many months. This I noticed to Mr. Deane; and soon after, when a messenger came from Versailles, with a letter from Mr. Gerard the French plenipotentiary, stating that he was so unwell, from a cold, that he wished to defer coming to Paris to sign the treaties, until the next evening, I said to Mr. Deane, Let us see whether the Doctor will wear the same suit of clothes to-morrow; if he does, I shall suspect that he is influenced by a recollection of the treatment which he received at the Cockpit.' The morrow came, and the same clothes were again worn, and the treaties signed. After which, these clothes were laid aside, and, so far as my knowledge extends, never worn afterwards. I once intimated to Dr. Franklin the suspicion, which his wearing these clothes on that occasion had excited in my mind, when he smiled, without telling me whether it was well or ill founded. I have heard him sometimes say, that he was not insensible to injuries, but that he never put himself to any trouble or inconvenience to retaliate."

The affair having been gone through with by the Privy Council, in the manner above stated, it is easy to imagine what was the fate of the Assembly's petition. In their report, after the usual matters of form, and an enumeration of the several charges, the Committee proceed as follows.

"The Lords of the Committee cannot but express their astonishment, that a charge of so serious and extensive a nature against the persons, whom the said House of Representatives acknowledge by their said petition to have heretofore had the confidence and esteem of the people, and to have been advanced by your Majesty, from the purest motives of rendering your subjects happy, to the highest places of trust and authority in that province, should have no other evidence to support it but inflammatory and precipitate resolutions, founded only on certain letters, written respectively by them (and all but one before they were appointed to the posts they now hold) in the years 1767, 1768, and 1769, to a gentleman then in no office under the government, in the course of familiar correspondence, and in the confidence of private friendship, and which it was said (and it was not denied by Mr. Franklin) were surreptitiously obtained after his death, and sent over to America, and laid before the Assembly of the Massachusetts Bay; and which letters appear to us to contain nothing reprehensible or unworthy of the situation they were in; and we presume, that it was from this impropriety, that the Council did disclaim on behalf of the Assembly any intention of bringing a criminal charge against the governor and lieutenant-governor; but said, that the petition was

founded solely on the ground of the governor and lieutenantgovernor being, as they alleged, now become obnoxious to the people of the province; and that it was in this light only that the said petition was presented to your Majesty. And there being no other evidence now produced, than the said resolutions and letters, together with resolutions of a similar import by the Council of the said province, founded, as it was said, on the same letters;

"The Lords of the Committee do agree humbly to report, as their opinion, to your Majesty, that the said petition is founded upon resolutions formed upon false and erroneous allegations; and that the same is groundless, vexatious, and scandalous; and calculated only for the seditious purposes 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."

"February 7th. 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 Massachusetts 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.'

6

Such was the language in which the King and his counsellors thought proper to reply to the respectful petition of the Representatives of a whole province. Who can wonder at the indignation of the people, or that the battle of Bunker's Hill was fought in less than eighteen months afterwards? Dr. Franklin was immediately dismissed from his office of deputy postmaster-general for the colonies. The whole proceeding was not more insulting and oppressive, than it was impolitic.

EMBLEMATICAL REPRESENTATION.

W. T. Franklin gives the following account of this device, and the use made of it by its author. "During the disputes between the two countries, Dr. Franklin invented a little emblematical design, intended to represent the supposed state of Great Britain and her colonies, should the former persist in her oppressive measures, restraining the latter's trade, and taxing their people by laws made by a legislature in which they were not represented. It was engraved on a copper plate. Dr. Franklin had many of them struck off on cards, on the back of which he occasionally wrote his notes. It was also printed on a half-sheet of paper, with the explanation and moral.”. - EDITOR.

EXPLANATION.

GREAT BRITAIN is supposed to have been placed upon the globe; but the colonies, (that is, her limbs,) being severed from her, she is seen lifting her eyes and mangled stumps to Heaven; her shield, which she is unable to wield, lies useless by her side; her lance has pierced New England; the laurel branch has fallen from the hand of Pennsylvania; the English oak has lost its head, and stands a bare trunk, with a few withered branches; briers and thorns are on the ground beneath it; the British ships have brooms at their topmast heads, denoting their being on sale; and BRITANNIA herself is seen sliding off the world (no longer able to hold its balance), her fragments overspread with the label, DATE OBOLUM BELISARIO.