The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 5. Бенджамин Франклин
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think from his account that the provinces were so many colonies from Newgate. The truth is, not only Laud’s persecution, but the other public troubles in the following reigns, induced many thousand families to leave England and settle in the plantations. During the predominance of the Parliament many Royalists removed or were banished to Virginia and Barbadoes, who afterwards spread into other settlements. The Catholics sheltered themselves in Maryland. At the Restoration many of the deprived non-conformist ministers, with their families, friends, and hearers, went over. Towards the end of Charles the Second’s reign, and during James the Second’s, the dissenters again flocked into America, driven by persecution, and dreading the introduction at home. Then the high price or reward of labour in the colonies and want of artisans there drew over many, as well as the occasion of commerce; and when once people begin to migrate, every one has his little sphere of acquaintance and connections, which he draws after him by invitation, motives of interest, praising his new settlement, and other encouragements. The “most substantial men” are descendants of those early settlers, new comers not having yet had time to raise estates. The practice of sending convicts thither is modern; and the same indolence of temper and habits of idleness that make people poor and tempt them to steal in England continue with them when they are sent to America, and must there have the same effects, where all who live well owe their subsistence to labour and business, and where it is a thousand times more difficult than here to acquire wealth without industry. Hence the instances of transported thieves advancing their fortunes in the colonies are extremely rare; if there really is a single instance of it, which I very much doubt; but of their being advanced there to the gallows the instances are plenty. Might they not as well have been hanged at home? We call Britain the mother country; but what good mother would introduce thieves and criminals into the company of her children to corrupt and disgrace them? And how cruel is it to force, by the high hand of power, a particular country of your subjects, who have not deserved such usage, to receive your outcasts, repealing all the laws they make to prevent their admission, and then reproach them with the detested mixture you have made! “Their emptying their jails into our settlements,” says a writer of that country, “is an insult and contempt, the cruellest perhaps that ever one people offered to another, and would not be equalled even by emptying their jakes on tables.”
The letter I have been considering, Mr. Chronicle, is followed by another in your paper of Tuesday, the 17th, past, said to be from an officer who attended Brigadier-General Forbes, in his march from Philadelphia to Fort Du Quesne, but written probably by the same gentleman who wrote the former, as it seems calculated to raise the character of the officers of the certain northern latitude, at the expense of the reputation of the colonies and the provincial forces. According to this letter-writer, if the Pennsylvanians granted large supplies and raised a great body of troops for the last campaign, this was not on account of Mr. Pitt’s zeal for the king’s service, or even a regard for their own safety; but it was owing to the “general’s proper management of the Quakers and other parties in the province.” The withdrawing the Indians from the French interest, by negotiating a peace, is all ascribed to the general, and not a word said of the honour of the poor Quakers, who first set these negotiations on foot, or of honest Frederick Post, that completed them with so much ability and success. Even the little merit of the Assembly’s making a law to regulate carriages is imputed to the general’s “multitude of letters.” Then he tells us “innumerable scouting parties had been sent out during a long period, both by the general and Colonel Bouquet, towards Fort Du Quesne, to catch a prisoner, if possible, for intelligence, but never got any.” How happened that? Why, “it was the provincial troops that were constantly employed in that service,” and they, it seems, never do any thing they are ordered to do. That, however, one would think might be easily remedied, by sending regulars with them, who, of course, must command them, and may see that they do their duty. No; the regulars are afraid of being shot by the provincials in a panic. Then send all regulars. Aye; that was what the colonel resolved upon. “Intelligence was now wanted [says the letter-writer]; Col. Bouquet, whose attention to business was [only] very considerable [that is, not quite so great as the general’s for he was not of the northern latitude], was determined to send no more provincials a-scouting.” And how did he execute his determination? Why, by sending “Major Grant, of the Highlanders, with seven hundred men, three hundred of them Highlanders, the rest Americans, Virginians, and Pennsylvanians.” No blunder this in our writer, but a misfortune; and he is, nevertheless, one of those “acute sharp” men who are “fit for learning.” And how did this major and seven hundred men succeed in catching the prisoner? Why, their “march to Fort Du Quesne was so conducted the surprise was complete.” Perhaps you may imagine, gentle reader, that this was a surprise of the enemy. No such matter. They knew every step of his motions, and had, every man of them, left their fires and huts in the fields, and retired into the fort. But the major and his seven hundred men, they were surprised,—first to find nobody there at night, and next to find themselves surrounded and cut to pieces in the morning, two or three hundred being killed, drowned, or taken prisoners, and among the latter the major himself. Those who escaped were also surprised at their own good fortune; and the whole army was surprised at the major’s bad management. Thus the surprise was indeed complete, but not the disgrace; for provincials were there to lay the blame on. The misfortune (we must not call it misconduct) of the major was owing, it seems, to an unnamed and, perhaps, unknown provincial officer, who, it is said, “disobeyed his orders and quitted his post.” Whence a formal conclusion is drawn, “that a planter is not to be taken from the plough and made an officer on a day.” Unhappy provincials! If success attends where you are joined with the regulars, they claim all the honour, though not a tenth part of your number. If disgrace, it is all yours, though you happen to be a small part of the whole, and have not the command; as if regulars were in their nature invincible when not mixed with provincials, and provincials of no kind of value without regulars. Happy is it for you that you were neither present at Prestonpans nor Falkirk, at the faint attempt against Rochfort, the rout of St. Cas, or the hasty retreat from Martinico. Every thing that went wrong, or did not go right, would have been ascribed to you. Our commanders would have been saved the labour of writing long apologies for their conduct. It might have been sufficient to say, provincials were with us.
A New Englandman.
May 9, 1769.
CCCLX. TO MISS MARY STEVENSON
Tuesday Morning, 27 June, 1769.
Dear Polly:—
Agreeably to your orders, delivered to me very punctually by Temple, I return you enclosed, Voltaire’s verses. The translation I think full as good as the original. Remember that I am to have them again.
I take this opportunity to send you, also, a late paper, containing a melancholy account of the distresses of some seamen. You will observe in it the advantages they received from wearing their clothes constantly wet with salt water, under the total want of fresh water to drink. You may remember I recommended this practice many years ago. Do you know Dr. Len, and did you communicate it to him? I fancy his name is wrong spelt in this paper, and that it should be Lind, having seen in the Review some extracts from a book on sea diseases, published within these two or three years, by one Dr. Lind; but I have not seen the book, and know not whether such a passage be in it.
I need not point out to you an observation in favor of our doctrine, that you will make on reading this paper, that, having little to eat, these poor people in wet clothes day and night caught no cold.
My respects to your aunt, and love to all that love you. Yours affectionately,
B. Franklin.
CCCLXI. TO THE COMMITTEE OF MERCHANTS IN PHILADELPHIA
London, 9 July, 1769.
Gentlemen:—
I received yours of the 18th of April enclosing copies of the articles of your agreements with respect to importation, and of your letter to the merchants here. The letter was published, and universally spoken well of, as a well-written, sensible, manly, and spirited performance; and I believe the publication