xxvn DJtCLAKATlU^ UF IJNJJiLi'.bJNJJiiJNL.h, 345 



Howe, were to act as commissioners to treat with the 

 colonists. Once more the ministry tried to combine the 

 use of force with conciliation ; but the latter was only half- 

 hearted. Lord Howe was, as we have seen, Franklin's 

 friend, and neither of the brothers approved of the British 

 policy towards America. Fothergill and Barclay had 

 strong hopes of his success as a peacemaker, and the latter 

 wrote on their joint behalf on March 31 to Franklin, telling 

 him that Howe continued as respectable a character as 

 when they last parted, and that it would not be for want 

 of inclination in him if the olive branch did not flourish. 1 

 But Franklin had now gone far on the path of revolution. 

 By the time Howe arrived off Sandy Hook on July 12, 

 the Declaration of Independence had been signed ; 

 Franklin met his overtures of " pardon upon submission " 

 with scorn, and there was nothing left for Black Dick, 

 as his sailors called him, to do under his instructions but 

 to prosecute the war. This he did, and did it ably, yet 

 he can have had little heart in it, for he begged in the 

 following year to be recalled, and gladly gave up his 

 charge in 1778. 



Separation had become inevitable. The famous pam- 

 phlet of Price on civil liberty had come out in February 

 1776, and spread like wildfire : its author received the 

 Freedom of the City of London. The Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence, July 4, received no Quaker signatures. The 

 Friends would not acknowledge the revolutionary govern- 

 ment which was set up, nor serve under it in any capacity, 

 either as electors or elected : they would pay no taxes 

 nor handle its money. There is little doubt that it 

 would have been better had they taken Fothergill' s 

 advice, and recognised a de facto government as the 

 authority to which they might rightly bow, distinguishing 

 between the claims of war and the demands of a state. 

 As it was they were classed as dangerous Tories, obnoxious 

 to the community. Many, however, of their younger men 



1 MS. Letter, Amer. Philos. Soc., printed in Some Letters of Franklin's Cor- 

 respondents, 1903, p. 25. See also Letter, J. F. to J. Pemberton, 3o.iv.i776, 

 Etting MSS. 



