He, indeed, conducted his expedition in the most thorough and systematic manner, marching his men in perfect order with a semicircle of scouts in front, an advance-guard, then the main body, with scouts on each flank and spies on every hill, followed by a watchful rear-guard. He observed all the natural objects with his usual keen interest, noting the exact number of minutes required by his men to fell a tree for the palisaded forts he was building. After two months of roughing it he could not sleep in a bed on his return to Bethlehem. “It was so different,” he says, “from my hard lodging on the floor of a hut at Gnadenhutten with only a blanket or two.” Very characteristic of him also was the suggestion he made to his chaplain when the good man found it difficult to get the soldiers to attend prayers. “It is perhaps beneath the dignity of your profession,” said Franklin, “to act as steward of the rum; but if you were only to distribute it after prayers you would have them all about you.” The chaplain thought well of it, and “never,” Franklin tells us, “were prayers more generally or more punctually attended.” On the return of the troops to Philadelphia after their two months’ campaign they had a grand parade and review, saluting the houses of all their officers with discharges of cannon and small-arms; and the salute given before the door of their philosopher colonel broke several of the glasses of his electrical apparatus. The next year, 1756, brought some relief to the colonists by Armstrong’s successful expedition against the Indians at Kittanning. But the year 1757 was more gloomy than ever. Nothing was wanting but a few more soldiers to enable the French to press on down the Mississippi and secure their line to New Orleans, or to fall upon the rear of the colonies and conquer them. The proprietors of Pennsylvania took advantage of the situation to force the Assembly to abandon all its most cherished rights. The new governor came out with full instructions to assent to no tax bill unless it exempted the proprietary estates, to have the proprietary quit-rents paid in sterling instead of Pennsylvania currency, and to assent to no money bill unless the money to be raised was appropriated for some particular object or was to be at the disposal of the governor and Assembly jointly.