"during every week of its continuance done damage to that town, equal to what was suffered there by the India Company;" and claiming reparation for such injury beyond the value of the tea which had been destroyed. The memorial also complained of the exclusion of the colonists from the Newfoundland fisheries, for which reparation would one day be required. This memorial was returned to Franklin by Mr. Walpole, and Franklin shortly afterwards returned to Philadelphia. During this visit to England he had lost his wife, who died on December 19, 1774; and his friend Miss Stevenson had married and been left a widow. In April, 1768, Franklin was appointed Agent for Georgia, in the following year for New Jersey, and in 1770 for Massachusetts, so that he was then the representative in England of four colonies, with an income of L1200 per annum. In 1771 he spent three weeks at Twyford, with the Bishop of St. Asaph, who remained a fast friend of Franklin's until his death. In 1772 he was nominated by the King of France as Foreign Associate of the Academy of Sciences. During his negotiations with the British Government Franklin wrote two satirical pieces, setting forth the treatment which the American colonists were receiving. The first was entitled "Rules for Reducing a Great Empire to a Small One," the rules being precisely those which, in Franklin's opinion, had been followed by the British Government in its dealings with America. The other was "An Edict by the King of Prussia," in which the king claimed the right of taxing the British nation; of forbidding English manufacture, and compelling Englishmen to purchase Prussian goods; of transporting prisoners to Britain, and generally of exercising all such controls over the English people as had been claimed over America by various Acts of the English Parliament, on the ground that England was originally colonized by emigrants from Prussia. Before Franklin reached America, the War of Independence, though not formally declared, had fairly begun. He was appointed a member of the second Continental Congress, and one of a committee of three to confer with General Washington respecting the support and regulation of the Continental Army. This latter office necessitated his spending some time in the camp. On October 3, 1775, he wrote to Priestley:--