Part 10

TO M. SOULES.

February 2, 1787.

SIR,--I send you the papers M. de Creve-coeur sent to Normandy for. The account of the destruction of Wyoming begins page 40. You may rely certainly on the author's facts, and you will be easily able to separate from them his reflections. You can best judge whether an account of that interesting settlement, condensed into a few lines, might not form an agreeable episode in your history, and prepare the mind more awfully for its final catastrophe. I will thank you to return these papers as soon as you are done with them, that I may restore them to the hands of M. de Creve-coeur before my departure, which will now be in a few days. I have the honor to be, Sir, your most obedient humble servant.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY MR. ADAMS.

PARIS, February 6, 1787.

DEAR SIR,--Your favors by Colonel Franks have come safely to hand. He will set out from thence the 8th instant. The packet being to sail from Havre the 10th, I enclose you the copy of a letter lately received from Mr. Barclay, and of the paper it enclosed. In a letter from Mr. Carmichael, is a postscript, dated December 25, in the following words: "Since writing the preceding, the Portuguese Ambassador has pressed me to hint, that the present moment is favorable to push our treaty with the court." In the body of the letter he says: "The Count de Expilly has promised me to continue his attention to our prisoners during his stay at Algiers; and I have also engaged the Consul of Spain, who remains there on his return, to take care of them. Advances have been made for their support which ought to be refunded." I suppose these advances have been made by order of Mr. Lambe, and that his powers being at an end, it will be incumbent on us to take measures on that subject. The Count de Vergennes is extremely ill. His disease is gouty. We have for some days had hopes it would fix itself decidedly in the foot. It shows itself there at times, as also in the shoulder, the stomach, &c. Monsieur de Calonne is likewise ill, but his complaints are of a rheumatic kind, which he has often had before. The illness of these two ministers occasioned the postponement of the Assembly of the Notables to the 14th, and probably will yet postpone it. Nothing is yet known of the objects of that meeting. I send you a pamphlet giving a summary account of all the meetings of a general nature which have taken place heretofore. The treaty between Prussia and this country is certainly concluded, but its contents are not yet known. I shall set out for the waters of Aix on the 13th instant, so that I am unable to say when and whence I shall have the honor of addressing you again. But I take measures for the conveying to me on my road all letters, so that should anything extraordinary require it, I can at all times be recalled to Paris in a fortnight. I shall hope to hear from you at times, as if I were in Paris. I thank you much for the valuable present of your book. The subject of it is interesting, and I am sure it is well treated. I shall take it on my journey, that I may have time to study it. You told me once, you had thought of writing on hereditary aristocracy. I wish you would carry it into execution. It would make a proper sequel to the present work. I wish you all possible happiness, and have the honor to be, with sentiments of sincere esteem and affection, dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.

TO MRS. BINGHAM.

PARIS, February 7, 1787.

I know, Madam, that the twelve month is not yet expired; but it will be, nearly, before this will have the honor of being put into your hands. You are then engaged to tell me, truly and honestly, whether you do not find the tranquil pleasures of America, preferable to the empty bustle of Paris. For, to what does that bustle tend? At eleven o'clock, it is day, chez madame. The curtains are drawn. Propped on bolsters and pillows, and her head scratched into a little order, the bulletins of the sick are read, and the billets of the well. She writes to some of her acquaintance, and receives the visits of others. If the morning is not very thronged, she is able to get out and hobble round the cage of the Palais Royal; but she must hobble quickly, for the coiffeur's turn is come; and a tremendous turn it is! Happy, if he does not make her arrive when dinner is half over! The torpitude of digestion a little passed, she flutters half an hour through the streets, by way of paying visits, and then to the spectacles. These finished, another half hour is devoted to dodging in and out of the doors of her very sincere friends, and away to supper. After supper, cards; and after cards, bed; to rise at noon the next day, and to tread, like a mill horse, the same trodden circle over again. Thus the days of life are consumed, one by one, without an object beyond the present moment; ever flying from the ennui of that, yet carrying it with us; eternally in pursuit of happiness, which keeps eternally before us. If death or bankruptcy happen to trip us out of the circle, it is matter for the buzz of the evening, and is completely forgotten by the next morning. In America, on the other hand, the society of your husband, the fond cares for the children, the arrangements of the house, the improvements of the grounds, fill every moment with a healthy and an useful activity. Every exertion is encouraging, because, to present amusement, it joins the promise of some future good. The intervals of leisure are filled by the society of real friends, whose affections are not thinned to cob-web, by being spread over a thousand objects. This is the picture, in the light it is presented to my mind; now let me have it in yours. If we do not concur this year, we shall the next; or if not then, in a year or two more. You see I am determined not to suppose myself mistaken.

