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WiraOWINGS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 
 
 REVOLUTIONARY BROADSIDES. 
 No. II. 
 
WINNOWINGS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. 
 
 REVOLUTIONARY BROADSIDES. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 250 copies printed. 
 
An Address to the Good Peo- 
 ple of Ireland, on behalf of 
 America, October 4th, 1778. 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 PAUL LEICESTER FORD. 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y. : 
 
 Historical Printing Clui;. 
 
 1891. 
 
3,7 S 790. 
 
 ^. 
 
 vi 
 
NOTE. 
 
 In 1778, when the dissatisfaction of 
 Ireland with the English system of 
 restrictive commerce and manufactures 
 was assuming serious proportions, 
 Franklin, with his natural shrewdness, 
 endeavored to turn it to America's 
 advantage. In the following address 
 he pointed out that the United Colonies 
 were not merely fighting for constitu- 
 tional, but for commercial liberty as 
 well, and that it was the interest of the 
 Irish to make common cause with the 
 Americans. 
 
 This address was probably printed 
 on Franklin's private press at Passy, 
 and a large number of the broadside 
 were put on board a Dutch smuggler, 
 (i. e. French) at Brest to carry to Ireland. 
 5 
 
Here they were discovered by an En- 
 glish privateer, whose commander de- 
 livered them to the captain of His 
 Majest)^'s ship the Portland, by whom 
 they were forwarded to the Lords of 
 the Admiralty. They thus became 
 part of the files of the Admiralty office, 
 being transferred with these to the 
 Public Record office. 
 
 This address has hitherto escaped 
 notice, and is not printed in any of 
 the editions of Franklin's works. 
 Though the conditions have some- 
 what changed from the time when we 
 needed help from this source, it is 
 nevertheless of interest and historic 
 value. 
 
 Paul Leicester Ford. 
 
 97 Clark Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
TO TIE GOOD PEOPLE OF IRELAND, 
 
 The misery and distress which your 
 ill-fated country has been so frequently 
 exposed to, and has so often expe- 
 rienced, by such a combination of 
 rapine, treachery and violence, as 
 ■would have disgraced the name of 
 government in the most arbitrary 
 country in the world, has most sin- 
 cerely affected your friends in America, 
 and has engaged the most serious at- 
 tention of Congress ; the Ministry of 
 Britain have seen the extreme mean- 
 ness and folly of the attempt to estab- 
 lish a supreme authority in Parliament, 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 as their venal scribblers had endeav- 
 oured to define it, exempt from 
 question and controul, appeal or re- 
 striction ; but it is evident to all the 
 world, that such doctrine is incompa- 
 tible with every idea of a civil consti- 
 tution ; for all compacts, bills of right, 
 nay, the solemn obligation of their 
 King to govern according to the 
 statutes in Parliament agreed on, and 
 the laws and customs of the same, 
 would have been all nugatory trum- 
 pery, were such a supremacy admitted • 
 for this supreme authority, having no 
 rule or law to direct its operations, or 
 limit its power, it must necessarily 
 become arbitrary and absolute ; for 
 ceasing to be a government by force, 
 and it will appear fully evident that 
 
9 
 
 this unnatural war, in which we have 
 been unavoidably engaged, has been 
 begun and supported for no other 
 purpose than to establish this supreme 
 or arbitrary power, for they are in- 
 dividually the same; nor is it in the 
 power of sophistry to draw a line 
 of separation; the flimsy and con- 
 tradictory speech of Lord North, 
 introductory to his conciliatory mot- 
 tion, furnishes the fullest convic- 
 tion on this point. He says, ''before 
 the war broke out he offered a con- 
 ciliatory proposition. The ground 
 upon which he made it was, that it 
 was just the colonies should contiibute 
 to the support of government." And 
 almost in the same breath he says, 
 " he thought it necessary to shew the 
 
10 
 
 colonies we were not fighting for tax- 
 ation, for he never thought taxation 
 would be beneficial to us." He further 
 says, **he never proposed any tax; his 
 maxim was to say nothing about 
 America, neither to propose or repeal 
 laws, neither to advance nor recede, 
 but to remain in total silence." His 
 Lordship, I hope, will excuse me, if I 
 presume to look beyond the acknow- 
 ledged indolence of his disposition, to 
 explain the stupor of a first minister, 
 and the case is very obvious ; for as 
 soon as their five regiments should 
 have completed the conquest of Amer- 
 ica, it should lie, with the lives and 
 properties of its inhabitants, at the 
 mercy of the conqueror's sword. The 
 very names of assemblies, conventions, 
 
II 
 
 or charters, those odious appendages 
 ot democratical power, should be fin- 
 ished, and the tyrant's fiat should 
 henceforth become the law of the land : 
 and hence sprung the torpedo that 
 benumbed the minister's faculties. 
 
