2. Benjamin Franklin [1785
we are broken, and the parts must now do as well as
they can for themselves. We may still do well,
though separated. I have great hopes of our side,
and good wishes for yours. The anarchy and confusion
 you mention, as supposed to prevail among
us, exist only in your newspapers. I have authentic
accounts, which assure me that no people were ever
better governed, or more content with their respective
 constitutions and governments, than the present
Thirteen States of America.
A little reflection may convince any reasonable
man that a government wherein the administrators
are chosen annually by the free voice of the governed,
and may also be recalled at any time if their conduct
displeases their constituents, cannot be a tyrannical
one, as your loyalists represent it; who at the same
time inconsistently desire to return and live under it.
And, among an intelligent, enlightened people, as
ours 1s, there must always be too numerous and too
strong a party for supporting good government and
the laws, to sufier what is called anarchy. This better
 account of our situation must be pleasing to your
humanity, and therefore I give it you.
But we differ a little in our sentiments respecting
the loyalists (as they call themselves), and the conduct
 of America towards them, which, you think,
‘‘seems actuated by a spirit of revenge; and that it
would have been more agreeable to policy, as well as
justice, to have restored their estates upon their taking
 the oaths of allegiance to the new governments.’
That there should still be some resentment against
them in the breasts of those, who have had their

‘64