willing to do every thing that could reasonably be expected of me. But, if any supposed I could prevail with my countrymen to take black for white, and wrong for right, it was not knowing either them or me; they were not capable of being so imposed on, nor was I capable of attempting it.

"He then asked my opinion of sending over a commissioner, for the purpose mentioned in a preceding part of this account, and my answer was to the same effect. By the way, I apprehend, that to give me an opportunity of discoursing with Lord Hyde on that point, was a principal motive with Lord Howe for urging me to make this visit. His Lordship did not express his own sentiments upon it. And thus ended this conversation.

"Three or four days after, I received the following note from Mrs. Howe: Mrs. Howe's compliments to Dr. Franklin; Lord Howe begs to have the pleasure of meeting him once more before he goes at her house; he is at present out of town, but returns on Monday; and any day or hour after that, that the Doctor will name, he will be very glad to attend him.'

"I answered, that I would do myself the honor of waiting on Lord Howe, at her house, the Tuesday following, at eleven o'clock. We met accordingly. He began by saying, that I had been a better prophet than himself, in foreseeing that my interview with Lord Hyde would be of no great use; and then said, that he hoped I would excuse the trouble he had given me, as his intentions had been good both towards me and the public. He was sorry, that at present there was no appearance of things going into the train he had wished, but that possibly they might yet take a more favorable turn; and, as he understood I was going soon to America, if he should chance to be sent thither on that important business, he hoped he might still expect my assistance. I assured him of my readiness at all times of co-operating with him in so good a work; and so, taking my leave, and receiving his good wishes, ended the negotiation with Lord Howe. And I heard no more of that with Messrs. Fothergill and Barclay. I could only gather, from some hints in their conversation, that neither of them were well pleased with the conduct of the ministers respecting these transactions. And, a few days before I left London, I met them by their desire, at the Doctor's house, when they desired me to assure their friends from them, that it was now their fixed opinion, that nothing could

secure the privileges of America, but a firm, sober adherence to the terms of the association made at the Congress, and that the salvation of English liberty depended now on the perseverance and virtue of America.

"During the whole, my time was otherwise much taken up, by friends calling continually to inquire news from America; members of both Houses of Parliament, to inform me what passed in the Houses, and discourse with me on the debate, and on motions made, or to be made; merchants of London and of the manufacturing and port towns, on their petitions; the Quakers, upon theirs, &c., &c.; so that I had no time to take notes of almost any thing. This account is therefore chiefly from recollection, in which doubtless much must have been omitted, from deficiency of memory; but what there is, I believe to be pretty exact; except that, discoursing with so many different persons about the same time, on the same subject, I may possibly have put down some things as said by or to one person, which passed in conversation with another."

A few days after the close of these negotiations, Dr. Franklin attended, for the last time, the House of Lords, and heard there such wild vituperation of his countrymen as moved even his placid mind to rage. American courage, American religion, American intellect, became by turns the theme of lordly denunciation. "We were treated," says Franklin, "with the utmost contempt, as the lowest of mankind, and almost of a different species from the English of Britain; but particularly, American honesty was abused by some of the lords, who asserted that we were all knaves, and wanted only by this dispute to avoid paying our debts." Burning with indignation, he hurried home, and drew up a Protest against the proceedings of the government, in the form of a memorial to the Earl of Dartmouth:

"Whereas, an injury done can only give the party injured a right to full reparation; or, in case that be refused, a right to return an equal injury; and whereas, the blockade of Boston, now continued nine months, hath every week of its continuance done damage to that town, equal to what was suffered there by the India Company; it follows that such exceeding damage is an injury done by this government, for which reparation ought to be made; and whereas, reparation of injuries ought always (agreeably to the custom of all nations, savage as well as civilized) to be first required, before

satisfaction is taken by a return of damage to the aggressors; which was not done by Great Britain in the instance above mentioned; I, the underwritten, do therefore, as their agent, in the behalf of my country and the said town of Boston, protest against the continuance of the said blockade; and I do hereby solemnly demand satisfaction for the accumulated injury done them, beyond the value of the India Company's tea destroyed.

