Bancroft, whose work shows unprecedented access to original documents, recognizes the prevision of the French minister at an earlier date, as attested by the archives of the French Foreign Office. In 1766 he received the report of a special agent who had visited America. In 1767 he sent Baron de Kalb, afterwards an officer in our Revolution,--sparing no means to obtain information, and drawing even from New England sermons, of which curious extracts are preserved among the State Papers of France.[401] In August of this year, writing to his plenipotentiary at London, the Minister says with regard to England and her Colonies: “Let her but attempt to establish taxes in them, and those countries, greater than England in extent, and perhaps becoming more populous, having fisheries, forests, shipping, corn, iron, and the like, will easily and fearlessly separate themselves from the mother country.”[402] In the next year Du Châtelet, son of her who was the companion of Voltaire and the French translator of Newton, becomes his most sympathetic representative. To him the Minister wrote, 15th July, 1768: “According to the prognostications of sensible men, who have had opportunity to study the character of the Americans, and to measure their progress from day to day in the spirit of independence, this separation of the American Colonies from the metropolis sooner or later must come.… I see all these difficulties, and do not dissemble their extent; but I see also the controlling interest of the Americans to profit by the opportunity of a rupture to establish their independence.”[403] Again he wrote, 22d November, 1768: “The Americans will not lose out of their view their rights and their privileges; and next to fanaticism for religion, the fanaticism for liberty is the most daring in its measures and the most dangerous in its consequences.”[404] That the plenipotentiary was not less prompt in forecast appears in a letter of 9th November, 1768: “Without exaggerating the projects or the union of the Colonies, the time of their independence is very near.… Three years ago the separation of the English Colonies was looked upon as an object of attention for the next generation; the germs were observed, but no one could foresee that they would be so speedily developed. This new order of things, this event which will necessarily have the greatest influence on the whole political system of Europe, will probably be brought about within a very few years.”[405] The Minister replied, 20th December, 1768: “Your views are as subtle as they are comprehensive and well-considered. The King is perfectly aware of their sagacity and solidity, and I will communicate them to the Court of Madrid.”[406]