r which he had mistaken a cat.
The snarling and scrambling of his prey were very
inconvenient. And what was worse, she had disengaged herself
from his talons, grasped his body with her four limbs, so as
to stop his breath, and seized fast hold of his throat, with
her teeth.

"'Pray,' said the eagle, 'let go your hold, and I will
release you.'

"'Very fine,' said the cat. 'But I have no fancy to fall
from this height, and to be crushed to death. You have taken
me up, and you shall stoop and let me down.'

"The eagle thought it necessary to stoop accordingly."

This admirable fable was read to the company; and, as all were in
sympathy with America, it was received with great applause. Little,
however, did any of them then imagine, how invincible was the animal
the British government was about to clutch in its talons, supposing it
to be a defenseless hare.

Franklin spent his last day in London with Dr. Priestly. The Doctor
bears glowing testimony to his admirable character. Many thought Dr.
Franklin heartless, since, in view of all the horrors of a civil war,
his hilarity was never interrupted. Priestly, alluding to this charge
against Franklin, says, that they spent the day looking over the
American papers, and extracting from them passages to be published in
England. "In reading them," he writes, "Franklin was frequently not
able to proceed for the tears literally running down his cheeks." Upon
his departure, he surrendered his agency to Arthur Lee. It was the
21st of March, 1775, when Franklin embarked at Portsmouth, in a
Pennsylvania packet.

Franklin was apprehensive until the last moment, that he would not be
permitted to depart; that the court, which had repeatedly denounced
him as a traitor, would arrest him on some frivolous charge. On the
voyage he wrote a minute narrative of his diplomatic career, occupying
two hundred and fifty pages of foolscap. This important document was
given to his son William Franklin, who was daily becoming a more
inveterate Tory, endeavoring to ingratiate himself into favor with the
court, from which he had received the appointment of governor.

Franklin also sent a copy to Mr. Jefferson, perhaps apprehensive that
his son might not deal fairly with a document which so terribly
condemned the British government. The Governor subsequently published
the narrative. But there is reason to suppose that he suppressed those
passag