rdly interrupted in dispensing the favorite
beverage; the English merchant's heavy loss became the foreign
smuggler's aggravating gain; and the costly sacrifice of the East India
Company fell short of effecting the punishment of the wicked Americans.
Franklin could not "help smiling at these blunders." Englishmen would
soon resent them, he said, would turn out the ministry that was
responsible for them, and put in a very different set of men, who would
undo the mischief. "If we continue firm and united, and resolutely
persist in the non-consumption agreement, this adverse ministry cannot
possibly stand another year. And surely the great body of our people,
the farmers and artificers, will not find it hard to keep an agreement
by which they both save and gain." Thus he continued to write so late as
February, 1775, believing to the last in the efficacy of this policy.

CHAPTER VII

SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND, III THE HUTCHINSON LETTERS: THE PRIVY COUNCIL
SCENE: RETURN HOME

The famous episode of the Hutchinson letters, occurring near the close
of Franklin's stay in England, must be narrated with a brevity more in
accord with its real historical value than with its interest as a
dramatic story. In conversation one day with an English gentleman,
Franklin spoke with resentment of the sending troops to Boston and the
other severe measures of the government. The other in reply engaged to
convince him that these steps were taken upon the suggestion and advice
of Americans. A few days later he made good his promise by producing
certain letters, signed by Hutchinson, Oliver, and others, all natives
of and residents and office-holders in America. The addresses had been
cut from the letters; but in other respects they were unmutilated, and
they were the original documents. They contained just such matter as the
gentleman had described,--opinions and advice which would have commended
themselves highly to a royalist, but which could have seemed to a
patriot in the provinces only the most dangerous and abominable
treason. Induced by obvious motives, Franklin begged leave to send these
letters to Massachusetts, and finally obtained permission to do so,
subject to the stipulation that they should not be printed nor copied,
and should be circulated only among a few leading men. His purpose, he
said, lay in his belief that when the "principal people" in Boston "saw
the measures they complained of took their rise in a great degree