they had written the letters
was dead, and they knew no one else who had been concerned in the
matter. The secret of the channel of conveyance had been rigidly kept.
No one had the slightest idea by whom the letters had been transmitted
to Massachusetts, nor by whom they had been received there. To this day
it is not known by whom the letters were given to Franklin. July 25,
1773, he wrote to Mr. Cushing, the speaker of the Assembly, to whom he
had inclosed the letters: "I observe that you mention that no person
besides Dr. Cooper and one member of the committee knew they came from
me. I did not accompany them with any request of being myself concealed;
for, believing what I did to be in the way of my duty as agent, though I
had no doubt of its giving offense, not only to the parties exposed but
to administration here, I was regardless of the consequences. However,
since the letters themselves are now copied and printed, contrary to the
promise I made, I am glad my name has not been heard on the occasion;
and, as I do not see how it could be of any use to the public, I now
wish it may continue unknown; though I hardly expect it." Unfortunately
it soon became of such use to two individuals in England that Franklin
himself felt obliged to divulge it; otherwise it might have remained
forever a mystery.

Though the addresses had been cut from the letters, yet they had
previously been shown to many persons in England, and it soon became
known there that they had been written to Mr. William Whately, now dead,
but who, when the letters were written, was a member of Parliament and
private secretary to George Grenville, who was then in the cabinet. Amid
the active surmises as to the next link in the chain suspicion
naturally attached to Thomas Whately, brother and executor of the dead
man, and in possession of his papers. This gentleman denied that he had
ever, to his knowledge, had these letters in his hands. Suspicion next
attached to Mr. Temple, "our friend," as Franklin described him. He had
had access to the letters of William Whately for the purpose of getting
from among them certain letters written by himself and his brother; he
had lived in America, had been governor of New Hampshire, and later in
letters to his friends there had announced the coming of the letters
before they had actually arrived. The expression of suspicion towards
Temple found its way into a newspaper, bolstered with an intimation that
the informatio