The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 5. Бенджамин Франклин

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СКАЧАТЬ sends the things in a bandbox directed to you. A new-fashioned something, that was not ready when the box was packed up, is enclosed in her letter.

      I am now grown too old to be ambitious of such a station as that which you say has been mentioned to you. Repose is more fit for me, and much more suitable to my wishes. There is no danger of such a thing being offered to me, and I am sure I shall never ask it. But if it were offered, I certainly could not accept it, to act under such instructions as I know must be given with it. So you may be quite easy on that head. ^{Ref. 031}

      The account you write of the growing industry, frugality, and good sense of my countrywomen gives me more pleasure than you can imagine; for from thence I presage great advantages to our country. I should be sorry that you are engaged in a business which happens not to coincide with the general interest, if you did not acquaint me that you are now near the end of it.

       B. Franklin.

      CCCLXIX: TO THE LONDON CHRONICLE ^{Ref. 032}

      

       Mr. Chronicle:

      Sir:—

      While the public attention is so much turned towards America, every letter from thence that promises new information, is pretty generally read. It seems, therefore, the more necessary that care should be taken to disabuse the public, when those letters contain facts false in themselves, and representations injurious to bodies of people, or even to private persons.

      In your paper, No. 310, I found an extract of a letter, said to be from a gentleman in General Abercrombie’s army. As there are several strokes in it tending to render the colonies despicable, and even odious, to the mother country, which may have ill consequences, and no notice having been taken of the injuries contained in that letter, other letters of the same nature have since been published; permit me to make a few observations on it.

      The writer says: “New England was settled by Presbyterians and Independents, who took shelter there from the persecutions of Archbishop Laud; they still retain their original character; they generally hate the Church of England,” says he. It is very true that if some resentment still remained for the hardships their fathers suffered, it might perhaps be not much wondered at; but the fact is, that the moderation of the present Church of England towards dissenters in Old as well as New England, had quite effaced those impressions; the dissenters, too, are become less rigid and scrupulous, and the good-will between those different bodies in that country is now both mutual and equal.

      He goes on: “They came out with a levelling spirit, and they retain it. They cannot bear to think that one man should be exorbitantly rich, and another poor; so that, except in the seaport towns, there are few great estates among them. This equality produces also a rusticity of manners; for their language, dress, and in all their behaviour, they are more boorish than any thing you ever saw in a certain northern latitude.” One would imagine, from this account, that those who were growing poor plundered those who were growing rich, to preserve this equality, and that property had no protection; whereas, in fact, it is nowhere more secure than in the New England colonies; the law is nowhere better executed, or justice obtained at less expense. The equality he speaks of arises first from a more equal distribution of lands by the assemblies in the first settlement than has been practised in the other colonies, where favourites of governors have obtained enormous tracts for trifling considerations, to the prejudice both of the crown revenues and the public good; and secondly, from the nature of their occupation; husbandmen with small tracts of land, though they may by industry maintain themselves and families in mediocrity, having few means of acquiring great wealth, especially in a young colony that is to be supplied with its clothing and many other expensive articles of consumption from the mother country. Their dress the gentleman may be a more critical judge of than I can pretend to be; all I know of it is, that they wear the manufacture of Britain, and follow its fashions perhaps too closely, every remarkable change in the mode making its appearance there within a few months after its invention here; a natural effect of their constant intercourse with England, by ships arriving almost every week from the capital, their respect for the mother country, and admiration of every thing that is British. But as to their language, I must beg this gentleman’s pardon, if I differ from him. His ear, accustomed perhaps to the dialect practised in the certain northern latitude he mentions may not be qualified to judge so nicely what relates to pure English. And I appeal to all Englishmen here, who have been acquainted with the colonists, whether it is not a common remark, that they speak the language with such an exactness both of expression and accent, that though you may know the natives of several of the counties of England, by peculiarities in their dialect, you cannot by that means distinguish a North American. All the new books and pamphlets worth reading, that are published here, in a few weeks are transmitted and found there, where there is not a man or woman born in the country but what can read; and it must, I think, be a pleasing reflection to those who write either for the benefit of the present age or of posterity, to find their audience increasing with the increase of our colonies, and their language extending itself beyond the narrow bounds of these islands, to a continent larger than all Europe, and to future empire as fully peopled, which Britain may one day probably possess in those vast western regions.

      But the gentleman makes more injurious comparisons than these:

      “That latitude,” he says, “has this advantage over them, that it has produced sharp, acute men, fit for war or learning, whereas the others are remarkably simple, or silly, and blunder eternally. We have six thousand of their militia, which the general would willingly exchange for two thousand regulars. They are forever marring some one or other of our plans, when sent to execute them. They can, indeed, some of them at least, range in the woods; but three hundred Indians with their yell throw three thousand of them in a panic, and then they will leave nothing for the enemy to do, for they will shoot one another; and in the woods our regulars are afraid to be on a command with them on that very account.” I doubt, Mr. Chronicle, that this paragraph, when it comes to be read in America, will have no good effect; and rather increase that inconvenient disgust which is too apt to arise between the troops of different corps, or countries, who are obliged to serve together. Will not a New England officer be apt to retort and say, what foundation have you for this odious distinction in favour of the officers from your certain northern latitude? They may, as you say, be fit for learning; but, surely, that return of your first general, with a well-appointed and sufficient force, from his expedition against Louisbourg, without so much as seeing the place, is not the most shining proof of his talents for war. And no one will say his plan was marred by us, for we were not with him. Was his successor who conducted the blundering attack, and inglorious retreat from Ticonderoga, a New England man, or one of that certain latitude? Then as to the comparison between regulars and provincials, will not the latter remark that it was two thousand New England provincials, with about one hundred and fifty regulars that took the strong fort of Beaudejour in the beginning of the war; though in the accounts transmitted to the English gazette, the honor was claimed by the regulars, and little or no notice taken of the others. That it was the provincials who beat General Dieskau with his regulars, Canadians, and “yelling Indians,” and sent him prisoner to England. That it was a provincial-born officer, with American batteaux-men, that beat the French and Indians on Oswego River. That it was the same officer, with provincials, who made that long and admirable march into the enemy’s country, took and destroyed Fort Frontenac, with the whole French fleet on the lakes, and struck terror into the heart of Canada. That it was a provincial officer, with provincials only, who made another extraordinary march into the enemy’s country, surprised and destroyed the Indian town of Kittanning, bringing off the scalps of their chiefs. That one ranging captain of a few provincials, Rogers, has harassed the enemy more on the frontiers of Canada, and destroyed more of their men, than the whole army of regulars. That it was the regulars who surrendered themselves, with the provincials under their command, prisoners of war, almost as soon as they were besieged, with the forts, fleets, and СКАЧАТЬ