y
reputation have been seriously damaged, I fear. The contents of those
letters are now probably known to you."

"Are they the Hutchinson, Rogers and Oliver letters?"

"The same."

"I think they are known to every one in America that reads. We were
indignant that these men born and raised among us should have said that
a colony ought not to enjoy all the liberties of a parent state and
that we should be subjected to coercive measures. They had expressed
no such opinion save in these private letters. It looked like a base
effort to curry favor with the English government."

"Yes, they were overworking the curry comb," said Franklin. "I had
been protesting against an armed force in Boston. The government
declared that our own best people were in favor of it. I, knowing
better, denied the statement. To prove their claim a distinguished
baronet put the letters in my hands. He gave me leave to send them to
America on condition that they should not be published. Of course they
proved nothing but the treachery of Hutchinson, Rogers and Oliver. Now
I seem to be tarred by the same stick."

Jack delivered sundry letters from the family of the great man who read
them carefully.

"It's good to hear from home," he said when he had finished. "You've
heard of the three Greenlanders, off the rocks and ice where there was
not dirt enough to raise a bushel of cabbages or light enough for half
the year to make a shadow, who having seen the world and its splendors
said it was interesting, but that they would prefer to live at home?"

"These days America is an unhappy land," said Jack. "We are like a
wildcat in captivity--a growling, quarrelsome lot."

"Well, the British use the right to govern us like a baby rattle and
they find us a poor toy. This petty island, compared with America, is
but a stepping stone in a brook. There's scarcely enough of it out of
water to keep one's feet dry. In two generations our population will
exceed that of the British Isles. But with so many lying agents over
there what chance have they to learn anything about us? They will
expect to hear you tell of people being tomahawked in Philadelphia--a
city as well governed as any in England. They can not understand that
most of us would gladly spend nineteen shillings to the pound for the
right to spend the other shilling as we please."

"Can they not be made to understand us?" Jack inquired.

"The power to learn is like your hand--you