362 WORK IN WAR-TIME CHAP. 



his friends, he was always studying and projecting some- 

 thing for the good of his country and of mankind in 

 general, and putting others, who had it in their power, on 

 executing what was out of his own reach ; but whatever 

 was within it he took care to do himself ; and his in- 

 credible industry and unwearied activity enabled him to 

 do much more than can now be ever known, his modesty 

 being equal to his other virtues." Two years later 

 Franklin added these emphatic words upon his friend's 

 character : "If we may estimate the goodness of a man 

 by his disposition to do good, and his constant endeavour 

 and success in doing it, I can hardly conceive that a better 

 man has ever existed." l 



At length the old statesman returned home. It must 

 have been hard for Franklin to exchange the eclat of the 

 court of France for new toils and half-neglect in the land 

 that owed him so much ; it was " not fashionable," so 

 people said in Philadelphia, to visit Dr. Franklin. In the 

 settlement of the constitution of the United States at 

 Philadelphia in 1787 he took no small part, founded as 

 it was, in its spirit and aims, upon the constitutions of 

 the various provinces. Of these Pennsylvania was one 

 of the chief ; and its frame was based on principles of 

 liberty and religion laid down by Penn and the Quakers. 2 

 It may be added that the Revolution brought political 

 equilibrium in that state only after a long and bitter 

 struggle between the conservative and radical parties, 

 which has left its traces to this day. The Friends had 

 passed into opposition, and lost public influence. Frank- 

 lin's cheerful and humorous temperament bore him 

 unhurt through the heat of faction, and he saw the 

 triumph of democracy ere he died in 1790. The two 

 years of severe suffering which preceded his death were 



1 MS. Letter from Waterhouse, Jan. 10, 1781, Amer. Phil. Soc., Calendar, 

 xxi. 15 ; Letters from Franklin, in Smyth, viii. 194; and in Foth. Works, iii. 

 p. clxviii. Fothergill wrote : " A friend of mine tells me I have a tolerable 

 good knack of finding work for my friends." MS. Letter to Huddesford, 

 Ashmole MSS. 1822, Bodleian Library. 



2 President Wilson has spoken of William Penn as belonging to the " lineage 

 of those who have sought justice and right," and as having a large part in 

 establishing the free self-governing commonwealth of America. Address at 

 Swarthmore College, Penna., Oct. 1913. 



