3i6 FOTHERGILL AND FRANKLIN CHAP. 



a man of the world,'" a companionable philosopher," so 

 Smyth writes of him, " whose feet were always well 

 poised upon the substantial earth." He was in touch 

 with a wide range of human needs and aspirations, and 

 his pre-eminent talents were exercised upon an inter- 

 national stage. 



Some time after his return to Philadelphia, Franklin 

 wrote to his friend in London a letter full of news of the 

 politics of the Colony. 1 It begins with a happy banter 

 of Fothergill's busy life : 



DEAR DOCTOR I received your favour of the loth of 

 Dec. It was a great deal for one to write, whose time is 

 so little his own. By the way, When do you intend to live ? 

 i.e. to enjoy Life. When will you retire to your villa, give 

 yourself repose, delight in viewing the operations of Nature 

 in the vegetable creation, assist her in her works, get your 

 ingenious friends at times about you, make them happy 

 with your conversation, and enjoy theirs ; or if alone, amuse 

 yourself with your books and elegant collections ? To be 

 hurried about perpetually from one sick-chamber to another, 

 is not living. Do you please yourself with the fancy that you 

 are doing good ? You are mistaken. Half the lives you 

 save are not worth saving, as being useless, and almost the 

 other half ought not to be saved, as being mischievous. Does 

 your conscience never hint to you the impiety of being in 

 constant warfare against the plans of Providence ? Disease 

 was intended as the punishment of intemperance, sloth and 

 other vices ; and the example of that punishment was intended 

 to promote and strengthen the opposite virtues. But here 

 you step in officiously with your art, disappoint those wise 

 intentions of Nature, and make men safe in their excesses. 

 Whereby you seem to me to be of just the same service to 

 society as some favourite first Minister, who, out of the great 

 benevolence of his heart, should procure pardon for all criminals 

 that applied to him. Only think of the consequence ! 



In the year that this letter was written the dispute 

 with the Penns came to a head, and the province could 



the strife of debate ran high, Franklin proposed that the morning sessions 

 should be opened with prayer. Garner and Lodge, Hist. United States, ii. 581. 

 1 Letter to J. F., 14 Mar. 1764 ; printed in Smyth, iv. 221. The original 

 of this letter seems to have been among Fothergill's papers, which were dis- 

 persed by the executors of his niece. Later Hudson Gurney had it for many 

 years ; it then went astray, and was afterwards sold in London. 



