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This Week in History

January 31 — February 6, 1774

The British Ministry Tries To Humiliate Benjamin Franklin, To No Avail

On Jan. 31, 1774, the British government informed Benjamin Franklin by letter to his home in London that he had been fired from his position as Deputy Postmaster of America. This, even though Franklin had built the postal service into an efficient and profitable system which greatly benefitted both Britain and America. The motivation for the firing was both fear and revenge: fear of Franklin's influence in both countries, and revenge for the recent Boston Tea Party.

The move against Franklin occurred two days after the attempt to pillory him in the meeting hall called the "Cockpit," ostensibly for revealing the contents of policy documents sent by royal officials in America to a member of the British Privy Council. These were called the "Hutchinson Letters," after Massachusetts Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson, who had written many, but not all, of them. During the Stamp Act crisis of the 1760s, Lord Grenville, the promoter of that looting scheme, had asked his secretary to request reports from various American royal authorities as to what should be done. Hutchinson, in particular, was vocal in support of suppressing the Americans, writing that, "There must be an abridgement of what are called English liberties."

Benjamin Franklin had appeared before the House of Commons in 1766 to present America's case against the Stamp Act, and his efforts had resulted in the act's repeal and the fall of the ministry of Lord Grenville. However, the East India Company continued its looting policies, leading it inexorably toward bankruptcy. By 1772, its vast influence was woven into the very fabric of the British government, and the company succeeded in putting through legislation which compelled the American royal governors to be paid from the revenues of the Townshend Act, specifically from the tax on tea. Thus, any possible influence over these officials from their constituents was to be nullified. Massachusetts sent a petition opposing this method of paying royal officials, but the King rejected it.

When the judges of the Superior Court in America were added to the list of officials to be paid from East India Company revenues, the Boston Town Meeting reacted quickly. It published a pamphlet in November of 1772 which described the violations of American rights and denied that Parliament had any authority over America. Royal Governor Hutchinson made an address to the Massachusetts Assembly on Jan. 6, 1773 in which he stated that there could be no allegiance to the King without subordination to Parliament as well. Hutchinson portrayed the perils that Massachusetts would face if it rejected Parliament, but the Assembly responded that "there is more reason to dread the consequences of absolute uncontrolled power, whether of a nation or a monarch, than those of a total independence."

In December of 1772, Benjamin Franklin had come into possession of the reports sent to Lord Grenville from the royal agents in America. Grenville had circulated the letters among his friends and political allies, and at the time of his death in 1770, the letters had not been returned. There were also copies of the reports which were making the rounds in London, and either Franklin was able to obtain them, or, as another rumor had it, they were given to him by a member of Parliament. Whatever the source, Franklin sent them to Speaker Cushing, telling him to show them to members of the Assembly, but not to copy or publish them.

Cushing at first did as he was asked, but feelings against Hutchinson were running so high that on June 2, 1773, he read the letters in public to the Massachusetts Assembly, and by June 17 the letters' contents had been printed and were being reprinted throughout the colonies. As this was going on in America, Franklin, on June 4, was sending Cushing the news of Parliament's spectacular reduction of British duties on exported East India Company tea, enabling it to be sold in America for a much cheaper price than smuggled Dutch tea. Franklin commented that the British thought the Americans would operate only on the basis of obtaining a bargain, whereas actually they understood the future enslavement which lurked behind the lower prices.

On June 23, the Massachusetts Assembly petitioned the King to remove both Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver from office, and Franklin, as London representative of Massachusetts, presented the petition to Lord Dartmouth. By August, the Hutchinson Letters were reprinted in London, and gossip ran rife as to who had obtained them. During that fall, Franklin was engaged in writing a series of polemics, trying to show the Britons the folly of their policies toward America. On Sept. 11, he published the satiric "Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One," and on Sept. 22 appeared "An Edict by the King of Prussia," in which the Prussian King supposedly claimed sovereignty over England by right of supposed prior settlement in some misty past era.

After these pieces appeared, Franklin received a letter from his sister, Jane Mecom, in which she said she hoped that he would be the instrument of restoring harmony between America and Britain. He replied that he would be very happy to restore harmony, but that his strategy for accomplishing it had changed. "I had used all the smooth words I could muster, and I grew tired of meekness when I saw it without effect. Of late therefore I have been saucy."

Franklin talked about his two polemical pieces, saying that, "I have held up a looking-glass in which some ministers may see their ugly faces, and the nation its injustice. Those papers have been much taken notice of. Many are pleased with them, and a few very angry, who I am told will make me feel their resentment, which I must bear as well as I can, and shall bear the better if any public good is done, whatever the consequences to myself.

"In my own private concerns with mankind, I have observed that to kick a little when under imposition has a good effect. A little sturdiness when superiors are much in the wrong sometimes occasions consideration. And there is truth in the old saying, that 'if you make yourself a sheep, the wolves will eat you.'"

Although no one had guessed who had sent the Hutchinson letters to America, matters soon came to a head. The brother of Lord Grenville's secretary became convinced that John Temple, a government official sympathetic to America, had obtained the letters, and he challenged Temple to a duel. Temple injured his foe, but a second duel was pending. To prevent further bloodshed, Franklin inserted a notice on Dec. 25 in the London Chronicle, saying that, "I alone am the person who obtained and transmitted to Boston the letters in question." Franklin wrote, "They were not in the nature of 'private letters between friends.' They were written by public officers to persons in public station 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." Furthermore, the letters themselves expressed the fear that if their contents became know, agents of the colonies might try to return them to America. "That apprehension, was, it seems, well founded; said Franklin, "for, the first agent who laid his hands on them thought it his duty to transmit them to his constituents."

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