In 1773, two years before the American Revolution erupted, Benjamin Franklin, who was in England representing the interests of colonial America, published a satirical essay titled, Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small One. Dedicated to his detractor and opponent of colonial pleas and petitions, Alexander Wedderburn (later Baron of Loughborough), Franklin’s essay employed humor to illustrate why exactly the colonies were on the verge of revolt. “An ancient sage valued himself upon this,” Franklin began, “that though he could not fiddle, he knew how to make a great city of a little one. The science, that I, a modern simpleton, am about to communicate, is the very reverse.” Franklin began his essay by addressing the lamentable situation facing British “ministers, who have the management of extensive dominions, which, from their very greatness, are become troublesome to govern – because the multiplicity of their affairs leaves no time for fiddling.” Satire being the literary vehicle least likely to land him in prison, Franklin organized much of his essay similar to the more formal litany of grievances appearing in the 1776 Declaration of Independence.[1] 

Right: Franklin in London in 1767, wearing a powdered wig and blue suit with elaborate gold braid and buttons, a far cry from the simple dress he affected at the French court in later years, depicted in a portrait by David Martin that is now on display in the White House. Notes from Kloss, William, et al. Art in the White House: A Nation's Pride. Washington, D.C.: The White House Historical Association, 2008: "[T]he portrait [of Benjamin Franklin] was commissioned by Robert Alexander, of the firm of William Alexander & Sons, Edinburgh. . . . The impressive beribboned document held by Franklin in the portrait is not a treaty or an Act of Parliament, but one of Alexander's deeds! The other books and pamphlets suggest the learned evidence brought in support of a wise man's decision. . . . [T]he bust of Isaac Newton, whose gaze is directed toward Franklin, invokes the greatest English voice of Reason. . . . "[T]he portrait nonetheless sits squarely in the broader tradition of Enlightenment . . . . The pressure of concentrated thought (the painting has sometimes been called the 'thumb portrait'), and the refracted light of Franklin's spectacles on his cheek furthers the effect." Source: Wikimedia.

Franklin's first point likened the British Empire to a cake – of which the colonies were on the edge. “In the first place, gentlemen, you are to consider, that a great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.” Edges often being troublesome, and prone to sagging or breaking off, might require some trimming to stabilize the center. “That the possibility of this separation may always exist,” he wrote, “take special care the provinces are never incorporated with the mother-country; that they do not enjoy the same common rights, the same privileges in commerce, and that they are governed by severer laws, all of your enacting, without allowing them any share in the choice of the legislators. By carefully making and preserving such distinctions, you will (to keep to my simile of the cake) act like a wise gingerbread-baker; who, to facilitate a division, cuts his dough half through in those places, where, when baked, he would have it broken to pieces.” Here, Franklin utilized his quaint colonial perspective to help enlighten and inform the overseers of America in London:

Those remote provinces have perhaps been acquired, purchased, or conquered, at the sole expence of the settlers or their ancestors, without the aid of the mother-country. If this should happen to increase her strength, by their growing numbers, ready to join in her wars; her commerce, by their growing demand for her manufactures; or her naval power, by greater employment for her ships and seamen, they may probably suppose some merit in this, and that it entitles them to some favour: you are therefore to forget it all, or resent it, as if they had done you injury. If they happen to be zealous whigs, friends of liberty, nurtured in revolution principles; remember all that to their prejudice, and contrive to punish it: for such principles, after a revolution is thoroughly established, are of no more use; they are even odious and abominable.[2]

Using humor, Franklin tried his best to convince British officials that perhaps their policies attempting to control America were counterproductive, and might lead to revolution, or worse yet, separation. “However peaceably your colonies have submitted to your government,” he wrote in his fourth point, “shown their affection to your interests, and patiently borne their grievances, you are to suppose them always inclined to revolt, and treat them accordingly. Quarter troops among them, who, by their insolence, may provoke the rising of mobs, and by their bullets and bayonets suppress them. By this means, like the husband who uses his wife ill from suspicion, you may in time convert your suspicions into realities.”

Left: John Trumbull's portrait of the Committee of Five presenting their draft of the Declaration to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. John Trumbull's painting, Declaration of Independence, depicting the five-man drafting committee of the Declaration of Independence presenting their work to the Congress. The painting can be found on the back of the U.S. $2 bill. The original hangs in the US Capitol rotunda. It does not represent a real ceremony; the characters portrayed were never in the same room at the same time. Source: Wikimedia.

