xxx LAST VISIT TO ACKWORTH 381 



been able to do for the education of his people was the 

 consolation of his closing days. On the way home 

 Fothergill had leisure of thought to observe the condition 

 of the New River, and he wrote on his return the letter 

 to the Directors, already noticed, in which he urged them 

 to set up public baths. He began his usual winter 

 labours in London, and was soon closely engaged. He 

 found time, however, on October 25 to write his long 

 letter to Franklin at Paris, in which Fothergill laid before 

 the American statesman the grand ideal of setting up, 

 on the occasion of the founding of the United States, an 

 International Court for the settlement of disputes. 



He attended a meeting of the Medical Society (of 

 Physicians) on the nth of December, and on the following 

 day, which he had spent in arduous medical work, Fother- 

 gill was again seized with illness illness which this time 

 the art of Percivall Pott could not relieve. Drs. Watson, 

 Warren, and Reynolds also attended him, and they had 

 to reckon, too, with the emphatic medical opinions of the 

 patient himself. The weary frame endured for a fortnight 

 the extreme pains and distresses of his disorder, until 

 the end came as a welcome relief to those who watched 

 his sufferings. David Barclay saw him daily, and wrote 

 bulletins to his friends in the north. His mind was 

 serene, and even cheerful, hoping, as he said, " that he 

 had not lived in vain, but in degree to answer the end 

 of his creation, by sacrificing interested considerations 

 and his own ease to the good of his fellow-creatures." 

 " Sister," he said to his faithful companion, " be content, 

 do not hold me. I have been low. I have been doubtful 

 whether it would be well with me or not, but now I am 

 satisfied beyond a doubt beyond a doubt, that I shall be 

 everlastingly happy. My troubles are ended, therefore 

 be content, and mayst thou be blessed in time and in 

 eternity." 1 



1 The disease proved to arise from a hard " fungus " growth, about the 

 size of a walnut, situated on the vesical floor, associated with a large hard 

 prostate, and causing retention, save for a discharge guttatim. The catheter 

 entered the growth by a groove, but could not pierce it. Great distension 

 ensued, and doubtless at length uraemia. Puncture per rectum was canvassed, 



