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492]
A duel followed between
Temple and
Whately,
without witnesses; then newspaper altercations on the incidents of the meeting; till another duel seemed likely to ensue.
Cushing, the timid Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly, to whom the letters had been officially transmitted, begged that he might not be known as having received them, lest it should be ‘a damage’ to him; the Member of Parliament, who had had them in his possession, never permitted himself to be named;
Temple, who risked offices producing a thousand pounds a year, publicly denied ‘any concern in procuring or transmitting them.’
To prevent bloodshed,
Franklin assumed the undivided responsibility, from which every one else was disposed to shrink.
‘I,’ said he, ‘I alone am the person who obtained and transmitted to
Boston the letters in question.’
1 His ingenuousness exposed him to ‘unmerited abuse’ in every company and in every newspaper, and gave his enemies an opening to reject publicly the Petition; which otherwise would have been dismissed without parade.
2
On Tuesday the eleventh of January,
Franklin for
Massachusetts, and
Mauduit, with
Wedderburn, for
Hutchinson and
Oliver, appeared before the Privy Council. ‘I thought,’ said
Franklin, ‘that this had been a matter of politics, and not of law, and have not brought any counsel.’
The hearing was, therefore, adjourned to Saturday the twenty-ninth.
Meantime the Ministry and the courtiers expressed their