rful and almost
impossible feat. But nowadays, letters leaving Philadelphia at midnight
are read at the breakfast table in Boston the next morning.

At that time there were not seventy post-offices in the whole country.
There are now more than seventy thousand.

Benjamin Franklin held the office of deputy postmaster-general for the
American colonies for twenty-one years.

In 1754 there was a meeting of the leading men of all the colonies at
Albany. There were fears of a war with the French and Indians of Canada,
and the colonies had sent these men to plan some means of defence.

Benjamin Franklin was one of the men from Pennsylvania at this meeting.

He presented a plan for the union of the colonies, and it was adopted.
But our English rulers said it was too democratic, and refused to let it
go into operation.

This scheme of Franklin's set the people of the colonies to thinking.
Why should the colonies not unite? Why should they not help one another,
and thus form one great country?

And so, we may truthfully say that it was Benjamin Franklin who first
put into men's minds the idea of the great Union which we now call the
United States of America.

The people of the colonies were not happy under the rule of the
English. One by one, laws were made which they looked upon as oppressive
and burdensome. These laws were not intended to benefit the American
people, but were designed to enrich the merchants and politicians of
England.

In 1757 the people of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland, and
Georgia, decided to send some one to England to petition against these
oppressions.

In all the colonies there was no man better fitted for this business
than Benjamin Franklin. And so he was the man sent.

The fame of the great American had gone before him. Everybody seemed
anxious to do him honor.

He met many of the leading men of the day, and he at last succeeded in
gaining the object of his mission.

But such business moved slowly in those times. Five years passed before
he was ready to return to America.

He reached Philadelphia in November, 1762, and the colonial assembly of
Pennsylvania thanked him publicly for his great services.

But new troubles soon came up between the colonies and the government in
England. Other laws were passed, more oppressive than before.

It was proposed to tax the colonies, and to force the colonists to buy
stamped paper. This last act was called the Stamp Tax, and the America