One of the most powerful pleas for conciliation was made in Richard Price's Observations on the nature of civil liberty ... and the justice and policy of the war with America (London, 1776, in six editions, at least; Boston, 1776, etc.).[317]
DR. PRICE.
From the London Magazine, May, 1776 (p. 227). "Published by R. Baldwin, June 1, 1776."
For the mutations and progress of opinion in England at this time we may follow Bancroft (orig. ed., vol. viii.) and Smyth (Lectures, nos. 31-33), and the latter compares the expressions of this progress as recorded in Ramsay and the Annual Register.[318]
For the aspects of political leadership in Parliament during 1775-76, and the struggles in debates, see the Parliamentary History and the Amer. Archives,[319] and we may offset among the general histories the Tory sympathies of Adolphus (England, ii. ch. 24) with the liberal tendencies of Massey (Hist. of England), but the lives of the principal leaders bring us a little nearer to the spirits of the hour.[320]
During 1775 Franklin in London was maintaining his correspondence with his American friends,[321] and conferring with Chatham upon plans of conciliation,[322] and discussing the ways of compromise with Lord and Lady Howe.[323]