lusion was the correct
one.

{102}

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE STAMP ACT.

[Sidenote: 1766--Benjamin Franklin]

That the colonies were not well understood in England was no fault of
the colonists. There was at that time and hour in England a man
specially authorized to speak on behalf of the colony of Pennsylvania,
and indirectly entitled as he was admirably qualified to represent the
other colonies. At that time Benjamin Franklin was the most
distinguished American living and the most distinguished American who
had ever lived. It was not his first visit to England. He had crossed
the Atlantic forty years before when he was a youth of eighteen, eager
to set up for himself as a master printer, and anxious to obtain the
materials for his trade in the old country. In those eighteen years he
had learned many things. He had learned how to print; he had learned
how to bear poverty with courage and ambition with patience; he could
never remember a time when he was unable to read, but he had learned
how to read with inexhaustible pleasure and unfailing profit, and he
had learned how to write. When he was seventeen he had run away from
his birthplace, Boston, and the home of an ill-tempered brother, and
made his way as best he might to Philadelphia. As he tramped into the
city with a loaf under each arm for provender, a young woman leaning in
a doorway laughed at the singular figure. Six years later she married
Franklin, who in the interval had been a journeyman printer in
Philadelphia, a journeyman printer in London, and had at last been able
to set up for himself in Philadelphia. From 1729 the story of
Franklin's life is the story of a steady and splendid advance in
popularity and wealth, and in the greater gifts of knowledge, wisdom,
and humanity. He published a newspaper, {103} the _Philadelphia
Gazette_; he disseminated frugality, thrift, industry, and the cheerful
virtues in "Poor Richard's Almanack," he was the benefactor and the
blessing of the city of his adoption. He founded her famous library;
he devoted the results of his scientific studies to her comfort,
welfare, and comeliness; he maintained her defences as a military
engineer, and was prepared to serve her gallantly in the field against
the Indians as a colonel of Militia of his own raising. No man ever
lived a fuller life or did so many things with more indomitable zeal or
more honorable thoroughness. The colony of Pennsylvania was very prou