LETTER VIII.
The letters sent over to the Massachusetts by Dr. Franklin, have produced a duel between Mr. Whateley, the banker, brother to the late secretary to the treasury, and John Temple, esq. in which the former was dangerously wounded. This has led the doctor to inform the public, that both the gentlemen are totally ignorant and innocent as to the transaction and its circumstances about which they fought. He declares that he alone was the person who obtained and transmitted to Boston the letters in question and says—“Mr. W. could not communicate them, because they were never in his possession; and for the same reason they could not be taken from him by Mr. T.” The doctor justifies his own conduct, and concludes with telling the world, he “thought it his duty to transmit them to his constituents.” But if they were sent over to be communicated to a few confidential gentlemen only, instead of being addressed to the speaker of the assembly, or one of the committee appointed to correspond with him, with orders to lay them before the house, how were they transmitted to his constituents? There is something mysterious in this business, which it is apprehended will not bear a discovery at present. It is suspected that the letters were procured out of some public office; and that Mr. Temple is not so perfectly ignorant of all circumstances as the doctor’s language seems to express.
[Jan. 29, 1774.] The merits of the petition, presented some time ago by the doctor as agent for the Massachusetts, praying for the removal of the governor, came on to be heard before the privy council. It is reported, that Mr. W——, wandering from the question before their lordships, poured forth such a torrent of virulent abuse on Dr. Franklin as scarce ever before took place in judicial proceedings. His reproaches appeared to some present to be incompatible with the principles of law, truth, justice, propriety and humanity. And it was thought it would have redounded more to the honor of their lordships, had they seemed to enjoy less the lashes which the doctor underwent; and had they expressed their dissatisfaction by reducing the orator to the remembrance of the exalted characters before whom he uttered such language. The petition was dismissed, and the doctor is displaced from the office of deputy post-master general for the colonies. The philosopher may recollect in some future day the liberties taken with him before the privy-council on the twenty-ninth of January, and take ample revenge on British ministers and courtiers.
[March 7.] A message from his majesty, on account of the late disturbances in America, was presented to both houses. Particular mention was made of the outrage committed by the people at Boston. Matters are now brought to a crisis, and ministry are bent upon vigorous, sperited measures. To prevent opposition from the merchants, the public papers were filled with writings on the subject, which painted the misconduct of the colonies in the strongest colours, and urged in particular the impossibility of the future existence of any trade to America, if this flagrant outrage on commerce, as it is pronounced, went unpunished. These, with other endeavors, had the proposed effect. The resentment against the Americans became as high and as strong as could be desired, within the house; but the storm was to be directed against the Massachusetts. The minister, in debate, stated that the opposition to the authority of parliament had always originated in that colony; and that that colony had always been instigated to such conduct, by the irregular and seditious proceedings of Boston. It was become necessary therefore to begin with that town. He had forgot, or would not mention, that the violent opposition to the stamp act originated in Virginia.
[Mar. 14.] Leave was given to bring in a bill “for the immediate removal of the officers concerned in the collection of the customs from Boston, and to discontinue the landing and discharging, lading and shipping of goods, wares and merchandises at Boston, or within the harbor thereof.” At the first introduction of the bill it was received with general applause. Mr. Bollan, however petitioned to be heard for the Massachusetts council, and in behalf of himself and other inhabitants of Boston. The commons refused to admit his petition, though a few days back they had received one from him as agent for the council. The lords were actually hearing him on a petition, as a person duly qualified. On the third reading of the bill another petition was presented in the name of several natives and inhabitants of North America; which insisted strongly on the injustice of the act, and its tendency to alienate the affections of America; and expressly declared, that the attachment of America could not long survive the justice of Great-Britain. The minority members maintained that the bill stood simply as a proscription of one of the greatest trading towns in the British dominions from the use of their port, and from all the commerce by which thousands obtained their bread. “Have we not (say they) given an extent of power to his majesty to prevent the port of Boston from ever being reinstated, if the king should think proper? A fine is laid; the trade is prohibited until it is paid; and when the fine is paid, the town may be as far from recovering her trade as ever. The act provides, that the crown must have satisfaction, and that the laws of trade and revenue should be obeyed. There is a sting in this. The act, under pretence of an indemnity to the East-India Company, is meant to enforce the submission to taxes. America will see this; and the cause of Boston will be made the cause of all the colonies. They are all as guilty as Boston. Not one has received the tea; some have destroyed it, others sent it back.” But all opposition was ineffectual; for the projected measures of government were immutable. The bill passed; and was carried up to the house of lords, where it was warmly debated, but, as in the house of commons, passed without a division.
[March 31.] It received the royal assent.
