in the King s face, would have him turn 
 out his Governor, because he has in the mildest terms in 
 timated his opinion, that they do not pay the reverence 
 they used to do, to the British authority. 
 
 My Lords, we are perpetually told of men s incensing 
 the mother country against the colonies, of which I have 
 never known a single instance. But we hear nothing of 
 the vast variety of arts which have been made use of to 
 
90 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 incense the colonies against the mother country. And 
 in all these arts no one I fear has been a more successful 
 proficient, than the very man, who now stands forth as 
 Mr. Ilutchinson s accuser. My Lords, as he has been 
 pleased in his own letter to avow this accusation, 1 shall 
 now return the charge, and show to your Lordships who 
 it is that is the true incendiary, and who is the great 
 abettor of that faction at Boston, which, in form of a 
 Committee of Correspondence, have been inflaming the 
 whole province against his Majesty s government. 
 
 My Lords, the language of Dr. Franklin s peculiar 
 correspondents is very well known. For years past they 
 have been boasting of the countenance which he receives 
 in England, and the encouragement which he sends over 
 to them at Boston. One of their last boasted advices 
 was: Go on, abstain from violence, but go on; for you 
 have nothing to fear from the government here. 
 
 My Lords, from the excess of their zeal, these men 
 are apt sometimes to let out a little too much. In the 
 Boston Gazette of the 20th of September last is a letter, 
 understood at Boston to have been written by Mr. Adams, 
 one of Dr. Franklin s six constituents,* which ends with 
 the following passage : " The late Agent, Mr. De Bert, 
 in one of his letters wrote, that Lord Hillsborough pro 
 fessed a great regard for the interest of America ; and he 
 thought the only thing that could be done to serve us, 
 was to keep the matter of ric/ht out of sight. The professed 
 design of that minister it seems was to serve us. But 
 America has not yet thought it wise to agree to his Lord- 
 
 * This gentleman was the manager of the discovery of Mr. Hutchinson s 
 letters in the Assembly ; as Mr. Bowdoin, another of the six, was in the 
 Council. 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 07 
 
 ship s political plan, to wink their liberties out of sight, 
 for the sake of a temporary accommodation. Dr. 
 Franklin, who is perhaps as penetrating a genius as his 
 Lordship, extended his views a little* farther. I hope, 
 says he, in a letter dated in 1771, the colon} Assem 
 blies will show by repeated resolves, that they Imoiv their 
 rights, and do not lose sight of them. Our growing import 
 ance will ere long compel an acknowledgment of them, 
 and establish and secure th^rn to our posterity! And he 
 adds, k l purpose to draw up a memorial stating our rights 
 and grievances, and in the name and behalf of the pro 
 vince, protesting particularly against the late innovations. 
 Whether speedy redress is or is not the consequence, I 
 imagine it may be of good use to keep alive our claims, and 
 show that we have not given up the contested points. 
 It seems to have been the judgment of this great man, 
 that a state of rights should accompany a complaint of 
 grievances; and that decent and manly protests against 
 particular innovations, have the surest tendency to an ef- 
 effectual, if not a speedy removal of them." * 
 
 Your Lordships will be pleased to observe the time of 
 Dr. Franklin s announcing his intention of drawing up 
 for them such a memorial, was in 1771. At the proper 
 season in the next year, there was produced a great work, 
 under these very heads of a State of Rights, and a State 
 of Grievances, and Protests against the new Innovations: 
 but not from the press in London ; that would not have 
 answered the purpose. It was to be a memorial in the 
 name and behalf of the province ; and therefore was first 
 to be sent thither, and receive the stamp of their author 
 ities. A town meeting therefore was called, and a Com- 
 
 * This Gazette was misplaced during the speech. 
 13 
 
98 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 mittee of Correspondence chosen, to draw up a state of 
 their rights and grievances, and from the form of the 
 resolution it is pretty manifest, that the leaders knew 
 already what the work was to be. After an adjournment 
 the Committee met, and produced this great twelve-penny 
 book, under the very heads of a state of their rights, and 
 containing a list of their grievances, with remonstrances 
 sufficiently strong against what they call innovations. 
 The work was received with the utmost applause, and in 
 stantly converted into votes and resolutions of the town 
 of Boston. And doubtless it well deserved it. It is a 
 set of ready drawn heads of a declaration for any one 
 colony in America, or any one distant county in the 
 kingdom, which shall choose to revolt from the British 
 empire, and say that they will not be governed by the 
 King and Parliament at Westminster. They therefore 
 voted that this report of their Committee of Correspon 
 dence should be printed in a pamphlet, and that six hun 
 dred copies of them should be disposed of to the select 
 men of the towns of the province, with an inflammatory 
 letter, sounding an alarm of a plan of despotism, with which 
 the Administration (and the Parliament) intended to enslave 
 them ; and threatened them with certain and inevitable de 
 struction ; and desiring that they would call town-meet 
 ings, and send their votes and resolutions upon this book. 
 In sixty or seventy villages or townships such meetings 
 had been held, and all express the highest approbation 
 of this excellent performance. And well they might; 
 for it told them a hundred rights, of which they never 
 had heard before, and a hundred grievances which they 
 never before had felt. Your Lordships see the votes and 
 instructions of these several townships, in the Boston 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 99 
 
 gazettes here before me. They are full of the most ex 
 travagant absurdities. Such as the enthusiastic rants of 
 the wildest of my countrymen in the days of Charles II. 
 cannot equal, ft is impossible to read them to your 
 Lordships. Those of Pembroke and of Marblehead are 
 particularly curious : but I shall take those of the town 
 of Petersham. 
 
 " Resolved, That the Parliament of Great Britain, 
 usurping and exercising a legislative authority over, and 
 extorting an unrighteous revenue from, these colonies, is 
 against all divine and human laws. The late appointment 
 of salaries to be paid to our Superior Court Judges, whose 
 creation, pay, and commission, depend on mere will and 
 pleasure, complete a system of bondage equal to any ever 
 before fabricated by the combined efforts of the ingenuity, 
 malice, fraud, and wickedness of man. 
 
 " Therefore, Resolved, That it is the first and highest 
 social duty of this people, to consider of, and seek ways 
 and means for a. speedy redress of these mighty griev 
 ances and intolerable wrongs ; and that for the obtain- 
 ment of this end, this people are warranted, by the laws 
 of God and nature, in the use of every rightful art, and 
 energy of policy, stratagem, and force. 
 
 " Therefore, it is our earnest desire, and we here di 
 rect you, to use your utmost influence (as one of the 
 legislative body) to convince the nation of Great Britain 
 that the measures that they have meted out to us, will 
 have a direct tendency to destroy both them and us ; and 
 petition the King and Parliament of Great Britain, in the 
 most pathetic and striking manner, to relieve us from our 
 aggravated grievances ; but if all this should fail, we re 
 commend it to your consideration, and direct you to move 
 
100 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 it to the consideration of the honorable Court, whether 
 it would not be best to call in the aid of some Protestant 
 power or powers, requesting that they would use their kind 
 and Christian influence with our mother country, that so 
 we may be relieved, and that brotherly love and harmony 
 may again take place." 
 
