supporting a shield; also, a figure of Justice bearing the sword and balance. Crest: "The eye of Providence in a radiant triangle, whose glory extends over the shield and beyond the figures." Motto: E Pluribus Unum. Legend round the whole: "Seal of the United States of America, MDCCLXXVI.” For the other side of the seal the committee adopted Franklin's device: "Pharaoh sitting in an open chariot, a crown on his head and a sword in his hand, passing through the divided waters of the Red Sea in pursuit of the Israelites. Rays from a pillar of fire in the cloud, expressive of the Divine presence and command, beaming on Moses, who stands on the shore, and extending his hand over the sea, causes it to overflow Pharaoh. Motto: 'Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.'"

Congress appears not to have approved of this elaborate design. It was ordered to lie on the table, where it remained until Dr.

Franklin was gone from the country. Other committees took the

seal in hand, and suppressed, at length, all of the original design except that most felicitous of mottoes, E Pluribus Unum, and the Eye of Providence.

On the arrival of the Hessians this summer, Franklin was active in carrying out the plans of Congress for their seduction. A short address was drawn up, and translated into German, offering, in the name of Congress, a tract of land to every Hessian soldier who should abandon the ignominious service to which his sovereign had sold him. Some of these addresses were printed on such paper as was commonly used for tobacco at that time; the design being to put up tobacco in them and distribute the packets among the Hessians. Another address was prepared for circulation among the officers. Whether Dr. Franklin was the originator of these devices, or only assisted in giving them effect, does not appear; nor are we informed as to their success. A few months later, if Dr. Franklin had been in Philadelphia, he would have had the delight of seeing nine hundred of the Hessian soldiers marching through the streets as prisoners of war.

The convention elected to form a Constitution and frame a government for the State of Pennsylvania, met at Philadelphia on the sixteenth of July, and sat until the twenty-eighth of September. Dr. Franklin was unanimously chosen president of the convention. Although his occupations as a member of Congress prevented him

from attending regularly the sittings of this body, yet he was present during the more important debates, and exerted a controlling influence over some of its conclusions. The system of government finally adopted by the convention had the peculiarity of providing for only one House of Representatives; and in this Franklin concurred. He had seen the ill effects of a divided authority in the old proprietary government, and he had come to regard the British House of Lords in the light of an obstructive nuisance merely. He was of opinion that a single representative body would be more effective in promoting good measures, and less liable to intrigue and corruption than two bodies. He afterwards defended this feature of the Constitution of Pennsylvania in these terms:

"The wisdom of a few members in one single legislative body, may it not frequently stifle bad motions in their infancy, and so prevent their being adopted? whereas, if those wise men, in case of a double legislature, should happen to be in that branch wherein the motion did not arise, may it not, after being adopted by the other, occasion long disputes and contentions between the two bodies, expensive to the public, obstructing the public business, and promoting factions among the people, many tempers naturally adhering obstinately to measures they have once publicly adopted? Have we not seen, in one of our neighboring States, a bad measure adopted by one branch of the legislature for want of the assistance of some more intelligent members who had been packed into the other, occasion many debates, conducted with much asperity, which could not be settled but by an expensive general appeal to the public? *** The division of the legislature into two or three branches in England, was it the product of wisdom, or the effect of necessity, arising from the pre-existing prevalence of an odious feudal system? which government, notwithstanding this division, is now become, in fact, an absolute monarchy; since the king, by bribing the representatives with the people's money, carries, by his ministers, all the measures that please him; which is equivalent to governing without a Parliament, and renders the machine of government much more complex and expensive, and, from its being more complex, more easily put out of order. Has not the famous political fable of the snake, with two heads and one body, some useful instruction contained in it? She was going to a brook to drink, and in her way was to pass through a hedge, a

twig of which opposed her direct course; one head chose to go on the right side of the twig, the other on the left; so that time was spent in the contest, and, before the decision was completed, the poor snake died with thirst."

If Dr. Franklin had lived to our day, he might have drawn a different inference from the example of the English House of Lords. He would, perhaps, have pointed to Great Britain, and said: "Behold, my Pennsylvanians, a vast empire governed by a single House, namely, the House of Commons! The House of Lords as a governing power, is so nearly extinct, that if it were to vanish entirely, the chief practical effect of the event would be to give the Times a little more room for the debates of the other House.” Perhaps, too, he would have made some observations upon the long periods when the Senate of the United States seemed the impregnable stronghold of every thing that was false, corrupt, and reactionary; and shown how, between the two houses, the most indubitably just measures have often been slipped into oblivion. He might have quoted, with very good effect, a remark made by the late Senator Douglas to Mr. Horace Greeley, when the latter gentleman was a member of the House of Representatives: "If the House does not stop passing retrenchment bills for Buncombe, and then running to the Senate and begging Senators to stop them there, I, for one, will vote to put through the next mileage-reduction bill that comes to the Senate, just to punish members for their hypocrisy." However, this is a great question, and much may be said on both sides. Experience, not argument, will settle it.

