FRANKLIN BENJAMIN Autograph Letter Signed BFranklin to diplo

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ARRANGING MEETING ABOUT GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON'S DISPUTE WITH LEGISLATURE FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN. Autograph Letter Signed, "BFranklin," to diplomat Arthur Lee, reporting his conversation with Secretary of State for the Colonies Lord Dartmouth concerning the embarrassment to Parliament caused by the public dispute between Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson and the provincial legislature, hoping to meet with Lee to discuss it, and intending to write to Thomas Cushing afterwards. 1 page, small 4to; faint scattered foxing, remnants of mounting at corners verso, folds. London, 5 May 1773

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"I have just returned from an interesting Conversation with Lord Dartmouth, the principal topic, The Embarrassment caused by Governor Hutchinson's Proceedings, and those unfortunate Despatches;
"His Lordship has no later advice from Boston, and seemed to desire my opinion on the subject;
"If disengaged this Evening, let me see you, for I write to Mr. Cushing by tomorrow's Packet."
On May 10, 1773, the British parliament passed the Tea Act, which regulated who might sell tea in the Colonies. The passage caused widespread indignation in the Colonies, culminating in the Boston Tea Party on December 16 of that year.
In London, throughout 1773, Virginian physician and later diplomat Arthur Lee wrote open letters that were published in British and American newspapers under the pseudonyms "A Bostonian" and "Releigh," the latter reserved for letters addressing the Governor of the Province of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson. The Governor had begun the year by delivering a speech addressing the Massachusetts General Court (i.e., the provincial legislature) in which he justified the full extent of British power over the Colonies, exacerbating the divisions and unrest in the province and the other Colonies. In reply, the provincial legislature affirmed its right to legislate independently of Parliament, thus beginning a heated discourse between the Governor and legislature that continued until March of 1773.
In June of 1773, letters written in previous years by Governor Hutchinson to the British government were published in the Boston Gazette. The letters urged Britain to send troops to suppress rebellion and advocated the curtailing of colonist rights--revelations that caused outrage and the recalling of Hutchinson. The batch of original "Hutchinson Letters," addressed to an assistant to the British Prime Minister who died in 1772, had passed from the deceased minister to an anonymous patriot, then to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Cushing.