“Dr. Benjamin Franklin has told the world in poetry what, in his judgment, my ancestor was. His venerable shade will excuse me, if I tell in prose what, in the judgment of men who lived near a century ago, Dr. Smith was not: He was no almanack maker, nor quack, nor chimney-doctor, nor soap boiler, nor printer’s devil, neither was he a deist; and all his children were born in wedlock. He bequeathed no old and irrecoverable debts to a hospital. He never cheated the poor during his life nor mocked them in his death. If his descendants cannot point to his statue over a library, they have not the mortification of hearing him daily accused of having been a fornicator, a hypocrite, and an infidel.” Some of the charges in this venomous statement are in a sense true, but are exaggerated by the manner in which they are presented, an art in which Cobbett excelled. I have in the preceding chapters given sufficient details to throw light on many of them. Franklin was an almanac-maker, a chimney-doctor, and a soap-boiler, but in none of these is there anything to his discredit. As to his irrecoverable debts, it is true that he left them to the Pennsylvania Hospital, saying in his will that, as the persons who owed them were unwilling to pay them to him, they might be willing to pay them to the hospital as charity. They were a source of great annoyance to the managers, and were finally returned to his executors. The statement that he cheated the poor during his life and mocked them in his death is entirely unjustified. He was often generous with his money to people in misfortune, and several such instances can be found in his letters. It is also going too far to say that he was a quack and a hypocrite. While in England he associated on the most intimate terms with eminent literary and scientific men. Distinguished travellers from the Continent called on him to pay their respects. He stayed at noblemen’s country-seats and with the Bishop of St. Asaph. He corresponded with all these people in the most friendly and easy manner; they were delighted with his conversation and could never see enough of him. In France everybody worshipped him, and the court circles received him with enthusiasm. But in Philadelphia the colonial aristocracy were not on friendly terms with him. He had, of course, numerous friends, including some members of aristocratic families; but we find few, if any, evidences of that close intimacy and affection which he enjoyed among the best people of Europe.