Assembly, instead of granting
his request, elected him agent for another year. It does not appear
that Franklin was disappointed.

The report of his splendid and triumphant examination, before the
Commons, and the republication of many of his pamphlets, had raised
him to the highest position of popularity. The Americans, throughout
all the provinces, received tidings of the Repeal with unbounded
delight. Bells were rung, bon-fires blazed, cannon were fired.

"I never heard so much noise in my life," wrote Sally to her "honored
papa." "The very children seemed distracted."

The Tory party in England developed no little malignity in their
anger, in view of the discomfiture of their plans. The bigoted Tory,
Dr. Johnson, wrote to Bishop White of Pennsylvania, that if he had
been Prime Minister, instead of repealing the act, he would have sent
a man-of-war, and laid one or more of our largest cities in ashes.[21]

[Footnote 21: Wilson's Life of Bishop White, p. 89.]

The king felt personally aggrieved. His denunciations of those who
favored the Repeal were so indecent, that some of his most influential
friends ventured to intimate to him that it was highly impolitic.
Indeed, as the previous narrative has shown, many who were in entire
sympathy with the king, and who were bitterly opposed to any
concession to the Americans, felt compelled to vote for the Repeal.

To propitiate the unrelenting and half-crazed monarch, with his
obdurate court, a Declaratory Act, as it was called, was passed, which
affirmed the _absolute supremacy_ of Parliament over the colonies.

We hear very much of the corruption of our own Congress. It is said
that votes are sometimes bought and sold. Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who
was a member of Parliament during all this period, declares, in his
intensely interesting and undoubtedly honest Memoir, that under
the ministry of Lord Bute, Ross Mackay was employed by him as
"corrupter-general" whose mission it was to carry important measures
of government by bribery. Wraxall writes that Ross Mackay said to him,
at a dinner party given by Lord Besborough, as the illustrious guests
were sipping their wine,

"The peace of 1763 was carried through and approved by a
pecuniary dispensation. Nothing else could have surmounted
the difficulty. I was myself the channel through which the
money passed. With my own hand I secured above one hundred
and twenty votes on that most important quest