During the election great numbers of squibs, half sheets and quarter sheets, in English and German, were scattered among the crowd. Some were general in their abuse; some were aimed at Dickinson, some at Galloway, while some bore especially on Franklin. One squib put out by the new ticket is in verse, and ridiculed the preface to Galloway's speech and the intentions of the Franklin party:

Advertisement and not a joke,

A speech there is which no man spoke;
This month or next, 'tis yet a doubt;
But when 'tis made it will come out,
Midwif'd by Philosophic Paw,
Tho' mother'd by a Man of Law.
They strain'd so hard to do it clever,
One harm'd his Neck bone, one his liver.
They vow to get eternal fame,

All things they 'll charge, yet keep the same :
Thro' rocks and shelves our bark they 'll paddle,
And fasten George in Will's old saddle;
Just as they please they 'll make him sit it,
Unscrubbed, tho' Will, they say,... it.

For the first time in fourteen years Franklin now found himself without a seat in the assembly. But his friends in that body were many and stanch, and promptly presented his name as that of the man best fitted to assist Richard Jackson, the provincial agent, in presenting the petition to the king. Dickinson, who led the proprietary ranks, spent all his strength and eloquence in opposition. He described Franklin as the most hated man in Pennsylvania. He declared such an appointment would inflame the resentments and embitter the discontents of the people. He called attention to the heap of remonstrances against such action that lay on the table, and demanded to know why the assembly should send to represent the colony the man most obnoxious to the people, a man who, after fourteen years of service, had just been turned out of the assembly. But the house understood that Dickinson was burning and longing for the place himself, and, by a vote of nineteen to eleven, chose Franklin an agent of the province.

Not content with this defeat, the minority now protested, moved to have the protest spread upon the minutes, and again saw their motion voted down. Thereupon they published the protest in the newspapers, and were answered by Franklin in a little pamphlet entitled "Remarks on a Protest." Two days later he set out for London. But scarcely had the ship put out to sea when "An Answer to Mr. Franklin's Remarks on a Late Protest" appeared, and his friend John Hughes took up his cause. Hughes proposed that, once for all, the charges against Franklin should be proved true or false, and offered to give five pounds to the hospital for each charge proven true, if some man of character would give a like sum to the hospital for each charge shown to be false. But neither Dickinson nor any of his friends replied.

"Thus," wrote Israel Pemberton the libertine, the King Wampum of the caricatures, "thus Benjamin Franklin is again employed in another negotiation. It is alleged by those who have urged it most that his knowledge and interest will do great service to ye colonies by obtaining some alleviation of those inconveniences we are subjected to by some late acts of Parliament, and of prevention of others with which we are threatened. His dependence on ye ministry for ye Posts he and his son hold forbids my expectation of his opposing their measures with much spirit; and some of us, who know his fixed aversion to ye Proprietaries and their governor, are not without apprehensions, if he can recommend himself by an immediate change of it, that he will soon attempt it."

...

CHAPTER VII.

1764-1776.

On the evening of the 10th of December, 1764, Franklin reached London. As one of the agents from Pennsylvania, his duty was to present the petition with all the speed he could. But he found the three colonial agents striving to prevent the introduction of the stamp act, and joined heartily with them.

From the time the colonies were strong enough and rich enough to furnish men and money to the royal cause, such supplies had always been obtained by requisition. The requisition was a circular letter from the Crown to the governors, was transmitted by the governors to the assemblies, made known the wants of the king, bade the assemblies take these wants into serious consideration, and expressed a firm reliance on the prudence, duty, and affection of loyal subjects to vote such sums of money and enlist such bodies of men as the king needed. To this no objection was ever made. The king obtained the money, and the people raised it by taxes their chosen representatives imposed.

But now, on a sudden, the British ministry determined to change the plan. Henceforth parliament was to lay internal taxes; and the taxes they proposed to lay and did lay, were fifty-four in number, and comprised the stamp act. It is commonly believed that this famous tax was the first of its kind known in America. But this is a mistake, for twice had stamp taxes been willingly laid and willingly borne, and, when they expired, as willingly renewed. The first was imposed for one year by Massachusetts in 1755, and reënacted in 1756. The other was passed by New York in December, 1756. It ran for one year, was renewed in 1757 for another year, and created neither discontent nor opposition. Against stamp duties, New York and Massachusetts could therefore make no complaint. It was against stamp duties laid without consent of the colonies that the four London agents protested vigorously on the 2d of February, 1765. Grenville admitted them to audience, listened patiently to the old plea, no taxation without representation, and dismissed them, as firmly convinced of the wisdom of his plan as ever. On the 22d of March parliament passed the act. In May news of the passage reached Amer