In turning over my papers, I find a manuscript journal of the last rebellion, which is at your service. I hope Mrs. Home is better, and will be able to execute her journey. Are you to be in town soon? Yours without ambiguity, circumlocution, or mental reservation.[476:1]
Hume, though we have found him censuring the conduct of Franklin, was opposed to any attempt to coerce America. "I always thought," says Sir John
Pringle, when writing to him, "you were in the wrong, when you supposed these colonies wanted only a pretext to shake off their subjection."[477:1] This subjection he seems to have thought they were entitled to throw off; for he was far more tolerant of the sway of individuals over numbers, which he looked upon as the means of preserving order and civilization, than of the predominance of one territory over another, which he looked upon as subjugation. Unfortunately, few of his opinions on this subject can be better ascertained than by the reflex light of the letters addressed to him, in answer to his remarks. With Strahan, the eminent printer, he carried on an extensive correspondence on political matters, of which the letters on his own side have unfortunately been lost.[477:2] The sentiments which Hume had expressed on the American war, are thus described, by contrast, in the words of that member of Parliament, to whom Franklin addressed his celebrated letter of defiance.
William Strahan to Hume.
I differ from you toto cœlo with regard to America. I am entirely for coercive methods with those obstinate madmen; and why should we despair of success? Why should we suffer the empire to be so dismembered, without the utmost exertions on our part? I see nothing so very formidable in this business, if we become a little more unanimous, and could stop the mouths of domestic traitors, from whence the evil originated. Not that I wish to enslave the colonists, or to make them one jot less happy than ourselves;
but I am for keeping them subordinate to the British legislature; and their trade, in a reasonable degree, subservient to the interest of the mother country; an advantage she well deserves; but which she must inevitably lose, if they are emancipated, as you propose. I am really surprised you are of a different opinion. Very true, things look oddly at present; and the dispute hath, hitherto, been very ill managed; but so we always do at the commencement of every war. So we did, most remarkably, in the last. It is perhaps owing to the nature of our government, which permits not of those sudden and decisive exertions frequently made by arbitrary princes. But, so soon as the British lion is roused, we never fail to fetch up our lee-way, as the sailors say. And so I hope you will find it in this important case.[478:1]
The following letter, which is not, however, written in a spirit of entire earnestness or sobriety, has some reference to his views on the American question.
Hume to Baron Mure.
"St. David's Street, Oct. 27th, 1775.
"Oh! Dear Baron,—You have thrown me into agonies, and almost into convulsions, by your request. You ask what seems reasonable,—what seems a mere trifle; yet am I so unfit for it, that it is almost impossible for me to comply. You are much fitter yourself. That address, by which you gained immortal honour, was done altogether without my knowledge; I mean that after the suppression of the late rebellion. Here is Lord Home teazing me for an address from the Merse; and I have constantly refused him. Besides, I am an American in my principles, and wish we would let them alone to govern or misgovern themselves, as they think proper: the affair is of no consequence, or of little consequence, to us. If the