Ordered that the further proceedings be on Saturday 29th Inftant *.

[The privy council accordingly met on the 29th of January, 1774; when Mr. Dunning and Mr. John Lee appeared as counfel for the affembly, and Mr. Wedderburne as counfel for the Governor and Lieutenant Governor. Mr. Wedderburne was very long in his answer; which chiefly related to the mode of obtaining and fending away Mr. Whately's letters; and spoke of Dr. Franklin in terms of abufe, which never efcape from one gentleman towards another.-In the event, the committee of the privy council made a report, in which was expreffed the following opinion. The Lords of the committee do agree humbly to report, as their opinion to your Majefty, that the petition is founded upon refolutions formed on falfe and erroneous allegations; and is groundlefs, vexatious, and fcandalous; and calculated only for the feditious purposes of keeping up a fpirit of clamour and difcontent in the faid province. And the Lords of the committee do further humbly report to your Majefty, that nothing has been laid before them which does or can, in their opinion, in any manner, or in any degree, impeach the honour, integrity, or conduct of the faid Governor or Lieutenant Governor; and their Lordships are humbly of opinion, • that the faid petition ought to be difmiffed.'

Feb. 7th, 1774. His Majefty taking the faid report into confideration, was pleafed, with the advice of his privy council, to approve thereof; and to order that the faid petition of the houfe of reprefentatives of the province of Maffachufett's Bay be difmiffed the board-as groundless, vexatious, and fcandalous; and calculated only for the feditious purpose of keeping up a fpirit of clamour and difcontent in the faid province.'-A former petition against Governor Bernard met with a difmiffion couched in fimilar terms. E.]

Account

Account of Governor Hutchinfon's Letters, &c.

To the Printer of the PUBLIC ADVERTISER *

SIR,

FINDING that two Gentlemen have been unfortunately engaged in a duel about a tranfaction and its circumftances, of which both of them are totally ignorant and innocent; I think it incumbent upon me to declare (for the prevention of farther mischief, as far as fuch a declaration may contribute to prevent it) that I alone am the perfon who obtained and tranfmitted to Boston the letters in question. Mr. W. could not communicate them, because they were never in his poffeffion; and for the fame reason, they could not be taken from him by

*[Some letters had paffed in the public prints between Mr. Thomas Whately's brother and Mr. John Temple, concerning the manner in which the letters of Governor Hutchinfon, &c. had escaped from among the papers of Mr. Thomas Whately, at this time deceased.

The one Gentleman wished to avoid the charge of having given them; the other, of having taken them. At length the difpute became fo perfonal and pointed, that Mr. Temple thought it neceffary to call the brother into the field. The letter of provocation appeared in the morning, and the parties met in the afternoon. Dr. Franklin was not then in town; it was after fome interval that he received the intelligence. What had paffed he could not forefee; he endeavoured to prevent what ftill might follow. E.]

Mr. T.-They were not of the nature of private letters between friends *. They were written by public officers to perfons in public ftations, on public affairs, and intended to procure public measures; they were therefore handed to other public perfons who might be influenced by them to produce thofe measures. Their tendency was to incenfe the mothercountry against her colonies, and, by the steps recommended, to widen the breach; which they effected. The chief caution expreffed with regard to privacy, was, to keep their contents from the colony agents; who the writers apprehended might return them, or copies of them to America. That apprehenfion was, it feems, well founded; for the first agent who laid his hands on them, thought it his duty to transmit them to his constituents.

Craven Street, Dec. 25, 1773.

B. FRANKLIN,

Agent for the House of Reprefentatives of the Maffachufett's Bay.

* [Perhaps it is proper to call thefe letters only fecret letters. The facts and advice they contained had the most direct relation to the public; and the only part of the letters that could ftrictly be faid to be private, was the family history that was naturally here and there interfperfed on the fame theet of paper, from family connection in the writers. E.]

