salary pertaining to such a position. Throughout a long life of public
service, often costly to himself in his own affairs, Franklin had never
asked any other favor than this, which after all was rather compensation
than favor, and this was never given to him. When one reflects how such
offices are demanded and awarded in these days, one hardly knows whether
to be more ashamed of the present or of the past. But this was not all
nor even the worst; for Franklin's repeated efforts to get his own
accounts with the government audited and settled never met with any
response. It needed only that Congress should appoint a competent
accountant to examine and report. Before leaving France Franklin had
begged for this act of simple, business-like justice, which it was the
duty of Congress to initiate without solicitation; he had the fate of
the "poor unhappy Deane" before his eyes, to make him uncomfortable, but
in this respect he was treated no better than that misused man. After
his return home he continued his urgency during his last years, not
wishing to die leaving malignant enemies behind him, and accounts open
which he could no longer explain and elucidate. Indeed, stories were
already circulating that he was "greatly indebted to the United States
for large sums that had been put into [his] hands, and that [he] avoided
a settlement;" yet this request was still, with unpardonable disregard
of decency and duty, utterly ignored. He never could get the business
attended to, and Benjamin Franklin actually could not extort from an
indifferent Congress the small satisfaction of having his accounts
passed. The consequence was that when he died the United States appeared
his debtor, and never extricated itself from that painful position.[104]
It was only in this matter that he ever showed the slightest anxiety
concerning his reputation with posterity. He wanted to leave the name of
an honest man; but otherwise he never was at the trouble of preparing a
line to justify any of his actions, therein differing from many of his
contemporaries.

[Note 103: One of the most painful letters to read which our annals
contain is that written by Franklin to Charles Thomson, secretary of
Congress, November 29, 1788, _Works_, viii. 26, 30. It is an arraignment
which humiliates the descendants of the members of that body.]

[Note 104: Parton's _Life of Franklin_, ii. 596.]

France showed a livelier affection and warmer appreciation toward the
g