ONE:During the years 1767, 1768, and 1769, Mr. Thomas Whately��at one time private secretary to Grenville, and several years Under-Secretary of State to Lord Suffolk, but during these years out of office, and simply member of Parliament��had maintained a private correspondence with Governor Hutchinson and his brother-in-law, Andrew Oliver, the Lieutenant-Governor. In these letters Hutchinson and Oliver had freely expressed to their old friend their views of the state of affairs in the colony; and, of course, said many things never intended to come to the public eye, or to operate officially. On the death of Whately, in 1772, some villain purloined these letters and conveyed them to Franklin, who was acting as agent for Massachusetts. Who this dishonest firebrand was, was never discovered. Franklin pledged himself to secrecy, both as to the letters and as to the name of the person who so basely obtained them. The name of this person he faithfully kept; but the contents of the letters were too well calculated to create irreconcilable rancour in the minds of the Americans, for him to resist the pleasure of communicating them to the Massachusetts Assembly. He accordingly forwarded them to Mr. Curling, the Speaker of the Assembly.A final test, with chocks under the wheels, the signal for the wheels to be cleared by the caretaker, a spurt of the gun for several seconds to get the craft rolling as the elevators were operated to lift the tail free, a run at increasing speed, picked up quickly because of the short runway��stick back, lifting elevators so the propeller blast drove the tail lower and the nose higher��and they left the ground.

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