Yet his appearance at Westminster was hardly a love-fest. By mid-February 1766 the wailing of the British merchants made repeal of the Stamp Act almost certain, but the terms of repeal—in particular, whether it would be accompanied by a reaffirmation of Parliament’s sovereignty over the American colonies, and what form such reaffirmation might take—remained to be determined. Several of Franklin’s questioners sought to undermine his answers by reading either more or less into them than he intended.
