* * * * * *
Yours most affectionately,
B. FRANKLIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[140] I run much risque in the publication of the three following letters[141]; but I think they contain such valuable facts, and show so well the nature of Dr. Franklin's temper, that I ought to encounter some difficulty, rather than suffer them to be lost. B. V.
[141] The other two letters will be found in the order of their dates, July 7, and Oct. 3, 1775. Editor.
[Proposed Vindication and Offer from Congress to Parliament, in 1775.][142]
Forasmuch as the enemies of America, in the parliament of Great Britain, to render us odious to the nation, and give an ill impression of us in the minds of other European powers, have represented us as unjust and ungrateful in the highest degree; asserting on every occasion, that the colonies were settled at the expence of Britain; that they were, at the expence of the same, protected in their infancy; that they now ungratefully and unjustly refuse to contribute to their own protection, and the common defence of the nation; that they aim at independence; that they intend an abolition of the navigation acts; and that they are fraudulent in their commercial dealings, and purpose to cheat their creditors in Britain, by avoiding the payment of their just debts:—
[And] as, by frequent repetition, these groundless assertions and malicious calumnies may, if not contradicted and refuted, obtain farther credit, and be injurious throughout Europe to the reputation and interest of the confederate colonies, it seems proper and necessary to examine them in our own just vindication.