two masters. The Government, he affirms, has been too weak to fubdue the turbulent spirits. He infinuates the expediency of "TAKING OFF" those persons whom he styles "the original incendiaries." He wishes for the institution of an order of Patricians, and afferts the neceffity of an ALTERATION OF THE CHARTERS." The Assembly, thrown into a violent flame by the reading of these letters, unanimoufly refolved, " that the tendency and design of the faid letters was to overthrow the Constitution of this Government, and to introduce arbitrary power into the Province;" and a petition was immediately voted to the King, to remove the Governor Hutchinson, and the Lieutenant Governor Oliver, for ever from the government of the Province.

This PETITION being tranfmitted to the Agent of the Assembly, Dr. Franklin, was by him delivered to Lord Dartmouth; and on its being presented to the King, his Majesty fignified his pleafure that it should be laid before him in Council. On the 29th of January 1774, Dr. Franklin was summoned in his official capacity as Agent of the Province in support of the petition. Mr. Wedderburn, now Lord Loughborough and Chancellor of Great Britain *, appearing as counsel for the defendants, delivered in that capacity against the Agent, the House of Representatives, the Province

*1796.

of

of Massachusetts, and the whole Continent of America, one of the most extraordinary invectives that was on any occafion perhaps ever heard in the Council Chamber. "Dr. Franklin, said Mr. Wedderburn, stands in the light of the first mover and prime conductor of this whole contrivance againft his Majesty's two Governors; and having, by the help of his own special confidents and party leaders, first made the Affembly his agent in carrying on his own fecret designs, he now appears before your Lordships to give the finishing stroke to the work of his own hands. How these letters came into poffeffion of any one but the right owners, is a mystery for Dr. Franklin to explain. Your Lordships know the train of mischiefs which followed this concealment *. After they had been left for five months to have their full operation, at length comes out a letter, which it is impoffible to read without horror, expreffive of the coolest and most deliberate malevolence. My Lords, what poetic fiction only had penned for the breaft of a cruel African, Dr. Franklin has realized and transcribed from his own-His too is the language of a ZANGA.

Know then 'twas I,

I forged the letter, I disposed the picture:
I hated, I despised, and I destroy.

And

And he now appears before your Lordships, wrapped up in impenetrable secrecy, to support a charge against his Majesty's Governor and Lieutenant Governor, and expects that your Lordships should advise the punishing them on account of certain letters which he will not produce, and which he dares not tell how he obtained. These are the lessons taught in Dr. Franklin's school of politics. With regard to his constituents, the factious leaders at Boston, who make this complaint against their Governors, if the relating of their evil doings be criminal, and tending to alienate his Majesty's affections, must not the doing of them be much more so? Yet now they ask that his Majesty will gratify and reward them for doing these things, and that he will punish their Governors for relating them, because they are so very bad that it cannot but offend his Majesty to hear of them." From these paffages some judgment may be formed of the general ftrain of this famous Philippic, which, violating every rule and limit of decorum, stands upon record as the groffest insult ever offered to a great and venerable character, the most distinguished ornament of his age and country. A wife Government would have known his value, and been happy to have availed itself of his experience and sagacity; but the counsels of a Franklin under the present reign were not likely to preponderate over those of a Hutchinson. The report of the Lords of the Council was in a few days afterwards made, the KING'S moft excellent Majesty being present, "that the petition in question was founded upon false and erroneous allegations, and that the fame is groundless, vexatious and scandalous, and calculated only for the feditious purposes of keeping up a fpirit of clamor and discontent in the Province." And his Majesty was pleased, upon taking the faid report into confideration, to approve thereof, and to order the faid petition of the Affembly of Maffachusets to be dismissed accordingly. Such was the mode in which a petition from the first Provincial Legislature in the Empire, composed of men eminent for ability and integrity, was treated by the British Government, which perhaps had never duly pondered the ancient maxim of moral and political wisdom, "that pride goeth before deftruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." But a matter of higher import, and attended with far more ferious consequences, which at this time took place, is now to be related.

When at a very early period of Lord North's administration the duties on paper, glass, and colors were repealed, it has been already remarked that the duty on TEA was purposely left as a mark

of

of Legislative Supremacy. The East India Company, finding their stock of tea to accumulate in their warehouses in consequence of the loss of the American market, were very urgent with the Minifter to repeal the American import duty of threepence per pound, offering in lieu of it to pay double the fum on exportation. A fairer opportunity could not occur to terminate the dispute. As the duty would not have been taken off at the instance of the Americans, either in the dread of their resentment, or in the profpect of their advantage, it might have been hoped that the most strenuous stickler for "the dignity of the Crown," and "the honor of Parliament," whose sleeping and waking dreams had centred solely in these beloved and darling objects, might at length have banished his perturbations, and pressed his pillow in peace. This conceffion, however, the Minister was not inclined, or, which is far more probable, was not PERMITTED to make; and things remained on this footing, till in the feffion of 1773 the Act paffed for allowing the exportation of TEAS duty-free, and the Company, eager to make a grand effort to relieve themselves from their difficulties, were buoyed up with the flattering expectation, by becoming their own factors, of regaining poffeffion of the American market: for when the teas were actually transported across the Atlantic, and lodged in warehouses, the mere circumstance of their having previoufly