# Talk:Hutchinson letters affair

I'm unclear whether the first sentence of the fourth paragraph of the Background section says what it's supposed to say.  Here it is in its current form:

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, demanded that the Massachusetts assembly retract its response to a speech the governor gave early in 1772 as part of this ongoing debate.
This says that Dartmouth claimed that Franklin had already demanded that the Massachusetts assembly retract its response.  Is that what it's meant to say, or is it meant to say that Dartmouth told Franklin to demand a retraction?  In that case the verb should be demand, not demanded, so that the core of the sentence would read "The debate reached a pitch in England when the colonial secretary insisted that Benjamin Franklin demand that the Massachusetts assembly retract its response."  Binabik80 (talk) 21:19, 15 April 2014 (UTC)