+ [It was in confequence of this letter that Mr. Wedderburne ventured to make the moft odious perfonal applications. Mr. Mauduit has prudently omitted part of them, in his account of the proceedings before the privy council. They are given here altogether how

ever (as well as they could be collected,) to mark the politics of the times, and the nature of the cenfures paffed in England upon Dr. Franklin's character.

The letters could not have come to Dr. Franklin,' faid Mr. Wedderburn, by fair means. The writers did not give them to him; nor yet did the deceased correfpondent, who from our intimacy would otherwife have told me of it: Nothing then will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining them by fraudulent or corrupt means, for the moft malignant of purposes; unless he ftole them, from the perfon who ftole them. This argument is irrefragable.'

I hope, my lords, you will mark [and brand] the man, for the honour of this country, of Europe, and of mankind. Private cor• refpondence has hitherto been held facred, in times of the greatest party rage, not only in politics but religion.' He has forfeited all the refpect of focieties and of men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarraffed face, or the honeft intrepidity of virtue. Men will watch him with a jealous eye; they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their efcrutoires. He will henceforth efteem it a libel to be called a man of letters; homo trium * literarum!

But he not only took away the letters from one brother; but kept himself concealed till he nearly occafioned the murder of the • other. It is impoffible to read his account, expreffive of the cooleft and most deliberate malice, without horror.' [Here he read the letter above; Dr. Franklin being all the time prefent.]

Amidst thefe tragical events, of one perfon nearly murdered, ⚫ of another anfwerable for the iffue, of a worthy governor hurt in his dearest interests, the fate of America in fufpenfe; here is a man, who with the utmost infenfibility of remorfe, ftands up and avows himself the author of all. I can compare it only to Żanga in Dr. Young's Revenge +.

"I forged the letter, I difpofed the picture;

"I hated, I despised, and I destroy."

I afk, my Lords, whether the revengeful temper attributed, by poetic fiction only, to the bloody African; is not furpaffed by the coolness and apathy of the wily American?'

Thefe pleadings for a time worked great effect: The lords affented, the town was convinced, Dr. Franklin was difgraced ‡, and

+ A&t Vth.

* i. e. FUR (or thief).
He was difmiffed from his place in the post-office.

Mr. Wedderburn feemed in the road for every kind of advancement.-Unfortunately for Mr. Wedderburn, the events of the war did not correfpond with his fyftems. Unfortunately too for his irrefragable argument," Dr. Franklin afterwards took an oath in chancery, that at the time that he tranfmitted the letters, he was ignorant of the party to whom they had been addressed; having himfelf received them from a third perfon, and for the exprefs purpofe of their being conveyed to America. Unfortunately alfo for Mr. Wedderburn's "worthy governor," that governor himself, before the arrival of Dr. Franklin's packet in Bolton, fent over one of Dr. Franklin's own "private" letters to England; expreffing fome little coynefs indeed upon the occafion, but defiring fecrecy, left he fhould be prevented procuring more ufeful intelligence from the fame fource 1. Whether Mr. Wedderburn in his speech intended to draw a particular cafe and portraiture, for the purpose only of injuring Dr. Franklin; or meant that his language and epithets fhould apply generally to all, whether friends or foes, whofe practice should be found fimiliar to it; is a matter that must be left to be adjusted between governor Hutchinson and Mr. Wedderburn.

But to return to Dr. Franklin. It was not fingular perhaps that as a man of honour, he should surrender his name to public fcrutiny in order to prevent mischief to others, and yet not betray his coadjutor (even to the prefent moment,) to relieve his own fame from the feverest obloquy; but perhaps it belonged to few befides Dr. Franklin, to poffefs mildness and magnanimity enough, to refrain from intemperate expreffions and meafures, against Mr. Wedderburn and his fupporters, after all that had paffed. E.]

* A copy of the proceedings in chancery has been in my poffeffion; but being at prefent miflaid, I fpeak only from memory here. See the Remembrancer for the year 1776, part 2d. p. 61. col. Ift. and ad.

RULES