The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 5. Бенджамин Франклин
in general. I can scarcely conceive a King of better dispositions, of more exemplary virtues, or more truly desirous of promoting the welfare of all his subjects. The experience we have had of the family in the two preceding mild reigns, and the good temper of our young princes, so far as can yet be discovered, promise us a continuance of this felicity. Ref. 029 The body of this people, too, is of a noble and generous nature, loving and honoring the spirit of liberty, and hating arbitrary power of all sorts. We have many, very many, friends among them.
But, as to the Parliament, though I might excuse that which made the acts, as being surprised and misled into the measure, I know not how to excuse this, which, under the fullest conviction of its being a wrong one, resolves to continue it. It is decent, indeed, in your public papers to speak as you do of the “wisdom and the justice of Parliament”; but now that the subject is more thoroughly understood, if this new Parliament had been really wise, it would not have refused even to receive a petition against the acts; and, if it had been just, it would have repealed them, and refunded the money. Perhaps it may be wiser and juster another year, but that is not to be depended on.
If, under all the insults and oppressions you are now exposed to, you can prudently, as you have lately done, continue quiet, avoiding tumults, but still resolutely keeping up your claims and asserting your rights, you will finally establish them, and this military cloud that now blusters over you will pass away, and do no more harm than a summer thunder shower. But the advantages of your perseverance in industry and frugality will be great and permanent. Your debts will be paid, your farms will be better improved and yield a greater produce; your real wealth will increase in a plenty of every useful home production and all the true enjoyments of life, even though no foreign trade should be allowed you; and this handicraft, shop-keeping state will, for its own sake, learn to behave more civilly to its customers. Ref. 030
Your late governor, Mr. Pownall, appears a hearty friend to America. He moved last week for a repeal of the acts, and was seconded by General Conway, Sir George Saville, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Trecothick, and others, but did not succeed. A friend has favored me with a copy of the notes taken of Mr. Pownall’s speech, which I send you, believing it will be agreeable to you and some other of our friends to see them. You will observe in some parts of it the language a member of Parliament is obliged to hold, on American topics, if he would at all be heard in the House. He has given notice that he will renew the motion at the next and every session. All Ireland is strongly in favor of the American cause. They have reason to sympathize with us. I send you four pamphlets written in Ireland, or by Irish gentlemen here, in which you will find some excellent, well-said things. With the greatest esteem, I am, my dear friend, &c.,
CCCLVIII. TO MRS. JANE MECOM
London, 27 April, 1769.
—— Mrs. Stevenson has executed your order, and sends the things in a bandbox directed to you. A new-fashioned something, that was not ready when the box was packed up, is enclosed in her letter.
I am now grown too old to be ambitious of such a station as that which you say has been mentioned to you. Repose is more fit for me, and much more suitable to my wishes. There is no danger of such a thing being offered to me, and I am sure I shall never ask it. But if it were offered, I certainly could not accept it, to act under such instructions as I know must be given with it. So you may be quite easy on that head. Ref. 031
The account you write of the growing industry, frugality, and good sense of my countrywomen gives me more pleasure than you can imagine; for from thence I presage great advantages to our country. I should be sorry that you are engaged in a business which happens not to coincide with the general interest, if you did not acquaint me that you are now near the end of it.
B. Franklin.
CCCLXIX: TO THE LONDON CHRONICLE Ref. 032
Mr. Chronicle:
Sir:—
While the public attention is so much turned towards America, every letter from thence that promises new information, is pretty generally read. It seems, therefore, the more necessary that care should be taken to disabuse the public, when those letters contain facts false in themselves, and representations injurious to bodies of people, or even to private persons.
In your paper, No. 310, I found an extract of a letter, said to be from a gentleman in General Abercrombie’s army. As there are several strokes in it tending to render the colonies despicable, and even odious, to the mother country, which may have ill consequences, and no notice having been taken of the injuries contained in that letter, other letters of the same nature have since been published; permit me to make a few observations on it.
The writer says: “New England was settled by Presbyterians and Independents, who took shelter there from the persecutions of Archbishop Laud; they still retain their original character; they generally hate the Church of England,” says he. It is very true that if some resentment still remained for the hardships their fathers suffered, it might perhaps be not much wondered at; but the fact is, that the moderation of the present Church of England towards dissenters in Old as well as New England, had quite effaced those impressions; the dissenters, too, are become less rigid and scrupulous, and the good-will between those different bodies in that country is now both mutual and equal.
He goes on: “They came out with a levelling spirit, and they retain it. They cannot bear to think that one man should be exorbitantly rich, and another poor; so that, except in the seaport towns, there are few great estates among them. This equality produces also a rusticity of manners; for their language, dress, and in all their behaviour, they are more boorish than any thing you ever saw in a certain northern latitude.” One would imagine, from this account, that those who were growing poor plundered those who were growing rich, to preserve this equality, and that property had no protection; whereas, in fact, it is nowhere more secure than in the New England colonies; the law is nowhere better executed, or justice obtained at less expense. The equality he speaks of arises first from a more equal distribution of lands by the assemblies in the first settlement than has been practised in the other colonies, where favourites of governors have obtained enormous tracts for trifling considerations, to the prejudice both of the crown revenues and the public good; and secondly, from the nature of their occupation; husbandmen with small tracts of land, though they may by industry maintain themselves and families in mediocrity, having few means of acquiring great wealth, especially in a young colony that is to be supplied with its clothing and many other expensive articles of consumption from the mother country. Their dress the gentleman may be a more critical judge of than I can pretend to be; all I know of it is, that they wear the manufacture of Britain, and follow its fashions perhaps too closely, every remarkable change in the mode making its appearance there within a few months after its invention here; a natural effect of their constant intercourse with England, by ships arriving almost every week from the capital, their respect for the mother country, and admiration of every thing that is British. But as to their language, I must beg this gentleman’s pardon, if I differ from him. His ear, accustomed perhaps to the dialect practised in the certain northern latitude he mentions may not be qualified to judge so nicely what relates to pure English. And I appeal to all Englishmen here, who have been acquainted with the colonists, whether it is not a common remark, that they speak the language with such an exactness both of expression and accent, that though you may know the natives of several of the counties of England, by peculiarities in their dialect, you cannot by that means distinguish a North American. All the new books and pamphlets worth reading, that are published here, in a few weeks are transmitted and found there, where there is not a man or woman born in the country but what can read; and it must, I think, be a pleasing reflection to those who write either for the benefit of the present age or of posterity, to find their audience increasing with the increase of our colonies, and their language extending itself beyond the narrow bounds of these islands, to a continent larger than all Europe, and to future empire as fully peopled, which Britain may one day probably possess in those vast western