prosperity or flattery.

"On the whole," writes Franklin, "I must say, that the time
we spent there (Scotland) was six weeks of the _densest_
happiness I have met with in any part of my life."

Still it is evident that occasionally he felt some slight yearnings
for the joys of that home, over which his highly esteemed wife
presided with such economy and skill. He wrote to her,

"The regard and friendship I meet with from persons of worth,
and the conversation of ingenuous men give me no small
pleasure. But at this time of life, domestic comforts afford
the most solid satisfaction;[20] and my uneasiness at being
absent from my family and longing desire to be with them,
make me often sigh, in the midst of cheerful company."

[Footnote 20: Franklin was then 53 years of age.]

An English gentleman, Mr. Strahan, wrote to Mrs. Franklin, urging her
to come over to England and join her husband. In this letter he said,

"I never saw a man who was, in every respect, so perfectly
agreeable to me. Some are amiable in one view, some in
another; he in all."

Three years thus passed away. It must not be supposed that the
patriotic and faithful Franklin lost any opportunity whatever, to urge
the all important cause with which he was entrusted. His philosophy
taught him that when he absolutely could not do any thing but _wait_,
it was best to wait in the most agreeable and profitable manner.

It was one of his strong desires, which he was compelled to abandon,
to convert the proprietary province of Pennsylvania into a royal
province. After Franklin left Philadelphia, the strife between
the Assembly, and Governor Denny, as the representative of the
proprietaries, became more violent than ever. The governor, worn out
by the ceaseless struggle, yielded in some points. This offended the
proprietaries. Indignantly they dismissed him and appointed, in his
place, Mr. James Hamilton, a more obsequious servant.

By the royal charter it was provided that all laws, passed by the
Assembly and signed by the governor, should be sent to the king, for
his approval. One of the bills which the governor, compelled as it
were by the peril of public affairs, had signed, allowed the Assembly
to raise a sum of about five hundred thousand dollars, to be raised by
a _tax on all estates_. This was a dangerous precedent. The
aristocratic court of England repealed it, as an encroachment upon the