their capacity, and had voted some
partial restitution to them; and that they had received thanks, official
and formal yet apparently sincere, for their zeal and their services.
Few Englishmen knew these things. So, too, he said, the Americans would
help the mother country in an European war, so far as they could; for
they regarded themselves as a part of the empire, and really had an
affection and loyalty towards England.

***

On February 21, 1766, General Conway moved for leave to introduce into
the House of Commons a bill to repeal the Stamp Act. The motion was
carried. The next day the House divided upon the repealing bill: 275 for
repeal, 167 against it. The minority were willing greatly to modify the
act; but insisted upon its enforcement in some shape. The anxious
merchants, who were gathered in throngs outside, and who really had
brought about the repeal, burst into jubilant rejoicing. A few days
later, March 4 and 5, the bill took its third reading by a vote of 250
yeas against 122 nays. In the House of Lords, upon the second reading,
73 peers voted for repeal, 61 against it. Thirty-three peers thereupon
signed and recorded their protest. At the third reading no division was
had, but a second protest, bearing 28 signatures, was entered. On March
18 the king, whose position had been a little enigmatical, but who at
last had become settled in opposition to the bill, unwillingly placed
his signature to it, and ever after regretted having done so.

When the good news reached the provinces great indeed was the gladness
of the people. They heeded little that simultaneously with the repeal a
resolve had been carried through declaratory of the principle on which
the Stamp Act had been based. The assertion of the right gave them at
this moment "very little concern," since they hugged a triumphant belief
that no further attempt would be made to carry that right into practice.
The people of Philadelphia seemed firmly persuaded that the repeal was
chiefly due to the unwearied personal exertions of their able agent.
They could not recall their late distrust of him without shame, and now
replaced it with boundless devotion. In the great procession which they
made for the occasion "the sublime feature was a barge, forty feet long,
named FRANKLIN, from which salutes were fired as it passed along the
streets."[25] That autumn the old ticket triumphed again at the
elections for members of the Assembly. Franklin's own pleasan