CORRESPONDENCE.

Franklin to Thomson,* Secretary of Congress.

LONDON, February 5, 1775.

DEAR SIR: I received duly your favours of November 1, by Captain Falconer, and afterwards that of October 26, both inclosing the letter from the Congress and the petition to the king. Immediately on receipt of the first I wrote to every one of the other gentlemen nominated and desired a meeting to consult on the mode of presenting the petition committed to our care. Three of them, viz: Mr. Burke, Mr. Wentworth, and Mr. Life declined being concerned in it, and without consulting each other gave the same reason, viz: That they had no instruc tions relating to it from their constituents. Mr. Garth was out of town; so it rested on Mr. Bollan, Mr. Lee, and myself.§ We took council with our best friends and were advised to present it through Lord Dartmouth, that being the regular official method and the only one in which we might on occasion call for an answer. We accordingly waited on his lordship with it, who would not immediately undertake to deliver it, but requested that it might be left with him to peruse, which was done. He found nothing in it improper for him to present, and afterwards sending for us he informed us that he had presented the petition to his majesty, who had been pleased to receive it very graciously and to command him to tell us it contained matters of such importance that as soon as they met he would lay it before his two houses of Parliament. We then consulted on the publication and were advised by wise and able men, friends of America whose names it will not be proper to mention, by no means to publish it till it should be before Parliament, as it would be deemed disrespectful to the king. We flattered ourselves from the answer given by Lord D- that the king would have been pleased to recommend it to the consideration of Parliament by some message, but we were mistaken. It came down among a great heap of letters of intelligence from governors and officers

Collections of the New York Historical Society (1878), p. 25; 5 Bigelow's Franklin, 427.

+ See Introduction, § 208.

At the time agent for Maryland.

As to Lord North's contemptuous opinion of this petition, see 1 Hutchinson's Diary, 330; "Mr. Lee" is Arthur Lee, see index, Arthur Lee,

3

in America, newspapers, pamphlets, handbills, etc., from that country, the last in the list and laid upon the table with them, undistinguished by any particular recommendation of it to the notice of either house, and I do not find that it has had any farther notice taken of it as yet than that it has been read as well as the other papers. To draw it into the attention of the house we petitioned to be heard upon it, but were not permitted, and by the resolution of the committee of the whole house, which I inclose, you will see that it has made little impression; and from the constant refusal, neglect, or discouragement of American petitions these many years past, our country will at last be convinced that petitions are odious here, and that petitioning is far from being a probable means of redress. A firm, steady, and faithful adherence to the non-consumption agreement is the only thing to be depended on; it begins already to work (as you will see in the votes of the house) by producing applications from the merchants and manufacturers and it must finally lead Parliament into reasonable measures. At present the ministers are encouraged to proceed by the assurances they receive from America that the people are not unanimous; that a very great part of them disapprove the proceedings of the Congress and would break thro' them if there was in the country an army sufficient to support these friends, as they are called, of the government. They rely, too, on being able to divide us still farther by various means, for they seem to have no conception that such a thing as public spirit or public virtue anywhere exists. I trust they will find themselves totally mistaken. The Congress is in high esteem here among all the friends of liberty, and their papers much admired. Perhaps nothing of the kind has ever been more thoroughly published or more universally read. Lord Camden spoke highly of the Americans in general, and of the Congress particularly, in the House of Lords. Lord Chatham said that taking the whole together and considering the members of the Congress as the unsolicited and unbiased choice of a great free and enlightened people, their unanimity, their moderation, and their wisdom, he thought it the most honorable assembly of men that had ever been known; that the histories of Greece and Rome gave us nothing equal to it. Lord Shelburne would not admit that the Parliament of Britain could be comparable with it, a parliament obeying the dictates of a ministry who in nine cases out of ten were governed by their undersecretaries.

You will see, among the papers herewith sent, the motion made by Lord Chatham as preparatory to his plan, viz: That the troops should be removed from Boston. I send also a copy of the plan itself which you may be assured is genuine. The speeches hitherto published as his during the session are spurious.

The Duke of Richmond and the Duke of Manchester appeared for us also in the debate and spoke extremely well. Lord Chatham's bill,

* See Introduction, § 28.

tho' on so important a subject and offered by so great a character, and supported by such able and learned speakers as Camden, etc., was treated with as much contempt as they could have shown to a ballad offered by a drunken porter. It was rejected on a slight reading without being suffered even to lie on the table for the perusal of the members. The House of Commons, too, have shown an equal rashness and precipitation in matters that required the most weighty deliberation, refusing to hear, and entering hastily into violent measures. And yet this is the government by whose supreme authority we are to have our throats cut if we do not acknowledge, and whose dictates we are implicitly to obey, while their conduct hardly entitles them to common respect.

