To an importunate mendicant, whom I had sometimes relieved, I said one day, on giving him a trifle--"_Do not let me see you again for a long time._" He conformed to the direction, and refrained from applying for about seven months. At length he ventured to bring and hand me a billet, of which I annex a copy verbatim et literatim. "Sir--You desired me, last time you relieved me, not to call _for a long time_. It was a few days after Easter. To a wretch in distress '_it is a very long time_.' Yours gratefully, Nov. 14. R. W." At page 21, is an account of a publication, some of whose predictions were certainly imbued with a rare spirit of prophecy. In October 1786, I commenced, in partnership with T. Siddons, Charles Cist, C. Talbot, W. Spotswood, and J. Trenchard, the Columbian Magazine. In the first number, I wrote four pieces, "The Life of General Greene," "The Shipwreck, a Lamentable Story, Founded on Fact," "A Philosophical Dream," and "Hard Times, a Fragment." The Philosophical Dream was an anticipation of the state of the country in the year 1850, on the plan of Mercier's celebrated work, "The Year 2500." Some of the predictions, which at that period must have been regarded as farcical, have been wonderfully fulfilled, and others are likely to be realized previous to the arrival of the year 1850. I annex a few of them, which may serve to amuse the reader. "_Pittsburg, Jan. 15, 1850_. The canal which is making from the river Ohio, to the Susquehanna, and thence to the Delaware, will be of immense advantage to the United States. If the same progress continues to be made hereafter as has been for some time past, it will be completed in less than two years." This was probably the first suggestion of the grand project of uniting the waters of the Delaware with those of the Ohio. It preceded by four years the project of the financier, Robert Morris, and his friends, to unite the Delaware with the Schuylkill and the Susquehanna, which was broached in 1790. "_Pittsburg, Jan. 15_. Delegates from the thirtieth new state, laid off a few months since by order of Congress, lately arrived at Columbia; and on producing their credentials, were received into the Federal Council. "_Charleston, April 15_. No less than 10,000 blacks have been transported from this state and Virginia, during the last two years, to Africa, where they have formed a settlement near the mouth of the river Goree. Very few blacks remain in this country now: and we sincerely hope that in a few years every vestige of the infamous traffic carried on by our ancestors in the human species, will be done away.