awkward operation, which perhaps the governor would hardly be directed to perform." As for an act establishing "inconveniences," probably it would only put the colonies, "as heretofore, on some method of incommoding this country till the act is repealed; and so we shall go on injuring and provoking each other instead of cultivating that good will and harmony so necessary to the general welfare." Divisions, his lordship admitted, "must weaken the whole; for we are yet _one empire_, whatever may be the opinions of the Massachusetts Assembly." But how to escape divisions was the conundrum. Could his lordship withhold from Parliament the irritating documents, though in fact they were already notorious, and "hazard the being called to account in some future session of Parliament for keeping back the communication of dispatches of such importance?" He appealed to Franklin for advice; but Franklin would undertake to give none, save that, in his opinion, if the dispatches should be laid before Parliament, it would be prudent to order them to lie on the table. For, he said, "were I as much an Englishman as I am an American, and ever so desirous of establishing the authority of Parliament, I protest to your lordship I cannot conceive of a single step the Parliament can take to increase it that will not tend to diminish it, and after abundance of mischief they must finally lose it." So whenever the crucial test was applied these two men found themselves utterly at variance, and the hopelessness of a peaceful conclusion would have been obvious, had not each shunned a prospect so painful. It must be confessed that, if Lord Dartmouth was so pathetically desirous to undo an irrevocable past, Dr. Franklin was no less anxious for the performance of a like miracle. Both the statesman and the philosopher would have appreciated better the uselessness of their efforts, had their feelings been less deeply engaged. Franklin's vain wish at this time was to move the peoples of England and America back to the days before the passage of the Stamp Act. "I have constantly given it as my opinion," he wrote, early in 1771, "that, if the colonies were restored to the state they were in before the Stamp Act, they would be satisfied and contend no farther." Two and a half years later, following the fable of the sibylline books, he expressed the more extreme opinion that "the letter of the two houses of the 29th of June, proposing as a satisfactory measure the restoring things to the state in which they were at the conclusion of the late war, is a fair and generous offer on our part, ... and more than Britain has a right to expect from us.... If she has any wisdom left, she will embrace it, and agree with us immediately."