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Benjamin
Franklin (1706 - 1790)
Letters and Articles from the Public
Advertiser 1773
On the Hutchinson Letters
A Correspondent observes, that the Discovery of Governor
Hutchinson's and Oliver's Letters points out an easy Way of re-establishing
Peace and Harmony between Great Britain and her Colonies, and consolating the
Confidence of the latter, by producing all the confidential Letters received
from America in public Affairs, and from public Men. It is in vain to say, this
would be betraying private Correspondence, since if the Truth only was written,
no Man need be ashamed or afraid of its being known; and if Falshoods have been
maliciously covered under the Cloak of Confidence, 'tis perfectly just the
incendiary Writers should be exposed and punished. What a weak, what a wicked
Plan of Government is that, which, under the Seal of Secrecy, gives
Encouragement to every Species of Malice and Misrepresentation. That Government
have been deceived almost to the fatal Issue of declaring War against our
Colonies is certain; and it is equally certain, that it is in their Power to
make an honourable Sacrifice of the wicked Authors of this dangerous Deception.
The Public Advertiser, August 31, 1773
An Infallible Method To Restore Peace and Harmony
To the Printer of the Public Advertiser.
Permit me, Sir, to communicate to the Ministry, thro' the
Channel of your Paper, an infallible Method (and but one) to silence the
Clamours of the Americans; to restore Peace and Harmony between the Colonies
and the Mother Country; to regain the Affections of the most loyal, and I will
venture to say the most virtuous of his Majesty's Subjects, whose Assistance
may one Day be necessary to preserve that Freedom, which is the Glory and
Happiness of the English Nation, and without which, from the Luxury and
Effeminacy which at present reigns so universally among us, is in imminent
Danger of being lost forever. The Method is plain and easy: Place the Americans
in the same Individual Situation they were in before that di ------ cal,
unconstitutional, oppressive Revenue Act was formed and endeavoured to be
carried into Execution by Mr. Grenville; repeal the odious Tax on Tea;
supersede the Board of Commissioners; let the Governors and Judges be appointed
by the Crown, and paid by the People as usual; recall the Troops, except what
are absolutely necessary for the Preservation of the new-acquired Provinces; in
fine, put every Thing on its ancient Footing. The Plea of its being
dishonourable to give up a Point once determined upon, is vain and nugatory:
The Instances are innumerable of Repeals of Acts of Parliament, which, when
passed, were thought wise and necessary. -- The Stamp Duty for America is a
recent Instance in point -- Acts of Prerogative are surely not more sacred than
Acts of Parliament. I insist upon it, that nothing would redound so much to the
Honour of Administration, nothing would convince Mankind that the Intentions of
Government are just and equitable, equal to the little Sacrifice of Vanity and
the Pride of Power to the general Welfare of the British Empire. It is
asserted, that there are Emissaries from France, who endeavour to foment the
Difference between Great Britain and her Colonies. Disappoint this subtle and
perfidious Nation. I will venture to prophecy, that notwithstanding this little
Breach, the Connexion will be as strong, perhaps stronger than ever.
It was always the Boast of the Americans, that they could claim
their Original from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and their Joy upon being
re-admitted to all the Privileges of Englishmen will operate as a new Cement to
a grateful and generous People, which will for ever ensure their future Loyalty
and Obedience.
The above is the sincere Opinion of A Well-Wisher to Great
Britain and her Colonies.
The Public Advertiser, September 8, 1773
Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small
One
[Presented privately to a late Minister, when he entered
upon his Administration; and now first published.]
An ancient Sage valued himself upon this, that tho' he could
not fiddle, he knew how to make a great City of a little one. The
Science that I, a modern Simpleton, am about to communicate is the very
reverse.
I address myself to all Ministers who have the Management of
extensive Dominions, which from their very Greatness are become troublesome to
govern, because the Multiplicity of their Affairs leaves no Time for
fiddling.
I. In the first Place, Gentlemen, you are to consider, that a
great Empire, like a great Cake, is most easily diminished at the Edges. Turn
your Attention therefore first to your remotest Provinces; that as you get rid
of them, the next may follow in Order.
