[129] Some letters had passed in the public prints between Mr. Thomas Whately's brother and Mr. John Temple, concerning the manner in which the letters of Governor Hutchinson &c. had escaped from among the papers of Mr. Thomas Whately, at this time deceased.
The one gentleman wished to avoid the charge of having given them, the other of having taken them. At length the dispute became so personal and pointed, that Mr. Temple thought it necessary to call the brother into the field. The letter of provocation appeared in the morning, and the parties met in the afternoon. Dr. Franklin, was not then in town; it was after some interval that he received the intelligence. What had passed he could not foresee; he endeavoured to prevent what still might follow. B. V.
[130] It was in consequence of this letter that Mr. Wedderburn ventured to make the most odious personal applications. Mr. Mauduit has prudently omitted part of them in his account of the proceedings before the privy-council. They are given here altogether however (as well as they could be collected) to mark the politics of the times, and the nature of the censures passed in England upon Dr. Franklin's character.
"The letters could not have come to Dr. Franklin," said Mr. Wedderburn, "by fair means. The writers did not give them to him, nor yet did the deceased correspondent, who, from our intimacy, would otherwise have told me of it: nothing then will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining them by fraudulent or corrupt means, for the most malignant of purposes; unless he stole them, from the person who stole them. This argument is irrefragable."----
"I hope, my lords, you will mark [and brand] the man, for the honour of this country, of Europe, and of mankind. Private correspondence has hitherto been held sacred in times of the greatest party rage, not only in politics but religion."--"He has forfeited all the respect of societies and of men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarassed face, or the honest intrepidity of virtue. Men will watch him with a jealous eye, they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their escrutoires. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a _man of letters, homo_ trium[131] _literarum_!