1. Having been some time employed by the postmaster-general of America in regulating the several offices, and bringing the officers to account, upon his death, in 1753, Franklin was appointed, jointly with another gentleman, to succeed him. The American office had before this time never paid any thing to that of Great Britain; and the new postmasters were to have six hundred pounds between them, if they could make that sum out of the profits of the office. 2. To do this, a variety of improvements were necessary, some of which were at first very expensive; so that, for the first four years, the office became more than nine hundred pounds in debt to them. Afterwards they began to be repaid, and before Franklin was displaced, they had brought it to yield three times as much clear profit to the crown, as the post-office of Ireland. After Franklin's dismission, they never received a farthing from it. 3. The business of the post-office occasioned his taking a journey to New England, where the College of Cambridge presented him with the degree of Master of Arts. Yale College, in Connecticut, had before paid him a similar compliment. Thus, without studying in any college, he came to partake of their honors. They were conferred in consideration of his discoveries and improvements in natural philosophy. 4. It was either during this or his former journey that the story of the visit to his mother originated. He had been some years absent from his native city, and was at that period of life when the greatest and most rapid alteration is made in the human appearance. Franklin was sensible that his person had been so much changed that his mother would not know him, unless there were some instinct to point out, at a single glance, the child to its parent. 5. To discover the existence of this instinct by actual experiment, Franklin determined to introduce himself to his mother as a stranger, and to watch narrowly for the moment in which she should discover her son. On the afternoon of a sullen cold day, in the month of January, he knocked at his mother's door, and asked to speak with Mrs. Franklin. He found the old lady knitting before the parlor fire, introduced himself, by observing that he had been informed she entertained travellers, and requested a night's lodging. 6. She eyed him with coldness, and assured him that he had been misinformed--that she did not keep a tavern; though, to oblige some members of the legislature, she took a number of them into her family during the session; and at that time had four members of the council and six of the house of representatives who boarded with her. She added that all her beds were full, and went on knitting with a great deal of vehemence.