and luxuries of life.

Mrs. Franklin received some small favor from the captain of a little
coaster, which ran between Cape May and Philadelphia. He declined to
receive any remuneration for his trifling services. Mrs. Franklin,
learning that he had a pretty daughter, sent her a new-fashioned
Philadelphia cap or bonnet. Three years after, the captain called
again at the house of Mr. Franklin. A very plain but intelligent
farmer accompanied him. The captain expressed his thanks to Mrs.
Franklin for the gift she had sent his daughter, and rather
discourteously added,

"But it proved a dear cap to our congregation. When my daughter
appeared with it at meeting, it was so much admired that all the girls
resolved to get such caps from Philadelphia. And my wife and I
computed that the whole could not have cost less than a hundred
pounds."

The farmer, with far higher intelligence, said, "This is true; but
you do not tell the whole story. I think the cap was nevertheless an
advantage to us. It was the first thing that put our girls upon
knitting worsted mittens, for sale at Philadelphia, that they might
have wherewithal to buy caps and ribbons there. And you know that that
industry has continued and is likely to continue and increase, to a
much greater value, and answer better purposes."

"Thus by a profitable exchange, the industrious girls at Cape May had
pretty bonnets, and the girls at Philadelphia had warm mittens."

For seventy-five years it had been the constant design of the British
government to drive the French from North America. England claimed the
whole country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, because her ships had
first sailed along the Atlantic coast. It was one of the recognized
laws of nations that a newly discovered region belonged to the nation
who had first raised upon it its flag.

France, admitting the claim of England to the Atlantic coast, asserted
her right to the great valleys of the interior, those of the Ohio and
the Mississippi, because her boatmen had first discovered those
magnificent rivers, had explored them throughout, and had established
upon them her trading and military posts. It was a recognized law of
nations, that the power which discovered, explored, and took
possession of a new river, was the rightful possessor of the valley
which that river watered. Thus the conflict of claims originated.

To add to the intensity of the insane strife, which caused an amount
of blood and mise