Benjamin Franklin · Benjamin Franklin
"SIR,
"I have lately seen a memorial, said to have been presented by your Excellency to their High Mightinesses the States-general, in which you are pleased to qualify me with the title of _pirate_. "A pirate is defined to be _hostis humani generis_ [an enemy to all mankind]. It happens, Sir, that I am an enemy to no part of mankind, except your nation, the English; which nation at the same time comes much more within the definition, being actually an enemy to, and at war with, one whole quarter of the world, America, considerable part of Asia and Africa, a great part of Europe, and in a fair way of being at war with the rest. "A pirate makes war for the sake of _rapine_. This is not the kind of war I am engaged in against England. Ours is a war in defence of _liberty_ ... the most just of all wars; and of our _properties_, which your nation would have taken from us, without our consent, in violation of our rights, and by an armed force. Yours, therefore is a war of _rapine_; of course, a piratical war; and those who approve of it, and are engaged in it, more justly deserve the name of _pirates_, which you bestow on me. It is, indeed, a war that coincides with the general spirit of your nation. Your common people in their ale-houses sing the twenty-four songs of Robin Hood, and applaud his deer-stealing and his robberies on the highway: those, who have just learning enough to read, are delighted with your histories of the pirates and of the buccaniers; and even your scholars in the universities study Quintus Curtius, and are taught to admire Alexander for what they call 'his conquests in the Indies.'
Severe laws and the hangmen keep down the effects of this spirit somewhat among yourselves (though in your little Island you have nevertheless more highway robberies than there are in all the rest of Europe put together); but a foreign war gives it full scope. It is then that, with infinite pleasure, it lets itself loose to strip of their property honest merchants, employed in the innocent and useful occupation of supplying the mutual wants of mankind. Hence, having lately no war with your ancient enemies, rather than be without a war, you chose to make one upon your friends. In this your piratical war with America, the mariners of your fleets and the owners of your privateers were animated against us by the act of your Parliament, which repealed the law of God, 'Thou shalt not steal,' by declaring it lawful for them to rob us of all our property that they could meet with on the ocean. This act, too, had a retrospect, and, going beyond bulls of pardon, declared that all the robberies you _had committed_ previous to the act should be _deemed just and lawful_. Your soldiers, too, were promised the plunder of our cities; and your officers were flattered with the division of our lands. You had even the baseness to corrupt our servants, the sailors employed by us, and encourage them to rob their masters and bring to you the ships and goods they were entrusted with. Is there any society of pirates on the sea or land, who, in declaring wrong to be right, and right wrong, have less authority than your parliament? Do any of them more justly than your parliament deserve the _title_ you bestow on me?
"If he cruelly forces such of his subjects as fall into his hands, to bear arms against their country, and become executioners of their friends and brethren: "If he sells others of them into bondage, in Africa and the East Indies: "If he excites domestic insurrections among their servants, and encourages servants to murder their masters:-- "Does not so atrocious a conduct towards his subjects dissolve their allegiance? "If not, please to say how or by what means it can possibly be dissolved? "All this horrible wickedness and barbarity has been and daily is practised by the King, _your master_, (as you call him in your memorial,) upon the Americans, whom he is still pleased to claim as his subjects.
"During these six years past, he has destroyed not less than forty thousand of those subjects, by battles on land or sea, or by starving them, or poisoning them to death, in the unwholesome air, with the unwholesome food of his prisons. And he has wasted the lives of at least an equal number of his own soldiers and sailors: many of whom have been _forced_ into this odious service, and _dragged_ from their families and friends, by the outrageous violence of his illegal press-gangs. You are a gentleman of letters, and have read history: do you recollect any instance of any tyrant, since the beginning of the world, who, in the course of so few years, had done so much mischief, by murdering so many of his own people? Let us view one of the worst and blackest of them, Nero. He put to death a few of his courtiers, placemen, and pensioners, and among the rest his _tutor_. Had George the Third done the same, and no more, his crime, though detestable, as an act of lawless power, might have been as useful to his nation, as that of Nero was hurtful to Rome; considering the different characters and merits of the sufferers.
Nero indeed wished that the people of Rome had but one neck, that he might behead them all by one stroke; but this was a simple wish. George is carrying the wish as fast as he can into execution; and, by continuing in his present course a few years longer, will have destroyed more of the British people than Nero could have found inhabitants in Rome. Hence the expression of Milton, in speaking of Charles the First, that he was '_Nerone Neronior_,' is still more applicable to George the third. Like Nero, and all other tyrants, while they lived, he indeed has his flatterers, his addressers, his applauders. Pensions, places, and hopes of preferment can bribe even bishops to approve his conduct: but when those fulsome, purchased addresses and panegyrics are sunk and lost in oblivion or contempt, impartial history will step forth, speak honest truth, and rank him among public calamities. The only difference will be, that plagues, pestilences, and famines are of this world, and arise from the nature of things; but voluntary malice, mischief, and murder, are from hell; and this King will, therefore, stand foremost in the list of diabolical, bloody, and execrable tyrants. His base-bought parliaments too, who sell him their souls, and extort from the people the money with which they aid his destructive purposes, as they share his guilt, will share his infamy,--parliaments, who, to please him, have repeatedly, by different votes year after year, dipped their hands in human blood, insomuch that methinks I see it dried and caked so thick upon them, that, if they could wash it off in the Thames, which flows under their windows, the whole river would run red to the ocean.
"One is provoked by enormous wickedness: but one is ashamed and humiliated at the view of human baseness. It afflicts me, therefore, to see a gentleman of Sir Joseph York's education and talents, for the sake of a red riband and a paltry stipend, mean enough to style such a monster _his master_, wear his livery, and hold himself ready at his command even to cut the throats of fellow subjects. This makes it impossible for me to end my letter with the civility of a compliment, and obliges me to subscribe myself simply, "JOHN PAUL JONES, "Whom you are pleased to style a _pirate_." Passy, May 8, 1782.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.