wit, the rare excellence of which has given them a currency which has long since worn off all their novelty. Mr. Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration, has preserved one of them. The delegates found a great many things to criticise and to alter in the document. "I was sitting by Dr. Franklin," says Jefferson, "who perceived that I was writhing under these mutilations. "I have made it a rule,' said he, 'whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draftsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. "When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprenticed hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome signboard with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words: John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells Hats for ready Money, with a figure of a hat subjoined. But he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word hatter tautologous, because followed by the words makes hats, which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word makes might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats; if good and to their mind they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words for ready money were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood, John Thompson sells hats. "Sells hats," says his next friend; "why, nobody will expect you to give them away. What, then, is the use of that word?" It was stricken out, and hats followed, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So his inscription was ultimately reduced to John Thompson, with the figure of a hat subjoined.'" When the members were about to sign the document, Mr. Hancock is reported to have said, "We must be unanimous; there must be no pulling different ways; we must all hang together." "Yes," replied Franklin, "we must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." Four days after the 4th of July, delegates were elected to a Constitutional Convention for Pennsylvania, of which Franklin was afterwards chosen president. On the 20th this body chose Franklin a member of Congress by the highest number of votes cast for any candidate. The last act of the Constitutional Convention was to adopt the following resolution unanimously: 'Resolved, That the thanks of this Convention be given to the President for the honor he has done it by filling the chair during the debates on the most important parts of the bill of rights and frame of government, and for his able and disinterested advice thereon."-ED. CHAPTER XII. Negotiations with Lord Howe for a Reconciliation with the ColoniesFranklin's Curtain Lecture to John Adams. Lord Το 1776. I RECEIVED safe, the letters your Lordship so kindly forwarded to me, and beg you to accept my thanks. The official despatches, to which you refer me, contain nothing more than what we had seen in the Lord Howe, the commander of the British fleet of one hundred and twenty sail which arrived in the waters of New York in the early part of July, 1776, was appointed with his brother, General William Howe, joint commissioner to try to negotiate a reconciliation with the colonies. Franklin's English friends had profited by the opportunity of Lord Howe's appointment to send over to him various parcels, which his lordship sent to Franklin with the following polite communication: LORD HOWE TO BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. "Eagle, June 20th, 1776. "I cannot, my worthy friend, permit the letters and parcels, which I have sent in the state I received them, to be landed, without adding a word upon the subject of the injurious extremities in which our unhappy differences have engaged us. "You will learn the nature of my mission, from the official despatches, which I have recommended to be forwarded by the same conveyance. Re361 VOL. II.-31 act of Parliament, viz. offers of pardon upon submission, which I am sorry to find, as it must give your Lordship pain to be sent so far on so hopeless a business. Directing pardons to be offered the colonies, who are the very parties injured, expresses indeed that opinion of our ignorance, baseness, and insensibility, which your uninformed and proud nation has long been pleased to entertain taining all the earnestness I ever expressed to see our differences accommodated, I shall conceive, if I meet with the disposition in the colonies I was once taught to expect, the most flattering hopes of proving serviceable in the objects of the King's paternal solicitude, by promoting the establishment of lasting peace and union with the colonies. But, if the deep-rooted prejudices of America, and the necessity for preventing her trade from passing into foreign channels, must keep us still a divided people, I shall, from every private as well as public motive, most heartily lament, that this is not the moment wherein those great objects of my ambition are to be attained; and that I am to be longer deprived of an opportunity to assure you personally of the regard with which I am your sincere and faithful humble servant, HOWE, "P.S.—I was disappointed of the opportunity I expected for sending this letter at the time it was dated, and have ever since been prevented by calms and contrary winds from getting here to inform Genl. Howe of the commission with which I have the satisfaction to be charged, and of his being joined in it. "Off Sandy Hook, 12th of July." The carrier that brought this note brought another document, addressed to each of the Royal Governors, and which he styled a Declaration. This was simply an announcement that he and his brother had been empowered by his gracious sovereign to grant pardons both to individuals and to colonies who stood in need of them. These declarations were distributed as widely as possible, for the purpose of sowing dissension among the patriots. Congress ordered the document to be printed in the newspapers, "that the few who still remain suspended by a hope founded either on the justice or moderation of their late King, may now at length be convinced that the valor alone of their country is to save their liberties." Dr. Franklin exhibited his letter also to Congress, who, after a day's deliberation, resolved "that Dr. Franklin may, if he thinks proper, return a reply to the letter he received from Lord Howe." This letter is the reply which the Doctor thought proper to write. of us; but it can have no other effect than that of increasing our resentment. It is impossible we should think of submission to a government, that has with the most wanton barbarity and cruelty burnt our defenceless towns in the midst of winter, excited the savages to massacre our farmers, and our slaves to murder their masters, and is even now bringing foreign mercenaries to deluge our settlements with blood. These atrocious injuries have extinguished every remaining spark of affection for that parent country we once held so dear; but, were it possible for us to forget and forgive them, it is not possible for you (I mean the British nation) to forgive the people you have so heavily injured. You can never confide again in those as fellow subjects, and permit them to enjoy equal freedom, to whom you know you have given such just cause of lasting enmity. And this must impel you, were we again under your government, to endeavour the breaking our spirit by the severest tyranny, and obstructing, by every means in your power, our growing strength and prosperity. But your Lordship mentions "the King's paternal solicitude for promoting the establishment of lasting peace and union with the colonies." If by peace is here meant a peace to be entered into between Britain and America, as distinct states now at war, and his Majesty has given your Lordship powers to treat with us of such a peace, I may venture to say, though without authority, that I think a treaty for that purpose not yet quite impracticable, before we enter into foreign alliances. But I am persuaded you have no such powers. Your nation, though, by punishing those American governors, who have created and fomented the discord, rebuilding our burnt towns, and repairing as far as possible the mischiefs done us, might yet recover a great share of our regard, and the greatest part of our growing commerce, with all the advantage of that additional strength to be derived from a friendship with us; but I know too well her abounding pride and deficient wisdom, to believe she will ever take such salutary measures. Her fondness for conquest, as a warlike nation, her lust of dominion, as an ambitious one, and her thirst for a gainful monopoly, as a commercial one, (none of them legitimate causes of war,) will all join to hide from her eyes every view of her true interests, and continually goad her on in those ruinous distant expeditions, so destructive both of lives and treasure, that must prove as pernicious to her in the end, as the crusades formerly were to most of the nations of Europe. I have not the vanity, my Lord, to think of intimidating by thus predicting the effects of this war; for I know it will in England have the fate of all my former predictions, not to be believed till the event shall verify it. Long did I endeavour, with unfeigned and unwearied zeal, to preserve from breaking that fine and noble China vase, the British empire; for I knew, that, being once broken, the separate parts could not retain even their share of the strength or value that existed in the whole, and that a perfect reunion of those parts could scarce ever be hoped for. Your Lordship may possibly remember the tears of joy that wet my cheek, when, at your good sister's in London, you once gave me expectations that a reconciliation might soon take place. I had the misfortune to find those expectations disappointed, and to be treated as the cause of the mischief I was laboring to prevent. My consolation under that groundless and malevolent treatment was, that I retained the friendship of many wise and good men in that |