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And what had he accomplished, when, with hair blanched 

 by age, he at last returned to his native land and to the city of 

 his choice, after so long an expatriation ? 



It is not with diplomacy, especially with services of the 

 kind that Dr. Franklin rendered, as it is with the career of the 

 military hero. If the great negotiator also has his triumphs, 

 it is not always easy to lay the finger upon all the particular 

 movements by means of which his bloodless victories are won. 

 None the less do all his carefully laid but unobtrusive plans 

 tend unerringly to the great result. 



The first mission to England, though extending over not less 

 than five years, is of subordinate interest to us now ; because 

 of the complete change that has since obliterated the political 

 issues then regarded as momentous. 



As agent for the colony of Pennsylvania, Dr. Franklin was 

 sent to endeavor to obtain redress of wrongs sustained at the 

 hands of the proprietaries. Subsequently appointed agent by 

 other colonies— Massachusetts, Maryland, Georgia— his duty 

 included vigilance respecting their interests also. The negoti- 

 ation was long, tedious, dreary. We cannot tell how an°ob- 

 scure and unknown American, acting as a commissioner of 

 distant provinces, would have fared at London in those times. 

 Even Dr. Franklin, with all the great prestige of his scientific 

 renown, did not find his position a bed of roses. The British 

 government had evidently no very exalted opinion of the 

 importance, present or prospective, of his gracious majesty's 

 transatlantic plantations. Procrastination, proverbial vice of 

 courts, had full sway. The months that Franklin was kept 

 waiting for an answer to his petitions, were, doubtless, not alto- 

 gether wasted by one who had mastered the rare art of putting 

 the fragments, the very crumbs of time, to profitable use in 

 the study of nature's hidden mysteries ; and an abode in the 



