AS Statesman and Diplomatist 89 



acquainted with American affairs as the gentleman al- 

 luded to and so injuriously reflected on; one whom all 

 Europe held in high estimation for his knowledge and 

 wisdom, and ranked with our Boyles and Newtons; who 

 was an honor, not to the English nation only, 'but to 

 human nature." 



How fortunate Franklin was in the accidents of his 

 life, as well as in his marvellous gifts and happy tem- 

 perament! Scarcely had he landed on his return from 

 England, which he was never again to revisit, when the 

 proud and grateful people of Pennsylvania made him 

 one of their delegates to the Second Congress, to meet 

 next day in Philadelphia. It was just three weeks after 

 Lexington, where the colonists had unsheathed the sword 

 and thrown away the scabbard — and from that day 

 Franklin was as steadfast a champion of independence 

 as he had before been of conciliation. He had the good 

 fortune to join in the election of Washington as com- 

 mander-in-chief, between whom and himself from the 

 time of Braddock's defeat, twenty-one years before, and 

 his own death, fifteen years afterwards, the closest friend- 

 ship and mutual confidence prevailed; and then he had 

 the great honor to be one of the Committee of Five 

 elected by ballot to draft the Declaration of Indepen- 

 dence. Let no man detract by a word from the glory 

 of Jefferson in being the sole author of that immortal 

 instrument. The amendments made by Franklin and 



