 The debate centered on the arbitrariness of executive prerogative and the role of Parliament in colonial governance, and greatly deepened divisions in the province.The Massachusetts debate reached a pitch in England when the colonial secretary, Lord Dartmouth, insisted that Benjamin Franklin, then acting as agent for Massachusetts in London, demand that the Massachusetts assembly retract its response to a speech the governor gave early in 1772 as part of this ongoing debate.Franklin had acquired a packet of about twenty letters that had been written to Whately.