Robert R. Livingston (to Paine in Paris): "Make your will; leave the mechanics, the iron bridge, the wheels, etc., to America." Joseph N. Moreau: "The Archimedes of the eighteenth century." Elihu Palmer: "Probably the most useful man that ever lived." Refutation of Charges of Immorality. Louis Masquerier: "Paine who wrote in man's defense, 'Rights of Man' and 'Common Sense, Let not pious virulence Stain his honest fame." Paine has been represented by his religious enemies as the embodiment of all that is bad. He was, they assert, drunken, filthy, and immoral. Banished from respectable society, he associated, they say, only with the low and vile. The following testimony covers all the years that elapsed from the beginning of his public career to the end of his life. Dr. Franklin, writing from England while Paine was yet a resident of that country, says: "Mr. Thomas Paine is very well recommended to me as an ingenious worthy young man." That his previous life had been above serious reproach is shown by a letter to the Excise Office in which he says: "No complaint of the least dishonesty or intemperance has ever appeared against me." James B. Elliot: "Paine's pamphlet ['Case of the Officers of Excise'] secured for him the acquaintance of Oliver Goldsmith, who became and remained his friend until his death, and by whom he was introduced to Benjamin Franklin." "At a coffeehouse in London Paine met that other great thinker, Franklin. They became fast friends."--_Elbert Hubbard_. "Invited by Franklin he went to America."--_Encyclopedia of Social Reform_. "His associates in Philadelphia were people of the highest respectability and importance.... He was welcomed everywhere."--_James B. Elliott_. Referring to his first year in America Bancroft says: "In that time he had frequented the society of Rittenhouse, Clymer and Samuel Adams." Dr. Rush says: "He visited in the families of Dr. Franklin, Mr. Rittenhouse and Mr. George Clymer." Referring to the members of the Philosophical Society, founded by Franklin, Dr. Conway says: "Paine was welcomed into their circle by Rittenhouse, Clymer, Rush, Muhlenberg, and other representatives of the scientific and literary metropolis." Writing in his journal at a later period John Hall, the English mechanician who then resided in Philadelphia, mentions among Paine's visitors and intimate associates Franklin, Gouverneur Morris, Dr. Rush, Tench Francis, Robert Morris, Rittenhouse, etc. The Library of the World's Best Literature alludes to scientific experiments made by Paine "for the entertainment of Washington whose guest he was for some time."