I thank you for the Paccan nuts which accompanied your letter of March. Could you procure me a copy of the bill for proportioning crimes & punishments in the form in which it was ultimately rejected by the house of delegates? Young Mr. Bannister desired me to send him regularly the Mercure de France. I will ask leave to do this thro' you, & that you will adopt such method of forwarding them to him as will save him from being submitted to postage which they would not be worth. As a compensation for your trouble you will be free to keep them till you shall have read them.

DEAR SIR-I returned about three weeks ago from a very useless voyage, useless, I mean, as to the object which first suggested it, that of trying the effect of the mineral waters of Aix en Provence on my hand. I tried these because recommended among six or eight others as equally beneficial, & because they would place me at the beginning of a tour to the seaports of Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nantes & L'Orient which I had long meditated, in hopes that a knolege of the places & persons concerned in our commerce & the information to be got from them might enable me sometimes to be useful. I had expected to satisfy myself at Marseilles of the causes of the difference of quality between the rice of Carolina & that of Piedmont which is brought in quantities to

Marseilles. Not being able to do it I made an excursion of three weeks into the rice country beyond the Alps, going through it from Vercelli to Pavia, about 60 miles. I found the difference to be not in the management as had been supposed both here & in Carolina, but in the species of rice, & I hope to enable them in Carolina to begin the cultivation of the Piedmont rice & carry it on hand in hand with their own that they may supply both qualities, which is absolutely necessary at this market. I had before endeavored to lead the depôt of rice from Cowes to Honfleur, and hope to get it received there on such terms as may draw that branch of commerce from England to this country. It is an object of 250.000 guineas a year. While passing thro' the towns of Turin, Milan & Genoa, I satisfied myself of the practicability of introducing our whale oil for their consumption & I suppose it would be equally so in the other great cities of that country. I was sorry that I was not authorized to set the matter on foot. The merchants with whom I chose to ask conferences, met me freely, and communicated fully, knowing I was in a public character. I could however only prepare a disposition to meet our oil merchants. On the article of tobacco I was more in possession of my ground, and put matters into a train for inducing their government to draw their tobaccos directly from the U. S. & not as heretofore from Gr. B. I am now occupied with the new ministry here to put the concluding hand to the new regulations for our commerce with this country, announced in the letter of M. de Ca

lonnes which I sent you last fall. I am in hopes in addition to those, to obtain a suppression of the duties on Tar, pitch, & turpentine, and an extension of the privileges of American whale oil, to their fish oils in general. I find that the quantity of Codfish oil brought to L'Orient is considerable. This being got off hand (which will be in a few days) the chicaneries & vexations of the farmers on the article of tobacco, and their elusions of the order of Bernis, call for the next attention. I have reason to hope good dispositions in the new ministry towards our commerce with this country. Besides endeavoring on all occasions to multiply the points of contact & connection with this country, which I consider as our surest mainstay under every event, I have had it much at heart to remove from between us every subject of misunderstanding or irritation. Our debts to the King, to the officers, & to the farmers are of this description. The having complied with no part of our engagements in these draws on us a great deal of censure, & occasioned a language in the Assemblée des Notables very likely to produce dissatisfaction between us. Dumas being on the spot in Holland, I had asked of him sometime ago, in confidence, his opinion on the practicability of transferring these debts from France to Holland, & communicated his answer to Congress, pressing them to get you to go over to Holland & try to effect their business. knolege of the ground & former successes occasioned me to take this liberty without consulting you, because I was sure you would not weigh your per

Your

sonal trouble against public good. I have had no answer from Congress; but hearing of your journey to Holland have hoped that some money operation had led you there. If it related to the debts of this country I would ask a communication of what you think yourself at liberty to communicate, as it might change the form of my answers to the eternal applications I receive. The debt to the officers of France carries an interest of about 2000 guineas, so we may suppose its principle is between 30 & 40.000. This makes more noise against us than all our other debts put together.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE LETTER OF MONSIEUR DE CALONNES TO MONSIEUR JEFFERSON, DATED FONTAINEBLEAU, OCTOB. 22, 1786.

[July 5, 1787.]

A committee was appointed, in the course of the last year to take a view of the subjects of commerce which might be brought from the United States of America, in exchange for those of France, and to consider what advantages and facilities might be offered to encourage that commerce. The letter of Monsieur de Calonnes was founded on their report. It was conclusive as to the articles on which satisfactory information had been then obtained, and reserved for future consideration certain others. needing further enquiry. It is proposed now to review those unfinished articles, that they also may be comprehended in the Arrêt, and the regulations on this branch of commerce be rendered complete.

1. The letter promises to diminish the Droits du roi et d' amirauté, paiable by an American vessel entering into a port of France, & to reduce what should remain into a single duty, which shall be regulated by the draught of the vessel, or her number of

masts. It is doubted whether it will be expedient to regulate the duty in either of these ways. If by the draught of water, it will fall unequally on us as a Nation; because we build our vessels sharp-bottomed, for swift sailing, so that they draw more water than those of other nations, of the same burthen; if by the number of masts it will fall unequally on individuals, because we often see ships of 180 tons, & brigs of 360. This then would produce an inequality among individuals of 6. to 1. The present principle is the most just, to regulate by the burthen.

It is certainly desirable that these duties should be reduced to a single one. Their names and numbers perplex & harass the merchant more than their amount, subject him to imposition, & to the suspicion of it where there is none. An intention of general reformation in this article has been accordingly announced with augmentation as to foreigners. We are in hopes that this augmentation is not to respect us; because it is proposed as a measure of reciprocity; whereas in some of our states no such duties exist, & in the others they are extremely light; because we have been made to hope a diminution instead of augmentation; and because this distinction cannot draw on France any just claims from other nations, the Fura gentis amicissimæ conferred by her late treaties having reference expressly to the nations of Europe only, & those conferred by the more ancient ones not being susceptible of any other interpretation, nor admitting a pretension of reference to a nation which did not then exist, and which has come into existence under circumstances distinguishing its commerce from that of all other nations. Merchandise received from them take emploiment from the poor of France; ours give it ; theirs is brought in the last stage of manufacture, ours in the first; we bring our tobaccoes to be manufactured into snuff, our flax & hemps into linen and cordage, our furs into hats, skins into saddlery, shoes & clothing; we take nothing till it has received the last hand.

2. Fish-oils. The Hanseatic treaty was the basis on which the diminution of duty on this article was asked & granted. It is expressly referred to as such in the letter of Monsieur de Calonnes. Instead however of the expression "huile et graisse de baleine &

1 Memoires presentées à l'assemblée des Notables, pa. 53.