From now on, should the British need hats, they must send raw materials to Prussia, which would manufacture the hats and let the British purchase them. (This was exactly the manner in which the British were preventing American manufacture.) Next, Prussia planned to ship to “the island of Great Britain” all the “thieves, highway and street robbers, housebreakers, and murderers” whom they “do not think fit here to hang.” (Here Franklin returned to an old grievance—Britain’s using the colonies as a dumping ground for convicts. In 1751 he had proposed tongue-in-cheek to send American rattlesnakes to England in exchange.)
He was visiting Lord Le Despencer when a servant brought to the breakfast table the newspaper which had printed the “Edict” hoax. A fellow guest named Paul Whitehead read the first paragraphs and exploded:
“Here’s the King of Prussia claiming a right to this kingdom.... I dare say we shall hear by next post that he is upon his march with one hundred thousand men to back this.”
Franklin kept a straight face. Whitehead read on until, as absurdities piled up, it dawned on him that he had been taken:
“I’ll be hanged, Franklin, if this is not some of your American jokes upon us.”
They admitted he had made his point very cleverly and all had a good laugh.
But neither the “Rules” nor the “Edict” persuaded Parliament and the ministry to change their ways. Colonial resentment focused on the tax on tea, which small as it was, remained a “splinter in the unhealed wound.” In Boston, on December 16, 1773, fifty citizens, dressed as Mohawk Indians, defiantly dumped 342 chests of British tea into the ocean. Parliament, when the news reached London, acted swiftly. Until restitution was made for the tea, the port of Boston was to be closed. Four more regiments under General Thomas Gage were sent to keep order. Boston became an occupied city, unable to conduct its commerce and faced with financial ruin.
Pay for the tea, Franklin urged his Boston colleagues. The Boston Tea Party was an act of lawlessness which could only harm the cause of the colonies. Just as the colonists were unaware of the problems that faced him daily in England, so he was too far away to appreciate the fire of indignation that was sweeping America.
In the meantime a scandal had erupted in London as a result of the publication of Governor Hutchinson’s letters. Two gentlemen, William Whately and John Temple, had each accused the other of making the letters public. They carried the argument to the newspapers, and then Temple challenged Whately to a duel. It was fought at Hyde Park on December 11, with pistols and swords. Whately was wounded. Neither party was satisfied.
Franklin was out of town when the duel took place. After he heard about it, he realized what he had to do. On Christmas Day, a letter signed by him appeared in the Public Advertiser, which said that both Whately and Temple were “ignorant and innocent” of the publication of the Hutchinson letters, that he was the one who had obtained them and sent them to Boston. The entire blame was his. He did not give the name of the man who had turned the letters over to him. This secret he carried to his grave.