those abilities and that reputation may produce the most mischievous effects. In my conscience I declare to you that I believe him under no such restraint, and God knows that I speak the real, unprejudiced sentiments of my heart." Such fulminations, reaching the States out of what was then for them the obscurity of Europe, greatly perplexed the members of Congress; for they had very insufficient means for determining the value of the testimony given by these absent witnesses. [Note 61: Parton's _Franklin_, ii. 354.] It would serve no useful purpose to devote valuable space to narrating at length all the slander and malice of these restless men, all the correspondence, the quarrels, the explanations, and general trouble to which they gave rise. But the reader must exercise his imagination liberally in fancying these things, in order to appreciate to what incessant annoyance Franklin was subjected at a time when the inevitable anxieties and severe labors of his position were far beyond the strength of a man of his years. He showed wonderful patience and dignity, and though he sometimes let some asperity find expression in his replies, he never let them degenerate into retorts. Moreover, he replied as little as possible, for he truly said that he hated altercation; whereas Lee, who reveled in it, took as an aggravation of all his other injuries that his opponent was inclined to curtail the full luxury to be expected from a quarrel. Franklin also magnanimously refrained from arraigning Lee and Izard to Congress, either publicly or privately, a forbearance which these chivalrous gentlemen did not emulate. The memorial[62] of Arthur Lee, of May, 1779, addressed to Congress, contains criminations enough to furnish forth many impeachments. But Franklin would not condescend to allow his serenity to be disturbed by the news of these assaults. He felt "very easy," he said, about these efforts to injure him, trusting in the justice of the Congress to listen to no accusations without giving him an opportunity to reply.[63] Yet his position was not so absolutely secure and exalted but that he suffered some little injury at home. [Note 62: Franklin's _Works_, vi. 363.] [Note 63: To Richard Bache, Franklin's _Works_, vi. 414.]