Franklin never sent this letter; his anger, though powerful, did not carry him away. Yet the fact of its writing indicated the emotional separation he felt from England—and it suggested, with everything else, that political separation could not be far behind. “Words and arguments are now of no use,” he said in a letter he did send to Strahan. “All tends to a separation.” To Joseph Priestley he explained the circumstances surrounding what came to be called the “Olive Branch petition.” “It has been with difficulty that we have carried another humble petition to the Crown, to give Britain one
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