drawing out our resources in such a manner, that we may be little burthensome and essentially useful to our friends," are such as all good patriots ought to wish you may succeed in, and should hold themselves ready to afford you every assistance in their power.

As in taking your measures it will be useful to you to know what aids you may expect from Europe, I think it right to give you my opinion that you cannot rely on such as may be called very considerable. If Europe was in peace, and its governments therefore under no necessity of borrowing, much of the spare money of private persons might then be collectible in a loan to our States. But four of the principal nations being already at war, and a fifth supposed to be preparing for it, all borrowing what they can, and bidding from time to time a higher interest, it is to be supposed that moneyed men will rather risk lending their cash to their own governments, or to those of their neighbors, than to hazard it over the Atlantic with a new state, which to them hardly appears to be yet firmly established. Hence all our attempts to procure private loans have hitherto miscarried, and our only chance of pecuniary aids is from the governments of France or Spain, who being at war with our enemy are somewhat interested in assisting us. These two governments have indeed great revenues. But, when it is considered that the abilities of nations to assist each other are not in proportion to their incomes, but in proportion to their economy, and that saving and treasuring up in time of peace is rarely thought of by Ministers, whence the expenses of the peace establishment equal if they do not exceed the incomes; therefore when a war comes on, they are, with regard to the means of carrying it on, almost as poor as we, being equally obliged to borrow. The difference only is, that they have a credit which we want; which we had indeed with our own people, but have lost it by abusing it. Their credit, however, can only procure the moneys that are to spare, and those in so general a demand are few. Hence it is, and because her treasures have been long detained in America, that Spain has been able to help us very little; and though France has done for us much more, it has not been equal to our wants, although I sincerely believe it equal to her abilities, the war being otherwise exceedingly expensive to her and her commerce much obstructed. If the ten million loan in Holland is all applied to our purposes, we shall this year have obtained near twenty million of livres; and I think there is no probability of our obtaining the same for the next: nothing can therefore be more apropos or more necessary than your purpose of endeavoring that "our revenues should be expended with economy." Would to God that economy could also be introduced into our private affairs! the money our foolish people spend in superfluities and vanities would be nearly equal to the expense of the war. But that is wishing mankind more sense than God has been

pleased to give them and more than they desire, for they have not enough to know they want it, and one may as well wish them more money.

It is true that Spain has now got great part of her treasure home, and may possibly grant more than she has hitherto done to Mr. Jay's applications. But though the sums arrived are considerable upon paper, the king's part is not very great, and much of it has been anticipated; so that our expectations should not be sanguine from that quarter neither.

I have not proposed to any banker here, as yet, to have the connection you mention with our Bank. The opinion of our general poverty and inability, which the enormous depreciation of our paper among ourselves has impressed on the minds of all Europe, give me no hopes of success in such a proposition. I clearly see, however, the advantages that you show would arise from the operations; and as soon as any favorable circumstances in our affairs may give a probable chance of succeeding, I shall seize the opportunity and propose it. Perhaps I may sooner venture to ask privately the sentiments of our banker (who is a judicious man) on such a proposition and let you know what he thinks of it.

Thus you see, my dear friend, I have not endeavored to flatter you with pleasing expectations of aids that may never be obtained; and thereby betray you into plans that might miscarry and disgrace you. Truth is best for you and for us all. When you know what you cannot depend on, you will better know what you can undertake. I shall certainly do what may lie in my power to help you: but do not expect too much of me. If you can succeed in executing the engagement I entered into with Mr. Necker, that will augment my credit, and of course my power of being useful to you. At present it is very good. My acceptances having always been punctually paid, now pass on any exchange in Europe for money; but if I should be obliged to fail in discharging any of them it is gone forever, and may be thrown by as a broken instrument of no farther service. You are so sensible of this and possess so much innate honor that I shall not have the least doubt, in accepting your drafts or your enabling me to pay them duly.

With the most sincere esteem and affection, I am, &c.

PASSY, 5 November, 1781.

B. FRANKLIN.

VOL. III.-4

IN

Thomas Hutchinson.

BORN in Boston, Mass., 1711. DIED at Brompton, England, 1780.

THE REGICIDES IN NEW ENGLAND.

[The History of Massachusetts. 3d edition. 1795.]

N the ship which arrived from London the 27th of July, there came passengers, Col. Whaley and Col. Goffe, two of the late King's judges. Col. Goffe brought testimonials from Mr. John Rowe and Mr. Seth Wood, two ministers of a church in Westminster. Col. Whaley had been a member of Mr. Thomas Goodwin's church. Goffe kept a journal or diary from the day he left Westminster, May 4, until the year 1667, which, together with several other papers belonging to him, I have in my possession. Almost the whole is in characters or shorthand, not very difficult to decipher. The story of these persons has never yet been published to the world. It has never been known in New England. Their papers after their death were collected, and have remained near an hundred years in a library in Boston. It must give some entertainment to the curious. They left London before the King was proclaimed. It does not appear that they were among the most obnoxious of the judges; but as it was expected vengeance would be taken of some of them, and a great many had fled, they did not think it safe to remain. They did not attempt to conceal their persons or characters when they arrived at Boston, but immediately went to the governor, Mr. Endicott, who received them very courteously. They were visited by the principal persons of the town, and among others they take notice of Col. Crown's coming to see them. He was a noted royalist. Although they did not disguise themselves, yet they chose to reside at Cambridge, a village about four miles distant from the town, where they went the first day they arrived. They went publicly to meetings on the Lord's days, and to occasional lectures, fasts and thanksgivings, and were admitted to the sacrament, and attended private meetings for devotion, visited many of the principal towns, and were frequently at Boston, and once when insulted there the person insulting them was bound to his good behavior. They appeared grave, serious and devout, and the rank they had sustained commanded respect. Whaley had been one of Cromwell's lieutenant-generals, and Goffe a major-general. It is not strange that they should meet with this favorable reception, nor was this reception any contempt of the authority in England. They were known to have been two of the King's judges; but King Charles the Second was not proclaimed when the ship that brought them left London; they had the

