"I was down at Lord le Despencer's when the post brought that day's papers. Mr. Whitehead was there, too, who runs early through all the papers, and tells the company what he finds remarkable.... We were chatting in the breakfast parlor, when he came running in to us, out of breath, with the paper in his hand. 'Here,' says he, 'here's news for ye! Here's the king of Prussia claiming a right to this kingdom!' All stared, and I as much as anybody; and he went on to read it. When he had read two or three paragraphs, a gentleman present said: 'Damn their impudence! I daresay we shall hear by the next post that he is upon his march with 100,000 men to back this.' Whitehead, who is very shrewd, soon after began to smoke it, and looking in my face said, 'I'll be hanged if this is not some of your American jokes upon us.'" Then, amid much laughter, it was admitted to be "a fair hit." Of a like nature was his paper setting out "Rules for reducing a great Empire to a small one," which prescribed with admirable satire such a course of procedure as English ministries had pursued towards the American provinces. Lord Mansfield honored it with his condemnation, saying that it was "very able and very artful indeed; and would do mischief by giving here a bad impression of the measures of government." Yet this English indifference to transatlantic facts could not always be met in a laughing mood. It was too serious, too unfortunate, too obstinately persisted in to excite only ridicule. It was deplorable, upon the very verge of war, and incredible too, after all the warnings that had been had, that there should be among Englishmen such an utter absence of any desire to get accurate knowledge. In 1773 Franklin wrote: "The great defect here is, in all sorts of people, a want of attention to what passes in such remote countries as America; an unwillingness to read anything about them, if it appears a little lengthy; and a disposition to postpone a consideration even of the things which they know they must at last consider." Such ignorance, fertilized by ill will, bore the only fruit which could grow in such soil: abuse and vilification. Yet all the while the upper classes in France, with their eyes well open to a condition of things which seemed to threaten England, were keen enough in their desire for knowledge, translating all Franklin's papers, and keeping up constant communication with him through their embassy. Patient in others of those faults of vehemence and prejudice which had no place in his own nature, Franklin endured long the English provocations and retorted only with a wit too perfect to be personal, with unanswerable arguments, and with simple recitals of facts. But we shall see, later on, that there came an occasion, just before his departure, when even his temper gave way. It was not surprising, for the blood-letting point had then been reached by both peoples.