his silence was wholly justifiable.

Resolutely as Franklin sought at the time to repress any expression of
his natural indignation, there is evidence enough of how deeply he felt
this indignity. For example, there is the familiar story of his dress.
He wore, at the Cockpit, "a full dress suit of spotted Manchester
velvet." Many years afterward, when it befell him, as one of the
ambassadors of his country, to sign the treaty of alliance with France,
the first treaty ever made by the United States of America, and which
practically insured the defeat of Great Britain in the pending war, it
was observed by Dr. Bancroft that he was attired in this same suit. The
signing was to have taken place on February 5, but was unexpectedly
postponed to the next day, when again Franklin appeared in the same old
suit and set his hand to the treaty. Dr. Bancroft says: "I once
intimated to Dr. Franklin the suspicion which his wearing these clothes
on that occasion had excited in my mind, when he smiled, without telling
me whether it was well or ill founded." Having done this service, the
suit was again laid away until it was brought forth to be worn at Paris
at the signing of the treaty of peace with England, a circumstance the
more noteworthy since at that time the French court was in mourning.[34]

It appears that Franklin for a time entertained a purpose of drawing up
an "answer to the abuses" cast at him upon this occasion. There was,
however, no need for doing so, and his reason for not doing it is more
eloquent on his behalf with posterity than any pamphlet could be. He
said: "It was partly written, but the affairs of public importance I
have been ever since engaged in prevented my finishing it. The injuries
too that my country has suffered have absorbed private resentments, and
made it appear trifling for an individual to trouble the world with his
particular justification, when all his compatriots were stigmatized by
the king and Parliament as being in every respect the worst of mankind."

The proceedings at the Cockpit took place on a Saturday. On the
following Monday morning Franklin got a "written notice from the
secretary of the general post-office, that his majesty's
postmaster-general _found it necessary_ to dismiss me from my office of
deputy postmaster-general in North America." In other ways, too, the
mischief done him by this public assault could not be concealed. It
published to all the world the feeling of the court a