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 American people opposed it with all their might.

Scarcely had Franklin been at home two years when he was again sent to England to plead the cause of his countrymen.

This time he remained abroad for more than ten years; but he was not so successful as before.

In 1774 he appeared before the King’s council to present a petition from the people of Massachusetts.

He was now a venerable man nearly seventy years of age.  He was the most famous man of America.

His petition was rejected.  He himself was shamefully insulted and abused by one of the members of the council.  The next day he was dismissed from the office of deputy postmaster-general of America.

In May, 1775, he was again at home in Philadelphia.

Two weeks before his arrival the battle of Lexington had been fought, and the war of the Revolution had been begun.

Franklin had done all that he could to persuade the English king to deal justly with the American colonies.  But the king and his counsellors had refused to listen to him.

During his ten years abroad he had not stayed all the time in England.  He had traveled in many countries of Europe, and had visited Paris several times.

Many changes had taken place while he was absent.

His wife, Mrs. Deborah Franklin, had died.  His parents and fifteen of his brothers and sisters had also been laid in the grave.

The rest of his days were to be spent in the service of his country, to which he had already given nearly twenty years of his life.

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XIV.—­FRANKLIN’S WONDERFUL KITE.

Benjamin Franklin was not only a printer, politician, and statesman, he was the first scientist of America.  In the midst of perplexing cares it was his delight to study the laws of nature and try to understand some of the mysteries of creation.

In his time no very great discoveries had yet been made.  The steam engine was unknown.  The telegraph had not so much as been dreamed about.  Thousands of comforts which we now enjoy through the discoveries of science were then unthought of; or if thought of, they were deemed to be impossible.