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engagements to those from whom he received them, he was obliged to submit in silence to Wedderburn's harsh obloquy and injurious imputations. Thus unexplained, these imputations were received with undisguised favor by the Council. They seemed in the same degree to have had a dispiriting effect on Dunning, Franklin's counsel, who, usually so ready and able, made a feeble defence1 for his client. The consequence was that Hutchinson and Oliver were acquitted of all blame; and the next day Dr. Franklin was dismissed from his office of postmastergeneral in America.

The manner in which Dr. Franklin got possession of these letters is still involved in mystery. He himself stated that he received them from a member of Parliament, who had shown them to him to convince him that much of the bad feeling between England and her colonies was attributable to Americans. Franklin then obtained leave to send the letters to America, to be there communicated, under certain restrictions, to a few leading individuals, and then to be returned. But Dr. Hosack, in his Memoir of Dr. Hugh Williamson, states, on the authority of a gentleman "of great respectability," that Williamson (as he told Hosack's informant) being then in London, and hearing of these letters, had, by an act of mingled boldness and address, applied for them at a public office, and obtained them. He immediately delivered them to Dr. Franklin, and the next day left England for the continent. The story is improbable, but in the main may be true. Mr. Sparks, in his valuable edition of Franklin's works, has collected all the testimony relating to this curious passage of Revolutionary history, and has

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' Dunning's failure was ascribed to fatigue and indisposition. -Bancroft, Vol. VI.

2 Sparks's Franklin, Vol. XV.

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ingeniously attempted to reconcile the conflicting statements of Dr. Franklin and Dr. Williamson.

It is not easy to suppose that these letters were obtained without a breach of trust or a violation of moral duty in some quarter; but the propriety of Dr. Franklin's course in bringing those supposed calumnies to light presents a question of casuistry about which men are likely to differ. It is certain, however, that neither he nor his constituents ever seemed to doubt that his conduct in the affair was not merely justifiable, but was highly meritorious.

The resentment excited in England by this act of bold defiance may be inferred from the acts of Parliament to which it gave rise. By one, Boston ceased to be a port of entry until it should have indemnified the East India Company; by another, the charter of Massachusetts underwent important modifications, one of which prohibited any town meeting without the permission of the Governor; and by a third, offenders against the revenue laws, and rioters, might be sent to England for trial.

Indignation and sympathy were felt for those who were regarded as sufferers in a common cause by all the other colonies, who did not know how soon the case of Boston or Massachusetts might be their own. In Virginia, which being the most populous of the colonies, naturally took the lead, the members of the Legislature, having assembled after another dissolution, suggested through their committee of correspondence, a general Congress of deputies to consult on their united interests.1

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1 It happened here, as it commonly does in all great national emergencies, that the same measures of redress are suggested in different places, without any concert, so as to make the honor of originating them uncertain, or rather to give to several, instead of one, a claim to that honor. The calling of a general Congress was an instance of this kind.

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CONGRESS MEETS IN PHILADELPHIA.

This proposal was favorably received in all the colonies, and Massachusetts, having recommended that the Congress should meet at Philadelphia in September, appointed five members. All the other colonies except Georgia followed the example, and on the fourth of September, 1774, fifty-two deputies elected by the colonial Legislatures, or by self-created popular conventions, assembled in that city; and on the following day they organized themselves as a deliberative body in a building known as Carpenter's Hall, and which has ever since been held in great veneration.

As this Congress exercised the highest functions of government, and as it was succeeded by other bodies similarly constituted, and exercising similar authority to the present day, this period may be taken as the beginning of that revolution which converted thirteen dependent colonies into a confederacy of sovereign States.

But before we follow that confederacy through the difficulties it encountered and overcame, let us pause awhile to take a brief survey of the individual members which composed it.

Massachusetts, comprehending as it then did, the province of Maine, was the most northern of these colonies. Maine was separated from the rest of the colony by New Hampshire. Its whole area was about forty thousand miles. Its sea-coast was between three and four hundred miles. This colony, possessed of harbors, and in the neighborhood of seas abounding in fish, had taken the

It had been previously proposed at a town meeting in Boston, and at another in New York. It had been also suggested both at a public meeting in Rhode Island, and by the Connecticut Legislature. It was an expedient which would naturally suggest itself, when the Congress at New York, after the passage of the stamp act, was fresh in the recollections of all.

POSITION, AREA, ETC., OF THE COLONIES.

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lead of all the colonies in its navigation and fisheries, a pre-eminence which to this day it retains. It had also made more advances in manufactures.

New Hampshire, which intervenes between Massachusetts proper and Maine, touches the Atlantic to an extent of only eighteen miles, where Portsmouth, its principal town, stands. It extends north one hundred and forty miles and west ninety miles, having an area of from ten to fifteen thousand miles. A part of the territory it claimed was contested by New York.

Rhode Island lies on the Atlantic to the south of Massachusetts. Its area is little more than twelve hundred square miles. Its line of sea-coast is forty miles.

Connecticut also lies south of Massachusetts, and is west of Rhode Island. Its sea-coast extends one hundred miles on the strait formed by Long Island Sound. Its area is four thousand six hundred square miles.

These four colonies constituted what is called New England. Being originally settled by Puritans, their descendants yet retained many of the qualities which characterized that sect. The observances of religion were here kept up in greater strictness than they probably had ever been in England, and at one time their religious zeal mounting up to wild fanaticism, led them to banish those who dissented from them in opinion, and to hang women for witchcraft. In most of them the Presbyterians were the most numerous sect, but in Rhode Island there were many Quakers.

To the west of New England lies New York, which is of a triangular form, and is but thirty miles wide on Long Island Sound, but has a coast on the southern shore of that Island, of one hundred and thirty miles. By its present limits, which were not then well defined, its area is forty-six thousand square miles.

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POSITION, AREA, ETC., OF THE COLONIES.

Further south on the coast was New Jersey, which is a peninsula between the Delaware River and the Atlantic. It has a sea-coast from Sandy Hook to Cape May of one hundred and thirty miles. Its area is seven thousand five hundred square miles.

Pennsylvania lies west of the Delaware River, and on three of its sides it is almost a regular parallelogram. Its area is forty-seven thousand five hundred square miles.

Delaware is the northern part of the peninsula formed by the Chesapeake Bay on one side, and the Atlantic and Delaware Bay on the other. Its greatest length is on the Delaware Bay. It has a sea-coast, south from Cape Henlopen, of thirty-two miles. Its area is two thousand one hundred square miles.

Maryland lies on each side of the Chesapeake. Its eastern portion is part of the last-mentioned peninsula, and the western portion is between Pennsylvania and the Potomac River. It is of a very irregular form, and has an area, exclusive of the Chesapeake, of about eleven thousand square miles. Its line of sea-coast is thirty-five miles.

The five last-mentioned colonies were at once agricultural and commercial in their pursuits. They differed very much in religion. In New York they were German Lutheran, and of the Church of England. In Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey there were many Quakers, and in Maryland many Catholics; but some of each sect were found in all. Being at once healthy and fertile, these colonies increased faster in numbers and wealth than any others.

Virginia, according to the territory within her charter limits, then comprehended what is now Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, more than equal

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