Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/751

 FRANKLIN 715 terity. Burke said the scene reminded him of a master examined by a parcel of schoolboys. George Whitlield, the great field preacher, wrote &quot; Our trusty friend, Dr Franklin, has gained immortal honour by his behaviour at the bar of the House. The answer was always found equal to the questioner. He stood unappalled, gave pleasure to his friends, and did honour to his country.&quot; The examina tion was first published in 17G7, without the name of printer or of publisher, and the following remarks upon it appeared in the Gentleman s Magazine for July of that year : &quot; From this examination of Dr Franklin the reader may form a clearer and more comprehensive idea of the state and disposition of America, of the expediency or inexpediency of the measure in question, and of the character and con duct of the minister who proposed it, than from all that has been written upon the subject in newspapers and pamphlets, under the titles of essays, letters, speeches, and considerations, from the first moment of its becoming the object of public attention till now. The questions in general were put with great subtlety and judgment, and they are answered with such deep and familiar knowledge of the subject, such precision and perspicuity, such temper and yet such spirit, as do the greatest honour to Dr Franklin, and justify the general opinion of his character and abilities.&quot; The light thrown upon colonial affairs by Franklin s ex amination, more probably than all other causes combined, determined parliament to repeal the bill almost as soon as it was to have gone into operation, and immediately upon the conclusion of Franklin s examination. It was to Franklin a never-to-be-forgotten triumph. He celebrated it characteristically. &quot; As the Stamp Act,&quot; he wrote to his wife, &quot; is at length repealed, I am willing you should have a new gown, which you may suppose I did not send sooner as I knew you would not like to be finer than your neigh bours unless in a gown of your own spinning. Had the trade between the two countries totally ceased, it was a comfort to me to recollect that I had once been clothed, from head to foot, in woollen and linen of my wife s manu facture, that I never was prouder of my dress in my life, and that she and her daughter might do it again if it was necessary. I told the parliament that it was my opinion, before the old clothes of the Americans were worn out, they might have new ones of their own making. I have sent you a fine piece of Pompadour satin, 14 yards, cost Us. a yard ; a silk n6glige&quot;o and petticoat of brocaded lute string, for my dear Sally [his daughter] ; with two dozen gloves, four bottles of lavender water, and two little reels.&quot; The news of the repeal filled the colonists with delight, and restored Franklin to their confidence and affection. From that time until the end of his days he was, on the whole, the most popular man in America. Unhappily the repeal of the Stamp Act was a concession to the commercial interests of the mother country not to the political dogmas of the colonists. The king s party was more irritated than instructed by its defeat, and instead of surrendering any of its pretensions to tax the colonies, almost immediately brought in a bill, which was passed, asserting the absolute supremacy of parliament over the colonies, and in the suc ceeding parliament another bill, which also passed, imposing duties on the paper, paints, glass, and tea imported by the colonies. This tax was resented by the colonies with no less bitterness and determination than they had resented the Stamp Act. It conveyed sterility into their recent triumph, and aroused a feeling akin to disloyalty. It made the minor differences among the colonists disappear, and crystallized public opinion with marvellous rapidity around the principle of &quot; no taxation without representation,&quot; a principle which it was impossible to make acceptable to the king, whose old-fashioned notions of the royal prerogative had only been confirmed and strengthened by the irritating pertinacity of the colonists. Thus the issue was gradually made up between the mother country and its American dependencies. Each party felt that its first duty was to be firm, and that any concession would be disastrous as well as dishonourable. Such a state of feeling could terminate but in one way. It is now clear to all, as it was then clear to a few, that the passing of the tea and paper bill, made the difference between the crown and the colonists irrecon cilable, and that nothing but the death of the king could prevent a war. The nine succeeding years were spent by the contending parties in struggling for position, tho colonies becoming more indifferent to the mother country, and tho mother country less disposed to put up with the pretensions of her offspring. Franklin, when he went to London in 17G4, confidently expected to return in the follow ing year ; but he was not destined to leave England till ten years later, and then with the depressing suspicion that the resources of diplomacy were exhausted. Meantime he remitted no effort to find some middle ground of conciliation. Equipped with the additional authority derived from com missions to act as the agent of the provinces of Massa chusetts, of New Jersey, and of Georgia, and with a social influence never possessed probably by any other American representative at the English court, he would doubtless have prevented the final alienation of the colonies, if such a result, under the circumstances, had been possible. But it was not. The colonists were Englishmen for the most part, and they could not be brought to make concessions which would have dishonoured them ; and Franklin was not the man to ask of them such concessions. Ho took the position that &quot; the parliament had no right to make any law whatever binding the colonies; that the king, and not the king, Lords, and Commons collectively, was their sovereign; and that the king, with their respective parliaments, is their only legis lator.&quot; In other words, he asked only what England has since granted to all her colonies, and what, but for the fatuous obstinacy of the king, who at this time was rather an object of commiseration than of criticism, she would undoubtedly have yielded. But under the pressure of the crown, negotiation and debate seemed rather to aggravate tho differences than to remove them. The solemn peti tions of the colonists to the throne were treated with neglect or derision, and their agents with contumely, and Franklin was openly insulted in the House of Lords, was deprived of his office of deputy-postmaster, and was scarcely safe from personal outrage. Satisfied that his usefulness in England was at an end, he placed his agencies in the hands of Arthur Lee, an American lawyer practising at the London bar, and on the 21st of March 1775, again set sail for Philadelphia. On reaching home his last hope of maintaining the integrity of the empire was dissipated by the news which awaited him of collisions which had occurred, some two weeks previous, between the people and the royal troops at Concord and at Lexington. He found the colonies in flagrant rebellion, and himself sud denly transformed from a peacemaker into a warmaker. The two years which followed were among the busiest of his life. The very morning of his arrival he was elected, by the assembly of Pennsylvania, a delegate to that conti nental congress then sitting in Philadelphia which consoli dated the armies of the colonies, placed George Washington in command of them, issued the first continental currency, and assumed the responsibility of resisting the imperial government. In this congress he served on not less than ten committees. One of its first measures was to organize a continental postal system and to make Franklin post master-general. Thus lie was avenged for his dismissal 18 months before from the office of deputy by being appointed to a place of higher rank and augmented