glaud to prosecute that petition; which service 1 accordingly undertook, and embarked at the beginning of November last, being accompanied to the ship, sixteen miles, by a cavalcade of three hundred of my friends, who filled our sails with their good wishes, and I arrived in thirty days at London.

"Here I have been ever since, engaged in that and other public affairs relating to America, which are like to continue some time longer upon my hands; but I promise you, that when I am quit of these, I will engage in no other; and that, as soon as I have recovered the ease and leisure I hope for, the task you require of me, of finishing my Art of Virtue, shall be performed. In the mean time, I must request you would excuse me on this consideration, that the powers of the mind are possessed by different men in different degrees, and that every one can not, like Lord Kames, intermix literary pursuits and important business without prejudice to either."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE letter of Dr. Franklin, with which our last chapter concludes, covers a long period. Returning to the thread of the narrative, we shall follow in detail the events which Franklin rapidly recounts, and supply the lesser incidents which his letter does not embrace.

His welcome home, as modestly intimated in the letter, was most cordial and hearty. Indeed, the various claims which he possessed upon the attention of his fellow-citizens would not permit it to be otherwise. His political friends asserted and defended their principles in honoring their champion. The philosophical and literary, who courted his friendship, were eager to hear what new advances he had made in their favorite pursuits, and to learn what discoveries and inventions he had to report, after his sojourn abroad. And his personal friends, and the many who follow the fashion of the hour in paying court to the distinguished, swelled the concourse who came to offer their congratulations. To a man like Franklin, by no means insensible to the good opinion of his fellow-citizens, this reception was highly gratifying.

During his absence in England he had retained his seat in the Assembly by annual election, than

which no stronger proof of the estimate of his services abroad could have been given by his constituents; and upon the meeting of the Assembly, besides the approval of his accounts, already mentioned, the thanks of the House were voted to him, as well for his faithful discharge of his duty to Pennsylvania in particular, as for the many and important services rendered to America in general, during his residence in Great Britain. As appears from the Journal of the House, the resolve of the Legislature was carried into effect on the 31st of March, 1763, and the thanks of the House were given to Dr. Franklin in form by the speaker. The reply was brief but happy: "That he was thankful to the House for the very handsome and generous allowance they had been pleased to make him for his services, but that the approbation of the House was, in his estimation, far above every other kind of recompense."

Dr. Franklin was now in his fifty-eighth year; but the most active portion of his life in public duties remained to him. He held the office of postmaster-general in the colonies, and undertook and accomplished what was at that day a great journey. He traveled in a light carriage, driven by himself, through the colonies north of Philadelphia, on a tour of inspection among the post-offices, journeying as far as New Hampshire. The trip, with his delays and detentions, occupied five months, and the distance traveled was about sixteen hundred miles. In the course of the journey he had two falls, by one

of which his shoulder was dislocated; and he was afflicted, also, with a weakness and pain in the breast, which compelled him to make slow progress. Accompanying the wagon was a saddle-horse, on which

his daughter Sally, who was his fellow-traveler, occasionally rode. On their return, practice having made her expert, she rode in this way nearly all the distance from Rhode Island to Philadelphia. During this journey he experienced those proofs of official and of private hospitality to which his public character, and large circle of private friends and connections opened the way. Though fully appreciating the kindness of his entertainers, he has left on record a humorist's idea of the difficulties of hospitality. In a letter to his sister after his return to Philadelphia, he says, "I am very happy in being at home, where I am allowed to know when 1 have ate enough and drank enough, and sit in a

place that I like, and nobody pretends to know what I feel better than myself."

At this period occurred events marking the inexpediency, to use no harsher term, of letting loose the savage propensities of Indians, under the protection of white allies. The English and French, who had each employed the savages in their wars against each other, had now returned to peace; but the evil passions of the Indians, inflamed in a warfare in which they had little other interest than hatred against all pale-faces, were not so easily to be calmed by European diplomacy. They had their own motives for embarking in the war-motives and impulses which were not removed by the declaration of peace. Nor was their pride at all consulted in a treaty in which they had no share, and from the conditions of which they received no advantage; while, on the other hand, their fierce propensities were disappointed, and the plunder and carnage in which they delighted were ordered to be stayed. Having had a taste of blood, they were not satisfied to desist when their civilized friends cried enough; nor were they sufficient adepts in sophistry to understand why, while on one day it was loyal and proper for them to use the tomahawk, scalping-knife, and brand, on the next the heroism of the red brothers became the barbarity of fierce Indians. So they settled the question of casuistry in their own way, by commencing a war of plunder and murder on the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania on their own account. The Assembly of Pennsylvania imme

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