TO MR. DUMAS.

Paris, May 6, 1789.

Sir,

Having been absent in England, for some time past, your favors of
February the 27th, March the 28th, and April the 11th, have not been
acknowledged so soon as they should have been. I am obliged to you, for
assisting to make me known to the Rhingrave de Salm and the Marquis de
la Coste, whose reputations render an acquaintance with them desirable.
I have not yet seen either: but expect that honor from the Rhingrave
very soon. Your letters to Mr. Jay and Mr. Van Berkel, received in my
absence, will be forwarded by a gentleman who leaves this place for New
York, within a few days. I sent the treaty with Prussia by a gentleman
who sailed from Havre, the 11th of November. The arrival of that vessel
in America is not yet known here. Though the time is not long enough to
produce despair, it is sufficiently so to give inquietude lest it should
be lost. This would be a cause of much concern to me: I beg the favor
of you to mention this circumstance to the Baron de Thulemeyer, as an
apology for his not hearing from us. The last advices from America bring
us nothing interesting. A principal object of my journey to London was,
to enter into commercial arrangements with Portugal. This has been done
almost in the precise terms of those of Prussia. The English are still
our enemies. The spirit existing there, and rising in America, has
a very lowering aspect. To what events it may give birth, I cannot
foresee. We are young, and can survive them; but their rotten machine
must crush under the trial. The animosities of sovereigns are temporary,
and may be allayed: but those which seize the whole body of a people,
and of a people, too, who dictate their own measures, produce calamities