to the King, and that this power was at that very moment arising in one of its periodic struggles for the destruction of royal prerogative and arbitrary rule. And that the Englishmen leading this battle realized that our War of Independence was the very backbone of their movement—that the American cause was their cause and the cause of freedom of peoples of the whole world.
Franklin's correspondence shows that he was in intimate and friendly relations with John Charles Fox, Lord Shelburne, Hartley, Oswald, Lord Chatham, Lord Rockingham, Conway, Adam Smith, the inheritors and champions of the Anglo-Saxon traditions and independence. And that so strong were these men that they openly said in the very halls of King George that "we heartily wish success to the Americans."
Richmond and Fox proclaimed their satisfaction over every British defeat in America. Walpole wrote:
"I rejoice that there is still a great continent
