ge.

It will be perceived that there were now two quite distinct sources of
controversy. First came the conflict with the proprietaries, and then
rose the still more important strife with the cabinet of Great
Britain, to repel the principle of taxation without representation.
This principle once admitted, the crown could tax the Americans to any
amount whatever it pleased. Many unreflecting people could not
appreciate these disastrous results.

Thus all the partisans of the Penns, and all the office holders of the
crown and their friends, and there were many such, became not only
opposed to Franklin, but implacable in their hostility. The majority
of the Assembly was with him. He was chosen Speaker, and then was
elected to go again to England, to carry with him to the British
Court the remonstrances of the people against "taxation without
representation," and their earnest petition to be delivered from the
tyranny of the Penns. More unwelcome messages to the British Court and
aristocracy, he could not well convey. It was certain that the Penns
and their powerful coadjutors, would set many influences in array
against him. Mr. Dickinson, in the Assembly, remonstrating against
this appointment, declared that there was no man in Pennsylvania who
was more the object of popular dislike than Benjamin Franklin.

But two years had elapsed since Franklin's return to America, after an
absence from his home of six years. He still remembered fondly the
"dense happiness" which he had enjoyed in the brilliant circles
abroad. This, added to an intensity of patriotism, which rendered him
second to none but Washington, among the heroes of the Revolution,
induced him promptly to accept the all important mission. He allowed
but twelve days to prepare for his embarkation. The treasury was
empty, and money for his expenses had to be raised by a loan. A packet
ship, bound for London was riding at Chester, fifteen miles below the
city. Three hundred of the citizens of Philadelphia, on horseback,
escorted Franklin to the ship.

He seldom attended church, though he always encouraged his wife and
daughter to do so. It was genteel; it was politic. A family could
scarcely command the respect of the community, which, in the midst of
a religious people, should be living without any apparent object of
worship. The preacher of Christ Church, which the family attended, was
a partisan of the Penns. Sometimes he "meddled with politics."
Franklin in h