To let you see that Paris is not changed in its pursuits, since it was honored with your presence, I send you its monthly history. But this relating only to the embellishments of their persons, I must add, that those of the city go on well also. A new bridge, for example, is begun at the Place Louis Quinze; the old ones are clearing off the rubbish which encumbered them in the form of houses; new hospitals erecting; magnificent walls of inclosure, and Custom-houses at their entrances, &c., &c., &c. I know of no interesting change among those whom you honored with your acquaintance, unless Monsieur de Saint James was of that number. His bankruptcy, and taking asylum in the Bastile, have furnished matter of astonishment. His garden, at the Pont de Neuilly, where, on seventeen acres of ground, he had laid out fifty thousand louis, will probably sell for somewhat less money. The workmen of Paris are making rapid strides towards English perfection. Would you believe, that in the course of the last two years, they have learned even to surpass their London rivals in some articles? Commission me to have you a phaeton made, and, if it is not as much handsomer than a London one, as that is than a Fiacre, send it back to me. Shall I fill the box with caps, bonnets, &c.? Not of my own choosing, but--I was going to say, of Mademoiselle Bertin's, forgetting, for the moment, that she too is a bankrupt. They shall be chosen then by whom you please; or, if you are altogether nonplused by her eclipse, we will call an Assemblee des Notables to help you out of the difficulty, as is now the fashion. In short, honor me with your commands of any kind, and they shall be faithfully executed. The packets now established from Havre to New York, furnish good opportunities of sending whatever you wish.

I shall end where I began, like a Paris day, reminding you of your engagement to write me a letter of respectable length, an engagement the more precious to me, as it has furnished the occasion, after presenting my respects to Mr. Bingham, of assuring you of the sincerity of those sentiments of esteem and respect with which I have the honor to be, dear Madam, your most obedient, and most humble servant.

TO GOVERNOR RANDOLPH.

PARIS, February 7, 1787.

SIR,--I have the honor of enclosing to your Excellency, a report of the proceedings on the inauguration of the bust of the Marquis de La Fayette in this city. This has been attended with a considerable, but a necessary delay. The principle that the King is the sole fountain of honor in this country opposed a barrier to our desires, which threatened to be insurmountable. No instance of a similar proposition from a foreign power, had occurred in their history. The admitting it in this case, is a singular proof of the King's friendly disposition towards the States of America, and of his personal esteem for the Marquis de La Fayette.

I take this, the earliest occasion, of congratulating my country on your Excellency's appointment to the chair of government, and of assuring you with great sincerity, of those sentiments of perfect esteem and respect, with which I have the honor to be, your Excellency's most obedient, and most humble servant.

TO JOHN JAY.

PARIS, February 8, 1787.

SIR,--The packet being to sail the day after tomorrow, I have awaited the last possible moment of writing by her, in hopes I might be able to announce some favorable change in the situation of the Count de Vergennes. But none has occurred, and in the meantime he has become weaker by the continuance of his illness. Though not desperately ill, he is dangerously so. The Comptroller General, M. de Calonnes, has been very ill also, but he is getting well. These circumstances have occasioned the postponement of the Assemblee des Notables to the 14th instant, and will probably occasion a further postponement. As I shall set out this day sennight for the waters of Aix, you will probably hear the issue of the Count de Vergennes' illness through some other channel, before I shall have the honor of addressing you again. I may observe the same, as to the final decision for the effranchisement of Honfleur, which is in a fair way of being speedily concluded. The exertions of Monsieur de Creve-coeur, and particularly his influence with the Duke d'Harcourt, the principal instrument in effecting it, have been of chief consequence in this matter.

I have the honor to be, with the most perfect esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.

TO MR. DUMAS.

PARIS, February 9, 1787.

SIR,--My last to you was dated December 25th; since which I have been honored with your several favors of December the 29th, January the 5th, 9th and 23d. I thought that your affairs could not be more interesting than they have been for a considerable time. Yet in the present moment they are become more so, by the apparent withdrawing of so considerable a personage in the drama, as the King of Prussia. To increase this interest, another person, whose importance scarcely admits calculation, is in a situation which fills us with alarm. Nature is struggling to relieve him by a decided gout; she has my sincere prayers to aid her, as I am persuaded she has yours. I have letters and papers from America, as late as the 15th of December. The government of Massachusetts had imprisoned three of the leaders of their insurgents. The insurgents, being collected to the number of three or four hundred, had sent in their petition to the government, praying another act of pardon for their leaders and themselves, and, on this condition, offering to go every man home, and conduct himself dutifully afterwards. This is the latest intelligence.

I thank you for your attention to the question I had taken the liberty of proposing to you. I think with you, that it would be advisable to have our debt transferred to individuals of your country. There could, and would be no objection to the guarantee remaining as you propose; and a postponement of the first payments of capital, would surely be a convenience to us. For though the resources of the United States are great and growing, and their dispositions good, yet their machine is new, and they have not got it to go well. It is the object of their general wish at present, and they are all in movement, to set it in a good train; but their movements are necessarily slow. They will surely effect it in the end, because all have the same end in view; the difficulty being only to get all the thirteen States to agree on the same means. Divesting myself of every partiality, and speaking from that thorough knowledge which I have of the country, their resources and their principles, I had rather trust money in their hands, than in that of any government on earth; because, though for awhile the payments of the interest might be less regular, yet the final reimbursement of the capital would be more sure.

I set out next week for the south of France, to try whether some mineral waters in that quarter, much recommended, will restore the use of my hand. I shall be absent from Paris two or three months; but I take arrangements for the regular receipt of your favors, as if I were here. It will be better, however, for you to put your letters to Mr. Jay, under cover to Mr. Short, who remains here, and will forward them.

I have thought it my duty to submit to Congress the proposition about the French debt, and may expect their answer in four months.

I have the honor to be, with sincere esteem and respect, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant.

TO MESSRS. BORGNIS DESBORDES FRERES.

PARIS, February 12, 1787.