But though so little expected by him, yet was this event ascribed, in a great measure, to Dr. Franklin. His famous examination, printed in a shilling pamphlet, had been distributed by myriads throughout Britain and America. In America it served to brighten up the _old land marks_ of their rights as _free-born sons of Englishmen_, and to quicken their sensibilities to ministerial frauds. In England, it served to show the ignorance of the ministers; the impolicy of their measures towards America; and the utter inexpediency of the stamp act. The stamp act of course fell to the ground. The reader, if a good man, exults, no doubt, in this as a most fortunate event, and already hails this removal of strife, as a certain prelude to that return of love between the mother country and her colonies, which will make them both, glorious and happy. He may hope it, but alas! he is never to see the accomplishment of that good hope. Death is whetting his scythe; and civil wars and slaughters are now just as near at hand as though the stamp act had never been repealed. For a pamphlet in some popular style that should unrip the black budget of ministerial injustice and lay naked to view the causes of the coming war; that unnatural war that is to sever England and her colonies for ever! Brighter than a thousand sermons it would illustrate to politicians that "_the Lord is King_"--that the sole end of his government, is to _glorify himself in the happiness of his creatures_--that thereunto he hath _established his throne in justice_--the eternal justice of men "_doing unto others as they would that others should do unto them_," and that none, however great, shall ever violate this blessed order with impunity. The British ministry are destined to illustrate this. They are fond of power--to preserve this, they must continue in place--in order thereunto they must please the merchants and manufacturers--to accomplish this they must favour their trade and lighten their taxes. And how is this to be done? why, by a little peccadillo of INJUSTICE. They have only to sweat the "CONVICTS _on their American plantations_,"--the rascals live a great way off, and have no _representative_ in parliament to make a noise about it. Accordingly, soon as the Americans were supposed to have gotten a little over their fever about the stamp act, the minister, lord North, of famous memory, determined to try them again. However it was but a small affair now--only a _three penny excise_ on the pound of tea. When Dr. Franklin, our ARGUS, then in London, discovered the designs of minister North, he exerted himself to point that purblind gentleman to the horrible gulf that was yawning at his feet. He wrote letters to several members of parliament, his friends; and he published a number of luminous pieces in the patriotic gazettes, all admirably calculated to rouse the friends of the nation to a sense of the impending dangers.