for those countries also, should any amendments be thought necessary.
The other states to which treaties were to be proposed, were England,
Hamburg, Saxony, Prussia, Denmark, Russia, Austria, Venice, Rome,
Naples, Tuscany, Sardinia, Genoa, Spain, Portugal, the Porte, Algiers,
Tripoli, Tunis, and Morocco.

On the 7th of May, Congress resolved that a Minister Plenipotentiary
should be appointed, in addition to Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin, for
negotiating treaties of commerce with foreign nations, and I was elected
to that duty. I accordingly left Annapolis on the 11th, took with me my
eldest daughter; then at Philadelphia (the two others being too young
for the voyage), and proceeded to Boston, in quest of a passage. While
passing through the different states, I made a point of informing myself
of the state of the commerce of each, went on to New Hampshire with the
same view, and returned to Boston. Thence I sailed on the 5th of July,
in the Ceres, a merchant ship of Mr. Nathaniel Tracy, bound to Cowes. He
was himself a passenger, and, after a pleasant voyage of nineteen days,
from land to land, we arrived at Cowes on the 26th. I was detained there
a few days by the indisposition of my daughter. On the 30th we embarked
for Havre, arrived there on the 31st, left it on the 3rd of August, and
arrived at Paris on the 6th. I called immediately on Dr. Franklin, at
Passy, communicated to him our charge, and we wrote to Mr. Adams, then
at the Hague, to join us at Paris.

Before I had left America, that is to say, in the year 1781, 1 had
received a letter from M. de Marbois, of the French legation in
Philadelphia, informing me, he had been instructed by his government to
obtain such statistical accounts of the different states of our Union,
as might be useful for their information; and addressing to me a number
of queries relative to the state of Virginia. I had always made it a