nson and Mr. Oliver, which proved to him that
the severe action of the ministry against Boston and the province had
been brought about by Bostonians themselves. Franklin asked permission
to send these letters to Boston in the interests of justice to the
ministry. The request was granted. The letters were sent to Boston, and
were read in private to the General Assembly of the province. As an
agent of the colonies, Franklin could not have done less in the
interests of justice, truth, and honorable dealing.

But the use of these letters angered the ministry, and Franklin was
called before the Privy Council to answer the charge of surreptitiously
obtaining private correspondence and using it for purposes detrimental
to the royal government.

To persons whose whole purpose of life is to live honorably such days as
these come and develop character. Every one has some lurking enemy eager
to misinterpret him to his own advantage. The lark must fly to the open
sky when he sees the serpent coiling among the roses, or he must fight
and dare the odds. Woe be to the wrongdoer who triumphs in such a case
as this! He may gain money and ease, and laugh at his adversary, but
when a man has proved untrue to any man for the sake of his own
advantage, it may be written of him, "He went out, and it was night." A
short chapter of a part of a biography or history may be an injustice,
and seem to show that there is no God in the government of the world,
but a long chapter of full history reveals God on the high throne of his
power, and justice as his strength and glory. The Roman emperors built
grand monuments to atone for their injustice, cruelty, and vice-seeking
lives, but these only blackened their names by recalling what they were,
and defeated their builders' ends. In this world all long chapters of
history read one way: that character is everything, and that time tells
the truth about all things. Justice is the highest expectation of life;
it is only wise so to live that one's "expectation may not be
disappointed." The young man can not be too soon led to see that "he
that is spiritual judgeth all things, and that no man judgeth him."

It was the year 1773, when Franklin was sixty-eight years of age, that
this dark and evil day came. A barrister named Wedderburn, young in
years and new to the bar, a favorite of Lord North, and one who was
regarded as "a wonderfully smart young man," was to present the case of
the government against hi