Turning toward Franklin, he flung out: "I fancy that I have in my eye the person who drew it up--one of the bitterest and most mischievous enemies this country has ever known." "Franklin sat immovable and without the slightest change in his countenance," Jack wrote in a letter to _The Pennsylvania Gazette_.
Chatham declared that the motion was his own, and added: "If I were the first minister of this country, charged with the settling of its momentous business, I should not be ashamed to call to my assistance a man so perfectly acquainted with all American affairs, as the gentleman so injuriously referred to--one whom all Europe holds in high estimation for his knowledge and wisdom, which are an honor, not only to England, but to human nature." "Franklin told me that this was harder for him to bear than the abuse, but he kept his countenance as blank as a sheet of white paper," Jack wrote.

"There was much vehement declamation against the measure and it was rejected.
"When we had left the chamber, Franklin said to me: "'That motion was made by the first statesman of the age, who took the helm of state when the latter was in the depths of despondency and led it to glorious victory through a war with two of the mightiest kingdoms in Europe.

Only a few of those men had the slightest understanding of its merits.

Yet they would not even consider it in a second reading.
They are satisfied with their ignorance.

They have nothing to learn.
Hereditary legislators! There would be more propriety in hereditary professors of mathematics! Heredity is a great success with only one kind of creature.' "'What creature ?' I asked.
"'The ass,' he answered, with as serious a countenance as I have seen him wear.
"No further word was spoken as we rode back to his home," the young man wrote.