358 WORK IN WAR-TIME CHAP. 



continued for four years with doubtful fortune ; the 

 States were declared independent ; America was, it was 

 urged, invincible ; as we could not have her for a de- 

 pendent, let us keep her as a friend ; and recover her 

 commerce and her support. The state of things at home 

 and of affairs abroad combined to compel us to forgo 

 revenge and to make peace. 1 



Fothergill, as already said, did not live to see the end 

 of the conflict. Lord Cornwallis surrendered at York- 

 town in November 1781 ; this event, and the successes 

 of the French in the West Indies, at length roused the 

 long-suffering British people to demand peace with a 

 voice that must be obeyed. The king bowed, not without 

 a thought of abdication, to the political storm ; North 

 resigned ; Rockingham and the Whigs came in Burke, 

 Fox, Camden, Richmond and peace was made in 1783 

 by Great Britain, who recognised in her eldest child the 

 full rights of an independent nation. 



The friendship between Fothergill and Franklin found 

 only occasional expression in these years of war and 

 separation. It was not easy to convey letters, and only 

 some of them have been preserved. Thus Fothergill 

 wrote in 1780 to ask Franklin's good offices in behalf 

 of Lady Huntingdon's interests in America. 2 Franklin 

 replied from Passy on the igth of June. 



My dear old friend, Dr. Fothergill, may assure Lady H. 

 of any service in my power to render her, or her affairs in 

 America. ... I rejoiced most sincerely to hear of your 

 recovery. ... Be pleased to remember me respectfully to 

 your good sister, and to our worthy friend David Barclaj', 

 who I make no doubt laments with you and me, that the true 

 pains we took together to prevent all this horrible mischief 

 proved ineffectual. I am ever yours most affectionately, 



B. FRANKLIN. 3 



1 Works, in. 31. 



2 The Countess of Huntingdon had taken a generous interest in Whitefield's 

 Orphan House in Georgia. She was Fothergill's attached patient, and he 

 esteemed her integrity of heart and simplicity of dress and conduct ; although 

 he adds : " perhaps in the guise of zeal, an enemy may steal in." See Mem. 

 S. Fothergill, p. 461 ; T. W. Aveling, Memorials of the Clayton Family, p. 27. 



3 Bigelow, Franklin's Works, vii. 90. 



