Franklin's summer in 1753 was a busy one;
Having been for some time employed [he writes][1] by the postmaster-general of America, as his comptroller in regulating several offices, and bringing the officers to account, I was upon his death, in 1753, appointed jointly with Mr. William Hunter, to succeed him, by a commission from the Postmaster-general in England. The American office never had hitherto paid anything to that of Britain. We were to have six hundred pounds a year between us, if we could make that sum out of the profits of the office. * * * The business of the postoffice occasioned my taking a journey this year to New England, where the College of Cambridge, of their own motion, presented me with the degree of Master of Arts. Yale College in Connecticut had before made me a similar compliment. Thus, without studying in any College, I came to partake of their honours. They were conferred in consideration of my improvements and discoveries in the electric branch of natural philosophy.
In writing to Cadwallader Golden on 25 October, 1753, he says:[2]
This last summer I have enjoyed very little of the pleasure of reading or writing. I made a long journey to the eastward, which consumed ten weeks; and two journeys to our western frontiers; one of them, to meet and hold a treaty with the Ohio Indians, in company with Mr. Peters and Mr. Norris.
In writing his friend Mr. Hugh Roberts on 16 July, from Boston, he says:
My respects to all our old friends of the Junto, Hospital and Insurance.[3]
These references call here for some notice of two other of the notable enterprises of the time in which Franklin's leadership was sought. The Pennsylvania Hospital had begun its first ministrations to the suffering in February, 1752, in the house of Judge Kinsey, on Market Street near Sixth, on the
