previous next
‘ [238] inviolable secrecy. A plan which shall be applicable
Chap. XXXVIII} 1768. Nov.
to every circumstance of change, should be concerted in advance with Spain.’1

At the same time Du Chatelet gave the utmost attention to the subject of intercolonial commerce; and succeeded in obtaining the opinions of all the American Agents, particularly of Franklin. And Franklin, whom he described as ‘one of the most upright and enlightened men that ever came from that part of the world, one of the wisest and most sagacious that could be found in any country,’ agreed in the exact correctness of the memoir which had been prepared under the eye of Choiseul.2

The Agents had repeatedly but separately waited

Dec.
on Lord Hillsborough. On the sixth of December, he met them in a body, to communicate the result of a Cabinet Council. ‘Administration,’ said he, ‘will enforce the authority of the Legislature of Great Britain over the Colonies in the most effectual manner, but with moderation and lenity.3 All the Petitions we have received are very offensive, for they contain a denial of the authority of Parliament. We have no fondness for the acts complained of; particularly, the late Duty Act is so anti-commercial, that I wish it had never existed; and it would certainly have been repealed, had the Colonies said nothing about it, or petitioned against it only on the ground of its expediency; but the principle you proceed upon extends to all laws; and we cannot, therefore, think of repealing it at least this session of Parliament, ’

1 Du Chatelet to the Duke de Choiseul, 18 Nov. 1768.

2 Du Chatelet to Choiseul, 18 Nov. 1768. Compare Franklin's Writings, VII. 357.

3 W. S. Johnson to the Governor of Connecticut, 3 January, 1769.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
England (United Kingdom) (1)
Connecticut (Connecticut, United States) (1)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Du Chatelet (3)
W. Franklin (2)
Due Choiseul (2)
William Samuel Johnson (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
November 18th, 1768 AD (2)
January 3rd, 1769 AD (1)
1768 AD (1)
December 6th (1)
December (1)
November (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: