Among the last of the honours offered to Simpson was the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh; a fitting tribute from the City in which and for which he had so nobly and untiringly laboured. It was proposed to present him with the burgess-ticket at the same time that it was publicly presented to another hero in a different sphere, Lord Napier of Magdala; but by his own desire the ceremony was postponed so far as he was concerned in order that full honour might be paid to Lord Napier. At the eventual presentation the Lord Provost made a short speech recapitulating the achievements for which they desired to honour him, and referring to his reputation as being great on the banks of the Thames and the Seine, as well as on the shores of the Firth of Forth; he likewise expressed the pride of his fellow-citizens that Sir James had remained amongst them and had not been drawn away like other men of genius before him by the attractions of the greater metropolis of the south. Simpson's reply took the form of an impromptu review of his career from the time he first entered the City as a wonderstruck boy. "I came," he proudly said, "to settle down and fight amongst you a hard and up-hill battle of life for bread and name and fame, and the fact that I stand here before you this day so far testifies that in the arduous struggle I have--won." The accounts of the speeches delivered on this occasion which reached America raised the indignation of Dr. Bigelow, of Boston. Reference had been made to chloroform in a manner which appeared to slight Morton's work in introducing ether as an anaesthetic before chloroform was heard of. In Bigelow's estimation Simpson posed as a hero at the expense of Morton. Simpson had certainly been far from liberal in his allusions to Morton and others in his article upon Anaesthesia in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, and had written almost entirely about his own discovery. A controversy was excited, and on his deathbed Simpson wrote a letter to Bigelow to prove that he had duly considered the priority and the value of Morton's and Wells's work. In his concluding sentences he expressed regret at having taken up so much of his own and his correspondent's time in such a petty discussion, but blamed his illness which prevented him from writing with the force and brevity required. "With many of our profession in America," he said, "I have the honour of being personally acquainted, and regard their friendship so very highly that I shall not regret this attempt--my last, perhaps--at professional writing as altogether useless on my part if it tend to fix my name and memory duly in their love and esteem."