the vexing questions at issue were settled by the signing, on September 3, 1783, of separate definitive treaties between the three hostile powers. Franklin's great work was done. He had before this urged Congress to release him from his heavy duties, and at last--in 1785, after he had assisted in making treaties with the other powers of Europe--his resignation was accepted, and he was free to return home. Thomas Jefferson came over to Paris as plenipotentiary in his stead. When asked if he replaced Dr. Franklin, Jefferson used to reply: "I _succeed_. No one can _replace_ him." Franklin returned to Philadelphia laden with years and honors; yet still his country could not let him repose. For three successive years he was elected President of Pennsylvania; but the labors entailed were not severe, and the old man found time for amusement and quiet study. We have a beautiful picture of his life at home with his daughter and her family in one of his letters of the time: "The companions of my youth are indeed almost all departed; but I find an agreeable society among their children and grandchildren. I have public business enough to preserve me from ennui, and private amusement besides in conversation, books, my garden, and cribbage. Considering our well-furnished, plentiful market as the best of gardens, I am turning mine, in the midst of which my house stands, into grass plots and gravel walks, with trees and flowering shrubs. Cards we sometimes play here in long winter evenings; but it is as they play at chess,--not for money, but for honor, or the pleasure of beating one another. This will not be quite a novelty to you, as you may remember we played together in that manner during the winter at Passy. I have indeed now and then a little compunction in reflecting that I spend time so idly. But another reflection comes to relieve me, whispering: '_You know that the soul is immortal. Why, then, should you be such a niggard of a little time, when you have a whole eternity before you?_' So, being easily convinced, and, like other reasonable creatures, satisfied with a small reason when it is in favor of doing what I have a mind to, I shuffle the cards again, and begin another game." Yet the old man could not but feel lonely at times in the new society growing up about him. He says pathetically in another letter: "I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity, when I ought to have been abed and asleep."