n of
a loyalist, had grown up under Franklin's personal influence. At times
homesickness attacked him. When he heard of the death of an old friend
at home he wrote sadly: "A few more such deaths will make me a stranger
in my own country." He was not one of those patriots who like to live
abroad and protest love for their own country. Generally he preserved
the delightful evenness of his temper with a success quite wonderful in
a man troubled with complaints which preeminently make the sufferer
impatient and irascible. Only once he said, when he was being very
unreasonably annoyed about some shipping business: "I will absolutely
have nothing to do with any new squadron project. I have been too long
in hot water, plagued almost to death with the passions, vagaries, and
ill humors and madnesses of other people. I must have a little repose."
A very mild outbreak this, under all his provocations, but it is the
only one of which any record remains. His tranquil self-control was a
very remarkable trait; he was never made so angry by all the calumny and
assaults of enemies peculiarly apt in the art of irritation as to use
any immoderate or undignified language. He never retaliated, though he
had the fighting capacity in him. Before the tribunal of posterity his
patient endurance has counted greatly in his favor.

By March, 1781, he had definitively made up his mind to resign, and
wrote to the president of Congress a letter which was unmistakably
earnest and in parts even touching.[73] When this alarming communication
was received all the depreciation of the Lees, Izard, and the rest went
for nothing. Without hesitation Congress ignored the request, with far
better reason than it could show for the utter indifference with which
it was wont to regard pretty much all the other requests which Franklin
ever made. Its behavior in this respect was indeed very singular. He
recommended his grandson to it, and it paid absolutely no attention to
the petition. He repeatedly asked the appointment of consuls at some of
the French ports; it created all sorts of other officials, keeping Paris
full of useless and costly "ministers" accredited to courts which would
not receive them, but appointed no consul. He urged hard, as a trifling
personal favor, that an accountant might be appointed to audit his
nephew Williams's accounts, but Congress would not attend to a matter
which could have been disposed of in five minutes. He never could get a
secr