He also wrote extensively about the character of the colonial officials, noting that if the government sent “prodigals, who have ruined their fortunes, broken gamesters or stock-jobbers, these may do well as governors, for they will probably be rapacious, and provoke the people by their extortions. Wrangling proctors and pettyfogging lawyers too are not amiss, for they will be for ever disputing and quarrelling with their little parliaments.”[3]

Franklin expressed his frustration with recalcitrant officials like Wedderburn and Wills Hill, the first Secretary of State for the Colonies between 1768 and 1772 – both of whom adamantly opposed concessions to the Americans. “To confirm these impressions, and strike them deeper,” Franklin advised, “whenever the injured come to the capital with complaints of mal-administration, oppression, or injustice, punish such suitors with long delay, enormous expence, and a final judgment in favour of the oppressors. This will have an admirable effect every way.” Having experienced the exact situation firsthand, Franklin understood of its effectiveness – adding that American grievances regarding the recent increase in taxes (such as the Tea Act of 1773) to offset expenses incurred during the French and Indian War (1754–63) could be perpetually increased regardless of American opinion:  

The trouble of future complaints will be prevented, and governors and judges will be encouraged to farther acts of oppression and injustice, and thence the people may become more disaffected, and at length desperate. VII. When such governors have crammed their coffers, and made themselves so odious to the peoples that they can no longer remain among them with safety to their persons, recal and reward them with pensions. You may make them baronets too [ala Wedderburn], if that respectable order should not think fit to resent it. All will contribute to encourage new governors in the same practice, and make the supreme government detestable. VIII. If, when you are engaged in war, your colonies should vie in liberal aids of men and money against the common enemy upon your simple requisition, and give far beyond their abilities, – reflect, that a penny, taken from them by your power, is more honourable to you, than a pound presented by their benevolence; despise therefore their voluntary grants, and resolve to harass them with novel taxes. They will probably complain to your parliament, that they are taxed by a body in which they have no representative, and that this is contrary to common right. They will petition for redress. Let the parliament flout their claims, reject their petitions; refuse even to suffer the reading of them, and treat the petitioners with the utmost contempt. Nothing can have a better effect in producing the alienation proposed; for though many can forgive injuries, none ever forgave contempt.[4]

Right: Franklin's return to Philadelphia, 1785, a portrait by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris. Benjamin Franklin, Richard Bache, his wife Sarah, Franklin's daughter, and her son Benjamin Franklin Bache at dockside in Philadelphia. Franklin is greeted by Judge Thomas McKean, who stands on the right. A sedan chair with two African American porters awaits Franklin on the left; large ship in the background. Postcard published by The Foundation Press, Inc., 1932. Reproduction of oil painting from series: The Pageant of a Nation. Source: Wikimedia.

Franklin made other points that obviously went unnoticed, such as issues relating to “habeas corpus right,” and “trial by a jury of our neighbors” – administered by “judges of your own appointing, and of the lowest characters in the country”. However, those comments came later in his essay, and being a man of letters, Franklin understood that disinterested readers generally abandon a disagreeable work after a few lines, or perhaps paragraphs, and seldom read to the end. So much the better for him, because his pleas were ignored, and Franklin stayed out of jail. “I am not suspected as the author except by one or two friends” – he wrote to his son William one month after publishing Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small One. “I have written two pieces here lately for the Public Advertiser, on American affairs,” he wrote, “designed to expose the conduct of this country towards the colonies, in a short, comprehensive, and striking view, and stated therefore in out-of-the-way forms, as most likely to take the general attention.” A year later, parliament passed the 1774 Intolerable Acts, also known as the Coercive Acts, which led to a raucous tea party in Boston that year. In that regard, Franklin’s rules and advice were literally heeded – absent the satire. On July 26, 1785, two years after the end of the Revolutionary War, Franklin, who was in France after having negotiated the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending that war, wrote Baron Francis Maseres. Maseres was a colonial official who attempted to get parliament to see affairs from the colonial perspective, but ultimately failed. Franklin abandoned the cake analogy for another object prone to fracturing:

The ancient system of the British empire was a happy one by which the colonies were allowed to govern and tax themselves. Had it been wisely continued, it is hard to imagine the degree of power and importance in the world that empire might have arrived at. All the means of growing greatness, extent territory, agriculture, commerce, arts, population, were within its own limits, and therefore at its command. I used to consider that system as a large and beautiful porcelain vase. I lamented the measures that I saw, likely to break it, and strove to prevent them; because once broken, I saw no probability of its being ever repaired. My endeavours did not succeed: 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.[5]

[1] Benjamin Franklin, The Complete Works in Philosophy, Politics, and Morals, of the Late Dr. Benjamin Franklin, vol.3 (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1811), 334; Benjamin Franklin, Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small One. By the late, L.L.D. F.R.S. Dedicated to Right Honourable Lord Loughborough. To which is subjoined the Declaration of Independence by the Representatives of the United States of America in General Congress Assembled (London: James Ridgeway, 1793).  

[2] Franklin, The Complete Works in Philosophy, “Rules for Reducing a Great Empire,” 334–5.

[3] Franklin, The Complete Works in Philosophy, “Rules for Reducing a Great Empire,” 336.

[4] Franklin, The Complete Works in Philosophy, “Rules for Reducing a Great Empire,” 336–8.  

[5] Franklin, The Complete Works in Philosophy, “Rules for Reducing a Great Empire," 339; Benjamin Franklin, The Private Correspondence of Benjamin Franklin ... comprising a series of letters on miscellaneous, literary, and political subjects: written between the years 1753 and 1790; illustrating the memoirs of his public and private life, and developing the secret history of his political transactions and negociations (London: Printed for Henry Colburn, 1817), 192–3, 395–6. London, Oct. 6, 1773.