II. That the Possibility of this Separation may always exist,
take special Care the Provinces are never incorporated with the Mother Country,
that they do not enjoy the same common Rights, the same Privileges in Commerce,
and that they are governed by severer Laws, all of your enacting,
without allowing them any Share in the Choice of the Legislators. By carefully
making and preserving such Distinctions, you will (to keep to my Simile of the
Cake) act like a wise Gingerbread Baker, who, to facilitate a Division, cuts
his Dough half through in those Places, where, when bak'd, he would have it
broken to Pieces.
III. These remote Provinces have perhaps been acquired,
purchas'd, or conquer'd, at the sole Expence of the Settlers or their
Ancestors, without the Aid of the Mother Country. If this should happen to
increase her Strength by their growing Numbers ready to join in her
Wars, her Commerce by their growing Demand for her Manufactures, or her
Naval Power by greater Employment for her Ships and Seamen, they may
probably suppose some Merit in this, and that it entitles them to some Favour;
you are therefore to forget it all, or resent it as if they had done you
Injury. If they happen to be zealous Whigs, Friends of Liberty, nurtur'd in
Revolution Principles, remember all that to their Prejudice, and
contrive to punish it: For such Principles, after a Revolution is thoroughly
established, are of no more Use, they are even odious and
abominable.
IV. However peaceably your Colonies have submitted to your
Government, shewn their Affection to your Interest, and patiently borne their
Grievances, you are to suppose them always inclined to revolt, and treat
them accordingly. Quarter Troops among them, who by their Insolence may
provoke the rising of Mobs, and by their Bullets and Bayonets
suppress them. By this Means, like the Husband who uses his Wife ill
from Suspicion, you may in Time convert your Suspicions into
Realities.
V. Remote Provinces must have Governors, and
Judges, to represent the Royal Person, and execute every where the
delegated Parts of his Office and Authority. You Ministers know, that much of
the Strength of Government depends on the Opinion of the People; and
much of that Opinion on the Choice of Rulers placed immediately over them. If
you send them wise and good Men for Governors, who study the Interest of the
Colonists, and advance their Prosperity, they will think their King wise and
good, and that he wishes the Welfare of his Subjects. If you send them learned
and upright Men for Judges, they will think him a Lover of Justice. This may
attach your Provinces more to his Government. You are therefore to be careful
who you recommend for those Offices. -- If you can find Prodigals who have
ruined their Fortunes, broken Gamesters or Stock-Jobbers, these may do well as
Governors; for they will probably be rapacious, and provoke the People
by their Extortions. Wrangling Proctors and petty-fogging Lawyers too are not
amiss, for they will be for ever disputing and quarrelling with their little
Parliaments. If withal they should be ignorant, wrong-headed and insolent, so
much the better. Attorneys Clerks and Newgate Solicitors will do for
Chief-Justices, especially if they hold their Places during your
Pleasure: -- And all will contribute to impress those ideas of your
Government that are proper for a People you would wish to renounce it.
VI. To confirm these Impressions, and strike them deeper,
whenever the Injured come to the Capital with Complaints of Mal-administration,
Oppression, or Injustice, punish such Suitors with long Delay, enormous
Expence, and a final Judgment in Favour of the Oppressor. This will have an
admirable Effect every Way. The Trouble of future Complaints will be prevented,
and Governors and Judges will be encouraged to farther Acts of Oppression and
Injustice; and thence the People may become more disaffected, and at length
desperate.
VII. When such Governors have crammed their Coffers, and made
themselves so odious to the People that they can no longer remain among them
with Safety to their Persons, recall and reward them with Pensions. You
may make them Baronets too, if that respectable Order should not think
fit to resent it. All will contribute to encourage new Governors in the same
Practices, and make the supreme Government detestable.
VIII. If when you are engaged in War, your Colonies should vie
in liberal Aids of Men and Money against the common Enemy, upon your simple
Requisition, and give far beyond their Abilities, reflect, that a Penny taken
from them by your Power is more honourable to you than a Pound presented by
their Benevolence. Despise therefore their voluntary Grants, and resolve to
harrass them with novel Taxes. They will probably complain to your Parliaments
that they are taxed by a Body in which they have no Representative, and that
this is contrary to common Right. They will petition for Redress. Let the
Parliaments flout their Claims, reject their Petitions, refuse even to suffer
the reading of them, and treat the Petitioners with the utmost Contempt.
Nothing can have a better Effect, in producing the Alienation proposed; for
though many can forgive Injuries, none ever forgave Contempt.
