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believe to be pretty exact; except that discoursing with so many different persons about the same time, on the same subject, I may possibly have put down some things as said by or to one person, which passed in conversation with another. A little before I left London, being at the house of lords, when a debate in which Lord Camden was to speak, and who indeed spoke admirably on American affairs, I was much disgusted, from the ministerial side, by many base reflections on American courage, religion, understanding, &c. in which we were treated with the utmost contempt, as the lowest of mankind, and almost of a different species from the English of Britain; but particularly the American honesty was abused by some of the lords, who asserted that we were all knaves, and wanted only by this dispute to avoid paying our debts; that if we had any sense of equity or justice, we should offer payment of the tea, &c. I went home somewhat irritated and heated; and partly to retort upon this nation, on the article of equity, drew up a memorial to present to Lord Dartmouth before my departure; but consulting my friend Mr. Thomas Walpole upon it, who is a member of the house of commons, he looked at it and at me several times alternately, as if he apprehended me a little out of my senses. As I was in the hurry of packing up, I requested him to take the trouble of showing it to his neighbor Lord Camden, and ask his advice upon it, which he kindly undertook to

do; and returned it me with a note, which here follows the proposed memorial.

To the Right Honorable the Earl of Dartmouth, one of His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State;

A Memorial of Benjamin Franklin, Agent of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

Whereas an injury done, can only give the party injured a right to full reparation; or, in case that be refused, a right to return an equal injury; and whereas the blockade of Boston, now continued nine months, hath every week of its continuance done damage to that town, equal to what was suffered there by the India company; it follows that such exceeding damage is an injury done by this government for which reparation ought to be made. And whereas reparation of injuries ought always (agreeably to the custom of all nations, savage as well as civilised) to be first required, before satisfaction is taken by a return of damage to the aggressors; which was not done by Great Britain in the instance above-mentioned; I the underwritten do therefore, as their agent, in the behalf of my country and the said town of Boston, protest against the continuance of the said blockade: and I do hereby solemnly demand satisfaction for the accumulated injury done them, beyond the value of the India company's tea destroyed. And whereas

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the conquest of the Gulph of St. Lawrence, the coasts of Labrador and Nova Scotia, and the fisheries possessed by the French there and on the banks of Newfoundland, so far as they were more. extended than at present, was made by the joint forces of Britain and the colonies, the latter having nearly an equal number of men in that service with the former; it follows that the colonies have an equitable and just right to participate in the advantage of those Fisheries. I do therefore, in the behalf of the colony of the Massachusetts Bay, protest against the act now under consideration in parliament, for depriving that province, with others, of that fishery, (on pretence of their refusing to purchase British commodities) as an act highly unjust and injurious: And I give notice, that satisfaction will probably one day be demanded for all the injury that may be done and suffered in the execution of such act; and that the injustice of the proceeding is likely to give such umbrage to all the colonies, that in no future war, wherein other conquests may be meditated, either a man or a shilling will be obtained from any of them to aid such conquests, till full satisfaction be made as aforesaid.

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Given in London this 16th day of March, 1775.

DEAR SIR,

To DR. FRANKLIN.

I return you the memorial which it is

thought might be attended with dangerous consequences to your person, and contribute to exasperate the nation.

I heartily wish you a prosperous voyage, a long health, and am, with the sincerest regard, your most faithful and obedient servant,

THOMAS WALPOLE.

Lincoln's Inn Fields, 16th March, 1775.

Mr. Walpole called at my house the next day, and hearing I was gone to the house of lords, came there to me, and repeated more fully what was in his note; adding, that it was thought my having no instructions directing me to deliver such a protest, would make it appear still more unjustifiable, and be deemed a national affront: I had no desire to make matters worse, and, being grown cooler, took the advice so kindly given me.

The evening before I left London, I received a note from Dr. Fothergill, with some letters to his friends in Philadelphia. In that note he desires me to get those friends, "and two or three more together, and inform them, that whatever specious pretences are offered, they are all hollow; and that to get a larger field on which to fatten a herd of worthless parasites, is all that is regarded. Perhaps it may be proper to acquaint them with David Barclay's and our united endeavors, and the effects. They will stun at least, if not convince, the most worthy, that nothing very favorable is intended, if

more unfavorable articles cannot be obtained." The doctor in the course of his daily visits among the great, in the practice of his profession, had full opportunity of being acquainted with their sentiments, the conversation everywhere turning upon the subject of America.

Here, unfortunately, Dr. Franklin's interesting narrative closes, and the Editor is forced to

resume.

During the passage to America, Dr. Franklin not only occupied himself in writing the preceding narrative of his noble efforts to prevent a war, which the rapacity and infatuation of the British ministry utterly defeated, but he likewise employed himself in making experiments and observations on the waters of the ocean, by means of the thermometer, in order to ascertain the exact course of the gulph stream; by the knowledge of which, mariners might hereafter avoid or avail themselves of its current, according to their various destinations." These experiments and observations will be found in their appropriate place-his philosophical works;

It is ascertained by Dr. Franklin's experiments, that a navigator may always know when he is in the gulph stream, by the warmth of the water, which is much greater than that of the water on either side of it. If, then, he is bound to the westward, he should cross the stream to get out of it as soon as possible; and if to the eastward, endeavor to remain in it.

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