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102 therefore pretended that other copies of them had reached them from England, and that they were thus absolved from all conditions of secrecy. This was totally false. The story was invented for the occasion, and the letters, without the name of Whately, to whom they had been addressed, were published by the assembly. It was left to be inferred by the public, that they had been sent officially to England by the governor and lieutenant-governor, and the assembly voted the writing of the ample evidence of a fixed design on the part of the English government to destroy the constitution and establish arbitrary power. A petition was dispatched to be presented by Franklin to the king, calling for the removal of Hutchinson and Oliver from their posts.



When these letters were read under these false assumed impressions, sentiments were found in them which a wholly exaggerated character, and the flame produced was, as Franklin and the assembly intended, of the most furious kind. In one of them, Hutchinson said, "I doubt whether it is possible to project a system of government, in which a colony, three thousand miles from the parent state, shall enjoy all the liberty of the parent state. I wish the good of the colony when I wish to see some further restraint on liberty, rather than that the connection with the parent state should be broken." Such sentiments, addressed in strict confidence to a private friend, were innocent enough, but read as addressed by their governor to the English cabinet, they appeared most mischievous. Yet there were plenty of evidences in them to have convinced any calm readers—which the people of Massachusetts were not—that they were only private confidential observations. Oliver, in one, remarked—"If I have written with freedom, I consider I am writing to a friend, and that I am perfectly safe in opening myself to you."

The whole of this transaction right-minded Americans would wish to blot from their annals, but they answered the purpose of Franklin, which, it is clear, was now to sever the union betwixt the mother country and colonies at any cost, even of those of honour and upright principle.

When these letters were published in America, their real character concealed, and every means taken to represent them as official dispatches to the officers of government in England, the public rage was uncontrollable. A committee was formed to wait on governor Hutchinson, and demand whether he owned the handwriting. Hutchinson freely owned to that, but contended very justly that the letters were of a thoroughly private character, and to an unofficial person. Notwithstanding, the House of Assembly drew up a strong remonstrance to the English government, charging the governor and lieutenant-governor with giving false and malicious information respecting the colony, and demanding their dismissal.

This remonstrance, accompanied by copies of the letters themselves, was immediately dispatched over all the colonies, and everywhere produced, as was intended, the most violent inflammation of the public mind against England. The Bostonians had for some time established what was called a corresponding committee, whose business it was to prepare and circulate through the whole of the colonies papers calculated to keep alive the indignation against the English government. This committee quickly was