I often wished I could procure more attention to the British ministry. I had urged over and over the necessity of the change we desired; but as we entered the year 1768, England was in a situation very little better than ours, which weakened our argument that a royal government would be better managed and safer to live under than that of a proprietary. All respect to law and government seemed to be lost among the common people, who were, moreover, continually inflamed by seditious scribblers to trample on authority and everything that used to keep them in order.
SO MANY INSTANCES OF GOODNESS BY THE RICH!
I wrote a piece under the name “Medius”37 in the Gentleman’s Magazine for the month of April, 1768, intended to lessen the effect of the numerous inflammatory papers on the minds of the labouring poor. I noted that for two years past much invective had been met in the papers against the hard-heartedness of the rich, and much complaint of the great oppressions suffered by the labouring poor, as if the rich in England had no compassion for the poor. I remarked that the condition of the poor in England was by far the best in Europe. Except in England and the American colonies, there is not in any country of the known world, not even in Scotland or Ireland, a provision by law to enforce a support for the poor. This law was not made by the poor. The legislators were men of fortune. By that act they voluntarily subjected their own estates, and the estates of others, to the payment of a tax for the maintenance of the poor. I wish they could be benefited by this generous provision in any degree equal to the good intention with which it was made. But I fear the giving mankind a dependence on any thing for support in age or sickness, besides industry and frugality during youth and health, tends to flatter our national indolence, to encourage idleness and prodigality, and thereby to promote and increase poverty, the very evil it was intended to cure; thus multiplying beggars, instead of diminishing them.
Besides this tax, which the rich in England subjected themselves to in behalf of the poor, amounting in some places to five or six shillings in the pound of the annual income, they had, by donation and subscriptions, erected numerous schools in various parts of the kingdom, for educating gratis the children of the poor in reading and writing, and in many of those schools the children were also fed and clothed. They erected hospitals at an immense expense for the reception and cure of the sick, the lame, the wounded, and the insane poor, for lying-in women, and deserted children. They also continually contributed toward making up losses occasioned by fire, by storms, or by floods, and to relieve the poor in severe seasons of frost, in times of scarcity, &c. Surely there should be some gratitude due for so many instances of goodness!
A LAW MIGHT BE MADE TO RAISE THEIR WAGES, BUT...
Much malignant censure did some writers bestow upon the rich for their luxury and expensive living, while the poor starve, &c. However, they do not consider what the rich expend and what the labouring poor receive in payment for their labour. The rich do not work for one another. Their habitations, furniture, clothing, carriages, food, ornaments, and everything in short that they, or their families use and consume, is the work or produce of the labouring poor who are, and must be continually, paid for their labour in producing the same. In these payments the revenues of the private estates are expended, for most people live up to their incomes. So that finally our labouring poor receive annually the whole of the clear revenues of the nation.
If it be said that their wages are too low, I heartily wish any means could be fallen upon to raise them, consistent with their interest and happiness. How is this to be remedied? A law might be made to raise their wages; but if our manufactures are too dear, they will not vend abroad, and all that part of employment will fail, unless by fighting and conquering we compel other nations to buy our goods.
A law might be made to raise their wages; but I doubt much whether it could be executed to any purpose, unless another law, now indeed almost obsolete, could at the same time be revived and enforced; a law, I mean, that many have often heard and repeated, but few have ever duly considered. Six days shalt thou labour. This is as positive a part of the commandment as that which says, the Seventh Day thou shalt rest. But we remember well to observe the indulgent part, and never think of the other. Monday is generally as duly kept by our working people as Sunday; the only difference is that, instead of employing their time cheaply, at church, they are wasting it expensively at the alehouse.
My piece, along with one I wrote against smuggling in the Chronicle of November last, was shown to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who expressed themselves much pleased with them.
JOHN WILKES AND DRUNKEN MAD MOBS
The Parliament was sitting, but would not continue long together, nor undertake any material business. Nothing was talked or thought of in England but elections. There were amazing contests all over the kingdom, £20,000 or £30,000 of a side spent in several places, and inconceivable mischief done by debauching the people and making them idle, besides the immediate actual mischief done by drunken mad mobs to houses, windows, &c. The scenes were horrible. London was illuminated two nights running at the command of the mob for the success of John Wilkes38 in the Middlesex election; the second night exceeded anything of the kind ever seen on the greatest occasions of rejoicing, as even the small cross streets, lanes, courts, and other out-of-the-way places were all ablaze with lights, and the principal streets all night long, as the mobs went around again after two o’clock, and obliged people who had extinguished their candles to light them again. Those who refused had all their windows destroyed. The damage done and the expense of candles had been computed at £50,000.
