such a trifle. Franklin wrote to a friend:

"I took every step in my power, to prevent the passing of the
Stamp Act. But the tide was too strong against us. The nation
was provoked by American claims of legislative independence;
and all parties joined in resolving, by this act, to settle
the point."

Thus Franklin entirely failed in arresting the passing of the Stamp
Act. He was also equally unsuccessful in his endeavor to promote a
change of government, from the proprietary to the royal. And still his
mission proved a success. By conversations, pamphlets and articles in
the newspapers, he raised throughout the country such an opposition
to the measure that parliament was compelled to repeal it. The tidings
of the passage of the Stamp Act was received in intelligent America,
with universal expressions of displeasure, and with resolves to oppose
its operation in every possible way.

It is remarked of a celebrated theological professor, that he once
said to his pupils,

"When you go to the city to preach, take your best coat; when to the
country, take your best sermon."

The lords and gentry of England were astonished at the intelligence
displayed in the opposition, by the rural population of America. They
fancied the colonists to be an ignorant, ragged people, living in log
cabins, scattered through the wilderness, and, in social position, two
or three degrees below European and Irish peasantry. Great was their
surprise to hear from all the colonies, and from the remotest
districts in each colony, the voice of intelligent and dignified
rebuke.

The Act was to go into execution on the first of November, 1765.
Before that time, Franklin had spread, through all the mechanical,
mercantile and commercial classes, the conviction that they would
suffer ten-fold more, by the interruptions of trade which the Stamp
Act would introduce, than government could hope to gain by the
measure. He spread abroad the intelligence which came by every fresh
arrival, that the Americans were resolving, with wonderful unanimity,
that they would consume no more English manufactures, that they would
purchase no more British goods, and that, as far as possible, in food,
clothing, and household furniture, they would depend upon their own
productions. They had even passed resolves to eat no more lamb, that
their flocks might so increase that they should have wool enough to
manufacture their own clothing.

England had