four hundred and seventeen persons of all ages above twenty-one years,
and the half of those of twenty-one years and upwards living at any one
instant of time, will be dead in eighteen years and eight months, or say
nineteen years.

Then, the contracts, constitutions, and laws of every such society
become void in nineteen years from their date.




LETTER XIII.--TO GENERAL KNOX, September 12,1789


TO GENERAL KNOX.

Paris, September 12,1789.

Sir,

In a letter which I had the honor of writing to the Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, some three or four years ago, I informed him that a
workman here had undertaken by the help of moulds and other means,
to make all the parts of the musket so exactly alike, as that, mixed
together promiscuously, any one part should serve equally for every
musket. He had then succeeded as to the lock both of the officer's fusil
and the soldier's musket. From a promiscuous collection of parts, I put
together myself half a dozen locks, taking the first pieces which came
to hand. He has now completed the barrel, stock, and mounting of the
officer's fusil, and is proceeding on those of the soldier's musket.