The Boston port bill formed only one part of the coercive plan proposed by ministry. A bill was soon brought in for “the better regulating the government of the Massachusetts Bay.” The purport of it was, to alter the constitution of the province, to take the whole executing power out of the hands of the democratic part, and to vest the nomination of counsellors, judges, and magistrates of all kinds, including sheriffs, in the crown, and in some cases in the king’s governor, and all to be removeable at the pleasure of the crown.
In the debates it was asked of ministry, whether the colonies already regulated nearly in the manner proposed by the bill, were more submissive to the right of taxation than the Massachusetts. It was justly argued, the disorder lay much deeper than the forms of government; that the people throughout the continent were universally dissatisfied; and that the uneasiness and resistance was no less in the royal governments than in any other. Mr. Bollan again made an effort in favor of his province; but the commons refused to receive his petition. The ministry having carried the preceding bill, prepared another, without which, it was said, the scheme would be entirely defective.
[April 21.] Lord North presented the third bill “for the impartial administration of justice in the cases of persons questioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults in the Massachusetts Bay.” This bill provided, that in case any person was indicted in that province for murder, or any other capital offence, and it should appear to the governor that the fact was committed in the exercise or aid of magistracy, in suppressing tumults and riots, and that a fair trial could not be had in the province, he should send the person so indicted, &c. to any other colony, or to Great-Britain to be tried. The charge on both sides was to be paid out of the customs. The minority opposed this bill with great vehemence. They insisted that having no sort of reason for impeaching the tribunals of America, the real intention was to set up a military government, and provide a virtual indemnity for all the murders and capital outrages which might be committed by the barbarous hands of authority. From the impossibility of prosecuting in Great-Britain, they strenuously maintained that this was holding out encouragement for all kinds of lawless violence. Colonel Barre’s speech upon the occasion, commanded the attention of the whole house, and closed admirably, with “You have changed your ground. You are becoming the aggressors, and offering the last of human outrages to the people of America, by subjecting them in effect to military execution. Instead of sending them the olive branch, you have sent the naked sword. By the olive branch, I mean a repeal of all the late laws, fruitless to you and oppressive to them. Ask their aid in a constitutional manner, and they will give it to the utmost of their ability. They never yet refused it when properly required. Your journals bear the recorded acknowledgments of zeal with which they have crontributed to the general necessities of the state. What madness is it that prompts you to attempt obtaining that by force, which you may more certainly procure by requisition. They may be flattered into any thing, but they are too much like yourselves to be driven. Have some indulgence for your own likeness; respect their sturdy English virtue; retract your odious exertions of authority; and remember that the first step toward making them contribute to your wants, is to reconcile them to your government.”
The publications of the day quote an old member rarely in opposition, as having closed his speech with these remarkable words—“I will now take my leave of the whole plan. You will commence your ruin from this day. I am sorry to say, that not only the house has fallen into this error, but the people approve of the measure. The people, I am sorry to say it, are misled. But a short time will prove the evil tendency of this bill. If ever there was a nation running headlong into ruin it is this.” It is much questioned by many, whether the member did not mistrake in saying—The people. The same natives of America who petitioned against the Boston port-bill [May 2.] renewed their endeavours by a petition against these two bills.—It was pointed with an uncommon energy and spirit; and strongly indicated the effects that these bills would produce in the place where they were intended to operate. It was admitted to lie on the table, and had no other notice taken of it.
Both bills were opposed in the house of lords, and the minority entered on each a very strong protest. On both however in each house, the number of the minority continued all along very low and inadequate. Mr. Bollan applyed for a hearing in the house of lords upon the last bill, but was refused. He has stood up in defence of the rights and liberties of the Massachusetts, when no other of the numerous advocates of the colonies, out of parliament, have appeared to check the torrent of the most grievous proceedings against them, in like manner, by their learning and fortitude.
Upon the first of the two bills, the protesting lords Richmond, Portland, Abingdon, King, Effingham, Ponsonby, Rockingham, Abergavenny, Leister, Craven and Fitzwilliam, dissented among other reasons, “because definitive legal offence, by which a forfeiture of the charter is incurred, has not been clearly stated and fully proved, neither has notice of this advers proceeding been given to the parties effected; neither have they been heard in their own defence—because all the judges are to be nominated, not by the crown, but by the governor; and all except the judges of the superior court, are to be removable at his pleasure, and expressly without the consent of that very council, which is to be nominated by the king; the sheriff is made changeable by the governor and council, as often and for such purpose as they shall think expedient, whereby the governor and council are intrusted with powers, with which the British constitution has not trusted his majesty and privy council, and have the means of returning such a jury in each particular case, as may best suit with the gratification of their passions and interests, so that the lives and properties of the subject are put into their hands without control.” The protesting lords took occasion to mention concerning the Boston port-act, “that, unexampled on the records of parliament, it had been entered on the journals of the house as voted nemine dissentiente, and had been stated in the debate of the day, to have been sent to the colonies as passed without a division in either house, and therefore as conveying the uncontroverted universal sense of the nation; and that an unfair advantage had been taken, on the final question for passing the penal bill, of the absence of those lords who had debated it for several hours, and strongly dissented from it on the second reading, the period on which it is most usual to debate the principle of a bill.”
