December, a call was made for troops to defend the frontier, five hundred and forty men responded. Franklin accepted the command, and, with his son William as aid-de-camp, set out for the ruins of Gnadenhutten. There he passed two months hunting Indians and building forts, till urgent letters came from his friends and from the governor begging him to return. The assembly was soon to meet. The old quarrel was to be renewed, and Franklin could not be spared.

But the assembly met, adjourned, and met again, and a new governor came out from England before the crisis was reached. It was in December, 1756, that the patience of the assembly, so long and sorely tried, gave way. The affairs of the colonies were desperate. The French had taken Oswego and Fort George and razed them to the ground. The expedition against Ticonderoga had come to naught. That up the Kennebec had done no better. Fort Duquesne had not surrendered, while the fort and settlement at Grenville had been sacked. The whole frontier of Pennsylvania, indeed, was unprotected. Meantime the treasury was empty, and the foe more bold and insolent than ever. To meet the needs of the hour, the assembly now laid a tax of £60,000, and to make it acceptable to the governor laid it, not on the Penn estate, but on wine, rum, brandy, and liquors. But the governor would not consent. A conference followed, the bill came back to the house, and with it came the tart assurance that he would send his reasons to the king.

Then the assembly for the first time began to act and to speak boldly. They ordered such a money bill to be prepared as the governor would sign. They resolved to send home a remonstrance setting forth the evils that would come on Pennsylvania if governed, not by the laws and charters, but by the instructions of the Penns, and they chose two members to represent the province in England. Isaac Norris refused to serve. But Franklin accepted, and the next five years of his life were spent in England.

CHAPTER VI.

1756-1764.

THESE five years were in many respects the most glorious and the most important in English history. At last the long series of disasters which had overwhelmed the royal armies had ended. Since the day the Great Commoner took the post of secretary, victory had followed victory with amazing rapidity. In July, 1758, Louisburg surrendered; then Cape Breton fell; and the great French fleet, the terror of the coast, was annihilated. Scarcely had the captured standards been hung in St. Paul's when 1759 opened, and the nation heard with delight of the conquest of Goree; of the fall of Guadaloupe, Ticonderoga, and Niagara; of the capture of Quebec. Before 1760 closed Montreal capitulated; the arms of England were triumphant in Canada, in India, on the sea, and the old king died.

With the accession of the new king arose a cry for peace. The Tories, with George III. at their head, were clamorous for peace on any

terms. The Whigs, with Pitt at their head, were for a vigorous prosecution of the war; and no Pittite believed more firmly in this policy than Franklin, and believing in it he wrote in its defense.

He pretended that, while ransacking the old book-stalls, he had found a book printed at London in 1629. The cover was gone; the titlepage was wanting. But he believed the work was written by a Jesuit, and addressed to some king of Spain. Reading it over, he was struck to see how aptly the remarks in one of the chapters applied to present affairs. It was the thirty-fourth, and bore the heading, "On the Meanes of disposing the Enemie to Peace." War, the Jesuit said, with whatsoever prudence carried on, did not always succeed. The best designs were often overthrown by famine, pestilence, and storm; so that enemies at first weak became by these helps strong, made conquests, and, puffed with success, refused to make peace but on their own harsh terms. Yet it was possible by dexterous management to get back all that had been lost by the cross accidents of war. If the minds of the enemy could only be changed, they would often give up, willingly and for nothing, more than could be obtained by force. Now this change of mind, particularly in England, might be secured by the distribution of a few doubloons. There were many men of learning, ingenious speakers and able writers, who, despite their ability, were pinched by fortune and of low estate. A little money would gain them, and, once gained, let them be bidden, in sermons, speeches, poems, songs, and essays, to enlarge mightily on the blessings of peace. Let them dwell on the horrors of war, on the waste of blood and treasure, on commerce destroyed, on ships captured, on taxes greatly increased, on the smallness and sickliness of the captured places, and on the great cost to the country if they be not given back. Let this be done, and the simple, undiscerning many will be quickly carried away by the plausible arguments. Then will rich men having property to be taxed, merchants having ships to lose, officers of the army and navy who wish to enjoy their pay in quiet, unite in one great cry for peace. Then will peace be made, and places lost to the enemy by the accidents of war be willingly restored.

The letter attracted much attention at the time, and found its way into the Gentlemen's Magazine. But the king's friends carried the day and the French and Indian war ended. France was indeed defeated, but she was not conquered. To hold everything taken from her was therefore impossible, and the question be