news of it in the channel. The reports afterward by way of Barbados were that all the judges would be pardoned but seven. The act of indemnity was not brought over until the last of November. When it appeared that they were not excepted, some of the principal persons in the government were alarmed; pity and compassion prevailed with others. They had assurances from some that belonged to the general court that they would stand by them, but were advised by others to think of removing.

The 22d of February the governor summoned a court of assistants to consult about securing them, but the court did not agree to it. Finding it unsafe to remain any longer, they left Cambridge the 26th following, and arrived at New Haven the 7th of March. One Capt. Breedan, who had seen them at Boston, gave information thereof upon his arrival in England. A few days after their removal, an hue-and-cry, as they term it in their diary, was brought by the way of Barbados; and thereupon a warrant to secured them issued, the 8th of March, from the governor and assistants, which was sent to Springfield and the other towns in the western parts of the colony; but they were beyond the reach of it.

They were well treated at New Haven by the ministers and some of the magistrates, and for some days seemed to apprehend themselves out of danger. But the news of the King's proclamation being brought to New Haven, they were obliged to abscond. The 27th of March they removed to Milford, and appeared there in the daytime, and made themselves known; but at night returned privately to New Haven, and lay concealed in Mr. Davenport the minister's house, until the 30th of April. About that time news came to Boston that ten of the judges were executed; and the governor received a royal mandate, dated March 5, 1660, to cause Whaley and Goffe to be secured. This greatly alarmed the country, and there is no doubt that the court were now in earnest in their endeavors to apprehend them; and, to avoid all suspicion, they gave commission and instructions to two young merchants from England, Thomas Kellond and Thomas Kirk, zealous royalists, to go through the colonies as far as Manhadoes in search of them. They had friends who informed them what was doing, and they removed from Mr. Davenport's to the house of one Jones, where they lay hid until the 11th of May and then removed to a mill, and from thence on the 13th into the woods, where they met Jones and two of his companions, Sperry and Burrill, who first conducted them to a place called Hatchet harbor where they lay two nights until a cave or hole in the side of a hill was prepared to conceal them. This hill they called Providence hill, and there they continued from the 15th of May to the 11th of June, sometimes in the cave, and in very tempestuous weather in a house near to it. During this time the messengers went through New Haven to the

Dutch settlement, from whence they returned to Boston by water. They made diligent search, and had full proof that the regicides had been seen at Mr. Davenport's, and offered great rewards to English and Indians who should give information that they might be taken; but by the fidelity of their three friends, they remained undiscovered. Mr. Davenport was threatened with being called to an account for concealing and comforting traitors, and might well be alarmed. They had engaged to surrender, rather than the country or any particular persons should suffer upon their account; and upon intimation of Mr. Davenport's danger, they generously resolved to go to New Haven, and deliver themselves up to the authority there. The miseries they had suffered and were still exposed to, and the little chance they had of finally escaping, in a country where every stranger is immediately known to be such, would not have been sufficient to have induced them. They let the deputy governor, Mr. Leete, know where they were, but he took no measures to secure them, and the next day some persons came to them to advise them not to surrender. Having publicly shown themselves at New Haven, they had cleared Mr. Davenport from the suspicion of still concealing them, and the 24th of June went into the woods again to their cave. They continued there, sometimes venturing to a house near the cave, until the 19th of August, when the search for them being pretty well over, they ventured to the house of one Tomkins near Milford, where they remained two years, without so much as going into the orchard.

After that, they took a little more liberty, and made themselves known to several persons in whom they could confide; and each of them frequently prayed and also exercised, as they term it, or preached, at private meetings in their chamber. In 1664 the commissioners from King Charles arrived at Boston. Upon the news of it, they retired to their cave, where they tarried eight or ten days. Soon after, some Indians in their hunting discovered the cave with the bed, etc., and the report being spread abroad, it was not safe to remain near it. On the 13th of October, 1664, they removed to Hadley, near an hundred miles distant, travelling only by night, where Mr. Russell, the minister of the place, had previously agreed to receive them. Here they remained concealed fifteen or sixteen years, very few persons in the colony being privy to it. The last account of Goffe is from a letter, dated Ebenezer (the name they gave their several places of abode), April 2d, 1679. Whaley had been dead some time before. The tradition at Hadley is, that two persons unknown were buried in the minister's cellar. The minister was no sufferer by his boarders. They received more or less remittances every year, for many years together, from their wives in England. Those few persons who knew where they were made them frequent presents. Richard Saltonstall, Esq., who was in the secret, when he left the country and