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

vernor.

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

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

Mr. Dunning had substantiated the complaints of the assembly by exhibiting the letters, which were at this time published in a pamphlet ; and also in the Remembrancer of 1775; and he stood upon their letters as proof of their being unworthy of the confidence of the government, as well as of the assembly of Massachusetts. Among other matters, he stated, that Andrew Oliver had suggested to the ministry-" to stipulate with the merchants of England, and purchase from them large quantities of goods proper for the American market; agreeing beforehand to allow them a premium equal to the advance of their stock in the trade, if the price of their goods was not enhanced by a tenfold demand in future, even though the goods might lay on hand till this temporary stagnation of business ceased. By such a step," said he, "the game will be up with my countrymen." That Oliver had on other occasions (in a letter to the ministry, dated Feb. 15, 1769,)" indirectly recommended assassination;" his words being, "that some method should be devised to take off the original incendiaries, whose writings supplied the fuel of sedition through the Boston Gazette." And he referred to the case of Mr. Otis, who, notwithstanding he held the office of king's advocate, under the predecessor of governor Hutchinson, had been at night attacked by one Robinson, a commissioner of the king's customs, at the head of a gang of ruffians armed with swords and bludgeons; who, on entering the house, extinguished the lights, and after leaving the respectable gentleman covered with wounds, fled and found a refuge on board a king's ship. Mr. Hutchinson by one declaration alone, he said, justified all the complaints of Massachusetts, and called for an immediate dismission of an officer so hostile to the rights and liberties of his countrymen. He who had declared "there must be an abridgment of English liberties in the colonies," was justly charged with "making wicked and injurious re

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

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

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

EXTRACTS FROM HUTCHINSON'S CORRESPONDENCE.

Boston, June 22, 1772.

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

Boston, December 8, 1772.

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

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

"The letters could not have come to Dr. Franklin," said Mr. Wedderburn, " by fair means. The writers did not give them to him, nor yet did the deceased correspondent, who, from our intimacy, would otherwise have told me of it: nothing then will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining them by fraudulent or corrupt means, for the most malignant of purposes; unless he stole them, from the person who stole them. This argument is irrefragable.

"I hope, my lords, you will mark and brand the man, for the honor of this country, of Europe, and of mankind. Private correspondence has hitherto been held sacred in times of the greatest party rage, not only in politics but religion."-" He has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity of virtue? Men will watch him with a jealous eye, they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their escrutoires. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a man of letters, homo TRIUM' literarum!

i. e. Fur (or Thief.)

"But he not only took away the letters from one brother, but kept himself concealed till he nearly occasioned the murder of the other. It is impossible to read his account, expressive of the coolest and most deliberate malice, without horror. [Here he read the letter of Dr. Franklin printed in the Public Advertiser.]-Amidst these tragical events, of one person nearly murdered, of another answerable for the issue; of a worthy governor hurt in his dearest interests; the fate of America is in suspense; here is a man, who, with the utmost insensibility of remorse, stands up and avows himself the author of all:....I can compare it only to Zanga in Dr. Young's Revenge.'

"Know then 'twas....I,

I forged the letter,....I disposed the picture;.

I hated,....I despised....and I destroy."

"I ask, my lords, whether the revengeful temper, attributed by poetic fiction only to the bloody African, is not surpassed by the coolness and apathy of the wily American ?"

2

These pleadings for a time worked great effects; the lords assented, the town was convinced, Dr. Franklin was dismissed, and Mr. Wedderburn placed himself in the road for that high advancement which he sought, and with which he was rewarded,

"Damned to everlasting Fame."-POPE.

Unfortunately for Mr. Wedderburn, the events of the war did not correspond with his system. Unfortunately too for his "irrefragable argument," Dr. Franklin afterwards took an oath in chancery, that at the time that he transmitted the letters, he was ignorant of the party to whom they had been addressed, having himself received them from a third person, and for the express purpose of their being conveyed to America. Unfortunately also for Mr. Wedderburn's "worthy governor," that governor himself, before the arrival of Dr. Franklin's packet in Boston, sent over one of Dr. Franklin's own "private" letters to England; expressing some little coyness indeed upon the occasion, but desiring secresy, lest he should be prevented procuring more useful intelligence from the same source. Whether Mr. Wedderburn in his speech intended to draw a particular case and portraiture, for the purpose only of injuring Dr. Franklin, or meant that his language and epithets should apply generally to all, whether friends or foes, whose practice should be found similar to it, is a matter not of so much importance.

But to return to Dr. Franklin. It was not singular perhaps, that, as a man of honor, he should surrender his name to public scrutiny in order to prevent mischief to others, and yet not betray his coadjutor (even to his death) to relieve his own fame from the severest obloquy; but perhaps it belonged to few besides Dr. Franklin, to possess mildness and magnanimity enough to refrain from intemperate expressions and measures against Mr. Wedderburn and his supporters,

'Act Vth.

