This involuntary leisure gave Clinton just the time needed to hasten the work which was to transmit his name to later generations. Bitterly mortified over his defeat, he retired to a farm at Newton on Long Island, where he lived for a time in strict seclusion, indulging, it was said, too freely in strong drink. But if Clinton lacked patience, and temporarily, perhaps, the virtue of temperance, he did not lack force of will and strength of intellect. He corresponded with men of influence; sought the assistance of capitalists; held public meetings; and otherwise endeavoured to enlist the co-operation of people who would be benefited, and to arouse a public sentiment which should overcome doubt and stir into activity men of force and foresight. Writing from Buffalo, in July, 1816, he declared that "in all human probability, before the passing away of the present generation, Buffalo will be the second city in the State."[185] A month later, having examined "the land and the water with scrutinising eye, superintending our operations and exploring all our facilities and embarrassments" from the great drop at Lockport to the waters of the Mohawk at Utica, he again refers to the future Queen City of the Lakes with prophetic power. "Buffalo is to be the point of beginning, and in fifty years it will be next to New York in wealth and population."[186] [Footnote 185: DeWitt Clinton's Letters to Henry Post, in _Harper's Magazine_, Vol. 50, p. 411.] [Footnote 186: _Ibid._, Vol. 50, p. 411.] It is doubtful if any statesman endowed with less genius than Clinton could have kept the project alive during this period of indifference and discouragement. Even Thomas Jefferson doubted the feasibility of the plan, declaring that it was a century in advance of the age. "I confess," wrote Rufus King, long after its construction had become assured, "that looking at the distance between Erie and the Hudson, and taking into view the hills and valleys and rivers and morasses over which the canal must pass, I have felt some doubts whether the unaided resources of the State would be competent to its execution."[187] But Clinton had a nature and a spirit which inclined him to favour daring plans, and he seems to have made up his mind that nothing should hinder him from carrying out the enterprise he had at heart. [Footnote 187: Charles R. King, _Life and Correspondence of Rufus King_, Vol. 6, p. 97.]