 These are the lessons taught in Dr. Franklin s school 
 of Politics. My Lords, I do not say that Dr. Franklin 
 is the original author of this book. But your Lordships 
 will give me leave to observe, in the first place, that it is 
 not very likely that any of the Doctor s scholars at Bos 
 ton, should attempt to draw up such a state of rights and 
 grievances, when the great man, their master, had given 
 them notice that he should himself set about such a work; 
 and, in the next place, that if the Doctor should not 
 choose now to filiate the child, yet the time has been 
 when he was not ashamed of it ; for, after it had had its 
 operation in America, the Doctor reprinted it here, with 
 a preface of his own, and presented it to his friends. 
 
 My Lords, I have said that sixty or seventy of the 
 townships had already voted their approbation of the book. 
 The evil was catching from town to town (and if the 
 greater part could have been engaged, they would have 
 forced the rest) when the Governor thought it his duty 
 to interpose. He therefore called upon the Assembly to 
 disown these undutiful proceedings. Had he only men 
 tioned the disloyalty and evil tendency of them, they 
 would probably have passed a few resolutions, and have 
 suffered the evil to go on. He was well aware, that the 
 Assembly could easily vote themselves as many privileges 
 as they pleased, but that it was not so easy to prove their 
 rio-ht to them. He, therefore, disarmed them of their 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 101 
 
 strength in voting, and put them under the necessity of 
 proving ; and there he knew they would fail. By open 
 ing the session with that very masterly speech in defence 
 of the British-American constitution, he, for a time, 
 stunned the faction, and gave a check to the progress 
 of their town-meetings. And though the same men were 
 in the Assembly created a Committee of Correspondence, 
 to write to the Assemblies of the other provinces, yet the 
 spirit of the design languished, and but little more was 
 then done in it. 
 
 This, my Lords, is the great and principal ground of 
 their quarrel with Mr. Hutchinson. They want a Go 
 vernor who shall know less than themselves, whereas he 
 makes them feel that he knows more. He stopped the 
 train which Dr. Franklin s constituents had laid, to blow 
 up the province into a flame, which from thence was to 
 have been spread over the other provinces. This was the 
 real provocation : and for this they have been seeking for 
 some ground of accusation against him. 
 
 After sifting his whole conduct for the four years in 
 which he has been Governor, they are riot able to point 
 out a single action to find fault with. Their only re 
 course is to their own surmises of what were the senti 
 ments of his heart five or six years ago. He was, they 
 say, among the instruments in introducing a fleet and arm?/ 
 into the province. Have they attempted any proof of this ? 
 No. But they fancy it from some letters of his, which 
 do not say a single word of that sort. Is it possible to 
 conceive of a more groundless accusation, or not to see 
 their intent in it? 
 
 My Lords, they mean nothing more by this Address, 
 than to fix a stigma on the Governor by the accusation. 
 
102 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 Their charge, founded upon a pretence of knowing six 
 years ago what were Mr. Hutchinson s thoughts, is not 
 really designed for his Majesty in Council. They know 
 that your Lordships will not take an accusation for a 
 proof; nor condemn without evidence. They never de 
 sired to be brought to a hearing; and therefore the first 
 instant when your Lordships call for their proofs, they fly 
 off, and say they do not mean this as a. charge, or a trial 
 before your Lordships ; and they say truly : they meant 
 to bring it before the multitude, and to address the popu 
 lar prejudices. The mob, they know, need only hear 
 their Governors accused, and they will be sure to con 
 demn. My Lords, they boast at Boston, that they have 
 found this method succeed against their last Governor, 
 and they hope to make it do against this ; and by a second 
 precedent to establish their power, and make all future 
 Governors bow 7 to their authority. They wish to erect 
 themselves into a tyranny greater than the Roman : to 
 be able, sitting in their own secret cabal, to dictate for 
 the Assembly, and send away their vcrlosa d c/randis 
 epistola, and get even a virtuous Governor dragged from 
 his seat, and made the sport of a Boston mob. 
 
 Having turned out all other Governors, they may at 
 length hope to get one of their own. The letters from 
 Boston, for two years past, have intimated that Dr. 
 Franklin was aiming at Mr. Hutchinson s government. 
 It was not easy before this to give credit to such sur 
 mises : but nothing surely but a too eager attention to 
 an ambition of this sort, could have betrayed a wise man 
 into such a conduct as we have now seen. Whether 
 these surmises are true or not, your Lordships are much 
 the best judges. If they should be true, I hope that 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 103 
 
 Mr. Hutchinson will not meet with the less countenance 
 from your Lordships, for his rival s being his .accuser. 
 Nor will your Lordships, I trust, from what you have 
 heard, advise the having Mr. Hutchinson displaced, in 
 order to make room for Dr. Franklin as a successor. 
 
 With regard to his constituents, the factious leaders at 
 Boston, who make this complaint against their Governor ; 
 if the relating of their evil doings be criminal, and tend 
 ing to alienate his Majesty s affections, must not the doing 
 of them be much more so ? Yet now they ask that his 
 Majesty will gratify and reward them for doing these 
 things; and that he will punish their Governor for re 
 lating them, because they are so very bad that it cannot 
 but oifend his Majesty to hear of them. 
 
 My Lords, if the account given in these letters, of 
 their proceedings five years ago, tended to alienate his 
 Majesty s affections, has their conduct ever since been in 
 any respect more conciliating? Was it to confute or pre 
 vent the pernicious effect of these letters, that the good 
 men of Boston have lately held their meetings, appointed 
 their Committees, and with their usual moderation de 
 stroyed the cargo of three British ships ? If an English 
 Consul, in any part of France or Spain, or rather Algiers 
 or Tripoli, (for European Powers respect the law of na 
 tions,) had not called this an outrage on his country, he 
 would have deserved punishment. But if a Governor at 
 Boston should presume to whisper to a friend, that he 
 thinks it somewhat more than a moderate exertion of 
 English liberty, to destroy the ships of England, to at 
 tack her officers, to plunder their goods, to pull down 
 their houses, or even to burn the King s ships of war, he 
 ought to be removed ; because such a conduct in him has 
 
104 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 a natural and efficacious tendency to interrupt the harmony 
 between Great Britain and the colony, which these good sub 
 jects jire striving by such means to establish. 
 
 On the part of Mr. Hutchinson ami Mr. Oliver, I am 
 instructed to assure your Lordships, that they feel no 
 spark of resentment, even at the individuals who have 
 done them this injustice. Their private letters breathe 
 nothing but moderation. They are convinced that the 
 people, though misled, are innocent. J.f the conduct of a 
 few should provoke a just indignation, they would he the 
 most forward, and, J trust, the most efficacious solicitors 
 to avert its effects, and to excuse the men. They love 
 the soil, the constitution, the people of New England ; 
 they look with reverence to this country, and with affec 
 tion to that. For the sake of the people they wish some 
 faults corrected, anarchy abolished, and government re 
 established. But these salutary ends they wish to pro 
 mote by the gentlest means ; and the abridging of no 
 liberties, which a people can possibly use to its own ad 
 vantage. A restraint from self-destruction is the only 
 restraint they desire to be imposed upon New England. 
 
 My Lords, I have said that the letter which accompa 
 nied these in question, was anonymous, and that it was 
 directed to be shown to six persons only. 
 
 I am prepared to enter into the proof of this. I call 
 upon Dr. Franklin, for my witness. And I am ready to 
 examine him. 
 
 N. B. Dr. Franklin being present, remained silent, 
 but declared by his counsel that he did not choose to be 
 examined. 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 105 
 
 The following letter having been mentioned in Mr. 
 Wedderburn s Speech, it is printed for the reader s satis 
 faction, and to complete the collection. 
 
