The discarded minister gave himself to science, literature, and friendship. He welcomed Franklin to France and to immortality in a Latin verse of marvellous felicity. He was already the companion of the liberal spirits who were doing so much for knowledge and for reform. By writing and by conversation he exercised a constant influence. His "ideas" seem to illumine the time. We may be content to follow him in saying, "The glory of arms cannot compare with the happiness of living in peace." He anticipated our definition of a republic, when he said "it was formed upon the _equality of all the citizens_,"--good words, not yet practically verified in all our States. Such a government he, living under a monarchy, bravely pronounced the best of all; but he added that he "had never known a constitution truly republican." This was in 1778. With similar plainness he announced that "the destruction of the Ottoman empire would be a real good for all the nations of Europe," and--he added still further--for humanity also, because it would involve the abolition of negro slavery, and because to strip "our oppressors is not to attack, but to vindicate, the common rights of humanity." With such thoughts and aspirations, the prophet died. But I have no purpose of writing a biography, or even a character. All that I intend is an introduction to Turgot's prophetic words relating to America. When only twenty-three years of age, while still an ecclesiastic at the Sorbonne, the future minister delivered a discourse on the Progress of the Human Mind, in which, after describing the commercial triumphs of the ancient Phoenicians, covering the coasts of Greece and Asia with their colonies, he lets drop these remarkable words:-- "Les colonies sont comme des fruits qui ne tiennent à l'arbre que jusqu'à leur maturité; devenues suffisantes à elles-mêmes, elles firent ce que fit depuis Carthage,--_ce que fera un jour l'Amérique_."[22] "Colonies are like fruits, which hold to the tree only until their maturity; when sufficient for themselves, they did that which Carthage afterwards did,--_that which some day America will do_." On this most suggestive declaration, Dupont de Nemours, the editor of Turgot's works, published in 1808, remarks in a note as follows:-- "It was in 1750 that M. Turgot, being then only twenty-three years old, and devoted in a seminary to the study of theology, divined, foresaw the revolution which has formed the United States,--which has detached them from the European power apparently the most capable of retaining its colonies under its domination." At the time Turgot wrote, Canada was a French possession; but his words are as applicable to this colony as to the United States. When will this fruit be ripe? JOHN ADAMS.--1755, 1776, 1780, 1785, 1787.