ved with no great difficulty; but they
lingered a few days more in that interesting camp, and were absent six
weeks. General Greene has recorded how he gazed upon Franklin, "that
very great man, with silent admiration;" and Abigail Adams tells with
what interest she met him whom "from infancy she had been taught to
venerate," and how she read in his grave countenance "patriotism in its
full lustre" and with it "blended every virtue of a Christian." The
phrase was not well chosen to fall from the pen of Mrs. Adams, yet was
literally true; Franklin had the virtues, though dissevered from the
tenets which that worthy Puritan dame conceived essential to the make-up
of a genuine Christian. The time came when her husband would not have
let her speak thus in praise of Benjamin Franklin.

In the spring of 1776 Congress was inconsiderate enough to impose upon
Franklin a journey to Montreal, there to confer with General Arnold
concerning affairs in Canada. It was a severe, even a cruel task to put
upon a man of his age; but with his usual tranquil courage he accepted
the mission. He met the ice in the rivers, and suffered much from
fatigue and exposure; indeed, the carelessness of Congress was near
depriving the country of a life which could not have been spared. On
April 15 he wrote from Saratoga: "I begin to apprehend that I have
undertaken a fatigue that at my time of life may prove too much for me;
so I sit down to write to a few friends by way of farewell;" and still
the real wilderness with all its hardships lay before him. After he had
traversed it he had the poor reward of finding himself on a bootless
errand. The Canadian enterprise had no possible future save failure and
retreat. There was absolutely nothing which he could do in Canada; he
was being wasted there, and resolved to get away as soon as he could.
Accordingly he made his painful way homeward; but worn out as he was, he
was given scant opportunity to recuperate from this perilous and
mistaken journey. The times called upon every patriot to spend all he
had of vigor, intellect, money, life itself, for the common cause, and
Franklin was no niggard in the stress.

In the spring of 1776 the convention charged to prepare a constitution
for the independent State of Pennsylvania was elected. Franklin was a
member, and when the convention came together he was chosen to preside
over its deliberations. It sat from July 16 to September 28. The
constitution which it pres