comfort ourselves; it is the only comfort, in the present dark scene of things that is allowed us.

I shall not fail to write to the government of America, urging that effectual care may be taken to protect and save the remainder of those unhappy people. Since writing the above I have received a Philadelphia, paper containing some account of the same horrid transaction, a little different, and some circumstances alleged as excuses or palliations, but extremely weak and insufficient. I send it to you enveloped.

B. FRANKLIN.

The other article is a jeu d'esprit of a gayer turn, originating from a memorial of the British ambassador, sir Joseph Yorke, reclaiming the king's ships, the Serapis and Countess of Scarborough, prizes carried into Holland by the American squadron under commodore Jones; whom sir Joseph designated, "the pirate Paul Jones of Scotland; a rebel subject, and a criminal of the state."

The deception intended by this supposed "Supplement," (which was very accurately imitated with respect to printing, paper, the insertion of advertisements, &c.) was, that by transmitting it to England, it might actually be taken for what it purported to be, and the two prominent articles contained in it, consequently, copied into the English papers, as genuine intelligence from America.

The end proposed thereby, was to shame the British government. It is uncertain whether this artifice succeeded as well as a similar one of Dr. Franklin's, the "Prussian Edict," did, as related in his PRIVATE CORRESPONDEnce.

A copy of this intended deception, as printed, is here given with the omission only of the advertisements and some of the names, titles, and epithets, in the latter article.

Dr. Franklin had a great opinion of the effects to be produced by suitable writings in the public prints, as will appear from the following letter to Dr. Price.

MONDAY, MARCH 13, 1782.

BOSTON, March 12, 1782.

Extract of a Letter from Capt. Gerrish of the New
England Militia, dated Albany, March 7.

T

HE Peltry taken in the expedition
[See the account of the expedition to
Oswegatchie on the river St. Lau-
rence, in our paper of the 1st in-
stant], will as you see amount to
a good deal of money. The posses-
sion of this booty at first gave us pleasure; but we were
struck with horror to find among the packages, 8 large
ones containing SCALPS of our unhappy country-
folks, taken in the three last years by the Senneka In-
dians from the inhabitants of the frontiers of New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and
present to Col. Haldimand, gover-
sent by them as
nor of Canada, in order to be by him transmitted to
England. They were accompanied by the following
curious letter to that gentleman.

Teoga, Jan. 3d, 1782.
ears; and only a little black knife in the middle, to
show they were ript out of their mothers' bellies.

in council, interpreted by the elder Moore, the trader, and taken down by me in writing.

Father,

We send you herewith many scalps, that you may sce we are not idle friends.

Father,

A blue Belt.

We wish you to send these scalps over the water to
the great king, that he may regard them and be re-
freshed; and that he may see our faithfulness in
destroying his enemies, and be convinced that his
present have not been made to ungrateful people.

Father,

A blue and white Belt with red Tassels.

Attend to what I am now going to say: it is a matter of much weight. The great king's enemies are many, and they grow fast in number. They were formerly like young panthers: they could neither bite nor scratch: we could play with them safely: we feared nothing they could do to us. But now their bodies are become big as the elk, and strong as the buffalo: they have also got great and sharp claws. SIR, March 7, 1781. memorial. said to have been

T

nesses the States General, in which you are pleased ta anglifo go with the girl af er stow on me?

You will tell me that we forfeited all our estates by
our refusal to pay the taxes your nation would have
imposed on us, without the consent of our colony par-
liaments. Have you then forgotten the incontestable
principle, which was the foundation of Hampden's
glorious lawsuit with Charles the First, that "what an
English king has no right to demand, an English sub-
ject has a right to refuse?" But you cannot so soon have
forgotten the instructions of your late honorable father,
who, being himself a sound Whig, taught you cer-
tainly the principles of the Revolution, and that, "if
subjects might in some cases forfeit their property,
kings also might forfeit their title, and all claim to the
allegiance of their subjects." I must then suppose you
well acquainted with those Whig principles, on which
permit me, sir, to ask a few questions.

Is not protection as justly due from a king to his
people, as obedience from the people to their king?
If a king declares his people to be out of hisprotection:
If he violates and deprives them of their constitu-
tional rights:

If he wages war against them:

If he plunders their merchants, ravages their coasts,
burns their towns, and destroys their lives:

If he hires foreign mercenaries to help him in their
destruction:

If he engages savages to murder their defenceless farmers, women, and children :

If he cruelly forces such of his subjects as fall into his hands, to bear arms against their country, and become executioners of their friends and brethren:

If he sells others of them into bondage, in Africa

If he excites domestic insurrections among their
much that methinks I see it dried and caked so thick
upon them that if they could wash it off in the Thames
which flows under their windows, the whole river
would run red to the ocean.

