of livres tournois, a day. The people pay the real price of their bread
every where, except at Paris and Versailles. There the price is suffered
to vary very little as to them, and government pays the difference. It
has been supposed that this difference for some time past has cost a
million a week. I thought the occasion favorable to propose to Monsieur
de Montmorin the free admission of our salted provisions, observing to
him, particularly, that our salted beef from the eastern States could be
dealt out to the people of Paris for five or six sols the pound, which
is but half the common price they pay for fresh beef; that the Parisian
paying less for his meat, might pay more for his bread, and so relieve
government from its enormous loss on that article. His idea of this
resource seemed unfavorable. We talked over the objections of the
supposed unhealthiness of that food, its tendency to produce scurvy,
the chance of its taking with a people habituated to fresh meat, their
comparative qualities of rendering vegetables eatable, and the interests
of the _gabelles_. He concluded with saying the experiment might be
tried, and with desiring me to speak with Mr. Necker. I went to Mr.
Necker, but he had gone to the National Assembly. On my return to Paris,
therefore, I wrote to him on the subject, going over the objections
which Monsieur de Montmorin had started. Mr. Short was to carry the
letter himself, and to pursue the subject.

Having observed that our commerce to Havre is considerably on the
increase, and that most of our vessels coming there, and especially
those from the eastward, are obliged to make a voyage round to the
neighborhood of the Loire and Garonne for salt, a voyage attended with
expense, delay, and more risk, I have obtained from the Farmers General,
that they shall be supplied from their magazines at Honfleur, opposite
to Havre, at a mercantile price. They fix it at present at sixty livres
the _muid_, which comes to about, fifteen sous, or seven and a half