is parting letter, from on shipboard, wrote to his
daughter:

"Go constantly to church, whoever preaches. The active
devotion in the common prayer-book, is your principal
business there, and if properly attended to, will do more
towards amending the heart, than sermons generally can do.
For they were composed by men of much greater piety and
wisdom, than our common composers of sermons can pretend to
be. Therefore I wish that you would never miss the prayer
days. Yet I do not mean you should despise sermons, even of
the preachers you dislike; for the discourse is often much
better than the man, as sweet and clear waters come through
very dirty earth."

The voyage was stormy; it lasted thirty days. On the evening of the
tenth of December, 1764, he again took up his residence in the house
of Mrs. Stephenson and her daughter, where he was received with
delight. He found several other agents of the colonies in London, who
had also been sent to remonstrate against the despotic measures which
the British Cabinet threatened, of taxing the Americans at its
pleasure, without allowing them to have any voice in deciding upon the
sums which they should pay.

Grenville was prime minister. He was about to introduce the Stamp Act,
as an initiatory measure. It imposed but a trivial tax, in itself of
but little importance, but was intended as an experiment, to ascertain
whether the Americans would submit to the principle. This fact being
once established, the government could then proceed to demand money at
its pleasure. Franklin opposed the tax with all his energies. He
declared it, in his own forceful language, to be the "mother of
mischiefs." With four other colonial agents, he held an interview with
Lord Grenville. The usual arguments were employed on both sides. Lord
Grenville was courteous, but very decided. The Americans he declared
must help England pay the interest on her debt, and the parliament of
Great Britain alone could decide how large an amount of money the
Americans should pay. The bill was introduced to parliament, and
passed by a large majority. The king signed it in a scrawling hand,
which some think indicated the insanity he was beginning to develop.

The trivial sum expected to be raised by the Stamp Act amounted to
scarcely one hundred thousand pounds a year. It was thought that the
Americans would not venture upon any decisive opposition to England
for