Part 14 (1/2)
When they were seated before the grate fire in the large, pleasant room above stairs whose windows looked out upon the Square, the young man said:
”First I shall give you, sir, a letter from Major Was.h.i.+ngton. It was entrusted to a friend of mine who came on the same s.h.i.+p with me. He was arrested at Deal but, fortunately, the letter was in my pocket.”
”Arrested? Why?”
”I think, sir, the charge was that he had helped to tar and feather a British subject.”
”Feathers and tar are poor arguments,” the Doctor remarked as he broke the seal of the letter.
It was a long letter and Franklin sat for near half an hour thoughtfully reading and rereading it. By and by he folded and put it into his pocket, saying as he did so: ”An angry man can not even trust himself. I sent some letters to America on condition that they should be read by a committee of good men and treated in absolute confidence and returned to me. Certain members of that committee had so much gun powder in their hearts it took fire and their prudence and my reputation have been seriously damaged, I fear. The contents of those letters are now probably known to you.”
”Are they the Hutchinson, Rogers and Oliver letters?”
”The same.”
”I think they are known to every one in America that reads. We were indignant that these men born and raised among us should have said that a colony ought not to enjoy all the liberties of a parent state and that we should be subjected to coercive measures. They had expressed no such opinion save in these private letters. It looked like a base effort to curry favor with the English government.”
”Yes, they were overworking the curry comb,” said Franklin. ”I had been protesting against an armed force in Boston. The government declared that our own best people were in favor of it. I, knowing better, denied the statement. To prove their claim a distinguished baronet put the letters in my hands. He gave me leave to send them to America on condition that they should not be published. Of course they proved nothing but the treachery of Hutchinson, Rogers and Oliver. Now I seem to be tarred by the same stick.”
Jack delivered sundry letters from the family of the great man who read them carefully.
”It's good to hear from home,” he said when he had finished. ”You've heard of the three Greenlanders, off the rocks and ice where there was not dirt enough to raise a bushel of cabbages or light enough for half the year to make a shadow, who having seen the world and its splendors said it was interesting, but that they would prefer to live at home?”
”These days America is an unhappy land,” said Jack. ”We are like a wildcat in captivity--a growling, quarrelsome lot.”
”Well, the British use the right to govern us like a baby rattle and they find us a poor toy. This petty island, compared with America, is but a stepping stone in a brook. There's scarcely enough of it out of water to keep one's feet dry. In two generations our population will exceed that of the British Isles. But with so many lying agents over there what chance have they to learn anything about us? They will expect to hear you tell of people being tomahawked in Philadelphia--a city as well governed as any in England. They can not understand that most of us would gladly spend nineteen s.h.i.+llings to the pound for the right to spend the other s.h.i.+lling as we please.”
”Can they not be made to understand us?” Jack inquired.
”The power to learn is like your hand--you must use it or it will wither and die. There are brilliant intellects here which have lost the capacity to learn. I think that profound knowledge is not for high heads.”
”I wonder just what you mean.”
”Oh, the moment you lose humility, you stop learning,” the Doctor went on. ”There are two doors to every intellect. One lets knowledge in, the other lets it out. We must keep both doors in use. The mind is like a purse: if you keep paying out money, you must, now and then, put some into your purse or it will be empty. I once knew a man who was a liberal spender but never did any earning. We soon found that he had been making counterfeit money. The King's intellects have often put me in mind of him. They are flush with knowledge but they never learn anything. They can tell you all you may want to know but it is counterfeit knowledge.”
”How about Lord North?”
”He has nailed up the door. The African zebra is a good student compared to him. It is a maxim of Walpole and North that all men are equally corrupt.”
”It is a hateful notion!” Jack exclaimed.
”But not without some warrant. You may be sure that a man who has spent his life in hospitals will have no high opinion of the health of mankind. He and his friends are so engrossed by their cards and c.o.c.k fights and horses and hounds that they have little time for such a trivial matter as the problems of America. They postpone their consideration and meanwhile the house is catching fire. By and by these boys are going to get burned. They think us a lot of semi-savages not to be taken seriously. Our New England farmers are supposed to be like the peasants of Europe. The fact is, our average farmer is a man of better intellect and character than the average member of Parliament.”
”The King's intellects would seem to be out of order,” said Jack.
”And too cynical. They think only of revenues. They remind me of the report of the Reverend Commissary Blair who, having projected a college in Virginia, came to England to ask King William for help. The Queen in the King's absence ordered her Attorney-General to draw a charter with a grant of two thousand pounds. The Attorney opposed it on the ground that they were in a war and needed the money for better purposes.
”'But, Your Honor, Virginia is in great need of ministers,' said the commissary. 'It has souls to be saved.'
”'Souls--d.a.m.n your souls! Make tobacco,' said the Queen's lawyer.
”The counselors of royalty have no high opinion of souls or principles.