But the jubilation of the proprietary party over this signal victory was soon changed into mourning. For within a few days the new Assembly was in session, and at once took into consideration the appointment of Dr. Franklin as its agent to present to the king in council another petition for a royal government. The wrath of the other side blazed forth savagely. "No measure," their leader, Dickinson, said, was "so likely to inflame the resentments and embitter the discontents of the people." He "appealed to the heart of every member for the truth of the assertion that no man in Pennsylvania is at this time so much the object of public dislike as he that has been mentioned. To what a surprising height this dislike is carried among vast numbers" he did "not choose to repeat." He said that within a few hours of the nomination hundreds of the most reputable citizens had protested, and if time were given thousands "would crowd to present the like testimony against [him]. Why then should a majority of this House single out from the whole world the man most obnoxious to his country to represent his country, though he was at the last election turned out of the Assembly, where he had sat for fourteen years? Why should they exert their power in the most disgusting manner, and throw pain, terror, and displeasure into the breasts of their fellow citizens?" The excited orator then threw out a suggestion to which this vituperation had hardly paved a way of roses; he actually appealed to Franklin to emulate Aristides, and not be worse than "the dissolute Otho," and to this end urged that he should distinguish himself in the eyes of all good men by "voluntarily declining an office which he could not accept without alarming, offending, and disturbing his country." "Let him, from a private station, from a smaller sphere, diffuse, as I think he may, a beneficial light; but let him not be made to move and blaze like a comet, to terrify and to distress."[14] The popular majority in the Assembly withstood Mr. Dickinson's rhetoric, and, to quote the forcible language of Bancroft, "proceeded to an act which in its consequences was to influence the world." That is to say, they carried the appointment. Franklin likewise set aside Dickinson's seductive counsels, and accepted the position. [Note 14: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, i, 451, 452.] It is not in human nature to be so extravagantly abused in times of intense excitement, and wholly to hold one's peace. Even the cool temper of Dr. Franklin was incited to a retort; his defense was brief and dignified, in a very different tone from that of the aspersions to which it replied; and it carries that influence which always belongs to him who preserves moderation amid the passions of a fierce controversy.[15] [Note 15: See, for example, Franklin's _Works_, iii. 361, 362.] CHAPTER V SECOND MISSION TO ENGLAND, I