f Lord
Loudoun, commander of the forces in America. The General was good enough
to inform his accommodating friend that of the two packets then at New
York, one was given out to sail on Saturday, the 12th of April--"but,"
the great man added very confidentially, "I may let you know, entre
nous, that if you are there by Monday morning, you will be in time, but
do not delay longer." As early as the 4th of April, accordingly, the
provincial printer and Friend of the Human Race, accompanied by many
neighbors "to see him out of the province," left Philadelphia. He
arrived at Trenton "well before night," and expected, in case "the roads
were no worse," to reach Woodbridge by the night following. In crossing
over to New York on the Monday, some accident at the ferry delayed him,
so that he did not reach the city till nearly noon, and he feared
that he might miss the packet after all--Lord Loudoun had so precisely
mentioned Monday morning. Happily, no such thing! The packet was still
there. It did not sail that day, or the next either; and as late as the
29th of April Franklin was still hanging about waiting to be off. For it
was war time and the packets waited the orders of General Loudoun, who,
ready in promises but slow in execution, was said to be "like St. George
on the signs, always on horseback but never rides on."

Franklin himself was a deliberate man, and at the last moment he
decided, for some reason or other, not to take the first packet. Behold
him, therefore, waiting for the second through the month of May and
the greater part of June! "This tedious state of uncertainty and long
waiting," during which the agent of the Province of Pennsylvania,
running back and forth from New York to Woodbridge, spent his time more
uselessly than ever he remembered, was duly credited to the perversity
of the British General. But at last they were off, and on the 26th
of July, three and a half months after leaving Philadelphia, Franklin
arrived in London to take up the work of his mission; and there he
remained, always expecting to return shortly, but always delayed, for
something more than five years.

These were glorious days in the history of Old England, the most heroic
since the reign of Good Queen Bess. When the provincial printer arrived
in London, the King and the politicians had already been forced, through
multiplied reverses in every part of the world, to confer power upon
William Pitt, a disagreeable man indeed, but sti