 Copy of a Letter returned tvith those signed Tho. Ilutchin- 
 son, Andrew Oliver, &c. 
 
 FROM ENGLAND. 
 
 Narraganset, Dec. 22, 1767. 
 
 SIR : I am now withdrawn to my little country villa, 
 where, though I am more retired from the busy world, 
 yet 1 am still enveloped with uneasy reflections for a 
 turbulent, degenerate, ungrateful continent, and the oppo 
 sition I have met with in my indefatigable endeavors to 
 secure our property in this colony, but hitherto without 
 success. The times are so corrupted, and the conflict of 
 parties so predominant, that faction is blind, or shuts her 
 eyes to the most evident truths that cross her designs, 
 and believes in any absurdities that assists to accomplish 
 her purposes under the prostitution and prostration of an 
 infatuated government. Judge then, my dear sir, in what 
 a critical situation the fortunes of we poor Europeans 
 must be among them. 
 
 We have not been able to recover our property for 
 years past, how great soever our exigencies may have 
 been, unless we soothed them into a compliance. We are 
 unwilling to enter into a litis-contestation with them, be 
 cause the perversion of their iniquitous courts of justice 
 are so great, that experience has convinced us we had 
 better lose half, to obtain the other quietly, than pursue 
 compulsory measures. We are also afraid to apply to a 
 British parliament for relief, as none can be effectually 
 
106 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 administered without a change of government, and a 
 better administration of justice introduced ; and was it 
 known here that we made such application home, not only 
 our fortunes would be in greater jeopardy, but our lives 
 endangered by it before any salutary regulations could 
 take place. We are sensible of the goodness of the King 
 and Parliament, but how far. or in what space of time 
 our grievance, as a few individuals, might weigh against 
 the influence of a charter government, we are at a loss to 
 determine. 
 
 In 1761, I arrived in America, which circumstance you 
 probably remember well. With great industry, caution 
 and circumspection, 1 have not only reduced our demands, 
 and regulated our connections in some measure, but kept 
 my head out of a halter which you had the honor to grace. 
 (Pray, Doctor, how did it feel ? The subject is stale, 
 but I must be a little funny with you on the occasion.) 
 Much still remains to be done, and after all my best en 
 deavors, my constituents, from a moderate calculation, 
 cannot lose less than 50,000 sterling, by the baneful 
 constitution of this colony, and corruption of their courts 
 of judicature. It is really a very affecting and melancholy 
 consideration. 
 
 Under a deep sense of the infirmities of their constitu 
 tion ; the innovations which they have gradually inter 
 woven among themselves : and stimulated by every act 
 of forbearance, lenity, and patience, we have indulged 
 our correspondents until deluges of bankruptcies have 
 ensued, insolvent acts liberated them from our just de 
 mands, and finally, had our indisputable accounts refused 
 admission for our proportion of the small remains, until 
 colony creditors were first paid, and the whole absorbed. 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 107 
 
 We have had vessels made over to us for the satisfaction 
 of debts, and after bills of sales were executed, carried 
 off in open violence and force by Capt. Snip-snap of Mr. 
 Nobody s appointment, and when we sued him for da mages, 
 recovered a louse. We have in oar turn been sued in our 
 absence, and condemned ex parte in large sums for imagi 
 nary damages, for which we can neither obtain a trial, nor 
 redress. They refuse us an appeal to the king in council ; 
 the money must be paid when their executions become 
 returnable ; and were we to carry it home by way of 
 complaint, it would cost us two or three hundred pounds 
 sterling to prosecute, and after all, when his Majesty s 
 decrees come over in our favor, and refunding the money 
 can no longer be evaded, I expect their effects will be 
 secreted, their bodies released by the insolvent act, and 
 our money, both principal, interest, and expenses, irre 
 coverably gone. Is not our case grievous ? We have 
 in actions, founded upon notes of hand, been cast in their 
 courts of judicature. We have appealed to his Majesty 
 in council for redress, got their verdicts reversed, and ob 
 tained the king s decrees for our money, but that is all ; 
 for although I have had them by me above twelve months, 
 and employed two eminent lawyers to enforce them into 
 execution, conformable to the colony law, yet we have 
 not been able to recover a single shilling, though we have 
 danced after their courts and assemblies above thirty days, 
 in vain to accomplish that purpose only. Consider, my 
 dear Sir, what expense, vexation, and loss of time this 
 must be to us, and whether we have not just cause of 
 complaint. 
 
 We have also in vain waited with great impatience for 
 years past, in hopes his Majesty would have nominated 
 
108 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 his judges, and other executive officers in every colony 
 in America, which would in a great measure have removed 
 the cause of our complaint. Nothing can be more neces 
 sary than a speedy regulation in this, and constituting it 
 a regal government ; and nothing is of such important 
 use to a nation, as that men who excel in wisdom and 
 virtue should be encouraged to undertake the business of 
 government. But the iniquitous course of their courts 
 of justice in this colony deters such men from serving 
 the public, or if they do so, unless patronized at home, 
 their wisdom and virtue are turned against them with 
 such malignity, that it is more safe to be infamous than 
 renowned. The principal exception I have met with here, 
 is James Helmes, Esq., who was chosen chief justice by 
 the General Assembly at last election. He accepted his 
 appointment, distinguishes himself by capacity and ap 
 plication, and seems neither afraid nor ashamed to ad 
 minister impartial justice to all, even to the native and 
 residing creditors of the mother country. I have known 
 him grant them temporary relief by writs of error, &c., 
 when both he and they were overruled by the partiality 
 of the court; and in vain, though with great candor and 
 force, plead with the rest of the bench, that for the honor 
 of the colony, and their own reputation, they ought never 
 to pay less regard to the decrees of his Majesty in coun 
 cil, because the properly was determined in Great Britain, 
 than to their own. I have also heard him with resolution 
 and firmness, when he discovered the court to be immode 
 rately partial, order his name to be enrolled, as dissenting 
 from the verdict. For such honesty and candor, I am 
 persuaded he will he deposed at next election, unless they 
 should be still in hopes of making a convert of him. 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 109 
 
 I wish it was in rny power to prevent every American 
 from suffering for the cause of integrity and their mother 
 country ; he, in an especial manner, should not only be 
 protected and supported, but appear among the first promo 
 tions. Is there no gentleman of public spirit at home, 
 that would be pleased. to be an instrument of elevating a 
 man of his principles and probity ? Or is it become 
 fashionable for vice to be countenanced with impunity, 
 and every trace of virtue passed over unnoticed? God 
 forbid ! 
 