The last act of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania was to pass the following Resolution: "Resolved unanimously, That the thanks of this Convention be given to the President for the honor he has done it by filling the chair during the debates on the most important parts of the Bill of Rights and frame of Government, and for his able and disinterested advice thereon."

Such are the slight, occasional traces of Franklin, in these summer weeks of 1776, which the writings of the time afford us. How inadequate they are! How little they reveal to us of the mighty stir and ferment of the period! The chroniclers of those important days tell us scarcely any thing of what they felt; their drawing is mostly in outline, without color or shading. For example, when a British fleet in the Delaware brought the war within hearing of.

the Philadelphians, Christopher Marshall begins the entry in his diary for that day with the business-like expression, that " Sundry pieces of news are circulated about town;" one of which was the arrival of the British fleet. The worthy druggist catalogued the most startling items of intelligence as he would a new invoice of herbs. Other sundries of the same day were, the arrival off Sandy Hook of a prodigious British fleet and army; the conveyance to Connecticut of Governor Franklin; and the total ruin of the patriot cause in Canada. Think what must have been the effect, as the tidings flew from street to street, from house to house, from room to room, of sedate, domestic Philadelphia; neighbor hurrying with it to neighbor, the well whispering it to the sick, Committees of Safety gathering, and all the streets in the warm evenings filled with knots and groups of anxious men. Awful rumors were in the air. July the first, Mr. Marshall records that information had been brought in to the Committee of Safety by a combmaker, that "not less than four different clubs of Tories were in the habit of meeting in Philadelphia: and that frequently! At such a time as this! Under the very nose of Congress!

In those first days of July down came all the King's Arms, from court rooms, from taverns, from government houses and pretentious shops; those of the State House being taken down with ceremony in the presence of thousands of people, placed upon the top of a vast heap of tar barrels, and gloriously burnt. All this, while a British fleet of a hundred and twenty sail lay in New York harbor. What a hurrying forward of troops, too, as the greatness of Lord Howe's fleet, and the number of the troops in it, became known! Six thousand Pennsylvanians, encamped at Lancaster, were ordered to make all speed to Brunswick, in New Jersey, the rendezvous of the troops of both provinces; and Christopher Marshall went about the streets of Philadelphia collecting awnings to make tents for them. Troops passed through the city nearly every day on their way to New York. July 14th," sixteen shallops with Maryland troops going to Trenton, amounting, it is said, to eleven hundred." Same day, two or three companies from Cumberland County came in; they stay all night; to Trenton on the morrow: "the whole, it is said, in high spirits."

August 28th, Dr. Franklin concluded one of his letters to General Gates with these words: "While I am writing comes an account

that the armies were engaged on Long Island, the event unknown, which throws us into anxious suspense. God grant success." It was three days before the people of Philadelphia knew all the extent of the disaster, including the retreat from Long Island.

Mr. Marshall, in his diary for August 31st, gives informanion to posterity of two events. One was, that the said Christopher, on that day, got in his winter's wood, eleven cords and a half, price £10, and for hauling, carrying, and piling, £2 2s. 10d. Having recorded this always cheering circumstance, he proceeded to state, in the same number of lines, namely six, that Gen. Washington had got his army safely and in good order over the East River to New York, with all his field-pieces and stores; and that, while General Sullivan and Lord Stirling were prisoners in the enemy's hands, it was rumored that " our people" had killed two of the British generals. Still the troops went forward. Three thousand left Philadelphia within two days after the news came of the defeat upon Long Island.

Amid such scenes and such events, Dr. Franklin lived and labored during the summer of 1776.

CHAPTER V.

THE CONFERENCE WITH LORD HOWE.

LORD HOWE reappears in our narrative. From the chapter in which that nobleman has already figured, some irreverent readers may have derived the impression that his zeal in behalf of America, and his sister's also, was owing, in part, to his wish for an advaniageous appointment. That virtuous desire was gratified one year after the discontinuance of the negotiations with Dr. Franklin; when he was appointed admiral of the king's naval forces in America, and joint commissioner with his brother, General William Howe, to grant pardons to such of the American rebels as should lay down their arms and renew their allegiance to the king.

He arrived off Sandy Hook on the twelfth of July, with the great fleet to which allusion has just been made. He sent on shore a