Indeed, as I have descended the vale of life I have had increasing need to consider what the years would bring about, for to endeavour to forecast the future is one of the duties of a statesman. Mr. Franklin, when in his last illness, said to General Knox, who spoke of it to Mrs. Washington, that I possessed the capacity to look forward in a way which, he said, was one of the forms of imagination, but that I had not the gift of fancy. I am not assured even now that I fully understand what he desired to convey by this statement. The letter which gave rise in my mind to these reflections contains one of those light statements which I have never found myself able to employ, and which do not assist me to understand the affair in hand, or to comprehend any better what is desired to be conveyed. _Philadelphia._ To Colonel George Washington. RESPECTED SIR: I am the richer for having had the opportunity of making your acquaintance, and I ought not to conceal from you the pleasure I have had in learning of late that your conduct in the humiliating defeat of General Braddock was such as to be a matter of just pride to the colonies. Affairs with us, and indeed with all the colonies, are in a condition greatly to be deplored. We are, as it appears to me, much in the same state as a man I knew who, having married four times, had as a consequence four mothers-in-law, all of whom were of opinion that they had the right to meddle in his family affairs. These are, for us, the King, the Parliament, the Lords of Trade, and the Governors. For all of them we are a family of bad little boys. We, on the other hand, entertain the belief that we are grown-up Englishmen, who believe that we inherit certain rights. Soon or late mischief will come of it. The eggs of trouble are slow to hatch, but they do surely hatch soon or late and are never addled. It would be worse than folly to conceal from you my fears as to the future. There are limitations to what men like our colonists, accustomed to a large measure of individual freedom, will endure. We seem to me to have gone back a century and to be at the commencement of just such a struggle with the crown as then occurred. I was interested in what you said of the great coldness of a spring at Mount Vernon. I will, when opportunity serves, send you a good thermometer, when I think you will find that your wells have near about what is the average heat of the air for the entire year. I hope to hear from you at your convenience, and, believe me, I shall feel myself honoured by any such mark of your attention, and that I am, with respect, Your ob’d’t humble servant, _Benjamin Franklin_. P. S. I venture to enclose one of my almanacs. _B. F._