such bargain had been struck, a slander
which was cruel and ignoble indeed, when the opportunity and temptation
may be said to have been present any and every day during many years
without ever receiving even a moment of doubtful consideration. Yet for
this the English ministry are believed not to have been wholly
responsible, since some of these tales are supposed to have been the
unworthy work of Arthur Lee of Virginia. This young man, a student at
one of the Inns of Court in London, was appointed by the Massachusetts
Assembly as a successor to fill Franklin's place whenever the latter
should return to Pennsylvania. For at the time it was anticipated that
this return would soon occur; but circumstances interfered and prolonged
Franklin's usefulness abroad during several years more. The heir
apparent, who was ambitious, could not brook the disappointment of this
delay; and though kindly treated and highly praised by the unsuspicious
Franklin, he gave nothing but malice in return. It is perhaps not fully
proved, yet it is certainly well suspected by historians, that his
desire to wreak injury upon Franklin became such a passion as caused him
in certain instances to forget all principles of honor, to say nothing
of honesty.

CHAPTER VI

SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND, II

In order to continue the narrative of events with due regard to
chronological order it is necessary to revert to the repeal of the Stamp
Act. The repealing act was fully as unpopular in England as the repealed
act had been in America. It was brought about by no sense of justice, by
no good will toward the colonists, but solely by reason of the injury
which the law was causing in England, and which was forced upon the
reluctant consideration of Parliament by the urgent clamor of the
suffering merchants; also perhaps in some degree by a disinclination to
send an army across the Atlantic, and by the awkward difficulty
suggested by Franklin when he said that if troops should be sent they
would find no rebellion, no definite form of resistance, against which
they could act. The repeal, therefore, though carried by a large
majority, was by no means to be construed as an acknowledgment of error
in an asserted principle, but only as an unavoidable admission of a
mistake in the application of that principle. The repealing majority
grew out of a strange coalition of men of the most opposite ways of
thinking concerning the fundamental question. For example,