of
being too much an American, and in America of being too much an
Englishman." More than once he repeated this last sentence with much
feeling. But whatever there was of personal discouragement or
despondency in this letter was only a temporary frame of mind. Dr.
Franklin never really slackened his labors in a business which he had so
much at heart as this of the relationship of the colonies to the mother
country. Neither, it is safe to say, did he ever bore any one by what he
wrote or by what he said, though his witty effusions in print were
usually anonymous, and only some of his soberer and argumentative papers
announced their paternity.

The agony with which the repeal of the Stamp Act was effected racked too
severely the feeble joints of the Rockingham ministry, and that ill-knit
body soon began to drop to pieces. A new incumbent was sought for the
department which included the colonies, but that position seemed to be
shunned with a sort of terror; no one loved office enough to seek it in
this niche; no one could expect comfort in a chamber haunted by such
restless ghosts. Early in July, at the earnest solicitation of the king,
Pitt endeavored not so much to form a new ministry as to revamp the
existing one. He partially succeeded, but not without difficulty. The
result seemed to promise well for the colonies, since the new cabinet
contained their chief friends: Pitt himself, Shelburne, Camden, Conway,
names all justly esteemed by America. Yet all these were fully offset by
the audacious Charles Townshend, the originator and great apostle of the
scheme of colonial taxation, whom Pitt, much against his will, had been
obliged to place in the perilous post of chancellor of the exchequer. It
was true that Lord Shelburne undertook the care of the colonies, and
that no Englishman cherished better dispositions towards them; but he
had to encounter two difficulties, neither of which could be overcome.
The one was that Townshend's views were those which soon proved not only
to be coincident with those of the king, but also to be popular in
Parliament; the other was that, while he had the administration of
colonial affairs, Townshend had the function of introducing schemes of
taxation. So long as he remained in office he administered all the
business of the colonies in the spirit of liberal reform. No reproach
was ever brought against his justice, his generosity, his enlightened
views of government. But unfortunately all t