[11] Franklin, though in no sense a time server, rarely got out of touch with the majority simply because he always saw things as the best collective intelligence of the community is likely to see them--only a little sooner and more clearly. "Friend Joseph," one Quaker is said to have asked of an acquaintance, "didst thee ever know Dr. Franklin to be in a minority?" [12] "I believe it will in time be clearly seen by all thinking People that the Government and Property of a Province should not be in the same family. Tis too much weight in one scale." Letter from Franklin to Israel Pemberton, Mar. 19, 1759. [13] In 1768, the revenues of the Proprietaries from their Pennsylvania estates were estimated by Joseph Galloway to be not much short of one hundred thousand pounds. [14] "The shocking news of the strange, unprecedented and ignominious defeat of General Braddock," William Franklin said, "had no more effect upon Governor Morris than the miracles of Moses had on the heart of Pharaoh." [15] Franklin's first impressions of Lord Loudon were very different from his later ones. In a letter to Strahan from New York, dated July 27, 1756, he said: "I have had the honour of several conferences with him on our American affairs, and am extremely pleased with him. I think there can not be a fitter person for the service he is engaged in." [16] In connection with this feature of the proposed Plan of Union, Franklin gives us some interesting facts in regard to the distances that could be made in a day's journey in America in 1754. Philadelphia, he said, was named as the place for the first meeting of the Grand Council because it was central, and accessible by high roads, which were for the most part so good that forty or fifty miles a day might very well be, and frequently were, travelled over them. It could also be reached under very favorable conditions by water. In summer the passage from Charleston to Philadelphia often did not consume more than a week. Two or three days were required for the passage from Rhode Island to New York, through the Sound, and the distance between New York and Philadelphia could be covered in two days by stage-boats and wheel-carriages that set out every other day. The transit from Charleston to Philadelphia could be facilitated by the use of the Chesapeake Bay. But, if all the members of the Grand Council were to set out for Philadelphia on horseback, the most distant ones, those from New Hampshire and South Carolina, could probably arrive at their destination in fifteen or twenty days.