try should enjoy the benefit of them while you live, but can't bear the thought of your going to England again, as has been suggested here, and one sentence in your letter seems to favor. You positively must not go; you have served the public in that way beyond what any other man can boast till you are now come to a good old age, and some younger men must now take that painful service upon them. Don't go, pray, don't go; you certainly may do as much good here as circumstances are at present, and possibly the Congress may not think it proper to send since those late transactions of the army."* To appreciate properly the labors of Dr. Franklin during the next two years, we must not lose sight of the fact, that he had reached that period of life when most men find it necessary, and all men find it pleasant, to desist from toil. But he was an old man only in years. His mind never grew old; and his body, at this time, was not perceptibly impaired. Writers of the period describe him as having grown portly, and he himself frequently alludes, in jocular exaggeration, to his great bulk. He had now discarded the cumbersome wig of his earlier portraits, and wore his own hair, thin and gray, without powder or pigtail. His head being remarkably large and massive, the increased size of his body was thought to have given proportion as well as dignity to his frame. His face was ruddy, and indicated vigorous health. His countenance expressed serenity, firmness, benevolence; and easily assumed a certain look of comic shrewdness, as if waiting to see whether his companion had "taken" a joke. Some of his portraits preserve this expression. In conversation, he excelled greatly in the rare art of listening, and seemed devoid of the least taint of a desire to shine. His was a weighty and expressive silence, which elicited talk, not quelled it; and his taciturnity gave to his utterances, when he did speak, the character of events to be remembered and reported. Hence, anecdotes of Franklin were among the current coin of conversation in Philadelphia, and the staple of editorial paragraphs throughout the colonies. "Letters to Franklin," p. 62. PART V. CHAPTER I. FIRST MEASURES. DELEGATES to the Congress began to reach Philadelphia soon after Franklin's arrival. May the ninth, the four members from South Carolina landed from the Charleston packet, and had joyful welcome. The next day, approached in a body the delegates from Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, and Delaware; George Washington and Patrick Henry among them. There was no drilling in the public grounds of Philadelphia on that day. The officers of all the city companies, and nearly every gentleman who could get a horse, five hundred mounted men in all, rode six miles out of town to meet the coming members and escort them to the city. At the distance of two miles the cavalcade was met by the companies of foot and a band of music. All Philadelphia gathered in the streets, at the windows, on the housetops, to see the procession pass, and salute the delegates with cheers.* The day after, arrived the members from New England, New York, and New Jersey, whose whole journey had been an ovation. In the friendly manner of the time, the members all dined together a day or two after assembling. "Your health, was among the foremost," wrote Franklin to Burke. Congress met on the tenth of May; nearly the whole of its sixty-three delegates present. Few readers need to be reminded of the proceedings of that immortal body which adopted the New England army as its own; which elected George Washington commander-in-chief; which heard the news of the battle of Bunker Hill; which issued continental money; which accepted the supreme direction of colonial resistance. Most worthily has Mr. Bancroft *Diary of Christopher Marshall, p. 28. |