t for the assemblies of
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. In close {52} association
with the Whig opposition, he was undoubtedly the best-known American,
and among the most influential. Now, in 1774, having to present a
petition from Massachusetts to the Privy Council for the removal of
Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, Franklin found it an awkward feature of
the case that the colony's charges were based on private letters which
he himself had in some way acquired and sent to Boston. The Court
party determined to crush him, and at the hearing put forward
Wedderburn, the Solicitor-General--a typical King's Friend--who passed
over the subject of the petition to brand Franklin in virulent
invective as a thief and scoundrel. Amidst general applause, the
petition was rejected as false and scandalous, and Franklin was
dismissed from his position of colonial Postmaster-General.

When Parliament met, it was instantly made clear that the sole idea
controlling King, Cabinet, and the majority of Members was to bring the
Massachusetts colonists to their senses by severe punitive legislation.
The Whig opposition did not attempt to defend the destruction of the
tea; but it spared no effort to make the Ministers see the folly of
striking at effects and ignoring causes. In a masterly speech of April
19, 1774, Burke showed that the insistence on submission regardless of
the grievances and of the nature {53} of the colonists was a dangerous
and absurd policy, and Pownall and Chatham repeated his arguments, but
without avail. The Ministerial party saw no danger, and felt nothing
but the contempt of an irritated aristocracy. The original ideals of a
general colonial reform were now lost sight of; the men responsible for
them had all passed off the stage; Grenville, Townshend, and Halifax
were dead, and North, careless and subservient to George III,
Hillsborough, Suffolk, Sandwich, and Rochford--all noblemen, and in
many cases inefficient--did not see beyond the problem of coercing
noisy and troublesome rioters, indistinguishable from the followers of
Wilkes. Over and over again they reiterated that the colonists'
resentment was not to be feared, that they would submit to genuine
firmness, that they were all cowardly and dared not resist a few
regular troops. Lord George Germaine earned the thanks of Lord North
by declaring that the colonists were only "a tumultuous and noisy
rabble," men who ought to be "following their merc