remnant of his days! The idea had occurred to him; he was
persistently urged by his friend William Strahan to carry it into
effect; and his other friend, David Hume, made him a pretty
compliment on the same theme: "America has sent us many good
things, gold, silver, sugar, tobacco; but you are the first
philosopher for whom we are beholden to her. It is our own fault
that we have not kept him; whence it appears that we do not agree
with Solomon, that wisdom is above gold; for we take good care
never to send back an ounce of the latter, which we once lay our
fingers upon." The philosopher was willing enough to remain; and
of the two objections which he mentioned to Strahan, the rooted
aversion of his wife to embarking on the ocean and his love for
Philadelphia, the latter for the moment clearly gave him less
difficulty than the former. "I cannot leave this happy island and
my friends in it without extreme regret," he writes at the moment
of departure. "I am going from the old world to the new; and I
fancy I feel like those who are leaving this world for the next;
grief at the parting; fear of the passage; hope for the future."

When, on the 1st of November, 1762, Franklin quietly slipped into
Philadelphia, he found that the new world had not forgotten him.
For many days his house was filled from morning till night with a
succession of friends, old and new, come to congratulate him on
his return; excellent people all, no doubt, and yet presenting,
one may suppose, a rather sharp contrast to the "virtuous and
elegant minds" from whom he had recently parted in England. The
letters he wrote, immediately following his return to America, to
his friends William Strahan and Mary Stevenson lack something of
the cheerful and contented good humor which is Franklin's most
characteristic tone. His thoughts, like those of a homesick man,