[Note 60: Franklin's _Works_, vi. 153.] Mr. Hale in his recent volumes upon Franklin truly says that "it is unnecessary to place vituperative adjectives to the credit [discredit?] of Arthur Lee;" and in fact to do so seems a work of supererogation, since there probably remain few such epithets in the English language which have not already been applied to him by one writer or another. Yet it is hard to hold one's hand, although humanity would perhaps induce us to pity rather than to revile a man cursed with so unhappy a temperament. But whatever may be said or left unsaid about him personally, the infinite disturbance which he caused cannot be wholly ignored. It was great enough to constitute an important element in history. Covered by the powerful authority of his influential and patriotic family at home, and screened by the profound ignorance of Congress concerning men and affairs abroad, Lee was able for a long time to run his mischievous career without discovery or interruption. He buzzed about Europe like an angry hornet, thrusting his venomous sting into every respectable and useful servant of his country, and irritating exceedingly the foreigners whom it was of the first importance to conciliate. Incredible as it seems, it is undoubtedly true that he did not hesitate to express in Paris his deep antipathy to France and Frenchmen; and it was only the low esteem in which he was held that prevented his singular behavior from doing irreparable injury to the colonial cause. The English newspapers tauntingly ridiculed his insignificance and incapacity; de Vergennes could not endure him, and scarcely treated him with civility. But his intense egotism prevented him from gathering wisdom from such harsh instruction, which only added gall to his native bitterness. He wreaked his revenge upon his colleagues, and towards Franklin he cherished an envious hatred which developed into a monomania. Perhaps Franklin was correct in charitably saying that at times he was "insane." He began by asserting that Franklin was old, idle, and useless, fit only to be shelved in some respectable sinecure mission; but he rapidly advanced from such moderate condemnation until he charged Franklin with being a party to the abstraction of his dispatches from a sealed parcel, which was rifled in some unexplained way on its passage home;[61] and finally he even reached the extremity of alleging financial dishonesty in the public business, and insinuated an opinion that the doctor's great rascality indicated an intention never again to revisit his native land. In all this malevolence he found an earnest colleague in the hot-blooded Izard, whose charges against Franklin were unmeasured. "His abilities," wrote this angry gentleman, "are great and his reputation high. Removed as he is at so considerable a distance from the observation of his constituents, if he is not guided by principles of virtue and honor,