- agement the rangers behaved with spirit
and courage.
Among these communications one which afforded me more than ordinary pleasure was from Mr. Benjamin Franklin. Besides what he found fit to say of me, were certain reflections which, at this distant day, seem to nourish my inclination to look forward now, as he did then, desirous, as all must be, to discern from the present what the future alone can surely disclose.
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
