All minds were not so firm, nor all souls so just as Washington's. Resistance still continued legal, and the national effort was still retained within the limits of respect. The excitement became more lively every day, irritation more profound and more passionate. Order still reigned in almost all the colonies. Only at some principal places, and especially at Boston, the popular enthusiasm offered a pretext to the violence of George III. and his ministers. Jefferson himself, upon the eve of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, wrote to Mr. Randolph, "Believe me, my dear sir, there is not a man in the whole British Empire who cherishes the union with Great Britain more heartily than I; but, by the God that made me, I should cease to exist sooner than accept that union on the terms which Parliament proposes. We lack neither motives nor power to declare and sustain our separation. 'Tis the will alone that fails us, and that increases little by little under the hand of our king." {274} When he was still Sir Charles Pratt, Lord Camden had once said, in 1759, to Franklin, who was charged with the management of the colonies' affairs in London, "In spite of all that you say of your loyalty, you Americans, I know that one day you will sever the bonds which unite you to us, and that you will raise the flag of independence." "No such idea exists, and it will never enter into the head of Americans," answered Franklin, "unless you maltreat them very scandalously." "That is true, and it is precisely one of the causes which I foresee, and which will bring about the consummation."