Their tendency was to incense the mother country
against her colonies, and, by the steps recommended, to widen the
breach which they effected. The chief caution expressed with regard
to privacy was, to keep their contents from the colony agents, who,
the writers apprehended, might return them, or copies of them, to
America. That apprehension was, it seems, well founded, for the
first agent who laid his hands on them thought it his duty to
transmit them to his constituents.

B. FRANKLIN,

_Agent for the House of Representatives of
Massachusetts Bay_.

CRAVEN STREET, _December 25, 1773_.

The petition, forwarded by the House of Representatives of Massachusetts
Bay, after they had read the famous letters, recited that the
petitioners had "very lately had before them _certain papers_," and it
was upon the strength of the contents of these papers that they humbly
prayed that his majesty would be "pleased to remove from their posts in
this government" Governor Hutchinson and Lieutenant-Governor Oliver.
Immediately upon receipt of this petition Franklin transmitted it to
Lord Dartmouth, with a very civil and conciliatory note, to which Lord
Dartmouth replied in the same spirit. This took place in August, 1773;
the duel followed in December, and in the interval Franklin had heard
nothing from the petition. But when his foregoing letter was published
and conned over it seemed that the auspicious moment for the ministry
was now at hand, and that it had actually been furnished to them by the
astute Franklin himself. There is no question that he had acted
according to his conscience, and it seems now to be generally agreed
that his conscience did not mislead him. But he had been placed in a
difficult position, and it was easily possible to give a very bad
coloring to his conduct. There was in this business an opportunity to
bring into discredit the character of the representative man of America,
the man foremost of Americans in the eyes of the world, the man most
formidable to the ministerial party; such an opportunity was not to be
lost.[31]

[Note 31: It must be confessed that the question whether Franklin
should have sent these letters to be seen by the leading men of
Massachusetts involves points of some delicacy. The very elaborateness
and vehemence of the exculpations put forth by American writers indicate
a lurking feeling that the opposite side is at least plausible. I add my
opini