The agents have not time to make so many copies of the papers sent with this, nor indeed of our letters to the speakers of the several assemblies as would be necessary to send one for each. We therefore send only two, one per Falconer and the other per Lawrence to New York, requesting that you would get them copied at Philadelphia and forward them northward and southward, one to each speaker, by the earliest conveyance.

It is thought by our friends that Lord Chatham's plan, if it had been enacted here, would have prevented present mischief and might have been the foundation of a lasting good agreement for tho' in some points it might not perfectly coincide with our ideas and wishes we might have proposed modifications or variations where we should judge them necessary, and in fine the two countries might have met in perfect union. I hope therefore it will be treated with respect by our writers and its author honored for the attempt, for though he has put some particulars into it as I think merely by way of complying a little with the genera] prejudices here to make more material parts go better down, yet, I am persuaded, he would not otherwise be tenacious of those parts, meaning sincerely to make us contented and happy as far as consistent with the general welfare.*

I need not caution you to let no part of this letter be copied or printed. With great esteem I am, sir, your affectionate friend and humble servant,

CH. THOMSON, Esq.‡

BENJ. FRANKLIN.†

* See as to attitude at this time of British parties, Introduction, §§ 31, 32. + The signature, it is stated by Mr. Bigelow, is not given in the original. Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress, to whom the above is addressed, was born in Ireland in 1729, and died in Lower Merion, Philadelphia. He came to Philadelphia when very young, was educated in the Friends' Academy, in that city, and retained in after years his attachment to the Society of Friends. His tastes were philosophical as well as political, which threw him into frequent intercourse with Franklin and Jefferson; and he was a staunch friend of Franklin in the controversies as to the dissension at Paris in 1778-79. He was a member of the first federal house of representatives. Singularly simple in his tastes, and severe in his

FRANKLIN'S NARRATIVE OF NEGOTIATIONS IN LONDON.*

ON BOARD THE PENNSYLVANIA PACKET,

CAPTAIN OSBORNE (BOUND TO PHILADELPHIA),

March 22d, 1775.

DEAR SON: Having now a little leisure for writing I will endeavor, as I promised you, to recollect what particulars I can of the negotiations I have lately been concerned in with regard to the misunderstand: ings between Great Britain and America.

During the recess of the last Parliament, which had passed the severe acts against the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, the minority having been sensible of their weakness, as an effect of their want of union among themselves, began to think seriously of a coalition. For they saw in the violence of these American measures, if persisted in, a hazard of dismembering, weakening, and perhaps ruining the British Empire. This inclined some of them to propose such an union with each other as might be more respectable in the ensuing session, have more weight in opposition, and be a body out of which a new ministry might easily be formed, should the ill success of the late measures, and the firmness of the Colonies in resisting them, make a change appear necessary to the king.

I took some pains to promote this disposition in conversations with several of the principal among the minority of both houses, whom I besought and conjured most earnestly not to suffer, by their little misunderstandings, so glorious a fabric as the present British Empire to be demolished by these blunderers; and for their encouragement assured them, as far as my opinions could give any assurance, of the firmness and unanimity of America, the continuance of which was what they had frequent doubts of, and appeared extremely apprehensive and anxious concerning it.

From the time of the affront† given me at the council board in Jan

morals, he was likened in these respects to Samuel Adams, from whom, however, he differed in political matters, Thomson being strongly attached both to Franklin and Jefferson. Some of Thomson's notes as secretary of Congress, together with portions of his correspondence, were published in the collections of the New York Historical Society for 1878.

As to the differences between Thomson and H. Laurens, see introduction, § 172. *5 Bigelow's Franklin, 440; 5 Sparks' Franklin, 2. This important paper was written, as is stated by Mr. Sparks, "immediately after the events, during the author's passage to America, in the form of a letter to his son. It was not published till many years after his death, having first appeared in William Temple Franklin's edition of his works."

The "affront" was as follows: A correspondence of Hutchinson, royal governor of Massachusetts, showing a combination on his part with other Massachusetts loyalists forcibly to put down colonial liberty, was placed in Franklin's hands in 1772. Franklin felt it his duty, as it undoubtedly was, to communicate copies of this correspondence to certain of his friends in Massachusetts, placing them under restrictions, which be himself was under, as to publication. The substance of the correspondence, how