Q. When did you receive the instructions you mentioned?

A. I brought them with me, when I came to Eng. land, about fifteen months since.

Q. When did you communicate that instruction to the minister?

4. Soon after my arrival,-while the stamping of America was under consideration, and before the bill was brought in.

Q. Would it be most for the interest of Great Britain, to employ the hands of Virginia in tobacco, or in manufactures?

A. In tobacco, to be sure.

Q. What used to be the pride of the Americans? A. To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain.

Q. What is now their pride?

A. To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make new ones.

Withdrew.

Attempts of Dr. Franklin for Conciliation of Great Britain with the Colonies.

DEAR SIR,

London, Nov. 28, 1768.

I received your obliging favour of the 19th instant. Your sentiments of the importance of the present dispute between Great Britain and the colonies, appear to me extremely just. There is nothing I wish for more than to see it amicably and equitably settled.

But Providence will bring about its own ends by its own means; and if it intends the downfall of a nation, that nation will be so blinded by its pride, and other passions, as not to see its danger, or how its fall may be prevented.

Being born and bred in one of the countries, and having lived long and made many agreeable connec

tions of friendship in the other, I wish all prosperity to both but I have talked, and written so much and so long on the subject, that my acquaintance are weary of hearing, and the public of reading any more of it, which begins to make me weary of talking and writing; especially as I do not find that I have gained any point, in either country, except that of rendering myself suspected, by my impartiality; in England, of being too much an Ameri can, and in America of being too much an EnglishYour opinion, however, weighs with me, and encourages me to try one effort more, in a full, though concise state of facts, accompanied with arguments drawn from those facts; to be published about the meeting of parliament, after the holidays. If any good may be done I shall rejoice; but at present I almost despair.

Have you ever seen the barometer so low as of late?

The 22d instant mine was at 28, 41, and yet the weather fine and fair.

With sincere esteem, I am, dear friend,

Yours, affectionately,

B. FRANKLIN.

Letter from Lord Howe to Dr. Franklin.

Eagle, June the 20th, 1776.

I cannot, my worthy friend, permit the letters and parcels, which I have sent (in the state I received them) to be landed, without adding a word upon the subject of the injurious extremities in which our unhappy disputes have engaged us.

You will learn the nature of my mission, from the official dispatches which I have recommended to be forwarded by the same conveyance. Retaining all the earnestness I ever expressed, to see our dif ferences accommodated; I shall conceive, if I meet with the disposition in the colonies which I was once

taught to expect, the most flattering hopes of prov. ing serviceable in the objects of the king's paternal solicitude, by promoting the establishment of lasting peace and union with the colonies. But if the deeprooted prejudices of America, and the necessity of preventing her trade from passing into foreign channels, must keep us still a divided people, I shall, from every private as well as public motive, most heartily lament, that this is not the moment wherein those great objects of my ambition are to be attained; and that I am to be longer deprived of an opportunity, to assure you personally of the regard with which I am,

Your sincere and faithful humble servant,

HOWE.

P. S. I was disappointed of the opportunity I expected for sending this letter, at the time it was dated; and have ever since been prevented by calms and contrary winds from getting here, to inform General Howe of the commission with which I have the satisfaction to be charged, and of his being joined in it.

Dr. Franklin's Answer to Lord Howe.

Philadelphia, July 30, 1776.

MY LORD, I received safe the letters your lordship so kindly forwarded to me, and beg you to accept my thanks.

The official dispatches to which you refer me, contain nothing more than what we had seen in the act of parliament, viz. "Offers of pardon upon submission ;" which I was sorry to find; as it must give your lordship pain to be sent so far on so hopeless a business.

Directing pardons to be offered to the colonies, who are the very parties injured, expresses indeed that opinion of our ignorance, baseness, and insensibility, which your uninformed and proud nation has

long been pleased to entertain of us; but it can have no other effect than that of encreasing our resentments. It is impossible we should think of submission to a government, that has, with the most wanton barbarity and cruelty, burned our defenceless towns in the midst of winter; excited the savages to massacre our (peaceful) farmers; and our slaves to murder their masters; and is even now * bringing foreign mercenaries to deluge our settlements with blood. These atrocious injuries have extinguished every spark of affection for that parent country we once held so dear: but were it possible for us to forget and forgive them, it is not possible for you (I mean the British nation) to forgive the people you have so heavily injured; you can never confide again in those as fellow-subjects, and permit them to enjoy equal freedom, to whom you know you have given such just causes of lasting enmity; and this must impel you, were we again under your government, to endeavour the breaking our spirit by the severest tyranny, and obstructing by every means in your power our growing strength and prosperity.

But your lordship mentions "the king's paternal solicitude for promoting the establishment of lasting peace and union with the colonies." If by peace is here meant, a peace to be entered into by distinct states, now at war; and his majesty has given your lordship powers to treat with us of such a peace, I may venture to say, though without authority, that I think a treaty for that purpose not quite impracticable, before we enter into foreign alliances. But I am persuaded you have no such powers. Your nation, though, by punishing those American governors

An army of foreign mercenaries had, about this time, arrived at Staten Island and New York; hired from one of those Princes who have never hesitated to sacrifice the best blood of their subjects for British gold. Editor.

who have fomented the discord, rebuilding our burnt towns, and repairing as far as possible the mischiefs done us, she might recover a great share of our regard; and the greatest share of our growing commerce, with all the advantages of that additional strength, to be derived from a friendship with us; yet I know too well her abounding pride and deficient wisdom, to believe she will ever take such salutary measures. Hér fondness for conquest as a warlike nation; her lust of dominion as an ambitious one; and her thirst for a gainful monopoly as a commercial one (none of them legitimate causes of war) will join to hide from her eyes every view of her true interest, and continually goad her on in these ruinous distant expeditions, so destructive both of lives and of treasure, that they must prove as pernicious to her in the end, as the Croisades formerly were to most of the nations of Europe.

I have not the vanity, my lord, to think of intimidating, by thus predicting the effects of this war; for I know it will in England have the fate of all my former predictions; not to be believed till the event shall verify it.

Long did I endeavour, with unfeigned and unwearled zeal, to preserve from breaking that fine and noble porcelaine vase--the British empire; for I knew that being once broken, the separate parts could not retain even their share of the strength and value that existed in the whole; and that a perfect re-union of those parts could scarce. ever be hoped for. Your lordship may possibly remember the tears of joy that wetted my cheek, when, at your good sister's in London, you once gave me expectations, that a reconciliation might soon take place. I had the misfortune to find these expectations disappointed, and to be treated as the cause of the mischief I was labouring to prevent. My consolation under that groundless and malevo. lent treatment was, that I retained the friendship of