Everywhere he found the people in such a temper that Tories had to hold their peace or suffer punishment. At the office he learned that his most important letters had failed to pass the hidden censorship of mail in England. He began, at once, to write a series of articles which hastened the crisis. The first of them was a talk with Franklin, which told how his mail had been tampered with; that no letter had come to his hand through the Post-Office which had not been opened with apparent indifference as to the evidence of its violation. The Doctor's words regarding free speech in America and the proposal to try the bolder critics for treason were read and discussed in every household from the sea to the mountains and from Maine to Florida. "Grievances can not be redressed unless they are known and they can not be known save through complaints and petitions," the philosopher had said. "If these are taken as affronts and the messengers punished, the vent of grief is stopped up--a dangerous thing in any state. It is sure to produce an explosion. "An evil magistrate with the power to punish for words would be armed with a terrible weapon. "Augustus Caesar, with the avowed purpose of preserving Romans from defamation, made libel subject to the penalties of treason. Thenceforward every man's life hung by a thread easily severed by some lying informer. "Soon it was resolved by all good judges of law that whoever should insinuate the least doubt of Nero's preeminence in the noble art of fiddling should be deemed a traitor. Grief became treason and one lady was put to death for bewailing the fate of her murdered son. In time, silence became treason, and even a look was considered an overt act." These words of the wise philosopher strengthened the spirit of the land for its great ordeal. Jack described the prejudice of the Lords who, content with their ignorance, spurned every effort to inform them of the conditions in America. "And this little tail is wagging the great dog of England, most of whose people believe in the justice of our complaints," he wrote.