IX. In laying these Taxes, never regard the heavy Burthens
those remote People already undergo, in defending their own Frontiers,
supporting their own provincial Governments, making new Roads, building
Bridges, Churches and other public Edifices, which in old Countries have been
done to your Hands by your Ancestors, but which occasion constant Calls and
Demands on the Purses of a new People. Forget the Restraints you lay on
their Trade for your own Benefit, and the Advantage a Monopoly of
this Trade gives your exacting Merchants. Think nothing of the Wealth those
Merchants and your Manufacturers acquire by the Colony Commerce; their
encreased Ability thereby to pay Taxes at home; their accumulating, in the
Price of their Commodities, most of those Taxes, and so levying them from their
consuming Customers: All this, and the Employment and Support of Thousands of
your Poor by the Colonists, you are intirely to forget. But remember to
make your arbitrary Tax more grievous to your Provinces, by public Declarations
importing that your Power of taxing them has no Limits, so that when you
take from them without their Consent a Shilling in the Pound, you have a clear
Right to the other nineteen. This will probably weaken every Idea of
Security in their Property, and convince them that under such a
Government they have nothing they can call their own; which can scarce
fail of producing the happiest Consequences!
X. Possibly indeed some of them might still comfort themselves,
and say, `Though we have no Property, we have yet something left that is
valuable; we have constitutional Liberty both of Person and of
Conscience. This King, these Lords, and these Commons, who it seems are too
remote from us to know us and feel for us, cannot take from us our
Habeas Corpus Right, or our Right of Trial by a Jury of our
Neighbours: They cannot deprive us of the Exercise of our Religion, alter
our ecclesiastical Constitutions, and compel us to be Papists if they please,
or Mahometans.' To annihilate this Comfort, begin by Laws to perplex their
Commerce with infinite Regulations impossible to be remembered and observed;
ordain Seizures of their Property for every Failure; take away the Trial of
such Property by Jury, and give it to arbitrary Judges of your own appointing,
and of the lowest Characters in the Country, whose Salaries and Emoluments are
to arise out of the Duties or Condemnations, and whose Appointments are
during Pleasure. Then let there be a formal Declaration of both Houses,
that Opposition to your Edicts is Treason, and that Persons suspected of
Treason in the Provinces may, according to some obsolete Law, be seized and
sent to the Metropolis of the Empire for Trial; and pass an Act that those
there charged with certain other Offences shall be sent away in Chains from
their Friends and Country to be tried in the same Manner for Felony. Then erect
a new Court of Inquisition among them, accompanied by an armed Force, with
Instructions to transport all such suspected Persons, to be ruined by the
Expence if they bring over Evidences to prove their Innocence, or be found
guilty and hanged if they can't afford it. And lest the People should think you
cannot possibly go any farther, pass another solemn declaratory Act, that
`King, Lords, and Commons had, hath, and of Right ought to have, full Power and
Authority to make Statutes of sufficient Force and Validity to bind the
unrepresented Provinces IN ALL CASES WHATSOEVER.' This will include
spiritual with temporal; and taken together, must operate wonderfully to
your Purpose, by convincing them, that they are at present under a Power
something like that spoken of in the Scriptures, which can not only kill
their Bodies, but damn their Souls to all Eternity, by compelling
them, if it pleases, to worship the Devil.
XI. To make your Taxes more odious, and more likely to procure
Resistance, send from the Capital a Board of Officers to superintend the
Collection, composed of the most indiscreet, ill-bred and
insolent you can find. Let these have large Salaries out of the extorted
Revenue, and live in open grating Luxury upon the Sweat and Blood of the
Industrious, whom they are to worry continually with groundless and expensive
Prosecutions before the above-mentioned arbitrary Revenue-Judges, all at the
Cost of the Party prosecuted tho' acquitted, because the King is to pay
no Costs. -- Let these Men by your Order be exempted from all the
common Taxes and Burthens of the Province, though they and their Property are
protected by its Laws. If any Revenue Officers are suspected of the
least Tenderness for the People, discard them. If others are justly complained
of, protect and reward them. If any of the Under-officers behave so as to
provoke the People to drub them, promote those to better Offices: This will
encourage others to procure for themselves such profitable Drubbings, by
multiplying and enlarging such Provocations, and all with work towards the
End you aim at.
