New Shun 1730

No matter what, Benjamin Franklin at this time was still a person who loved his motherland, was full of national enthusiasm and national pride.

In fact, this was still the case many years later in history.

However, this kind of love often suffers a huge blow.

In the words of later generations, Benjamin Franklin was the standard template of "I love Britain, but Britain doesn't love me"; or, "I love this great Britain, I am afraid that it will die, but I was arrested by Song Enzi and Wu Xiangzi of Great Britain and stayed in prison for more than a year."

The famous Hutchinson letter incident in history, from Franklin's perspective, is like this:

Hutchinson was born in the thirteen states, not in the British Isles. He was appointed Governor of Massachusetts and was a good friend of Franklin.

As the conflict in North America expanded, Hutchinson, as the governor, was quite dissatisfied with the resistance in North America. In his letters to Franklin, he said more than once, such as "this group of unruly people should be suppressed", "why don't they pay taxes", "gentry are harming the country".

When the contradictions intensified, Franklin made these letters public.

The purpose of the public release was very simple:

The emperor was good, but the ministers messed things up. You don't have to insult George III all day long. Look, Hutchinson is one of us, a native born in the thirteen states.

In this matter of asking us to pay taxes, the people of our thirteen states are the most active, and it has nothing to do with the king.

[The enemies who invaded the freedom and political rights of the thirteen states actually came from within, not the king's proposition. 】

So, the funniest trial came.

The people of the Thirteen States thought that Franklin was a traitor and a thief. His son was the Governor of New Jersey and was an orthodox pro-British and tax-supporting party. Now he defended the king. What else could he be?

The British side thought that Franklin was inciting the emotions of the people and was worthy of death. He published these letters at this time. Was he interfering? Don't you know that Hutchinson was the Governor appointed by the British government? Who would his letters remind the people of the Thirteen States of?

At the same time, the British aristocratic circle that Franklin entered as the North American Postmaster General also sneered at Franklin: A gentleman should never make other people's private letters public at any time, especially if this person is your good friend. You are a "scheming villain, a person of low morals who is not worthy of being a gentleman and makes other people's private letters public."

In this situation, Britain - the Britain that Franklin wanted to prove was not bad - tried Franklin, deprived him of his proud post as the postmaster general of North America, and accused him of being "the mastermind behind the Anglo-American conflict, the head of the Boston Tea Party smuggling group", etc.

Franklin said that there is no greater sorrow than the death of one's heart. I did this because I wanted to tell the people that the king is good, and it is the governors who do bad things, and often the most ruthless ones are precisely those born in the thirteen states, not those sent by Britain.

There is such a joke.

It is said that after the trial, Franklin walked to the Attorney General and said something in the Attorney General's ear: Remember what happened today, I will turn your monarch from the lord of an empire spanning the four seas into the king of a small country trapped on an island. Remember my words!

The truth of this last joke is hard to know, but there is a follow-up to this joke, that is, at the Paris Peace Conference after the North American War of Independence, Franklin specially found the clothes he wore during the trial.

But since this incident had not happened yet, Franklin had not been slapped in the face by his beloved motherland, so naturally he still loved his country at this time and was full of Anglo national pride - he was quite dissatisfied with the influx of Germans and French in North America, and believed that this God-given land should not be occupied by these country bumpkins.

As for the intention of making the letters public, it was in line with Franklin's consistent proposition.

That is, "sovereignty lies with the king, and the British and American parliaments are two equal legitimate sons."

This matter does not talk about class and economic issues, but only about abstract political issues. In fact, many years ago, when the Whig Party united with financial capital oligarchs to control the government in 1688, as Lao Ma said, it had been planted.

Many accumulated contradictions can be resolved or continue to accumulate during the rising period, and they do not constitute a problem at all.

But once the situation changes and the rising period is interrupted, something will definitely happen.

Here, the Whig Party oligarchs are actually called "court faction" in the UK, corresponding to the "country faction".

Why do the "court party" or the Whig oligarchy start to argue fiercely about "sovereignty in Parliament" now?

Why didn't they do it before?

The reason is simple: because they controlled Parliament and power before, so they didn't have to shout loudly, argue loudly, and argue whether sovereignty lies with the king or Parliament.

Just like, if you have something in your hand and it is not controversial, will you go around proving that it is yours?

Only when this thing has been controversial and may be taken away by others, you have to argue to prove that it is yours.

Now, George II is probably finished. He is eighty years old and he is shitting too hard. He is basically dead.

