ch views are very extensively
entertained by all liberal minded men, and many such colonies are now
formed from thriving churches, with the concurrence of all concerned.

[Illustration: Assembled upon the wharf.]

But to return to the voyage. Franklin was to embark on board his ship at
Chester, a port situated down the river from Philadelphia, on the confines
of the State of Delaware. A cavalcade of three hundred people from
Philadelphia accompanied him to Chester, and a great company assembled
upon the wharf, when the vessel was about to sail, to take leave of their
distinguished countryman and wish him a prosperous voyage. The crowd thus
assembled saluted Franklin with acclamations and cheers, as the boat which
was to convey him to the vessel slowly moved away from the shore. The day
of his sailing was the 7th of November, 1764, about two years after his
return from his former visit.

The voyage across the Atlantic was a prosperous one, notwithstanding that
it was so late in the season. Franklin wrote a letter home to give his
wife and daughter an account of his voyage, before he left the vessel. On
landing he proceeded to London, and went directly to his old landlady's,
at Mrs. Stevenson's, in Craven-street, Strand. When the news of his safe
arrival reached Philadelphia, the people of the city celebrated the event
by ringing the bells, and other modes of public rejoicing. The hostility
which had been manifested toward him had operated to make him a greater
favorite than ever.

Franklin now began to turn his attention toward the business of his
agency. He had not been long in England, however, before difficulties grew
up between the colonies and the mother country, which proved to be of a
far more serious character than those which had been discussed at
Philadelphia. Parliament claimed the right to tax the colonies. The
colonies maintained that their own legislatures alone had this right, and
a long and obstinate dispute ensued. The English government devised all
sorts of expedients to assess the taxes in such a way that the Americans
should be compelled to pay them; and the Americans on their part met these
attempts by equally ingenious and far more effectual contrivances for
evading the payment. For a time the Americans refused to use any British
commodities, in order that the people of England might see that by the
persisting of the government in their determination to tax the colonies,
they woul