Paris, August 11, 1786.

Sir,

Since the date of my last, which was of July the 8th, I have been
honored with the receipt of yours of June the 16th. I am to thank you,
on the part of the minister of Geneva, for the intelligence it contained
on the subject of Gallatin, whose relations will be relieved by the
receipt of it.

The enclosed intelligence, relative to the instructions of the court of
London to Sir Guy Carleton, came to me through the Count de la Touche
and Marquis de la Fayette. De la Touche is a director under the Marechal
de Castries, minister for the marine department, and possibly receives
his intelligence from him, and he from their ambassador at London.
Possibly, too, it might be fabricated here. Yet weighing the characters
of the ministry of St. James's and Versailles, I think the former more
capable of giving such instructions, than the latter of fabricating them
for the small purposes the fabrication could answer.

The Gazette of France, of July the 28th, announces the arrival of
Peyrouse at Brazil, that he was to touch at Otaheite, and proceed to
California, and still further northwardly. This paper, as you well
know, gives out such facts as the court are willing the world should
be possessed of. The presumption is, therefore, that they will make an
establishment of some sort on the northwest coast of America.

I trouble you with the copy of a letter from Schweighauser and Dobree,
on a subject with which I am quite unacquainted. Their letter to