American would cut off his right hand rather than sign an agreement with England contrary to the spirit of it.

To the fifth. As soon as you please.

If you had mentioned France in your proposed suspension of arms, I should immediately have shown it to the minister, and have endeavored to support that idea. As it stands, I am in doubt whether I shall communicate your paper or not, though by your writing it so fair it seems as if you intended it. If I do, I shall acquaint you with the result.

The bill of which you send me a copy, was an excellent one at the time, and might have had great and good effects, if instead of telling us haughtily that our humble petition should receive no answer, the ministry had received and enacted that bill into a law. It might have erected a wall of brass round England, if such a measure had been adopted when Fryer Bacon's brazen head cried out TIME IS! But the wisdom of it was not seen till after the fatal cry of TIME'S PAST! I am, my dear friend, &c.

B. FRANKLIN.

TO DAVID HARTLEY, ESQ. M. P.

DEAR FRIEND,

Passy, Feb. 2, 1780. It is some time since I procured the discharge of your Captain Stephenson. He did not call here in his way home. I hope he arrived safely, and had a happy meet. ing with his friends and family.

I have long postponed answering your letter of the 29th June. A principal point in it on which you seemed to desire my opinion, was, the conduct you thought America ought to hold in case her allies should, from motives of ambition or resentment of former injuries, desire her to continue the war beyond what should be reasonable and consistent with her particular interests. As often as I took up your letter in

order to answer it, this suggestion displeased me, and I laid it down again. I saw no occasion for discussing such a question at present, nor any good end it could serve to discuss it before the case should happen; and I saw inconveniences in discussing it. I wish therefore you had not mentioned it. For the rest, I am as much for peace as ever I was, and as heartily desirous of seeing the war ended, as I was to prevent its beginning; of which your ministers know I gave a strong proof before I left England, when, in order to an accommodation, I offered at my own risk, without orders for so doing, and without knowing whether I should be owned in doing it, to pay the whole damage of destroying the tea at Boston, provided the acts made against that province were repealed. This offer was refused. I still think it would have been wise to have accepted it. If the congress have therefore entrusted to others rather than to me, the negociations for peace, when such shall be set on foot, as has been reported; it is perhaps because they may have heard of a very singular opinion of mine, that there hardly ever existed such a thing as a bad peace, or a good war: and that I might therefore easily be induced to make improper concessions. But at the same time they and you may be assured, that I should think the destruction of our whole country, and the extirpation of our whole people, preferable to the infamy of abandoning our allies.

As neither you nor I are at present authorised to treat of peace, it seems to little purpose to make or consider propositions relating to it. I have had so many such put into my hands that I am tired of them. I will however give your proposal of a ten years' truce this answer: that though I think a solid peace made at once, a much better thing; yet if the truce is practicable and the peace not, I should be for agreeing to it. At least I see at present no sufficient reasons

for refusing it, provided our allies approved of it. But this is merely a private opinion of mine, which perhaps may be changed by reasons that at present do not offer themselves. This, however, I am clear in, that withdrawing your troops will be best for you, if you wish a cordial reconciliation, and that the truce should produce a peace. To show that it was not done by compulsion, being required as a condition of the truce, they might be withdrawn before-hand, for various good reasons. But all this is idle chat, as I am persuaded that there is no disposition for peace on your side, and that this war will yet last many years. I know nothing and believe nothing of any terms offered unto Sir Henry Clinton.

The prisoners taken in the Serapis and Countess of Scarborough, being all treated for in Holland, and exchanged there, I hope Mr. Brown's son is now safe at home with his father. It grieved me that the exchange there, which you may remember I immediadely proposed, was so long delayed. Much human misery might have been prevented by a prompt compliance. And so might a great deal by the execution of parole promises taken at sea; but since I see no regard is paid to them in England, I must give orders to our armed ships that cruise in Europe, to secure their prisoners as well as they can, and lodge them in French or Spanish prisons. I have written something on this affair to Mr. Hodgson, and sent to him the second passport for a cartel to Morlaix, supposing you to be out of town. The number of prisoners we now have in France is not easily ascertained. I suppose it exceeds 100; but you may be assured that the number which may be brought over by the two cartels, shall be fully exchanged by adding to those taken by us, as many as will make up the complement out of those taken by the French, with whom we have an account since

the exchange in Holland of whose we carried in there. I wish therefore you would, as was proposed, clear your pri sons of the Americans who have been so long confined there. The cartels that may arrive at Morlaix, will not be detained.

You may have heard that accounts upon oath have been taken in America by order of congress, of the British barbarities committed there. It is expected of me to make a school-book of them, and to have thirty-five prints designed here by good artists and engraved, each expressing one or more of the different horrid facts, to be inserted in the book, in order to impress the minds of children and posterity with a deep sense of your bloody and insatiable malice and wickedness. Every kindness I hear of done by an Englishman to an American prisoner, makes me resolve not to proceed in the work; hoping a reconciliation may yet take place. But every fresh instance of your devilism weakens that resolution, and makes me abominate the thought of a reunion with such a people. You, my friend, have often persuaded me, and I believed it, that the war was not theirs, nor approved by them. But their suffering it so long to continue, and the wretched rulers to remain who carry it on, makes me have too good an opinion of them. Adieu, my B. FRANKLIN.

think you dear friend, &c.

DAVID HARTLEY, ESQ. M.P. TO DOCTOR

FRANKLIN.

MY DEAR FRIend,

London, July 17, 1780.

Enclosed I send you a copy of a conciliatory bill' which was proposed in the house of commons on the 27th

I

Draught of a proposed bill for conciliation with America.

A bill to invest the crown with sufficient powers to treat, consult, and

of last month. It was rejected. You and I have had so much intercourse upon the subject of restoring peace be

finally to agree upon the means of restoring peace with the provinces of North America.

Whereas many unfortunate subjects of contest have of late years subsisted between Great Britain and the several provinces of North America herein after recited, viz. New Hampshire, Massachusett's Bay, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Three lower Counties on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, which have brought on the calamities of war between Great Britain and the aforesaid provinces: to the end therefore that the farther effusion of blood be prevented, and that peace may be restored, May it please your Majesty, that it be enacted, and be it enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same: that it shall and may be lawful for his Majesty by letters patent, under the great seal of Great Britain, to authorise and empower any person or persons, to treat, consult, and finally to agree with any person or persons, properly authorised on the part of the aforesaid provinces of North America, upon the means of restor ing peace between Great Britain and the aforesaid provinces, according to the powers in this act contained.

And be it further enacted, that in order to facilitate the good purposes of this act, his Majesty may lawfully enable any such person or persons, so appointed by his Majesty's letters patent, as aforesaid, to order and proclaim a cessation of hostilities, on the part of his Majesty's forces by sea and land, for any time, and under any conditions or restrictions.

And be it further enacted, that in order to lay a good foundation for a cordial reconciliation and lasting peace, between Great Britain and the aforesaid provinces of North America, by restoring an amicable intercourse between the same, as soon as possible, his Maje y may lawfully enable any such person or persons, so appointed by his Majesty's letters patent, as aforesaid, to enter into, and to ratify from time to time, any article or articles of intercourse and pacifica