gion. Volumes might be filled with accounts of
the atrocities perpetrated by drunken lords at the gaming table and in
midnight revel through the streets. Such men of influence and rank as
Fox, Lord Derby, the Duke of Ancaster, inflamed with wine, could set
the police at defiance. They were constantly engaged in orgies which
would disgrace the most degraded wretches, in the vilest haunts of
infamy in our cities. Instead of gambling for copper, they gambled for
gold. Horace Walpole testifies that at one of the most fashionable
clubs, at Almack's, they played only for rouleaux of two hundred and
fifty dollars each. There were often fifty thousand dollars in specie
on the gaming tables, around which these bloated inebriates were
gathered. It is said that Lord Holland paid the gambling debts of his
two sons to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars.

The trade of the colonies had become of immense value to the mother
country. It amounted to six and a half millions sterling a year.
Philadelphia numbered forty thousand inhabitants. Charleston, South
Carolina, had become one of the most beautiful and healthy cities in
America. The harbor was crowded with shipping, the streets were lined
with mansions of great architectural beauty. Gorgeous equipages were
seen, almost rivaling the display in French and English capitals. But
there were many Tories in Charleston, as malignant in their opposition
to the popular cause in America, as any of the aristocrats to be found
in London.

The unpardonable insult which Franklin had received, closed his
official labors in London. His personal friends and the Opposition
rallied more affectionately than ever around him. But he ceased to
appear at court and was seldom present at the dinner-parties of the
ministers. Still he was constantly and efficiently employed in behalf
of his country. The leaders of the opposition were in constant
conference with him. He wrote many pamphlets and published articles in
the journals, which exerted an extended and powerful influence. He
wrote to his friends at home, in October, 1774,

"My situation here is thought, by many, to be a little
hazardous; for if by some accident the troops and people of
New England should come to blows, I should probably be
taken up; the ministerial people, affecting everywhere to
represent me as the cause of all the misunderstanding. And I
have been frequently cautioned to secure all my papers, and