New York in
July, 1778.

After an imprisonment of two years and four months, William Franklin
was exchanged, and he took refuge within the British lines at New
York. He received a pension from the British government, lived
hilariously, and devoted his energies to a vigorous prosecution of the
war against his countrymen. Franklin felt deeply this defection of his
son. After the lapse of nine years he wrote,

"Nothing has ever affected me with such keen sensations, as
to find myself deserted in my old age by my only son; and
not only deserted but to find him taking up arms in a cause
wherein my good fame, fortune and life were at stake."[26]

[Footnote 26: Upon the overthrow of the royalist cause, Governor
Franklin with other Tories went to England. Government gave him
outright eighteen hundred pounds, and settled upon him a pension of
eight hundred pounds a year. After the lapse of ten years he sought
reconciliation with his father. He lived to the age of eighty-two and
died in London, in 1813.]

CHAPTER XIII.

_Progress of the War, both of Diplomacy and the Sword._

Letter of Henry Laurens--Franklin visits the army before
Boston--Letter of Mrs. Adams--Burning of
Falmouth--Franklin's journey to Montreal--The Declaration of
Independence--Anecdote of the Hatter--Framing the
Constitution--Lord Howe's Declaration--Franklin's reply--The
Conference--Encouraging letter from France--Franklin's
embassy to France--The two parties in France--The
voyage--The reception in France.

The spirit which, almost to that hour, had animated the people of
America,--the most illustrious statesmen and common people, was
attachment to Old England. Their intense desire to maintain friendly
relations with the mother country, their "home," their revered and
beloved home, may be inferred from the following extract from a
letter, which one of the noblest of South Carolinians, Hon. Henry
Laurens, wrote to his son John. It bears the date of 1776. He writes,
alluding to the separation from England, then beginning to be
contemplated:

"I can not rejoice in the downfall of an old friend, of a
parent from whose nurturing breasts I have drawn my support
and strength. Every evil which befalls old England grieves
me. Would to God she had listened, in time, to the cries of
her children. If my own interests, if my own rights alone
had been concerned, I