 His Lordship says, his proposition 
 was misinterpreted or misunderstood, 
 and was rendered suspicious by a 
 supposition of a variety of cases ; the 
 Congress treated it as unreasonable 
 and insidious, and rejected it. War 
 began, and his intention was from the 
 beginning, at the moment of victory, 
 to propose the same proposition in 
 terms obviating all the misrepresenta- 
 tions and misunderstandings concern- 
 ing it. Here it is confessed, that this 
 wise and virtuous administration, at 
 
12 
 
 every hazard, and at a certain expense, 
 has almost annihilated public credit, 
 have been looking for victory which 
 has never come, and I trust never will 
 come, and which, if it did, must have 
 been accomplished by the murder of 
 fellow-citizens, sooner than clear their 
 own propositions oftheir ambiguity and 
 suspicion. And what deprives them 
 of the colour of excuse for the horrid 
 barbarities of the war, the city of Lon- 
 don, in the most respectful language, 
 petitioned the throne to declare clearly 
 and explicity before the war com- 
 menced, what they wished to have 
 done on the part of America — but all 
 to no purpose; they would not, they 
 dare not declare their true object. The 
 solemn appeal was made, and, for the 
 
13 
 
 honor of virtue, the comfort of human 
 nature, and the terror of oppression, 
 it will be indelibly recorded in the 
 historic page, that a few virtuous 
 citizens could effectually resist the 
 most vigorous efforts of the most 
 powerful tyranny, and thereby estab- 
 lish the freedom of the western world 
 for ever. To arrive at power, Gusta- 
 vus like, by a bold effort of courage, 
 proves at least the existence of one 
 virtue, at the same time that we detest 
 the treachery ; but to sacrifice the 
 public treasure, to devote every effort 
 of rapacious taxation, and the fruits of 
 an ever-growing excise, to this idol of 
 madness and folly, to establish a sys- 
 tem of venality, by which the price of 
 every man's integrity and abilities was 
 
14 
 
 to be determined; to stipulate to the 
 precise condition of which he shall 
 treacherously betray the interest of 
 his country, and violate every obliga- 
 tion of private friendship and public 
 virtue ; to beat down every fence to 
 honor and principle, to destroy the 
 very bond and frame of civil society, to 
 make the pillage of property the means 
 to accomplish the plunder of liberty, 
 and to drive the people into all the 
 miseries of a civil war, in pursuit of 
 this dream of power, are instances of 
 such determined depravity as are not 
 to be described even in the language 
 of a country where new villiany adds 
 to the catalogue of crimes almost every 
 day. The perfect similarity of the 
 declaratory act of supremacy, and that 
 
15 
 
 relating to your country, viz. That 
 Ireland should be subordinate and de- 
 pend on the imperial crown of Great- 
 Britain, is very obvious ; but this 
 declaration ex parte can avail nothing, 
 at the same time that it furnishes the 
 most incontestable and decisive proofs 
 that no such subordination or depen- 
 dence was ever understood before, or 
 there would have been no necessity 
 for such an act. 
 
 The navigation act, which has been 
 framed for the sole purpose of securing 
 to the British subjects all the advan- 
 tages to be derived from the commerce 
 of their own settlements, has by sub- 
 sequent acts been framed into the most 
 odious and impolitic monopoly that 
 could be devised ; creating local dis- 
 
i6 
 
 tinctions and commercial schisms, giv- 
 ing privilege to one set of subjects to 
 the injury of others, and operating on 
 all the indicted provinces as an oppres- 
 sive tax, comprehending all the taxes 
 of Britain, however variously modified 
 or compounded. And we wish to 
 have it for-ever fixed on your minds, 
 that by a monopoly of trade every 
 pretence to internal taxation is given 
 up ; for were you even without a con- 
 stitution of your own, and as dependent 
 as usurpation has endeavoured to make 
 you, the monopoly of your trade is 
 more than a full and equitable com- 
 pensation for all other taxes; and it 
 will not appear paradoxical to futurity, 
 that the rise and fall of the British 
 empire have been owing to this act. 
 
and the engine by which the wise pol- 
 itician, who framed it, desicrned to 
 wind up and connect the British in- 
 terest all over the world, we have seen 
 employed as the wheel on which Brit- 
 ish liberty and grandeur have disgrace- 
 fully expired. 
 
