d Hartley. He was a gentleman of the most
liberal and generous sentiments, an old and valued friend of Franklin,
member of Parliament for Hull, allied with the opposition in this matter
of the American war, but personally on good terms with Lord North. He
had not very great ability; he wrote long letters, somewhat surcharged
with morality and good-feeling. One would expect to hear that he was on
terms of admiring intimacy with his contemporary, the good Mrs.
Barbauld. But he had those opportunities which come only to men whose
excellence of character and purity of motive place them above
suspicion,--opportunities which might have been shut off from an abler
man, and which he now used with untiring zeal and much efficiency in
behalf of the American prisoners. Lord North did not hesitate to permit
him to correspond with Franklin, and he long acted as a medium of
communication more serviceable than Lord Stormont had been. Furthermore
Hartley served as almoner to the poor fellows, and pushed a private
subscription in England to raise funds for securing to them reasonable
comforts. There were responsive hearts and purses, even for rebels,
among his majesty's subjects, and a considerable sum was collected.

Franklin's first letter to Hartley on this subject, October 14, 1777,
has something of bitterness in its tone, with much deep feeling for his
countrymen, whose reputed woes he narrates. "I can assure you," he adds,
"from my certain knowledge, that your people, prisoners in America, have
been treated with great kindness, having had the same rations of
wholesome provisions as our own troops," "comfortable lodgings" in
healthy villages, with liberty "to walk and amuse themselves on their
parole." "Where you have thought fit to employ contractors to supply
your people, these contractors have been protected and aided in their
operations. Some considerable act of kindness towards our people would
take off the reproach of inhumanity in that respect from the nation and
leave it where it ought with more certainty to lie, on the conductors of
your war in America. This I hint to you out of some remaining good will
to a nation I once loved sincerely. But as things are, and in my present
temper of mind, not being over-fond of receiving obligations, I shall
content myself with proposing that your government should allow us to
send or employ a commissary to take some care of those unfortunate
people. Perhaps on your representations this m