XII. Another Way to make your Tax odious, is to misapply the
Produce of it. If it was originally appropriated for the Defence of the
Provinces and the better Support of Government, and the Administration of
Justice where it may be necessary, then apply none of it to that
Defence, but bestow it where it is not necessary, in augmented
Salaries or Pensions to every Governor who has distinguished himself by his
Enmity to the People, and by calumniating them to their Sovereign. This will
make them pay it more unwillingly, and be more apt to quarrel with those that
collect it, and those that imposed it, who will quarrel again with them, and
all shall contribute to your main Purpose of making them weary of
your Government.
XIII. If the People of any Province have been accustomed to
support their own Governors and Judges to Satisfaction, you are to apprehend
that such Governors and Judges may be thereby influenced to treat the People
kindly, and to do them Justice. This is another Reason for applying Part of
that Revenue in larger Salaries to such Governors and Judges, given, as their
Commissions are, during your Pleasure only, forbidding them to take any
Salaries from their Provinces; that thus the People may no longer hope any
Kindness from their Governors, or (in Crown Cases) any Justice from their
Judges. And as the Money thus mis-applied in one Province is extorted from all,
probably all will resent the Mis-application.
XIV. If the Parliaments of your Provinces should dare to claim
Rights or complain of your Administration, order them to be harass'd with
repeated Dissolutions. If the same Men are continually return'd by new
Elections, adjourn their Meetings to some Country Village where they cannot be
accommodated, and there keep them during Pleasure; for this, you know,
is your PREROGATIVE; and an excellent one it is, as you may manage it, to
promote Discontents among the People, diminish their Respect, and increase
their Dis-affection.
XV. Convert the brave honest Officers of your Navy into pimping
Tide-waiters and Colony Officers of the Customs. Let those who in Time of War
fought gallantly in Defence of the Commerce of their Countrymen, in Peace be
taught to prey upon it. Let them learn to be corrupted by great and real
Smugglers, but (to shew their Diligence) scour with armed Boats every Bay,
Harbour, River, Creek, Cove or Nook throughout the Coast of your Colonies, stop
and detain every Coaster, every Wood-boat, every Fisherman, tumble their
Cargoes, and even their Ballast, inside out and upside down; and if a Penn'orth
of Pins is found un-entered, let the Whole be seized and confiscated. Thus
shall the Trade of your Colonists suffer more from their Friends in Time of
Peace, than it did from their Enemies in War. Then let these Boats Crews land
upon every Farm in their Way, rob the Orchards, steal the Pigs and Poultry, and
insult the Inhabitants. If the injured and exasperated Farmers, unable to
procure other Justice, should attack the Agressors, drub them and burn their
Boats, you are to call this High Treason and Rebellion, order
Fleets and Armies into their Country, and threaten to carry all the Offenders
three thousand Miles to be hang'd, drawn and quartered. O! this will work
admirably!
XVI. If you are told of Discontents in your Colonies, never
believe that they are general, or that you have given Occasion for them;
therefore do not think of applying any Remedy, or of changing any offensive
Measure. Redress no Grievance, lest they should be encouraged to demand the
Redress of some other Grievance. Grant no Request that is just and reasonable,
lest they should make another that is unreasonable. Take all your Informations
of the State of the Colonies from your Governors and Officers in Enmity with
them. Encourage and reward these Leasing-makers; secrete their lying
Accusations lest they should be confuted; but act upon them as the clearest
Evidence, and believe nothing you hear from the Friends of the People. Suppose
all their Complaints to be invented and promoted by a few factious
Demagogues, whom if you could catch and hang, all would be quiet. Catch and
hang a few of them accordingly; and the Blood of the Martyrs shall
work Miracles in favour of your Purpose.
XVII. If you see rival Nations rejoicing at the Prospect
of your Disunion with your Provinces, and endeavouring to promote it: If they
translate, publish and applaud all the Complaints of your discontented
Colonists, at the same Time privately stimulating you to severer Measures; let
not that alarm or offend you. Why should it? since you all mean the
same Thing.
XVIII. If any Colony should at their own Charge erect a
Fortress to secure their Port against the Fleets of a foreign Enemy, get your
Governor to betray that Fortress into your Hands. Never think of paying what it
cost the Country, for that would look, at least, like some Regard for
Justice; but turn it into a Citadel to awe the Inhabitants and curb their
Commerce. If they should have lodged in such Fortress the very Arms they bought
and used to aid you in your Conquests, seize them all, 'twill provoke like
Ingratitude added to Robbery. One admirable Effect of these
Operations will be, to discourage every other Colony from erecting such
Defences, and so their and your Enemies may more easily invade them, to the
great Disgrace of your Government, and of course the Furtherance of your
Project.
