I am grown old. I feel myself much enfeebled by my late long Illness, and it is probable I shall not long have any more Concern in these Affairs. I therefore take this Occasion to express my Opinion to your Excellency, that the present Conjuncture is critical; that there is some Danger lest the Congress should lose its Influence over the people, if it is found unable to procure the Aids that are wanted; and that the whole System of the New Governt in America may thereby be shaken; that, if the English are suffer'd once to recover that Country, such an Opportunity of effectual Separation as the present may not occur again in the Course of Ages; and that the Possession of those fertile and extensive Regions, and that vast Sea Coast, will afford them so Broad a Basis for future Greatness, by the rapid growth of their Commerce, and Breed of Seamen and Soldiers, as will enable them to become the _Terror of Europe_, and to exercise with impunity that Insolence, which is so natural to their Nation, and which will increase enormously with the Increase of their Power. Hard upon the heels of this letter came a letter from John Adams, inquiring whether Franklin could furnish funds for paying bills to the amount of ten thousand pounds sterling which had been drawn by Congress on Adams. Franklin replied by saying that he had not yet received a positive answer to his last appeal for aid to the French King, but that he had, however, two of the Christian Graces, Faith and Hope, though his faith was only that of which the Apostle speaks--the evidence of things not seen. In truth, he declared, he did not see at that time how so many bills drawn at random on the Ministers of Congress in France, Spain and Holland were to be paid. But all bills drawn upon them by Congress should be accepted at any risk; and he would accordingly do his best, and, if those endeavors failed, he was ready to break, run away or go to prison with Adams, as it should please God. His endeavors were successful, so startlingly successful that Vergennes informed him that his Majesty, to give the States a signal proof of his friendship, had resolved to grant them the sum of six millions, not as a loan, but as a free gift. But the announcement was accompanied by the significant statement that, as the supplies previously purchased in France by the United States, were supposed to be of bad quality, the Ministers would themselves take care of the purchase, with part of the gift, of such articles as were urgently needed in America, and the balance, remaining after these purchases, was to be drawn for by General Washington upon M. d'Harvelay, Garde du Trèsor Royal. "There was no room to dispute on this point," Franklin wrote to Samuel Huntington, "every donor having the right of qualifying his gifts with such terms as he thinks proper"; but the