"And whereas, the conquest of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the coasts of Labrador and Nova Scotia, and the fisheries possessed by the French there and on the Banks of Newfoundland, so far as they were more extended than at present, was made by the joint forces of Britain and the colonies, the latter having nearly an equal number of men in that service with the former; it follows, that the colonies have an equitable and just right to participate in the advantage of those fisheries; I do, therefore, in behalf of the colony of the Massachusetts Bay, protest against the act now under consideration in Parliament, for depriving that province, with others, of that fishery, (on pretense of their refusing to purchase British commodities,) as an act highly unjust and injurious; and I give notice, that satisfaction will probably one day be demanded for all the injury that may be done and suffered in the execution of such act; and that the injustice of the proceeding is likely to give such umbrage to all the colonies, that in no future war, wherein other conquests may be meditated, either a man or a shilling will be obtained from any of them to aid such conquests, till full satisfaction be made as aforesaid."

When he had finished the draft of this Protest, he showed it to his friend, Thomas Walpole, a liberal member of Parliament. "He looked at it," says Franklin, "and at me several times alternately, as if he apprehended me a little out of my senses." Walpole strongly advised the indignant agent not to present the memorial, as it would certainly exasperate the nation, and probably lead to the arrest of the author. "I had no desire," Franklin adds, "to make matters worse, and being grown cooler, took the advice so kindly given me."

Thus ended his connection with the governing powers of England. Down to the packing of his last trunk, he had still striven with all the might of his genius, his wisdom, his patience, and his wrath, to save entire the great Empire of his pride and love.

Nothing could ever long suspend the fruitful gayety of Franklin's mind. It was during these last exciting weeks, that he conceived that peerless fable of the Eagle and the Cat, which John Adams was good enough to record, after hearing the story from Franklin's own lips. At a nobleman's house, one evening, the conversation having turned upon fables, a gentleman expressed the opinion that Esop, La Fontaine, Gay, and the rest, had exhausted that mine of illustration. No man, he continued, could now find an animal, bird, fish, or reptile which could be worked into an original fable. The company appeared to concur in this remark. Franklin mused upon the subject, but said nothing; until, his silence being noticed, the gentleman asked his opinion. He replied, that he considered fables an inexhaustible resource, and he believed that many new and instructive ones could be invented. "Can you think of one now?" asked a lord. Franklin answered, that if he was furnished with pen and paper, he could produce one on the spot. The articles were brought, and he began to write. In a few minutes he had given inimitable expression, in the form of a fable, to the political situation of England and America:

"Once upon a time, an eagle, scaling round a farmer's barn, and espying a hare, darted down upon him like a sunbeam, seized him in his claws, and remounted with him to the air. He soon found, that he had a creature of more courage and strength than a hare; for which, notwithstanding the keenness of his eyesight, he had mistaken a cat. The snarling and scrambling of his prey were very inconvenient; and, what was worse, she had disengaged herself from his talons, grasped his body with her four limbs, so as to stop his breath, and seized fast hold of his throat with her teeth. 'Pray,' said the eagle, 'let go your hold, and I will release you.' 'Very fine,' said the cat; 'I have no fancy to fall from this hight, and be crushed to death. You have taken me up, and you shall stoop, and let me down.' The eagle thought it necessary to stoop accordingly."*

Life and Works of John Adams, ix., 268.

CHAPTER XIII.

RETURN TO AMERICA.

FRANKLIN took leave of his London friends. He did not think it a final farewell, for he said, in a letter, written three days before his departure, that he left his affairs in the hands of Mrs. Stevenson, and purposed, God willing, to return to England in October. He, probably, hoped to come back to London charged with proposals from the Congress, which the ministry, after six months' observation of the determination of America, and six months' experience of the commercial consequences of that determination, might be willing to accept. He still felt, with George Washington, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens, that he would give every thing he possessed to restore the relations of the colonies and the mother country, to the state in which they were before the passage of the Stamp Act.

M. Garnier, the French Minister, sought a last interview with him. They had often conferred before on the great topic, each having a sincere esteem for the other. On this occasion M. Garnier reminded Franklin of the aid which French genius, in the time of Henry IV., had contributed to the United Provinces in their struggle for independence. Franklin noted well the prophetic hint. It occurred, however, to Garnier, that the American colonies had no navy, no allies, no Prince of Orange. But they had Franklin. M. Garnier told the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, that Franklin, when he reached home, would cut out work enough for the English cabinet.

The day before his last in London, he spent several hours with Edmund Burke. Again, he recalled the happy days when the British Empire presented the only instance in history of a great empire as well governed in its distant members as at the metropolis. Again, he justified the resistance of his countrymen, and lamented the infatuation of the blunderers who had provoked it. The old friends parted, never to meet again.

Three days after, Mr. Burke pronounced that fine eulogium of the colonies, in his place in the House of Commons, which was a stock piece for declamation in the schools of the last generation. Doubtless, his long conversation with Franklin suggested some of the