ble
acquaintances. The brothers Penn, with whom his business was chiefly
concerned, were cold and haughty, and evaded the matter in dispute with
miserable quibbles. Franklin then resolved to appeal to the Lords of
Trade, who had the management of the American colonial affairs, and also
to the King's Privy Council.

This was in 1757, when William Pitt was at the height of his power and
fame, cold, reserved, proud, but intensely patriotic, before whom even
George III. was ill at ease, while his associates in the Cabinet were
simply his clerks, and servilely bent before his imperious will. To this
great man Franklin had failed to gain access, not so much from the
minister's disdain of the colonial agent, as from his engrossing cares
and duties. He had no time, indeed, for anybody, not even the peers of
the realm,--no time for pleasure or relaxation,--being devoted entirely
to public interests of the greatest magnitude; for on his shoulders
rested the government of the kingdom. What was the paltry dispute of a
few hundred pounds in a distant colony to the Prime Minister of
England! All that Franklin could secure was an interview with the great
man's secretaries, and they did little to help him.

But the time of the active-minded American was not wasted. He wrote for
the newspapers; he prosecuted his scientific inquiries; he became
intimate with many eminent men, chiefly scientists,--members of the
Royal Society like Priestley and Price, professors of political economy
like Adam Smith, historians like Hume and Robertson, original thinkers
like Burke, liberal-minded lawyers like Pratt. It does not seem that he
knew Dr. Johnson, and probably he did not care to make the acquaintance
of that overbearing Tory and literary dogmatist, who had little sympathy
with American troubles. Indeed his political associates among the great
were few, unless they were patrons of science, who appreciated his
attainments in a field comparatively new. Among these men he seems to
have been much respected, and his merits secured an honorary degree from
St. Andrew's. His eminent social qualities favored his introduction into
a society more cultivated than fashionable, and he was known as a
scientific rather than a political celebrity.

His mission, then, was up-hill work. The Penns stood upon their
prerogatives, and the Lords of the Committee for Plantations were
unfriendly or dilatory. It was nearly three years before they gave
their decision, an