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prove that suspicions are unjust, even when we know what they are; and harder, when we are unacquainted with them. I must presume, therefore, that, in mentioning them, you had an intention of communicating the grounds of them to me, if I should request it, which I now do, and, I assure you, with a sincere desire and design of amending what you may show me to have been wrong in my conduct, and to thank you for the admonition. In your writings I appear a bad man; but, if I am such, and you can thus help me to become in reality a good one, I shall esteem it more than a sufficient reparation to, Reverend Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

B. FRANKLIN.*

* A memorandum was found appended to the rough draft of this letter, in the handwriting of the author, dated February 7th, 1775, in which he said; "No answer has yet been received." In a future edition of his work, however, Dean Tucker omitted the offensive passages, but with so ill a grace as almost to take away the little merit there was in rendering so obvious an act of justice. The circumstance is mentioned by him in the preface to a tract, entitled, "A Series of Answers to Certain Popular Objections," published in 1776.

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"In the first and second editions of my Fourth Tract," he says, happily for me, I had charged him with procuring a place for himself in the American stamp-office; whereas, alas! it proved to be not for himself, but for his friend. And, as a poor culprit was thus detected in an offence of so heinous a nature against the eternal truth and rectitude of things, great were the exultations of the Doctor and his patriotic friends. Reader, I plead guilty to the indictment; habes confitentem reum. Therefore I will lay Dr. Franklin's own state of the case before you; and this the rather, because his republican agents and abettors, the MONTHLY REVIEWERS, have dared me to publish his own account; hoping, I suppose, that I had mislaid my voucher."

The Dean then proceeds to make a short extract from Dr. Franklin's letter, instead of publishing the whole; which extract he endeavours to turn to the author's disadvantage. Although the Dean confessed himself in fault, yet, in this pretended reparation, his conduct is so indirect and disingenuous, that nothing can be claimed for him on the score of fairness or magnanimity. - EDITOR.

ON

THE RISE AND PROGRESS

OF THE

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN

AND HER AMERICAN COLONIES.

The following papers, first printed in the Public Advertiser in London, are supposed by William Temple Franklin to have been written about the time of the author's departure for America; but their precise dates have not been ascertained. — EDITOR.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR,

The enclosed paper was written just before Lord Hillsborough quitted the American department. An expectation then prevailing, from the good character of the noble Lord who succeeded him, that the grievances of the colonies would, under his administration, be redressed, it was laid aside; but, as not a single measure of his predecessor has since been even attempted to be changed, and on the contrary new ones have been continually added, farther to exasperate, render them desperate, and drive them, if possible, into open rebellion, it may not be amiss now to give it to the public, as it shows in detail the rise and progress of those differences, which are about to break the empire in pieces. I am, Sir, yours, &c.,

A. P.

SIR,

It is a bad temper of mind that takes a delight in opposition, and is ever ready to censure ministry in the gross, without discrimination. Charity should be willing to believe, that we never had an administration so bad, but there might be some good and some wise men in it; and that even such is our case at present. The Scripture saith, "By their works shall ye know them." By their conduct, then, in their respective departments, and not by their company or their party connexions, should they be distinctly and separately judged.

One of the most serious affairs to this nation, that has of late required the attention of government, is our misunderstanding with the colonies. They are in the department of Lord Hillsborough, and, from a prevailing opinion of his abilities, have been left by the other ministers very much to his management. If, then, our American business has been conducted with prudence, to him chiefly will be due the reputation of it.

Soon after the late war, it became an object with the ministers of this country to draw a revenue from America. The first attempt was by a Stamp Act. It soon appeared, that this step had not been well considered; that the rights, the ability, the opinions and temper of that great people had not been sufficiently 3 attended to. They complained, that the tax was unnecessary, because their Assemblies had ever been ready to make voluntary grants to the crown in proportion to their abilities, when duly required so to do; and unjust, because they had no representative in the British Parliament, but had Parliaments of their own, wherein their consent was given, as it ought to be, in grants of their own money. I do not mean to enter into this question. The Parliament repealed the act as inexpedient, but in another act asserted a right of

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taxing America; and in the following year laid duties on the manufactures of this country exported thither. On the repeal of the Stamp Act, the Americans had returned to their wonted good-humor and commerce with Great Britain; but this new act for laying duties renewed their uneasiness. They were long since forbidden by the Navigation Act to purchase manufactures of any other nation; and, supposing that act well enforced, they saw, that by this indirect mode it was in the power of Great Britain to burden them as much as by any direct tax, unless they could lay aside the use of such manufactures as they had been accustomed to purchase from Britain, or make the same themselves.

In this situation were affairs, when my Lord Hillsborough entered on the American administration. Much was expected from his supposed abilities, application, and knowledge of business in that department. The newspapers were filled with his panegyrics, and expectations raised perhaps inconveniently.

The Americans determined to petition their sovereign, praying his gracious interposition in their favor with his Parliament, that the imposition of these duties, which they considered as an infringement of their rights, might be repealed. The Assembly of the Massachusetts Bay had voted that it should be proposed to the other colonies to concur in that measure. This, for what reason I do not easily conceive, gave great offence to his Lordship; and one of his first steps was to prevent these concurring petitions. To this end, he sent a mandate to that Assembly (the Parliament of that country), requiring them to rescind that vote, and desist from the measure, threatening them with dissolution in case of disobedience. The governor communicated to them the instructions he received to that purpose. They refused to obey, and were dissolved! Similar orders

were sent at the same time to the governors of the other colonies, to dissolve their respective Parliaments if they presumed to accede to the Boston proposition of petitioning his Majesty, and several of them were accordingly dissolved.

Bad ministers have ever been averse to the right subjects claim of petitioning and remonstrating to their sovereign; for through that channel the prince may be apprized of the mal-administration of his servants; they may sometimes be thereby brought into danger; at least such petitions afford a handle to their adversaries, whereby to give them trouble. But, as the measure to be complained of was not his Lordship's, it is rather extraordinary that he should thus set his face against the intended complaints. In his angry letters to America, he called the proposal of these petitions "a measure of most dangerous and factious tendency, calculated to inflame the minds of his Majesty's subjects in the colonies, to promote an unwarrantable combination, and to excite and encourage an open opposition to, and denial of, the authority of the Parliament, and to subvert the true spirit of the constitution;" and directed the governors, immediately on the receipt of these orders, to exert their utmost influence to defeat this flagitious attempt.

Without entering into the particular motives to this piece of his Lordship's conduct, let us consider a little the wisdom of it. When subjects conceive themselves oppressed or injured, laying their complaints before the sovereign, or the governing powers, is a kind of vent to griefs that gives some ease to their minds; the receiving with at least an appearance of regard their petitions, and taking them into consideration, gives present hope, and affords time for the cooling of resentment; so that even the refusal, when decently expressed and

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