"And see! the very Gazetteers give o'er,
Ev'n Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more."
[33] "The ship Ohio still aground," is the manner in which Franklin communicated on one occasion to Galloway the slow progress that the application for the Ohio grant was making.
CHAPTER VI
Franklin's British Friends
In Great Britain, Franklin had almost as many friends as in America. During his missions to England, he resided at No. 7 Craven Street, London, the home of Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, a widow, and the mother of "Polly," whose filial relations to him constituted an idyll in his life. Into all the interests and feelings of this home, he entered almost as fully and sympathetically as he did into those of his own home in Philadelphia; as is charmingly attested by his Craven Street Gazette. Mrs. Stevenson looked after his clothing, attended to him when he was sick, and made the purchases from time to time that the commissions of Deborah and Jane Mecom called for. In one of his letters to Temple, written after his return from his second mission to England, Franklin mentions a long letter that he had received from her in the form of "a kind of Journal for a Month after our Departure, written on different Days, & of different Dates, acquainting me who has call'd, and what is done, with all the small News. In four or five Places, she sends her Love to her dear Boy, hopes he was not very sick at Sea, &c., &c." This journal doubtless set forth in a matter-of-fact way the daily life of the Craven Street household, which Franklin idealized with such captivating vivacity in the humorous pages of the Craven Street Gazette. At the Craven Street house, he and his son lived in great comfort, occupying four rooms, and waited upon by his man-servant, and Billy's negro attendant; and, when he moved about the streets of London, it was in a modest chariot of his own. Franklin's letters to Deborah frequently conveyed affectionate messages from Mrs. Stevenson and Polly to Deborah and her daughter Sally. Occasionally, too, presents of one kind or another from Mrs. Stevenson found their way across the Atlantic to Deborah and Sally. Altogether, the Craven Street house, if not a true home to Franklin in every sense of the word, was a cheerful semblance of one. A letter from Dr. Priestley to him, which he received shortly after his return from Canada, during the American Revolution, bears witness to the impression left by his amiable traits upon the memory of the good woman with whom he had resided so long. After telling Franklin that Franklin's old servant Fevre often mentioned him with affection and respect, Dr. Priestley added, "Mrs. Stevenson is much as usual. She can talk about nothing but you." The feeling was fully returned.
It is always with great Pleasure [he wrote to her from Passy], when I think of our long continu'd Friendship, which had not the least Interruption in the Course of Twenty Years (some of the happiest of my Life), that I spent under your Roof and in your Company. If I do not write to you as often as I us'd to do, when I happen'd to be absent from you, it is owing partly to the present Difficulty of sure Communication, and partly to an Apprehension of some possible Inconvenience, that my Correspondence might occasion you. Be assured, my dear Friend, that my Regard, Esteem, and Affection for you, are not in the least impair'd or diminish'd; and that, if Circumstances would permit, nothing would afford me so much Satisfaction, as to be with you in the same House, and to experience again your faithful, tender Care, and Attention to my Interests, Health, and Comfortable Living, which so long and steadily attach'd me to you, and which I shall ever remember with Gratitude.
And, when the news of Mrs. Stevenson's death was communicated to Franklin by her daughter, the retrospect of the last twenty-five years that it opened up to him framed itself into these tender words in his reply.