is colleague:--

"The other you know personally, and that he loves his Ease, hates
to offend, and seldom gives any opinion till obliged to do it. I
know also, and it is necessary that you should be informed, that he
is overwhelmed with a correspondence from all quarters, most of
them upon trifling subjects and in a more trifling style, with
unmeaning visits from Multitudes of People, chiefly from the Vanity
of having it to say that they have seen him. There is another thing
that I am obliged to mention. There are so many private families,
Ladies and gentlemen, that he visits so often,--and they are so
fond of him, that he cannot well avoid it,--and so much intercourse
with Academicians, that all these things together keep his mind in
a constant state of dissipation. If indeed you take out of his hand
the Public Treasury and the direction of the Frigates and
Continental vessels that are sent here, and all Commercial affairs,
and entrust them to Persons to be appointed by Congress, at Nantes
and Bordeaux, I should think it would be best to have him here
alone, with such a Secretary as you can confide in. But if he is
left here alone, even with such a secretary, and all maritime and
Commercial as well as political affairs and money matters are left
in his Hands, I am persuaded that France and America will both have
Reason to repent it. He is not only so indolent that Business will
be neglected, but you know that, although he has as determined a
soul as any man, yet it is his constant Policy never to say 'yes'
or 'no' decidedly but when he cannot avoid it."

This mischievous letter, not actually false, yet misrepresenting and
misleading, has unfortunately survived to injure both the man who wrote
it and the man about whom it was written. It is quoted in order to show
the sort of covert fire in the rear to which Franklin was subjected
throughout his term of service. It is astonishing now, when the
evidence is all before us and the truth is attainable, to read such a
description of such a patriot as Franklin, a man who went through labors
and anxieties for the cause probably only surpassed by those of
Washington, and whose services did more to promote success than did the
services of any other save only Washington. How blind was the personal
prejudice of the critic who saw Franklin in Paris and could yet sug