“Whilst the last members were signing,” says Madison, “Dr. Franklin, looking towards the president’s chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. ‘I have,’ said he, ‘often and often in the course of the session and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the president, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting, but now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.’” So Franklin, from whose life picturesqueness and charm were seldom absent, gave, in his easy manner, to the close of the dry details of the convention a touch of beautiful and true sentiment which can never be dissociated from the history of the republic he had helped to create. FOOTNOTES: [29] Pp. 218, 231-236. Appendix to Page 104 FRANKLIN’S DAUGHTER, MRS. FOXCROFT It was impossible in the text at page 104 to give in full all the letters which showed that Mrs. Foxcroft was Franklin’s daughter. Most of them, however, were cited. It seems necessary now to give them in full, because since the book was first published the correctness of the statement in the text has been questioned; and the reasons for questioning it have been set forth by a reviewer in a New York newspaper called _The Nation_. A reply to this review appeared in _Lippincott’s Magazine_ for May, 1899, and this reply, so far as it relates to Mrs. Foxcroft, was as follows: The best way to discuss the above statement, and a great deal more nonsense that the reviewer has written on this subject, is to give in full the letters and reasons which have led the members of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to believe that a certain manuscript letter in the possession of the society showed that Franklin had an illegitimate daughter. The letter itself, which Mr. Fisher gives in his book, is addressed to Franklin at his Craven Street lodgings in London, and is as follows: PHILADA. Feby. 2d, 1772. Dear Sir: I have the happiness to acquaint you that your daughter was safely brot to Bed the 20th ulto. and presented me with a sweet little girl, they are both in good spirits and are likely to do very well. I was seized with a Giddyness in my head the Day before yesterday as I had 20 oz. of blood taken from me and took physick wch does not seem in the least to have relieved me. I am hardly able to write this. Mrs. F. Joins me in best affections to yourself and compts to Mrs. Stevenson and Mr. and Mrs. Huson. I am Dr Sir yrs affectionately JOHN FOXCROFT. Mrs. Franklin, Mrs. Bache, little Ben & Family at Burlington are all well. I had a letter from yr. Govr. yesterday. J. F.