d too much. Tons of paper have
been devoted to dissuasives from dueling, but the argument was never
put more effectively than Franklin put it in these dozen lines of a
letter to a Mr. Percival, who had sent him a volume of literary and
moral dissertations.

"A gentleman in a coffee-house desired another to sit further
from him. 'Why so?'--'Because you stink.'--'That is an
affront, and you must fight me.'--'I will fight you if you
insist upon it, but I do not see how that will mend the
matter. For if you kill me, I shall stink too; and if I kill
you, you will stink, if possible, worse than at present.' How
can such miserable sinners as we are, entertain so much pride
as to conceit that every offense against our imagined honor
merits death? These petty princes, in their opinion, would
call that sovereign a tyrant who should put one of them to
death for a little uncivil language, though pointed at his
sacred person; yet every one of them makes himself judge in
his own cause, condemns the offender without a jury, and
undertakes himself to be the executioner."

Some one wrote him that the people in England were abusing the
Americans and speaking all manner of evil against them. Franklin
replied that this was natural enough:

"They impute to us the evil they wished us. They are angry
with us, and speak all manner of evil of us; but we flourish
notwithstanding. They put me in mind of a violent High Church
factor, resident in Boston when I was a boy. He had bought
upon speculation a Connecticut cargo of onions which he
flattered himself he might sell again to great profit; but
the price fell, and they lay upon his hands. He was heartily
vexed with his bargain, especially when he observed they
began to grow in his store he had filled with them. He showed
them one day to a friend. 'Here they are,' said he, 'and they
are growing too. I damn them every day, but I think they are
like the Presbyterians; the more I curse them, the more they
grow.'"

Mr. Jefferson tells us that Franklin was sitting by his side in the
convention while the delegates were picking his famous declaration of
Independence to pieces, and seeing how Jefferson was squirming under
their mutilations, comforted him with the following stories, the rare
excellence of which has given them a currency which has long since
worn off their novelty:--

"'