 The colonies have originally been wrong founded. 
 They ought all to have been regal governments, and every 
 executive officer appointed by the king. Until that is 
 effected, and they are properly regulated, they will never 
 be beneficial to themselves, nor good subjects to Great 
 Britain. You see with what contempt they already treat 
 the acts of parliament for regulating their trade, and 
 enter into the most public, illegal, and affronting combi 
 nations to obtain a repeal, by again imposing upon the 
 British merchants and manufacturers, and all under the 
 cloak of retrenching their expenses by avoiding every unne 
 cessary superfluity. Were that really the case, I am sure 
 I would, and also every other British subject, esteem 
 them for it; but the fact is, they obtained a repeal of the 
 stamp act by mercantile influence, and they are now en 
 deavoring by the same artifice and finesse to repeal the 
 acts of trade, and obtain a total exemption from all taxa 
 tion. Were it otherways, and they sincerely disposed to 
 stop the importation of every unnecessary superfluity, 
 without affronting the British legislation by their public, 
 general, and illegal combinations, they might accomplish 
 their purposes with much more decency, and suppress it 
 
110 PROCEEDINGS ON TEIE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 more effectually by the acts of their own legislation, im 
 posing such duties upon their importation here,* as might 
 either occasion a total prohibition, or confine the consump 
 tion of them to particular individuals that can afford to 
 buy, by which measures they would also raise a consider 
 able colony Revenue, and ease the poor inhabitants in the 
 tax they now pay. But the temper of the country is 
 exceedingly factious, and prone to sedition ; they are 
 growing more imperious, haughty, nay insolent every day, 
 and in a short space, unless wholesome regulations take 
 place, the spirit they have enkindled, and the conceptions 
 of government they have imbibed, will be more grievous 
 to the mother country than ever the ostracism was to the 
 Athenians. 
 
 A bridle at present may accomplish more than a rod 
 hereafter ; for the malignant poison of the times, like a 
 general pestilence, spreads beyond conception ; and if 
 the British parliament are too late in their regulations, 
 neglect measures seven years, which are essentially ne 
 cessary now, sbould they then be able to stifle their com 
 motions, it will only be a temporary extinction, conse 
 quently, every hour s indulgence will answer no other 
 purpose than to enable them in a more effectual manner to 
 sow seeds of dissension to be rekindled whenever they 
 are in a capacity to oppose the mother country and render 
 themselves independent of her. 
 
 Have they not already in the most public manner shown 
 their opposition to the measures of parliament in the affair 
 of the late stamp act ? Do not they now with equal 
 violence and audacity, in both public papers and conversa- 
 
 * I mean foreign growth or fabrications ; but if on British, it would be 
 more pardonable than their present system. 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. Ill 
 
 tion, declare the parliamentary regulations in their nets of 
 trade to be illegal and a mere nullity ? What further 
 proofs do we wait for, of either their good or bad dis 
 position ? Did you ever hear of any colonies, in their 
 infant state, teach the science of tyranny, reduced into 
 rides* over every subject that discountenanced their 
 measures in opposition to the mother country, in a more 
 imperious manner than they have done these four years past ? 
 
 Have they not made use of every stroke of policy ( in 
 their way ) to avail themselves of the dark purposes of 
 their independence, and suffered no restraint of conscience, 
 or fear, not even the guilt of threatening to excite a 
 civil war, and revolt, if not indulged with an unlimited 
 trade, without restraint; and British protection, without 
 expence ? for that is the engine of it. Is this their true 
 or mistaken portrait ? SAY. If it is their true one, ought 
 not such pernicious maxims of policy such wicked 
 discipline such ingratitude such dissimulation such 
 perfidy such violent, ruthless and sanguinary councils, 
 where a Cleon bears rule, and an Aristides cannot be en 
 dured, to be crushed in embryo ? If not, the alternative 
 cannot avoid producing such a government, as will ere 
 long throw the whole kingdom into the utmost confusion, 
 endanger the life, liberty, and property of every good 
 subject, and again expose them to the merciless assassi 
 nation of a rabble. 
 
 I am sensible that in all political disputes, especially 
 in America, a man may see some things to blame on both 
 sides, and so much to fear, which every faction should 
 conquer, as to be justified in not intermeddling with 
 mther; but in matters of such vast importance as the 
 
 * The Committee to the Sons of Liberty, &c. 
 
112 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 present, wherein we have suffered so much still deeply 
 interested, and by which the peace and tranquillity of the 
 nation is at stake ; it is difficult to conceal one s emo 
 tions from a friend, and remain a tranquil spectator on a 
 theatre of such chicanery and collusion as will inevitably 
 (if not checked, and may sooner happen than is imagined 
 by many) chill the blood of many a true Briton. 
 
 It may be true policy, in some cases, to tame the 
 fiercest spirit of popular liberty, not by blows, or by 
 chains, but by soothing her into a willing obedience, and 
 making her kiss the veiy hand that restrains her ; but 
 such policy would be a very unsuitable potion to cure the 
 malady of the present times. They are too much cor 
 rupted, and already so intoxicated with their own 
 importance as to make a wrong use of lenient measures. 
 They construe them into their own natural rights, and a 
 timidity in the mother country. They consider them 
 selves a little bigger than the frog in the fable, and that 
 Great Britain can never long grapple with their huge 
 territory of 1500 miles frontier, already populous, and 
 increasing with such celerity, as to double their numbers 
 once in twenty-five years. This is not perfectly consonant 
 with my idea of the matter, though such calculation has 
 been made ; and admitting it to be erroneous, yet as 
 they believe it, it has the same evil effect, and possesses 
 the imaginations of the people with such a degree of in 
 sanity and enthusiasm, as there is hardly anything more 
 common than to hear them boast of particular colonies 
 that can raise on a short notice an hundred thousand fight 
 ing men to oppose the force of Great Britain; certain it 
 is, that they increase in numbers by emigration, &c., very 
 fast, and are become such a body of people, with such 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 113 
 
 extensive territor}^ as require every bud of their genius 
 and disposition to be narrowly watched and pruned with 
 great judgment, otherwise they may become, not only 
 troublesome to Great Britain, but enemies to themselves. 
 Now is the critical season. They are still like some 
 raw, giddy youth just emerging into the world, in a 
 corrupt, degenerate age. A parent, or a guardian, is 
 therefore still necessary; and if well managed, they 
 will soon arrive at such maturity as to become obedient, 
 dutiful children ; but if neglected long, the rod of chas 
 tisement will be so much longer necessary as to become 
 too burthensome, and must be dropped with the colonies. 
 They almost consider themselves as a separate people 
 from Great Britain already. 
 
 Last month, while 1 was attending the General Assem 
 bly, the Governor sent a written message to the lower 
 house, importing his intention of a resignation at the 
 next election, assigning for reasons, the fumes in the 
 colony and party spirit were so high, and that bribery 
 and corruption were so predominant, that neither life, 
 liberty, nor property, were safe, &c., &c., &c. Now, Sir, 
 whether the Governor s intentions, as exhibited in this 
 open, public declaration was real or feigned, to answer poli 
 tical purposes, it still evinces their decrepid state, the pros 
 titution of government, and melancholy situation of every 
 good subject : For it cannot be supposed, by any candid 
 inquisitor, that a declaration of that nature and form 
 would, if not true, have been delivered by a Governor 
 to a whole legislative body in order to emancipate him 
 self. If this truth is granted, and this allowed to be 
 their unhappy situation, how much is it the duty of every 
 
 good ma.n, and what language is sufficient to paint, in .in 
 15 
 
114 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAV. 
 
 effectual manner, this internal imbecility of an English 
 colony (in many other respects favorably situated for 
 trade and commerce, one of the safest, largest, and most 
 commodious harbors in all America, or perhaps in all 
 Europe, accessible at all seasons, situated in a fine cli 
 mate, and abounding with fertile soil) to the maternal 
 bowels of compassion in order that she may seasonably, 
 if she thinks it necessary to interpose, regulate, and wipe 
 away their pernicious Charter, rendered obnoxious by the 
 abuse of it ! 
 