’Twas really an extraordinary event, to see this Wilkes, an outlaw and exile of bad personal character, not worth a farthing, come over from France, set himself up as candidate for the capital of the king, miss his election only by being too late in his application, and immediately carry it for the principal county. The mob (spirited up by numbers of different ballads sung or roared in every street) required gentlemen and ladies of all ranks as they passed in their carriages to shout for “Wilkes and Liberty,” marking the same words on all their coaches with chalk, and No. 45 on every door, which extended a vast way along the roads into the country. In April I went to Winchester, and observed that for fifteen miles out of town, there was scarce a door or window shutter next to the road unmarked; and this continued here and there quite to Winchester, which is 64 miles. I was sorry to see in the American papers that some people there were so indiscreet as to distinguish themselves in applauding his No. 45, which I suppose they did not know was a paper in which their King was personally affronted, whom they surely loved and honoured at the time. It hurt to see sober, sensible men so easily infected with the madness of English mobs.
John Wilkes: “Mobs were patrolling the streets at noon day, some knocking all down who would not roar for ‘Wilkes and Liberty.’ ”
THE MOBS ROAR FOR WILKES AND LIBERTY!
Even the capital, the residence of the King, became a daily scene of lawless riot and confusion. Mobs were patrolling the streets at noon day, some knocking all down who would not roar for “Wilkes and Liberty.” Courts of justice were afraid to give judgment against him. Coalheavers and porters pulled down the houses of coal merchants who refused to give them more wages; sawyers destroyed the new sawmills; sailors unrigged all the outward-bound ships, and suffered none to sail till merchants agreed to raise their pay; watermen destroyed private boats and threatened bridges; weavers entered houses by force, and destroyed the work in the looms; soldiers fired among the mobs and killed men, women and children, which seemed only to have produc’d a universal sullenness that looked like a great black cloud coming on, ready to burst in a general tempest. What the event would be, God only knew; but some punishment seemed preparing for a people who were ungratefully abusing the best constitution any nation was ever blest with, intent on nothing but luxury, licentiousness, power, places, pensions and plunder. Meanwhile, the ministry, divided in their counsels, with little regard for each
other, worried by perpetual oppositions, in continual apprehension of changes, intent on securing popularity in case they should lose favour, had for some years past had little time to attend to great national interests, much less to our small American affairs, whose remoteness made them appear still smaller.
The Court of King’s Bench postponed giving sentence against Wilkes on his outlawry till the next term, intimidated as some say by his popularity, and willing to get rid of the affair for a time till it should be seen what the Parliament would conclude as to his membership. His friends complained of it as a delay of justice, saying the court knew the outlawry to be defective, and that they must finally pronounce it void, but would punish him by long confinement. Great mobs of his adherents assembled before the prison, and the guards fired on them: it is said five or six were killed and fifteen or sixteen wounded, and some circumstances attended this military execution, such as its being done by the Scotch regiment, the pursuing of a lad and killing him at his father’s house &c. &c. that exasperated people exceedingly, and more mischief seemed brewing. Several of the soldiers were imprisoned. It was said that English soldiers could not be confided in to act against these mobs, being suspected as rather inclined to favour and join them.
By summer the tumults and disorders were pretty well subsided. Wilkes’s outlawry was reversed, but he was sentenced to twenty-two months imprisonment, and £1000 fine, which his friends, who had feared he would be pilloried, seemed rather satisfied with.
THE KING OF DENMARK SHOW ’D AN INQUISITIVE MIND
Later in 1768 the visit of the King of Denmark engrossed all the conversation. That young monarch gained daily on the affections of England by his great affability and condescension, and the pleasure he appeared to take in everything he saw, and in every amusement and entertainment contrived for him. I had seen him at the ridotto39 and had no expectation of seeing him again; but in early October 1768 I receiv’d a very polite card from Baron Diede, his minister, expressing that the Prince of Travendahl (the King’s travelling name) desired much to make an acquaintance with me, and had ordered him to invite me to his table for Saturday at St. James’s. I went accordingly, and was most graciously receiv’d. He was pleased to say he had long desired to see and converse with me. The questions he asked were such as show’d an inquisitive mind and a good understanding. I was placed near him at table, only Lord Moreton40 being between us, who was so good as to be my interpreter, I choosing not to speak in French, a language that I did not speak well at the time.
A MALICE AGAINST US IN SOME POWERFUL PEOPLE
On the one hand, there was a general disposition in the British nation to be upon good terms with the colonies, and to leave us in the enjoyment of all our rights, and that no future impositions on America would be attempted. And yet this disposition was not to be relied on. There was a malice against us in some powerful people, that discovered itself in all their expressions when they spoke to us, and thus prevented those healing measures that all good men wished to take place.
Lord Hillsborough, the new Secretary of State, mentioned the Farmer’s Letters to me, said he had read them, that they were well written, and he believed he could guess who was the author, looking in my face at the same time as if he thought it was me.41 He censured the doctrines as extremely wild, &c. The more I thought and read on the subject, however, the more I found myself confirmed in the opinion that no middle doctrine could be well maintained; that Parliament had a power to make all laws for us, or that it had a power to make no laws for us: and I thought the arguments for the latter more numerous and weighty than those of the former.
