Such was the clever clap-trap, gravely substituted for rational argument, uttered before a body of men assembled to consider the application of a provincial legislature for a change of local rulers! Franklin's demeanor, during this indecent invective, was calm and dignified. Dr. Priestly, who was present with Edmund Burke, says that "the real object of the court was to insult Dr. Franklin; " but that he stood "without the least apparent emotion" during the whole of Wedderburn's ribald attack. The lords of the council seemed to enjoy it highly, however. All of them, with the exception of Lord North, "frequently laughed outright" at the abuse heaped upon the venerable sage, then in his sixty-ninth year, whose life had been so largely devoted to the advancement of the interests of humanity. He had been the zealous and vigilant champion of the political rights of the Colonists; and this their lordships could not forgive. He had insisted upon his countrymen's participation in all the rights of Englishmen; and this their lordships were not disposed to allow. He had vindicated the character and courage of Americans; and it was the ton among the "hereditary legislators" of England to speak of them as a cowardly and inferior race. It was not, therefore, a matter of surprise to anybody, that the decision at which their lordships arrived was adverse to the Assembly and to Franklin. The Assembly's petition was pronounced "groundless, vexatious and scandalous," "founded upon resolutions formed on false and erroneous allegations," and "calculated only for the seditious purpose of keeping up a spirit of clamor and discontent" in the Province. As for Franklin, he was the next day dismissed from his office of Deputy Postmaster for the Colonies. Their lordships were resolved that no effort on their part should be wanting to "mark and brand" him as Wedderburn had recommended. The British press sedulously lent its aid, and public opinion. was so generally prejudiced against him, that David Hume, with whom he had lodged in Edinburgh, on the most friendly terms, wrote, under date of February 3, 1774, to a correspondent: "Pray what strange accounts are these we hear of Franklin's conduct? I am very slow in believing that he has been guilty in the extreme degree that is pretended; though I always knew him to be a very factious

man,— and a faction, next to fanaticism, is of all passions the most destructive of morality. How is it he got possession of these letters? I hear that Wedderburn's treatment of him before the Council was most cruel, without being in the least degree blamable." In spite of Hume's amateur republicanism, he seems to have found it difficult, in his imagination, to reconcile a person's opposition to the ministry with freedom from factious motives.

I

Through this storm of obloquy and detraction, Franklin bore himself with the tranquillity of a philosopher and the moderation of a Christian. "I made," he says, "no justification of myself from the charges brought against me. made no return of the injury, by abusing my adversaries, but held a cool, sullen silence, reserving myself to some future opportunity; for which conduct I had several reasons, not necessary here to specify." "As I grow old, I grow less concerned about censure, when I am satisfied that I act rightly." He was content to bide his time, confidently though not vindictively. He never divulged the mode in which he came into possession of the letters which were made the subject of so much controversy; but that he came by them honorably we have his own ample assurance, fortified by concurrent circumstances. He lived to see the parties who had exulted in the temporary obscuration of his reputation suing for his influence to avert the consequences which he had long predicted as the result of ministerial arrogance and infatuation. In less than a year after the scene at the Council Board, Lord Howe appealed to his magnanimity not to consider his ill treatment by the ministry; that some of them were ashamed of it, and sorry it had happened; which he supposed must be sufficient to abate resentment in a great and generous mind.”*

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* In a letter to Dr. Hosack, John Adams states that Sir John Temple told him, in Holland, that he had furnished the Hutchinson and Oliver letters to Dr. Franklin. Mr. Adams adds, however, his belief that they were delivered through the hands of a third person, a member of Parliament. This is consistent with Franklin's own account.

VIII.

FRANKLIN, if he did not originally suggest the plan of a Continental Congress, was among its earliest approvers. In a letter, dated July 7, 1773, to Thomas Cushing, of Massachusetts, he says: "It is natural to suppose, as you do, that, if the oppressions continue, a Congress may grow out of that correspondence. Nothing could more alarm our ministers; but, if the Colonies agree to hold a Congress, I do not see how it can be prevented." In a letter of the same date, to be read to the Assembly, he says: "Perhaps it would be best and fairest for the Colonies, in a general Congress, now in peace to be assembled, or by means of the correspondence lately proposed, after a full and solemn assertion and declaration of their rights, to engage firmly with each other, that they will never grant aids to the crown, in any general war, till those rights are recognized by the king and both houses of Parliament; communicating at the same time to the crown this their resolution. Such a step, I imagine, will bring the dispute to a crisis." From these passages it would seem that the scheme had been already agitated. It grew naturally out of the exigences of the times, and probably no Province or individual can rightly claim the merit of its origin.

