82 Choate: Franklin 



union — and Franklin in proposing it was twenty years 

 in advance of his age. 



Three years afterwards, when the fierce disputes be- 

 tween the colonial governor and the Province of Penn- 

 sylvania over the claims of the proprietaries that their 

 vast estates should be exempt from taxation and its whole 

 burden thrown upon the rest of the people whose united 

 wealth scarcely equalled theirs, seemed hopeless of solu- 

 tion, Franklin, who had long borne a conspicuous part 

 in the quarrel on the side of the colony, was sent to 

 England to maintain the popular cause. It proved to 

 be a more difficult undertaking than even he had antic- 

 ipated, involved negotiations which extended over a 

 period of five years, and ended in a compromise pro- 

 posed by him, which was a substantial triumph for his 

 people. 



This first protracted stay of Franklin in England was 

 probably the happiest of his life. Times had changed 

 since his first visit thirty years before when, as a journey- 

 man printer, he had lived in Little Britain on three and 

 six pence a week and thought himself lucky to get that. 

 All doors were thrown open to him, and he was wel- 

 comed by all classes as one of the master spirits of the 

 age. He reveled in the meetings of the Royal Society 

 and enjoyed the personal acquaintance of many of Eng- 

 land's greatest men, such as Priestley, Fothergill, Gar- 

 rick, Lord Shelbourne, Lord Stanhope, Edmund Burke, 



