28 LII-E AND CORRESrOXDEACE OF THE [^779 



the old College of Philadelphia conspired to bring about that con- 

 dition of feeling towards him described by Mr. Binney in his 

 " Leaders of the Old Bar of Philadelphia," * in which tract the 

 author, speaking of President Reed's inability to do to one of his 

 young /yrott'^L's of the bar any great professional service, says: 



President Reed's political ardor during his term of office, and an 

 embittered opposition to him which had been kindled among men of 

 business and of importance in Philadelphia, did not make his return to 

 the Bar in 17S1 very easy or agreeable; nor, as I have heard Mr. Inger- 

 soll say, did his mind return willingly to the pursuits of the law. The 

 patron, therefore, must have been more willing than able to assist him, 

 and in a short time Mr. Reed's health gave way, and after visiting 

 England, in 1783, he returned towards the close of 1784, and, without 

 attempting to resume his profession, died on the 5th of March, 1785. 



While speaking thus of President Reed's malevolence towards 

 those politically opposed to him, and of the want of sincerity 

 which distinguished his character, I am not insensible to his many 

 endearing domestic traits, to his considerable abilities, and to his 

 not less considerable accomplishments. We may concede, too, 

 that both by wisdom in council and conduct in action he promoted 

 essentially the Revolution in America; and his want of success in 

 the great struggle of life, after much labor, many privations, and 

 many misfortunes, giv^e, too, to his memory a title to our pathetic 

 regard. But with all this, and after all the efforts that his grand- 

 son and biographer has brought to redeem his reputation.f I look 

 upon the judgment of those who were among the most intelligent 

 of his contemporaries as true — that his talents were more than 

 equal to his integrity; and that in few acts of his life did this un- 

 enviable preponderance appear more manifest than in the trans- 

 action that the Provost Stille above describes. Of few political 

 events of the Revolution did the late Bishop White speak with 

 more emphatic disapprobation. It roused the indignation of the 

 w^iole Episcopal Church, and was followed at once by the estab- 

 lishment of the Episcopal Academy; an institution still existing in 

 honor, after a century of useful labors. The biographer of the 

 President — one of his grandsons — while defending every act that 



* Page 84. 



t Life and Correspondence of President Reed, by iiis Grandson, William B. Reed, 

 2 vols., 8vo. Phila., 1 847. 