One is provoked by enormous wickedness; but one
is ashamed and humiliated at the view of human base-
ness. It afflicts me, therefore, to see a gentleman of
***** ***** education and talents, for the sake
of a red riband and a paltry stipend, mean enough to
stile such a ******* his master, wear his livery, and
hold himself ready at his command even to cut the
throats of fellow-subjects. This makes it impossible
for me to end my letter with the civility of a compli-
ment, and obliges me to subscribe myself simply,
JOHN PAUL JONES,*

whom you are pleased to stile a pirate.

* Anecdote of Paul Jones.-After Jones's crew had landed
at Lord Selkirk's, stripped the house of the plate, and taken
it on board, the ship lay-to, while Jones wrote a letter to his
lordship, which he sent on shore. In this letter, he candidly
acknowledged that he meant to have seized him, and to have
detained him as a person of much consequence to him in case
of a cartel; but disclaimed any concern in taking away his
plate; which, he said, was done by the crew, in spite of his re-
monstrances; who said they were determined to be repaid for
the hardships and dangers they had encountered in Kirkcud-
bright Bay, and in attempting to set fire, a few days before,
to the shipping in the harbour of Whitehaven. Jones, howey-
er, informed his lordship that he had secured all the plate,
and would certainly return it to him at a convenient opportu-
nity. This he afterwards punctually performed, by sending it
to Lord Selkirk's banker, in London. Any person who doubts
the fact, may be convinced of its reality, by referring to the
addonds to Gilpin's Tour to the Lakes of Scotland, where
they will find it authenticates by Lord Selkirk himself.

“I congratulate you on the late revolution in your public affairs. Much good may arise from it, though possibly not all that good men, and even the new ministers themselves, may have wished or expected. The change, however, in the sentiments of the nation, in which I see evident effects of your writ ngs, with those of our deceased friend Mr. Burgh, and others of our valuable club, should encourage you to proceed. The antient Roman and Greek orators could only speak to the number of citizens capable of being assembled within the reach of their voice; their writings had little effect, because the bulk of the people could not read. Now by the press we can speak to nations; and good books, and wellwritten pamphlets, have great and general influence. The facility with which the same truths may be repeatedly enforced by placing them in different lights, in newspapers which are every where read, gives a great chance of establishing them. And we now find, that it is not only right to strike while the iron is hot, but that it is very practicable to heat it by continual striking.

In the month of June, 1782, Mr. Jones, afterwards sir William Jones, so eminently distinguished for his virtues, genius, and learning, came to Paris, accompanied by the late Mr. Paradise, with the intention of proceeding thence to America. These gentlemen had been long connected by a most intimate friendship, and the object of this journey is stated by lord Teignmouth (in his life of the former) to have been "professional, to procure the restitution of a very large estate of a client and friend, which had been attached by an order of the States, who had threatened the confiscation of the property, unless the owner appeared in person to claim it." His lordship adds, " This object is mentioned by Mr. Jones in his correspondence, and his own evidence will be conclusive against some surmises and insinuations, which,

were propagated respecting the motives of his intended journey. The irresolution of his friend, increased by indisposition, prevented the execution of the plan, and Mr. Jones, after having procured a passport from Franklin, the American minister at the court of France, returned to England through Normandy and Holland." Of sir William Jones's account of his motives for going to America, as given by him to his friends in England, the editor has no knowlege; but at Passy, where he and Mr. Paradise frequently partook of the hospitalities and conversation of Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jones assigned no other motive for his intended voyage, than that of accompanying his friend, and gratifying his curiosity by seeing a country for whose rights he had been a decided advocate. Mr. Paradise had never been the client of Mr. Jones, notwithstanding their friendship, he having never been engaged in any law-suit in England, nor had he the smallest need of a lawyer in America, where nothing more was required than his presence, to avoid the penalty to which absent proprietors residing in a country at that time hostile, were made liable, unless they came to the United States within a limited time; a penalty which Mr. Paradise did in fact avoid, without any lawyer, and even without going to America, until nearly five years after the war had terminated. It could not, therefore, have been a professional object which actuated sir William Jones in this undertaking; and in fact, by some expressions which escaped from him in a conversation with Mr. Jay (one of the American plenipotentiaries), the latter strongly sus pected, that the real purpose of this intended visit to the United States, was to endeavor to produce a disposition in persons of influence there, to accept a reconciliation with Great Britain, on terms more favorable, or less humiliating, than those of absolute independency; and this suspicion soon after received a strong confirmation in the mind of Mr. Jay, upon his accidentally noticing in a printed account of the then recent proceedings of the "society for constitutional information," which had been incautiously put into his hands by Mr. Jones, a communication made by the latter to this society, of