for they had been in America near a year before I so much as knew where he lived; and the others I mention to show his gratitude. I could have excused his not thanking me for sparing him a second hazard of his life; for, though he might feel himself served, he might also apprehend, that to seem pleased would look as if he was afraid of fighting again; or perhaps he did not value his life at any thing; but the addition to his fortune one would think of some value to a banker; and yet the return this worthy gentleman made me for both favors was, without the smallest previous notice, warning, complaint, or request to me, directly or indirectly, to clap upon my back a chancery suit.

His bill set forth, "That he was administrator of the goods and chattels of his late brother Thomas Whately; that some letters had been written to his said brother by the Governors Hutchinson and Oliver; that those letters had been in the custody of his said brother at the time of his death, or had been by him delivered to some other person for perusal, and to be by such person safely kept and returned to said Thomas Whately; that the same had by some means come into my hands; that, to prevent a discovery, I, or some person by my order, had erased the address of the letters to the said Thomas Whately; that, carrying on the trade of a printer, I had, by my agents or confederates, printed and published the same letters in America, and disposed of great numbers; that I threatened to print and sell the same in England; and that he had applied to me to deliver up to him the said letters, and all copies thereof, and desist from printing and publishing the same, and account with him for the profits thereof; and he was in hopes I would have complied with such request, but so it was that I had refused, &c., contrary to equity and good conscience,

KK*

and to the manifest injury and oppression of him, the complainant; and praying my Lord Chancellor, that I might be obliged to discover how I came by the letters, what number of copies I had printed and sold, and to account with him for the profits," &c. &c. The gentleman himself must have known, that every circumstance of this was totally false; that of his brother's having delivered the letters to some other person for perusal excepted. Those as little acquainted with law as I was, (who indeed never before had a lawsuit of any kind,) may wonder at this as much as I did; but I have now learnt, that in chancery, though the defendant must swear the truth of every point in his answer, the plaintiff is not put to his oath, or obliged to have the least regard to truth in his bill, but is allowed to lie as much as he pleases. I do not understand this, unless it be for the encouragement of business.

My answer upon oath was, "That the letters in question were given to me, and came into my hands, as agent for the House of Representatives of the Province of Massachusetts Bay; that, when given to me, I did not know to whom they had been addressed, no address appearing upon them; nor did I know before that any such letters existed; that I had not been for many years concerned in printing; that I did not cause the letters to be printed, nor direct the doing it; that I did not erase any address that might have been on the letters, nor did I know that any other person had made such erasure; that I did, as agent to the province, transmit (as I apprehended it my duty to do) the said letters to one of the committee, with whom I had been directed to correspond, inasmuch as in my judgment they related to matters of great public importance to that province, and were put into my hands

for that purpose; that I had never been applied to by the complainant, as asserted in his bill, and had made no profits of the letters, nor intended to make any," &c.

It was about this time become evident, that all thoughts of reconciliation with the colony of the Massachusetts Bay, by attention to their petitions, and a redress of their grievances, was laid aside; that severity was resolved; and that the decrying and vilifying the people of that country, and me their agent, among the rest, was quite a court measure. It was the ton with all the ministerial folks to abuse them and me, in every company, and in every newspaper; and it was intimated to me, as a thing settled, long before it happened, that the petition for removal of the governors was to be rejected, the Assembly censured, and myself, who had presented it, was to be punished by the loss of my place in the post-office.* For all this I was therefore prepared; but the attack from Mr. Whately was, I own, a surprise to me; under the abovementioned circumstances of obligation, and without the slightest provocation, I could not have imagined any man base enough to commence, of his own motion, such a vexatious suit against me. But a little accidental information served to throw some light upon the business. An acquaintance † calling on me, after having just been at the treasury, showed me what he styled a pretty thing, for a friend of his; it was an order for one hundred and fifty pounds, payable to Dr. Samuel Johnson, said to be one half of his yearly pension, and drawn by the secretary of the treasury on

* For several years Dr. Franklin had held the office of Deputy Postmaster-General of the Colonies. — EDITOR.

William Strahan, Member of Parliament, and King's Printer. — W. T. F.

this same Mr. Whately. I then considered him as a banker to the treasury for the pension money, and thence as having an interested connexion with the administration, that might induce him to act by direction of others in harassing me with this suit; which gave me if possible a still meaner opinion of him, than if he had done it of his own accord.

What further steps he or his confederates, the ministers, will take in this cause, I know not. I do not indeed believe the banker himself, finding there are no profits to be shared, would willingly lay out a sixpence more upon the suit; but then my finances are not sufficient to cope at law with the treasury here; especially when administration has taken care to prevent my constituents of New England from paying me any salary, or reimbursing me any expenses, by a special instruction to the governor, not to sign any warrant for that purpose on the treasury there.

The injustice of thus depriving the people there of the use of their own money, to pay an agent acting in their defence, while the governor, with a large salary out of the money extorted from them by act of Parliament, was enabled to pay plentifully Mauduit and Wedderburn to abuse and defame them and their agent, is so evident as to need no comment. But this

they call GOVERNMENT!)

NOTE BY THE EDITOR,

CONTAINING OTHER PARTICULARS RESPECTING HUTCHINSON'S

LETTERS.

MUCH curiosity has been expressed, and much inquiry made, as to the mode in which Dr. Franklin obtained possession of these letters; but nothing more is positively known on this point, than what he has related in the preceding narrative. Having received them under an injunction of secrecy, and a solemn pledge not to reveal the names of the persons concerned, he maintained a perfect silence on the subject to the end of his life. It is not certain from any facts hitherto published, that he was himself informed of the manner in which they were procured, or the place where they were found. It is indeed probable, that he was purposely kept ignorant of these particulars, that he might not in any event be involved in personal difficulties on their account. This may be inferred from the circumstance, that, when the letters were put into his hands, the name of the person to whom they had been addressed was erased. Their genuineness was proved by the handwriting, and the signatures of their authors, which were familiar to him.

In the year 1820, Dr. Hosack, of New York, published a Biographical Memoir of Dr. Hugh Williamson, a gentleman well known for his scientific attainments. In that Memoir the author endeavours to establish the fact, on what he deems good authority, that Dr. Williamson was the person, who obtained the letters in question, and communicated them to Dr. Franklin. The following is Dr. Hosack's statement.

"Dr. Williamson had now arrived in London. Feeling a lively interest in the momentous questions then agitated, and suspecting that a clandestine correspondence, hostile to the interest of the colonies, was carried on between Hutchinson and certain leading members of the British Cabinet, he determined to ascertain the truth by a bold experiment.

"He had learned, that Governor Hutchinson's letters were deposited in an office different from that in which they ought regularly to have been placed; and, having understood that there was little exactness in the transaction of the business of that office, (it is believed it was the office of a particular department of the Treasury,) he immediately repaired to it, and addressed himself to the chief clerk, not finding the principal within. Assuming the demeanor of official importance, he peremptorily stated, that he had 56

VOL. IV.