CORRESPONDENCE. Franklin to Thomson,* Secretary of Congress. LONDON, February 5, 1775. DEAR SIR: I received duly your favours of November 1, by Captain Falconer, and afterwards that of October 26, both inclosing the letter from the Congress and the petition to the king. Immediately on receipt of the first I wrote to every one of the other gentlemen nominated and desired a meeting to consult on the mode of presenting the petition committed to our care. Three of them, viz: Mr. Burke, Mr. Wentworth, and Mr. Life declined being concerned in it, and without consulting each other gave the same reason, viz: That they had no instruc tions relating to it from their constituents. Mr. Garth was out of town; so it rested on Mr. Bollan, Mr. Lee, and myself.§ We took council with our best friends and were advised to present it through Lord Dartmouth, that being the regular official method and the only one in which we might on occasion call for an answer. We accordingly waited on his lordship with it, who would not immediately undertake to deliver it, but requested that it might be left with him to peruse, which was done. He found nothing in it improper for him to present, and afterwards sending for us he informed us that he had presented the petition to his majesty, who had been pleased to receive it very graciously and to command him to tell us it contained matters of such importance that as soon as they met he would lay it before his two houses of Parliament. We then consulted on the publication and were advised by wise and able men, friends of America whose names it will not be proper to mention, by no means to publish it till it should be before Parliament, as it would be deemed disrespectful to the king. We flattered ourselves from the answer given by Lord D————— that the king would have been pleased to recommend it to the consideration of Parliament by some message, but we were mistaken. It came down among a great heap of letters of intelligence from governors and officers * Collections of the New York Historical Society (1878), p. 25; 5 Bigelow's Frank lin, 427. + See Introduction, § 208. At the time agent for Maryland. § As to Lord North's contemptuous opinion of this petition, see 1 Hutchinson's Diary, 330; "Mr. Lee" is Arthur Lee, see index, Arthur Lee, 3 |