Your Resolution yesterday to resign your seat gave me very great Uneasiness. I could not think you had sufficient Ground to deprive the Town of one whom I have a Right to say is a most valueable Member, since you had within three of the unanimous Suffrages of your Fellow Citizens, & one of the negative Votes was your own.1 You say you have been spoken ill of. What then? Can you think that while you are a good Man that all will speak well of you—If you knew the person who has defamd you nothing is more likely than that you would justly value your self upon that mans Censure as being the highest Applause. Those who were fond of continuing Mr Otis on the Seat, were I dare say to a Man among your warmest friends: Will you then add to their Disappointment by a Resignation, merely because one contemptible person, who perhaps was hired for the purpose, has blessd you with his reviling—Need I add more than to intreat it as a favor that you would alter your Design.
I am with strict truth
Your affectionate friend & Brother.
1At the Boston town-meeting on May 8, 1770, Hancock received, as a candidate for representative, 511 out of 513 votes. On June 13, 1770, William Palfrey, acting for Hancock, wrote to Haley and Hopkins: "The removal of the General Court to Cambridge obliges Mr Hancock to be often there." John Hancock. His Book, by A. E. Brown, p. 167.
A COMMITTEE OF THE TOWN OF BOSTON TO BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
[MS., Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society; an incomplete draft is in the Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library; the latter text only is in the handwriting of Adams.]
BOSTON July 13th: 1770
SIR,
It affords very great Satisfaction to the Town of Boston to find that the Narrative of the horrid massacre perpetrated here on the 5th of March last which was transmitted to London,1 has had the desired effect; by establishing truth in the minds of honest men, and in some measure preventing the Odium being cast on the Inhabitants, as the aggressors in it. We were very apprehensive that all attempts would be made to gain this Advantage against us: and as there is no occasion to think that the malice of our Enemies is in the least degree abated, it has been thought necessary that our friends on your side the Water, should have a true state of the Circumstances of the Town and of everything which has materially occurred, since the removal of the Troops to the Castle. For this purpose we are appointed a Committee:2 But the time will not admit of our writing so fully by this Conveyance, as we intend by the next, in the mean time we intreat your further friendship for the Town, in your Endeavours to get the Judgment of the Public suspended, upon any representation that may have been made by the Commissioners of the Customs and others, until the Town can have the Opportunity of knowing what is alleged against it, and of answering for itself. We must confess that we are astonished to hear that the Parliament had come to a determination, to admit Garbled extracts from such Letters as may be received from America by Administration and to Conceal the Names of the Persons who may be the Writers of them. This will certainly give great Encouragement to Persons of wicked Intentions to abuse the Nations & injure the Colonies in the grossest manner with Impunity, or even without detection. For a Confirmation hereof we need to recur no further back than a few months, when undoubtedly the Accounts and Letters carried by Mr. Rob[in]son would have been attended with very unhappy if not fatal effects, had not this Town been so attentive as to have Contradicted those false accounts by the depositions of many credible persons under Oath. But it cannot be supposed that a Community will be so Attentive but upon the most Alarming Events: In general Individuals are following their private concerns, while it is to be feared the restless Adversaries are forming the most dangerous Plans for the Ruin of the Reputation of the People, in order to build their own Greatness on the Distruction of their liberties. This Game they have been long playing; and tho' in some few instances they have had a loosing hand, yet they have commonly managed with such Art, that they have so far succeeded in their Malicious designs as to involve the Nation and the Colonies in Confusion and distress. This it is presumed they never could have accomplished had not these very letters been kept from the view of the Public, with a design perhaps to conceal the falsehood of them the discovery of which would have prevented their having any mischievous effects. This is the Game which we have reason to believe they are now playing; With so much Secrecy as may render it impossible for us fully to detect them on this Side of the Water; How deplorable then must be our Condition, if ample Credit is to be given to their Testimonies against us, by the Government at home, and if the Names of our Accusers are to be kept a profound Secret, and the World is to see only such parts or parcells of their Representations as Persons, who perhaps may be interested in their favor, shall think proper to hold up—Such a Conduct, if allowed, seems to put it into the Power of a Combination of a few designing men to deceive a Nation to its Ruin. The measures which have been taken in Consequence of Intelligence Managed with such secrecy, have already to a very great degree lessened that Mutual Confidence which had ever Subsisted between the Mother Country and the Colonies, and must in the Natural Course of things totally alienate their Affections towards each other and consequently weaken, and in the End destroy the power of the Empire. It is in this extended View of things that our minds are affected—It is from these Apprehensions that we earnestly wish that all communication between the two Countries of a public nature may be unvailed before the public: with the names of the persons who are concerned therein, then and not till then will American affairs be under the direction of honest men, who are never afraid or ashamed of the light. And as we have abudent reason to be jealous that the most mischievous and virulent accounts have been very lately sent to Administration from Castle William where the Commissioners have again retreated for no reason that we can conceive but after their former manner to misrepresent and injure this Town and Province,—we earnestly intreat that you would use your utmost influence to have an Order passed that the whole of the packetts sent by the Commissioners of the Customs and others under the care of one Mr Bacon late an officer of the Customs in Virginia, who took his passage the last week in the Brigantine Lydia Joseph Wood Commander may be laid before his Majesty in Council—
If the Writers of those Letters shall appear to be innocent, no harm can possibly arise from such a measure; if otherwise, it may be the means of exploring the true Cause of the National and Collonial Malady, and of affording an easy remedy, and therefore the measure must be justified & applauded by all the World.
We have observed in the English Papers, the most notorious falsehoods published with an apparent design to give the World a prejudice against this Town, as the Aggressors in the unhappy Transaction of the 5th of March, but no account has been more repugnant to the truth, than a paper printed in the public Advertiser3 of the 28th of April which is called The case of Capt. Preston. As a Committee of this Town we thought ourselves bound in faithfulness to wait on Capt Preston to enquire of him whether he was the Author—he frankly told us that he had drawn a state of his case, but that it had passed thro different hands and was altered at different times, and finally the Publication in the Advertiser was varied from that which he sent home as his own; we then desired him to let us know whether several parts which we might point to him and to which we took exception were his own, but he declined Satisfying us herein, saying that the alterations were made by Persons who he supposed might aim at serving him, though he feared they might have a Contrary effect, and that his discriminating to us the parts of it which were his own from those which had been altered by others might displease his friends at a time when he might stand in need of their essential Service; this was the Substance of the Conversation between us, whereupon we retired and wrote to Capt Preston a Letter the Copy of which is now inclosed.4