he said: "We are
free subjects of the king; and fellow subjects of one part of his
dominions are not sovereigns over fellow subjects in any other part."

[Note 21: To same purport, see also _Works_, iv. 300.]

[Note 22: Concerning this theory, see Fiske's _The Beginnings of New
England_, 266.]

It is a singular fact that Franklin long cherished a personal regard
towards the king, and a faith in his friendly and liberal purposes
towards the colonies. Indignation against the Parliament was offset by
confidence in George III. Even so late as the spring of 1769, he writes
to a friend in America: "I hope nothing that has happened, or may
happen, will diminish in the least our loyalty to our sovereign, or
affection for this nation in general. I can scarcely conceive a king of
better disposition, 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." Of the British people too he thought kindly. But for
the Parliament he could find no excuse. He admitted that it might be
"decent" indeed to speak in the "public papers" of the "wisdom and the
justice of Parliament;" nevertheless, the ascription of these qualities
to the present Parliament certainly was not true, whatever might be the
case as to any future one. The next year found him still counseling that
the colonies should hold fast to their allegiance to their king, who
had the best disposition towards them, and was their most efficient
bulwark against "the arbitrary power of a corrupt Parliament." In the
summer of 1773, he was seeking excuses for the king's adherence to the
principle that Parliament could legally tax the colonies: "when one
considers the king's situation," with all his ministers, advisers,
judges, and the great majority of both houses holding this view, when
"one reflects how necessary it is for him to be well with his
Parliament," and that any action of his countenancing a doctrine
contrary to that of both the Lords and the Commons "would hazard his
embroiling himself with those powerful bodies," Franklin was of opinion
that it seemed "hardly to be expected from him that he should take any
step of that kind." But this was the last apology which he uttered for
George III. He was about to reach the same estimation of that mona