"I have made it a rule, whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draftsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. When I was a journeyman-printer, one of my companions, an apprentice-hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome sign-board, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words: _John Thompson, hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money_, with a figure of a hat subjoined. But he thought he would submit to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word _hatter_ tautologous, because followed by the words _makes hats_, which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word _makes_ might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats; if good and to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words _for ready money_ were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood: _John Thompson sells hats_. '_Sells_ hats?' says his next friend; 'why, nobody will expect you to give them away. What, then, is the use of that word?' It was stricken out, and _hats_ followed, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So his inscription was reduced, ultimately, to _John Thompson_, with the figure of a hat subjoined." It is doubtful if American Independence would have been achieved when it was, but for the services of Franklin at the Court of England. His first appearance there was when his fame as a philosopher was at its zenith, and the greatest men of that country sought his acquaintance. William Strahan, a member of Parliament, wrote to Mrs. Franklin, "I never saw a man who was, in every respect, so perfectly agreeable to me. Some are able in one view, some in another, he in all." The Tories, who meant to keep the Colonies in subjection and burden them with taxes, were the leaders in governmental affairs and the majority in numbers. Of course, the Colonies could not expect many favors from them without the mediation of their strongest statesmen; and Franklin was the one above all others on whom they depended. His first diplomatic career in England, when he was the Agent of Pennsylvania and other Colonies, lasted from 1757 to 1762. He remained at home only a year and a half, when he was appointed "Minister to England," whither he went in 1764, remaining there ten years, a long, stormy period of political troubles, culminating in the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution.