itement, and Dr. Franklin wrote and published a letter
in the Public Advertiser, in which he declared that neither Mr. Whately
nor Mr. Temple had any thing to do with the letters, and that both of
them were totally ignorant of the transaction. His words are:--"I think
it incumbent on me to declare, for the prevention of further mischief,
that I alone am the person who obtained and transmitted to Boston the
letters in question. Mr. Whately could not communicate them, because
they were never in his possession; and for the same reason, they could
not have been taken from him by Mr. Temple. They were not of the nature
of private letters between friends; they were written by public officers
to persons in public stations, on public affairs, and intended to
procure public measures; they were, therefore, handed to other public
persons, who might be influenced by them to produce those measures;
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."

It was on the 29th of January that the subject of the Bostonian petition
was brought before the privy council. On that day, Franklin, with
Mr. Dunning as council, attended to support the petition, and Mr.
Wedderburne, the solicitor-general, attended as counsel for the
governor. The counsel for the Assembly of Boston was first heard, and he
endeavoured to substantiate their complaints, by exhibiting the letters
which had been published, and drawing an inference from them, that the
writers were unworthy of confidence, either from the government or the
province of Massachusets. He called for the instant dismissal of an
officer so hostile to the rights and liberties of his countrymen. He
argued that the man who declared that "there must be an abridgment of
English liberty in the colonies," was justly charged with making wicked
and injurious representations, designed to influence the ministry and
the nation, and to excite jealousies in the breast of the king against
his faithful subjects.

Mr. Dunning was replied to by Mr. Wedderburne, whose naturally sharp
tongue was on t