You

French which is the object of a year or two. may be giving attention to such of the fine arts as your turn may lead you to & you will be forming an acquaintance with the individuals & characters of a nation with whom we must long remain in the closest intimacy & to whom we are bound by the strong ties of gratitude and policy. A nation in short of the most amiable dispositions on earth, the whole mass of which is penetrated with an affection for us. You might before you return to your own country make a visit to Italy also.

I should have performed the office of but half a friend were I to confine myself to the improvement of the mind only. Knowledge indeed is a desirable, a lovely possession, but I do not scruple to say that health is more so. It is of little consequence to store the mind with science if the body be permitted to become debilitated. If the body be feeble, the mind will not be strong-the sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all exercises walking is best. A horse gives but a kind of half exercise, and a carriage is no better than a cradle. No one knows, till he tries, how easily a habit of walking is acquired. A person who never walked three miles. will in the course of a month become able to walk 15 or 20 without fatigue. I have known some great walkers & had particular accounts of many more and I never knew or heard of one who not healthy & long lived. This species of exercise therefore is much to be advised. Should you be disposed to try it, as your health has been

Not

feeble, it will be necessary for you to begin with a little, & to increase it by degrees. For the same reason you must probably at first ascribe to it the hours most precious for study, I mean those about the middle of the day. But when you shall find yourself strong you may venture to take your walks in the evening after the digestion of the dinner is pretty well over. This is making a compromise between health & study. The latter would be too much interrupted were you to take from it the early hours of the day and habit will soon render the evening's exercise as salutary as that of the morning. I speak this from my own experience having, from an attachment to study, very early in life, made this arrangement of my time, having ever observed it, & still observing it, & always with perfect success. less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise, and the weather should be little regarded. A person not sick will not be injured by getting wet. It is but taking a cold bath which never gives a cold to any one. Brute animals are the most healthy, & they are exposed to all weather and, of men, those are healthiest who are the most exposed. The recipe of those two descriptions of beings is simple diet, exercise and the open air, be it's state what it will; and we may venture to say that this recipe will give health & vigor to every other description. By this time I am sure you will think I have sermonized enough. I have given you indeed a lengthy lecture. I have been led through it by my zeal to serve you; if in the whole you find one useful counsel, that will be my

reward, & a sufficient one. Few persons in your own country have started from as advantageous ground as that whereon you will be placed. Nature and fortune have been liberal to you. Every thing honourable or profitable there is placed within your own reach, and will depend on your own efforts. If these are exerted with assiduity, and guided by unswerving honesty, your success is infallible: and that it may be as great as you wish is the sincere desire of Dear Sir, your most affectionate humble servant.

P. S. Be so good as to present me affectionately to your brother & cousin.

DEAR SIR,-Your favour of July 31. was lately delivered me. The papers inform me you are at the Hague, and, incertain what stay you may make there I send this by Mr. Voss who is returned to London by the way of Amsterdam. I inclose you the last letters from Mr. Barclay & Mr. Carmichael by which we may hope our Peace with Morocco is signed, thanks to the good offices of a nation which is honest if it is not wise. This event with the naval cruises of Portugal will I hope quiet the Atlantic for us. I am informed by authority to be depended on, that insurance is made at L'Orient, on American vessels sailing under their own flag, against every event at the price usually paid for risks of the sea alone. Still however the most important of our Marts, the Mediterranean, is

shut. I wrote you a proposition to accept Mr. Barclay's offer of going to Algiers. I have no hope of it's making peace; but it may add to our information, abate the ardor of those pyrates against us, and shut the mouths of those who might impute our success at Morocco & failure at Algiers to a judicious appointment to the one place & an injudicious one at the other. Let me hear from you as soon as possible on this & if you accede to it send me all the necessary papers ready signed. I inclose you the article the article "Etats Unis" of one of the volumes of the Encyclopedie, lately published. The author, M. de Meusnier, was introduced to me by the D. de la Rochefoucault. He asked of me information on the subject of our states, & left with me a number of queries to answer. Knowing the importance of setting to rights a book so universally diffused & which will go down to late ages, I answered his queries as fully as I was able, went into a great many calculations for him, and offered to give further explanations when necessary. He then put his work into my hands. I read it, and was led by that into a still greater number of details by way of correcting what he had at first written, which was indeed a mass of errors and misconceptions from beginning to end. I returned him his work & dry details, but he did not communicate it to me after he had corrected it. It has therefore come out with many errors which I would have advised him to correct, & the rather as he was very well disposed. He has still left in a great deal of the Abbé Raynal, that is to say a great deal

of falsehood, and he has stated other things on bad information. I am sorry I had not another correction of it. He has paid me for my trouble in the true coin of the country, most unmerciful compliment. This, with his other errors I should surely have struck out had he sent me the work, as I expected, before it went to the press. I find in fact that he is happiest of whom the world sais least, good or bad.-I think if I had had a little more warning, my desire to see Holland, as well as to meet again Mrs. Adams & yourself, would have tempted me to take a flying trip there. I wish you may be tempted to take Paris in You will find many very happy to see you here, & none more so than, Dear Sir, your friend and servant.

your return.

SIR, I am honoured with your letter of May 8. That which you mention to have written in the winter preceding never came to hand. I return you my

thanks for the communications relative to the Western country. When we reflect how long we have in habited those parts of America which lie between the Alleghaney & the ocean, that no monument has ever been found in them which indicated the use of iron among its' aboriginal inhabitants, that they were as far advanced in arts, at least, as the inhabitants on the other side the Alleghaney, a good degree of infidelity may be excused as to the new discoveries