The prince is about to succeed to the throne, and the members of his father's "prince party" who will be inherited by the prince are a group of people who are excluded and cannot enter the center.

They are traditional and conservative, and their base, that is, the British gentry and landowners, have a very obvious authoritarian tendency, and are very inclined to "the real king in power, above the parliament".

In this case, the court Whigs control the parliament; while the Country Party, the Tories, and the traditionalists naturally tend to the king.

It is a very normal court political method, just like the emperor of the Celestial Empire looking for eunuchs and the former queen of Luosha raising the German Party to fight against the Privy Council. In fact, it is almost the same.

Franklin keenly felt the direction of politics. In the past few years in London, he felt that things were changing.

The conflict between the King's Party and the Parliamentary Party will definitely expand. Once George II dies, this contradiction will become fierce and public.

In this regard, Franklin believes that this is not a bad thing.

Even, including the siege of Gibraltar by the Chinese and French coalition forces and the formation of the anti-British alliance of China, France and Spain, dialectically speaking, it can also be regarded as an opportunity to "change the political landscape at this time and change the embarrassing identity of the thirteen states."

Because, although the form of the Thirteen States in North America is different, in terms of power distribution, it is similar to the discussion of "whether to start militia training and whether to allow local forces to rise" when the Ming Dynasty and the Shun Dynasty were about to collapse.

To some extent, it is similar to the tax and finance discussion that France was having a headache at the time, when many nobles wrote to the king to support the land inventory - giving up some authority in exchange for more tax revenue.

If you want something.

You have to give up something.

As a person from the Thirteen States, Franklin himself understood that the situation in the Thirteen States in North America is already quite troublesome.

Therefore, he hoped that through this opportunity of the Sino-French coalition forces besieging Gibraltar and threatening to land, he could achieve his long-standing political demands.

That is, to combine the Thirteen States into a whole and establish a political entity with a unified market and a unified government.

With this political entity, it will have an equal political status with Britain, and establish a British Federation under the leadership of the sovereignty of one king, with the British king as the common ruler of the world.

If it can be achieved, then the Thirteen States can certainly provide more troops, finances, and taxes for this war, and push the Sino-French coalition forces that may attack from the direction of Canada back to the sea.

This cannot be done by the Thirteen States themselves.

It still depends on the king to make a decision and give a legitimate name.

Because there have been great differences of opinion within the Thirteen States.

Here, we have to mention several big black pots that can be firmly pinned on Dashun.

Moreover, this big black pot is so huge that no one else can really carry it except Dashun.

The problem of this big black pot cannot be explained from those abstract love, sentiment, feelings, patriotic enthusiasm, etc., but can only be understood from the economic foundation and superstructure under the material foundation.

Before Franklin came to London this time to solve the problem of whether Pennsylvania was "state-owned land" or "private land".

That is, after Dupleix was transferred back to Paris from India, Britain and France had already gone to war in North America.

At the beginning of the war, Franklin and others held the "Albany Conference" in New York State.

The participants were representatives from various states and representatives of the six tribes of Iroquois Indians. The purpose of the meeting was actually very simple: the motherland is now at war with France, and we must unite and fight for the motherland.

Franklin advocated the establishment of a union of states to become a political entity, equal to England, so as to realize a truly great Great Britain of Scotland, England, and the thirteen states of North America.

However, once this idea was proposed, it was strongly opposed by Massachusetts.

Franklin sometimes had many complaints about Britain, but his personal dissatisfaction was mainly due to a common feature of the feudal dynasty army?

Killing innocent people for merit, oppressing the people, chopping off the heads of fellow villagers for military merit, robbing the finances of their own people, etc.

[All the villages they passed were looted, and many poor families went bankrupt. ]

[If anyone dared to resist, they would be humiliated and abused in every way, or even killed. ]

[This made me very sad. The French did not do these cruel things when they invaded...]

[Our own army is not even as good as the invaders. 】

This kind of killing innocent people for credit and robbing the people is a normal phenomenon in this world. They are all bastards, nothing good.

The representatives of various states who came to Albany for the meeting were all famous gentry in their states, and they would definitely not encounter such things in person.

Although it is said that all states are opposed, because each state has its own interests and does not want to be squeezed together.

However, the reason why Massachusetts is extremely opposed is not because the British army robbed the people and killed innocent people for credit, nor is it simply because of the local emperor interests of the gentry in each state, but it has a huge relationship with the operation of some people in Dashun.

