He was at this time a solitary, crusty old man living in a four-story house on Water street, pursued by the contumely of every one, even of those who flattered him for mercenary purposes. Children he had none, and his wife was long since dead. His great wealth brought him no comfort; the environment with which he surrounded himself was mean and sordid; many of his clerks lived in better style. There, in his dingy habitation, this lone, weazened veteran of commerce immersed himself in the works of Voltaire, Diderot, Paine and Rousseau, of whom he was a profound admirer and after whom some of his best ships were named. This grim miser had, after all, the one great redeeming quality of being true to himself. He made no pretense to religion and had an abhorrence of hypocrisy. Cant was not in his nature. Out into the world he went, a ferocious shark, cold-eyed for prey, but he never cloaked his motives beneath a calculating exterior of piety or benevolence. Thousands upon thousands he had deceived, for business was business, but himself he never deceived. His bitter scoffs at what he termed theologic absurdities and superstitions and his terrific rebuffs to ministers who appealed to him for money, undoubtedly called forth a considerable share of the odium which was hurled upon him. He defied the anathemas of organized churchdom; he took hold of the commercial world and shook it harshly and emerged laden with spoils. To the last, his volcanic spirit flashed forth, even when, eighty years old, he lay with an ear cut off, his face bruised and his sight entirely destroyed, the result of being felled by a wagon. In all his eighty-one years charity had no place in his heart. But after, on Dec. 26, 1831, he lay stone dead and his will was opened, what a surprise there was! His relatives all received bequests; his very apprentices each got five hundred dollars, and his old servants annuities. Hospitals, orphan societies and other charitable associations all benefited. Five hundred thousand dollars went to the City of Philadelphia for certain civic improvements; three hundred thousand dollars for the canals of Pennsylvania; a portion of his valuable estate in Louisiana to New Orleans for the improvement of that city. The remainder of the estate, about six millions, was left to trustees for the creation and endowment of a College for Orphans, which was promptly named after him.