ll a great genius and
War Lord, who soon turned defeat into victory. It was the privilege of
Franklin, here in the capital of the Empire, to share the exaltation
engendered by those successive conquests that gave India and America
to the little island kingdom, and made Englishmen, in Horace Walpole's
phrase, "heirs apparent of the Romans." No Briton rejoiced more
sincerely than this provincial American in the extension of the Empire.
He labored with good will and good humor, and doubtless with good
effect, to remove popular prejudice against his countrymen; and he wrote
a masterly pamphlet to prove the wisdom of retaining Canada rather than
Guadaloupe at the close of the war, confidently assuring his readers
that the colonies would never, even when once the French danger was
removed, "unite against their own nation, which protects and encourages
them, with which they have so many connections and ties of blood,
interest, and affection, and which 'tis well known they all love much
more than they love one another." Franklin, at least, loved Old England,
and it might well be maintained that these were the happiest years of
his life. He was mentally so cosmopolitan, so much at ease in the
world, that here in London he readily found himself at home indeed. The
business of his particular mission, strictly attended to, occupied no
great part of his time. He devoted long days to his beloved scientific
experiments, and carried on a voluminous correspondence with David Hume
and Lord Kames, and with many other men of note in England, France, and
Italy. He made journeys, to Holland, to Cambridge, to ancestral places
and the homes of surviving relatives; but mostly, one may imagine,
he gave himself to a steady flow of that "agreeable and instructive
conversation" of which he was so much the master and the devotee. He was
more famous than he knew, and the reception that everywhere awaited him
was flattering, and as agreeable to his unwarped and emancipated mind
as it was flattering. "The regard and friendship I meet with," he
confesses, "and the conversation of ingenious men, give me no small
pleasure"; and at Cambridge, "my vanity was not a little gratified by
the particular regard shown me by the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of
the University, and the Heads of the Colleges." As the years passed,
the sense of being at ease among friends grew stronger; the serene and
placid letters to "Dear Debby" became rather less frequent; the desi