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[60] and of their expedition back again. They retreated twenty miles in six hours. The governor had called the assembly to propose Lord North's pacific plan, but, before the time of their meeting, he began cutting their throats. You know it was said he carried the sword in one hand and the olive branch in the other; and it seems he chose to give them a touch of the sword first. . . . All America is exasperated by his conduct, and more firmly united than ever.

His public career he might perhaps have explained as his friend Lord Dunning did his legal business, when he said, “I do one third of it, another third does itself, and the remaining third remains undone.” Industry was, however, the habit of Franklin's nature so thoroughly that it entered into the blood of his race. The Rev. Dr. Furness used to speak with delight of an aged Philadelphia lady, Franklin's grand-niece, who was in the habit of saying her prayers while coming down stairs to breakfast, in order to save time.

On the fifth of July he writes to Strahan:

You have begun to burn our towns, and murder our people. Look upon your hands -they are stained with the blood of your relations! You and I were long friends; you are now my enemy, and I am, Yours, B. Franklin.

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