On the second bill, the protesting lords Richmond, Fitzwilliam, Ponsonby, Rockingham, Portland, Craven, Leister, and Manchester, dissented among other reasons “because the bill amounts to a declaration, that the house knows no means of retaining the colonies in due obedience, but by an army rendered independent of the ordinary course of law in the place where they are employed; because the bill seems to be one of the many experiments toward an introduction of essential innovations into the government of the empire.” They said, “The authority given by this bill to compel the transportation from America to Great-Britain, if any number of witnesses at the pleasure of the parties prosecuting and prosecuted, without any regard to their age, sex, health, circumstances, business or duties, seems to us so extravagant in its principle, and so impracticable in its execution, as to confirm us further in our opinion of the spirit which animates the whole system of the present American regulations.”
[May 20.] His majesty gave his assent to both bills.
The session was drawing near to the usual time of recess, and the greater number of the members were retired into the country. In this situation a bill was brought into the house of lords, “For making more effectual provision for the government of the province of Quebec, in North-America.” It passed through that house with little if any observation. When it came down to the house of commons, it met with a very different reception. The principal objects of the bill were, to ascertain the limits of the province, which were extended far beyond what were settled as such by the king’s proclamation of 1763—to form a legislative council for all the affairs of the province, except taxation, which council was to be appointed by the crown, and the office to be held during pleasure, and his majesty’s Canadian Roman Catholic subjects were to be entitled to a place in it—to establish the French laws and a trial without jury in civil cases, and the English laws, with trial by jury in criminal—and to secure to the Roman Catholic clergy, except the regulars, the legal enjoyment of their estates, and of their tythes from all who were of their own religion. The minority insisted, that the Protestant religion, by this establishment, enjoyed at best no more than a toleration. “The popish clergy,” they said, “have a legal parliamentary right to maintenance, the protestant clergy are left to the king’s discretion. Why are not both put at least on an equal footing, and a legal support provided for both?” The minority was uncommonly small; nevertheless the bill produced much greater uneasiness and discontent out of doors, than any of those for punishing the old colonies. The present policy of it is, among other things, to gain, through the influence of the priests, the assistance of the laity in subjugating the other provinces.
[June 22.] It received the royal assent, when his majesty went to the house, at the close of the session; the business of which being ended, the ministry entertained the most sanguine expectations that the submission throughout America would be immediate, and that complete obedience and tranquility would be secured. The speech from the throne expressed similar sentiments. The triumphs and mutual congratulations of all who have supported the ministerial plan, within doors and without, are unusually great. These may be owing, not a little, to the assurances that governor Hutchinson has repeatedly given to many, that if the parliament would but act with resolution, and adopt spirited measures, a speedy submission would take place without any call for fighting.
By the Quebec act, the total revenue of the province is consigned, in the first instance, to a warrant from the lord of the treasury, for the purpose of pensioning judges during pleasure, and the support of a civil list totally unlimited. The first lord of the treasury, without controul of parliament, is therefore in actual possession of the revenues of one American province, under the authority of an act of parliament, with no other obligation expressed, than in general to defray the expences of the administration of justice, and to support civil government. The residue, as in the tea act, is to be reserved for the disposal of parliamentary despotism committed into the hands of the crown and its minister; for the crown of Great-Britain is constituted as absolute in the province, under an act of parliament, as any despot that ever existed in the world. Hence is inferred what ministers would do through all America, did they possess the power.[108]
Your present governor, general Gage, has been appointed as the most proper person to see to the execution of the laws which have been passed respecting both the colony and its capital; when he has settled matters, and established order and due submission to the power of parliament, Mr. Hutchinson is to return and resume the chair. The last, since his arrival, has been graciously received; his influence with ministry will continue, till events convince them that they have been greatly mistaken in relying upon his judgment on American subjects. A commission during pleasure has passed the great seal, granting to general Gage full power and authority, where he shall see cause, to pardon and remit all treasons, murders, felonies, crimes, and misdemeanors whatsoever, and all fines or penalties whatsoever incurred in the Massachusetts.