talk with Franklin, which
told how his mail had been tampered with; that no letter had come to
his hand through the Post-Office which had not been opened with
apparent indifference as to the evidence of its violation. The
Doctor's words regarding free speech in America and the proposal to try
the bolder critics for treason were read and discussed in every
household from the sea to the mountains and from Maine to Florida.

"Grievances can not be redressed unless they are known and they can not
be known save through complaints and petitions," the philosopher had
said. "If these are taken as affronts and the messengers punished, the
vent of grief is stopped up--a dangerous thing in any state. It is
sure to produce an explosion.

"An evil magistrate with the power to punish for words would be armed
with a terrible weapon.

"Augustus Caesar, with the avowed purpose of preserving Romans from
defamation, made libel subject to the penalties of treason.
Thenceforward every man's life hung by a thread easily severed by some
lying informer.

"Soon it was resolved by all good judges of law that whoever should
insinuate the least doubt of Nero's preeminence in the noble art of
fiddling should be deemed a traitor. Grief became treason and one lady
was put to death for bewailing the fate of her murdered son. In time,
silence became treason, and even a look was considered an overt act."

These words of the wise philosopher strengthened the spirit of the land
for its great ordeal.

Jack described the prejudice of the Lords who, content with their
ignorance, spurned every effort to inform them of the conditions in
America.

"And this little tail is wagging the great dog of England, most of
whose people believe in the justice of our complaints," he wrote.

The young man's work had set the bells ringing and they were the bells
of revolt. The arrival of General Gage at Boston in May, to be civil
governor and commander-in-chief for the continent, and the blockade of
the port twenty days later, compelling its population who had been fed
by the sea to starve or subsist on the bounty of others, drove the most
conservative citizens into the open. Parties went out Tory hunting.
Every suspected man was compelled to declare himself and if
incorrigible, was sent away. Town meetings were held even under the
eyes of the King's soldiers and no tribunal was allowed to sit in any
court-house. At Salem, a meeting was held behind locked