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soon think it better to have listened to less polemical doctrine.

_Franklin._ Meantime a few of the town boys are come nearer, and begin
to grow troublesome. I am sorry to requite your hospitality with such
hard fare.

_Shipley._ True, these young bakers make their bread very gritty, but
we must partake of it together so long as you are with us.

_Franklin._ Be pleased, my lord, to give us grace; our repast is over;
this is my boat.

_Shipley._ We will accompany you as far as to the ship. Thank God! we
are now upon the water, and all safe. Give me your hand, my good
Doctor Franklin! and although you have failed in the object of your
mission, yet the intention will authorize me to say, in the holy words
of our Divine Redeemer, Blessed are the peacemakers!

_Franklin._ My dear lord! if God ever blessed a man at the
intercession of another, I may reasonably and confidently hope in such
a benediction. Never did one arise from a warmer, a tenderer, or a
purer heart.

_Shipley._ Infatuation! that England should sacrifice to her king so
many thousands of her bravest men, and ruin so many thousands of her
most industrious, in a vain attempt to destroy the very principles on
which her strength and her glory are founded! The weakest prince that
ever sat upon a throne, and the most needy and sordid Parliament that
ever pandered to distempered power, are thrusting our blindfold nation
from the pinnacle of prosperity.

_Franklin._ I believe _your_ king (from this moment it is permitted me
to call him _ours_ no longer) to be as honest and as wise a man as any
of those about him: but unhappily he can see no difference between a
review and a battle. Such are the optics of most kings and rulers. His
Parliament, in both Houses, acts upon calculation. There is hardly a
family, in either, that does not anticipate the clear profit of
several thousands a year, to itself and its connexions. Appointments
to regiments and frigates raise the price of papers; and forfeited
estates fly confusedly about, and darken the air from the Thames to
the Atlantic.

_Shipley._ It is lamentable to think that war, bringing with it every
species of human misery, should become a commercial speculation. Bad
enough when it arises from revenge; another word for honour.

_Franklin._ A strange one indeed! but not more strange than fifty
others that come under the same title. Wherever there is nothing of
religion, nothing of r