 1 am afraid I have tired your patience with a subject 
 that must give pain to every impartial friend to Great 
 Britain and her colonies. When I took up my pen, I 
 onty intended to have communicated the outlines of such 
 of my perplexities (without dipping so far into political 
 matter) as I thought would atone for, or excuse my long 
 silence, and excite your compassion and advice. 
 
 Our friend Hobinson is gone to Boston to join the com 
 missioners. My compliments to Colonel Stuart. May I 
 ask the favor of you both to come and eat a Christmas 
 dinner with me at Batch elor s hall, and celebrate the fes 
 tivity of the season with me in Narraganset woods. A 
 covy of partridges, or bevy of quails, will be entertain 
 ment for the Colonel and me, while the pike and perch 
 ponds amuse you. Should business or pre-engagement 
 prevent me that pleasure, permit me to ask the favor of 
 your earliest intelligence of the proceedings of parlia 
 ment, and of your opinion whether our case is not so 
 grievous as to excite their compassion and interposition, 
 were it known ? This narration, together with your own 
 knowledge of many of the facts, and the disposition of 
 the colonies in general, will refresh your memory and 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 115 
 
 enable you to form a judgment. Relief from home seems 
 so tedious, especially to us who have suffered so much, 
 like to suffer more, and unacquainted with their reasons 
 of delay, that I am quite impatient. 
 
 Above twelve months ago, I received from three gentle 
 men in London (in trust for several others) exemplified 
 accounts for a balance of above twenty-six thousand 
 pounds sterling, mostly due from this colony, not 50 
 of which shall I ever be able to recover without compul 
 sive measures, and what is still worse, my lawyer advises 
 me from all thoughts of prosecution unless a change of 
 government ensues. I am therefore obliged to send them 
 his opinion (in justification of my own conduct) in lieu 
 of money ten years due. Poor satisfaction! Our con 
 solation must be in a British parliament. Every other 
 avenue is rendered impregnable by their subtlety and 
 degeneracy, arid we can no longer depend upon a people 
 who are so unthankful for our indulgences, and the lenity 
 of their mother country. I wish you the compliments 
 of the approaching season, and a succession of many 
 happy new years. 
 
 1 am, Sir, with much regard, 
 
 Your most humble Servant, 
 
 G. ROME. 
 
116 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 At the Court at ST. JAMES S, the 1th day of February, 1774. 
 
 PRESENT. 
 
 The KING S most Excellent Majesty, 
 
 Lord Chancellor, Viscount Falmouth, 
 
 Lord President, Viscount Harrington, 
 
 Duke of Queensberry, Lord Le Despenser, 
 
 Duke of Ancaster, Lord Cathcart, 
 
 Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hyde, 
 
 Earl of Suffolk, James Stuart Mackenzie, Esq., 
 
 Earl of Denbigh, Hans Stanley, Esq., 
 
 Earl of Sandwich, George Onslow, Esq., 
 
 Earl of Rochford, Sir Jeffery Ainherst, 
 
 Earl of Dartmouth, Charles Jenkinson, Esq., 
 
 Earl of Bristol, Sir John Goodricke. 
 
 Earl of Pom fret, 
 
 Whereas there was this clay read at the Board, a Re 
 port from the Right Honorable the Lords of the Com 
 mittee of Council for Plantation Affairs, dated the 29th 
 of last month, in the words following, viz : 
 
 " At the Council Chamber, Whitehall, the 29th of Jan 
 uary, 1774. 
 
 " By the Right Honorable the Lords of the Committee 
 of Council for Plantation Affairs. 
 
 PRESENT. 
 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, Earl of Rochford, 
 
 Lord President, Earl of Marchmont, 
 
 Duke of Queensberry, Earl of Dartmouth, 
 
 Earl of Suffolk, Earl of Buckinghamshire, 
 
 Earl of Denbigh, Earl of Hardwicke, 
 
 Earl of Sandwich, Earl of Hillsborough, 
 
 Lord Geo. Sackville Jermain, Hans Stanley, Esq., 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 117 
 
 Viscount Townshend, Richard Rigby, Esq., 
 
 Viscount Falmouth, Sir Eardly Wilmot, 
 
 Lord North, Thomas Townsend, jr., Esq., 
 
 Bishop of London, George Onslow, Esq., 
 
 Lord Le Despencer, George Rice, Esq., 
 
 Lord Cathcart, Lord Chief Justice De Grey, 
 
 Lord Hyde, Sir Lawrence Dundass, 
 James Stuart Mackenzie, Esq., Sir Jeffery Amherst, 
 
 General Conway, Sir Thomas Parker, 
 
 Wellbore Ellis, Esq., Charles Jenkinson, Esq. 
 Sir Gilbert Elliott, 
 
 " Your Majesty having been pleased by your Order in 
 Council of the 10th of last month, to refer unto this Com 
 mittee an Address of the House of Representatives of 
 the Province of Massachusetts Bay, complaining of the 
 conduct of Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., Governor, and An 
 drew Oliver, Esq., Lieutenant Governor of that Province ; 
 and humbly praying that your Majesty would be pleased 
 to remove the said Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., and Andrew 
 Oliver, Esq., from their posts in that government : the 
 Lords of the Committee did, in obedience to your Ma 
 jesty s said order of reference, proceed on the llth of 
 this instant, to take the petition of the said House of 
 Representatives into consideration, and were attended by 
 Benjamin Franklin, Esquire, sty ling himself agent for the 
 said House of Representatives, (and from whom the said 
 petition had been transmitted to the Right Honorable the 
 Earl of Dartmouth, one of your Majesty s principal Secre 
 taries of State,) and likewise by Israel Mauduit, Esquire, 
 from whom application had been made to this Committee, 
 humbly praying on behalf of your Majesty s said Governor 
 and Lieutenant Governor, that he might be heard by 
 Council in relation to the Address of the House of Repre 
 sentatives of the said province ; and the said Benjamin 
 
118 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 Franklin, Esq., having thereupon prayed, that he might 
 in that case be heard also by his Council at a future day : 
 the Lords of the Committee did, in compliance with the 
 petition of the said Israel Mauduit, Esq., and at the in 
 stance of the said Benjamin Franklin, Esq., think proper 
 to appoint a future day to resume the consideration of 
 the said petition of the House of Representatives of 
 Massachusetts Bay, and to allow Council to he heard on 
 both sides thereupon. And their Lordships having been 
 this day attended by Council on both sides accordingly, 
 and heard all that they had to offer, and having maturely 
 weighed and considered the whole of the evidence ad 
 duced by the said Benjamin Franklin, Esq., upon which 
 the said House of Representatives did come to the seve 
 ral resolves, which are the foundation of their said peti 
 tion to your Majesty : the Lords of the Committee take 
 leave to represent to your Majesty, that the said House 
 of Representatives have by their said petition taken upon 
 themselves to bring a general charge against your Ma 
 jesty s said Governor and Lieutenant Governor, and to 
 complain of their conduct, As having a natural and effi 
 cacious tendency to interrupt and alienate the affections 
 of your Majesty from that your loyal Province to de 
 stroy that harmony and good- will between Great Britain 
 and that Colony, which every honest subject would strive 
 to establish to excite the resentment of the British ad 
 ministration against that province to defeat the endea 
 vors of their agents and friends to serve them by a fair 
 representation of their state of facts to prevent their 
 humble and repeated petitions from reaching the ear of 
 your Majesty, or having their desired effect ; and finally 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 119 
 
