Franklin was incredulous. The gentleman then turned over to him some letters written between 1767 and 1769 by two Massachusetts Crown officers, both native Americans, Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver. In effect, it was as Franklin had been told. Hutchinson, and Oliver too, pleaded of England “a firm hand,” even armed forces, to keep order. They demanded for Massachusetts “an abridgment of what are called English liberties.” By the time Franklin read these letters, Oliver was lieutenant governor of Massachusetts and Thomas Hutchinson was governor. Hutchinson had as an excuse that his house had been ransacked during the Stamp Act furor. This did not alter that he had been undermining the work of colonial agents and betraying the very people he had been chosen to govern. In his position as agent for Massachusetts, Franklin knew he must warn their Assembly. After some reflection, he sent the letters to Thomas Cushing, asking that they be returned to him after Cushing and members of the Assembly Committee of Correspondence, a small and trusted group, had studied them. He further explained that he could not reveal the source of the letters and that he was not at liberty to make them public. He had no scruples about showing the letters since they were political, not personal, but he had to protect the “gentleman of distinction” who had entrusted them with him. In due time the letters reached Cushing, who followed Franklin’s instructions. Neither Cushing nor anyone else who saw the letters could prevent their being talked about. In June 1773, Samuel Adams, one of the most ardent of Boston patriots, read them to a secret session of the Massachusetts Assembly. Someone took the responsibility of having them copied and printed. In the public uproar that ensued, the Assembly prepared a petition to the King to remove both Hutchinson and Oliver from office. Perhaps it was for the best, Franklin decided when the news reached him. Without reproaches, he wrote Cushing that he was grateful his own name had not been mentioned, “though I hardly expect it.” He only hoped that the letters’ publication would not “occasion some riot of mischievous consequence.” He was continuing his own methodical and unrelenting pressure to bring reason to the English government. In September 1773, an anonymous and stinging satire appeared in the _Public Advertiser_ under the title “Rules by Which a Great Empire may be Reduced to a Small One.” Among the rules cited were: Forget that their colonies were founded at the expense of the colonists; Resent their importance to the Empire; Suppose them always inclined to revolt, and treat them accordingly; Choose “inferior, rapacious and pettifogging” men for governors and judges in the provinces;—and reward these men for having governed badly.