The new Governor did not fail to cross the Atlantic, and repair immediately to the colony over which he was destined to preside. In this high and honourable station he was found at the epoch of that revolution which severed America from this country for ever! Nor was his behaviour on so trying an occasion calculated to throw disgrace upon his situation or his principles. It is true he was born in America, but he considered the colonies as intimately connected, both in respect to happiness and interest, with the parent state. The conduct of his father, appearing by turns in the characters of a minister plenipotentiary, a legislator, and a founder of an independent nation, might be naturally supposed to bias his own; and when it is added, that he looked up to that father for future wealth and independence, the temptation must be allowed to have been of no common magnitude. But the struggle, however painful it might be between obedience on the one hand and duty on the other; between the allegiance he supposed himself to owe to a sovereign and the respect and resignation due to a parent's will; was not of long duration. Mr. Franklin considered himself as invested with a public character; he recollected that he was the King's governor, and, besides the ordinary ties of allegiance, he was bound by others which rendered him more immediately connected than other men with the mother country. He accordingly refused to listen to any solicitations; importunity and threats were equally ineffectual; and, like another Abdiel, he remained 04 remained faithful, while almost every one around him swerved *. Governor Franklin accordingly remained undaunted amidst the storm, and instead of flying from, he beheld the tempest with an unruffled countenance. His unshaken loyalty had excited the rage of the zealots of the revolution, and so far was he from being protected by the name and authority of his father, that the part taken by that truly great man subjected him to no common share of persecution. In short, he was seized in the government house, conveyed to a distant part, and imprisoned for many months in the common jail. This was surely an unnecessary degree of rigour, but it was doubtless exercised under pretext The zeal with which Dr. Franklin embarked in the cause of America, and which was doubtless inflamed by the very impolitic, and even ungentleman-like language he is said to have experienced during his examination at the Council-board, is known to every one. The following short and pithy letter to the late Mr. Strahan, who doubtless thought himself obliged, as King's Printer, to vote with the King's Minister, will evince that he was determined to keep no terms with those who differed with him respecting the justice of the American war. "MR. STRAHAN, "You are a member of that Parliament, and have formed part of that majority, which has condemned my native country to destruction. "You have begun to burn our towns, and to destroy their inhabitants! "Look at your hands-they are stained with the blood of your relatives and your acquaintances. "You and I were long friends; you are at present my enemy, and I am your's. "BENJAMIN FRANKLIN." of of retaliation; and it must be confessed that before the Americans obtained that degree of consequence, which their alliance with France afterwards procured for them, our commanders did not always exercise their authority with all the moderation which might have been expected from them. But be this as it may, Governor Franklin was immured within the walls of a prison, in the precincts of his own government; so strict indeed was the confinement, and so cruel was his bondage, that he was not permitted to be carried to the apartment where a beloved wife was breathing her last sigh, or allowed to bid her farewell! After his liberation the Governor repaired to New York, whence he sailed for England about that period when all hope of obtaining America was relinquished at the general peace. Having put in his claim as a loyalist, it has been understood that he obtained an annual income under the title of an indemnification, but this is said to be disproportionate, either to his merits, his losses, or his sufferings. Al Governor F. in point of person is above the common size, with the eye and figure of a veteran. though subject to the gout, he appears to be strong and athletic, and was accounted one of the handsomest men in America. He is now about sixty-five years of age, and resembles his father in a variety of particulars. Like him he is cheerful, facetious, admirably calculated for telling a pleasing story, and no enemy to social converse, hilarity, and the pleasures of the table when indulged in moderation. Like him. too, too, he makes his ablutions every morning, and is equally partial to an air and a water bath. So much was the Doctor attached to this his only son, anterior to the late unfortunate civil war, that he is said to have offered to make over all his possessions to him, and that too during his own life time, provided he would but declare for the American cause. He had also made a will in his favour, and in all his wills except the last the entire copy-right of his own private history was bequeathed to the Governor ; indeed it is addressed to, and was expressly written at his instigation. Governor Franklin has been twice married. His first wife was a West Indian, by whom he had a son now in France, to whom his grandfather has left a considerable property; his second is a native of Ireland. It is almost unnecessary to add after what has been said, that Governor Franklin is a man of engaging manners, amiable disposition, and interesting conversation. Indeed, there needs no higher proof of this than the recapitulation of the simple fact, that * Two copies of this life were left by him, one in America, the other in France, with an intention of being published after his demise. From the latter of these, which had been entrusted to the care of the Duke de Rochefaucault, a French translation was taken surreptitiously, and that was again translated into English, under the title of "The private life of the late B. Franklin, L. L. D. Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America to France and London, 1793." Mr. William Franklin, the Governor's son, to whom it was finally left by his grandfather, asked 15001. for the MS. which he intends to publish on the conclusion of a general peace. the 1 the author of this article never saw him but once, and that even a marked difference in respect to political sentiments, so far at least as the cause of America is concerned-a subject which so often embitters lifet and produces irreconcileable enmity, cannot prevent him from conferring this tribute of applause on a man, who may be fairly considered as being at one and the same time a martyr to his principles, and an honour to the country that gave him birth. RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF FIFE, BARON FIFE IN THE COUNTY OF FIFE, IN GREAT SCOTLAND has long been considered as the seat of literature, and while one of the most celebrated ot our English authors* appeared fastidiously anxious during his tour in that country, to exhibit the superiority of his own, yet he was liberal enough to allow at the same time, that "Edinburgh the capital, was a hot-bed of genius." But it is not to be denied on the other hand, that while the Scotch have excelled during a great length of time in the belles lettres, as well as in the arts and sciences, they were until of late, far, very far behind their southern neighbours in every thing that respected the agriculture, the improvement, and the embellishment of their native soil. The counties adjacent to the Tweed and the Forth, Doctor Johnson, from |