320 FOTHERGILL AND FRANKLIN CHAP. 



taken off English goods, and a period of entire calm 

 followed. Statues were set up to the king, and the 

 Philadelphians resolved that on the royal birthday they 

 would dress themselves in new suits of English manu- 

 facture, and give their homespun clothes to the poor. 1 



The calm was shortlived. New British Ministers 

 worried the American colonists with small taxes, especially 

 that on tea, and dissolved or suspended their Assemblies 

 when they were contumacious. 



In 1768 Fothergill writes to Logan : "Dr. Franklin is 

 I fear upon the wing to leave us. I am sorry for it, as I 

 think America will require all her friends to assist her. 

 Many she has lost, others she has made ashamed to appear 

 in her behalf. His abilities, his knowledge of the country 

 and the Ministry's knowledge of his abilities, would serve 

 you more than half your few remaining friends and the 

 agents together. I have pressed him to stay, and could 

 wish sincerely he might receive orders from home for that 

 purpose. I know he is not idle, and you all know he is 

 not unable." 2 Whether or not as the result of this 

 appeal, Franklin stayed on. The other colonial Agents 

 in London were men of poor calibre, and were, besides, 

 unknown and unconnected, as Fothergill writes again in 

 May 1769 : "for the most part they are pensionaries, or 

 wish to be so, and are either inactive or false to your 

 interests." 3 Their employers seem to have realised this, 

 and as Franklin increased year by year in men's esteem, 

 rising as great men do to meet the crises of their country, 

 he was made in 1770 Agent for the four provinces of 

 Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Georgia and New Jersey. 

 Lord Hillsborough, lately made British Secretary for the 

 Colonies, refused to recognise this new appointment, but 

 his discourtesy did himself no good, and he had to give 

 place to the gentler Dartmouth in 1772. 



Meanwhile a British army was quartered at Boston, 

 where the old trouble had broken out afresh, and in 



1 Annual Register, 1766, p. 114. 

 8 MS. Lefter, I3.vii.i768, in the author's possession. 



3 Letter to W. Logan, Gilbert MSS. ; also Letter to J. Pemberton, 

 i6.ix.i768, Etting MSS. 



