đź“ś By Quill & Candlelight : The Dispatches of Colonel Shufflebottom on the Matter of Colonial Nonsense
🗓️ July 26th, 1775 — An Unsettling Postal Wind Blows
It is my solemn duty—and profound irritation—to report that Mr. Benjamin Franklin, self-styled sage and known collector of pseudonyms, has been appointed Postmaster General. The colonies, in their infinite wisdom and questionable sobriety, have seen fit to entrust the distribution of all communication to a man who once wrote as Mrs. Silence Dogood, Richard Saunders, and—if memory serves—a philosophical cat named Poor Richard. One wonders whether our letters will now be delivered in rhyming couplets.
His appointment guarantees two outcomes: first, that Mr. Franklin’s own newspaper shall henceforth arrive with alacrity and flourish; and second, that rival publications will be subject to the sort of delays typically reserved for French cavalry reinforcements. In effect, we have granted him dominion over both ink and horse.
I do recall Franklin once attempting to domesticate lightning with a key on a kite—an endeavor resulting in unnatural longevity and hairline retreat. I expect, by year’s end, he will publish under the pen name Postal Platypus, and the colonies shall thank him for it.
With growing distrust and dwindling wigs,
Colonel Archibald Shufflebottom, 47th Regiment of Foot
Unpaid critic of unwelcome correspondence
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