 charging youv Majesty s said Governor and Lieutenant 
 Governor with having been among the chief instruments 
 of introducing a fleet and an army into that province, to 
 establish and perpetuate their plans ; whereby your Ma 
 jesty s said Governor and Lieutenant Governor have been 
 not only greatly instrumental of disturbing the peace and 
 harmony of the government, and causing unnatural and 
 hateful discords and animosities between the several parts 
 of your Majesty s extensive dominions ; but are justly 
 chargeable with all that corruption of morals, and all that 
 confusion, misery, and bloodshed, which have been the 
 natural effects of posting an army in a populous town. 
 But the Lords of the Committee cannot but express their 
 astonishment, that a charge of so serious and extensive a 
 nature against the persons whom the said House of 
 Representatives acknowledge by their said petition to 
 have heretofore had the confidence and esteem of the 
 people, and to have been advanced by your Majesty from 
 the purest motives of rendering your subjects happy, to 
 the highest places of trust and authority in that province, 
 should have no other evidence to support it but inflam 
 matory and precipitate resolutions, founded only on cer 
 tain letters, written respectively by them (and all but 
 one before they were appointed to the posts they now 
 hold) in the years 1767, 1768, and 1769, to a gentleman 
 then in no office under the government, in the course of 
 familiar correspondence, and in the confidence of private 
 friendship, and which it was said (and it was not denied 
 by Mr. Franklin) were surreptitiously obtained after his 
 death, and sent over to America, and laid before the As 
 sembly of the Massachusetts Bay ; and which letters 
 
120 PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 appear to us to contain nothing reprehensible or unworthy 
 of the situation they were in ; and we presume, that it 
 was from this impropriety, that the Council did disclaim 
 on behalf of the Assembly any intention of bringing a 
 criminal charge against the Governor and Lieutenant 
 Governor ; but said that the petition was founded 
 solely on the ground of the Governor and Lieutenant 
 Governor being, as they alleged, now become obnox 
 ious to the people of the province; and that it was 
 in this light only that the said petition was presented 
 to your Majesty. And there being no other evidence 
 now produced, than the said resolutions and letters, 
 together with resolutions of a similar import by the Coun 
 cil of the said province, founded, as it was said, on the 
 same letters 
 
 " The Lords of the Committee do agree humbly to re 
 port, as their opinion to your Majesty, that the said pe 
 tition is founded upon resolutions, formed upon false and 
 erroneous allegations, and that the same is groundless, 
 vexatious, and scandalous, and calculated only for the 
 seditious purposes of keeping up a spirit of clamor 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 anj r degree, 
 impeach the honor, integrity, or conduct of the said Go 
 vernor or Lieutenant Governor; and their Lordships are 
 humbly of opinion, that the said petition ought to be 
 dismissed." 
 
 His Majesty taking the said report into consideration, 
 was pleased, with the advice of his Privy Council, to ap 
 prove thereof; and to order, that the said petition of the 
 
PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 121 
 
 House of Representatives of the province of the Massa 
 chusetts Bay, be, and it is hereby dismissed this Board, 
 as groundless, vexatious, and scandalous, and calculated 
 only for the seditious purpose of keeping up a spirit of 
 clamor and discontent in the said province. 
 
 G. CHETWYND. 
 
 16 
 
THE 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE 
 
 THE EARL OF CHATHAM, &C, 
 
 MY LORDS : After more than six weeks possession of 
 the papers now before you, on a subject so momentous, 
 at a time when the state of this nation hangs on every 
 hour ; the Ministry have at length condescended to submit 
 to the consideration of the House intelligence from Ame 
 rica, with which your Lordships and the public have been 
 long and fully acquainted. 
 
 The measures of last year, my Lords, which have pro 
 duced the present alarming state of America, were 
 founded upon misrepresentation they were violent, pre 
 cipitate, and vindictive. The nation was told that it was 
 only a faction in Boston, which opposed all lawful govern 
 ment ; that an unwarrantable injury had been done to 
 private property, for which the justice of Parliament was 
 called upon, to order reparation ; that the least appear 
 ance of firmness would awe the Americans into submis 
 sion, and upon only passing the Rubicon, we should be, 
 sine clade victor. 
 
 (122) 
 
SPEECH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 123 
 
 That the people might choose their Representatives 
 under the impression of those misrepresentations, the 
 Parliament was precipitately dissolved. Thus the nation 
 was to be rendered instrumental in executing the ven 
 geance of Administration on that injured, unhappy, tra 
 duced people. 
 
 But now, my Lords, we find, that instead of suppres 
 sing the opposition of the faction at Boston, these mea 
 sures have spread it over the whole continent. They 
 have united that whole people by the most indissoluble 
 of all bands intolerable wrongs. The just retribution 
 is an indiscriminate, unmerciful proscription of the inno 
 cent with the guilty, unheard and untried. The blood 
 less victory is an impotent general with his dishonored 
 army, trusting solely to the pick-axe and the spade, for 
 security against the just indignation of an injured and 
 insulted people. 
 
 My Lords, I am happy that a relaxation of my infirmi 
 ties permits me to seize this earliest opportunity of offer 
 ing my poor advice to save this unhappy country, at this 
 moment tottering to its ruin. But, as I have not the 
 honor of access to his Majesty, I will endeavor to trans 
 mit to him through the constitutional channel of this 
 House, my ideas on American business, to rescue him. 
 from the misadvice of his present Ministers. I congratu 
 late your Lordships, that that business is at last entered 
 upon, by the noble Lord s (Lord Dartmouth) laying the 
 papers before you. As I suppose your Lordships are too 
 well apprised of their contents, I hope I am not prema 
 ture in submitting to you my present motion, [reads the 
 motion]; I wish my Lords not to lose a day in this urging 
 present crisis : an hour now lost in allaying the ferment 
 
124: SPEECH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 in America, may produce years of calamity ; but for my 
 own part, I will not desert for a moment the conduct of 
 this mighty business from the first to the last, unless 
 nailed to my bed by the extremity of sickness ; I will 
 give it unremitting attention : I will knock at the door of 
 this sleeping, or confounded Ministry, and will rouse 
 them to a sense of their important danger. When I 
 state the importance of the colonies to this country, and 
 the magnitude of danger hanging over this country from 
 the present plan of misad ministration practiced against 
 them, I desire not to be understood to argue for a reci 
 procity of indulgence between England and America : I 
 contend not for indulgence, but justice, to America ; and 
 I shall ever contend that the Americans justly owe obe 
 dience to us, in a limited degree ; they owe obedience to 
 our ordinances of trade and navigation ; but let the line 
 be skilfully drawn between the objects of those ordi 
 nances, and their private, internal property : let the 
 sac-redness of their property remain inviolate; let it be 
 taxable only by their own consent, given in their provin 
 cial assemblies, else it will cease to be property. As to 
 the metaphysical refinements attempting to show that the 
 Americans are equally free from obedience to commercial 
 restraints, as from taxation for revenue, as being unre 
 presented here, I pronounce them futile, frivolous, and 
 groundless. Property is, in its nature, single as an atom. 
 It is indivisible, can belong to one only, and cannot be 
 touched but by his consent. The law that attempts to 
 alter this disposal of it annihilates it. 
 
