58.] Nothing could be more misleading.

Johnson was simply an enlightened Irishman of broad sympathies who could make himself at home in palace, hut, or wigwam.

He was an astute diplomatist, capable of winning his point in controversy with the most learned and experienced legislators of the colonies, a successful military leader, a most successful trader; and there was probably no more progressive and scientific farmer in America.

He had a cultivated mind; the orders he sent to London for books show that he was something of a scholar and in his leisure moments given to serious reading.

His advice to the lords of trade regarding colonial affairs was that of a statesman.