"I ask, my lords, whether the revengeful temper, attributed by poetic fiction only to the bloody African, is not surpassed by the coolness and apathy of the wily American?"
These pleadings for a time worked great effect: the lords assented, the town was convinced, Dr. Franklin was disgraced[133], and Mr. Wedderburn seemed in the road for every kind of advancement.—Unfortunately for Mr. Wedderburn, the events of the war did not correspond with his systems. Unfortunately too for his "irrefragable argument," Dr. Franklin afterwards took an oath in chancery[134], that at the time that he transmitted the letters he was ignorant of the party to whom they had been addressed, having himself received them from a third person, and for the express purpose of their being conveyed to America. Unfortunately also for Mr. Wedderburn's "worthy governor," that governor himself, before the arrival of Dr Franklin's packet in Boston, sent over one of Dr. Franklin's own "private" letters to England, expressing some little coyness indeed upon the occasion, but desiring secrecy, lest he should be prevented procuring more useful intelligence from the same source[135]. Whether Mr. Wedderburn in his speech intended to draw a particular case and portraiture, for the purpose only of injuring Dr. Franklin, or meant that his language and epithets should apply generally to all, whether friends or foes, whose practice should be found similar to it, is a matter that must be left to be adjusted between governor Hutchinson and Mr. Wedderburn.
But to return to Dr. Franklin. It was not singular perhaps, that, as a man of honour, he should surrender his name to public scrutiny in order to prevent mischief to others, and yet not betray his coadjutor (even to the present moment) to relieve his own fame from the severest obloquy; but perhaps it belonged to few besides Dr. Franklin, to possess mildness and magnanimity enough to refrain from intemperate expressions and measures against Mr. Wedderburn and his supporters, after all that had passed. B. V.
[131] i. e. Fur (or thief).
[132] Act Vth.
[133] He was dismissed from his place in the post-office.
[134] A copy of the proceedings in chancery has been in my possession, but being at present mislaid I speak only from memory here.
[135] See the Remembrancer for the year 1776, part 2d. p. 61 col. 1st, and 2d.