He received an invitation to play chess with the sister of Admiral Lord Richard Howe. At their second session, Miss Howe pressed him to tell her what should be done to settle the dispute between Great Britain and the colonies. “They should kiss and be friends,” he said lightly. Nor would he be more explicit when she brought Admiral Lord Howe to talk with him. In his heart he knew it was now too late to repair the many blunders on the part of Parliament and the King. On December 18, 1774, he received the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, a petition from the First Continental Congress to George III. The King, who was having the first of those attacks which would end in insanity, ignored it completely. With William Pitt, Admiral Lord Howe, and other of the more reasonable officials, Franklin spent long hours trying to work out a compromise that would keep the peace. It was all in vain. In the midst of these labors, word reached him that his faithful Debby had died of a stroke on December 19—the day after the arrival of the petition. There would be no more of her warm and loving and atrociously spelled letters to keep him informed about his relatives: “I donte know wuther you have bin told that Cosin Benney Mecome and his Lovely wife and five Dafters is come here to live and work Jurney worke I had them to Dine and drink tee yisterday....” Or to lament the lack of news from him: “I have bin verey much distrest a bout [you] as I did not [get] oney letter nor one word from you nor did I hear one word from oney bodey that you wrote to so I muste submit and indever to submit to what I am to bair.” Letters which she might sign “Your afeckshonet wife,” or when she was less careful “Your ffeckshonot wife.” He would miss them, but above all he would miss the assurance that she was there waiting for him, loyal and cheerful, to greet him whenever he returned from his long voyage. He stayed on in England only a few months longer. His last day in London he spent with Joseph Priestley. Together they read papers from America, and now and then tears ran down Franklin’s cheeks. He was sure America would win if there were a war, he told Priestley, but it would take at least ten years. On March 25, 1775, he and his grandson Temple embarked on the _Pennsylvania Packet_. The crossing took six weeks and the weather was pleasant. In the first half of it, he wrote out the complicated story of his recent dealings with the ministry in his last futile and desperate efforts to prevent war. The last part of the journey he devoted to studying the nature of the Gulf Stream, taking its temperature two to four times a day, and noting that its water had a special color of its own and “that it does not sparkle in the night.” Thus he was able to enjoy a brief interlude in the world of nature between the bitter disputes he left behind and the struggle that lay ahead. 12 BEGINNING OF A LONG WAR