 When I urge this measure of recalling the troops from 
 Boston, I urge it on this pressing principle that it is 
 necessarily preparatory to the restoration of your peace, 
 
SPEECH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 125 
 
 and the re-establishment of your prosperity. It will then 
 appear that you are disposed to treat amicably and equit 
 ably, and to consider, revise, and repeal, if it should be 
 found necessary, as I affirm it will, those violent acts and 
 declarations which have disseminated confusion through 
 out your empire. Resistance to your acts was as necessary 
 as it was just; and your vain declarations of the omnipo 
 tence of Parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the 
 necessity of submission, will be found equally impotent 
 to convince or enslave your fellow-subjects in America, 
 who feel that tyranny, whether ambitioned by an indi 
 vidual part of the Legislature, or by the bodies which 
 compose it, is equally intolerable to British principles. 
 
 As to the means of enforcing this thraldom, they are 
 found to be as ridiculous and weak in practice, as they 
 were unjust in principle. Indeed I cannot but feel with 
 the most anxious sensibility, for the situation of General 
 Gage and the troops under his command ; thinking him, 
 as I do, a man of humanity and understanding, and en 
 tertaining, as I ever shall, the highest respect, the warmest 
 love, for the British troops. Their situation is truly 
 unworthy, pent up, pining in inglorious inactivity. They 
 are an army of impotence. You may call them an army 
 of safety and of guard ; but they are in truth an army of 
 impotence and contempt and to render the folly equal 
 to the disgrace, they are an army of irritation. I do not 
 mean to censure the inactivity of the troops. It is a pru 
 dent and a necessary inaction. But it is a miserable 
 condition, where disgrace is prudence ; and \vhere it is 
 necessary to be contemptible. This tameness, however 
 disgraceful, ought not to be blamed, as I am surprised to 
 hear is done by these Ministers. The first drop of blood, 
 
126 SPEECH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 shed in a civil and unnatural war, would be an immedica- 
 bile vul.nus. It would entail hatred and contention be 
 tween the two people, from generation to generation. 
 Woe be to him who sheds the first the unexpiable 
 drop of blood in an impious war, with a people contend 
 ing in the great cause of public liberty. 1 will tell you 
 plainly, my Lords, no son of mine, nor any one over 
 whom I have influence, shall ever draw his sword upon 
 his fellow subjects. 
 
 I therefore urge and conjure your Lordships immedi 
 ately to adopt this conciliatory measure. I will pledge 
 myself for its immediately producing conciliatory effects, 
 from its being well timed. But if you delay till your 
 vain hope of triumphantly dictating the terms shall be 
 accomplished, you delay forever. And even admitting 
 that this hope, which in truth is desperate, should be ac 
 complished, what will you gain by a victorious imposition 
 of amity ? You will be untrusted and unthanked. Adopt 
 then the grace, while you have the opportunity of recon 
 cilement, or at least prepare the way ; allay the ferment 
 prevailing in America, by removing the obnoxious hostile 
 cause. Obnoxious and unserviceable ; for their merit 
 can be only inaction. " Non dimicare est vincere." 
 Their victory can never be by exertions. Their force 
 would be most disproportionately exerted, againsta brave, 
 generous, and united people; with arms in their hands 
 and courage in their hearts; three millions of people, the 
 genuine descendants of a valiant and pious ancestry, 
 driven to these deserts by the narrow maxims of a su 
 perstitious tyranny. And is the spirit of tyrannous per 
 secution never to be appeased? Are the brave sons of 
 those brave forefathers to inherit their sufferings, as they 
 
SPEECH OP THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 127 
 
 have inherited their virtues ? Are they to sustain the 
 inflictions of the most oppressive and unexampled se 
 verity, beyond the accounts of history or the description 
 of poetry? " Rhadamanthus habet durissima regna, 
 Castigatque auditque" So says the wisest statesman and 
 politician. But the Bostonians have been condemned un 
 heard. The indiscriminating hand of vengeance has 
 lumped together innocent and guilty : with all the for 
 malities of hostility, has blocked up the town, and re 
 duced to beggary and famine 30,000 inhabitants. But 
 his Majesty is advised that the union of America cannot 
 last. Ministers have more eyes than I, and should have 
 more ears, but from all the information I have been able 
 to procure, I can pronounce it a union solid, permanent, 
 and effectual. Ministers may satisfy themselves and de 
 lude the public with the reports of what they call com 
 mercial bodies in America. They are not commercial. 
 They are your packers and factors ; they live upon nothing, 
 for I call commission nothing; I mean the ministerial 
 authority for their American intelligence the runners 
 of government, who are paid for their intelligence. But 
 these are not the men, nor this the influence to be con 
 sidered in America, when we estimate the firmness of 
 their union. Even to extend the question, and to take 
 in the really mercantile circle, will be totally inadequate 
 to the consideration. Trade indeed increases the wealth 
 and glory of a country; but its real strength and stamina 
 are to be looked for among the cultivators of the land. 
 In their simplicity of life is found the simplicity of vir 
 tue, the integrity and courage of freedom. Those true 
 genuine sons of the earth are invincible ; and they sur 
 round and hern in the mercantile bodies ; even if those 
 
128 SPEECH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 bodies, which supposition I totally disclaim, could be sup 
 posed disaffected to the cause of liberty. Of this general 
 spirit existing in the American nation, for so 1 wish to 
 distinguish the real and genuine Americans from the 
 pseudo-traders I have described : of this spirit of inde 
 pendence animating the nation of America, I have the 
 most authentic information. It is not new among them; 
 it is, and ever has been, their established principle, their 
 confirmed persuasion ; it is their nature and their doc 
 trine. I remember some years ago when the repeal of 
 the Stamp Act was in agitation, conversing in a friendly 
 confidence with a person of undoubted respect and authen 
 ticity on this subject; and he assured me with a certainty 
 which his judgment and opportunity gave him, that these 
 were the prevalent and steady principles of America . 
 that you might destroy their towns, and cut them off 
 from the superfluities, perhaps the conveniences of life, 
 but that they were prepared to despise your power, and 
 would not lament their loss, whilst they hud what, my 
 Lords ? their woods and liberty. The name of my au 
 thority, if I am called upon, will authenticate the opinion 
 irrefragably. 
 
 If illegal violences have been, as it is said, committed 
 in America, prepare the way, open a door of possibility, 
 for acknowledgment and satisfaction. But proceed not 
 to such coercion, such proscription: cease your indis 
 criminate inflictions, amerce not thirty thousand, oppress 
 not three millions, for the faults of forty or fifty. Such 
 severity of injustice must forever render incurable the 
 wounds you have already given your Colonies ; you irri 
 tate them to unappeasable rancor. What though you 
 march from town to town, and from province to province? 
 