The First Continental Congress assembled at Philadelphia, September 17, 1774. In December following, their petition to the king was forwarded under cover to Franklin. It was transferred by the king to Parliament, by which body it was contemptuously rejected. It was the last tender of the olive-branch, and it was spurned. Franklin now began to think of returning to America. He was regarded with a good deal of distrust by the ministry, who, it was privately intimated to him, entertained some thoughts of arresting him as a fomenter of rebellion in the Colonies. A coalition on the American question being talked of among the opposition in Parliament to the ministry, he endeavored to promote it, and, in conversation with members of the minority in both Houses, he "besought and conjured them most earnestly not to suffer, by their little misunderstandings, so glorious a fabric as the present British empire to be

demolished by these blunderers." But the "blunderers blundered on, although some eloquent voices were raised in Parliament to deter them; among others, that of Lord Chatham, whose intrepid words, "I rejoice that America has resisted," though they elicited a cry of horror from the ministerial benches, thrilled like a trumpet-note through the hearts of the Colonists.

Franklin had long admired Lord Chatham at a distance. Circumstances now brought them together, and their intercourse was throughout of a character honorable to both parties. His lordship's noble vindication of Franklin from the aspersions of Lord Sandwich in the House of Lords is a tribute that outweighs all the abuse ever lavished upon the American sage by the supporters of the ministry. Franklin's own account of his acquaintance with Lord Chatham will be found in another part of this volume.

An aspersion upon his personal truthfulness is contained in Lord Mahon's recent History of England, based upon an apparent discrepancy in Franklin's assurance to Lord Chatham that "America did not aim at independence," and the statement of Josiah Quincy, Jr., that Franklin's ideas were "extended upon the broad scale of total emancipation."* A little attention to dates would have satisfied his lordship, in spite of his strong tory bias, of the rank injustice of his charge against Franklin of playing "a double game." Franklin's assurance to Lord Chatham was given in August 1774, and was unquestionably sincere. The letter of Josiah Quincy, Jr., containing the expression quoted to give countenance to the imputation of duplicity, bears date November 24, 1774. During the interval between these two dates, the probabilities of a reconciliation between Great Britain and the Colonies had greatly diminished. A general election had taken place, which had given Lord North and his colleagues an overwhelming majority in Parliament. Hopes of redress from that quarter were therefore at an Franklin began to see that a contest was inevitable,

end.

* Under date of London, November 24, 1784, Josiah Quincy, Jr., wrote home to Boston: "Dr. Franklin is an American in heart and soul. You may trust him; his ideas are not contracted within the narrow limits of exemption from taxes, but are extended upon the broad scale of total emancipation."

and that "total emancipation" must now be the object of the Colonists. If he had entertained contrary views a few months before, he entertained them in common with Washington, John Adams, Jay, Jefferson, Madison, and other foremost men of the Revolution. The attempt of Lord Mahon to show that there was any prevarication in his course is confuted by notorious facts.

Several negotiations were set on foot by agents of the ministry to secure the good offices of Franklin to bring about a settlement with the Colonies. To this end, his friend Dr. Fothergill and David Barclay interceded with him. At their request he drew up a plan, in the shape of hints for conversation, seventeen in number, as the terms to which the Colonists would probably assent. This paper was communicated by Mr. Barclay to Lord Hyde, and by Dr. Fothergill to Lord Dartmouth. Lord Hyde thought the propositions too hard. Lord Dartmouth, while he admitted that some of them were reasonable, regarded others as inadmissible or impracticable. The Speaker of the House of Commons thought it would be very humiliating to Britain to be obliged to submit to such terms.

At the request of Lord Howe, who, with ex-Governor Pownall, aspired to the appointment of Commissioner to America to settle difficulties, and who hoped to take Franklin with him, the latter sketched another plan; but this, too, involved concessions which the ministry were not ready to allow. Several attempts were made to renew these informal negotiations. It was evidently supposed that Franklin, though he disclaimed all authority to act, was well aware of the terms that Congress would accept. Any concessions which he might make were relied upon as certain to be obtained; but the ministry were rapacious, and he was unyielding. After repeated interviews with Mr. Barclay and Dr. Fothergill, Lord Howe and Lord Hyde, for the purpose of devising some plan of settlement, the attempt was abandoned.

One of the manœuvres resorted to by friends of the ministry to bring about a private intercourse with Franklin is thus described by him:

"The new Parliament was to meet the 29th of November (1774). About the beginning of that month, being at the Royal Society, Mr. Raper,