The foregoing statements will sufficiently show how well the quondam shoemaker of Massachusetts earned the noble name of Patriot. Few men in his day did more solid and lasting public work. Although he was a man of remarkably cool, deliberate judgment, he was none the less an enthusiast in the cause of political freedom and independence. During the War of Independence he urged his compatriots by every means in his power to resist the English claims to impose taxation upon the colonies. He never swerved for a moment from the view he first took on the crucial question of "taxation without representation," but always avowed his firm conviction that "no European Government would ever give its sanction to such unfair legislation." His rectitude and integrity were unimpeachable, and his "rare good sense" made him a man of mark even among the noteworthy men of the first Federal Congress. Mr. Macon used to say of him, "Roger Sherman had more common-sense than any man I ever knew;" and Thomas Jefferson was wont to declare that Roger Sherman was "a man who never said a foolish thing in his life." To this opinion of his judgment and mental qualities may be added a valuable estimate of his moral and religious character. Goodrich[184] says that Sherman "having made a public profession of religion in early life, was never ashamed to advocate the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, which are often so unwelcome to men of worldly eminence. His sentiments were derived from the Word of God, and not from his own reason." [184] In "American Biographical Dictionary." Boston: J. P. Jewett & Co. The life of this man of "patriot fame"[185] came to an end July 23d, 1793. His good name is in no danger of being lost to posterity, for in addition to his own personal claim to immortality, he gave "hostages to fortune" in a family of fifteen children, one of whom, his namesake, died in 1856 at the patriarchal age of eighty-eight. [185] See the allusion to Sherman in Whittier's lines, given below. HENRY WILSON, "THE NATICK COBBLER."