Note 37 — Chapter VI · (continued 2)
Reading edition
The business of Whitefoord as a wine-merchant was carried on at No. 8 Craven Street, and he enjoyed a considerable reputation for wit in his time. He served as Secretary to the Commission that settled the terms of peace with the United States. He was, Burke thought, a mere diseur de bons mots. Goldsmith deemed him of sufficient importance to make him the subject of an epitaph intended to be worked into the Retaliation, and reading as follows:
"Here Whitefoord reclines, deny it who can; Tho' he merrily lived, he is now a grave man. What pity, alas! that so lib'ral a mind Should so long be to Newspaper Essays confined! Who perhaps to the summit of science might soar, Yet content if the table he set in a roar; Whose talents to fit any station were fit, Yet happy if Woodfall confessed him a wit."
His intimacy with Franklin, Whitefoord said on one occasion, had been the "pride and happiness" of his life.