After a time he returned again to England, but he found when he arrived there that the state of things between the English government and the [pg 303] American colonies was growing worse instead of better. Parliament insisted on its right “to bind the colonies,” as their resolve expressed it, “in all cases whatsoever.” The Americans, on the other hand, were more and more determined to resist such a claim. Parliament adopted measures more and more stringent every day, to compel the colonies to submit. They passed coercive laws; they devised ingenious modes of levying taxes; they sent out troops, and in every possible way strengthened the military position of the government in America. The colonists, on the other hand, began to evince the most determined spirit of hostility to the measures of the mother country. They held great public assemblages; they passed violent resolves; they began to form extensive and formidable combinations for resisting or evading the laws. Thus every thing portended an approaching conflict.
Franklin exerted all his power and influence for a long time in attempting to heal the breach. He wrote pamphlets and articles in the newspapers in England defending, though in a tone of great candor and moderation, the rights of America, and urging the ministry and people of England not to persist in their attempts at coercion. At the same time he wrote letters to America, endeavoring to diminish the violence of the agitation there, in hopes that by keeping back the tide of excitement and passion which was so rapidly rising, some mode of adjustment might be found to terminate the difficulty. All these efforts were, however, in vain. The quarrel grew wider and more hopeless every day.
About this time the administration of the colonial affairs for the English government was committed to a new officer, Lord Hillsborough, who was now made Secretary of State for America; and immediately new negotiations were entered into, and new schemes formed, for settling the dispute. Two or three years thus passed away, but nothing was done. At length Lord Hillsborough seems to have conceived the idea of winning over Franklin's influence to the side of the English government by compliments and flattering attentions. He met him one morning in Dublin, at the house of the Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, where he paid him special civilities, and invited him in the most cordial manner to visit him at his country mansion at Hillsborough, in the north of England. Franklin was then contemplating a journey northward, and in the course of this journey he stopped at Hillsborough. He and his party were received with the greatest attention by his lordship, and detained four days, during which time Franklin was loaded with civilities.
If these attentions were really designed to make Franklin more manageable, as the representative of the colonies in the contest that was going on, they wholly failed of their object; for in the negotiations which followed, Franklin continued as firm and intractable as ever. In fact, not long after this, he came directly into conflict with Lord Hillsborough before the Board of Trade, when a certain measure relating to the colony—one which Lord Hillsborough strongly opposed, and Franklin as strenuously advocated—was in debate. At last after a long contest Franklin gained the day; and this result so changed his lordship's sentiments toward Franklin that for some time he treated him with marked rudeness. At one time Franklin called to pay his respects to Lord Hillsborough on a day when his lordship was holding a levee, and when there were a number of carriages at the door. Franklin's coachman drove up, alighted, and was opening the carriage for Franklin to dismount, when the porter came out, and in the most supercilious and surly manner rebuked the coachman for opening the door of the carriage before he had inquired whether his lordship was at home; and then turning to Franklin he said, “My lord is not at home.”
Lord Hillsborough, however, recovered from his resentment after this, in the course of a year; and at length on one occasion his lordship called upon Franklin in his room, and accosted him in a very cordial and friendly manner, as if no difficulty between them had ever occurred.
In the mean time the determination in America to resist the principle of the supremacy of Parliament over the colonies, became more and more extended. A disposition was manifested by the several colonies to combine their efforts for this end, and one after another of them sent out commissions to Franklin to act as their agent, as well as agent for Pennsylvania. Things went on in this way until a certain tragical affair occurred in Boston, known generally in American accounts of these events as the Boston massacre, which greatly increased the popular excitement among the people of the colonies.
This massacre, as it was called, was the shooting of some persons in a crowd in State-street in Boston, by the British soldiers. It originated thus: A company of boys one day undertook to burn effigies of certain merchants who persisted in importing British goods and secretly selling them, thus taking sides as it were against their countrymen in the contest that was going on. While doing this a man whom they considered a spy and informer came by; and the boys, in some way or other, became involved in a quarrel with him. The man retreated to his house; the boys followed him and threw snow-balls and pieces of ice at the house when he had gone in. The man brought a gun to the window and shot one of the boys dead on the spot.
This of course produced a very intense excitement throughout the city. The soldiers naturally took part with those supposed to favor British interests; this exasperated the populace against them, and finally, after various collisions, a case occurred in which the British officer deemed it his duty to order the troops to fire upon a crowd of people that were assembled to taunt and threaten them, and pelt them with ice and snow. They had been led to assemble thus, through some quarrel that had sprung up between a sentinel and one of the young men of the town. In the firing three men were killed outright, and two more were mortally wounded. The killing of these men was called a massacre, and the tidings of it produced a universal and uncontrollable excitement throughout the provinces.