Accordingly, on the 25th of March, a committee, with Franklin at their head, reported a series of resolutions censuring the proprietaries, describing their government as weak, as unable to uphold its authority or maintain internal peace, and praying his majesty to resume the government of the province, after making such compensation to the Penns as was just. The assembly passed the resolutions, adjourned to consult the people, and met again on May 14th.

Each party made ready for the struggle. Not a day was lost, and by the 1st of April the few printers in the city were hard at work on pamphlets, broadsides, and caricatures. In the whole history of the province there had never been in so short a time such a number of pamphlets issued. Before September, one printer had upon his shelves fifteen, each bearing his imprint. The list of titles contains more than twenty. There were "A Brief State of the Province of Pennsylvania,” “ A True and Impartial State of Pennsylvania,” and “The Plain Dealer," in three parts. "An Address to the Freeholders" replied to one number of "The Plain Dealer." The second number of "The Plain Dealer" replied to "Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of our Public Affairs,' and "Cool Thoughts" was the work of Frank

lin. He wrote it in great haste, dated it April 12, 1764, and sent men about the city with copies to thrust under the doors, or toss through the open windows of dwelling-houses.1

Though done hastily, the work is done well. With a coolness and an honesty found in no other tract, he reviews the cause of the dispute; shows that all the proprietary governments, New Jersey, Maryland, Carolina, have suffered in the same way; and refutes a number of objections which he pretends have been made by "a friend in the country."

The voters having been duly consulted, the assembly met on May 14th to find the speaker's table white with petitions in favor of an address to the king. The debate was long; but the two speeches that best set forth the views of each party were made by John Dickinson and Joseph Galloway. Dickinson spoke in behalf of proprietary government. Galloway replied, and was for a government by the king, and carried the day. The address was voted, and the assembly about to bid the speaker sign, when Isaac Norris, who held the chair, asked for time. He had, he reminded his hearers, been a member of the assembly for thirty years, and speaker for nearly fifteen. He could not support the address, and as he must as speaker 1 Plain Dealer, No. 2.

sign it, he hoped he might have time to prepare a statement of his objections. A short adjournment was made, and when the members reassembled, Norris resigned. He had been taken politically sick, sent word he was too ill to attend, and requested that another be chosen speaker in his stead. The choice fell on Franklin, who as speaker gladly signed the petition to the king, and the assembly rose.

The next meeting was not to take place till October, before which the annual election was to be held. As a campaign document, Dickinson at once published his speech, with a long preface by another hand. Thereupon Galloway's speech appeared, with a preface written by Franklin. Dickinson then protested that Galloway's speech had never been delivered. This brought out a broadside from Galloway, with certificates asserting that the speech had been delivered, and a scorching review entitled "The Maybe." The "Maybe" got its name from the "ifs" and "maybes" with which Dickinson's pamphlet abounded.

When he wrote the "Preface to a Speech," Franklin unquestionably was thoroughly roused. The good-nature, the playful humor, the modest suggestions of his earlier pieces were abandoned, and for sarcasm, energy, force of argument, the Preface is unsurpassed.

All this activity served to make him a butt for the wit of caricaturists and pamphleteers. In the corner of one of these singular productions he is represented standing in his study, and underneath him are the lines:

Fight dog, fight bear! you're all my friends:
By you I shall attain my ends,
For I can never be content
Till I have got the government.
But if from this attempt I fall,

Then let the Devil take you all!

In a second he holds in his hand a roll inscribed "Resolved ye Prop'r a knave and tyrant. N. C. D. Gov'r do." The preface to Dickinson's oration contained an epitaph for a monument to Penn, made up of fulsome extracts from the votes of the assembly. Franklin in his Preface ridiculed it in a sketch, " in the lapidary style," of the sons of Penn, far from flattering, made up "mostly in the expressions and everywhere in the sense and spirit of the assembly's resolves and messages." For this he was himself made the subject of a lampoon epitaph in the lapidary style. This summary of his false learning, his political trimming, his treachery, his immorality, his thirst for power, forms a pamphlet of nine pages, and ends with the injunction:

Reader, behold this striking Instance of
Human Depravity and Ingratitude;
An irrefragable Proof

That neither the Capital Services
Of Friends,

Nor the attracting Favours of the Fair,
Can fix the Sincerity of a Man,
Devoid of Principles and
Ineffably mean:

Whose Ambition is
POWER,

And whose intention is

TYRANNY.

"The Scribbler" replied to the "Epitaph," but was lost in the host of pamphlets which, under such names as "The Paxtoniade," "The

Squabble,' "The Farce," "The Paxton Raid," "The Cloven Foot Discovered," "King Wampum," "A Battle, a Battle, a Battle of Squirt," overwhelmed the anti-proprietary party with ridicule and abuse. For rancor, for that bitter hate which springs from religious bigotry, for foulness both of language and of thought, the pamphlets named cannot be equalled.

Everyone knew, as October came on, that the great contest would be in the city. At the head of the "old ticket were Franklin and Galloway; Willing and Bryan headed the "new." The Dutch Calvinists and the Presbyterians to a man supported the new ticket, and were