rs.

Having discovered the emptiness of this business, Franklin at last
completed his arrangements for his return home. He placed his agencies
in the hands of Arthur Lee. His last day in London he passed with his
stanch old friend. Dr. Priestley, and a large part of the time, says the
doctor, "he was looking over a number of American newspapers, directing
me what to extract from them for the English ones; and in reading them
he was frequently not able to proceed for the tears literally running
down his cheeks." Such was the depth of feeling in one often accounted
callous, indifferent, or even untrustworthy in the matter of American
relations with England. He felt some anxiety as to whether his departure
might not be prevented by an arrest, and made his journey to Portsmouth
with such speed and precautions as were possible.[36] But he was not
interrupted, and sailed on some day near the middle of March, 1775. His
departure marked an era in the relations of Great Britain with her
American colonies. It signified that all hope of agreement, all
possibility of reconciliation upon one side or of recession upon the
other, were absolutely over. That Franklin gave up in despair the task
of preventing a war meant that war was certain and imminent. He arrived
in Philadelphia May 5, 1775. During his absence his wife had died, and
his daughter had married a young man, Richard Bache, whom he had never
yet seen.

[Note 36: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 70.]

CHAPTER VIII

SERVICES IN THE STATES

From the solitude of the ocean to the seething turmoil which Franklin
found in the colonies must have been a startling transition. He had come
home an old man, lacking but little of the allotted threescore years and
ten. He had earned and desired repose, but never before had he
encountered such exacting, important, and unremitting labor as
immediately fell to his lot. Lexington and Concord fights had taken
place a fortnight before he landed, and the news preceded him in
Philadelphia by a few days only. Many feelings may be discerned in the
brief note which he wrote on May 16 to Dr. Priestley:--

"DEAR FRIEND,--You will have heard, before this reaches you, of a
march stolen by the regulars into the country by night, and of
their _expedition_ back again. They retreated twenty miles in six
hours. The governor had called the Assembly to propose Lord North's
pacific plan, but before the time of their meeti