This is the object for the patriots of your country; for that tree
once established there, will be the source of the greatest wealth and
happiness. But to insure success, perseverance may be necessary. An
essay or two may fail. I think, therefore, that an annual sum should
be subscribed, and it need not be a great one. A common country laborer
should be engaged to make it his sole occupation, to prepare and pack
plants and berries at Marseilles, and in the autumn to go with them
himself through the canal of Languedoc to Bordeaux, and there to stay
with them till he can put them on board a vessel bound directly to
Charleston; and this repeated annually, till you have a sufficient stock
insured, to propagate from, without further importation. I should guess
that fifty guineas a year would do this, and if you think proper to set
such a subscription afoot, write me down for ten guineas of the money,
yearly, during my stay in France, and offer my superintendence of the
business on this side the water if no better can be had.

Mr. Cutting does full justice to the honorable dispositions of the
legislature of South Carolina towards their foreign creditors. None have
yet come into the propositions sent to me, except the Van Staphorsts.

The clanger of famine here has not ceased with a plentiful harvest.
A new and unskilful administration has not yet got into the way of
bringing regular supplies to the capital. We are in danger of hourly
insurrection for the want of bread; and an insurrection once begun
for that cause, may associate itself with those discontented for other
causes, and produce incalculable events. But if the want of bread
does not produce a commencement of disorder, I am of opinion the
other discontents will be stifled, and a good and free constitution
established without opposition. In fact, the mass of the people, the
clergy, and army, (excepting the higher orders of the three bodies) are