SPEECH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 129 
 
 Though you should be able to force a temporary and local 
 submission, which I only suppose, not admit, how shall 
 you be able to secure the obedience of the country you 
 leave behind you in your progress ? To grasp the do 
 minion of 1800 miles of continent, populous in valor, 
 liberty, and resistance ? This resistance to your arbitrary 
 system of taxation might have been foreseen ; it was ob 
 vious from the nature of things and of mankind ; and 
 above all, from the Whiggish spirit flourishing in that 
 country. The spirit which now resists your taxation in 
 America, is the same which formerly opposed, and with 
 success opposed, loans, benevolences, and ship-money in 
 England the same spirit which called all England on its 
 legs, and by the Bill of Rights vindicated the English 
 Constitution the same spirit which established the great 
 fundamental and essential maxim of your liberties, that 
 no subject shall be taxed, but ~by his own consent. If your 
 Lordships will turn to the politics of those times, you will 
 see the attempts of the Lords to poison this inestimable 
 benefit of the Bill, by an insidious proviso : you will see 
 their attempts defeated, in their conference with the Com 
 mons, by the decisive arguments of the ascertainers and 
 rnaintainers of our liberty : you will see the thin, incon 
 clusive, and fallacious stuff of those enemies to freedom, 
 contrasted with the sound and solid reasoning of Serjeant 
 Glanville and the rest, those great and learned men who 
 adorned and enlightened this country, and placed her se 
 curity on the summit of justice and freedom. And 
 whilst I am on my legs, and thus do justice to the memory 
 of those great men, I must also justify the merit of the 
 living by declaring my firm and fixed opinion, that such 
 
 a man exists this day, [looking towards Lord Camden]. 
 17 
 
130 SPEECH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 This glorious spirit of Whiggism animates three millions 
 in America, who prefer poverty with liberty, to golden 
 chains and sordid affluence ; and who will die in defence 
 of their rights, as men as freemen. What shall oppose 
 this spirit, aided by the congenial flame glowing in the 
 breast of every Whig in England, to the amount, I hope, 
 of at least double the American numbers? Ireland they 
 have to a man. In that country, joined as it is with the 
 cause of the Colonies, and placed at their head, the dis 
 tinction I contend for, is and must be observed. This 
 country superintends and controls their trade and naviga 
 tion ; but they tax themselves. And this distinction be 
 tween external and internal control, is sacred and insur 
 mountable ; it is involved in the abstract nature of things. 
 Property is private, individual, absolute. Trade is an 
 extended and complicated consideration ; it reaches as 
 far as ships can sail, or winds can blow. It is a great 
 and various machine. To regulate the numberless move 
 ments of its several parts, and combine them into effect 
 for the good of the whole, requires the superintending 
 wisdom and energy of the supreme power in the empire. 
 But this supreme power has no effect towards internal 
 taxation, for it does not exist in that relation. There is 
 no such thing, no such idea in this Constitution, as a su 
 preme power operating upon property. 
 
 Let this distinction then remain forever ascertained. 
 Taxation is theirs, commercial regulation is ours. As an 
 American, I would recognize to England her supreme 
 right of regulating commerce and navigation. As an 
 Englishman by birth and principle, I recognize to the 
 Americans their supreme unalienable right in their pro 
 perty ; a right which they are justified in the defence of, 
 
SPEECH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 131 
 
 to the last extremity. To maintain this principle is the 
 common cause of the Whigs on the other side of the At 
 lantic, and on this. Tis liberty, to liberty engaged, that 
 they will defend themselves, their families, and their 
 country. In this great cause they are immovably allied. 
 It is the alliance of God and nature immutable, eternal, 
 fixed as the firmament of heaven ! To such united force, 
 what force shall be opposed ? What, my Lords ; a few 
 regiments in America, and seventeen or eighteen thousand 
 men at home ! The idea is too ridiculous to take up ;*, 
 moment of your Lordships time ; nor can such a national 
 principled union be resisted by the tricks of office or minis 
 terial manoeuvres. Laying papers on your tables, or 
 counting noses on a division, will not avert or postpone 
 the hour of danger. It must arrive, my Lords, unless 
 these fatal acts are done away ; it must arrive in all its 
 horrors : and then these boastful Ministers, spite of all 
 their confidence and all their manoeuvres, shall be forced 
 to hide their heads. But it is not repealing this Act of 
 Parliament, or that Act of Parliament, it is not repeal 
 ing a piece of parchment that can restore America to your 
 bosom. You must repeal her fears and her resentments, 
 and you may then hope for her love and gratitude. But 
 now insulted with an armed force posted in Boston, irri 
 tated with an hostile array before her eyes, her conces 
 sions, if you could force them, would be suspicious and 
 insecure : they will be irato animo : they will not be the 
 sound, honorable pactions of freemen : they will be the 
 dictates of fear and the extortions of force. But it is 
 more than evident that you cannot force them, principled 
 and united as they are, to your unworthy terms of sub 
 mission. It is impossible. And when I hear General 
 
132 SPEECH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 Gage censured for inactivity, I must retort with indigna 
 tion on those whose intemperate measures and improvi 
 dent councils have betrayed him into his present situa 
 tion. His situation reminds me, my Lords, of the answer 
 of a French General in the civil wars of France, Mon 
 sieur Turenne, I think. The Queen said to him with 
 some peevishness, " I observe that you were often very 
 near the Prince during the campaign, why did you not 
 take him ?" The Mareschal replied with great coolness, 
 " J avois grand peur, qui Monsieur le Prince ne me 
 pris," I was very much afraid the Prince would take 
 me. 
 
 When your Lordships look at the papers transmitted 
 us from America, when you consider their decency, firm 
 ness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and 
 wish to make it your own. For myself I must declare and 
 avow that in all my reading and observation, and it has 
 been my favorite study I have read Thucydides, and 
 have studied and admired the master states of the world, 
 that for solidity and reasoning, force of sagacity, and 
 wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of dif 
 ferent circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand 
 in preference to the general Congress at Philadelphia. I 
 trust it is obvious to your Lordships, that all attempts to 
 impose servitude on such men, to establish despotism over 
 such a mighty continental nation must be vain must 
 be fatal. We shall be forced ultimately to retract, whilst 
 we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily 
 undo these violent and oppressive acts : they must be 
 repealed you will repeal them : I pledge myself for it 
 you will in the end repeal them : I stake my reputation 
 
SPEECH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 133 
 
 on it : I will consent to be taken for an idiot if they are 
 not finally repealed. Avoid then this humiliating, dis 
 graceful necessity. With a dignity becoming your ex 
 alted situation, make the first advances to concord, to 
 peace and happiness, for that is your true dignity, to act 
 with prudence and with justice. That you should first 
 concede is obvious from sound and rational policy. Con 
 cession comes with better grace and more salutary effect 
 from the superior power. It reconciles superiority of 
 power with the feelings of men ; and establishes solid 
 confidence in the foundation of affection and gratitude. 
 So thought the wisest poet and perhaps the wisest man 
 in political sagacity, the friend of Maecenas, and the eulo 
 gist of Augustus. To him, the adopted son and successor 
 of the first Csesar to him, the master of the world, he 
 wisely urged this conduct of prudence and dignity. 
 
 Tuque prior, &c. VIRGIL. 
 
 Every motive therefore of justice and of policy, of 
 dignity and of prudence, urges you to allay the ferment 
 in America, by a removal of your troops from Boston, 
 by a repeal of your Acts of Parliament, and by demon 
 stration of amicable dispositions towards your Colonies. 
 On the other hand, every danger and every hazard im 
 pend to deter you from perseverance in your present 
 ruinous measures : foreign war hanging over your heads 
 by a slight and brittle thread : France and Spain watch 
 ing your conduct, and waiting for the maturity of your 
 errors ; with a vigilant eye to America and the temper of 
 your Colonies, more than to their own concerns, be they 
 what they may. 
 
134 SPEECH OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 To conclude, my Lords, if the Ministers thus perse 
 vere in misadvising and misleading the King, I will not % 
 say that they can alienate his subjects from his crown, 
 but I will affirm that they will make the crown not worth 
 his wearing : I shall not say that the King is betrayed, 
 but I will pronounce that the kingdom is undone. 
 

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