 The anticipation of public revenue 
 has fixed the crisis of Britain, the 
 labour of their people for all succeeding 
 generations being engaged to pay the 
 interests of their public debts. I can- 
 not suppose it an unfair deduction to 
 say they are all born in a state of 
 slavery, for an obligation to work for 
 any other purpose than one's own 
 advantage, is truly the condition of a 
 slave, and every new tax adds a link 
 to the chain. But even in this gloomy 
 
i8 
 
 picture there is a dawn of hope; all 
 bodies are capable of refraction to a 
 certain degree, beyond which it is im- 
 possible to expand them ever so little 
 without absolute destruction. It is 
 evident to all the world that the nerv^es 
 of public credit in England are on the 
 rack of extension, and the dreadful 
 explosion must follow of course ; and 
 can it be supposed that the system of 
 weakness and folly, that has so long 
 usurped the name of constitution, can 
 survive the shock ; and their people 
 may yet hope to see a vigorous young 
 one grow out of the ruins of the old? 
 I have in my commission to repeat 
 to you, my good friends, the cordial 
 concern that Congress takes in every 
 thing that relates to the happiness of 
 
19 
 
 Ireland ; they are sensibly affected by 
 the load of oppressive pensions on you r 
 establishment; the arbitrary and illegal 
 exactions of public money by King's 
 letters ; the profuse dissipation, by 
 sinecure appointments with large sal- 
 aries, and the very arbitrary and im- 
 politic restrictions of your trade and 
 manufactures, which are beyond ex- 
 ample in the history of the world, and 
 can only be equalled by that illiberal 
 spirit which directs it, and which has 
 shown itself so abundantly in petitions 
 from all parts of their islands, and in 
 the debates in their House of Com- 
 mons, when you had been lately 
 amused with the vain hope of an ex- 
 tension of your trade, and which were 
 conducted with such temper and Ian- 
 
20 
 
 guage as might be supposed to suit 
 their copper-coloured allies in Amer- 
 ica, but must fix a stain on the char- 
 acter of a civilized nation for ever. 
 
 When I had the pleasure of residing 
 in your capital some years ago, it gave 
 me pain to observe such a debility and 
 morbid languor in every department 
 of your government, as would have 
 disgraced anarchy itself; the laws are 
 too weak to execute themselves, and 
 vice and violence often reign with 
 impunity ; and even the military with 
 you seem to claim an exemption from 
 all civil restraint or jurisdiction, and 
 individuals are forced to trust to them- 
 selves for that security and protection 
 which the government of the country 
 can no longer afford them. We con- 
 
21 
 
 gratulate you however on the bright 
 prospect which the western hemisphere 
 has afforded to you, and the oppressed 
 of every nation, and we trust that the 
 Hberation of your country has been 
 effected in America, and that you 
 never will be called on for those pain- 
 ful though necessary exertions, which 
 the sacred love of liberty inspires, and 
 which have enabled us to establish our 
 freedom for ever. 
 
 We hope the political Quixotes of 
 Great-Britain will no longer be able to 
 disturb the peace and happiness of 
 mankind, and which Providence has 
 permitted perhaps to show the mons- 
 trous abuse of power ; yet lost to all 
 public virtue as they are, we wish they 
 may turn from their wickedness and 
 
22 
 
 live; and we doubt not the noble ef- 
 forts of America will meet the full 
 approbation of every virtuous Briton, 
 when they shall be able to distinguish 
 between the mad pursuits of govern- 
 ment and the true interest of their 
 people. But as for you, our dear and 
 good friends of Ireland, we must cor- 
 dially recommend to you to continue 
 peaceable and quiet in every possible 
 situation of your affairs, and endeavour, 
 by mutual good will to supply the 
 defects of administration. But if the 
 government, whom you at this time 
 acknowledge, does not, in conformity 
 to her own true interest, take off and 
 remove every restraint on your trade, 
 commerce and manufactures, I am 
 charged to assure you, that means 
 
f 
 
 23 
 
 will be found to establish your free- 
 dom in this respect, in the fullest and 
 amplest manner. And as it is the ar- 
 dent wish of America to promote, as 
 far as her other engagements will per- 
 mit, a reciprocal commercial interest 
 with you, I am to assure you, they 
 will seek every means to establish and 
 extend it ; and it has given the most 
 sensible pleasure to have those instruc- 
 tions committed to my care, as I have 
 ever retained the most perfect good 
 will and esteem for the people of Ire- 
 land. And am, with every sentiment 
 of respect, their obedient and humble 
 
 servant, 
 
 Benjamin Franklin. 
 
 Versailles, October 4, 1778. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 011 699 924 
 
X 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS