men was the only one who was disappointed at the result. The
Americans were by no means displeased at having another and conclusive
proof to convince the doubting ones that reconciliation was an
impossibility.

Franklin's language was expressive of the way in which his mind had
worked. Until it came to the "cutting of throats," he had never
altogether and avowedly given up hopes that, from the reservoir of
unknown things in the future, something might in time come forth that
would bring about a reasonable accommodation. But the first bloodshed
effected a change in his feelings as irrevocable as that which Hawthorne
so subtly represents as having been worked in the nature of Donatello by
a violent taking of life. "Bunker's Hill" excited him; the sack of
Falmouth affected him with terrible intensity. When the foolish petition
of the Dickinson party was sent to England, he wrote to Dr. Priestley
that the colonies had given Britain one more chance of recovering their
friendship, "which, however, I think she has not sense enough to
embrace; and so I conclude she has lost them forever. She has begun to
burn our seaport towns, secure, I suppose, that we shall never be able
to return the outrage in kind.... If she wishes to have us subjects ...
she is now giving us such miserable specimens of her government that we
shall ever detest and avoid it, as a combination of robbery, murder,
famine, fire, and pestilence." His humor could not be altogether
repressed, but there were sternness and bitterness underlying it: "Tell
our dear, good friend, Dr. Price, who sometimes has his doubts and
despondencies about our firmness, that America is determined and
unanimous; a very few Tories and placemen excepted, who will probably
soon export themselves. Britain, at the expense of three millions, has
killed one hundred and fifty Yankees, this campaign, which is twenty
thousand pounds a head; and at Bunker's Hill she gained a mile of
ground, half of which she lost again by our taking post at Ploughed
Hill. During the same time 60,000 children have been born in America.
From these data his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and
expense necessary to kill us all, and conquer our whole territory." It
was a comical way of expressing the real truth that Britain neither
would nor could give enough either of men, or money, or time to
accomplish the task she had undertaken. To another he wrote: "We hear
that more ships and troops are comin