Franklin so hastened his preparations that he was ready to depart again for England in twelve days after his election. There was no money in the provincial treasury; but some of the well-to-do citizens, in expectation of reimbursement, raised by subscription L1100. He took only L500. A troop of three hundred mounted citizens escorted him from the city sixteen miles down the river to the ship, and "filled the sails with their good wishes." This parade, designed only as a friendly demonstration, was afterward made a charge against him, as an assumption of pomp and a display of popularity. If it had been deliberately planned, it would have been ill advised; but it took him by surprise, and he could not prevent it. The ship cast anchor in St. Helen's Road, Isle of Wight, on December 9, 1764. He forthwith hastened to London, and installed himself in the familiar rooms at No. 7 Craven Street, Strand. In Philadelphia, when the news came of the safe arrival of this "man the most obnoxious to his country," the citizens kept the bells ringing until midnight. So altogether the prospect now seemed agreeable in whatever direction Dr. Franklin chose to look. He was in quarters in which he was at least as much at home as he could feel in his house at Philadelphia; Mrs. Stevenson, his landlady, and her daughter Mary, whom he had sought to persuade his son to marry, upon the excellent ground of his own great affection for her, not only made him comfortable but saved him from homesickness; old and warm friends welcomed him; the pleasures of London society again spread their charms before him. Without the regrets and doubts which must have attended the real emigration which he had been half inclined to make, he seemed to be reaping all the gratification which that could have brought him. At the same time he had also the pride of receiving from the other side of the Atlantic glowing accounts of the esteem in which he was held by a controlling body of those who were still his fellow citizens there. But already there had shown itself above the horizon a cloud which rapidly rose, expanded, and obscured all this fair sky.