PERVERSE AND SENSELESS MANAGEMENT OF LORD HILLSBOROUGH
In January 1771, at the earnest request of Mr. Strahan, I went to wait on Lord Hillsborough. I was shown into the levee room, and his Lordship came toward me. I said that my business was not much, only to pay my respects to his Lordship and to acquaint him with my appointment by the House of Representatives of the Province of Massachusetts Bay,42 to be their agent there. But his Lordship, whose countenance chang’d at my naming that province, cut me short, by saying, with something of a smile and a sneer,L. H. I must set you right there, Mr. Franklin; you are not agent.
B. F. Why, my Lord?
L. H. You are not appointed.
B. F. I do not understand your Lordship. I have the appointment in my pocket.
L. H. You are mistaken. I have a letter from Governor Hutchinson. He would not give his assent to the bill.
B. F. There was no bill, my Lord; it is a vote of the House.
L. H. The House of Representatives has no right to appoint an agent. We shall take no notice of agents but such as are appointed by acts of assembly to which the governor gives his assent.
B. F. I cannot conceive, my Lord, why the consent of the Governor should be thought necessary to the appointment of an agent for the People.
L. H. (With a mix’d look of anger and contempt) I shall not enter into a dispute with you, sir, upon this subject. When I came into the administration of American affairs, I found them in great disorder; by my firmness they are now something mended; and while I have the honour to hold the seals, I shall continue the same conduct.
B.F. I beg your Lordship’s pardon for taking up so much of your time. It is, I believe, no great importance whether the appointment is acknowledged or not, for I have not the least conception that an agent can at present be any use to any of the colonies. I shall therefore give your Lordship no further trouble. Withdrew.
After this conference between the Secretary and me, I heard that Lord Hillsborough had taken great offense at some of my last words, which he called extremely rude and abusive. He assur’d a friend of mine they were equivalent to telling him to his face that the colonies could expect neither favour nor justice during his administration. I found he did not mistake me.
This conference was one of the many instances of the Secretary’s behaviour and conduct that gave me the very mean opinion I entertained of his abilities and fitness for his station. His character was conceit, wrongheadedness, obstinacy and passion. I had hoped, however, that our affairs would not much longer be perplex’d and embarrass’d by his perverse and senseless management.
THE SEEDS ARE SOWN OF TOTAL DISUNION
I did not pretend the gift of prophecy, but I thought one could clearly see, in the system of customs exacted in America by act of Parliament,43 the seeds sown of total disunion of the two countries. I wrote the following to the Massachusetts House of Representatives Committee of Correspondence in 1771: The course and natural progress in England seems to be, first, the appointment of needy men as officers, for others do not care to leave England; then, their necessities make them rapacious, their office makes them proud and insolent, their insolence and rapacity make them odious, and, being conscious that they are hated, they become malicious; their malice urges them to continual abuse of the inhabitants in their letters of administration, representing them as disaffected and rebellious, and (to encourage the use of severity) as weak, divided, timid, and cowardly. Government believes all; thinks it necessary to support and countenance its officers; their quarrelling with the people is deemed a mark and consequence of their fidelity; they are therefore more highly rewarded and this makes their conduct still more insolent and provoking.
The resentment of the people will, at times and on particular incidents, burst into outrages and violence upon such officers, and this naturally draws down severity and acts of further oppression from hence. The more the people are dissatisfied, the more rigor will be thought necessary; severe punishments will be inflicted to terrify; rights and privileges will be abolished; great force will then be required to secure execution and submission; the expenses will become enormous; it will then be thought proper, by fresh exactions, to make the people defray it; thence, the British nation and government will become odious, and the subjections to it will be deemed no longer tolerable; war ensues, and the bloody struggle will end in absolute slavery to America, o
r ruin to Britain by the loss of her colonies; the latter more probable, from America’s growing strength and magnitude.
But, as the whole empire must, in either case, be greatly weakened, I cannot but wish to see much patience and the utmost discretion in our general conduct, that the fatal period may be postponed, and that, whenever this catastrophe shall happen, it may appear to all mankind, that the fault has not been ours. History shows that, by these steps, great empires have crumpled heretofore; and the late transactions we have so much cause to complain of show, that we are in the same train, and that, without a greater share of prudence and wisdom than we have seen both sides to be possessed of, we shall probably come to the same conclusion.
VISIT TO NORTHERN ENGLAND: THEIR WORK WAS EXTREMELY HARD
Temple came home to us during the Christmas vacation from school. He seemed to improve continually, and more and more engaged the regard of all that were acquainted with him, by his pleasing, sensible, manly behaviour. I had debates with myself whether or not I would continue in London any longer. I grew homesick, and being in my 67TH year, I began to apprehend some infirmity of age might attack me, and make my return impracticable. I had also some important affairs to settle before my death, a period I thought at the time could not be far distant. I had indeed so many good friends in England, that I could spend the remainder of my life among them with pleasure, if it were not for my American connections, and the incredible affection I retained for that dear country, from which I had so long been in a state of exile.
The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1757-1790) Page 8