XIX. Send Armies into their Country under Pretence of
protecting the Inhabitants; but instead of garrisoning the Forts on their
Frontiers with those Troops, to prevent Incursions, demolish those Forts, and
order the Troops into the Heart of the Country, that the Savages may be
encouraged to attack the Frontiers, and that the Troops may be protected by the
Inhabitants: This will seem to proceed from your Ill will or your Ignorance,
and contribute farther to produce and strengthen an Opinion among them, that
you are no longer fit to govern them.
XX. Lastly, Invest the General of your Army in the Provinces
with great and unconstitutional Powers, and free him from the Controul of even
your own Civil Governors. Let him have Troops enow under his Command, with all
the Fortresses in his Possession; and who knows but (like some provincial
Generals in the Roman Empire, and encouraged by the universal Discontent you
have produced) he may take it into his Head to set up for himself. If he
should, and you have carefully practised these few excellent Rules of
mine, take my Word for it, all the Provinces will immediately join him, and you
will that Day (if you have not done it sooner) get rid of the Trouble of
governing them, and all the Plagues attending their Commerce and
Connection from thenceforth and for ever. Q. E. D.
The Public Advertiser, September 11, 1773
'Tis Never Too Late To Mend
To the Printer of the Public Advertiser.
SIR, I had the Pleasure to read in your Paper of Saturday last
some excellent Rules, by which a GREAT EMPIRE may be reduced to a small
One. They are drawn up in a fine Vein of Irony, which is admirably
supported throughout.
If the Ministry have any Sense of Shame remaining, they must
blush to see their Conduct with respect to America placed in such a striking
Point of Ridicule; and the ingenious Author is intitled to the Thanks both of
Great Britain and the Colonies for shewing the Absurdity and bad Policy of such
Conduct.
To be sensible of Error is one Step towards Amendment; -- no
Man is infallible; and MINISTERS are but Men; -- 'tis never too late to
mend, nor is it any Impeachment of our Understanding to confess that we have
been mistaken; for it implies that we are wiser To-day than we were the Day
before; and surely Individuals need not be ashamed publicly to
retract an Error, since the LEGISLATURE itself does it every Time that it
repeals one of its own Acts.
But though the Americans have long been oppressed, let them not
despair. The Administration of the Colonies is no longer in the Hands of a
Shelburne, a Clare, or a Hillsborough; -- thank Heaven
that Department is NOW entrusted to an ENGLISHMAN! Be it his
Glory to reverse those baneful and pernicious Measures which have too
long harrassed the Colonies, and have given such a Blow to the Credit,
the Commerce, and the NAVAL POWER of the Mother Country. I am, SIR, A
sincere Well-wisher to GREAT BRITAIN and her COLONIES.
The Public Advertiser, September 14, 1773
An Edict by the King of Prussia
For the Public Advertiser. The SUBJECT of the following
Article of FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE being exceeding EXTRAORDINARY, is the Reason of
its being separated from the usual Articles of Foreign News.
Dantzick, September 5. WE have long wondered here at the
Supineness of the English Nation, under the Prussian Impositions upon its Trade
entering our Port. We did not till lately know the Claims, antient and
modern, that hang over that Nation, and therefore could not suspect that it
might submit to those Impositions from a Sense of Duty, or from
Principles of Equity. The following Edict, just made public, may,
if serious, throw some Light upon this Matter.
`FREDERICK, by the Grace of God, King of Prussia,
&c. &c. &c. to all present and to come, HEALTH. The Peace now
enjoyed throughout our Dominions, having afforded us Leisure to apply ourselves
to the Regulation of Commerce, the Improvement of our Finances, and at the same
Time the easing our Domestic Subjects in their Taxes: For these Causes,
and other good Considerations us thereunto moving, We hereby make known, that
after having deliberated these Affairs in our Council, present our dear
Brothers, and other great Officers of the State, Members of the same, WE, of
our certain Knowledge, full Power and Authority Royal, have made and issued
this present Edict, viz.
