"Britain still goes on to goad and exasperate. She despises us too much; and seems to forget the Italian proverb, that '_there is no little enemy_.' I am persuaded the body of the British people are our friends; but your lying gazettes may soon make them our enemies--and I see clearly that we are on the high road to mutual enmity, hatred, and detestation. A _separation_ will of course be inevitable. It is a million of pities so fair a plan, as we have hitherto been engaged in for increasing _strength_ and _empire_ with PUBLIC FELICITY, should be destroyed by the mangling hands of a few blundering ministers. It will not be destroyed: GOD WILL PROTECT AND PROSPER IT: you will only exclude yourselves from any share of it. We hear that more ships and troops are coming out. We know you may do us a great deal of mischief, but we are determined to bear it patiently; but if you flatter yourselves with beating us into submission, you know neither the people nor the country. "I am ever your's, most affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN." This letter of Doctor Franklin's is the first thing I have seen that utters a whisper about INDEPENDENCE. It was, however, a _prophetical_ whisper, and soon found its accomplishment in the source that Franklin predicted--the BARBARITY OF BRITAIN. To see war waged against them by a power whom they had always gloried in as their MOTHER COUNTRY--to see it waged because as the _children of Englishmen_, they had only asked for the _common rights of Englishmen_--to see it waged with a savageness unknown among civilized nations, and all the powers of earth and hell, as it were, stirred up against them--the Indians with their bloody tomahawks and scalping knives--the negroes with their midnight hoes and axes--the merciless flames let loose on their midwinter towns--with prisons, chains, and starvation of their worthiest citizens. "_Such miserable specimens_," as Franklin termed them, "_of the British government_," produced every where in the colonies a disposition to _detest and avoid it as a complication of robbery, murder, famine, fire and pestilence_. On the 7th of June, resolutions respecting independence, were moved and seconded in Congress. Doctor Franklin threw all the weight of his wisdom and character into the scale in favour of independence. "INDEPENDENCE," said he, "_will cut the Gordian knot at once, and give us freedom_. "I. _Freedom from the oppressive kings, and endless wars, and mad politics, and forced religion of an unreasonable and cruel government._ "II. _Freedom to choose a fair, and cheap, and reasonable government of our own._ "III. _Freedom to live in friendship with all nations; and_ "IV. _Freedom to trade with all._"