Benjamin Franklin and the Parliamentary Grant for 1758

OA n October 26, 1764, the Pennsylvania Assembly voted, i9 II, send Benjamin Franklin England assist its regular agent, Richard Jackson, in managing a campaign secure royal government for the province. After the vote was announced, the assemblymen who had opposed Franklin's appointment requested the House's permission to enter the Reasons of their Dissent on the Minutes, but they were voted down.' Being determined, however, publicize their reasons for thinking the Doctor unsuitable for the mission on which he was being sent, they inserted a in William Bradford's Pennsylvania Journal on November i, I764, which pilloried Franklin's public conduct over the past decade and concluded with the proposal that someone else, preferably a Gentleman of Integrity, Abilities and Knowledge, be sent London in his place.2 The assemblymens' either irritated Franklin more than many of the nameless abusive Pieces which had appeared prior the recent provincial elections of October i, or else it provided the opportunity he had been looking for of answering all of his critics at once, because on November 5 he broke the silence he had maintained in the face of the previous months' attacks and wrote a pamphlet in answer it, which he called Remarks on a Late Protest Against the Appointment of Mr. Franklin an Agent for this Province.3 Several of the accusations in the

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