If Franklin regretted going, still more did his friends and admirers regret his leaving. “I am very sorry that you intend soon to leave our hemisphere,” said David Hume. “America has sent us many good things: gold, silver, sugar, tobacco, indigo &c. But you are the first philosopher, and indeed the first great man of letters for whom we are beholden to her. It is our own fault that we have not kept him; whence it appears that we do not agree with Solomon, that wisdom is above gold, for we take care never to send back an ounce of the latter which we once lay our fingers on.”
