116 ROSEN GARTEN — FRANKLIN'S BAGATELLES. [May 17, 



your treasures & waste the blood of your Countrymen in vain will they 

 not deliver you weak & defenceless to your natural enemies. 



You must know this is not the first time that the Serpent has been 

 whispering into my ear, Tax America. Cost what it will, make them your 

 heavers of wood & drawers of water. Let them feel that your little 

 finger is thicker than the loins of all your ancestors. But I was wiser 

 than all that, I sent to L d Rockingham & the advice that he gave me 

 was this, not to burn my fingers in the business, that it was ten to one 

 against our making any hand of it at all, that they were not worth 

 shearing & at best that we sh d raise a cursed outcry & get but little 

 wool. I shall remember his last advice to me as long as I live. Speak 

 good words to them and they will be thy servants for ever. 



And now my Lords and Gentlemen 



I have stated the whole matter fairly & squarely before you. It is 



your own business, and if you are not content as you are, look to the 



rest for yourselves. But if I were to give you a word of advice it 



should be to remind you of the Italian epitaph upon a poor fool that 



kill'd himself with quacking 



Stava ben, fior star meglio, sto qui. 



that is to say. I was well, I would be better, I took Physick and died. 



Unsigned. 



Marked on the reverse side of the last sheet : 



D. Hartley. 



October 3, '86. 



The Franklin Papers, Vol. 44, No. 12. 



My dearest sir : 



I am sure I shall tell you something which you will have no pleasure 

 in repeating again, when I inform you that L d Chatham is very ill 

 indeed. Alarming symptoms have appeared, and no likelyhood of his 

 getting rid of them, as he grows weaker every day. This intelligence 

 is fresh from Hayes, where he now is. As I am afraid this great man 

 is dying, I think it proper to give you what I recollected in his short 

 speech on the 7th of April ; for short it was, and appeared as the mere 

 throwing down of the gauntlet ; reserving himself wholly for reply to 

 the Duke of Richmond. He said, he 



" Was ill, but glad he was not in his grave when he heard of giving 

 independence. The counsel dastardly and pusillanimous. Was there 

 no middle way ? Could not be said, while country ruined by unretracted 

 error. Was not then for making a rod to whip our own backs. 



" Would never put his hands to the back of bonds for signing away 

 America ; or call princes to the Committee. America their birthright : 

 it was once here : under a prince of house of Brunswick, how came it 

 gone ? Feared there was something rotten near the throne ; yet did not 

 mean ministers places. 