2 He was dismissed from his station in the post-office, which he first established..

3 See the Remembrancer for the year 1776, part 2nd. p. 61. col. 1st. and 2d.

after all that had passed. In a note, in the hand-writing of Dr. Franklin, he observes on the word duty, in the close of his letter in the Public Advertiser, as follows:

"Governor Hutchinson, as appears by his letters, since found and published in New England, had the same idea of duty, when he procured copies of Dr. Franklin's letters to the assembly, and sent them to the ministry of England."

The result of the deliberations of the committee of the privy-council was such as might be expected from the complacency with which they had heard Mr. Wedderburn, and the general fatuity that appears to have governed the councils of the British nation at the time.

The privy-council made a report in which was expressed the following opinion. "The lords of the committee do agree humbly to report, as their opinion to your majesty, that the petition is founded upon resolutions formed on false and erroneous allegations; and is groundless, vexatious, and scandalous, and calculated only for the seditious purpose 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 any degree, impeach the honor, integrity, or conduct of the said governor or lieutenant-governor and their lordships are humbly of opinion that the said petition ought to be dismissed."

Feb. 7th, 1774. "His Majesty taking the said report into consideration, was pleased, with the advice of his privy-council, to approve thereof; and to order that the said petition of the house of representatives of the province of Massachusett's Bay be dismissed the 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."

A former petition against Governor Bernard, met with a dismission, couched in similar

terms.

A few days after this disgraceful business, the following was inserted in the PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

To ALEXANDER WEDDERBURN, Esq.

You stated as a fact, in your late speech before the Privy-Council, that Dr. Franklin sent the letters in an anonymous cover, with injunctions of secresy, (written in a hand, however, well known there,) not to the speaker, as officially he ought to have done, but to private persons. Hence you drew a conclusion, that he was conscious of villany, and ashamed at having it known.

The weakness of this stating, were it true, would defeat the wickedness of the conclusion. How could you suppose a man would expect concealment from suppressing his name, if his hand were well known? or if, by some strange confusion of ideas, he did think himself concealed, to what end should he enjoin secresy?—Wherefore should he have wished for concealment? Was there such terror in the hatred of those detected, Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Oliver? Could he possibly have conceived that any set of ministers would be so weak and

wicked as to persecute him for a measure, which ministered to them the fairest opportunity of healing graciously those unhappy divisions with which they were perplexed in the extreme?

But what will your hearers, what will the world think of you, when I affirm that the whole of what you stated was an absolute falsehood? I defy you to prove a word of it. I feel the harshness of the terms I use, but I appeal to every one that heard you, whether the language you uttered, entitles you to be treated like a gentleman ?

The letters were enclosed to the speaker; that which accompanied them was signed by the agent; nor was there a single injunction of secresy with regard to the sender. He apprehended that the immediate publication of them, would raise the popular indignation so as to be fatal to the writers. Out of humanity to them he desired they might not be made public.

Dr. Franklin's declaration was the next subject of your abuse. You inveighed against it as marking the most inhuman apathy that the imagination could conceive, made to insult over distress, and aggravate the wounds which his villany had occasioned.

Let us state the fact, and see how far it would support the charge.

On the 8th of December, a letter under the signature of ANTENOR, accused Mr. Temple of dishonorably taking the letters in question from Mr. Whately, whose name was vouched for the truth of the charge. The next day Mr. Temple's accuser appeared, declaring Mr. Whately's concurrence with him in denying the facts, on which the charge was founded. So far was there, in this stage of the business, any appearance of any quarrel likely to happen between these two gentlemen, that it seemed as if they were united in contradicting a malignant anonymous accusation; but on the 11th Mr. Whately contradicted Mr. Temple, and at four o'clock that day the duel was fought.-What time or opportunity was there here for the intervention of Dr. Franklin, especially as Mr. Temple's challenge was grounded on the other's flatly denying what he had actually given to the public under his hand?—The original cause of the dispute was, Mr. Whately's having given rise to, and countenanced a most false, unjust, and cruel accusation against Mr. Temple.

The following Plaisanterie also appeared about this time, and was attributed to Dr. Franklin.

SIR,

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

D. E. Q. that is Sir F. Bernard, in his long, labored, and special dull answer to Q, E. D. endeavors to persuade the King, that as he was his Majesty's Representative, there was a great similitude in their characters and conduct; and that Sir F.'s enemies are enemies of his Majesty and of all government! This puts one in mind of the Chimney-Sweeper condemned to be hanged for theft, who being charitably visited by a good Clergyman for whom he had worked, said, "I hope your honor will take my part, and get a reprieve for me, and not let my enemies have their will; because it is upon your account that they have prosecuted and sworn against me." On my account! How can that be? "Why, Sir, because as how ever since they knew I was employed by your honor, they resolved upon my ruin: for they are enemies to all religion; and they hate you and me and every body in black," Z. Z.