Soon after this Franklin went as a commissioner from the government, to make a treaty with a tribe of Indians at Carlisle, in the interior of Pennsylvania. On the night after the treaty was concluded, a great uproar was heard in the Indian camp, just without the town. The commissioners went to see what was the matter. They found that the Indians had made a great bonfire in the middle of the square around which their tents were pitched, and that all the company, men and women, were around it, shouting, quarreling and fighting. The spectacle of their dark colored bodies, half naked, and seen only by the gloomy light of the fire, running after and beating one another with firebrands, accompanied by the most unearthly yellings, presented a dreadful scene. The frenzy of the people was so great that there was no possibility of restraining it, and the commissioners were obliged to retire and leave the savages to themselves. [Illustration.] After this Franklin returned to Philadelphia and devoted his attention to a variety of plans for the improvement of the city, in all of which his characteristic ingenuity in devising means for the accomplishment of his plans, and his calm and quiet, but efficient energy in carrying them into effect, were as conspicuous as ever. One of the first enterprises in which he engaged was the founding of a hospital for the reception and cure of sick persons. The institution which he was the means of establishing has since become one of the most prominent and useful institutions of the country. He caused a petition to be prepared and presented to the Assembly, asking for a grant from the public funds in aid of this undertaking. The country members were at first opposed to the plan, thinking that it would mainly benefit the city. In order to diminish this opposition, Franklin framed the petition so as not to ask for a direct and absolute grant of the money that was required, but caused a resolve to be drawn up granting the sum of two thousand pounds from the public treasury on condition that the same sum should previously be raised by private subscription. Many of the members were willing to vote for this, who would not have voted for an unconditional donation; and so the vote was passed without much opposition. After this the private subscriptions went on very prosperously; for each person who was applied to considered the conditional promise of the Assembly as an additional motive to give, since every man’s donation would be doubled by the public grant, if the required amount was made up. This consideration had so powerful an influence that the subscriptions soon exceeded the requisite sum. Thus the hospital was founded. [Illustration: Poor Woman.]