`WHEREAS it is well known to all the World, that the first
German Settlements made in the Island of Britain, were by Colonies of
People, Subjects to our renowned Ducal Ancestors, and drawn from their
Dominions, under the Conduct of Hengist, Horsa, Hella,
Uffa, Cerdicus, Ida, and others; and that the said
Colonies have flourished under the Protection of our august House, for Ages
past, have never been emancipated therefrom, and yet have hitherto
yielded little Profit to the same. And whereas We Ourself have in the last War
fought for and defended the said Colonies against the Power of France,
and thereby enabled them to make Conquests from the said Power in
America, for which we have not yet received adequate Compensation. And
whereas it is just and expedient that a Revenue should be raised from the said
Colonies in Britain towards our Indemnification; and that those who are
Descendants of our antient Subjects, and thence still owe us due Obedience,
should contribute to the replenishing of our Royal Coffers, as they must have
done had their Ancestors remained in the Territories now to us appertaining: WE
do therefore hereby ordain and command, That from and after the Date of these
Presents, there shall be levied and paid to our Officers of the Customs, on all
Goods, Wares and Merchandizes, and on all Grain and other Produce of the Earth
exported from the said Island of Britain, and on all Goods of whatever
Kind imported into the same, a Duty of Four and an Half per Cent.
ad Valorem, for the Use of us and our Successors. -- And that the said
Duty may more effectually be collected, We do hereby ordain, that all Ships or
Vessels bound from Great Britain to any other Part of the World, or from
any other Part of the World to Great Britain, shall in their respective
Voyages touch at our Port of KONINGSBERG, there to be unladen, searched, and
charged with the said Duties.
`And WHEREAS there have been from Time to Time discovered in
the said Island of Great Britain by our Colonists there, many Mines or
Beds of Iron Stone; and sundry Subjects of our antient Dominion, skilful in
converting the said Stone into Metal, have in Times past transported themselves
thither, carrying with them and communicating that Art; and the Inhabitants of
the said Island, presuming that they had a natural Right to make the
best Use they could of the natural Productions of their Country for their own
Benefit, have not only built Furnaces for smelting the said Stone into Iron,
but have erected Plating Forges, Slitting Mills, and Steel Furnaces, for the
more convenient manufacturing of the same, thereby endangering a Diminution of
the said Manufacture in our antient Dominion. WE do therefore hereby
farther ordain, that from and after the Date hereof, no Mill or other Engine
for Slitting or Rolling of Iron, or any Plating Forge to work with a
Tilt-Hammer, or any Furnace for making Steel, shall be erected or continued in
the said Island of Great Britain: And the Lord Lieutenant of every
County in the said Island is hereby commanded, on Information of any such
Erection within his County, to order and by Force to cause the same to be
abated and destroyed, as he shall answer the Neglect thereof to Us at his
Peril. -- But We are nevertheless graciously pleased to permit the Inhabitants
of the said Island to transport their Iron into Prussia, there to be
manufactured, and to them returned, they paying our Prussian Subjects for the
Workmanship, with all the Costs of Commission, Freight and Risque coming and
returning, any Thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.
`WE do not however think fit to extend this our Indulgence to
the Article of Wool, but meaning to encourage not only the manufacturing
of woollen Cloth, but also the raising of Wool in our antient Dominions, and to
prevent both, as much as may be, in our said Island, We do hereby
absolutely forbid the Transportation of Wool from thence even to the Mother
Country Prussia; and that those Islanders may be farther and more
effectually restrained in making any Advantage of their own Wool in the Way of
Manufacture, We command that none shall be carried out of one County into
another, nor shall any Worsted-Bay, or Woollen-Yarn, Cloth, Says, Bays,
Kerseys, Serges, Frizes, Druggets, Cloth-Serges, Shalloons, or any other
Drapery Stuffs, or Woollen Manufactures whatsoever, made up or mixt with Wool
in any of the said Counties, be carried into any other County, or be
Water-borne even across the smallest River or Creek, on Penalty of Forfeiture
of the same, together with the Boats, Carriages, Horses, &c. that shall be
employed in removing them. Nevertheless Our loving Subjects there are
hereby permitted, (if they think proper) to use all their Wool as Manure for
the Improvement of their Lands.
`AND WHEREAS the Art and Mystery of making Hats hath
arrived at great Perfection in Prussia, and the making of Hats by our
remote Subjects ought to be as much as possible restrained. And forasmuch as
the Islanders before-mentioned, being in Possession of Wool, Beaver, and other
Furs, have presumptuously conceived they had a Right to make some
Advantage thereof, by manufacturing the same into Hats, to the Prejudice of our
domestic Manufacture, WE do therefore hereby strictly command and ordain, that
no Hats or Felts whatsoever, dyed or undyed, finished or unfinished, shall be
loaden or put into or upon any Vessel, Cart, Carriage or Horse, to be
transported or conveyed out of one County in the said Island into
another County, or to any other Place whatsoever, by any Person or
Persons whatsoever, on Pain of forfeiting the same, with a Penalty of Five
Hundred Pounds Sterling for every Offence. Nor shall any Hat-maker in any
of the said Counties employ more than two Apprentices, on Penalty of Five
Pounds Sterling per Month: We intending hereby that such Hat-makers, being
so restrained both in the Production and Sale of their Commodity, may find no
Advantage in continuing their Business. -- But lest the said Islanders should
suffer Inconveniency by the Want of Hats, We are farther graciously pleased to
permit them to send their Beaver Furs to Prussia; and We also permit
Hats made thereof to be exported from Prussia to Britain, the
People thus favoured to pay all Costs and Charges of Manufacturing, Interest,
Commission to Our Merchants, Insurance and Freight going and returning, as in
the Case of Iron.
`And lastly, Being willing farther to favour Our said
Colonies in Britain, We do hereby also ordain and command, that all the
Thieves, Highway and Street-Robbers, House-breakers, Forgerers, Murderers, So
------ tes, and Villains of every Denomination, who have forfeited their Lives
to the Law in Prussia, but whom We, in Our great Clemency, do not think
fit here to hang, shall be emptied out of our Gaols into the said Island of
Great Britain for the BETTER PEOPLING of that Country.
`We flatter Ourselves that these Our Royal Regulations and
Commands will be thought just and reasonable by Our much-favoured
Colonists in England, the said Regulations being copied from their own
Statutes of 10 and 11 Will. III. C. 10. -- 5 Geo. II. C. 22. -- 23 Geo. II. C.
29. -- 4 Geo. I. C. 11. and from other equitable Laws made by their
Parliaments, or from Instructions given by their Princes, or from Resolutions
of both Houses entered into for the GOOD Government of their own
Colonies in Ireland and America.
`And all Persons in the said Island are hereby cautioned not
to oppose in any wise the Execution of this Our Edict, or any Part thereof,
such Opposition being HIGH TREASON, of which all who are suspected shall
be transported in Fetters from Britain to Prussia, there to be
tried and executed according to the Prussian Law. `Such is our Pleasure.
`Given at Potsdam this twenty-fifth Day of the Month of August, One
Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-three, and in the Thirty-third Year of our
Reign. `By the KING in his Council. `RECHTMAESSIG, Secr.'
Some take this Edict to be merely one of the King's Jeux
d'Esprit: Others suppose it serious, and that he means a Quarrel with
England: But all here think the Assertion it concludes with, "that these
Regulations are copied from Acts of the English Parliament respecting their
Colonies," a very injurious one: it being impossible to believe, that a
People distinguished for their Love of Liberty, a Nation so wise,
so liberal in its Sentiments, so just and equitable towards its
Neighbours, should, from mean and injudicious Views of petty
immediate Profit, treat its own Children in a Manner so
arbitrary and TYRANNICAL!
The Public Advertiser, September 22, 1773
A Chimney-Sweeper's Logic
To the Printer of the Publick Advertizer
Sir D.E.Q. that is Sir F. Bernard in his long labour'd, and
special dull Answer to Q.E.D. endeavours to persuade the King, that as he was
his Majesty's Representative, there was a great Similitude in their Characters
and Conduct, and that Sir: F.'s Enemies are Enemies of his Majesty and
of all Government.
This puts one in mind of the Chimney-sweeper condemn'd to be
hang'd for Theft, who being charitably visited by a good Clergyman for whom he
had work'd, said, I hope your Honour will take my part, and get a Reprieve
for me, and not let my Enemies have their Will; because it is upon your Account
that they have prosecuted and sworn against me. On my Account! How can that
be? Why, Sir, because as how, ever since they knew I was employ'd by your
Honour, they resolv'd upon my Ruin: for they are Enemies to all Religion; and
they hate you and me and every body in black. Z.Z.
after October 30, 1773
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