s, to see him. Even the British
government had the courtesy to send an order exempting his effects
from custom-house duties.

It will be remembered that Franklin was a remarkable swimmer. There
are some human bodies much more buoyant than others. He records the
singular fact that, taking a warm, salt water bath here, he fell
asleep floating on his back, and did not awake for an hour. "This," he
writes, "is a thing which I never did before, and would hardly have
thought possible."

On the 28th of July, 1785, the ship spread her sails. The voyage
lasted seven weeks. This extraordinary man, then seventy-nine years of
age, wrote, on the passage, three essays, which are estimated among
the most useful and able of any which emanated from his pen.

On the 13th of September the ship entered Delaware Bay, and the next
morning cast anchor opposite Philadelphia. He wrote,

"My son-in-law came with a boat for us. We landed at Market
street wharf, where we were received by a crowd of people
with huzzahs, and accompanied with acclamations, quite to my
door. Found my family well. God be praised and thanked for
all his mercies."

The Assembly was in session, and immediately voted him a
congratulatory address. Washington also wrote to him a letter of
cordial welcome. The long sea voyage proved very beneficial to his
health. He was immediately elected to the Supreme Executive, and was
chosen chairman of that body. It is evident that he was gratified by
this token of popular regard. He wrote to a friend,

"I had not firmness enough to resist the unanimous desire of
my country folk; and I find myself harnessed again in their
service for another year. They engrossed the prime of my
life. They have eaten my flesh and seem resolved now to pick
my bones."

Soon after he was elected President, or as we should now say, Governor
of Pennsylvania. The vote rested with the Executive Council and the
Assembly, seventy-seven in all. He received seventy-six votes.
Notwithstanding the ravages of war, peace came with her usual
blessings in her hand. The Tory journals of England, were presenting
deplorable views of the ruin of the country since deprived of the
beneficial government of the British cabinet. Franklin wrote to his
old friend, David Hartley,

"Your newspapers are filled with accounts of distresses and
miseries, that these states are plunged into, since their
separation