Benjamin Franklin writes a satirical open Letter to Lord North, then Prime Minister of Great Britain. It was published in The Public Advertiser, a British newspaper, on April 15, 1774. The letter suggested that the British “should introduce into North America a Government absolutely and entirely Military” to “quiet all the Disturbances in America, procure a decent Revenue from our Colonies, make our royal Master (at least there) a King de facto..." The letter turned out to be prophetic, just one month later North imposed martial law on Massachusetts with the passage of the Massachusetts Government Act, the second of four acts passed by Parliament known together as the Coercive Acts, or the “Intolerable Acts” as most people in Colonies refer to them. The Acts were meant to punish the colonies for their actions of defiance. More
