A letter was waiting for him in London from Debby, saying that Sally wanted his consent to marry a young man named Richard Bache. Franklin was too far away to judge the merits of her suitor: “I can only say that if he proves a good husband to her, and a good son to me, he shall find me as good a father as I can be,” he wrote. The marriage took place in October 1767. The ships in the harbor in Philadelphia ran up their flags to celebrate the wedding of the daughter of their most famous citizen. The ministry of Lord Rockingham, in which Franklin had such confidence, toppled while he was in Germany. The King and William Pitt, now Lord Chatham, set up a coalition cabinet. Pitt, still a good friend of the American colonies, soon fell violently ill, during which time the reins of the government were seized by Charles Townshend, chancellor of the exchequer. Townshend considered the whole colonial uproar over taxes “perfect nonsense.” Since the Americans had balked at the _internal_ Stamp Tax, he resolved to let them pay _external_ taxes, in the form of import duties on glass, lead, paper, paints—and tea. By the Townshend Acts, duties were to be collected by English revenue officers. The acts violated the time-honored right of trial by jury; those accused of ignoring the revenue laws were to be tried in the admiralty courts without a jury. As an added insult, the revenue collected was to be used for the salaries of royal governors and judges who previously had been paid by the Assemblies and thus subject to some colonial control. Franklin foresaw grave danger ahead. The Americans would not accept these harsh measures. “Every act of oppression will sour their tempers,” he wrote Lord Kames, “lessen greatly—if not annihilate ... the profits of your commerce with them, and hasten their final revolt; for the seeds of liberty are universally found there, and nothing can eradicate them.” He felt that the colonists’ affection for Britain was such that “if cultivated prudently” they might be easily governed “without force or any considerable expense.” But he did not see “a sufficient quantity of the wisdom that is necessary to produce such a conduct.” The lack of “a sufficient quantity of the wisdom” on the part of Parliament and the ministry was almost daily becoming more obvious to him. Still he continued his course of education and propaganda and persuasion, and of meeting with men in the government whom he hoped to influence. Many listened to him. The young and wealthy Earl of Shelburne, Secretary of State for the Colonies, became his close friend. In recognition of his usefulness to his country, in 1768 he was chosen agent for Georgia; in 1769, for New Jersey; and in 1770, for Massachusetts.