In addition to solving the problem of turning the ownership of private land into state-owned land, Franklin came to London this time. There is another thing, which is to hope that North America can issue paper money by itself and cancel the "Currency Control Act" in London in 1751.

This "Currency Control Act" is often regarded as a "symbol of British oppression" in later generations, but what exactly is going on is not detailed.

In fact, the reason why this "Currency Control Act" was initiated in Parliament was that some people in North America asked British financial capital for debt.

When you borrow, you borrow real money.

When the money was returned, it was paper money issued by the colonial gentry themselves.

If paper money can buy things, it doesn't really matter. Currency is just a general equivalent. It doesn't have to be gold or silver. It can be tied to physical objects such as peanuts, cotton, grains, and indigo in North America, so it doesn't matter.

However, the banknotes issued by Massachusetts are comparable to the Ming Dynasty treasure banknotes!

Within a few years, it devalued crazily to 4% of its original currency value, which means that there are only 4 taels left out of 100 taels of silver.

In these days, gold and silver are needed to do business. The money that the British financial capitalists lent to North American slave owners was real money and silver. When they repaid the money, they gave back banknotes, and these were banknotes that were depreciating crazily...

The "Currency Act" of 1751 was caused by the issue of repayment of debts: I will not repay you silver, I will repay you banknotes. The situation became more and more, and eventually the lawsuit went to the London Parliament.

Although it seems that this is not oppression originally.

But at this time, due to Dashun's intervention, this decree was actually oppression.

If we really want to talk about it, some people in Dashun really have to take the blame for this.

Why has the value of paper money depreciated so much in Massachusetts?

Because it’s over-issued.

Why overdo it?

Because there is a war.

Why go to war?

Because Liu Yu instigated France to sell ginseng and mink skins, during the Ginseng War that took place here during the War of Austrian Succession, the merchant group in Massachusetts worked very hard, trying to rob France of "valuable, no spinning, no weaving, just digging grass roots." A colony that can exchange silver from China.

However, due to Liu Yu's interference, the Dutch coup, the Russian coup, Dashun's pressure on the East India Company, and the loan of ships to Dupleix to cause trouble in India, the British government exchanged the occupied French North American colonies for India. Madras.

Originally, the banknotes were issued excessively in response to the war, and the anchor was the future earnings of ginseng and mink skins. However, as a result, the banknotes were gone and their value naturally depreciated, and it depreciated wildly.

The small state of Massachusetts, in order to expand its troops and start a war with the French during the People's War, did not have much money, so it overissued about 700,000 pounds, or 2.1 million taels of silver banknotes.

If it doesn't fucking depreciate, it's really unreasonable.

If Dashun is willing to take the blame, they can really do it.

After all, Liu Yu actually carried out a neutrality coup in the Netherlands, lent a number of warships to Dupleix, returned French naval instructors, and launched an opium case to threaten the East India Company...

In the end, France lost North America, India made up for it, and the two sides changed.

The British royal family and the Whig oligarchy had a closer relationship with the East India Company, so they sold Massachusetts without blinking an eye in exchange for the interests of the East India Company.

It should be said that this led to the sharp depreciation of banknotes in Massachusetts. Otherwise, use ginseng and mink futures as an anchor, and Dashun is a country in the world where you can really eat ginseng and earn one million taels of silver a year. If you had occupied the ginseng production area, it would have been possible to stabilize the market. The value of currency - Theoretically, the Ming Dynasty's Nanyang strategy did not go bankrupt, or it could control smuggling, or if Nanyang was 30,000 miles away, Baobao was anchored in spices, and the royal monopoly was exclusive, Baobao could still last for a few years.

Therefore, Massachusetts really has little interest in "loving the motherland."

In the past, we donated money and materials, organized militias, and fought against the French and Indians. Although essentially we wanted to monopolize the ginseng trade for the benefit of us big businessmen and big capitalists, objectively speaking, it was also considered as doing something for the motherland. Go out and fight the French - after the war, you London sold us out with a backhand.

Oh, this Great Britain is the motherland of the East India Company, the motherland of the Whig oligarchs and London financial capital, and it has nothing to do with us.

Who knew that this time we would spend money and contribute to the Northern Expedition, but you would turn around and sell us out again?

Franklin, can you guarantee that London Financial Capital will not sell us out again this time? When we lead the Northern Expedition, won't we be stabbed in the back by the king?