and
maintain the common internal peace of the province; great riots have
lately arisen therein.... And these evils are not likely to receive any
remedy here, the continual disputes between the proprietaries and
people, and their mutual jealousies and dislikes, preventing." Wherefore
his majesty was asked to be "graciously pleased to resume the
government of this province, ... permitting your dutiful subjects
therein to enjoy, under your majesty's more immediate care and
protection, the privileges that have been granted to them by and under
your royal predecessors."

The result of feeling the public pulse showed that it beat very high and
strong for the proposed change. Accordingly the resolution to present
the petition was now easily carried. But again the aged speaker, Norris,
found himself called upon to do that for which he had not the nerve. He
resigned the speakership; Franklin was chosen in his place and set the
official signature to the document.

Another paper by Franklin upon the same subject, and of considerable
length, appeared in the shape of a preface to a speech delivered in the
Assembly by Joseph Galloway in answer to a speech on the proprietary
side by John Dickinson, which speech, also with a long preface, had been
printed. In this pamphlet he reviewed all the recent history of the
province. He devoted several pages to a startling exposition of the
almost incredible usage which had long prevailed, whereby bills were
left to accumulate on the governor's table, and then were finally signed
by him in a batch, only upon condition that he should receive, or even
sometimes upon his simultaneously receiving, a considerable _douceur_.
Not only had this been connived at by the proprietaries, but sometimes
these payments had been shared between the proprietaries and the
governors. This topic Franklin finally dismissed with a few lines of
admirable sarcasm: "Do not, my courteous reader, take pet at our
proprietary constitution for these our bargain and sale proceedings in
legislation. It is a happy country where justice, and what was your own
before, can be had for ready money. It is another addition to the value
of money, and, of course, another spur to industry. Every land is not so
blessed." Many quotations from this able state paper have already been
made in the preceding pages, though it is so brilliant a piece of work
that to quote is only to mutilate. Its argument, denunciation, humor,
and satire are int